To mark the centenary of the Great Union: The union of Bessarabia with Romania on 27 March 1918

Following Romania’s attainment of state independence in 1877–1878, Mihai Eminescu responded in the press of the time, rejecting one of the arbitrary provisions of the Treaty of San Stefano, which had been ratified by the Congress of Berlin, under which Romania was obliged to cede the three counties on the left bank of the Prut (Cahul, Bolgrad and Ismail, regained in 1856) to the Russian Empire, which had offered Dobruja in exchange. The great patriot and talented polemicist of Moldavian descent expressed a truth of enduring value in the 30 April 1878 edition of the newspaper Timpul, writing: ‘And now that the Russian press has begun to cast doubt on Romania’s rights over Bessarabia, we have not lost our patience, nor have we become insolent in the face of a powerful invasion; rather, we have pored over books, drawn on the work of others, gathered evidence and demonstrated that the Romanian people have never renounced their rights over Bessarabia and that, consequently, they have no right to renounce them even today’1”.

Public opinion and politicians were deeply affected by Russia’s failure to honour the commitments it had made regarding Romania’s territorial integrity, leading them from that point onwards to view their great neighbour to the east with great mistrust and prompting King Carol I to conclude a secret treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1883, which was continually renewed until the king’s death in 1914. Indeed, the existence of this treaty and Berlin’s assurances that it would recognise Romania’s right to Bessarabia led King Carol I and several politicians in his entourage to advocate Romania’s entry into the First World War on the side of the Germans and Austro--Hungarians in order to liberate the territory between the Prut and Dniester rivers, which had been annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812. However, in 1914, the vast majority of politicians and public opinion in Romania did not embrace the cause of Bessarabia, but rather that of Transylvania and the Romanians of Transylvania, Banat and Bukovina who were under the rule of the Austro--Hungarian Empire, who were far more vocal and active in Bucharest than their Bessarabian counterparts, believing that the Romanians on the left bank of the Prut could wait a little longer for their national liberation, whereas those beyond the Carpathians could not. Consequently, the decision for Romania to enter the war in the summer of 1916 alongside the Entente (Britain, France, Russia and Italy) was taken with the political aim of liberating and annexing the territories inhabited by Romanians within Austria-Hungary, which effectively meant abandoning the cause of Bessarabia, which was part of Romania’s closest ally – with whom, incidentally, a military convention had been signed in August 1916 and through whom the Western Allies were to provide Romania with military support and munitions. The military defeats and the retreat into Moldova in December 1916 dealt a severe blow to the national ideal, jeopardising the very continuity of Romanian statehood. In this extremely unfavourable context, the Romanian government decided to send the country’s treasury to Moscow, under the guarantee of Tsar Nicholas II, regarding the Tsarist regime as unshakeable 2. That is why the events of 1917 – the February Revolution, the fall of the tsarist autocracy and the October Bolshevik Revolution – came as a surprise that no one had anticipated at the start of the war and which made possible the unification of the country towards the east in a way that no one had foreseen in 1914 or 1916.

