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Home , Abdolonyme Ubicini, Abdullah Cevdet, Arabs in Romania, Bulgarian Turks, Bulgars, Carol I of Romania

Changing Identities at the Fringes of the Late : The of Dobruca, 1839-1914

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Catalina Hunt, Ph.D.

Graduate Program in

The Ohio State University

2015

Dissertation Committee:

Carter V. Findley, Advisor

Jane Hathaway

Theodora Dragostinova

Scott Levi

Copyright by

Catalina Hunt

2015

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Muslim community of Dobruca, an Ottoman territory granted to in 1878, and its transformation from a majority under

Ottoman rule into a minority under Romanian administration. It focuses in particular on the collective identity of this community and how it changed from the start of the

Ottoman reform era () in 1839 to the outbreak of in 1914. This dissertation constitutes, in fact, the study of the transition from Ottoman subjecthood to

Romanian as experienced by the Muslim community of Dobruca. It constitutes an assessment of long-term patterns of collective identity formation and development in both imperial and post-imperial settings.

The main argument of the dissertation is that during this period three crucial factors altered the sense of collective belonging of Dobrucan Muslims: a) state policies; b) the reaction of the Muslims to these policies; and c) the influence of transnational networks from the wider Turkic world on the Muslim community as a whole. Taken together, all these factors contributed fully to the community’s intellectual development and overall modernization, especially since they brought about new patterns of identification and belonging among Muslims. Teachers, religious leaders, journalists, and political activists among the region’s Muslims proved to be essential in this process due to their power of example and capacity of mobilizing coreligionists. During ii

the Ottoman period, Muslims asserted their imperial identity at the expense of religious, ethnic, and local sub-identities whenever community projects were at stake. In contrast, during the Romanian period they emphasized their national identity, even if for a similar purpose. Displays of loyalty were part of a well-thought-out strategy to attract the benevolence of state officials, and in the process, Muslims became active agents in the making of state policies of the empire and of the -state, respectively. Such a balancing act allowed them to assert a collective identity formulated in modern and western rather than conservative and religious terms.

The focus of this research is unique in the field of Ottoman studies concerning the long nineteenth century. The project exploys official documents, letters, diaries, and newspaper articles written in Ottoman , modern Turkish, French, English, and Romanian, as well as a relevant secondary . It rewrites the local history of the region’s Muslim population, rejects the exclusive importance of state policies in the process of identity formation, and firmly places the history of western Ottoman borderlands within the broader context of imperial and post-imperial evolution in and the . The dissertation enhances understanding of the meaning and of identity in the late Ottoman Empire and its heir state of modern Romania. It also contributes to a growing trend of including minority populations in discussions of reconstruction and shaping of new national identities after imperial collapse.

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Dedication

To Garrett, Balthazar, and Melchior for their affection, support, and patience

iv

Acknowledgments

This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of many individuals and institutions that provided me with the necessary moral and financial support required for its successful completion. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my mentors at The Ohio State University, Professor Carter Vaughn Findley and Professor Jane Hathaway. Their extraordinary intellectual rigor, professionalism, and generosity had the most profound influence on my formation and development as a scholar of the late Ottoman Empire. Professor Findley, my graduate advisor, was closely involved in my training as graduate student and devoted considerable time to teaching me the language and working on several dissertation drafts. His vast knowledge of Ottoman history and enthusiasm for the study of the late Ottoman Empire and its language were contagious and helped me stay focused on the task at hand. With her amazing knowledge of Ottoman history, scrupulous attention to detail, and excellent editing skills, Professor Hathaway has helped elevate the quality of this project. She provided both moral and intellectual support throughout my years as Ohio State and dedicated an extraordinary amount of energy to this project during its completion. I have been extremely fortunate to “grow up” in the program in the company of these exceptional Ottoman scholars, whose dedication to the growth of their field and the training of their students has been exemplary and a source of constant inspiration. v

I have also been very fortunate to work with Professors Theodora Dragostinova and Scott Levi, the other two members of my dissertation committee. Professor

Dragostinova helped sharpen the arguments regarding the Romanian part of my research.

She immersed me in the most recent trends in Modern European regarding the issues of nationality and nation-state building and had also been a cheerful supporter of my research. Professor Levi provided guidance and support, making sure I did not overlook the larger world historical context of my project.

Other professors deserve my gratitude for having had influenced my development as a historian. Professor Gregor Anderson provided me with a very solid background in historiography, while Professor Keneth Andrien revealed to me the fascinating realm of

World History. I am deeply grateful to Professor Selim Kuru of the University of

Washington and Professor Yorgos Dedes of the University of , School of Oriental and African Studies, for working with me on perfecting my Ottoman Turkish skills.

Without their dedication to the students of the Ottoman School in Cunda, , where I took classes during the summers of 2008 and 2009, I would not have been able to decipher the Ottoman documents that informed my research on Dobrucan Muslims.

Special thanks are in for Professors Gregory Key and Murat Inan, who trained me in Modern Turkish, Persian, and in the same program. At Ohio State, Professors

Snjezana Buzov and Bülent Bekcioğlu also spent considerable time training me in

Modern Turkish. During my research period in Romania and Turkey, Professor Anca

Popescu of the “” History National Institute in and Professor

Yonca Köksal of Koç University in have proved immensely helpful with their

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comments and encouragement regarding various sections of my dissertation. In Istanbul,

Sinan Kuneralp has graciously assisted me in navigating the complex Ottoman archives and introducing me to the immensely valuable collection on Muslim emigrants to the

Ottoman Empire. In Constanţa, Dr. Corina Apostoleanu facilitated access to important primary sources in the “I.N. Roman” County Library, sources which she helped me to locate on numerous occasions.

During my research years in Romania and Turkey, I enjoyed meeting and working with the staff of the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, the Atatürk Library, the

Library of the American Research Institute in Istanbul, the Romanian National Archives in both Bucharest and Constanţa, the Archives of Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the “I.N. Roman” County Library. At Ohio State, the Middle Eastern librarian,

Johanna Sellmann, went above and beyond her duties to acquire for me materials not available in the collection hosted by the university’s Thomspon Library. All these institutions have welcomed me and provided me with sources in various languages in the most effective and efficient way possible. Without them the materialization of this dissertation would have been practically impossible.

This project benefited from the support of many other scholars who provided feedback on different parts of my dissertation. Many thanks to Gabor Agoston, Virgil

Coman, Linda Darling, Rositsa Gradeva, Susan Gunasti, Steven Hyland, Dina Khoury,

Hasan Kayalı, Thomas Kuehn, Viorel Panaite, Julia Phillips Cohen, and Fariba Zarinebaf.

They have all taken time from their busy schedules to discuss with me ideas and thoughts

I found hard to articulate on my own. My deep gratitude for reading and making

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comments on different chapters of my dissertation goes to fellow graduate students

Stephanie Honchell and Kirsten Hildonen of Ohio State and Noami Pitamber of the

University of California in Los Angeles. We had amazing discussions on how to sharpen some arguments and how to develop others over cups of Turkish tea or American coffee.

I would like to acknowledge and thank all the various organizations that funded my dissertation research. The American Research Institute in Turkey, the U.S.

Department of Education (through the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research

Abroad Program), and the College of Arts and Humanities at Ohio State all helped me examine the various archives and libraries in Turkey and Romania that were vital for my doctoral research. I would especially like to thank Professor Anthony Greenwood and his staff at The American Research Institute in Turkey (Istanbul) for their outstanding hospitality and access to the wonderful library collection of the institute and its excellent lecture series on Ottoman and Turkish history. I am proud to call ARIT my home away from home. I have met many wonderful scholars there, some of whom remained friends for life. Heartfelt thanks are in order for Ms. Joanna Kukielka-Blaser at the Ohio State’s

Office for International Affairs who providing guidance and assistance during the process of writing my Fulbright-Hays application. Joanna has remained a dear friend, a friend whose dedication to graduate students is worthy of great praise. In the History

Department, Jim Bach has always proved to be a cheerful supporter and an excellent professional whenever dissertation paperwork had to be completed.

My parents, Dumitru and Eugenia Duţu, and my sister, Georgiana Morla Berroa, supported unconditionally my passion for the study of Ottoman history. Their constant

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love and permanent encouragement motivate me to do the best that I can in both my personal and professional life. My in-laws, Ann Hunt, Henry William Hunt, and Karen

Hunt, provided moral support and encouragement for a rather excentric daughter-in-law.

I am indeed very grateful to all of them for their love and unwavering support.

Although he is not aware of my existence, I would like to extend my thanks to tennis champion Rafael Nadal for providing me with the much-needed emotional support to finish this work. His dedication for his sport, his amazing endurance on tennis courts, and his passion for what he is doing never cease to inspire me. At the lowest points in my graduate career, watching him play brought utmost joy to my life.

I dedicate this dissertation to my husband, William Garrett Hunt, and to our furry

“sons,” Balthazar and Melchior, who patiently and lovingly waited for my return from the many language programs I attended abroad in summer and the many research trips I took over nearly five years. Garrett diligently read and commented on several sections of this dissertation when his own work required urgent attention. From what I hear, his understanding of and interest in the history of the Ottoman Empire has grown over the years. His qualities as a human being and his dedication to his work as an academic constitute a source of constant inspiration for me. I will always be grateful that he made it possible for me to achieve the dream of professing and teaching Ottoman history, a dream I have had since I turned 19. Words are not enough to express the affection and gratitude I have for him. This doctorate is as much his as it is mine.

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Vita

1994...... Constantin Brătescu High School

1998...... B.A. History, Ovidius University

1999...... M.A. History, Ovidius University

2005...... Ph.D. History, Ovidius University

2007 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of History, The Ohio State University

Publications

Catalina Hunt, “‘Speaking National’ in Dobruca: Muslim Adaptation to Romanian National Policies during the Long Nineteenth Century,” Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes, 1-4 (2014): 145-69.

Catalina Hunt, “‘Seeing Like a State’: Romanian Policies in Northern Dobruca and the Muslims, 1878-1914,” Studia et Documenta Turcologica 1 (2013): 53-84.

Fields of Study

Major Field: History

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv

Acknowledgments...... v

Vita ...... x

List of Figures...... xiii

Note on Transliteration, Spelling, and Date Conversion……………………………...... xv

Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………...xvii

Introduction...... 1

Chapter 1: Dobruca and Dobrucan Muslims before the Tanzimat Period….….………..37

Chapter 2: Tanzimat Dobruca and the Muslims, 1839-1878………………………….....73

Chapter 3: “Seeing Like a State”: Romanian Policies in Northern Dobruca and the Muslims, 1878-1914…………………………………………………………………… 118 Chapter 4: Emigration of Dobrucan Muslims to the Ottoman Empire, 1878-1914……..168

Chapter 5: “Speaking National” in Dobruca: Muslim Adaptation to Romanian National

Policies after 1878………………………………………………………………………213

Chapter 6: Transnational Networks and the Muslims of Dobruca since the 1880s...... 260

Conclusion...... 311

xi

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...320

xii

List of Figures

Figure 1 – Dobruca and its location in Southeastern Europe……………………………...2

Figure 2 – The Ottoman Empire from 1566 to 1612 ...... 7

Figure 3 – The Ottoman conquest of the (14th-15th Centuries)...... 11

Figure 4 – Dobruca and its surrounding depressions...... 43

Figure 5 – Ottoman Dobruca in the sixteenth century ...... 45

Figure 6. Ottoman map of Dobruca's geographical features (with Delta)………47

Figure 7 – Man-made water well in nineteenth-century Ottoman Dobruca ...... 49

Figure 8 – The city and fortress of Hırsova (early 19th century)… ...... 60

Figure 9 – Ion Ionescu de la Brad’s topographic and ethnographic map of Dobruca

(1850)………………………………………………………………………………….....99

Figure 10 – Map of the Ottoman Balkans before 1878 ...... 105

Figure 11. Ottoman map of the Danube Province (Tuna Vilâyeti) (1864-1878)……….106

Figure 12. The borders of Dobruca after the Treaty of (1878)………………...... 127

Figure 13 – Wall of ……………………………………………………………...129

Figure 14 – Karl of Hohenzollern (1860s)……………………………………....136

Figure 15 – King Carol I Bridge over the Danube River from the East Gateway (1890-95)

...... 148

xiii

Figure 16. of refugees with their buffalo cart on a street of Istanbul (1913)...... 178

Figure 17 – Refugees living in the square facing the Süleymaniye in Istanbul

(1913)…………………………………………………………………………………...189

Figure 18 – Tents of Muslim emigrés in , (1898)……………………190

Figure 19 – The Population of Dobruca in 1876……………………………………….206

Figure 20 – The Population of Dobruca in 1913……………………………………….207

Figure 21 – Melike Mosque (Carol I) in Constanţa (early 20th century)…………….....221

Figure 22 – Turkish Gypsies celebrating the in (early 20th century)…..227

Figure 23 – Dobrucan in front of a school building (early 20th century)………..240

Figure 24 – , Leader of the in Dobruca (1865-1939)……..280

Figure 25 – Leaders of the Muslim Association of Dobruca (early 20th century)……...285

Figure 26 – Niyazi, Leader of the Crimean National Movement in Dobruca

(1878-1931)……………………………………………………………………………299

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Note on Transliteration, Spelling, and Date Conversion

The Ottoman Turkish terms mentioned in this dissertation have been transliterated from the original to the script, a process known as transliteration. I have indicated the long vowels present in each of these terms: â (pronounced “a,” as in the English “ah”), ȋ (prounounced “ee,” as in the English “need”), and û (pronounced

“oo,” as in the English “food”). I have also retained the distinctive Turkish letters c

(prounounced “j,” as in the English “joke”), ç (prounounced “ch,” as in the English

“chess”), ğ (soft “g,” also known as g-breve in English), ı (pronounced “u,” as in the

English “put”), and ş (pronounced “sh,” as in the English “shut”). I have used two letters that also appear in other languages, including ö and ü (pronounced as in German). All

Ottoman Turkish terms have their equivalent English translations in paranthesis.

In the case of Romanian terms, I have retained distinctive letters such as â

(pronounced as in the English “above”), ă (pronounced as in the English “heard”), ş

(pronounced as in the English “shopping”), and ţ (pronounced like the “–tz” in the

English “ritz”). All the places that appear in this dissertation have different in

Ottoman Turkish and Romanian. For the sake of continuity and effortless identification,

I have retained both names (Köstence/Constanţa), but I used only one (Turkish) for the region under examination (Dobruca and not Dobrogea or Dobroudja). Place names

xv

familiar to European and North American readers are rendered in their Anglicized version: Bucharest (and not Bucureşti), Istanbul (and not İstanbul).

For the conversion of Ottoman (Islamic) dates into Gregorian (Christian) dates, I have used the following website: http://193.255.138.2/takvim.asp.

xvi

Abbreviations

ADAS. Arhiva Dimitrie A. Sturdza

AMAE. Arhivele Ministerului Afacerilor Externe, Bucureşti

A.MKT.MHM. Sadaret Mektûbi Kalemi Mühimme Evrakı, BOA

ANRB. Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Bucureşti

ANRC. Arhivele Naţionale ale României, Constanţa

BEO. Bâb-i Âli Evrâk Odası Sadâret Evrâkı, BOA

BEO.AYN.d. Bâb-i Âli Evrâk Odası Sadâret Evrâkı, Ayniyat Defterleri, BOA

BOA. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, Istanbul

DH.MKT. Dahiliye Nezâreti Mektûbi Kalemi, BOA doc. document

ÉB Études Balkaniques

EI² Encyclopaedia of , Second Edition

EI³ Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition

HR.H. Hariciye Nezareti. Hukûk Kısım Evrakı, BOA

HR.HMȘ.IȘO. Hariciye Nezareti. Müșavirliği Istișâre Evrakı, BOA

HR.MHC (02). Hariciye Nezareti. Romanya Muhâcirin Komisyonu Evrâkı, BOA

HR.TO. Hariciye Nezareti. Tercüme Odası Evrâkı, BOA

xvii

HR.SYS. Hariciye Nezareti. Siyâsi Kısım, BOA

Hrt.h. Haritalar, BOA

IA Islam Ansiklopedisi

I.HUS. Irade Hususȋ, BOA

IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies

IJTS Intenational Journal of Turkish Studies

ILS Islamic Law and Society

I.MVL. Irade Meclis-i Vâla, BOA

JAOS Journal of American Oriental Society

ML.VRD.TMT. Varidat Muhasebesi Temettuat Defterleri, BOA

MES Middle Eastern Studies

MO Monitorul Official

MV. Meclis-i Vükelâ Mazbataları, BOA

RÉSEE Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes

SEBSS Southeastern European and Studies

Y.A.HUS. Yıldız Sadâret Hususȋ Maruzat Evrakı, BOA

Y.A.RES. Yıldız Sadâret Resmȋ Maruzat Evrakı, BOA

Y.MTV. Yıldız Mütenevvi Maruzat Evrakı, BOA

Y.PRK.ASK. Yıldız Perâkende Evrakı Askerȋ Maruzatı, BOA

Y.PRK. EŞA. Yıldız Perâkende Evrakı Elçilik ve Şehbenderlikler Tahrîrâtı, BOA

Y.PRK.KOM. Yıldız Perâkende Evrakı Komisyonlar Mâruzatı, BOA

Y.PRK.ZB. Yıldız Perâkende Evrakı Zaptiye, BOA

xviii

YB.04.d. Yabancı Arşivler. Bulgaristan Defterleri, BOA

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Introduction

Historical studies materialize for many reasons. Some of the most common motivations include the wish of scholars to fill in lacunae in the understanding of particular historical phenomena; the urge to bring correctives to obsolete arguments or contributions to innovative ones; the availability of new sources; the opportunity to work with peers or on commissioned work; the need to address timely questions; or pure passion for or interest in writing on particular topics. History writing happens for all these reasons and many more. Time and again, genuine emotion becomes part of the writing process. In my case, to use the words of a famed poet of the human condition, this project began “as a lump in the throat…a homesickness.”1 In thinking about the project initially, I felt strongly attracted by the idea of writing about the history of my southeastern European , Romanian Dobruca, by looking at the Muslim community of the region through the lens of identity formation and change.2

1 The poet is Robert Frost (1874-1963). For the quotation, see The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work,” edited and with an introduction and commentary by Marie Arana (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), xiii. 2 In the present study the term Dobruca designates the northern part of the region, the part currently incorporated into Romanian territory (total surface: 15,500 sq. km. or 6,011 sq. mi.). The southern part of the region, also named the Cadrilater in Romanian and Dobrudzha in Bulgarian (total surface: 7,565 sq. km. or 2,920 sq. mi.), was under Romanian rule only from 1913 to 1940. Currently, this part of Dobruca belongs to and does not constitute the focus of this project apart from the 1913-1914 period. When discussing this period, I use “southern Dobruca” to make obvious the difference between the two parts of the region. 1

The region of Dobruca is perhaps one of the most intriguing places to examine because of its seemingly marginal location on the world map (Figure 1).3 Currently split between Romania and Bulgaria, Dobruca is uniquely equipped with attributes that distinguish it from most other world regions. For many centuries it represented an area of intersection between different geographies and climates, ethnicities and religions, values and customs, rulings and regulations, and, in more recent history, traditionalism and modernity.

Figure 1. Dobruca and its Location in Southeastern Europe (Dobruca appears in dark green). Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/ Dobruja_in_Europe_map.svg.

3 Throughout the study I use the of the region for the sake of providing continuity from the Ottoman to the Romanian periods. In Romanian, the region’s name is Dobrogea. There are various other spellings in non-Romanian and non-, among which the most frequent are Dobrudja, Dobroudja, and . 2

Site of serendipitous encounters between the apparently different yet accommodating worlds of Europe and Asia, the northern part of the region (currently in

Romania) was the place that brought together a great variety of ethnocultural groups.

More than twelve of them, including Turks, , , , Germans,

Russians, , , and , have lived in this region rather harmoniously.

To this day, no interethnic conflict has been recorded there, a fact that is somewhat surprising given the complex history of ethnic conflicts characteristic of the nearby

Balkan Peninsula.4

The varied human and political landscape of Dobruca led over time to the emergence of individual and collective identities reflecting people’s association with specific localities, religions, ethnicities, professions, intellectual trends, and, well into the nineteenth century, “.” In order to study such an intriguing process, I have decided to examine how Dobrucan Muslims changed their collective identity in the period extending from the beginning of Ottoman reforms, also known as the Tanzimat

(1839), through the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Such an undertaking, I thought, would bring these particular Muslims back into history, along with their story. In

Romanian historiography, for more than a century, the paradigm of the “Turkish yoke” has been, with a few notable exceptions, readily deployed to describe the nature of

Ottoman rule in this part of Romania (as well as in the other Romanian territories). 5

4 Brian Glyn Williams, “Mystics, and Heretics: A History of the Diffusion of Muslim Syncretism from to the Thirteenth Century Turco-Byzantine Dobruca,” IJTS 1-2 (2001): 1. 5 The most indicative and recent example of this kind of scholarship is Adrian Rădulescu and Ion Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 2nd ed. (Constanţa: Editura Ex Ponto, 1998).

3

Such inaccuracy, as I see it, is an ideological artifice used to underline the “beneficial” nature of Romanian rule in Dobruca by undermining any positive role the Ottomans had played there prior to 1878. In that year, through a stipulation of the , which concluded the Ottoman-Russo war of 1877-1878, this territory was officially detached from the Ottoman Empire and attached to Romania. New sources made available in recent years in the archives and libraries of both Turkey and Romania and the new methodology of writing about identities in borderland regions employed in this study will, it is hoped, amend such biases.

This project has also presented me with the opportunity to examine the history of the ancestors of friends and classmates I grew up with in Romania before the turn of the twenty-first century. At that young age, I could tell that my friends were different ethnically and religiously, but I could not recall attributing any particular significance to such difference. There was no “otherness” in our behavior as children. When I was acquainted with the history of Dobruca and its diverse population later on, I was not particularly impressed with the ability of the Muslims – who had made up the majority of the region’s population more than a century earlier - to live peacefully for the longest time with more than a dozen other ethnocultural groups in an environment dominated by

Romanian ethnics of Orthodox Christian denomination. The Muslims spoke good

Romanian and were ideal citizens due to their lawful and orderly behavior, or so ran the official narrative emerging from the curricula taught in post-Communist schools, the few historiographical writings, and media outlets. At that point in time, I knew nothing of the

4

long road the Muslims had undertaken to make the transition from Ottoman to Romanian rule and, once under the latter regime, to adapt to and integrate into Romanian society.

As the project evolved, I came to realize that my emotional connection with

Dobruca and my sheer curiosity to learn more about the ancestors of my childhood companions had led me to the study of one of the most intriguing populations one could examine as a scholar of the late Ottoman Empire. Dobrucan Muslims inhabited a region situated on the fringes or borders of a multiplicity of adjacent political systems.

Depending on the historical period, Dobruca was located within the confines of the Greek world and those of three major empires, the Roman, the Byzantine, and the Ottoman. In

1878, as mentioned above, the northern part of the region was annexed to Romania, while the much smaller southern part was attached to the autonomous Bulgarian state.

In this study, I focus exclusively on the northern part of Dobruca because this region provides an excellent example of how complex internal dynamics within border societies, when coupled with a transition from empire to nation-state, lead to important changes in the collective identities of local populations, in this case Muslim Turks and

Tatars. I argue that state policies, the reaction of Dobrucan Muslims to these policies, and transnational networks, including the Young Turks and the Crimean national movement, altered the identity of the region’s Muslims in the period under examination.

Local Muslim elites were essential in this process due to the active role they played in shaping the cultural and political views of their coreligionists. The advent of modernity led to the emergence of a modern Muslim identity in Dobruca, one shaped by secular

5

rather than religious principles. For the Muslims of this period, political aspirations were intertwined with and, especially after 1878, mostly subordinated to cultural concerns.

Dobruca as Part of the Ottoman and Romanian Borderlands

From the Ottoman conquest in the fifteenth century to the Romanian annexation in

1878, Dobruca’s northern geographical limits formed an integral part of the Ottoman

Empire’s northern frontier in Europe. As such, they constituted but one portion of this vast frontier, which lay “across a swathe of lands between and , arcing through the of and , then north of the Black Sea through the steppes of southern (the western end of the great ), and finally proceeding further east along the Mountains as far as the .”6

Once the of Wallachia and Moldavia were incorporated into the

Ottoman system as tributary states, a process completed by the mid-sixteenth century,

Dobruca became part of the northern imperial borderland region defined by the existence of the two above-mentioned principalities, ruled by indigenous tribute-paying (harâç- güzarlar) or voivodes, and the territory of Dobruca itself came under direct

Ottoman administration (Figure 2).7 This borderland kept its configuration intact despite

6 Victor Ostapchuk and Svitlana Bilyayeva, “The Ottoman Northern Black Sea Frontier at Akkerman Fortress: The View from a Historical and Archaeological Project,” in The Frontiers of the Ottoman World, ed. A.C.S. Peacock (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 137. 7 Beginning with Süleyman Kanunî’s reign (1520-66), Wallachia (Eflak) and Moldavia (Boğdan) were considered, both juridically and politically, as patrimony of the (mülk-i mevrus), components of the House of Islam (Dār al-Islam), and integral parts of the Ottoman Empire’s Well-Protected Domains (Memalik-i Mahruse) (Viorel Panaite, “Wallachia and Moldavia from the Ottoman Juridical and Political Viewpoint, 1774-1829,” in Ottoman Rule and the Balkans, 1760-1850: Conflict, Transformation, Adaptation. Proceedings of an International Conference held in Rethymno, , 13-14 December 2003, eds. Antonis Anastasopoulos, Elias Kolovos (Rethymno, Greece: University of , 2007), 31). It has been argued that Wallachian princes submitted completely (payment of homage) to the sultan in 1462, 6

important changes that occurred in the political life of the two principalities by the time of the Treaty of Berlin’s conclusion.

DOBRUCA

Figure 2. The Ottoman Empire from 1566 to 1612. Source: Map by Ron McLean, Digital Media Creation Services, The Ohio State University.

In 1859, Wallachia and Moldavia became a unified state under the name of Romania; in

1866, German Prince Karl of Hohenzollern- (Carol I in Romanian) replaced the first indigenous Romanian ruler of unified Romania, , and

following the successful campaign in that year of Mehmed II against Wallachia and the appointment of Radu the Handsome as new voivode; the Moldavian princes submitted much later, in 1538, following the successful campaign in that year of Süleyman Kanunî against Moldavia and the appointment of Steven the Locust as new voivode (Viorel Panaite, “The Status of the ‘Kharâj-Güzarlar.’ A Case Study: Wallachians, Moldavians, and Transylvanians in the 15th to 17th Centuries,” in The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation. Vol. I: Politics, ed. Kemal Çiçek (: Yeni Türkiye, 2000), 228). 7

became the prince of Romania with the official consent of the Ottoman sultan.8 The official viewpoint of the Ottoman administration, however, was that, in spite of their unification and autonomous status, the two principalities constituted part of the Ottoman imperial domains (Memâlik-i Mâhruse). Such a view was firmly stated in Ottoman official documents. More specifically, the Kanun-ı Esasi (Fundamental Law), promulgated on 23 December 1876, listed Romanian territories among the privileged provinces (eyâlat-ı mümtaze) of the Ottoman Empire.9

From a chronological standpoint, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Dobruca fell under

Ottoman control during the first two stages of Ottoman empire-building, which lasted from about 1299 to 1590.10 As mentioned above, Wallachia and Moldavia became tributaries of the Porte by the mid-sixteenth century. According to the terms of the unilateral covenants (ʻahdnâmes) that the imposed on the two principalities, both voivodes had to conduct the same foreign policy as the Porte’s, to contribute soldiers to the Ottoman army, to report on their neighbors’ political activity, to personally deliver tribute to the Porte, and to come to Istanbul for a formal ceremony of accession. In exchange, the pledged to respect the internal administrative and juridical autonomy of the voivodes. In reality, the Sublime Porte never ceased to monitor

8 Gabriel Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire ottoman. Traités, conventions, arrangements, déclarations, protocoles, procès-verbaux, firmans, bérats, lettres patentes et autres documents relatifs au droit public extérieur de la Turquie, vol. 3 (: Librairie Cotillon, 1897), 258. 9 Panaite, “Wallachia and Moldavia,” 31. 10 For background on Ottoman expansion, see Halil Inalcik, “Introduction: Empire and Population,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire. Volume I: 1300-1600, ed. Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 11-19. 8

closely the voivodes’ political activity in order to intervene should their autonomous powers become too great.11

Dobruca itself was directly incorporated into the empire by the end of the fifteenth century. Although its conquest began in 1393, during the time of (1389-

1402),12 its complete absorption into the empire occurred only in 1484, when northeastern Dobruca (with the mouths of the Danube River) came under Ottoman control.13 Recently, Romanian historian Anca Popescu has offered an in-depth analysis of the stages of the conquest based on both Ottoman and non-Ottoman archival and narrative evidence.14 According to Popescu, in 1420 (1413-21) and his troops took over the former Seljuk territory of the region (around Babadağı/ ), part of the coastal area of the Black Sea, and several points on the bank of the Danube River, including Yeni-Sale/Enisala, Isakçı/, and Silistre/. More than half a century later, Bayezid II (1481-1512) completed the conquest of northern Dobruca

(Figure 3). In 1484, imperial troops brought into the Ottoman fold not only the two fortresses of Kili/Chilia and Akkerman/Cetatea Albă in the north but also the coastal area of the Black Sea between Varna and Köstence/Constanţa in the east and the Danubian region of Hırşova/Hârşova in the west.15

11 Viorel Panaite, “The Voivodes of the Danubian Principalities – As Harâcgüzarlar of the Ottoman Sultans,” in Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities, and Political Changes, eds. Kemal H. Karpat and Robert W. Zens (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 59-78. 12 Halil Inalcik, “Dobrudja,” EI², Edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Brill Online, 2015 (http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/entries/ encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/dobrud-j-a-SIM_2137), last accessed 1 , 2015. 13 Anca Ghiaţă, “Condiţiile instaurării dominaţiei otomane ȋn Dobrogea,” in Studii istorice sud-est europene, I (1974): 43-126. 14 Anca Popescu, Integrarea imperială otomană a teritoriilor din sud-estul Europei. Sangeacul Silistra (sec. XV-XVI) (Bucharest: Academia Română, 2013). 15 Ibid., 41-54. 9

Much has been written about the ideology behind the phenomenon of border expansion of the Ottoman Empire into European territories (Figure 3). The literature on the gazi (holy war) nature of the Ottoman European frontier and that of the state itself abounds.16 For the purpose of this study, it is sufficient to say that some historians have attributed a religious connotation to the expansion, while others have not.17 Ottoman sources usually justify western Ottoman expansion through religious fervor. Ottoman campaigns appear in these sources under the name of gazavât (sacred expeditions).

