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

CONSTANTIN IORDACHIby the Romanian Constitution. Yet, in spite of Dobrogea’s formal incorporationinto Romania, the 1880 law was conceived as a “Dobrogean Constitution,”and was to form the basis of a separate, exceptional administrativeregime in the province. This meant that, although nominallyRomanian citizens, the Dobrogeans had no political rights: Article 4 stipulatedthat: “A special law will determine the conditions under which theDobrogeans will be able to exercise their political rights and buy immovableproperty in Romania proper. Another law will stipulate their representationin the Romanian Parliament.” 35 Furthermore, civic libertieswere potentially restricted by Article 6 of the law, which read that: “TheGovernment, through a decree by the Council of Ministers, can forbidevery demonstration that is dangerous to public order.”Laws on the political emancipation of the Dobrogeans announcedby Article 4 of the 1880 law would be gradually passed only in 1909-1913.From 1878 to 1909, the inhabitants of Dobrogea thus enjoyed only a localtypeof citizenship, since: 1) They were denied political representation inthe Romanian Parliament and the right to enroll in political parties.Instead, once a year, two representatives of the province would raiseissues of specific Dobrogean interest to the King; and 2) Once theycrossed the Danube into Romania, they were treated as virtual foreigners,being denied: a) political participation; and b) the right to acquire immovableproperty. In the words of the French traveler André Bellessort,the Dobrogeans were placed in a situation “at least as extraordinary as thenature of their country. ... They are Romanian citizens in Dobrogea, butoutside the province, they are neither Romanians nor citizens, and do notbelong to any known category.” 36According to one of its main authors, Mihail Kogãlniceanu, at thattime Minister of Interior (11 July 1879-16 April 1880), the separate administrativeregime in Dobrogea was conceived as a temporary measure meantto rebuild, repopulate, and reorganize the province ruined by the devastating1877-1878 war. 37 In addition, Kogãlniceanu emphasized that, since priorto 1878 Dobrogea had been shaped by a radically different socio-politicalsystem, the former Ottoman province needed a transitional period beforebeing fully integrated into Romania, during which the new authoritieswould gradually extend the country’s property regime and political institutionsto Dobrogea, in order to elevate its inhabitants to the material situationand political culture of Romania proper. Considered from the perspectiveof these declared aims, the stipulations of the 1880 law went, however,not only far beyond, but even against its original scope, since it subjectedDobrogea to a heavily centralized political regime that “quarantined” itsinhabitants into a territorial enclave, cut some of their already acquiredrights, and denied them meaningful political participation. The illiberal stip-130