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Bessarabia

Bessarabia is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coastal region and part of the Ukrainian Chernivtsi Oblast covering a small area in the north.

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812), and the ensuing Peace of Bucharest, the eastern parts of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal, along with some areas formerly under direct Ottoman rule, were ceded to Imperial Russia. The acquisition was among the Russian Empire's last territorial acquisitions in Europe. The newly acquired territories were organised as the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, adopting a name previously used for the southern plains between the Dniester and the Danube rivers. Following the Crimean War, in 1856, the southern areas of Bessarabia were returned to Moldavian rule; Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878, when Romania, the result of Moldavia's union with Wallachia, was pressured into exchanging those territories for the Dobruja.

In 1917, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the area constituted itself as the Moldavian Democratic Republic, an autonomous republic part of a proposed federative Russian state. Bolshevik agitation in late 1917 and early 1918 resulted in the intervention of the Romanian Army, ostensibly to pacify the region. Soon after, the parliamentary assembly declared independence, and then union with the Kingdom of Romania. However, the legality of these acts was disputed, most prominently by the Soviet Union, which regarded the area as a territory occupied by Romania.

In 1940, after securing the assent of Nazi Germany through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union pressured Romania, under threat of war, into withdrawing from Bessarabia, allowing the Red Army to enter and the Soviet Union to annex the region. The area was formally integrated into the Soviet Union: the core joined parts of the Moldavian ASSR to form the Moldavian SSR, while territories in the north and the south of Bessarabia were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. Axis-aligned Romania recaptured the region in 1941 with the success of Operation München during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, but lost it in 1944 as the tide of war turned. In 1947, the Soviet-Romanian border along the Prut was internationally recognised by the Paris Treaty that ended World War II.

During the process of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldavian and Ukrainian SSRs proclaimed their independence in 1991, becoming the modern states of Moldova and Ukraine while preserving the existing partition of Bessarabia. Following a short war in the early 1990s, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic was proclaimed in the Transnistria, extending its authority also over the municipality of Bender on the right bank of Dniester river. Part of the Gagauz-inhabited areas in southern Bessarabia was organised in 1994 as an autonomous region within Moldova.

Name
According to the traditional explanation, the name Bessarabia (Basarabia in Romanian) derives from the Wallachian Basarab dynasty, who allegedly ruled over the southern part of the area in the 14th century. However, some scholars question this, arguing that:
 * the name was initially an exonym applied by Western cartographers
 * it was first used in local sources only in the late 17th century;
 * the idea that it referred to Moldavian regions near the Black Sea was explicitly rejected as a cartographic confusion by the early Moldavian chronicler Miron Costin, and;
 * the confusion may have been caused by medieval Western cartographers, misinterpreting contemporaneous Polish references to Wallachia as Bessarabia as referring to a separate land between Wallachia and Moldavia.

According to Dimitrie Cantemir, the name Bessarabia originally applied only to the part of the territory south of the Upper Trajanic Wall, i.e. an area only slightly larger than present-day Budjak.

Geography
The region is bounded by the Dniester to the north and east, the Prut to the west, and the lower River Danube and Black Sea to the south. It has an area of 45,630 km2. The area is mostly hilly plains and flat steppes. It is very fertile and has lignite deposits and stone quarries. People living in the area grow sugar beet, sunflower, wheat, maize, tobacco, wine grapes, and fruit. They raise sheep and cattle. The main industry in the region is agricultural processing.

The main Bessarabian cities are Chișinău, the former capital of the Russian Bessarabia Governorate, now capital of Moldova; Bălți, on the river Răut, often dubbed the "Northern capital" of Moldova; Bender/Tighina, on the Dniester, currently controlled by the unrecognized Russian-backed separatist region of Transnistria; Izmail, in the southwest corner of Ukraine on the Danube; and Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyi, historically known as Cetatea Albă or Akkerman, also in southwestern Ukraine near Odesa. Other towns of administrative or historical importance include Cahul, Soroca, Orhei, Ungheni and Comrat, all now in Moldova; and Khotyn, Kilia, Reni and Bolhrad, all now in Ukraine.

History
In the late 14th century, the newly established Principality of Moldavia encompassed what later became known as Bessarabia. Afterward, this territory was directly or indirectly, partly or wholly controlled by: the Ottoman Empire (as suzerain of Moldavia, with direct rule only in Budjak and Khotyn), the Russian Empire, Romania, the USSR. Since 1991, most of the territory forms the core of Moldova, with smaller parts in Ukraine.

Prehistory
People have inhabited the territory of Bessarabia for thousands of years. Cucuteni–Trypillia culture flourished between the 6th and 3rd millennium BC.

Ancient times
In Antiquity the region was inhabited by Thracians, as well as for shorter periods by Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, and Celts, specifically by tribes such as the Costoboci, Carpi, Britogali, Tyragetae, and Bastarnae. In the 6th century BC, Greek settlers established the colony of Tyras along the Black Sea coast and traded with the locals. Celts also settled in the southern parts of Bessarabia, their main city being Aliobrix.

The first polity that is believed to have included the whole of Bessarabia was the Dacian polity of Burebista in the 1st century BC. After his death, the polity was divided into smaller pieces, and the central parts were unified in the Dacian kingdom of Decebalus in the 1st century AD. This kingdom was defeated by the Roman Empire in 106. Southern Bessarabia was included in the empire even before that, in 57 AD, as part of the Roman province Moesia Inferior, but it was secured only when the Dacian Kingdom was defeated in 106. The Romans built defensive earthen walls in Southern Bessarabia (e.g. Lower Trajan Wall) to defend the Scythia Minor province against invasions. Except for the Black Sea shore in the south, Bessarabia remained outside direct Roman control; the myriad of tribes there are called by modern historians Free Dacians. The 2nd to the 5th centuries also saw the development of the Chernyakhov culture.

In 270, the Roman authorities began to withdraw their forces south of the Danube, especially from the Roman Dacia, due to the invading Goths and Carpi. The Goths, a Germanic tribe, poured into the Roman Empire from the lower Dniepr River, through the southern part of Bessarabia (Budjak steppe), which due to its geographic position and characteristics (mainly steppe), was swept by various nomadic tribes for many centuries. In 378, the area was overrun by the Huns.

Early Middle Ages
From the 3rd century until the 11th century, the region was invaded numerous times in turn by different tribes: Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans and Mongols. The territory of Bessarabia was encompassed in dozens of ephemeral kingdoms which were disbanded when another wave of migrants arrived. Those centuries were characterized by a terrible state of insecurity and mass movement of these tribes. The period was later known as the Dark Ages of Europe, or age of migrations.

In 561, the Avars captured Bessarabia and executed the local ruler Mesamer. Following the Avars, Slavs arrived in the region and established settlements. Then, in 582, Onogur Bulgars settled in southeastern Bessarabia and northern Dobruja, from which they moved to Moesia Inferior (allegedly under pressure from the Khazars), and formed the nascent region of Bulgaria. With the rise of the Khazars' state in the east, the invasions began to diminish and it was possible to create larger states. According to some opinions, the southern part of Bessarabia remained under the influence of the First Bulgarian Empire until the end of the 9th century.

Between the 8th and 10th centuries, the southern part of Bessarabia was inhabited by people from the Balkan-Danubian culture (the culture of the First Bulgarian Empire). Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Bessarabia is mentioned in Slav chronicles as part of Bolohoveni (north) and Brodnici (south) voivodeships, believed to be Vlach principalities of the early Middle Ages.

The last large-scale invasions were those of the Mongols of 1241, 1290, and 1343. Sehr al-Jedid (near Orhei), an important settlement of the Golden Horde, dates from this period. They led to a retreat of a big part of the population to the mountainous areas in Eastern Carpathians and to Transylvania. The population east of Prut became especially low at the time of the Tatar invasions.

In the Late Middle Age, chronicles mention a Tigheci "republic", predating the establishment of the Principality of Moldavia, situated near the modern town of Cahul in the southwest of Bessarabia, preserving its autonomy even during the later Principality even into the 18th century. Genovese merchants rebuilt or established a number of forts along the Dniester (notably Moncastro) and Danube (including Kyliya/Chilia-Licostomo).

Principality of Moldavia
After the 1360s, the region was gradually included in the principality of Moldavia, which by 1392 established control over the fortresses of Akkerman and Chilia, its eastern border becoming the River Dniester. Based on the name of the region, some authors consider that in the latter part of the 14th century the southern part of the region was under the rule of Wallachia (the ruling dynasty of Wallachia during that period was called Basarab). In the 15th century, the entire region was a part of the principality of Moldavia. Stephen the Great ruled between 1457 and 1504, a period of nearly 50 years during which he won 32 battles defending his country against virtually all his neighbours (mainly the Ottomans and the Tatars, but also the Hungarians and the Poles) while losing only two. During this period, after each victory, he raised a monastery or a church close to the battlefield honoring Christianity. Many of these battlefields and churches, as well as old fortresses, are situated in Bessarabia (mainly along Dniester).

In 1484, the Ottoman Empire invaded and captured Chilia and Cetatea Albă (Akkerman in Turkish), and annexed the shoreline southern part of Bessarabia, which was then divided into two sanjaks (districts) of the Ottoman Empire. In 1538, the Ottomans annexed more Bessarabian land in the south as far as Tighina, while the central and northern Bessarabia remained part of the Principality of Moldavia (which became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire). Between 1711 and 1812, the Russian Empire occupied the region five times during its wars against the Ottoman and Austrian Empires.

Annexation by the Russian Empire
By the Treaty of Bucharest of May 28, 1812—concluding the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812—the Ottoman Empire ceded the land between the Pruth and the Dniester, including both Moldavian and Turkish territories, to the Russian Empire. That entire region was then called Bessarabia.

In 1814, the first German settlers arrived and mainly settled in the southern parts, and Bessarabian Bulgarians began settling in the region too, founding towns such as Bolhrad. Between 1812 and 1846, the Bulgarian and Gagauz population migrated to the Russian Empire via the River Danube, after living many years under oppressive Ottoman rule, and settled in southern Bessarabia. Turkic-speaking tribes of the Nogai horde also inhabited the Budjak Region (in Turkish Bucak) of southern Bessarabia from the 16th to 18th centuries but were totally driven out prior to 1812.

