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"Basarabia" redirects here. For the newspaper, see Basarabia (newspaper).

Location of Bessarabia in Europe.

Map of Bessarabia from Charles Upson Clark's book

Bessarabia is the Russian name of the Romanian province of Basarabia, with 70% of its territory making up of what is now The Republic of Moldova. The name Basarabia has a long-debated origin, with the German and Polish chronicles that mention the province since the XIIth Century.

Bessarabia (Romanian: Basarabia; ((Lang-en | Basarabia)) ;[Бессарабия Bessarabiya] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help), Ukrainian: Бессарабія Bessarabiya) is a historical region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Nistru River on the east and the Prut River on the west. Today 70% of this region belongs to The Republic of Moldova, while 30% of its territory was annexed after the IInd World War to Ukraine (Chilia and Northern Bukovina).

Basarabia and its Romanian-speaking population was attested by Polish chronicles in the Xiith Century and further German chronicles in the XIVth century mention both the province and its population.

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812, and ensuing Peace of Bucharest, the Eastern portion of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal at the time, was ceded to Imperial Russia and designated as "Bessarabia". While this eastern part became the Governorate of Bessarabia, the western part of Moldavia united, in 1859, with Wallachia in what would become the United Principalities (in 1866 the Kingdom of Romania). For a short period between 1856 and 1878, two of the nine traditional counties of Basarabia were also part of Moldavia and then Romania.

In 1918, three months after declaring its independence from Russia under the name of Moldavian Democratic Republic (shortly before the end of World War I); it united with the Kingdom of Romania. In 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the USSR in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Subsequently, Romania joined the Axis Powers and eliberated the province in 1941 and lost it again in 1944 to the advancing Soviet armies. In 1947, the Soviet-Romanian border set along the Prut River was internationally recognised by the Paris Treaty that ended World War II. The core part of Basarabia was joined with parts of the Moldavian ASSR (Transnistria) to form the Moldovan SSR. At the same time, smaller parts of Bessarabia, in the south (two traditional counties; Budjak) and north (half of one county), were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR.

During the process of dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldavian SSR declared itself sovereign (23 June 1990) and declared independence from the USSR on 27 August 1991, becoming the Republic of Moldova. The areas allotted to the Ukrainian SSR in 1940 became part of the new independent Ukraine since 1991, while the area roughly corresponding to Transnistria became the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic separate from the government of the Republic of Moldova.

Geography

Map of Bessarabia within Moldavia through the time

The region is bounded by the Dniester (Nistruin Romanian) River to the north and east, the Prut to the west and the lower River Danube and the Black Sea to the south. It has approximately 17,600 sq mi (46,000 km²). The area is mostly hilly plains with flat steppes. It is very fertile for agriculture, and it also has some lignite deposits and stone quarries. People living in the area grow sugar beets, sunflowers, wheat, maize, tobacco, wine grapes and fruit. They also raise sheep and cattle. Currently, the main industry in the region is agricultural processing.

The region's main cities are Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, Izmail, Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyi (historically called Cetatea Albă / Akkerman). Other towns of administrative or historical importance include: Khotyn, Lipcani, Briceni, Soroca, Bălţi, Orhei, Ungheni, Bender/Tighina, Cahul, Reni and [[Kilia, Ukraine|Kilia],Chili| Romanian].

History

See also: History of Moldova and History of Moldavia

According to the traditional interpretation, Basarabia Romanian) derives from the Wallachian Basarab dynasty, who ruled over the southern part of the area in the 14th century. There are interpretations that the name of the Province referring to the Moldavian lands near the Black Sea would had been rejected as a cartographic confusion by the early Moldavian chronicler Miron Costin. The Polish references to Wallachia as Basarabia, interpreted by medieval Western cartographers as a separate land between that country and Moldavia According to Dimitrie Cantemir, the name originally applied only to the part of the territory south of the Upper Trajan Wall, that the Romans built after the conquest of the Dacian Kingdom), territory significantly bigger than the current Southern part (Budjak), part that was comprised in the Principality of Wallachia during the reign of the Basarab dynasty.

