Budjak | |
|---|---|
Historical region | |
   
| |
 Budjak on the map of Ukraine | |
| Country |  Ukraine |
| Largest city | Izmail |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
Budjak, also known asBudzhak,[a] is a historical region that was part ofBessarabia from 1812 to 1940. Situated along theBlack Sea, between theDanube andDniester rivers, thismulti-ethnic region covers an area of 13,188 km2 (5,092 sq mi) and is home to approximately 600,000 people. The majority of the region (formerIzmail Oblast) is now located inUkraine'sOdesa Oblast, while the remaining part is found in the southern districts ofMoldova. The region is bordered to the north by the rest of Moldova, to the west and south byRomania, and to the east by the Black Sea and the rest of Ukraine.
Historically, Budjak was the southeasternsteppe region ofMoldavia. Bordered by the northernTrajan's Wall at its north end, theDanube river andBlack Sea to its south,Tigheci Hills (just east of thePrut River) to the west, and theDniester River to the east, it was known as "historicBessarabia" until 1812, when this name was given to the larger region situated between the two rivers, including Budjak. As used in the Middle Ages, the term might (if referring to the geographical area) or might not (if referring to the area predominated byNogai Tatars) include the environs ofAkkerman,Bender, andKiliia.
The name Budjak itself was given to the area duringOttoman rule (1484–1812) and derives from theTurkish wordbucak, meaning "borderland" or "corner", referring roughly to the land between what was thenAkkerman (now Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi),Bender, andIsmail (now Izmail).
After 1812, the term Bessarabia came to apply to all ofMoldavia east of the Prut River. Consequently, Budjak is sometimes referred to as "Southern Bessarabia".
After theSoviet occupation of Bessarabia in 1940, its southern part, which along with its northern part was included in theUkrainian SSR (unlike the rest of Bessarabia, which was included in theMoldavian SSR), became known as Budjak, thus being slightly smaller than the historical term.
Besides Southern Bessarabia, other descriptive terms that have been applied to the region includeBulgarian Bessarabia (Ukrainian:Болгарська Бессарабія,translit.Bolhars'ka Bessarabiia),Akkermanshchyna (Ukrainian:Аккерманщина,romanized: Akkermanshchyna), andWestern Odesa Oblast (Ukrainian:Західнa Одещина,translit.Zakhidna Odeshchyna).
The areahas been termed variously in the English language, including Budjak, Budzhak, Bujak and Buchak. The name has a number of spellings in languages of the region:Budziak inPolish,Bugeac inRomanian,Buxhak inAlbanian,Bucak inTurkish, and Буджак inUkrainian,Bulgarian, and Russian, all pronounced more or less like[budʒak].
TheBudjak culture of the North-West Black Sea region is considered to be important in the context of the Pit-Grave orYamnaya culture of the Pontic steppe, dating to 3,600–2,300 BC. In particular, Budjak may have given rise to the Balkan-Carpathian variant of Yamnaya culture.[1]
In Classical antiquity, Budjak was inhabited byTyragetae,Bastarnae,Scythians, andRoxolani. In 6th century BC Ancient Greek colonists established a colony at the mouths ofDnister river,Tyras.[2] Around 2nd century BC, also aCelt tribe settled atAliobrix (present day Cartal/Orlovka).