Administratively, Bessarabia became an oblast of the Russian Empire in 1818, and a guberniya in 1873.

The Treaty of Adrianople, which concluded the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, stated that the entire Danube Delta would be ceded to the Bessarabian oblast. According to Vasile Stoica, emissary of the Romanian government to the United States, in 1834, Romanian was banned from schools and government facilities, despite 80% of the population speaking the language. This later lead to the banning of Romanian in churches, media, and books. According to the same author, those who protested the banning of Romanian could be sent to Siberia.

Southern Bessarabia returned to Moldavia
At the end of the Crimean War, in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, Southern Bessarabia (organised as the Cahul and Ismail counties, with the Bolgrad county split from the latter in 1864) was returned to Moldavia, causing the Russian Empire to lose access to the Danube river.

In 1859, Moldavia and Wallachia united to form the Romanian United Principalities (Romania), which included the southern part of Bessarabia.

The railway Chișinău-Iași was opened on June 1, 1875, in preparation for the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and the Eiffel Bridge was opened on April 21 1877, just three days before the outbreak of the war. The Romanian War of Independence was fought in 1877–78, with the help of the Russian Empire as an ally. Northern Dobruja was awarded to Romania for its role in the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War, and as compensation for the transfer of Southern Bessarabia.

Early 20th century
The Kishinev pogrom took place in the capital of Bessarabia on April 6, 1903, after local newspapers published articles inciting the public to act against Jews; 47 or 49 Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded and 700 houses destroyed. The anti-Semitic newspaper Бессарабец (Bessarabetz, meaning "Bessarabian"), published by Pavel Krushevan, insinuated that local Jews killed a Russian boy. Another newspaper, Свет (Lat. Svet, meaning "World" or Russian for "Light"), used the age-old blood libel against the Jews (alleging that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzos).

After the 1905 Russian Revolution, a Romanian nationalist movement started to develop in Bessarabia. In the chaos brought by the Russian revolution of October 1917, a National Council (Sfatul Țării) was established in Bessarabia, with 120 members elected from Bessarabia by some political and professional organizations and 10 elected from Transnistria (the left bank of Dniester where Romanians accounted for half of the population, the rest being Russians and Ukrainians. See Demographics of Transnistria).

The Rumcherod Committee (Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Romanian Front, Black Sea Fleet and Odesa Military District) proclaimed itself the supreme power in Bessarabia.

On the pretext of securing supply lines against raids by Bolsheviks and armed bandits, members of the Moldavian legislative council Sfatul Țării and the Entente Powers requested military assistance from Romania, and the Romanian Army crossed the republic's border on January 23 1918;  following several skirmishes with Moldovan and Bolshevik troops, the occupation of the whole region was completed in early March. The occupation of Bessarabia by the Romanians was not universally welcomed, and the members of the Bessarabian government denied that the Romanian troops had ever been invited to occupy the republic.

After Ukraine issued its Fourth Universal, breaking ties with Bolshevik Russia and proclaiming a sovereign Ukrainian state, Sfatul Țării declared Bessarabia's independence on February 6 1918, as the Moldavian Democratic Republic.

Unification with Romania
On March 5 [O.S. 20 February] 1918, in a secret agreement signed along the Treaty of Buftea, the German Empire allowed Romania to annex Bessarabia in exchange for free passage of German troops toward Ukraine. The county councils of Bălți, Soroca and Orhei were the earliest to ask for unification of the Moldavian Democratic Republic with the Kingdom of Romania, and on April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918, in the presence of the Romanian Army, The Country Council, called "Sfatul Țării", voted in favour of the union, with the following conditions:

 * 1) The Country Council would undertake an agrarian reform, which the Romanian Government would accept.
 * 2) Bessarabia would remain autonomous, with its own diet, the Country Council, elected democratically
 * 3) The Country Council would vote for local budgets, control the councils of the zemstva and cities, and appoint the local administration
 * 4) Conscription would be done on a territorial basis
 * 5) Local laws and the form of administration could be changed only with the approval of local representatives
 * 6) The rights of minorities had to be respected
 * 7) Two Bessarabian representatives would be part of the Romanian government
 * 8) Bessarabia would send to the Romanian Parliament a number of representatives equal to the proportion of its population
 * 9) All elections must involve a direct, equal, secret, and universal vote
 * 10) Freedom of speech and of belief must be guaranteed in the constitution
 * 11) All individuals who had committed felonies for political reasons during the revolution would be amnestied.

86 deputies voted in support, three voted against and 36 abstained. The Romanian prime minister at the time, Alexandru Marghiloman, would later admit that the union was decided in Bucharest and Iași, the seats of the Romanian government.

The first condition, the agrarian reform, was debated and approved in November 1918. The Country Council also decided to remove the other conditions and made unification with Romania unconditional. The legality of this vote was considered highly debatable since the meeting had not been publicly announced, there was no quorum (only 44 of the 125 members took part in it, mostly Moldavian conservatives), and then the Country Council voted for its self-dissolution, preventing the protests of the Moldavians and minorities members who had not participated in the parliamentary session from being taken into account.

In the autumn of 1919, elections for the Romanian Constituent Assembly were held in Bessarabia; 90 deputies and 35 senators were chosen. On December 20, 1919, these men voted, along with the representatives of Romania's other regions, to ratify the unification acts that had been approved by the Country Council and the National Congresses in Transylvania and Bukovina.

The union was recognized by France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan in the Treaty of Paris of 1920. However, the treaty never came into force, as Japan did not ratify it. The United States refused to sign the treaty on the grounds that Russia was not represented at the Conference. The US also considered Bessarabia a territory under Romanian occupation, rather than Romanian territory, despite existing political and economic relations between the US and Romania. Soviet Russia (and later, the USSR) did not recognize the union, and by 1924, after its demands for a regional plebiscite were declined by Romania for the second time, declared Bessarabia to be Soviet territory under foreign occupation. On all Soviet maps, Bessarabia was highlighted as a territory not belonging to Romania.

Aftermath
A Provisional Workers' & Peasants' Government of Bessarabia was founded on May 5, 1919, in exile at Odesa, by the Bolsheviks.

On May 11, 1919, the Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed as an autonomous part of Russian SFSR, but was abolished by the military forces of Poland and France in September 1919 (see Polish–Soviet War). After the victory of Bolshevist Russia in the Russian Civil War, the Ukrainian SSR was created in 1922, and in 1924 the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established on a strip of Ukrainian land on the west bank of Dniester where Moldovans and Romanians accounted for less than a third and the relative majority of the population was Ukrainian. (See Demographics of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic).

Historiography
Svetlana Suveică considers that historical discourse regarding interwar Bessarabia was heavily influenced by the political association of the authors, and sought mainly to argue for or against the legality of Romanian rule in Bessarabia. The impact of the various reforms on the progress of the province was mostly ignored.

Romanian historiography, for the most part, consistently sought to demonstrate the legitimacy of the regime established after the Union of Bessarabia with Romania. During the interwar period, Romanian historians countered Soviet historians' description of it as the establishment of an "occupation regime". The agrarian reform, considered one of the most radical in Europe (an idea also supported by Western historians), was appreciated as having a positive role, emphasizing the national emancipation of the Romanian peasantry, while the modernization of agriculture was presented as a complex phenomenon, which also required further mechanism to support the new owner. However, agriculture was ignored by the state, and the new owners were greatly affected by the lack of credit, Romanian authors of the time suggested various ways this situation could have been overcome. Ultimately, as the state failed to create an adequate agricultural policy, by the end of the 1920 authors were hoping progress could be made through private initiative. Romanian authors also paid particular attention to the unification of administrative legislation, norms, and principles of administrative law, as well as their application in Romanian practice. The institute of the zemstvo was regarded by some of them as the most democratic form of government, and its dissolution by the Romanian authorities was deplored; authors such as Onisifor Ghibu expressed a critical view on the relation between Romanian administrative personnel from outside Bessarabia and the locals, as well as the general structure of the administrative corps.

During the Communist period, Romanian historians initially treated the reforms applied after World War I mainly from social class perspectives. Starting with the 1960s, the first studies that mentioned the existence of a "Bessarabian historical problem" appeared. From the second half of the 1970s, studies on the agrarian reform considered that while this led to a "natural and rational distribution of agricultural property", it also led to fragmentation of agricultural land. This made the practice of intensive agriculture difficult, since peasants had reduced opportunity to purchase agricultural equipment. Towards the end of the Communist period, the two interwar concepts of development and modernization were re-embraced.

After the fall of Communism, Romanian historiography treated Bessarabia mainly in the context of Romanian nation-building, seen as the main issue affecting Greater Romania; authors focused mainly on issues related to the general and specific context of Bessarabia after the Union, the state's efforts for social-political and economic integration, and cultural development of Bessarabia. The internal and external factors that determined the specifics of the province's integration into the Romanian common framework are also of interest. Romanian authors mainly blamed the lasting effects of Russian domination and the destabilizing role of Soviet Russia (USSR) for the malfunctioning of the Romanian administration, with some also pointing to the difficult and non-uniform character of the integration generated by the non-uniform character of the development of the provinces until 1918, of a different degree of their adaptability to the new conditions. The modernization interwar period is also seen as the third phase of a continuous process, begun in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and brutally interrupted by the establishment of Communism. In this context, some authors consider the comparative studies of the interwar and post-Communist periods in different fields as particularly current.

Soviet historiography considered the changes that took place in interwar Bessarabia expressed were directed either towards strengthening the political, economical, and social position of the bourgeoisie, to the detriment of the peasantry, or towards creating a favourable position for the Romanian population, to the detriment of the national minorities; Soviet authors thus reportedly rejected the notion that any modernization and progress took place in the region during Romanian rule. The transformations that took place on different levels of the Bessarabian society at that time were treated from a social class and/or ethnopolitical positions; Svetlana Suveică states "the writings from the Soviet period, directly determined by the interference of politics in historical science, alternated the ideas regarding the "Moldovan" nation and the national identity, with severe condemnations of the Romanian interwar period". In Suveică's opinion, the conception of Soviet historiography was based on distorted facts that would serve as "indisputable arguments" for the establishment of an illegal "occupation" regime. According to Wim P. van Meurs "the legitimation of the political regime has been the main function of (the Soviet) historiography and such a legitimation has usually been based on a number of historical myths". The discussion of the social-economic and politico-administrative situation in the region was also closely related to the Romanian-Soviet conflictual relations of the 1960s and 1970s, during which both communist countries treated the Bessarabian problem for political purposes.

