History of the Romanians in Ukraine
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This article is about the history of Romanians in what is now southwestern Ukraine, roughly between the Dniester River and the Bug River, who traditionally have not belonged to any Romanian statal entity (nor to Transnistria), but have been an integral part of the history of modern Ukraine, and are considered natives to the area. It does no refer to the Romanians of Northern Bukovina or Bessarabia, areas that were, between the World Wars, part of Romania. For articles regarding Romanians in those areas, see History of Romania, History of Moldavia, and History of Moldova. For the history of the whole modern state, see History of Ukraine.
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[edit] History of the area
[edit] Ancient history
Inhabited by the Thracian (such as the Tyragetae, meaning "the Getae/Dacians of Tyras") and by Scythian tribes, the territory of modern Transnistria and southwestern Ukraine saw the appearance of ancient Greek colonies such as Olbia and Tyras, probably founded about 600 BC by colonist from Miletus. Situated on the mouth of the Dniester river (anciently known as the Tyras), it maintained commercial exchanges with the natives. It fell under the dominion of native kings whose names appear on its coins, and it was destroyed by the Dacians about 50 BC, with the development and expansion of the organised Dacian State. The area saw the first contacts with latinity in AD 56, when the colony was restored by the Romans and henceforth formed part of the province of Lower Moesia, which also included Dobruja (now part of Romania) and northeastern Bulgaria. The Roman control lasted until the 3rd century, and, like most coastal Black Sea lands, was held intermittently by the Byzantine Empire, which continued the Latinization of the inhabitants (natives or settlers). During the Age of Migrations, it came under successive control of different nomadic tribes.
[edit] Middle Ages
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The attacks by pastoral nomadic peoples began to taper off in the 10th century, permitting an increase in population. The territory was slowly infiltrated by Romanians (Vlachs) from the west, Slavic tribes (Ulichs and Tivertsy) from the north, and as well as by Turkic nomads such as Pechenegs, Cumans and (later) Tatars.
The first mentioned presence of Romanians on this territory are the Bolohoveni and Brodnici, in the 12th and 13th century. As characterised by contemporary sources, the area between the Bug and Dniester had never been populated by a single ethnicity, or totally controlled by Kievan rulers. For example, Ukrainian historian Volodymyr Antonovych writes: "Neither the right bank, nor the left bank of the Dniester have ever belonged to Galician or other Ruthenian princes." However, due to the large Romanian element, the areas were often ruled by Moldavia princes. Ion Vodă Armeanul exercised control over the left-bank of the Dneister. In 1681 Gheorghe Duca's title was "Despot of Moldavia and Ukraine", as he was Prince of Moldavia and Hetman of Ukraine. Other Moldavian princes whp held control of the territory were Ştefan Movilă, Dimitrie Cantacuzino and Mihai Racoviţă.
In the 17th century, in a letter to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Stefan Batory, the Prince of Transylvania stated that: "The lands between the Bug and Dniester are populated by a mix of races composed of Lithuanian Poles, Muscovites and Romanians. The Cossacks are raised from the Muscovites and Romanians".
Hetmans of the Cossacks: Ioan Potcoavă, Grigore Lobodă (Hryhoriy Loboda; ruled 1593–1596), Ioan Sârcu (Ivan Sirko; ruled 1659–1660), Dănilă Apostol (Danylo Apostol; ruled 1727–1734), Alexander Potcoavă, Constantin Potcoavă, Petre Lungu, Petre Cazacu, Tihon Baibuza, Samoilă Chişcă, Ion Sârcu, Opară, Trofim Voloşanin (Românul), Ion Şărpilă, Timotei Sgură, Dumitru Hunu.
High ranking Cossacks: Polkovnyks Toader Lobădă and Dumitraşcu Raicea (in Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyy), Martin Puşcariu (in Poltava), Burlă (in Gdansk), Pavel Apostol (in Mirgorod), Eremie Gânju and Dimitrie Băncescu (in Uman), Varlam Buhăţel, Grigore Gămălie (in Lubensk), Grigore Cristofor, Ion Ursu, Petru Apostol (in Lubensk).
Historically, the Orthodox Churches from today's Transdneister and Ukraine were subordinated at first to the Romanian Orthodox Church, from the Mitropolity of Proilava (modern Brăila, Romania). Later, it belonged to the Bishopric of Huşi. After the Russian annexation of 1792, the Bishopsies of Ochakiv belonged to Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipropetrovsk). From 1837, it belonged to the Eparchys of Kherson with its seat at Odessa and Taurida with its seat at Simferopol.
[edit] Early Modern Times
The end of the 18th century marked Imperial Russia's colonization of the region, as a result of which large migrations into the region were encouraged, including people of Ukrainian, Russian, and German ethnicity.
