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Bukovina

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

Name

The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation to the Austrian Habsburg possessions, later known as the Austrian Empire, and Austria-Hungary. The name has a Slavic origin and is derived from the word for beech tree (бук in Ukrainian); the German equivalent, das Buchenland, mostly used in poetry, means, literally, "beech land", or, more poetically, "land of beech trees".

In Romanian the original name of the region during the rule of the Moldavian Principality was "Ţara de Sus" (Upper Country), referring to the altitude, as opposed to the lower plains called "Ţara de Jos" (Lower Country).

The standard German name, die Bukowina, which was the official German-language name for the province under Austrian rule, is derived from the Slavic original, via the Polish form of the name which is Bukowina. This was due to the fact that, for roughly the first half of the 19th century, and for some years prior, Austrian Bukovina was administered as an integral part of neighbouring Galicia, whose internal government was, by active Austrian policy, controlled by Polish bureaucrats and nobles (szlachta). The Polish nobility had traditionally formed the ruling class in that territory before the Habsburg acquired it for Austria under the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the last quarter of the 18th century. In English, an alternate form is The Bukovina, increasingly an archaism, which, however, is to be found in older literature.

History

During Stone age Bukovina was densly populated by Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of early settlers (4500 BC – 3000 BC).

Since the Roman times, Dacian peoples inhabited the territory. In the 5th century, the territory came under the rule of the Avars. Around 7th century, Slavic populations settled in the region. From 9th to early 14th century the territory was under the rule of Kievan Rus' and one of its successor states, Galician-Volhynian principality.

From the mid-14th century, this region became the nucleus of the Moldavian Principality, with the city of Suceava as its capital from 1388. In the 15th century, parts of the region became the subject of disputes between the Moldavian state and the Polish Kingdom. In this period, the patronage of Ştefan cel Mare and his successors on the throne of Moldavia saw the construction of the famous painted Monasteries of Moldoviţa, Putna, Suceviţa and Voroneţ. With their renowned exterior frescoes, these monasteries remain some of the greatest cultural treasures of Romania.

File:Bukovina 1910.jpg
Map of the Austrian province of Bukowina

In the 1541, the Moldavian Principality came under the control of the Ottoman Turks, who left it within that province, governed by a Voievod şi Domn. In the course of the Russo-Turkish War the Ottomans were driven out by the Russian Empire (Occupied 14 September-October 1739 and 15 December 1769 - September 1774)

Since october 1774 the territory was controlled by the Austrian Habsburgs, which formally annexed it in 1775. It remained part of the Cisleithanian or Austrian territories of the Austrian Empire until 1918, initially as a closed military district (1775 - 1786), then as the largest district, Kreis Czernowitz (after its capital Chernivtsi) of the Austrian constituent Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (1787 - 1849), and, finally, on 4 March 1849, became a separate Austrian Kronland 'crownland' (though August 1849 - 26 February 1861 amalgamated with Galicia), since 4 March 1849 under a Landespräsident (not a Statthalter, as in other crown lands) and declared Herzogtum Bukowina (nominal duchy, as part of the official full style of the Austrian Emperors). It got a representative assembly, the Landtag (diet).

Ethnically, Bukovina remained mixed under the Austrian rule: predominantly Romanian in the south, Ruthenian in the north, Hutsul in the west, a few Hungarian Székely, Slovak and Polish peasants, and in the towns Germans, Poles and Jews (12,86% in 1910) added to the mix; the 1910 census counted 800 198 people, of which, in %: Rumanian 34,38, German 21,24, Polish 4,55, Hungarian 1,31, Slovak 0,08, Slovenian 0,02%, Italian 0,02%,Hutsul, Lipovan, Ruthenian 38,88 and a few Serbian, Croat, Turkish, Armenian, Gipsy.

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

In spite of some frictions between Romanian and Ruthenian populations at the time over the influences in the Orthodox hierarchy, the inter-ethnical conflicts did not reach a significant level and both cultures developed in educational and public life. Moreover, in the end of the 19th century, the development of Malorussian culture in Bukovina surpassed most of the rest of what is now Ukraine with a network of Ruthenian educational facilities.

In World War I, several battles were fought in Bukovina between the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian armies and the Russian army was finally driven out in 1917. With the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918 the National Council of Bukovina, which represented only the Romanian population of the province, voted for union to Romania and subsequently the province was occupied by Romanian troops. Romania formally annexed Bukovina on November 28, 1918.

Although local Ruthenians have unsuccesfully attempted to incorporate parts of northern Bukovina into the short living West Ukrainian National Republic, the Romanian control of the province was finally formalized in the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919 and the policies of Rumanization were carried in the interwar period. Romanian language was introduced to ethnic minority schools in 1923 and by 1926 all Ruthenian schools in Bukovina were closed. Although in 1928 - 1938 period, as Romania tried to improve its relations with Soviet Union, Ruthenian culture has given some limited means to redevelop, any gains were sharply reversed in 1938.

