Moldovan

The Moldovan culture covers the Romanian-speaking Vlachs of the lands between the Carpathians and the Dniester. In 1353 the Hungarian crown sent Dragoș, a Vlach knyaz of Maramureș, to build a defence line against the Golden Horde on the Siret; in 1359 another Maramureș voivode, Bogdan of Cuhea, crossed the mountains and made the new polity independent, founding the House of Bogdan-Mușat.

The principality reached its height under Stephen the Great, who crushed an Ottoman army at Vaslui in 1475. The loss of Chilia and Cetatea Albă in 1484 forced Moldavia into Ottoman tributary status.

After Prince Dimitrie Cantemir joined Peter the Great against the Ottomans and was defeated at Stănilești in 1711, the Porte imposed Phanariote princes, who abolished serfdom in 1749. Bukovina passed to the Habsburgs in 1775 and the principality's eastern half, renamed Bessarabia, to Russia in 1812.