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A region of Moldova and western Ukraine. As the gateway from Russia into the Danube River valley, it was for centuries an invasion route from Asia to Europe. The region became part of Russia in 1812 but declared itself independent in 1918 and later voted for union with Romania, which was forced to cede it to the USSR in 1940.
Bessarabian Bes'sa·ra'bi·an adj. & n.
For more information on Bessarabia, visit Britannica.com.
The region of Bessarabia lies between the Prut and Dniester Rivers and constitutes the rump of what is today the Republic of Moldavia. Although the historical region of Bessarabia stretched to the coast of the Black Sea, southeastern Bessarabia is presently incorporated in Ukraine.
The region formed part of the broader Principality of Moldavia, which first emerged as a distinct area of rule in the fourteenth century. This territory was brought into the Ottoman sphere of influence in 1538, following conquests led by Süleyman the Magnificent. The region was allowed a measure of self-government until 1711, when Constantinople appointed Greek-speaking phanariots to govern the region more directly.
The first clear, political separation between Bessarabia and western Moldavia (now incorporated into Romania) came with the Russian occupation of Bessarabia in 1806. This move precipitated a six-year war, after which the victorious Russian Tsar Alexander I was able to formally annex the land between the Prut and Dniester Rivers from the Ottoman Empire.
After a short period of relative autonomy from Moscow, Bessarabia underwent a process of Russification, and the use of the Romanian language was barred from official use. The 1871 shift in Bessarabia's status from that of imperial oblast to Russian rayon saw further restrictions on cultural and political autonomy in the region.
Due to significant immigration following the annexation of 1812, Bessarabia had become culturally cosmopolitan by the end of the nineteenth century. However, the region was an economic backwater; literacy remained very low and, despite the presence of some small-scale industry in the region's capital - Chis¸inau - the area remained largely agricultural.
The collapse of tsarist rule during World War I enabled elites drawn from the Bessarabian military to act on growing nationalist sentiments by declaring full autonomy for the region in November 1917. Romanian forces capitalized further on the confused state of rule in Bessarabia and moved in to occupy the territories lost to Russia in 1812. A vote by the newly formed Bessarabian National Council saw the region formally unite with Romania on March 27, 1918.
During the interwar period, Bessarabia formed the eastern flank of Greater Romania. This period was characterized by an acceleration of public works, which combined with agricultural reform to stabilize the region's economy. However, the significant minority populations (Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Turks) suffered under Romanian rule and were denied basic cultural rights, such as education in their native tongues.
The clandestine carve-up of Europe planned under the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 1939 implied that Germany had no interest in Bessarabia. This afforded the Soviet Union an opportunity to retake the region. In June 1940 the Soviet government issued an ultimatum to Romanian King Carol II, demanding that Bessarabia and northern Bukovina be brought under Soviet control. Although Carol II acquiesced in this demand, Romania's alliance with Germany during World War II saw the land return to Romanian hands. Control was again returned to the Soviet Union following the collapse of the Axis. The six counties of Bessarabia were then merged with the Transnistrian region, east of the Dniester, to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Although Bessarabia dominated Soviet Moldavia geographically and demographically, communist elites from the Transnistrian region enjoyed the majority of political weight in the republic, due to their membership in the Soviet community since 1917 and the presence of a significant pro-Russian, Slavic minority. With Soviet industrial development concentrated in Transnistria, a growing socioeconomic divide emerged between this region and Bessarabia.
The collapse of Soviet rule and declaration of Moldavian independence in 1991 was followed shortly thereafter by a declaration of Transnistrian independence from the Republic of Moldavia. Although unrecognized, Transnistria remains tacitly independent in the early twenty-first century, leaving Bessarabia as the sole region under the control of the government of the Republic of Moldavia.
Bibliography
King, Charles. (2000). The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.
