Bessarabia as Part of Greater Romania

Abstract

The focus of the article is Romania during the last part of the World War I (January– November 1918), when, after the demise of the Tsarist Empire, and shortly after the Bolshevik coup, Bessarabia proclaimed independence from Russia (24 January 1918), followed shortly by a union with Romania on 27 March. Based on documents of the time, we describe the circumstances of the Union, the difficulties that arose in the process of the integration of Bessarabia (proclaimed a republic) with the Kingdom of Romania, as well as the various opinions on the constitution of Greater Romania (through the later union of Bukovina and Transylvania). After the end of the World War I and after the establishment of Greater Romania, the state and society faced various challenges, which they overcame (some successfully, others less so). The important figures of the time, some of whom were actively involved both in the Union and in subsequent political life, wrote about the emerging problems. For instance, Dr Petre Cazacu, a member of the Country Council (the Parliament of Bessarabia, 1917–1918), outlined a number of difficulties faced by the Bessarabian population in the first decade after the Union in his book Zece ani de la Unire: Moldova dintre Prut şi Nistru (1918–1928) [Ten years after the Union: Moldova between the Prut and the Dniester (1918–1928)]. The publisher and politician Onisifor Ghibu expressed his views on this issue even more forcefully, and voiced his strong conviction that the Union of Bessarabia with Romania had been hasty. “Things would have turned out very differently in Bessarabia,” stated Ghibu, “if the union had not been forced and if it had occurred naturally, in the autumn of 1918, at the same time as that of Transylvania and Bukovina, in an atmosphere of triumphant Romanianism. Shielded by the Romanian army, Bessarabia, guided by its national culture and by the idea of the union of all Romanians, supported by people imbued with the holy feeling of love for the nation, would have made such progress during the eight months (March–November 1918) [of] favourable development, like in the past, that it could no longer have fallen prey to the ambitions of some, or to the poison of others”. We do not share Ghibu’s views. We believe that by the end of World War II Romanian historians (from both Romania and the Republic of Moldova) had already objectively presented the history of Romanians after World War I.