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| ==Population and Demographics== | ==Population and Demographics== | ||
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| In ] ] (district) (Suliţa Nouă) Romanians comprise 60% of the population and in ] (Adâncata) district they represent 50%. ] (Storojineţ) district has a compact Romanian population in the south around the village of ]. | In ] ] (district) (Suliţa Nouă) Romanians comprise 60% of the population and in ] (Adâncata) district they represent 50%. ] (Storojineţ) district has a compact Romanian population in the south around the village of ]. | ||
| Romanian organizations inside {{fact}} and outside Northern Bukovina express their dissatisfaction with the very existence of the separate classification of ] as an ethnic minority counted separately from ] and cite the old ] practices as well as the modern ] policies of the ] as the reasons behind such classification. Additionally, the fact that some ethnical groups or subgroups such as ], ] and others formerly counted separately are now all counted as Ukrainians is sometimes cited as the census flaw, especially in view that many scholars still consider ] a separate ethnicity with their own language, called the ]. However, no challenges have been raised to the fact that the census respondents were free to choose their ethnicity within the offered to them choices as they wished or not to respond at all. Thus, while the wording of the census questions are sometimes subject to criticism, the fact that the census official results adequately reflect the answers freely given my the respondents is not challenged. | Romanian organizations inside {{fact}} and outside Northern Bukovina express their dissatisfaction with the very existence of the separate classification of ] as an ethnic minority counted separately from ] and cite the old ] practices as well as the modern ] policies of the ] as the reasons behind such classification{{dubious}}. Additionally, the fact that some ethnical groups or subgroups such as ], ] and others formerly counted separately{{fact}} are now all counted as Ukrainians is sometimes cited as the census flaw, especially in view that many{{fact}} scholars still consider ] a separate ethnicity with their own language, called the ].{{dubious}} However, no challenges have been raised to the fact that the census respondents were free to choose their ethnicity within the offered to them choices as they wished or not to respond at all. Thus, while the wording of the census questions are sometimes subject to criticism, the fact that the census official results adequately reflect the answers freely given my the respondents is not challenged. | ||
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Revision as of 19:16, 15 January 2006
| Chernivets'ka Oblast' Чернівецька область | |
|---|---|
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| Population Total (2004) Density Urban |
913,275 113/km² 40.8% |
| Area | 8,100 km² |
| Raions | 11 |
| Cities | 11 |
| City districts | 3 |
| Urban localities | 8 |
| Villages | 398 |
Chernivtsi Oblast (Template:Lang-uk, Chernivets’ka oblast’, Regiunea Cernăuţi in Romanian) is an oblast (province) in southwestern Ukraine, bordering on Romania and Moldova. It has a large variety of landforms: the Carpathian Mountains and picturesque hills at the foot of the mountains gradually change to a broad plain situated between the Dniester and Prut rivers. Its capital city is Chernivtsi.
Geography
The oblast, most part of which known by its ethnographic name Northern Bukovina, was created in 1940 (after being detached from Romania and attached to the Soviet Union, as an outcome of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). It has a population (as of 2004-05-01) of 913,275 (with an important Romanian minority) and spans 8,100 km².
Geographically/historically, the region is composed of northern Bukovina, northern half of the Khotin (Hotin) county of Bessarabia, and the Hertsa Raion (Herţa district), which prior to 1940 was part of the Dorohoi (presently Botoşani) county of Romania.
History
Northern Bukovina, together with the southern Bukovina (most of the Suceava county in Romania), was ceded to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1775, when a portion of the Ottoman Empire's Balkan possession, the Principality of Moldavia, was carved out and granted, under the provisions of the Treaty of Constantinople, to the Austrian Empire, as part of the Habsburg hereditary lands. Bukovina was at first a closed Austrian military district, and following the Josephine reforms, was administered as the largest circle within the Habsburg constituent kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. Following the 1848 Revolution, it became a separate Austrian duchy and crown land within the Empire. After the Compromise of 1867, when the Austrian Empire was reorganised into the Cisleithania (Austrian) and Transleithania (Hungarian), Bukovina was allotted to the Austrian portion of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. At the disintegration of Austro-Hungary in 1918, General Congress of Bukovina, a local Romanians-dominated legislative body passed in Chernivtsi a decision of "an indissoluble union with the Kingdom of Romania", which was switftly used by Romania to send in the troops and occupy the area.
On June 28, 1940, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and Soviet Ultimatum Romania ceded Bessarabia, northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. Hertza region not included in the ultimatum was occupied by the Soviet Union at the same time. The Soviet take-over of Northern Bukovina was motivated as compensation of the belongings of Bessarabia to Romania from 1918 to 1940.
On August 2 1940, out of some of the territories occupied on June 28, Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was formed, the 15th Soviet republic. The remainder of the territories were included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - the northern part formed the Chernivtsi Oblast, the southern part was included in the Odessa Oblast.
Unlike the Bessarabian population that was somewhat accustomed to Russian rule as it was part of the Russian Empire before 1918, the Bukovinian population has never been expecting Russian annexation, and staged many protests, without realising that that could provoke serious Soviet reprisals. In the winter and spring of 1941, the Soviet troops (NKVD) opened fire on many groups of locals trying to cross the border into Romania (for more, see: Fântâna-Albă massacre).