In late 14th century Basarabia was part of the Principality of Moldavia together with the current day Romanian Province of Moldova and Northern Bukovina. Basarabia was integrated in The Principality of Moldavia until 1812, with parts of it (Southern Basarabia) changing hands to Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia.

In 1812 the province was annexed by the Tsarist Russia after the Peace of Bucharest Treaty in the aftermath of the victory of the Tsarist Russia over The Ottoman Empire (Russo-Turkish War (1806–12)). The region that was part of the suzerain Principality of Moldavia represented a 'war reparation' towards The Tsarist Russia and enforced the Tsarist Empire control of the Danube and the North-Western shores of the Black Sea.

Since 1991, most of the territory forms the core of The Republic of Moldova, with smaller parts in Ukraine.

Prehistory

Main articles: Prehistory of Moldavia and Bronze Age in Romania

The territory of Bessarabia has been inhabited by people for thousands of years. Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished between the 6th and 3rd millennium BC. The Indo-European culture spread in the region around 2000 BC.

Ancient times

Main articles: Dacians, Dacia, Domitian's Dacian War, Trajan's Dacian Wars, Roman Dacia, and Free Dacians

In Antiquity the region was inhabited by Dacians that were a Thracian]] population, with pockets of other populations such as Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, and Celts. The dacians tribes that populated the province were the Costoboci, Carpi, Britogali, Tyragetae, and Bastarnae. In the 6th century BC, Greek settlers established the colony of Tyras, along the Black Sea coast and traded with the locals. Also, Celts settlements were attested in the southern parts of Basarabia with Aliobrix documented as the most prominent.

The first State organization that included the whole of Basarabia was the Dacian Kingdom of Burebista in the 1st century BC. After his death, the region was divided into smaller pieces, and the central parts were unified in the Dacian kingdom of Decebalus in the 1st century AD. This kingdom was defeated by the Roman Empire in 106 A.D. Southern Basarabia was included in the Roman Empire even before that date with documents suggesting that since 57 AD this southern part was annexed to the Roman province Moesia Inferior, but it was secured only when the Dacian Kingdom was defeated in 106. The Romans built defensive earthen walls in Southern Basarabia (e.g. Lower Trajan Wall) to defend the Scythia Minor province against invasions. Except for the Black Sea shore in the south, Basarabia remained outside direct Roman control and under the administration of Dacian Chieftains called by modern historians Free Dacians. The 2nd to the 5th centuries also saw the development of the Chernyakhov culture.

In 270, the Roman authorities began to withdraw their forces south of the Danube, especially from the Roman Dacia, due to the invading Goths and Carpi. The Goths, a Germanic tribe, poured into the Roman Empire from the lower Dniepr River, through Bugeac, the southern part of Basarabia (Budjak steppe), which due to its geographic position and characteristics (mainly steppe), was swept by various nomadic tribes for many centuries. In 378, the area was overrun by the Huns.

Early Middle Ages

Main articles: Moldavia in the Middle Ages, Romania in the Early Middle Ages, and Origin of the Romanians

During the Wallachian rule of Southern Bessarabia, it acquired its name. (1390 map)

From the 3rd century until the 11th century, the region was invaded numerous times in turn by different tribes: Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs (South, i.e. Bulgarian, and Eastern), Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongols. The territory of Basarabia comprised on its terriory dozens of ephemeral kingpins which were disbanded when another wave of migrants arrived. Those centuries were characterized by a terrible state of insecurity and significant movement of population. The period was later known as the "Dark Ages" of Europe, or Age of migrations. The Byzantine Empire allegedly maintained partial control of several cities and forts in southern Basarabia until the 7th century. In particular, the fortress city of Tyras was plundered by the Huns in 375, but was rebuilt by the Byzantines in 545 as Turris. It served as a trading post with Daco-Romans to the north-west, and Antes and Jassic people to the north-east.

In 561, the Avars invaded Basarabia and executed the local ruler Mesamer. Following Avars, Slavs started to arrive in the region. Then, in 582, Onogur Bulgars settled in South-Eastern Basarabia and Northern Dobrogea, from which they moved to Moesia Inferior (allegedly under pressure from the Khazars), and formed the nascent region of Bulgaria. With the rise of the Khazars' state in the east, the invasions began to diminish and it was possible to create larger states. Future population structure showed the predominant Romanised component because of both numbers and assimilation factors.

