This paper discusses the relationships between state, language, and nation in Bucovina, a multinational and multilingual (Romanian, Ukrainian, German, Yiddish, Polish) territory in the northeastern Carpathian mountains. Bucovina was a pari of the Principality of Moldavia, which came under Austrian administration in the eighteenth Century and later became a relatively independent crown colony. After World War I, this territory was united with Romania. As a result of World War II, the northern pari of Bucovina was annexed by the USSR In the context of these various political Systems, the language of the power center played a respectively different role. In a relatively liberal multinational state, this language was merely a prerequisite for social advancement, but theformation ofthe nation state ofthe twentieth Century led to an ideologization ofthe language ofthe center. The language ofthe center of a totalitarian System (in this case, that of the USSR) was practically sacred.
This paper depicts the results of these changing language politics for the local Speech Community.