Budjak area, the northern Lower Danube, was described as the "wasteland of theGetae" by the ancient Greek geographerStrabo (1st century BC). In fact, based on recent archaeological research, in this period of time, the area was most likely populated by sedentary farmers; among them were theDacians and theDaco-Romans. The nomad peoples, such as theSarmatians also passed through the area.[3]
TheRomans acquired the area in the 1st centuryAD, rebuilt and encamped Tyras and Aliobrix. As with the rest of the port cities around the Black Sea, the local population absorbed a mixture of Greek and Roman cultures, withGreek being mainly the language of trade, andLatin the language of politics. After the division of theRoman Empire in 395, the area was included in theEast Roman or Byzantine Empire. From the 1st century AD until the invasion of theAvars in 558, the Romans had established cities (poleis), military camps and some stations for the veterans and for the colons (apoikion) sent by the emperors.[4]
The area lay along the predominant route for migratory peoples, as it was the westernmost portion of theEuro-Asian steppe. Going westward, only the banks of the Dniester and Danube rivers were less forested comparatively to the surrounding areas (which nowadays formMoldova andRomania), therefore providing a natural route for herdsmen all the way fromMongolia to thePannonian Plains (modernHungary). The region, therefore, passed as a temporary settling ground for theHuns under the leaderUldin (387), the Avars (558–567), theSlavs (end of 6th century), theBulgars underAsparuh (679), theMagyars (9th century), thePechenegs (11th century, and again 12th century), theCumans (12th century) and others.
Although the Byzantines held nominalsuzerainty of the region (at least of the sea shore) until the 14th century, they had little or no sway over the hinterland.
In the early Middle Ages aTigheci "Republic" was formed by several villages occupying the nearby Tigheci hills, in order to offer more security for themselves, while thesteppe area between that and the seashore, unsuited for agriculture due to lack of water and frequently invaded by Eastern populations, remained void of permanent settlements. From the 7th to the 12th centuries, the region was under the authority of theFirst Bulgarian Empire, Pechenegs, and later of Cumans, who irregularly collected tribute from the indigenous villagers.
After theMongol invasion of 1241, the rebuilt coastal cities of Budjak (Maurocastro and Licostomo) came under the domination ofGenoese traders. The interior however remained under the direct Mongol rule of theGolden Horde.
Sometime during the 14th centuryWallachia's princes of theHouse of Basarab extended their authority over part of the territory. The region remained under Wallachian influence until the early 15th century, during the reign ofMircea the Elder, when the area was integrated intoMoldavia by princeAlexander the Kind.Nogai Tatars, who had settled herds in the region after the 1240s, inhabited the steppe, while Romanians inhabited the surrounding hills and the port cities.
In 1484Stephen the Great of Moldavia was forced to surrender the two main fortresses ofChilia (Kiliia) andCetatea Albă (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi) to theOttoman Empire, the last Black Sea ports to fall into Ottoman hands. In 1538 the Ottomans forced princePetru Rareș of Moldavia to give up the fortress-cityTighina as well.
Under the Ottomans, Tighina was renamed Bender, whileChilia lost importance due to the construction of theIsmail (Izmail) fortress at the location of the Moldavian village Smil.[5][6] Despite returning from Muslim to Orthodox Christian sovereignty, the latter names were retained by theRussian Empire.
Under Ottoman rule, the three major cities each were the center of asanjak, and were together officially part ofSilistra (or Özi) Eyalet although Bender was north of Trajan's Wall and outside of the steppe region. TheNogai Tatar-inhabited steppe, which then acquired the name Budjak, served as a buffer area between these sanjaks and the Principality of Moldavia. Although it was a tributary of the Ottoman Empire, Moldavia was independent in its internal affairs until the start of theRusso-Turkish Wars forced the Ottomans to ensure that the Romanian princes did not switch sides too often.
During theNapoleonic Era, Budjak was overrun by Russia in the course of theRusso-Turkish War of 1806–1812. The 1812Treaty of Bucharest transferred the territories ofMoldavia and theOttoman Empire east of thePrut River and north of theDanube, including Budjak, toRussian control. With the Russian annexation, the name Bessarabia began to be applied not only to the original southern region, but to the entire eastern half of historical Moldavia acquired by theRussian Empire, while Budjak was applied to southern Bessarabia, mainly to the steppe.
