ÎNTRE IMPERIU ȘI STATUL-NAȚIUNE: METAMORFOZE ALE ELITEI BASARABENE (1918)

Abstract

The aim of the article is to examine the circumstances that shaped the feelings and attitudes of the Bessarabian political and economic elite, who experienced the disintegration of the Russian empire, but did not show readiness to embrace the Romanian-nation state perspective in 1918. I claim that the 1917-1918 political changes in the region deeply affected the economic and social status of the former elite, influenced its identity and belonging, forced new survival strategies, shaped mobility patterns, as well encouraged the development of alternative political scenarios for the future of the region, namely the return of Bessarabia back to Russia. Romania’s protection of Bessarabia from the Bolsheviks did not ensure the expected support for the new regime of those who cared about the preservation of their economic and social status; the metamorphoses experienced by those who served the empire were shaped, besides the feeling of loss and nostalgia for the tsar, by the frustration and disappointment for the failure to switch loyalty to the Romanian king. Besides that, the abolition of Bessarabian autonomy that lasted for six months led towards merging of a common anti-Romanian front of the former and the acting regional elite that once supported the union of Bessarabia with Romania.