The process of Bessarabia’s union with Romania took place in three successive stages between the spring of 1917 and 1918, and was profoundly influenced by the internal political situation in Russia and its Moldavian province, by developments on the Eastern Front, by the attitude of the Romanian government in Iași, and by the nationalist activities of certain Romanian leaders from Transylvania, Bukovina and the Kingdom of Romania who had taken refuge in Chișinău between 1917 and 1918. Against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, the dissolution of the Tsarist authorities and the right of peoples to self-determination proclaimed by Alexander Kerensky and Vladimir Lenin, the first stage of the unification process took place, culminating in the declaration of autonomy and the election of a legislative assembly for Bessarabia. The decisive step in this direction was taken on 3 April 1917 with the formation in Chișinău of the Moldovan National Party, led by the great patron and landowner Vasile Stroescu, assisted by Pan Halippa, Paul Gore and Onisifor Ghibu. The party’s programme included securing broad autonomy for Bessarabia, obtaining national rights for Moldovans, a provincial parliament, education and religious services in the Romanian language, and agrarian reform. Following lengthy discussions and internal turmoil, against the backdrop of the formation of Ukraine and its claims on Bessarabia, a congress of Moldovan soldiers was convened in Chișinău between 2 and 9 November 1917. As a representative assembly attended by 989 delegates, soldiers and officers, the soldiers’ congress decided to nationalise the Moldovan armed forces and to convene a parliament, known as the Sfatul Țării, to take over the leadership of the province. Comprising 150 representatives of various nationalities (105 Moldovans, 15 Ukrainians, 13 Jews, 7 Russians, 3 Bulgarians, 2 Germans, one Pole, one Armenian, one Greek, two Gagauz), religious denominations and political factions, professional and cultural associations, the clergy, the peasantry and the counties, The Sfatul Țării opened its proceedings on 21 November 1917 in Chișinău to the strains of the anthem ‘Deșteaptă-te române’. Ion Inculeț, a professor at the Petrograd Academy, was unanimously elected president of the Sfatul Țării. On 2 December, the Sfatul Țării officially proclaimed the ‘Autonomous Moldovan Democratic Republic within the Russian Federation’, with executive power vested in a Council of General Directors, led by Pantelimon Erhan, whilst the presidency of the republic was entrusted to Ion Inculeț 3. Thus ended the first stage on the path to union.

The second stage marked a complete breakaway from Russia through the adoption and affirmation of the republic’s independence. The much faster pace of events during this period can be explained, on the one hand, by external pressures from Russia and Ukraine, and on the other, by internal anarchy and the support of the Romanian government in pacifying the region. Following the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power in Petrograd and the signing of the armistice with the Central Powers, the Tsarist army began to disintegrate and pour back into the Russian heartland, with soldiers deserting the front, banding together in groups and causing anarchy, violence and destruction. Against this backdrop, in the winter of 1917–1918, the Romanian authorities disarmed the Russian troops and took military control of the entire front in Moldova. At the same time, the Council of Directors sent two delegations to Iași to request the intervention of the Romanian army in Bessarabia. Following these requests, on 10 January 1918 the Romanian government sent two divisions across the Prut River with the stated aim of restoring and maintaining order. On 13 January 1918, General Ernest Broșteanu and the 11th Division entered Chișinău, where they were enthusiastically welcomed by the civilian population. The Bolshevik government in Petrograd interpreted these actions as hostile towards the Soviets and severed diplomatic relations with Romania, ordering the seizure of the Romanian treasury in Moscow. At the same time, political debates in Chișinău shifted towards the idea of the independence of the Moldovan Republic, which was, not coincidentally, proclaimed by the Sfatul Țării with a unanimous vote on 24 January 1918, the anniversary of the union of the principalities. On the same day, the daily newspaper România nouă appeared in Chișinău as the ‘Organ of propaganda for the political union of all Romanians’, led by a committee comprising Romanians from Transylvania, Bessarabia, Bukovina, Wallachia, Macedonia and Timoc. The front page of the first issue featured a manifesto of union which stated: ‘The future homeland of the Romanians must encompass the entire land inhabited by them from the Tisza to the Dniester (...) from today onwards, we no longer regard ourselves as we have done until now: Transylvanians, Bessarabians, Bukovinians, and so on nor do we regard ourselves merely as the sons of the same people, but as citizens of the same unified Romanian state, as citizens of the new Romania of all Romanians, with the same duties in every part of it and with the same rights. (...) Let everyone realise that our salvation lies solely in a Romania belonging to all Romanians”4 At the same time, the Bessarabian students issued another manifesto in which they stated from the outset that “Our Bessarabia is a Romanian country, just like the other countries across the Prut inhabited by our brothers” and solemnly declared that “we believe that the salvation of our nation lies solely in the union of all our sons within a single country”, then continued, “we do not need a federal Russia (...), we want a Romania for all Romanians”, and concluded by calling upon all “brothers to the holy struggle” for “the fulfilment of the sacred cause of the union of all Romanians”5. As Onifisor Ghibu rightly pointed out in his memoirs, through this manifesto Chișinău had become the main centre of the movement for the union of all Romanians. A fact that we must be aware of and remember!

