ベッサラビア県

ベッサラビア県 Бессарабская губерния
県
紋章
ロシア帝国内の位置
国	ロシア帝国
設立	1812/1873
廃止	1918
資本	キシナウ
エリア
• 合計	45,632.42 km 2 (17,618.78 平方マイル)
最高標高 (バレネシュティ ヒル)	430メートル（1,410フィート）
人口  （1897年）
• 合計	1,935,412
• 密度	42/km 2 (110/平方マイル)
• 都会的な	15.16%
• 田舎	84.84%

ベッサラビア県^[a]は、ロシア帝国の州( guberniya )のひとつで、行政の中心地はキシナウ( Chișinău )にあった。面積は45,632.42平方キロメートル(17,618.78平方マイル)で、人口は1,935,412人であった。ベッサラビア県は、北はポジーリャ県、東はヘルソン県、南は黒海、西はルーマニア、北西はオーストリアと接している。現在のモルドバ共和国の大半と、ウクライナの チェルニウツィー州およびオデッサ州の一部にほぼ相当する。

これには、モルダビア公国の東部と、露土戦争 (1806-1812)後のブカレスト条約でロシアに併合された近隣のオスマン帝国支配地域が含まれていた。1917年に行政区は解散し、1917年12月にモルダビア民主共和国の建国を宣言した国民議会であるスファトゥル・ツァリイが設立された。後者は1918年4月にルーマニアと統合された。

旧県の領土の約65%は現在モルドバ共和国（分離独立地域であるトランスニストリアを含む）に属し、約35%はウクライナに属しています。

その後、1918年初頭にモルダビアSSRとなり、1922年にルーマニアがモルドバを併合した。

ロシア帝国はオスマン帝国の弱体化に気づき、プルート川とドニエストル川の間のモルダビア公国の東半分を占領した。その後6年間の戦争が続き、ブカレスト条約（1812年）で終結し、オスマン帝国はロシアによる同州の併合を承認した。^[1]

1829年、アドリアノープル条約によりトルコはドナウ川デルタをロシアに割譲し、ベッサラビア州の一部となった。^[2]

ロシアによる併合以前、この地域には特別な名前はなく、モルダヴィアは伝統的にŢara de Sus（上部地域、カルパティア山脈の地域）とŢara de Jos（下部地域、この地域を含む平野）に分けられていた。ベッサラビアはこの地域の南部（現在はブジャクとして知られている）であり、この地域は14世紀にこの地域を支配していたと思われるワラキアのバサラブ家に ちなんで名付けられたと考えられている。ロシア人は南部地域ではなく、地域全体を「ベッサラビア」という名前で呼んだ。^[3]

ベッサラビアの面積は45,630 km²で、モルダヴィアの他の地域よりも広く、人口は24万人から36万人で、そのほとんどはルーマニア人であった。ベッサラビアのボヤールは、オスマン帝国にはそもそも自分たちのものではない領土を割譲する権利はない（モルダヴィアはオスマン帝国の属国に過ぎず、オスマン帝国の州ではない）と主張して併合に抗議したが、スルタンは1812年5月に条約に署名した。^[1]

併合後、キシナウとホティンの大主教ガヴリル・バヌレスク＝ボドニ率いる地元の貴族たちは、モルダビアの伝統的な法律に基づいた自治と民政の樹立を請願した。1818年に特別自治区が設立され、地方行政ではルーマニア語とロシア語の両方が使用されるようになった。バヌレスク＝ボドニはまた、ベッサラビア教会をロシア正教会の教区として、神学校と印刷所を開設する許可を得た。 ^{[3] [4]}

1821年にバヌレスク＝ボドニが死去した後、ベッサラビアには強力な指導者が不在となり、ロシア人がナショナリズムを恐れたため、隣国ワラキアで1821年に反オスマン帝国のワラキア革命が起こり、地元当局は徐々に多くの自由を撤回し始めた。^[3]

Nicholas I of Russia, crowned in 1825, began a campaign of reforms which had the goal of gaining more control over the western provinces. Autonomy of the region was retracted in 1829, with the new constitution written by the governor of New Russia and Bessarabia, Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov.^{[citation needed]} In 1834, Romanian was banned in schools and government facilities, and soon, books, the press, and churches despite 80% of the population being Romanian. Those who fought the changes could be exiled to Siberia.^[5] The constitution no longer made the usage of Romanian compulsory for public announcements and in 1854, Russian was made the official language. Also around 1850, Romanian was no longer used in schools and the importation of books from Moldavia and Wallachia was banned.^[3]

Integration within the Russian Empire continued with the introduction of the zemstva in 1869. Although this system was meant to increase the participation of the locals in civic affairs, it was run by Russians and other non-Moldavian functionaries brought from across the Empire.^[6]

The Moldavian boyars protested against the reforms, which decreased their own powers, but their protests were not well organized and they were mostly ignored. Some Moldavian boyar families were however integrated in the Russian nobility, but most of the nobles of Bessarabia were foreigners: in 1911, there were 468 noble families in Bessarabia, of which only 138 were Moldavian.^[7] In the beginning of the 20th century, the Jewish population made up to 40% of Chisinau.

