ABSTRACT
The breakup of the former Soviet Union and the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia ignited a "firestorm" of incredibly tragic and violent independence movements. One of the vocal and well organized of the new independence-seekers was the inhabitants of the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublika. Masking the violence of centuries of conflicts and conquests, the southeasterly flowing Dniester, one of Eastern Europe's great rivers, is perennially calm. In the 1924 expansion of the new Soviet Union, Pridnestrovie became the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as the Soviet leadership assigned a large part of Ukraine to the region. Critical in Pridnestrovie mythology, none of the "Moldavian" lands west of the Dniester River were included in this new republic. Moldova, in the clauses of its Declaration of Independence, condemned the entire Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and specifically disavowed the territorial creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. International recognition of Pridnestrovie's independence is among the new and emerging country's top priorities, says its President, Igor Smirnov.
