Nation-Building and Contested Identities - MEK

CONSTANTIN IORDACHIrespectively, 29 deputies. 90 No wonder, therefore, that the province ofDobrogea remained marginalized in the political life of Romania. TheDobrogeans gained a voice in the Romanian parliament; but their representativeswere compelled to look for political alliances in order to fostersolutions in accordance with their specific interests.5. ConclusionsThis paper proposes a comprehensive analysis of the process of ethnicassimilation and national integration of Northern Dobrogea into Romania,during the 1878-1913 period. It argues that the post-1878 administrativeorganization of Dobrogea exhibited an underlying contradictionbetween economic interests and the national political agenda of theRomanian political elites. On the one hand, at a time of an intense Europeancolonial and economic expansion, Romanian political elites regardedpossession over the Danube Delta and the Dobrogean shore of theBlack Sea as essential for the country’s economical development and geopoliticalrole in the Balkans. On the other hand, the ethnic and religiousdiversity of Dobrogea challenged the prevailing ethnic and religious policies.In solving this contradiction, Romanian politicians instituted inDobrogea a separate administrative organization under which Dobrogeanswere granted only a local type of citizenship. In doing so, Dobrogeaintroduced several innovations in Romania’s citizenship legislation,among which the most important were the institution of colonization, andthe emphasis on educational policies in fostering cultural assimilation.The result was the building of a threefold mechanism, composed of ethniccolonization, cultural homogenization, and economic modernization thatfunctioned in the province in the period 1878-1913. This mechanism wasbased on an uneven allocation of resources and decision-making capabilitiesbetween center and periphery within a nation-state. In analyzing this, thepaper exposes some “internal colonial” practices employed by Romanianpolitical elites in the process of the national integration of Northern Dobrogea,which cannot be contained solely within the core-periphery model, suchas: excessive centralization, administrative distinctiveness, local citizenshipstatus, ethnic colonization, and massive transfer of property.The annexation of Dobrogea had a great impact on the more generalprocess of nation- and state-building in Romania. The province wasannexed to Romania at a particularly formative political period, when thecountry experienced a new stage in the institutionalization of an independentnation-state, marked by the achievement of state sovereignty followingits participation to the 1877-1878 Russian-Ottoman War, theproclamation of the Kingdom in 1881, and the subsequent process of insti-144