Romania became independent in 1878, but millions of ethnic Romanians lived outside its borders and as such it had aspirations toward Transylvania, as well as Bessarabia.^[8]

In 1856, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Russia was forced to return a significant territory in Southern Bessarabia (organised as the Cahul and Ismail counties, with the Bolgrad later split from the second) to Moldavia, which joined Wallachia in 1859 to form Romania.^[9]

In 1877, the Russian Empire and Romania signed a treaty by the terms of which, Romania and Russia were allies against the Ottoman Empire, while Russia recognized Romania's independence and guaranteed its territorial integrity after the war.^[9] However, at the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Russia took southern Bessarabia, Alexander Gorchakov justifying this as a "matter of national honour" for Russia and arguing that the territory was ceded in 1856 to Moldavia, not to Romania and that the Russian guarantee of territorial integrity was directed against Turkish claims.^[10]

The Romanian politicians and public were angered by this action: Romanian politician Mihail Kogălniceanu accused Russia of deception and of treating an ally like a conquered province. He even started a memorandum against Russia to try to influence the Western governments, denouncing not only the annexation of Southern Bessarabia, but the 1812 annexation of Bessarabia as well.^[10] Despite this, none of the European powers wanted to risk a conflict with Russia.^[11]

According to the Treaty of Berlin (1878), Romania gained Dobruja as a compensation for the loss of Southern Bessarabia. Despite being a larger territory, Romanians considered it an unfair exchange and accepted it reluctantly, because there was no other alternative.^[12]

As a consequence of Russification policy, Bessarabia was the most backward of the western provinces of the Russian Empire. In 1897, literacy was just 15.4% for the whole Bessarabia, with only 6% of ethnically Moldavians being literate,^[9] the main reason behind this being that Russian was the only language of instruction.^[13] As of 1920, an estimated ten percent of men and one percent of women were able to read and write.^[5]

Alexander II's reign brought a policy of establishing schools in every parish: 400 rural schools were founded in the 1860s in Bessarabia, but the Orthodox Church insisted everything be taught in Russian, whereas neither priests (who were teachers in most villages) nor pupils were speaking it. Thus, by the 1880s only 23 schools remained.^[14]

As a result, the literature and cultural life stagnated, only a few notable literary figures arising from Bessarabia, among them being Alexandru Hasdeu (1811–1872), Constantin Stamati (1786–1869) and Teodor Vârnav (1801–1860). In the second half of the 19th century, all links with Romanian literature were cut and no literary currents or schools of criticism developed in Bessarabia.^[13] In fact, in 1899, a visitor found no Romanian books in the Chişinău public library.^[3]

The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev, then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on April 19 and 20, 1903. A further pogrom erupted in October 1905.^[15] In the first wave of violence, which was associated with Easter, 49 Jews were killed, large numbers of Jewish women were raped and 1,500 homes were damaged. American Jews began large-scale organized financial help, and assisted in emigration.^[16] The incident focused worldwide negative attention on the persecution of Jews in Russia.^[17]

There was no Moldavian political party or movement in Bessarabia until 1905, when two major groups were founded. The moderates, led by landowner Pavel Dicescu, organized around the Societatea pentru Cultură Naţională ("The Society for National Culture"), argued for the usage of Romanian as a language of instruction in schools, but against social reforms. In 1909, they were successful in passing a resolution in the zemstvo of the gubernia related to the usage of Romanian in schools.^[13]

The radicals (national democrats), mostly students educated at Russian universities and influenced by socialist revolutionaries, wanted a real national awakening, as well as social justice. They founded a newspaper called Basarabia (first issue on 24 May 1906) led by Constantin Stere, which called for autonomy of Bessarabia and more rights to protect their language and culture, while making clear that they do not want secession from the Russian Empire.^[18]

Their movement had little success because in 1907, the extreme right won in the elections for the second Duma. In March 1907, the newspaper published Deşteaptă-te, române! ("Wake up, Romanian!"), a Romanian patriotic song, which made Kharuzin, the governor of Bessarabia, to order the closure of the newspaper only nine months after its first issue. Most of the contributors of the newspaper fled to Iaşi afterwards.^[18]