Following the proclamation of independence, the pace of events aimed at union with Romania accelerated, this third stage on the path to union being the shortest. Domestically, an increasing number of individual voices (Constantin Stere, Ion Inculeț, Ștefan Ciobanu, Gurie Grosu, Dionisie Erhan and others), media outlets, associations, unions and various representatives of social and professional classesopenly declared their support for “union with our beloved motherland, Romania”, as stated, for example, by the representatives of the peasants from the Bălți region in the motion adopted on 2 March 1918 6. Whilst in Chișinău and actively involved in campaigning for union, Onisifor Ghibu described this step towards union with Romania as follows: ‘This whole radical transformation, this unexpected shift from the traditional Tsarist Russian ideology, to the idea of autonomy, then successively to that of a republic, to independence and finally to unionism, took place, it is true, with the participation of all the positive elements in Bessarabia, but also of the Romanian refugees from the other provinces’7. Among the refugees, he himself played an active role through his two periodicals (Ardealul, România nouă), through the educational journal (Școala moldovenească) and through the thousands of Romanian primers in the Latin script that he published in Chișinău between 1917 and 1918, as well as through the courses in pedagogy and the Romanian language that he taught to Bessarabian teachers. The same Romanian activist explains why the progress towards union was rather arduous, stating: ‘In such circumstances, the idea of Bessarabia’s union with Romania was the most natural thing in the hearts of the Bessarabians. If unification did not come sooner, the main cause is not to be found in the reserved attitude of the Bessarabians towards the very idea of unification, but in the utterly unfavourable circumstances in which Romania found itself.”7 The unfavourable circumstances facing Romania to which Onisifor Ghibu refers were the armistice and subsequently the separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, signed by Soviet Russia with the Central Powers on 18 February 1918, whereby Russia withdrew from the war, German armies advanced deep into Ukraine, and Romania was left alone on the Eastern Front, caught as if in a vice between the armies of the Central Powers and the Bolshevik troops. Against this backdrop, Romania was forced in turn to sign the Armistice of Focșani (26 November 1917) and then to open peace negotiations (29 January 1918) with the Central Powers. It is interesting to note that both the Germans and the Anglo-French allies encouraged the leadership of the Sfatul Țării and the Romanian government to proclaim and ratify the union of Bessarabia with Romania. Of course, their motives differed: the Germans opposed Ukrainian claims to annex Bessarabia, whilst the Anglo-French sought to organise a new anti-Soviet and anti-German military coalition in a reunified Moldova. The agreement between the Great Powers encouraged the Romanian political elite on both sides of the Prut River to see through the process of Bessarabia’s union with Romania.

On 27 March 1918, the Sfatul Țării, meeting in solemn session in the assembly hall of Secondary School No. 3 in Chișinău, voted in favour of the historic declaration of union, the first paragraph of which states: ‘In the name of the people of Bessarabia, the Sfatul Țării declares: the Moldovan Democratic Republic (Bessarabia), within its borders between the Prut, the Dniester, the Danube and the Black Sea, and its former borders with Austria—a region torn from the body of Old Moldova by Russia over a hundred years ago—by virtue of historical right and the right of the nation, on the basis of the principle that peoples alone shall determine their own destiny, is henceforth and for ever united with its motherland, Romania8”. Of the 125 deputies present at that solemn session of the Sfatul Țării, 86 voted in favour of union in a free and open ballot, 3 voted against, and 36 abstained, as can be seen from the following table:

