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

CONSTANTIN IORDACHIprovince all liberties that are currently available in Romania, then therewill not be any assimilation. 41Second, this separate organization was to give the Romanian administrationthe main tools for implementing a gradual program of assimilation,among which the most important were the centralization of the administration,the denial of political rights to the Dobrogeans, and the extensionof the Romanian national educational and religious systems in theprovince. The core of the separate organization of Dobrogea was theextensive administrative powers given to Romanian authorities, mainly inmultiethnic localities where Romanians were in numerical inferiority.According to Kogãlniceanu:The prefect ... has to stimulate the assimilation of the inhabitants, andDobrogean Romanians have to be ultimately admitted even in the Parliament.Give therefore the prefect the possibility to introduce in the communalcouncil these necessary Romanian elements. If you decide to denyhim this right, then in the cities of Tulcea and Constanþa, where themajority of the inhabitants are Greeks, as well as in other areas where themajority of the inhabitants are Bulgarians, Romanians would not be represented.42Kogãlniceanu urged therefore the Romanian deputies “to make nationallaws, before making liberal ones,” and “to invest local authority with extensivepowers” for assimilating Dobrogea. 43 It became thus obvious that, inthe confrontation between nationalism and liberalism in the organization ofDobrogea, the former vision prevailed: the rights of ethnic minorities in theprovince were acceptable, provided that they did not challenge Romanianpolitical interests in the province. Ultimately, Kogãlniceanu’s passionatearguments in the Romanian Parliament succeeded in shaping much of thecontent of the law on Dobrogea’s organization, which was to govern theprovince for the next 35 years.2.3 PROPERTY LEGISLATION AND LAND NATIONALIZATIONIN NORTHERN DOBROGEA, 1878-1913Apart from shaping the content of the law, Kogãlniceanu also set the prioritiesof the Romanian administration in the province, among which theregulation of the property regime figured predominantly. The transfer ofthe Ottoman hierarchical property system into unconditional capitalistproperty occasioned massive reallocation of ownership among ethnicgroups in Northern Dobrogea, and ultimately resulted in the appropria-132