Emergence of Gagauz nationalism The Gagauz report their origins as linked to the high-medieval
Despotate of Dobruja, and see themselves as a
Turkic Christian people which resisted the
spread of Islam. Folk tradition describes the Despotate as a Turkish "Uzi Eyalet", co-founded by the
Seljuk ruler
Kaykaus II and the
Alevi mystic
Sarı Saltık. Such records claim that the state switched to a Christian Kipchak dynasty, whose most notable exponent was
Dobrotitsa, and whose main symbol was a "red flag with a white rooster at its center." The Despotate was conquered by the
Ottoman Empire, but the main branches of the Gagauz stayed behind in the Dobrujan and
Ludogorian areas of
Rumelia. According to Gagauz sources, in the 18th century they established a republic centered on, and named, the town of
Vister; it also comprised some 100 Dobrujan villages. Some Ludogorian Gagauzes moved to
Moldavia in the 1780s, settling in its eastern regions—later known as
Bessarabia. These colonists established villages in the
Leova area, but were angered by the heavy taxes imposed on them, and resettled to the south, in the Ottoman-held
Budjak (
Silistra Eyalet). Chased out of Dobruja during the
Russo-Turkish War of 1806, many Gagauzes were accepted by the
Russian Empire, which now occupied Bessarabia and the Budjak, regrouped as the
Bessarabia Governorate. Their colonization helped "fill the gap that occurred with the forced exile of
the Tatars who had formerly lived in this region." Part of the Budjak was returned to Moldavia in 1856, together with its Gagauz, but re-annexed by Russia with the
1878 Berlin Treaty. During the first decades of their presence, they were officially designated as "Bulgarians/Greeks of the Turkish tongue", or as "baptized Turks"; opinion gravitated toward them being an "ethnographic group among the Bulgarians". Into the 1860s, they remained closely aligned and confounded with the
Bessarabian Bulgarians. In 1842–1844, inspired by the Minkov family of
Bolgrad, the two groups bonded in rebelling against the Russian administration, who had formed a habit of using the colonists as cheap labor. Like the Bulgarians, the Gagauz opted for incorporation with the
United Principalities, but were disappointed to discover that Moldavian and Romanian laws would not prolong their regional autonomy; in 1861, Bulgarians and Gagauz staged a rebellion against conscription into the
Romanian Land Forces, and thereafter organized waves of emigration into Russia. flag with the slogan
Through struggle you will attain your rights!, both of which were also associated with
Andrey Galatsan's "
Comrat Republic" Gagauzia first expressed aspirations of becoming an independent nation in the wake of the
1905 Revolution: a small "
Comrat Republic", or
Gagauz Khalki, survived for some days in January 1906. It formed a government, with
Andrey Galatsan serving as the "Comrat President" (
Komrat Cumhurbaşkanı), and "took a decision to abolish all taxes on its territory". Although cited as a precedent and "the world's first Turkish Republic" by later nationalists, this polity was mainly concerned with land reform, rather than ethnic self-determination. The episode also brought Gagauz settlements under the influence of left-wing political parties, including most of all the
Esers and the
All-Russian Peasant Union (of which Galatsan himself was a member), but also an
anarchist club established by Ferdinand Bragalia. Revolutionary pamphlets referred to the
red flag as a central symbol, and carried the Esers' Russian-language slogan:
Въ борьбѣ обрѣтешь ты право свое ("Through struggle you will attain your rights"). A second statehood was established following the
February Revolution of 1917, with hopes of joining the
Moldavian Democratic Republic (RDM) as an autonomous unit. The community was allocated two seats in the RDM legislature,
Sfatul Țării, wherein
Krste Misirkov, an immigrant from
Macedonia, described himself as "elected by the Bulgarians and the Gagauz". Invaded by the
Ukrainian People's Republic and the
Odessa Soviet Republic, the Gagauz polity sought protection from the
Kingdom of Romania, and eventually supported the
union of Bessarabia with Romania. This decision was fought against by
Tighina's "Bulgarian-and-Gagauz committee", which sought to achieve union with the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In 1921–1924, a Gagauz guerilla force, established by the
Bessarabian Communist Party, engaged the
Romanian Gendarmes in skirmishes, culminating as a Gagauz participation in the larger
Tatarbunary Uprising.
