Igor Nikolaevich Smirnov

Igor Smirnov

Igor Smirnov

Igor Nikolajewitsch Smirnov ( Russian Игорь Николаевич Смирнов , scientific transliteration Igor 'Nikolaevič Smirnov ; Romanian Igor Smirnov ; born October 23, 1941 in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky ) was the first president of Transnistria from 1991 to 2011 .

Origin and life

Smirnov was born in the Far Eastern city ​​of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, in the far east of the Soviet Union , during World War II . His father was Nikolai Stepanowitsch Smirnow, an employee of the Communist Party . His mother's name was Sinaida Grigoryevna Smirnova and worked as a journalist and newspaper editor. As Nikolai Smirnov rose steadily within the Communist Party, the family moved from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic . Since the father had meanwhile risen to the position of district council chairman of Golopristansk ( Kherson Oblast ) in Ukraine, the family led a good life there.

In the summer of 1952, however, Nikolai Smirnov was arrested for irregularities in the supply of the local collective farms. He was sentenced to 15 years in the Gulag and then exiled for five years. As members of an enemy of the state , Sinaida Grigoryevna and her three sons Vladimir, Oleg and Igor were not in a good position. After Josef Stalin's death in 1953, Nikolai Smirnov was released along with many other prisoners after about a year in prison. Eventually the family came together near the Ural Mountains , where Nikolai Smirnov ran a primary school and Sinaida Grigoryevna published the local Komsomol newspaper.

Igor Smirnov is a trained cutting machine operator and later attended evening school at the construction institute in Odessa , Ukraine . After completing his apprenticeship in 1959, he returned to the Russian Soviet Republic, where he worked at the Slatoust metal works. In the same year he came back to Ukraine to work in a dynamo plant in the city of Novaya Kachowka in Kherson Oblast . In 1974 he also attended the Zaporozhye Mechanical Engineering Institute .

In 1987 he finally came to Moldova , where he became director of the large company Elektromasch in Tiraspol . This company was connected to the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union and was not subordinate to the ministries in Chișinău , but directly to the state.

Transnistria conflict

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union , there was a conflict in Moldova between the Romanian- speaking part of the Moldovans, whose representatives wanted to unite the country with Romania , and ethnic minorities. The proportion of minorities was particularly large in the eastern border strip of Transnistria , where in 1989 only 39.9% Moldovans of the 601,700 inhabitants lived, but 28.3% Ukrainians and 25.4% Russians . There were also significant minorities of Bulgarians and Gagauz in Transnistria . Together with the Russified Moldovans, there was a clear Russian-speaking majority in this part of the country who saw themselves threatened by Moldova's new nationalist policy. This led to great dissatisfaction and demonstrations in several regions of Moldova.

Igor Smirnov, who as factory director had great influence on the local workforce, managed to put himself at the head of the Transnistrian protest movement. The protest movement against the new Moldovan nationalism was growing in popularity, especially because the leadership in Chișinău was terrifying ever larger sections of the population with anti-minority rhetoric. Smirnov founded his own political party, the United Council of Labor Collective , which carried out warning strikes from 1989. In 1990 elections, Smirnov and his party took control of most of Transnistria → Main article: Transnistria conflict

At that time, Smirnov was also a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Moldovan Soviet Republic and eventually founded a separate state called Transnistrian Moldavian Socialist Soviet Republic ( PMSSR ) on the eastern bank of the Dniester, independently of the central power in Chișinău, with like-minded people . From this emerged today's Transnistria, which since August 1991 has officially been called the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic or in Russian PMR / Pridnestrovskaja Moldavskaja Respublika. Smirnov was declared chairman of the Provisional Supreme Soviet of Transnistria on September 2, 1990.

In December 1991, a separate presidential election was organized in Transnistria , in which Smirnov was elected with a turnout of 78% with a total of 65.4% of the votes.

