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

CONSTANTIN IORDACHIwell as their previous payments.” 49 Finally, the 1910 “Interpretative Law”further extended state power to dispossess “through administrative meansand without any warning or juridical assistance, any holder who did not fulfillhis financial obligations toward the state.” 50 On this basis, the Romanianstate appropriated part of the land owned by Dobrogeans, expanding thusthe size of the state domain available for ethnic colonization.2.4 ECONOMIC UTILITARIANISM VERSUS ETHNIC ASSIMILATION:LEGISLATION ON COLONIZATION IN NORTHERN DOBROGEA, 1878-1913The second major aim of the 1882 law was Dobrogea’s colonization, seen asan imperative in an age when “economic progress depends on the number ofhands employed.” 51 While the population of the province was about 100,000in 1878, the geographer M. D. Ionescu appreciated that Dobrogea could easilyfeed 900,000 inhabitants. 52 By and large, one can identify two main colonizationstrategies. One, represented by such politicians as Ion Ionescu de laBrad, was driven by economic motivations and argued that Dobrogea shouldbe open to everybody willing to emigrate to the province, irrespective ofnationality. The other, represented by Kogãlniceanu, and the first prefect ofConstanþa, Romus Opreanu, advocated for a massive Romanian colonizationof the province.The 1882 law provided the government with the necessary legalframework for Dobrogea’s ethnic colonization. According to the law, theRomanian government could parcel state lands in plots of 3 to 10 hectares,preferably in new localities, and sell it, under favorable financial conditions,to rural colonists (Art. 25-26). This colonization was to remain the exclusivemonopoly of the state: “Nobody has the right to bring and settle families offarmers on his land without the consent of the Council of Ministers, the onlyone in charge to decide, within the limits of the Constitution, the conditionsunder which such families can settle” (Art. 31). The 1882 law functioned asa powerful instrument of social closure: in order to strengthen the economicposition of Romanians in the province, the Law connected land ownershipin the province with citizenship status: “Only Romanians can acquireimmovable property” (Art. 2). Under this generic label (Romanians), thelaw distinguished several categories of citizens: 1) the former subjects of theOttoman Empire – raya – who had been residing in the province as of 11April 1877; 2) Romanian citizens from Romania proper (either by birth ornaturalized) who were encouraged to settle in Dobrogea; if relocated toDobrogea, they naturally retained their Romanian citizenship, but would defacto lose the exercise of their political rights, given the lack of political lifein the province; and 3) ethnic Romanians from the neighboring countrieswho immigrated in Dobrogea. The latter stipulation was in line with Article134