Bucovina - metamorfozele unei provincii

Abstract

"Central and Western European empiresʼ territorial expansions to the continentʼs south and east were accompanied by policies to modernize the economy and society of the annexed regions. Although locals bore the majority of the costs of the transition from the traditional to the liberal order, imperial authorities contributed to establishing adequate codes of law, creating a stimulating framework for social relations, and the improvement of relations between the state/monarchy and the subjects. The study reveals how placing a territory under multiple administrations causes changes not only in legal and economic terms but also in the ethno-demographic structure. In the situation of Bukovina, substantial colonization and immigration from within the empire, particularly from Galicia, had an impact on the province's ethnic composition. More significantly, the decrease in Romanians in the general population was the outcome of a policy of quantitative balancing of ethnic groups and the avoidance of such a situation in which one nationality numerically dominates the others and has political and electoral benefits. As a result, the picture of Bukovina society in 1918 was very different from that of 1775, and the twentieth-century extremism and world wars changed the character of Bukovina even more deeply. "