Bukovina

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Bukovina (Ukrainian: Буковина, Bukovyna; Romanian: Bucovina; German and Polish: Bukowina; see also other languages) is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains. It is currently split between Romania and Ukraine.

Flag (Landesfarben) of Bukovina in Austria-Hungary

Name

The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became Austrian Empire in 1804, and Austria-Hungary in 1867.

The official German name, die Bukowina, of the province under Austrian rule (1775-1918), was derived from the Polish form Bukowina, which in turn comes from the Slavic word for beech tree (бук [buk] in Ukrainian).[citation needed] This was due to the fact that from 1775 utill 1849, Bukovina was administered as an integral part of neighboring Galicia, whose internal government was, by active Austrian policy, controlled by Polish bureaucrats and nobles (szlachta). Another German name for region, das Buchenland, is mostly used in poetry, and means "beech land", or "the land of beech trees".

During the middle ages, the region was the northwestern 1/3 of "Ţara de Sus" (Upper Country in Romanian) part of the Moldavian Principality, as opposed to "Ţara de Jos" (Lower Country)). The region was the cradle of the Moldavian Principality, and remained its political center until 1574, when its capital was moved from Suceava to Iaşi.

Nowadays in Ukraine it is common to use the terms Chernivtsi Oblast and Bukovina interchaneably, since over 2/3 of Oblast (province) is Northern Bukovina. In Romania the term Northern Bucovina is synonymous to Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine, and (Southern) Bucovina to Suceava County of Romania, although 10% of the Suceava County covers territory not included in historical Southern Bukovina.

In English, an alternate form is The Bukovina, increasingly an archaism, which, however, is found in older literature.

History

Before the 14th century

During Stone age, Bukovina was populated by Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of early settlers (4500 BC3000 BC), which was overrun, around 2000 BC, by the migration of Indo-Europeans.

From around 2000 BC till 106 AD, it was inhabited by the Dacian tribes, such as Costoboci and Capri, for a period cohabitated also by the Celtic tribe of Bastarni. From approx. 70 BC to 44 BC, the region was incorporated in the Dacian Kingdom of Burebista.

When the Dacian Kingdom of Decebal, which included the territorries just on the other side of the Carpathian mountains from what is today Bukovina, fell to the Romans in 106, the area came under huge linguistic and cultural influence of the Roman Empire through settlement of numerous colonists and veterans of the Roman legions. Wood and mud forts of the Legio V Macedonica, employed for providing early warning and travel security, stretched all the way to the Dniester River in today's northern Moldova.

The mixture of Romanized Dacians and Roman colonists that resulted, is referred to by scientists as proto-Romanians, although they continued to call themselves roman, while many neighbouring (especially Slavic) nations called them vlah.

In 3rd century (240s-270s) the region was plundered by the Goths, in the 4th century by the Huns (370s-380s), and in the 6th century (560s-570s) by the Avars. The Romans never managed to regain political control of the region after the defeat in 567, although religiously the region was dependent from the Byzantine Patriarch of Constantinopolis untill the end of 14th century.

During the 7th century and 8th century, Slavic populations moved through (temporarely settled) in the region and influenced the locals in respect to certain agricultural methods (e.g. burning the forests to increase the cultivated land). By the end of the 8th century the Slavic tribes either moved to today's Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia, or were assimilated by proto-Romanians.[citation needed]

In 797 the Avars, who settled in today's Hungary and collected regular tribute from the peasants all other south-eastern Europe, were defeated by Charlemagne. In the following decades several dosen proto-Romanian voevodates sprang all other south-eastern Europe. The low-land teritorry of the present-day Bukovina was included in one of them[citation needed], which had its center at Dorohoi (approx. 20 km east of Bukovina), then at Siret (in the center of Bukovina). The villages of the Campulung Valley formed a "republic" that preserved its autonomy even under the Principality of Moldavia.

