Boris Marian

Boris Tihonovici Marian (born 27 September 1934; ) is a Moldovan poet, screenwriter, translator, and journalist, as well as a former dissident in the Soviet Union. He primarily writes in Russian and is a member of the Moldovan Writers' Union, the National Writers' Union of Ukraine,

Biography Boris Tihonovici Marian was born in a family of Moldovan peasants After graduating high school, he enrolled in the Faculty of Journalism at Kyiv University. In his fourth year, in 1956, amid the revolutionary events in Hungary, he wrote a "program for the democratic renewal of the Union". The main demands included: He later claimed that he had been helped by Andrei Lupan and Petrea Cruceniuc to get employed. He later worked as a screenwriter at Moldova-Film and published several poetry collections. In 1990, he was rehabilitated. He became involved in Moldova's independence movement from the Soviet Union and worked as a journalist at Moldova Suverană until 2009.

Political views and opinions Marian is a critic of the pro-Romanian intellectual elite in Moldova. In 2011, he criticized Chișinău mayor Dorin Chirtoacă and the pro-European government, claiming that "it is worse than under the Romanians – at least they did not pretend to be democrats". Although he admires Romanian culture and has translated works by Mihai Eminescu, Vasile Alecsandri, and George Coșbuc into Russian, Marian opposes the unification of Moldova and Romania. He believes Moldova should remain an independent, multinational state.

He has clashed repeatedly with the leadership of the Writers' Union of Moldova, especially with Nicolae Dabija, whom he labeled a Russophobe, due to their pro-Romanian position, accusing them of hypocrisy. Marian claims that while he was imprisoned in the Gulag, they were praising the Soviet regime. He also argues that the Tsarist annexation of Bessarabia in 1812 saved the Moldovan people from the Ottoman Empire. and likens Moldova–Romania relations to those between Austria and Germany, Mexico and Spain, or Canada and the United States, though he believes constructive relations are impossible while Romania seeks "Anschluss".

Marian supported the 2014 Gagauz referendum and argued against Moldova's integration into the European Union, which he considers a "new Soviet Union," and against the "Romanianization" of Moldova, warning against a "Moldovan Maidan".

Since the 2014 Euromaidan and Ukrainian revolution, which he opposed, Marian has not visited Ukraine. In a 2024 interview with the Russian site Literaturnaya Gazeta, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, he explained that his relations with Ukrainian writers had worsened because of Maidan.