105 Years Since the Establishment of the Great Union The Stages of the Return of Bessarabia Within the Romanian Unitary National State

Dedicated to the 105th anniversary of the Great Union of 1918, the present study traces the main stages of Bessarabia’s return to the Romanian cultural and civilization space, from which it had been illegally and abusively snatched in 1812, as a result of a transaction concluded between two colonial empires on account of the territorial integrity of the Romanian Countries. At a distance of 105 years from those historical events, the truth appears as indisputable that any other way than the union of Bessarabia with the Old Kingdom of Romania was doomed to inevitable failure, and it is the great merit of the Council of the Country and the Bessarabian politicians of that period – Constantin Stere, Pantelimon Halippa, Vasile Stroescu, Ion Inculeț, Ion Pelivan et al. – to have found the only solution that led to the harbor long-awaited by the entire population. Beyond all the insinuations and slander circulated during that period, with echoes to this day, the alternative of the union of Bessarabia with Romania can be traced to the example of the Moldavian SSR from 1924–1940, with the forced collectivization of agriculture and the disastrous famine, with deportations and Stalinist repressions, with the territorial dismemberment of Bessarabia in 1940, etc.