The presence of the ideological factor in writing the history of Bessarabia was manifested itself not only at the central level, but also at the level of the historiography of Soviet Moldavia. It was not until the second half of the '80s that the Moldovan historiography raised the issue of the Soviet political and ideological pressures.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldovan historiography, largely marked by the public identity discourse, deals with the problems of the interwar Bessarabian history, depending on the context. On the one hand, the supporters of the idea of Moldovan statehood reject the option of modernization and progress of Bessarabia after the Union with Romania while, on the other hand, the historians who, starting from the idea of the Romanian character of Bessarabia, and using new sources, "contribute to the in-depth knowledge of the integrating and modernizing processes that marked the history of the (Bessarabian) land in the interwar period". This ongoing controversy highlights the two antagonistic geopolitical tendencies present in the contemporary Moldovan historiography: the pro-East current versus the pro-West current.

The Western historiography pointed out that the reforms at the beginning of Romania's rule were mainly directed at easing the social tensions existing across Eastern Europe and were, therefore, similar to the ones taking place elsewhere in the region. In the case of the agrarian reform, G. Clenton Logio states that the Romanians were pressed into legislating it, as expropriation had begun before the Union and there was the danger that Bessarabians would undo this act; he notes that no planning took place regarding the effects of the reform and the problems of the peasantry were ignored, transforming the latter in "a numerous and profitable mass of clients for the banks". According to the analysis Western authors, the reform only changed the distribution of the land, and not agricultural policies; as a result of the economical and social policies of the Romanian governments, small and medium-sized farms remained unprofitable, while the large farms not affected by the reform also lost their economic role. Western authors also criticized the administrative corps of Bessarabia - "an unstable and corrupt stratum" - observing that transfer of administrative personnel from Romania to Bessarabia was regarded as a severe punishment, and the clerks affected generally sought personal enrichment; the local administration was also considered rigid and unwilling to reform. In general, Western historiography analyzed the modernization of Bessarabia in a general Romanian context in relation to the previous Russian period, as well as the uneven and not so fast modernization process, determined by both internal and external factors.

Overview
According to Vladimir Solonar and Vladimir Bruter, Bessarabia under Romanian rule experienced low population growth due to high mortality (highest in Romania and one of the highest in Europe) as well as emigration; Bessarabia was also characterized by economic stagnation and high unemployment. Access to social services declined after the abolition of the zemstvos in the early 1920s, as these had previously provided local autonomy in managing education and public health. In the late 1930s, the Bessarabian population had among the highest incidences of several major infectious diseases and some of the highest mortality rates from these diseases.

According to Dan Dungaciu, the only European modernization process of Bessarabia was carried out during the Romanian interwar period, despite the all unfavorable domestic and international conditions (post-war recession, actions backed by the Soviet Union, worldwide Great Depression). Gheorghe Duca considers that, in terms of science, economy, art, political and social life, Bessarabia made considerable progress in the interwar period.

Nicolae Enciu appreciates that, through the political, social-economic, and cultural modernization, the interwar period meant a progress of the Romanian society, with beneficial effects in all its historical regions. At the same time, the interwar period also experienced failures, being too short to be able to produce radical transformations, in order to reduce the economic and social polarization.

Politics
According to Wim P. van Meurs, after 1918 Bessarabia remained for a long time in a state of emergency, under a military administration, due to border incidents and agitation among the peasantry and the minorities. Strict censorship was imposed in order to restrain Bolshevik propaganda. Three major revolts or Soviet raids took place in the province during the first decade of Romanian rule. In January 1919, local peasants, with support from across the Dniester, rebelled against the Romanian army in the area of Hotin. A similar uprising took place later that year in Tighina. While in the first case Soviet participation is not documented, the latter was probably a Soviet raid, though van Meurs indicates it was most likely a local initiative not coordinated with the central government in Moscow. The longest-lasting rebellion took place for several weeks in 1924 in the area of Tatarbunary when the local population was instigated by agitators from the Soviet Union and proclaimed a Bessarabian Soviet Republic. In all cases, the rebellions were brutally suppressed by the Romanian army, which at times fielded artillery against the rebels.

According to Anatol Petrencu, during most of the Romanian period, Bessarabia benefited by democracy, with a multiparty and a modern electoral system, based on the 1923 Constitution and laws. In November 1919, Romania elected the first post-war parliament based on the proportional representation of the mandates according to the number of the population. As of mid 1919, the population of Bessarabia was estimated at 2 million. With a voter turnout of 72.2%, the Bessarabians elected and sent to the Romanian Parliament 90 deputies and 37 senators.

According to Charles King, in Romania "the budding democracy [...] was soon crushed beneath the weight of corruption, court intrigues, and right-wing reaction". The same author notes that corrupt and heavy-handed Romanian administrators were especially prevalent in the region, and the Siguranța, the Romanian secret police, conducted extensive surveillance among the minorities and regarded Transnistrian refugees and Bessarabian students as potential Bolshevik agents. This resulted in "a sense among locals that Bessarabia had been occupied by Romania rather than united with". Russians, in particular, were regarded as "Bolsheviks in disguise", with their churches and libraries closed down or Romanianized.

Economy
At the beginning of World War I, around 80% of the population worked in agriculture. While the Sfatul Țării envisioned distributing land freely to the peasants, Romanian pressure resulted in a significant modification of the plans, bringing the reform more in line with similar ones taking place in the Old Kingdom and Transylvania. While more radical than elsewhere, as it provided lower payments, lower limits for land exempt from expropriation and larger plots, the Romanian land reform also reverted some of the ad-hoc land distribution that had taken place during the Russian Revolution, raising discontent among the peasantry. Thus, of the 1.5 million dessiatin (40% of the agricultural land) held by the large landowners in 1917, more than one third (38.6%) was distributed to peasants, another third was restored to its previous owners, while the rest became state property and was to a large degree later awarded to officers of the Romanian army, officials and clergy. A significant number of plots were awarded to Romanians immigrants from Wallachia and Western Moldavia, while Romanian offices who married Bessarabian women were eligible to receive 100 hectares. Though the reform set the lot at 6 hectares, more than two-thirds of the peasant households received less than 5 hectares each, and, as of 1931, 367.8 thousand peasant families were still landless. The average size of the peasant household further dropped after the land reform due to land division among heirs.

According to Alla Skvortsova, while the reform stimulated the development of commodity farming in the countryside and expanded the market for industrial products, it failed to produce the expected results. The peasants had to pay for the land they received during the following 20 years, there was little to no state support provided for them to acquire technical equipment required for the development of successful farms and credit was only accessible to the more prosperous among them and therefore insignificant overall. The region also lacked qualified specialists and lagged behind in infrastructure, as the government had few resources and other priorities. The main factors which impeded the creation of a prosperous peasant class were the payments for land redemption, peasant debts, and taxes, lack of access to the traditional Russian market, difficulties to break into the Romanian and European agricultural market and frequent droughts (1921, 1924, 1925, 1927–28 and 1935). Winemaking, one of the mainstays of the local economy, was particularly affected by the external policy of the Romanian state: the most favoured nation status awarded to France brought inexpensive French wine to the local market, access to the Soviet market was blocked, while exports to the traditional markets in Poland were hindered by the trade war started in 1926.

According to Alla Skvortsova, the peasant situation was further aggravated by the Great Depression in Romania, with prices for agricultural products dropping catastrophically and not recovering until the end of the decade. While only 2.8% of the national agricultural credit was directed by the National Bank of Romania towards Bessarabia in 1936, by 1940 70% of the peasants were in debt to the large landowners and moneylenders. In order to pay debts, many of the poorer peasants had to sell their livestock and even their land. Failure to pay the redemption payments for 2.5 years also resulted in the land reverting to state property; thus, by 1938, in the district of Soroca only a quarter of the peasant households had retained their allotment. By 1939 farms of up to 5 hectares throughout the region had lost a seventh of their land, while farms with more than 10 hectares had increased their land by 26%. According to a study of the new Soviet administration, in June 1940 7.3% of the peasant households in the Bessarabian regions of the Moldavian SSR were completely landless, 38.15% had up to 3 hectares (an average of 1.7 hectares per lot) and 22.4% had 3 to 5 hectares (an average of 2.6 hectares per one household), i.e. more than two-thirds of the peasant households were farm laborers and poor peasants. Better off was the middle peasantry, which owned 5 to 10 hectares, and constituted 22.73% of peasant farms. The rest, constituting 9.4% of the farms, owned more than 10 hectares each, but held under their control 36% of peasant land, i.e. more than all small farms taken together. The 818 large landowners held an average of 100 hectares each, while institutional owners (the state, churches, and monasteries) held another 59 thousand hectares. About 54% of peasant households had no livestock, about two-thirds had no horse, a little more than a sixth had one horse each, and only 13.2% had two or more working horses. In the whole of Bessarabian region of the Moldavian SSR there were at the beginning of Soviet administration only 219 obsolete tractors, mostly owned by larger farms and used primarily as threshing engines. With little serviceable equestrian equipment, tillage, sowing, and harvesting of all crops were mostly carried out manually. Throughout the interwar era, Bessarabia witnessed several negative phenomena: further social stratification in the countryside, deepening poverty, lowering yields, worsening of the structure of crops grown, reduction of the total agricultural production. The number of cattle fell by 26% between 1926 and 1938, the number of sheep by 5%, the number of pigs by 14%. Average grain yield also decreased from 1920/1925 to 1935/1939 from 850 kg per hectare to 800 kg. The area used in wine-making grew by 15,000 hectares between 1930 and 1938. However, wine quality dropped, as slightly over 80% of the vineyards were planted with lower quality grape varieties. According to V.I. Tsaranov, adding to the lack of land, small plots, poor crop yields, unemployment was also high among rural residents, with around 550 thousand recorded in June 1940.

