Bessarabia Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Bessarabia is a former region of Eastern Europe comprising most of current-day Moldova and districts of Ukraine. It is bounded by the Dniestr 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). Bessarabia has mostly hilly plains with flat steppes. The area is a 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), the capital of Moldova, Izmayil (or Izmail), tiraspol and Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyi (also called Belgorod-Dnestrovsky). Some other towns of historical importance include: Lipkany, Briceni, Hotin, Balti, Tighina and Soroki.

The name Bessarabia (Basarabia in Romanian) is probably derived from the Wallachian family of Basarab, once rulers over the southern part of the area. The name, originally was used to indicate only the southern part.

From the 15th to the 20th centuries, the region passed successively to: Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Ukraine and Moldova. For the Russians, the region was called Bessarabiya, for the Romanians Basarabia, and for the Turks Besarabya.

The population before WWII consisted of Moldavians, Ukranians, Bulgarians, Russian and Jews. About 2/3 of the population were Moldavians.

Table of contents

1 Timeline 2 Famous Quotes 3 External Links

Timeline

• 7th century BCE: Greek settlers established colonies in the region, mostly along the Black Sea coast.

• 1st century BCE: Bessarabia was then part of the Dacian kingdoms ruled by Burebista

• 1st century AD: The Dacian kingdom was ruled by Decebalus. After the Roman Empire conquered a part of Dacia, some Dacians (the Free Dacians) resisted the Roman conquerors in Bessarabia.

• 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 withrdrew from the territory, and the Romanized Dacians (early Romanians) were primarily shepherds peasants and hunters, and survived in the mountainous and heavily forested regions of the country. They were still under the influence of the vanishing Roman Empire, facing at the same time the pressures of the eastern invaders.

• 3rd century - 11th century: The region was frequently invaded by Goths, Huns, Avars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongols. Those centuries were characterized by a terrible state of insecurity and mass movement of people. The period was later known as the "dark ages" of Europe.

• 561: The Avars captured Bessarabia and executed the local ruler Mesamer.

• 582: Kuturgur Hun Bulgars settle in Bessarabia and Wallachia, from which they move to Moesia under pressure from Magyars, and make it Bulgaria.

6th Century: Slavs started to come to the region and establish settlements.

9th to 11th centuries: Bessarabia was part of the Kiev Rus.

12th century: Bessarabia belonged to the duchy of Halych-Volhynia.

1367: Bessarabia was invaded initially by Cumans and then by Mongols. After the Mongols withdrew, the region was included in the principality of Moldavia, although its south-eastern part fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

Late 14th century: The southern part of the region became 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 incorporated into the principality of Moldavia.

1484: The Turks invaded and captured Chilia and Akkerman, and annexed the southern part of Bessarabia, which was then divided into two sancaks (districts) of the Ottoman Empire.

1513: Bessarabia was conquered and taken away from Moldavia by the Turks and the khans of the Crimean Tatars. The region remained under Turkish control until the 19th century.

1526: Bessarabia was part of the Ottoman empire.

1711 to 1812: Russia occupied the region five times.

1750 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 inhabited the Budjak Region of southern Bessarabia from the XVI to XVIII centuries.

1807: Before this year, a portion of the Gagauz tribes were forced to abandon Budjak by the czarist government of Russia and resettled in Crimea, Asov and Stavropol.

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.

1856: At the end of the Crimean War, by the Treaty of Paris, Bessarabia was returned to Moldova, but a territory in the southern part of the region was allocated to Rumania, and many localities, including Kishinev, now fell in the border area.

1859: Moldova and Walachia were united to form the Kingdom of Romania.

1878: The Southern part reverted to Russian rule. After the Russian Revolution, the area declared itself an independent republic, but the local National Council decided upon union with Romania. The union was confirmed by Romania's Western allies in the Treaty of Paris (1920), but not recognised by the Soviet Union.

1889: The total population of Bessarabia was 1,628,867, of which 180,918 were Jews.

1897: The total population of Bessarabia grew to 1,936,392, of which 225,637 were Jews.

1903: Kishinev in Russian Bessarabia had a population of about 110,000, of whom over 50,000, or 46%, were Jews. Jews had been present in the town since the 18th century, and Jewish life flourished with 16 Jewish schools and over 2,000 pupils.

February 16, 1903:: A young Christian Russian boy, Michael Ribalenko, was found murdered in the town of Dabossary, about 25 miles north of Kishinev. Although it was clear that the boy had been killed by a relative (who was later found), the government chose to call it a ritual murder plot by the Jews. The mobs were incited by Pavolachi Krusheven, the editor of the anti-Semitic Newspaper "Bessarabetz", and the vice-governor Ustrugov. They used the age-old calumny against the Jews (that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzo). Viacheslav Plehve, the Minister of Interior, supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. During three days of rioting, the Kishinev pogrom against the Jews took place. Forty seven (some say 49) Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded , 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed. This pogrom is considered the first state-inspired action against Jews in the 20th century. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years and twenty-two were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Palestine.

1905: After the Russian Revolution, a nationalist movement started to develop in Bessarabia.