—JOHN GLEDHILL
Bessarabia (Basarabia in Romanian, Бесарабія in Ukrainian, Бессарабия in Russian, Бесарабия in Bulgarian, Besarabya in Turkish) is a historical term for the geographic entity in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the East and the Prut River on the West. This was the name by which Imperial Russia designated the eastern part of the principality of Moldavia ceded by the Ottoman Empire to Russia in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812. The remaining Moldavia united with Wallachia in 1859 in what would become the Kingdom of Romania. In 1918, slightly before at the end of World War I, Bessarabia declared its independence from Russia and after three months united with the Kingdom of Romania. After the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940 at the beginning of World War II (see Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), and (after changing hands in 1941) again in 1944, Bessarabia was annexed to the USSR, where its core part was reorganised as the Moldavian SSR, to which parts of the previous Moldavian ASSR were added. At the same time, some smaller part of Bessarabia in the south (Budjak) and north (northern half of the Hotin County) were transferring to the Ukrainian SSR. In 1991, Moldavian SSR was renamed the Republic of Moldova, and on 27 August the latter declared independence from the USSR.
In the administrative system of the Russian Empire Bessarabia was a region of Eastern Europe comprising most of current-day Moldova and additional districts that are now in Ukraine. It was bounded by the Dniester river to the north and east, the Prut to the west and the lower Danube river and the Black Sea to the south. It had approximately 17,600 sq mi (45,600 km²). The area has mostly hilly plains with flat steppes, it is very fertile for agriculture, and it also has some lignite deposits and stone quarries. People living in the area grow sugar beets, sunflowers, wheat, maize, tobacco, wine grapes and fruits. They also raise sheep and cattle. Currently, the main industry in the region is agricultural processing.
The region's main cities are Chişinău (Russian name Kishinev), the capital of Moldova, Izmail, Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyi (historically called Cetatea Albă and Akkerman). Other towns of administrative or historical importance include: Hotin, Lipcani, Briceni, Soroca, Bălţi, Orhei, Ungheni, Tighina (historical name Bender), Cahul, Reni and Kilia (historical name Chilia).
The name Bessarabia (Basarabia in Romanian) derives from the Wallachian family of Basarab, who once ruled over the southern part of the area. The name originally applied only to the southern part of the territory, which corresponds in size to the modern day Budjak. The Turks were the first to call it "Besarabya", which they began doing when they gained control of the area in 1484.
From the 15th to the 20th centuries, the region passed in part or whole under the control of: Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire (only the Budjak region), Russia, Romania, the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Moldova.
The territory of Bessarabia has been inhabited by people for thousands of years. The Indo-European invasion occurred around the year 2000 BC. The original inhabitants were Cimmerians, and after them came Scythians. The people who settled in this area would later become the Dacians, Getae and Thyrsagetae, these being Thracian tribes. In the 7th century BC, Greek settlers established colonies in the region, mostly along the Black Sea coast and traded with the locals. Also, Celts settled in the southern parts of Bessarabia, their main city being Aliobrix.
The first state that included the whole of Bessarabia was the Dacian kingdom of
The Roman Empire romanized parts of Dacia (via colonization and cultural influence) and some of the local tribes adopted the Latin language and customs. According to the theory of the Daco-Roman continuity the Latin culture and the Romance language (Romanian) would later spread to encompass the cultural area of the ancient Dacians, including the region of Bessarabia. Some historians deny this and the continuity of Latin-speaking people north of the Danube. For more, see Origin of Romanians.
In 270, the Roman authorities began to withdraw their forces from Dacia, due to the invading Goths and Carps. The Goths, a Germanic tribe, poured into the Roman Empire through the southern part of Bessarabia (Budjak), which due to its geographic position and characteristics (mainly steppe), was swept by various nomadic tribes. From the 5th century it was overrun in turn by the Huns, the Avars, and the Bulgars. The influence of the Roman Empire (East Roman) did not die out until 567.
From the 3rd century until the 11th century, the region was invaded numerous times by the Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs (South, i.e. Bulgarian, and Eastern), Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongols. The territory of Bessarabia was encompassed in dozens of ephemeral kingdoms which were disbanded when another wave of migrants arrived. Those centuries were characterized by a terrible state of insecurity and mass movement of people. The period was later known as the "Dark Ages" of Europe.
In 561, the Avars captured Bessarabia and executed the local ruler Mesamer. Following Avars, Slavs started to arrive in the region and establish settlements. Then, in 582, Onogur Bulgars settled in south-eastern Bessarabia and northern Dobruja, from which they moved to Moesia under pressure from the Khazars and formed the nascent region of Bulgaria. With the rise of the Khazars' state in the east, the invasions began to diminish and it was possible to create larger states. According to some opinions, the Southern part of Bessarabia remained under the influence of the First Bulgarian Empire until to the end of 9th century.
