Bukovina - facts and events

Bukovina 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.

The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775, with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became Austrian Empire in 1804, and Austria-Hungary in 1867. The official German name - die Bukowina - of the province under Austrian rule (1775-1918), was derived from the Polish form Bukowina, which in turn comes from the common Slavic form Bukowina, which stands for beech tree. Another German name for the region, das Buchenland, is mostly used in poetry, and means "beech land", or "the land of beech trees".

During Stone age, Bukovina was populated by Cucuteni-Trypillian culture- one of the most interesting and remarkable Neolithic cultures of Europe- 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. In the 3rd century the region was plundered by the Goths, in the 4th century by the Huns and in the 6th century by the Avars. Beginning with the 6th century, Slavic populations also entered the region and influenced the locals in respect to language and certain agricultural methods.

During the Middle Ages, the region was the cradle and the political center of the Moldavian Principality until 1574, when its capital was moved from Suceava to Iasi. Under Stephen the Great, who was Prince of Moldavia between 1457 and 1504, the state reached its most glorious period. He strengthened Moldavia and maintained its independence against the ambitions of Hungary, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire, which all sought to subdue the land. Stephen achieved fame in Europe for his long resistance against the Ottomans. He was victorious in 34 of his 36 battles, and was one of the first to gain a decisive victory over the Ottomans at the Battle of Vaslui, after which Pope Sixtus IV deemed him Verus Christianae Fidei Athleta (True Champion of Christian Faith). He was a man of religion and displayed his piety when he paid the debt of Mount Athos to the Porte, ensuring the continuity of Athos as an autonomous monastical community. Stephen died in Suceava, and he was buried in the Monastery of Putna. He was seen as holy by many Christians, soon after his death. He has been canonized a saint by the Romanian Orthodox Church under the name "The Right-believing Voivod Stephen the Great and the Holy".

Stephen's long reign brought considerable cultural development. In this period, under his patronage, the construction of the famous painted monasteries took place. Many churches and monasteries were erected by Stephen himself, and his work was continued by his successors. With their renowned exterior frescoes, these monasteries remain some of the greatest cultural treasures of Romania and not only, as 8 of them are now part of UNESCO's World Heritage sites.

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 1600 Vlach Hospodar Mihai Viteazul, united the three Romanian principalities into country known today as Romania, including the Moldavian principality.

In the course of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, the Ottoman armies were defeated by the Russian Empire, that occupied the region during 1769-1774, and previously during September-October 1739. Bukovina was the reward the Habsburgs received for aiding the Ottomans in that war.

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. In 1776, at Palamutka, Austrians and Ottomans signed a border convention.

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 in 1861, a status that would last until 1918.

In 1849, Bukovina got a representative assembly, the Landtag (diet). The Moldavian nobility had traditionally formed the ruling class in that territory. In 1867, it remained part of the Cisleithanian or Austrian territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.

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 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 November 1918, when the union with the Kingdom of Romania was voted. The reasons stated were that, until its takeover by the Habsburg in 1775, Bukovina was the heart of the Principality of Moldavia, where the voivods' burial sites are located, and the right of self-determination. Romanian troops swiftly moved in to take over the territory and the Romanian control of the province was recognized internationally in the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919.

In 1940, the Romanian government evacuated Northern Bukovina, and the Red Army moved in, with the new Soviet - Romanian border being traced less than 20 kilometers north of Putna Monastery. Romania temporarily regained this territory as Germany's ally after the latter had invaded the U.S.S.R. in 1941, but the soviet troops retook the northern districts in 1944. Northern Bukovina became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic under the peace treaty of 1947; the ancient Moldavian capital Suceava and the surrounding area, including the most famous of the monasteries, became part of Romania.