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

CONSTANTIN IORDACHIAnimated by Brãtianu and Kogãlniceanu, the Liberal parliamentarymajority succeeded in imposing its conception over the future organizationof Dobrogea. On 28 September, the Senate endorsed the annexationof Dobrogea, followed on 30 September by the approval of the Chamberof Deputies. In addition, the government was authorized by the Parliamentto administer Dobrogea through ad-hoc governmental regulations,until a future Legislative Assembly would pass a law on Dobrogea’s definitiveorganization.The favorable vote of the Parliament on Dobrogea’s annexation wasa strong indication that, in a short period of time, the Romanian nationaldiscourse about Dobrogea underwent a spectacular transformation.At the time of the San Stefano Treaty, Dobrogea was to many politiciansa foreign province, the symbol of an “onerous bargain,” “a fatal gift,” ora “geo-political embarrassment.” Gradually, in face of the irrevocabledecision of the Berlin Congress, the province began to be valued as a wartrophy, Romania’s recompense for its blood sacrifices in the 1877-1878Russian-Turkish war, and as a compensation for the loss of SouthernBessarabia to Russia. In 1908, Nicolae Iorga, a key figure of Romaniannational ideology, suggestively synthethized this view, by pointing out thatDobrogea was “twice dear to Romanians” since “it was paid for two times:… the first time with blood, and the second time with land.” 28 By the endof the parliamentary debates over the Berlin Treaty, Dobrogea was reconsideredalmost unanimously as an ancient Romanian land, and an integralpart of the Romanian national heritage. 292.“The California of the Romanians”: Ethnic Colonization,Land Nationalization and Economic Incorporation 302.1 ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION AND THE ASSIMILATIONOF NORTHERN DOBROGEARomania took over the administration of Northern Dobrogea on 14November 1878. 31 The entry of the Romanian army in the province wassoon followed by a multitude of administrators, geographers, anthropologistsand economists, who studied the province and devised plans of economicorganization. Following the annexation, Romanian political elitesimplemented in Dobrogea a modernizing nationalist project, which wasmeant to consecrate Romania’s economic integration into the West and toconfer a legitimizing progressive character on the assimilation process.At the same time, in an “Orientalist” manner, Dobrogea was mastered bya bureaucratic nationalism. The result was a three-stage mechanism of ethnicassimilation, economic modernization and cultural homogenization,128