History of the Republic of Moldova

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The history of the Bessarabia region is often referred to as the History of the Republic of Moldova , as it is disputed whether the Moldovans are a separate people and thus have their own national history or are part of the Romanian ethnic group and the history of Moldova is only a regional history. Politically, this identity-political debate is reflected in the dispute between the proponents of unification with Romania and the supporters of an independent state development based on their own Moldovan identity . The history of the Republic of Moldova is therefore not a stringent narrative, but rather shows the changing influences to which this region, which is largely congruent with Bessarabia, was exposed.

The name of the country

"Moldova" in the Romanian language , German "Moldau", includes:

The name "Moldau" is said to have been derived from the Dacian "molta" (many) and "Dava" ( castle or fortress ). Other sources claim that Molda, the dog of prince "Dragos the Founder" drowned in a river. The sad event gave the river and the principality its name. The theory that the name Moldau was derived from the Romanian word "Molid" or "Molift" ( Picea abies , German: spruce , red spruce ) is possible. But the most widely accepted hypothesis of linguists is that both “Moldova” and the castle “Moldvar” (Romanian: “Baia”, which means cave) come from the old German word “Mulde” or “Molde”, which means hollow, deepening means come here. The word “Mulde” was used by Transylvanian-Saxon workers who were brought to the Wallachian principalities for mining by the Hungarian kings , the original rulers .

The independent principality of Moldova
The consequence of the partitions of Moldova

Early history

The Latin origins of Moldova can be traced back to the period of the Roman occupation of nearby Dacia , which was in what is now Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia. Moldova never belonged to the Roman province of Dacia , however the area was seen by the Romans as part of Dacia or as part of Sarmatia .

Around the time from 105 to 270, a new culture emerged from the mixture of Roman settlers and the local population, the Dako-Roman and later Romanian culture. After the influence of the Roman Empire had waned and its troops left the region in 271, various ethnic groups moved through the area during the Great Migration and some of them also settled here, including the Huns , Ostrogoths and Eastern Slavs ( Anten ). The Proto-Bulgarians , the Magyars , the Pechenegs and the Golden Horde ( Mongols ) also prevailed at times. In the 13th century, Hungary expanded into the region and built a series of fortifications near the Sereth River in what is now Romania. The region was under Hungarian sovereignty until Prince Bogdan founded an independent Moldovan principality in 1349 . Originally called Bogdania, it stretched from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester River ; later it was renamed Moldowa , although the reason for this naming is unclear (see above).

middle Ages

The Ottoman Empire had become the most important power factor in Southeast Europe in the 15th century . In addition, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Kingdom of Poland also sought to expand their sphere of influence in south-eastern Europe. The Principality of Moldavia tried possible to retain much of its independence at this stage, but came as a vassal state under Ottoman influence.

The most important of the late medieval Moldovan princes was Ștefan cel Mare (Stefan the Great) (* around 1433 in Borzeşti ; † July 2, 1504 in Suceava ), who ruled for an unusually long time at the age of 47. The heyday of the Principality of Moldova is associated with his rule, which is why the movement for the unification of Romania and Moldova made him the central place of remembrance of their identity politics . In the tradition he was an important fighter against foreign rule, so he fought in 47 major battles and lost only three. At the end of his reign in 1504, the Principality of Moldova was largely independent and experienced a phase of economic prosperity. After his reign, disputes among the boyars flared up again and the country experienced a gradual decline. Weak princes let incompetent boyars rule the state and refuse to pay taxes, so that the Ottoman suzerainty expanded its influence again in the following period, increased the tribute payments and appointed the local rulers. It was only when the Ottoman Empire itself was in decline that the Moldovan princes were able to regain more influence.

Russian expansion

After the Russo-Turkish War 1787–1792, the Ottoman Empire had to cede all possessions east of the Dniester to Russia in the Peace of Jassy (now Iași ) . An enlarged Bessarabia (named after the Wallachian King Basarab I ) was integrated into the Russian Empire after the 6th Russo-Turkish War from 1806 to 1812 through the Treaty of Bucharest . The area was organized as the Gouvernement of Bessarabia and encompassed the landscape between the Prut and Dniester rivers and thus about the eastern half of the previous Principality of Moldova.

