Introduction
Bessarabia—A Contested Borderland of the Russian Empire
Conceptual Framework and Historiographical Overview
Chronological and Thematic Structure of the Book

Chapter I. Empire- and Nation-Building in Russia and Romania: Discourses and Practices
1. The Russian Empire and the Challenge of Multiethnicity: Managing the Periphery
2. Constructing the National Narrative in Romania: Models and Variations
3. Russian Imperial Visions and Policies in Bessarabia between the 1860s and World War I

Chapter II. Southern Bessarabia as an Imperial Borderland: Diplomatic and Political Dilemmas
1. The Russian-Romanian 1878 Controversy: Between Realpolitik and National Dignity
2. Southern Bessarabia in Russian Imperial Discourse after 1878: Visions of Otherness and Institutional Transfers

Chapter III. Rituals of Nation and Empire in Early Twentieth-Century Bessarabia: The Anniversary of 1912 and its Significance
1. The 1912 Anniversary and the Early Twentieth-Century Russian Imperial Context
2. The 1912 Anniversary and Bessarabia’s Public Sphere
3. Russian-Romanian Symbolic Competition and the “Romanian Response”
4. Romanian National Discourse on Bessarabia during the 1912 Celebrations

Chapter IV. Three Hypostases of the “Bessarabian Refugee”: Hasdeu, Stere, Moruzi, and the Uncertainty of Identity
1. Hasdeu—The Romantic Nationalist
2. Moruzi—The Uprooted Traditionalist
3. Stere—The Legal Revolutionary

Chapter V. Revolution, War, and the “Bessarabian Question”: Russian and Romanian Perspectives (1905–1916)
1. Bessarabia as a Contested Borderland during Revolution and War (1905–15)
2. The Wartime “Nationalization” of the Russian Empire and its Significance
3. The Controversy over the “Bessarabian Question” in the Romanian Kingdom (1914–16)

Conclusion
Instead of an Epilogue: Autonomy, Federalism, or National Unification (1917–18)?
Bibliography
Index