 The Bessarabian question was both political and national in nature.According to the 1897 census, Bessarabia, at the time a guberniya of the Russian Empire, had a population that was 47.6% Moldovans, 19.6% Ukrainians, 8% Russians, 11.8% Jews, 5.3% Bulgarians, 3.1% Germans, and 2.9% Gagauz.These figures showed a strong decrease in the proportion of Moldovans/Romanians in comparison to the census of 1817, conducted shortly after the Russian Empire annexed Bessarabia in 1812.