1812 year in the history of the Moldavian people: saving “annexation”...

200 years ago the territory between the Prut and Dniestr was attached to Russia.

The Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812 ended with the peace treaty signed in Bucharest which assumed the border transfer between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire from the Dniestr to the Prut. Thus, Transnistria remained in the deep Russian back. The historical act of 1812 played an outstanding role in destinies of the Moldavian people.

And as any important historical event, abrupt turn in destiny of the people, it draws special attention of the descendants, taking out the sentences to it, proceeding from these or those own political goals. The authorities of Moldova declared recently “day of mourning” in anniversary of “illegal annexation”, the pro-Romanian parties and movements in Kishinev publicly pour buckets of bitter tears about it and eccentric ex-president Mihai Ghimpu even declared that the Russian tanks press the earth of Moldova for two centuries running (the unfortunate Moldavian politician, probably, wasn’t told at school that the tanks were invented in days of the First World War, i.e. less than 100 years ago).

But the matter is not in tanks, of course. In XIX – the beginning of the XX centuries the Romanian historians developed the concept of especially negative assessment of the Bucharest peace. The last two decades its basic provisions were persistently imposed to public opinion of the Republic of Moldova and received the status of the official doctrine which is not subject to revision and criticism. This doctrine is simple to primitiveness and reduced to an axiom: the joining of Bessarabia to Russia became “tragic event” in the history of the people as the country divided into two parts that is in essence the act of barefaced annexation and a partition of the unified sovereign state.

Moreover, the Bucharest peace is the act which is completely contradicting the international law, result of arrangement of two aggressive empires Ottoman and Russian, which decided the destiny of the Moldavian people, without asking their consent. Without pressing in political goals of similar constructions, we will consider the validity of offered treatment of events in more detail as on formal signs such assessment, at first sight, really has the bases. It is necessary to recognize that the Prut-Dniestr interfluve was a part of the Moldavian principality from XIV century.

Russia really attached Bessarabia, the part of Moldova as a result of war with Porta as war spoils. Therefore, any progressive value of this act is out of the question? As well as the term “release” can't be applied in this case, as Bessarabia got from under the power of one empire under the power of other so aggressive empire? But we will consider these bases in more detail.

First of all, it is necessary to note that the norms of modern international law (with which, by the way, the strong powers today not always are guided in the relations with weak) can't serve as a reliable reference point when studying the causes and effects of these or those historical events, whether it be the destruction Carthage by Rome or the conquests of Alexander the Great, or the birth and death of numerous kingdoms and empires of an era of great resettlement of the people, or Genghis Khan wars. In what the history would turn if it began at every occasion to estimate all events of a millennia-long way of mankind from the point of view of changing norms of modern international law?! Actually, nobody in the world is engaged in it, except akyns of the official historiography of the Kishinev regime.

And still it is necessary to note thus that the Bucharest peace was in full accordance with practice of the interstate relations of that era, didn't cause any bewilderment or protests in the government. The Bucharest peace actually was legally recognized as the world community by all allies or opponents of that and other party. This is the first. The second: according to the modern law, the annexation is any joining to the big or strong state of all or a part of the territory of other state if this joining occurred violently, i.e. without precisely, clearly and voluntary expressed consent and desire of this attached population. Annexation is a violent deduction of any nationality within another's state. Therefore, not any joining but only violent joining or violent change of borders can be considered as annexation.

Has the act of 1812 this key moment for the characteristic it as annexation, is there an element of violence? It wasn’t. It is on the contrary. If to consider the repeatedly expressed desire of the Moldavians to join to the unified faith orthodox Russian state, with which they constantly addressed to Russia, since the middle of the XVII century, so this joining of Bessarabia is represented as execution of the century expectations of the people in practice. Tsar Alexey Mikhaylovich in 1656 even took the oath of the metropolitan Gedeon for hospodar and all Moldavian people have to stay in the Russian citizenship “forever and closely”.

The Father Superior Feodor went to Moscow with a similar request in 1674 and in 1684 the metropolitan Dosifey arrived there with similar mission who has written the enthusiastic ode of Russia – “The light shines from Moscow, extending the long beams and a reputation under the sun”. The negotiations on inclusion of Moldova in structure of Russia were carried out by the metropolitans Gedeon (1711), Veniamin (1739), Gavriil (1769-1774), Veniamin (1802, 1807) and other patriots of the Moldavian land. About 20 times the Moldavians addressed to Russia with a request to admit them to structure of this orthodox state. And shortly before signing of the Bucharest peace at the beginning of the XIX century, the spiritual pastor of the Moldavians metropolitan Veniamin Costache expressed desires of vast majority of inhabitants, their hopes and expectation only by one, but exact and well-aimed phrase: “The true happiness of these lands consists in their joining to Russia”.

The fighting brotherhood on the weapon at the time of the Russian-Turkish wars can be the confirmation to this desire when tens of thousands of the Moldavian volunteers served in the Russian army. The history doesn't know any case when the Moldavians would oppose the Russian armies in the union with Turks and Tatars. And after all Napoleon's invasion to Russia less than in a month after signing of the Bucharest peace gave perfect possibility to the victims of “annexation” to strike a crushing blow on their offender Russia and to “be released” from it, having returned to the structure of Turkey!

However, strangely enough, neither before, nor after the signing of the Bucharest peace there were no armed, peace or any other actions which could be regarded as a protest of the Moldavians against “annexation”. If one may say so, such “protests” were extended only presently from certain circles of the political elite participating in disorder of the USSR. Neither last century, nor the century before last don't know the anti-Russian moods in Moldova. Therefore, it is not competent to speak about any violent annexation when it is a question of the act of 1812.

