Moldova

In the first half of the fourteenth century groups of Vlachs, a Romance-speaking people, migrated eastward from Maramures in the Hungarian-ruled Carpathians into the lands between the mountains and the Dniester. Around 1349 a principality took shape there, and its independence from Hungary is traditionally attributed to the voivode Bogdan I, who crossed from Maramures and seized the throne, making Moldavia the second independent Romanian principality after Wallachia. The new state took its name from the River Moldova and grew along the trade routes linking central Europe to the Black Sea.

Moldavia reached its height under Stephen IV, known to history as Stephen the Great, who reigned from 1457 to 1504. Stephen won renown across Europe for his long resistance to the Ottoman Turks, fortifying his realm with a network of strongholds and monasteries and defending its independence against the rival ambitions of Hungary, Poland and the Ottoman Empire. His victory over a far larger Ottoman army at Vaslui in 1475 was celebrated throughout Christendom, and Pope Sixtus IV is said to have hailed him as a champion of the Christian faith. Defeat at Valea Alba the following year and the relentless pressure of the Porte nonetheless showed the limits of what a small principality could withstand.

Stephen was a builder as much as a warrior, endowing churches and monasteries whose painted exteriors would become emblems of Moldavian art. Yet for all his successes Moldavia could not escape the gravitational pull of the expanding Ottoman Empire. By the end of his long reign the principality, though still self-governing, was being drawn into the tributary relationship with Constantinople that would define its standing for the next three centuries, even as it preserved its own princes, church and laws.

Turning points

1. c. 1349Formation

   Founding of the Principality of Moldavia

   Vlach migrants from Maramures established a principality east of the Carpathians; its independence is traditionally attributed to the voivode Bogdan I, making Moldavia the second Romanian principality.

   [2] [1]

2. 1457–1504Politics & Power

   Reign of Stephen the Great

   Stephen IV ruled Moldavia for nearly half a century, winning European renown for resisting the Ottomans while defending the principality against Hungary and Poland and endowing many churches and monasteries.

   [3] [2]

3. 1475War & Rupture

   Battle of Vaslui

   Stephen the Great destroyed a much larger Ottoman army at Vaslui, a victory celebrated across Christian Europe that briefly halted the Turkish advance into Moldavia.

   ↗See the data

   [3]

4. 1476War & Rupture

   Defeat at Valea Alba

   An Ottoman counter-offensive under Sultan Mehmed II defeated Stephen at Valea Alba; though he survived and recovered, the campaign exposed the mounting pressure on the small principality.

   ↗See the data

   [3]

Figures of the era

After Stephen the Great, Moldavia could no longer hold the Ottomans at arm's length. The principality became a vassal and tributary of the Ottoman Empire, retaining its own princes, Orthodox Church and laws but obliged to pay tribute to Constantinople and to follow the sultan's foreign policy. For two centuries native boyar families competed for a throne that the Porte increasingly treated as a source of revenue, confirming or deposing princes at will and demanding ever heavier payments.

In 1711, after Prince Dimitrie Cantemir allied with Russia against the Ottomans and was defeated, the Porte abandoned native rule altogether. It began appointing princes from among the wealthy Greek families of the Phanar district of Constantinople. These Phanariot rulers, who governed Moldavia and neighbouring Wallachia until 1821, bought their offices, held them briefly and recouped their costs by taxing the population heavily, producing a period remembered for instability, debt and exploitation even as it brought Greek learning and administrative reform.

The Phanariot century coincided with the southward expansion of the Russian Empire, which fought a long series of wars with the Ottomans across the Romanian principalities. Russian armies repeatedly occupied Moldavia, and each war redrew the map. The cumulative effect was to loosen Ottoman control and to make Moldavia a contested frontier between two empires, setting the stage for the partition of the principality itself in 1812.

Turning points

1. 16th centuryWar & Rupture

   Moldavia becomes an Ottoman tributary

   Following the death of Stephen the Great, Moldavia was reduced to a tributary vassal of the Ottoman Empire, keeping its princes, church and laws but paying tribute and following the sultan's lead in foreign affairs.

   ↗See the data

   [2] [1]

2. 1711Politics & Power

   Beginning of Phanariot rule

   After Prince Dimitrie Cantemir's failed alliance with Russia, the Porte ended native rule and began appointing Greek princes from the Phanar district of Constantinople, who governed until 1821.

   [1] [2]

3. 1812War & Rupture

   Partition of Moldavia at the Treaty of Bucharest

   The Treaty of Bucharest ending the Russo-Turkish War allowed Russia to annex Bessarabia, the eastern half of the principality between the Prut and the Dniester, splitting Moldavia in two.

   ↗See the data

   [4] [5]

Figures of the era

The Treaty of Bucharest, signed on 28 May 1812, ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812 and transferred to Russia the eastern half of the Principality of Moldavia, the territory between the Prut and the Dniester. The Ottomans, who as suzerains had no clear right to cede a vassal's land, nonetheless surrendered it, and Russia organized the new acquisition as the province of Bessarabia. The annexation cut the historic principality in two: its western half, around Iasi, remained under Ottoman suzerainty and would later join Wallachia to form Romania, while the east passed under the tsar.