The reason behind the use of such terminology rests in the military efforts of the sultans to expand the domain of Islam at the expense of the domain of war (Dâr al-Harb) situated to the north and west of their lands. For our case, several examples, which include the campaigns led against Wallachia by sultans Bayezid I (1395), Mehmed I

(1417), and Mehmed II (1462), and those conducted against Moldavia by Mehmed II

(1476), Bayezid II (1484), and Süleyman Kanunî (1538), are relevant.18 Whenever these campaigns are mentioned in narrative sources, Ottoman chroniclers describe the Danube

River as a border between Islamic (Dâr al-Islām) and non-Islamic lands (Dâr al-Harb) by using the expression “the water of gazi” in association with the name of the river.19

16 For the most pertinent and comprehensive treatment of this literature, see Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). 17 See the discussion in A.C.S. Peacock, “Introduction: The Ottoman Empire and its Frontiers,” in The Frontiers of the Ottoman World, ed. A.C.S. Peacock (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 12-16. 18 Tursun Beg, Tarih-i Ebu-i Feth-i Sultan Mehmed-Han, in Mihail Guboglu and Mustafa Mehmed, Cronici turceşti privind ţările române (sec. XV-mijlocul sec. XVII), I (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 1966), 72-73; Mustafa Gelalzade, Tabakat al-memalik ve daradjat al-mesalik, in Ibid., 271. 19 According to Kivâmî, the Turkish poet Yusuf Sinan mentioned to Sultan Murad II (1421–44 and 1446– 51), who expanded and consolidated Ottoman rule in the Balkans, that the Danube River was a "gazi water" that killed yearly thousands of Ottoman subjects without making use of swords and knives. Kivâmî, Fetihnâme, in Mihail Guboglu, Crestomaţie turcă. Izvoare narrative privind istoria Europei centrale şi orientale (1263-1683) (Bucharest: Universitatea din Bucureşti. Facultatea de Istorie, 1977), 307. The same 10

DOBRUCA 1417-84

Figure 3. The Ottoman Conquest of the Balkans (14th – 15th Centuries). Source: Map by Ron McLean, Digital Media Creation Services, The Ohio State University.

In regards to Dobruca, the beginning of the Ottoman conquest marked the moment when the region, which attracted “warlike elements as well as dissidents and sectarians,”

“was made an important udj for akıncıs.”20 The association of the akıncıs, who were gazis raiding into hostile territory (raids known as akın, which translates as “flood” or

“flooding over,” or gaza), with the conquest of Dobruca is significant.21 Usually amassed at the Ottoman frontiers, especially in the Balkans, the raiders played a crucial role in the

role of the Danube River as a fifteenth-century border between Ottomans and Romanians was underlined by Aşîkpaşazade in Tevarih-i al-i Osman, in Cronici turceşti, I, 97, and by Hungarian king Matias Corvinus in a letter dated January 29, 1476 and addressed to the Polish king (Nicolae Stoicescu, Vlad Ţepeş (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 1978), 158). 20 Inalcik, “Dobrudja,” EI². 21 Pál Fodor, “Akıncı,” EI³, Brill Online, 2015 (http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.proxy.lib.ohio- state.edu/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/ak-nc-COM_24939), last accessed 4 March, 2015. 11

expansion of the state. Their most renowned leaders (akıncı/uc beyis) were from among the state-founding or their descendants who acquired considerable power because of their prominent roles in the early Ottoman conquests.22 The presence in the

1530 register (defter) of the sancak (district) of Silistre/Silistra of many village names ending in “toviçe,” a term usually associated with the akıncıs, argues for Dobruca’s nature as an uc, or frontier districts23 and a site for raiding (akın) even in this period.24

Halil Inalcik maintains that in fact Dobruca did preserve its uc character throughout its entire Ottoman history.25 The akıncıs, along with other military forces, Muslim , settlers of various sorts, and local population made up the region’s complex social fabric. This heterogeneous population inhabited a territory that became a military frontier following the Ottoman conquest, a territory that also served as a settlement zone for the migrants and the unwanted elements of the empire.

From an administrative viewpoint, the territory stretching from the in the north to nearly the current border between Bulgaria and Turkey in the south, and from the Danube River in the west to the Black Sea in the east, was included in the sancak of

Silistre/Silistra,26 which was elevated to the rank of eyâlet or beylerbeyilik (province) in

22 According to Fodor, the most prominent among them were Mihallu (in the areas around Nikopol, , Plevna, , and Smederevo); Turahanlu (in the Morea peninsula); Evrenoslu (in and the Dalmatian borderlands); and Malkoçlu (in Bosnia and the area around Silistra, on the lower Danube) (Fodor, “Akıncı”). 23 Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, “Udj,” EI², Brill Online, 2015 (http://referenceworks. brillonline.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/ud-j-SIM_7680), last accessed 4 March, 2015. 24 Popescu, Integrarea imperială otomană, 67. 25 Inalcik, “Dobrudja,” EI². 26 According to an Ottoman register dating from 1530, the sancak of Silistre/Silistra comprised the of Hırşova/Hârşova, located at the north of the Karasu Valley, and the of Silistre/Silistra and Varna (which included among others Köstence/Constanţa and Mankalya/), located at the south of the same valley (Ibid). 12

1599.27 Less than three centuries later, the entire region experienced significant administrative changes following the promulgation in 1864 of the vilâyet (provincial) law throughout the Ottoman Empire. On that occasion, the former eyâlet (province) of

Silistre/Silistra and Özü/Oceakov, established in 1599, was replaced with the vilâyet

(province) of Tuna (Danube), encompassing the two sancaks (districts) of Tulça and

Varna.28 Ten kazas (subdistricts) with a total population of 173,250 formed the two above-mentioned sancaks.29 Up until the Treaty of Berlin, the Dobruca region, which the

Muslim population at the center of this study inhabited, consisted of the entire sancak

(district) of Tulça (with the kazas of Babadağı, Hırşova, Sünne, Köstence, Maçin, and

Mecidiye) and one of the four kazas of the sancak of Varna (Mankalya).

The lower part of the Danube River, which ends in the Black Sea after parting

Wallachia from the Dobruca region, can be seen in this context as an Ottoman internal boundary, a line of demarcation between territories under Ottoman suzerainty and those under Ottoman direct administration. This borderland region was sandwiched between several competing powers, a situation that made it prone to disruptions of all sorts, especially those of a military nature. Ostapchuk and Bilyayeva used the expression

“multiplex confinium” to describe a territory on the River where several frontiers met and multiple political forces fought for local dominance.30 Such was also

27 Ibid. 28 “Eyâlet” and “vilâyet” were Ottoman terms used to define a province of the Ottoman Empire. A vilâyet is a province governed by a vali (governor). 29 Inalcik, “Dobrudja,” EI². 30 Their discussion refers to the fortress of Akkerman/Bilhorod-Dnistrovs’kyi on the Dniester River, where several conflicts were ongoing between the Ottomans and - or Ukrainian ; Moldavia and the Tatars of the Bucak or the ; the Bucak Horde and the (Ostapchuk, Bilyayeva, “The Ottoman Northern Black Sea Frontier, 142). 13

the case of this borderland area during the medieval and modern periods, when the

Ottoman Empire had to face not only external foes from north of the Danube River but also the revolts of Wallachian and Moldavian rulers or notables, who never ceased to challenge their subordinate status vis-à-vis the Sublime Porte up until the nineteenth century.

The configuration of the borderland described above changed in 1878. The Treaty of Berlin, signed in July by the Great European powers, stipulated that Dobruca should be divided between independent Romania and an autonomous Bulgaria remaining under

Ottoman suzerainty. Romanian Dobruca, or Northern Dobruca (Dobrogea in Romanian), was considerably larger than Bulgarian Dobruca, also called Southern Dobruca

(Dobrudzha in Bulgarian).31 Northern Dobruca included the former sancak of Tulça, in addition to the islands of the Danube Delta, the Serpent Isle of the Black Sea, and a small part of Southern Dobruca. Romanian officials divided this territory initially into three and then into two counties, otherwise known as Constanţa/Köstence and Tulcea/Tulça.

The entire territory of Southern Dobruca (also called the Cadrilater in Romanian) entered the possession of Romania at the end of the (Treaty of Bucharest,

August 1913) but was then returned to Bulgaria during World War II (Treaty of ,

September 1940).32 From 1878 to 1914, the former Ottoman borderland comprising

Wallachia, Moldavia, and Dobruca formed the entire territory of modern Romania.

31 The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, eds. Sir Augustus Oakes and R.B. Mowat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1918), 332. 32 Frederick De Jong, “The Turks and Tatars in Romania – Materials Relative to Their History and Notes on Their Present Day Conditions,” Turcica 18 (1986): 170. For the text of the Treaty of Bucharest, see The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, 362. 14

During this period, Dobruca became part of a national border, where the nationalizing policies conceived and implemented by Romanian authorities aimed at turning a region with a Muslim majority into one fully inhabited by ethnic Romanians.

Intensified in Dobruca had an important impact on indigenous Muslims, who had to reevaluate their place in society and strategize in regards to their self-definition as a community that had acquired the status of a minority under the new political regime. In order to place the present study in a historiographical context, the next section will briefly examine the historical research regarding the concepts of borderlands and borderland identities, as well as that which focuses on the process of transition from empire to nation-state.

Borderlands and Borderland Identities in Historical Research

Historiography on borderlands – or areas situated on both sides of a border, a place where two societies meet and overlap – has recorded a considerable increase in volume and popularity in recent decades.33 But the study of borderlands goes back more than a century, irrespective of whether scholars regarded borders (or frontiers) as places of severance or sites of meeting and merging of two different or not so different societies.

In 1893, American historian Frederick Jackson Turner proposed his famous “frontier thesis” at the American Historical Association meeting in Chicago during the World's

Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair). The thesis, cogently presented in the

33 Fairly recently, Ottoman historian Linda Darling assessed the state of research regarding borderlands, frontiers, and contact zones in the field of history in general and that of Ottoman history in particular (Linda Darling, “Ottoman Borderlands, Frontiers, and Contact Zones,” Keynote Lecture at the Conference "The Early Modern Empire as a Contact Zone," Princeton University, June 10, 2010, 2). 15

paper titled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” discussed the successful expansion of American settlers towards the west and the crucial role this process had in the forging of a unique American identity and spirit.34 Without the existence of this frontier between American settlers and the Native American population such identity and spirit would have hardly emerged. The very nature of the frontier,

Turner believed, led to the formation of composite nationality among the American settlers, a phenomenon that “underlay the spirit of nationalism that flowered in the United

States” in the nineteenth century in particular.35

A rich literature focusing on the notion of border or frontier gave birth to a prolific field of analysis following Turner’s proposal of the “frontier thesis.” His thesis was considerably improved and the study of frontiers expanded to include other world frontiers such as those present in and .36 During this time, scholars have focused their attention on the examination of societies located on either side of the border, and, whenever the inhabitants of border areas made up a joint community that was “functionally recognizable though not institutionally defined,” the focus fell on both sides of the border.37

34 Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," in Frontier and Section: Selected Essays of Frederick Jackson Turner, with an Introduction by Ray Allen Billington (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1961), 37-62. 35 “Introduction: Frederick Jackson Turner – Universal Historian,” in Frontier and Section, 5. 36 See, for example, Essays on Frontiers in World History, eds. George Wolfskill and Stanley Palmer (Arlington: University of Texas at Arlington, 1981), which applies and modifies Turner's frontier paradigm in different world contexts in , Australia, and South Africa. 37 Owen Lattimore, “The Frontier in History,” in Studies in Frontier History. Collected Papers: 1928-1958 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 470. 16

In the early 1990s, the study of borderland areas benefited from an increased interest of scholars from various disciplines in the examination of the U.S.-Mexican border. One of the works that stood out in the literature pertaining to this topic was that of historian Oscar Martinez. In seeking to explain the way of life peculiar to populations settled in this borderland, Martinez arrives at the conclusion that “borderlanders live in a unique human environment shaped by physical distance from central areas and constant exposure to transnational processes.”38 Because borderlanders live “at the periphery of nations,” they are often prone to foreign influences, participate actively in transnational processes, and experience life according to their location in the borderland milieu.

“While all borderlands share functional similarities stemming from transboundary interaction,” Martinez argues, “they also retain distinct identities arising from particular local settings.”39

Among the authors writing about borders and borderland areas, Martinez proves extremely useful for my understanding of how borderland societies work. Two additional studies, that of Norwegian social anthropologist Fredrik Barth from 1969 and that of American historian Sahlins from 1989, have been equally useful. Both studies have enhanced my understanding of identity formation and development among borderland peoples. Frederik Barth argued in his 1969 study that the continuity of ethnic groups living in border areas depends on the maintenance of a boundary. The role of the boundary in underlining the “continuing dichotomization between members and

38 Oscar J. Martinez, Border People: Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994), xvii-xviii. 39 Ibid., xviii. 17

outsiders” allows for a proper understanding of how group identities emerge and develop in borderland areas.40 In his examination of the borderland region and population of

Cerdanya, a province located in the Pyrenees between and and divided between these states in 1659, Sahlins focuses especially on the ways in which the local population acquired a national identity between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries.41 He argues that national identity “appeared less as a result of state intentions than from the local process of adopting and appropriating the nation without abandoning local interests, a local sense of place, or a local identity.”42 Despite various levels of official pressure from both France and Spain throughout the period, the Cerdans displayed their French or Spanish national affiliations only when disputes emerged among villages split as a result of boundary delimitation. Rejecting the primordial nature of national identities, Sahlins argues that borderland identities were “socially constructed and continuous” processes of defining “friend” and “enemy,” of “maintaining boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ within more local communities.”43 Objective linguistic and cultural differentiations were thus less important than the subjective experience of difference in explaining people’s national allegiances.

In the field of Ottoman history, the frontier model recorded considerable success.

In 1938, Paul Wittek proposed the argument that defined the gaza (a subset of the Islamic

40 Fredrik Barth, “Introduction,” in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture Difference, ed. Fredrik Barth (Bergen-, London: Universitets Forlaget, George Allen & Unwin, 1969), 14. 41 Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkley: University of California Press, 1989). 42 Ibid., 9. 43 Ibid., 270. 18

holy war, jihad; it was an ongoing but episodic defense in depth of the borderlands, intended in principle to extend the domain of Islam) as the key factor in the development of the Ottoman state from a beylik () situated on the Byzantine frontier in northwestern Anatolia to a full-fledged empire.44 But Wittek also studied the nature of the frontier between and Islam in Asia Minor in a manner that resembled the borderland paradigm rather than the frontier model. In his 1938 book on the rise of the

Ottoman Empire, he made a forceful argument for the existence of “marches,” or territories located on both sides of this particular frontier, which were populated on the

Muslim side by ghazis and on the Byzantine side by akritai. Although the population of the “marches” was inclined, from the ninth to the thirteenth century, to perpetual frontier warfare driven by the booty that existed on both sides of the frontier, there were instances, especially during the early thirteenth century, when peaceful relations between borderlanders were possible. Prisoners, deserters, and women taken from the other side of the frontier, Wittek maintained, facilitated the cultural exchange and the assimilation characteristic to borderland areas. Moreover, the population of the “marches” distinguished itself from that of the “peaceful and industrious” hinterland in terms of culture and “race;” strong political and religious tensions characterized the relationship between the “marches” and the hinterland.45

After Wittek, historians devoted considerable attention to explaining the nature of

Ottoman expansion in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as the main features

44 Paul Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1938). 45 Ibid., 17-27. 19

of frontier societies.46 The collective volume Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities and Political Changes (2003), for example, offered an in-depth analysis of “the complex interaction between a centralizing state and its far-flung territories inhabited by economically, ethnically and religiously diverse populations.”47 Another important collective volume, The Frontiers of the Ottoman World (2009), details various aspects related to Ottoman frontiers, including extent, configuration, ideology, wars, economy, administration, organization, and frontier populations.48

In recent years, Ottoman historians have produced studies that emphasized the complex nature of the exchanges that occurred between populations inhabiting Ottoman borderlands. In an article on the early English merchants in the , Linda Darling argues that the Mediterranean border between and Islam functioned in the early modern period "to channel -not to prevent- the movement of people, goods, and ideas."49 Mediterranean trade allowed for the creation of a borderland milieu, where commercial and cultural exchanges left an imprint characteristic only to areas of this kind. In his 2006 doctoral dissertation, published as a book in 2013, Sabri Ateş examines

46 The literature on Ottoman frontiers is not particularly rich, but important steps in understanding how they functioned have been made by scholars including Rifaat A. Abou-El-Haj, “The Formal Closure of the Ottoman Frontier in Europe, 1699-1703,” JAOS 89 (1969): 467-75; C. Hess, The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978); Mark Stein, Guarding the Frontier: Ottoman Border Forts and Garrisons in Europe (London: I.B. , 2007); Eugene Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 47 Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities, and Political Changes, 14. 48 The Frontiers of the Ottoman World, ed. A. C. S. Peacock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 49 Linda Darling, "Mediterranean Borderlands: Early English Merchants in the Levant," in The Ottoman Empire: Myths, Realities and 'Black Holes': Contributions in Honour of Colin Imber, eds. Eugenia Kermeli and Oktay Özel (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2006), 173-88. 20

the Ottoman-Iranian borderlands between 1843 and 1914.50 Privileging the local context,

Ateş explains what happened “when state actors created the foundation for the emergence of new identities through the introduction of new administrative structures and the imposition of state subjecthood on the borderlanders.”51 He argues that some borderlanders complied with state designs, while others formulated their own ideas of sovereignty, identity, and spatial organization.

In this dissertation, I employ the results of borderland studies not in the sense of a methodical application of Paul Wittek’s, Oliver Martinez’s or Peter Sahlins’ theoretical contributions (though this study discusses the interaction of borderlanders living on both sides of the Danube River on more than a few occasions), but rather to emphasize the inclusion of Dobruca in the northern borderland of the Ottoman Empire in Eastern

Europe. It is significant to note in this context that Dobruca was part of a borderland in permanent motion, a borderland that served Ottoman military purposes as much as it served as one of the grounds for the sultans’ settlement policies. The present study pays equal attention to both what happens in this part of the borderland and how borderlanders

“manage their existence in proximity to a boundary with an ‘other’ or ‘others,’ something that people outside the borderland are only occasionally called upon to do.”52 For this reason the present study focuses on state policies, reaction of Muslim borderlanders to such policies, and the effect of transnational networks on the construction of Muslim collective identity. Such a focus is unique in the fields of Ottoman, East European, and

50 Sabri Ateş, The Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 51 Ibid., 3. 52 Darling, “Ottoman Borderlands, Frontiers, and Contact Zones,” 15. 21

Balkan history.

Throughout the study, I employ the term “identity” in accordance with the most recent theoretical contributions in the field of identity studies. Some scholars prefer to avoid the use of “identity” as an analytical category in their works due to the loaded nature and ambiguous connotations of the term. Nevertheless, my usage follows that of

Frederick Cooper and Rogers Brubaker in their 2005 study entitled “Identity.”53 The two scholars caution their peers in the social sciences about the “use and abuse” of the term

“identity” as an analytical category. In their view, the term is heavily burdened and deeply ambiguous because it was made to do a great deal of work.54

Cooper and Brubaker suggest the replacement of the heavily loaded term with the more concrete concepts of “identification,” “self-understanding,” and “self-representation

(self-identification),” which aim at bringing conceptual clarity in studies focused on identity. Additionally, these concepts allow for a more adequate and nuanced interpretation of empirical data.55 The present study uses the concept of “identity” as an analytical category, yet it employs all the aforementioned terms to provide much-needed clarity in the overall analysis.

53 Frederick Cooper and Rogers Brubaker, “Identity,” in Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History, ed. Frederick Cooper (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005): 59-90. 54 As a generic term “identity” was meant “to highlight noninstrumental modes of action; to focus on self- understanding rather than self-interest; to designate sameness across persons or sameness over time; to capture allegedly core, foundational aspects of selfhood; to deny that such core, foundational aspects exist; to highlight the processual, interactive development of solidarity and collective self-understanding; and to stress the fragmented quality of the contemporary experience of self, a self unstably patched together through shards of discourse and contingently activated in different contexts” (Ibid., 65-66). 55 Ibid. 22

This project utilizes the studies that Romanian historians have produced since the mid- nineteenth century on the education, cultural production, and political activity of Dobruca’s

Turks and Tatars.56 However, this scholarship presents the Turks and Tatars especially through Romanian nationalist lenses and often ignores Ottoman archival evidence.

Historians have focused especially on the overall history of the region rather than on the examination of its Muslim community.57 Non-Romanian scholars have produced either articles about Dobruca in specialized encyclopedias and history journals or brief paragraphs about its Muslim population in topical books.58 Other contributions produced by foreign scholars examine either the community in general terms or just specific aspects of community life. 59 To date, there has been no attempt among scholars to examine the identity of the Muslims of Dobruca during the transition from empire to nation-state, which occurred during the nineteenth century.

To counteract the scarcity of primary and secondary sources regarding Dobrucan

Muslims, I have found it useful to compare the effect of Ottoman policies on Dobruca

56 Müstecip Ülküsal, Dobruca ve Türkler (Ankara: Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü, 1966); Tahsin Gemil, “Asociaţia din România a ‘Junilor Turci’,” Anuarul Institutului de Istorie şi Arheologie “A.D. Xenopol” VII (1970): 170-185; Mehmed Ali Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni (Bucharest: Editura Kriterion, 1994); Originea tătarilor. Locul lor ȋn România şi ȋn lumea turcă, ed. Tahsin Gemil (Bucharest: Editura Kriterion, 1997); Nuredin Ibram, Comunitatea musulmană din Dobrogea. Repere de viaţă spirituală (Constanţa: Ex Ponto, 1998) and Musulmanii din România (Constanţa: Editura Golden, 2007); Tătarii ȋn istoria românilor, ed. Marian Cojoc, vol. I-II (Constanţa: , 2004, 2005). 57 The most recent work, from 2013, is Anca Popescu’s Integrarea imperială otomană. 58 Halil Inalcik, “Dobrudja;” Kemal Karpat, “Dobruca,” İA, vol. 9 (Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Islâm Araştırmalar Merkezi, 1994), 482-86; idem, “Ottoman Urbanism: The Crimean Emigration to Dobruca and the Founding of Mecidiye, 1856-1878,” IJTS 1 (1984-1985): 1-25; idem, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862 and the Settlement and Urban Development of Dobruca,” in Passé Turco-Tatar, Présent Soviétique. Études offertes à Alexandre Bennigsen, eds. Ch. Lemercier-Quelquejay, G. Veinstein, S.E. Wimbush (Paris: Éditions Peeters, 1986), 275-306; Guiseppe Cossuto, Breve storia dei Turchi di Dobrugia (Istanbul: Edizioni Isis, 2001). 59 Catherine Durandin, “La Russie, la Roumanie et les nouvelles frontières dans les Balkans: le cas de la Dobroudgea,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique, Vol. 20, 1 (1979): 61-77; Frederick De Jong, “The Turks and Tatars in Romania, ” 165-89. 23

with that on other frontier societies when examining the region’s Ottoman period.

Eugene Rogan’s work on Transjordan, Moshe Ma’oz’s work on and ,

Milen Petrov’s work on the Tuna (Danube) province during the Tanzimat period, and

Sabri Ateş’s work on Ottoman-Iranian borderlands are fundamental in understanding frontier dynamics in imperial contexts, especially during the nineteenth century.60

According to these authors, the factors that shaped frontier societies in Ottoman times

(e.g., state policies, local perceptions of the benefits of Ottoman rule, the degree of

European intervention, and the influence of local elites) changed social dynamics in local societies. Like Transjordanian, Syrian, and Palestinian Muslims, Dobruca’s Muslims underwent transformative experiences that affected their personal and communal perception of ethnic, religious, and group identity. Unlike them, yet closer to some of the individuals living in the Ottoman-Iranian borderland, Dobrucan Muslims conformed with rather than contested imperial policies in order to attain tranquility within their communities and to obtain benefits from the state. In most instances, these Muslims portrayed themselves as loyal subjects of the Ottoman sultans and the state they ruled.

The arguments proposed in the portion of the study devoted to the Romanian period align with those of recent historiography that focuses on the status of minorities from nation-states born out of former multiconfessional, multiethnic, and multilingual empires. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when state borders changed in the aftermath of wars, political treaties, and migrations, peoples and cultures

60 Eugene Rogan, Frontiers of the State; Moshe Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 1840-1861 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968); Sabri Ateş, The Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands; Milen Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside: Midhat Paşa and the Vilâyet of Danube, 1864-1868,” Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 2006. 24

with little or nothing in common were forced to coexist within the same “national” space.

This “mismatch” led to the emergence of national minorities “attached by formal citizenship to one state (in most cases a new – and nationalizing – state) and by ethnonational affinity to another.”61 Dobrucan Muslims fit this description. As Dobruca became part of Romanian territory, Muslims had to come to terms with the reconfiguration of their political space. In this context, they maintained strong connections with the two states: one was through ethnonational affiliation with their external “national” homeland, the Ottoman Empire; the other was through a formal attachment via citizenship to Romania, the nationalizing state that incorporated Dobruca.

This was certainly not the case for the Muslims who had emigrated gradually from the region into Ottoman territories during and after 1878. Their destiny became especially connected with that of the Ottoman state despite the persistence of certain links

(relatives, property) with Romania. Unlike the Muslims who remained in the Dobruca region after 1878, the émigrés did not have to formulate their collective identities along national lines in order to preserve cultural and juridical autonomy within the borders of

Romania.

Historiography on the Transition from Empire to Nation-State

To prove the point that Muslims under Romanian rule had to balance identities, I have employed the results of the recent scholarship on the subject of nationality in areas transitioning from empire to nation-state. The scholars who produced these studies make

61 Cooper and Brubaker, “Identity,” 108. 25

the point that national allegiances were not always the outcome of state policies alone.

To the contrary, as new East-European and Balkan states were born from the Ottoman

Empire, national government policies intended to forge cohesive and homogeneous societies within diverse communities encountered different responses at local levels, often resulting in the emergence of distinctive national allegiances within the confines of the same state.

This argument overcomes assumptions prevalent in late twentieth-century scholarship about the unique role of state policies in the formation of national allegiances.

In these studies, the central postulation was that a centralized administrative infrastructure, a common citizenship, and the resulting national belonging constituted the main aspects of nation-states seeking to forge new national identities out of the remnants of multiconfessional, multiethnic, and multilingual empires.62 The present study demonstrates that, in Dobruca, national allegiances emerged from state policies, the reaction of the Muslims to these policies, and the influence of transnational networks.

This point aligns with that proposed by revisionist historians in recent decades.

Revisionist scholarship has emphasized that even in societies where state policies of nationalization were particularly strong, individuals were not necessarily bound to a particular national affiliation. Well into the process of nation-building and within the borders of the same nation-state there would often be people displaying regional loyalties, superregional (imperial) loyalties, nation-state loyalties, or no loyalty at all.