Between the 8th and 10th centuries, the southern part of Basarabia was inhabited by people from Balkan-Dunabian culture (the culture of the First Bulgarian Empire). Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Basarabia is mentioned in Slav chronicles as part of Bolohoveni (north) and Brodnici (south) voivodeships, believed to be Vlach principalities of the early Middle Ages.

The last large scale invasions were those of the Mongols of 1241, 1290, and 1343. Sehr al-Jedid (near Orhei), an important settlement of the Golden Horde, dates from this period. They led to a temporary retreat of a part of the population to the mountainous areas in Eastern Carpathians and to Maramures in Transylvania. The vast majority of the population remained stable on the territory of the region.

In the Late Middle Age, chronicles mention a Tigheci "republic", predating the establishment of the Principality of Moldavia, situated near the modern town of Cahul in the southwest of Bessarabia, preserving its autonomy even during the later Principality even into the 18th century. Genovese merchants were commissioned to rebuilt or establish a number of forts along the Nistru (Cetatea Alba, at Tighina, at the Old Orhei, at Soroca/Olhionia) and Danube (including Kyliya/Chilia-Licostomo).

Principality of Moldavia

Main article: History of Moldavia

Most of Basarabia was for centuries part of the Principality of Moldavia. (1800 map, Moldavia in dark orange)

After the 1360s the region was gradually included in the principality of Moldavia, which by 1392 established control over the fortresses of Cetatea Albă and Chilia, its eastern border becoming the River Dniester (Nistru).

In the latter part of the 14th century, the southern part of the region was for several decades part of Wallachia. The main dynasty of Wallachia was called Basarab, from which the current name of the region originated.

In the 15th century, the entire region was a part of the principality of Moldavia. Stephen the Great ruled between 1457 and 1504, a period of nearly 50 years during which he won 32 battles defending his country against virtually all his neighbours (mainly the Ottomans and the Tatars, but also the Hungarians and the Poles), while losing only two battles. During this period, after each victory, he raised a monastery or a church close to the battlefield honoring Christianity. Many of these battlefields and churches, as well as old fortresses, are situated in Basarabia (mainly along the Nistru River).

[[Image:Belgorod ua.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Cetatea Albă (now situated in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Ukraine) was one of the many important fortresses of The Principality of Moldova and one of the strategic European defense vanguards in the defense against teh Ottoman Empire. The Ruler of The Principality in the XVthe Century, Stephen the Great used significant resources and foreign Venetian advice (architects) in order to defend the South-Eastern border of the Principality from the Tartar and Ottoman incursions.

In 1484, the Turks invaded and captured Chilia and Cetatea Albă (Akkerman in Turkish), and annexed the shoreline southern part of Bessarabia, which was then divided into two sanjaks (districts) of the Ottoman Empire. In 1538, the Ottomans annexed more Basarabian land in the south as far as Tighina, while the central and northern parts of Bessarabia were already formally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire as part of the principality of Moldavia.

Between 1711 and 1812, the Russian Empire occupied the region five times during its wars against Ottoman and Austrian Empires. Between 1812 and 1846, the Bulgarian and Gagauz (a population of Christian Turks) population migrated to the Russian Empire via the River Danube, after living many years under oppressive Ottoman rule, and settled in southern Basarabia. Turkic-speaking tribes of the Nogai horde also inhabited the Budjak Region (in Turkish Bucak) of southern Bessarabia from the 16th to 18th centuries, but were totally driven out prior to 1812.

Annexation by the Russian Empire

Main article: Bessarabia in the Russian Empire

The Moldovan-Russian boundary between 1856/1857 and 1878

The strategic position of the region and the conflicting interests of the Ottoman Empire (with the Principality of Moldova suzerain to the Ottoman Empire) and The Russian Empire led to the occupation of the Province during the Russo-Turkish war (1806-1812). At the same time, the Russian Empire was waging war against France and following the Tsarist defeat at the Battle of Friedland and the Treaties of Tilsit on 7th July 1807 had to withdraw its troops from Moldavia and Wallachia (Treaties of Tilsit, Art.22). However, the Ottomans occupation of Braila after the Slobozia Armistice gave Tsar Alexander Ist the 'reason' to maintain the Russian presence in the two Principalities.

