Next week marks the 107th anniversary of the Union of the Moldavian Democratic Republic with the Kingdom of Romania, on March 27, 1918. It is worth noting the necessary, even inevitable and imminent nature of this event, even if, since the annexation of Bessarabia in 1812, a number of generations, who had in their memory the situation before the annexation, passed. And, even if, for 100 years or so, the population of that territory that was transformed into a Russian governorate was subjected to political, ideological, identity, linguistic, cultural and other kinds of pressure by the Tsarist Empire and by the "Russian world" of that time, precisely in order to erase from memory the natural relationship with the historical Motherland. How was the store of "historical injustice", of national and identity memory, activated at the right time, preserved over time and who were the actors who contributed to its activation? These and other questions were answered by the experts invited to IPN’s public debate "The Union of 1918: why was it necessary, why was it possible?".
The permanent expert of IPN’s project Igor Boțan said that the "Union" is the joining by Bessarabia of the Kingdom of Romania, within which it constituted a province. The union of Bessarabia, as it had been defined within the tsarist administration in 1812, was preceded by the establishment of the Moldavian Democratic Republic at the end of 1917, first proclaiming its autonomy within the Russian Republic, then, after the October Revolution, its independence from Bolshevik Russia and, after a few months, on March 27/April 9, 1918, the union with the Kingdom of Romania took place.
The "Great Union" of 1918 was the historical process as a result of which all the historical provinces inhabited by Romanians united in 1918 within the same national state called Romania. The preliminary stages were the Union of the Romanian Principalities in 1859 and the obtaining of independence following the war of 1877-1878, against the background of the national rebirth of Romanians during the nineteenth century", explained the expert.
According to him, the "empire" is one of the historical types of state. An empire is characterized by the fact that it consists of a center and a periphery subordinate to it. These peripheral areas are usually conquered. Empires are characterized by differences in the rights and principles of government of the different territories within them. At the same time, "nation states" represent stable communities of people, historically constituted based on the unity of language, territory, economic life and psychic nature, which are manifested in specific particularities of national culture and in the consciousness of common origin and destiny.
"The principle of self-determination of nations or peoples" is a principle of international law that provides for the right of peoples and nations to determine the course of their own political, economic, cultural and social developments, without direct or indirect interference from outside," said Igor Boţan.
Ion Negrei, vice-president of the Association of Historians of the Republic of Moldova "Alexandru Moșanu", said that, since ancient times, the territory between the Prut and Nistru Rivers had been part of the Principality of Moldavia, in the medieval period and in the period of entry into the modern era. According to him, being an independent state, Moldavia faced interference from outside, including aggression. Permanently, since the eighteenth century, the Russian Empire had invaded for multipole times this part of Europe and the war proclaimed by the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire in 1806 was one of the invasions.
"In 1806, an ordinary war broke out in this part of Europe and Russia's goal was to penetrate the Romanian principalities, to cross the Danube, to occupy the Balkans and further towards the Bosporus and Dardanelles. It was a goal long pursued by the Russian Empire, but in the context of this war, Russia was not able to fully satisfy those interests and conquered only a part of the Romanian territory. An eastern part of Moldavia, as a result of the Peace Treaty of 1812, was annexed to the Russian Empire. The other part of Moldavia rightward the Prut remained an independent state and existed as an independent state unit," explained the historian.
The vice-president of the Association of Historians noted that, becoming part of the Russian Empire, this territory acquired a specific name – Bessarabia. This was a specificity in Russian foreign policy – all conquered territories were given geographical terms. And although Bessarabia was a much smaller territory, this designation was extended to the entire conquered territory to cover the conquest and annihilate any ethnic content of the conquest.
Ion Negrei said that in 1917, when Russian tsarism fell, all the peoples of the Russian Empire, including those from Bessarabia, were unchained. From that moment the events began to develop much faster and ended with the Union of March 27, 1918.
"Today we are, so to speak, at an equator. We have 106 years of domination of the Russian Empire over Bessarabia and 107 years since the Union of 1918. For 213 years, this territory between the Prut and the Nistru had periodically been under Russian tsarist domination and, after 1940, also the Soviet one. Today we have the Republic of Moldova as an independent state with all the consequences that have their roots in the tsarist period and the Soviet period," stated the historian.
Doctor habilitate of history Nicolae Enciu, senior scientific researcher at the Institute of History of the Moldova State University, said that the year 1812 was a crucial one as it influenced the further fate of this population from the Prut-Nistru interfluvial area, part of Moldavia.
In his opinion, as well as that of other historians, the question of Bessarabia has its origin in 1711, when the Tsar of Russia, Peter I, signed a secret prior agreement with the ruler of Moldavia Dimitrie Cantemir. "In his attempt to free Moldavia from Ottoman domination, he also signed a treaty with all the attributes of an international treaty – the Treaty of Lutsk of 1711 - in which it was stipulated very clearly and unequivocally, without the possibility of reinterpretation, that the Tsar of Russia assumed the obligation to preserve the territorial integrity of the Principality of Moldavia, in any circumstance", explained Nicolae Enciu.
According to him, this was an official legal and political commitment, of European and international character, through which Russia undertook to respect and preserve the territorial integrity of the Principality of Moldova. "A century passed since then and Russia, in the already known manner, signed another treaty with the Ottoman Empire by which it tore a part of the Principality of Moldova and annexed it," he said.
The scientific researcher referred to the existing appraisals in the entire national historiography and not only, namely to the fact that the Ottoman Empire did not have the right to cede something that did not belong to it. For its part, Russia, even more so it did not have the right to break the territorial integrity of the Principality of Moldavia, to claim to have liberated a part of this Principality. Moreover, to annex it, to rename it, to break the integrity of religion, of the structure of the church in this space.
Nicolae Enciu considers that the preconditions that led to the return of the Prut-Nistru space to Romania accumulated throughout the nineteenth century. According to him, until that abduction committed by Tsarist Russia in 1812, the population in this area was used to communicating with their brothers across the Prut, to have economic, commercial, cultural relations, etc. When the border on the Prut was established, this separated not only a population, but also families. Thus, the Prut becomes a border and not an internal river within the same state, the Principality of Moldavia," said the doctor habilitate of history.
The public debate entitled "The Union of 1918: why was it necessary, why was it possible?" was part of the series "Impact of the past on confidence-building and peace-building processes". IPN News Agency implements the project with support from the German “Hanns Seidel” Foundation.