Immediately to the north of Bukovina, in 12th to early 14th century was the East Slavic Principality of Halych-Volhynia, formely a part Kievan Rus (880-12th century), which expanded as far south as the sourse of the Prut river. [citation needed] The Romanian voevodes and the Slavic Princes were often allied in defending against the Tatars in 1240s-1340s, but were always defeated.

Moldavian Principality

From the mid-14th century, the two local Romanian voevodates, and a third downtrodden by the King of Hungary from Maramureş, united [citation needed] and expanded their territory all the way to the Black Sea. The region (Bukovina) became the nucleus of the Moldavian Principality, with the city of Suceava as its capital from 1388 (after Baia and Siret).

In the 15th century, Pokuttia (Pocuţia), the region immediately to the north, became the subject of disputes between the Moldavian Principality and the Polish Kingdom, and in 1497 a batlle took place at Codrii Cozminului (the hilly forests separating Chernivtsi (Cernauţi) and Siret valleys), at which Stephen III of Moldavia managed to defeat the much-stronger but demoralized army of King John I Albert of Poland, known in Polish popular culture as "the battle when the knights have perished".

In this period, the patronage of Stephen III of Moldavia and his successors on the throne of Moldavia saw the construction of the famous painted monasteries of Moldoviţa, Suceviţa, Putna, Humor, Voroneţ, Dragomirna, Arbora, and others. With their renowned exterior frescoes, these monasteries remain some of the greatest cultural treasures of Romania; some of them are World Heritage Sites, part of the painted churches of northern Moldavia. Stephen also settled the first Ruthenians in Bukovina with the hope of having a loyal and more numerous population that would contribute with taxes. In Suceava, in the 16th century, two percent of the population (i.e. about 500-1000 people) was Ruthenian.

In the 1538, the Moldavian Principality came under the control of the Ottoman Turks, but it remained autonoumous and was govered as before by a native Voivod. For short periods of time (during wars), the Polish Kingdom occupied parts of northern Moldavia. However the old border was re-established every time after, as for example on 14 October 1703 the Polish delegate Martin Chometowski acknowledges "Between us and Moldavia God himself set Dniester as the border" (Inter nos et Valachiam ipse Deus flumine Tyras dislimitavit).

In the course of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, the Ottoman armies were defeated by the Russian Empire, that occupied the region during 15 December 1769 - September 1774, and previously during 14 September-October 1739. Bukovina was the reward the Habsburgs received for aiding (saving) the Ottomans in that war. Prince Gheorghe Ghica of Moldavia protested and was prepared to take action to recover the territory, but was assasinated, and a Greek-Phanariot foreigner was put by the Ottomans on the throne of Moldavia.

Austrian empire

File:Bukovina 1910.jpg
Ethnic map of the Austrian province of Bukowina

The Austrian empire occupied Bukowina in October of 1774. Following the first partition of Poland in 1772, the Austrians claimed that they needed it for a road between Galicia and Transylvania. Bukovina was formally annexed in January 1775. On 2 July 1776, at Palamutka, Austrians and Ottomans signed a border convention, Austrians giving back 59 of the previously occupied villages, and remaining with 278 villages.

Bukovina was a closed military district (1775 - 1786), then the largest district, Kreis Czernowitz (after its capital Czernowitz) of the Austrian constituent Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (1787 - 1849), and, finally, on 4 March 1849, became a separate Austrian Kronland 'crown land' under a Landespräsident (not a Stadthalter, as in other crown lands) and declared Herzogtum Bukowina (nominal duchy, as part of the official full style of the Austrian Emperors). In 1860 - 26 February 1861, it was again amalgamated with Galicia, but reverted to the previous status.

In 1849 Bukovina got a representative assembly, the Landtag (diet). The Moldavian nobility had traditionally formed the ruling class in that territory. In 1867 it remained part of the Cisleithanian or Austrian territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.

