Union of Bessarabia with Romania
Encyclopedia
On , the Sfatul Ţării
, or National Council, of Bessarabia
proclaimed union with the Kingdom of Romania
.
and the Russian Empire
s provided for Russian annexation
of the eastern half of the territory of the Principality of Moldavia, including Khotyn
and Budjak (Southern Bessarabia). At first, the Russians used the name "Oblast
of Moldova and Bessarabia", allowing a large degree of autonomy, but in 1828 Russia suspended the self-administration and called it the Guberniya
of Bessarabia, or simply Bessarabia. While the northeastern part of Moldavia, called Bukovina
, was similarly annexed by the Habsburg Empire, the western part of Moldavia remained an autonomous principality, and in 1859, united with Wallachia
to form the Kingdom of Romania
. In 1856, the Treaty of Paris returned three out of nine districts of Bessarabia, Cahul
, Bolgrad and Ismail
, to Moldavia, but in 1878, the Kingdom of Romania returned them to the Russian Empire as a result of the Treaty of Berlin.
At the time of annexation, Romanian population predominated in Bessarabia. The colonization of the region in the 19th century led to a large increase in the Russian
, Ukrainian
, Lipovan
, and Cossack population in the region; this together with a large influx of Bulgarian
immigrants increased the Slavic
population to more than a fifth of the total population by 1920. With the settling of other nationals such as Gagauz
, Jews, and Germans
, the proportion of Romanians in the population decreased from around 90% to 64% during the course of the century.
The Tsarist policy in Bessarabia was in part aimed at denationalization of the Romanian element by forbidding after the 1860s education and Liturgy
in Romanian. However, the effect was an extremely low literacy rate (in 1897, 18% for males and 4% for females) rather than denationalization. Some Romanian historians claimed that a strong sentiment of frustration and resentment to the Russian control had started to appear before the beginning of World War I.
, Bessarabia elected its own parliament, Sfatul Ţării
(October–November 1917), which opened on , proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic
, formed its government , proclaimed independence from Russia .
On , Sfatul Ţării decided with 86 votes for, 3 against and 36 abstaining, for union with the Kingdom of Romania, conditional upon the fulfillment of agrarian reform, local autonomy, and respect for universal human rights. This was in spite of the fact that the national referendum necessary under the law had not taken place.
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, Sfatul Ţării voted in favour of the union, with the following conditions:
There were 86 votes for, 3 votes against and 36 deputies abstained. The first condition for agrarian reform was debated and approved in November 1918, and following this, Sfatul Ţării voted a motion which removed all the other conditions, trusting that Romania would be a democratic country. This vote has been judged illegitimate, since there was no quorum: only 44 of the 125 members took part in it (all voted "for"). The Romanian government rejected most of these 11 points (conditions), which would cause later much discontent in this new province of Romania, Bessarabia.
The historian Bernard Newman
, who traveled by bicycle through the whole of Greater Romania
, claimed there is little doubt that the vote represented the prevailing wish in Bessarabia and that the events leading to the unification indicate there was no question of a "seizure", but a voluntary act on the part of its people.
In the autumn of 1919, general elections were held in Bessarabia to elect 90 deputies and 35 senators to the Romanian parliament - the Constituent Assembly. On 20 December 1919, the elected representatives ratified, along with their colleagues from the other historic provinces, the unification acts that had been approved by Sfatul Ţări
i and the National Congresses in Transylvania
and Bukovina
.
During the peace talks between the Great Powers and Romania, on 1 February 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
talked with Ion I. C. Brătianu
and, after the withdrawal of the Romanian government's delegation, Lloyd George proposed that Romania's claims be analyzed by a territorial commission that would examine historical, ethnographic, geographic, strategic, but not political facts. The Territorial Commission on Romanian Affairs was formed, by which the representatives of the Big Four Powers presented their proposals and decided Romanian's territorial future. The commission was formed by Clive Day
and Charles Seymour
(USA), Sir Eyre Crowe
and Alan Leeper (United Kingdom), André Tardieu
and Guy Laroche
(France), and Giacomo De Martino
and Count Luigi Vannutelli-Rey (Italy). During the debates the only issue related to Romania on which the representatives agreed was that Bessarabia should belong to Romania. However, the United States refused to sign the Treaty on the grounds that Russia was not represented at the conference. The newly communist Russia did not recognize Romanian rule over Bessarabia, a stand that was tacitly accepted by many other countries such as the United States.
