asserted their supremacy, but in 1618 the Porte once more recovered its dominion and set up successively two creatures of its own as voivodes—Gratiani, an Italian who had been court jeweller, and a Greek custom-house official, Alexander.
As in Walachia at a somewhat later date, the Phanariote régime seemed now thoroughly established in Moldavia, and The Phanariote régime. it became the rule that every three years the voivode should procure his confirmation by a large baksheesh, and every year by a smaller one. But Prince Basil the Wolf (Vasilie Lupul), an Albanian, who succeeded in 1634, showed great ability, and for twenty years maintained his position on the Moldavian throne. He introduced several internal reforms, codified the written and unwritten laws of the country, established a printing press, Greek monastic schools, and also a Latin school. He brought the Moldavian Church into more direct relation with the patriarch of Constantinople, but also showed considerable favour to the Latins, allowing them to erect churches at Suciava, Jassy and Galatz. The last voivode of the Bassaraba family, Elias Voda, reigned from 1667 to 1669.
During the wars between Sobieski, king of Poland (1674-96), and the Turks, Moldavia found itself between hammer Demetrius Cantemir. and anvil, and suffered terribly from Tatar devastations. The voivode Duka was forced like his Walachian contemporary to supply a contingent for the siege of Vienna in 1683. After Sobieski's death in 1696, the hopes of Moldavia turned to the advancing Muscovite power. In 1711 the voivode Demetrius Cantemir, rendered desperate by the Turkish exactions, concluded an agreement with the tsar Peter the Great by which Moldavia was to become a protected and vassal state of Russia, with the enjoyment of its traditional liberties, the voivodeship to be hereditary in the family of Cantemir. On the approach of the Russian army the prince issued a proclamation containing the terms of the Russian protectorate and calling on the boiars and people to aid their Orthodox deliverers. But the long Turkish terrorism had done its work, and at the approach of a Turkish and Tatar host the greater part of the Moldavians deserted their voivode. The Russian campaign was unsuccessful, and all that Peter could offer Cantemir and the boiars who had stood by him was an asylum on Russian soil.
In his Russian exile Cantemir composed in a fair Latin style his Descriptio Moldaviae, the counterpart, so far as Moldavia Cantemir's description of Moldavia. is concerned, to Del Chiaro's contemporary description of Walachia. The capital of the country was now Jassy, to which city Stephen the Great had transferred his court from Suciava, the earlier residence of the voivodes. It had at this time forty churches—some of stone, some of wood. Fifty years before it had contained 12,000 houses, but Tatar devastations had reduced it to a third of its former size. The most important commercial emporium was the Danubian port of Galatz, which was frequented by vessels from the whole of the Levant from Trebizond to Barbary. The cargoes which they here took in consisted of Moldavian timber (oak, deal and cornel), grain, butter, honey and wax, salt and nitre. Kilia, at the north mouth of the Danube, was also frequented by trading vessels, including Venetian and Ragusan. Moldavian wine was exported to Poland, Russia, Transylvania, and Hungary; that of Cotnar was in Cantemir's opinion superior to Tokay. The excellence of the Moldavian horses is attested by a Turkish proverb; and annual droves of as many as 40,000 Moldavian oxen were sent across Poland to Danzig. Moldavia proper was divided into the upper country or T’erra de sus, and the lower country, or T’erra de josu. Bessarabia had been detached from the rest of the principality and placed under the direct control of the military authorities. It was divided into four provinces: that of Budzak, inhabited by the Nogai Tatars; that of Cetatea Alba, the Greek Monkastron, a strongly fortified place; and those of Ismaila and Kilia. The voivodes owed their nomination entirely to the Porte, and the great officers of the realm were appointed at their discretion. These were the Great Logothete (Marele Logofetu) or chancellor; the governor of Lower Moldavia—Vorniculu de t’erra de josu; the governor of Upper Moldavia—Vorniculu de t’erra de sus; the Hatman or commander-in-chief; the high chamberlain—Marele Postelnicu; the great Spathar, or sword-bearer; the great cup-bearer—Marele Paharnicu; and the treasurer, or Vistiernicu, who together formed the prince's council and were known as Boiari de Svatu. Below these were a number of subordinate officers who acted as their assessors and were known as boiars of the Divan (Boiari de Divanu). The high court of justice was formed by the prince, metropolitan and boiars: the Boiari de Svatu decided on the verdict; the metropolitan declared the law; and the prince pronounced sentence. The boiars were able to try minor cases in their own residences, but subject to the right of appeal to the prince's tribunal. Of the character of the Moldavian people Cantemir does not give a very favourable account. Their best points were their hospitality and, in Lower Moldavia, their valour. They cared little for letters, and were generally indolent, and their prejudice against mercantile pursuits left the commerce of the country in the hands of Armenians, Jews, Greeks and Turks. The pure-blood Ruman population, noble and plebeian, inhabited the cities and towns or larger villages; the peasantry were mostly of Little Russian and Hungarian race, and were in a servile condition. There was a considerable gipsy population, almost every boiar having several Zingar families in his possession; these were mostly smiths.
From this period onwards the character of the Ottoman domination in Moldavia is in every respect analogous to that Continuation of Phanariote régime. of Walachia. The office of voivode or hospodar was farmed out by the Porte to a succession of wealthy Greeks from the Phanar quarter of Constantinople. All formality of election by the boiars was now dispensed with, and the princes received their caftan of office at Constantinople, where they were consecrated by the Greek patriarch. The system favoured Turkish extortion in two ways: the presence of the voivode's family connexions at Stambul gave the Porte so many hostages for his obedience; on the other hand the princes themselves could not rely on any support due to family influence in Moldavia itself. They were thus mere puppets of the Divan, and could be deposed and shifted with the same facility as so many pashas—an object of Turkish policy, as each change was a pretext for a new levy of baksheesh. The chief families that shared the office during this period were those of Mavrocordato, Ghica, Callimachi, Ypsilanti and Murusi. Although from the very conditions of their creation they regarded the country as a field for exploitations, they were themselves often men of education and ability, and unquestionably made some praiseworthy attempts to promote the general culture and well-being of their subjects. In this respect, even the Phanariote régime was preferable to mere pasha rule, while it had the further consequence of preserving intact the national form of administration and the historic offices of Moldavia. Gregory Ghica (1774-77), who himself spoke French and Italian, founded a school or “gymnasium” at Jassy, where Greek, Latin and theology were taught in a fashion. He encouraged the settlement of German Protestant colonists in the country, some of whom set up as watchmakers in Jassy, where they were further allowed to build an evangelical church. J. L. Carra, a Swiss who had been tutor to Prince Ghica's children, and who published in 1781 an account of the actual state of the principalities, speaks of some of the boiars as possessing a taste for French literature and even for the works of Voltaire, a tendency actively combated by the patriarch of Constantinople.
The Russo-Turkish War, which ended in the peace of Kutchuk Kainardji (1774), was fatal to the integrity of Moldavian Cession of Bukovina. territory. The house of Austria, which had already annexed Galicia in 1772, profited by the situation to arrange with both contending parties for the peaceful cession of Bukovina to the Habsburg monarchy. This richly wooded Moldavian province, containing Suciava
