Moldova historical timeline

History

Moldova's history is that of a borderland whose owners changed more often than its people, and what a visitor sees -- Stephen the Great's fortress, the tsars' cathedral and arch, the Soviet blocks and the vines -- is the record of each of them.

Chronology

6th century BC A Geto-Dacian fortress stands on the Răut bend at Old Orhei; Oldowan tools at Dubăsari are up to 1.2 million years old.
1359 The Principality of Moldavia is founded east of the Carpathians; a Golden Horde town, Shehr al-Jedid, has just risen at Old Orhei and a Moldavian fort and cave monastery follow.
1457 Stephen the Great begins a reign of 47 years, fighting Hungary, Poland and the Ottomans, and builds the fortress at Soroca in 1499; Căpriana had been named a royal monastery in 1429.
1538 Moldavia becomes an Ottoman vassal; Bender's fortress is Ottoman from this year until 1812; Chișinău, founded as a monastery village in 1436, is a small town.
1812 Russia annexes the eastern half of the principality as Bessarabia; Chișinău gets its Nativity Cathedral in 1830–36 and Triumphal Arch in 1840, Purcari its winery in 1827, and the vineyards their French varieties.
1918 Bessarabia declares independence and its parliament, the Sfatul Țării, votes union with Romania; the Soviets dispute it and set up a Moldavian autonomy east of the Dniester in 1924.
1940 The Molotov–Ribbentrop pact hands Bessarabia to the Soviet Union as the Moldavian SSR.
1941 In the Romanian-German reoccupation of 1941 to 1944 some 147,000 Jews are deported and over 90,000 perish. On 12 and 13 June 1941, before the reoccupation, 29,839 members of families classed as counter-revolutionaries and nationalists had already been deported from the Moldavian SSR and the neighbouring Ukrainian oblasts. The country was emptied from both directions within three years.
1946 A severe drought in 1946 produces a poor harvest while the Soviet government raises food prices, and the famine of 1946-47 kills about 100,000 people in the Moldavian SSR -- the heaviest toll after Ukraine's 300,000. It came directly after the war, in the same countryside that had just been fought over twice.
1949 On 6 July 1949, 11,239 families comprising 35,050 people are detained and deported in one operation as kulaks or alleged collaborators, following a Politburo decision of 6 April that had called for 11,280 families. A secret Soviet Interior Ministry report of 1965 put the total deported from the Moldavian SSR between 1940 and 1953 at 46,000, and around 7,500 Gagauz were sent to Siberia or Kazakhstan. The 1949 date is the one Moldovan memorials mark.
1991 Independence is declared on 27 August; Transnistria, which had declared its own on 2 September 1990, fights a war in 1992 that leaves it a de facto state with a Russian contingent; the leu replaces the ruble on 29 November 1993 and Gagauzia is promised autonomy in 1994.
2022 With the war in Ukraine across the border, Moldova is granted EU candidate status in June; a 2024 referendum writes European integration into the constitution.

What survived, and how

The monasteries survived because the Soviets closed rather than demolished most of them and the villages reopened them; Old Orhei's cave church survived because it is a cave. The vines survived every regime because every regime drank. Stephen the Great's fortress at Soroca survived because it was built to.

What did not survive is the Jewish Bessarabia of Chișinău and Soroca, and, for many families, the country itself: the diaspora that votes from abroad is a large share of the nation.

Verified against Wikipedia, September 2026.

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Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — Most of Moldovan territory was a part of the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century until 1812, when it was ceded to the Russian Empire by the…, In February 1918, it declared independence and then integrated into Romania later that year, In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, On 27 August 1991, as the dissolution of the Soviet Union was underway, the Moldavian SSR declared independence and took the name Moldova, Under the presidency of Maia Sandu, elected in 2020 ... Moldova ... was granted candidate status in June 2022, According to the 2024 national census, ethnic Moldovans made up almost 77% of the country's population, while Romanians (8%), Ukrainians (5%), Gagauzians…, According to the 2014 Moldovan census, 90% of the country reported to be of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, According to the 2024 census, 46,4% of the population is urban ... About one-third of the Moldovan population live in the capital, In 2021, Moldova exported $140 million in wine and is the 21st largest exporter of wine in the world ... With its 300 days of sunshine per year, The medieval Principality of Moldavia was established in 1359, The greatest Moldavian personality was prince Stephen the Great, who ruled from 1457 to 1504, becoming a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire from 1538, In 1918, Bessarabia briefly became independent as the Moldavian Democratic Republic and, following the decision of the Parliament (Sfatul Țării), united…, deported ca. 147,000 Jews from the territories of Bessarabia and Bukovina, of whom over 90,000 perished, The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 led to declared independence, followed by the Transnistria War in 1992, Oldowan flint tools were discovered at Dubasari on the lower Dniester that are 800,000–1.2 million years old, In February 1994, President Mircea Snegur promised autonomy to the Gagauz, situated in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc, a tributary of the Dniester. According to the results of the 2024 Moldovan census, the population…, Founded in 1436 as a monastery village, Between 26 May 1830 and 13 October 1836, the architect Avraam Melnikov established the Catedrala Nașterea Domnului ... In 1840, the building of the…, the core of the Orhei National Park, established in 2013, the remnants of earthen and wooden fortresses of a Geto–Dacian fortress (6th–1st centuries BC), the Golden Horde fort Shehr al-Jedid or Yangi-Shehr (14th…, its well-preserved stronghold, established by the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great ... in 1499, a document issued in 1429 that gave Căpriana the status of royal monastery on behalf of Alexander the Good, Purcari was founded in 1827, Castel Mimi. The vineyards were planted by the governor of Bessarabia, Konstantin Mimi, in 1893, and a chateau was built in 1901, On 12 and 13 June 1941, 29,839 members of families of counter-revolutionaries and nationalists were deported from the Moldavian SSR and from the Chernivtsi and Izmail oblasts, A secret Soviet Ministry of Interior report of December 1965 recorded 46,000 people deported from the Moldavian SSR in the period 1940 to 1953, and around 7,500 Gagauz were deported to Siberia or Kazakhstan, A Politburo decision of 6 April 1949 called for 11,280 families from the Moldavian SSR to be deported as kulaks or collaborators, and 11,239 families comprising 35,050 people were detained and deported on 6 July 1949, In the Soviet famine of 1946-47 the Moldavian SSR lost about 100,000 dead, second only to the Ukrainian SSR's 300,000; a severe drought in 1946 produced a poor harvest while the Soviet government raised food prices (September 2026).