The union was recognized by the United Kingdom, France and Italy in the Treaty of Paris (1920)
. The treaty did not, however, come into force as Japan, one of the signatories, failed to ratify it. Soviet Russia was not represented as a party at the treaty conference. A mutual treaty between the Soviets and Romania was not signed due to the former's claims over Bessarabia. In the Kellogg-Briand Treaty of 1928 and the Treaty of London of July 1933, the Soviet Union and Romania subscribed to the principle of non-violent resolution of territorial disputes. Transnistria
, at the time part of the Ukrainian SSR
, itself part of the Soviet Union
, was formed into the Moldavian ASSR
(1924–1940) after the failure of the Tatarbunar uprising
.
The land reform
passed by Sfatul Ţării in 1918-1919 resulted in the rise of a middle class as the rural population of the region represented 80%. Together with peace and favorable economic circumstances, it produced a small economic boom, which allowed the region to catch up technologically with the rest of Europe. The majority of the political leadership of Bessarabia in 1918 supported lawful land reform instead of the expropriation
of property promoted by the pro-Soviet elements. Land reform was more appealing to the local farmers, and was at least partly responsible for the consent the peasantry gave to the intelligentsia's plans for building a unified state for all Romanians. The literacy rate grew to over 40% by 1930; however, the region continued to lag educationally. In an attempt to alienate the Bessarabian ethnic minorities from the Russian influence, the Romanian authorities allowed education in any language desired; with time, while Romanian
replaced Russian
in cities, the authorities sought to reduce ethnic minority education and attract these people into Romanian classes.
to the Treaty), Nazi Germany
agreed that it had no interest in Bessarabia, effectively yielding it to the Soviet Union. On June 26, 1940, Romania received an ultimatum from the Soviet Union demanding the evacuation of the Romanian military and administration from Bessarabia and from the northern part of Bukovina, with an implied threat of invasion in the event of noncompliance. Under pressure from Moscow and Berlin, the Romanian administration and the army were forced to retreat from Bessarabia and from Northern Bukovina to avoid war. On June 28, 1940, these territories were occupied by the Soviet Union. During the retreat, the Romanian Army was attacked by the Soviet Army, which entered Bessarabia before the Romanian administration finished retreating. Some 42,876 Romanian soldiers and officers were unaccounted for after the retreat.
The southern and northern parts, whose population was just over half ethnic minorities (Ukrainians, Bessarabian Bulgarians
, Bessarabian Germans, and Lipovans
), were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR as Izmail Oblast
and as part of Chernivtsi Oblast
. At the same time, the Moldavian ASSR, where ethnic Romanians
were a plurality, was disbanded, and just under half of its territory was joined with the remaining territory of Bessarabia to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, coterminous with the present-day Moldova. Although Soviet troops were forced out in 1941 by the invasion of Axis forces
, and Romania re-established its administration, the Soviet Union reconquered and reannexed the area in February–August 1944.
The official Soviet policy (1940–1941, 1944–1989) also stated that Romanian
and Moldovan
were two different languages and, to emphasize the distinction, Moldovan was written using a special Cyrillic alphabet (the Moldovan alphabet
) derived from the Russian alphabet
– unlike Romanian, written with its own version of the Latin alphabet.
Sfatul Tarii
Sfatul Țării was, in 1917-1918, the National Assembly of the Governorate of Bessarabia of the disintegrating Russian Empire, which proclaimed the independent Moldavian Democratic Republic in December 1917, and then union with Romania in April 1918.-Russian participation in World War I:In August...
, or National Council, of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
proclaimed union with the Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
.
Governorate of Bessarabia
The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
s provided for Russian annexation
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
of the eastern half of the territory of the Principality of Moldavia, including Khotyn
Khotyn
Khotyn is a city in Chernivtsi Oblast of western Ukraine, and is the administrative center of Khotyn Raion within the oblast, and is located south-west of Kamianets-Podilskyi. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, it has a population of 11,124...
and Budjak (Southern Bessarabia). At first, the Russians used the name "Oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
of Moldova and Bessarabia", allowing a large degree of autonomy, but in 1828 Russia suspended the self-administration and called it the Guberniya
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
of Bessarabia, or simply Bessarabia. While the northeastern part of Moldavia, called Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, was similarly annexed by the Habsburg Empire, the western part of Moldavia remained an autonomous principality, and in 1859, united with Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
to form the Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
. In 1856, the Treaty of Paris returned three out of nine districts of Bessarabia, Cahul
Cahul
-Demographics:According to the last Moldovan census from 2004 there were 35,488 people living within the city of Cahul and 1,317 people within Cotihana....