According to Alla Skvortsova, the Romanian government, either directly or through the banking system, encouraged the development of industry in the areas of prewar Romania, while hindering the process in new territories. As a consequence, even Bessarabian entrepreneurs preferred to invest their capital in those areas instead of using it within the region. Local industry faced fierce competition from larger Romanian companies, which had access to preferential rail tariffs, limited credit to local entrepreneurs, and flooded the local market with cheaper industrial goods produced in Romania or imported from abroad. Nevertheless, some new small-scale industrial enterprises were established in the 1920s, using primarily local raw materials and producing for the local market. The total engine power rose from 7.8 thousand hp in 1925 to 12.2 thousand in 1929. Although the number of industrial enterprises more than doubled after 1918, small semi-handicraft production prevailed, seldom using hired labor: in 1930 there were an average of only 2.4 employees per enterprise. During the 22 years of Romanian rule, only one large enterprise was built in Bessarabia: the Bălți sugar plant.

According to Alla Skvortsova, not all new enterprises survived for long, and the Great Depression had a particularly strong impact on the region, many of the companies going bankrupt or closing in 1929–1933. Governmental policy, influenced by the banking system and the industrial cartels, prevented a rebound, the industry of the Old Kingdom again receiving preferential treatment. The main factors that affected the development of Bessarabia in the 1930s were severe credit restrictions, increases in transport tariffs and customs restrictions, and special tax policies. The tax burden was notably high, with enterprises required to fully provide the assigned tax agent with housing, heating, lighting, and office space. Bessarabia was reduced mostly to a supplier of raw materials and a market for industrial goods of Romanian or foreign origin. By the end of the 1930s, the only industrial sectors that managed to rebound were the food and woodworking industries, the rest witnessing either stagnation or a decrease compared to pre-Depression levels. Most industrial facilities in the food industry worked significantly below their installed capacity even in prosperous years such as 1937. Several large factories, such as the Basarabeasca, Cetatea Albă, Florești and Tighina, railway workshops, the Cetatea Albă and Chișinău textile and knitwear factories and the Cetatea Albă canning factory and distillery were dismantled and relocated to the Old Kingdom by 1938. Between 1929 and 1937, fixed capital in the industry dropped by 10%, and the number of industrial workers in Bessarabia dropped from 5,400 in 1925 to 3,500 in 1937, while their overall number in Romania had increased by almost 27% during the same period. Between 1926 and 1937 the share of the food industry in the total production of large manufacturing industries increased from 77.1% to 92.4%, with sharp decreases observed in sectors with higher added value, such as the metalworking, textile and leather processing industries. Even so, the food industry failed to fulfill local needs; most industries heavily relied on manual labor and primitive technologies. Electricity production in Chișinău, Bessarabia's center and Romania's second-largest city, recorded in 1925 at 4.47 million kWh, only increased by 6.7% during the following decade, lagging far behind other Romanian cities: 572.3% in Galați, 238.2% in Bucharest, and over 101% in Iași. By the end of the 1930s, only one in seven Bessarabians had access to electricity, compared to one in four among the general Romanian population.

The Romanian administration carried out many projects aimed at improving the infrastructure of the province to introduce European gauge and reorient it towards Romania. The total length of the railway lines in Bessarabia increased only by 78 km (from 1140 in 1918 to 1218 in 1940). Local businessmen remained dissatisfied with the pace of the construction of new railways (the Chișinău-Căinari was the only one built anew) and the closure of a number of lines. Road infrastructure was also improved, as new highways and bridges over the Prut were built, while part of the existing roads were repaired and paved, increasing the length of highways from 150 to 754 km. However, most other roads remained impassable during rainy periods. Shipping on the Dniester was closed, and was never established on the Prut. In the 1930s, new airports were built, telephone lines were laid out, and radio transmitters were installed; nevertheless, the region still lagged behind Transylvania and the Old Kingdom.

According to Alla Skvortsova, overall, the share of Bessarabian enterprises in the Romanian industry fell between 1919 and 1937 from 9% to 5.7%, while the number of enterprises employing at least 20 employees dropping from 262 to 196. The share of investments in Bessarabian industry also fell from 0.3% in 1923 to 0.1% in 1936. Sociologist T. Al. Știrbu observed, commenting on the Romanian government's apparent long-term economical plans, that "Bessarabia can only be considered as a reserve of labor and cheap bread for the industry of the rest of the country". In a 1938 review, the Bessarabian Federation of Chambers of Commerce noted that "the decline in industrial production in Bessarabia hinders the rational processing of local raw materials, thereby turning our province into a colony for industry in the rest of the country". According to V.I. Tsaranov, throughout the period, industrial workers in the region faced long working hours (up to fourteen per day), lack of proper safety measures, unsanitary conditions, the perspective of unemployment and a general decrease in the standard of living: the real wage of a Chișinău worker dropped 60% between 1913 and 1937.

Education
In 1919, Bessarabia became the Romanian region with the highest illiteracy rate. Although the Romanian/Moldovan population was the largest, no Romanian language school operated in Bessarabia before 1918. As a result, among them, only 10.5% of men and 1.77% of women were literate. By 1930, although Bessarabia continued to be the region with the most illiterate people in Romania, the number of literates doubled, to 38,1% of the total population. In the 1920-1938 period, the number of primary schools increased from 1,747 to 2,718, and the number of students from 136,172 to 346,747. In 1940, there were also 24 gymnasiums and middle schools and 26 high schools. Despite a large number of minorities (over 870,000 Russians, Ukrainians, and Jews), education in minority languages was curtailed: private schools were allowed to function after 1925 only if the instruction was in Romanian and, by 1938, there were no state- sponsored Russian or Ukrainian schools and only one each in private hands. In 1939, after the German and Soviet attacks on Poland, the government reverted on its earlier policy and decided to reintroduce minority language classes in state schools and allow a greater degree of cultural expression for the Slavic minorities, in an effort to improve its image among the local population.

Also, in the interwar period, the foundations were laid for the first higher education institutions in Bessarabia. In 1926, the Faculty of Theology was established in Chișinău, followed by the National Conservatory in 1928, and the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences in 1933. The two faculties were sections of the University of Iași, in pre-war Romania.

World War II
The Soviet Union did not recognize the incorporation of Bessarabia into Romania and throughout the entire interwar period engaged in attempts to undermine Romania and diplomatic disputes with the government in Bucharest over this territory. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed on August 23, 1939. By Article 4 of the secret Annex to the Treaty, Nazi Germany recognized Bessarabia as belonging to the Soviet "sphere of interest".

In the spring of 1940, Western Europe was overrun by Germany. With world attention focused on those events, on June 26, 1940, the USSR issued a 24-hour ultimatum to Romania, demanding immediate cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina under threat of war. Romania was given four days to evacuate its troops and officials. The two provinces had an area of 51,000 km2, and were inhabited by about 3.75 million people, half of them Romanians, according to official Romanian sources. Two days later, Romania yielded and began evacuation. During the evacuation, from June 28 to July 3, groups of local Communists and Soviet sympathizers attacked the retreating forces and civilians who chose to leave. Many members of the minorities (Jews, ethnic Ukrainians and others) joined in these attacks. The Romanian Army was also attacked by the Soviet Army, which entered Bessarabia before the Romanian administration finished retreating. The casualties reported by the Romanian Army during those seven days consisted of 356 officers and 42,876 soldiers dead or missing.

On August 2, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established on most of the territory of Bessarabia, merged with the western parts of the former Moldavian ASSR. Bessarabia was divided between the Moldavian SSR (65% of the territory and 80% of the population) and the Ukrainian SSR. Bessarabia's northern and southern districts (now Budjak and parts of the Chernivtsi oblast) were allotted to Ukraine, while some territories (4,000 km2) on the left (eastern) bank of Dniester (present Transnistria), previously part of Ukraine, were allotted to Moldavia. Following the Soviet takeover, many Bessarabians, who were accused of supporting the deposed Romanian administration, were executed or deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Between September and November 1940, the ethnic Germans of Bessarabia were offered resettlement to Germany, following a German-Soviet agreement. Fearing Soviet oppression, almost all Germans (93,000) agreed. Most of them were resettled to the newly annexed Polish territories.

On June 22, 1941, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union commenced with Operation Barbarossa. Between June 22 and July 26, 1941, Romanian troops recovered Bessarabia and northern Bukovina with the help of Wehrmacht. The Soviets employed scorched earth tactics during their forced retreat from Bessarabia, destroying the infrastructure and transporting movable goods to Russia by railway. At the end of July, after a year of Soviet rule, the region was once again under Romanian control, being organized as the Bessarabia Governorate.

As the military operation was still in progress, there were cases of Romanian troops "taking revenge" on Jews in Bessarabia, in the form of pogroms on civilians and murder of Jewish POWs, resulting in several thousand dead. The supposed cause for murdering Jews was that in 1940 some Jews welcomed the Soviet takeover as liberation. At the same time the notorious SS Einsatzgruppe D, operating in the area of the German 11th Army, committed summary executions of Jews under the pretext that they were spies, saboteurs, Communists, or under no pretext whatsoever.

The political solution of the "Jewish Question" was apparently seen by the Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu more in expulsion rather than extermination. That portion of the Jewish population of Bessarabia and Bukovina which did not flee before the retreat of the Soviet troops (147,000) was initially gathered into ghettos or Nazi concentration camps, and then deported during 1941–1942 in death marches into Romanian-occupied Transnistria, where the "Final Solution" was applied.

After three years of relative peace, the German-Soviet front returned in 1944 to the land border on the Dniester. On August 20, 1944, a c. 3,400,000-strong Red Army began a major summer offensive codenamed Second Jassy–Kishinev offensive. The Soviet armies overran Bessarabia in a two-pronged offensive within five days. In pocket battles at Chișinău and Sărata the German 6th Army of c. 650,000 men, newly reformed after the Battle of Stalingrad, was obliterated. Simultaneously with the success of the Russian attack, Romania broke the military alliance with the Axis and changed sides. On August 23, 1944, Marshal Ion Antonescu was arrested by King Michael, and later handed over to the Soviets.