Following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum demanded the northern part of Bukovina, a province connected with Galicia annexed by the Soviet Union at 1939 Poland's partition. Soviet demanding of Bukovina has suprised Germany, though the Nazi didn't formally opposed. In the first Soviet ultimatum addressed to Romanian government, the largely Ukrainian populated northern part of Bukovina was "requested" as a minor "reparation for the great loss produced to the Soviet Union and Bessarabia's population by twenty-two years of Romanian domination of Bessarabia". At the end of the June, Romanian government evacuated Chernivtsi and the Red Army moved into northern Bukovina. While the Soviet troops advanced in the northern Moldova nonrequested region of Herta, they didn't try to occupy the southern Bukovina. The Soviet border was traced 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 occupied the region along with Herta, Bessarabia, Odessa region and other territories in the south of Ukraine. Under the occupation, almost entire Jewish community of the area was destroyed by the deportations to the death camps (see Bogdanovka) over the Dniester and Bug rivers. In 1944 the Soviet Army drove the axis forces out and re-occupied the territory.

Romania was forced to formally cede the northern part of Bukovina to the USSR by the 1947 Paris peace treaty. That territory became part of the Ukrainian SSR as a Chernivtsi Oblast (province).

After 1944, the human and economic connections between the northern and southern (or Ukrainian and 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. This rather cold period is expected to retreat following improvement of Ukrainian-Romanian relations after Orange Revolution took place in Ukraine.

Demographic history

According to the 1775 Austrian census, the Romanian population made up about 86% of the 60,000 total population of Bukovina. During the 19th century, however, the Austrian Empire policies encouraged the influx of many immigrants such as Germans, Poles, Jews, Hungarians, Romanians and Ruthenian from Galicia.

Despite this influx, Romanians continued to be the absolute majority ethnic group in the province, until 1848 when they drop bellow 50%.

The 1910 Austrian imperal census counted 800,198 people, of which, in %: Rumanian 34.38, German 21.24, Polish 4.55, Hungarian 1.31, Slovak 0.08, Slovenian 0.02, Italian 0,02, Ruthenians, Hutsuls and Lippovans 38.88, and a few Serbian, Croat, Turkish, Armenian, Gipsy.

According to the 1930 Romanian census, Romanians made up almost 45% of the total population of Bukovina and Romanians who forgot their native language about 29.2%. However, Ruthenians were more present around Khotin county.

Bukovina should not be confused with Chernivtsi Oblast, as the latter included not only northern Bukovina and Hertsa but also the northern part of the Khotin county, thus totaling a population of circa 805,000.

During the Second World War, major demographic changes occurred in northern Bukovina. In the first year of Soviet occupation, the population of the region decreased with more than 250,000 peoples. Almost the entire German population of northern Bukovina established during Austrian rule emigrated to the Reich. Until the patriation convention of 15 April 1941, the NKVD troops killed hundreds of Romanian peasants of the northern Bukovina as they try to escape from the forced labour regime imposed by the Soviet authorities. Still, in the summer of 1941 thousands of Romanians were deported from the region in various Russian regions. In July 1941, the new Romanian military government counted at least 36,000 missing persons apart from the Jews murdered in the Holocaust. After the war the Soviet government deported or killed about 41,000 Romanians. About 9,000 Poles from Southern Bukovina were deported to Poland by the Soviet authorities in 1946 – 1949.

Ethnic divisions in Chernivtsi Oblast with Ukinians, Romanians, Russians and Jewish areas depicted in white, blue, red and yellow respectively.

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

According to the 2001 Ukrainian population census data , the Ukrainians represent about 75% (689.1 thousand) 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) population to 19.8% (181.8 thousand). Russians are the next largest ethnic group with 4.1%, while Poles, Belarusians, and Jews comprise the rest. 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, Moldovan and Russian, respectively).

Romanian organizations from Ukraine expressed their dissatisfaction with the very existence of the separate classification of Moldovans as an ethnic minority counted separately from Romanians and cite the old Soviet practices as well as the modern Ukrainization policies of the Ukrainian state as the reasons behind such classification. Additionally, the fact that some ethnical groups or subgroups such as Rusyns, Hutsuls and others formerly counted separately are now all counted as Ukrainians is sometimes cited as the census flaw, especially in view that many scholars still consider Rusyns a separate ethnicity with their own language, called the Rusyn. However, no challenges have been raised to the fact that the census respondents were free to choose their ethnicity within the offered to them choices as they wished or not to respond at all. Thus, while the wording of the census questions are sometimes subject to criticism, the fact that the census official results adequately reflect the answers freely given my the respondents is not challenged.

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 , .

Current population

A compact Romanian minority inhabits the southern part of Chernivtsi region, in Hertsa, Novoselitza (Noua Suliţă), Hlyboka (Adâncata), Storozhinetz (Storojineţ).

In every other part of northern Bukovina, including the city of Chernivtsi, Ukrainians are in the majority.

Cities and towns

Northern Bukovina

Southern Bukovina

Sources and References

See also

External links

Historical regions in Romania
Banat Banat (1918–)
  • Banat
Dobruja Dobruja (1878–)
Moldavia Moldavia (1859–)
Transylvania Transylvania (1918–)
Wallachia Wallachia (1859–)
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