, Bolgrad and Ismail
Izmail
Izmail is a historic town near the Danube river in the Odessa Oblast of south-western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Izmail Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast....
, to Moldavia, but in 1878, the Kingdom of Romania returned them to the Russian Empire as a result of the Treaty of Berlin.
At the time of annexation, Romanian population predominated in Bessarabia. The colonization of the region in the 19th century led to a large increase in the Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, Lipovan
Lipovans
Lipovans or Lippovans are the Old Believers, mostly of Russian ethnic origin, who settled in the Moldavian Principality, in Dobruja and Eastern Muntenia...
, and Cossack population in the region; this together with a large influx of Bulgarian
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
immigrants increased the Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
population to more than a fifth of the total population by 1920. With the settling of other nationals such as Gagauz
Gagauz people
The Gagauz people are Turkic speaking group living mostly in southern Moldova , southwestern Ukraine , south-eastern Romania and northeastern Bulgaria. Unlike most other Turkic speaking people, the Gagauz are predominantly Orthodox Christians...
, Jews, and Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, the proportion of Romanians in the population decreased from around 90% to 64% during the course of the century.
The Tsarist policy in Bessarabia was in part aimed at denationalization of the Romanian element by forbidding after the 1860s education and Liturgy
Divine Liturgy
Divine Liturgy is the common term for the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine tradition of Christian liturgy. As such, it is used in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Armenian Christians, both of the Armenian Apostolic Church and of the Armenian Catholic Church, use the same term...
in Romanian. However, the effect was an extremely low literacy rate (in 1897, 18% for males and 4% for females) rather than denationalization. Some Romanian historians claimed that a strong sentiment of frustration and resentment to the Russian control had started to appear before the beginning of World War I.
Moldavian Democratic Republic
World War I brought a rise in political and cultural (national) awareness in the population, as 300,000 Bessarabians enrolled in the Russian Army formed in 1917, within bigger units several "Moldavian Soldiers' Committees". Following the Russian Revolution of 1917Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, Bessarabia elected its own parliament, Sfatul Ţării
Sfatul Tarii
Sfatul Țării was, in 1917-1918, the National Assembly of the Governorate of Bessarabia of the disintegrating Russian Empire, which proclaimed the independent Moldavian Democratic Republic in December 1917, and then union with Romania in April 1918.-Russian participation in World War I:In August...
(October–November 1917), which opened on , proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic
Moldavian Democratic Republic
The Moldavian Democratic Republic , a.k.a. Moldavian Republic, was the state proclaimed on by Sfatul Ţării of Bessarabia, elected in October-November 1917 in the wake of the February Revolution and disintegration of the political power in the Russian Empire.Sfatul Ţării was its legislative body,...
, formed its government , proclaimed independence from Russia .
The Union Act
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, Sfatul Ţării voted in favour of the union, with the following conditions:
- Sfatul Ţării would undertake an agrarian reform, which would be accepted by the Romanian Government.
- Bessarabia would remain autonomous, with its own diet, Sfatul Ţării, elected democratically
- Sfatul Ţării would vote for local budgets, control the councils of zemstvos and cities, and name the local administration
- Conscription would be done on a territorial basis
- Local laws and the form of administration could be changed only with the approval of local representatives
- The rights of minorities had to be respected
- Two Bessarabian representatives would be part of the Romanian government
- Bessarabia would send to the Romanian Parliament a number of representatives equal to the proportion of its population
- All elections must involve a direct, equal, secret, and universal vote
- Freedom of speech and of belief must be guaranteed in the constitution
- All individuals who had committed felonies for political reasons during the revolution would be amnestied.
Greater Romania
The historian Bernard Newman
Bernard Newman (author)
Bernard Charles Newman was a British author of over 100 books, both fiction and non-fiction. An historian, he was considered an authority on spies, but also wrote travel books and on politics. His fiction included children's books, mystery novels and science fiction.-Biography:Bernard Newman was...
, who traveled by bicycle through the whole of Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
, claimed there is little doubt that the vote represented the prevailing wish in Bessarabia and that the events leading to the unification indicate there was no question of a "seizure", but a voluntary act on the part of its people.