Russia governed Bessarabia for more than a century. After an early period of limited autonomy, the province was integrated into the imperial administration and subjected to growing Russification, with Russian made the language of government and education and the Romanian-speaking majority steadily marginalized. The empire encouraged colonization, settling Bulgarians, Gagauz, Germans and others in the southern steppe of Budjak and changing the ethnic complexion of the province.

Bessarabia remained a poor, largely agrarian backwater on the empire's western edge, its peasantry tied to the land and its towns home to growing Jewish communities that suffered in the wave of pogroms at the turn of the century. The Romanian-speaking peasantry preserved its language and Orthodox faith, but it was largely excluded from a public life conducted in Russian. Only the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 would reopen the question of Bessarabia's future.

Turning points

1. 28 May 1812Colonisation

   Annexation of Bessarabia

   By the Treaty of Bucharest, Russia annexed the land between the Prut and the Dniester from the Ottoman Empire, organizing it as the province of Bessarabia and severing it from the rest of Moldavia.

   ↗See the data

   [4] [5]

2. 1828–1829Politics & Power

   Curtailment of Bessarabian autonomy

   After an initial period of limited self-government, Russia integrated Bessarabia into the imperial administration, beginning a policy of Russification that made Russian the language of government and schooling.

   [5] [1]

3. 1856War & Rupture

   Southern Bessarabia briefly returned

   The Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War returned the southern strip of Bessarabia to Moldavia; Russia recovered it in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin, underlining the province's status as a contested borderland.

   ↗See the data

   [5] [1]

4. April 1903Catastrophe

   Kishinev pogrom

   A violent anti-Jewish pogrom in the provincial capital Kishinev (Chisinau) drew international condemnation and became a notorious symbol of the persecution of Jews in the late Russian Empire.

   ↗See the data

   [5] [1]

Figures of the era

The Russian Revolution of 1917 freed Bessarabia to decide its own future. A national council, the Sfatul Tarii, convened in Chisinau and on 15 December 1917 proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic, declaring full independence from Russia in early 1918 as Bolshevik and Romanian forces contended for the province. On 27 March 1918 (9 April by the Western calendar) the Sfatul Tarii voted for union with Romania, initially on conditions safeguarding provincial autonomy; in November 1918 it dropped those conditions, proclaimed an unconditional union and dissolved itself.

The union created Greater Romania but was never accepted by the new Soviet state, which regarded Bessarabia as occupied Russian territory. In 1924 the Soviet government answered by carving out a rival entity on the east bank of the Dniester, inside Soviet Ukraine: first the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast and, within months, the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Although its population was only about a third ethnically Romanian, the Moldavian ASSR was conceived as a beachhead and a standing Soviet claim to all of Bessarabia across the river.

For two decades the Prut and the Dniester marked a hard frontier between two Moldovas. In Romanian Bessarabia, land reform and schooling in Romanian advanced national integration unevenly across a poor and ethnically mixed province. In the Soviet Moldavian ASSR, by contrast, the authorities developed a separate 'Moldavian' identity and language policy meant to distinguish Moldavians from Romanians, a Soviet construction whose legacy would fuel identity disputes long after the USSR was gone.

Turning points

1. 15 Dec 1917Independence

   Moldavian Democratic Republic proclaimed

   After the Russian Revolution, the Sfatul Tarii (national council) in Chisinau proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic, soon declaring full independence from Russia amid the turmoil of 1917-1918.

   ↗See the data

   [1] [6]

2. 27 Mar 1918Politics & Power

   Union of Bessarabia with Romania

   The Sfatul Tarii voted to unite Bessarabia with Romania (27 March, Old Style; 9 April, New Style); the union, at first conditional on autonomy, was made unconditional in November 1918.

   [6] [1]

3. 28 Oct 1920Politics & Power

   International recognition of the union

   A treaty signed in Paris by Romania, Britain, France, Italy and Japan recognized the union of Bessarabia with Romania, though the Soviet Union never accepted it.

   [6] [1]

4. 1924Politics & Power

   Creation of the Moldavian ASSR

   Refusing to recognize the loss of Bessarabia, the Soviet Union established the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on the east bank of the Dniester within Soviet Ukraine, as a standing claim to the territory across the river.

   [1] [2]

Figures of the era

The fate of Bessarabia was sealed in Moscow. The secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 assigned the province to the Soviet sphere, and on 28 June 1940 the Red Army occupied Bessarabia after an ultimatum to Romania. On 2 August 1940 the Soviet Union proclaimed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, joining most of annexed Bessarabia to the older Moldavian ASSR on the east bank, while ceding the southern and northern districts to Soviet Ukraine. Romania, allied with Nazi Germany, briefly reoccupied the territory from 1941, but the Red Army returned in 1944 and the Soviet republic was restored.

Soviet rule fell with crushing weight on the new republic. In 1946 and 1947 a famine swept Soviet Moldavia, worsened by ruthless grain requisitions and described by historians as a man-made catastrophe; it killed well over a hundred thousand people. Forced collectivization of agriculture followed, and on the night of 5-6 July 1949 the authorities carried out Operation South, deporting tens of thousands of peasants branded as kulaks to Siberia and Kazakhstan, part of successive waves of deportation that had begun with the removal of some of the population in June 1941.

