During the Soviet occupation, the religious life in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina underwent a persecution similar to the one in Russia between the two World Wars. In the first days of occupation, certain population groups welcomed the Soviet power and some of them joined the newly established Soviet nomenklatura , including NKVD, the Soviet political police. The latter has used these locals to find and arrest numerous priests. [1] Other priests were arrested and interrogated by the Soviet NKVD itself, then deported to the interior of the USSR, and killed. Research on this subject is still at an early stage. According to priest and academic Viorel Cojocaru, some 400 out of more than 1,000 Bessarabian priests at the time (or almost one third) were arrested, deported, or exterminated by the Soviet authorities. [2] As of 2007, the Christian Orthodox church has bestowed the martyrdom to circa 50 clergymen who died in the first year of Soviet occupation (1940–1941). [1]
In 1940–1941, several churches were sacked, looted, transformed into public or utility buildings, or closed. Taxes were set, which the believers were obliged to pay if they wanted to pray and be allowed to hold the mass. When Romanian authorities returned after June 1941, churches and monasteries were rebuilt and opened again, but persecution resumed in 1944, when Soviet forces reconquered the territory. [1] [3] [4]
The (incomplete) list below contains clergymen of any denomination. Like the majority of the population of the region,[ citation needed ] most of the people named below were Romanian Christian Orthodox. A person is listed below only if the church has officially used the term martyr in reference to the individual. In doing so, Christian churches have to follow a three-step rule: martyrium materialiter (violent death), martyrium formaliter ex parte tyranni (for the faith on the part of the persecutors), martyrium formaliter ex parte victimae (conscious acceptance of God's will).
The Fântâna Albă massacre took place on 1 April 1941 in Northern Bukovina when up to 3,000 civilians were killed by Soviet Border Troops as they attempted to cross the border from the Soviet Union to Romania near the village of Fântâna Albă, now Staryi Vovchynets in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine. Although according to Soviet official reports, no more than 44 civilians were killed, but local witnesses assert a much higher toll, stating that survivors were tortured, killed, or buried in mass graves. Others were taken away to be tortured and killed at the hands of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. Some sources have referred to the massacre as "the Romanian Katyn".
The Metropolis of Chișinău and All Moldova, also referred to as the Moldovan Orthodox Church, is an autonomous metropolitanate under the Russian Orthodox Church. Its canonical territory is the Republic of Moldova.
Between 28 June and 3 July 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, following an ultimatum made to Romania on 26 June 1940 that threatened the use of force. Those regions, with a total area of 50,762 km2 (19,599 sq mi) and a population of 3,776,309 inhabitants, were incorporated into the Soviet Union. On 26 October 1940, six Romanian islands on the Chilia branch of the Danube, with an area of 23.75 km2 (9.17 sq mi), were also occupied by the Soviet Army.
Alexandru Baltagă was a Bessarabian Romanian Orthodox priest, a founder of the Bessarabian religious press in the Romanian language, a member of Sfatul Țării (1917–1918), a Soviet political prisoner, and, according to the Orthodox Church, a martyr for the faith.
The Bridge of Flowers was a massive demonstration that took place on Sunday, 6 May 1990 along the Prut River separating Romania and the Moldavian SSR.
The National Organization of Bessarabia "Arcașii lui Ștefan" was one of the organized anti-Soviet groups in Bessarabia right after World War II.
Constantin Vasilievici Bivol was a Bessarabian politician and agriculturalist, brother of the more famous politician Nicolae Bivol. Hailing from the ethnic Romanian community of Costești, he was born a subject of the Russian Empire, and saw action with the Imperial Russian Army in World War I. He was a soldiers' delegate to Sfatul Țării, the regional assembly of Bessarabia Governorate, after elections in November 1917; upon the proclamation of a Moldavian Democratic Republic, he veered toward Romanian nationalism, and promoted the Romanian vernacular against the linguistic pluralism championed by Bessarabia's ethnic minorities.
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 Postică is a historian from the Republic of Moldova.
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.
Ion Țurcanu is an author, educator, historian, memoirist, professor, former member of the Parliament (1990–1994), politician and Romanian writer from Moldova. He is one of the 277 MPs of the first parliament of the former Soviet Socialist Republic, who voted for the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova on 27 August 1991.