According to the 1775 Austrian census, the province had the total population of 86,000, made up mostly of Romanians (Moldovans), and up to 10,000 Slavs (Polish, Ruthenians and Hutzuls). During the 19th century the Austrian Empire policies encouraged the influx of many immigrants such as Germans, Poles, Jews, Hungarians, and Ruthenian from Galicia. By 1900 the Romanian population decreased to roughly 40% of Bukovina, with significant Ukrainian (Ruthenian, Hutzul) (especially in villages in the northern half), German, Jewish, Polish (especiialy in towns), and Hungarian (several villages) minorities.

End-19th to early-20th centuries

The 1871 and 1904 jubilees held at Putna Monastery, near the tomb of Ştefan cel Mare, have constituted tremendous moments for Romanian national identity in Bukovina. Since gaining its independence, Romania envisioned to incorporate this historic province which, as a core of Moldavian Principality, was of a great historic significance to its history and contained many prominent monuments of its art and architecture. [1]

Despite the influx of migrants encouraged under the Austrian rule, Romanians continued to be the largest ethnic group in the province until 1880, when Ruthenians (Ukrainians) outnumbered the Romanians 5:4. According to the 1880 census there were 239,690 Ruthenians and Hutzuls, or roughly 41.5 % of the population of the region, while Romanians were second with 190,005 people or 33%, a ratio that remained unchanged until WWI. Ruthenian is an archaic name for Ukrainian, while the Hutsuls are nowadays considered as an ethnic group of Ukrainian stock (ethnically Vlach shepherds who acquired a Slavic (Ukrainian) language).

Under Austrian rule Bukovina remained ethnically mixed: predominantly Romanian in the south, Ukrainian (commonly referred to as Ruthenians in the Empire) in the north, with small numbers of Hungarian Székely, Slovak and Polish peasants, and Germans, Poles and Jews in the towns. The 1910 census counted 800 198 people, of which: Ruthenian 38.88%, Romanian 34.38%, German 21.24%, Jews 12.86%, Polish 4.55%, Hungarian 1.31%, Slovak 0.08%, Slovenian 0.02%, Italian 0.02%, and a few Armenian, Croat, Gypsy, Serbian, and Turkish. Romanians were still present in all settlements of the region, but their number decreased in the villages in the north. Many of Bukovina's Germans, and a few Romanians, emigrated in 19th and 20th century to North America. [www.bukovinasociety.org/] [2] [3]

In spite of some frictions between Romanian and Ukrainian populations at the time over the influences in the Orthodox hierarchy[citation needed], the inter-ethnic conflicts did not reach a significant level and both cultures developed in educational and public life. Moreover, at the end of the 19th century, the development of Ukrainian culture in Bukovina surpassed Galicia and the rest of Ukraine with a network of Ukrainian educational facilities.

According to the census data of Austria-Hungary, the population of Bukovina was:

Year Romanians Ukrainians Other
1786 91,823 67.8% 31,671 23.4% 12,000 8.8%
1848 209,293 55.4% 108,907 28.8% 59,381 15.8%
1869 207,000 40.5% 186,000 36.4% 118,364 23.1%
1880 190,005 33.4% 239,960 42.2% 138,758 24.4%
1890 208,301 32.4% 268,367 41.8% 165,827 25.8%
1900 229,018 31.4% 297,798 40.8% 203,379 27.8%
1910 273,254 34.1% 305,101 38.4% 216,574 27.2%

Kingdom of Romania

In World War I, several battles were fought in Bukovina between the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian armies, which resulted in the Russian army being driven out in 1917.

With the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, the National Council of Bukovina, led by the Romanain Bukovinian politician Iancu Flondor, voted for the union with the Kingdom of Romania on November 28, with the support of the Romanian, German, Jewish, and Polish representatives, and the opposition of the Ukrainian ones. After an official request by Iancu Flondor, Romanian troops swiftly moved in to occupy the territory overcoming the Ukrainian resistance.[1].

