Moldavian Democratic Republic in the context of "Romanian military intervention in Bessarabia"

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of 33,843 km (13,067 sq mi) and a population of 2.38 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria lies across the Dniester river on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova is a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic with its capital in Chișinău, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre.

Most of Moldovan territory was a part of the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century until 1812, when it was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Ottoman Empire (to which Moldavia was a vassal state) and became known as Bessarabia. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, which three years later united with Wallachia to form Romania. Still, Russian rule was restored over the entire region in 1878. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Bessarabia briefly became an autonomous state within the Russian Republic. In February 1918, it declared independence and then integrated into Romania later that year following a vote of its assembly. The decision was disputed by Soviet Russia, which in 1924 established, within the Ukrainian SSR, a so-called Moldavian autonomous republic on partially Moldovan-inhabited territories to the east of Bessarabia. In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, leading to the creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR).

The union of Bessarabia with Romania was proclaimed on April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918 by Sfatul Țării, the legislative body of the Moldavian Democratic Republic. This state had the same borders of the region of Bessarabia, which was annexed by the Russian Empire following the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812 and organized first as an Oblast (autonomous until 1828) and later as a Governorate. Under Russian rule, many of the native Tatars were expelled from parts of Bessarabia and replaced with Moldavians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Russians, Lipovans, Cossacks, Gagauzes and other peoples, although colonization was not limited to formerly Tatar-inhabited lands. Russia also tried to integrate the region by imposing the Russian language in administration and restricting education in other languages, notably by later banning the use of Romanian in schools and print.

The beginning of World War I saw an increase in national awareness among the Bessarabians, and, following the beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Bessarabia proclaimed its own parliament, the Sfatul Țării, which declared the Moldavian Democratic Republic. Following a Romanian military intervention, with the Romanian Army firmly in control of the region, the Sfatul Țării voted for independence and later proclaimed, on April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918, its union with the Kingdom of Romania. Although the unification was made under various conditions, all of these except the promise of an agrarian reform, which was carried out, were later abandoned by a minority of the Sfatul. Later, the Romanian administration swiftly dissolved the assembly and rejected the protests of the former deputies. In the peace talks after World War I, the European powers awarded Bessarabia to Romania, although the newly formed Russian SSR, and the United States never recognized this.

Sfatul Țării ("Council of the Country"; Romanian pronunciation: [ˈsfatul ˈt͡sərij]) was a council of political, public, cultural, and professional organizations in the Governorate of Bessarabia in Tsarist Russia. This became a legislative body which established the Moldavian Democratic Republic as part of the Russian Federative Republic in December 1917. and then union with Romania in April [O.S. March] 1918.

The Bessarabia Governorate was a province (guberniya) of the Russian Empire, with its administrative centre in Kishinev (Chișinău). It consisted of an area of 45,632.42 square kilometres (17,618.78 sq mi) and a population of 1,935,412 inhabitants. The Bessarabia Governorate bordered the Podolia Governorate to the north, the Kherson Governorate to the east, the Black Sea to the south, Romania to the west, and Austria to the northwest. It roughly corresponds to what is now most of Moldova and some parts of Chernivtsi and Odesa Oblasts of Ukraine.

It included the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia along with the neighboring Ottoman-ruled territories annexed by Russia by the Treaty of Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812). The Governorate was disbanded in 1917, with the establishment of Sfatul Țării, a national assembly which proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic in December 1917. The latter united with Romania in April 1918.