62 For criticism regarding this overstated paradigm, see Yonca Köksal, “Rethinking Nationalism: State Projects and Community Networks in the 19th-Century Ottoman Empire,” American Behavioral Scientist 10 (2008): 1498-1501. 26

Individuals with well-defined national affiliation (including national activists) coexisted with those known as “political amphibians” (or “people who could switch public nationalities;” “whose nationality was unclear;” or “who abused the possibilities of choosing different identities in the borderland”),63 nationally indifferent individuals,64 and “individuals with fluid consciousness.” Similar to “political amphibians” and nationally indifferent people, “individuals with fluid consciousness” thrived both during and after the disintegration of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires in Europe. Focusing on nationality and emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria during the first half of the

63 Peter Sahlins has documented the existence of “political amphibians” in the Cerdanya, where people employed French and Spanish nationalities interchangeably depending on personal interests, while Chad Bryant has identified them both in prewar as “Germanized” or “Czechified” Germans and in the Nazi-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees; Chad Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). These amphibians were also known as Water in Upper Silesia or in the Hungarian context. (See references in Chad Bryant, “Either German or Czech: Fixing Nationality in Bohemia and Moravia, 1939-1946” Slavic Review 4 (2002): 685). 64 Nationally indifferent individuals were prominent in post-World War I Upper Silesia where, according to James Bjork, the growth of national sentiment fostered by both German and Polish national movements did not conclusively replace regional or religious (Catholic) identities. Despite the existence of “momentary allegiances,” often economically motivated, the Catholic, Upper Silesian, German, and Polish “identities” remained in flux for a longer period than previously thought (James Bjork, Neither German nor Pole: Catholicism and National Indifference in a Central European Borderland (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008)). Pieter Judson argues for the existence of a non-national environment in “the language frontiers” comprising the rural areas of southern Bohemia, South , and the South between the last third of the nineteenth century and the end of World War I. He maintains that “far from constituting sites of daily battles among nations, so-called language frontiers were often populated by rural people who did not automatically translate division in language use into divisions of self-identification or even of loyalty.” Despite the efforts of German, Czech, Italian, and Slovene nationalizing elites to stabilize the allegiances of people, “national loyalty […] remained highly contingent and mutable down to 1945” among the political “hermaphrodites” of these territories (Pieter Judson, Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006)). Jeremy King argues also for the presence of non-national or “more-than-national” (Habsburg loyalist) individuals among the Czech and German inhabitants of the Bohemian city of Budweis (Budějovice) prior to World War I. The lack of a well-defined Czech or German nationhood under the Habsburgs, he explains, contributed to the weakness of majoritarian democracy there during the , Hitler’s takeover in 1938, the expulsion of Germans after World War II, and Bolshevik rule (Jeremy King, Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848-1948 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002)). 27

twentieth century, Theodora Dragostinova examines individuals who manipulated their national allegiances “to achieve benefits in everyday life” by making a forceful claim that

“national ambiguity was an intrinsic part of the transition from empire to nation-states in the (post-) Ottoman Balkans.”65 She argues that “speaking national” (or invoking the nation) constituted a strategy that both state officials and communities affected by state policies employed in their efforts to fulfill certain goals and expectations in their homeland. As nationality became an instrument for social legitimization, national identity functioned as an “emergency identity” for those willing to adjust to national policies that allowed for a better social and economic integration in society.66

Like the Greeks of Bulgaria, Dobrucan Muslims were able to adopt the citizenship of their choice and to define themselves collectively along national lines.

Nevertheless, since Romanian officials tied citizenship initially to property and later to political rights, Dobrucan Muslims were in a much better position to claim state assistance if they became Romanian citizens. Invoking the nation thus constituted a salient tool for social integration for Muslims seeking state benefits in order to secure a better everyday life for themselves. There was also a striking resemblance between the

Muslims of Dobruca and the Greeks of Bulgaria in terms of their use of national rhetoric

65 Theodora Dragostinova, Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1949 ( and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 9 and 13. Emily Greble Balić uses this terminology in the examination of ’s during the Nazi-favorable Ustasha regime in . She argues that as long as the Serbs targeted by the regime avoided joining the resistance, kept a low profile, converted to the Croatian Orthodox Church, and declared loyalty to the state they could survive the harshness of the regime and even go so far as to enact positive change at both personal and community levels (Emily Greble Balić, “When Croatia Needed Serbs: Nationalism and Genocide in Sarajevo,” Slavic Review 68, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 116-138). 66 Dragostinova, Between Two Motherlands, 14. This argument is also developed in “Speaking National: Nationalizing the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1939,” Slavic Review 67, 1 (2008): 157-158. 28

in interactions with state officials at the local level, for acting in this manner both groups hoped “to improve their situations within the aggressively nationalizing states.”67

Appeals along national lines indeed allowed individuals to adapt more smoothly to nationalizing policies. In practice, speaking and acting nationally in Dobruca equated with the Muslims’ public expression of loyalty to the state and the monarchy. The use of loyalty and exemplary citizenship rhetoric was especially emphasized in situations where community leaders demanded financial and moral support from the state, especially for the , the schools, and the cultural associations that formed the focus of Muslim activity in this period.

The intermediary position taken by Dobrucan Muslim elites resembles that of the indigenous leaders of Calcutta’s middle class examined by Partha Chaterjee. These leaders played an important role in “creating the dominant forms of nationalist culture and social institutions in Bengal” during British colonial rule.68 This significant achievement was possible because of their intermediary role between the local population and British colonial authorities.69 Such a role afforded the elites not only the opportunity to mediate between the local population and the British authorities but also to lead their followers on the intellectual and political fronts. The Muslim elites of Dobruca had a similar role in guiding their coreligionists on both fronts, especially after 1878. While primarily Muslim Turks came under the influence of modernist concepts propounded by the Young Turks, their Tatar brothers felt the impact of the Crimean national movement.

67 Dragostinova, Between the Two Motherlands, 14. 68 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 35. 69 Ibid. 29

The members of the Young and the Crimean national movements encouraged

Muslims to become active members of a modernized society without losing their Islamic identity or jeopardizing their standing in Romanian society as loyal subjects of the

Romanian state and monarchy.70

Although not all Muslims felt the impact of the two transnational networks equally, there is no doubt that those who did react positively to the modernist message the networks had promoted never ceased to disseminate the new ideas among their coreligionists. Modernity thus presented them with the opportunity to redefine themselves in different terms. A new Muslim identity emerged in this context, an identity shaped by secular rather than religious principles. Options for political action and internal reorganization, mostly at a cultural level, helped these Muslims acquire a particular sense of self on both personal and collective levels.

I therefore understand modernity as a complex phenomenon that characterized a period looking towards the future not only in spatial but also in qualitative terms.

Modernity led, among other things, to new attempts by governments to catalogue and organize societies.71 The Muslims of Dobruca felt the impact of modernity largely through demands that both Ottoman and Romanian governments made on them. Modern state policies aimed to turn the Muslims into “modern” subjects and citizens, respectively, bound to the state and its rulers through loyalty and affection. But

70 M. Özgür Tuna, “Gaspıralı V. Il’Minskii: Two Identity Projects for the Muslims of the ,” Nationalities Papers 30, 2 (2002): 268. 71 For one of the most effective arguments on how modernity impacted society in the Ottoman and Turkish case, see Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity. A History, 1789-2007 (New haven and London: yale University Press, 2010), 15-18. 30

modernity also led to the emergence of a new sense of self-awareness at the collective level independent of state policies. Freedom of movement and action resulted in the

Muslims’ migration to Ottoman lands and their increasing connection with transnational networks fom the wider Turkic world. While old religious and value systems persisted, there was a sense that innovations, especially in the cultural realm, would accelerate the

Muslims’ development as a community mostly along the lines of secularism.

Methodology and Sources

In its totality, the present study addresses state policies, national ideologies, and geographic location, all of which affect formation of collective identities. First, I examine how community and individual identities among the Turks and Tatars worked in the Ottoman imperial environment from 1839 to 1878. Then, I analyze how nation-state policies and ideologies affected the formation of collective identities among the two groups between 1878 and 1914. Finally, I scrutinize contacts between local Muslims and members of the Young Turk and the Crimean national movements in order to demonstrate the impact of external factors on the formation of Muslim identity in

Dobruca after its annexation to Romania. I trace identity change from the Tanzimat through the outbreak of World War I for a specific reason: both events marked important moments in the process of identity formation and change among the region’s Turks and

Tatars. The Tanzimat generated the legal framework for the Muslims (as much as for all people in the Ottoman Empire) to acquire Ottoman nationality. The beginning of World

31

War I marked the finalization of the first phase in the creation of a Romanian legal framework within which the two groups could operate.

The dissertation is based on a wide variety of primary sources collected in the archives and libraries of Turkey and Romania over a period of several years.

Additionally, it employs the results of the relevant scholarly literature in several fields of study. Primary sources relating to the Tanzimat period include Ottoman yearbooks

(salnâmes), Ottoman and non-Ottoman official documents, foreign travelogues, and newspaper articles. Concerning the period between 1878 and 1914, the dissertation benefits from a variety of Ottoman and Romanian official documents, private correspondence, memoirs, and newspaper articles.

Chapter outline

This introduction had a three-fold purpose: to explain the interest of the author in the topic; to identify northern Dobruca as part of the borderland of the Ottoman Empire in Europe and of Romania, respectively, and the Muslims as borderlanders; and, finally, to underline the contribution of the dissertation to the study of borderland identities by placing it in its proper historiographical context. The first chapter then aims to introduce the reader to Dobruca and its Muslim population prior to the start of the Tanzimat in

1839. The emphasis in the early sections of the chapter falls on the geography and history of the region, and then later on the historical evolution of its Muslim population.

Mostly of Turkish and Tatar origin, the Muslims constituted the dominant demographic element in Dobruca, yet they represented only one of the region’s many ethnocultural and

32

religious groups. The chapter emphasizes the role of Dobruca as part of the northern

Ottoman borderland in order to explain the distinctiveness of Ottoman policies toward the region in general and its Muslim inhabitants in particular. This background information is essential to understanding the central role the region played in the formation and development of Muslim identity in the Tanzimat period.

Once the historical background is set, I move toward a more conceptual analysis of the collective identity of Dobrucan Muslims during the transition from empire

(Ottoman) to nation-state (Romania), chronologically marked by the beginning of

Ottoman reforms and that of World War I. Chapter two examines the Tanzimat period in

Dobruca and the effects it had on the Muslim population. Given the strategic location of the region, where both the Ottomans and European powers had military and economic interests, reforms introduced the region and its inhabitants to not only the benefits but also the hardships of modernity. Alterations within the politics of emigration, property rights, education, infrastructure, and especially nationality had a considerable impact on the Muslims. In the process, identities were shaped and reshaped at a constant, steady pace. Primary evidence shows that Tanzimat policy-makers instituted a certain sense of a that acknowledged equality between individuals irrespective of religious and ethnic backgrounds, in particular after 1856. Despite the egalitarian discourse promoted by Ottoman officials, the diversity within Dobrucan society created difficulties in applying such a discourse on the ground. While the reforms restructured the social fabric of Dobruca, the sense of new ethnic, religious, and also class identities present in the region did not result necessarily in the formation of an Ottoman national identity. It did,

33

however, instill loyalty in some of the Ottoman subjects who felt the beneficial effect of

Ottoman policies at the level of family and community life.

Therefore, ethnic, religious, and class identities do not always lead to nationhood nor do they necessarily make a nation. The nation “is product of both the social exchange among members within the group and the erection of boundaries between these members and those outside.”72 After Romania had incorporated the region into its national body in 1878, the nationalizing policies formulated in Bucharest and applied rather randomly and in a discriminatory fashion at the local level made a difference, not always positive, within the Muslim community. Chapters three and five analyze the impact of Romanian policies on the Muslims of Dobruca. The third chapter examines the policies that Romanian officials implemented in the region, while the fifth chapter studies the Muslim response to such policies. As chapter three shows, the Romanian government formulated policies that recognized the Turks and Tatars as a religious minority functioning under its rule. Most of these policies hit the Muslim community hard, and a major emigration from Romanian Dobruca to the Ottoman Empire occurred after 1878.

This process, with all its accompanying issues, constitutes the focus of chapter four.

Chapter five is devoted to the examination of the Muslims who decided to remain in

Romania after 1878. The evidence employed points out that during this period Dobruca’s

Turks and Tatars acquired a new collective identity that resulted from their investment in the policies of Romania. This investment derived from the role played by Turkish and

Tatar elites as intermediaries between the state and the specific minority groups. The

72 Gregory Jusdanis, The Necessary Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 20. 34

elites within each group played a critical role in the advancement of their respective communities through education and culture. They served as teachers in local schools, publishers of newspapers, and founders of cultural associations. By nurturing the minorities’ allegiance to Romania, the elites sought the state’s financial and moral support for the entire Muslim community and to maintain local autonomy. Typical for this borderland society, the two minority groups displayed loyalty to both Romania and the Ottoman Empire whenever circumstances arose, providing an example of the complexity of the identities that can emerge at the peripheries of empires and nation- states.

The formation of minority identity, however, cannot be understood solely through state policies and the reaction of minorities to these policies. Transnational connections, such as the movement of political activists and ideas, defined the options for political action and shaped national identity. These connections are evident in the sixth and final chapter, which focuses on the relationship of Dobruca’s Turkish and Tatar elites with the representatives of the Balkan Young Turks and the Crimean national movement. Ibrahim

Temo, the founder of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress, and Mehmed

Niyazi, the representative of the Crimean national movement, deserve particular attention. While functioning as teachers, publishers, and leaders of the local community, these two personalities fully contributed to the intellectual and political advancement of the region’s Muslims. Examination of their activity and impact within the local Turkish and Tatar communities demonstrates the crucial contribution transnational networks had in the formulation of Muslim identity along secular rather than religious lines.

35

The present study concludes with general reflections on identity change among the Muslims of Dobruca during the transition from Ottoman to Romanian rule. Overall, the dissertation provides the reader with an example of peaceful integration of Muslims into a society dominated by Romanian ethnics of Christian Orthodox faith at the turn of the twentieth century. It aims to convey the complexity of the process of identity change during the very daunting transition from empire to nation-state. This transition, as the dissertation demonstrates, triggered major changes within societies affected by it, as it forced entire communities to carve out a place in the new milieu and reconsider their self- definition and self-identification in such a context.

36

Chapter 1: Dobruca and Dobrucan Muslims before the Tanzimat Period

In 1850, Romanian agronomist Ion Ionescu de la Brad published in Istanbul a survey of the Ottoman region of Dobruca entitled Excursion agricole dans la plaine de la

Dobrodja (Agricultural Excursion in the of Dobruca).73 The survey represented the first systematic study of the region commissioned by the Ottoman government and carried out during the period of Ottoman reforms, known as the Tanzimat, which spanned the years 1839-1876. With its detailed information on the geography, ethnography, demography, administrative organization, and economic development of the region, the survey served the purpose of better acquainting Ottoman officials with this remote territory. There was hope within Ottoman circles that detailed knowledge of the province would lead to a more effective assessment of its economic potential, and thus a better use

73 A brief version of the study, written in both French and Ottoman, was sent by Ionescu de la Brad in the form of a report to the Ottoman government on August 1, 1850, and is currently available for examination in the Prime Ministry’s Ottoman Archives in Istanbul (BOA., HR.TO., 412/45, 22 Ramazan 1266 [1 August, 1850]). Its complete version was published in French as a series of articles in the prestigious Journal de , headquartered in Istanbul, and later as a book (Ion Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole dans la plaine de la Dobrodja (Constantinople: Imprimerie du Journal de Constantinople, 1850).) The book was translated into Romanian by Florica Mihăilescu in 1922 and was published in the same year in the major Dobrucan journal Analele Dobrogei (Dobruca’s Annals) under the name Escursiunea agricolă în Dobrogea. The last revision of this work occurred in 1968, when it was published by the of Sciences in Opere agricole (Agricultural Works) as volume I. The book has 124 pages. Twelve letters addressed to by Ionescu de la Brad during his research for the survey between April 24 and July 17, 1850, were published in 1943 in Bucharest by Victor Slăvescu (Corespondenţa între Ion Ionescu de la Brad și Ion Ghica, 1846-1874 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Naţională, 1943). 37

of its human and material resources.74 As was the case with other modern empires, the thinking behind this project was to ensure that the economic activity of the Dobruca region was “legible, taxable, assessable, and confiscatable or, failing that, to replace it with forms of production that were.”75

Ionescu de la Brad’s survey underlined the efforts towards reform that both the

Ottoman central and local administrations had undertaken by the time he examined the region in 1850. Such efforts led to improvements in the region’s administration and economy, and in the condition of its population. There was still much work to be done, the author of the survey reckoned, because the region’s agriculture had the potential to become a significant source of revenue for the Ottoman state, whose special administration of the region would eventually lead to an increase in the power and authority of the empire in this territory.76 The present state of the region was not particularly good but the future should be very promising, Ionescu de la Brad asserted. In

Dobruca, the increase in revenue depended on the augmentation of cultivable land, which, in turn, relied on the augmentation of the labor force. To obtain labor, the state

74 To ensure the comprehensive and professional examination of the province, the Ottoman government entrusted the task to Ionescu de la Brad, the administrator of the wealth of grand vizier Mustafa Reșid (grand vizier from September 1846 to April 1848). A native of Roman, a city in Moldavia, Ionescu de la Brad was born in 1818 and was schooled at the prestigious Academia Mihăileanu in Moldavia and the Sorbonne in France, where he had studied agronomy (Adina Berciu-Drăghicescu, “Tătarii din Dobrogea la mijlocul secolului al XIX-lea în lui Ion Ionescu de la Brad,” in Originea tătarilor, 222-25). He was fluent in Romanian, French, and Turkish and had an eye for detail, plenty of expertise in agriculture, and a reputation for honesty. Research for the survey was carried out in Dobruca, in the sancaks (districts) of Tulça and Silistre, from April to July 1850. For logistics and map orientation Ionescu de la Brad sought the help of his friends English traveler Arthur Jung and Romanian civil engineer Soranu (Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 14-15). 75 James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 5. 76 Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 9. 38

had to encourage the settlement of whoever wished to establish roots in the region. It was only in this way that the state would successfully turn previously uncultivated lands into cultivable ones. If the state wished to obtain more revenue from Dobruca, the government should devote more time and grant special attention to the better and more effective administration of the region. 77

Indeed, the Ottoman state had to pay particular attention to Dobruca. It also had to invest a considerable amount of resources to bring about positive change in this region, which was already known for its complex nature. According to the survey, Dobruca was a territory of bewildering ethnic, religious, and linguistic complexity, a veritable

“museum of human races” born out of a millennium-long history of wars, migrations, and policies. It was inhabited by nearly 100,000 people of twelve different

“nationalities” who espoused about eight different religious views and shared a physical space of roughly 9,000 square miles.78 Dobruca was also a territory nearly ruined by the wars the Ottomans had fought against the since the end of the eighteenth century. Because imperial armies used the region as a battleground, by 1850 many

77 Ibid., 114. 78 The author identified the following twelve nationalities: Turks, Wallachians, Tatars, Bulgarians, Cossacks, , Greeks, Gypsies (whom he called ), , Armenians, , and Germans. The most numerous were the Turks, while the least numerous were the Germans (Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 79-81). Dobruca preserved its ethnic complexity for decades to come. In 1928, in an issue of Analele Dobrogei dedicated to the examination of the region and its inhabitants, Romanian intellectual Constantin Brătescu wrote, “Today the ethnographic map of the province is a veritable museum: besides Romanians, who form the majority of the population and whose language is that of the country today, we have Turco-Tatar Muslims, Bulgarians, , and Lipovan , Greeks, Germans, Italians, Gagauz, Gypsies, and Jews. The white race and the yellow race; Indo-Europeans, Semitic people, and ; , Germans, and Slavs; Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant near Muslims and Jews; a Europe and an Asia in miniature; a giant ethnographic, alive museum-here is the compressed picture of the world at the mouths of the great river” (Constantin Brătescu, “Populaţia Dobrogei,” in Dobrogea. Cincizeci de ani de viată românească (Constanţa: Ex Ponto, 2003), 210). 39

villages had been wiped off the face of the earth or left only with ghostly-looking buildings, while entire towns were almost deserted. Struggling to avoid wars, the indigenous population was in flux. Countless families left everything behind, taking immense risks in their pursuit of safe havens so they could carry on with their lives peacefully somewhere else.79

Ionescu de la Brad maintained that Dobruca had been continually prone to destruction and instability since ancient times due to its geographic location at the borders of various state formations and empires lying in at the juncture of Europe and the steppe world. “Because of its location at the extremity of Europe,” he explained,

“Dobruca has always served as temporary shelter for the nomadic populations invading

Europe. The presence of the numerous ruins that shroud this region’s landscape is nothing but a proof for such an argument. […] In fact, this territory was the gate through which all migrations have passed over time. The defensive works that each conquered population of the region built to stop the invasion of other peoples were destroyed and restored time and again.”80 The most recent Russo-Ottoman wars had created havoc in this territory. In this view, geographic location, military conflicts, and demographic movements had had a deep impact on the evolution of the local population, attesting to its undisputable “shatter zone” character. “Shatter zones,” according to James C. Scott, were located “wherever the expansion of states, empires, slave-trading, and wars, as well

79 There is plenty of evidence for the destruction the Ottoman-Russo wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused to this region. For the most illustrative examples of this literature, see Helmuth Moltke, Campagne des Russes dans la Turquie d’Europe en 1828 et 1829 (Paris: J. Dumaine, Ch. Renwald, 1854); Camille Allard, La Dobroutcha (Paris: Charles Douniol, 1859) and Souvenirs d’Orient: La Bulgarie Orientale (Paris: Imprimerie Adrien Le Cler, 1861). 80 Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 71. 40

as natural disasters, have driven large numbers of people to seek refuge in out-of-the-way places.”81 Dobruca was one of those places that served as home to mobile populations whose modes of existence, spanning from how they acquired food to how they worshipped, contributed to the distinctiveness of the region and the identity of its diverse population.

The first chapter of this dissertation aims to help us make sense of what Dobruca was as a region and why it was important for the Ottomans prior to the Tanzimat period to keep it under control. The chapter’s sections focus primarily on the geography and the history of the region before 1839. This examination includes in addition an assessment of the situation of Dobruca’s Muslim population in order to provide an image of their historical development in this particular territory. Muslims constituted but one of the region’s many ethnocultural and religious groups, and information about these other groups will be provided in order to assess the diverse fabric of Dobruca’s population.

The purpose of the chapter is, therefore, to introduce the reader to the Dobruca region and the Dobrucans, albeit the emphasis lies with the Muslim population that forms the subject of this dissertation. It would be practically impossible to provide a good account of the region’s Muslims without understanding the central role that Dobruca played in their identity formation and development.

81 Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 8. 41

The Geography of Dobruca

Situated in present-day Romania and Bulgaria, Dobruca is a plateau that covers a little over 23,000 square kilometers (8,880 square miles). The plateau lies about fifty to

500 meters above sea level and is bordered on all sides by depressions.82 The depression of the Black Sea covers the region’s eastern side, while the depression to the south, drained by the Lom and the Rivers, separates the Dobrucan plateau from the pre-Balkanic plateau proper (Figure 4). The Danube estuary borders the region in the north, the Black Sea in the east, the Deli Orman Forest (adjacent to the Lom and Provadia

Rivers) in the south, and the Danube River in the west. The Danube River turns and flows south to north in this region, separating the steppe that covers three-fourths of the

Dobrucan territory from Romania proper.83

From north to south the region’s landscape changes markedly from one geographic unit to the other. Dobruca’s northern and western parts form the Danube’s marshes and delta and are almost entirely covered with swamps and water, creating an environment most conducive to fishing. It was in this area that Ukrainians and Lipovans

(Great Russians or Muscovites from Central ) found safe haven in the eighteenth century upon migrating from imperial Russia due mainly to religious persecution. They

82 The present study concerns only Romanian Dobruca (known also as Northern or Old Dobruca), whose surface is currently 15,500 sq.km. (6,011 sq. mi.). This is the territory granted to Romania by a stipulation of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. In 1913, according to the Treaty of Bucharest, which ended the second Balkan War, Romania received Southern Dobruca (known also as Cadrilater or New Dobruca) with a surface of 7,565 sq.km. (2,920 sq. mi.). However, this territory would be returned to Bulgaria in 1940 via the Treaty of Craiova. 83 Vintilă Mihăilescu, “Geographical Aspects of Dobrogea,” in The Dobrudja (Bucharest: Romanian Academy of Sciences, 1938), 7. 42

Figure 4. Dobruca and its Surrounding Depressions. Source: Vintilă Mihăilescu, “Geographical Aspects of Dobrogea,” in The Dobrudja (Bucharest: Romanian Academy of Sciences, 1938), 8.

also settled in a few wooded areas of the county of Tulça/Tulcea, which favored agriculture, viticulture, and beekeeping. Near the Danube, in the city of Isakçı/Isaccea but also in locations other than northern Dobruca, the presence of several mixed enclaves of Bulgarians, Greeks, Wallachians, Armenians, and Turks was attested by several foreign travel accounts in the seventeenth century.84 Ottoman sultans settled on the right

84 For Isakçı/Isaccea, see the 1677 account of the Palatine of Klum. For the other locations, see the accounts of Philip Stanislavič (1659) and Paul of (second half of the seventeenth century) (Al. P. 43

bank of the Danube a large number of Romanians (Wallachians and Moldavians) and a much smaller number of Serbs to increase the productivity of the land as soon as the conquest of the Balkans had been finalized by the end of the fifteenth century. According to Romanian historian Al. P. Arbore, three centuries later the entire right bank of the

Danube, from Silistre/Silistra in the south to the mouths of the Danube River in the north, had a Romanian majority.85

The area situated immediately below the Danube Delta, around the city of

Babadağı/Babadag, was known as the Tulça/Tulcea Highlands, which were in the distant past part of the Hercynian Mountain range that originated in the Paleozoic period. The

Ottomans had initially used this elevated and densely wooded area as camping grounds for soldiers participating in regional conflicts whenever the sultans wished to subdue

Balkan forces or to expand Ottoman authority beyond the north of the Danube River. At the end of the sixteenth century, however, they established permanent headquarters there that allowed for better and more effective control of the empire’s northern frontier in this location. The Turks constituted the majority in these areas, but there were also communities of Tatars, Ragusans (from Dubrovnik), Wallachians, Bulgarians, and

Greeks. These communities found opportunities to trade and be involved in various other activities connected with the center of Ottoman power in Dobruca, located at this time in

Babadağı/Babadag (Figure 5). 86

Arbore, “Rumanian Culture in Dobrogea,” in Dobrogea (Bucharest: Romanian Academy of Sciences, 1940), 333-34, and 320, respectively). 85 Ibid., 295-99. 86 Brătescu, “Populaţia Dobrogei,” 228. 44

Figure 5. Ottoman Dobruca in the Sixteenth Century (Kaza of Hırsova; Kaza of Silistre; Kaza of Varna; other localities in Silistra sancak; the Stone Wall [southern border of the Kaza of Hırsova]; the current border of Romania; the approximate border between the Kazas of Varna and Silistre). Source: Anca Popescu, Integrarea imperială otomană, 97.

45

The southern part of the Hercynian range ended in central Dobruca, more precisely in the Valley of Karasu (“Black Water”), the region’s lowest point at the present time. The Crimean Tatar emigrants, who left the Crimean Peninsula in the first half of the nineteenth century due to Russian pressure, took advantage of the valley’s great potential for settlement and built there, with the permission of Sultan Abdülmecid

(r. 1839-61), the city of Mecidiye/. According to nineteenth-century foreign accounts, the majority of the population in this particular area was Muslim. Typically, the Tatars inhabited Dobruca’s central sections, while the Turks preferred the Highlands and the coastal areas of the Black Sea, although they also lived in urban areas along with

Wallachian, Moldavian, Bulgarian, or Greek communities.87 During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, foreign accounts mention these communities in different parts of the region, from the north (Kili/Chilia, Isakçı/Isaccea, and Tulça/Tulcea) all the way down to the south (Mankalya/Mangalia).88

Southern Dobruca was a fertile steppe that stretched north to south from the

Valley of Karasu to the Deli Orman (“The Mad Forest”) and west to east from the

Danube River to the Black Sea. Travelers crossing the region from the Danube River

(the Boğazköy/Cernavodă point) to the Black Sea (the Köstence/Constanţa point) were mindful of the similarities that existed between this steppe and the Wallachian Plain of

Bărăgan lying on the other (the western) side of the Danube.

87 Coastal areas formed a long strip made of sand banks, marshes, and lagoons that stretched from the Danube Delta in the north as far south as Köstence/Constanţa. 88 Arbore, “Romanian Culture in Dobrogea,” 294-97. 46

In 1855, physician Camille Allard, who accompanied a French team entrusted with the construction of the road connecting the Danube River with the Black Sea, noted in one of his travelogues that in this area Dobruca “was the country of steppes, a region with no trees [punctuated by] a series of wavy plateaus separated by shallow valleys ending in high usually carved to peaks on the banks of the Danube and on those of the Black Sea.”89 The territory described by Allard constituted the western continuation of the Eurasian plain known as the Desht-i (or the Kipchak Steppe) (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Ottoman Map of Dobruca’s Geographical Features (with Danube Delta). Source: BOA., Hrt.h. 44.

