Bessarabia

Besarabia Location / Basarabia.

Evolution of Besarabia and current distribution between Romania (blue), Ukraine (blue) and Moldova (red).

Bessarabia (Romanian: Basarabia; Ukrainian: Бессарабія; Russian: Бессарабия, Bessarabiya; Turkish: Besarabya) is a region of southeastern Eastern Europe. It includes almost all of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova (except the breakaway region of Transnistria), part of Ukraine (Budzhak and part of Chernivtsi Oblast). It is bordered to the north and east by the rest of Ukraine and to the south and west by Romania.

Bessarabia was the name by which the Russian Empire identified the eastern part of the principality of Moldavia, which Russia seized from the Ottoman Empire in 1812 and organized it as the Bessarabia Governorate. What remained of Moldavia joined Wallachia in 1859, creating the Kingdom of Romania.

In 1917 the Moldavian Democratic Republic was proclaimed as part of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). At the beginning of 1918, it was integrated into the Odesa Soviet Republic. From February 1918 the latter fought against the Romanian troops in Bessarabia and from March against the Austrian-German ones. On March 13, 1918, it was occupied and annihilated by them. After that Sfatul Tarii voted for the union with Romania. The union gained international recognition in 1920 through the Pact of Paris, which sparked protests from ethnic minorities and local peasants.

On August 23, 1939, nine days before the start of World War II, the Soviet Union agreed with Nazi Germany to reinstate Bessarabia under Russian sovereignty (see Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact). In June 1940, the Soviet 9th Army occupied the region, but the Soviets lost it again during the Soviet Union invasion in mid-1941. As a result of World War II, the Soviet Union retained Bessarabia, reorganizing it as the Moldavian SSR, assigning its southern and northern portions to the Ukrainian SSR.

Today most of Bessarabia belongs to Moldova, while two small parts, the extreme south and north-west, belong to Ukraine.

Toponymy

The name Bessarabia (Romanian: Basarabia) comes from the Wallachian Basarab family, who ruled the southern part of the region. The name was originally applied to the southern area, which corresponds to present-day Budjak. The Turks were the first to call the area Besarabya, when they gained control of the area in 1484.

From the 15th century to the XIX, the region was partially dominated by Moldova, the Ottoman Empire (Budjak only), Russia, Romania, the USSR, Ukraine and again Moldova.

History

Prehistory

The territory of Bessarabia was inhabited since ancient times. The Indo-Europeans arrived around 2000 BC. C. The original inhabitants were the Cimmerians and later the Scythians. Later the Thracian, Dacian, Getan, Tiragetian and Bastarnian tribes settled. In the 7th century B.C. Greek settlers settled in the region, mainly on the Black Sea coast, and traded with the locals. The Celts settled in the southern parts, highlighting the town of Aliobrix.

The first state to include all of Bessarabia was the Dacian kingdom of Berebists, a contemporary of Julius Caesar, in the 1st century a. After his death, the state was divided into small kingdoms and only unified by the Dacian kingdom of Decebalus in the I century . Although the kingdom was defeated by the Roman Empire in 106, Bessarabia was not part of the empire, and the free Dacians resisted the Roman conquerors. The Romans built defensive walls in southern Bessarabia to defend Scythia Minor from barbarian invasions.

The Roman Empire Romanized parts of Dacia (via colonization and cultural influence), and some local tribes adopted Roman customs as well as Latin. According to the Thracian-Romanian continuity theory, Roman culture and the Romance language spread throughout the cultural area of the ancient Dacians, including Bessarabia. Although some historians deny it.

In the year 270 the Roman authorities began to withdraw their forces from Dacia, due to the invasions of Goths and Carpi. The Goths were a Germanic tribe that occupied the southern part of Bessarabia (Budjak), due to its geographical position and characteristics, an attractive steppe for nomadic tribes.

High Middle Ages

3rd century to XI the region was often invaded by Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongols. The territory of Bessarabia was part of ephemeral kingdoms that were destroyed when new waves of immigrants arrived. These centuries were characterized by a strong state of insecurity and mass movements.

