Early history

The Budjak culture of the North-West Black Sea region is considered to be important in the context of the Pit-Grave or Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppe, dating to 3,600–2,300 BC. In particular, Budjak may have given rise to the Balkan-Carpathian variant of Yamnaya culture.^[1]

In Classical antiquity, Budjak was inhabited by Tyragetae, Bastarnae, Scythians, and Roxolani. In 6th century BC Ancient Greek colonists established a colony at the mouths of Dnister river, Tyras.^[2] Around 2nd century BC, also a Celt tribe settled at Aliobrix (present day Cartal/Orlovka).

Budjak area, the northern Lower Danube, was described as the "wasteland of the Getae" by the ancient Greek geographer Strabo (1st century BC). In fact, based on recent archaeological research, in this period of time, the area was most likely populated by sedentary farmers; among them were the Dacians and the Daco-Romans. The nomad peoples, such as the Sarmatians also passed through the area.^[3]

The Romans acquired the area in the 1st century AD, rebuilt and encamped Tyras and Aliobrix. As with the rest of the port cities around the Black Sea, the local population absorbed a mixture of Greek and Roman cultures, with Greek being mainly the language of trade, and Latin the language of politics. After the division of the Roman Empire in 395, the area was included in the East Roman or Byzantine Empire. From the 1st century AD until the invasion of the Avars in 558, the Romans had established cities (poleis), military camps and some stations for the veterans and for the colons (apoikion) sent by the emperors.^[4]

The area lay along the predominant route for migratory peoples, as it was the westernmost portion of the Euro-Asian steppe. Going westward, only the banks of the Dniester and Danube rivers were less forested comparatively to the surrounding areas (which nowadays form Moldova and Romania), therefore providing a natural route for herdsmen all the way from Mongolia to the Pannonian Plains (modern Hungary). The region, therefore, passed as a temporary settling ground for the Huns under the leader Uldin (387), the Avars (558–567), the Slavs (end of 6th century), the Bulgars under Asparuh (679), the Magyars (9th century), the Pechenegs (11th century, and again 12th century), the Cumans (12th century) and others.

Although the Byzantines held nominal suzerainty of the region (at least of the sea shore) until the 14th century, they had little or no sway over the hinterland.

In the early Middle Ages a Tigheci "Republic" was formed by several villages occupying the nearby Tigheci hills, in order to offer more security for themselves, while the steppe area between that and the seashore, unsuited for agriculture due to lack of water and frequently invaded by Eastern populations, remained void of permanent settlements. From the 7th to the 12th centuries, the region was under the authority of the First Bulgarian Empire, Pechenegs, and later of Cumans, who irregularly collected tribute from the indigenous villagers.

Moldavian and Ottoman rule

The 14th-century Moldavian fortress of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (Romanian: Cetatea Albă)

After the Mongol invasion of 1241, the rebuilt coastal cities of Budjak (Maurocastro and Licostomo) came under the domination of Genoese traders. The interior however remained under the direct Mongol rule of the Golden Horde. According to a widespread view in Romanian historiography, sometime during the 14th century Wallachia's princes of the House of Basarab extended their authority over part of the territory. The same theory asserts that the region remained under Wallachian influence until the early 15th century, during the reign of Mircea the Elder, when the area was integrated into Moldavia by prince Alexander the Kind. The name Bessarabia, derived from the name of the Wallachian ruling house, is the main argument for this theory, though the name, attested only in the late 15th century, may arise from a cartographic confusion. Nogai Tatars, who had settled herds in the region after the 1240s, inhabited the steppe, while Romanians inhabited the surrounding hills and the port cities.

In 1484 Stephen the Great of Moldavia was forced to surrender the two main fortresses of Chilia (Kiliia) and Cetatea Albă (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi) to the Ottoman Empire, the last Black Sea ports to fall into Ottoman hands. In 1538 the Ottomans forced prince Petru Rareș of Moldavia to give up the fortress-city Tighina as well.

Under the Ottomans, Tighina was renamed Bender, while Chilia lost importance due to the construction of the Ismail fortress at the location of the Moldavian village Smil.^[5][6] Despite returning from Muslim to Orthodox Christian sovereignty, the latter names were retained by the Russian Empire.