With Russia's 1856 defeat in theCrimean War, a part ofsouthern Bessarabia including a part of Budjak (Reni,Izmail,Bolhrad,Kiliia) was ceded by theRussian Empire back to thePrincipality of Moldavia, which soon united withWallachia to form theUnited Principalities (which was made a personal union in 1859 to then be deepened into a full union in 1862, as the Principality of Romania). Following theRusso-Turkish War of 1877–78, theTreaty of San Stefano and theTreaty of Berlin recognized the full independence of the newKingdom of Romania (the principalities that formed it had already beende facto independent for half a century), but transferred the territories subject to the 1856 re-configuration back to theRussian Empire.
After World War I, Budjak, which was part of the RussianBessarabia Governorate that voted to joinRomania, was administered as parts ofTighina,Ismail, andCetatea Albă counties (judeţe). As the region was inhabited by non-Romanian majorities, it initially witnessed several revolts against the central authorities, such as theBender Uprising of 1919 and theTatarbunary Uprising of 1924.
In 1939, the secret appendix to theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact assigned Bessarabia to theSoviet Union'ssphere of influence and, in June 1940, theSoviets issued an ultimatum demanding the transfer of Bessarabia andNorthern Bukovina. KingCarol II of Romania acquiesced and the area wasannexed. Central and northern Bessarabia formed the center of the newMoldavian Soviet Socialist Republic but part of the south, now known as Budjak, was apportioned to theUkrainian SSR. The commission that decided the administrative border between the Ukrainian SSR and Moldavian SSR inside the Soviet Union was chaired byNikita Khrushchev, the then leader of the Ukrainian SSR and the future USSR leader who would addCrimea to the Ukrainian SSR.
On 7 August 1940 the Soviets formedAkkerman Oblast, which was administratively subdivided into 13raions. The city of Akkerman (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi) was the center of the oblast. Four months later, on 7 December 1940 the oblast was renamedIzmail Oblast, and the oblast center was moved to the city ofIzmail.
UponNazi Germany's June 1941 declaration of war on the Soviet Union, Romania sided with theAxis powers and retook the territories previously annexed by the Soviet Union, including Budjak, but then also continued the war into proper Soviet territory. The area was regained by the Soviets in 1944 and, despite a royal coup byMichael I of Romania that led to Romania joining theAllies in August 1944, was annexed by the Soviets in the 1940 political configuration.
During the administrative reform of Ukrainian SSR, on 15 February 1954, Izmail Oblast was liquidated, and all raions of the oblast were included intoOdesa Oblast. By territory, Odesa oblast is now thelargest oblast in Ukraine.
With the fall of theSoviet Union, each of the fifteen republics that formally had the right to secede became independent, with boundaries preserved as were inside Soviet Union, since the sameSoviet Constitution stipulated that they could not be changed without the mutual consent of both republics, and no discussions between the two upon such an issue were ever held.
Budjak is now a part of independentUkraine, linked to the rest of Odesa oblast by two bridges across theDniester River. The northernmost connection enters Moldovan territory for a 7.63 km (43⁄4 miles) stretch of road, which is controlled by Ukraine as per an agreement between the two countries.
Petro Poroshenko, the formerPresident of Ukraine, was born in the Budjak town of Bolhrad in 1965.
