Moldova is a part of the area known as Bassarabia, geographically delineated by the Prut River on the west, the Dniestr River on the north and east, the Black Sea on the southeast, and the Kiliya (Chilia) arm of the Danube delta on the south. The Moldovan principality was founded in 1359 and after unification of the Romanian principalities in 1601, it was integrated in Great Romania. In 1812, as a result of Russian Ottoman war it was ceded to Russia, where it remained until 1918. At that time, the whole of Bassarabia joined back Romania, a move sanctioned by the 1920 Treaty of Paris. This reintegration with Romania was never recognized by the Soviet Union, which in 1924 established the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) on the east bank of the Dniestr (in the componence of the Soviet Ukraine).
Bassarabia was among the territories assigned to the Soviet Union under the terms of the secret Soviet German nonaggression pact of 1939. The Soviet Union forced Romania to cede Bassarabia in June 1940, and, in August, assigned it to the Ukraine Moldovan ASSR to form a new Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR). In the wake of Germany 's June 1941 attack on the USSR, the Soviet Union once again lost the Bassarabia to Romania, but in 1944 it was recaptured and the Moldovan SSR re-established. Re-incorporation into the Soviet Union entailed rigorous russification, the imposition of the Cyrillic alphabet, large scale immigration of Russians and Ukrainians as well as isolation from Romania.
Moldova declared its sovereignty on June 23, 1990. Following the failed August 1991 coup in Moscow, Moldova declared its independence on August 27, 1991.