In 561, the Avars occupied Bessarabia and executed the local ruler Mesamer. Then, in 582, the Onogur Bulgars, who had been displaced to Lower Moesia by the Khazars, settled in southern Bessarabia and northern Dobrudja and occupied the future Bulgaria. In the VI century the Slavs also settled in the region.

With the creation of the Khazar empire to the east, invasions decreased and more stable states were created. Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Bessarabia was part of the Bolohoveni (north) and Brodnici (south) voivodeships, the first Wallachian principalities of the time. The last large-scale invasions were by the Mongols and Tatars in 1241, 1290, and 1343. Sehr al-Jedid, a small group of the Golden Horde, settled near present-day Orhei until they were driven out in 1390. They drove into retreat much of the population to mountainous areas in the Eastern Carpathians and Transylvania. Especially low was the population east of the Prut River during the Tatar invasions.

Besarabia's name arises during the Walak government of southern Besarabia, which is shown in the image on a map of 1390.

Most of Besarabia was for centuries part of the Principality of Moldova. In the image, a map of 1800 showing Moldova in dark orange.

Map of 1883 of the governorate of Besarabia and its regions in the Russian Empire.

Principality of Moldova

After the defeat of the Mongols in 1343, the region was included in the Principality of Moldavia, which established in 1392 its control over the fortresses of Cetatea Albă and Chilia, on the northern bank of the Dniester.

At the end of the 14th century, the southern part of the region would form part of the kingdom of Wallachia, then ruled by the Basarab dynasty, native to the country. In the 15th century the entire region was part of the Principality of Moldavia. Ștefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great) ruled from 1457 to 1504, a long period of 50 years in which he won 32 battles defending the country against the Ottomans and against the Tatars, and only lost two. During this period, after each victory he would build a monastery or church near the battlefield to honor Christianity. Many of these churches, as well as old fortresses, are in Bessarabia.

In 1484 the Turks invaded and captured Chilia and Cetatea Albă (Akkerman in Turkish), and annexed the southern coastal part of Bessarabia, which was divided into two sanjaks (districts) of the Ottoman Empire. In 1538 the Ottomans added more territory from southern Bessarabia to Tighina, while the central and northern part was part of the principality of Moldavia, a vassal of the Ottomans.

Between 1711 and 1812, the Russian Empire occupied the region five times during wars against the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire. Between 1820 and 1846, the Bulgarians and Gagauzians migrated to the Russian Empire across the Danube, after years of oppression under the Ottoman yoke, and settled in southern Bessarabia. Some Turkic-speaking tribes of the Nogai Horde also inhabited the Budjak region of southern Bessarabia from the 16th to 18th centuries, but were completely expelled in 1812.

Annexation of the Russian Empire

In the Treaty of Bucharest of May 28, 1812, which ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812, the Ottoman Empire ceded the eastern part of the principality of Moldavia to the Russian Empire. This region was then called Bessarabia. Until then, the name was only used for the southern part of the region, which had been directly ruled by the Ottomans since 1484.

Illustrated card of 1856 which is part of a set of eighty-two letters, one for each province of the Russian Empire, which lists the particularities of each region. In the image, the corresponding to Besarabia.

In 1814 the first German settlers settled in the south of the territory (those who would be known as Germans from Bessarabia), and the Bulgarians from Bessarabia also settled, founding cities such as Bolhrad. Administratively, Bessarabia was integrated into the empire as an Oblast from 1818 and as a guberniya from 1873. The Treaty of Adrianople, which ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, stipulated that all the Danube delta was included in the Oblast of Bessarabia.

At the end of the Crimean War in 1856, the Treaty of Paris ordered that two districts in southern Bessarabia be returned to Moldavia and that the Russian Empire lost access to the Danube. In 1859, Moldova and Wallachia were united in a single state that took the name of the Kingdom of Romania in 1866, and which also included the southern part of Bessarabia.

The Romanian War of Independence broke out in 1877; the Romanians counted on the Russian Empire as an ally. Although the league between Romania and the Russian Empire specified that the latter would respect Romania's territorial integrity and not claim any part at the end of the war, the 1878 Treaty of Berlin granted the southern part of Bessarabia back to Russia.

