92 years ago Bessarabia voted the unification with Romania
On 27 March (April 9, Gregorian calendar) 1918, the Sfatul Ţării, a legislative body of the Russian province of Bessarabia convened in Chişinău, voted the union with Romania. Bessarabia was the eastern half of The Principality of Moldova annexed by the Russian Empire under the provision of the May 1812 Bucharest Peace Treaty which, shortly before Napoleon's armies invaded Russia, put an end to the Russian-Turkish War of 1806-1912.
On March 27, the assembly in Chişinău had the following voting results: from 138 deputies 86 voted in favor of the union and 3 against; 36 deputies abstained (26 of whom represented ethnic minorities) and 13 deputies were not present. Conditions for the union included the preservation of a certain degree of autonomy and the right to maintain Sfatul Ţării as a regional Diet. These conditions were dropped by Sfatul Ţării in November 1918, when the assembly proclaimed the unconditioned union with Greater Romania and voted its own dissolution.
Bessarabia was part of Romania until 28 June 1940, when it was annexed once more time by Russia, now under the name of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It was carried out under the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. On 24 December 1989, the Congress of the USSR adopted a decision recognizing the secret deals under the Moldov-Ribbentrop Pact as legally ungrounded and invalid since the moment of signing. The annexation’s provisions—as embodied in the status of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), a part of the USSR after 1940—became null and void on 27 August 1991 by virtue of Moldova's declaration of independence as a sovereign state.
Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Moldova, Second edition, 2007
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