In the autumn of 1919, general elections were held in Bessarabia to elect 90 deputies and 35 senators to the Romanian parliament - the Constituent Assembly. On 20 December 1919, the elected representatives ratified, along with their colleagues from the other historic provinces, the unification acts that had been approved by Sfatul Ţări
Sfatul Tarii
Sfatul Țării was, in 1917-1918, the National Assembly of the Governorate of Bessarabia of the disintegrating Russian Empire, which proclaimed the independent Moldavian Democratic Republic in December 1917, and then union with Romania in April 1918.-Russian participation in World War I:In August...
i and the National Congresses in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
and Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
.
During the peace talks between the Great Powers and Romania, on 1 February 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
talked with Ion I. C. Brătianu
Ion I. C. Bratianu
Ion I. C. Brătianu was a Romanian politician, leader of the National Liberal Party , the Prime Minister of Romania for five terms, and Foreign Minister on several occasions; he was the eldest son of statesman and PNL leader Ion Brătianu, the brother of Vintilă and Dinu Brătianu, and the father of...
and, after the withdrawal of the Romanian government's delegation, Lloyd George proposed that Romania's claims be analyzed by a territorial commission that would examine historical, ethnographic, geographic, strategic, but not political facts. The Territorial Commission on Romanian Affairs was formed, by which the representatives of the Big Four Powers presented their proposals and decided Romanian's territorial future. The commission was formed by Clive Day
Clive Day
Clive Hart Day was an American college professor and writer on economics history, born at Hartford, Conn. He was chief of the Balkan Division of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace ....
and Charles Seymour
Charles Seymour
Charles Seymour was an American academic, historian and President of Yale University from 1937 to 1951.-Early life:...
(USA), Sir Eyre Crowe
Eyre Crowe
Sir Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe GCB GCMG was a British diplomat. Crowe was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1907, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1911, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1917, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St...
and Alan Leeper (United Kingdom), André Tardieu
André Tardieu
André Pierre Gabriel Amédée Tardieu was three times Prime Minister of France and a dominant figure of French political life in 1929-1932.-Biography:...
and Guy Laroche
Guy Laroche
Guy Laroche was a French fashion designer and founder of the eponymous company.Laroche began his career in millinery and, from 1949, Laroche worked for Jean Desses and eventually became his assistant. In 1955, he visited the US to investigate new ready-to-wear manufacturing methods...
(France), and Giacomo De Martino
Giacomo De Martino
Baron Giacomo de Martino was the Envoy of Italy to the United States during the regime of Benito Mussolini. On January 23, 1927 he traveled to Chicago, and spent several days touring the city addressing the Italian community and explaining Fascism....
and Count Luigi Vannutelli-Rey (Italy). During the debates the only issue related to Romania on which the representatives agreed was that Bessarabia should belong to Romania. However, the United States refused to sign the Treaty on the grounds that Russia was not represented at the conference. The newly communist Russia did not recognize Romanian rule over Bessarabia, a stand that was tacitly accepted by many other countries such as the United States.
The union was recognized by the United Kingdom, France and Italy in the Treaty of Paris (1920)
Treaty of Paris (1920)
The 1920 Treaty of Paris was an act signed by Romania and the principal Allied Powers of the time whose purpose was the recognition of Romanian sovereignty over Bessarabia...
. The treaty did not, however, come into force as Japan, one of the signatories, failed to ratify it. Soviet Russia was not represented as a party at the treaty conference. A mutual treaty between the Soviets and Romania was not signed due to the former's claims over Bessarabia. In the Kellogg-Briand Treaty of 1928 and the Treaty of London of July 1933, the Soviet Union and Romania subscribed to the principle of non-violent resolution of territorial disputes. Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
, at the time part of the Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
, itself part of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, was formed into the Moldavian ASSR
Moldavian ASSR
The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , shortened to Moldavian ASSR or, less frequently, Moldovan ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing modern Transnistria The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...
(1924–1940) after the failure of the Tatarbunar uprising
Tatarbunary Uprising
The Tatarbunary Uprising was a Bolshevik-inspired peasant revolt that took place on 15–18 September 1924, in and around the town of Tatarbunary in Budjak , then part of Greater Romania, now part of Odessa Oblast, Ukraine...
.
