Prehistory
During the Neolithic stone age era, Moldova's territory was the
center of the large Cucuteni-Trypillian culture that
stretched east beyond the Dniester
River in Ukraine, and west up to and beyond the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. The
inhabitants of this civilization, which lasted roughly from 5500 to 2750 BC,
practiced agriculture, raised livestock, hunted, and made intricately designed
pottery. This society built very large settlements, some of which numbered
up to 15,000 inhabitants.
Antiquity and Middle Ages
In Antiquity Moldova's territory was
inhabited by Dacian tribes.
Between the 1st and 7th centuries AD, the south was intermittently under
the Roman, then Byzantine
Empires. Due to its strategic location on a route between Asia and
Europe, the territory of modern Moldova was invaded many times in late
antiquity and early Middle Ages, including by Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans,Mongols and Tatars.
The Principality of Moldavia, established in 1359, was bounded by the Carpathian mountains in the west,Dniester
river in the east, and Danube and Black Sea in
the south. Its territory comprised the present-day territory of the Republic of
Moldova, the eastern eight of the 41 counties of Romania, and the Chernivtsi
oblast and Budjak region of Ukraine. Like the present-day republic
and Romania's north-eastern region, it was known to the locals as Moldova.
Moldavia was invaded repeatedly by Crimean Tatars and,
since the 15th century, by the Turks. In 1538, the principality became a tributary to
the Ottoman Empire, but it retained internal and
partial external autonomy.
Modern history
Russian Empire
In accordance with the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812 and
despite numerous protests by Moldavian nobles on behalf of their autonomous
status, the Ottoman Empire (of which Moldavia was
a vassal)
ceded to theRussian Empire the eastern half of the
territory of the Principality of Moldavia along with Khotyn and
old Bessarabia (modern Budjak).
The new Russian province was called "Oblast of Moldavia and
Bessarabia", and initially enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. After 1828
this autonomy was progressively restricted and in 1871 the Oblast was transformed
into the Bessarabia Governorate, in a process
of state-imposed assimilation, "Russification".
As part of this process, the Tsarist administration in Bessarabia gradually removed theRomanian
language from official and religious use.[13] The
western part of Moldavia (which is a part of present-day Romania) remained an
autonomous principality, and in 1859, united with Wallachia to
form the Kingdom of Romania.
The Treaty of Paris (1856) returned three
counties of Bessarabia — Cahul,
Bolgrad and Ismail — to Moldavia, but in the Treaty of Berlin (1878), the Kingdom of
Romania agreed to return them to the Russian Empire. Over the 19th century, the
Russian authorities encouraged colonization of
the south of the region by Ukrainians, Lipovans,Cossacks, Bulgarians,[14] Germans,[15] Gagauzes,
and allowed the settlement of more Jews,
to replace the large Nogai Tatar population expelled in the 1770s and 1780s,
during Russo-Turkish Wars; the
Moldovan proportion of the population decreased from around 86% in 1816 to
around 52% in 1905.
Greater Romania
World War I brought in a rise in political and cultural (ethnic) awareness
among the inhabitants of the region, as 300,000 Bessarabians were drafted into
the Russian Army formed
in 1917; within bigger units several "Moldavian Soldiers' Committees"
were formed. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, a Bessarabian
parliament, Sfatul Ţării, was elected in October–November 1917 and
opened on December 3 [O.S. November 21] 1917. The
Sfatul Ţării proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic (December
15 [O.S. December 2] 1917) within a
federal Russian state, and formed a government (December 21 [O.S. December 8] 1917).
Bessarabia proclaimed independence from Russia on February 6 [O.S. January 24] 1918 and
requested the assistance of the French army present in Romania (general Henri Berthelot) and of the Romanian army,
which had occupied the region in early January. On April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918, the Sfatul
Ţării decided with 86 votes for, 3 against and 36 abstaining, to unite with the Kingdom of Romania.
The union was conditional upon fulfillment of the agrarian reform, autonomy, and respect for
universal human rights. A part of the interim Parliament agreed to drop these
conditions after Bukovinaand Transylvania also
joined the Kingdom of Romania, although historians note that they lacked
the quorum to
do so.
This union was recognized by the principal Allied Powers in the 1920 Treaty of Paris, which however was
not ratified by all of its signatories. Some major powers,
such as the United States and the newly communist Russia,
did not recognize Romanian rule over Bessarabia, the latter considering it an
occupation of Russian territory.
In May 1919, the Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic was
proclaimed as a government in exile. After the failure of the Tatarbunary Uprising in 1924,
the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist
Republic (Moldavian ASSR) was formed.