The Romanian deputies who voted in favour of union were: Nicolae Alexandru (1859–1931), journalist; Elena Alistar-Romanescu (1873–1955), doctor, the only female deputy in the Sfatul Țării; Alexandru Baltaga (1861–1941), priest; Teodor Bârcă (1894–1993), schoolteacher; Teodosie Bârcă (1893–?), farmer; Constantin Bivol (1885–1942), farmer; Neculae Bivol (1885–1942), farmer; Vladimir Bodescu (1868–1941), magistrate; Vlad Bogos (1893–1950), doctor and journalist; Nicolae Bosie-Codreanu (1885–1969), engineer; Ignatie Budiștean (1888–?), farmer; Ilarion Buiuc (1891–?), farmer; Gheorghe Buruiană (1869–1933), cooperative member; Ion Buzdugan (1887–1967), writer; Anton Caraiman (1880–?), farmer; Ion Cazacliu (1870–1933), civil servant; Grigore Cazacliu (1892–1959), student; Vladimir Cazacliu (1890–1950), student; Dumitru Cărăuș (1892–1955), civil servant; Nicolae Cernăuțean (1892–1933), military instructor; Atanasie Chiriac (1891–1977), farmer; Vladimir Chiorescu (1888–1969), co-operator; Vasile Ciorescu (1886–?), farmer; Pavel Cocârlă (1893–?), joiner; Nicolae Ciornei (1892–?), lieutenant; Ion Codreanu (1879–1949), farmer; Ion Costin (1887–1940), lawyer; Ion Creangă (1883–?), schoolteacher; Anton Crihan (1893–1993), student; Dumitru Dragomir (1890–?), second lieutenant; Dimitrie Dron (1893–1977), student; Gheorghe Druță (1881–?), schoolteacher; Boris Epure (1881–1938), civil servant; Pantelimon Erhan (1884–1971), teacher; Andrei Găină (1885–1940), farmer; Alexandru Gropa (1879–1940), cooperative worker; Vasile Gafencu (1886–1942), farmer; Petru-Simion Galițchi (1887–1940), staff sergeant; Vasile Ghenzul (1885–1970), civil servant; Nicolae Grosul (1891–?), student; Pantelimon Halippa (1883–1979), journalist; Teodor Herța (1891–?), farmer; Ion Ignatiuc (1893–1943), farmer; Ion Inculeț (1884–1940), university lecturer; Teofil Ioncu (1885–1954), accountant; Vasile Lașcu (1861–1932), journalist; Mihail Maculețchi (1861–?), farmer; Gheorghe Mare (1881–1964), teacher; Niculae Mămăligă (1880–?), gardener; Dumitru Mărghitan (1886–?), farmer; Vasile Mândrescu (1888–?), civil servant; Dimitrie Mârza (1894–1967), captain; Mihail Minciună (1885–1935), journalist; Alexandru Moraru (1881–?), lieutenant; Anatolie Moraru (1895–1969), captain; Zamfir Munteanu, farmer; Gheorghe Năstase (1896–1986), schoolteacher; Teodor Neaga (1880–1941), teacher; Constantin Osoianu (1885–?), civil servant; Eftimie Palii (1880–?), gardener; Ion Păsculuță (1890–1988), second lieutenant; Gherman Pântea (1894–1968), lawyer; Ion Pelivan (1876–1954), magistrate; Petre Piciormare (1887–?), accountant; Nicolae Săcară (1894–1942), teacher; Andrei Scobiola (1884–1971), teacher; Timofte Sălistraru (1895–?), officer; Elefterie Sinicliu (1895–1980), farmer; Nicolae Soltuz (1864–?), civil servant; Chiril Spinei (1884–?), second lieutenant; Gheorghe Stavriu (1882–?), farmer; Constantin Stere (1865–1936), university professor; Iacob Sucevan, schoolteacher; Nicolae Suruceanu (1891–1969), magistrate; Teodor Suruceanu (1865–?), civil servant; Gheorghe Tudor (1885–1974), primary school teacher and journalist; Ion Tudose (1884–?), doctor; Grigore Turcuman (1890–1942), second lieutenant; Vasile Tanțu (1883–1937), primary school teacher; Leonida Țurcan (1895–?), civil servant; Teodor Uncu (1885–1940), civil servant; Ion Văluță (1894–1987), student; Chiril Zbierea (1890–?), agronomist; Vitalie Zubac (1895–?), officer9ist.

