Southern DobrujaDobruja, or Dobrudja , is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast....
(
BulgarianBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except the Macedonian language, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite...
: Южна Добруджа,
Yuzhna Dobrudzha;
RomanianRomanian or Daco-Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia...
:
Dobrogea de sud or
Cadrilater, i.e.
Quadrilater) is an area of north-eastern
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
comprising the administrative districts named for its two principal cities of
DobrichDobrich is a town in northeastern Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Dobrich Province. Dobrich is the eighth most populated town in Bulgaria, being the centre of the historical region of Southern Dobruja, and is located 30 km west of the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, not far from resorts...
and
SilistraSilistra is a port city of northeastern Bulgaria, lying on the southern bank of the lower Danube at the country's border with Romania...
. It has an area of 7,565 km² and a population of 358,000.
History
At the beginning of the modern era, Southern Dobruja had a mixed population of
BulgariansThe Bulgarians are a South Slavic people, generally associated with the Republic of Bulgaria and the Bulgarian language. Emigration has resulted in Bulgarian minorities or immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-Ethnogenesis:...
and
TurksThe Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern, central and western Eurasia. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
with several smaller minorities, including
GagauzGagauz may refer to:* Gagauz people* Gagauz language* Gagauzia...
,
Crimean TatarsAfter 1241 , the year of the earliest recorded Tatar invasion of Bulgaria, the Second Bulgarian Empire maintained constant political contacts with the Tatars. In this early period , "Tatar" was not an ethnonym but a general term for the armies of Genghis Khan’s successors...
and
RomaniansThe Romanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian ; they are the majority inhabitants of România.In one prominent interpretation of the census results in Moldova, Moldovans are counted as Romanians, which would...
. In 1910, of the 282,007 inhabitants of Southern Dobruja, 134,355 (47.6%) were Bulgarians, 106,568 (37.8%) Turks, 12,192 (4.3%) Gypsies, 11,718 (4.1%) Tatars and 6,484 (2.4%) Romanians.
Southern Dobruja was part of the autonomous Bulgarian principality from the time of the liberation of
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
from
OttomanThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
rule in 1878 until the
Balkan WarsThe Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia , having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century...
. After the defeat of Bulgaria in the
Second Balkan WarThe Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria dissatisfied from its share after the division of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked...
, the region was included in
RomaniaRomania is a country located in Southeastern and Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory...
under the 1913
Treaty of BucharestThe Treaty of Bucharest was concluded on August 10, 1913, by the delegates of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece.As Bulgaria had been completely isolated in the Second Balkan War , and as it was closely invested on its northern boundary by Romania and on its western frontier by the...
.
In 1914, Romania demanded all landowners to prove their property and surrender to the Romanian state one third of the land they claimed or pay an equivalent of its value. This was similar to the
agrarian reformAgrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or can refer more broadly to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. Agrarian reform can include credit...
s in Romania which occurred the previous century, in which the landlords had to give up two-thirds of their land, which was then handed over to the peasants. In Southern Dobruja, many of the peasants who received the land were settlers, including tens of thousands of
AromaniansAromanians are a people living throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Romania...
from
MacedoniaMacedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but the region is nowadays held to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia...
and Northern
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
, as well as Romanians from
WallachiaWallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
, which led to claims that the reforms had a nationalist purpose.
On 7 September 1940 Southern Dobruja was restored to Bulgaria under the
Treaty of CraiovaThe Treaty of Craiova was signed on 7 September 1940 between the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Romania. Under the terms of this treaty, Romania returned the southern part of Dobruja to Bulgaria and agreed to participate in the organization of a population exchange...
. The treaty was followed by a mandatory
population exchangePopulation transfer is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another by state policy or international authority, most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion...
: about 110,000 Romanians (almost 95% of which settled there after 1913) were forced to leave Southern Dobruja, whereas 77,000 Bulgarians had to leave northern Dobruja. Only a few hundred Romanians and Aromanians are left in the region to this day.