National Moldavian Party Partidul Național Moldovenesc | |
|---|---|
| Chairman | Vasile Stroescu |
| Secretary-General | Pan Halippa |
| Vicepresidents | Paul Gore Vladimir Herța |
| Founder | Vasile Stroescu |
| Founded | 28–30 March 1917 |
| Dissolved | 1918 |
| Merged into | Bessarabian Peasants' Party |
| Headquarters | Chişinău |
| Newspaper | Cuvânt moldovenesc |
| Ideology | Romanian nationalism |
The National Moldavian Party was a political party in Bessarabia.
Prior to 1917, Bessarabian intelligentsia was divided between noblemen, conservatives, democrats, and socialists. Vasile Stroescu, a rich but very modest filantrop boyar, managed to persuade all major factions to leave internal fights and at four day meeting (March 28 [ O.S. March 15]–March 30 [ O.S. March 17] 1917) the National Moldavian Party was created. In April 1917 the party leadership was elected. It was headed by Vasile Stroescu, having among its members Paul Gore (a renowned conservative), Vladimir Herța, Pan Halippa (a renowned socialist), Onisifor Ghibu. Among the leaders of the party were general Matei Donici, Ion Pelivan, Daniel Ciugureanu, Gurie Grosu, Nicolae Alexandri, Teofil Ioncu, P. Grosu, Mihail Minciună, Vlad Bogos, F. Corobceanu, Gheorghe Buruiană, Simeon Murafa, Al. Botezat, Alexandru Groapă, Ion Codreanu, Vasile Gafencu.
The party, which demanded autonomy, had a newspaper called Cuvânt moldovenesc , to which some refugees from Bukovina and Transylvania also contributed. [1] The cornerstone of the National Moldavian Party program was to obtain political, administrative, church, school, and economic autonomy for Bessarabia. They did not hesitate to send members of the respective profession to the various congresses held in Bessarabia throughout 1917, and became very influential. [2]
Ghibu and George Tofan were part of a group of Transylvanian and Bukovinian intellectuals which arrived in Bessarabia in the wake of the February Revolution to help organize schools in Romanian, to print books and newspapers, and to help the Bessarabians in the strife for reorganization of the political and cultural life. Intellectuals from Bukovina, Transylvania, and the Romanian Old Kingdom fleeing the war to Bessarabia, helped with the printing of Cuvânt moldovenesc, started various language, history, culture, and sciences courses, and set up a People's University (Universitatea Populară) in Chişinău. [3]
The party was replaced by the Bessarabian Peasants' Party, founded in Chişinău on 23 August 1918.
The history of Moldova can be traced to the 1350s, when the Principality of Moldavia, the medieval precursor of modern Moldova and Romania, was founded. The principality was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire from 1538 until the 19th century. In 1812, following one of several Russian-Turkish wars, the eastern half of the principality, Bessarabia, was annexed by the Russian Empire. In 1918, Bessarabia briefly became independent as the Moldavian Democratic Republic and, following the decision of the Parliament, united with Romania. During the Second World War it was occupied by the Soviet Union which reclaimed it from Romania. It joined the Union as the Moldavian ASSR, until the dissolution of the USSR. In 1991 the country declared independence as the Republic of Moldova.
The Moldavian Democratic Republic, also known as the Moldavian Republic, was a state proclaimed on 15 December [O.S. 2 December] 1917 by the Sfatul Țării of Bessarabia, elected in October–November 1917 following the February Revolution and the start of the disintegration of the Russian Empire.
The history of the Jews in Bessarabia, a historical region in Eastern Europe, dates back hundreds of years.
Ion I. Nistor was a Romanian historian and politician. He was a titular member of the Romanian Academy from 1915 and a professor at the universities of Cernăuți and Bucharest, while also serving as Minister of State for Bukovina, Minister of Public Works, Minister of Labor, and Minister of Religious Affairs and the Arts with a number of governments from 1918 to 1940.
Sfatul Țării was a council that united political, public, cultural, and professional organizations in the greater part of the territory of the Governorate of Bessarabia in the disintegrating Russian Empire, which was transformed into a Legislative body and proclaimed 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.