When the February Revolution happened in Petrograd in 1917, the governor of Bessarabia Governorate, Mihail Mihail Voronovici, stepped down on 13 March and passed his legal powers to Constantin Mimi, the President of the Gubernial Zemstvo, which was named the Comissar of the Provisional Government in Bessarabia, with Vladimir Criste his deputy. Similar procedures took place in all regions of the Empire: the chiefs of the Tsarist administrations passed their legal powers to the chiefs of the County and Governorate Zemstvos, which were then called County/Governorate Commissars.^[19]

According to Bessarabian historian Ștefan Ciobanu, at the beginning of the 19th century the ethnic Romanians (Moldavians) proportion was approximately 95% (1810), not including the territories formerly under direct Turkish administration (Budjak and Khotyn), which also purportedly had a Romanian majority.^[20] The Russian rule resulted in important changes in the ethnic structure of Bessarabia, especially due to the Russian policy of immigration from neighbouring provinces and Russification.^[21] The immigration was not uniform: in some districts in the northern and southern parts of Bessarabia (for instance Hotin and Akkerman), the immigration resulted in Ukrainians outnumbering Romanians, while the rural areas of the centre were mostly Romanian.^[7]

Initially, the purpose of the colonization policy was unrelated to the ethnic makeup, being to increase the population of the rather sparsely populated area, in order to better exploit its resources. It was part of the larger campaign of colonization of Novorossiya, under which Russia appealed to everyone who wanted to work and live under its authority, no matter if they came from the Russian Empire or from elsewhere.^[22]

Most of the Moldavians of Bessarabia were free peasants, of which most being landless, leasing their land from landlords and monasteries, while 12% (in 1861) were răzeşi ("yeomen"). The Emancipation reform of 1861 had little effects in Bessarabia, where there were few serfs: just 12,000 most of which being brought from Russia for non-agricultural activities.^[23]

The urban population was quite low, amounting just 14.7% in 1912, most of the cities being just local administrative centres and having little industry. Also, few of the urban dwellers were Moldavians, in 1912, 37.2% being Jewish, 24.4% Russian, 15.8% Ukrainian, with just 14.2% Moldavian.^[23]

From 1812 to 1818, there were 12 counties, which were then merged into 6, afterwards split into 9 counties (ținuturi): Hotin, Soroca, Iași, Orhei, Bender, Hotărniceni, Greceni, Codru, Reni (Ismail).^[24] The original terms for county were Romanian: ținut and județ (in ‹See Tfd›Russian: tsynut, uyezd^[4]).^[25]

Two of the latter, Cahul County and Ismail County were returned to Moldavia in 1856. There they were known as Southern Bessarabia with three counties because a Bolgrad County was split out of Ismail County. When again annexed by the Russian Empire in 1878, these there were lumped together as one Ismail County, thus from 1878 till 1917, there were 8 counties.^[26]

Split from the Metropolis of Moldavia, the orthodox church in Bessarabia became an eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and after Bănulescu-Bodoni's death, it became an agent in the state policy of Russification.^[28]

All the archbishops after 1821 tried to bring the eparchy in conformity with the regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church and because of that, all the high-ranked clerics were brought from Russia, because they were more familiar with the rules of the Russian church.^[28]

Archbishop Irinarh Popov (1844–1858) tried to promote Russian nationalism and loyalty to the tsar and brought clerics from Russia. Archbishop Pavel Lebedev forced Moldavian churches and monasteries to use Russian during the religious service, making knowledge of Russian compulsory for becoming a priest, but despite his attempts, by the end of his rule (1882), there were still 417 churches which used only Romanian in the liturgy.^[28]

Following the 1905 Russian Revolution, the church decided to allow the usage of Romanian by the village priests and the re-establishment of the eparchy printing press, which would publish religious literature and of a newspaper.^[29]

• Comrat Republic
• Bessarabia Governorate (Romania)
• Bessarabian question

• Cornea, Sergiu (2019). Organizarea administrativă a Basarabiei sub ocupaţia ţaristă (1812-1917) [The administrative organization of Bessarabia under the Tsarist occupation (1812-1917)] (PDF). Editura Istros a Muzeului Brăilei „Carol I”. ISBN 978-606-654-328-6.
• Keith Hitchins, Rumania: 1866-1947 (Oxford History of Modern Europe). 1994, Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-822126-6
• Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture, 2000, Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-9791-1
• Poștarencu, Dinu (2009). "Organizarea administrativ-teritorială a Basarabiei în perioada țaristă" [The administrative-territorial organization of Bessarabia during the tsarist period]. Tyragetia. III [XVIII] (2). Chișinău: 203–212. ISSN 1857-0240.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bessarabia Governorate.

• William Henry Beable (1919), "Governments or Provinces of the Former Russian Empire: Bessarabia", Russian Gazetteer and Guide, London: Russian Outlook – via Open Library

47°01′28″N 28°49′56″E / 47.02444°N 28.83222°E / 47.02444; 28.83222