The three representatives of the minorities who voted in favour of union were: the Ukrainian Ștefan Botnariuk, the Russian Nicolae Cernov and the Pole Felix Dudkewicz, who made an important statement during the session of the Sfatul Țării, saying: ‘I deeply regret that on this solemn day for the Moldovan people, I must speak in Russian, which has been a symbol of the oppression of both the Moldovan and Polish nations: I do not know the Moldovan language, and the Moldovans will not be able to understand Polish. On this glorious day, I warmly greet the unfortunate yet, at the same time, fortunate Moldovan people, our brothers and sisters, who can at last unite with the Romanian people, to whom they are bound by blood. On behalf of the Polish people, I fully support the union of Bessarabia with Romania, as this is what the Moldovans, the native inhabitants of this country, desire10’. The three Members of Parliament who voted against the union were the Bulgarian Ștefan Balamez and the Ukrainians Arcadie Osmolovschi and Mihail Starenchi.

The MPs who abstained from voting were: the Moldovans Zaharia Bacsan, Gheorghe Brinici, Gavril Buciușcan, Andrei Crupenschi, Dragomir Diaconu, Ion Dumitrașcu, Ion Harbuz, Constantin Iurcu, Teodor Moldovan, Ion Popa and Eftimie Vizitiu; the Ukrainians Vasile Covali, Vasile Curdinovschi, Vladimir Lunev, Nichita Budnicenco, Vladimir Țâganco, Alexandru Greculov, Piotr Paleatînciuc and Mihail Savenco; the Russians Ivan Cijevschi, Vladimir Lunev, Vladimir Țâganco, Serghei Donoco-Iordănescu, Alexandru Greculov, Vasile Ponomarinov and Piotr Manițin; the Bulgarians Andrei Culevo, Petre Cuncev, Teodor Chirilov, Dimitrie Maldoc and Cristo Misircov; the Jews Isac Gherman, Eugeniu Königschatz, Samuel Lichtman and Moise Sluțchi; and the Germans Philipp Almendinger and Robert von Lesch11. The two German deputies explained their abstention by stating that “the German population had not mandated them to take a position on the issue of union, nor on with whom specifically—namely, the Moldovan Republic”. On 7 March 1919 in Tarutino, the Congress of Germans in Bessarabia expressed its support for union with Romania, with the Germans declaring that ‘they would live in peace and unity with the Romanian people, united under the same sceptre’12.

The number of votes against the union and those who abstained reveals that the Romanian troops, who had entered Bessarabia on 13 January 1918 with the aim of restoring and maintaining public order, did not take part in the Sfatul Țării vote of 27 March 1918, contrary to the false claims made by Soviet historiography with the aim of discrediting the democratic declaration of union with Romania. In fact, the Soviets hated all the members of the Sfatul Țării to the core, regardless of their nationality, how they voted on 27 March 1918, or the length of their term in the Bessarabian legislature. Thus, the first victims of Stalin’s revenge were the deputies Gavril Buciușcan, Ivan Crivorucov, Mihail Starenki and Vladimir Țâganco, who were shot in Tiraspol on the orders of the dictator in Moscow in 1937.