Part of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union regained the region in 1944, and the Red Army occupied Romania. By 1947, the Soviets had imposed a communist government in Bucharest, which was friendly and obedient towards Moscow. The Soviet occupation of Romania lasted until 1958. The Romanian communist regime did not openly raise the matter of Bessarabia or Northern Bukovina in its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. At least 100,000 people died in a post-war famine in Moldavia.

Between 1969 and 1971, a clandestine National Patriotic Front was established by several young intellectuals in Chișinău, totaling over 100 members, vowing to fight for the establishment of a Moldavian Democratic Republic, its secession from the Soviet Union and union with Romania.

In December 1971, following an informative note from Ion Stănescu, the President of the Council of State Security of the Romanian Socialist Republic, to Yuri Andropov, the chief of KGB, three of the leaders of the National Patriotic Front, Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgar, Gheorghe Ghimpu and Valeriu Graur, as well as a fourth person, Alexandru Soltoianu, the leader of a similar clandestine movement in northern Bukovina (Bucovina), were arrested and later sentenced to long prison terms.

Rise of independent Moldova
With the weakening of the Soviet Union, in February 1988, the first non-sanctioned demonstrations were held in Chișinău. At first pro-Perestroika, they soon turned anti-government and demanded official status for the Romanian (Moldavian) language instead of the Russian language. On August 31, 1989, following a 600,000-strong demonstration in Chișinău four days earlier, Romanian (Moldavian) became the official language of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. However, this was not implemented for many years. In 1990, the first free elections were held for Parliament, with the opposition Popular Front winning them. A government led by Mircea Druc, one of the leaders of the Popular Front, was formed. The Moldavian SSR became SSR Moldova, and later the Republic of Moldova. The Republic of Moldova became independent on August 27, 1991; it took over unchanged the boundaries of the Moldavian SSR.

Population
According to Bessarabian historian Ștefan Ciobanu and Moldovan philologist Viorica Răileanu, in 1810, the Romanian population was approximately 95%. During the 19th century, as a result of the Russian policy of colonization and Russification, the Romanian population decreased to (depending on data sources) 47.6% (in 1897), 52% or 75% for 1900 (Krusevan), 53.9% (1907), 70% (1912, Laskov), or 65–67% (1918, J. Kaba).

The Russian Census of 1817, which recorded 96,526 families and 482,630 inhabitants, did not register ethnic data except for recent refugees (primarily Bulgarians) and certain ethno-social categories (Jews, Armenians and Greeks). Official records indicated 3,826 Jewish families (4.2%), 1,200 Lipovan families (1.5%), 640 Greek families (0.7%), 530 Armenian families (0.6%), 482 Bulgarian and Gagauz families (0.5%). In the 20th century, Romanian historian Ion Nistor extrapolated the number of Romanians at 83,848 families (86%) and Ruthenians at 6,000 families (6.5%). The estimate was based on the assumption that Ruthenes constituted up to a third of the population of the Khotyn county, and the rest of the recorded population was exclusively Romanian. An alternative estimate for the same year indicates 76.4% Romanians, 8.7% Ukrainians, 5.1% Bulgarians and Gaguzes, 4.5% Jews and 2% Russians. An 1818 statistic of three counties in southern Bessarabia (Akkerman, Izmail and Bender) that had witnessed strong emigration of the Muslim population and immigration from other regions, including Ottoman lands south of the Danube, recorded a total population of 113,835. There are conflicting figures regarding the national distribution (first figure cited by Poștarencu, second by Ungureanu): 48.64/37% Moldavians, 7.07/8.9% Russians, 15.65/17.9% Ukrainians, 17.02/21.5% Bulgarians and 11.62/14.7% others. Still in 1818, statistics for the Khotyn county in northern Bessarabia indicated 47.5% Moldavians and 42.6% Ukrainians.

The Moldovan historian Ion Gumenâi records the population of Bessarabia in 1828 as 517,135, and states that 376,910 were Romanians (72.88%), 52,000 Ruthenians (10.05%), 30,929 Jews (5.9%), 8,846 Germans (1.71%), 7,947 Russians (1.53%), 5,974 Lipovans (1.15%), 2,384 Poles (0.46%), 2,000 Greeks (0.38%), 2,000 Armenians (0.38%), and 27,445 (5.3%) settlers in the south of Bessarabia.

The first statistic to record ethnic groups throughout Bessarabia was an incomplete administrative census made in 1843–1844 at the request of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The following proportions were recorded, in a total of 692,777 inhabitants: 59.4% Romanians, 17.2% Ukrainians, 9.3% Bulgarians, 7.1% Jews, and 2.2% Russians. In the case of some urban centres, figures were not reported for all ethnic groups. Furthermore, the size of the total populations differs from other official reports of the same period, which put the population of Bessarabia at 774,492 or 793,103.

Church records gathered around 1850–1855 put the total population at 841,523, with the following composition: 51.4% Romanians, 4.2% Russians, 21.3% Ukrainians, 10% Bulgarians, 7.2% Jews and 5.7% others. On the other hand, official data for 1855 record a total population of 980,031, excluding the population on the territory under the authority of the Special Administration of the town of Izmail.

According to Ion Nistor, the population of Bessarabia in 1856 was composed of 736,000 Romanians (74%), 119,000 Ukrainians (12%), 79,000 Jews (8%), 47,000 Bulgarians and Gagauz (5%), 24,000 Germans (2.4%), 11,000 Romani (1.1%), 6,000 Russians (0.6%), adding to a total of 990,274 inhabitants. Historian Constantin Ungureanu provides significantly different figures for the same year: 676,100 Romanians (68.2%), 126,000 Ukrainians (12.7%), 78,800 Jews (7.9%), 48,200 Bulgarians and Gaguz (4.9%), 24,200 (2.4%) Germans and 20,000 Russians (2%) for a total of 991,900.

Russian data, 1889 (Total: 1,628,867 inhabitants)

The Russian census in 1897 had a total of 1,935,412 inhabitants. By language:
 * 920,919 Romanians (47.6%)
 * 379,698 Ukrainians (19.6%)
 * 228,168 Jews (11.8%)
 * 155,774 Russians (8%)
 * 103,225 Bulgarians (5.3%)
 * 60,026 Germans (3.1%)
 * 55,790 Turks (Gagauzes) (2.9%)

However, some scholars believed in regard to the 1897 census that "[...] the census enumerator generally has instructions to count everyone who understands the state language as being of that nationality, no matter what his everyday speech may be". Thus, a number of Romanians might have been registered as Russians.

According to N. Durnovo, the population of Bessarabia in 1900 was (1,935,000 inhabitants):

Notes: 1 The two counties were merged.

The Romanian estimates in 1919 (1922) gave a total populations of 2,631,000 inhabitants:
 * 1,685,000 Romanians (64.0%)
 * 254,000 Ukrainians (9.7%)
 * 287,000 Jews (10.2%)
 * 75,000 Russians (2.8%)
 * 147,000 Bulgarians (5.6%)
 * 79,000 Germans (3.0%)
 * 59,000 Lipovans and Cossacks (2.2%)
 * 67,000 Others (2.5%)

According to the 1930 Romanian census, the total population of Bessarabia was 2,864,662 inhabitants:

Notes: 1 Includes Lipovans. 2 Poles, Armenians, Albanians, Greeks, Gypsies, etc. and non-declared

The data of the Romanian census of 1939 was not completely processed before the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia. However, estimates had the total population rise to approximately 3.2 million.

The census of 1941, during the Romanian wartime administration (Total: 2,733,563 inhabitants):
 * 1,793,493 Romanians (65.6%)
 * 449,540 Ukrainians (16.4%)
 * 177,647 Bulgarians (6.5%)
 * 164,410 Russians (6.0%)
 * 115,683 Gagauz (4.2%)
 * 9,086 Poles (0.3%)
 * 6,882 Jews (0.3%)
 * 2,058 Germans (0.1%)
 * 14,794 Others (0.6%)

In the 1979 Soviet census for the Moldavian SSR (including Transnistria, but without northern and southern Bessarabia, now both part of Ukraine): 63.9% identified themselves as Moldovans and 0.04% as Romanians. For the Soviet census of 1989 (conducted in the Moldavian SSR), 64.5% declared themselves as Moldovans and 0.06% Romanians. In the Moldovan census of 2014 (not including Transnistria), 75% declared themselves Moldovans and 7% Romanians.

Economy

 * 1911: There were 165 loan societies, 117 savings banks, 43 professional savings and loan societies, and eight Zemstvo loan offices; all these had total assets of about 10,000,000 rubles. There were also 89 government savings banks, with deposits of about 9,000,000 rubles.
 * 1918: There was only 657 mi of railway; the main lines converged on Russia and were broad gauge. Rolling stock and right of way were in bad shape. There were about 400 locomotives, with only about 100 fit for use. There were 290 passenger coaches and 33 more out for repair. Finally, out of 4530 freight cars and 187 tank cars, only 1389 and 103 were usable. The Romanians reduced the gauge to a standard 56.5 in, so that cars could be run to the rest of Europe. Also, there were only a few inefficient boat bridges. Romanian highway engineers decided to build ten bridges: Cuzlău, Țuțora, Lipcani, Șerpenița, Ștefănești–Brăniște, Cahul-Oancea, Bădărăi-Moara Domnească, Sărata, Bumbala-Leova, Badragi and Fălciu (Fălciu is a locality in Romania. Its correspondent in Bessarabia is Cantemir.) Of these, only four were ever finished: Cuzlău, Fălciu, Lipcani, and Sărata.

title: Bessarabia


text:
Raoult's law

Raoult's law ( law) is a relation of physical chemistry, with implications in thermodynamics. Proposed by French chemist François-Marie Raoult in 1887, it states that the partial pressure of each component of an ideal mixture of liquids is equal to the vapor pressure of the pure component (liquid or solid) multiplied by its mole fraction in the mixture. In consequence, the relative lowering of vapor pressure of a dilute solution of nonvolatile solute is equal to the mole fraction of solute in the solution.

Mathematically, Raoult's law for a single component in an ideal solution is stated as
 * $$p_i = p_i^\star x_i$$

where $$p_i$$ is the partial pressure of the component $$i$$ in the gaseous mixture above the solution, $$p_i^\star$$ is the equilibrium vapor pressure of the pure component $$i$$, and $$x_i$$ is the mole fraction of the component $$i$$ in the liquid or solid solution.

