Nation-Building and Contested Identities - MEK

“The California of the Romanians”© Constantin IordachiThe railway line Bucharest-Constanþa, and the Bridge “King Carol I” overthe Danube.tutional reorganization. This process was accompanied by a great politicalturmoil, marked by territorial losses (Southern Bessarabia), the sociopoliticalupheaval stirred by mass conscription and the country’s militaryparticipation to the 1877-1878 war, and, eventually, by the Europeandiplomatic intervention in favor of the political emancipation of Jews inRomania. This peculiar timing of the annexation of Dobrogea had importantconsequences for shaping the patterns of the integration of theprovince into Romania. Dobrogea was the first major test of Romania’snational institutions and power of assimilation, which explains the importanceassigned by Romanian political elites to administrative centralizationand cultural homogenization in the province. Finally, the end of the separateadministrative regime in Northern Dobrogea in 1913 was an indicationthat the assimilation of the province produced satisfactory results: in only 35years (1878-1913), Dobrogea was nationalized by a growing Romanian ethnicmajority. In addition, massive economic investments developed theprovince into “the most shining diamond on King Carol’s crown,” 91 and anindispensable component of the Romanian national economy. Consequently,Dobrogea’s integration was celebrated by Romanian political elites asa success, a self-congratulatory evidence of Romania’s civilizing power. 92The assimilation of Northern Dobrogea acquired therefore a specificsignificance in the Romanian national ideology. “The wonderful workof civilization” accomplished in the province was seen as a confirmation ofthe tenet that Romania had become part of the West, having a civilizing145