Greater Romania - Interwar Period

Interwar Period

Romania retained these borders from 1918 to 1940. That year, it lost to Soviet Union Bessarabia, as provided for by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but additionally lost to Soviet Union also Northern Bukovina and the Herţa region which were not mentioned in the pact, as well as the considerable territory of Northern Transylvania to Hungary, due to the Second Vienna Award, and the "Cadrilater" to Bulgaria in the Treaty of Craiova. In the course of World War II, Romania (in alliance with the Axis Powers) took back Bessarabia and was awarded further territorial gains at the expense of the Soviet Union (Transnistria/western Yedisan/western New Russia); these were lost again as the tide of the war turned. After the war, Romania regained the Transylvanian territories lost to Hungary, but not those lost to either Bulgaria or the Soviet Union, and in 1948 the Treaty between the Soviet Union and Soviet-occupied Communist Romania also provided for the transfer of four uninhabited islands to the USSR, three in the Danube Delta, and one in the Black Sea (Snake Island), with the latter being used as a 'spy heaven' by the Soviet Union.