For
over 500 years, Moldova was a principality of hilly river country to
the east of the Carpathians, along the rivers Siret, Prut and Dniester
all running south to the Danube river and the Black Sea.
Before the principality was formed, the Dacian tribes of Moldova were
partly Romanised 100AD and after another few hundred years, Moldovans
came under the influence of the Sântana de Mureş
culture, which originated in the western Baltic, in what is now Sweden
and Poland, and also the Ukraine.
Stephen the Great
Stephen the Great was the cousin of Vlad III Dracula, was the most
important Prince of Moldavia. Born c. 1436 in County Bacău, died at
Suceava 1504, he ruled 47 years, from 14 April 1457 until his death.
Although Stephen is mostly a historical figure and a national
hero, his reign is also appreciated for the large number of churches
that were built or restored. Some of the best pieces of Moldovan
medieval art date from his reign.
Once organisation of principalities began in eastern Europe around the
10th century, Moldova as a cohesive region became organised.
The Moldovan principality in its greatest extent streched from Transylvania
in the west to the Dniester River in the east, but had its nucleus in
the northwestern part, the Ţara de Sus ("Upper Land"), which later
became known as Bukovina under variously Austrian, Polish and now
Ukrainian rule. This area contained Suceava, the capital of
the principality from 1359-1565. Iaşi has served as the capital
since 1565, remaining as the largest city in Romanian Moldova after
the 1859 union with Wallachia.
The political entity known as Moldova was founded in the mid-14th
century by the Romanian leader Dragoş of Maramureş, who had been
ordered by the Hungarian king to establish a defence line for the
Kingdom of Hungary against the Tatars.
Bogdan I became the first
independent prince of Moldova when he rejected Hungarian authority in
1359. Later it became a vassal of Poland. The Turkish word
for Moldova is Bogdan.
Arguably the greatest Moldovan prince was Stephen the
Great, who ruled from 1457-1504. With his army of boyars and
retainers, Stephen fought off invasions from the Ottoman Empire, the
Kingdom of Poland, and the Crimean Tatars.
Stephen fought 36 major
battles, but suffered only two defeats. By the end of his reign,
Moldova had kept its independence, although an annual tribute was
made to the Ottomans.
During his reign, he turned Moldavia into a strong state and
maintained her independence against the ambitions of Hungary, Poland,
and the Ottoman Empire, which all sought to subdue the land. Stephen
achieved fame in Europe for his long resistance against the Ottomans.
He was a man of religion and displayed his piety when he paid the
debt of Mount Athos to the Porte, ensuring the continuity of Athos as
an independent state.
Moldova in 1600
The advances of Stephen the Great extended to the
Black Sea and Dniester River
Moldova 1750
Prior to ceding Eastern Moldova or
Bessarabia to the Russian Empire
Stephen was succeeded by weak princes who let incompetent boyars
rule the state; because the boyars did not pay taxes, the state became
bankrupt.
Moldova succumbed to Ottoman power in 1512, becoming a
vassal of the empire for the most of the next 300 years. In addition
to paying tribute to the Ottoman Empire, Moldova later acceded to the
selection of local rulers by Ottoman authorities. Moldova suffered
repeated invasions by the Ottomans, Crimean Tatars, and Russians.
In the beginning of the 17th century, magnates of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth clashed with the Ottomans over control
of Moldova in the Moldovan Magnate Wars.
Jointly Administered with Wallachia, 1712
By the early 1700s, the rule from Constantinopole was enforced by
Greek transplants such as Nicolae Mavrocordat (Nicholas Mavrocordato
in Greek), who was the first ruler in 1712 to jointly rule both
Moldova and neighbouring principality Wallachia, followed in 1730 by his son, who ruled until
1769. The rule of the Greek officials ended only after the uprising of
1821 of
Tudor Vladimirescu.
In 1774 the territory of Bessarabia from Hotin to the Black Sea and
between the rivers Prut and Dneister became a Russian protectorship while
remaining formally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, which at that time
extended up to the Danube in northern Dobrogea.
By the Treaty of
Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812), Moldova lost
Bessarabia to Russia and Bukovina to Austria. Bukovina
extended from Vatra Dornei north to the Dniester River north of
Cernauţi.
Moldova's Constitution, 1832
In 1821 a revolt
overthrew the unpopular Phanariote regime and, after political and
economic reforms were implemented with Russian support, a
constitution, the Rčglement Organique, was adopted in 1832.
After Russia's defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856), the Treaty of
Paris stipulated that Moldova and Wallachia were to be placed under
the collective guarantee of the seven powers that signed the treaty,
as well as the retrocession to Moldova of Southern Bessarabia (Izmail,
Bolhrad, Cahul counties).
In 1859, Moldova voted to unite with Wallachia to form the state of
Romania, under the rule of Alexandru Ioan Cuza/Alexander John Cuza.