Instigated by the authorities, on April 6, 1903, the Kishinev pogrom broke out. It was the first anti-Semitism action directed by the authorities in the 20th century; Between 47 and 49 Jews died in it, 92 were seriously injured and 700 houses were destroyed in the riots.

After the Russian Revolution, a Romanian nationalist movement developed in Bessarabia. In the chaos caused by the October Revolution of 1917, a National Council (Sfatul Țării) was formed, with one hundred and twenty delegates from Bessarabia and ten from Transnistria —located on the left bank of the Dniester River and inhabited by Moldovans and Romanians—.

On January 14, 1918, during riots caused by the withdrawal of two Russian divisions from the Romanian front, Chisinau was sacked. The Rumcherod Committee (Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers, Soldiers and Sailors of the Romanian Front, the Black Sea Fleet and the Odessa region) proclaimed itself the supreme authority in Bessarabia. The Sfatul Țării was not able to recruit any armed units, so they claimed the support of the Romanian Government. On January 16, a Romanian division occupied Chisinau, and the next day Tighina, on the banks of the Dniester River. On the third day, the Soviets were driven out of Bessarabia. Ten days later, on January 24, 1918, the Sfatul Țării proclaimed the independence of Bessarabia as the Moldavian Democratic Republic.

On April 9, 1918, the Sfatul Țării voted in favor of the union with Romania by eighty-six votes in favor, three against, and thirty-six abstentions. The union was accepted by the Romanian Allies in the Treaty of Paris (1920).

Statement by the Union of Besarabia with Romania.

Unification with Romania

March 27^Jul./ April 9, 1918^greg., The Sfatul Ţării decided by 86 votes in favor, 3 against and 36 abstentions, the union with the Kingdom of Romania, conditional on the application of agrarian reform, respect for local autonomy, and human rights.

The provincial councils of Bălţi, Orhei and Soroca had been the first to request the union with the Kingdom of Romania, and this was effectively approved on the indicated date, with the following conditions:

1. The Sfatul 국ării It would carry out an agrarian reform, which would be accepted by the Romanian Government.
2. Besarabia would remain autonomous, with its own diet, Sfatul 국ăriidemocratically elected.
3. The parliament would approve local budgets, and have control over the councils of zemstvos and cities, and the appointment of members of the local administration.
4. The compulsory military service would be carried out on a territorial basis, so that the Belarusian recruits would serve in Besarabia.
5. Local laws and the form of administration could change only with the approval of local representatives.
6. The rights of minorities should be respected.
7. Besarabia would send to the Romanian Parliament a number of representatives equal to the proportion of its population in the Romanian total.
8. All elections should be made through direct, equal, secret and universal suffrage.
9. Freedom of expression and belief should be guaranteed in the Constitution.
10. All individuals who had committed crimes for political reasons during the revolution would be amnestied.

The Entente governments, trying not to lose their influence in Romania to the Central Powers, accepted the union, although, holding different points of view, they decided not to express any official opinion. The Empires, which had signed peace with the Ukrainian representatives on February 9, they occupied the border territories with Bessarabia, removing the Soviet danger and facilitating the Romanian annexation of the territory.

Part of Romania

For its part, on May 5, 1919, a Provisional Government of Workers and Peasants of Bessarabia was founded in exile in Odessa by the Bolsheviks.

On May 11, 1919, the autonomous Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed from the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, but it was abolished by Polish and French military forces in September 1919 (see Soviet–Polish War). Following the Bolsheviks' victory in the Russian Civil War, the Ukrainian SSR was created in 1922, and in 1924 a strip of Ukrainian land on the left bank of the Dniester was declared the Moldavian Autonomous SSR.

The union with Romania was officially recognized by France, the United Kingdom, and other European countries after the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Soviet Russia did not accept the union.

World War II

On August 23, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed and in its article 4 of the secret Additional Protocol, Bessarabia was within the zone of Soviet influence.

Besarabia between 1920 and 1940.

