Bucovina - History

A county of painted monasteries, impressive natural landscapes, ancient traditions, common sense and hospitality. Small churches or true fortresses, haughty or humble, located in places of mystery amplify the charm of the landscape-mild dummits, old forests and quiet valleys.

An emergent centre of the Romanian Middle Ages, Moldova de Sus was what Ile de France had been for France, Wessex for the Anglo-Saxons, Panonia for Hungary, Kiev for the Russians and Stara Planina for the Bulgarians. Here, in Bukovina, the core of the medieval state under the Musatin family, dominated by the Habsburgs after 1775, a flourising territory (thoughsevered in half) of modern contemporary Romania, there rise the great edifices built by the Moldavian rulers, from the "Settlement" of the voivode Bogdan I from Maramures, buried at Radauti, to the edifices of Voronet, Patrauti, Putna built by Stephen the Great, to Moldovita and Probota raised by Petru Rares, ending with the foundation of Movilesti family from Sucevita and Dragomirna Monastery built by Anastasie Crimca.

During Neolithic, Bukovina was populated by Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of early settlers (4500 BC – 3000 BC), which was overrun, around 2000 BC, by the migration of Indo-Europeans.
Starting with the 2nd millennium BC, it was inhabited by the Dacian tribes, such as Costoboci and Carpians, for a period cohabitated also by the Celto-Germanic tribe of Bastarnae. From approx. 70 BC to 44 BC, the region was incorporated in the Dacian polity of Burebista.
When the Dacian Kingdom of Decebal, which included the territories just on the other side of the Carpathian Mountains from what is today Bukovina, fell to the Romans in 106, the area came under linguistic and cultural influence of the Roman Empire.

According to medieval Kievan sources, around 10th century the territory could have been part of the Kyivan Rus, and in 12th to early 14th century, Principality of Halych-Volhynia, included parts of the region. Some sources state that the low-land territory of the present-day Bukovina was included in an early Vlach polity around the city of Siret.
The villages of the Campulung Valley formed a "republic" that preserved its autonomy even under the Principality of Moldavia, which acquired independence in 1359.

In the mid-14th century, the Moldavian state appeared, eventually expanding its territory all the way to the Black Sea. Bukovina and neighboring regions were the nucleus of the Moldavian Principality, with the city of Suceava as its capital from 1388 (after Baia and Siret). The name of Moldavia (Moldova) is derived from a river (Moldova River) flowing in Bukovina.

In the 15th century, Pokuttya, the region immediately to the north, became the subject of disputes between the Principality of Moldavia and the Polish Kingdom. Pokuttya was inhibited by Ruthenians (predecessors of modern Ukrainians) and Hutsuls; the latter also reside in western Bukovina. In 1497 a battle took place at the Cosmin Forest (the hilly forests separating Chernivtsi and Siret valleys), at which Stephen III of Moldavia managed to defeat the much-stronger but demoralized army of King John I Albert of Poland. The battle is known in Polish popular culture as "the battle when the knights have perished".

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, Suceviţa, Putna, Humor, Voroneţ, Dragomirna, Arbore, and others. 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 the first Ruthenians in Bukovina with the hope of having a loyal and more numerous population that would contribute with taxes. In Suceava, in the 16th century, two percent of the population (i.e. about 500–1000 people) was Ruthenian.

In 1513, Moldavia started to pay annual tribute to the Ottoman Empire, but remained autonomous and was governed as before by a native Voivod / Prince, also known as Domnitor or Hospodar (Lord in English).

In May, 1600 Mihai Viteazul (Michael the Brave), united the three Romanian principalities under his leadership.

For short periods of time (during wars), the Polish Kingdom occupied parts of northern Moldavia. However, the old border was re-established every time after, as for example on 14 October 1703 the Polish delegate Martin Chometowski acknowledges "Between us and Wallachia (i.e. Moldavia) God himself set Dniester as the border" (Inter nos et Valachiam ipse Deus flumine Tyras dislimitavit).

The Austrian Empire occupied Bukovina in October 1774. Following the first partition of Poland in 1772, the Austrians claimed that they needed it for a road between Galicia and Transylvania. Bukovina was formally annexed in January 1775. On 2 July 1776, at Palamutka, Austrians and Ottomans signed a border convention, Austrians giving back 59 of the previously occupied villages, and remaining with 278 villages.

Bukovina was a closed military district (1775–1786), then the largest district, Kreis Czernowitz (after its capital Czernowitz) of the Austrian constituent Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (1787–1849), and, finally, on 4 March 1849, became a separate Austrian Kronland 'crown land' 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). In 1860 it was again amalgamated with Galicia, but reinstated as a separate province once again 26 February 1861, a status that would last until 1918.
In 1867 it remained part of the Cisleithanian or Austrian territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.

According to the 1775 Austrian census, the province had the total population of 86,000, made up mostly of Romanians (Moldovans), and up to 10,000 Slavs (Polish, Ruthenians and Hutzuls). During the 19th century the Austrian Empire policies encouraged the influx of many immigrants such as Germans, Poles, Jews, Hungarians, and Ukrainians (that time referred to as Ruthenians) from Galicia. By 1900 the Romanian population decreased to roughly 40% of Bukovina, with significant Ukrainian (including Hutzuls) (especially in villages in the northern half), German, Jewish, Polish (especially in towns), and Hungarian (several villages) minorities. To reflect this ethnicity shift, in 1843 the Ruthenian language was recognized, along with the Romanian language, as 'the language of the people and of the Church in Bukovina'.

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 Bukovina. 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.

Under 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%, Slovene 0.02%, Italian 0.02%, and a few Armenian, Croat, Gypsy, Serbian, and Turkish. Romanians were still present in all settlements of the region, but their number decreased in the villages in the north. Many of Bukovina's Germans, and a few Romanians, emigrated in 19th and 20th century to North America. Some Romanian historians, such as Ion Nistor wrote that some Ukrainians were “Romanians who have forgotten the Romanian language”.

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, both the local Romanian National Council and the Ukrainian National Council based in Galicia claimed the region. A Constituent Assembly on 14/27 October 1918 formed an Executive Committee, to whom the Austrian governor of the province handed power. The Executive Committee called a General Congress of Bukovina for 15/28 November 1918, where 74 Romanians, 13 Ruthenians, 7 Germans, and 6 Poles were elected (this is the linguistic composition, and Jews were not recorded as a separate group). A popular enthusiasm sprang throughout the region, and a large number of people gathered in the city to wait for the resolution of the Congress.

In 1940, when the region was occupied by the Soviet Union, Chernivtsi Oblast (⅔ of which is Northern Bukovina) had a population of circa 805,000, out of which 47.5% were Ukrainians in 1940, and 28.3% were Romanians, with Germans, Jews, Poles, Hungarians and Russians comprising the rest. Some Romanian intellectuals fled the region before the Soviet occupation. The strong Ukrainian presence was the official motivation for inclusion of the region into the Ukrainian SSR and not into the newly-formed Moldavian SSR. Whether the region would have been included in the Ukrainian SSR, if the commission presiding over the division had been led by someone else than the Ukrainian communist leader Nikita Khrushchev, remains a matter of debate among scholars. In fact, some territories with a mostly Romanian population (e.g. Hertza Region) were allotted to the Ukrainian SSR.
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. The 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). 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 Chernivtsi, Crasna and Codrii Cosminului. In Crasna (in the 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.

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 the other Romanian historic regions.