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

“The California of the Romanians”7In analyzing the patterns of Dobrogea’s integration into Romania, the paperbenefited from Peter Sahlins’ analysis of the making of French-Spanish borderin the Pyrenees. Sahlins put forward several findings for the historical analysisof multiple borderlands, highlighting the analytical usefulness of the conceptof multiple identities, pointing out the “oppositional model” of constructingidentity in border regions, seen as “privileged sites for the articulation ofnational distinctions,” and reconceptualizing the relationship between centerand periphery, as a mutually dependent relationship. See Peter Sahlins,Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: CaliforniaUniversity Press, 1993), p. 7, 8.8See Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1997), p. 141. On Triplex Confinium, see Drago Roksandiæ, ed., Microhistory ofthe Triplex Confinium (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998).9The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965), p. 613.10 The Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 613.11 Statistica din România (Bucharest, 1879), p. 3. Given the Romanian-Bulgarianterritorial conflict over Dobrogea, statistics on the population of the provinceshould be regarded with caution. Generally, they tell more about nationalistaims than about the reality on the field. To this, for the period following theend of the 1877-1878 war, one should add the lack of a general census of populationin Dobrogea and the intensive emigration movements from theprovince. As a result, even official statistics provided conflicting data.Compare, for example, the above mentioned data with those provided byLeonida Colescu (see endnote 15).12 In this respect, Dobrogea exhibits remarkable similarities with Cerdanya, theborderland between Spain and France. See Sahlins, Boundaries.13 For a comprehensive treatment of the Ottoman legacy in the Balkans, seeTodorova, Imagining the Balkans, pp. 161-183.14 William Gladstone, “The Friends and Foes of Russia” Nineteen Century, vol. S.,January 1879, pp. 168-192, quoted in Nicholas Constantinesco, Romania on theEuropean Stage, 1875-1880: The Quest for National Sovereignty and Independence(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 150.15 Leonida Colescu, Analiza recensãmîntul general al populaþiei României dela1899 (The analysis of the 1899 general census of the Romanian population)(Bucharest: Institutul Central de Statisticã, 1944), p. 9.16 Interview with Prime Minister Ion C. Brãtianu, in Deutsche Zeitung (Vienna)(21 March/2 April 1878), reproduced in Kos’o Penchikov, Sheko Popov, andPetar Todorov, Izvori za istoriiata na Dobrudzha, 1878-1919 (Sources on the historyof Dobrogea, 1878-1919) (Sofia: Izdatelstvo na Bulgarskata Akademiia naNaukite, 1992), p. 21.17 Ion C. Brãtianu, Acte ºi cuvîntãri (Acts and speeches) edited by N. Georgescu-Tistu, vol. 4 (1 May 1878-30 April 1879) (Bucharest: Cartea Româneascã,1932), p. 260.18 Ion C. Brãtianu, “Moþiunea Senatului asupra Tratatului de la Berlin” in Acte ºicuvîntãri, vol. 4, p. 103.19 Mihail Kogãlniceanu, Opere (Works) edited by Georgeta Penelea, vol 4, partIV (1874-1878), (Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1977), p. 322.147