On June 26, 1940, in application of the Pact, the USSR sent an ultimatum to the Romanian government to evacuate Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in four days. The two provinces had an area of 51,000 km² and 3,750,000 inhabitants, mostly Romanians. Two days later, the Romanian administration withdrew from the territories and during the withdrawal (between June 28 and July 3) they dedicated themselves to attacking the local communists, mainly Jews and Ukrainians. The Romanian army was attacked by the Red Army, which entered Bessarabia when the Romanian administration withdrew. The Romanian army suffered the death or disappearance of 356 officers and 42,876 soldiers. Once the Soviet troops entered Bessarabia, it was incorporated into the USSR, divided between the Moldavian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR. Likewise, many inhabitants were executed or deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

The Germans of Besarabia being evacuated to Galați.

On August 2, 1940, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established with parts of the former Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and unincorporated Bessarabia in Ukraine. Germans from Bessarabia, following the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, were offered resettlement in Germany. Fearing Soviet oppression, the majority of Germans (about 93,000) accepted. Many of them, including Horst Köhler, were resettled on land annexed to Poland. Those who decided not to leave were killed while being deported west by the Red Army.

On June 22, 1941, Axis troops invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa aided by Romanian troops. During the withdrawal, the Soviets used the scorched-earth tactic, railing away as much as they could. At the end of July the region was under Romanian control.

When the military operations had not yet ended, the Romanian troops began pogroms against the Jewish population, killing thousands, accusing them of having collaborated with the Soviets, whom they had received as liberators due to Hitler's anti-Semitic policy. Likewise, the Einsatzgruppen SS committed atrocities and murders of Jews under the pretext of espionage, sabotage or communism. The policy of the final solution to the Jewish question was seen by the Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu more as expulsion than extermination. The Jewish population (about 200,000 troops) was initially sent to ghettos, and in 1942 to extermination camps in the occupied zone of Transnistria, partially controlled by the SS.

After three years of relative peace, the Soviet front returned to the Dniester borders in 1944. On August 20, 1944, some 900,000 Red Army soldiers began the Iassy-Kishinev offensive. The Soviets occupied Bessarabia in a five-day offensive. In small battles at Chisinau and Sărata the German 6th Army, again reformed after the Battle of Stalingrad with some 650,000 soldiers, was forced to withdraw. Likewise, seeing the German defeat, Romania broke its military alliance with Hitler. On August 23, 1944, Marshal Ion Antonescu was deposed and King Michael I of Romania regained power.

Part of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union re-annexed the region in 1944 and Soviet troops occupied Romania until 1958, imposing a Moscow-compliant communist regime on the capital Bucharest in 1947. The Romanian communist regime thus did not include the issue of Bessarabia and Bucovina (also occupied by the USSR) in its relations with the Soviet Union.

Between 1969 and 1971, a group of young intellectuals from Chisinau created an underground National Patriotic Front, with a total of one hundred members, calling for the establishment of a Democratic Republic of Moldova, which would break away from the USSR and join the Romania.

In December 1971, according to a briefing note to Ion Stănescu, Chairman of the State Security Council of the Socialist Republic of Romania, to Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB, three of the leaders of the National Patriotic Front, Alexandru Usatiuc- Bulgarian, Gheorghe Ghimpu and Valeriu Graur, as well as a fourth person, Alexandru Șoltoianu, leader of a similar underground movement in northern Bucovina, were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms.

Independence of Moldova

Pro-Roman protest in Chisináu (2003).

With the weakening of the Soviet Union, in February 1988 the first mass demonstrations were called in Chisinau. For now, they demanded from Perestroika the return of self-government and the official status of Moldovan (Romanian) instead of Russian.

On August 31, 1989, some 600,000 people demonstrated again in Chisinau for four days. Romanian became the official language of the Moldavian SSR, although the measure would not be effective beforehand.

In 1990, the first free elections for Parliament were held, with the opposition of the Popular Front, which, however, was victorious, allowing the formation of a new government headed by Mircea Druc. The Moldovan SSR became the Moldovan SSR and later the Republic of Moldova. It proclaimed independence in 1991. Its borders are those established on August 2, 1940, which have not changed since then.