page_title: Bukovina
section_title: Kingdom of Romania
hierarchical_section_title: Bukovina / History / Kingdom of Romania
context_page_description: Bukovina is a historical region, variously described as in Central or Eastern Europe. The region is located on the northern slopes of the central Eastern Carpathians and the adjoining plains, today divided between Romania and Ukraine.
  A region of Moldavia during the Middle Ages, the territory of what became known as Bukovina was, from 1774 to 1918, an administrative division of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and Austria-Hungary. After World War I, Romania established its control over Bukovina. In 1940, the northern half of Bukovina was annexed by the Soviet Union in violation of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and currently is part of Ukraine.
context_section_description: In World War I, several battles were fought in Bukovina between the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian armies, which resulted in the Russian army being driven out in 1917.
  With the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, both the local Romanian National Council and the Ukrainian National Council based in Galicia claimed the region. A Constituent Assembly on 14/27 October 1918 formed an Executive Committee, to whom the Austrian governor of the province handed power. After an official request by Iancu Flondor, Romanian troops swiftly moved in to take over the territory, against Ukrainian protest. Although local Ukrainians attempted to incorporate parts of northern Bukovina into the short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic, this attempt was defeated by Polish and Romanian troops.
  Under the protection of Romanian troops, the Romanian Council summoned a General Congress of Bukovina for 15/28 November 1918, where 74 Romanians, 13 Ruthenians, 7 Germans, and 6 Poles were represented (this is the linguistic composition, and Jews were not recorded as a separate group). According to Romanian historiography, popular enthusiasm swept the whole region, and a large number of people gathered in the city to wait for the resolution of the Congress.
  The Congress elected the Romanian Bukovinian politician Iancu Flondor as chairman, and voted for the union with the Kingdom of Romania, with the support of the Romanian, German, and Polish representatives; the Ukrainians did not support this. The reasons stated were that, until its takeover by the Habsburg in 1775, Bukovina was the heart of the Principality of Moldavia, where the gropniţele domneşti (voivods' burial sites) are located, and dreptul de liberă hotărâre de sine (right of self-determination). Romanian control of the province was recognized internationally in the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919.
  During the interwar period, Romanian authorities oversaw a programme of Romanianization aiming its assimilationist policies at the Ukrainian population of the region. The Romanian language was introduced into ethnic minority schools in 1923, and, by 1926, all public Ukrainian schools in Bukovina were closed (private schools were still allowed to exist).
  At the same time, Ukrainian enrollment at the Cernăuţi University fell from 239 out of 1671, in 1914, to 155 out of 3,247, in 1933, while simultaneously Romanian enrollment there increased several times to 2,117 out of 3,247. In part this was due to attempts to switch to Romanian as the primary language of university instruction, but chiefly to the fact that the university was one of only five in Romania, and was considered prestigious.
  In the decade following 1928, as Romania tried to improve its relations with the Soviet Union, Ukrainian culture was given some limited means to redevelop, though these gains were sharply reversed in 1938.
  According to the 1930 Romanian census, Romanians made up 44.5% of the total population of Bukovina, and Ukrainians (including Hutsuls) 29.1%. In the northern part of the region, however, Romanians made up only 32.6% of the population, with Ukrainians significantly outnumbering Romanians.
  On August 14, 1938, Bukovina officially disappeared from the map, becoming a part of Ținutul Suceava, one of ten new administrative regions. At the same time, Cernăuți, the third most populous town in Romania (after Bucharest and Chișinău), which had been a mere county seat for the last 20 years, became again a (regional) capital. Also, Bukovinian regionalism continued under the new brand. During its first months of existence, Ținutul Suceava suffered far right (Iron Guard) uproars, to which the regional governor Gheorghe Alexianu (the future governor of Transnistria) reacted with nationalist and anti-Semitic measures. Alexianu was replaced by Gheorghe Flondor on February 1, 1939.
  As a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR demanded not only Bessarabia but also Northern Bukovina from Romania on June 26, 1940. (Bukovina bordered Eastern Galicia, which the USSR had annexed during the Invasion of Poland.) Initially, t
caption: Bukovina as divided in 1940: Soviet to the north, Romanian to the south.