It included the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia along with the neighboring Ottoman-ruled territories annexed by Russia by the Treaty of Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812).

The Governorate was disbanded in 1917, with the establishment of Sfatul Țării, a national assembly which proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic in December 1917.

This was followed by six years of warfare, which were concluded by the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), by which the Ottoman Empire acknowledged the Russian annexation of the province.

Bessarabia was the southern part of this territory (now known as Budjak); it is believed that the region was named after the Wallachian house of Basarab, which may have ruled it in the 14th century.

[1] After the annexation, the local boyars, led by Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni, the Metropolitan of Chișinău and Hotin, petitioned for self-rule and the establishment of a civil government based on the Moldavian traditional laws.

[3][4] After the death of Bănulescu-Bodoni in 1821, Bessarabia lacked a strong leader and as the Russians feared nationalism, which triggered the anti-Ottoman 1821 Wallachian Revolution in neighbouring Wallachia, the local authorities began a gradual retraction of many of the freedoms.

Autonomy of the region was retracted in 1829, with the new constitution written by the governor of New Russia and Bessarabia, Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov.

Although this system was meant to increase the participation of the locals in civic affairs, it was run by Russians and other non-Moldavian functionaries brought from across the Empire.

[8] In 1856, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Russia was forced to return a significant territory in Southern Bessarabia (organised as the Cahul and Ismail counties, with the Bolgrad later split from the second) to Moldavia, which joined Wallachia in 1859 to form Romania.

[14] As a result, the literature and cultural life stagnated, only a few notable literary figures arising from Bessarabia, among them being Alexandru Hasdeu (1811–1872), Constantin Stamati (1786–1869) and Teodor Vârnav (1801–1860).

In the second half of the 19th century, all links with Romanian literature were cut and no literary currents or schools of criticism developed in Bessarabia.

[15] In the first wave of violence, which was associated with Easter, 49 Jews were killed, large numbers of Jewish women were raped and 1,500 homes were damaged.

The moderates, led by landowner Pavel Dicescu, organized around the Societatea pentru Cultură Naţională ("The Society for National Culture"), argued for the usage of Romanian as a language of instruction in schools, but against social reforms.

"), a Romanian patriotic song, which made Kharuzin, the governor of Bessarabia, to order the closure of the newspaper only nine months after its first issue.

[18] When the February Revolution happened in Petrograd in 1917, the governor of Bessarabia Governorate, Mihail Mihail Voronovici, stepped down on 13 March and passed his legal powers to Constantin Mimi, the President of the Gubernial Zemstvo, which was named the Comissar of the Provisional Government in Bessarabia, with Vladimir Criste his deputy.

It was part of the larger campaign of colonization of Novorossiya, under which Russia appealed to everyone who wanted to work and live under its authority, no matter if they came from the Russian Empire or from elsewhere.

[28] Following the 1905 Russian Revolution, the church decided to allow the usage of Romanian by the village priests and the re-establishment of the eparchy printing press, which would publish religious literature and of a newspaper.