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Bessarabia

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Old map of Bessarabia

Bessarabia or Bessarabiya (Basarabia in Romanian, Besarabya in Turkish) was the name used by Russia to designate the eastern part of the territory known as Moldova (Moldavia in english), which was occupied by Russia in 1812. Bessarabia united with Romania in 1918 at the end of WW I.

Bessarabia was in the Russian Empire administration a region of Central Europe comprising most of current-day Moldova and additional districts that are now in Ukraine. It was bounded by the Dniester river to the north and east, the Prut to the west and the lower Danube river and the Black Sea to the south. It had approximately 17,600 sq mi (45,600 km²). The area has 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, corn, tobacco, wine grapes and fruits. They also raise sheep and cattle. Currently, the main industry in the region is agricultural processing.

The region's main cities are Chişinău (Kisinev in Russian), the capital of Moldova, Ismail (Izmayil or Izmail in Russian), Tiraspol, Cetatea Alba (Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyi in Ukrainian, Belgorod-Dnestrovsky in Russian). Other towns of administrative or historical importance include: Hotin, Lipcani (Lipkany in Russian), Briceni, Soroca (Soroki in Russian), Balti, Orhei, Ungheni, Tighina (Bender in Turkish, Bendery in Russian),Cahul, Reni and Chilia.

The name Bessarabia (Basarabia in Romanian) probably derives from the Wallachian family of Basarab, once rulers over the southern part of the area. The name originally applied only to the southern part of the territory.

From the 15th to the 20th centuries, the region passed successively to: Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire (the Budjak region), Russia, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Ukraine and Moldova.

The population before World War II consisted of Moldavians(Romanians), Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Germans, Gagauz, Ruthenians and Jews. Over two-thirds of the population were Moldavians/Romanians.

