|
View Larger Map
Basic Facts
Moldova is
landlocked. The
Prut River
separates it from
Romania in the
west. In the north and east, the
Dniester River forms its
approximate boundary with
Ukraine, on which it also
borders in the south; in the
east there is a narrow strip of
Moldovan territory between the
Dniester and the Ukraine border
(the predominantly Russian and
Ukrainian
Transnistria Region).
Mostly a hilly plain, Moldova
occupies all but the
southernmost and northernmost
sections of former
Bessarabia.
Its proximity to the
Black Sea
gives it a mild climate.
About 65% of the population is
Moldovan; Ukrainians and
Russians make up more than a
quarter of the people, and there
are several smaller minorities,
including the Turkish-speaking
Gagauz, Bulgarians, and Jews.
The
Moldovan language, the
official tongue, is virtually
indistinguishable from Romanian,
and the two groups are
ethnically identical. Most of
the people belong to the
Eastern
Orthodox Church.
Moldova is governed under the
constitution of 1994. It has an
elected 101-member parliament
and a popularly elected
president who serves as head of
state. The country is divided
into 32 raions (districts or
counties), 3 municipalities, and
2 territorial units, one of
which (Gagauzia) is autonomous.
Historical
Background
An historic passageway between
Asia and Southern Europe,
Moldova was often subject to
invasion and warfare. It is
historically part of a greater
Moldavia, the main part of which
was an independent principality
in the 14th centaury and came
under
Ottoman Turkish rule in
the 16th centaury. It became a
highly fortified Turkish border
region and was a frequent target
in Russo-Turkish wars. East
Moldavia passed to Russia in
1791. Russia acquired further
Moldavian territory in 1793 and
especially in 1812, when the
Russians received all of
Bessarabia (the name for the
area of Moldavia between the
Prut and Dniester rivers). The
rest of Moldavia remained with
the Turks and later passed to
Romania, which seized Bessarabia
in 1918.
In 1924, the USSR, refusing to
sanction the seizure,
established the
Moldavian ASSR
in Ukraine, with Balta and then
(1929) Tiraspol as the capital.
Romania was forced to cede
Bessarabia to the USSR in 1940.
The predominantly Ukrainian
districts in the south and
around Khotin in the north were
incorporated into Ukraine, as
were parts of the Moldavian
ASSR; the rest was merged with
what remained of the Moldavian
ASSR and made a constituent
republic (the
Moldavian SSR).
Taken by Romania in 1941, the
republic was re-conquered by the
USSR in 1944. In June, 1990, the
Moldavian SSR adopted a measure
calling for greater sovereignty
within the USSR. In August 1991,
Moldova, which is the Romanian
name of the region, was declared
an
independent republic;
Mircea
Snegur was elected president,
and it reluctantly joined the
Russian-dominated Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS).
With independence, a guerrilla
war began that sought secession
of the Transnistria Region,
where there were many ethnic
Russians who feared a Moldovan
merger with Romania. In 1992 a
cease-fire went into effect that
granted limited autonomy to the
region, and Russian troops were
stationed there. In 1995, in a
move termed illegal by the
central government, residents
overwhelmingly voted for
independence from Moldova. A
peace accord was signed in 1997,
giving the region more autonomy
but agreeing that Moldova would
remain a single state; relations
between the region and central
government are occasionally
tense.
Gagauzia, a region
dominated by ethnic Turks, was
granted limited autonomy in
1994, with the right to secede
in the event Moldova should
merge with Romania. |
In the first
post-Soviet parliamentary
elections in Moldova (1994),
Snegur's Agrarian Democratic
Party (ADP), running on a
centrist platform and in
opposition to unification with
Romania, won a majority.
Intra-party conflicts led to a
split in the ADP in mid-1995,
when Snegur organized the new
centrist Party of Revival and
Harmony. The pro-Moscow faction
remained within the ADP. A
crisis was precipitated in
March, 1996, when Snegur
attempted to remove the defence
minister. The largely ADP army
resisted Snegur's order, and his
actions were subsequently ruled
unconstitutional.
Petru Lucinschi, a former
Communist running as an
independent, won a presidential
runoff election against Snegur
in Dec., 1996. A coalition of
centre-right parties formed a
government following legislative
elections in 1998, although
Communists won the largest bloc
of seats in parliament. In 1999,
Russia agreed to withdraw its
remaining troops from Moldova by
2001, but about 1,500 remain in
Transnistria. The Communist
party won nearly 50% of the vote
and 71 parliamentary seats in
the 2001 elections;
subsequently,
Vladimir Voronin,
a Communist, was elected
president. Although they came to
power advocating closer
relations with Russia, the
Communists became increasingly
pro-Western during the
subsequent four years.
A Russian-sponsored accord on
Transnistria was rejected in
November, 2003, after mass
demonstrations against it by
Moldovans; the agreement would
have permitted Russian troops to
stay in the region in a buffer
zone until 2020. An attempt by
Transnistria to force the use of
the
Cyrillic alphabet in its
Moldovan-language schools led to
heightened tensions between the
breakaway region and Moldova in
2004. In the 2005 parliamentary
elections the Communists won 46%
of the vote and 56 seats, and
the new parliament re-elected
Voronin.
Typical Moldovan
landscape
The "Gates" of
Chişinău (Kishinev)
Chişinău
Cathedral
|
