What's in a name: "Pridnestrovie" vs "Transnistria"

What's the difference between Pridnestrovie and Transnistria? Pridnestrovie is known under at least a dozen different unofficial names. Our official name, Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica, is a big name for a small country. The shortform, Pridnestrovie, is easier. Both of these names are official. But we are also known under a number of unofficial monikers - Transnistria being the most common of the lot.

For the outsider, the task of sorting through the alphabet soup can be daunting. Especially since some of the different names have different political connoctations and are used with ulterior motives by different groups for their own narrow purposes.

Here's an explanation of everything you ever wanted to know about naming Pridnestrovie (and probably quite a bit that you never wanted to know!)

As per our constitution, the country's official name is "Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica". This is Russian and means, literally translated, the "On-the-Dniester Moldavian Republic". Official shortform name is "Pridnestrovie". We abbreviate the country as "PMR". No other usage is official and any other names should be avoided.

Although "Transnistria" is the name most commonly used to describe Pridnestrovie in English, the name is wrong on two counts: It is not from our language, and it doesn't even describe the territory of our country accurately.
Transnistria is a Romanian loan-word. It is an artificial geographic term created in World War II by Romanian Fascists to designate a territory of about 16,000 square miles, designated for the annihilation of Jews deported from Romania. It was an area situated in south-western Ukraine, between the River Dniester to the west, the River Bug to the east, the Black Sea to the south, and a line beyond the city of Moghilev - Podolsky to the north.
The name Transnistria was decreed into existence by the Romanian dictator, Marshal Ion Antonescu, in the summer of 1941. The name of that territory was in existence until the spring of 1944, when the Soviet Army re-conquered southern Ukraine.
In Romanian, the Dniester River is called the Nistru River.
"Trans-Nistria" literally means "beyond the River Dniester". Abroad, the name "Transnistria" is widely used by foreigners to describe our country, but it is an incorrect term, it is not used locally and it should be avoided.

Latin-Slavic hybrids such as "Trans-Dniester" and "Transdniestria" have been used in English, but hybrids of two languages are never used in either of the two languages themselves, and thus such usage should not be promoted in a third language. And what's up with these tongue-twisting inventions, anyway? The official shortform name of our country, Pridnestrovie, is easier to pronounce.
"Trans-Dniester" and similar names mean "beyond the River Dniester", ie. across the Dniester as seen from the West. Of course, no one living here in the country would refer to it as being "beyond" or "across" anything ... we are already here!

The moniker "left bank of the Dniester River" is used by hardline Moldovan and Romanian nationalists who refuse to even dignify our country with a name; any name. It is a highly political usage which stems from resentment over the fact that they were the losing party in the 1992 invasion of Pridnestrovie.
This usage is similar to the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's refusal to ever mention Kuwait by name; referring instead to it as a province of Iraq even though his invasion of that country ended in his defeat and subsequent retreat.

The English translation of our official name, "Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica", sometimes turn into "Dniester" (or Dnestr) "Moldavian" (or Moldovan) "Republic". It is fairly accurate -- but at the same time incorrect. The correct translation would be the "On-The-Dniester Moldavian Republic" (as detailed above), although in English we usually just apply the shortform usage, Pridnestrovie, or the abbreviation, PMR. The Moldavian reference in the name is a recognition that approximately one third of our population is made up of ethnic Moldavians (although, as the OSCE has pointed out, they consider themselves Pridnestrovians rather than Moldavians and they prefer the self-rule of Pridnestrovie rather than any outside rule imposed from Moldova).

Our country is Pridnestrovie and has been that way for the better part of two decades now. The usage of Transnistria and similar names is inaccurate and should be avoided. If the audience is familiar with Transnistria, but not with the more accurate name of Pridnestrovie, the two can be used together with Transnistria listed in parenthesis to clarify what Pridnestrovie means. Or a helpful text can be added along the lines of the opening paragraph on this page where both names are mentioned and a short explanation tells the reader which is which.

So, there you have it. It's Pridnestrovie for short, or PMR if you want it even shorter. Independence was easy. Now the hard part is getting the name out...

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