For the “Bessarabian Cause”: The Activity of Odessa Committee for Saving Bessarabia (1918-1920)
For the “Bessarabian Cause”: The Activity of Odessa Committee for Saving Bessarabia (1918-1920)

Summary/Abstract: The present study aims at reconstructing the activity of the socila-political organization named Odessa Committee for Saving Bessarabia, and evaluating its role it in the context of the changing political status of the region of Bessarabia in the immediate period after World War One. The political, as well economic and social transformations were percieved by the inhabitants of the region in a different way. The former regional elite, which was loyal to the Russian empire, engaged in designing an alternative scenario to that of the nation-state perspective, with the aim of returning Bessarabia back to Russia. Created in April 1918 by the Bessarabians who immediately after the union of Bessarabia wih Romania left the region for Odessa, the Committee mandated a Bessarabian „delegation”, led by Alexandr N. Krupenskii, to Paris, where the Peace conference took place. The goal of the „delegation” was to work hand in hand with Russian political emigrés and diplomats, in order to inform the Great powers as well the European public on the „will” of the Bessarabians to be „liberated” from Romania and reunite with Russia. Besides informing the Bessarabian „delegation” on the state of affairs in the region and gathering facts about the abuse of the Romanian public servants, the Committee acted in order to incite the anti-Romanian spirit inside the region and propagate against the new regime. The former public servants were thus encouraged to refuse service within the new administration, which was viewed as a temporary one; Bessarabia was expected to become again part of „Mother-Russia”.

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