89 Allard, La Bulgarie Orientale, 6. For a similar description of this area, see John Barkley, Between the Danube and the Black Sea (or Five Years in Bulgaria) (London: John Murray, 1876), 19. 47

This particular section of the plain ended near the Deli Orman Forest, a region made of slender ridges separated by narrow valleys that opened towards the Danube and sometimes ended in lagoons.90 Various historical accounts mention that most settlements there belonged to the Turks and the Tatars.91

Dobruca’s geographical complexity is particularly reflected in its climatic peculiarities. In spite of the overall extreme continental climate, the region records yearly variations in temperature from one area to another just as it does within a single geographical unit. The highlands, for example, are moister on the western side facing the

Carpathians but considerably drier on the eastern side facing the Black Sea. In the north, the overall temperature is usually lower than in the south, especially near the Deli Orman

Forest, which is well known for its Mediterranean-like climate characterized by moderate summers and mild winters.

Throughout the year, the northern and southern areas of Dobruca can record abundant rainfall, while the central (steppe) areas receive less rain and may record prolonged periods of drought during hot summers. During the medieval and modern periods it was not unusual to find man-made water wells in places vulnerable to severe drought in the summer (Figure 7). Typically more than twenty meters deep, these wells used horses connected to an intricate system of ropes and wooden structures to bring to the surface with one pull large quantities of water stored in bulky leather bags.92 Rainy

90 Mihăileanu, “Geographical Aspects of Dobrogea,” 16. 91 An excellent summary of these accounts is provided by Stoica Lascu, “Călători străini despre turco-tătarii din Dobrogea (sec. XVIII-XIX),” in Originea tătarilor, 206-21. 92 Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 14. 48

years, however, led to environmental booms, as drier areas turned into an exceptionally fertile land almost overnight.

Figure 7. Man-Made Water Well in Nineteenth-Century Dobruca. Source: Fr. V. Hellwald, L.C. Beck, Die Heutige Türkei. Das Osmanische Reich in Europa (Leipzig and Berlin: Verlag von Otto Spamer, 1882).

From a strictly geographical viewpoint, the Dobruca region is neither exclusively

Balkan nor exclusively Carpathian. It is rather both a terminal zone of Romania and a zone of passage between continental Europe, , and the steppes. These features have conferred a distinctive character on this territory, one that blends influences from the Carpathian, Mediterranean, and Pontic (Black Sea) regions. Romanian anthropologist Vintilă Mihăileanu has argued that “the influences in question are not only

49

political, intellectual, or economic; they include the whole range of geographical influences, from relief to the movement of populations, ideas, and goods.”93

Indeed, scholars have often described Dobruca as a , a place where contrasts met and blended rather than clashed. In the period between antiquity and the modern era, several societies in the region achieved particularly high degrees of internal organization and elaborated especially influential traditions. The most significant of them all was that formed by the many Turkic populations that settled in the region as early as the medieval period. Because their legacy has endured for centuries and has influenced the ways many generations of Dobrucans led their lives, it is particularly useful to examine them and the period preceding their arrival in the region up until the period of the Tanzimat that forms the focus of the first part of this study.

A Brief History of Pre-Tanzimat Dobruca

Prior to the period of nineteenth-century Ottoman reforms, Dobruca was either ruled by or within the sphere of influence of established empires. Additionally, it was located on the path of migrant populations going back and forth between Europe and Asia who, attracted by the remoteness of the region, deemed it safe and used it as either temporary or permanent refuge from various invaders.

Archeological evidence attests human settlement in Dobruca as early as prehistory.94 Until the fourth century C.E., the region was included in a larger

93 Mihăileanu, “Geographical Aspects of Dobrogea,” 9. 94 Radu Vulpe, “Histoire ancienne de la Dobroudja,” in La Dobrudja, 43-48. For an updated summary of this period, see Rădulescu, Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 13-31. 50

administrative unit (in this case, a province) for the very first time. The province was known as Scythia, a broad term that the Greeks and the Romans employed to designate the lands to their north and east stretching roughly from the Danube River in the west to the , the Caucasus, and the in the east.95

Classical writers had routinely depicted Scythia as a “chill wilderness, an ‘other- ness’ of savages and uncivilized practices (from blinding, scalping, and flaying through tattooing to the drinking of wine unmixed with water).”96 The Greek historian

(c. 484–425 BCE) was one of the first to describe such practices, although not without a sense of admiration for the ’ military skills and cleverness in battle.97 Another notable observer of Scythia the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE-17/18 CE).

Ovid, as he is known to the today, was relegated by Roman emperor

Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE) to the remote city of Tomis (present-day Constanţa) in 8 CE, most probably for having written offensive poetry (carmen et error) against the imperial household. Although celebrated as ’s leading poet before the banishment, was never able to return to Rome and ended his life in shortly after writing about the sorrow he had felt while living in the city of Tomis.98 Life in exile made him write unflattering portrayals of the region and its population, especially in his famous collection of elegies entitled Epistulae ex Ponto (“Letters from Pontus”). The poet

95 Alexandru Suceveanu, Alexandru Barnea, “La Dobroudja romaine et romano-byzantine. Histoire, économie et romanisation, ”Dialogues d'histoire ancienne 14 (1988): 119-152; Rădulescu, Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 71. 96 David C. Braund, “Scythia,” The Oxford Classical , 3rd ed. (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1374. 97 Herodotus, The , trans. Robin Waterfiled with an introduction and notes by Carolyn Dewald (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 233-282. 98 Stephen E. Hinds, “Ovid,” The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1086. 51

believed the region lived under a bad omen. It was probably because the Black Sea, in his view, rested near the notorious River Styx, which according to Greek mythology separated the earth from the underworld.99 Or maybe it was because of the isolation of the region, its inhospitable nature, and the coarse, wild, and harsh character of its

Scythian inhabitants.100

In spite of this particularly negative depiction of the region, Scythia was not entirely wild, nor was it fully isolated from the rest of the world. Its Dobrucan territory was inhabited mostly by the Getae, a Thracian whose main occupation was agriculture, whereas its eastern shores were populated with Greek colonists from the flourishing cities of Miletus and Heraclea Pontica, located on the western coast of present-day Turkey. Aware of the economic potential of the region, the Greeks had established a belt of cities on the western coast of the Black Sea (Pontus Euxeinos,

“Hospitable Sea”) as early as the seventh century BCE. The belt included cities like

Tomis (Köstence/Constanţa) and Callatis (Mankalya/Mangalia) that have survived until today. The Getae and the Greeks connected Dobruca to the broader world through a blossoming trade, particularly in grain (a trade that later connected it to Ottoman

Istanbul).101

During the first century BCE, King Burebista of (roughly equivalent to the western part of modern Romania) integrated, even if briefly, Dobruca’s territory into the

99 P. Ovidii Nasonis, Epistulae ex Ponto, ed. Fridericus Waltharius Lenz (: Società Anonima G.B. Paravia & C., 1938), III/5, 155. 100 Gareth Williams, “Ovid’s Exile Poetry: Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto and Ibis,” in The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, ed. Philip Hardie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 236. 101 Rădulescu, Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogea, 46-53. 52

Dacian kingdom as . As the Romans moved into the lower Danubian region in the early second century of the Common Era, Dacia became part of the Roman

Empire and Scythia Minor was incorporated into the much larger province of Lower

Moesia, whose role in the greater imperial organization was chiefly of a military nature.

When the Romans withdrew from southeastern Europe two centuries later, so did about fifteen thousand troops stationed on Dobrucan territory to protect imperial borders.102

The Romans had a great impact on the region’s development, not only militarily but also economically. Except for the cities the Greeks had built on the Black Sea coast, the other regional urban centers grew out of Roman camps.103 The reign of Emperor Trajan (98-

117 CE) inaugurated one of the most prosperous periods in Dobruca’s ancient history for both the Greek and the Roman cities of the region.104 The Empire sponsored and maintained roads and ports that helped to increase both internal and long-distance trade.

This trade further encouraged economic integration within local society and integration of the local society into the empire, which very soon came to depend on it for agricultural goods in the same measure it did for military support.105

The economic and military roles of Dobruca remained the same under the

Byzantines, whose decision to include the region in the newly established

Province (theme) was most probably motivated by strategic purposes. From the fifth century onwards the arrival of the proto-Turks of the Eurasian steppes, including the

102 Suceveanu, Barnea, La Dobroudja Romaine, 71. 103 Max Cary and John Wilkes, “,” The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 993. 104 Suceveanu, Barnea, La Dobroudja Romaine, 113. 105Alexandru Suceveanu and Alexandru Barnea, “La Dobroudja romaine et romano-byzantine. Histoire, économie et romanisation,” Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 14 (1988): 123-28. 53

Huns (408), (534), (679), (1048), Ghuzz/Oghuz (1064), and

Cumans/Kıpchaks (1091), turned the entire region into an unruly and unsafe territory.106

The attempt of the Byzantines to stop the Turkic invaders through the building in the tenth and eleventh centuries of a network of stone and mud walls linking the western to the eastern ends of Dobruca proved futile.107 Some of these populations were able to settle and prosper there, often as vassals of the Byzantine emperor. In so doing, they left a legacy that ultimately contributed to the unique ethnocultural and religious character of the region. The /Kıpchaks, for example, “laid the ethno-linguistic foundation of the Turco-Islamic people who dominated the western steppes from the mid-eleventh century until the late eighteenth century.”108 Following their submission to the Mongols, one of the dominating regional forces of the period, and conversion to Islam, the Cumans changed their ethnonym and became known from that point on as the Turkic-speaking

Tatars of the region, or the Kıpchaks.109

Even before the Ottomans conquered Dobruca in the late fifteenth century, the first major migratory wave of Anatolian (Seljuk) Turks had already arrived in the region. The city of Babadağı/Babadag, which later served as regional headquarters of the Ottoman state, became home to the Seljuk immigrants arriving from Anatolia in 1263 under the leadership of the Bektashi warrior- Sarı Saltuk Dede and deposed Sultan Izz al-Din

106 For the most recent review of the activity of the Turkic populations in Dobruca prior to the region’s Ottoman conquest, see Tasin Gemil, “Osmanlı Öncesi Romanya Topraklarına Türk Varlığı,” in Moștenirea istorică a tătarilor (II), eds. Tasin Gemil and Nagy Pienaru (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 2012), 27-55. 107 Rădulescu, Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 185-86. 108 Williams, “Mystics, Nomads and Heretics,” 2. 109 Inalcik, “Dobrudja.” 54

Kaykavus. Various accounts report that thirty to forty , or approximately twenty thousand Seljuks, reached Dobruca at this time after receiving permission from the

Byzantine emperor Michael Palaeologus (r. 1259-82) to depart the Byzantine capital of

Constantinople. The Seljuks lived there for some time under imperial protection that kept them safe from the Mongols.110 Their migration to and settlement in Dobruca marked the establishment of the first Muslim foothold in the Balkans.111

Following the death of Sarı Saltuk in 1300, many Seljuk Turks departed the region.

Most of those who stayed behind soon converted to Orthodox Christianity. Documents mention them by the name of Gagauz, a designation most probably deriving from the name of Sultan Kaykavus, who brought them to Dobruca in the 1260s. It is important to note that the Gagauz leader Dobrotic (r.1347-86), also the ruler of a fourteenth-century regional despotate independent of both Byzantium and the medieval Bulgarian state, apparently inspired historians to associate the designation of the lands he controlled at the time with his own name. Several accounts mention the region by the name of Dobruca-eli (Turkish,

“the land of Dobruca”) or terra Dobroticii (Latin, “the land of Dobrotic”). One fourteenth- century Turkish source mentions Ivanko (1386-88), the son and heir of Dobrotic, among the vassals of the Ottoman sultan. It was indeed during the reign of Ivanko and, later, the

Wallachian voivode Mircea cel Bătrân (the Old) (1386-95; 1397-1418), who ruled the region briefly, that Dobruca was gradually incorporated into the young Ottoman polity.112

110 Paul Wittek, “Yazijioğlu Ali on the Christian Turks of Dobruca,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 14 (1952), 648. See for other sources that recorded this event, G.D. Balascef, Impăratul Mihail VIII Paleologul şi statul oguzilor pe ţărmul Mării Negre (Iassy: Presa Bună, 1940), 3-35. 111 Williams, “Mystics, Nomads and Heretics,” 2-3. 112 Inalcik, “Dobrudja.” 55

The conquest of Dobruca was part of the larger strategy of the Ottomans to conquer the Balkan region and the states of Wallachia and Moldavia, situated on the other side of the Danube River. The Empire’s first step to turn the two states (which later, in the nineteenth century, would constitute the modern state of Romania) into tributaries was to conquer Danubian fortresses located in Wallachian territory and then to install Ottoman military establishments on the Danube. Such an ambitious objective was achieved in the fifteenth century, following the successful military campaigns of sultan Mehmed I (r.1413-

21) and his successors to the south of the Danube. The second step was to force the enthronement of obedient voivodes (rulers) who would serve the political interests of the empire in the region.

Dobruca played in this context a pronounced offensive role in Ottoman military strategy as the base for the sultans’ attempts to extend their control on the other side of the

Danube.113 Sultan Mehmed II (1444-46; 1451-81), for example, carried out a military campaign in Wallachia in 1462 to replace the independent Vlad Dracul Ţepeș (the Impaler)

(1456-62) with his more obedient brother Radu cel Frumos (the Handsome) (1462-75).

More than half a century later and for similar reasons Süleyman Kanunî (1520-66) campaigned in Moldavia. After crushing rebellious forces in 1538, he replaced Peter Rareș

(1527-38), the son of the famous opponent of the Porte Ştefan cel Mare ()

(1457-1504), with the weak Ştefan Lăcustă (Stephen the Locust) (1538-40). These landmark events in Wallachian and Moldavian history completed the installation of

Ottoman control over the two states by the second half of the sixteenth century.

113 Ibid. 56

Wallachian and Moldavian voivodes paid collective tribute to the Sublime Porte and were mentioned in Ottoman documents as tribute payers (harâcgüzarlar); their states were placed under the tributary protection (dhimma) of the empire up until the nineteenth century.114

Even before complete obedience of Wallachian and Moldavian rulers had been obtained, the Ottomans used Dobrucan troops in campaigns meant to advance the empire’s position in Europe. Soldiers recruited locally participated in some of the sultan’s most famous military enterprises of the sixteenth century, including the conquest of

(1521), the battle of Mohacs (1526), and the siege of (1529).115 During the following centuries the use of Dobrucan military forces would become customary, particularly in the case of Tatar troops whose main task during imperial campaigns was to open up the field for the bulk of the Ottoman army or to be “a diversionary force, drawing off part of the enemy from the central action.”116

Consolidation of Ottoman control over the Balkans and protection of the imperial northern frontier entailed firming up the hold on Dobruca. For this purpose the Ottomans decided to administer the region directly and to build a series of fortresses and urban centers to maximize both the military and economic potential of the region. Ottoman civil and military dignitaries occupied posts in Dobruca’s most important locations. Military garrisons were established in strategic locations like Kili/Chilia, Isakçı/Isaccea, and

114 Viorel Panaite, The of War and Peace: The Ottoman Empire and Tribute Payers (Boulder, CO: Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 2000), 147-148) and “The Voivodes of the Danubian Principalities,” 59-78. 115 Rădulescu, Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 252. 116 As was the case during the 1594 Ottoman campaign in Hungary (Caroline Finkel, The Administration of Warfare: The Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593-1606 (Vienna: VWGÖ, 1988), 101-02). 57

Hırsova/Hârșova, and a fleet guarded the northern frontiers of the empire from Kili/Chilia.

Several locations strategically situated near the Danube or inside Dobruca were turned into military outposts, which also happened to hold significant economic functions. From north to south, the cities of Kili/Chilia, Isakçı/Isaccea, Maçin/Măcin, Yeni Sale/Yenisala,

Tulça/Tulcea, Babadağı/Babadag, Hırsova/Hârșova, Kara Harman/Corbu, and

Mankalya/Magalia constituted the focus of the massive construction projects initiated by the Ottoman sultans in this part of the empire.117 The city of Tulça/Tulcea in northern

Dobruca, for example, was rebuilt by the Ottomans in the seventeenth century as a means to control traffic towards and from the mouths of the Danube but also to serve as a stopping point for the imperial armies engaged in campaigns to the north of the river.

Babadağı/Babadag, located in the hilliest part of northern Dobruca, became the base camp of the sultans and the seraskers (army ) carrying out military campaigns against enemies from the north. The city was also located on the road connecting in the south with the northern regions of the maritime Danube, a road that went through

Provadia, Hacioğlu Pazarı, Bazarcik, Karasu, Babadağı, and Isakçı.118 Its strategic location ensured the development of Babadağı from a modest settlement into a vibrant urban center of about three hundred houses and one hundred adjacent villages by the seventeenth century.119 Sultan Osman II (r. 1618-22) crossed the city with his armies on the way to

117 Marie-Mathilde Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, “Sur l’administration des villes de Dobroudja sous la domination ottomane (XVe – XVIIIe) siècles,” in Seldjoukides, Ottomans et L’Espace Roumain (Istanbul: Les Éditions Isis, 2006), 335. 118 Anca Popescu, “Multiple in the Sancak of Silistria (16th century),” in Moștenirea istorică a tătarilor, II (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 2012), 208. 119 Mihail Guboglu, “Evlija Čelebi: De la situation politique, administrative, militaire, culturelle et artistique dans les Pays Roumains (1651-1666),” Studia et Acta Orientalia 5-6 (1967): 7. 58

conquer the Polish fortress of Hotin in 1621. More than half a century later, Sultan

Mehmed IV (r. 1648-87) left his court in the city to await the return of his troops from the expedition seeking to subdue the Polish fortress of Kamenitsa.120

Lastly, the city of Hırsova/Hârșova was built on a prominent limestone formation on the Danube River to facilitate observation of the military and commercial traffic that passed on the river (Figure 8). The famous Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi, who visited

Dobruca in the seventeenth century, counted in Hırsova nine neighborhoods, about a thousand houses, seventeen mosques, and three inns.121 Compared to other contemporary urban centers in northern Dobruca, Hırsova seemed to have been the largest Ottoman establishment of the area; at the same time, Köstence/Constanţa, the region’s most important city in the nineteenth century, was nothing more than a village (kasaba).122

Evliya Çelebi grouped Dobrucan villages into two categories: major townships (șerif kazalar), including Babadağı/Babadag and Mankalya/ Mangalia, and smaller townships

(kazalar), including Tulça/Tulcea, Köstence/Constanţa, Isakçı/Isaccea, and

Hırsova/Hırșova.123 Major Dobrucan cities had a pronounced military character because of the role of the region as the empire’s bastion in this part of Europe.

120 Rădulescu, Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 241. 121 Guboglu, “Evlija Čelebi,” 38. 122 Ibid., 7. 123 Ibid. 59

Figure 8. The City and Fortress of Hırsova at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Lithograph by A. von Saar after a drawing by Ermini, 1826. The fortress was destroyed in 1829. Source: Pontica, no. XLI, Constanţa, 2008.

The strategic role the region had played for the Ottomans since its conquest in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries proved to be particularly harmful for its overall development during the many wars that took place between the Ottoman and Russian empires, and between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the eighteenth century, the armies of the Ottoman, Russian, and

Habsburg empires met and fought for the most part in Dobruca. Wars resulted in the massive destruction of urban and rural settlements and the killing of thousands of people.

The cities and fortresses of Tulça/Tulcea, Isakçı/Isaccea, Maçin/Măcin,

Babadağı/Babadag, and Hırsova/Hîrșova were badly burned and many people died or ended up in captivity, especially during the 1768-74 Russo-Ottoman war. In 1780, Polish

60

traveler W. Chrzanowski visited an almost ruined Babadağı/Babadag and a much- desolated Dobruca, badly damaged by war and with few people remaining alive while dead bodies lay on the ground rotting.124 The city was far from recovery when French traveler Hector de Béarn visited it in 1828, at the start of yet another Russo-Ottoman military conflict. De Béarn noted that Babadağı/Babadag was nothing more than a

“miserable little town,” which seemed to have been deserted by most of its inhabitants because of the war.125 The destruction was not limited to the perimeter of northern

Dobruca but spread to the south as well. In 1829, the important fortress of

Hırsova/Hârșova was completely destroyed, an event that triggered the annihilation of the

Ottoman defensive line on that portion of the Danube River.

The Russo-Ottoman wars that took place between 1768 and 1829 took a very heavy toll on the population of the province. In 1831, the Ottoman that recorded for the first time the population of the entire Ottoman Empire (albeit the male population only), indicated for the sancak of Silistre, which included the Dobrucan territory, 58,494 inhabitants.126 Kemal Karpat argues that the number was probably the lowest population count for any of the Ottoman provinces at the time. In his view, the population that survived the 1828-29 Ottoman-Russo war amounted to fewer than 100,000 individuals, a number that was most likely one of the lowest the region had ever recorded in its lengthy history.127 In 1839, German historian E. Ritter published a book in which he claimed that

124 Stoica Lascu, “Călători străini despre turco-tătarii din Dobrogea (sec. XVIII-XIX),” in Originea tătarilor, 209. 125 Ibid., 210. 126 Kemal Karpat, Ottoman Population, 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 110. 127 Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” 281. 61

this particular war reduced the population of the province to a mere 40,000 people. “The country suffered terribly; a good third of the houses stood empty,” Ritter wrote.128 This particular assessment testifies to the massive destruction the wars had caused in a short time, considering that several foreign accounts estimated the population of the region to have been at least 150,000 during the mid-seventeenth century.129

By the time the era of imperial reforms began in 1839, the demographic state of the province was especially poor. The scarcity of inhabitants and the disastrous conditions in which their daily lives unfolded occupied considerable space in the travelogues of the many foreign travelers crossing the region at the time. Parthenios, a

Russian monk journeying in Dobruca in the first half of the nineteenth century, learned about the cause of such a state of affairs from a local. “Since ancient times,” the local explained, “our country has been a borderland, and in the past ten or twelve years many battles have been fought here. We have hardly time to recover, to breed cattle, and to cultivate our gardens, when war breaks out anew. […] When the war is ended, those of us who are still alive return to our homes, build huts on the ruins, and set to work again.

Now how long do you suppose it will be before we can get back on our feet again? Still other misfortunes befall us. After each war the plague begins to rage, strikes us down as the sickle lays low the harvest; then we abandon all, we flee where we can, hiding ourselves in the mountains and the forests for fear of one another, brother afraid of

128 E. Ritter, Briefe über Zustände und Begebenheiten in der Türkei aus den Jahren 1835 bis 1839 (Berlin: Druck und Verlag von Ernst Siegfried Mittler, 1841), 159. 129 Nicolina Ursu, “Consideraţii privind demografia Dobrogei din secolul al XI-lea până la jumătatea secolului al XIX-lea,” Analele Dobrogei IV, 1 (1998): 50. 62

brother. By this sore trial still tries us often.”130 This heart-felt testimony attests to the major interference of political and military events in the daily life of the local population in particular and that of the province in general just before Ottoman officials began to imagine new strategies meant to bring back peripheral lands into a modernizing imperial framework. The survey of Ionescu de la Brad intended to assist such an effort, especially because Dobruca had been for centuries not only a militarily but also an economically significant region for the empire.

The Economy of Dobruca

Following its conquest by the Ottomans, the region was included in the sancak

(district) of Silistre, which was part of the vilâyet (province) of Rumeli. In the sixteenth century, it was further incorporated into the newly created sancak of Silistre and

Akkerman.131 The change enabled Dobruca to continue to be part of the broader trade network that linked the region to both northern and southern Europe. The Danubian ports of Silistre/Silistra and Kili/Chilia in particular facilitated the transportation of foodstuffs and raw materials from Moldavia, Poland, , and Hungary to the Ottoman cities of Edirne and Istanbul.132 Commodities including grain, fish, caviar, cattle, hides, beeswax, timber, wine, spices, salt, cotton, , fine woolen cloth, metals, and even slaves reached in this period various locations on the European continent and in Asia Minor.

130 Arbore, “Rumanian Culture in Dobrogea,” 301-2. 131 Inalcik, “Dobrudja.” 132 Inalcik, An Economic and Social History, I, 11. 63

Similarly to their Black Sea (Akkerman/Cetatea Albă, Kafa/Caffa) and Danubian

(Ibrail/Brăila, Yergöğü/, Rusçuk/Ruse, Vidin, Smederevo/Semendire) sister ports,

Silistre/Silistra and Kili/Chilia played an important (and sometimes vital) role in both feeding the Ottoman capital and providing the Porte with essential human and material resources. The report of Mevlana Küçük Piri, the kadı of Kazanlık, dating from 1520, recorded the large amount of taxes levied on the products that reached the Danubian ports from Wallachia and Moldavia. Such a report proves once more the remarkable importance given by the Ottomans to trade revenues produced in these localities.133 Another example is the vakıf that the chief eunuch Haci Beşir Aga founded in Sünne in 1745.

Including a lighthouse that provided the necessary light for boats crossing the Danube at this point, a fortress that protected the lighthouse, six barges that probably served the local trade and a soup kitchen that fed the poor, this religious endowment was specially built to ensure the trade flow between Europe and the Ottoman capital, the provisioning of which was considered to be essential at all times.134

Dobruca itself supplied Istanbul with a large quantity of wheat and fish on a yearly basis. Anca Popescu has argued that the town of Karasu (Mecidiye from the nineteenth century onwards) was an important relay point in the regional commercial network.135

133 Nicoară Beldiceanu, “Acte du règne de concernent quelques échelles danubienne de Valachie. De Bulgarie et de Dobrudja,” in Le monde ottoman des Balkans (1402-1566). Institutions, société, économie (London: Variorum Reprints, 1976), 91-115. In addition to this account, Franco Sivori, the Genovese confidant of Petru Cercel of Wallachia, mentioned the importance of the ports of Köstenje and Varna for the transportation of foodstuffs from Wallachia to Istanbul, Ragusa, and Ancona (Călători străini despre ţările române, vol. III (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 1971), 17). 134 Tahsin Gemil, “Document turco-osman privind construirea farului de la (1745),” in Colegiul Pedagogic «Constantin Brătescu». Valori ale civilizaţiei româneşti, eds. St. Lascu and Ct. Vitanos (Constanţa: Asociaţia Cultural-Istorică Dobrogeană "România de la Mare,"1993), 238-42. 135 Popescu, “Multiple Toponymy in the Sancak of Silistria (16th century),” 210. 64

Karasu was a transit point for both regional products like grain, honey, fish, cattle, hides, tallow and timber and international merchandise like rice, sultanas (raisins), luxury textiles, and rugs. The city was known for its particularly prosperous local market, which included a section for trading slaves similar to those found in Tulça, Isakçı, Maçin, Babadağı, and

Silistre. The Porte invested a great deal of effort in managing the region’s trade centers and ports and in regulating the trade and the revenues generated in these localities.

Historian Halil Inalcik holds that the crucial economic role that Dobruca played for the Empire was one of the reasons why Ottoman officials encouraged Anatolian settlers to practice agriculture and trade and to refrain from migrating to other territories.136 Up until the twentieth century, Dobruca had a much larger role than Anatolia, for example, in supplying Istanbul and other parts of the empire with essential goods because of the much greater ease of shipping items by sea. Just as the state supported sedentary agriculture, so settlers considered this practice to be quite attractive as it offered them the means to earn their daily bread.137 In actuality, Anatolian Turkmen proved to be of the utmost importance for the economy of Dobruca. For hundreds of years the region preserved its overwhelmingly rural and agricultural character, and since the Ottoman elite held a monopoly on military and administrative offices, it was the Anatolian Turkmen (and later the Tatars) who were entrusted with the agricultural labor and the raising of sheep, cattle and horses. They were indeed the engines of the Dobrucan economy in the early stages of

Ottoman rule in this territory and remained so for centuries to come.

136 Inalcik, “Dobrudja.” 137 The same situation existed in Southeast Asia (Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed, 6). 65

This observation aims to counter the nationalist viewpoint of most Romanian scholarship, which emphasizes the destructive role that the Turks had in the region. In

1928, Constantin Bratescu maintained, for instance, that Anatolian Turks brought with them only devastation and that they caused the disappearance of the Thraco-Roman

(indigenous) population of Dobruca, which was forced to seek refuge beyond the Danube

River. The Turks, in his view, destroyed and suppressed not only the native population but also the region as a whole. 138 There is absolutely no historical documentation to support this assertation. To the contrary, as will be demonstrated in upcoming chapters, it was the

Romanians, who took possession of the region in 1878, who drove the Turks (and other non-Romanian populations) away from their homes with their nationalist policies. Such circumstances had both great and grave consequences for the demographic character of the region, where the Muslim element had predominated for hundreds of years. The final section of this chapter aims to reconstruct the history of the Muslim population of Dobruca from their arrival in the region during the medieval period to the advent of the Tanzimat.

Dobrucan Muslims

The first Muslim foothold in the Balkans and southeastern Europe dates from the thirteenth century. The Seljuk Turks, led by the deposed sultan Izz al-Din Kaykavus and the Bektashi dervish Sarı Saltuk, settled in Dobruca in 1263 at the order of Byzantine emperor Michael Palaeologus. The Seljuks followed in the footsteps of other Turkic populations who arrived in the region from the Eurasian steppes as early as the fifth

138 Brătescu, “Populaţia Dobrogei,” 204-7. 66

century, driven by the desire to advance into new territories or to seek temporary shelter from the attacks of external foes. It is well known that the used Dobruca as a launching pad to expand in the fifth century into the crumbling Roman Empire, whereas the

Cumans/Kıpchaks turned it into a safe haven in an attempt to avoid the devastating threat of the Mongol armies of the thirteenth century.

