page_title: Khotin Uprising
section_title: Later history
hierarchical_section_title: Khotin Uprising / Revivals / Later history
caption_attribution_description: English: Veterans of Grigory Kotovski's Bolshevik partisan units reunited for a conference in Russia or Ukraine, 1922. According to author Ya. G. Babchuk (Спогади про Хотинське повстання, 2011), the image also includes two Ukrainian participants in the Khotin Uprising of early 1919, namely Ya. Barchuk and P. Oliynyk.
context_page_description: The Khotin Uprising was a Ukrainian-led insurrection in the far-northern tip of Bessarabia region, nestled between Bukovina and Podolia. It occurred on January 7–February 1, 1919, less than a year after Bessarabia's annexation by the Romanian Kingdom. The city it was centered on is now known as Khotyn, and is located in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine; in 1919, it was the capital of Hotin County, on the unofficial border between Romania and the Ukrainian People's Republic. The revolt was carried out by armed locals, mainly Ukrainian peasants, assisted by Cossack deserters from the Ukrainian People's Army and groups of Moldovans, with some support from local Bolsheviks and White Russians. It forms part of the Ukrainian War of Independence, though whether or not the UNR covertly supported it, beyond formally reneging it, is a matter of dispute. The role of Bolsheviks, which has been traditionally highlighted in Romanian and Soviet historiography alike, is similarly debated. The Khotin Uprising is therefore ambiguously linked to the Russian Civil War and the Ukrainian–Soviet War.
context_section_description: The UNR was dissolved upon the conclusion of its war with Russia in late 1921, leaving Khotin and Bessarabia to be governed by Romania, directly on its closed border with the Soviet Union. Prosecution of the 1919 rebels was pursued over several years. Rebels captured before January 23 were treated with more leniency, and made subject to trials by military courts. Examples include Alexei Borodaty and M. V. Bulkat, the latter of whom died in Craiova prison in 1924. Bărbuță's aide S. Foșu was finally captured in 1929, and sentenced to death for his participation in Poetaș's killing.
  Romanian authorities in Hotin became widely known for their mismanagement and embezzlement, with wide-ranging consequences: in 1923, the prefect was under investigation for hoarding all pigs out of Hotin and selling them in Bukovina for personal gain. Reports by the Ministry of Education signaled that Hotin inhabitants remained profoundly anti-Romanian. Officials intended to subvert the trend by closing down Russian-language education and enforcing Romanianization. During the early 1930s, the region was more heavily impacted by the Great Depression, prompting renewed activities by communist agents, but also agitation the antisemitic National-Christian Defense League. In May 1933, Vasily Gotinchan attempted to establish a local chapter of the pro-communist Liberation Party, but was apprehended and put on trial. A Ukrainian branch of the Romanian Communist Party was finally set up regionally, with Shulim Abramovich Kryvyi emerging as its chief organizer in 1939. In 1938, the National Renaissance Front regime bid on subverting traditional loyalties in Bessarabia, dividing the region into larger administrative units that straddled old borders into Bukovina and Western Moldavia. As a result, Hotin County was dissolved, and its territory was assigned to Ținutul Suceava. The passage of antisemitic laws also came with targeted persecution, including the attempted expulsion of all Jews living in Zelena.
  This episode ended in 1940, as most of Khotin was annexed to the Ukrainian SSR during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina; the core areas of Bessarabia, meanwhile, formed a separate Moldavian SSR. The border between these two Soviet entities was settled on August 2, 1940 (effectively on November 4), when the southern third of Hotin County was recognized as part of the Moldavian SSR. The northern regions, which remained under Ukrainian administration, had a Ukrainian plurality of 41.6%, and were amalgamated with Bukovinan areas into Chernivtsi Oblast. As noted by van Meurs, this arrangement was due to Ukrainian officials using their "political clout", as a "strong Ukrainian involvement" had underpinned the Soviet moves of 1940. Approval was obtained from the Moldavian SSR Premier, Tihon Konstantinov, but not from the Moldovan population. This reportedly contradicted fundamental laws of the Moldavian Autonomous Republic, which were still in place before the passage of a 1941 Constitution.
  The Soviet annexation occurred after the Great Purge, which had seen Shynkarenko being sidelined by the Soviets and narrowly escaping execution; several Khotin refugees were shot at that stage by the NKVD, followed by at least 224 new Soviet citizens in 1940–1941. While in Bukovina the NKVD began a purge of Ukrainian elites, many of whom fled with the Romanian Army, Ukrainians around Khotin appear to have welcomed the change of borders, with reports that Romanian garrisons had been humiliated by civilians during the eviction. Similar incidents occurred in other parts of Bessarabia, and, before 1941, Romanian Army folklore enshrined in public memory the claim that Jews were the main culprits, despite evidence to the contrary.
  A re-annexation by Romania occurred in 1941, as part of Operation Barbarossa; at the time, Romania was under a dictatorial government led by Davidoglu's former rival, Ion Antonescu. From September 4, 1941, Hotin County was attached to a Romanian Governorate of Bukovina. Shortly before this formal reoccupation, Romanian troops in A
caption: Veterans of Kotovsky's Bolshevik partisan units reunited for a conference in Soviet territory, 1922. The image reportedly includes two Ukrainian participants in the Khotin Uprising: Ya. Barchuk and P. Oliynyk
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