Turkic symbols During the interwar, in
Greater Romania,
Gagauz nationalism was centered on the localized version of
Romanian Orthodoxy, in combination with the tenets of
Turkish nationalism, and even
Kemalism. The synthesis was effected by the priest and propagandist
Mihail Ciachir. Anti-communism and conservatism were introduced into this mix as a result of the
Soviet anti-religious campaign: "This threat from communism was another crucial factor in the development of Gagauz religiosity and formed a significant component of [Ciachir's] 'national message'". The Christian ingredient, meanwhile, reduced compatibility with
Kemalist Turkey, which barred the Gagauz from obtaining citizenship—while at the same time extending its definition of "Turkishness" to include Muslim Slavs (
Bosniaks and
Pomaks). The Turkish Ambassador in Romania,
Hamdullah Suphi Tanrıöver, supported Ciachir's efforts by assigning scholarships to the Gagauz, and connecting them culturally to the
Turks of Romania; he then considered a plan for resettling some Gagauz in
Marmara region. Tanriover was also able to obtain from the Romanian government that schools around Comrat provide basic education in Turkish. with segments of the community aligning themselves more closely with
Romanian nationalism, rather than Kemalism. In 1937, a multi-ethnic section of the far-right
National Christian Party in Comrat, headed by the Gagauz
Dumitru Topciu, was only flying the
flag of Romania. Gagauz-inhabited regions were separated during the
1940–1941 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia: "The border between Moldova and Ukraine, delineated in 1940, arbitrarily crossed the compact area of Bulgarian–Gagauz settlement." The Gagauz had resisted measures to bring about their
Romanianization or expulsion, but were also exposed to
Russification during the first and
second Soviet occupations. As a result of the latter, the Gagauz population dwindled, suffering through the
great famine of 1946, and also through a
wave of punitive deportations, primarily into the
Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and
Gorno-Altai. Russification was intensified following the consolidation of a
Moldavian SSR within the Soviet Union, although some linguistic concessions were made in the 1950s and '60s. The Soviet administration, meanwhile, tolerated discourses which linked the Gagauz with the
Pechenegs and
Oghuz Turks of
Central Asia, "not only because they link [the Gagauzes'] ancestry with regions within the Soviet Union, but also because they present their Christianisation as a relatively insignificant, obscure and late historical event." Turkologist Astrid Menz observed that more and more Gagauz intellectuals "emphasized their 'Turkic' identity by means of [...] reconstructed history and an increased use of 'Turkic' motifs, especially from the great heroic past in the fine arts." The first attested nationalist flags of the Gagauz Moldovan people emerged during the
Perestroika years, before the fall of the Moldavian SSR. The emancipation movement used "a light blue field bearing a centered yellow disk charged with a black wolf's head", The ethnic flag had numerous other reported variants. A triangular
pennon, of uncertain coloring, had the wolf's head,
cabossed, on a plain circle, with no outer ring. This version was reported as in use by
Stepan Topal's government in August 1990, and flown alongside the
Soviet flag during the separatist uprising. On August 11, 1990, a
Gagauz Republic was formed, seceding from the Moldavian SSR and seeking to unite with the
Gagauz in Ukraine. During the subsequent clashes in the enclave of
Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Romanian volunteers reported that the Gagauz had "their own flag, with the head of a jackal". Although the new state of Moldova had lost any control over the Gagauz region by 1992, the nationalist movement became divided between a minority which pressed for Gagauzia to join the
Russian Federation and a majority which looked forward to autonomy within Moldova. The latter vision was supported by scholar Mariya Maruneviç, who argued that the Republic was meant "not as a separation from Moldova as a whole, but as a guarantee of maintaining national equality in areas densely populated by the Gagauz." As reported by historian Frederick Quinn, by 1993 the Topal government—which had embraced full separatism—was using a new version of the Gagauz flag, its "only extant copy" displayed in Topal's own office. It showed the full-bodied wolf in black, facing the mast and standing on a mound, all within a golden-and-red circle. This was superimposed over a triband closely resembling the current flag, but with a narrower white stripe, and with the three stars aligned vertically.