The Seljuks settled in what in fact was the border between the and the . It has been argued that Emperor Michael Palaeologus granted the

Dobrucan territory to the Seljuks to protect the northern frontier of his empire.139 An

Ottoman source dating from the sixteenth century maintains that the later Seljuks had moved their capital to Karvuna/Balçik or Kilagra/Kaliacra in present-day Bulgaria and built several cities and a fleet.140 This particular Seljuk state, however, recorded only a brief existence. Ottoman forces annexed it at the end of the fourteenth century. The only legacy these Seljuks left behind was the small community of Seljuks converted to Christianity, otherwise known as the Gagauz.141

By the end of the fourteenth century, similar to the other Ottoman frontier regions in , eastern Bulgaria, , and , Dobruca was a land “where Turkish

139 The account belongs to Seyyid Lokman (Paul Wittek, “Yazijioğlu Ali on the Christian Turks of Dobruca,” 648). 140 Aurel Decei, “Le problème de la colonisation des turcs seljoukides dans la Dobrogea au XIIIe siècle,” Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 6 (1968): 88. The colonization of the Seljuk Turks has been a controversial issue in historiography for about a century (Cătălina Duţu, “Selgiukizii și Dobrogea în secolul al XIII-lea,” Analele Dobrogei 2 (1999): 21-30). 141 Towards the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, most of the Gagauz population of Dobruca had migrated north of the Danube River to (southern Moldavia, or the Buçak in Kıpchak Turkic) in an attempt to avoid the harassment of the governor of Vidin, Osman Paşa Pazvanoğlu, whose attacks threatened the stability of the region. In the Buçak, the Gagauz settled in the former homeland of the Nogay Tatars, the Turkic-speaking Mongols of the Buçak Horde, who, in their turn, found refuge in Dobruca in 1812 after Russian forces seized their lands (Kemal Karpat, “Gagauzlar,” IA, vol. 13, 288-91). 67

immigration and culture came to predominate.”142 The cities of Babadağı, , Sofia,

Silistre, Vidin, , Seres, Triccala, and Argyrocastron emerged in this context. “In these areas the dense settlement of Turkish peasants in the villages followed the same pattern as that of Turkish expansion in western Anatolia, with pioneering dervish hospices

(zaviyes) and the sedentarization of semi-nomadic Yörük groups.”143

Ottoman sultans settled Anatolian Turkmen on Dobrucan territory, a process that began at the end of the fifteenth century and was part of the well-known and widely practiced Ottoman policy of sürgün. Both Bayezid II (1481-1512) and Selim I (1512-20) transported to this region entire villages of Shi’ite Turkmen Kızılbaş (literaly “red heads”)144 from eastern Anatolia out of fear that they would spread heretical religious ideas and destabilize the eastern frontier of the Ottoman Empire. The small Danubian city of

Isakçı/Isaccea, located in northern Dobruca, started its development as one of the approximately twenty villages of Kızılbaș who were forcibly transported from eastern

Anatolia to Dobruca out of security concerns.145 The Kızılbaș population added yet another layer to the already complex religious landscape of the region, whose frontier (uc or uç) status proved to be a magnet for frontier raiders (akıncıs), holy warriors (gazis), and heretical dervishes espousing variations of Sunni and Shi’ite ideas and practices.

Dobruca’s Kızılbaș population was known for practicing a particular type of Islam that blended Bektashi (Sufi) beliefs introduced to the region by Sarı Saltuk with the messianic

142 Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 14. 143 Ibid. 144 The expression derives from their distinctive twelve-gored crimson headwear indicating their adherence to the branch of Shi’a Islam. 145 Inalcik, “Dobrudja.” Also mentioned in Williams, “Mystics, Nomads, and Heretics,” 14. 68

Twelver Shi’ite beliefs that the Turkmen brought with them from eastern Anatolia.146

Ottoman policies led, albeit unintentionally, to the practice in Dobruca of heterodox

Islam but also to ethnic diversity. Beginning with the latter half of the sixteenth century, another massive colonization of Anatolian Turkmen took place at the order of various sultans aiming to maximize the economic potential of this particular territory.147 The

Turkmen settlers joined the Nogay Tatars from the Buçak (Bessarabia) whom sultans

Bayezid I (1389-1402) and Mehmed I had amassed there to strengthen the northern frontier of the Ottoman Empire militarily and possibly also religiously.148 Muslims from the

Crimea and the Buçak had settled in the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and a number of Crimean Muslims arrived in Dobruca as early as 1514.149

Russian policies affected the demography of Dobruca as well. The Russian annexation of the Crimean Khanate in 1783 and that of the Buçak region in 1812, in addition to the occurrence of the between 1853 and 1856, triggered the mass emigration of thousands of Tatars from the Crimean Peninsula and the Buçak to

Dobruca.150 Almost the entire Buçak Nogay Horde, ruled by the Giray , reportedly

146 Alexandre Popovic, “Les Ordres mystiques musulmans du Sud-East Europe dans la periode post- ottomane,” in Les Ordres mystiques dans l’Islam: cheminements et situation actuelle, eds. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Editions des l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1986), 66. 147 Ö.L. Barkan, “Bir Iskân ve Kolonizasyon Metodu Olarak Sürgünler,” I.Ü. Iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 13 (1951): 67-71. 148 Brian Glyn Williams maintains that sultans Bayezid I, Mehmed I, Bayezid II, and Süleyman I settled the Dobrucan plain “with thousands of nomadic Tatars from the Nogai hordes of the Desht-i Kipchak in order to Islamize and Turkify this strategic frontier” (Williams, “Mystics, Nomads, and Heretics,” 18). The Tatars of the Desht-i Kipchak came to Dobruca following the death blow that Timurlenk or Tamerlane (1370-1405), the Central Asian ruler, dealt to the Golden Horde in the late fourteenth century. 149 Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” 283. 150 Reportedly, the number of Crimean immigrants to Dobruca amounted to about 100,000 by 1861 (Halil Inacik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600, trans. Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973), 613). 69

settled in Ottoman Dobruca after the annexation of their territory by imperial Russia.151

Historian Brian Glyn Williams maintains that “tens of thousands of , and a smaller number of Tat and Yalibolu Tatars, settled in the plains of Ottoman-ruled Dobruca from

1783 to the advent of the Crimean War. The Tatar settlements of this region became so dense that Dobruca was known throughout the Balkans as Küçük (Little

Tatary).”152 Kemal Karpat, historian of the Ottoman Empire and native of the Dobruca region, distinguishes these Tatars, who settled in the region prior to 1840, from the Tatars who arrived there after 1840 by calling them Kabail (“” in Arabic) Tatars.153 For

Eugene Pittard, the early twentieth-century French anthropologist of the Balkans, this terminology applied only to those Nogay Tatars native to the Buçak region.154

Irrespective of such terminological differences, the Tatars became privileged dwellers of Dobruca upon their settlement. To encourage them to settle there permanently, the Ottoman government exempted them from taxes for an extended period and offered them land grants, village autonomy, and seeds to help with crop production.155 Some of them served in the local force (zaptiye) or the Ottoman army.156 For example, Tatars with superior equestrian skills were incorporated into the cavalry unit instituted by sultan

Selim III (1789-807) as part of his modernized Nizam-ı Cedid (New Order) army, and later, into the cavalry unit instituted by sultan Mahmud II (1808-39) in 1826. The Tatars

151 Brian Glyn Williams, The : The Experience and the Forging of a Nation (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 201-2. 152 Ibid., 205. 153 Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” 284. 154 Eugène Pittard, Les Peuples des Balkans. Recherches anthropologiques (Paris: Editions Leroux, 1920), 305. 155 BOA., A.MKT.MHM 445/83 (19 Zilkâde 1289 [18 January 1873]). 156 Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 206; Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” 284. 70

received honors and from the Ottoman state for their distinct contribution to the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, either in Europe or elsewhere.

Dobruca was indeed home to a Muslim majority whose demographic predominance was the legacy of centuries-long Byzantine, Ottoman, and Russian imperial policies.

Generally, the stability of this population (as well as that of the non-Muslims) suffered every time external forces, such as the seventeenth-century Cossacks or the nineteenth- century Russians, launched regional military attacks. Numerous groups of Turks and

Tatars moved back and forth between Dobruca and Anatolia before and in the aftermath of these conflicts, especially during the very dynamic nineteenth century. In spite of such population movements, Dobruca was still “the only region in the Ottoman Europe inhabited almost exclusively by a Turkic population, and after it was introduced to Islam in the

1260s, it remained a Muslim-dominated land” until Ottoman rule was displaced from the region in 1878.157

Conclusions

Dobruca’s seemingly marginal location at the edge of various empires made it prone to a multitude of political projects. The ancient Greeks colonized its Black Sea shores, while the Romans established military camps on the eastern bank of the Danube.

Due to its strategic location at the extremity of Europe, Dobruca played throughout its lengthy history an important military and economic role for various empires, including the

Roman, the Byzantine, and the Ottoman. The expansionist nature of these empires

157 Williams, “Mystics, Nomads, and Heretics,” 1. 71

benefited greatly from a plethora of human and material resources found in this area, which became a veritable buffer zone ready to block or advance their position in Europe.

Mass migrations have turned Dobruca over time into a region characterized by a puzzling ethnic, religious, and linguistic variety. People from all around who found shelter in this territory spoke many languages, dressed differently, embraced various religious practices, claimed distinct ethnic origins, pursued different professions, and espoused distinctive traditions and customs. None of these populations was more pervasive and influential than the Turkic population. Settling in Dobruca as refugees or due to colonization efforts undertaken especially by the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, the

Turkic peoples changed dramatically the ethnic, religious, and linguistic configuration of the region. By the time the Ottoman Tanzimat began in 1839, Dobruca was a region with a

Muslim majority. Mainly of Turkish and Tatar origin, these Muslims developed a certain collective identity, which was connected to the central role that Dobruca had played in their everyday lives since their settlement.

Geographic location, state policies, and national ideologies affect the formation and development of identities. The next chapter examines how communal identities among the

Turks and Tatars worked in the Ottoman imperial environment. The Tanzimat generated the legal framework for all people in the Ottoman Empire, including Dobruca’s Turks and

Tatars, to acquire Ottoman nationality. The purpose of the following chapter is to determine whether the Tanzimat led to the creation of an Ottoman identity among

Dobrucan Muslims.

72

Chapter 2: Tanzimat Dobruca and the Muslims, 1839-1878

In December 1866, the Ottoman newspaper Tuna (Danube) published an article featuring the inhabitants of Sünne/Sulina and Kili/Chilia, two small towns with Muslim populations in the northern part of the Ottoman province of Danube (Tuna Vilâyeti), known as the sancak (district) of Tulça/Tulcea. The article discussed the reaction of the local people to road and bridge construction projects to link the two towns. The locals did not welcome these ideas, knowing that the physical and material burden of the projects would fall on their shoulders. Once they finalized the project, however, the negative attitude dissipated and the locals suddenly began to show pride in being

Ottoman subjects and to pray for the sultan's long life and prosperity.158 Another article featured in the same issue of the newspaper showcased the population of the city of

Tulça, the capital of the Tulça district, and their embrace of the reform’s modernist projects. Municipal authorities had recently finished the installation of gas lamps in the city’s main market (bazar) and, in so doing, earned the support of the locals, who acted grateful (sipasgüzar) towards such authorities.159

158 BOA., YB.04.d., Tuna, vol. 2, no. 135 (10/22 Şaban 1283 [18/30 December, 1866]), 2. 159 Ibid., 1. 73

The readers of the two stories were left with the impression that the people living in the aforementioned cities welcomed the reformist projects initiated there during the later decades of the Tanzimat. In Ottoman history, the Tanzimat was an era of reform from the top down of the entire imperial framework, which began in 1839 and ended by

1876. Ottoman officials in Istanbul aimed during this period to modernize the empire by reforming its legislation, education, and intercommunal relations, while expanding the government and transforming the political process.160 The role of imperial subjects was to support the reform and participate in it as loyal subjects of the sultan and devoted

“citizens” of the empire he ruled. The stories presented above seemed to prove the success of the Tanzimat in this Ottoman region, while demonstrating that the local population understood the value of being (or being perceived as) Ottomans.

These stories of grateful citizens were only a few of the many that the official newspaper of the Danube Province published on a weekly basis to highlight both the exemplary behavior of the local population and its positive reaction to the application of

Tanzimat reforms in this part of the Ottoman Europe. Published in the province’s capital of Rusçuk/Ruse from 1865 to 1877 in both Ottoman Turkish and Bulgarian, the newspaper covered the most significant matters related to the province. Tuna was the first official provincial newspaper in the Ottoman Empire and, as such, it represented of the supporters of Ottoman reforms. Its editorials in particular “tirelessly promoted the Osmanlılık ideal of interethnic and interreligious harmony under the

160 Carter Vaughn Findley, “The Tanzimat,” in Cambridge , Volume 4: Turkey in the Modern World, ed. Reşat Kasaba (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 17. 74

benevolent shadow of the Sultans and extolled the virtues of the Tanzimat reforms or of particular reformed institutions.”161 This was done through the use of a specific language, the language of the Tanzimat, which was intended to create and disseminate an idealized image of an Ottoman population completely committed to the imperial modernist project that Sultan Abdülmecid had launched in 1839 and that his successors had continued ever since.

According to historian Milen Petrov, who examined in minute detail the Danube

Province during the governorship of Midhat Paşa (1864-68), Ottoman government officials themselves “spoke Tanzimat” in the same way as the editors of the Tuna.

Official documents issued for the population of the Danube Province during this period included memoranda that painted a rather “rosy picture of ahali162 enthusiastically embracing reforms and being fully conscious of the long-term policy goals behind these reforms.”163 Such an enthusiastic reaction to reform efforts seems to be an exaggeration by the authorities in charge of the implementation of reform regulations, and there is evidence to suggest that the financial and sometimes physical burden of most projects rested on the shoulders of the local population, whose enthusiasm in this context could easily be questioned.

The inhabitants of the Danube Province participated in reform efforts because of opportunities presented to them in this particular provincial setting. Petrov argues that

161 Milen Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 127. 162 The term ahali can be translated as “inhabitants,” “population,” “the people” (Redhouse Türkçe/ Osmanlıca-Ingilizce Sözlük/Redhouse Turkish/Ottoman-English Dictionary (Istanbul: Sev Matbaacılık ve Yayıncılık A.Ş., 1997), 24. 163 Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 435. 75

the project of Osmanlılık or (the creation among the subject population of a sense of belonging to the Ottoman Empire) in the Danube Province “turned out to be somewhat of a success after all.”164 He makes the point that Ottoman reforms led to the creation of an “imagined community” of Ottoman subjects in this part of the empire who thought of themselves as imperial “citizens.” Julia Phillips Cohen argues the same point in connection with the Ottoman , who “had begun to attempt to understand, debate, and perform their newly acquired roles of imperial citizens” from the beginning of the Tanzimat period through World War I.165 Through the use of various tools, including newspapers, schools, synagogues, social clubs, libraries, dance clubs, and coffeehouses, the Sephardic Jews “fashioned their own form of patriotism from below” that helped them carve out an advantageous place for themselves in Ottoman society.166

Reşat Kasaba espouses a contradictory perspective on the creation of an Ottoman identity. In an article published in 2006, he notes that “of all the ways in which people in the Ottoman Empire could think of themselves, nationality would seem to make the least sense. The old imperial context certainly did not lend itself to such identifications, and even in its reorganization in the nineteenth century, the idea of Ottoman and other possible nationalities developed haltingly and with many ambiguities. Religion was a much more familiar way in which people were labeled and self-identified in the Ottoman

164 Ibid. 165 Julia Phillips Cohen, Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), xiii. 166 Ibid. 76

Empire.”167 But Kasaba’s argument that religion was an important (and the most familiar) point of reference for Ottoman subjects and the officials who defined or catalogued them, while accurate, minimizes the complexity of the concept of Ottoman identity, especially for the Tanzimat period. The existing evidence for the Tanzimat era, for instance, shows that claims to “citizenship” rights and public demonstrations of loyalty were as important as religion in crafting a multifaceted notion of Ottoman identity in an empire on the path of modernization and change. When their actual lives were at stake in the context of the emergence of new, modern rights and responsibilities for individuals and groups, people did not hesitate to present themselves, above anything else, as loyal Ottoman subjects. Displays of loyalty and expressions of affection for the

Ottoman and the state it ruled were present in official documents and various publications, in particular newspapers.

The purpose of this chapter is to determine how communal identities among the

Muslims living in the sancak of Tulça, which encompassed all of northern Dobruca, worked in the Ottoman milieu of the Tanzimat era. During the Tanzimat period, Ottoman officials generated the legal framework for all people in the Ottoman Empire to acquire common nationality and think of themselves as belonging to the Ottoman “nation,” but the formulation of many laws and regulations was ambiguous, and their application on the ground was fraught with problems. Moreover, Dobruca’s location in an imperial

167 Reşat Kasaba, “Dreams of Empire, Dreams of Nations,” in Empire to Nation: Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World, eds. Joseph W. Esherick, Hasan Kayalı, and Eric Van Young (New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2006), 199. 77

borderland region, inundated at this time with various sorts of refugee groups, complicated the picture even further.

The chapter starts with an analysis of what Ottoman identity meant during the

Tanzimat, a period that represented in many important ways a break with the past, particularly in regard to how individuals and religious communities formulated and expressed their identity in the Ottoman Empire. The break originated in imperial reformers’ attempts to cultivate a sense of Ottomanism among the empire’s subjects that would cut across religious lines. A clear definition or identification of all Ottoman subjects was essential for the reorganization, strengthening, and preservation of the empire, which at this time was experiencing a series of significant internal and external pressures. The chapter continues with specific examples of the manner in which this definition and identification occurred on the ground in northern Dobruca by focusing on the Turkish and Tatar populations of the region. I show that Tanzimat officials attempted to turn these Muslims from passive subjects of the sultan into emotionally engaged

Ottomans; I also examine how the Muslims reacted to this attempt.

The Tanzimat State and its Conception of Ottoman Identity

Prior to the establishment of the Tanzimat, the concept of Ottoman identity or the notion of being Ottoman had different meanings for different people according to social rank.168 Being an Ottoman was equal to belonging to Ottoman structures of power; for

168 For an excellent analysis of how the Ottoman society worked during the pre-Tanzimat period (with emphasis on the empire’s Arab lands), see Jane Hathaway, with contributions by Karl K. Barbir, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800 (Harlow, Essex: Pearson/Longman, 2008). For what it meant to be 78

the common folk, religion was one of the most commonly-used in the empire.169 Despite the undeniable diversity within the body of Ottoman subjects, in the end it was possible only for those in the sultan’s service to assert their Ottomaness, to claim that they were properly Ottoman (Osmanlı). This situation was to change during the Tanzimat period, when the concept of Ottomanism expanded to include the totality of the sultan’s subjects. A series of internal and external circumstances created the proper conditions for Ottomanism to become “a composite imperial ‘nationality’ intended to embrace and attract the loyalty of all populations of the empire without distinction.”170

This new form of Ottomanism originated in the attempt of a small group of

Ottoman officials of the Sublime Porte, backed by the sultan Abdülmecid (r. 1839-61), to salvage the empire by bringing it into the modern era through the creation and implementation of a series of new, western-inspired measures. Sustained efforts to establish modern and redefine traditional imperial institutions, as well as to gain the

an Ottoman in that period, see Salih Özbaran, Bir Osmanlı Kimliği: 14. – 17. Yüzyıllarda Rum/ Aidiyet ve Imgeleri (Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2004). 169 In addition to religious affiliation, Ottoman officials acknowledged a series of other identifiers as integral to the definition of individuals and groups. Ottoman registers (defters), for example, included at times information about the occupations, tribal origins, and ethnic provenances of the registered population. In a late fifteenth-century register that recorded household heads from the villages in the environs of Sofia and Samakov in modern-day Bulgaria, several hundred Bulgarian names without any ethnic indicators written next to them appeared next to more than a dozen names associated with individuals whose ethnic origins were clearly spelled out as Vlach, Greek, Kuman, or Serb. Historian Nikolai Todorov does not attribute any “national” connotation to these ethnic names. On the contrary, he argues that this peculiar identification shows the interest of Ottoman officials in identifying individuals whose ethnic origins set them apart from the ethnicity of the majority of the population living in the above-mentioned area, in this case ethnic Bulgarians. Differentiation between majority and “minority” groups most likely helped to further identify particular Balkan migrations rather than to delineate the ethnic makeup of the population in the way nationalist surveys did later in the nineteenth century (Nikolai Todorov, The Balkan City, 1400- 1900 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1983), 45). 170 Carter V. Findley, “The Acid Test of Ottomanism: The Acceptance of Non-Muslims in the Late Ottoman Bureaucracy,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, edited by Braude and , vol. I (New York, London: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1982), 339. 79

support of imperial subjects for such an important undertaking, originated due to several factors. First, the sultan and a number of officials affiliated with the , as well as high-ranking ulema and bureaucrats, wished “to put an end to the prevailing malpractices and abuses of power, and to restore security and justice into the acts of the government and throughout the Ottoman lands.”171 Second, the pressure of the main European powers, including Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, , and Russia, in addition to the influence of European on the thinking of the would-be Ottoman reformers, made change imminent.172

It was therefore equally important for Tanzimat reformers to find solutions for internal issues and to strive to “civilize” their empire along western lines to earn Europe’s support for domestic reform.173 Such an undertaking needed to surpass previous attempts to centralize the empire through limited reforms in the military, in administration, and in education that had occurred during the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century.174

While earlier reforms needed revision in order to tackle the exigencies of modernity,

Tanzimat reformers had something even more significant in mind. The reformers attempted to generate “a shift in the allegiance of Ottoman subjects from the person of the sultan to the state (in the European sense), and from community to the (Ottoman)

171 Butrus Abu-Manneh, “The Islamic Roots of the Gülhane Rescript,” Die Welt des , New Series Vol. 34, Issue 2 (Nov. 1994): 188. See also Dora Glidewell Nadolski, “Ottoman and Secular Civil Law,” IJMES 8 (1977): 522, and Butrus Abu-Manneh, “The Sultan and the Bureaucracy: The Anti-Tanzimat Concepts of Grand Vizier Mahmud Nedim Paşa,” IJMES 22 (1990): 257. 172 Findley, “The Acid Test of Ottomanism,” passim. 173 Cemil Aydın, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan- Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 19. 174 For an excellent analysis of Ottoman reforms instituted during the reigns of Selim III (r. 1789-1808) and Mahmud II (r. 1808-39), see Robert Mantran, “Les débuts de la Question d’Orient (1774-1839),” in Histoire de l’empire ottoman, ed. Robert Mantran (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 425-57. 80

nation.”175 The idea of Ottomanism reflected these statesmen’s intention to create a new

Ottoman political community by turning the Ottoman population into “one homogeneous political bloc – the nation – by making all the subjects of the sultan Ottoman citizens and equal before the law, regardless of faith, origin, and language.”176 Attempts to eradicate some of these differences had already materialized in the 1820s, when Sultan Mahmud II

(r. 1808-39) issued a law stipulating that all civil servants in the empire had to wear the same type of clothing in public. This official uniform consisted of a red , which would become within a century “the symbol of Ottoman Muslim identity,” in addition to a black frock coat (redingote, i.e. “riding coat”), white shirt and black pants, all tailored to fit the standards of western European fashion.177

The Tanzîmât-ı Hayriye or “Auspicious Reforms,” which began with the promulgation of the Gülhane Decree of 1839 and ended with the convening of the

Ottoman parliament in March of 1877, continued the tendency towards reform in the empire that went back to the eighteenth century. In contrast to the previous period, the

Tanzimat entailed above all an ideological commitment to the principle of egalitarianism.178 To commit all imperial subjects to reform, as well as to instill in them the much-needed loyalty to the dynasty and the state, Tanzimat reformers envisioned after 1856 an entirely new empire of equal individuals with equal opportunities in

175 Abu-Manneh, “The Sultan and the Bureaucracy,” 258. 176 Kemal Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith and Community in the Late Ottoman State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 314. 177 Aydın, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia, 20. 178 For two brief but excellent analyses of the Tanzimat period, see R.H. Davison, “Tanzimat,” EI², Brill Online, 2001 (http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/entries/encyclopaedia-of- islam-2/tanz-i-ma-t-COM_1174), accessed on February 28, 2015; and Findley, “The Tanzimat,” 11-37. 81

exercising rights and fulfilling responsibilities within a reformed society. From the very beginning, this plan was utopian. It was practically impossible to turn every subject into a loyal Ottoman while dealing with the diversity characteristic to Ottoman society. Many contradictions and lacunae found their way into Tanzimat regulations, and their sometimes faulty application in practice amounted to a series of failures on the ground.

The Tanzimat could not even be applied throughout the entire empire. Instead of bringing about an egalitarian era in the history of the empire, the Tanzimat became a period of social, political, and economic crisis.179 This situation was paradoxical since the Tanzimat was an attempt to respond to those crises rather than contribute to them.

The inability of some Ottoman officials to turn their backs on the past entirely, in order to eliminate traditional institutions of faith and state unable to fit within a modern imperial frame, was an immense impediment for the successful implementation of the reforms throughout the empire. It was indeed the simultaneous running of both traditional and western-inspired institutions in Ottoman society that caused the Tanzimat era to acquire an undeniable “dual personality.”180

179 Historian Ariel Salzmann rightly frames the major features of the late Ottoman Empire in terms common to modern theater. According to Salzmann, “the great powers and, later, post-Ottoman nations resemble the intrusive stage manager in Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Bursting onto the stage, they summarily cut short speech, draw the curtains, and determine the sequence of action - the ‘rules of the game.’ The flight of former subjects, , and revolutionaries as well as the influx of refugees continues to reconstitute the empire’s dramatis personae and blur the boundaries between actors and audience, citizens and noncitizens. Before the curtain falls, Ottoman actors struggle to redefine their characters and identify new political communities as they salvage the remnants of a territorial state” (Ariel Salzmann, “Citizens in Search of a State: The Limits of Political Participation in the Late Ottoman Empire,” in Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States, eds. Michael Hanagan and Charles Tilly (Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999), 37). 180 Roderick Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856-1876 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963), 39. 82

The dual nature of the reform era initially materialized in the first decree of the

Tanzimat, the Hatt-ı Șerif-i Gülhane (Noble Rescript of the Rose Chamber), proclaimed on November 3, 1839, merely four months after the accession of sultan Abdülmecid.

Lawmakers intended this imperial decree to mark the beginning of a new relationship between the Ottoman sultan - and the state by extension - and his imperial subjects.

Drafted by the famed Ottoman reformer and minister of foreign affairs Mustafa Reșid

Paşa, the decree instituted universal obligations for all Ottoman subjects without distinction but did not explicitly mention the principle of equality between Muslims and non-Muslims.181 To the contrary, references to the immediate promulgation of Islamic laws (şeri’at) intended to fulfill the decree’s promises showed that Muslims and non-

Muslims remained on an unequal footing because the şeri’at itself emphasized such inequality.182 Read aloud by Reșid Paşa in front of the sultan, high-ranking Ottoman subjects, and the common people gathered in the Gülhane gardens adjoining the Topkapı

Palace in Istanbul, the decree guaranteed the life, honor, and property of all Ottoman subjects. It additionally demanded the establishment of an orderly system of fixed taxes meant to replace tax farming,183 and called for legislation limiting the term of from lifetime to four or five years.184 The reasoning behind these provisions, as explained in the text of the decree, was three-fold: 1) to grant “perfect security” to

181 Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity: A History, 1789-2007 (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2010), 92. 182 Idem, “The Tanzimat,” 18. 183 The tax-farming system was the main method of revenue collection in the empire prior to the Tanzimat period. A tax-farmer was in charge with tax collections from imperial subjects (Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 64-66; Hathaway, The Arab Lands, 82). 184 J.C. Hurewitz, in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record, 1535-1914 (Princeton, N.J: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1956), 114-115. 83

imperial subjects in order to secure their loyalty and affection for the sultan and the state and their devotion to the fatherland (vatan); 2) to cover expenses for the defense of the empire with funds resulting from direct collection of taxes as opposed to tax-farming; and

3) to limit the burdensomeness of military service for men. At the same time, the decree aimed to maintain European support for the preservation of the empire and to halt the spread of nationalism in the Balkans by according equality before the law to all Ottoman subjects.185 To foster patriotism among these subjects, the decree used the term vatan in underlining the crucial connection between military recruitment and the defense of the empire. The term vatan thus no longer signified one’s place of origin in a localized sense but one’s fatherland or country;186 this change proved crucial in the crafting of

Ottomanism during this period.

