Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova) is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south.

In the Middle Ages, most of the present territory of Moldova was part of the Principality of Moldavia, and in 1812 it became part of the Russian Empire, under the name of Bessarabia. Between 1856 and 1878 the southern part belonged to Moldavia again, respectively to Romania. Upon the dissolution of the Russian Empire in 1917 an autonomous Moldavian Republic was formed in Bessarabia, but the region joined Romania in 1918. In 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the Soviet Union, and after changing hands in 1941 and 1944 during World War II, it was split between the Ukrainian SSR and the newly-created Moldavian SSR. Moldova declared its independence from the USSR on August 27, 1991, and was admited in the UN in March 1992. In September 1990, the parliament of Transnistria unilaterally declared independence from Moldova. Neither Moldova's government nor any UN member, has recognized Transnistria's independence.

The country is a parliamentary democracy with a president as its head of state and a prime minister as its head of government. Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, WTO, OSCE, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations. Moldova currently aspires to join the European Union and is implementing its first three-year Action Plan within the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) of the EU.

History

main: History of Moldova

In 1812, according to the Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman and the Russian Empires, the former ceded the eastern half of the territory of the Principality of Moldavia, along Khotyn and old Bessarabia (modern Budjak). At first, the Russians used the name "Oblast' of Moldavia and Bessarabia", allowing a large degree of autonomy, but later (in 1828) suspended the self-administration and called it Guberniya of Bessarabia, or simply Bessarabia, starting a process of Russification. The western part of Moldavia (which is not a part of present-day Moldova) remained an autonomous principality, and in 1859, united with Wallachia to form the Kingdom of Romania. In 1856, the Treaty of Paris saw two out of nine counties of Bessarabia, Cahul and Ismail, returned to Moldavia, but in 1878, the Treaty of Berlin saw the Kingdom of Romania returning them to the Russian Empire.

Upon annexation, after the expulsion of the large Tatar population of Budjak, the Moldovan/Romanian population of Bessarabia was predominant. The colonization of the region in the 19th century, generated by the need to better exploit the resources of the land, lead to an increase in the Russian, Ukrainian, Lipovan, and Cossack populations in the region; this together with a large influx of Bulgarian immigrants, saw an increase of the Slavic population to more than a fifth of the total population by 1920. With the settling of other nationals such as Gagauz, Jews, and Germans (Bessarabian Germans), the proportion of the Moldovan population decreased from around 80% to 52% by some sources or to 70% by others during the course of the century. The Tsarist policy in Bessarabia was in part aimed at denationalization of the Romanian element by forbidding after the 1860s education and mass in Romanian. However, the effect was an extremely low literacy rate (in 1897 approx. 18% for males, approx. 4% for females) rather than a denationalization.