Moldova - Early History II

At the beginning of the 17th century, Moldova became an arena of a series of wars between Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottomans over control of the Balkans. Starting from the early-18th century the princes of Moldova were appointed by the Ottomans from the Phanariotes, influential Greek magnates from Constantinople (İstanbul), rather than the local nobility.

In 1774 the Moldova became a Russian protectorate while remaining formally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. In 1792 the Treaty of Iasi forced the Ottoman Empire to cede all of its holdings in what is now Transnistria to the Russian Empire.

By the Treaty of Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812), the Ottoman Empire ceded the Eastern half of the Principality of Moldova Russia and Bukovina to Austria. The Russian part of Moldova was then named Bessarabia. Prior to 1812, the name was used only for its south-eastern sector which had already been under direct Ottoman control since 1484.

In 1821 a revolt overthrew the unpopular Phanariote regime in Yasi and, after political and economic reforms were implemented with Russian support, a constitution, the Règlement Organique, was adopted in 1832.

At the end of the Crimea War, in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, two districts of southern Bessarabia were returned to Moldova thus depriving Russia of the access to the Danube river.

In 1859, the remaining Moldovan territory west of the Prut River was united with Walachia. And in the same year, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected prince of Walachia and the part of Moldova that lay west of the Prut River, laying the foundations of modern Romania. These two regions were united in 1861.

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Moldova - Beginning of the Soviet Period

In 1917, during World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, political a Romanian nationalist movement started to develop in Bessarabia. In the chaos brought by the Russian revolution of October 1917, a National Council (Sfatul Ţării) was established in Bessarabia, with 120 members elected from Bessarabia and 10 elected from Transnistria (the left shore of the river Dnister, partially inhabited by ethnic Moldavians/Romanians). On December 2, 1917, the National Council declared Bessarabia the independent Democratic Moldovan Republic, federated with Russia. In December 13, Romanian troops entered the area. In February 1918, the new republic declared its complete independence from Russia and, two months later, voted to unite with Romania, thus angering the Russian government.

The USA, France, UK and other Western countries recognized Bessarabia’s incorporation into Romania in 1919 at Paris Peace Conference. The government of the Soviet Russia (and later, the USSR) never accepted that decision and kept considering Bessarabia their own territory under temporary Romanian ocupation.

After the creation of the Soviet Union in December 1922, the Soviet government moved in 1924 to establish the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast on land east of the Nistru River in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR). The capital of the oblast was at Balta (Balta, in Ukrainian), in present-day Ukraine. Seven months later, the oblast was upgraded to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian ASSR), even though its population was only 30 percent ethnic Romanian. The capital remained at Balta until 1929, when it was moved to Tiraspol (Tiraspol', in Russian).

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