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BESSARABIAN QUESTION AT THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE: THE KRUPENSKII CASE

Svetlana Suveica, Ph.D.
Republic of Moldova
Fulbright Scholar in Residence at CREEES, 2009-10

Background:

The research project, as a file of the interwar Romanian history, is dedicated to Bessarabia, the Romanian province for which the pros and cons at the Paris Peace Conference were of a crucial significance.

Bessarabian Question at the Paris Peace Conference remains in attention of the researchers. The Paris Peace Conference gave the official international recognition to the union of Bessarabia with Romania, the act being voted by the Bessarabian parliament Statul Tarii on March 27, 1918. For more than a century, this theme, as well as those concerning the Bessarabian status is subject not only of a great interest but also of a harsh polemic between historians from both side of Dniester River. During the last years, Romanian as well as foreign researchers pay greater attention to the unpublished documents and materials from the foreign archives. Thus, Marcel Mitrasca, in his book, Moldova: A Romanian Province under Russian Rule: Diplomatic History from the Archives of the Great Powers (New York, Algora Pbs., 2002), argues that the Paris Peace Conference proved to be a great success for Romania that came not as a gift from the Great Powers but as a result of the objective factors. As about the Bessarabian question, Mitrasca conducted extensive research of unpublished documents from the national archives of Japan, Romania, Great Britain, France, and Italy to explore why the treaty was never enforced and what was at stake for each of the Great Power nations. Mitrasca paid great attention to the US position and motivation, US being the biggest opponent to the Bessarabian treaty. The author makes a detailed presentation of US involvement whenever Bessarabia was the subject of an intense debate within the Conference’s commissions.

The covert negotiations, as well as propaganda actions during the Conference were only briefly discussed in the bibliography dedicated to the question of Bessarabia (Marcel Mitrasca and Octavian Tacu’s works). At this stage of the research, we are absolutely convinced – and one can not deny it - that the covert negotiations, as well as propaganda actions played an important role in persuading the delegations and the public to support the signing of the Treaty over Bessarabia, as well as to oppose to it. In the last context, Alexandr Nicolaevich Krupenskii, the former Marshal of Bassarabian nobility, President of Bessarabian Gubernial Zemstvo, as well as one of the richest Bessarabian landowners, was one of those who made a front of opposition to Romanian delegation and to Bessarabian representatives at the Conference, Ion Pelivan, D. Ciugureanu and others. According to Mitrasca, namely his actions, as well as those of the former Mayor of Chisinau, A.Schmidt, proved to be quite successful in obtaining the backing of the US delegates that opposed to the signing of the Bessarabian treaty (op.cit., p.76) .

National archives and bibliography offer only short critical remarks toward A.N.Krupenskii’s activity linked with the forum. Krupenskii organized an intense propaganda to convince the public and the deciding Powers of the wrongfulness of Romanian territorial claims. It consisted of memoranda sent to the delegations representing the Great Powers, of numerous articles, brochures and pamphlets published in English and French during the years of 1919-1920 and afterwards. He also kept a fruitful correspondence with high rank officials, members of delegations and diplomats. The correspondence between A.N. Krupenskii and Eric Drumond, the Secretary General of the League of Nations, found at the National Archives of Great Britain, Kew, proves that Krupenskii was very active even after the Paris Peace Conference and tried to argue that Romanian administration in Bessarabia acted against the local populations and violated the property rights namely of Russian minority of the province.

We are absolutely convinced that Krupenskii files from Hoover Archives as primary sources are indispensable for the continuation of the research. The lamented historian Mihai Timofte from the “Al.I.Cuza” University of Iasi, who once traveled to Stanford, offered us the chance to look briefly at some of Krupenskii’s memoranda. Unfortunately, because of his premature death, the collected materials remained in his personal archive and were never published. If given the opportunity to make a research of Krupenskii’s files, we will be able to restore the missing part of a complicated web of events and relations concerning the recognition of Bessarabian union with Romania.

Objectives:

We set several main objectives of the research project:

Firstly, the project aims at filling the gap of knowledge on the unofficial relations linked to the Bessarabian question at the Paris Peace Conference, in which A.N.Krupenskii played a major role.

Secondly, Krupenskii’s absolutely hostile position toward Bessarabia is a well-known fact. The less-known are the real motives that made him to have strong anti-Romanian feelings. We aim at understanding whether Krupenskii’s arguments were based on real facts and data, as well as on attitudes of Bessarabian population or were just speculations that were supported by pro-Russian circles in Bessarabia. In order to answer such questions, we will put together the information from the Krupenskii’s files and the documents from Moldovan and Romanian archives, as well as some of the memoirs of those times.

Thirdly, the important aim of the research is to reveal to what extend Krupenskii’s unofficial relations and propaganda acts had an impact on the official positions of the delegations representing the Great Powers, namely US. Curiously, his position and arguments were convenient to the pro-Russian circles in the province, as well as to the foreign circles that were not willing to solve Bessarabian problem in favor of Romania but in detriment of Russia. It is also interesting to find out at what extent Russian officials counted on Krupenskii’s actions as well, in order to persuade foreign delegates to vote against the signing of Bessarabian Treaty.

Fourthly, how the idea of a plebiscite to be held in Bessarabia is linked with A.N.Krupenskii is another question we will base our research on. There is a presumption that Krupenskii himself was the first who proposed the plebiscite as a solution for the Bessarabian question at that time (Al.Boldur, La Bessarabie et les relations russo-roumaines, Paris, 1927, p.92). If it was Krupenskii’s idea, what arguments were brought in order to support it and how it is reflected in the non-diplomatic correspondence of the 1919-1920s?