Over the following decades the Moldavian SSR was thoroughly Sovietized. Industry and Russian-speaking migration concentrated on the east bank around Tiraspol, while the authorities promoted a separate Moldavian identity, written for a time in the Cyrillic alphabet, to distance the republic from Romania. When Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms loosened the system in the late 1980s, a national revival demanded the return of the Latin alphabet and the recognition of Romanian, reopening the buried questions of language and nation that the Soviet project had tried to suppress.

Turning points

1. 28 Jun 1940War & Rupture

   Soviet annexation of Bessarabia

   Acting on the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Red Army occupied Bessarabia after an ultimatum to Romania, ending more than two decades of Romanian rule.

   ↗See the data

   [7] [1]

2. 2 Aug 1940Politics & Power

   Creation of the Moldavian SSR

   The Soviet Union proclaimed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, joining most of annexed Bessarabia to the Moldavian ASSR east of the Dniester, with the new republic's borders deliberately reshaped.

   [7] [1]

3. 1946–1947Catastrophe

   The man-made famine

   A famine aggravated by harsh Soviet grain requisitioning swept Moldavia in 1946-1947, killing well over a hundred thousand people in one of the least-known episodes of Stalinist terror.

   ↗See the data

   [8] [1]

4. 6 Jul 1949Catastrophe

   Operation South deportations

   On the night of 5-6 July 1949 Soviet authorities deported tens of thousands of Moldavians condemned as kulaks to Siberia and Kazakhstan, accelerating the forced collectivization of agriculture.

   ↗See the data

   [9] [1]

Figures of the era

As the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Moldavian SSR moved toward sovereignty, and on 27 August 1991 the parliament in Chisinau adopted the Declaration of Independence under the leadership of Mircea Snegur. Independence at once exposed the republic's deepest fault line. The narrow, heavily industrialized and Russian-speaking strip on the east bank of the Dniester, Transnistria, the territory built up under the old Moldavian ASSR, rejected rule from Chisinau and proclaimed a breakaway Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic that no state recognizes.

War broke out in the spring of 1992 and reached its peak in the fighting for Bender (Tighina) in June. The decisive factor was the intervention of the Russian 14th Army, stationed on the east bank, in support of the separatists; a ceasefire on 21 July 1992 froze the conflict, and Russian troops have remained ever since. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe established its Mission to Moldova in 1993 to facilitate a settlement that consolidates Moldova's sovereignty and territorial integrity with a special status for Transnistria, working through the so-called 5+2 format. In 2018 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution urging Russia to complete the withdrawal of its forces, but the enclave and the troops remain. A separate dispute was resolved peacefully: the Turkic-speaking Gagauz of the south, who had also sought separation, were granted broad autonomy by a 1994 law creating the autonomous territorial unit of Gagauzia.

Independent Moldova long oscillated between Russia and the West and remained one of Europe's poorest states, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sharpened its choice. Under President Maia Sandu, Moldova applied for membership of the European Union on 3 March 2022 and was granted candidate status by the European Council on 23 June 2022; accession negotiations opened in 2024. In 2023 the state language was formally renamed Romanian in law, closing a Soviet-era fiction about a distinct Moldovan tongue and underlining the country's reorientation toward Europe and its Romanian kin.

Turning points

1. 27 Aug 1991Independence

   Declaration of Independence

   Moldova's parliament declared independence from the Soviet Union on 27 August 1991, in the wake of the failed Moscow coup, with Mircea Snegur as the new state's first president.

   ↗See the data

   [10] [1]

2. 21 Jul 1992War & Rupture

   The Transnistria war and ceasefire

   War with the Russian-backed Transnistrian separatists peaked in the battle for Bender; the intervention of the Russian 14th Army proved decisive, and a ceasefire on 21 July 1992 froze the conflict, leaving Russian troops in place.

   ↗See the data

   [11] [12]

3. 1993Politics & Power

   OSCE Mission to Moldova

   The OSCE established its Mission to Moldova to facilitate a comprehensive settlement consolidating Moldova's sovereignty and territorial integrity with a special status for Transnistria, later working through the 5+2 format.

   [13] [12]

4. 1994Politics & Power

   Autonomy for Gagauzia

   A Moldovan law granted broad self-government to the Turkic-speaking Gagauz of the south, creating the autonomous territorial unit of Gagauzia and peacefully resolving their bid for separation.

   [14]

5. 22 Jun 2018Politics & Power

   UN resolution on foreign forces

   The UN General Assembly adopted resolution 72/282 by 64 votes to 15, urging Russia to complete the unconditional withdrawal of its Operational Group of Forces from Moldova, in line with the 1999 OSCE Istanbul commitments.

   [15] [11]

6. 23 Jun 2022Politics & Power

   EU candidate status

   After applying for membership on 3 March 2022, Moldova was granted European Union candidate status by the European Council on 23 June 2022, opening accession negotiations in 2024.

   [16] [17]

Figures of the era