Bessarabia¿mostly occupied by modern-day republic of Moldova¿was the only territory representing an object of rivalry and symbolic competition between the Russian Empire and a fully crystallized nation-state: the Kingdom of Romania. This book is an intellectual prehistory of the Bessarabian problem, focusing on the antagonism of the national and imperial visions of this contested periphery. Through a critical reassessment and revision of the traditional historical narratives, the study argues that Bessarabia was claimed not just by two opposing projects of ‘symbolic inclusion,’ but also by two alternative and theoretically antagonistic models of political legitimacy. By transcending the national lens of Bessarabian / Moldovan history and viewing it in the broader Eurasian comparative context, the book responds to the growing tendency in recent historiography to focus on the peripheries in order to better understand the functioning of national and imperial states in the modern era.

The first English-language translation of an eccentric, unclassifiable classic 
 
An unnamed narrator embarks on a rambling journey across the diverse borderlands of the Russian and Ottoman Empires—all without leaving his divan. Drawing on his own experiences in Bessarabia during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, A. F. Veltman describes our Romantic narrator poring over a map and traversing distant, contested regions—at once imperial backwaters and cosmopolitan crossroads—where Romanians, Ruthenians, Jews, Bulgarians, Germans, and Turks comingle. 

Meandering and motley in form and language, this lost classic of the early nineteenth century deploys metafictional innovations that anticipate postmodernist literature. The novel is speckled with dictionary entries, multiplication tables, philosophical digressions, and love poetry as Veltman swings from Gothic horror to antiquarian commentary to burlesque comedy. Past, present, and fantasy blend together, as Alexander the Great, Ovid, and Augustus join the narrator on his daydreamed journey of self-discovery. 

Hugely popular in its day, The Wanderer is a remarkable tale that depicts the extraordinary places and peoples that met along the fault lines of once-great empires.