Bessarabian question (original) (raw)

The Bessarabian question, Bessarabian issue or Bessarabian problem (Romanian: Problema basarabeană or chestiunea basarabeană; Russian: Бессарабский вопрос or бессарабская проблема) is the name given to the controversy over the ownership of the geographic region of Bessarabia that began with the annexation of the region by the Russian Empire from the Romanian principality of Moldavia in 1812 through the Treaty of Bucharest and which continued with the independence and union of Bessarabia with Romania in 1917, the occupation and annexation of the region by the Soviet Union in 1940, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union that caused the emergence of two new states that controlled parts of Bessarabia each, which are Moldova and Ukraine.