Timeline

  • 1st century AD: The Dacian kingdom was ruled by Decebalus. After the Roman Empire conquered a part of Dacia in 106, some Dacians (the Free Dacians) resisted the Roman conquerors in Bessarabia and other regions.
  • 101-106 AD: Rome conquered the Dacian Kingdom and "romanized" the region. The Romans left numerous vestiges of their presence in the territory of modern Romania, from the stone bridge built by the Roman Legions over the Danube to invade Dacia, to the defensive earthen walls built by them in Southern Bessarabia. Many of these structures still stand today. Furthermore, the most important heritage of the Roman period probably is the Romance language spoken by the Romanians.
  • 270 AD: The Roman authorities withdrew from the territory, and the Romanized Dacians (early Romanians) were primarily shepherds peasants and hunters, and survived in the mountainous and heavily forested regions, which then represented most of the country. They were still under the influence of the vanishing Roman Empire, at least unti 567, facing at the same time the pressures of the eastern invaders.
  • 6th Century: Slavs started to come to the region and establish settlements.
  • 9th to 13th centuries: Bessarabia was part of the Bolohoveni (north) and Brodnici (south) voevodates, which were Vlach (Romanian) early middle-age formations. A specific group, which did not retreat to mountain regions at the time of the Tatar invasions, was called in some late middle-age chronics the Tigheci "republic". It was situated near the modern town of Cahul in the southwest of Bessarabia.
  • 1241, 1290, 1343: Bessarabia suffered from Tatar (Mongol) invasions, a small group of which settled around the present day town of Orhei until they were pushed in 1390s.
  • Late 14th century: The southern part of the region was for several decades part of Wallachia. The main dynasty of Walachia was called Basarab, from where the current name of the region probably originated.
  • 15th century: The entire region was part of the principality of Moldavia. St. Steven the Great ruled between 1457 and 1504 a period of nearly 50 years during which historics claim he won 32 wars trying to defend his country and lost only 2. During this period, after each victory, he raises a monastery or a church close to the battlefiled honoring Christianity. Many of these battlefields, churches, as well as old fortresses are situated in Bessarabia.
  • 1484: The Turks invaded and captured Chilia and Cetatea Alba (Akkerman in Turkish), and annexed the shoreline southern part of Bessarabia, which was then divided into two sancaks (districts) of the Ottoman Empire.
  • 1538: Bessarabia, as part of the principality of Moldavia was formally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.
  • 1820 to 1846: During this period, the Gagauz tribes migrated to Russia via the Danube, after living many oppressive years under Ottoman rule, and settled in southern Bessarabia. Turkic-speaking tribes of the Nogai Horde also inhabited the Budjak Region of southern Bessarabia from the XVI to XVIII centuries, but were totally driven out prior to 1812.
  • May 28, 1812: The Treaty of Bucharest gave the eastern half of the (Romanian) Principality of Moldavia to Russia. That region was then called Bessarabia. Prior to this year, the name was used only for approximately its southern one quater.
  • 1814: First German settlers arrive and mainly settle in the southern parts.
  • 1856: At the end of the Crimean War, by the Treaty of Paris, to districts of southern Bessarabia were returned to Moldova, so as Russia no longer had access to the Danube river. Many localities, including Chisinau (Kishinev in Russian), now fell in the border area.
  • 1859: Moldova (Moldavia) and Walachia were united to form Romania, which became Kingdom in 1866.
  • 1878: The Southern part reverted to Russian rule by the Treaty of Berlin.
  • 1889: The total population of Bessarabia was 1,628,867.
  • 1897: The total population of Bessarabia grew to 1,936,392.
  • February, 1903:: Bessarabia became a place of the first state-inspired action against Jews in the 20th century known as Kishinev pogrom.
  • 1911: There were 165 loan societies, 117 savings Banks, 43 professional savings and loan societies, and 8 Zemstvo loan offices; all these had total assets of about 10,000,000 rubles. There were also 89 government savings banks, with deposits of about 9,000,000 rubles.
  • October 1917: A National Council (Sfatul Tarii) was established in Bessarabia, with 120 members elected from Bessarabia and 10 elected from Transnistria (the left shore of the river Dnister, inhabited by ethnic Moldavians/Romanians.
  • January 14, 1918: During the unorderly retreat of two Russian divisions from the Romanian front, Chisinau is sacked, tens (by some sourses hundreds) of people are killed or raped. The Front Committee of "Rumcherod" (Central Executive Committee of Councils of Workers, Soldiers and Sailors Deputations of Romanian Front, Black-sea Navy and Odessa Region) proclaimed itself the supreme power in Bessarabia. The Sfatul Tarii, unable to put up any armed forces, calls upon the Romanian government for help. On January 16 a Romanian division clears Chisinau, and the following day Tighina on the shore of the river Dnister. The three-day Soviet power in Bessarabia ends.
Declaration of unification of Romania & Bessarabia
  • April 9, 1918 (old style March 27, 1918): The Bessarabian legislature (Sfatul Tarii) voted in favor of unification with Romania with 86 votes in favor, 3 against and 36 abstentions. The union was confirmed by Romania's Western allies in the Treaty of Paris (1920).
