Moldavia Defies Kremlin on Law : Republic Restricts Use of Russian Language; Gorbachev Appeal Told

Tiny Moldavia on Thursday became the latest republic to rebel against the Kremlin’s plea for ethnic unity in the Soviet Union when its legislature approved a new law that will make Moldavian its official language.

However, the law also includes compromise language, reached after President Mikhail S. Gorbachev reportedly telephoned the Moldavian Communist Party leader this week, that allows the use of Russian in some circumstances.

Several hundred Moldavians who had gathered in Kishinev’s Victory Square wildly cheered news of the vote, which was broadcast live on radio and television. People embraced, and some wept.

“This is a historic moment, and I am recording it for my grandchildren,” said Tudor Vrosz, 50. He was writing notes in Moldavian on a scrap of paper as he sat beneath a blue, yellow and red Moldavian flag.

In an apparent attempt to avoid violence, more than 100 police officers, standing shoulder to shoulder, ringed the Opera Theater where the legislators were meeting.

Ethnic Russians Opposed

The new law was opposed by ethnic Russians and other non-Moldavians who make up 35% of the republic’s population of 4.2 million. It calls for making Moldavian, a Latin language, the official language of all state and commercial documents.

In addition, it stipulates that the language be written in the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic script that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin imposed in the 1940s.

The law, approved after three days of stormy debate, provides for a grace period of up to seven years to allow for the linguistic transition.

But in a clear attempt to appease non-Moldavians, the lawmakers agreed to retain Russian as a language that can be used between ethnic groups. It was not immediately clear that this would satisfy the non-indigenous population, whose workers have been on strike for 10 days.

According to a Russian activist, Anatoly M. Lisitsky, the compromise was hammered out after Gorbachev, now vacationing on the Black Sea, talked by telephone with party leader Semyon Grossu. Lisitsky, co-chairman of the non-Moldavian organization Unity, said Gorbachev’s call helped give his group its first partial victory.

“But the reason for the strike has not been eliminated,” he said. “Our concern is that the basic rights of minorities are being violated. At best, this vote only stabilizes the situation for now.”

Moldavia is the fourth republic to approve a language law this year. Similar laws were passed in the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

‘Nationalist Hysteria’

The Moldavian law, even in its compromise form, was approved in defiance of warnings from Moscow, where a campaign was launched last week against what the official news media call “nationalist hysteria.”

Moldavia, as well as the Baltic republics, was specifically cited as an example of a region where the desire for cultural freedom of expression has been carried to an extreme.

The reported call to the Moldavian party leader would be at least the second such call Gorbachev has made to a local party chief in the past week. Earlier, he interrupted his vacation to call the Lithuanian party leader, whom he asked to cool nationalist fervor there.

In Moldavia, opposition to the language law erupted more than a week ago and has been growing steadily. On Thursday, about 100,000 non-Moldavians stayed off the job to demonstrate their opposition. They shut down 211 factories and hampered air and rail traffic, according to a strike spokesman.

Strikers in the city of Tiraspol, the republic’s second-largest city, even put out their own newspaper, explaining their position in poetry and prose.

“We are not opposed to learning new things,” said Sergei Migylyan, an ethnic Russian who has lived in Kishinev for five years. “We understand why Moldavians want to speak their own language. We just don’t want things imposed on us by brute force. We think they should have made both Moldavian and Russian state languages.”

Yuri P. Tishenko, an ethnic Russian who is managing editor of the newspaper Sovietskaya Moldavia, warned that the decision to switch from the Cyrillic script could backfire on the Moldavians.

“It will be nearly impossible for some people to learn, particularly the elderly,” he said, “and it will be costly because everything must be changed--everything from printing facilities to the price tags in shops.”

But such problems appeared to be far from the thoughts of the Moldavians gathered in Victory Square across from the Opera Theater, among them grandmothers in scarfs, young mothers with children, and men and boys.

Floral Tributes at Statue

During the vote, dozens of Moldavians placed flowers at the foot of a statue to Prince Stephen, a Moldavian ruler of the 15th Century. Some kissed the pedestal for luck. Others wore pins bearing the likeness of Mikhai Eminesku, considered by Moldavians to be their finest writer.

Eminesku, who lived in the 19th Century, wrote love poems that are still recited here. But he also wrote essays calling for self-determination that were banned before Gorbachev became president.

“We are going to speak our language,” said a man standing in the square who declined to give his name. “If the Russians don’t like it, they can go home to Mother Russia.”

In the headquarters of the Popular Front nationalist movement, formed just three months ago, activists gathered around a television set to watch the parliamentary proceedings.

“This is our awakening,” said Yuri A. Rozkho, a member of the group’s executive council. “There is no time to spare. If we do not free ourselves, if we are not permitted to develop culturally and linguistically, we Moldavians will die out as a people.”