ADMINISTRATION OF BESSARABIA IN THE CONTEXT OF RUSSIAN EXPANSIONIST POLICY IN THE REGION (1812-1917)
ADMINISTRATION OF BESSARABIA IN THE CONTEXT OF RUSSIAN EXPANSIONIST POLICY IN THE REGION (1812-1917)

Author(s): Sergiu Cornea
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Public Administration, Sociology, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: CEEOLPRESS
Keywords: Bessarabia; Russian expansionist policy; administrative system; denationalisation; colonial policy; administrative autonomy; guberniya;
Summary/Abstract: The administrative system of Bessarabia was a docile instrument for realizing the Russian expansionist policy in the region. The denationalization and discrediting of the national administration system, the disregard for local administrative institutions and practices, and the defamation of Moldovan legal norms were constant concerns of the Russian administrative authorities. The administrative policy implemented in Bessarabia was closely linked to, and influenced by, the developments and trends of Russia’s internal and external policy. Emerging from the concrete historical conditions of the moment and the expected expansionist objectives, tsarism became aware that the exercise of colonial policy toward annexed peoples required the application of more subtle methods, different from those used in the central regions of the Russian Empire. The expansionist interests of the Empire largely determined the administrative policy promoted in Bessarabia, as well as the process of its administrative organization: from the granting of provisional administrative autonomy in the first years of Russian occupation to its transformation into a Russian guberniya.

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