Although local Ukrainians attempted to incorporate parts of northern Bukovina into the short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic, this attempt was defeated by the Polish and Romanian troops. Romanian control of the province was recognized internationally in the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919.

During the interwar period Romanian authorities directed Rumanization policies at the Ukrainian population of the region. Romanian language was introduced into ethnic minority schools in 1923, and by 1926 all Ukrainian schools in Bukovina were closed.

At the same time, the Ukrainian enrollment in the Cernăuţi University fell from 239 out of 1671, in 1914, to 155 out of 3,247, in 1933, while Romanian enrollment in the same period increased several times to 2,117 out of 3,247.[2] This was partly due to attempts to switch to mostly Romanian language, and partly to the fact that the university was one of only five in Romania, and was considered prestigious.

From 1928, as Romania tried to improve its relations with Soviet Union during 1928 - 1938, Ukrainian culture was given some limited means to redevelop, though the gains were sharply reversed in 1938.

According to the 1930 Romanian census, Romanians made up almost 45% of the total population of Bukovina and Ruthenians (Ukrainians) 29.2%. However, in the northern part of the region, which subsequently was ceded to the USSR following the June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum, Romanians made up only 32.6% of the population, while Ukrainians slightly outnumbered Romanians.

In 1940, when the region was occupied by the Soviet Union, Chernivtsi Oblast (2/3 of which is Northern Bukovina) had a population of circa 805,000, out of which 47.5% were Ukrainians in 1940, and 28.3% were Romanians, with Germans, Jews, Poles, Hungarians and Russians comprising the rest[citation needed]. Some Romanian intellectuals fled out of the region before the Soviet ocupation. The prevailing Ukrainian population was a motivation for inclusion of the region into the Ukrainian SSR, but not into the newly-formed Moldavian SSR. Whether the region would have been included in the Ukrainian SSR, if the commission presiding over the division had been led by someone else than the Ukrainian communist boss Nikita Khrushchev, remains a debate among scholars.

Preceding events and Second World War

Following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum demanded from Romania the northern part of Bukovina, a region bordering Galicia (the latter annexed by the Soviet Union at 1939 Poland's partition in 1939). Soviet demand for Bukovina surprised Nazi Germany, though it did not formally oppose it. In the first Soviet ultimatum addressed to the Romanian government, the partly Ukrainian populated northern Bukovina was "demanded" as a minor "reparation for the great loss produced to the Soviet Union and Bassarabia's population by twenty-two years of Romanian domination of Bassarabia". On June 28, 1940, the Romanian government evacuated Northern Bukovina, and the Red Army moved in, with the new Soviet-Romanian border being traced less then 20 km north of Putna Monastery.

In the course of the 1941 attack on the Soviet Union by the Axis forces, the Romanian Third Army led by General Petre Dumitrescu (operating in the north) and the Romanian Fourth Army (operating in the south) re-occupied Northern Bukovina, as well as Hertsa district, and Bassarabia, during June-July 1941. However, then it continued the war, and occupied during 1941-1944 proper Soviet territories in the south of Ukrainian SSR - the Odessa Oblast, and parts of Mykolaiv and Vinnytsia oblasts.

During 1940-1950, major demographic changes occurred in northern Bukovina. These demographic shifts are explained by several separate but concurrent phenomena:

  1. fleeing of a part of the population to Romania (mainly, but not exclusively, ethnic Romanians)
  2. repatriation of Germans, Hungarians and Poles
  3. systematic repression, mass deportation and exterminations by the Soviet regime (again mainly, although not exclusively, directed against Romanians)
  4. deportation of the Jewish population by the Romanian autorities to the Romanian and German run extermination camps.

