MoldovaThe Beginning of the Soviet Period
Figure 14. Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR)
and Transnistria, 1924-95
In 1917, during World War I and the Bolshevik
Revolution,
political leaders in Bessarabia created a National Council
(Sfatul Tarii), which declared Bessarabia the independent
Democratic Moldovan Republic, federated with Russia. In
February
1918, the new republic declared its complete independence
from
Russia and, two months later, voted to unite with Romania,
thus
angering the Russian government.
After the creation of the Soviet Union in December
1922, the
Soviet government moved in 1924 to establish the Moldavian
Autonomous Oblast on land east of the Nistru River in the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR). The
capital
of the oblast was at Balta (Balta, in Ukrainian), in
present-day
Ukraine. Seven months later, the oblast was upgraded to
the
Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian
ASSR),
even though its population was only 30 percent ethnic
Romanian.
The capital remained at Balta until 1929, when it was
moved to
Tiraspol (Tiraspol', in Russian)
(see
fig. 15).
In June 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by Soviet forces
as a
consequence of a secret protocol attached to the 1939
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (see Glossary).
On August 2, 1940, the
Soviet
government created the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
(Moldavian SSR), with its capital at Chisinau (Kishinėv,
in
Russian), by joining most of Bessarabia with a portion of
the
Moldavian ASSR (the rest was returned to the Ukrainian
SSR). Part
of the far northern Moldavian ASSR (Herta--in present-day
Ukraine), northern
Bukovina (see Glossary), and southern
Bessarabia (bordering on the Black Sea) were taken from
Romania
and incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR, leaving the
Moldavian
SSR landlocked.
Data as of June 1995
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