Although the decree did not specify that Muslims and non-Muslims were equal in all respects, the adoption of western law for certain purposes, the creation of mixed tribunals, and the development of new state schools following the proclamation of the

Gülhane decree did reflect the inclusive vision of Ottoman lawmakers in respect to all

Ottoman subjects. This idea was reaffirmed when Sultan Abdülmecid traveled to

Anatolia in 1844 and in 1846.187 Within a little over a decade of the

185 Salzmann, “Citizens in Search of a State,” 39-42. 186 Findley, “The Tanzimat,” 29. 187 Edouard Philippe Engelhardt, French minister plenipotentiary in the Ottoman Empire, relates that during a visit to Edirne in the spring of 1846, Abdülmecid authorized one of his ministers to address the representatives of the city’s non-Muslim community with the following words: “The difference between religion and sect does not concern us” because “we are all subjects of the same government and citizens of the same empire. […] Our sovereign distributes equally his benefits to all classes of subjects and they need to live in good harmony between them and work together for national prosperity” (Ed. Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat ou Histoire des réformes dans l’empire ottoman depuis 1826 jusqu’à nos jours, Vol. I (Paris: A. Cotillon et Compagnie, 1882), 81). 84

proclamation of the decree, the army opened its doors to non-Muslims (though only a few

Greeks joined the , and a few Greeks also served as doctors for the army), schools allowed non-Muslim students to learn alongside their Muslim peers, and commercial courts provided seats to Ottoman Christians.188 Provincial affairs were concomitantly placed under the closer supervision of central authorities. Provincial leaders needed to travel to Istanbul to report on provincial matters to central authorities; commissioners from Istanbul were given the task of inspecting the application of

Tanzimat regulations in the provinces;189 and provincial governors were instructed to function with the help of representative councils (meclises) composed of both Muslim and non-Muslim members.190 The Tanzimat was the first time in Islamic history when a local administrative system staffed by civilian officials was created. The councils were thus established to extend its reach within Ottoman society.

Until the promulgation of the second major decree of the Tanzimat in 1856, however, progress towards reform was slow. Provincial representatives failed to make an impact in the capital,191 while representative councils attached to provincial governors continued to hold a Muslim majority.192 Displeased with the reform’s slow progress,

Sultan Abdülmecid wrote a hatt-ı şerif in February 1845 in which he urged the grand vizier and the ministers he oversaw to do “everything necessary to ensure the great

188 Davison, “Tanzimat.” 189 Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, 42. 190 Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 46. 191 Engelhardt blames this failure on provincial representatives who were embarrassed to talk about the problems of their provinces and did not wish to compromise their mandates before 1856 (Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, 76). 192 Ibid., 76. 85

benefit of his people.”193 Because progress depended on the removal of any trace of ignorance in both religious and secular realms, the sultan decreed that schools should be established throughout the empire to produce new imperial elites. The Ottoman population was likewise far from being satisfied with the results of the reform. Most

Muslims and non-Muslim elites resented their loss of privileges, while the non-elite segment of the non-Muslim population protested the reform’s slow progress, the preservation of the cizye (poll tax), and the abuses to which they were subjected by their own secular leaders.194

Abdülmecid’s second Tanzimat decree, the Islahat Fermanı or Hatt-ı Hümayun

(Imperial Rescript), proclaimed on February 18, 1856, aimed to correct the shortcomings of the Gülhane Decree and its subsequent regulations by proposing reform in a terminology that was obviously western and modern. The decree was a response to pressures from both internal and external forces for a thorough and effective application of the principle of equality throughout Ottoman territories. Pressure from Europe was greater than before. The sultan issued the decree on the eve of the , which concluded the Crimean War (1853-56) that Russia lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. One of the main goals of the 1856 decree, therefore, was to halt Russia’s claims to the protection of all Greek Orthodox Christians in the

193 Ibid., 75. 194 Halil Inalcik describes the various abuses taking place in many parts of Rumelia (Balkan Peninsula), which involved both Muslim officials and non-Muslim notables overtaxing the peasants and forcing them to perform corvée labor before and after the proclamation of the 1839 decree; abuses such as these led to peasant uprisings in Niş (1841) and Vidin (1850) in modern-day Bulgaria (Halil Inalcik, Application of the Tanzimat and Its Social Effects (Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press, 1976), 11-13). 86

Ottoman Empire. The signatories of the Treaty of Paris agreed that no power had the right to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Ottoman Empire from that point on.195

The decree of 1856 promoted the idea of Ottomanism more forcefully that any other previous Tanzimat document. The sultan proclaimed in the decree that, in his eyes,

Ottomans were “all equal and equally dear” to him, and made sure to emphasize that they were bonded to one another through “cordial ties of patriotism.”196 This idea was further underlined in the text in stipulations proclaiming the equality of all Ottoman subjects before the law, in tax collection, in government positions, and in military service. The decree opened up access to both government posts and elite military and civil schools, and offered more rights to non-Muslims in the recently established secular (nizami) law courts. The idea of equality was likewise present in provisions reaffirming the representative principle by acknowledging the greater participation of non-Muslims in provincial councils and the opportunity they had to sit on the Supreme Council for the first time in the history of the empire.197 The same principle was mentioned in connection with the promise of the government to reform each religious community, the privileges of which were confirmed and maintained.198 Some fifty years ago, Davison argued that, as much as this decree sought to cultivate a sense of Ottomanism that would cut across the various religious communities, the establishment of empire-wide millets

195 This stipulation appears in article 9 (Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, 154). 196 Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, 150. Carter Findley provides a better translation of this expression: the “heartfelt bonds of patriotism” (revabıt-ı kalbiye-i vatandaşȋ) (Findley, “Tanzimat,” 28). 197 Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, 149-53. 198 Ibid., 150. 87

was an odd decision on the part of the sultan.199 The fact that millets were confirmed as separate entities did not exactly fit with the idea of Ottomanism. The reformation of this system during the Tanzimat did nothing but reemphasize religious difference, motivate social unrest, and fuel nationalist feelings and aspirations, especially in the Balkans.200

More recently, Carter Findley has argued that the codification of millets intended to create conditions “for each community to flourish,” while reinforcing solidarity among its members, who together formed the body of Ottoman subjects.201 But this vision did not win over many people, and it was only Ottoman Jews who paid dual allegiance to their and the Ottoman state, thus successfully embracing and promoting their shared imperial identity.202 In contrast, their Ottoman Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and

Bulgarian Orthodox peers allowed promoters of separatism (and also nationalism) to work vigorously within their midst.203

New attempts to strengthen Ottomanism throughout the empire found expression in the promulgation of the Law of Nationality on January 19, 1869. The law declared all individuals born or living in the empire to be Ottoman subjects until proven otherwise. It further stipulated that foreigners who enjoyed special favor at the Porte could become Ottoman nationals. Those born of foreign parents could also obtain

199 On the historical use of millets, see Benjamin Braude, “Foundation Myths of the Millet System,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Vol. 1, 69-88. 200 Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 132-33. 201 Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity, 100-1. 202 Phillips Cohen, Becoming Ottoman, 10-12. 203 At the religious level, the autocephalic movement erupted within the Orthodox Church with Greek independence in 1821, and spread through the Balkans during the nineteenth century (Richard Clogg, “The Greek Millet in the Ottoman Empire,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, I, 185-207. Only a century earlier, Catholic Uniate movements had emerged from within the Orthodox and Armenian churches (See, for instance, Robert M. Haddad, Syrian Christians in Muslim Society: An Interpretation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970). 88

Ottoman nationality through an application process after reaching the age of majority.204

By including both birthright and residence status, the law had no precedent in Ottoman or

Islamic history.205 But its main purpose was not to “simply recapitulate the individual’s rights and duties.” It was to bolster “the powers of government by delimiting the legal population from the increasing numbers of foreign residents and their protégés who appealed to international treaties for legal and fiscal immunity.”206 This was no doubt in response to the non-Muslims who had become commercial agents of different European states and obtained honorary nationality as a result.207 In essence, the law sought to foster the idea of a reciprocal relationship between the state and its subjects based exclusively on the Ottomans’ nationality. In this respect, the law emphasized that the identity of imperial subjects as Ottomans (Osmanlıs) should take precedence over their religious identities. For Tanzimat reformers, the shared Ottoman identity was to become the main collective for the body of the sultan’s subjects from then onward.

Following the proclamation of the Law of Nationality, Ottoman officials and intellectuals did their best “to popularize the new Ottoman identity, occasionally defining the empire as an Ottoman Union (Ittihâd-ı Osmanî) and even talking about pan-

204 For the text of the law, see A Collection of Nationality Laws of Various Countries as Contained in Constitutions, Statutes and Treaties, eds. Richard W. Flournoy, Jr., and Manley O. Hudson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1929), 568-69. For the French version, see Aristachi , Législation ottoman ou Recueil des lois, réglements, ordonnances, traités, capitulations et autre documents officiels de l’Empire Ottoman (Constantinople: Imprimerie Frères Nicolaides, 1873), 7-8. 205 Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 315. For an analysis of this law, also see Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 188; Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 263. 206 Salzmann, “Citizens in Search of a State,” 45. 207 Robert M. Haddad, Syrian Christians in Muslim Society: An Interpretation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970).

89

Ottomanism as the alliance of its many nationalities.”208 Ottoman newspapers like

Basȋret and Ittihâd emphasized the cooperation among the empire’s different religious groups and claimed that the Ottomans formed a “nation”209 that shared the same fatherland (vatan).210 Even the Ottoman constitution and the parliament created in the

1870s reflected the idea of Ottomanism, especially in their recognition of the principle of representative government and of the idea that the diverse Ottoman population formed a

“nation.”211 When the Tanzimat period ended and the existence of the Ottoman constitution and parliament was cut short by Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909),

Ottoman subjects were introduced to the notion of pan-. The empire’s increasing Muslim majority opened the way for the new sultan to emphasize Islam together with Ottomanism.212

In the Arab lands, the idea of Ottomanism found strong supporters until the beginning of World War I.213 However, in the empire’s Balkan lands, the majority of

208 Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 315. 209 During the Tanzimat period, the Ottoman term for “nation” (as a social body), as the equivalent of the French “nation,” was millet, which also applied to the empire’s religious communities. According to historian Şerif Mardin, Sadık Rifat Paşa, one of the Tanzimat statesman, was one of the first Ottomans to use the word millet as a translation for the term “nation” (Şerif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 189). One of the representatives of the Young Ottoman movement, the famed Namık Kemal, used the term millet but also vatan (as a territorial unit, the equivalent of the French “patrie”), in the sense of the individual’s allegiance to the “fatherland” or the territory contained within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, to express the idea of Ottoman “nation” (Ibid., 327-28). 210 Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 315. 211 For a brief summary of the constitution of 1876, see Findley, “The Tanzimat,” 19-20. 212 The Pan-Islamism of Sultan Abdülhamid II “offered Muslims a type of spiritual ‘citizenship’ within an imaginary ‘umma’ superimposed over the modern political map. […] Abroad, pan-Islam furnished the Ottoman sultan-caliph with a moral mantle no less grandiose than the pan-Germanism, pan-Slavism, and the (the pan-Hellenist aspiration to resurrect the Byzantine Empire) assumed by his contemporaries” (Salzmann, “Citizens in Search of a State,” 51). 213 Hasan Kayalı, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1980-1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 90

which were lost following the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, one could argue that Ottomanism failed among the non-Muslim population, who favored secessionism.214 But among the

Muslim population, this notion enjoyed considerable success, particularly in the realm of ideology. From this angle, Ottomanism “implanted the modern political concept of nationhood into their existing religious-community society and gave it a new form, increased vitality, and a new lease on life.”215 More broadly, Ottomanism gained adherents among supporters of reforms eager to witness economic progress in Ottoman lands. However, these general observations will be tested in the following section by looking at the impact the Tanzimat had on the Dobruca region and its Muslim population in an attempt to gauge whether the reforms led to the emergence of any sense of

Ottomanism among this population.

Muslim Identity and Ottomanism in Tanzimat Dobruca

Tanzimat statesmen envisioned Ottomanism as a type of imperial supra- nationalism that aimed to create an affective solidarity and emphasize equality among imperial subjects, as well as the necessity for accelerated modernization, while at the same time allowing for social mobility. Equality, modernity, and social mobility constituted, in the minds of Ottoman reformers, essential factors in the development of a sense of Ottomanism among the inhabitants of the empire. To separate these elements when discussing the effects of the Tanzimat on the Ottoman population living within

214 However, Milen Petrov argues that Ottomanism in the Danube Province recorded some success (Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 435). 215 Karpat, Politicization of Islam, 317. 91

imperial confines would be an oversight. It would also be unreasonable to think that such an impact occurred at the same time and in the same manner throughout all Ottoman territories.216

Even though it intended to produce immediate change in all Ottoman territories, the Tanzimat made little impact on the Dobruca region during the first two decades that followed the pronouncement of the Gülhane Decree in 1839. French contemporary accounts, for example, bear witness to the belated development of both the region and its diverse population, including the Muslims. French geographer and geologist Xavier

Hommaire de Hell was among the first foreign travelers to observe the inefficiency of the

Tanzimat in Dobruca. His best-known work, Voyage en Turquie et en Perse (Voyage in

Turkey and Persia), included an assessment of the situation in Dobruca in 1846 that reflected this very idea. Based on his descriptions, the region seemed frozen in time after the devastating Ottoman-Russo war of 1828-1829, and ruins of many villages and cities remained visible in the landscape. The city of Mankalya/Mangalia was filled with ruins, while Köstence/Constanţa, a city of about 500 houses prior to the war, numbered merely fifty huts.217 De Hell described the Muslims he encountered during the visit in an unflattering manner. Referring to the Tatar immigrants from the Buçak region

(Bessarabia) who settled in Dobruca during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the French scholar noted that they were covered in lice and overcome by hunger, surrounded by constantly barking stray dogs.218 Another French account, produced in

216 Rogan, Frontiers of the State, 17. 217 Marin Rareş, “Xavier Hommaire de Hell: Un călător francez ȋn Dobrogea ȋn 1846,” Analele Dobrogei XV (1934): 61-62. 218 Ibid., 63. 92

1848 by a military mission that included General Aupick, then serving as French ambassador in Istanbul, described a sparsely populated and mostly rural Dobruca, still covered in ruins.219

But Ottoman documents depict a rather different, more positive picture of

Dobruca. In 1844, Ottoman officials carried out a survey of the region and created a series of registers (temettuât defterleri) containing a rich analysis of its socio-economic development. Among these registers, currently housed in the Ottoman Archives in

Istanbul, there are several that concern the kazas (townships) of northern Dobruca, including Mankalya/Mangalia, Köstence/Constanţa, and Babadağı/Babadag.220

According to the registers, the population living in the three townships amounted to 27,615 household heads. The Muslims made up the majority in Mankalya (95%) and

Köstence (67%), while in Babadağı they merely constituted a minority (22%). The territory of the townships was overwhelmingly rural as most people lived in villages and occupied themselves with land cultivation and the raising of cattle, sheep, and horses. As in other parts of southeastern Europe and the Balkans, there existed a large number of

219 Al. Ungureanu, “O misiune franceză ȋn Ţara Românească, şi Dobrogea ȋn anul 1848,” Revista arhivelor 1 (1969): 84-90. Entitled Itinéraire à l’appui d’un levé à la boussole exécuté dans la Dobroudja, la Bulgarie et la Roumélie (août-octobre 1848), the account of the French expedition can be found among the manuscripts of the Historical Military Archive of France located near Paris. 220 The information included in these registers was processed and aptly discussed by historian Halime Kozlubel Doğru in 1844 Nüfus Sayımına göre Deliorman ve Dobruca’nın demografik, sosyal ve ekonomik durumu (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 2011). My analysis relies on Doğru’s discussion regarding Mankalya, Köstence, and Babadağı. However, the 1844 survey covered the entire northern Dobruca, which Doğru did not include in her study. This is a complete count of the registers pertaining to this region: for Mankalya/Mangalia: BOA.ML.VRD.TMT, No. 12148, 16180, 16182, 16183; for Köstence/Constanţa: BOA.ML.VRD.TMT, No. 11241, 12124-12128; for Hırsova/Hȋrşova: BOA.ML. VRD.TMT, No. 11880, 12114, 12116, 12117, 12119, 12120; for Maçin/Măcin: BOA.ML.VRD.TMT, No. 12132, 12145; for Isakçı/Isaccea: BOA.ML.VRD.TMT, No. 12286; for Tulça/Tulcea: BOA.ML. VRD.TMT, No. 12755, 12756; for Babadağı/Babadag: BOA.ML.VRD.TMT, No. 11880-11882, 12120. 93

farms (çiftliks)221 managed by major landowners of whom Mehmed Said Paşa, the governor (vali) of Silistre, was the wealthiest.222 The rural economy of Dobruca seemed to be functioning well considering the large profits obtained from the sale of several types of grain and domesticated animals, though large amounts of land remained uncultivated.223 The few urban centers mentioned in the registers were entirely or mostly populated with Muslims.224 Babadağı/Babadag was a vibrant city, home to a population that practiced about fifty-seven professions at the time the survey was taken.225

Regrettably, these registers do not reveal any information about the identity of the local population, except for their religious background (Muslim, non-Muslim) and association with specific professions. Nor do they include commentary on the loyalty of the population or their relationship with the central authority. However, the Romanian agronomist Ionescu de la Brad undertook this type of assessment merely six years later.226 Commissioned by the Ottoman government and carried out from April to July

1850 in the sancaks (districts) of Tulça and Silistre, his survey represents the first detailed examination of the Dobruca region. For the scholar who studies the region, this survey is more rewarding than the 1844 Ottoman survey because of its much wider scope

221 Most çiftliks belonged to Muslims, and the rest to the non-Muslims, including foreigners (Tudor Mateescu, “Ciftlicurile din Dobrogea ȋn secolele al XVIII-XIX-lea,” Peuce 4 (1973-75): 252-67). 222 His annual income reached 34,540 kuruș in 1844, a considerable amount at that time, which derived from the administration of a large estate that included 380 dönüms of cultivable land (a little over 304 acres or 123 hectares) and approximately 1,300 animals (Doğru, 1844 Nüfus Sayımına göre, 277). 223 Moshe Ma’oz notices a similar situation in Tanzimat Syria and Palestine: Moshe Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 163-65. 224 Köstence was inhabited, for example, exclusively by Muslims (355 individuals), while Mankalya had 400 Muslims and only twenty non-Muslims inhabitants (all Gypsies) (Doğru, 1844 Nüfus Sayımına göre, 217 and 207, respectively). The report of Xavier Hommaire de Hell seems thus to undercount the population of Köstence. 225 Ibid., 242-43. 226 Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole. 94

and purpose.227 Ionescu de la Brad’s survey covered a large part of the region in order to first assess the condition of its land and people and then find ways to effectively manage the varied human and material resources it possessed.228

In the survey, Ionescu de la Brad states that despite destruction caused by the

1828-29 war, the region shelters about twelve different ethnic groups amounting to about

100,000 people (Figure 9).229 The Muslim population, consisting of Turks and Tatars, constituted the majority, while the non-Muslim minority comprised an unequal number of

Wallachians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Cossacks, Lipovans, and others.

In spite of this variety, the influx of a massive Tatar population coming from Russia during the first half of the century gave Dobruca the name of the “country of the

Tatars.”230 The agronomist counts the Turks and Tatars among the region’s most prosperous inhabitants and praises Tanzimat reformers for their support of the peasantry.231 The governor (vali) of Silistre, Said Paşa, is commended in particular for his enlightened vision and for his sense of justice in ruling the province.232 Lower- and

227 Similar to their Austrian, Italian, and Russian peers, Ottoman officials had also “recognized and celebrated the collection of local knowledge and local ‘tradition’ as the bedrock for their plans for state- controlled social change” (Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 163). 228 Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 14-15. 229 Ibid., 79-81. 230 Ibid., 82. 231 “The peasant of the part of Europe we are currently exploring,” he claims, “is the richest peasant of Europe” (Ibid., 86). 232 “Sayed Paşa,” Ionescu de la Brad notes at one point in the survey, “is not a sage, yet he is profoundly convinced that the ignorance of the population is the main obstacle to progress and, therefore, did not neglect anything that could have enlightened his people. There is not a single Turkish or Tatar village, be it of only ten houses, which does not have a mosque or a school. More than ten mosques have been restored or built anew by his subordinates with money from his own purse. […] The school and the church are establishments that bring morality among people of all ages. Their foundation is protected and supported not only in villages inhabited by Muslims but also in those inhabited by Christians. Sayed Paşa made great sacrifices to preserve this religious equality and tolerance. He even contributed to the foundation of churches with money from his own purse” (Ibid., 103-4). 95

mid-level officials employed in local administration, the müdürs (kaza superintendents) and the subaşıs (police superintendents), receive flattering reviews for their display of skill, moral values, and good will in administering the local population.233

It is perhaps paradoxical that the praise Ionescu de la Brad heaped on the region leaves room for severe criticism regarding the economic development of Dobruca. He justifies his standpoint by pinpointing important weaknesses in the manner in which these bureaucrats deal with land exploitation. In his view, the land is the most significant source of revenue that the region possesses. Dobruca had great potential for agricultural expansion, but instead of working on expanding agriculture, local bureaucrats kept the land uncultivated on purpose as they allowed the population to use its grass as fodder for animals. This measure seemed unfeasible since the state collected taxes only from people who possessed animals without horns, and these animals did not comprise the bulk of the region’s animal population. Ionescu de la Brad thought the practice to be unproductive, since it left untapped an incredibly important source of revenue.234 Another reason for criticism was the local authorities’ treatment of Transylvanian shepherds (the Mocani).235

Seeking a warmer climate during winter, these shepherds sheltered herds in Dobruca over the cold season. Some even married local women and lived in the region permanently, in spite of their status as Habsburg subjects (Transylvania was part of the Habsburg

233 Ibid., 108. 234 Indeed, the registers of 1844 record some 10,000 horned animals for the Dobruca region (Doğru, 1844 Nüfus Sayımına göre, 211-12, 224-25, 240-42). 235 According to Al. P. Arbore, there were 145 Mocani in Dobruca in 1845. Together, they owned 65,200 sheep, 2,353 horses, and 283 head of other stock, and were scattered through the districts of Isakçı, Tulça, Maçin, Babadağı, Hırsova, Köstence, Mankalya, Silistre, Balçik, Bazarcik, and Varna (Al. P. Arbore, “Rumanian Culture in Dobrogea,” 305. 96

Empire). But they paid fees for spending winter in Dobruca to both Austrian and

Ottoman authorities. The shepherds’ treatment as both Ottoman and Austrian subjects made little sense and the agronomist suggested that the Ottoman state extend subjecthood rights to them. This measure would increase the amount of revenue going to the local treasury, an amount that would help cover the operating cost of the region’s administration.236 One final point Ionescu de la Brad raises in his survey is the issue of colonization. The Ottoman-Russian wars of the first half of the nineteenth century ruined many urban and rural settlements, leaving local agriculture in a poor state. Dobruca could remedy this situation by augmenting its cultivable land; to facilitate this, the

Ottoman state should settle colonists with proper skills and serious plans to engage in agricultural work.237

It is unclear whether the survey had an immediate impact on the higher echelons of Ottoman administration. Five years later, French physician Camille Allard was still describing the all-too-familiar images of destruction and decrying the slow progress of the Tanzimat in Dobruca, although admittedly, his negative portrayals could be seen as

Orientalist tropes. Allard arrived in the region in June 1855 as part of a French mission of engineers specializing in bridge and road building. The mission had the task of building a road between the right bank of the Danube, in a place called Rasova, and the city of Köstence on the Black Sea coast. The road was built with great difficulty, and by

236 Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 116-20. 237 This situation was not peculiar to Dobruca. In general, during this period Ottoman agriculture “was characterized by abundant land but scarce labor and capital” (Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity, 109). 97

the end of his five-month stay in the region, Allard became critical of the implementation of Tanzimat policies there.238

This is a conviction reiterated in his travel accounts. The Tanzimat, in his view, succeeded only in the empire’s capital, not in its provinces. “Just as the rays of light became dimmer the farther they found themselves from the light source,” Allard notes,

“so the intensity of the reformist effort and the authority of the reformers subsided the farther one found himself from the capital.”239 Viewed from this region of the empire, the Tanzimat was merely “a commemorative monument of a reform that people ignored and the powerless authorities dared not execute.”240 This was the case because the

“enlightened” plan of the reformers found obstacles among “an ignorant and inert population” failing to understand the benefits of change.241 This type of ignorance was embodied especially in some of the region’s Ottoman officials, who lacked education, were corrupt, and followed superstitious practices. In one instance, a Turkish officer ridiculed the sultan in front of the people gathered at a coffee house (kahvehane), located in the city of Tulça/Tulcea, for being so incredibly naïve as to request the help of western

Europeans to fight against the Russian czar during the Crimean War. Victory

“could have been easily accomplished by a handful of Turks,” the officer said confidently between puffs of a pipe in front of a nodding audience.242 In another instance, the chief

238 The trouble the French team had in receiving resources for the project from Ottoman authorities might have influenced his view. 239 Allard, La Dobroutcha, 15; idem, La Bulgarie Orientale, 47. 240 Ibid., 46. 241 Ibid., 47. 242 Ibid., 46. 98

‘

Figure 9. Ion Ionescu de la Brad’s Topographic and Ethnographic Map of Dobruca, 1850 Source: Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole. 99

of the customs office in the city of Köstence/Constanţa told Allard that he was guilty of extortion. He was reporting to the “padişah” (the sultan) less revenue than the customs took in and also dealt in the watermelon trade on the black market. As trivial as it seemed to others, the watermelon scheme helped the official provide for his family. “I would not ask for more than to be his [the sultan’s] faithful and disinterested servant, but this would require that he provided me with a living.”243 The last example involves the same customs office. Believing that the Qur’an performed miracles in all situations, one of its employees used an infusion of the ink from Qur’an pages to treat all the illnesses from which he, his family and friends suffered. The concoction was even used to assist pregnant women during difficult childbirths.244

These examples should not be regarded as failures of the Tanzimat but rather as an indication of the low starting level for implementing its policies. They should also not lead to generalizations about the backwardness of the entire Muslim population of the region. Even though in another context Allard labels the Turks as lazy, the Tatars as bad

Muslims, and the entire Ottoman population as “ignorant and inert,” he does have good words to say about Dobruca’s Turkish and Tatar population.245 He is impressed with the ideals of the Tanzimat. He praises the enlightened spirit of the reforms that lives inside some provincial officials. He likewise admires the independence of the Tatars and their cleanliness.246 But he does not elaborate on the relationship of local Muslims with the

243 Ibid., 41. 244 Ibid., 251. 245 Ibid., 49. 246 As a doctor, Allard served the Tatar community of Dobruca whenever medical care was necessary (Allard, La Dobroutcha, 37-39). His discussion is fascinating because of the amount of detail about gender segregation and hygiene practices among this particular population. 100

Ottoman center or the sultan. Except for the corrupt Ottoman official serving in the customs office, Allard does not mention anyone’s relationship with the sultan or the vatan (country). Nor do the Ottoman common folk have a collective voice in his work.

It was only when the Danube (Tuna) Province was established in 1864 that such voices become apparent in Ottoman documents and newspapers.

But this does not mean that the Ottoman state failed to attract or retain the loyalty of imperial subjects prior to that date. This is most evident when looking at the Ottoman treatment of Tatar immigrants who settled in the Dobruca region after fleeing the Crimea and (Buçak) during the first half of the nineteenth century. The first major Tatar migration to Dobruca took place shortly after the Crimea became part of the

Russian Empire in 1783. Fearing persecution at the hands of Russian authorities, about

80,000 Crimean Tatars left the peninsula voluntarily.247 Other Tatars, this time from the

Buçak, followed in 1812, when Russia occupied their region following the six-year war with the Ottoman Empire. But the Nogays, the descendants of the thirteenth-century

Golden Horde ruler Nogay , also lived in the Crimea’s northern plains as agriculturalists and pastoralists. The “real Crimeans” lived as urbanites on the eastern littoral of the peninsula. The rural-urban dichotomy resulted in the Nogays’ frequent humiliation by the Crimean Tatars, who identified with the rulers of the old Mongol khanates of the Golden Horde and the Crimea. The tension between the two groups was readily exploited first by the Russians and later by the Ottomans, who used the granting of various privileges to enhance the loyalty of either group to the dynasty and the state.

