On March 27,
\ntowards the end of WWI, against the dismantling of the Tsarist Empire, the
\ncountry’s Advisory Council, Bessarabia’s legislative body, voted in favour of the
\nunion of this predominately Romanian-speaking province with the mother-land. It
\nwas the first act in the setting up of the Romanian national state, a process
\nwhich, at the end of the same year, would end by the provinces of Bukovina,
\nTransylvania, Banat, Maramures and Crisana falling under the authority of
\nBucharest, under the rule of the Hapsburg Empire. Far from being euphoric, the
\nceremonies devoted to Bessarabia are rather evocative and not devoid of
\nsadness. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The union lasted only 22 years. In the summer of 1940, following an
\nultimatum, Stalin’s Moscow annexed both Bessarabia and the north of Bukovina,
\nterritories that currently belong to the former Soviet republic of Moldova and
\nUkraine. Back then, hundreds of thousands of Bessarabians took refuge in the
\ndownsized Romania, other dozens of thousands were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan,
\nand instead the occupiers brought colonists recruited from all the corners of
\nthe Empire. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Independent as of 1991, ‘today’s republic is not the Bessarabia of
\n1918, neither in terms of ethnic configuration, nor in terms of territories and
\nfrontiers. The Republic of Moldova is much more divided from a political,
\nadministrative, ethnic, linguistic and religious point of view than Bessarabia
\nwas back in 1918 according to the Moldovan Ambassador to Bucharest, Mihai
\nGribincea. He has warned that the gravest consequence of half a century of
\noccupation is that, although the Republic of Moldova has left the Soviet Union,
\nin terms of mentalities, the Soviet Union has not left the Republic of Moldova.
\nForced to cohabitate, the pro-West PM Pavel Filip, who defined the two
\ncountries as ‘twin hearts’, and the pro-Russia socialist president Igor Dodon,
\nwho travels to Moscow more often that it does to the provinces, are
\nrepresentative for the political, geo-political and moral rift in the
\nBessarabian society. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Last month’s parliamentary elections did not reveal a
\nclear winner, capable of creating a new majority. On the contrary, they
\ncertified the same fragmentation between the president, the Government and the
\npro-European right wing. In the past years, in both capitals, dozens of
\nthousands of people have participated, under the slogan Bessarabia is
\nRomania, in the so-called unionist marches. They have been animated by the
\nconviction that to the Republic of Moldova, governed by a deeply corrupt
\npolitical class, rendered fragile by the pro-Russia separatism in Transdniestr
\nand which all rankings indicate as the poorest country in Europe, the only
\nsolution would be the union with Romania, an EU and NATO member state, with a
\nfunctional rule of law and where the GDP per capita, according to experts, is
\n20 times bigger. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romania, the Republic of Moldova and the Romanian communities in the Diaspora are celebrating 101 years since the union of Bessarabia with the motherland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":81222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[29460,29791,39613,29007,39612],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-81221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-mihai-gribincea","tag-pavel-filip","tag-pro-european-right-wing","tag-republic-of-moldova","tag-union-with-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n