[edit] Modern Times
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Bessarabia saw an intense process of Russification. Military service became a new instrument of Russification.
Another historical event which contributed to the future implementation of the anti-Romanian feelings constituted Romania’s behaviour in the World War II, when the Romanian regime allied itself with the Nazi Germany.
[edit] Transnistria (WWII)
Transnistria during World War II was a region that included besides present-day Transnistria, the territories further east inhabited by Romanians, from the Dneister to the Bug, briefly under control of Romania during the maximum eastward expansion of the Axis Powers.
In World War II, Romania, aided by Nazi Germany, for the first time in history took control of Transnistria. There was never any attempt to formally annex the occupied territory beyond the Dneoster; it was generally considered merely a temporary buffer zone between Greater Romania and the Soviet front line.
[edit] The Soviet Union
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The process of Russification and colonization of this territory started to be carried out by representatives of other ethnic groups of the Russian Empire. In Ukraine, the Soviet government continued this policy of assimilation of the native Romanian population. Elite elements of the Romanian population were then deported to Siberia, much like their Bukovinian and Bessarabian counterparts. Russian and Ukrainian[citation needed] settlers were recruited to fill the vacant areas caused by the deportation of Romanians. Romanians who continued to identify themselves as Romanians and not Moldovans were severely punished by the Communist regime.
The convention of October 28, 1920, whereby the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan recognized Romanian sovereignty in Bessarabia, was rejected as invalid by the USSR. Moscow even denied the validity of that part of the convention that stipulated that, upon Russian request, the Council of the League of Nations could be empowered to arbitrate the Russo-Romanian dispute over Bessarabia. In short, the Kremlin insisted that Romania was illegally occupying Bessarabia, and encouraged revolutionary activities by Bolshevik elements there.
In 1946-1947, as a result of the famine in the Moldavian SSR, around 300,000 people (according to some historians; official data have still not been published) died and many cases of cannibalism occurred. In addition, the population of the former Moldavian ASSR, as a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR), had also suffered the Holodomor, the awful famine in the 1930s when several millions died in Ukraine.
[edit] Autonomous Moldavian Republic in Soviet Ukraine
At the end of World War I in 1918, the Directory of Ukraine proclaimed the sovereignty of the Ukrainian People's Republic over the left bank of the Dneister. At that time, the population was 48% Ukrainian, 30% Romanian/Moldavian, 9% Russian, and 8.5% Jewish. After the Russian Civil War in 1922, the Ukrainian SSR was created.
The geopolitical concept of an autonomous communist Transnistrian region was born in 1924, when Bessarabian-Russian military leader Grigore Kotovski founded, under the auspices of Moscow, the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast, which months later became the Moldavian ASSR of the Ukrainian SSR.
The intention of Soviet policy was to promote Communism in recently-lost Bessarabia and surroundings, and eventually to regain the former province from Romania. (Soviet authorities declared the "temporarily occupied city of Kishinev" as de jure capital of the ASSR.) The "Moldavian ethnicity theory" was also born there in the 1930s, including the Moldovan language created through the cyrillization of the Romanian language spoken by approximately one third of the autonomous republic's population.
[edit] Moldavian ASSR
Moldavian ASSR or Moldovan SSR (Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic; Romanian: Republica Autonomă Socialistă Sovietică Moldovenească) was an autonomous region of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing Transnistria (now in Moldova) and parts which are now in Ukraine.
The ASSR had a mixed Ukrainian (46%) and Romanian (32%) population which was estimated to be 545,500. The area was 8,100 km² and included 11 raions by the left bank of Dniester.
The "Moldavian language theory" began to be developed here. This theory claimed that the Moldavians were a different nation from the Romanians, and that they were allegedly "oppressed by the imperialist Romanians". After World War II, this would be part of the official ideology of the Communist Party in Soviet Moldova.
In 1940, the Soviet Union invaded Bessarabia, which was then part of Romania, and created the Moldavian SSR, which included most of Bessarabia and the western part of the Moldavian ASSR. The eastern part, which included the city of Balta was merged with the Ukrainian SSR, stripping the autonomy and language rights for the Romanians living there.
[edit] Today
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After the break-up of the Soviet Union, many native Romanians hoped that their situation inside the newly-independent Ukraine would improve. Although this was true in the beginning, the Russification and Ukrainization process continued, due to the lack of the basic minority rights. According to the Ukrainian Constitution adopted after the 1991 independence, the Ukrainian language is the only state language in the country, and the state higher education system was switched to Ukrainian, according to the common practice in many countries worldwide. At the same time, there are schools teaching Romanian as a primary language, along with newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting in Romanian.
[edit] References
- Ion Nistor. The history of Romanians in Transnistria