In August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its
secret additional protocol were signed, by which Nazi Germany recognized
Bessarabia as being within the Soviet sphere of influence, which led the
latter to actively revive its claim to the region. On June 28, 1940, the Soviet Union, with the
acknowledgement of Nazi Germany, issued an ultimatum to Romania requesting the
cession of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, with which
Romania complied the following day. Soon after, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian
SSR) was established, comprising about 70% of Bessarabia, and 50% of
the now-disbanded Moldavian ASSR.
As part of the 1941 Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Romania
seized the territories of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and Transnistria. Romanian forces, working
with the Germans, deported or exterminated about 300,000 Jews, including
147,000 from Bessarabia and Bukovina (of the latter, approximately 90,000
perished). The Soviet Army re-captured the region in
February–August 1944, and re-established the Moldavian SSR. Between the end of
the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive in
August 1944 and the end of the war in May 1945, 256,800 inhabitants of the
Moldavian SSR were drafted into the Soviet Army. 40,592 of them perished.
Soviet era
During the Stalinist period (1940–1941, 1944–1953), deportations
of locals to the northern Urals,
to Siberia,
and northern Kazakhstan occurred regularly, with the largest ones on
12–13 June 1941, and 5–6 July 1949, accounting from MSSR alone for 18,392 and
35,796 deportees respectively. Other forms of Soviet persecution of the
population included 32,433 political arrests, followed by Gulag or (in 8,360
cases) execution.
In 1946, as a result of a severe drought and excessive delivery quota
obligations and requisitions imposed by the Soviet government, the southwestern
part of the USSR suffered from a major famine.
In 1946–1947, at least 216,000 deaths and about 350,000 cases of dystrophy were
accounted by historians in the Moldavian SSR alone. Similar
events occurred in 1930s in the Moldavian ASSR. In 1944–53, there were several anti-Soviet
resistance groups in Moldova; however the NKVD and later MGB managed to
eventually arrest, execute or deport their members.
In the postwar period, the Soviet government arranged migration of
workforce (mostly Russians, Belarusians,
and Ukrainians),
into the new Soviet republic, especially into urbanized areas, partly to
compensate for the demographic loss caused by the war and the emigration of
1940 and 1944. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Moldavian SSR received
substantial allocations from the budget of the USSR to develop industrial and
scientific facilities and housing. In 1971, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted
a decision "About the measures for further development of the city
of Kishinev" (modern Chişinău), that allotted more than one
billion Soviet rubles from the USSR budget for building
projects, subsequent decisions also directed substantial funding and brought
qualified specialists from other parts of the USSR to develop Moldova's
industry.
The Soviet government conducted a campaign to promote a Moldovan ethnic
identity distinct from that of the Romanians, based on a theory developed during
the existence of the Moldavian ASSR. Official Soviet policy asserted
that the language spoken by Moldovans was distinct from the Romanian
language (see Moldovenism).
To distinguish the two, during the Soviet period,Moldovan was
written in the Cyrillic alphabet, in contrast with
Romanian, which since 1860 had been written in the Latin
alphabet.
After the death of Stalin, political persecutions changed in character from
mass to individual. All independent organizations were severely reprimanded,
with the National Patriotic Front leaders
being sentenced in 1972 to long prison terms. The Commission
for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Moldova is
assessing the activity of the communist totalitarian regime.
In the 1980s, political conditions created by the glasnost and perestroika,
a Democratic Movement of Moldova was
formed, which in 1989 became known as the nationalist Popular Front of Moldova (FPM). Along with several other Soviet republics,
from 1988 onwards, Moldova started to move towards independence. On August 27, 1989, the FPM
organized a mass demonstration in Chişinău that
became known as the Grand National Assembly.
The assembly pressured the authorities of the Moldavian SSR to adopt a language
law on August 31, 1989 that proclaimed the Moldovan
language written in the Latin script to
be the state language of the MSSR. Its identity with the Romanian
language was also established. The year 1989
that had seen Communist Party increasingly
pummeled, was also marked by November riots.
Independence
The first democratic elections for
the local parliament were held in February and March
1990. Mircea Snegur was elected as Speaker of the Parliament,
andMircea Druc as Prime Minister. On June 23, 1990, the
Parliament adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty of the "Soviet Socialist
Republic Moldova", which, among other things, stipulated the supremacy of Moldovan
laws over those of the Soviet Union. After the failure of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt,
on August 27, 1991, Moldova declared its independence, Romania being
the first state to recognize its independence.
On December 21 of the same year Moldova, along with most of the other
Soviet republics, signed the constitutive act that formed the post-SovietCommonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Moldova received official recognition on December 25. On December 26, 1991 the
Soviet Union ceased to exist. Declaring itself a neutral state,
it did not join the military branch of the CIS. Three months later, on March 2,
1992, the country gained formal recognition as an independent state at the
United Nations. In 1994, Moldova became a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace program and
also a member of the Council of
Europe on June 29, 1995.
