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The unification of Moldova and Romania is a popular concept and hypothetical unification in the two countries that began during the Revolutions of 1989. The Romanian Revolution in 1989 and the independence of Moldova in 1991 further contributed to the development of a movement for the unification of the two Romanian-speaking countries. The question of reunification is recurrent in the public sphere of the two countries, often as a speculation, both as a goal and a danger. Though historically Romanian support for unification was high, a March 2022 survey following the Russian invasion of Ukraine indicated that only 11% of Romania's population supports an immediate union, while over 42% think it is not the right moment.
Sfatul Țării was a council of political, public, cultural, and professional organizations in the Governorate of Bessarabia in Tsarist Russia. This became a legislative body which established the Moldavian Democratic Republic as part of the Russian Federative Republic in December 1917. and then union with Romania in April [O.S. March] 1918.
Pantelimon "Pan" Halippa was a Bessarabian and later Romanian journalist and politician. One of the most important promoters of Romanian nationalism in Bessarabia and of this province's union with Romania, he was president of Sfatul Țării, which voted union in 1918. He then occupied ministerial posts in several governments, following which he underwent political persecution at the hands of the Communist régime and was later incarcerated in Sighet prison.
The National Moldavian Party was a political party in Bessarabia.
Teodor Bârcă was a Bessarabian politician and professor, who on 27 March 1918 voted the union of Bessarabia with Romania. He was the vice president of Sfatul Țării, the parliament of Bessarabia at the time.
Teofil Ioncu was a Bessarabian and Romanian politician, member of Sfatul Țării.
Vasile Gheorghe Cijevschi was a Bessarabian and Romanian politician, administrator and writer. Originally a career officer and Orientalist in service to the Russian Empire, he was dispatched to the Far East, in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, seeing action in the Russo-Japanese War. He was wounded and shielded from active duty, but returned with the start of World War I, managing to survive the Battle of Tannenberg. By the time of the February Revolution, he was a civil servant in Bessarabia, and an affiliate of the Octobrist Party.
Grigore Turcuman was a Bessarabian Romanian politician. As a member of Sfatul Țării, he voted the Union of Bessarabia with the Kingdom of Romania on 27 March 1918.
Anton Crihan was a Bessarabian politician, lawyer, author, economist, professor and journalist. He was a member of Sfatul Țării (1917), adviser to the Secretary of State for Agriculture in the General Directorate of the Republic of Moldova (1917), deputy in the Parliament of Romania, adviser to the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Agriculture and Domains (1932–1933), professor at the Polytechnic University of Iasi and at the Faculty of Agronomy in Chișinău (1934–1940).
Elena Alistar-Romanescu was a Bessarabian physician and politician who was part of Sfatul Țării from Bessarabia.
The Moldavian Progressive Party was a short-lived political organization advancing the political interests of Romanians and "Moldavians". It nominally represented the region of Bessarabia, but was primarily active in Odesa, in the Russian Provisional Government's Kherson Governorate. Its core constituency was a large group of Romanian-speaking soldiers in the Russian Army; it was also closely aligned with the older National Moldavian Party (PNM) of Chișinău, though it advanced some left-wing policies that were entirely its own.
Viaţa Basarabiei is a Romanian-language periodical from Chişinău, Moldova. Originally a literary and political magazine, published at a time when the Bessarabia region was part of Romania, it was founded in 1932 by political activist Pan Halippa and writer Nicolai Costenco. At the time, Viaţa Basarabiei was primarily noted for rejecting the centralism of Greater Romanian governments, to which they opposed more or less vocal Bessarabian regionalist demands and a nativist ethos.
Simeon Gheorghevici Murafa was a Bessarabian politician in the Russian Empire, also known as a publicist and composer. A trained classical singer and a graduate of Saint Vladimir (Shevchenko) University, he was one of the leading activists supporting ethnic Romanian emancipation in Bessarabia and beyond. By 1914, he associated with the revolutionary core of the Romanian nationalist movement, which he represented as director of Cuvânt Moldovenesc newspaper.
Chișinău has a recorded history that goes back to 1436. Since then, it has grown to become a significant political and cultural capital of South East Europe. In 1918 Chișinău became the capital of an independent state, the Moldavian Democratic Republic, and has been the capital of Moldova since 1991.
Ion Ciocanu was a Moldovan literary critic.
Dumitru I. Remenco was a Romanian journalist and philosopher from Chişinău, Bessarabia. He was a contributor at major newspapers of Bessarabia, such as Cuvânt moldovenesc, Viaţa Basarabiei, Glasul Basarabiei, Timpul.
Alexandra Scodigor-Remenco (1897–1959) was a Romanian educator from Chişinău, Bessarabia. She founded an orphanage in 1929 that became a model institution for pre-school education in Romania. The orphanage was visited by Maria Montessori in 1938, when Alexandra Remenco was invited to the Vatican for an audience with Pope Pius XI.
Gheorghe Remenco was a journalist and author from Chişinău, Bessarabia, son of Alexandra Remenco and Dumitru Remenco.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Tsyganko was a Bessarabian, and later Soviet, politician. The son of a distinguished architect, and himself an engineer by vocation, Tsyganko entered politics shortly before the proclamation of a Moldavian Democratic Republic, when he earned a seat in the republican legislature. He sided with the parliamentary Peasants' Faction, which supported left-wing ideals and pushed for land reform, being generally, and radically, opposed to the more right-wing Moldavian Bloc. Tsyganko was skeptical of the Bloc's plan to unite Bessarabia with Romania, although he possibly supported a federation. His uncompromising stance divided his Faction and led the Romanian Kingdom's authorities to identify him as a major obstruction to the unionist cause.
Pyotr Zakharovich Bazhbeuk-Melikov, also Bachbeouk-Melikoff, Bazhbeuk-Melikyan or Bazhbeuk-Melikishvili, was an ethnic Armenian politician and agronomist in Bessarabia. Educated in Tiflis Governorate and then in France, he had various administrative offices in the Russian Empire and the Russian Republic. He presented himself in the November 1917 election for the Russian Constituent Assembly as an affiliate of the Constitutional Democratic Party. Failing in this bid, Bazhbeuk was instead welcomed as an Armenian delegate by the Bessarabian assembly, or Sfatul Țării, just before the proclamation of a Moldavian Democratic Republic. Loyal toward the latter, he spoke out against Bolshevik infiltration, and asked for an intervention by the neighboring Kingdom of Romania. Though he welcomed the Romanian military expedition of early 1918, he found himself opposed to the subsequent union between Bessarabia and Romania, reverting to Russian monarchism.
