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  The Moldova Region

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Mighty Moldova!

Moldova has punched above it's weight throughout history, responsible for Romania's first Princes, King, Prime Minister, poets, and more, with it's own distinct culture and widly varying borders!

Amazing Moldova has existed in many forms since the 1200s, from a principality under Ottoman, Polish and Russian Rule, to today's Moldova which is actually split between four countries.

Eight of the 19 Moldovan counties are in today's Romania, with most of six in the Republic of Moldova, parts of 3 in Transnistria, and five under Ukrainian rule.   Some of the Ukrainian regions (oblasts) previously in Moldova still have Romanian-speaking populations, up to 93% in some districts. 

Even More Moldovans!

Whilst across the River Prut, there are yet more Moldovans, sequestered behind the increasingly shrill government of the Republic of Moldova, Europe's only remaining Communist Regime, and also Europe's poorest nation.

And they are, according to immigration figures for both legal and illegal flows, a bit envious of their richer Romanian national cousins, and for good reason.

The gentle flowing hills which run the full length of Moldova are smothly cut through with rivers flowing to the south to the Danube.   This makes much of Moldova premium wine country, and the rest of it good for fruit trees, and pastureland.   Moldova was part of the Kingdom of Romania which so ably fed Europe immediately after WWII, and continues to be an agricultural powerhouse to this day.

Some of Romania's richest history hails from Moldova, from the painted monasteries of northern County Neamţ to monumental places of history in the former Romanian capital of Iaşi.

The names of famous Moldovans (moldoveni) grace buildings and statues all across Romania, from Stephen the Great, to Alexander John Cuza, poet Mihai Eminescu  and many more. 

Moldova's hilly interior is bounded in the south and east by the Prut and Şiret rivers, and by the eastern Carpathians to the west.

These hills hold hidden riches from lush wine country to beautiful undulating agricultural plains.

Moldova or Moldavia?

Everyone who lives anywhere in Moldova today, says "Moldova".   The region of Romania is called Moldova by it's native Moldovans ("Moldoveni"), and those in the Republic of Moldova on the other side of the Prut river also call themselves Moldovan.

The name "Moldavia" is the Latin or Romanised form, used most in non-Romanian history texts.  While never an official name of Moldova, and indeed a word not used by Moldovans, Moldavia is used more by English and French speakers, much in the way Bucharest is used to approximate the Romanian spelling, Bucureşti. 

Iaşi, still the capitol of Romanian Moldova today, was known as Jassy to the Saxons, as the final "i" tends to be a bit more pronounced when spoken by a Moldovan.

Moldavia was also the fictional nation where the entire wedding party was shot in well-remembered season finale episode of the American soap-opera Dynasty.  Sadly, the Joan Collins character survived and clearly became a behavioural model for Elena Ceasescu, the wife of Romania's most recent megalomaniac dictator.

What's in a Name?

Moldova as a principality was probably named after its earliest capital, "Târgul Moldovei" (nowadays Baia, Suceava County), a market town on the banks of the Moldova River. Naming a market town after a nearby river located was a common practice in the area.

The Romanian historian Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu, connected the name of the river Moldova with Mulde, a river in Saxony, and Moldau, the German name of the river Vltava in the Czech Republic.

All of these Saxon words derive from the Gothic word for "dust" which is Mulda. It is notable that this would not be the only river in Romania that got its name in connection to the word, as Prahova could be derived from the Slavic equivalent, Prah.

However, predating a Saxon influence, "Mold" also means "mill" in older Thraco-Gaeto-Dacian languages. Given that Dacian and Iazygian legionaries were stationed in that area, it is probable there is a Dacian, Iazygian, and Sarmatian link to the name Moldova, with "ova" being a common suffix for many towns, and "dova" evoking a city or town in Dacian.

In the end, if you referred to a "Moldova" to a Roman of that era,  they could accurately assume you're talking about a place where salt was mined and milled.

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For over 500 years, Moldova was a principality of hilly river country to the east of the Carpathians, along the rivers Siret, Prut and Dniester all running south to the Danube river and the Black Sea.

Before the principality was formed, the Dacian tribes of Moldova were partly Romanised 100AD and after another few hundred years, Moldovans came under the influence of the Sântana de Mureş culture, which originated in the western Baltic, in what is now Sweden and Poland, and also the Ukraine.

Once organisation of principalities began in eastern Europe around the 10th century, Moldova as a cohesive region became organised. 

The Moldovan principality in its greatest extent streched from Transylvania in the west to the Dniester River in the east, but had its nucleus in the northwestern part, the Ţara de Sus ("Upper Land"), which later became known as Bukovina under variously Austrian, Polish and now Ukrainian rule. This area contained Suceava, the capital of the principality from 1359-1565. Iaşi has served as the capital since 1565, remaining as the largest city in Romanian Moldova after the 1859 union with Wallachia. 

The First Moldova

The political entity known as Moldova was founded in the mid-14th century by the Romanian leader Dragoş of Maramureş, who had been ordered by the Hungarian king to establish a defence line for the Kingdom of Hungary against the Tatars.

The Ottomans moved in early in the 1500s, and ruled the principality for the next 300 years until the mid 1700s when Moldova became briefly ruled with Wallachia, then then the Russians moved in in 1774 to annex Bessarabia to the Prut River. 

See our Moldovan History Section for more Info!

Read about the Republic of Moldova Here!

A Great Historical Paper on the Ukraine, Including Moldovan History

Bessarabia:  Romanian Soil

Moldovan History

Triumphal arch, Chisinau

Moldovan Orthodox Church

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