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

“The California of the Romanians”(1875-1878). Ultimately, at the end of the 1877-1878 Russian-Turkish War,by the Treaty of San Stefano concluded on 3 March 1878, Russia obtainedDobrogea and the Danube Delta from Turkey. According to the sametreaty, Russia unilaterally reserved the right of exchanging these provincesfor Romania’s Southern Bessarabia. The proposed territorial exchangearoused great indignation in Bucharest, where Romanian politicians andpublic opinion refused almost unanimously to comply.How can one account for the stiff refusal of Romanian politicians toendorse the proposed territorial exchange? In fact, even if Dobrogea wasallegedly inferior in its overall economic value, in territorial and demographicterms the exchange was quite even, with a slight advantage on the side ofDobrogea: according to estimates by Leonida Colescu, in 1878 SouthernBessarabia had a surface of 8,355 square kilometers with 163,000 inhabitants,while Northern Dobrogea had a surface of 15,536 square kilometers (fromwhich 4,964 square kilometers were covered by waters and swamps in theDanube Delta), with 169,000 inhabitants. 15 Surely, a paramount reason forthe Romanians’ refusal of the exchange was their commitment to defend theterritorial inviolability of their country. In a context in which Romania’sdiplomatic efforts were exclusively directed toward the preservation ofBessarabia, Dobrogea became the very symbol of an onerous bargain, and itsrefusal – a way of defending the integrity of the country.The refusal of the Romanian politicians to cede Southern Bessarabiato Russia becomes even more understandable in view of the importanteconomic role of the province within Romania. Southern Bessarabia represented,through its access to the Black Sea, a vital commercial harborfor Romania’s foreign trade. This idea was eloquently spelled out byPrime Minister Ion C. Brãtianu, who, on 21 March/2 April 1878, declared:We cannot exist without that small part of Bessarabia. We would be suffocatedwithout that region. Through it, the gates of the world are openingup to us. Without Bessarabia we would be engulfed by Russia, Austria,Turkey, and Bulgaria. Dobrogea doesn’t open up any exit for us, and in thelack of direct communication routes, we would be able to communicatewith it only through swamps and marshes, or through a round journey thatwe would have to take through the mouth of the Danube. This we wouldnot be able to accept under any circumstances. 16Brãtianu expressed thus not only Romania’s strong attachment to SouthernBessarabia, but also the country’s determination to reject unilaterallythe annexation of the province of Dobrogea. Committed to this view, theRomanian government tried to secure diplomatic support for a favorablere-examination of the stipulations of the San Stefano Treaty by the Inter-125