18 Facts About Bessarabia

Bessarabia is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west.

In 1940, after securing the assent of Nazi Germany through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union pressured Romania, under threat of war, into withdrawing from Bessarabia, allowing the Red Army to enter and the Soviet Union to annex the region.

Part of the Gagauz-inhabited areas in southern Bessarabia was organised in 1994 as an autonomous region within Moldova.

Southern Bessarabia was included in the empire even before that, in 57 AD, as part of the Roman province Moesia Inferior, but it was secured only when the Dacian Kingdom was defeated in 106.

Except for the Black Sea shore in the south, Bessarabia remained outside direct Roman control; the myriad of tribes there are called by modern historians Free Dacians.

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The territory of Bessarabia was encompassed in dozens of ephemeral kingdoms which were disbanded when another wave of migrants arrived.

Between the 8th and 10th centuries, the southern part of Bessarabia was inhabited by people from the Balkan-Danubian culture .

Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Bessarabia is mentioned in Slav chronicles as part of Bolohoveni and Brodnici voivodeships, believed to be Vlach principalities of the early Middle Ages.

In 1484, the Turks invaded and captured Chilia and Cetatea Alba, and annexed the shoreline southern part of Bessarabia, which was then divided into two sanjaks of the Ottoman Empire.

Administratively, Bessarabia became an oblast of the Russian Empire in 1818, and a guberniya in 1873.

Svetlana Suveica considers that historical discourse regarding interwar Bessarabia was heavily influenced by the political association of the authors, and sought mainly to argue for or against the legality of Romanian rule in Bessarabia.

Soviet historiography considered the changes that took place in interwar Bessarabia expressed were directed either towards strengthening the political, economical, and social position of the bourgeoisie, to the detriment of the peasantry, or towards creating a favourable position for the Romanian population, to the detriment of the national minorities; Soviet authors thus reportedly rejected the notion that any modernization and progress took place in the region during Romanian rule.

Presence of the ideological factor in writing the history of Bessarabia was manifested itself not only at the central level, but at the level of the historiography of Soviet Moldavia.

Bessarabia was reduced mostly to a supplier of raw materials and a market for industrial goods of Romanian or foreign origin.

In 1919, Bessarabia became the Romanian region with the highest illiteracy rate.

Bessarabia was divided between the Moldavian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR.

Between September and November 1940, the ethnic Germans of Bessarabia were offered resettlement to Germany, following a German-Soviet agreement.

The Soviets employed scorched earth tactics during their forced retreat from Bessarabia, destroying the infrastructure and transporting movable goods to Russia by railway.