Between 1938 and 1989, Soviet law required that Romanian, named Moldovenească (Moldavian) at the time, be written using Russian Cyrillic letters. Currently, in the self-named Republica Autonomă Sovietică Socialistă Moldovenească (Республика Аутономы Сочиалисты Советикы Молдовиняскы), Romanian is still written using the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Library of Congress has standard lists for transliterating all non-Latin alphabets, and these are called Romanization tables. The one used for this version of Romanian has been the Russian Romanization table. Thus, if you are looking for a Romanian language text written in that kind of Cyrillic, you can use that table to transliterate the title or the name of the author to search for them in the LC catalog.

The table on this page can be useful if you know Romanian but do no know how to search for text that was written in Cyrillic, and then Romanized, or you come across catalog records written in this way and you want to be able to read the text. If you have trouble reading Romanian in Cyrillic, once you found the text in our Library, you can scan it in, and use a program to convert Russian Cyrillic texts into Latin Alphabet texts. It will not look like properly spelled Romanian, but it will no longer be Cyrillic, so that can be helpful.

In this Library's catalog when you are unsure about the spelling of the word that you are searching for, you can

• Use a percent sign ( % ) as a single-character wildcard, either inside or at the end of a search word: reda%tor (for redactor and redaktor)
• Use a question mark ( ? ) for truncation (different forms of a root word) and as a multiple-character wildcard, either inside or at the end of a search word. For example Moldov? (for Moldova or Moldovan), via?a (for viața and viatsa).

Note, that the table for the Cyrillic used in old Romanian texts is a different Romanization table.

Table comparing Romanian letters and letter combinations to Romanized Moldavian used in the catalog of the Library of Congress

Examples from the catalog:

Opere yn treĭ volume / Mikhail Eminesku. Gynditoriĭ moldovenʹ. Serii︠a︡ "Pentru bibliotechile din RSSM"

Busola filologuluĭ-cherchetėtor : skurt yndrumar istoriko-filolojik / L.I. Kuruch ; sub redakt︠s︡ii︠a︡ luĭ M.D. Dolgan. Akademii︠a︡ de Shtiint︠s︡e a RSS

Dikt︠s︡ionar ortografik al limbiĭ moldoveneshtʹ : ku elemente de ortoepie / [redaktor responsabil N. G. Korlėti︠a︡nu]. Edit︠s︡ii︠a︡ 2, revėzutė shi komplektatė. Enchiklopedii︠a︡ Sovetikė Moldoveni︠a︡skė. membriĭ redakt︠s︡ieĭ princhipale: I︠A︡. Grosul ... [et al.]. Kishinėu, Akademii︠a︡ de Shtiint︠s︡e a Republichiĭ Sovetiche Sochialiste Moldoveneshtʹ, 1970-1981.

Probleme de lingvistikė moldoveni︠a︡skė shi kontrastivė : kulejere de materiale ale katedrelor filolojiche de la institut︠s︡iile de ynvėt︠s︡ėmynt superior din RSSM / [kolejiul de redakt︠s︡ie A.I. Chobanu (redaktor responsabil) ... et al.]. Ministerul Ynvėt︠s︡ėmyntuluĭ Publik, Universitati︠a︡ de Stat "V.I. Lenin" din Kishinėu.

Limba shi literatura moldoveni︠a︡skė, 1958-1983 / alkėtuitor V.I. Mirgorodskai︠a︡ ; sub redakt︠s︡ii︠a︡ Kh.G. Korbu ; redaktor bibliografik I.I. Shpak.

Konstitut︠s︡ii︠a︡ (leji︠a︡ fundamentalė) a Republichiĭ Sovetiche Sochialiste Moldoveneshtʹ : adoptatė la sesii︠a︡ a opta ekstraordinarė a Sovetuluĭ Suprem al RSS Moldoveneshtʹ de lejislatura a noua la 15 aprilie 1978.

Ku Lenin yn suflet shiʾn gynd / [redaktor A. Roshka].

Poezie amerikanė / antologare, prefat︠s︡are shi traduchere de Ion Vatamanu.

Kreat︠s︡ii︠a︡ popularė : kurs teoretik de folklor romynesk din Basarabii︠a︡, Transnistrii︠a︡ shi Bukovina / [kolezhiul de redakt︠s︡ie: Grigore Botezatu, Nikolae Bėeshu, Efim Zhungietu].

Limba moldoveni︠a︡skė shi rėuvoitoriĭ eĭ : ympotriva falsifikatorilor burgezhʹ aĭ dezvoltėriĭ limbiĭ moldoveneshtʹ / V.N. Stati.