Between September 17 and November 17 1940, by a mutual agreement between USSR and Germany, 43,641 "ethnic Germans" from the Chernivtsi region were moved to Germany. As the total ethnic German population was however only 34,500, and as even of these, some 3,500 did not go to Germany, the obvious numerical discrepancy is accounted for by the inclusion of Romanians, Ukrainians and Poles within the numbers that the local German organisers had classed among the ethnic "Germans". Many of these were probably partners in ethnically-mixed marriages in which one partner or parent was truly an ethnic German and the other was not. Upon their arrival the Nazi government sent over half of those surplus to the correct number of ethnic Germans to concentration camps. Only some were freed after the protests of the Romanian government.
Throughout 1940-1941 several tens of thousands of Bukovinians were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan, of which some 13,000 alone on June 13 1941; without regard for their ethnicity. In 1944, when the Soviet troops returned to Bukovina, many inhabitants fled to Romania, with the result that the region was seriously depopulated. In demographic terms, these war-time factors changed in the region's ethnic composition. In 1940, there was roughly a ration of 6:4:2:1:1 Ukrainians:Romanians:Jews:Germans:Poles. Today the number of Jews, Germans and Poles is statistically insignificant, while the number of Romanians has decreased substantially, and many are themselves immigrants (or their descendants) who arrived from eastern Ukraine and Russia itself. Even today, many ethnic Romanians/Moldavians remain officially registered as Russian or Ukrainian, a legacy caused by the ethnic classification practices of the former USSR.
There was always a significant Ukrainian minority in Bukovina overall, mostly settled in the northern portion of Bukovina where they were locally in a relative majority. In 1775, Ukrainians (Ruthenians) and Poles in Bukovina (including the south) taken together numbered some 10,000 (out of a total populace of 75,000). In 1918, as a result of migration from Galicia, there were approximately 200,000 Ukrainians alone, out of a total of 730,000 (again, including the southern Bukovina, where there were fewer Ukrainians).
The ethnic Ukrainians in the south-western mountain area of the Chernivtsi region belong to the Hutsul ethnic group, and inhabit an area in the Carpathian Mountains from the Bukovinian town of Putila, extending across the Ceremus River in southern Pocutia (southern part of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast) until the northern Maramures town of Bychkiv (Zakarpattya (Transcarpathian) region).
Population and Demographics
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The data of Romanian 1940 census should be treated with caution since for over 20 years preceeding the census the policies of Rumanization of ethnic minorites, mostly Ukrainians (or Ruthenians as they were called at the time), were fiercely pursued by nationalist Romanian authorities. The policies not only brought the closures of Ukrainian public schools (all such schools were closed by 1928) but also the suppression of all Ukrainian (Ruthenian) cultural institutuions. The very term "Ukrainians" was prohibited from the official usage and ethnic Ukrainians were rather called the "citizens of Romania who forgot their native language". As such, according to the Romanian census, of the the total population of 805,000 74% were called Romanians which inslude the Ukrainian and other people referred to as "Romanians who forgot their native-languge".
In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet takeover (1940) and during the Second World War, major demographic changes occurred. Most Poles were deported by the Soviet authorities, while most Germans returned to Germany.
Under the Romanian occupation during the war the Jewish community of the area was destroyed by the deportations to the death camps. The Soviet government deported or killed about 41.000 Romanians while at the same time further encouraging an influx of Ukrainians from the Ukrainian SSR.
According to the 2001 Ukrainian population census data , the Ukrainians represent about 75% (689.1 thousand) of the population of the region. The census also identified a fall in the Romanian and Moldovan populations to 12.5% (114.6 thousand) and 7.3% (67.2 thousand), respectively. Russians are the next largest ethnic group with 4.1%, while Poles, Belarusians, and Jews comprise the rest. The languages of the population closely reflect the ethnic composition with over 90% within each of the major ethnic groups declaring their national language as the mother tongue (Ukrainian, Romanian, Moldovan and Russian, respectively).
The bulk of the Russian minority (estimated at around 6%) lives in the city of Chernivtsi (Template:Lang-ru). The same is true for the 1.5% of the population who indentify themselves as Jewish and the 0.5% Poles.
In the Herta district, the Romanian population is over 95%, while in the city of Chernivtsi (Cernauti), 14 400 or 6% of the 250 000 total are Romanians, the rest being mostly Ukrainians (80%) and Russians (11%).
In Novoselitsa raion (district) (Suliţa Nouă) Romanians comprise 60% of the population and in Hlyboka (Adâncata) district they represent 50%. Storozhinetz (Storojineţ) district has a compact Romanian population in the south around the village of Crasna.
Romanian organizations inside and outside Northern Bukovina express their dissatisfaction with the very existence of the separate classification of Moldovans as an ethnic minority counted separately from Romanians and cite the old Soviet practices as well as the modern Ukrainization policies of the Ukrainian state as the reasons behind such classification. Additionally, the fact that some ethnical groups or subgroups such as Rusyns, Hutsuls and others formerly counted separately are now all counted as Ukrainians is sometimes cited as the census flaw, especially in view that many scholars still consider Rusyns a separate ethnicity with their own language, called the Rusyn. However, no challenges have been raised to the fact that the census respondents were free to choose their ethnicity within the offered to them choices as they wished or not to respond at all. Thus, while the wording of the census questions are sometimes subject to criticism, the fact that the census official results adequately reflect the answers freely given my the respondents is not challenged. Template:Oblasti
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