Suchergebnisse

This article deals mainly with the evolution of the consciousness of identity of the Romanians in Bessarabia during the long period of Tsarist domination, as well as the way this identity was perceived by several authors,Russians or of other origins. Moreover, it reviews the main methods and instruments of denationalisation, from the persecution against the Romanian language and its promoters to the colonisation of the territory between the Prut and the Dniester, especially of the towns and strategic areas in the south and north, with all sorts of foreign populations, attracted here with privileges at the expense of the natives. Basically, the Romanian character of the languagespoken in Bessarabia in the 19th century is not questioned by the Tsarist officials themselves, but numerous prestigious writers explicitly recognised this situation which was obvious even to the common people.

According to the Romanian and universal historiography, the document of 22 June 1941 marked the beginning of the first Romanian-Russian war. The present article aims to emphasize such a conclusion, reviewing all theaggressive, hegemonic or annexational actions of Tsarist Russia and mostly of Soviet Russian (the Soviet Union, as of December 1922) directed against the Romanian historical territories and the Romanian national state. In the light of those mentioned, Romania's joining the war effort of Germany against the USSR, in June 1941, appears not as a historical accident, but as the outcome of prolonged states of suspicions and latent conflict.Keywords: foreign policy; military relations; alliances; offensive;defensive.