Abstract:
In the present study, on the basis of a rich archive material, the author analyzes
the land disputes between Moldavian monasteries and Bessarabian landowners in the
first decades after annexation, based on an example of the transaction concluded by
the landowners Leon and Tomuleţ with the monastery of St. Ioan Zlatoust from Iasi.
The author ascertains that the transaction has in fact led to a long dispute between
the parties who have concluded the exchange, which lasted until the end of the 1820s,
with adverse effects both for the St. Ioan Zlatoust monastery in Iasi and Tomuleţ and
Leon landowners, as well as for the inhabitants of Lăpuşna, especially for those who
lived in the hearth of the former fair, which at the beginning of the 19th century fell to
a state of a village, as well as for some people who risked, due to the dispute between
the two parties, to lease the estate’s income, etc.
The changes occurred in regard to the owners of the Lapusna estate practically
did not solve the dispute with the inhabitants, but even aggravated it, advancing from
disputes in the courts of law, to direct confrontation, which led some scholars to be-
lieve that these events preceded with a decade the similar processes that carried out
in Moldova in 1831.
