Edited by Andrew Andersen

BRIEF HISTORY OF MOLDOVA

CONTENTS

THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA is the history of two different regions that have been joined into one country, but not into one nation: Bessarabia and Transnistria. Bessarabia, the land between the Prut and Nistru rivers, is predominantly ethnic Romanian in population and constitutes the eastern half of a region historically known as Moldova or Moldavia (the Soviet-era Russian name). Transnistria is the Romanian-language name for the land on the east bank of the Nistru River; the majority of the population there is Slavic--ethnic Ukrainians and Russians-- although Romanians are the single largest ethnic group there.

To a great extent, Moldova's history has been shaped by the foreigners who came to stay and by those who merely passed through, including Greek colonists, invading Turks and Tatars, officials of the Russian Empire, German and Bulgarian colonists, communist apparatchiks from the Soviet Union, soldiers from Nazi Germany, Romanian co-nationalists, and twentieth-century Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. Each group has left its own legacy, sometimes cultural and sometimes political, and often unwelcome.

Moldova's communist overlords, the most recent "foreigners," created the public life that exists in Moldova today. Independence has brought about changes in this public life, but often only on the surface. What further changes Moldova makes will depend partly on how much time it has before the next group of "foreigners" comes to call.

	EARLY HISTORY - I

	EARLY HISTORY - II
	ROMANIAN / SOVIET PERIOD AND INDEPENDENCE
The texts come from the Country Studies Program, formerly the Army Area Handbook Program. The Country Studies Series presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world. From The Library of Congress The maps are mostly compiled and drawn by Andrew Andersen except the maps of Ottoman Empire that come from The New Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1970) and a fragment of the map of Roman Empire that comes from Random House Compact Atlas of World History (1995)

Bremmer, Jan, & Taras, Ray, New States, New Politics:

Building the Post-Soviet Nations,

Cambridge University Press, 1997

Gheorghescu, Vlad, The Romanians,

Ohio State University Press, 1991

Seton-Watson, Robert, A History of the Roumanians,

London, Archon Books, 1963

NB.: There is an opinion according to which the background of the Moldovans is

more complicated than just Romanian. To learn more about that try to get

access to:

King, Charles, Who are the Moldovans?

(A paper presented at Romanian Studies Day, School of Slavonic and East

European Studies, London / January 13, 1995)

EARLY HISTORY - II

ROMANIAN / SOVIET PERIOD AND INDEPENDENCE

The maps are mostly compiled and drawn by Andrew Andersen except the maps of Ottoman Empire that come from The New Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1970) and a fragment of the map of Roman Empire that comes from Random House Compact Atlas of World History (1995)