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Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina

The Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina took place from 28 June to 3 July 1940, as a result of an ultimatum by the Soviet Union to Romania on 26 June 1940, that threatened the use of force.[3] 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.[4][5] On October 26, 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.[6]

The Soviet Union had planned to accomplish the annexation with a full-scale invasion, but the Romanian government, responding to the Soviet ultimatum delivered on June 26, agreed to withdraw from the territories to avoid a military conflict. The use of force had been made illegal by the Conventions for the Definition of Aggression in July 1933, but from an international legal standpoint, the new status of the annexed territories was eventually based on a formal agreement through which Romania consented to the retrocession of Bessarabia and cession of Northern Bukovina. As it was not mentioned in the ultimatum, the annexation of the Hertsa region was not consented to by Romania, and the same is true of the subsequent Soviet occupation of the Danube islands.[3] On June 24, Nazi Germany, which had acknowledged the Soviet interest in Bessarabia in a secret protocol to the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, had been made aware prior to the planned ultimatum but did not inform the Romanian authorities and was unwilling to provide support.[7] On June 22, France, a guarantor of Romanian borders, fell to Nazi advances. This is considered to be an important factor in the Soviets' decision to issue the ultimatum.[8] The Soviet invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis.[9]


On August 2, 1940, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, encompassing most of Bessarabia and part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on the left bank of the Dniester (now the breakaway Transnistria). The Hertsa region and the regions inhabited by Slavic majorities (Northern Bukovina, Northern and Southern Bessarabia) were included in the Ukrainian SSR. A period of political persecution, including executions, deportations to labour camps and arrests, occurred during the Soviet administration.


In July 1941, Romanian and German troops occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertsa during the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. A military administration was established, and the region's Jewish population was executed on the spot or deported to Transnistria, where large numbers were killed. In August 1944, during the Soviet Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, the Axis war effort on the Eastern Front collapsed. The coup of 23 August 1944 caused the Romanian army to cease resisting the Soviet advance and to join the fight against Germany. Soviet forces advanced from Bessarabia into Romania, captured much of its standing army as prisoners-of-war and occupied the country.[10] On September 12, 1944, Romania signed the Moscow Armistice with the Allies. The Armistice and the subsequent peace treaty of 1947 confirmed the Soviet-Romanian border as it was on January 1, 1941.[11][12]


Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertsa remained part of the Soviet Union until it collapsed in 1991, when they became part of the newly independent states of Moldova and Ukraine. The Declaration of Independence of Moldova of August 27, 1991, declared the Soviet occupation illegal.[13]

Reject the ultimatum: , Silviu Dragomir, Victor Iamandi, Nicolae Iorga, Traian Pop, Ernest Urdăreanu

Ștefan Ciobanu

Abstained: .

Victor Antonescu

interim president of Moldova in 2010, has decreed June 28, 1940, as the Soviet Occupation Day. The move was met with disapproval and calls for the decree's revocation inside the ruling coalition and for Ghimpu's resignation by the opposition parties. Dorin Chirtoacă, mayor of Chișinău and member of the same party as Ghimpu, ordered the erection of a memorial stone in the National Assembly Square, in front of the cabinet building, where a Lenin monument used to stand.[104] The members of the coalitions argued that the time has not come for such a decree and that it would only help the communists win more votes.[105] The Academy of Sciences of Moldova declared that "in the view of recent disagreements regarding June 28, 1940 [...] we must take action and inform the public opinion about the academic community views". The academy declared: "Archival documents and historical research of international experts shows that the annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina was designed and built by Soviet Command as a military occupation of these territories. Ordinance of Interim President Michael Ghimpu reflects, in principle, the historical truth."[106] The Constitutional Court cancelled Ghimpu's decree on July 12, 2010.[107][108]

Mihai Ghimpu

On June 30, 2010, decided to create the Museum of Victims of Communism[109] and Vlad Filat opened the museum on July 6, 2010.[110]

First Vlad Filat Cabinet

The , as well as the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova still regard the date of 28 June 1940 as the day of the Moldovan liberation from the Romanian occupation[111]

Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova

European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism

Declaration on Crimes of Communism

Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism

Vilnius Declaration

Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism

Soviet occupation of Romania

Ciorănescu, George (23 July 1980). (PDF). Radio Free Europe report. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 April 2023. Retrieved 28 April 2013.

"40th Anniversary of Annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina"

Ciorănescu, George (2 December 1981). . Radio Free Europe report. Archived from the original on 19 July 2009.

"The Problem of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina during World War II"

Stalin's Missed Chance

Mikhail Meltyukhov

Tudorica, Andreea; Ciutescu, Ovidiu; Andriuta, Corina (26 June 2007). . Jurnalul Național (in Romanian). Retrieved 23 January 2021.

"Giurgiulești, piedică în calea lui Stalin"

(1999). Cu gîndul la "O lume între două lumi": eroi, martiri, oameni-legendă [Thinking of 'A World between Two Worlds': Heroes, Martyrs, Legendary People] (in Romanian). Orhei: Lyceum. ISBN 9975-939-36-8.

Usatiuc-Bulgăr, Alexandru

(2006). Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania, 1940–1944. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-9341-6.

Deletant, Dennis

(2000). The Moldovans. Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-9792-2.

King, Charles

Livezeanu, Irina (2000). Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building, and Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930. . ISBN 978-0-8014-8688-3.

Cornell University Press

Mitrasca, Marcel (2002). Moldova: a Romanian province under Russian rule. : Agora. ISBN 978-1-892941-86-2.

New York

Motoc, Corneliu (2018). Identitate și continuitate românească în Delta Dunării. Biblioteca Județeană „Panait Cerna” Tulcea.  978-973-0-25973-5.

ISBN

Prusin, Alexander V. (2010). The Lands Between: Conflict in the East European Borderlands, 1870-1992. . ISBN 978-0-19-929753-5.

Oxford University Press

Read, A., & Fisher, D. (1988). Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939–1941. W W Norton & Co.

Rieber, A. J. (2022). Stalin as Warlord. Yale University Press.

Sontag, R. J., & Beddie, J. S. (Eds.). (2003). Nazi Soviet Relations, 1939–1941: Documents From The Archives Of The German Foreign Office. University Press of the Pacific.

Treptow, K. W. (2022). Romania and World War II. Center for Romanian Studies.

"", from Wikisource

Molotov–Ribbentrop pact

"Romanian Army in the Second World War"

Archived 13 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine (2004)

International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania: Final Report

The June/July 1940 Romanian Withdrawal from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and its Consequences on Interethnic Relations in Romania

(in Romanian)

"Text of Litvinov-Titulescu pact"

(in Romanian)

"Joachim von Ribbentrop to Viaceslav Molotov, regarding of Bessarabia and Bukovina, June 25, 1940"

(in Romanian)

"The Ultimatum notes and Romanian responses"

Ioan Scurtu (2003). . Editura Institutului Cultural Român. ISBN 9789735773779.

Istoria Basarabiei de la începuturi până în 2003