Under Ottoman rule, the three major cities each were the center of a sanjak, and were together officially part of Silistra (or Özi) Eyalet although Bender was north of Trajan's Wall and outside of the steppe region. The Nogai Tatar-inhabited steppe, which then acquired the name Budjak, served as a buffer area between these sanjaks and the Principality of Moldavia. Although it was a tributary of the Ottoman Empire, Moldavia was independent in its internal affairs until the start of the Russo-Turkish Wars forced the Ottomans to ensure that the Romanian princes did not switch sides too often.

The region of Budjak within historical Moldavia

Modern history

The Moldavian-Russian (starting with 1859 the Romanian-Russian) boundary between 1856/1857 and 1878

During the Napoleonic Era, Budjak was overrun by Russia in the course of the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812. The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest transferred the territories of Moldavia and the Ottoman Empire east of the Prut River and north of the Danube, including Budjak, to Russian control. With the Russian annexation, the name Bessarabia began to be applied not only to the original southern region, but to the entire eastern half of historical Moldavia acquired by the Russian Empire, while Budjak was applied to southern Bessarabia, mainly to the steppe.

With Russia's 1856 defeat in the Crimean War, a part of southern Bessarabia including a part of Budjak (Reni, Izmail, Bolhrad, Kiliia) was ceded by the Russian Empire back to the Principality of Moldavia, which soon united with Wallachia to form the United Principalities (which was made a personal union in 1859 to then be deepened into a full union in 1862, as the Principality of Romania). Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the Treaty of San Stefano and the Treaty of Berlin recognized the full independence of the new Kingdom of Romania (the principalities that formed it had already been de facto independent for half a century), but transferred the territories subject to the 1856 re-configuration back to the Russian Empire.

After World War I, Budjak, which was part of the Russian Bessarabia Governorate that voted to join Romania, was administered as parts of Tighina, Ismail, and Cetatea Albă counties (judeţe). As the region was inhabited by non-Romanian majorities, it initially witnessed several revolts against the central authorities, such as the Bender Uprising of 1919 and the Tatarbunary Uprising of 1924.

In 1939, the secret appendix to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact assigned Bessarabia to the Soviet Union's sphere of influence and, in June 1940, the Soviets issued an ultimatum demanding the transfer of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. King Carol II of Romania acquiesced and the area was annexed. Central and northern Bessarabia formed the center of the new Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic but part of the south, now known as Budjak, was apportioned to the Ukrainian SSR. The commission that decided the administrative border between the Ukrainian SSR and Moldavian SSR inside the Soviet Union was chaired by Nikita Khrushchev, the then leader of the Ukrainian SSR and the future USSR leader who would add Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR.

On 7 August 1940 the Soviets formed Akkerman Oblast, which was administratively subdivided into 13 raions. The city of Akkerman (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi) was the center of the oblast. Four months later, on 7 December 1940 the oblast was renamed Izmail Oblast, and the oblast center was moved to the city of Izmail.

Upon Nazi Germany's June 1941 declaration of war on the Soviet Union, Romania sided with the Axis Powers and retook the territories previously annexed by the Soviet Union, including Budjak, but then also continued the war into proper Soviet territory. The area was regained by the Soviets in 1944 and, despite a royal coup by Michael I of Romania that led to Romania joining the Allies in August 1944, was annexed by the Soviets in the 1940 political configuration.

During the administrative reform of Ukrainian SSR, on 15 February 1954, Izmail Oblast was liquidated, and all raions of the oblast were included into Odesa Oblast. By territory, Odesa oblast is now the largest oblast in Ukraine.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, each of the fifteen republics that formally had the right to secede became independent, with boundaries preserved as were inside Soviet Union, since the same Soviet Constitution stipulated that they could not be changed without the mutual consent of both republics, and no discussions between the two upon such an issue were ever held.

Budjak is now a part of independent Ukraine, linked to the rest of Odesa oblast by two bridges across the Dniester River. The northernmost connection enters Moldovan territory for a 7.63 km (43⁄4 miles) stretch of road, which is controlled by Ukraine as per an agreement between the two countries.

Petro Poroshenko, the former President of Ukraine, was born in the Budjak town of Bolhrad in 1965.

In the autumn of 2014 there were reports of plots to proclaim a pro-Russian People's Republic in the Budjak region of Bessarabia, along the lines of the separatist "people's republics" established in the Donbas region. However, the growing intensity of the war in the Donbas cooled the enthusiasm for separatism and any plans that may have existed failed to materialise. By the end of the year there were reports of drones over the Budjak, apparently from Russian-backed militants in Transnistria or the Black Sea.^[7]