35 Compulsory Primary Education and State Building in Rural Bessarabia (1918–1940) Petru Negură Abstract: This article examines the way in which public primary educa‐ tion was established in rural Bessarabia during 1918–1940. The imposi‐ tion of mass compulsory education resulted from an unequal relationship of power between the state education authorities and the village popula‐ tion, which at times conflicted and at other times negotiated with each other. This process was crucial for the expansion of the state in rural areas and the development of citizenship among the civilian population of what was at the time a new Romanian province. Yet, primary schooling did not succeed entirely, due to the resistance of the rural population, the inde‐ termination of state agents, and the lack of institutional infrastructure. Introduction This article examines the way in which general public primary education was established in rural areas of Bessarabia in 1918–1940 under the Romanian administration. This process is studied from the perspective of the implementation of compulsory schooling, assessed on the basis of indicators such as school attendance and statements of key stakehold- ers. In this peripheral region, the establishment and expansion of mass public education were central components of a wider project of nation and state building, as in other countries undergoing modernization. 1 The population of Bessarabia was subject to ambitious schooling policies in 1 On the role of education in nation-building, see Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Anthony Smith, Nation‐ alism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and National‐ ism (London: Routledge, 1998); Stephen J. Heathorn, For Home, Country and Race: Constructing Gender, Class and Englishness in the Elementary School 1880–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000); Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France 1870–1914 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976); Andy Green, Education and State Formation. Europe, East Asia and the USA (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). For the role of literacy and schooling in the development of modern nation in Romania, see Alex Drace- Francis, The Making of Modern Romanian Culture. Literacy and the Development of National Identity (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006).