In the autumn of 2014 there were reports of plots to proclaim a pro-RussianPeople's Republic in the Budjak region of Bessarabia, along the lines of the separatist "people's republics" established in the Donbas region. However, the growing intensity of thewar in the Donbas cooled the enthusiasm for separatism and any plans that may have existed failed to materialise. By the end of the year there were reports of drones over the Budjak, apparently from Russian-backed militants inTransnistria or the Black Sea.[7]
In the Ukrainian SSR and Ukraine, until July 2020, the historical territory of Budjak was subdivided into two cities and nine administrative districts (raions) of Ukraine'sOdesa Oblast:
| Name | Ukrainian name | Area (km2) | Population Census 2001 | Population estimate[8] (1 Jan 2012) | Capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (city) | Білгород-Дністровськ (місто) | 31 | 58,436 | 57,206 | Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi |
| Izmail (city) | Ізмаїл (місто) | 53 | 84,815 | 73,651 | – |
| Artsyz Raion | Арцизький район | 1,379 | 51,251 | 46,213 | Artsyz |
| Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Raion | Білгород-Дністровський район | 1,852 | 62,255 | 60,378 | Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi |
| Bolhrad Raion | Болградський район | 1,364 | 73,991 | 69,572 | Bolhrad |
| Izmail Raion | Ізмаїльський район | 1,254 | 54,550 | 52,031 | Izmail |
| Kiliia Raion | Кілійський район | 1,359 | 58,707 | 53,585 | Kiliia |
| Reni Raion | Ренійський район | 861 | 39,903 | 37,986 | Reni |
| Sarata Raion | Саратський район | 1,475 | 49,911 | 45,813 | Sarata |
| Tarutyne Raion | Тарутинський район | 1,874 | 45,175 | 41,975 | Tarutyne |
| Tatarbunary Raion | Татарбунарський район | 1,748 | 41,573 | 39,164 | Tatarbunary |
| Total | 13,250 | 620,567 | 577,574 |
After July 2020, the area is split between Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Bolhrad, and Izmail raions.
The mainethnic groups in Budjak today areUkrainians,Bulgarians,Russians,Romanians andMoldovans (there is anongoing controversy, in part involving linguistic definitions of ethnicity, over whether Moldovans' self-identification constitutes an ethnic group distinct and apart from Romanians, or a subset of a broader Romanian identity). The region was inhabited by Romanians andNogai Tatars through the Middle Ages, but became a home to several other ethnicities and religious groups in the 19th century when it was part of the Russian Empire. The examples areBessarabian Bulgarians,Bessarabian Germans,Gagauzians andLipovan Russians who settled in compact areas.
Muslim,Turkic-speakingNogai Tatars inhabited Ottoman-dominated Budjak until the start of the 19th century, but were forced to abandon the region once theRussian Empire got control over the territory. They resettled in theCaucasus,Dobruja (both in theRomanian andBulgarian parts) or in modernTurkey.
Budjak was also home to a number ofethnic Germans known asBessarabian Germans, originally fromWürttemberg andPrussia, who settled the region in the early 19th century, after it became part of theRussian Empire. A large number of them cultivated the Budjak steppes, known also asKronsland (see alsomap). They were deported in theNazi-Soviet population transfers following the Soviet takeover of Bessarabia in 1940. These "Germans from outside Germany", orVolksdeutsche, were mostly resettled in areas of Nazioccupied Poland, and had to move again at the end of World War II (one example was the family of the former president of GermanyHorst Köhler).
Like Moldova, Budjak is home to a small minority ofGagauzes: anOrthodoxChristian Turkic people who arrived from the easternBalkans in the early 19th century,[9] and settled part of the area vacated by the Nogais.
The Bulgarians of the region are known asBessarabian Bulgarians, and, like the Gagauzes, are descendants of settlers from the eastern Balkans (today eastern Bulgaria) who moved to the area vacated by the Nogais, in order to escape Muslim domination.
During the same period,Lipovan Russians settled in the area close to the mouth of theDanube river.
Until World War II, the region was also home to a significant number of Jews, a portion of whom were killed inthe Holocaust along with otherBessarabian Jews. Still, Jews remained a sizeable minority in several towns, first of all inBilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyi until mass emigration toIsrael in the 1980s and 1990s. Budjak was the only region within the formerRussian Empire where a significant number ofSephardicLadino-speaking Jews could be found as late as the second half of the 19th century. These Sephardim later assimilated with the majority of local Ashkenazic Jewry, but many retained surnames of either Turkic origin or otherwise suggestive of Sephardic descent.
According to the2001 Ukrainian census, Budjak has a population of 617,200 people, distributed among the ethnic groups as follows: Ukrainians 248,000 (40%), Bulgarians 129,000 (21%), Russians 124,500 (20%), Moldovans 78,300 (13%) and Gagauzians 24,700 (4%).[10] (See also the table below.) Note, that the total population of theOdesa Oblast is, by the2001 Ukrainian Census, 2,469,000.
