Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

“The California of the Romanians”1. Internal Orientalism1.1 AN OTTOMAN IMPERIAL LEGACY:DOBROGEA, THE LAND AND THE PEOPLEUnder Ottoman rule, Dobrogea functioned as a multiple imperial borderland,a zone of contact and convergence among multinational empires, aspart of the Russian-Ottoman and Habsburg-Ottoman frontier belt, fromthe Caucasus to Southern Bessarabia, and the Balkan border areas. 8 Theprovince was occupied by the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century,and was subject to an intense military colonization with Turkish and Tartarpopulation from South Crimea and Asia Minor, being gradually transformedinto an Islamic area. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century,Dobrogea was demographically linked with a larger territory,absorbing numerous Romanian peasants from the Wallachian plains, Bulgarianpeasants from the Balkan Mountains and Southern Bessarabia,Cossacks from the Dniepr Delta, Old Believers (Lipovans) from CentralRussia, and German colonists from Southern Russia. Consequently,Dobrogea acquired a highly complex ethnic composition: the DanubeDelta was populated by Slavic fishermen; the cities were largely inhabitedby Italian, Jewish, Greek and Armenian merchants; the north was dominatedby Bulgarians, the center and south by Turks and Tartars, while theright bank of the Danube was inhabited by Romanians.Military events increased ethnic diversity in the province. Dobrogeawas an important part of the Ottoman military system, which defended theaccess to Constantinople and allowed communications with the CrimeanTartars. Due to its strategic importance, the province served as a constantmilitary battlefield during the Russian-Turkish wars (1768-1878). This provokedanarchy in the administration and great fluctuations in the population:as a consequence of the devastating 1828-1829 war, Dobrogea’s populationdecreased to 40,000 inhabitants, to increase to 100,000 by 1850. 9After the Crimean War (1853-1856), Dobrogea was again repopulatedwith over 100,000 Tartars from Crimea and Circassians from Kuban andthe Caucasus. Finally, the 1877-1878 war provoked a considerable Muslimemigration from the province, estimated at 90,000 people. 10 According toofficial Romanian sources, in 1879 – one year after the annexation ofDobrogea by Romania – the three main ethnic groups in the provincewere Romanians, numbering 31,177, Bulgarians – 28,715, and Turks andTartars – 32,033, out of a total population of 106,943. 11 Assessing the compositeethnic configuration of Dobrogea, the Romanian historian NicolaeIorga identified “three Dobrogeas,” three parallel strips of land along theNorth-South axis of the province: the coast of the Black Sea, which functionedas a commercial outpost; the middle part of the province, which123