After Russia's defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, the Treaty of Paris stipulated that Moldova and Wallachia would be placed under the collective guarantee of the 7 signatory states . The southern Bessarabia (the districts Ismail, Bolgrad, Cahul) were returned to Moldavia. In 1859, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected prince of both Moldova and Wallachia, laying the foundations of a Romanian state . Due to the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 (see Berlin Congress ), the Romanian government had to surrender southern Bessarabia back to Russia.

Belonging to Romania

After the right to self-determination of all nationalities of the Russian Empire had been declared in the course of the October Revolution of 1917, a regional council called Sfatul Țării was established on November 21, 1917, which proclaimed Bessarabia on December 2, 1917 as the Moldovan Democratic Republic , which was an autonomous state Should remain part of a federally organized Russian Empire. However, the union of the Bessarabian part of the country with the Kingdom of Romania was already decided by a secret protocol in the peace treaty of 1918 between Romania and the Central Powers . In January 1918, the conquered the Entente belonging Romania Bessarabia and sales in the rumcherod organized troops. Under the pressure of the occupation and in a dispute in which it was not only about national identities, but above all about the economic interests of the Moldovan landowners, the Sfatul Țării declared independence from the Russian Empire on January 24, 1918 . On March 27, 1918, a majority of the council finally voted in favor of unification with Romania, thereby legitimizing the fact that Bessarabia had already been incorporated into Greater Romania . While the Entente states recognized the vote as legitimate in 1920, Soviet Russia and, from 1922, the Soviet Union, continued to regard Bessarabia as part of their national territory and demanded that Romania return it.

The area east of the Dniester was occupied by Austria-Hungary and the German Reich during the First World War 1917/18 and became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after the end of the Russian Civil War and the establishment of the Soviet Union in December 1922 . In 1924 the area was first declared a Moldovan Autonomous Oblast , and seven months later it was elevated to the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR) . The capital of the MASSR was officially the "temporarily Romanian occupied" Chișinău , so that until 1929 (now part of Ukraine) Balta and then Tiraspol had to temporarily assume the function of the seat of government. With the establishment of MASSR, the Soviet government's primary aim was to maintain its territorial claim to the whole of Moldova and also declared genuine Ukrainian territories to be Moldovan territory, which meant that the proportion of ethnic Romanians temporarily sank to 30%.

From 1929 women were allowed to take part in local elections, but women's suffrage was made dependent on their level of education, social status and special merits towards society. The 1938 Constitution put men and women on an equal footing in terms of voting rights, and the 1939 Electoral Act stipulated that women and men who could read and write were allowed to vote at the age of 30.

Second World War

The area of ​​Bessarabia belonging to Romania and northern Bukovina was occupied by Soviet troops and annexed by the USSR in June 1940 with German approval as a consequence of the secret additional protocol of the Hitler-Stalin Pact . On August 2, 1940, the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic with Chișinău (Russian Kishinev ) as its capital was established by uniting Bessarabia with part of the Moldovan ASSR (the rest went to the Ukrainian SSR ). With the establishment of the Moldovan SSR, Bessarabia was divided again, which seriously damaged its historical and economic integrity. Several southern areas and access routes to the Black Sea via the mouths of the Danube (near the city of Ismail ) and the Dniester (near Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyj ) were given to Ukraine and made the republic a landlocked country . The shoreline on the north bank of the Danube in the extreme south of the republic, which is only about 600 meters long and belongs to Vltava, has been used in recent years to build the port of Giurgiulești , so that Vltava can now also be reached by ships, albeit of limited size.

On June 22, 1941, German and Romanian troops attacked the Moldavian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR as part of Operation Barbarossa . This enabled Romania to regain Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in the summer of 1941. The land between the rivers Dniester and Southern Bug , north of Bar in Ukraine, was administered by Romania under the name Transnistria . At the end of the Second World War, heavy fighting broke out in the Moldova region during Operation Jassy-Kishinev . Due to the peace treaty of 1947 , Bessarabia, the Herza area and northern Bukovina fell to the Soviet Union, and the former Soviet administrative units and Russian place names were reintroduced.

In the course of the Sovietization of the country in 1949/50 around 7% of the Moldovan population were deported to the Soviet Union and deprived of their freedom there as exiled special settlers .

independence

The Moldovan SSR was finally declared the fully independent Republic of Moldova in 1991 and Romanian the official language (renamed Moldovan again in 1994 ). After the declaration of independence, universal suffrage was confirmed in 1993.

