Liberal-Democratic MP Maria Ciobanu from the Parliament’s rostrum expressed her regret at the fact that the MPs do not want to do historical justice even if it is the third millennium already. As the MPs rejected the request to include her initiative to declare March 27 a holiday in the agenda, the lawmaker said there is no other more noteworthy event in the whole history of Bessarabia than the union of 1918, when the Romanian land returned to its old borders, IPN reports.

“Bessarabia is a piece of land that was torn away from the chest of Romania and left in the darkness. After the union of 1918, 22 years of unprecedented modernization of Bessarabia followed. There were founded thousands of schools and banks; trade developed and many small and medium-sized companies were created. The backward Bessarabia witnessed evident progress. Romania was among the first countries in the world that used air transport, building three airports in Bessarabia,” stated Maria Ciobanu.

The lawmaker noted that the people must know their history. “If the people of Bessarabia do not know where they come from, how should they know where they go? Ladies and gentlemen, more than half of you do not know that you are Romanians and you say that you speak another language than the Romanian one. You didn’t at least accept to include my legislative initiative to mark Bessarabia’s union with Romania on March 27 in the agenda. You rejected a bill that is intended to do historical justice,” she stated.

Bessarabia (as it was named during the tsarist administration starting with 1812) became the Democratic Moldovan Republic in the spring of 1917, when it proclaimed its autonomy and then independence from Russia. In several months, on March 27, 1918, it united with the Kingdom of Romania within which it represented a province. This state continued for 22 years, until June 28, 1940, when an ultimatum was issued to Romania to concede the given territory to the Soviet Union.