Between the 8th and 10th centuries, the southern part of Bessarabia was inhabitated by people from Balkan-Dunabian culture[1] (the culture of the First Bulgarian Empire). Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Bessarabia is mentioned in European and Slav chronicles as part of Bolohoveni (north) and Brodnici (south) Voevodates, believed to be Vlach (Romanian) principalities of the early Middle Ages.
The Tatar invasions of 1241 and 1290 led to a retreat of a big part of the population to the Eastern Carpathians and to Transylvania. Apparently, only one group east of the Prut river did not retreat to mountain regions at the time of the Tatar invasions. In later middle-age chronicles it is mentioned as the Tigheci "republic", situated near the modern town of Cahul in the southwest of Bessarabia, preserving its autonomy even during the later Principality of Moldavia.
The last large scale invasions were those of the Mongols and Tartars of 1241, 1290 and 1343, a small group of whom settled around the present day town of Orhei until they were pushed out in the 1390s.
After 1343 and the defeat of Mongols, the region was included in the principality of Moldavia, which by 1392 established control over the fortresses of Cetatea Albă and Chilia, its eastern border becoming the river Dnister (Nistru in Romanian).
In the latter part of the 14th century, the southern part of the region was for several decades part of Wallachia. The main dynasty of Walachia was called Basarab, from which the current name of the region originated.
In the 15th century, the entire region was a part of the principality of Moldavia. Ştefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great) ruled between 1457 and 1504, a period of nearly 50 years during which he won 32 battles defending his country virtually against all his neighbours (mainly the Ottomans and the Tatars, but also the Hungarians and the Poles), while losing only two. During this period, after each victory, he raised a monastery or a church close to the battlefield honoring Christianity. Many of these battlefields and churches, as well as old fortresses are situated in Bessarabia (mainly along the Dniester river).
In 1484 , the Turks invaded and captured Chilia and Cetatea Albă (Akkerman in Turkish), and annexed the shoreline southern part of Bessarabia, which was then divided into two sanjaks (districts) of the Ottoman Empire. In 1538 , the Ottomans annexed more Bessarabian land in the south as far as Tighina, while the central and northern parts of Bessarabia, as part of the principality of Moldavia was formally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.
Between 1711 and 1812, the Russian Empire occupied the region five times during wars between Ottoman Empire, Russia, and Austria. Between 1820 and 1846 , the Gagauz population migrated to the Russian Empire via the Danube, after living many oppressive years under Ottoman rule, and settled in southern Bessarabia. Turkic-speaking tribes of the Nogai Horde also inhabited the Budjak Region of southern Bessarabia from the 16th to 18th centuries, but were totally driven out prior to 1812.
By the Treaty of Bucharest of May 28, 1812 — concluding the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812 — the Ottoman Empire ceded the Eastern half of the Principality of Moldavia to the Russian Empire. That region was then called Bessarabia. Prior to this year, the name was used only for approximately its southern one quarter, which as stated before was already under direct Ottoman control ever since 1484.
In 1814 , the first German settlers arrived and mainly settled in the southern parts and Bessarabian Bulgarians became settling in the region, founding towns such as Bolhrad.
Administratively, Bessarabia became an oblast of the Russian Empire effective 1818 and a guberniya effective 1873.
By the Treaty of Adrianople that concluded the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 the whole delta of Danube was added to Bessarabian Oblast.
At the end of the Crimean War, in 1856 , by the Treaty of Paris, two districts of southern Bessarabia were returned to Moldavia, the Russian Empire lost access to the Danube river.
In 1859, Moldavia and Wallachia united as the Kingdom of Romania in 1866, including the Southern part of Bessarabia.
The Romanian War of Independence was fought in 1877–78, with the help of the Russian Empire as an ally. Although the treaty of alliance between Romania and the Russian Empire specified that the Russian Empire would respect the territorial integrity of Romania and not claim any part of Romania at the end of the war [citation needed], by the Treaty of Berlin, the Southern part of Bessarabia was again annexed by Russia.
