Moldavian Democratic Republic
몰다비아 민주공화국
The republic proclaimed on 15 December 1917 by Sfatul Țării of Bessarabia as a member of the Russian Federative Democratic Republic. It declared independence on 6 February 1918 and legally ended on 9 April when it entered a conditional union with the Kingdom of Romania. Its legislature was Sfatul Țării and its government the Council of Directors General (renamed the Council of Ministers after independence); Ion Inculeț was president, and Pantelimon Erhan, Daniel Ciugureanu and Petru Cazacu served in turn as prime minister.
In depth
In the debate over the name a “Bessarabian Republic” was proposed, but Pantelimon Erhan’s view that the republic should bear the name of the majority people prevailed. The declaration promised that Sfatul Țării would hold power until a people’s assembly was elected by universal suffrage, that land would pass to those who worked it, and that the eight-hour day, the abolition of the death penalty and the rights of all nationalities would be guaranteed. The nine-member Council of Directors General elected in December had seven Moldavians, one Ukrainian and one Jew, with Erhan as chairman and director for agriculture and Ion Pelivan for foreign affairs. According to Russian Wikipedia, the Petrograd Soviet and the Sovnarkom recognized the new republic. Yet the republic never controlled its territory. Retreating soldiers of the disintegrating Russian army spread anarchy, peasants divided the landlords’ estates themselves while the assembly delayed on land, and most army units nominally subject to it came under Bolshevik influence. On 14 January 1918 the Front Section of the Rumcherod entered the capital, Chișinău.
After the nationalist faction of the assembly asked for military help, the Romanian army crossed the border on 23 January and took the capital within days, resisted even by Moldavian commanders once loyal to the assembly, such as Captain Anatolie Popa. With Romanian troops in control the republic declared independence on 6 February, on the grounds that Ukrainian independence had cut it off from Russia, and the Council of Directors General became Ciugureanu’s Council of Ministers. On 9 April Sfatul Țării voted for union with Romania on condition of local autonomy and the survival of its own legislative and executive bodies, which legally ended the republic. English Wikipedia divides its brief history into autonomy within Russia, independence and federation with Romania, and writes that the secret December meeting that dropped all conditions effectively amounted to annexation by Romania. The republic’s anthem was the Romanian “Deșteaptă-te, române!”.