Although the majority of Russians and Moldovans declared the language of their ethnicity as their mother tongue, only roughly half of Ukrainians did so, while the other half indicated Russian as their native language. The Bulgarians also tend to use Russian more than Bulgarian, especially in public.[citation needed] The above numbers reflect the declared ethnicity, not the native language. The most common spoken language in everyday public use in Budjak is Russian.
Bulgarians are the largest ethnic group in theArtsyz (39%),Bolhrad (61%), andTarutyne (38%)raions (districts, pre-2020), Moldovans – in theReni Raion (50%), Russians – in the city ofIzmail (44%), and Ukrainians – in theKiliia (45%),Tatarbunary (71%),Sarata (44%), andBilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (82%) raions, and in the city ofBilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (63%).
In the Izmail Raion, 29% of the population is Ukrainian, 28% Moldovan, and 26% Bulgarian. Since the previous census in 1989, its Moldovan population increased by 1% relative to the number of Ukrainian and Bulgarians, although the actual number of Moldovans has decreased in absolute terms, yet at a slower rate than that of Ukrainians, Russians and Bulgarians, probably due to the fact that a portion of the non-Moldovan population of the area were relatively recent arrivals from other regions of the formerSoviet Union, and chose to return upon its dissolution.
| Raion (district) or City | Total | Ukrainians | Bessarabian Bulgarians | Russians | Moldovans | Gagauzians | Other ethnic groups2 | Number of settlements3[11] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Artsyz Raion | 51,700 | 14,200 | 20,200 | 11,500 | 3,300 | 900 | 1,600 | 1+0+17(26) |
| Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Raion | 62,300 | 51,000 | 800 | 5,500 | 3,900 | 200 | 900 | 0+0+27(57) |
| Bolhrad Raion | 75,000 | 5,700 | 45,600 | 6,000 | 1,200 | 14,000 | 2,500 | 1+0+18 (21) |
| Izmail Raion | 54,700 | 15,800 | 14,100 | 8,900 | 15,100 | 200 | 600 | 0+1+18 (22) |
| Kiliia Raion | 59,800 | 26,700 | 2,600 | 18,000 | 9,400 | 2,300 | 800 | 1+1+13 (17) |
| Reni Raion | 40,700 | 7,200 | 3,400 | 6,100 | 19,900 | 3,200 | 900 | 1+0+7 (7) |
| Sarata Raion | 49,900 | 21,900 | 10,000 | 7,900 | 9,400 | 200 | 500 | 0+1+22 (37) |
| Tarutyne Raion | 45 200 | 11,100 | 17,000 | 6,300 | 7,500 | 2,700 | 600 | 0+4+23 (28) |
| Tatarbunary Raion | 41,700 | 29,700 | 4,800 | 2,700 | 3,900 | – | 600 | 1+0+18 (35) |
| city ofBilhorod-Dnistrovskyi | 51,100 | 32,200 | 1,900 | 14,400 | 1,000 | 200 | 1,400 | 1+2+0 (0) |
| city ofIzmail | 85,100 | 32,500 | 8,600 | 37,200 | 3,700 | 800 | 2,300 | 1+0+0 (0) |
| Total | 617,2001 | 248,0001 | 129,0001 | 124,5001 | 78,3001,2 | 24,7001 | 12,7001 | 7 cities + 9 towns + 163 incorporated administrations (250 villages) = 266 settlements |
Local and regional authorities do not collect taxes. They are consideredstate institutions of the country at the local level, not institutions of localself-administration.
The Gagauz, a Turkic-Orthodox Christian people, have lived in the Balkans for hundreds of years, managing to preserve their language and culture.
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Dobruja (1878–) |
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Moldavia (1859–)b |
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Transylvania (1918–)ag | |
Wallachia (1859–)b | |
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46°00′00″N29°30′00″E / 46.0000°N 29.5000°E /46.0000; 29.5000