The land reform
Land reform in Romania
Four major land reforms have taken place in Romania: in 1864, 1921, 1945 and 1991. The first sought to undo the feudal structure that had persisted after the unification of the Danubian Principalities in 1859; the second, more drastic reform, tried to resolve lingering peasant discontent and create...
passed by Sfatul Ţării in 1918-1919 resulted in the rise of a middle class as the rural population of the region represented 80%. Together with peace and favorable economic circumstances, it produced a small economic boom, which allowed the region to catch up technologically with the rest of Europe. The majority of the political leadership of Bessarabia in 1918 supported lawful land reform instead of the expropriation
Confiscation
Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury' is a legal seizure without compensation by a government or other public authority...
of property promoted by the pro-Soviet elements. Land reform was more appealing to the local farmers, and was at least partly responsible for the consent the peasantry gave to the intelligentsia's plans for building a unified state for all Romanians. The literacy rate grew to over 40% by 1930; however, the region continued to lag educationally. In an attempt to alienate the Bessarabian ethnic minorities from the Russian influence, the Romanian authorities allowed education in any language desired; with time, while Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
replaced Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
in cities, the authorities sought to reduce ethnic minority education and attract these people into Romanian classes.
Soviet occupation
The status quo was changed 22 years later, when, as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (Article 4 of the Secret AnnexSecret treaty
A secret treaty is a treaty between nations that is not revealed to other nations or interested observers. An example would be a secret alliance between two nations to support each other in the event of war...
to the Treaty), Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
agreed that it had no interest in Bessarabia, effectively yielding it to the Soviet Union. On June 26, 1940, Romania received an ultimatum from the Soviet Union demanding the evacuation of the Romanian military and administration from Bessarabia and from the northern part of Bukovina, with an implied threat of invasion in the event of noncompliance. Under pressure from Moscow and Berlin, the Romanian administration and the army were forced to retreat from Bessarabia and from Northern Bukovina to avoid war. On June 28, 1940, these territories were occupied by the Soviet Union. During the retreat, the Romanian Army was attacked by the Soviet Army, which entered Bessarabia before the Romanian administration finished retreating. Some 42,876 Romanian soldiers and officers were unaccounted for after the retreat.
The southern and northern parts, whose population was just over half ethnic minorities (Ukrainians, Bessarabian Bulgarians
Bessarabian Bulgarians
The Bessarabian Bulgarians are a Bulgarian minority group of the historical region of Bessarabia, inhabiting parts of present-day Ukraine and Moldova.- Location and number :-Modern Ukraine:...
, Bessarabian Germans, and Lipovans
Lipovans
Lipovans or Lippovans are the Old Believers, mostly of Russian ethnic origin, who settled in the Moldavian Principality, in Dobruja and Eastern Muntenia...
), were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR as Izmail Oblast
Budjak
Budjak or Budzhak is a historical region in the Odessa Oblast of Ukraine. Lying along the Black Sea between the Danube and Dniester rivers this multiethnic region was the southern part of Bessarabia...
and as part of Chernivtsi Oblast
Chernivtsi Oblast
Chernivtsi Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine, bordering on Romania and Moldova. It has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad partly forested plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers....
. At the same time, the Moldavian ASSR, where ethnic Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
were a plurality, was disbanded, and just under half of its territory was joined with the remaining territory of Bessarabia to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, coterminous with the present-day Moldova. Although Soviet troops were forced out in 1941 by the invasion of Axis forces
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, and Romania re-established its administration, the Soviet Union reconquered and reannexed the area in February–August 1944.
The official Soviet policy (1940–1941, 1944–1989) also stated that Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
and Moldovan
Moldovan language
Moldovan is one of the names of the Romanian language as spoken in the Republic of Moldova, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania, and the two countries share the same literary standard...
were two different languages and, to emphasize the distinction, Moldovan was written using a special Cyrillic alphabet (the Moldovan alphabet
Moldovan alphabet
The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet is a Cyrillic alphabet designed for the Moldovan language in the Soviet Union and used from 1938 to 1989 . Its introduction was decided by the Central Executive Committee of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on May 19, 1938...
) derived from the Russian alphabet
Russian alphabet
The Russian alphabet is a form of the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
– unlike Romanian, written with its own version of the Latin alphabet.
See also
- Movement for the unification of Romania and Moldova
- Romanian-Moldovan relations
- Greater RomaniaGreater RomaniaThe Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...