Cuza belonged to the traditional noble class, the Romanian Orthodox
upper class that had come into control of the local governments of
Wallachia and Moldavia, and retained traditional control of the
country's land, the only key to pre-industrial wealth. Cuza received
an urbane European education.
Cuza failed in his effort to create an alliance of prosperous peasants
and a strong liberal prince, ruling as a benevolent despot in the style of
Napoleon III. Financial distress supervened, there was an awkward scandal
that revolved around his mistress, and popular discontent culminated in
revolution.
Despite fairly impressive modernisation and reforms for his beloved
Moldova and the new Romania, Cuza was forced to abdicate by the
so-called "Monstrous Coalition" of conservatives and liberals.
Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was proclaimed domnitor as
Carol I of Romania on March 26, 1866. Ironically, a foreign
prince with ties to an important princely house, legitimizing Romanian
independence, had been one of the liberal aims in the revolution of
1848.
His family being closely related to the Bonaparte family, they enjoyed
very good relations with Napoleon III of France. Romania was, at the time,
under the influence of French culture and Napoleon's recommendation of the
prince weighed heavy in the eyes of Romanian politicians of the time.
While Moldova had existed for centuries as a principality, it was now
part of a nation with it's own royalty, politically beholden to nobody.
Romanian Moldova in 1910
After Bulgaria's Creation in 1908
Romanian Moldova in 1920
Expanded to the Dniester River after WWI, often
known as Greater Romania, the largest official borders realised.
Moldova and the Kingdom, 1881 - 1947
After the proclamation of the Independence (1877), Romania became a
constitutional monarchy, and Moldova a part of that new kingdom. The
royalist constitutions in Romania all stated that the King would rule as
the head of state without governing.
In 1914, King Ferdinand ascended the throne after the death of his
uncle. Despite the setbacks after the entry into the first world
war, Romania fought on in 1917 and stopped the German advance into
Moldavia.
The Central Powers forced Romania to conclude the Treaty of Bucharest,
1918, although Ferdinand refused to sign the treaty. When the Allies took
Bulgaria out of the war, Ferdinand ordered the Romanian Army to fight on
the Triple Entente side. The outcome of Romania's war effort was to
greatly expand Moldova's borders adding Russian Bessarabia, the formerly
Austrian Bukovina, as well as the Bugeac region over to the Nistru river.
Ferdinand became the ruler of this greatly enlarged Romanian state in
1918-1920 following the Entente's victory over the Central Powers, a war
between the Kingdom of Romania and the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and the
civil war in Russia, and was crowned King of Romania in a spectacular
ceremony on October 15, 1922 at the historic princely seat of Alba Iulia.
Bizarrely enough, the Second World War saw Moldova expand to a
territory nearly as large as the rest of the kingdom.
Nazi Romania began with a military coup against the government in 1940
by the pro-Nazi Iron Guard under Marshall Ion Antonescu, who installed
himself in the post of "Conducator" or "Leader".
Romanian Moldova in 1941-1944
The Nazi-Soviet pact ceded a swath of Transilvania
to the Hungarians and of Soviet Odessa Oblast to Romania.
(Northern Transilvania returned
1947 to Romania)
Antonescu and Hitler, 1943
Meeting the master of the Moldovan Holocaust
Ceauşescu Looms over Iaşi, 1986
Yet more of
the dictator's ludicrous propaganda in a street poster
Moldova quickly lost Bessarabia and Bukovina, and Antonescu forced King
Carol II to abdicate, placing his son Mihai on the thrown. Moldova
now had it's fourth Romanian king in the 20th century.
The next year Moldovan borders expanded wildly as the Romanian Army
pierced deep into Soviet territory with the Germans, quickly reclaiming
Bukovina and Soviet Bessarabia, and pushing onwards beyond Odessa on the
Black Sea coast.
This was considered too far by Romanian politicians as well as by the
Allied powers. Romania was fighting in Stalingrad -- well beyond any
historical or cultural boundary ever realised by Romania, even by Stephen
the Great in the 1600s.
Moldova witnessed very dark hours in the early 1940s, from hosting
concentration camps to the hideous Massacre of Odessa, where
Romanian troops slaughtered thousands of Jews under liquidation orders
from Antonescu.
Read more about Romania in the Holocaust.
In late 1944 King Michael arrested Antonescu and ordered a cease fire,
accepting the Allies terms of unconditional surrender in the name of the
Kingdom of Romania. This de facto coup side-stepping the Nazis
probably saved at least 6 months of fighting against the Soviets, saving
countless lives on both sides. However, this also led to the the
forced abdication of King Michael by the Communists in 1947, the King
never to return to his nation until 1993.
Moldovan professor Constantin Parhon, formerly of the Medics' and
Naturalists' Society in Iaşi, and director of
medical institutes. led Romania as President of the Presidium of the new
People's Republic after the forced abdication of King Michael.
