Bessarabia

Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coastal region and part of the Ukrainian Chernivtsi Oblast covering a small area in the north. In the late 14th century, the newly established Principality of Moldavia encompassed what later became known as Bessarabia. Afterward, this territory was directly or indirectly, partly or wholly controlled by several powers: the Ottoman Empire (as suzerain of Moldavia, with direct rule only in Budjak and Khotyn), the Russian Empire, Romania, and the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812), and the ensuing Peace of Bucharest, the eastern parts of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal, along with some areas formerly under direct Ottoman rule, were ceded to Imperial Russia. The acquisition was among the Russian Empire's last territorial acquisitions in Europe. The newly acquired territories were organised as the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, adopting a name previously used for the southern plains between the Dniester and the Danube rivers. After the Crimean War, in 1856, the southern areas of Bessarabia were returned to Moldavian rule; Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878, when Romania, the result of Moldavia's union with Wallachia, was pressured into exchanging those territories for the Dobruja. In 1917, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the area constituted itself as the Moldavian Democratic Republic, an autonomous republic part of a proposed federative Russian state. Bolshevik agitation in late 1917 and early 1918 resulted in the intervention of the Romanian Army, ostensibly to pacify the region. Soon after, the parliamentary assembly declared independence, and then union with the Kingdom...