In the first year of Soviet occupation, the population of the region decreased by more than 250,000. According to NKVD orders, tens of thousands of Romanian families were deported to Siberia during this period.[4], with 12,191 people deported on August 2, 1940, (less than a month after the occupation) [5], and another 2,057 persons, deported to Siberia in December 1940, together with their families [6]. The largest action took place on June 13, 1941, when about 13,000 people were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. [7]

Until the repatriation convention[citation needed] of 15 April 1941, the NKVD troops killed hundreds of Romanian peasants of the northern Bukovina as they tried to escape to Romania away from the Soviet authorities[8], which culminated on April 1 with the Fantana Alba massacre.

Almost the entire German population of northern Bukovina was forcebly resetled in 1940-1941 (Umsiedlung) to the Reichland, during 15 September - 15 November 1940. About 45,000 ethnic Germans had left Northern Bukovina by November 1940. [3] This figure, higher than the size of the German minority, included also a couple thousand Romanians, Ukrainian, etc, posing as Germans to flee the Soviet rule.[citation needed]

In July 1941, the new Romanian military government counted at least 36,000 missing persons. After the war the Soviet government deported or killed about 41,000 Romanians. [9]

Almost the entire Jewish community of the northern Bukovina was destroyed by the deportations to the death camps (see Bogdanovka) over the Dniester River. Despite his promise that he would treat Jews from territories not occupied by the Soviets differently, Romanian leader Ion Antonescu ordered deportation of Jews also from Suceava county. Consequently, in 1941 and 1942, 21,229 Jews from southern Bukovina were deported.[citation needed]

After the war

In 1944 the Red Army drove the Axis forces out and re-established the Soviet control over the territory. Romania was forced to formally cede the northern part of Bukovina to the USSR by the 1947 Paris peace treaty. The territory became part of the Ukrainian SSR as Chernivtsi Oblast (province). After the war, the Soviet government deported or killed about 41,000 Romanians.[citation needed] As a result of killings and mass deportations, entire villages, mostly inhabited by Romanians, were abandoned (Albovat, Frunza, I.G.Duca, Buci -- completely erased, Prisaca, Tanteni and Vicov - destroyed to a large extent).[4] Men of military age (and sometimes above) were conscripted into the Soviet Army. That did not protect them, however, from being arrested and deported for being "anti-Soviet elements".

As a reaction, partisan groups (composed of both Romanians and Ukrainians) began to operate against the Soviets in the woods around Cernăuţi, Crasna and Codrii Cosminului. [5] In Crasna (in the former Storozhynets county) villagers attacked Soviet soldiers who were sent to "temporarily resettle" them, since they feared deportation. This resulted in dead and wounded among the villagers, who had no firearms.

Spring 1945 saw the formation of transports of Polish repatriates who (voluntarily or by coercion) had decided to leave. Between March 1945 and July 1946, 10,490 inhabitants left northern Bukovina for Poland, including 8,140 Poles, 2,041 Jews and 309 of other nationalities.

Overall, between 1930 (last Romanian census) and 1959 (first Soviet census), the population of northern Bukovina decreased by 31,521 people. According to official data from those two censuses, the Romanian population had decreased by 75,752 people, and the Jewish population by 46,632, while the Ukrainian and Russian populations increased by 135,161 and 4,322 people, respectively.

After 1944, the human and economic connections between the northern (Soviet) and southern (Romanian) parts of Bukovina were severed. While the northern part is the nucleus of the Ukrainian Chernivtsi Oblast, the southern part is tightly integrated with Romanian historic regions.

Ethnic divisions in modern Bukovina with Ukrainians, Romanians and Russians areas depicted in light yellow, green, and red respectively. The Moldovans, counted separately in the Ukrainian census are included in this map as Romanians.

Current population

The present demographic situation in Bukovina hardly resembles the one of the times of the Austrian Empire. The Northern (Ukrainian) and Southern (Romanian) parts became significantly dominated by their Ukrainian and Romanian majorities, respectively, with the representation of other ethnic groups being decreased significantly.

