A book about the difficult fate of Bessarabia

Abstract

The book in question examines the various aspects of the life of Bessarabia during the late 18th – early 20th centuries – “Russian time” in its history – through the eyes of Russian scientists and writers. Their focus was both on the individual events in the life of the Bessarabian multiethnic community and the peculiarities of its religion and culture. The rich factual material revealed a significant social distance between the national Moldavian intelligentsia and the illiterate, mainly rural Moldovan population. The process of forming a qualitatively new composition of the population of Bessarabia by the end of the 19th century is analyzed, which allows us to talk about the development of the multi-ethnic phenomenon of Bessarabism. The beginning of the 20th century is the time of development and strengthening of Moldavian national identity in a Russian cultural space. The authors state: the echoes of that time, as well as subsequent events of the 20th century, continue to influence modern ethno-social processes in the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Eastern Europe as a whole.