Following the Soviet ultimatum of June 1940 and the annexation of Bessarabia by the USSR, the former members of the Sfatul Țării who remained in Bessarabia were immediately arrested and detained in prisons in Chișinău and Tiraspol. A report by the head of the Special Intelligence Service, Eugen Cristescu, to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers dated 24 February 1941 stated that all those arrested and imprisoned had displayed a “stubborn attitude” and had told the Soviet investigators that “they had voted for the Union because their Romanian convictions and conscience had dictated it”, as, in their view, the republic established by the Soviets was nothing other than ‘an instrument for dividing the Romanian people. Bessarabia, having been forged from the blood and bones of their ancestors, will always remain Romanian and, whatever the Soviets may do, as it belongs to the Romanians, it will always return to them’13

The same Romanian conviction and attachment shine through in the NKVD’s investigations. For example, the investigation against the priest Alexandru Baltaga consisted of two interrogations conducted on 31 August 1940 and 10 February 1941. The Soviets’ accusation against him boils down to the following question posed by the investigator Cerepanov: “You are accused of having, in 1918, whilst being hostile to Soviet Russia, voted for Bessarabia’s secession from Russia and its union with Romania. Do you admit this?” To which the octogenarian Father Baltaga replied briefly and clearly: “Yes, I admit it. I, Baltaga, was indeed an opponent of the revolution and, in order to avoid it, I voted for the union.” Wishing to find out more about the reasons behind the priest’s support for the cause of union with Romania, the interrogator put another question to him: “What were the reasons why the clergy in general, and you in particular, voted for union with Romania?” Father Baltaga once again expressed his commitment to the national cause and to Romanian identity: “To me, a Bessarabian nationalist, more than to anyone else, the ungrateful behaviour of the Russian bishops Pavel, Serafim and others towards the Bessarabian clergy is well known. High-ranking prelates of the Church in former Russia prohibited the teaching of the Moldovan language in schools in Bessarabia, and also mandated that religious services be conducted in Russian. All these events gave rise to discontent amongst the Bessarabian clergy towards the Russian Church and Russia in general”. During the second interrogation conducted by the same officer, Cerepanov, in February 1941, the accused was asked whether he confirmed “his previous statements that, as a representative of the clergy, you played an important role in the separation of Bessarabia from Soviet Russia and its annexation to Romania?”. The honest priest gave the following reply: “I confirm. Indeed, the clergy played an important role in the separation of Bessarabia from Soviet Russia and its annexation to Romania. All my subsequent activity was directed towards consolidating Romania’s position in Bessarabia, a fact which I acknowledge14”.

Such a belief could only lead to the death of the former MPs: Father Alexandru Baltaga, Constantin and Nicolae Bivol, Ștefan Botnariuc, Ștefan Balamez, Emanoil Catelli, Teodosie Cojocaru, Vladimir Cristi, Vasile Gafencu, Petru Galițchi, Ion Ignatiuc, Teodor Neaga, Nicolae Săcară, Pantelimon Sinadino, Luca Dumitru Stirbeț, Grigore Turcuman and Tudor Uncu, all of whom met their end as martyrs in the Soviet gulag between 1941 and 1945, with the locations of their final resting places remaining unknown.

Returning to the two central bodies that administered Bessarabia in the spring of 1917–1918, the Sfatul Țării (legislative body) and the Council of General Directors (executive body), it should be noted that the first president of the former was Professor Ion Inculeț (21 November 1917–2 April 1918), who also served as President of the Republic between the declaration of independence (24 January 1918) and the declaration of union with Romania (27 March 1918). After Inculeț became a minister in the Romanian government in Iași, the office of president of the Bessarabian legislative assembly was held by Constantin Stere (2 April–24 November 1918) and Pantelimon Halippa (25–27 November 1918). The first president of the second assembly was Pantelimon Erhan, elected by the Sfatul Țării on 5 December 1917, who was succeeded by Daniel Ciugureanu (16 January–27 March 1918) and Petre Cazacu (27 March–27 November 1918). The two bodies were dissolved on 27 November 1918, when the Sfatul Țării adopted a brief declaration annulling the annexed conditions of the Act of Union of 27 March, decreeing that ‘following the Union with Mother Romania of Bukovina, Transylvania, the Banat and the Hungarian territories inhabited by Romanians, within the borders of the Danube and the Tisza, Bessarabia renounces the conditions of union stipulated in the Act of 27 March, being assured that in Romania a purely democratic regime is guaranteed for all Romanians in the future”. By revoking the conditions, the Sfatul Țării solemnly declared “the unconditional union of Bessarabia with Mother Romania”, the Bessarabian political class thereby deciding on the irreversible integration of the province into the unified Romanian state 15.

