Sfatul Țării
스파툴 처리이
The regional assembly formed in Bessarabia after the February Revolution of 1917 from delegates of soldiers’, peasants’, urban and minority organizations; the name means “Council of the Country”. Opened in Chișinău on 4 December 1917, it proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic and elected its government, declared independence in February 1918 and on 9 April voted for union with Romania on condition of autonomy. In December 1918 a meeting short of a quorum renounced the conditions and the assembly was dissolved.
In depth
The demand for an autonomous assembly was first raised at the Chișinău cooperatives’ congress of April 1917, and in November the Moldavian Soldiers’ Congress proclaimed Bessarabian autonomy and set the assembly’s make-up. Members were chosen by organizations rather than by general election. The original 120 seats grew to 135 and then 150: 44 for the Moldavian Soldiers’ Congress, 30 for the Moldavian peasants’ soviet, 21 for towns and zemstvos, 10 for parties, 16 for cooperatives, trade unions and cultural bodies and 29 for minority organizations. By nationality there were 105 Moldavians, 15 Ukrainians, 13 Jews, 6 Russians and 3 Bulgarians, among others. The Socialist Revolutionary Ion Inculeț was elected president and Pan Halippa vice-president. The veteran national activist Ion Pelivan had first won a majority, but the post went to Inculeț because minority deputies wanted a supporter of the revolution and because his office linked the assembly to Russian state authority. A contemporary account quoted by English Wikipedia judged it a “mostly appointed” body that would hardly pass as representative in normal times but became the effective government amid anarchy.
On 15 December 1917 Sfatul Țării proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic and elected the Council of Directors General under Pantelimon Erhan as its government. According to Russian Wikipedia, in late December Erhan put the entry of Romanian troops to a vote in the peasant faction and it passed, while the socialist bloc walked out in protest. After the Romanian army had entered Chișinău the assembly declared independence on 6 February 1918, and on 9 April it voted for conditional union by 86 votes to 3, with 36 abstentions and 13 absent. Russian Wikipedia writes that the building was surrounded by Romanian troops and the vote taken by open roll call. When Inculeț joined the Romanian government, Constantin Stere became president. After the land reform was approved in November, only 44 of 125 members attended the session on the night of 9–10 December, which dropped all the other conditions and dissolved the assembly. The American scholar Charles King considers that vote illegitimate; Romanian historiography has presented Sfatul Țării as the organ of Bessarabian self-determination, Soviet historiography as a body acting under an occupying army.