By the Treaty of Bucharest of May 28, 1812—concluding the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812—the Ottoman Empire ceded the eastern half of the Principality of Moldavia (suzerain to the Ottoman Empire) to the Russian Empire. Basarabia's name was changed to 'Bessarabia' by the Tsarist Russia.

In 1814, the first German settlers arrived and mainly settled in the southern parts and Bessarabian Bulgarians began settling in the region too.

Administratively, Bessarabia became an oblast of the Russian Empire in 1818 and a guberniya in 1873.

By the Treaty of Adrianople that concluded the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 the entire Danube delta of was added to the Bessarabian oblast.

At the end of the Crimean War, in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, two districts of southern Basarabia were returned to Moldavia, causing the Russian Empire to lose access to the Danube river.

In 1859, Moldavia and Wallachia united to form the Kingdom of Romania in 1866, which included the southern part of Basarabia.

The railway Chişinău-Iaşi was opened on June 1, 1875 in preparation for the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and the Eiffel Bridge was opened on April 21 [O.S. April 9] 1877, just three days before the outbreak of the war.

The Romanian War of Independence was fought in 1877–78, as a result of the Tsar requesting assistance from the Romanian Army further to an ongoing stalemate and slaughter of the Tsarist Expeditionary Force located South of Danube in the Ottoman occupied Bulgaria. Following the joint victory of the Tsarist and Romanian armies, where the Romanian Army unlocked with decisive military actions and victories the stalemate on the frontline, Northern Dobruja was awarded to Romania for its role in the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War and as compensation for the transfer of the Southern Basarabia.

Tsarist Pogroms and Bessarabia Oblast

The Kishinev pogrom took place in the capital of what was under the Tsarist rule the Bessarabia Oblast on April 6, 1903 after local newspapers published articles inciting the public to act against Jews; 47 or 49 Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded and 700 houses destroyed. The anti-Semitic newspaper Бессарабец (Bessarabetz, meaning "Bessarabian"), published by Pavel Krushevan, insinuated that a Russian boy was killed by local Jews. Another newspaper, Свет (Svet, "Light"), used the age-old blood libel against the Jews (alleging that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzos).

It is assumes that the killing was part of a much wider Tsarist anti-Jewish State-politics that in the years before led to the expulsion of most of the Jewish population from many Russian cities and villages across the Empire.

The Bolshevik revolution

After the 1905 Russian Revolution, the Romanian liberation movement gained momentum in Basarabia. In the chaos (large-scale theft, robbery and destruction carried out by disbanded Russian Tsarist army units) brought by the Russian revolution of October 1917, a National Council (Sfatul Ţării) was established in Basarabia, with 120 members elected from Basarabia by the most representative political and professional organizations and 10 elected from Transnistria

On January 14, 1918, during the disorderly retreat of two Russian divisions from the Romanian front, Chişinău was sacked. The Rumcherod Committee (Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Romanian Front, Black Sea Fleet and Odessa Military District) proclaimed itself the supreme power in Basarabia. The Russian commander of the region, General Dmitriy Shcherbachev, unable to control Basarabia due to the Bolshevik revolution, requested the Romanian Army for help.. On 16 January a Romanian division entered Chişinău, and the following day entered Tighina located on the shore of the river Nistru. The three-day Soviet rule in Bessarabia ended with the decisive intervention of the Romanian Army.

[[Image:Unification of Romania & Bessarabia.jpg|thumb|right|Declaration of unification of Romania and Bessarabia]] Ten days later, on January 24, 1918, Sfatul Ţării declared Basarabia's independence as the Moldavian Democratic Republic.

