PROBLEMA LINGVISTICĂ ŞI ETNONAŢIONALĂ ÎN OPERA LUI ALEXEI MATEEVICI

Abstract

This study examines the process of evolution of Alexei Mateevici's concept on the issues of ethnicity and language spoken by the native inhabitants of Bessarabia, a process in which we can distinguish two stages. The year 1913, when A. Mateevici completed his studies at the Theological Academy in Kiev, clearly appears as a distinctive year of these two stages, he marks his professional maturity in the complicated problems he examines. During this period of time, the “Moldovan language” no longer appears as a language distinct from the Romanian language, and the Moldavian-Bessarabians are recognized as a component part of the Romanian nation. The synchronic use of the phrases “Mo ldovan language” and the Romanian language to designate the language spoken by the inhabitants of Wallachia, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bessarabia, means nothing to A. Mateevici other than the linguistic and ethnic unity of the inhabitants, a unit expressed quite concisely in the speech given at the Teachers' Congress in Bessarabia in May 1917, when he unequivocally mentioned that the Moldovans in Bessarabia are Romanian, and the language they speak is Romanian.