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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Nicholas Dima, Bessarabia and Bukovina: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1982. v, 173 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press. Maria Manoliu-Manea, ed., The Tragic Plight of a Border Area: Bessarabia and Bucovina. American Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences. Humboldt State University Press, 1983. xii, 280 pp.
Here are two good books providing detailed information on Bessarabia, until 1918 a province of the Russian Empire, and, to a lesser extent, on Bukovina, once a province within the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary. They include useful theoretical though somewhat debatable considerations on the history and ethnic nature of both regions. They come to proper conclusions which seem amply justified by the data and analysis which preceded them. However, both books are inadequately edited, especially the second one, and include a few statements either based on superficial generalizations or even tinted with disturbing — though perhaps unconscious — ethnocentrism.
1 Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich, Werke, Band XXII (Berlin, 1963), p. 29 (“Hier handelt es sich um die nackte, gewaltsame Eroberung fremder Gebiete, um einfachen Raub .”)Google Scholar
2 Lenin, V. I., Collected Works. XX (Moscow, 1964), p. 408.Google Scholar
3 See Ciuciura, Theodore B. and Nahrebecky, Roman, “The Diet of Bukovina, 1861-1914: An Arena of Rumanian-Ukrainian Conflicts and Co-operation,” Symbolae in Memoriam Wasyl Oreleckyj, 1895-1976 (München: Ukrainische Freie Universität, 1982), pp. 15–31; “The Role of German Language and German Community in the Multi-Lingual Austrian Kronland of Bukovina (1775-1918,” Jahrbuch der Ukrainekunde, 1982 (München: Arbeits- und Forderungsgemeinschaft der Ukrainischen Wissenschaften e.V., 1982), pp. 88-101; and “The Romanian Emancipation Movement and Its Adversities in Bukovina, 1861-1918,” unpublished paper presented to the Central and East European Studies Association of Canada (Learned Societies Conference), Vancouver, B.C., 4 June 1983, 26 pp.Google Scholar
4 Stenographische Protokolle des Bukowinaer Landtags [“Bukowinaer” changed to “Bukowiner” — 1903], I. Diet (Wahlperiode), 2. Session; 12 January 1863, p. 4.Google Scholar
5
Languages in Bukovina:
Google Scholar
Dr.von Onciul, Aurel Ritter, Zur Österreichischen Sprachenfrage (Wien: Die Zeit, 1898), pp. 55–56.Google Scholar
According to the Romanian professor, Nistor, Ion I., The Union of Bucovina with Rumania. Bucuresti, 1940, pp. 20–22, “Under pressure of force the governor Etzdorf found himself obliged to sign the protocol No. 11.556 of November 6, 1918, by which he passed the governing power on to delegates [members of the Parliament] Onciul, Spanul and Semaca. It was the last document signed by the Austrian governor of Bucovina. The delegate Aurel Onciul pretended that he represented the Rumanian people of Bucovina, whereas Ilie Semaca and Nicolae Spanul signed as representatives of the Ukrainian people in the National Council or the Ukrainian Rada of Lwow … Immediately after the transfer of full powers, the Rada of Lwow made Omilian Popovicz “Ukrainian National commissary of Bucovina,” which decided [sic] Aurel Onciul to call himself on his own “National Rumanian commissary of Bucovina… [Later on] the National [Romanian] Council of Cernauti decided to ask the Rumanian government of Iassy to undertake a military intervention in Bucovina.” See also ch. 6, “Der rumänische Nationalkongress in Czernowitz, das rumänisch-ukrainische Kondominium und der Einmarsch rumänischer Truppen in die Bukowina,” Erich Prokopowitsch, Das Ende der österreichischen Herrschaft in der Bukowina (Munich: Oldenberg, 1959), pp. 48-65; “Appraisal of self-determination of Ukrainian Bukovina from the perspective of 50th anniversary” and “Selfdetermination of Ukrainian Bukovina in the light of Soviet historiography,” I. M. Nowosiwsky, Bukovinian Ukrainians: A Historical Background and Their Self-Determination in 1918 (New York, 1970), pp. 140-50.Google Scholar
6 Iorga, N., A History of Roumania: Land, People, Civilization [London, 1925] (New York, 1970), p. 128.Google Scholar
7 Ibid., pp. 119, 129, 179. Also “The Cossacks of the Dnieper” (129), “Russia” (170), “Western Russia” (171), etc.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., pp. 119, 129.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., pp. 171, 172.Google Scholar
10 Ibid., pp. 162, 170.Google Scholar
11 Constantinescu, Miron, Daicovisiu, Constantin, Pascu, Stefan, Histoire de la Roumanie (Editions Horvath, 1970), p. 199.Google Scholar
12 Jablonowski, Aleksander (ed.), Sprawy wołoskie za Jagiellonów; Akty i listy (Warsaw, 1878), p. III (“odcien ruski” — the Ruthenian tinge). “Akta Litewskie” [Lithuanian Documents], pp. 55–154, 64 document letters to and from Hospodars of Moldavia, inc. a letter (no. 25) to Crimean Khan, Mengligirei, pp. 85/86, all clearly written more in old Ukrainian than “Church-Slavonic.”Google Scholar
13 In the book overlooked by the authors of the reviewed publications, Ion Nistor, known to be somewhat chauvinistic on the question of autochthons of Bukovina, describes these matters in some detail. Problema Ucraineana in Lumina Istoriei (Cernauti, 1934), especially Ch. VII, Românii ca prieteni si protectori ai Ucraintilor (The Romanians as Friends and Protectors of the Ukrainians), pp. 77-81; ch. X, “Bogdan Hmelnicki si Vasile Lupu,” pp. 125-40; ch. XII, “Mazepa si pribegia sa in Moldova” (Mazepa in His Exile in Moldavia), pp. 157-68.Google Scholar
14 “Les négociations de 1650 aboutissent à l'alliance entre l'Ukraine, la Moldavie et la Valachie, base d'un bloc antiottoman auquel adhérer les Grecs, les Serbes et les Bulgares.” Historie de la Roumanie, p. 192.Google Scholar
15 Foreword to Jablonowski, Aleksander, Historya Rusi poludniowej do upadku Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (Cracow, 1912), p. XIII.Google Scholar
16 Seton-Watson, R. W., A History of the Roumanians: From Roman Times to the Completion of Unity [1934] (Archon Books, 1963), p. 192.Google Scholar
17 Fischer-Galati, Stephen, Twentieth Century Rumania (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), p. 9.Google Scholar
18 Biedrzycki, Emil, Historia Polakow na Bukowinie [History of the Poles in Bukovina] (Warsaw-Cracow, 1973), p. 26, n. 6. Contrary views are expressed in a book overlooked by the reviewed publications, Octavian Lupu, Bemerkungen zum Lage der Rumanen in der Bukowina während der Habsburgischer Herrschaft (Roma: Fondation Europeenne Dragan, 1980), although in more details but with a complete neglect of the provincial Diet and the privileged position of the Romanian landed gentry; also with an evident Romanian ethnocentrism. The Ruthenians are hardly mentioned; the word “Ukrainians” is never used.Google Scholar