Unification with Romania

Main article: Union of Bessarabia with Romania

The county councils of Bălţi, Soroca and Orhei were the earliest to ask for unification with the Kingdom of Romania, and on April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918, in the presence of the Romanian Army, Sfatul Ţării voted in favour of the union, with the following conditions:

1. Sfatul Ţării would undertake an agrarian reform, which would be accepted by the Romanian Government.
2. Basarabia would remain autonomous, with its own diet, Sfatul Ţării, elected democratically
3. Sfatul Ţării would vote for local budgets, control the councils of the zemstva and cities, and appoint the local administration
4. Conscription would be done on a territorial basis
5. Local laws and the form of administration could be changed only with the approval of local representatives
6. The rights of minorities had to be respected
7. Two Basarabia representatives would be part of the Romanian government
8. Basarabia would send to the Romanian Parliament a number of representatives equal to the proportion of its population
9. All elections must involve a direct, equal, secret, and universal vote
10. Freedom of speech and of belief must be guaranteed in the constitution
11. All individuals who had committed felonies for political reasons during the revolution would be amnestied.

86 deputies voted in support, 3 voted against and 36 abstained.

The first condition, the agrarian reform, was debated and approved in November 1918. Sfatul Ţării also decided to remove the other conditions and made unification with Romania unconditional.

In the autumn of 1919, elections for the Romanian Constituent Assembly were held in Basarabia; 90 deputies and 35 senators were chosen. On December 20, 1919, these men voted, along with the representatives of Romania's other regions, to ratify the unification acts that had been approved by Sfatul Ţării and the National Congresses in Transylvania and Bukovina.

The union was recognized by France, United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan in the Treaty of Paris of 1920. The United States refused to sign the treaty on the grounds that Russia was not represented at the Conference. Soviet Russia (and later, the USSR) did not recognize the union, and by 1924, after its demands for a regional plebiscite were declined by Romania for the second time, declared Bessarabia to be Soviet territory under foreign occupation.

Part of Romania

Main article: Greater Romania

Bessarabia was part of Greater Romania between 1918 and 1940

Administrative map of the Governorate of Bessarabia in February 1942.

A Provisional Workers' & Peasants' Government of Bessarabia was founded on May 5, 1919, in exile at Odessa, by the Bolsheviks.

On May 11, 1919, the Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed as an autonomous part of Russian SFSR, but was abolished by the military forces of Poland and France in September 1919 (see Polish-Soviet War). After the victory of Bolshevist Russia in the Russian Civil War, the Ukrainian SSR was created in 1922, and in 1924 the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established on a strip of Ukrainian land on the left bank of the Dniester River where Romanians accounted for less than a third and the relative majority of population was Ukrainian. (See Demographics of Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic). The so called state was created with the forward intention to have future claims on the Romanian province of Moldavia (that comprised Basarabia until 1812).

World War II

Main article: Romania during World War II

The Soviet Union did not recognize incorporation of Basarabia into Romania and throughout the entire interwar period engaged in attempts to undermine Romania and diplomatic disputes with the government in Bucharest over this territory. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed on August 23, 1939. By Article 4 of the secret Annex to the Treaty, Basarabia fell within the Soviet interest zone.

In spring of 1940, Western Europe was overrun by Nazi Germany. With world attention focused on those events, on June 26, 1940, the USSR issued an ultimatum to Romania, demanding immediate cession of Basarabia and Northern Bucovina. Romania was given four days to evacuate its troops and officials. The two provinces had an area of 51,000 km² (20,000 sq mi), and were inhabited by about 3.75 million people, with 86% of them Romanians, according to official Romanian sources. Two days later, Romania yielded and began evacuation. During the evacuation, from June 28 to July 3, groups of local Communists and Soviet sympathizers attacked the retreating forces, and civilians who chose to leave. Many members of the minorities (Jews, ethnic Ukrainians and others) joined in these attacks. The Romanian Army was also attacked by the Soviet Army, which entered Basarabia before the Romanian administration finished retreating. The casualties reported by the Romanian Army during those seven days consisted of 356 officers and 42,876 soldiers dead or missing.