The Kishinev pogrom took place in Chişinău (Kishinev in Russian), the capital of Bessarabia, on April 6, 1903 after articles were published in local newspapers inciting the public to act against Jews; 47 or 49 Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded and 700 houses destroyed. The anti-Semitic newspaper Бессарабец (Bessarabetz, meaning "Bessarabian"), published by Pavel Krushevan, insinuated that a Russian boy was killed by local Jews. Another newspaper, Свет (Svet, "Light"), used the ages-old blood libel against the Jews (alleging that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzo). It was the first media propaganda inspired action against Jews in the 20th century.
After the Russian Revolution, a Romanian nationalist movement started to develop in Bessarabia. In the chaos brought by the Russian revolution of October 1917 , a National Council (Sfatul Ţării) was established in Bessarabia, with 120 members elected from Bessarabia and 10 elected from Transnistria (the left bank of the Dniester River, inhabited by ethnic Moldavians/Romanians).
On January 14, 1918, during the disorderly retreat of two Russian divisions from the Romanian front, Chişinău was sacked. The Rumcherod Committee (Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Sailors Deputies of Romanian Front, Black Sea Fleet and Odessa Region) proclaimed itself the supreme power in Bessarabia. The Sfatul Ţării, unable to call up any armed forces, called upon the Romanian government for help. On 16 January a Romanian division cleared Chişinău, and the following day Tighina on the shore of the river Dnister. The three-day Soviet rule in Bessarabia ended.
Ten days later, on January 24, 1918, Sfatul Ţării declared Bessarabia's independence as the Moldavian Democratic Republic.
The county councils of Bălţi, Soroca and Orhei were the earliest to ask for unification with the Kingdom of Romania, and on April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918, Sfatul Ţării voted in favour of the union, with the following conditions:
1. Sfatul Ţării would undertake an agrarian reform, which would be accepted by the Romanian Government. 2. Bessarabia would remain autonomous, with its own diet, Sfatul Ţării, elected democratically 3. Sfatul Ţării would vote for local budgets, control the councils of zemstvos and cities, and name the local administration 4. Conscription would be done on a territorial basis 5. Local laws and the form of administration could be changed only with the approval of local representatives 6. The rights of minorities had to be respected 7. Two Bessarabian representatives would be part of the Romanian government 8. Bessarabia would send to the Romanian Parliament a number of representatives equal to the proportion of its population 9. All elections must involve a direct, equal, secret, and universal vote 10. Freedom of speech and of belief must be guaranteed in the constitution 11. All individuals who had committed felonies for political reasons during the revolution would be amnestied.
There were 86 votes for, 3 votes against and 36 deputies abstained. The first condition for agrarian reform was debated and approved in November 1918, and following this, Sfatul Ţării voted a motion which removed all the other conditions, trusting that Romania would be a democratic country. Unfortunaly, the Romania's government rejected most of these 11 points (conditions), which would cause later much discontent in this new province of Romania, Bessarabia.
In the autumn of 1919, elections for the Romanian Constituent Assembly were held in Bessarabia; 90 deputies and 35 senators were chosen. On December 20, 1919, these men voted, along with the representatives of Romania's other regions, to ratificaty the unification acts that had been approved by Sfatul Ţării and the National Congresses in Transylvania and Bukovina.
The union was confirmed by Romania's European allies in the Treaty of Paris (1920). The United States refused to sign the Treaty on the grounds that Russia was not represented at the Conference.[2]
A Provisional Workers' & Peasants' Government of Bessarabia was founded on May 5,
On May 11,
At the Treaty of Paris (1920), the union with Romania was officially recognized by France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan. However the treaty never came into force since it wasn't ratified by Japan. The United States and Soviet Russia (and later, USSR) did not recognize the union.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed on August 23, 1939. By Article 4 of the secret Annex to the Treaty, Bessarabia fell within the Soviet interest zone.
Using the fact that by June 22, 1940, the western Europe was overrun by Hitler's Germany, and the attention of the world was focussed on those events, on June 26, 1940, as a consequence of the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR issued an ultimatum note that required Romania to cede Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, and evacuate its troops and institutions in four days (otherwise war would ensue). The two provinces had an area of 51,000 km² (20,000 square miles), and were inhabited by about 3.75 million people, mostly Romanians. After weighing the possible consequences of a military clash with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, two days later, the Romanian administration started to retreat from the two provinces. During this retreat, from June 28 to July 3, some local Communists and Soviet sympaphazers began attacking the retreating forces and the people who also decided to retreat. Many of leaders of the attacks happened to be representatives of ethnic minorities (Jews, Ukrainians). [3][4] The Romanian Army was also attacked by the Soviet Army, which entered Bessarabia before the Romanian administration finished retreating. The casualties suffered by the Romanian Army during those seven days consisted of 356 officers and 42,876 soldiers dead or disappeared.[5] Soviet troops entered Bessarabia and northern Bukovina and incorporated them into the USSR.