Where two volatile liquids A and B are mixed with each other to form a solution, the vapor phase consists of both components of the solution. Once the components in the solution have reached equilibrium, the total vapor pressure of the solution can be determined by combining Raoult's law with Dalton's law of partial pressures to give
 * $$ p = p_\text{A}^\star x_\text{A} + p_\text{B}^\star x_\text{B} + \cdots.$$

In other words, the vapor pressure of the solution is the mole-weighted mean of the individual vapour pressures:
 * $$ p = \dfrac{p_\text{A}^\star n_\text{A} + p_\text{B}^\star n_\text{B} + \cdots}{n_\text{A} + n_\text{B} + \cdots}$$

If a non-volatile solute B (it has zero vapor pressure, so does not evaporate) is dissolved into a solvent A to form an ideal solution, the vapor pressure of the solution will be lower than that of the solvent. In an ideal solution of a nonvolatile solute, the decrease in vapor pressure is directly proportional to the mole fraction of solute:

 * $$ p = p_\text{A}^\star x_\text{A},$$
 * $$\Delta p = p_\text{A}^\star - p = p_\text{A}^\star(1 - x_\text{A}) = p_\text{A}^\star x_\text{B}.$$

If the solute associates or dissociates in the solution, the expression of the law includes the van 't Hoff factor as a correction factor.

Principles

Raoult's law is a phenomenological relation that assumes ideal behavior based on the simple microscopic assumption that intermolecular forces between unlike molecules are equal to those between similar molecules, and that their molar volumes are the same: the conditions of an ideal solution. This is analogous to the ideal gas law, which is a limiting law valid when the interactive forces between molecules approach zero, for example as the concentration approaches zero. Raoult's law is instead valid if the physical properties of the components are identical. The more similar the components are, the more their behavior approaches that described by Raoult's law. For example, if the two components differ only in isotopic content, then Raoult's law is essentially exact.

Comparing measured vapor pressures to predicted values from Raoult's law provides information about the true relative strength of intermolecular forces. If the vapor pressure is less than predicted (a negative deviation), fewer molecules of each component than expected have left the solution in the presence of the other component, indicating that the forces between unlike molecules are stronger. The converse is true for positive deviations.

For a solution of two liquids A and B, Raoult's law predicts that if no other gases are present, then the total vapor pressure $$p$$ above the solution is equal to the weighted sum of the "pure" vapor pressures $$p_\text{A}$$ and $$p_\text{B}$$ of the two components. Thus the total pressure above the solution of A and B would be

 * $$p = p_\text{A}^\star x_\text{A} + p_\text{B}^\star x_\text{B}.$$

Since the sum of the mole fractions is equal to one,
 * $$p = p_\text{A}^\star (1 - x_\text{B}) + p_\text{B}^\star x_\text{B} = p_\text{A}^\star + (p_\text{B}^\star - p_\text{A}^\star) x_\text{B}.$$

This is a linear function of the mole fraction $$x_\text{B}$$, as shown in the graph.

Thermodynamic considerations
Raoult's law was first observed empirically and led François-Marie Raoult to postulate that the vapor pressure above an ideal mixture of liquids is equal to the sum of the vapor pressures of each component multiplied by its mole fraction. Taking compliance with Raoult's Law as a defining characteristic of ideality in a solution, it is possible to deduce that the chemical potential of each component of the liquid is given by
 * $$\mu _i = \mu_i^\star  + RT \ln x_i,$$

where $$\mu_i^\star$$ is the chemical potential in the pure state and $$x_i$$ is the mole fraction of component $$i$$ in the ideal solution. From this equation, other thermodynamic properties of an ideal solution may be determined. If the assumption that the vapor follows the ideal gas law is added, Raoult's law may be derived as follows.

If the system is ideal, then, at equilibrium, the chemical potential of each component $$i$$ must be the same in the liquid and gas states. That is,

 * $$\mu_{i, \text{liq}} = \mu_{i, \text{vap}}.$$

Substituting the formula for chemical potential gives
 * $$\mu_{i, \text{liq}}^\star + RT \ln x_i = \mu_{i, \text{vap}}^\ominus + RT \ln\frac{f_i}{p^\ominus},$$

as the gas-phase mole fraction depends on its fugacity, $$f_i$$, as a fraction of the pressure in the reference state, $$p^\ominus$$.

The corresponding equation when the system consists purely of component $$i$$ in equilibrium with its vapor is
 * $$\mu_{i, \text{liq}}^\star = \mu_{i, \text{vap}}^\ominus + RT \ln\frac{f_i^\star}{p^\ominus}.$$

Subtracting these equations and re-arranging leads to the result
 * $$f_i = x_i f_i^\star.$$

For the ideal gas, pressure and fugacity are equal, so introducing simple pressures to this result yields Raoult's law:
 * $$p_i = x_i p_i^\star.$$

Ideal mixing
An ideal solution would follow Raoult's law, but most solutions deviate from ideality. Interactions between gas molecules are typically quite small, especially if the vapor pressures are low. However, the interactions in a liquid are very strong. For a solution to be ideal, the interactions between unlike molecules must be of the same magnitude as those between like molecules. This approximation is only true when the different species are almost chemically identical. One can see that from considering the Gibbs free energy change of mixing:

 * $$\Delta_\text{mix} G = nRT (x_1 \ln x_1 + x_2 \ln x_2).$$

This is always negative, so mixing is spontaneous. However, the expression is, apart from a factor $$-T$$, equal to the entropy of mixing. This leaves no room at all for an enthalpy effect and implies that $$\Delta_\text{mix} H$$ must be equal to zero, and this can only be true if the interactions between the molecules are indifferent.

It can be shown using the Gibbs–Duhem equation that if Raoult's law holds over the entire concentration range $$x \in [0,\ 1]$$ in a binary solution then, for the second component, the same must also hold.

If deviations from the ideal are not too large, Raoult's law is still valid in a narrow concentration range when approaching $$x \to 1$$ for the majority phase (the solvent). The solute also shows a linear limiting law, but with a different coefficient. This relationship is known as Henry's law.

The presence of these limited linear regimes has been experimentally verified in a great number of cases, though large deviations occur in a variety of cases. Consequently, both its pedagogical value and utility have been questioned at the introductory college level. In a perfectly ideal system, where ideal liquid and ideal vapor are assumed, a very useful equation emerges if Raoult's law is combined with Dalton's Law:

 * $$x_i = \frac{y_i p_\text{total}}{p_i^\star},$$

where $$x_i$$ is the mole fraction of component $$i$$ in the solution, and $$y_i$$ is its mole fraction in the gas phase. This equation shows that, for an ideal solution where each pure component has a different vapor pressure, the gas phase is enriched in the component with the higher vapor pressure when pure, and the solution is enriched in the component with the lower pure vapor pressure. This phenomenon is the basis for distillation.

Non-ideal mixing
In elementary applications, Raoult's law is generally valid when the liquid phase is either nearly pure or a mixture of similar substances. Raoult's law may be adapted to non-ideal solutions by incorporating two factors that account for the interactions between molecules of different substances. The first factor is a correction for gas non-ideality, or deviations from the ideal-gas law. It is called the fugacity coefficient ($$\phi_{p,i}$$). The second, the activity coefficient $$\gamma_i$$, is a correction for interactions in the liquid phase between the different molecules.

This modified or extended Raoult's law is then written as
 * $$y_i \phi_{p,i} p = x_i \gamma_i p_i^\star.$$

Real solutions
In many pairs of liquids, there is no uniformity of attractive forces, i.e., the adhesive (between dissimilar molecules) and cohesive forces (between similar molecules)   are not uniform between the two liquids. Therefore, they deviate from Raoult's law, which applies only to ideal solutions.

Negative deviation
When the adhesion is stronger than the cohesion, fewer liquid particles turn into vapor thereby lowering the vapor pressure and leading to negative deviation in the graph.

For example, the system of chloroform (CHCl3) and acetone (CH3COCH3) has a negative deviation from Raoult's law, indicating an attractive interaction between the two components that have been described as a hydrogen bond. The system HCl–water has a large enough negative deviation to form a minimum in the vapor pressure curve known as a (negative) azeotrope, corresponding to a mixture that evaporates without change of composition. When these two components are mixed, the reaction is exothermic as ion-dipole intermolecular forces of attraction are formed between the resulting ions (H3O+ and Cl–) and the polar water molecules so that ΔHmix is negative.

Positive deviation
When the adhesion is weaker than cohesion, which is quite common, the liquid particles escape the solution more easily that increases the vapor pressure and leads to a positive deviation.

If the deviation is large, then the vapor pressure curve shows a maximum at a particular composition and forms a positive azeotrope (low-boiling mixture). Some mixtures in which this happens are (1) ethanol and water, (2) benzene and methanol, (3) carbon disulfide and acetone, (4) chloroform and ethanol, and (5) glycine and water. When these pairs of components are mixed, the process is endothermic as weaker intermolecular interactions are formed so that ΔmixH is positive.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Raoult's law


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Raphael (disambiguation)

Raphael was an Italian Renaissance painter.

Raphael or Raphaël may also refer to:

Music

 * Raphael (band), a Japanese rock band active 1997–2001
 * Raphael (opera), an 1894 opera by Anton Arensky
 * Raphael (musician), American musician and composer of ambient music
 * Raphael (singer), Spanish singer
 * Raphaël Haroche, French singer known by the mononym Raphaël
 * The Raphaels, an alternative country music band

Names

 * Raphael (given name), a name of Hebrew origin
 * Raphael (surname)
 * Raphael (footballer) (born 1985), full name Raphael Tessaro Schettino, Brazilian footballer

Religion

 * Raphael (archangel), an archangel in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
 * Raphael I of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1475 to 1476
 * Raphael II of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1603 to 1607
 * Raphael of Brooklyn (1860–1915), saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church
 * Raphael of Lesvos, saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church
 * Raphael I Bidawid, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1989–2003

Other uses

 * Raphael (crater), a crater on Mercury
 * Raphaël (JavaScript library), cross-browser JavaScript library that draws Vector graphics for web sites
 * Raphael (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
 * AMD Raphael, codename for AMD Ryzen 7000 series desktop CPUs
 * Raphael, or The Debauched One, a 1971 French drama film
 * Raphaels Bank, a UK-based bank
 * Raphael, codename of the HTC Touch Pro

title: Raphael (disambiguation)


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Riccardo Patrese

Riccardo Gabriele Patrese (born 17 April 1954) is an Italian former racing driver, who raced in Formula One from to.