On August 2, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established on most of the territory of Basarabia, merged with the western parts of the former Moldavian ASSR. Basarabia was divided between the Moldavian SSR (70% of the territory and 80% of the population) and the Ukrainian SSR. Basarabia's northern and southern districts (nowadays Budjak and parts of what Soviets named theChernivtsi oblast) were allotted to Ukraine, while some territories (4,000 km²) on the left (eastern) bank of the Dniester (present Transnistria), previously part of Ukraine, were allotted to The SSR Moldova. Following the Soviet takeover, many Romanians (mostly well-off farmers, intellectuals and local administration cleks) were summarilly accused of supporting the deposed Romanian administration and were executed or deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Between September and November 1940, the ethnic Germans of Bessarabia were offered resettlement to Germany, following a German-Soviet agreement. Fearing Soviet oppression, almost all Germans (93,000) agreed. Most of them were resettled to the newly annexed Polish territories.

On June 22, 1941 the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union commenced with Operation Barbarossa. Between June 22 and July 26, 1941, Romanian troops with the help of Wehrmacht recovered Basarabia and northern Bucovina. The Soviets employed scorched earth tactics during their forced retreat from Basarabia, destroying the infrastructure and transporting movable goods to Russia by railway. At the end of July, after a year of Soviet rule, the region was once again reunified with Romanian.

As the military operation was still in progress, there were cases of Romanian troops "taking revenge" on Jews in Basarabia, in the form of pogroms on civilians and murder of Jewish POWs, resulting in several thousand dead. The supposed cause for murdering Jews was that in 1940 some Jews welcomed the Soviet takeover as liberation. At the same time the notorious SS Einsatzgruppe D, operating in the area of the German 11th Army, committed summary executions of Jews under the pretext that they were spies, saboteurs, Communists.

The political solution of the "Jewish Question" was apparently seen by the Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu more in expulsion rather than extermination. That portion of the Jewish population of Basarabia and Bucovina which did not flee before the retreat of the Soviet troops (147,000) was initially gathered into ghettos or concentration camps, and then deported during 1941-1942 in death marches into Romanian-occupied Transnistria to labour camps în Movilău, Şarhorod, Kopaigorod, Obladovka, Berşad with only a third of the deported surviving the apalling conditions (see Jean Ancel; Dennis Deletant; Ana Aurelia Ciuciu; Wolfgang Benz & Brigitte Mihok: The Holocaust at the periphery).

After three years of relative peace for the Romanian population in the province, the frontline returned in 1944 to the land border on the Dniester. On August 20, 1944, a c. 3,400,000-strong Red Army began a major summer offensive codenamed Jassy-Kishinev Operation. The Soviet armies overran Basarabia in a two-pronged offensive within five days. In pocket battles at Chişinău and Sărata the German 6th Army of c. 650,000 men, newly reformed after the Battle of Stalingrad, was obliterated. Simultaneously with the success of the Russian attack, and because of the impossibility of Germany to assume its position of political and military guarantor to Romania, the country broke the military alliance with the Axis. On August 23, 1944, Marshal Ion Antonescu was arrested by King Michael, and Romania joined the Allies against Nazi Germany.

Part of the Soviet Union

Main article: Moldovan SSR

Moldavian SSR (in red) as part of the Soviet Union (pink)

The Soviet Union annexed the region in 1944, while the Red Army occupied Romania and submitted the country to immense vexations ranging from organized theft and pillage of private property and businesses to organized mass rapes. Russian soldiers marching in the street of the Romanian cities with clocks attached to their necks and strings of watches strapped to their wrists were common occurences. This attracted the satire in the Bucharest musichals under the banter ' it was bad with 'Was Ist Dass' but it is worse with 'Davai Ceas' (It was bad with 'What is that' (German), but it is worse with 'Give mw your watch' Russian)).

The Red Terror imposed by the Soviets led to the deportation of more than 200,000 Romanians (men, women, children, elderly) from Basarabia (some 9% of the population). the vast maority of them died either on the way to the deportation camps (the transport was carried out in freight trains simmilar to the Nazi Death trains) or in the camps because of the precarious life conditions. All belongings of the deported or arrested people were confiscated.

