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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.

Name

The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, 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 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 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, means, literally, "beech land", or, more poetically, "land of beech trees".

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

Nowadays in Ukraine it is common to use the terms Chernivtsi Oblast and Bukovina as synonymous words, which originated from the fact that Chernivtsi Oblast and the Northern Bukovina (as of 1910 Austrian border) refer to about the same territory.

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

History

Before the 14th century

During Stone age Bukovina was densely 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 and influenced the local proto-Romanians. From 9th to early 14th century a small part of the territory was (although not well-proved) under the indirect rule of Kievan Rus.

Moldavian Principality

From the mid-14th century, the local Romanian population united under rulers that passed the Carpathians from Maramureş (being downtrodden by the Hungarian kings who ruled over their lands). The region 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, parts of the region became the subject of disputes between the Moldavian state and the Polish Kingdom. 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, Putna, Suceviţa and Voroneţ. 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 Ruthenians in Bukovina with the hope of having a loyal population that would contribute with taxes. In Suceava alone, in the 16th century, two percent of the population was Ruthenian.

In the 1541, the Moldavian Principality came under the control of the Ottoman Turks, but it remained autonoumous and was govered by a Voievod. For short periods of time, the Polish Kingdom occupied the northern part of Bukovina. However on 14 october 1703 the old border is re-established, as the Polish delegate Martin Chometowski acknowledges Inter nos et Valachiam ipse Deus flumine Tyras dislimitavit (Between us and Moldavia God himself set Dniester as the border).

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).

The Moldavian nobility had traditionally formed the ruling class in that territory before the Habsburgs acquired it for Austria under the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the last quarter of the 18th century.

Austrian empire

The Austrian empire occupied Bukowina in October of 1774 (following the first partition of Poland in 1772), claiming that they needed it for a road between Galicia and Transylvania, and was formally annexed in january 1775. On 2 july 1776, at Palamutka, Austrians and Ottomans sign a border convention, Austrians giving back 59 of the previously occupied villages, and remaining with 278 villages. It remained part of the Cisleithanian or Austrian territories of the Austro-Hungarian 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 'crown land' (though August 1849 - 26 February 1861 amalgamated with Galicia), since 4 March 1849 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). It got a representative assembly, the Landtag (diet).

According to the 1775 Austrian census, the province had the total population of 86,000 made up of Romanians (Moldovans) and Ukrainians (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.

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 Bukowina. 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. *

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 Hutzul is considered as an ethnic group of Ukrainian stock (in fact Vlach slavised shepperds).

Under the 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 Serbian, Croat, Turkish, Armenian, Gipsy.

In spite of some frictions between Romanian and Ukrainian populations at the time over the influences in the Orthodox hierarchy, 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.

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, which represented mainly the Romanian population of the province, but also the Germans, Jews, Poles and some Ukrainians voted for union with the Kingdom of Romania, on November 28, and Romanian troops swiftly moved in to occupy the territory.

Although local Ukrainians have unsuccessfully attempted to incorporate parts of northern Bukovina into the short lived 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 Romanianization were carried in the interwar period. Romanian language was introduced to ethnic minority schools in 1923 and by 1926 all Ukrainian schools in Bukovina were closed. Although in the 1928 - 1938 period, as Romania tried to improve its relations with Soviet Union, Ukrainian culture has given some limited means to redevelop, any 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 region which subsequently was occupied by the USSR in 1940, Romanians made up only 32.6% of the population, while Ukrainians slightly outnumbered Romanians.

Bukovina should not be confused with Chernivtsi Oblast, as the latter included not only northern Bukovina and Hertsa region but also the northern part of Khotin county, thus totaling a population of circa 805,000 in 1940, out of which 47.5% were Ukrainians in 1940 and 28.3% were Romanians, with Germans, Jews, Poles, Hungarians and Russians comprising the rest.

Preceding events and Second World War

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 demand for Bukovina surprised Germany, though it didn't formally oppose it. In the first Soviet ultimatum addressed to the Romanian government, the largely Ukrainian populated northern part of Bukovina was "demanded" 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 June, 1940, the Romanian government evacuated Northern Bukovina, and the Red Army moved in, with the new Soviet-Romanian border being 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 Hertsa, Bessarabia, Odessa region and other territories in the south of Ukraine.

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 by more than 250,000. These demographic shifts are explained by three 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)

According to NKVD orders, tens of thousands of Romanian families were deported to Siberia during this period.with 12,191 people deported on August 2, 1940, (less than a month after the occupation), *. The largest action took place on June 13, 1941, when about 13,000 people were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Until the repatriation convention 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*, which culminated on April 1 with the Fantana Alba massacre.

Almost the entire German population of northern Bukovina established during Austrian rule emigrated to the Reich. According to Ukrainian sources, about 45, 000 ethnic Germans had left Northern Bukovina by November 1940. Leonid Ryaboshapko. Pravove stanovishche nationalinyh mensyn v Ucraini (1917-2000) - P. 259 (in Ukrainian)

In July 1941, the new Romanian military government counted at least 36,000 missing persons apart of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust. After the war the Soviet government deported or killed about 41,000 Romanians.

Under the occupation, almost entire Jewish community of the northern Bukovina was destroyed by the deportations to the death camps (see Bogdanovka) over the Dniester and Bug rivers. Despite his promise that he would treat the Old Kingdom Jews differently than non-Regat Jews, Romanian leader Ion Antonescu ordered deportation of Jews from Suceava county. In 1941 and 1942, 21,229 Jews from southern Bukovina were deported.

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. That territory became part of the Ukrainian SSR as Chernivtsi Oblast (province). After the war, the Soviet government deported or killed about 41,000 Romanians. 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).Ṭara fagilor: Almanah cultural-literar al românilor nord-bucovineni. Cernăuţi-Târgu-Mureş, 1994, p. 160. 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. Dragoş Tochiţă. Români de pe Valea Siretului de Sus, jertfe ale ocupaţiei nordului Bucovinei şi terorii bolşevice. - Suceava, 1999. - P. 35.(in Romanian) In Crasna (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.

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 *, 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. 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).

The appearance of Romanians and Moldovans in the census as two separate ethnic groups has been criticized by the Romanian Community of Ukraine - Interregional Union which complain that this old Soviet-era practice results in the Romanian population being undercounted. However, the census respondents were free to claim their ethnicity as they wished with no predermined set of choices, 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.

A compact Romanian minority inhabits the southern part of Chernivtsi region, in Hertsa, Novoselitsa (Noua Suliţă), Hlyboka (Adâncata), Storozhinets (Storojineţ). In every other part of northern Bukovina, including the city of Chernivtsi, 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 [http://chas.ukr.rom.cv.ua/Ukrainians%20in%20Romanian/Article_2_01.htm.

Cities and towns

Northern Bukovina

Southern Bukovina

Sources and references

Inline
  • * (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) 973-50-1159-X

See also

External links

Bukovina | History of Austria | Romanian historical regions | Ukrainian historical regions | Divided regions

Буковина | Bucovina | Bukowina | Bucovine historique | Bukovina | בוקובינה | Bukovina | Bukovina | Boekovina | ブコビナ | Bukowina (kraina) | Bucovina | Bucovina | Буковина | Bukovina (krajina) | Bukovina | Bukovina | Буковина

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Bukovina".

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