The third: has the Bucharest peace divided the unified Moldavian principality into two parts? Possibly, it would be possible to answer this question in the affirmative form if Moldova represented really unified state by 1812. But just it wasn't. Process of a partition of Moldova by Porta began in 1484, at Stefan the Great when the Turks grasped Belgorod and Kiliya where the rayas were created which didn't submit to the Moldavian state system, coped by the pasha under the Turkish laws. In 1538 the Slavic settlement Tyagin on Dniestr was grasped by the Turks and is formed Bendera raya. In 1590, the Izmail raya is created, in 1622 – Reniysk raya, in 1715– Hotinsk raya. The Christian population of these Turkish territories was forced to live under Sharia laws.

But this is not all! At the end of the XVI century, the Turks moved a horde of the Nogai Tatars to the regions of Bugeac adjoining to rayas, the administrative center of whom was Causeni. If to remember that in 1775 the sultan gave a northern part of the territory of Moldova Bukovina to Austria, so it becomes clear that since the end of XV till the end of the XVIII century about 40 % of its territory were actually sawn-off from the principality. As to the territory of Bessarabia, by 1812 more than a half of its lands didn't belong to the Moldavian state.

It is not difficulty to count up on how many parts the principality was divided:

1) the lands which were under jurisdiction of hospodars-fanariotis, proteges of the sultan and not possessing even a sovereignty shred;

2) the northern (Hotinsk) raya where the orthodox population, namely the Moldavians and Ukrainians prevailed;

3) four southern (Akkerman, Izmail, Reniysk and Bendera) rayas, occupied, mainly, by the Turks and Tatars;

4) the territory of Bukovina as a part of the Austrian empire with the orthodox Ukrainian population;

5) Bugeac with the center in Causeni– the capital of the Tatars withdrawn by Ottomans and the inhabitants of the Crimea from Volga still in 1569;

6) the left-bank of Podnestrovie to the north of the Yagorlyk river, being a part of the Braclaw Voivodeship of Poland;

7) the left-bank of Podnestrovie between the Yagorlyk river and the Black Sea, making possession of the Crimean khanate.

Two last regions to the east of Dniestr, however, never were a part of the Moldavian principality. About what unified, sovereign state allegedly divided by artful Russia into two parts, the sacred cow of the Kishinev semi-official organ interprets us? It is abundantly clear that the joining of all these dismembered and separated lands to Russia, eviction of the Muslim Tatar population to the Crimea, and then the Polish magnates from these lands, led to their association in the shadow of the powerful Russian power. It led to fast settling of the Prut-Dniestr interfluve by the orthodox population (including the Moldavians behind the Prut), promoted further consolidations of the Moldavian nation in these territories.

The fourth: it is necessary to mean that the question paramount for the Moldavians was solved in the Russian-Turkish wars of the XVIII century: will the Moldavian people remain as unique ethnos in general or will be lost under oppression of an intolerable Ottoman yoke? In this respect the act of 1812 played very important role. The matter is that the strategic interests of Istanbul were constantly sent to the Black Sea Coast, Dniestr, Bug and Dnepr to the Crimea. The connection of the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean khanate was carried out by the Turks for the small periods earlier. In the result of the Treaty of Aynalikavak of 1779, Porta even managed to subordinate the lands between Bug and Dnestr to Bugeac horde, having included this territory in structure of the Causeni pashalyk for some years.

The next Russian-Turkish war and signing of the Bucharest peace defeated these plans, the implementation of which could lead to a mass slaughter and genocide of the Moldavians who simply weren't necessary here to Ottomans. The tragic story of the Armenians and other people who have felt these terrifying actions fully, speaks about the high degree of probability of such events in Moldova. The Bucharest peace, on the contrary, brought to the population of Bessarabia, tired of continuous wars, extortionate attacks and bloody battles, the long-awaited peace. Over the time of more than 100 years, any hostilities weren't conducted in Bessarabia and the population even was released from a military duty and six decades weren't called up for military service. The Bucharest peace played a saving role in the historical destinies of the Moldavians, opening before them the prospects of national consolidation and development. Certainly, the objective analysis of the act of 1812 demands its all-round consideration, including the contradictions containing in it.

The joining of a part of the Moldavian principality to Russia meant the division of a unified feudal nationality that it is impossible to recognize as the positive phenomenon. Further ways of once unified nationality dispersed. The Moldavians of Zaprut Moldova after its association with the Wallachian principality and formations of the Romanian state in 1859 were gradually integrated with Wallachians and created the Romanian nation in the Carpatho-Danubian region, and the Moldavians of Bessarabia as a part of Russia together with the Moldavians of Transnistria were consolidated in own Moldavian nation.

Certainly, we can call these processes as any universal tragedy with the best will in the world. Only hardly the Americans, Australians, Belgians, Icelanders, Latin Americans and still many other people of the world will understand us whose ethnogenesis at any stages of the development passed through ethnic separation, inclusion of a part of the people in other state formations or again created. These are the historical realities.

The joining of Bessarabia to Russia wasn't the annexation act though the difficult international situation didn't allow to release all Moldova from the Turkish yoke – its zaprut part remained as a part of the Ottoman Empire. Finally it was released from the Turk by means of Russia in the second half of the XIX century. And the 300-year period of sovereignty of cruel east despotism ended for the population of Bessarabia in 1812. The wide prospects opened for rather fast social evolution on ways of formation of bourgeois society, for cultural and political progress. Are there any more examples of so salutary for the people and so long-awaited by people “annexation” in the history?