Since 1989 there have been conflicts between the central government in Chișinău and the predominantly ethnic minority areas of Transnistria and Gagauzia , after the Moldovan language was declared the only state language of the MSSR in 1989 and, immediately after Moldova gained independence in 1991, negotiations were initiated towards reunification with Romania were. In fact, Moldovan is the same language as Romanian.

In 1992 the conflict with Transnistria escalated into a war that could only be ended after mediation by General Alexander Lebed , who commanded the 14th Army stationed there on behalf of the Russian Federation . In 1994 the Moldovan government offered Gagauzia a status of autonomy within the Republic of Moldova . This autonomous status was also offered to the breakaway part of Transnistria , but this was rejected by the de facto regime under the self-proclaimed President Igor Smirnov . Igor Smirnov was able to refuse the offer because he had the support of the Russian Federation due to its interest in further stationing Russian army units on the territory of Transnistria. In addition, the “Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic” was much more advanced than the Gagauz part of the country in establishing its own state structures and armed forces . In contrast to Gagauzia, Transnistria was a unified area that was able to defend itself and enter into independent economic relations with third countries due to its border with Ukraine and the Dniester waterfront to the area controlled by Moldova.

The Republic of Moldova has been a member of the GUAM Alliance since 1997 .

EUBAM , a border control mission of the European Union on the Moldovan-Ukrainian border , has existed since November 30, 2005 to prevent the smuggling of arms , people and drugs to and from Transnistria.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : History of Moldova  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Ihrig: Rediscovering History, Rediscovering Ultimate Truth History, Textbooks, Identity and Politics in Moldova (PDF; 277 kB)
    Jeff Chin and Steven D. Roper: Ethnic Mobilization and Reactive Nationalism. The case of Moldova. Nationalities Papers, Vol. 23, No. 2 1995 (PDF; 3.9 MB)
  2. ↑ Constantin C. Giurescu and Dinu C. Giurescu: History of the Romanians , pp. 209–210, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu: Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae , Bucharest, Graeve, 1896, and Gustav Weigand  : Linguistic Atlas of the Dakorumänischen Sprachgebiets , Leipzig, Barth, 1908 .
  3. ↑ Michael Bruchis: The Republic of Moldavia. From the collapse of the Soviet empire to the restoration of the Russian empire. 1996, Google Books ISBN 9780880333733
  4. ^ Marius Vahl, Michael Emerson: Moldova and the Transnistrian Conflict (PDF; 205 kB) ecmi.de. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
  5. ↑ Marcel Mitrasca: Moldova, a Romanian Province Under Russian Rule: Diplomatic History from the Archives of the Great Powers . Algora Publishing, New York 2002, ISBN 1-892941-86-4 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  6. ↑ Jenny Brumme: 'Inginer și femeie de servicu' - The Romanian language between patriarchal tradition and post-communist sexism. In: Wolfgang Dahmen (Hrsg.): Language and gender in Romania. Romance Languages Colloquium X . Volume 417 of the Tübingen Contributions to Linguistics, Gunter Narr Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-8233-5082-X , p. 68.
  7. ^ American Bar Association : Summary: Rights to Vote in Romania. ( Memento from October 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: impowr.org. April 29, 2013, accessed August 27, 2019.
  8. ^ Text of the constitution , quoted from: American Bar Association : Summary: Rights to Vote in Romania. ( Memento from October 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: impowr.org. April 29, 2013, accessed August 27, 2019.
  9. ↑ Official Gazette of Romania No. 106bis, May 9, 1939, Article 5, quoted from: American Bar Association : Summary: Rights to Vote in Romania. ( Memento from October 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: impowr.org. April 29, 2013, accessed August 27, 2019.
  10. ↑ Location of the port of Giurgiuleşti
  11. ↑ Nicolas Werth : A state against its people. In: Stéphane Courtois among others: The black book of communism. Munich 1998, 4th edition. P. 262.
  12. ↑ - New Parline: the IPU's Open Data Platform (beta). In: data.ipu.org. April 15, 1978, accessed October 6, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Map of the EUBAM ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )