Bessarabia joined Russia twice in modern history. First, this happened following the results of the Russian-Turkish war at the beginning of the 19th century, and then on the eve of World War II. In this article, we will talk about the causes, facts and consequences of these events.
Historic area
Historians ambiguously assess the consequences of joining Bessarabia to Russia. Some believe that this had a positive impact on the region, while others emphasize the imperial manners of both the tsar and the Soviet leaders.
Bessarabia is a historical region located in southeastern Europe. It is located between the rivers Prut, Danube, Dniester and the Black Sea. Its name comes from the name of the governor, who ruled at the beginning of the XIV century. After joining Russia, Bessarabia became the region of the same name, and in 1873 received the status of a province.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, part of this territory became part of Ukraine. Chernivtsi and Odessa regions were formed. The city of Bendery and some of its suburbs are within the bordersMoldova, while control over them is carried out by the unrecognized state of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic.
The main population of this historical region are Romanians, Moldavians, Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Gypsies and Gagauz. Until the middle of the 20th century, many Germans, Jews, Turks, Budzhak Tatars and Nogais lived.
Russian-Turkish war
Bessarabia was annexed to Russia for the first time following the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812. She became one of the links in a series of armed confrontations between the Ottoman and Russian empires.
During this war, the region was ruled by the Moldavian divan, the name of the highest body of legislative and executive power in a number of Muslim states. At the same time, in fact, it was headed by the Russians, who were directly subordinate to the commander-in-chief of the Russian army.
The reason for the start of the war was the resignation of the rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1806. According to the existing agreements, the removal and appointment of new leaders was to take place with the participation of Russia. The troops of General Michelson were brought into the principality, who could not convince the Turks that this was done only to save Turkey from the aggression of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Results of the war
The Russian army won a landslide victory. The result was the conclusion of the Treaty of Bucharest on May 16, 1812. It is this date that is considered the year of the accession of Bessarabia to Russia.
According to its results, free commercial navigation of the Russian fleet along the Danube was guaranteed. At the same time, they themselvesThe Danubian principalities were returned to Turkey, but their autonomy was confirmed, granted by peace treaties concluded in the second half of the 18th century.
Internal autonomy was given to Serbia, besides officials were allowed to collect taxes in favor of the Sultan. Turkey in the territory of Transcaucasia recognized the expansion of Russian possessions, but regained the fortress of Anapa.
One of the main results was that Bessarabia was annexed to Russia under the 1812 treaty concluded in Bucharest. At that time, it was the eastern part of the Moldavian principality, originally called the Prut-Dniester interfluve. In Romanian historiography, this event is called the abduction of Bessarabia. However, it was in 1812 that Bessarabia was annexed to Russia. In this status, she remained for a whole century.
Within the Russian Empire
When South Bessarabia became part of Russia, the region of the same name was created on this territory. This happened in 1818.
In 1829, according to the Treaty of Adrianople, which ended the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829, the Danube Delta also ceded to the empire.
After the annexation of the territory of Bessarabia to Russia, the authorities attended to its organization following the example of the internal provinces. In 1853, Russia sent troops to the territory of the Moldavian Principality, which provoked the start of the Crimean War. After its completion, the southern part of the region had to be ceded. After such territorial losses, Russia lost access to the strategically important mouth of the Danube. MoreIn addition, 40 of the 83 Gagauz colonies were under the rule of the Moldavian Principality. All this was negatively perceived by the Bulgarian colonists.
When Wallachia and Moldavia were merged in 1859, Southern Bessarabia became part of Romania. The next territorial changes took place in 1878, when the Treaty of Berlin was signed. It was the result of a congress that changed the terms of the previously signed San Stefano Treaty. Most experts note that this was done to the detriment of Russia.
At the same time, South Bessarabia again became part of Russia, but without the Danube Delta. At the end of the 19th century, almost two million people lived in the province. The largest city was Chisinau with a population of more than one hundred thousand people. The census conducted in 1897 shows that the Russians played a prominent role in all areas related to the activities of state authorities and administration, in particular, in the police, courts, public, legal and estate services. Their number in these bodies was up to 60%.
Early 20th century
In April 1903, one of the largest Jewish pogroms in the history of the Russian Empire took place in Chisinau. About 50 people were killed, at least 600 were injured and maimed, and a third of all houses in the city were damaged.
Important changes in the history of this region occurred in 1917 after the February Revolution. Here the national movement revived, as in all regions where the Russians were in the minority. On the model of the Ukrainian Rada, the regional parliament was formed. Soon after the October Revolution, the creation of the Moldavian Democratic Republic was announced. True, the history of its independence was short-lived.
Already in December, Romanian troops entered its territory, following the order of the leader of the White movement, General Dmitry Shcherbachev, who commanded the Romanian front. The advance of Shcherbachev's units met fierce resistance from the retreating units of the Red Army. On January 13, Chisinau was occupied, and soon other large cities.
Under the conditions of the intervention on March 27, 1918, the Bessarabian parliament supported the accession to Romania by a majority of votes. The help of Soviet Russia in negotiations with Romania was offered by the Entente. An agreement was reached on the withdrawal of Romanian troops from the territory of Bessarabia within two months. However, it was broken. The Romanians took advantage of the difficult situation of the young Bolshevik state, which was preoccupied with the Civil War and the invasion of the Austro-German troops into the territory of Ukraine. In December 1919, the Romanian parliament legislated the law on the annexation of Bukovina, Transylvania and Bessarabia. Due to the new regime, about 300 thousand people left the region in the coming years, which accounted for more than 10% of the population.
