The "Romanians' California". Integrating Northen Dobrudja into Romania, 1878-1913

Abstract

This study focuses on the integration of Northern Dobrogea into Romania, which is celebrated as the second stage in the creation of a national and unitary Romanian state, after the 1859 union of Wallachia and Moldova. I argue that, in order to foster the national and economic incorporation of Northern Dobrogea, Romanian political elites designed a threefold mechanism composed of ethnic colonization, cultural homogenisation, and economic modernization. The most important stimulus behind the annexation of Dobrogea was economic : the province was regarded as a vital commercial outlet of Romania, granting it access to the sea and facilitating thus its elevation into the Western economy, from periphery to semi-periphery. Demographically, Northern Dobrogea served as an “Internal America” for Romania, a dynamic frontier zone of new settlements for expanding the national economy and ethnic boundaries. From an institutional point of view, the mechanism of assimilation had citizenship legislation at its core : despite its formal incorporation into Romania, Northern Dobrogea was subject to a separate administrative organization between 1878 and 1913. Under this statute, the Dobrogeans enjoyed a local type of citizenship, which denied them political participation and the right to acquire properties outside the province. The integration of the multiethnic province of Dobrogea resembled thus the model of “internal colonialism” : its organization was characterized by administrative distinctiveness and excessive centralization supported by claims of cultural superiority of the core region, by intense ethnic colonization, and by uneven regional economic development tailored to the needs of the metropolis. In conclusions, I suggest that the successful experiment of Northern Dobrogea's antebellum assimilation influenced the manner in which Romanian political elites approached the post-1918 process of national integration, encouraging them to think in terms of the “mother country” and “annexed provinces,” and to test related mechanisms for fostering institutional integration and cultural homogenisation within Greater Romania