Trans-Dniester Region

Trans-Dniester Region or Transnistria, region (2004 preliminary pop. 555,000), E Moldova, between the Dniester River and the Ukrainian border. A narrow territory some 120 mi (195 km) long but barely 20 mi (32 km) across at its widest, the Trans-Dniester Region has a mainly Russian and Ukrainian population (59.2%, slightly more of whom are Russian) that objects to Moldovan-Romanian rapprochement.

Armed clashes between Moldovan forces and Trans-Dniester secessionists (mostly Russians and Ukrainians) led to Russian army intervention on the side of the secessionists in the early 1990s, and the proclamation of a Trans-Dniester Republic, with Tiraspol as its capital. The republic has not been internationally recognized. A peace accord with the Moldovan government giving the region greater autonomy was signed in 1997.

Beyond the control of any strong national government, the region has become an international transit center for smuggled goods; metal and electronic goods, textiles, and wine are produced. A Russian-sponsored peace plan for the region was rejected by Moldova in Nov., 2003, after Moldovan demonstrations against it; the deal would have permitted Russian troops to remain until 2020. Under pressure from the European Union (EU), which was concerned about the region's involvement in smuggling, Ukraine began requiring in 2006 that goods from Trans-Dniester be cleared by Moldovan customs. Trans-Dniester denounced the new rules as an economic blockade, and refused to allow cargo to cross its border with the Ukraine, a move the Ukraine termed a self-blockade.

A regional referendum in Sept., 2006, approved independence and eventual union with Russia. The vote, however, was rejected by Moldova, the EU, and most other nations, with the major exception of Russia, but there was little sentiment in Russia for union with the region. The leaders of Trans-Dniester and Moldova held talks in 2008 and agreed to work toward peace negotiations, but a followup round was canceled.

Transnistria was the name given to the area of the Ukraine between the Dniester and Bug rivers, over which Marshal Antonescu, the Romanian leader, proclaimed sovereignty in August 1941, and which he was forced to abandon in April 1944 (see Map 80). This region contained only a small number of Romanian settlements and had never before been claimed by Romania. Its civilian governor, Gheorghe Alexianu, first based his administration in Tiraspol and, until the capture of Odessa, controlled only largely rural areas of the province. The Fourth Romanian Army advanced to Odessa in early August 1941 but encountered fierce Soviet resistance. Fighting lasted until 16 October when the city fell, at a cost of some 70,000 Romanian dead and wounded. The Transnistrian government was publicly proclaimed on the following day but the governor's headquarters were not moved from Tiraspol to Odessa until December 1942.

One of the first, and most notorious, acts of the Romanian authorities was their response to the blowing-up by Soviet partisans on 22 October 1941 of the Romanian headquarters in the city which caused the deaths of 16 officers, 9 non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and 35 other ranks. Antonescu ordered that 200 citizens of Odessa should die for every officer killed, and 100 for every NCO and other ranks. The number of people actually executed in retaliation is not known, but Pravda in the summer of 1944 accused the Romanians of having massacred 200,000 on this occasion. The figure of 20,000 was mentioned in May 1945 when a ‘People's Tribunal’ in Bucharest tried Generals Macici and Trestioreanu and other Romanian officers who had carried out Antonescu's orders.

Transnistria was designated by Antonescu a resettlement area for Jews and gypsies deported from Bucovina and Bessarabia (see also deportations). In December 1941 it was reported to Antonescu that these deportations had been completed and that 108,000 Jews had been resettled there. In 1942 the Romanian authorities announced that the number of Jews in the province was 80,087 and by December 1943 this figure, according to a neutral source, had fallen to 54,300. Antonescu put a stop to wholesale deportations of Jews early in 1942 and in March 1943 he gave the Central Jewish Office in Romania permission to repatriate all Jews deported to Transnistria. This body managed to bring back only some 10,000. Many of those deported had perished on the way to Transnistria since the railway wagons into which they were loaded were not provided with sufficient food or water for the week-long journey. It is estimated that between 70,000 and 90,000 Jews and Gypsies from Romania, together with an unknown number of Soviet Jews, were shot or starved to death by German and Romanian units in Transnistria. In May 1946 Alexianu was tried with Antonescu for war crimes and executed on 1 June.

For non-Jews Romanian rule in Transnistria was less draconian and considerably more benevolent than German rule in other parts of Soviet territory. Money was invested in the economy and Romanian laxity encouraged bribery and speculation which allowed the inhabitants to display a measure of private enterprise and personal initiative. Some 7,000 Soviet citizens accompanied the Romanian Army when it withdrew from Transnistria in April 1944 in the face of the Red Army.

Dennis Deletant

Bibliography

Dallin, A. , Odessa 1941–1944: A Case Study of Soviet Territory Under Foreign Rule (Santa Monica, Calif., 1957).
Fisher, J. S. , Transnistria: The Forgotten Cemetery (London, 1969).

Transdniestria (Transnistria), Moldova A region between the River Dniester (Nistru to the Moldovans and Romanians) and Moldova's eastern border with a name meaning the ‘(Land) beyond the Dniester’; it constitutes some 15 per cent of Moldova's territory, although it has never been considered part of the traditional Moldovan lands. Part of the Russian Empire since its seizure from the Ottoman Turks in the late 18th century, it was incorporated into Ukraine in 1924 as the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This was lost to Romania, an ally of Nazi Germany, in 1941, although it was regained by the Soviet Union in 1944. By the majority Slav inhabitants of Transdniestria it is known by its Russian name Pridnestrov′ye ‘The Land on the Dniester’ (in Russian, the Dnestr), although neither the name nor the ‘nation’ existed before the uprising in 1990 when, fearful that Moldovan independence might presage reunification with Romania, Transdniestria declared its secession from Moldova. It adopted the official name of Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika ‘Trasndniestrian Moldavian Republic’.