247 Karpat, “Ottoman Population,” 65. 101

While the Russians favored the Nogays prior to 1783, the Ottomans privileged the upper- class Crimeans following their migration to the Dobruca region. It was only when Nogay petitions condemning the Ottoman bias towards the Crimean Tatars reached Istanbul that

Ottoman officials granted positions of importance, salary increases, and military decorations to Nogay leaders to calm the situation.248

The Ottomans attempted to attract the loyalty of the Tatars by granting them military positions.249 In an effort to modernize the Ottoman army, Sultan Mahmud II established the empire’s first modern cavalry unit in 1826, consisting entirely of Dobrucan

Tatars known for their loyalty to the sultan.250 The unit was headquartered in Silistre/

Silistra, on the Danube, rather than in Istanbul to avoid high costs and opposition from those who disliked innovations in the army.251 As an additional benefit, Silistra lay close to the front lines and could readily provide the region’s famous horses for the cavalry.252 This unit participated in the Ottoman-Russo war of 1828-29. Another loyal Muslim - that of the Kabail Tatars of Babadağı/Babadag - served in Gaza, Sayda, and the Hijaz in the

1830s and 1840s, when the Ottomans tried to stop the advance of the army of Ibrahim Paşa, the son of the autonomous governor of , Mehmed () Ali, and the

248 A list of positions received by the Nogays as a result of such policy can be found in BOA. I.MVL., No. 21755. See this list in Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” Appendix 3, 306. 249 The Tatars of Dobruca and the Cossacks of the Don region, numbering 61,500 in 1843, were part of the irregular troops of the Ottoman army, whose number reached 448,860 at that time (M.A. Ubicini, Lettres sur la Turquie, Part 1 (Paris: Chez Guillaumin Libraire, 1851), 320-21). However, Engelhardt reports that the Tatars in the Ottoman army numbered only 10,000 (Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, 81). 250 Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” 283. 251 Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume II: Reform, Revolution, and : The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 24. 252 For an excellent study on the horses of Dobruca, see Tudor Mateescu, “Creşterea cailor ȋn Dobrogea ȋn stăpânirii otomane,” Peuce 3 (1973): 287-94. 102

conqueror of Syria 253 To further ensure the loyalty of the Kabail Tatars, the sultan exempted them from taxes, preserved their local autonomy, allowed them access to officer ranks in the Ottoman army, and conferred on their leader, Han Mirza, the honorary of miralay ().254

The support of the Ottoman government for the Tatars continued after 1840, in particular during and after the Crimean War, when additional waves of Tatars migrated to

Ottoman lands. Ottoman sources estimate that about 595,000 Crimean, Kuban, and

Tatars had left their homes to settle in the empire by 1864; approximately 120,000 of them settled in Dobruca and modern-day Bulgaria.255 The Ottoman government exempted these

Tatars from all taxes and from conscription into the army for an extended period – sometimes up to ten years in the first case and twenty years in the second. It additionally offered them land grants, village autonomy under their traditional Crimean leaders, and large amounts of seed to help with crop production, since the Kabail Tatars were primarily agriculturalists.256 The most skilled served in the force (zaptiye) or as sentries and guards in the Ottoman army.257 The Porte looked with sympathy on the new immigrants because of their role in the defense of the region (through volunteering) and the augmentation of its agricultural income.

In 1856, the city of Mecidiye, named after sultan Abdülmecid, was built on the remnants of the medieval settlement of Karasu to serve as the home for the Crimean Tatars

253 BOA. MV., no. 426 (29 Cemazülahır 1257 [18 August 1841]). 254 Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” 284. 255 Ibid., 287. 256 BOA, A.MKT.MHM 445/83 (19 Zilkâde 1289 [18 January 1873]). 257 Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration of 1856-1862,” 284. 103

fleeing the Crimean front.258 Mecidiye was “the first and the most important Ottoman settlement planned and built” in the empire according to the new urban policy of the

Tanzimat and with money from the imperial treasury.259 This policy aimed to modernize old cities and build new ones according to the standards of European urban development.

This support ended in 1860, when yet another influx of Crimean and Buçak Tatars into the

Dobruca region occurred. This time, the migrants were settled in the village of

Mahmudiye, named after Sultan Mahmud II, with financial assistance from Babadağı’s

Muslim and Christian populations rather than from the Ottoman government.260 Since the new migrants were well-to-do people with more education than those who had previously arrived in the region, Ottoman authorities did not feel much pressure to help them settle.

Nevertheless, some Tatars appreciated their relocation to the Dobruca region, of which they came to speak with fondness, considering it “a beloved new home.”261

New mechanisms to attract the loyalty of the Dobrucan population were put in place once the Danube (Tuna) Province was established in 1864 (Figures 10 and 11).

The reforms implemented in the region by Midhat Paşa, the governor of the province between 1864 and 1868, sought to mobilize the local population to support the modernization of the province along the lines of the Tanzimat. In this context, the

Muslims tended to be defined and to define themselves as Ottoman subjects. They often

258 Camille Allard credits the idea of the foundation of the city in this location to Said Paşa (Allard, La Bulgarie Orientale, 118-19). 259 Karpat, “The Crimean Emigration,” 289. 260 Ibid., 296. Allard shows bias in assessing this assistance as he feels that the Tatar emigrants have become a heavy burden for the Christian population of the region. I have found no evidence to support this claim. In addition, Allard never mentions the help of the Muslims in the settlement of these Tatars (Allard, La Bulgarie Orientale, 187). 261 Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 206. 104

expressed opinions regarding the positive effect of reform regulations on their everyday lives and declared every so often loyalty to the sultan and state institutions. This happened in particular when modernizing projects met with success in their villages and cities.

Figure 10. Map of the Ottoman Balkans before 1878. Source: Karpat, Ottoman Population.

105

Figure 11. Ottoman Map of the Danube Province (Tuna Vilâyeti), 1864-1878. Source: BOA, Hrt.h.201.

This was the period when Dobruca recorded unprecedented economic development. Midhat Paşa implemented a series of regulations that improved the region’s infrastructure, economy, transportation, and urban development. Part of the larger reform project specifically designed for the Danube Province, these regulations sought to improve the Ottoman administration’s functions in this locale. The province was, after all, “a key area in which to try out a system designed to hold the empire together.”262 Modernist projects were not random experiments; rather they were carefully put-together undertakings that highlighted the importance of sustained public works and the creation of a loyal body of Ottoman citizenry. The fact that Midhat had superior

262 Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 151. 106

knowledge of the region263 as well as strong managerial capabilities assured success for these reforms, a success that ultimately turned the province into “the showcase of

Ottoman reform.”264 The reforms “laid solid foundations for a viable administration” by the Ottomans in this part of Europe.265

Midhat Paşa took the first step in the overall development of Dobruca in 1865. In the spring of that year he visited Köstence/Constanţa and met with local officials. The discussions that took place on that occasion raised awareness about the economic potential of the city and of the region as a whole.266 Köstence’s economy received a boost from the construction of the railway line that connected the Danube River with the

Black Sea between 1858 and 1860.267 Built by the British Danube and Black Sea

Company, Ltd., which obtained the project as a concession from the Ottoman state, the railway line was sixty-four kilometers long and was the third of its type in the entire empire (the -Alexandria line opened in 1854, and the Izmir-Aydın line opened only a few months before the Köstence-Boğazköy line).268 But the line did not trigger the sort of urban development that Midhat had hoped to see in Köstence/Constanţa, and he

263 He visited the region while being assigned to Rusçuk/Ruse for three and a half years in the 1850s. 264 Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 111. 265 Eugene Rogan uses these words to describe the nature of Tanzimat reforms in Transjordan (), but I believe I am not mistaken to apply them to the southeastern European and Balkan situation, at least during the tenure of Midhat Paşa governorship (Rogan, Frontiers of the State, 17). 266 BOA., YB.04.d., Tuna, vol. 1, no. 3, 1 (1 Zilkâde 1281 [7 March 1865]). Midhat Paşa met on this occasion with Tolçi’s Ahmed Resim Paşa and Varna’s kaymakam Abdurrahman Paşa; during these meetings, he raised important points regarding the affairs of the sancak, the pavement of Köstence’s streets, the situation of the immigrants, and the management of uncultivable land. 267 Barkley, Between the Danube and the Black Sea, 100-105. 268 Allard, La Bulgarie Orientale, 10. 107

proposed that the municipal authorities sell the city’s idle lands to the highest bidders to generate urban growth.269

The development of this particular city was part of the Ottoman government’s larger effort directed towards the modernization of the province’s urban centers. Newly- established municipal (belediye) institutions received the task of managing urban development and monitoring the proper functioning of urban services as well as urban population. Municipal authorities were channels through which state officials worked to impose the new urban order, which differed starkly from that of the pre-Tanzimat period.270 The cities of Dobruca had fulfilled both military and civil functions prior to

1839; after that year - and especially during Midhat’s governorship - the many public works built according to European standards changed their nature and sometimes their configuration.271 Most cities had streets paved, street lights installed, governmental buildings erected, entire neighborhoods rejuvenated, orphanages and hospitals put in place, and people vaccinated against smallpox as early as 1865.272 Telegraph lines, bridges, and roads were also built in this context.273 However, the extent of public works

269 BOA.I.MVL, No. 24134 (6 Zilkâde 1281 [2 April 1865]). 270 Stéphane Yerasimos, “A propos des réformes urbaines des Tanzimat,” in Villes ottomanes à la fin de l’empire, eds. Paul Dumont and François Georgeon (Paris : Editions L’Harmattan, 1992), 21. 271 Marie-Mathilde Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru, “Sur l’administration des villes de Dobroudja sous la domination ottomane (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles),” RÉSEE 3-4 (1994): 249-257. 272 For the pavement of streets and squares in Tulça, Mecidiye, and Köstence, see Tuna no. 34 (29 Cemazeyilevvel/11 Cemazeyilahir 1282 [20 October/1 November 1865]); no. 42 (26 Recep/8 Şaban 1282 [15/27 December 1865]); and no. 135 (10/22 Şaban 1283 [18/30 December 1866]); for the installation of street lights in Tulça, see Tuna no. 135 (10/22 Şaban 1283 [18/30 December 1866]); for the building in Köstence of an orphanage for the children of Tatar and Circassian emigrants, see Tuna no. 4 (26 Şevval/9 Zilkâde 1281 [24 March/5 April 1865]); for the building in Tulça of a hospital ward, see Tuna no. 10 (7/19 Zilhicce 1281 [3/15 May 1865]). 273 This was indeed one of the most pressing issues of the region even before Midhat became governor (Ubicini, Lettres sur la Turquie, Part 1, 260-61). 108

development was insufficient, as their number failed to satisfy societal needs. As in other parts of the empire, roads, for instance, remained scarce during this period.274 The situation puzzled the few foreign observers who crossed the region at the time and encountered difficulties in moving from one area to another due to the lack of a roadway infrastructure.275 In 1869, the Ottoman government issued regulations that ordered the local population to work on roads five days each year without pay.276 Considering that the total population of the sancak of Tulça was slightly over 110,000, it would made little sense to blame road scarcity on labor shortages.277 More likely, the Ottoman authorities had to deal with major financial issues and so they could not afford to fund this type of public works. They either gave dispensations to foreigners to build roads (as was the case with Allard’s French team in the mid-1850s) or limited their direct assistance to a handful of experts whom they dispatched to supervise road construction.278 It is unclear

274 Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 169. One report from 1886, written by the vice-consul of France residing in Köstence/Constanţa, still commented on the difficulty of traveling in Dobruca due to lack of road infrastructure. The region had many minor roads but only two major roads that connected Tulça/Tulcea with Isakçı/Isaccea (37 kilometers) and Babadağı/Babadag (35 kilometers), respectively (ANRC., Colecţia Xerografii, 1/1886, f. 14). An editorial in the newspaper Dobrogea Nouă, dated 22 August, 1909, ridicules the work devoted to road construction in the Dobruca region during the Tanzimat by noting that “up until 1879, Dobruca lacked roads because we cannot judge as work the building of the road between Tulcea and Isaccea, which was a distance of only 36 kilometers” (Dobrogea Nouă, no. 28, 22 August, 1909). This nationalistic view was not singular at the time. Most Romanian journalists and historians regarded the rule of the Ottoman Empire in Dobruca as abusive and inefficient. 275 Allard and Ionescu de la Brad were two of the travelers deeply troubled by this issue (Allard, La Bulgarie Orientale, 11; Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 49-54). 276 Tudor Mateescu, “Relaţiile agrare ȋn Dobrogea ȋn ultimul secol al stăpânirii otomane,” Revista arhivelor 3 (1991): 346. 277 According to the 1866 Ottoman census, included in the 1868-69 (1285 AH) yearbook (salnâme) of Tuna Province, the Tulça sancak had a male population of 57,062 (the entire province had a male population of 1,023,509) (Tuna Vilâyeti Salnâmesi sene 1285 (Rusçuk: Tuna Vilâyeti Matbaası, AH 1285), 101). According to Milen Petrov’s calculations, which include women, the Tulça sancak should have had a total population of 111,613 (the entire province should have had a male population of 2,015,950) (Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 59). 278 The central administration merely provided technicians for the construction of roads due to a lack of funds, leaving the burden of labor on the local population, a practice widely used in Ottoman territories (AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 335, f. 3-7). 109

whether the reasons for this situation were similar to those informing inadequate road construction in Tanzimat Syria and Palestine. In those instances, historian Moshe Ma’oz has blamed the indifference of the local population and the lack of enthusiasm expressed by Ottoman officials for building these roads, as well as their corruption.279 But it seems that the Ottoman authorities were uninterested in road construction in Transjordan, as well, during this period.280 This is not surprising since in zones where camel transport prevailed, the “need” for roads diminished.

Perhaps the Ottomans made little investment in roads because of financial difficulties. Limited funds for the modernization of Dobruca during and after Midhat’s tenure as governor of the Danube Province resulted in increasing pressure on the local population to contribute to reform efforts. The inhabitants of several kazas (subdistricts) in the territory of modern-day Bulgaria, for instance, became responsible for the building of roads and bridges and the planting of trees within the boundaries of their townships.281

The inhabitants of northern Dobruca likewise contributed by paying a variety of taxes.

The money collected in this manner from the locals supported a multitude of urban projects, including the construction of government buildings and schools, the paving of streets, the installation of gas lamps, the repair of city walls, the building of roads and bridges, the renovation of markets, the revamping of neighborhoods, and even the protection of the population from natural disasters like flooding.282 In Köstence/

279 Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 168-69. 280 Rogan, Frontiers of the State, 62. 281 The kazas of Tûrnovo, Rusçuk, Svishtov, , and Nikopol (Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 135). 282 BOA., YB.04.d., Tuna, vol. 2, no. 135 (10/22 Şaban 1283 [18/30 December 1866]), 1-2. 110

Constanţa people paid taxes for street-paving; in Maçin/Măcin and Hırsova/Hȋrşova they helped to finance the construction of government buildings; and in the sancak of Tulça people contributed funds and labor for the building of walls, bridges, and roads.283 Some of the city-dwellers requested additional funds from the Ottoman officials in Istanbul to finish schools, government buildings, markets, and roads.284

The Tuna newspaper published brief articles on these subjects and used them as examples of the tremendous success the Tanzimat enjoyed among the population of the province. Irrespective of religion and ethnicity (two identifiers rarely mentioned in the pages of the newspapers), everyone seemed “happy” to contribute to reform projects and fortunate to be subjects of the sultan. Some Dobrucans went so far as to express their love of the “fatherland” (vatan).285 To reiterate the example used in the opening of the current chapter, the inhabitants of Sünne/Sulina and Kili/Chilia rather ironically express gratitude to local authorities for having completed a project that they themselves financed and for which they alone provided labor. It is unclear whether these are the actual sentiments of the people, or if this is manufactured “party-line” rhetoric propaganda put forward by Tuna. In another case, Midhat Paşa is praised for implementing Tanzimat reforms in the kaza of Kili/Chilia when Tatar, Cossack, Moldavian, and Circassian immigrants settled there in 1866. The article fails to underline that the immigrants’ settlement in this locale was financed by the local population rather than the treasury of the province.286

283 Ibid. 284 Such was the case of the people of Maçin/Măcin and Sünne/Sulina (Ibid., 2). 285 These were the inhabitants of the kaza of Maçin/Măcin (Ibid.). 286 BOA., YB.04.d., Tuna, vol. 3, no. 76 (22 Muharrem 1283 [6 June 1866]), 1. 111

In publishing such pieces, newspaper editors needed to get across the idea that the local population of the province participated in reform efforts out of devotion to the state and the dynasty. The locals became in this context perfect embodiments of the idea of

Ottomanism (Osmanlılık), the ideology of the Tanzimat. Given the official nature of

Tuna and the historical evidence about the forced contributions of the local population to reform efforts,287 the instances discussed above illustrate the language of the Tanzimat, which both the newspaper and the locals employed for particular reasons. Whereas the newspaper needed to convince its readership of the benevolent modernization of Ottoman statesmen, the locals wished to obtain the support of state officials for communal projects. The newspaper Tuna mentions in several instances how the people of

Hırsova/Hârşova and Maçin/Măcin asked the government for funds while stating their exemplary loyalty to the sultan and the state.288 These statements demonstrate that the local population of these cities understood the value of being (or being perceived as)

Ottoman during the period under examination.

In rural areas, the Osmanlılık ideal was instead reflected in projects that aimed to increase the economic productivity of the region. Ottoman authorities planned the introduction of mechanized threshers in the Tulça area;289 encouraged the cultivation of

287 Similar requests were made during the Russo-Otoman war of 1877-78. Ottoman officials from Köstence asked Dobrucan villagers to help Ottoman troops build fortifications in the region. Considerable amounts of grain and clothing were also requested (La Turquie, no. 19, 25 January 1877, 1). 288 BOA., YB.04.d., Tuna, vol. 2, no. 135, (10/22 Şaban 1283 [18/30 December 1866]), 2. 289 Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 173-74. The implementation of this proposal would have greatly improved the quality of farm (çiftlik) management. There were twenty-nine farms in the district of Köstence (amounting to about 15,000 hectares) and fewer than ten in the district of Tulça (Tudor Mateescu, “Çiftlicurile din Dobrogea,” 252-67). In 1846, according to Hommaire de Hell, there was discussion in Dobruca about the foundation of model farms; in 1850, Ionescu de la Brad noticed that Dobrucans still used old plows and that the agricultural production was not as high as it would have been if the peasants used new plows or other modernized machines (Ibid., 254; 259). 112

tobacco, one of the most productive crops in Dobruca;290 and regulated land rights through the 1858 Land Law, which granted individual (tapus) to landholders and the right to pass land down from generation to generation.291 The ideals of Ottomanism also found expression in manifestations of loyalty from Tatar villagers who volunteered to participate in Ottoman wars, the lightness of the tax burden compared to other

Ottoman territories,292 the peaceful coexistence of Muslims with non-Muslims,293 and the tolerance of Ottoman authorities for the religion, customs, language, and education of the latter.294

To show enthusiasm for the reforms, Ottoman officials in Istanbul used the language of the Tanzimat in official memoranda addressed to the population of the

Danube Province. Milen Petrov illustrates this situation with a telling example. In

December 1867, the central government approved local proposals from the Danube

Province for the establishment of public companies to finance the construction of a hotel in Varna, the import of agricultural equipment for the Dobruca region, and the establishment of a sugar factory in the city of Sofia. The proposals responded to practical needs within local society, and were most probably initiated by local elites wanting to make quick profits. In their official response, however, Ottoman officials credited the entire population of the province with the ideas expressed in the proposals. “The

290 Tudor Mateescu, “Cultura tutunului ȋn Dobrogea ȋn timpul stăpânirii otomane,” Revista arhivelor 2 (1994): 176-86. 291 Idem, “Relaţiile agrare ȋn Dobrogea ȋn ultimul secol al stăpânirii otomane,” Revista arhivelor 3 (1991): 343-44. 292 The amount of taxes collected in Dobruca was used merely to cover the expenses of the local administration (Ionescu de la Brad, Excursion agricole, 113). 293 Allard, La Bulgarie, 49-50. 294 Ibid., 45; Arbore, “Romanian Culture in Dobrogea,” 342-56. 113

tendency and inclination of the people (ahali) of the province to want to establish such companies,” the officials stated, “are a much appreciated sign of their approval of the beneficial and praiseworthy measures and efforts to improve the economic foundations of the province and to increase its general progress.”295

Petrov also provides examples demonstrating the local authorities’ failure to use the same language. Local legislation deviated, for example, from the text of the official legislation issued at the sultan’s court. The stipulations of the 1864 Provincial Reform

Law (nizâmnâme) in regard to the election of village heads or councilmen contained elements that departed from the text of the law. Local regulations gave the wealthiest villagers an advantage and underlined the centralization of power within the provincial administration. These elements inhibited the formation of an Ottoman public sphere allowing all Ottoman subjects, irrespective of religious background and social status, to have a voice in local affairs.296 In another instance, Ottoman local authorities did not hide their dislike of the non-Muslim population despite the center’s rhetoric of equality among imperial subjects. According to Engelhardt, the müdür (mayor) of Maçin/Măcin, a city in northern Dobruca, for example, used harsh words in a letter addressed to the

Christian population of the village of Greci, who opposed the settlement of Circassian immigrants in the area. Dated 1865, the letter reads, “What are you [Christians] doing here? Do your fields belong to you? I do not acknowledge your property titles. You pretend that you are unable to satisfy the requisitions demanded from you for the Muslim

295 Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 194. The original document is located in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul: BOA., AYN.d., no. 920, Hüküm 63 (3 1284 [29 December 1867]), f. 68. 296 Petrov, “Tanzimat for the Countryside,” 196-98. 114

subjects [the ]. Sell your houses, sell your women, sell your children, and obey or better leave the country.”297 Whatever the authenticity of Engelhardt’s report, one of the major problems of Ottoman reform was the lack of well-prepared agents to implement it everywhere in the empire.298

The two instances described above show just how difficult it was for the local administration to follow the letter and spirit of Ottoman reforms throughout. The abusive interpretation and application of the Tanzimat on the ground was not peculiar to the

Dobruca region. The gap between theory and practice that characterized the Ottoman reforms of the nineteenth century existed in other Ottoman territories, including Syria and

Palestine.299 This further raises the question of the viability of such reforms and the success of imperial authorities in creating the much-desired body of loyal subjects. There is evidence that Ottomanism worked in the Dobruca region, though it would be unrealistic to argue that the reforms instilled loyalty in all of its Muslim inhabitants.

Conclusions

German historian Jürgen Osterhammel has recently argued that “one of the major novelties of the Sattelzeit” (“saddle period”), which stretched from roughly 1750 to roughly 1850, was “the emergence of inclusive forms of social solidarity and a new ideal of civil equality. This ‘nationalism’ stabilized the collective identity and demarcated it

297 Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, 131. 298 Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity, 90. 299 Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine. 115

from that of neighboring countries and distant ‘’.”300 In the case of the

Ottoman Empire, collective identity was formulated along the lines of Ottomanism

(Osmanlılık), an official ideology that emphasized the urgent need for the modernization of both the empire and its variegated population. The fathers of Ottomanism, the sultan and a handful of Ottoman officials from the Sublime Porte, attempted to save the empire by reforming its institutions from the top down. The reforms were conceived in such a way as to trigger economic development and social change that would benefit all

Ottoman subjects irrespective of religious affiliation. It was expected that the positive effect of the reforms on the imperial population would cultivate a sense of Ottomanism among them. Tanzimat officials attempted in this manner to turn the entire Ottoman population from passive subjects of the sultan into emotionally engaged Ottomans.

In Dobruca, the idea of Ottomanism proved successful among the Muslims whenever their communal needs were satisfied. In those few instances, they employed the language of the Tanzimat in interactions with the empire’s central and local authorities, who, in turn, used similar strategies to reinforce their Osmanlılık principles.

Local projects brought people together and motivated them to be on the side of Ottoman reformers – or so the official provincial newspaper, Tuna, would have liked its readership to think.

There is evidence, however, suggesting that the exact opposite was also true. The local population was subjected to provision and labor levies by local authorities because

300Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014), 60. 116

the Tanzimat had little financial support in either Istanbul or Dobruca. It would be imprudent to believe that Dobrucan Muslims embraced the reforms unconditionally or became loyal to the state and the dynasty because some road or bridge or governmental building was successfully built in their village or town. But we should not forget that this was the period when Ottoman authorities came up with modernizing reforms to save the empire from disintegration. It made sense only in this context to believe that claims of loyal subjecthood rights and public demonstrations of loyalty became essential in the crafting of a multifaceted notion of Ottoman identity. When the state penetrated the lives of its population in the way the Tanzimat did in the nineteenth century, people did not hesitate to present themselves - above anything else - as loyal Ottomans. Displays of loyalty and expressions of affection for Ottoman leaders and the institutions they reformed or established seemed natural in this context.

Remarkably enough, the end of the empire in Dobruca failed to change this situation. As the remainder of the disssertation sets out to demonstrate, the transition from empire to nation-state did not constitute a break that set the Ottoman Empire and its successor state of Romania poles apart from each other in terms of how local Muslims reacted to state reforms and how they subsequently crafted their nationality. They employed similar strategies in order to integrate into the new society effectively. It is true that a large portion of the Muslim population emigrated after the establishment of the

Romanian administration in Dobruca in 1878. But those who remained did their best to integrate by conforming to Romanian policies.

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Chapter 3: “Seeing Like a State”: Romanian Policies in Northern Dobruca and the Muslims, 1878-1914

The most significant factor causing drastic change in the status of Dobruca’s

Muslim population was the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the war against Imperial

Russia in 1877-78. In the aftermath of this conflict, the northern part of Ottoman

Dobruca, previously known as the sancak of Tulça, was granted to Romania by the

Treaty of Berlin (July 1878). This territorial addition to the newly-acknowledged independent state of Romania came at a significant price considering that Romania lost

Southern Bessarabia to Russia at Berlin. Given these dire circumstances, Romanian officials were forced to respond to the daunting task of making Dobruca and its diverse population part of the national domain. Contradictory visions regarding the fulfillment of this task, emerging from a deeply divided Romanian political spectrum, had occasionally unfortunate consequences, including the emigration of a large number of Muslims from

Dobruca to the Ottoman Empire. The Muslims who remained in Romania became intimately involved in the process of nation-building by learning fast how to “speak national” when state assistance became urgent in personal and community matters.

On 14 November 1878, in the city of Brăila, located on the western bank of the

Danube River across from Dobruca, Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (Carol I of

Romania) (1866-1914) addressed the multireligious, multiethnic, and multilingual

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Dobrucan population. The speech came moments before Romanian military forces took

“de facto” possession of the region, thus putting an end there to nearly five centuries of

Ottoman rule.301

The text - read in Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish - began with the statement that the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin had annexed Dobruca to Romania. The annexation, according to Carol I, enabled the return of Dobruca to its mother country, thus ushering in an era of justice, peace, and prosperity for all Dobrucans irrespective of their religious or ethnic backgrounds.302 One of the most striking characteristics of this proclamation was the manner in which the prince emphasized the civilizational nature of

301 A brief Russian administration functioned in Dobruca, more precisely in the former Ottoman sancak of Tulça, from June 1877 to June-July 1878 (Rădulescu and Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 343-46. By the end of November 1878, the Russian archives regarding Dobruca were handed over to Romanian officials (ANRB., The Ministry of Internal Affairs Collection-The Administrative Division, 223/1878 (Constanţa) and 224/1878 (Tulcea). Russian influence over Ottoman territories in this particular location began in the 18th century, when the Peace Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca signed by the Ottomans and Russians on July 10, 1774, inaugurated the Russian Protectorate over the two Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which bordered Dobruca (Viorel Panaite, “Wallachia and Moldavia,” 25). 302 The proclamation read as follows: “The Great European Powers have united your country to Romania by virtue of the Berlin Treaty. We do not enter your country and your frontiers drawn by Europe as conquerors, for, as you yourselves know, much blood had been spilt for the deliverance of the peoples from the right bank of the Danube. Inhabitants of every nationality and religion, Dobruca, the old possession of Mircea the Old and Stephan the Great, belongs to Romania from now on! You now belong to a state where no longer arbitrary will, but the law, debated and approved by the nation, will decide and rule the most sacred and cherished goods of humankind, life, honor, and property, [which] are now placed under the shield of a Constitution that many foreign nations look forward to seeing implemented. Your religion and family will be protected in the same manner as the Christians’. The affairs of your religion and family will be entrusted to the müftis and the judges chosen from among your nation and religion. Christians and Muslims, receive thus the Romanian authorities with trust. They come with the mission to put an end to your painful trials, which you had experienced previously, to cure the wounds of the war, to defend your person and your lawful interests, and finally, to develop your moral and material condition. The Romanian army that enters Dobruca has no other wish than to maintain order and protect your livelihood in a disciplined fashion. Salute, then, the Romanian flag with love [because] it will be for you the flag of liberty, justice, and peace. […] We wish that this day will become for you and for this part of Romania the beginning of a future of peace and blossoming, the beginning of a good livelihood and of fraternity among the sons of the same country.” (G.D. Petrescu, “Răsboiul pentru independenţă şi anexarea Dobrogei” (The War for Independence and the Annexation of Dobrogea), in Dobrogea. Cincizeci de ani de viaţă românească, 345-46). See the complete text of the proclamation also in the newspaper Voinţa Dobrogei, 28 October 1928. 119

the Romanian mission in Dobruca. Romanian authorities arrived in the province with the task of ending past suffering, defending the life and property of the entire population, and developing the moral and material condition of all people. Muslims were promised equal treatment with Christians and placement of personal affairs under their own religious leaders. The Prince further ensured people that Dobruca’s Ottoman past, characterized by “arbitrary will,” “painful trials,” and war, would be replaced with a just regime determined to inaugurate an age of fraternity among the “sons of the same country.”

