Hertsa region

This article is about the geographic region around Hertsa. For other uses, see Hertsa (disambiguation).

Map of modern Chernivtsi Oblast with historical regions outlined: red: northern Bukovina, blue: Hertsa region, green: northern Bessarabia

Ethnic divisions in Chernivtsi Oblast in the 1980s, with Ukrainians, Romanians, Russians, Moldovans and Jews depicted in white, blue, red, and yellow respectively

The Hertsa region, also known as the Hertza region (Ukrainian: Край Герца, romanized: Krai Hertsa; Romanian: Ținutul Herța), is a region around the town of Hertsa within Chernivtsi Raion in the southern part of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine, near the border with Romania. With an area of around 304 km² (117 sq mi), it has a population of about 32,300 people (as of 2001), 93% of whom are ethnic Romanians.

History

The territory, historically part of Moldavia, was one of the five districts of Dorohoi County. Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union issued on June 26, 1940, an ultimatum to Romania that threatened the use of force. The Romanian government, responding to the Soviet ultimatum, agreed to withdraw from the territories to avoid a military conflict. A few days later, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were occupied by the Soviet Union, and the Hertsa region was attached to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. As it was not mentioned in the ultimatum, the annexation of the Hertsa region was not consented to by Romania. The region (together with the rest of Bessarabia and Bukovina) was recaptured by Romania during 1941–1944 in the course of the Axis attack on the Soviet Union in World War II, until the Red Army captured it again in 1944. Soviet annexation of this territory was internationally recognized by the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947.

Romania and Ukraine have signed and ratified a border agreement and are signatories of international treaties and alliances that denounce any territorial claims. Romanian organisations in the region consider Hertsa to be historically Romanian, detached from it by the Soviet Union in 1940 in violation of international law. The correspondent of "New Region", Sergei Vulpe, with reference to the Bucharest newspaper Ziua reported on April 17, 2008 that the President of Romania, Traian Băsescu, stated that if Ukraine wants to annex Transnistria, then they should return Southern Bessarabia (Budjak) and northern Bukovina (Chernivtsi Oblast that includes the Hertsa region) to Moldova.

See also

• Moldova
• Moldavia
• Bessarabia
• Bukovina
• Transnistria
• Budjak

External links

• "Ținutul Herța, pământ românesc" [Hertsa region, Romanian land]. Ziua (in Romanian). April 25, 2005. Archived from the original on September 25, 2021. Retrieved December 6, 2020. (Hertsa region Romanian organization protests against Ukrainian changes to its status as a raion.)
• Gherasim, Gabriel (August 7, 2005). "Românii din Ucraina" [Romanians from Ukraine] (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 2007-12-08. Retrieved December 6, 2020. (One of the original authors of the Ukrainian Constitution speaks about the Hertsa region.)