The union was the democratic expression of the absolute majority of the Sfatul Țării deputies (68.5 per cent) and cannot be contested either on ethnic or political grounds, as the Soviet Union did during the interwar period, because the percentage of deputies who voted in favour of unification actually reflects the ethnographic and national reality of Bessarabia in 1918, justifying the application of the right of peoples to self-determination. Despite the process of Russification in the province, in 1918 the population of Bessarabia stood at 2,725,000, of whom: 65.7 per cent were Romanians (1,810,000), 12 per cent Russians and Ukrainians (338,000), 9.8 per cent Jews (270,000), 7.7 per cent Bulgarians and Gagauz (210,000), 2.7 per cent Germans (75,000), 1.3 per cent Greeks and Armenians (30,000)16s.

On 9 April 1918, by means of a decree-law, King Ferdinand I and the Romanian government ratified the act of Bessarabia’s union with Romania. Large-scale celebrations then took place in Iași, expressing the joy of the reunification of Stephen the Great’s Moldavia. At its sitting on 29 December 1919, the Parliament of a united Romania adopted, in an atmosphere of great enthusiasm, the ‘Law on the Union of Bessarabia with the Old Kingdom of Romania’, published in the Official Gazette, No. 206 of 1 January 1920. Through this ratification, the broadly democratic and representative nature of the Act of Union was fully confirmed.

During and following the Paris Peace Conference, Romanian diplomacy endeavoured to secure recognition, through treaties, of the union of Bessarabia with Romania. Applying the principle of nationalities, the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference recognised the legitimacy of the union on 3 March 1920. Six months later, on 28 October 1920, Romania signed with the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Japan the ‘Treaty on the Recognition of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania’, which stated that ‘from a geographical, ethnographic, historical and economic point of view, the union of Bessarabia with Romania is fully justified’, given that ‘the population of Bessarabia had expressed a desire to see Bessarabia united with Romania’17. The document was subsequently ratified by the United Kingdom on 14 April 1922, by France on 24 April 1924 and by Italy on 22 May 1927. Under pressure from the Soviet Union, Japan did not ratify it; Moscow demanded a plebiscite, which the Brătianu government rejected, as early as during the Paris peace talks, explaining that “Bessarabia is Romanian both historically and ethnically”, and that such a plebiscite could be accepted “only if the great powers were to accept it for themselves”18.

Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Herța region were seized by the Soviet Union, on the basis of the secret additional protocol to the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact concluded on 23 August 1939, and arbitrarily at the end of June 1940 following the collapse of France, which had been invaded by Nazi Germany. The devastating consequences for Romanians on the left bank of the Prut are still felt today, and the Romanian state bears the shame of having abandoned these Romanian provinces and its own citizens to the Bolshevik onslaught without firing a single shot. That is why the Romanian authorities have a responsibility and a moral duty towards the present and future fate of the Republic of Moldova and our brothers and sisters there. No true Romanian, wherever they may be, must forget that Bessarabia was an integral part of the Principality of Moldavia until 1812, when it was annexed by Tsarist Russia, but returned to the bosom of the mother country on 27 March 1918 through democratic means. Consequently, Bessarabia is Romanian land that was taken away – by the force of a totalitarian power that disregarded the will of the Romanians – over which the Romanian people ‘even today have no right to relinquish’.