He became the first Formula One driver to achieve 200 Grand Prix starts when he appeared at the 1990 British Grand Prix, and then became the first to achieve 250 starts at the 1993 German Grand Prix. For 19 years, he held the record for the most Formula One Grand Prix starts, with 256 races from 257 entries. As of the end of the season he is the tenth-most experienced F1 driver in history. At the age of 38 he was runner-up to Nigel Mansell in the 1992 Formula One World Championship, and third in and. He won six Formula One races, with a record gap of over six years between two of these – the 1983 South African Grand Prix and 1990 San Marino Grand Prix.

Patrese also competed at the World Sportscar Championship for the Lancia factory team, finishing runner-up in 1982 and collecting eight wins.

Early life and career
Born in Padua, Veneto, Patrese started driving karts at age 9. Growing up near the Italian Alps, he was also selected for the Italian national ski team as a teenager, and was in addition a competitive swimmer. In 1974, he won the Karting World Championship at the Estoril circuit, finishing ahead of second-placed teammate and fellow future F1 driver Eddie Cheever. He received an offer to drive in Formula Italia the following year, finishing second in the championship to another future F1 racer, Bruno Giacomelli. In 1976, he moved up to Formula 3, winning both the Italian and European Formula 3 championships. The following year he moved to Formula 2 before making his Formula One debut midway through the year.

Shadow and Arrows
He made his debut at the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix with the Shadow racing team sponsored by Italian businessman Franco Ambrosio, replacing Renzo Zorzi. He took his first point at the Japanese Grand Prix later that year. Later that year team-leader Jackie Oliver and sponsor Ambrosio left Shadow to form the Arrows team. Patrese and Shadow teammate Alan Jones both received offers from the Williams team for 1978: whilst Jones joined Williams, Patrese linked up with Arrows, alongside Rolf Stommelen. Shadow subsequently took Arrows to court, arguing that Arrows had stolen the design of the Shadow DN9 that Arrows and were essentially running a DN9 under a different name. The court agreed, forcing Arrows to design and construct a totally new car, the Arrows A1, which became the first of the Arrows F1 bloodline.

In 1978 Patrese very nearly won Arrows' second race, the South African Grand Prix, until engine failure forced him to retire 15 laps from the end. He subsequently took second at the Swedish Grand Prix behind Niki Lauda's Brabham BT46B "fan car", in its only appearance before being withdrawn. However, his driving style was perceived by some established drivers, such as Ronnie Peterson and James Hunt, as being over-aggressive. Later that year, at the Italian Grand Prix, Patrese's reputation for aggressive driving was blamed for a first lap major incident. In part, one of the causes suggested was a premature start by the Monza race director, leading to cars at the rear of the field catching up to those in the midfield that had been fully stopped when the green signal was given. This being said, Patrese, Peterson, and 8 others were involved in a 10-car pile-up before turn one, causing a stoppage of the race. Peterson, whose injuries from the chain reaction wreck were not in and of themselves life-threatening, died from an embolism the day after the Grand Prix.

By the next race, the United States Grand Prix, five top drivers - Hunt, Lauda, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi and Jody Scheckter - declared that unless Patrese was banned from the race that they would withdraw. The race organizers agreed to this: although Patrese later stated that he obtained a ruling from a local judge in Watkins Glen stating that the ban was a violation of his right to work, Arrows decided to withdraw his entry due to pressure from the organizers and the FIA. He returned to competition at the following race, the Canadian Grand Prix, where he finished fourth.

For years after the crash which caused Peterson's death, Hunt (along with other drivers) blamed Patrese for starting the accident, and viewers of Hunt's commentaries of Formula One races from 1980 to 1993 on BBC Television were regularly treated to bitter diatribes against Patrese when the Italian appeared on screen. Hunt believed that it was Patrese's muscling past that caused the McLaren driven by Hunt and the Lotus driven by Peterson to touch, but Patrese argued that he was already well ahead of the pair before the accident took place. Patrese, together with race director Gianni Restilli, stood trial in Italian criminal court on manslaughter charges for Peterson's death. Both were cleared of wrongdoing on 28 October 1981.

Two of Patrese's most notable performances during his Arrows years were at the United States Grand Prix West in Long Beach, where he finished second in 1980 and took pole position in the following year: he led the latter race before being forced to retire by a blocked fuel filter.

Brabham
In 1982 Patrese moved to Brabham and gained his maiden win at that year's Monaco Grand Prix in rather sensational circumstances. Patrese took the lead when Alain Prost crashed out, only to spin in dampening conditions on the next lap. This left him third behind Didier Pironi and Andrea de Cesaris, who both stopped on the final lap – Pironi with an electrical fault and de Cesaris out of fuel. Later that season he also led the Austrian Grand Prix but retired due to an engine failure. Patrese finished the season tenth, just ahead of his teammate Nelson Piquet. 1983 proved to be a more difficult season. Patrese crashed out late in the race while leading at San Marino - to the cheers of the tifosi, as his shunt meant that he handed the race win to Ferrari driver Patrick Tambay. He also took pole on home ground at the Italian Grand Prix, before his engine blew up in the early stages of the race: in a 2010 interview he said he suspected that his engine had been left in its qualifying trim, rendering it extremely powerful but fragile, as he had not been offered a new contract for the following year, and had been reluctant to sacrifice his chances of winning his home Grand Prix for teammate Nelson Piquet, who was fighting for the World Championship. Despite scoring a second win at the South African Grand Prix, Patrese only finished ninth while Piquet claimed his second Drivers' Championship title. It would be seven years before he made another visit to the top step of the podium.

Alfa Romeo
A move to Alfa Romeo in delivered two lacklustre seasons resulting in eight world championship points and a single visit to the podium at the 1984 Italian Grand Prix. Patrese and teammate, American Eddie Cheever, were hampered by cars with Alfa Romeo 890T V8 turbo engines that proved too thirsty for the amount of fuel they were allowed to carry (220 litres). Often both drivers drove good races to be in the points, only to run out of fuel two or three laps from the finish dropping them out of the points. Indeed, Patrese's 3rd place at Monza in 1984 (to date the final podium finish for Alfa Romeo in F1) came at the expense of Cheever who was robbed of a podium finish when his car ran out of fuel 6 laps from the finish.

The pair were also hampered by their cars. 's Alfa Romeo 184T proved fast in qualifying, but fuel restrictions saw them well off the pace in most races. The 1985 car, the 185T proved to be even less competitive to the point that halfway through the season the team replaced it with an updated version of the 184T (dubbed the 184TB). Although the updated car did prove faster, results were not forthcoming. In an interview in 2000, Patrese described the 185T as "the worst car I ever drove".

At the 1985 Monaco Grand Prix, Patrese's former teammate Nelson Piquet began his 14th lap and was attempting to lap Patrese as they crossed the start/finish line. The cars made contact, and Patrese went into a spin while Piquet lost his suspension. Patrese then bounced off the wall and back into Piquet, and both drivers were out of the race.

Return to Brabham
In 1986 Patrese returned to Brabham alongside fellow Italian Elio de Angelis, but by now the team was a spent force and would never again take a driver to victory in a grand prix. Two more winless seasons followed despite the team's BMW engine being considered at the time to be the most powerful on the grid. Despite the trials of uncompetitive machinery, Patrese never publicly criticised the team and earned respect throughout the sport for his professionalism.

Williams

Toward the end of the 1987 season, Patrese was given the chance to revitalise what seemed to be a declining career when the Williams driver Nigel Mansell was injured whilst qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix. With the help of Brabham owner and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, Patrese tested the Williams FW11B at Imola, where he set a time that was half a second quicker than Ayrton Senna's pole at that year's San Marino Grand Prix, and was drafted in to replace Mansell for the season's finale in Australia.

Patrese had already been signed by Williams management to be Nelson Piquet's replacement for the season as the 1987 and triple World Champion was off to Lotus to replace Ayrton Senna who had signed with McLaren (Honda were staying with Lotus for 1988 but Williams had lost their Honda engines to McLaren). However, 1988 saw Williams struggling with an uncompetitive car powered by non-turbocharged Judd V8 engines. Patrese and Mansell were also hampered in the first half of the season by the Williams FW12's reactive suspension not working properly. It wasn't until the British Grand Prix at Silverstone that Williams dumped the reactive suspension for a more conventional one and the FW12s became competitive.

At the 1988 Spanish Grand Prix, Patrese was fined US$10,000 for 'brake testing' the Tyrrell of F1 rookie Julian Bailey during qualifying which caused the Tyrrell 017 to launch its front wheels in the air when Bailey ran into the back of the Williams. One unnamed driver allegedly said of the incident "They should fine him his bloody retainer. There are enough accidental shunts in this business without someone deliberately causing one".

It was not until and the arrival of the V10 Renault engines that Patrese and his new teammate Thierry Boutsen were able to challenge for race wins. In his record-breaking 176th Grands Prix, Patrese led the first race of the year in Brazil (the first time he led a Grand Prix since 1983) including setting a new lap record of the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet before stopping with an engine failure. In what would prove to be his best season since 1983, he achieved an impressive 3rd place in the Drivers' Championship, taking no wins but securing 6 podium finishes, including 4 second places, as well as claiming pole position in Hungary, a race he confidently led under constant pressure from reigning World Champion Ayrton Senna in his McLaren-Honda V10 until lap 54 when a holed radiator forced his retirement.

In, Patrese finally won his third Grand Prix at the 1990 San Marino Grand Prix, though the competitiveness of the Renault powered FW13B with what many felt were two "number two" drivers waned in the second half of the year as McLaren, Ferrari and later Benetton with their Ford V8 engines took the ascendancy and he finished the Drivers' Championship in 7th place. In Nigel Mansell returned to Williams after two seasons with Ferrari and, together with Patrese, the team became genuine contenders for both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championships. Two wins in Mexico and Portugal gave Patrese his most competitive F1 season thus far and a respectable third place behind Championship contenders Mansell and Senna. In addition he took four pole positions across the season. Patrese also out qualified Mansell at every race until the halfway point of the season at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, and provided much support for the Englishman's title chase at races such as Italy and Portugal.

