Duchy of Bukovina

Origins

In 1774 Austrian troops occupied the north-western corner of Moldavia, linking newly acquired Galicia with Transylvania, and the Ottomans ceded it in 1775. Named Bukovina, the beech land, it was ruled by the military until 1786, then attached to Galicia. In 1849 it became a separate crown land with the title of duchy.

Rule and society

Bukovina had its own diet from 1861 and a governor at Czernowitz, which grew into a German-speaking university town after 1875. Romanians, Ukrainians, Jews, Germans and Poles lived side by side, and in 1910 the diet adopted a compromise sharing seats among national groups. The Orthodox metropolitan resided in Czernowitz, and the painted monasteries of Suceava were preserved.

Decline and legacy

As Austria-Hungary collapsed in 1918, a congress in Czernowitz voted for union with Romania. In 1940 the Soviet Union annexed northern Bukovina, which is now part of Ukraine, while southern Bukovina remains in Romania. Its Jewish community was largely destroyed in the Holocaust.