Vasile Soare is a Romanian diplomat. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Romania to Azerbaijan since October 28, 2021.
Iustin Ștefan Frățiman, also known as Frațman, Froțman, or Frățimanu, was a historian, educator, librarian and political figure from Bessarabia, active in the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Romania. After receiving a classical education, he worked for various seminaries of the Russian Orthodox Church, moving as far north as Olonets. Frățiman had settled in Soroca by the time of World War I, becoming a champion of Romanian nationalism. This resulted in his being exiled to Central Asia until 1917. Allowed back home after the liberal February Revolution, he resumed his activism, openly campaigning for the national rights of Romanians east of Bessarabia. He was afterwards one of the educators tasked with institutional Romanianization by the Moldavian Democratic Republic.
Ieremia Teodor Cecan was a Bessarabian-born Romanian journalist, Bessarabian Orthodox priest and political figure. During the first part of his life, he was active in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, earning his reputation as a Christian philanthropist and putting out the pioneering church magazine Nashe Obyedineniye. His opposition to Russification and his advocacy of social improvement led to a public scandal and then to is demotion by church officials, and pushed Cecan into independent journalism. However, his sympathies remained with the conservative-antisemitic Union of the Russian People, developing into a critique of Romanian nationalism that was well liked by the imperial authorities. During the latter stages of World War I, Cecan was a chaplain in the Russian Army.
The Romanians in Kazakhstan are an ethnic Romanian minority in Kazakhstan. In the 1999 Kazakh census, 594 Romanians and 19,460 Moldovans, which Romanian media has claimed as also being part of the Romanian minority of the country, were registered in Kazakhstan. However, they are estimated to be around 40,000 or even 50,000 people.
The Bukovina Governorate was an administrative unit of Romania during World War II.
Greater Moldova or Greater Moldavia is an irredentist concept today used for the credence that the Republic of Moldova should be expanded with lands that used to belong to the Principality of Moldavia or were once inside its political orbit. Historically, it also meant the unification of the lands of the former principality under either Romania or the Soviet Union. Territories cited in such proposals always include Western Moldavia and the whole of Bessarabia, as well as Bukovina and the Hertsa region; some versions also feature parts of Transylvania, while still others include areas of Podolia, or Pokuttia in its entirety. In most of its post-Soviet iterations, "Greater Moldova" is associated with a belief that Moldovans are a distinct people from Romanians, and that they inhabit parts of Romania and Ukraine. It is a marginal position within the Moldovan identity disputes, corresponding to radical forms of an ideology polemically known as "Moldovenism".
"Bessarabia, Romanian land", "Bessarabia is Romanian land" or "Bessarabia is Romania" is a popular and commonly used Romanian nationalist and irredentist slogan posing claims over the geographical region of Bessarabia, today divided between the Republic of Moldova and parts of Ukraine. According to the Romanian newspaper Adevărul, the use of this slogan as a patriotic catchphrase started in 2006 from a group of anonymous young Romanians from Bucharest.
The Lunca massacre took place on 7 February 1941 in Northern Bukovina, when hundreds of civilians were killed when Soviet Border troops opened fire on them while they were attempting to forcefully cross the border from the Soviet Union to Romania, near the village of Lunca, now Lunka in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine. Although there are no official statistics, it is estimated that about 600 people were killed as a result of the massacre.
Vladimir or Vlad Cavarnali was a Bessarabian-born Romanian poet, journalist, editor, and political figure. Though his ethnic background was Bessarabian Bulgarian and Gagauz, he embraced Romanian nationalism and would not approve of separation between the Romanian and Bessarabian literary traditions. In his twenties, he debuted in politics with the National Liberal Party, before switching to the dissident fascist Crusade of Romanianism, and then to the far-right Romanian Front. By contrast, Cavarnali's poetic work was heavily indebted to the influence of Russian Symbolism, and especially to Sergei Yesenin—whose proletarian style he closely mirrored, after removing most of its political connotations. He was also a translator of Russian and more generally Slavic literature, earning praise for his version of Maxim Gorky's Mother.