  • 1918: Railway mileage was only 657 miles, the main lines converged on Russia and were broad gauge. Rolling stock and right of way were in bad shape. There were about 400 locomotives, with only about 100 fit for use. There were 290 passenger coaches and 33 more out for repair. Finally, out of 4530 freight cars and 187 tank cars, only 1389 and 103 were usable. The Romanians reduced the gauge to a standard 4ft 8-1/2in, so that cars could be run to the rest of Europe. Also, there were only a few inefficient bridges of boats. Romanian highway engineers decided to build 10 bridges: Cuzlau, Tzutzora, Lipcani, Sherpenitza, Shtefaneshti-Branishte, Cahul-Oancea, Badarai-Moara Domneasea, Sarata, Bumbala-Leova, Badragi and Targ-Falciu. Of these, only four were finished: Cuzlau, Targ-Falciu, Lipcani and Sarata.
  • May 5, 1919: A Provisional Workers' & Peasants' Government of Bessarabia was founded (in exile) at Odessa by the bolsheviks.
  • May 11, 1919: The Bessarabian Socialist Soviet Republic was proclaimed at Tiraspol as an autonomous part of Russian S.F.S.R.
  • September 1919: The Bessarabian Socialist Soviet Republic was abolished by White Russian military forces.
  • 1920: At the Paris Peace Conference the union was officially recognized by the United States, France, the United Kingdom and other western countries. The USSR did not accept the union.
  • 1924: A strip of Ukrainian land on the left bank of the Dnester river was declared as the "Moldovan Autonomous Sovient Socialist Republic" by the Ukrainian SSR.
  • August 23, 1939: The Soviet-German Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact nonaggression Pact was signed. By Article 4 of the secret Annex to the Treaty, Bessarabia falls within the Soviet interest zone.
  • June 26, 1940: The USSR demanded that Romania cede Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, and evacuate in 4 days. The Romanian government complied. The two ceded provinces had an area of 20,000 square miles (51,000 km²) and they were inhabited by about 3.75 million people, mostly Romanians.
  • June 28, 1940: As a consequence of the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Romania ceded the region to the Soviet Union. Soviet troops entered Bessarabia and incorporated it into the USSR, which divided it between the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian SSR. Bessarabia's northern and southern districts (largely inhabited by Romanians and some Ukrainians and Germans) were exchanged with parts of Transnistria (the districts on the left or eastern bank of the Dniestr, largely inhabited today by Ukrainians and Russians). Following the Soviet takeover, many Moldavians/Romanians were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.
  • August 2, 1940: Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established on the teritorries not given to Ukrainian SSR.
  • September, 1940: In accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Germans of Bessarabia are offered ressettlement to Germany. Fearing Soviet oppression, allmost all Germans (93000) agree. Most of them, among them the parents of the current German President Horst Köhler are resettled to the newly annexed Polish territories.
  • 1941: Romania joined Germany and attacked the Soviet Union.
  • 1944: The Soviet Union reannexed the region, military occupied Romania until 1958 and imposed a communist government in Bucharest by ], which was friendly and obedient towards Moscow. The Romanian communist regime did not raise the matter of Bessarabia and Bukovina in its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
  • 1970: 69% of Moldavia's population were Romanians and 98% of them declared Moldavian (Romanian) as their native language.
  • 1969-1971: A clandestine National Patriotic Front is established by several young intellectuals in Chisinau, totalling over 100 members, vowing to fight for the establishment of a Moldavian Democratic Republic, its scision from the Soviet Union and union with Romania.
  • December 1971: Following an informative note from Ion Stanescu, the President of the Council of State Security of the Romanian Scialist Republic, to Yuri Andropov, thechief of KGB, three of the leaders of the National Patriotic Front, Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgar, Gheorghe Ghimpu and Valeru Graur, as well as a forth person, Alexandru Soltoianu, the leader of a similar clandestine movement in northern Bukovina (Bucovina), were arrested and later sentenced to long prison time.
  • February 1988: First non-sanctioned demonstrasions are held in Chisinau. At first pro-Perestroika, they soon turn anti-government, and demand an official status for the Moldavian (Romanian) language instead of the Russian language.
  • August 31, 1989: Following a 600,000-strong demonstration in Chisinau 4 days earlier, Moldavian (Romanian) became the official language of Moldavain Soviet Socialist Republic, yet this was largely not implemented for many years.
  • 1990: The first free elections were held for the Parliament, with the opposition Frontul Popular (People's Front) all but winning them. A government led by Mircea Druc, one of the leaders of Frontul Popular, was formed. The Moldavian SSR becomes SSR Moldova, and later the Republic of Moldova.
  • 1991: The Republic of Moldova became independent and its boundaries (those established on August 2, 1940) remained unchanged.
  • 1992: 4,305 immigrants to Israel from the Republic of Moldova constituted 7.1 percent of all the immigrants to Israel from the former U.S.S.R. in this year.
  • 2004: Romanians in the Republic of Moldova belonging to the Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia, having resisted Russification for 192 years (after the annexation of Bessarabia by the Czarist Empire in 1812), are 2 million strong in 2004.

External Links


Historical regions in Romania
Banat Banat (1918–)
  • Banat
Dobruja Dobruja (1878–)
Moldavia Moldavia (1859–)
Transylvania Transylvania (1918–)
Wallachia Wallachia (1859–)
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