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.

November 1917: A council (sfatul tarii) was established in Bessarabia.

January 14, 1918: 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.

January 24, 1918: The Bessarabian council declared Bessarabia's independence.

February 7, 1918: After the October revolution, which was an uprising of underprivileged peasants and soldiers returning from the front against Russian upper classes, the Moldovan Republic was proclaimed in Bessarabia.

• March 27, 1918: The Bessarabian legislature voted in favor of unification with Romania.

• 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, Lipkany, Sherpenitza, Shtefaneshti-Branishte, Cahul-Oancea, Badarai-Moara Domneasea, Sarata, Bumbala-Leova, Badragi and Targ-Falciu. Of these, only four were finished: Cuzlau, Targ-Falciu, Lipkany and Sarata.

• 1919: The Parliament of the Moldovan Republic joined Romania.

• May 5, 1919: The Provisional Workers' & Peasants' Government of Bessarabia was founded (in exile) at Odessa.

• 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. The Jewish Population in Bessarabia that year amounted to 267,000.

• 1924: A narrow stip of Ukranian land on the left bank of the Dnester river was declared as the "Moldovan Autonomous Sovient Socialist Republic" by the USSR.

• August 23, 1939: The Soviet-German nonaggression Pact was signed.

• June 18, 1940: As a consequence of the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Romania had to cede the region to the Soviet Union, which divided it between the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian SSR. Bessarabia's northern and southern districts (largely inhabited by Ukrainians and Romanians) were exchanged with 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 of Romanian origin were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

• 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 3.9 million people, mostly Romanians.

• June 28, 1940: Soviet troops entered Bessarabia and incorporated it into the USSR.

• August 2, 1940: Bessarabia became the "Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic".

• 1941: The Einsatzkommandos, German mobile killing units drawn from the Nazi S.S. and commanded by Otto Ohlendorf entered Bessarabia. They were instrumental in the massacre of most Jews in Bessarabia. Romania joined Germany and attacked the Soviet Union.

• 1944: The Soviet Union reannexed the region, occupied all of Romania and shortly imposed a communist government in Bucharest, which was friendly and obedient towards Moscow. In the beginning the new Romanian regime did not care about Bessarabia and Bukovina.

• 1970: 65% of Moldavia's population were Romanians and 98% of them declared Moldavian (Romanian) as their native language.

• 1991: The Moldavian SSR became the independent Republic of Moldova and its boundaries 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.

• 1993: By the end of this year, there were an estimated 15,000 Jews in the Republic of Moldova. 2,173 Jews immigrated to Israel. There were two Jewish periodical publications, both published in Kishinev (Chisinau). The one most widely circulated was Nash golos — Unzer kol [Our Voice], in Yiddish and Russian.

• March, 1994: There were several instances of anti-Jewish violence. Among them, the old Jewish cemetery in Kishinev was desecrated.

• 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.

Famous Quotes

• In "Burning Ice: The Ghettos of Transnistria (East European Monographs, No 447)" by Avigdor Shachan, Shmuel, Dr Himelstein there is a reference to a quote attributed to Ion Antonescu, Romania's ruler at the time, but it is inaccurate. The declaration is dated in the year 1941 and it states Antonescu's oppinion at the time about the Jews in Bessarabia and Bukovina:

"I am in favor of expelling the Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina on the other side of the border...There is nothing for them to do here and I don't mind if we appear in history as barbarians… There has never been a more suitable time in our history to get rid of the Jews, and if necessary, you are to activate machine guns against them."

• On the other side there are several other sources (the official stenograms being one of them) that indicate Antonescu's oppinion (about Jews and Ukrainians) not being so extremist and that the quote above is incomplete, inaccurate and missleading. The declaration was made in front of the Ministers' Council and is dated July 8, 1941:

"....With the risk of not being understood by some traditionalists which may be between you, I am in favour of the forced migration of the entire Jew element from Bessarabia and Bukovina, which must be thrown over the border. Also, I am in favor of the forced migration of the Ukrainian element, which does not belong here at this time. I don't care if we appear in history as barbarians. The Roman Empire has made a series of barbaric acts from a contemporary point of view and, still, was the greatest political settlement. There has never been a more suitable moment. If necessary, shoot with the machine gun."

The quote, in its second variant, is confirmed in "The Stenograms of the Ministers' Council, Ion Antonescu's Government", vol. IV, July-September 1941 period, Bucharest, year 2000, page 57 ("Stenogramele şedinţelor Consiliului de Miniştri, Guvernarea Ion Antonescu", vol. IV, perioada iulie-septembrie 1941, Bucureşti, anul 2000, pagina 57)

External Links

• Bessarabia Web Site by Debbie Beick
• Camps, Ghettos and Massacre sites in Romania-Bessarabia 1941-1942
• Jews in Bessarabia on the eve of WWII
• Massacres, deportations & death marches from Bessarabia, from July 1941
• Scholtoi - a village in the north of Bessarabia (website in German)
• Hannowka - a german village in Bessarabia 1896-19490 (website in German)

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