Principality of Moldavia in the context of "Moldova"

Iași (UK: /ˈjæʃj/ YASH-(y), US: /ˈjɑːʃ(i)/ YAHSH(-ee), Romanian: [ˈjaʃʲ] ; also known by other alternative names), also sometimes referred historically as Jassy (UK: /ˈjæsi/ YASS-ee, US: /ˈjɑːsi/ YAH-see), is the third largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, it has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life. The city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1564 to 1859, then of the United Principalities from 1859 to 1862, and the capital of Romania from 1916 to 1918.

Known as the Cultural Capital of Romania, Iași is a symbol of Romanian history. Historian Nicolae Iorga stated that "there should be no Romanian who does not know of it". Still referred to as "The Moldavian Capital", Iași is the main economic and business centre of Romania's Moldavian region. In December 2018, Iași was officially declared the Historical Capital of Romania.

The unification of Moldavia and Wallachia (Romanian: Unirea Moldovei și Țării Românești), also known as the unification of the Romanian Principalities (Romanian: Unirea Principatelor Române) or as the Little Union (Romanian: Mica Unire), happened in 1859 following the election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince of both the Principality of Moldavia and the Principality of Wallachia. A potential unification between the two principalities, which shared a common Romanian ethnicity, language, and culture, had not been favored by the great powers for a long time, although it was accepted by them once it happened. The unification of these two states began a political struggle in the new country (the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia) to find out which of the two regions would obtain "supremacy" and met some opposition in Moldavia by the so-called "separatists".

Nowadays, in Romania, the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia is regarded as a prelude to the Great Union, a name used in Romanian historiography to refer to the unifications of Romania with the regions of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania in 1918 during or following the end of World War I. It is also commemorated every 24 January through the Day of the Unification of the Romanian Principalities in both Romania and Moldova.

Bukovina is a historical region at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. It is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided between Romania and Ukraine.

Inhabited by many cultures and peoples, settled by both Ukrainians (Ruthenians) and Romanians (Moldavians), it became part of the Kievan Rus' and Pechenegs' territory early on during the 10th century and an integral part of the Principality of Moldavia in the 14th century where the capital of Moldavia, Suceava, was founded, eventually expanding its territory all the way to the Black Sea.

Hetman is a political title from Central and Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders (comparable to a field marshal or imperial marshal in the Holy Roman Empire). First used by the Czechs in Bohemia in the 15th century, it was the title of the second-highest military commander after the king in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 16th to 18th centuries. Hetman was also the title of the head of the Cossack state in Ukraine after the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648. Throughout much of the history of Romania and Moldavia, hetmans were the second-highest army rank. In the modern Czech Republic, the title is used for regional governors.

The north of the Moldavia region in Romania preserves numerous religious buildings as a testimony of the Moldavian architectural style developed in the Principality of Moldavia starting from the 14th century.

Of these, eight Romanian Orthodox Churches located in Suceava County and built from the late 15th century to the late 16th century are listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, since 1993. Church of the Resurrection within the Sucevița Monastery was added to the site in 2010. The churches have their external walls covered in authentic and unique fresco paintings, representing complete cycles of religious themes.

The Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 (de facto until 1915) in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was mostly forbidden. Most Jews were still excluded from residency in a number of cities within the Pale as well. A few Jews were allowed to live outside the area, including those with university education, the ennobled, members of the most affluent of the merchant guilds and particular artisans, some military personnel and some services associated with them, including their families, and sometimes their servants. Pale is an archaic term meaning an enclosed area. Jews were also allowed to settle in colonies outside of the Pale, such as in Siberia.

The Pale of Settlement included all of modern-day Belarus and Moldova, much of Lithuania, Ukraine and east-central Poland, and relatively small parts of Latvia and what is now the western Russian Federation. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line inside the country, westwards to the Imperial Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and Austria-Hungary. Furthermore, it comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia and largely corresponded to historical lands of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Cossack Hetmanate, the Ottoman Empire (with Yedisan), Crimean Khanate, and eastern Principality of Moldavia (Bessarabia).

The Lipovans or Lippovans are ethnic Russian Old Believers living in Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria who settled in the Principality of Moldavia, in the east of the Principality of Wallachia (Muntenia), and in the regions of Dobruja and Budjak during the 17th and 18th centuries. According to the 2011 Romanian census, there are a total of 23,487 Lipovans in Romania, mostly living in Northern Dobruja, in Tulcea County but also in Constanța County, and in the cities of Iași, Brăila and Bucharest. In Bulgaria, they inhabit two villages: Kazashko and Tataritsa.