By 1947, the Soviets had imposed a communist government in Bucharest, which was friendly and obedient towards Moscow. Most of the Government members were of either Russian or foreign descent since at the time the Communist Party in Romania had hardly any sympathizers (1,000 registered members). The Soviet occupation of Romania lasted until 1958. The Romanian communist regime did not openly raise the matter of Basarabia or Northern Bucovina in its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union due to obvious submission reasons.

Between 1969 and 1971, a clandestine National Patriotic Front was established by several young intellectuals in Chişinău, totaling over 100 members, vowing to fight for the establishment of a Moldavian Democratic Republic, its secession from the Soviet Union and union with Romania.

In December 1971, following an informative note from Ion Stănescu, the President of the Council of State Security of the Romanian Socialist Republic, to Yuri Andropov, the chief of KGB, three of the leaders of the National Patriotic Front, Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgar, Gheorghe Ghimpu and Valeriu Graur, as well as a fourth person, Alexandru Soltoianu, the leader of a similar clandestine movement in northern Bukovina (Bucovina), were arrested and later sentenced to long prison terms.

Rise of independent Moldova

Main articles: Moldovan SSR, Moldova, and History of Moldova

With the weakening of the Soviet Union, in February 1988, the first non-sanctioned demonstrations were held in Chişinău. At first pro-Perestroika, they soon turned anti-government and demanded official status for the Romanian (Moldavian) language instead of the Russian language.

On August 31, 1989, following a 600,000-strong demonstration in Chişinău four days earlier, Romanian became the official language of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

In 1990, the first free elections were held for Parliament, with the opposition Popular Front winning them. A government led by Mircea Druc, one of the leaders of the Popular Front, was formed. The Moldavian SSR became SSR Moldova, and later the Republic of Moldova.

The Republic of Moldova became independent on August 31, 1991. Its boundaries (those established on August 2, 1940) remained unchanged though a secession ovement emerged with the formation of the Dnestr Moldavian Republic supporting USSR and later on Russia's strategic objectives in the region as well as a military foothold in the area.

In 1992 a short armed conflict emerged between the breakaway enclave (to this date it had not been recognized by any country) leading to some 1,000 dead on both sides and more than 5,000 wounded.

Population

The population before World War II consisted of Romanians, Ukrainians (including Ruthenians), Russians, Bulgarians, Gagauz, Germans, and Jews. According to the census data of the Russian Empire, during the 19th century the ethnic Romanians decreased from 86% (1817) to 47.6% (1897) (although other sources cite different data for the same period of time: 52% or 75% (Krusevan) for 1900, 53.9% (1907), 70% (1912, Laskov), or 65-67% (1918, J. Kaba)).

Russian Census, 1817 (Total: 96,526 families, 482,630 inhabitants):

• 83,848 Romanian families (86%)
• 6,000 Ruthenian families (6.5%)
• 3,826 Jewish families (1.5%)
• 1,200 Lipovan families (1.5%)
• 640 Greek families (0.7%)
• 530 Armenian families (0.6%)
• 482 Bulgarian and Gagauz families (0.5%)

Russian Census, 1856 (Total: 990,274 inhabitants)

• 736,000 Romanians (74%)
• 119,000 Ukrainians (12%)
• 79,000 Jews (8%)
• 47,000 Bulgarians and Gagauz (5%)
• 24,000 Germans (2.4%)
• 11,000 Romani (1.1%)
• 6,000 Russians (0.6%)

Russian data, 1889 (Total: 1,628,867 inhabitants)

Russian Census, 1897 (Total 1,935,412 inhabitants). By language:

• 920,919 Moldavians and Romanians (47.6%)
• 379,698 Ukrainians (19.6%)
• 228,168 Jews (11.8%)
• 155,774 Russians (8%)
• 103,225 Bulgarians (5.3%)
• 60,026 Germans (3.1%)
• 55,790 Turks (Gagauzes) (2.9%)

Ethnic map of Bessarabia in 1930

Some scholars, however, believed in regard to the 1897 census that "[...] the census enumerator generally has instructions to count everyone who understands the state language as being of that nationality, no matter what his everyday speech may be.", thus a number of Moldavians (Romanians) might have been registered as Russians.

According to N. Durnovo, the population of Bessarabia in 1900 was (Total: 1,935,000 inhabitants):