The Bessarabian Peasants' Party or Moldavian National Democratic Party was an agrarian political party, active in the Kingdom of Romania and, more specifically, the region of Bessarabia. Comprising various pro-Romanian and regionalist factions that had existed within the Moldavian Democratic Republic, it was brought together by shared opposition to Bolshevik Russia and communism. The PȚB, founded in August 1918, was led by Pan Halippa and Ion Inculeț, originally representing, respectively, its right and left wings; Ion Pelivan was the co-chair.
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.
Ion Constantin Inculeț was a Bessarabian and Romanian politician, the President of the Country Council of the Moldavian Democratic Republic, Minister, full member of the Romanian Academy. He was buried in the Church of St. Ioan Botezătorul of Bârnova, located on the outskirts of Iași. He was married to Princess Roxana Cantacuzino. His children from this marriage were Ion I. Inculeț, Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Western Ontario (Canada), NASA consultant, Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy, director of the Center of Applied Electrostatics of the University of Western Ontario, and his brother, George I. Inculeț.
The union of Bessarabia with Romania was proclaimed on April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918 by Sfatul Țării, the legislative body of the Moldavian Democratic Republic. This state had the same borders of the region of Bessarabia, which was annexed by the Russian Empire following the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812 and organized first as an Oblast and later as a Governorate. Under Russian rule, many of the native Tatars were expelled from parts of Bessarabia and replaced with Moldavians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Russians, Lipovans, Cossacks, Gagauzes and other peoples, although colonization was not limited to formerly Tatar-inhabited lands. Russia also tried to integrate the region by imposing the Russian language in administration and restricting education in other languages.
Vasile Vasilievici Stroescu, also known as Vasile de Stroesco, Basile Stroesco, or Vasile Stroiescu, was a Bessarabian and Romanian politician, landowner, and philanthropist. One of the proponents and sponsors of Romanian nationalism in Russia's Bessarabia Governorate, as well as among the Romanian communities of Austria-Hungary, he was also a champion of self-help and of cooperative farming. He inherited or purchased large estates, progressively dividing them among local peasants, while setting up local schools and churches for their use. An erudite and traveler, he abandoned his career in law to focus on his agricultural projects and cultural activism. For the latter work, he became an honorary member of the Romanian Academy.
Gherman Vasile Pântea was a Bessarabian-born soldier, civil servant and political figure, active in the Russian Empire and Romania. As an officer of the Imperial Russian Army during most of World War I, he helped organize the committees of Bessarabian soldiers, oscillating between loyalty to the Russian Provisional Government and the cause of Bessarabian emancipation. Pântea was subsequently Military Director of the Moldavian Democratic Republic, answering to President Ion Inculeț. He personally created a Bessarabian defense force, tasked with combating Bolshevik subversion and Russian intimidation, but also braced for defeat after the October Revolution.
Teofil Ioncu was a Bessarabian and Romanian politician, member of Sfatul Țării.
Vasile Cijevschi was a Bessarabian and Romanian politician, administrator and writer. Originally a career officer in the Russian Empire, he was active within the ethnic Romanian political movement during the Russian Revolution, and later within the Moldavian Democratic Republic. Cijevschi helped organize the Republic's defense against bolshevik insurrection, and contributed to the Bessarabian–Romanian union of 1918.
Ion Alion Buzdugan was a Bessarabian-Romanian poet, folklorist, and politician. A young schoolteacher in the Russian Empire by 1908, he wrote poetry and collected folklore emphasizing Bessarabia's links with Romania, and associated with various founding figures of the Romanian nationalist movement, beginning with Ion Pelivan. Buzdugan was a far-left figure during the February Revolution, but eventually rallied with the National Moldavian Party in opposition to the socialists and the Bolsheviks. He vehemently supported the union of Bessarabia with Romania during the existence of an independent Moldavian Democratic Republic, and, as a member of its legislature, worked to bring it about. Threatened by the Bolsheviks, he fled to Romania and returned with an expeditionary corps headed by General Ernest Broșteanu, being one of the delegates who voted for the union, and one of dignitaries who signed its proclamation.
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.
Elena Alistar-Romanescu was a Bessarabian physician and politician who was part of Sfatul Țării from Bessarabia.
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.
Cuvânt moldovenesc was a magazine from Chișinău, Bessarabia, founded in 1913.
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.
