[6] During the early 18th century, Moldavia became the target of the Russian Empire's southwards expansion, inaugurated by Tsar Peter the Great during the Pruth River Campaign of 1710–11.

Following the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the Habsburg monarchy had aimed at a land connection from the Principality of Transylvania to the newly acquired Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.

After the Russo-Turkish Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca was concluded in July 1774, the Austrians entered into negotiations with the Sublime Porte from October and could finally obtain a territory of Moldavia with an area of about 10,000 square kilometres (ca.

For opposing and protesting the annexation of the northwestern part of Moldavia, the Moldavian ruler Prince Grigore III Ghica was assassinated by the Ottomans.

The Habsburg emperor Joseph II wished to affiliate the region with the provinces of the Austrian monarchy (though not with the Holy Roman Empire); he had the devastated lands colonised by Danube Swabians, later known as Bukovina Germans.

The immigration process promoted the further economic development of the multi-ethnic country, though it remained a remote eastern outpost of the Danube Monarchy.

After the political turmoil of the 1848 revolutions, the estates urged the Vienna government to elevate the Bukovina to a separate Austrian Kronland (crown land).

With effect of 4 March 1849, the former Kreis was declared the Herzogtum Bukowina, a nominal duchy as part of the official full style of the Austrian emperor.

Upon the promulgation of the December Constitution, the Imperial Council, on the initiative of the Cisleithanian Citizens' Ministry led by Karl von Auersperg, decided to confer the title Landespräsident on the former stadtholder, heading a Landesregierung (state government).

[14] In the autumn of 1918, the multi-ethnic state of Austria-Hungary collapsed and the Ministry of War officially ordered demobilization, though no central authority was able to ensure the decommissioning of arms.

[citation needed] A popular enthusiasm sprang throughout the region, and a large number of people gathered in the city to wait for the resolution of the Congress.

[20][21] The reasons stated were that, until its takeover by the Habsburg in 1775, Bukovina was the heart of the Principality of Moldavia (where the voivods' burial sites are located), and right of self-determination.

On 31 August 1860 it was re-subordinated to Lemberg[24] but its separate status was restored in the 1861 February Patent, which also granted the Duchy of Bukovina a representative assembly, the Landtag diet with a Landesausschuss executive branch led by a Landeshauptmann.

In 1787, the imperial officials documented in Czernowitz 414 houses, of which 153 were Moldavian (Romanian), 84 German and 76 Jewish, with the rest being Armenian, Arnaut (Albanian), Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Pole and Ruthene (Ukrainian).

[33] The immigrants were mainly Ukrainians (at that time referred to as Ruthenians from Galicia) and Romanians from Transylvania and Hungary, as well as smaller numbers of Germans, Poles, Jews, and Hungarians.