The Deputies' Assembly repealed the Constitution of 1866 (with major
amendments in 1923) was repealed. The same law provided for a Presidium
composed of five members (elected by the Deputies' Assembly) to exercise
the executive powers in the state.
Parhon became in a short time the President of the Presidium, thus
exercising the most important function in the state.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was another Moldovan leader from Bârlad,
perhaps the second-most influential Communist leader after Ceausescu.
Gheorghiu-Dej ruled Romania from 1948 until his death in 1965.
Gheorgiu-Dej became increasingly displeased with Soviet policy and
status after Kruchev came to power, and the question of Soviet occupation
of the majority of Moldova remained a sore point in relations with the
Kremlin. This sentiment was reinforced by the release
previously secret notes by Karl Marx, which largely condemned Russia's
imperial policy in Moldova which nonetheless were still part of the Soviet
Union.
Three days after the death of Gheorghiu-Dej in March 1965,
Nicolae Ceauşescu became first secretary of the Romanian Workers'
Party. Moldova suddenly became part of the Socialist Republic of
Romania rather than a People's Republic, after Ceauşescu decided to change
the name of Romania (which today is called, perhaps
not surprisingly, "Romania"). His odd dogma of combined
fascist-dictatorial-Marxism was dubbed "Ceauşism" by the people.
Moldovan Family Field
Mother and Son
work a communal plot in Ceahlau Village, County Neamţ
The Republic of Moldova and Romanian Moldova
Showing
Greatest Historic Borders
The residents of Moldova's towns and cities suffered mass dislocation
as demolition of houses, churches and entire neighbourhoods were destroyed
under Ceauşescu's megalomaniacal scheme to
systematise the region. Dreadful new concrete blocks cropped
up in Iaşi, Bacău and Galaţi in the early 1970s,
the progress extending to other centres into the mid 1980s. Even
small towns from Piatra Neamţ to Tecuci now bear
these ugly chancres.
Across Moldova's beautiful and expansive rolling plains, Ceauşescu's
"new agrarian revolution" bit particularly hard. To the unfortunate
Moldovan farmer, this newest bad idea from Bucharest made no sense.
Each farmer was forced to deliver quotas of their crops to the state at
about a third of the price they could get at markets in nearby towns.
His paranoic, cruel and fundamentally dumb mismanagement of the country
fostered the major defection of his intelligence chief to the USA.
All through the 1980s, Moldovans further suffered the hardships of long
lines for basic food, as Ceauşescu had ordered the export of much of the
country's agricultural and industrial production in order to repay its
debts. In all towns, harsh energy rationing for heating and gas
resulted in thousands of deaths, and electricity black-outs became the
rule.
Ironically, these hardships and fierce export policy resulted that the
national debt was fully paid in summer 1989, shortly before Ceauşescu was
overthrown. Almost comically, state television often showed
Ceauşescu entering well stocked stores.
All of this led to his inevitable downfall in 1989, when he was hunted
down and shot. The Romanian people had simply had enough after
decades of cruel abuse.
The Moldovan Question
Although the name Moldova still has strong historical resonance in
many countries, for Romanians today, Moldova is simply a region of 6
counties (or 8 depending if you include the Suceava and
Botoşani
counties).
From time to time, polls and news surface about the reunification
of the Republic of Moldova with greater Romania, although issues about
also regaining the few remaining Romanian speaking areas in the
Ukraine, as well as the Transnistrian issue often muddy the waters.
Romanian speakers today constitute only 20% in the
Cernăuţi oblast and around 13% in the Bugeac region (part of
the Ukrainian oblast of Odessa), just north of Romanian Dobrogea. Even
if a referendum would be organized for the Ukrainian portions, it is
very unlikely that the over 80% non-Romanian majorities would vote for
a union with Romania.
The Russians and the Romanians still can't see eye-to-eye on the
question of Moldova. In 2005, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin told
Moscow radio listeners that Russia remains one of Moldova's "strategic
partners".
Simple Map of the Republic of Moldova
From the CIA
Factbook
"There is only one problem that is still to be settled in our bilateral
relations, and that is the Transdniester region," Voronin said. "We simply
cannot find points in common in that matter, and we want to unite the
country." Voronin also assured Russian listeners that there are no
problems with the use of Russian in Moldova.
"Russian is an official language, and is being used in governmental
agencies and educational establishments throughout the republic," he
noted, adding that Moldova has 630 Russian-language schools, and that
their number is growing."
Several leading public organizations of Moldova (Union of Writers,
Union of Journalists, Union of Cinematographers, Union of Artists, and
some other) and a whole number of prominent academicians, writers,
journalists have founded a new non-governmental civil movement named
The Democratic Forum
of the Romanians of Moldova (DFRM).
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For
over 500 years, Moldova was a principality of hilly river country to
the east of the Carpathians, along the rivers Siret, Prut and Dniester
all running south to the Danube river and the Black Sea.
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