Imagine

• 1

  Mihai EMINESCU, Works, vol. X. Journalistic Writings (1 November 1877 – 15 February 1880), critical edition edited by Dimitrie Vatamaniuc, R.S.R. Publishing House, Bucharest, 1989, p. 82.

• 2

  Marian VOICU, Romania’s Treasure in Moscow: An Inventory of a Hundred Years’ History, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2016.

• 3

  Ioan SCURTU (ed.), The History of Bessarabia from its Beginnings to 2003, Romanian Cultural Institute Press, Bucharest, 2003, pp. 123–143; Mircea PĂCURARIU, Bessarabia: Aspects of the History of the Church and the Romanian People, Basilica Publishing House, 2012, pp. 175–184.

• 4

  Onisifor GHIBU, On the Barricades of Life. In Revolutionary Bessarabia (1917–1918). Memoirs, edited, with a preface, chronological table, notes, bibliography and index of names by Octavian O. Ghibu, Universitas Publishing House, Chișinău, 1992, pp. 514–516.

• 5

  Ștefan CIOBANU, The Unification of Bessarabia: A Study and Documents on the National Movement in Bessarabia in 1917–1918, Cartea Românească Publishing House, Bucharest, 1929, pp. 210–211.

• 6

  Ștefan CIOBANU, The Unification of Bessarabia. A Study and Documents on the National Movement in Bessarabia in 1917–1918, pp. 213–214.

• 7a7b

  Ștefan CIOBANU, How the Union of Bessarabia Came About, published by the Association, printed by the Archdiocesan Printing House, Sibiu, 1925, p. 15.

• 8

  Ion NISTOR, The History of Bessarabia. A popular history, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2017, p. 307.

• 9

  Iurie COLESNIC, Sfatul Țării. Encyclopaedia, Museum Publishing House, Chișinău, 1998, pp. 44–301; Alexandru CHIRIAC, Members of the Sfatul Țării (1917–1918). Dictionary, Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001, pp. 22–30, 45–157.

• 10

  Valeriu POPOVSCHI, The Organisational Office of the Sfatul Țării (27 October–21 November 1917)/ The Moldovan Democratic Republic (Formation and Development, 1917–1918), edited by Gheorghe E. Cojocaru, Romanian Academy Press/Istros Publishing House–‘Carol I’ Museum of Brăila, Bucharest–Brăila, 2017, pp. 319–320; Iurie COLESNIC, Sfatul Țării. Encyclopaedia, p. 310.

• 11

  Alexandru CHIRIAC, Members of the Sfatul Țării (1917–1918). Dictionary, pp. 22–30.

• 12

  Vasile CIOBANU, The Germans in Romania in 1918–1919, Honterus Publishing House, Sibiu, 2013, pp. 208–211.

• 13

  Alexandru CHIRIAC, Members of the Sfatul Țării (1917–1918). Dictionary, Appendix 2, p. 164.

• 14

  Mihai TAȘCĂ, ‘The Martyrs of Bessarabia: The Cruel Fate of Father A. Baltaga, Member of the Sfatul Țării’, online version: https://www.timpul.md/articol/martirii-basarabiei-destinul-crud-al-preotului-alexandru-baltaga-deputat-in-sfatul-tarii-22530.html, accessed 27 July 2018.

• 15

  Gheorghe E. COJOCARU, Sfatul Țării: A Chronology, Civitas Publishing House, Chișinău, 1998, pp. 154–155, 172.

• 16

  Ioan SCURTU (ed.), The History of Bessarabia from its Beginnings to 2003, pp. 136–137.

• 17

  The text of the treaty was published in: the Official Gazette, No. 100 of 8 August 1922, pp. 4834–4837.

• 18

  Ioan SCURTU (ed.), The History of Bessarabia from its Beginnings to 2003, p. 138.