A year later, the accession of Bessarabia to Romania was recognized by the main European powers, considering it justified from a geographical and historical point of view.
The Soviet government did not finally recognize the annexation of Bessarabia. In 1924, a Tatarbunary uprising of peasants led by the Bolsheviks broke out in South Bessarabia againstRomanian authorities. It was brutally suppressed by the troops.
Bessarabian campaign
The next entry of Bessarabia into Russia took place in 1940. The Romanians even agreed to hand over the Ploiesti oil field to the Germans in exchange for military and political protection.
February 8, 1940, the Romanian authorities appealed to the government of Hitler about the likely aggression from the USSR. Ribbentrop responded by saying that the Germans were not interested in the position of Rumania. On March 29, Molotov officially announced that the Soviet Union did not have a non-aggression pact, which was explained by the presence of an unresolved issue of Bessarabia, the seizure of which by Romania was never recognized by the Soviet government. This is considered the main reason for joining Bessarabia to Russia.
The Germans have repeatedly stated that the security of Romania directly depends on the fulfillment of its economic obligations to Germany. But on June 1, they broke their word by declaring neutrality in the event of an attack by the USSR on a neighboring state. At the same time, the militarization of Romania is taking place, the Germans continue to actively supply weapons in exchange for oil.
On June 9, the Directorate of the Southern Front is created under the command of Georgy Zhukov. Already on June 17, a plan was developed to capture Bessarabia. Ten days later, a general mobilization was announced in Romania. On the same day, Molotov announced that if Soviet demands for the return of Bessarabia were not met, the troops were ready to cross the border. During the day, the Romanian Air Force violated air traffic several times.space of the USSR, being shelled by the border troops.
On the same day, late in the evening, the crown council of Romania, assessing the real state of affairs in the state, decided to fulfill the requirements of the Soviet Union. On the night of June 28, the Bessarabian regional committee of the Communist Party created a temporary revolutionary committee, which appealed to citizens with an appeal to maintain order and calm. In the morning, squads, temporary workers' committees, and people's militia units began to be massively created. They took control of all important facilities and businesses.
Since the conflict was resolved peacefully, the troops of the Southern Front entered the territory of Bessarabia in a limited number. The operation to transfer control over the territory of the region took six days.
Deportations
After Bessarabia was annexed to Russia, the deportation of the so-called "undesirable elements" began throughout the territory. The heads of families were taken to prisoner-of-war camps, and their relatives became special settlers. They were sent to Komi, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk and Omsk regions, to the Krasnoyarsk Territory. According to modern experts, more than 25,000 people were deported. About four thousand more people were sent to POW camps.
New authorities were promptly created.
Repressions against Bessarabians in Romania
When Bessarabia became part of Russia, many residents of the region ended up in other countries or in Romania itself, where they worked. Most of them made attempts to return to their homeland, butthis was prevented by the Romanian government.
Bessarabians who served in the Romanian army, but then fled from it, returned en masse. For example, in Iasi, about five thousand residents of this region were detained, whom the Romanian authorities kept without food and water, locked in the station building, and then, loaded into wagons, expelled from the city.
Establishment of the Moldavian USSR
Bessarabia became part of Russia and became the Moldavian SSR. It included six of the nine districts of the Bessarabian province of the RSFSR, as well as six of the fourteen districts of the former Moldavian ASSR.
After an additional agreement between Molotov and Schulenburg, the German population from the south of Bessarabia and from Northern Bukovina was resettled to Germany (about 115 thousand people). The vacated lands were offered to be occupied by Ukrainians, state farms were created for them. As a result of the redistribution, 96 settlements went to the Ukrainian SSR, and 61 to the Moldavian one.
As a result, almost three million people ended up on the territory of Moldova, 70% of whom were Moldovans. The city of Chisinau officially became the capital of the republic.
As part of the USSR
When Bessarabia was annexed to Russia, in the status of the Moldavian SSR, it began to have the same rights as the rest of the Soviet republics. After the war, 448 million rubles were allocated for the restoration of the local economy. In 1949, the deportation of we althy peasants took place. Collective farms got their livestock, inventory, land, crops and equipment.
The Republic receivedsignificant help from the center, but even this did not save her from the famine that hit in 1946. The food situation was extremely difficult. The difficult economic situation worsened after the drought in 1945. The number of crimes in the region has increased, especially thefts. Because of this, the peasants refused to hand over their crops to the state, in some cases such a decision was made by entire collective farms. As a result, it was decided to release Moldova from the supply of certain products for the Red Army, while additional food supplies began to be imported into the republic.
In the post-war years, the famine led to the activation of the anti-Soviet movement. Leaflets appeared urging people to resist the government. They were distributed mainly among the rural population, which suffered the most. In parallel, local religious sects became more active.
In the late 80s, the national movement played a big role in the republic. It began to put forward demands for the expansion of the status of the Moldovan language and democratic changes. The nationalist Popular Front of Moldova was formed, which called for joining Romania.
In 1990 sovereignty was proclaimed. A few months later, in Tiraspol, the creation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian SSR was announced, recognizing the territorial belonging to the Soviet Union.
In May 1991, a decision was officially made to establish the Republic of Moldova. In August, state independence was proclaimed. FirstMircea Snegur became president. At the same time, formally, the republic continued to be part of the USSR until the conclusion of the Belovezhskaya agreement.
Thus, we talked about two historical facts of the accession of Bessarabia to Russia and described the reasons for the events.