Williams dominated F1 in and Patrese continued to deliver in his role of second driver to Nigel Mansell, moving out of the way for Mansell while leading comfortably at that year's French Grand Prix. Again Patrese handled the delicate situation about team orders diplomatically, repeatedly offering a "No comment" to questions about the team orders that had been imposed on him at the red flag period of the French race. Patrese took a single win at the Japanese Grand Prix and had eight other podium finishes, including six second-place results. After his retirement Patrese stated that Mansell had the edge over him that season because of Mansell's greater upper body strength, as the car's steering was heavy due to the amount of downforce it generated combined with the absence of power steering, whilst Patrese's skill in low speed corners was negated by the car's traction control system.

With Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell all desperately trying to sign for Williams, Patrese's position looked to be under threat and he signed for the Benetton team before the end of the year. His teammate for would be young German driver Michael Schumacher. Ironically, only Prost was able to agree terms with Williams for 1993 (Mansell went on to race in the American-based Champ Car series while Prost had a clause in his contract, signed in early 1992, that prevented Senna from being his teammate). This would have left a seat free for Patrese had he remained with the team. Although Williams offered Patrese the opportunity to stay with the team after Mansell announced his retirement from F1 at the Italian Grand Prix, he felt he could not go back on his word to Benetton. The number two seat at Williams went to the team's test driver Damon Hill, the son of the and  World Champion Graham Hill.

Benetton
While Williams continued to dominate F1 in 1993, Patrese found it difficult to get along with team manager Flavio Briatore, sensing that the team's concentration was on his new teammate Michael Schumacher. Patrese would also describe the Benetton B193 with its Ford HBA8 V8 as a step down in quality compared to the much more sophisticated Williams cars he had been driving for the previous five years. After scoring 56 points and finishing 2nd in the World Championship in 1992, Patrese scored 20 points to finish 5th in 1993 with a best finish of 2nd in Hungary in what was to prove to be his final season in Formula One. Before the end of the season Briatore informed Patrese that he was "free to seek an alternate drive". Ligier made Patrese an offer for 1994 but seeing it as a further step down in his career, he decided against it.

Retirement
As most top teams already had drivers signed for 1994, Patrese opted for retirement and brought what was then the longest F1 career in history to a conclusion. Patrese was invited to rejoin Williams in 1994 to fill the seat of Ayrton Senna after his fatal accident at Imola, but ultimately decided against returning to Formula One. A DTM test with Mercedes-Benz in July 1994 did not come to fruition either. In the second half of 1996, as thanks for his years of service to Williams, the team invited Patrese to test their latest car, the FW18, at Silverstone, with the Italian reportedly setting a time that would have placed him on the second row of the grid for that year's British Grand Prix.

After this, Patrese competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1997. He drove a Nissan R390 GT1 for the Nissan factory team; the car was third fastest in qualifying but was forced to retire with gearbox problems. After retiring from racing, he took up show jumping, following in the footsteps of his daughters who have competed in the sport internationally. He won an Italian national amateur title before retiring from equestrianism in 2014. Outside of competition, he is a keen collector of model railways, in particular those manufactured by Märklin.

In 2005 he returned to racing in the inaugural season of the Grand Prix Masters formula for retired F1 drivers. He finished third behind his former teammate Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi in the sole 2005 race at Kyalami, South Africa. His 2006 season was less successful with a 10th-place finish at Losail in Qatar and a 6th at Silverstone.

Patrese's record of 257 Grand Prix entries, set in a period when a typical F1 season was limited to 16 races, stood for 15 years, surviving the Schumacher era when Michael Schumacher retired on 250 race entries. Rubens Barrichello finally surpassed Patrese's total, recording his 258th Grand Prix entry at the 2008 Turkish Grand Prix. As part of the "handover", Patrese tested a Honda RA107 at Jerez on 9 September (Barrichello was driving for Honda at the time). Schumacher subsequently came out of retirement and became the second driver to surpass Patrese's former record.

In July 2018 it was announced that Patrese would come out of retirement to compete at the Spa 24 Hours that month, competing in the pro-am category in a JAS Motorsport-run Honda NSX GT3 with Loïc Depailler (the son of former F1 driver Patrick Depailler), Bertrand Baguette and Esteban Guerrieri.

Riccardo's son Lorenzo Patrese also became a racing driver alongside being a horse rider. He started single-seater racing in the 2020 Italian F4 Championship.

Complete European Formula 3 results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position / Races in italics indicate fastest lap) $†$ Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

Complete Super Tourenwagen Cup results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Grand Prix Masters results
(key) Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap.

title: Riccardo Patrese


text:
User:Vainglorious

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title: User:Vainglorious


text:
Standard electrode potential (data page)

The data below tabulates standard electrode potentials (E°), in volts relative to the standard hydrogen electrode, at: The Nernst equation adjusts for general concentrations, pressures, or temperatures.
 * Temperature 298.15 K;
 * Effective concentration 1 mol/L for each aqueous or amalgamated (mercury-alloyed) species;
 * Unit activity for each solvent and pure solid or liquid species; and
 * Absolute partial pressure 101.325 kPa for each gaseous reagent — the convention in most literature data but not the current standard state (100 kPa).

Simultaneous half-reactions do not in general add voltages, but instead add Gibbs free energy change: the product of the voltage and the number of electrons transferred, typically the Faraday constant. For example, from Fe + 2 Fe(s)  (–0.44 V), the energy to create one neutral atom of Fe(s) from one Fe ion and two electrons is 2 × 0.44 eV = 0.88 eV, or 84 895 J/(mol ). That value is also the standard formation energy for an Fe ion, since and Fe(s) both have zero formation energy.

Data from different sources may cause table inconsistencies. For example:  Additivity of Gibbs energy implies $$E_3=\frac{2\cdot E_2-1\cdot E_1}{1}=0.154\text{ V,}$$ not the experimental 0.159 V.

Table of standard electrode potentials
Legend: (s) – solid; (l) – liquid; (g) – gas; (aq) – aqueous (default for all charged species); (Hg) – amalgam; bold – water electrolysis equations.


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Panettone

Panettone (,  ; panetton ) is an Italian type of sweet bread and fruitcake, originally from Milan, Italy, usually prepared and enjoyed for Christmas and New Year in Western, Southern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as in South America, Eritrea, Australia, the United States and Canada.

It has a cupola shape, which extends from a cylindrical base and is usually about 12-15 cm high for a panettone weighing 1 kg. Other bases may be used, such as an octagon, or a frustum with a star section shape more common to pandoro. It is made during a long process that involves curing the dough, which is acidic, similar to sourdough. The proofing process alone takes several days, giving the cake its distinctive fluffy characteristics. It contains candied orange, citron, and lemon zest, as well as raisins, which are added dry and not soaked. Many other variations are available such as plain or with chocolate. It is served in wedge shapes, vertically cut, accompanied with sweet hot beverages or a sweet wine, such as Asti or Moscato d'Asti. In some regions of Italy, it is served with crema al mascarpone, a cream made by combining eggs, mascarpone, and a sweet liqueur.

Efforts are underway to obtain protected designation of origin (PDO) and denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) status for this product, but these have not yet been successful. Former Italian Agriculture Minister Paolo De Castro was known to be looking at ways to protect genuine Italian cakes from growing competition in South America, and exploring whether action could be taken at the World Trade Organization.

Origins
In Italy, historical accounts of panettone invariably state that it originated in Milan. The word panettone derives from panetto, a small loaf of bread. The augmentative suffix -one changes the meaning to 'large bread'.

It is possibly mentioned in a contemporary recipe book written by Italian Bartolomeo Scappi, personal chef to popes and emperors during the time of Charles V. The oldest and most certain attestation of the panettone is found in a register of expenses of the Borromeo college of Pavia in 1599: on 23 December of that year in the list of courses provided for lunch Christmas costs also appear for 5 pounds of butter, 2 pounds of raisins and 3 ounces of spices given to the baker to make 13 "loaves" to be given to college students on Christmas Day. The first recorded association of panettone with Christmas can be found in the Italian writings of the 18th century illuminist Pietro Verri. He refers to it as pan de ton ('luxury bread').

20th century
In the early 20th century, two enterprising Milanese bakers began to produce panettone in large quantities for the rest of Italy. In 1919, Angelo Motta started producing his eponymous brand of cakes. It was also Motta who revolutionised the traditional panettone by giving it its tall domed shape by making the dough rise three times, for almost 20 hours, before cooking, giving it its now-familiar light texture. The recipe was adapted shortly after by another baker, Gioacchino Alemagna, around 1925, who also gave his name to a popular brand that still exists today.

The stiff competition between the two that then ensued led to industrial production of the cake. Nestlé took over the brands together in the late 1990s, but Bauli, an Italian bakery company based in Verona, has since acquired Motta and Alemagna from Nestlé.

By the end of World War II, panettone was cheap enough for anyone and soon became the country's leading Christmas sweet. Lombard immigrants to Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil also brought their love of panettone, and panettone is enjoyed for Christmas with hot cocoa or liquor during the holiday season, which became a mainstream tradition in those countries. In some places, it replaces the king cake.

Modern consumption
Panettone is widely available in South America, including in Argentina, Brazil, Chile (see: pan de Pascua), Ecuador, Colombia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru. It is known in Spanish as panetón or pan dulce, and as panetone in Brazilian Portuguese. Peru's Antonio D'Onofrio, son of immigrants hailing from Caserta, Italy, spawned his own brand using a modified form of the Alemagna formula (e.g., candied papaya is used instead of candied citron and lemon, as these fruits are not available in Peru), which he licensed along with the packaging style. This brand is now also owned by Nestlé and exported throughout South America. Panettone is popular within Italian communities in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.

Italian food manufacturing companies and bakeries produce 117 million panettone and pandoro cakes every Christmas, collectively worth €579 million.

Peru is the world's biggest consumer of panettone, surpassing Italy, with 1.3 kg of panettone per person in a year for Peru.

title: Panettone