The heavily industrialized strip of land with its large steel, textile, shoe and furniture industries, the liquor industry and its energy generation based on hydropower proved to be indispensable for the economy in the Republic of Moldova . This led to an open conflict with Transnistria. In a short, violent war in June / July 1992 in which several hundred people died on both sides, the Moldovan government tried to forcibly reintegrate the breakaway part of the country into the Moldovan state association. Due to the enormous stocks of weapons and ammunition of the 14th Army , which were still stored on Transnistrian territory and which were partially able to access the Transnistrian units, the Transnistrian units represented an essential military factor. Under the then commander General Alexander Lebed who was stationed in Transnistria A ceasefire was enforced and negotiated in the 14th Army , which has since been controlled by an international peacekeeping force.

President of the PMR

From 1991 to December 2011, Smirnov ruled his unrecognized republic as president. Members of his family have held influential positions in the country's public administration and economy. The former OMON and KGB officer Vladimir Antufeyev and confidante of Smirnov was given a new identity as Vadim Shevtsov and, as Minister of Interior and Security, is in control of the Transnistrian secret service MGB. With reference to Transnistria and Smirnov, the Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk says: "An old apparatchik disguises himself as an American sheriff and collects the whole effort."

As president, Igor Smirnov ruled authoritarian in the style of the Soviet dictators and justified his style of government with the fight against the government of the Republic of Moldova, which he describes as "national-fascist", and what he believes is a permanent threat from it.

Negotiations with Chișinău , for example about a confederation or an autonomy , were unsuccessful amid mutual accusations of guilt, since Smirnov insists on the recognition of Transnistria as a separate subject of international law - a demand that the Republic of Moldova is not prepared to accept.

Four presidential elections have taken place since 1991, all but the last of which he clearly won. In 1991 he prevailed with 65.1% against the runner-up Grigori Marakuza (31%). Marakuza joined Smirnov's party after the election. In 1996 he won with 72% against Vladimir Malachov with 20%, in 2001 he received 81.9%, while his competitors Tom Senowitsch with 6.7% and Alexander Radchenko with 4.6% had no chance.

Smirnov in March 2009 at the negotiating table with Sergei Lavrov , Dmitri Medvedev and the then Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin

In 2006 Smirnov won with 82.4%, Nadezhda Bondarenko from the Communist Party received 8.1% of the vote, Andrei Safonov, owner and editor of the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, received 3.9%. None of these elections were recognized by the international community as Transnistria is not a subject of international law . Smirnov had announced that he would retire from politics in the event that Transnistria is recognized as a sovereign state and that he has achieved his goal in life.

In September 2011, Smirnov announced that he would run again in the 2011 Transnistrian presidential elections, which will take place in December of the same year . Russia withdrew his support for this election, since he was now seen as an obstacle to a negotiated solution to the conflict, and instead supported the speaker of the Transnistrian parliament, Anatoly Kaminski . Contrary to surveys that saw Smirnov at the top, he only came third in the first ballot behind opposition candidates Yevgeny Shevchuk and Kaminsky. In the runoff election, Shevchuk clearly prevailed against Kaminski with 73.9% of the vote.

On December 30, 2011, Shevchuk officially took over office from Smirnov.

Smirnow has lived as a pensioner since then and only rarely appears in public.

literature

• Michael Martens: Tailwind from Kiev - Moldova wants to solve the Transnistrian conflict with the help of Ukraine. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 10, 2005.
• Игорь Николаевич Смирнов: Жить на нашей земле. писатель, Москва 2001, ISBN 5-265-03498-6 .

Web links

Commons : Igor Smirnov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Anna Volkova, Lider (Tiraspol ': [sn], 2001), 8. Available online at: Archivlink ( Memento from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Paolo Sartori: the eastern challenge: is transnistria the key to the caucasus? January 24, 2007.
3. ^ Andrzej Stasiuk : On the way to Babadag. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-518-41727-4 , p. 152 f.
4. ↑ Transdnestr president: Recognition of Transdnestr is the matter of my life. ( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Regnum , September 14, 2006.
5. ↑ Dniester President and his cognac fall from grace Russia News , October 14, 2011. Retrieved December 26, 2011.
6. ↑ Dniester-Republic of Transnistria is about to change Russia-Aktuell, December 15, 2011. Retrieved on December 26, 2011.
7. ^ Kremlin candidate loses presidential election . Spiegel Online , December 26, 2011. Accessed the same day.
8. ↑ http://ru.publika.md/link_1361501.html