On August 2, 1940, a Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established on most of the territory of Bessarabia, merged with parts of the former Moldavian ASSR. Bessarabia was divided between this Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (70% of the territory and 80% of the population) and the Ukrainian SSR (the rest). Bessarabia's northern and southern districts (nowadays Budjak and parts of the Chernivtsi oblast) were alloted to Ukrainian SSR, while some territories (4,000 sq.km) on the left (eastern) bank of the Dniester, previously part of Ukrainian SSR (nowadays Transnistria) were alloted to Moldavian SSR. Following the Soviet takeover, many Bessarabians were executed or deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.
Between September an November 1940 , the Germans of Bessarabia were offered resettlement to Germany, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Fearing Soviet oppression, almost all Germans (93,000) agreed. Most of them, among them the parents of the current German President Horst Köhler, were resettled to the newly annexed Polish territories. Those who did not leave were often slaughtered while fleeing West in their wagons from the Red Army.
On June 22, 1941 the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union commenced with Operation Barbarossa, accompanied in Bessarabia and northern Bukovina by Romanian troops. The Soviets employed scorched earth tactics during their forced retreat from Bessarabia, destroying the infrastructure, and transporting movable goods to Russia by railway. At the end of July, after a year of Soviet occupation, the region was once again under Romanian control.
As the military operation was still in progress, there were cases of Romanian troops "taking revenge" on Jews in Bessarabia, in the form of pogroms on civilians and murdering Jewish POWs, resulting in several thousand dead. The apparent cause for murdering Jews was created by blaming them of siding with the Soviets in June-July 1940, whom some Jews regarded as liberators, and then cunningly exploited to create an anti-Semitic atmosphere within the Romanian army. At the same time the notorious SS Einsatzgruppe D, operating in the area where the German 11th army was assisting the Romanian army, committed summary executions of Jews under the pretext that they were spies, saboteurs, communists, or under no pretext whatsoever.
The political solution of the "Jewish Question" was apparently seen by the Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu more in expulsion rather than extermination. That portion of the Jewish population of Bessarabia and Bukovina which did not flee before the retreat of the Soviet troops (110,000) was initially gathered into ghettos or concentration camps, and then deported during 1941-1942 in death marches into the Romanian-occupied Transnistria, which, unlike Greater Romania, was partially controlled by the SS.
After three years of relative peace, the German-Soviet front returned in 1944 to the land border on the Dniester. On August 20, 1944 the ca. 3,400,000 men strong Red Army began a major summer offensive codenamed Operation Iassy-Kishinev (from the Russian names of the cities Iaşi and Chişinău). The Soviets overran Bessarabia in a two-pronged offensive within five days. In pocket battles at Chişinău and Sărata the German 6th Army of ca. 650,000, newly reformed after the Battle of Stalingrad, was obliterated. Simultaneously with the success of the Russian attack, Romania broke the military alliance with the Axis and changed sides. On August 23, 1944, Marshal Ion Antonescu was arrested by King Michael, and later handed over to the Soviets.
The Soviet Union regained the region in 1944 and the Soviet military occupied Romania until 1958 and imposed a communist government in Bucharest by 1947, which was friendly and obedient towards Moscow. The Romanian communist regime did not raise the matter of Bessarabia and Bukovina (which was ceded by Romania to the Soviet Union before the war) in its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Between 1969 and 1971 , a clandestine National Patriotic Front was established by several young intellectuals in Chişinău, totaling over 100 members, vowing to fight for the establishment of a Moldavian Democratic Republic, its secession from the Soviet Union and union with Romania.
In December 1971, following an informative note from Ion Stănescu, the President of the Council of State Security of the Romanian Socialist Republic, to Yuri Andropov, the chief of KGB, three of the leaders of the National Patriotic Front, Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgar, Gheorghe Ghimpu and Valeriu Graur, as well as a forth person, Alexandru Soltoianu, the leader of a similar clandestine movement in northern Bukovina (Bucovina), were arrested and later sentenced to long prison terms.
