Moldava is a misspelling of Moldova (due to the fact that the territory/country's name in English is Moldavia).

To correct the information posted on this page by Tiverits, which is mostly false, here are some facts about Moldavia (Moldova in Romanian):

1. Firstly, the name refers to the historical territory of Moldova. To make the difference between the territory and the country, the latter is called the "Republic of Moldova", and represents only a bit more then a third of the historical Moldavian lands.

2. When the Roman administration withdrew from Dacia in 275, the local population was already in an advanced process of Romanization, partly because of all the settled Romans or mixed couples after almost 200 years of Roman administration, and partly because of the more advanced status of the Roman culture & language. Most of them kept identifying themselves with their Roman origin (hence the names Romania/Romanian today), however - throughout the course of history - some of them chose to identify themselves with the territory they were living in. One example is Moldova - which took the name of the Moldova River (area around which the Land of Moldova started to develop - today in North-Eastern part of Romania).

So the land was never called Tivertsi as the user Tiverits (I think the name says all about his "objectivity"). Tivertsi where actually a short-lived Slavic tribe. The very scarce information that exists on them goes only as far as 863 the earliest and 944 the latest. And they are said to have actually lived in Western Ukraine, and only *possibly* in some parts of Transnistria and Moldova (however there is no hard evidence for that). So this tribe could not have possibly had any major influence in the history of Moldova, nor are the Moldavians a result of a Dacian-Tiverian mix. The Dacians did not even exist anymore in the 10th century. The Daco-Roman mix took place between the 1st and 5th century A.D., before the Slavish invasions. Regardless of that though, it's absurd to even claim that a tribe with such a short existence which lived in the area, could have led to the creation of a nation (again, proof of them living also in Moldova, does not really exist).

3. The user Tiverits is however right about something: "It is wrong to consider Moldavians as brothers of Romanians". That's like saying that Bavarians are brothers of Germans, Sicilians are brothers of Italians or Hollanders are brothers of Netherlanders. All absurd statements, as Moldavians ARE Romanians, same as Bavarians are Germans, Sicilians are Italians or Hollanders are Netherlanders. They are inhabitants of the Moldavian territory, sharing the Romanian language and culture with the inhabitants of the the other Romanian territories. Actually while Bavarians or Sicilians do speak a dielect quite different from the standard German or Italian, Moldavians don't even speak a different dialect, but the very same one (just difference of accent). Wiki or other neutral sources can be consulted for confirmation.

The rest is just politics. The concept of a different "identity" for Moldavians is of Stalinistic origin, and the result of a 50 years brainwashing Soviet oppressive regime (on the background of the already anti-Romanian policies in occupied Bessarabia the previous century). The bolshevics did their best do destroy the national identity of the Romanians in the Eastern Moldova, and we see today their methods were unfortunately quite efficient.