Abstract:
Question regarding the exodus of the population from Bessarabia to Principality of Moldova in the first years after its annexation to the Russian Empire has not been investigated in historiography, although many historians have ascertained that exodus, but without trying to investigate problems related to emigration as a social phenomenon and, based on archival documents, to attempt to solve them. In this study the author, based on new unpublished archival documents, highlights and discusses only the most important aspects of this phenomenon: 1. presence of exodus as a social phenomenon in Bessarabia in the early years after its annexation to the Russian Empire; 2. factors that caused the exodus; 3. ways and means of population fleeing from Bessarabia over the Prut River; 4. measures taken by regional and imperial administration to stop the exodus; 5. relations between imperial and regional administration of Bessarabia and the Moldavian prince to return fugitives; 6. measures of punishment of the fugitives that were caught at the border of Bessarabia and those the Moldovan government returned to Bessarabia etc.. The author finds that the exodus of population from Bessarabia to the right side of the Prut is explained by the extremely depressed state of the population, caused by Russian military occupation in previous years, especially during the Russian-Turkish wars of 1806-1812, 1828-1829, by economic ruin of the peasants, the overgrowth of taxes and by the fact that this population had lost confidence in local and regional administration to assuage their sufferings.