In the region east of the Dniester river, Transnistria,
which includes a large proportion of predominantly russophone East Slavs of Ukrainian (28%)
and Russian (26%) descent (altogether 54% as of 1989), while Moldovans (40%)
have been the largest ethnic group, and where the headquarters and many units
of the Soviet 14th Guards Army were
stationed, an independent Pridnestrovian
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed on August
16, 1990, with its capital in Tiraspol.[38] The
motives behind this move were fear of the rise of nationalism in Moldova and
the country's expected reunification with Romania upon secession from the USSR.
In the winter of 1991–1992 clashes occurred between Transnistrian forces, supported by elements of the 14th
Army, and the Moldovan police. Between March 2 and July
26, 1992, the conflict escalated into a military engagement.
On January 2, 1992, Moldova introduced a market
economy, liberalizing prices, which resulted in rapid inflation.
From 1992 to 2001, the young country suffered a serious economic crisis,
leaving most of the population below the poverty line. In 1993, a national
currency, the Moldovan leu, was introduced to replace
the temporary cupon. The economy of Moldova began to change in
2001; and until 2008 the country saw a steady annual growth of between 5% and
10%. The early 2000s also saw a considerable growth of emigration of Moldovans
looking for work (mostly illegally) in Russia (especially the Moscow region),
Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and other countries; remittances from
Moldovans abroad account for almost 38% of Moldova's GDP, the second-highest
percentage in the world.
In the 1994 parliamentary elections,
the Democratic Agrarian Party gained
a majority of the seats, setting a turning point in Moldovan politics. With the
nationalist Popular Front now in a parliamentary minority, new measures aiming
to moderate the ethnic tensions in the country could be adopted. Plans for
a union with
Romania were abandoned, and the new Constitution gave
autonomy to the breakaway Transnistria and Gagauzia.
On December 23, 1994, the Parliament of Moldova adopted a "Law on the
Special Legal Status of Gagauzia", and in 1995 the latter was constituted.
After winning the 1996 presidential elections,
on January 15, 1997, Petru Lucinschi, the former First Secretary of
the Moldavian Communist Party in 1989–91,
became the country's secondpresident (1997–2001), succeeding
Mircea Snegur (1991–1996). In 2000, the Constitution was
amended, transforming Moldova into a parliamentary republic, with the president
being chosen through indirect
election rather than direct popular vote.
Winning 49.9% of the vote,
the Party of Communists of the Republic
of Moldova (reinstituted in 1993 after being outlawed in 1991),
gained 71 of the 101 MPs, and on April 4, 2001, electedVladimir
Voronin as the country's third president (re-elected in 2005).
The country became the first post-Soviet state where a non-reformed Communist
Party returned to power. New governments were formed by Vasile Tarlev (April
19, 2001 – March 31, 2008), and Zinaida Greceanîi (March 31, 2008 –
September 14, 2009). In 2001–2003 relations between Moldova and Russiaimproved,
but then temporarily deteriorated in 2003–2006, in the wake of the failure of
the Kozak memorandum, culminating in the 2006 wine exports crisis.
The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova managed to stay in power for
eight years. The fragmentation of the liberal (aka the democrats) helped
consolidate its power. The decline of the party started in 2009 after Marian
Lupu joined the Democratic Party and thus attracted many of the Moldovans
supporting the Communists.
In the April 2009 parliamentary elections,
the Communist Party won 49.48% of the votes, followed by the Liberal Party with 13.14% of the
votes, theLiberal Democratic Party with
12.43%, and the Alliance "Moldova Noastră" with
9.77%. The controversial results of this election sparked civil unrest[45][46]
In August 2009, four Moldovan parties – Liberal Democratic Party, Liberal
Party, Democratic Party, and Our Moldova Alliance
– agreed to create agoverning coalition that
pushed the Communist party into
opposition. On August 28, 2009, this coalition chose a new parliament speaker (Mihai Ghimpu)
in a vote that was boycotted by Communist legislators. Vladimir
Voronin, who had been President of Moldova since 2001,
eventually resigned on September 11, 2009, but the Parliament
failed to elect a new president. The acting president Mihai Ghimpu
instituted the Commission for
constitutional reform in Moldova to adopt a new version of the Constitution of Moldova.
After the constitutional referendum aimed
to approve the reform failed in September 2010, the parliament was
dissolved again and a new parliamentary election was
scheduled for 28 November 2010. On December 30, 2010, Marian Lupu was
elected as the Speaker of the Parliament. In accordance with the Constitution,
he will be serving as the Acting President of Republic of Moldova.
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