Under the "Special Status" In December 1994, Gagauzia and Moldova agreed on a "Special Status" for the former, which became the first autonomous ethnic enclave to achieve recognition in all of post-communist
Eastern Europe. This led to the adoption of a revised flag, in its current form, with the nickname "Sky Flag". It was favored over the wolf symbols, which were resented by moderate Gagauz, in particular those who feel a religious solidarity with the
Pontic Greeks; the grey wolf was also seen as associated with the far-right of
Pan-Turkism, as embodied by the
Idealist Hearths. Menz noted in 2007 that Gagauz villagers "were nostalgic about Soviet times", and also that they displayed some measure of
Turkophobia—"because all the Turks they had ever seen were businessmen while they were farmers." She found
Turkophilia to be mostly an upper-class phenomenon, with the other social groups "more or less unaffected by a search for an independent Gagauz identity." Moreover, according to literary historian Attila Jorma: "Moldovan Gagauzes are afraid to be Turkish, since reference to Turkishness could give Moldovan Romanians a reason to point out that they have a 'mother country', to which one should move." After 2000, the wolf's head symbol has been quietly taken out of public displays. In 2010 the new Gagauz triband was taken to the top of
Mount Elbrus by Anna Zanet, daughter of the nationalist poet-journalist
Todur Zanet. This flag also created controversy; its usage remains central to the disputes between Romanian nationalism and those Gagauz who fear a potential
unification with Romania. Also in 2010,
Governor Mihail Formuzal announced that he and his cabinet opposed the decree by
Moldovan President Mihai Ghimpu, which ordered the flying of state symbols at
half-mast on June 28—that is, for the commemoration of Soviet annexation. Formuzal referred in particular to the lowering of the "Sky Flag", which "can only be done by order of the Governor. I will not issue such an order." Instead, June 28 was celebrated in Gagauzia as a "day of liberation from Romanian fascist occupation". In 2014, in the context of the
pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine on Moldova's borders, there was some concern about similar events unfolding in Moldova. In
Moldova's Parliament,
Gheorghe Duca moved to ban the Gagauz flag as resembling the
flag of Crimea, but his motion was met with opposition from the
Party of Communists. Also during that interval, a group of pro-Russian Gagauz in Comrat flew the
flag of Russia. Public institutions in Gagauzia still displayed the
flag of Europe, honoring
Moldova's pro-enlargement policy, but the employees' mood was reported as sour on this issue. At her swearing-in ceremony the following year, Governor
Irina Vlah made a show of kissing the Gagauz flag, and thereafter gave unofficial equal status to the Moldovan and Russian flags. Vlah created additional controversy by wearing a scarf of blue-red-white, colors which are shared by Gagauzia and Russia. Moldovan voices saw this as evidence that Vlah was "set[ting] herself up as a promoter of Russian interests."
Russia Day 2016 was openly celebrated in Comrat with Governor Vlah's approval. As
Radio Free Europe reports, it saw the Gagauz waving a "flurry of Russian Federation flags". By March of the following year, the European flag had been reportedly removed from the gubernatorial residence in Comrat. In May 2022, at the height of the
Russian invasion in Ukraine, Vlah allowed the
Ribbon of Saint George, which had been outlawed in Moldova, to be flown on Gagauz territory. During August 2017, Governor Vlah announced an initiative to reinstate the "historical flag" of Gagauzia as an official symbol, to be flown on state buildings alongside the "Sky Flag". Speaking at the time, she identified the former as a flag appearing at public rallies in 1990–1994, and argued that the proposal "has been for long discussed in our society." ==Notes==