History of Bessarabia

History Of Bessarabia

Bessarabia (Romanian: Basarabia; Russian: Бессарабия Bessarabiya, Ukrainian: Бессарабія Bessarabiya) is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west. Nowadays the bulk of the region is part of Moldova, while the northern and southern areas are part of Ukraine.

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812, and ensuing Peace of Bucharest, the eastern parts of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal, along with some areas formerly under direct Ottoman rule, were ceded to Imperial Russia. The newly acquired territories were organised as the Governorate of Bessarabia, adopting a name previously used for the southern plains of the Dniester-Prut interfluve. Moldavia continued its existence as an autonomous state until 1859, when it joined Wallachia to form the United Principalities (later Kingdom of Romania). Following the Crimean War, in 1856, the southern areas of Bessarabia were returned to Moldavian rule; nevertheless, Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878, when Romania, the successor of Moldavia, was pressured into exchanging those territories for Dobruja.

In 1917, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the area constituted itself as the Moldavian Democratic Republic, an autonomous republic part of a federative Russian state. Bolshevik agitation in late 1917 and early 1918 however resulted in the intervention of the Romanian Army, ostensibly to pacify the region. Soon after, the parliamentary assembly decided on independence and then on Union with the Kingdom of Romania. The legality of these acts was however disputed, most prominently by the Soviet Union, which regarded the area as a territory occupied by Romania.

In 1940, after securing the assent of Nazi Germany through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union pressed Romania into withdrawing from Bessarabia, allowing the Red Army to military occupy the region. The area was formally integrated in the Soviet Union, with the core region joining parts of the Moldavian ASSR to form the Moldavian SSR, while the territories inhabited by Slavic majorities in the North and the South of Bessarabia being transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. Axis-aligned Romania briefly recaptured the region in 1941, during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, but lost it in 1944, as the tide of war changed. In 1947, the Soviet-Romanian border set along the Prut River was internationally recognised by the Paris Treaty that ended World War II.

During the process of dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldavian and Ukrainian SSR proclaimed their independece in 1991, becoming the modern states of Moldova and Ukraine, while preserving the existing partition of Bessarabia. Following a short war in the early 1990s, Transnistria proclaimed itself the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, separate from the government of the Republic of Moldova, extending its authority also over the municipality of Bender in Bessarabia.