According to the Ukrainian Census (2001) data [10], the Ukrainians represent about 75% (689,100) of the population of Chernivtsi Oblast, which is the closest, although not an exact, approximation of the territory of the historic Northern Bukovina. The census also identified a fall in the Romanian and Moldovan populations to 12.5% (114.6 thousand) and 7.3% (67.2 thousand), respectively. Russians are the next largest ethnic group with 4.1%, while Poles, Belarusians, and Jews comprise the rest 1.2%. The languages of the population closely reflect the ethnic composition, with over 90% within each of the major ethnic groups declaring their national language as the mother tongue (Ukrainian, Romanian, and Russian, respectively).

The census respondents were free to claim their ethnicity as they wished, not to respond to any particular census question, or not answer any questions at all. Some have chosen to claim to be Rusyns or Hutsuls, which are ethnic groups that were not previously recognized. The choice of the ethnicity could not have been affected by the census forms themselves as the the answer to the ethnical group question was to be written in rather than selected from the set of pre-determined options. However, the fact that Romanians and Moldovans were presented as separate categories in the census results, has been criticized by the Romanian Community of Ukraine - Interregional Union, which complains that this old Soviet-era practice, results in the Romanian population being undercounted, as being divided between Romanians and Moldovans.

A compact Romanian majority inhabits the southern part of Chernivtsi region, in Hertsa, Novoselitsa, Hlyboka, and Storozhinets raions (districts). In Putyla and Vyzhnytsia raions Hutzuls form the majority. In the other five districts, and the city of Chernivtsi, non-Hutzul Ukrainians are in the majority.

The southern, or Romanian Bukovina has a significant Romanian majority (97.5%), largest minority group being the Ukrainians, who make up 1.2% of the population (2002 census). The Romanian 2002 census was subject to a criticism of undercounting of ethnic minorities in Romania brought up by the Ukrainian communities inside and outside Romania [11], [12].

Cities and towns

Northern Bukovina

Southern Bukovina

Sources and references

Inline
  1. ^ Bukovyna, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
  2. ^ A. Zhukovsky, Chernivtsi University, Encyclopedia of Ukraine, 2001, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. Accessed 11 Feb 2006.
  3. ^ Leonid Ryaboshapko. Pravove stanovishche natsionalnyh menshyn v Ukraini (1917-2000) - P. 259 (in Ukrainian)
  4. ^ Ṭara fagilor: Almanah cultural-literar al românilor nord-bucovineni. Cernăuţi-Târgu-Mureş, 1994, p. 160.
  5. ^ Dragoş Tochiţă. Români de pe Valea Siretului de Sus, jertfe ale ocupaţiei nordului Bucovinei şi terorii bolşevice. - Suceava, 1999. - P. 35.(in Romanian)
  • edited by O. Derhachov (1996). Українська державність у ХХ столітті. (Ukrainian statehood of the twentieth century) (in Ukrainian). Politychna Dumka. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • [13] (original version, in German - use English and French versions with caution)
  • WorldStatesmen (under Ukraine)
  • Dumitru Covălciuc. Românii nord-bucovineni în exilul totalitarismului sovietic
  • Victor Bârsan "Masacrul inocenţilor", Bucuresti, 1993, pp.18-19
  • Ştefan Purici. Represiunile sovietice... P. 255-258;
  • Vasile Ilica. Fântâna Albă: O mărturie de sânge (istorie, amintiri, mărturii). - Oradea: Editura Imprimeriei de Vest, 1999.
  • Marian Olaru. Consideraţii preliminare despre demografie si geopolitica pe teritoriul Bucovinei. Analele Bucovinei. Tomul VIII. Partea I. Bucuresti: Editura Academiei Române, 2001
  • Ţara fagilor: Almanah cultural-literar al românilor nord-bucovineni. Cernăuţi-Târgu-Mureş, 1994
  • Aniţa Nandris-Cudla. Amintiri din viaţă. 20 de ani în Siberia. Humanitas, Bucharest, 2006 (second edition), (in Romanian) ISBN 973-50-1159-X
  • The Bukovina Society of the Americas

See also