With the weakening of the Soviet Union, in February 1988, the first non-sanctioned demonstrations were held in Chişinău. At first pro-Perestroika, they soon turned anti-government and demanded official status for the Moldavian (Romanian) language instead of the Russian language.
On August 31, 1989, following a 600,000-strong demonstration in Chişinău four days earlier, Moldavian (Romanian) became the official language of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. However, this was not implemented for many years.
In 1990, the first free elections were held for Parliament, with the opposition Frontul Popular (People's Front) all but winning them. A government led by Mircea Druc, one of the leaders of Frontul Popular, was formed. The Moldavian SSR becomes SSR Moldova, and later the Republic of Moldova.
The Republic of Moldova became independent in 1991; its boundaries (those established on August 2, 1940) remained unchanged.
The population before World War II consisted of Romanians, Ukrainians(Ruthenians), Russians, Bulgarians, Gagauz, Germans, and Jews. According to the census data of the Russian Emprire, during the 19th century the ethnic Romanians decreased from 86% (1817) to 56% (1897).
Russian Census 1817,[citation needed] (total 482,000 inhabitants)
Russian Census 1856,[citation needed] (total 990,000 inhabitants)
1889: 1,628,867.
Russian Census 1897,[6] (total 1,935,412 inhabitants). Some scholars believed that "[...] the census enumerator generally has instructions to count everyone who understands the state language as being of that nationality, no matter what his everyday speech may be." [7] By language:
Romanians Census 1930, (total 3,105,530 inhabitants)
| county | Romanians | Ukrainians | Russians | Gagauz | Bulgarians | Jews | Germans | inhabitants |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cetatea Albă | 62,949 | 70,095 | 58,922 | 7,876 | 71,227 | 11,139 | 55,598 | 341,176 |
| Ismail | 72,020 | 10,665 | 66,987 | 15,591 | 43,375 | 6,306 | 983 | 225,509 |
| Cahul | 100,714 | 619 | 14,740 | 35,299 | 28,565 | 4,434 | 8,644 | 196,693 |
| Tighina | 163,673 | 9,047 | 44,989 | 39,345 | 19,599 | 16,845 | 10,524 | 306,592 |
| Lăpuşna | 326,455 | 2,732 | 29,770 | 37 | 712 | 50,013 | 2,823 | 419,621 |
| Orhei | 242,983 | 2,469 | 10,746 | 1 | 87 | 18,999 | 154 | 279,282 |
| Bălţi | 270,942 | 29,288 | 46,569 | 8 | 66 | 31,695 | 1,623 | 386,721 |
| Soroca | 232,720 | 26,039 | 25,736 | 13 | 69 | 29,191 | 417 | 315,774 |
| Hotin | 137,348 | 163,267 | 53,453 | 2 | 26 | 35,985 | 323 | 392,430 |
| Iaşi and Fălciu (parts) | 124,500 | * | * | * | * | 5,000 | * | 132,023 |
| Total | 1,735,000 | 315,000+ | 352,000 | 99,000 | 164,000 | 210,000 | 82,000 | 2,995,821 |
| % | 58% | 11% | 12% | 3% | 5% | 7% | 3% | 100% |
Notes: (1) parts of Iaşi (Ungheni) and Fălciu counties were in Bessarabia; (2) * = data counted at others for these counties
Data of the 1939 was not completely processed before the Soviet occupation. Estimates of the total population at 3.5 million.
1970: 69% of Bessarabia's population were Romanians and 98% of them declared Moldovan language (Romanian language) as their native
language.[vague][citation needed]
1989: There were 88,419 Bessarabian Bulgarians according to official data from Republic of Moldova
1992: 4,305 immigrants to Israel from the Republic of Moldova constituted 7.1 percent of all the immigrants to Israel from the former U.S.S.R. in this year.
2004: There were 65,072 Bessarabian Bulgarians according to the census not including Bulgarians in Transnistria.
Thilemann, Alfred. Steppenwind: Erzahlungen aus dem Leben der Bessarabien deutschen (The Wind from the Steppe: Stories of the Life of the Bessarabian Germans). Stuttgart, West Germany: Heimatmuseum der Deutschen aus Bessarabien, 1982
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