 The colonization of the region in the 19th century led to a large increase in the Russian, Ukrainian, Lipovan, and Cossack population in the region; this together with a large influx of Bulgarian immigrants increased the Slavic population to more than a fifth of the total population by 1920.Other groups, such as Gagauz, Jews, and Germans also settled in the region during the Russian rule..The Tsarist policy in Bessarabia was in part aimed at denationalization of the Moldavian element by forbidding after the 1860s education and Liturgy in Romanian.