Hertza region

This article is about the territorial controversy over the region of Hertsa (Herţa). See Hertsaivskyi Raion for administrative district in Ukraine.

Historical regions outlined: red: northern Bukovina, blue: Hertza region, green: northern Bessarabia

Ethnic divisions in Chernivtsi Oblast with Ukrainians, Romanians (including Moldovans), Russians (Lipovans), and Jewish areas depicted in white, blue, red, and yellow respectively.

Hertza region (Romanian: Ţinutul Herţa, Ukrainian: Край Герца Kraj Herca) is the territory of an administrative district (raion) of Hertsa (Herţa) in the southern part of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine, on the Romanian border. The population in 2001 was about 32,300 people, 93% of whom are ethnic Romanians.

The territory was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and was attached to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (see Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina). It was recaptured by Romania during 1941–1944 in the course of the Axis attack on the Soviet Union in World War II, but in 1944 the Red Army recaptured it. The annexation of the territory was internationally recognized by the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947.

Romania and Ukraine have signed and ratified a border agreement and are signatories of international treaties and alliances that denounce any territorial claims. Romanian organisations in the region consider Hertsa to be historically Romanian, detached from it by the Soviet Union in 1940 in defiance of international law.

See also

• Moldavia
• Bessarabia
• Bukovina

External links

Romanian

• Hertza region Romanian organization protests against Ukrainian changes to its status as a raion
• One of the original Authors of the Ukrainian Constitution speaks about the Hertza region

v • d • e Historical regions in Romania Banat (1918–)a • Dobruja (Northern Dobruja (1878–)• Southern Dobruja (1913–40) • Moldavia (1866–) (Bessarabia (1918–40; 1941–44)b • Bukovinac • Hertza (1866–1940; 1941–44)) • Transylvania (1918–)ad (Crişana • Maramureş) • Wallachia (1866-) (Muntenia • Oltenia) aDe jure since 1920.     bCahul, Ismail and Bolgrad in Romania, 1866–78.     cSouthern Bukovina in Romania 1918–; Northern Bukovina, 1918–40;     dNorthern Transylvania in Hungary, 1940–44.