Decades later, the ambitious plan that Carol I had laid out in the November speech had failed to materialize. On November 14, 1910, Vasile Kogălniceanu, a former member of the Romanian Parliament and the son of historian and politician Mihail Kogălniceanu, who designed Dobruca’s first laws, bluntly stated that in terms of general development the province still lagged behind the rest of the country. For over thirty years, the corruption and incompetence of local administration had resulted in regional underdevelopment and exposed people to the arbitrary will of state officials. Dobrucans, he concluded hopelessly, were not yet full members of the nation because Romanian legislators denied them political rights.303 This particular line of criticism emerged not only from the Romanian intellectual elite writing in local media but also from official and non-official circles at local, national, and even international levels. In conjunction with a number of other factors, local corruption and incompetence in administering such a diverse territory characterized the difficult and often contested transition of this region from empire to nation-state in the post-

Ottoman period.

303 Dobrogea Nouă, 14 November 1910, 1. 120

To understand how the national identity of Dobruca’s Turks and Tatars changed during this transitional period, special emphasis will be placed in the following chapters on the interaction between local and transnational politics, community and state ideologies, and indigenous and foreign cultural ideas. This examination engages important questions about Dobruca’s political, social, and cultural history and, more broadly, addresses how transnational politics and ideologies affected frontier minorities during the post-Ottoman era. The current chapter looks at Romanian state policies and ideologies that influenced the evolution of the two groups from 1878 to 1914. Official policies created the framework for the emergence of national citizenship by turning former Ottoman subjects into citizens. Following 1878, Turks and Tatars were no longer identified by their belonging to the larger body of Ottoman subjects; rather, their identity as Romanian citizens assigned them a new yet secondary place in society.

The formulation of Romanian policies in Dobruca depended heavily on several factors that reflected Romanian efforts to convince the Great Powers of Romania’s significant role in Europe, to reconstruct the country in the aftermath of war, and, finally, to include the newly acquired population in the fabric of the nation. These policies were formulated under the equal pressure of outside and inside political forces which stressed the importance of the application of international treaties, the integration of Dobruca into the national economy, and the of the region along national guidelines. After

1878, Romanian officials regarded the integration of Northern Dobruca into Romania as the second stage in the creation of a national and unitary Romanian state, after the 1859 union of Wallachia and Moldavia.

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The geographical position of Dobruca and the legacy of the Ottoman Empire also played significant roles in the creation of Romanian policies for this particular region.

Situated in the southeastern corner of Romania, Dobruca constituted “a dynamic frontier zone for expanding the national economy and the country’s ethnic boundaries.”304 As

Kerem Oktem and Dimitar Bechev note, “The border (be it territorial, cultural, religious, linguistic, or even gendered) is essential to the concept of nationalism and to the workings of the modern nation-state. Therefore, in the eyes of nation-builder and nationalizing elites the borders that delineate the perimeter of the state should coincide with the nation’s supposed social and cultural borders.”305 To incorporate the eastern frontier, Romanian authorities designed policies to facilitate the implementation of ethnic colonization with

Romanian nationals, cultural homogenization, and economic modernization. Relying on the model for interpreting social change in peripheral regions formulated by sociologist

Michael Hechter in the 1970s, Constantin Iordachi characterizes the Romanian regime in

Dobruca as “internal colonialism.”306 Indeed, for reasons of national security between

1878 and 1913, Dobruca functioned under a “separate, extra-constitutional administrative” regime “characterized by administrative distinctiveness and excessive centralization supported by claims of cultural superiority by the core region, intense ethnic colonization, and uneven regional economic development tailored to the needs of the metropolis.”307 For

304 Constantin Iordachi, “Internal Colonialism: The Expansion of Romania’s Frontier into Northern Dobrogea after 1878,” in National Borders and Economic Disintegration in Modern East Central Europe, eds. Uwe Müller and Helga Schultz (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2002), 77. 305 Kerem Oktem and Dimitar Bechev, “(Trans) Nationalism in : Constructing, Transcending and Reinforcing Borders,” SEBSS 4 (2006): 479. 306 Iordachi, “Internal Colonialism,” 77-105. 307 Ibid., 77. 122

several decades following the annexation, all Dobrucans lived under a restrictive type of citizenship that excluded them from participation in national politics and impeded their acquisition of immovable property in Romania proper. The incorporation of Southern

Dobruca into Romania in 1913 did not change this situation. Romanian officials were unable to fully integrate the entire province into their territory due to the advent of World

War I. In reality, such incorporation necessitated skill and will rather than time, which

Romanian authorities seem to have not had in that period.

Drastically diminished by emigration, the Muslim population was constantly alert to the challenges posed by new regulations as well as the nature of diplomatic relations between Romania (the home state) and the Ottoman Empire (the kin state). In the years after the annexation, the Turks and Tatars of Dobruca, who had either stayed in the province or returned from various Ottoman locations that had provided temporary shelter during the last Russo-Ottoman war of the nineteenth century, became participants in the convoluted process of Romanian nation-building. Their national inclusion, however, initially took the form of administrative, social, and cultural integration, while political integration and thus citizenship rights remained limited. The new status of Dobrucans as

“internal colonists” of Romania differentiated them from the mainstream society.308

During the period under study, Romanian officials regarded cultural rather than political integration as a vital element of national policies towards the Muslims. For them, this type of integration constituted an essential element for national progress. Romanian authorities

308 In the post-colonial context, the Bengali population of British India shared the same restricted status (Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, 24). 123

argued that lack of unified culture around the core principles and values of could eventually lead to social and political fragmentation. This specific view from the center generated in the Dobrucan Turks and Tatars from the periphery a resilient desire to reclaim their religious and cultural identity in an effort to preserve a degree of autonomy for their respective communities.

This chapter looks at Dobruca and its Muslims from the perspective of the state, leaving aside the reaction of this population to official policies. This particular reaction will be detailed in the following chapters focusing on two distinctive responses to state policies: emigration (chapter 4) and adaptation (chapter 5). The state is represented in this chapter by a number of central and local institutions in Bucharest (the Romanian capital that served as the seat of government), as well as Constanţa/Köstence and

Tulcea/Tulça (the main administrative centers of Romanian Dobruca). The executive and legislative branches of the Romanian regime, embodied in Prince Carol I and the

Parliament, both resided in the capital. At the local level the government was represented in both Constanţa and Tulcea by prefects whom the Minister of Interior appointed to supervise the affairs of judeţe (counties) and village communes. The prefects possessed extensive powers at the local level, and these powers reinforced even further the high degree of control the central bureaucracy exerted over local government during this period.309 Thus, the role of the state in the periphery was strongly accentuated by its

309 , Rumania, 1866-1947 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 95. 124

relationship with such local elites and, as in other regions of the world, this helped the center better control borderland society.310

The chapter begins with an examination of the annexation of Dobruca to Romania, and the Romanian nationalist discourse around this issue. This section continues with an analysis of the four major legislative periods that define the “exceptional administrative regime” designed for and implemented in Dobruca between 1878 and 1914. Beyond governmental policies, the Romanian perception of Muslim communities emerges from an examination of archival evidence, contemporary accounts of Dobruca, and debates arising from within the Romanian intellectual and political environment in the period under study.

The chapter refers to Turks and Tatars in Dobruca as minority groups, despite the anachronistic usage of the term “minority,” which was coined only in the twentieth century. In this particular context, “minority” refers to groups of individuals who were religiously, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally different from the majority of the population. Both outsider groups (majority groups or state authorities) and members of the minority groups acknowledged the existence of the minority-majority dichotomy.311

Dobruca from Ottoman Frontier to Romanian Territory

As mentioned in the previous chapter, prior to 1878 Dobruca constituted an integral part of the Ottoman northern frontier that stretched, at its maximum historical extent, across

310 Michiel Baud and Willem Van Schendel, “Towards a Comparative History of Borderlands,” JWH 2 (1997): 217. 311 Yonca Köksal uses this definition to study minority policies between 1878 and the 1940s in Bulgaria (for the Turks) and Turkey (for the ) (Yonca Köksal, “Minority Policies in Bulgaria and Turkey: The Struggle to Define a Nation,” SEBSS 6 (2006): 502). 125

diverse territories connecting Hungary in the west with Iran in the east, while separating the

Ottomans from their centuries-long foes, the Hapsburgs and the Russians.312 In 1878, the

Treaty of Berlin changed the regional status quo when the European Powers decided to divide Dobruca’s surface of approximately 22,272 square kilometers (8,599 square miles) between Romania and Bulgaria. This arrangement added 15,536 square kilometers (5,998 square miles) to the Romanian territory and 6,736 square kilometers (2,601 square miles) to the Bulgarian territory. Romanian Dobruca or Northern Dobruca was more than double the size of Bulgarian Dobruca.313 The territorial changes were plainly explained in two distinctive articles included in the treaty. Article two established the border between the two states on a continuous line connecting Silistra in the west with a point situated to the south of Mangalia in the east. 314 Article forty-six listed the territories granted to Romania: the islands of the Danube Delta, the Serpent Isle in the Black Sea, and the kazas of the sancak (district) of Tulça/Tulcea (formerly part of Tuna Vilâyeti, or the Danubian

Province), namely Kili/Kilia, Sünne/Sulina, Mahmudiye/ , Isakçı/Isaccea,

Boğazköy/Cernavodă, Tulça/Tulcea, Maçin/Măcin, Babadağı/ Babadag, Hırsova/Hîrșova,

Köstence/Constanţa, and Mecidiye/Medgidia.315 Romania also received a small part of

312 Victor Ostapchuk and Svitlana Bilyayeva, “The Ottoman Black Sea Frontier at Akkerman Fortress,” 137. 313 Nicolae Ciachir, “Contribuţii la istoria Dobrogei (aprilie 1877-noiembrie 1878),” Revista Arhivelor 1 (1962): 175. In 1914, after the Great Powers decided the annexation of Southern Dobruca to the Old (proclaimed as such in 1881), the country increased its size to 137,903 square kilometers. In 1918, it reached 295,049 square kilometers after the annexation of Bessarabia from Russia, from Austria, and Transylvania from Hungary (this particular year is the year of the formation of the united ). In 1919, Romania had a population of 18,057,028 inhabitants (, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building, & Ethnic Struggle, 1918- 1930 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995), 8). 314 The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, eds. Sir Augustus Oakes and R.B. Mowat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1918), 332. 315 Ibid., 354. 126

Southern Dobruca “as far as a line starting from the east of Silistra and terminating on the

Black Sea, south of Mangalia” (Figure 12).316 Romanian officials would divide this territory into two counties, Constanţa and Tulcea.

Figure 12. The Borders of Dobruca after the Treaty of Berlin (1878). Source: War and Diplomacy: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and the Treaty of Berlin, eds. Hakan Yavuz and Peter Sluglett (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2011).

The entire territory of Southern Dobruca (also called the Cadrilater in Romanian), with a population of 280,000 individuals, the majority of whom were Turkish, entered the possession of Romania at the end of the Second Balkan War by a decision of the Treaty of

316 Ibid., 355. 127

Bucharest (August 1913).317 The new frontier between the two states rested on the line connecting Turtucaia (in the west) with Balçik (in the east) until September 1940, when

Romania complied with the Treaty of Craiova by returning Southern Dobruca to Bulgaria.

According to Romanian statistics compiled prior to the annexation of the province,

225,692 individuals lived in Northern Dobruca, north of the Köstence/Constanţa –

Boğazköy/Cernavodă railroad line, which divided the region into two unequal parts. This line followed the ancient division of the territory marked by the Wall of Trajan, which the

Romans built to protect the population from nomads invading the region from the north

(Figure 13).318 These statistics contain no information about the population living in the area situated at the south of the railroad line, although presumably almost all of it was

Muslim. They indicate, however, the existence of both a Muslim majority and a heterogeneous population. Tatars (71,146), Turks (48,783), Romanians (46,504),

Bulgarians (30,177), Russians (12,748), Circassians (6,994), Germans (1,134), and other less numerous groups, such as Italians, Greeks, and Armenians lived, in the northern part of

Romanian Dobruca. Reflecting this ethnic heterogeneity, there was a wide variety of religious faiths, including Sunni and Kızılbaş (Shi’ite) Muslims; Orthodox, Catholic, and

Protestant Christians; Jews; and others. Sixty percent of the population (126,923) was

Muslim, including Turks, Tatars, and Circassians.319

317 Frederick De Jong, “The Turks and Tatars in Romania,” 170. For the text of the Treaty of Bucharest, see The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, 362. 318 Karpat, Ottoman Population, 199. 319 Ibid. 128

Figure 13. The Wall of Trajan as a continuous line connecting Boğazköy/Cernavodă (on the Danube), Mecidiye/Medgidia (in the middle), and Köstence/Constanţa (on the Black Sea). The red line marks the railway built by the British in the late 1850s. Source: BOA., Hrt.h.258.

The demographic characteristics of Dobruca constituted one of the most significant legacies of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, “the fundamental consequences of the establishment of the Pax Ottomana in the Balkans was the abolishment of state and feudal

129

frontiers, something which facilitated or enhanced population movements and the interpenetration of different population groups within a vast territory.”320 Population shifts occurred mainly due to the implementation in the region of various Ottoman policies, created to reach specific military, political, and economic objectives. First, the sultans settled Muslims in Dobruca from Asia Minor and Southern Crimea to strengthen the military character of their northern frontier. Secondly, they allowed a sizable number of individuals from Romanian provinces, Southern Crimea, and the Balkans to settle in the province to increase the overall economic productivity of the region.

Over the centuries, these populations tended to settle in villages and towns in compact groups comprising individuals with similar ethnic and religious characteristics.

For example, Tatar agricultural workers settled in central Dobruca; Lipovan fishermen

(Slavic ) in the Danube Delta; Bulgarians in northern Dobruca; Romanian peasants on the right bank of the Danube; German colonists from Southern Russia in central Dobruca; and Turkish, Italian, Jewish, Greek, and Armenian merchants in urban locations throughout the region. The northern part of Northern Dobruca was dominated by

Bulgarians, while a Turkish and Tatar majority inhabited the central and southern parts.321

There is little doubt that these groups lived in isolation. Urban settlements allowed for more interaction, but villages, too, afforded a platform for people to interact on the streets, in markets, and in courts, as well as in other instances of everyday life. Nevertheless, by the turn of the century, the non-Romanian majority of the population would gradually lose

320 Maria Todorova, “The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans,” ÉB 4 (1994): 72. 321 Iordachi, “The California of Romanians,” 123. 130

ground to a growing Romanian majority spurred by state policies aimed at strengthening the southeastern frontier with Romanian nationals.

Romanian Nationalism and the Integration of Dobruca into Romania

Nationalizing states constitute, in Brubaker’s view, “states that are conceived by their dominant elites as nation-states, as the states of and for particular ethnocultural nations, yet as ‘incomplete’ or ‘unrealized’ nation-states, as insufficiently ‘national’ in a variety of senses.”322 During the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, Romania corresponded to Brubaker’s definition. Since the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, Romanian elites representing populations who had lived for centuries in Transylvania, Bukovina, , Crişana, Maramureş, Bessarabia,

Wallachia, or Moldavia imagined strategies for creating a Romanian national state.323 At the core of their vision were a number of ideas, including Latinism, the French-inspired concept of constitutionalism, the desire for political independence, and the praise of

“national heroes.” However, apart from a commonly shared vision with profound national undertones, there were conspicuous differences between the national goals of this composite elite body.

The nationalist bourgeoisie from Transylvania, Banat, Crişana, and Maramureş fought for equal rights, social reforms, political rights, and the emancipation of the

322 Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 9. 323 Stephen Fischer-Galaţi, “Romanian Nationalism,” in Nationalism in , eds. Peter F. Sugar and Ivo J. Lederer (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1969), 373-95. For a later period, see James P. Niessen, “Romanian Nationalism: An Ideology of Integration and Mobilization,” in Eastern European Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, ed. Peter F. Sugar (Washington, DC: The American University Press, 1995), 273-304. 131

peasantry within the confines of the Habsburg Empire (Austria-Hungary after 1867).

Transylvanians, in particular, sought to reach a compromise with the Habsburgs in order to obtain equal rights with the privileged nationalities of the province, the Magyars, Szeklers, and Saxons.324 It was not until the end of World War I that the Romanian-speaking elites of these provinces decided to leave behind their aspirations regarding the Habsburgs and support unification with Wallachia, Moldavia, and Dobruca.325 In contrast, the aristocratic elites (boieri) of Wallachia and Moldavia, the majority of whom owned large plots of land, advocated the idea of union while overlooking the uneven socioeconomic development of their provinces that jeopardized the feasibility of such a union. What united these elites, however, was an equal resentment of Ottomans, Greeks, Russians, and Jews resulting from extensive periods of foreign occupation (the Phanariote Regime in the eighteenth century and the Russian administration between 1828 and 1834), two failed revolutions in 1821 and

1848, and major problems with the Jewish mercantile elite caused by that group’s economic competition with Romanian ethnics. Invoking similarities in terms of origin, language, historical past, traditions, and religious beliefs, Wallachian and Moldavian elites advocated independence from the Ottoman Empire and, alternatively, hoped for with the other Romanian provinces. The initial stage of political unification came to fruition in 1859, when Wallachia and Moldavia united under Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza

(1859-66). The final stage occurred about half a century later, in 1918, when the rest of the

Romanian provinces joined them in forming “Greater Romania.”

324 This idea is clearly expressed in Supplex libellus Valachorum, a document addressed to the Habsburg Emperor Leopold at the end of the 18th century; see David Prodan, Supplex libellus Valachorum (Cluj- Napoca: Editura Academiei Române, 1948), 243-73. 325 Fischer-Galaţi, “Romanian Nationalism,” 390. 132

In between these two significant events in the nation-building process, political independence was achieved in 1878 under Prince Carol I of Hohenzollern.326 Although conservative and pro-German, Carol I participated initially in the nation-building project on the side of the National Liberal Party, the country’s ruling party (1876-88). Led by the

Brătianu brothers, the party drew support from the landowners and promoted the motto

“through ourselves alone,” which referred to the rejection of foreign involvement in economic projects throughout the country. Its members supported a state-led economic development focused on industrialization that “advertised a Listian economic program from which Liberal-affiliated industrialists and financiers stood to profit.”327 Their opponents, the Conservative Party, although in favor of the unionist idea, emphasized the necessity of investing in agriculture and creating avenues for the development of free trade with Western states.328 These two distinctive political visions affected to a large degree the policies that the government designed for Dobruca at the turn of the century. From an

326 Carol I (1839–1914), born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen from the German dynastic house of the same name, was the ruler of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He became Prince of Romanian Principalities on 20 April 1866, following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, and king on 26 March 1881. The Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty ruled Romania until the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Romania on 30 December 1947 (Paul Lindenberg, Regele Carol I al României (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2010). 327 Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania, 22. The German economist Friedrich List advocated in his 1841 book National System of Political Economy the idea that the duty of the government is to support national economic development, especially in industry, technology, and education. He believed that local industries should limit imports from more advanced industrial economies in order to protect themselves from falling into the hands of outsiders. Friedrich List, National System of Political Economy, Book 4, translated by Sampson S. Lloyd (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909). 328 This interplay of economic policies placed 80% of all industrial shares in the hands of foreign investors, which resulted in a surprisingly high income per capita that was higher than that of any other contemporary Balkan state, except Greece. Joseph L. Love gives the figure $307 for 1910 (Joseph L. Love, Crafting the Third World: Theorizing Underdevelopment in Rumania and Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 29). 133

economic standpoint, these policies specifically emphasized industrial development when the Liberals governed and rural expansion when the Conservatives held power.

The period after 1866, when Carol I was installed as prince, and before 1918, when national unity was achieved, were years of relative political instability and ambiguity. Ten liberal and conservative governments held power between 1866 and 1871. The two main governmental parties continued to struggle for dominance until the end of World War I, when new political forces challenged their traditional share of power in the political realm.329 Besides having split affinities for the French and German models of civilization,

Romanian officials needed to figure out “how to set in motion a patriarchal and authoritarian system, and a society overwhelmingly rural, dominated by landed property, in which the modern stimulating factors of capitalism and democracy were almost completely absent.”330

Another pressing issue was that of synchronizing modern institutions borrowed in the 1860s from (constitution, parliament, legal codes, university, and academy) with the traditional mentality of Orthodox society. Denis Deletant has argued that the conflict between tradition (Romanian values) and modernity (western values) constituted a consistent feature of the debate on Romanian national identity after the formation of the Romanian state in 1859.331 In the words of , Romanian

329 The Liberal Party dominated political life during 1878-1888, 1895-1899, 1901-1904, 1907-1910, and 1914-18. The Conservative Party governed between 1888-1895, 1899-1901, 1904-1907, and 1910-1914. 330 Lucian Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness (: Central European University Press, 2001), 35. 331 Dennis Deletant, “The Debate between Tradition and Modernity in the Shaping of a Romanian Identity,” in The Literature of Nationalism. Essays on East European Identity, ed. Robert B. Pynsent (London: MacMillan Press Ltd, 1996), 14. 134

literary critic and conservative politician of the time, the challenge was to find a traditional indigenous “foundation” for modern alien “forms without substance.”332 John Plamenatz has named this process Eastern nationalism. This was a process common to peoples

“recently drawn into a civilization hitherto alien to them, and whose ancestral cultures are not adapted to success and excellence by these cosmopolitan and increasingly dominant standards.”333 Such people compromised to “re-equip” the nation culturally by blending alien with indigenous cultural standards.

In 1878, minorities, including the Turks and Tatars of Dobruca, became part of a ragtag society struggling to find its own identity and place in Europe. After the annexation,

Romanian elites had to be persuaded by the representatives of the leading party “to urge and undertake action to promote the language, culture, demographic preponderance, economic flourishing, or political hegemony of the core ethnocultural nation” in order to precipitate the nation-building process in the periphery.334 This attitude reflects most evidently the governmental policy of internal colonialism applied in Dobruca beginning in

1878. The “minorities” were part of an internal “periphery.”

Prince Carol I (Figure 14) adhered to an inclusive approach to the minority issue in

Dobruca, best illustrated in the November 1878 proclamation in which he stated the support of the monarchy for the nondiscriminatory inclusion of minorities in Romanian society. Diplomatic documents released after the indicate that

European powers had a crucial influence on the formulation of this particular vision. For

332 Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 35. 333 See quote in Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 2. Chaterjee criticism underlines this Orietalist view of “lesser” civilizations. 334 Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 9. 135

instance, in a letter dated June 28, 1879, the French ambassador in Berlin, Comte de Saint-

Vallier, mentioned that European powers requested that Romanian authorities replace article seven from the 1866 Romanian Constitution with article forty-four from the 1878

Treaty of Berlin in order to appease foreign criticism regarding the unfair treatment of the non-Christian population living in Romania.335

Figure 14. Prince Karl of Hohenzollern (1860s). Source: The Library of Congress, Divisional Catalogue: Romania.

335 Documents diplomatiques. Question de la reconnaissance de la Roumanie (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1879), 7-8. 136

Article seven stipulated that only foreigners of Christian Orthodox faith were able to acquire citizenship in Romania. Article forty-four stated clearly that Romanians should treat people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds equally by according them citizenship rights and providing them freedom of expression. The king complied, the

Parliament voted in favor, and the substitution was formally adopted as a part of the

Romanian constitution by the end of 1879.

Wishing to avoid further diplomatic complications, the Prince favored compliance with the Treaty of Berlin not only with respect to the issue of citizenship, but also regarding approval of the annexation of Dobruca to Romania. Carol I understood the economic importance of the new territory and strongly believed that many Romanian officials underestimated it. For the Prince the only danger in the region was posed by Russian forces, which occupied the province in the summer of 1878 and refused to withdraw in a timely fashion, thus impeding a peaceful installation of Romanian authorities there.336

Carol I found solid support for the incorporation of Dobruca among high-ranking officials, including Prime Minister Ion C. Brătianu (July 1876- March 1881), Radical Liberal C.A.

Rossetti, and Foreign Minister (April 1877-November 1878) and Minister of Internal

Affairs (November 1878, July 1879-April 1880) Mihail Kogălniceanu.337 The prince’s father, German prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern, also provided encouragement and advice in this direction.338 After Southern Bessarabia was ceded to Russia, Karl Anton

336 This opinion was expressed in a letter addressed to Mary of Flanders, Carol’s sister, dated 6 July 1878 (ANRB., Fond Casa Regală Carol I – Personale, Dosar VB-431/1878). 337 Memoriile Regelui Carol I al României de un martor ocular, Vol. IV (1878-1881), ed. Stelian Neagoe (București, Editura Machiavelli, 1994), 142. 338 Karl Anton of Hohenzollern (1811-1885) was the prime-minister of Prussia between 1858 and 1862, prior to Bismarck. Prince, later King, Carol I found in his father the most reliable adviser in matters of 137

advised the Prince to focus his attention on Dobruca rather than persist in his obsession with the lost territory.339 The painful loss of Bessarabia, Karl Anton wrote in a confidential letter, could be cured through “skilled medication” and the only way to obliterate “the cut that Europeans have made into Romanian flesh” would be to fulfill the mission of organizing Dobruca economically and politically.340

However, the majority of Romanian officials refused to accept the annexation when it became clear that Dobruca would be handed to Romania in exchange for Southern

Bessarabia being promised to Russia. Southern Bessarabia became Romanian in 1859, when Moldavia and Wallachia joined to form the Romanian Principalities. Moldavia had acquired the region in the aftermath of the Crimean War (1853-56) through the Treaty of

Paris (1856). According to statistical data compiled by Romanian Leonida Colescu, in

1878 Southern Bessarabia had a territory of 8,355 square kilometers (3,225 square miles) and a population of 163,000. Northern Dobruca, in contrast, had a territory of 15,536 square kilometers (5,998 square miles) and a population of 169,000.341

The annexation of Dobruca was advantageous to the state of Romania from a statistical viewpoint. Nevertheless, prior to the Treaty of Berlin, Romanian officials argued

domestic and foreign policy. Karl Anton received the largest number of letters sent by Carol I to any family member from 1866 onwards. This correspondence was included in several volumes published in Romania, such as Sorin Cristescu, Carol I. Corespondenţa privată (Bucharest: Tritonic, 2005) and Carol I și politica României (1878-1912) (Bucharest: Paideia, 2007), as well as in the memoirs of King Carol I (Memoriile Regelui Carol I al României de un martor ocular, vols. I-IV (Bucharest: Editura Machiavelli, 1992-1994)). 339 Southern Bessarabia comprised the Moldavian districts of Bolgrad, Cahul, and Ismail. 340 Memoriile Regelui Carol I, vol. IV, 152. 341 Leonida Colescu, Analiza recensămîntului general al populaţiei României dela 1899 (The Analysis of the 1899 General Census of the Romanian Population) (Bucharest: Institutul Central de Statistică, 1944), 29. Statistics for Dobruca are often biased and inaccurate. The number provided by Colescu for the population count for Dobruca is not correlated to a census. The number provided by Karpat is significantly larger (225,692 inhabitants) (Karpat, Ottoman Population, 199). 138

vigorously for the preservation of Southern Bessarabia and demanded its unconditional restitution to Romania once the province was ceded to Russia. Southern Bessarabia represented an integral part of Romania and fulfilled an important role for the national economy with its access to the Black Sea. Despite its size and exit to the Black Sea,

Dobruca became in that context “the very symbol of an onerous bargain, and its refusal – a way of defending the integrity of the country.”342 This particular argument was raised in

Berlin by Romanian officials Ion C. Brătianu and Mihail Kogălniceanu during their brief hearing in front of Congress participants. The hearing was granted to Romanian diplomats only after persistent requests, since their official participation in Congress sessions had been denied initially. The final decisions of the Congress regarding Romania, including the acquisition of independence and of Northern Dobruca, as well as the loss of Southern

Bessarabia, confirmed the unsuccessful defense of the Romanian case in Berlin in regard to the preservation of the latter territory.

At a national level, the refusal of Dobruca’s annexation became official on June 28,

1878, when a parliamentary majority signed a resolution explaining the reasoning behind this decision: “Inasmuch as an annexation of territory beyond the Danube is not in the interest of Romania; inasmuch as the least annexation would bring about infallibly future troubles and complications, the Chamber does not accept the annexation of Dobruca to

Romania, whatever may be the form and the basis of the annexation.”343 The annexation was thus deemed dangerous and unfeasible for Romanian interests due to the geographic

342 Iordachi, “The California of Romanians,” 125. 343 Vasile M. Kogălniceanu, Dobrogea, 1879-1909: Drepturi politice fără libertăţi (București: Editura Librăriei Socec and C-ie, 1910), 22. D.A. Sturdza and P.P. Carp signed against the annexation (Memoriile Regelui Carol I, vol. IV, 164). 139

location and ethnic diversity of the province. Romanian deputy N.B. Locusteanu voiced these concerns in the session: “A swampy land in the lower part, without water in the upper part, insalubrious, uncultured, expensive, impracticable, inhabited by shepherds, nomads, and thieves, according to what our illustrious writers and officials say: this is Dobrogea.

Partisans of annexation, here is your acquisition. We do not congratulate you and the people will not bless you [for it].”344

This negative perception among the majority of Romanian politicians stemmed obviously from biased depictions of the region and its inhabitants. For instance,

Orientalist representations of the lands and peoples of Dobruca plagued and fine arts. Romanian authors of fiction with remarkable reputations within national literary circles, such as Ioan Pillat, , and Grigore Sălceanu, repeatedly evoked stereotypical images of Dobrucan Turks and Tatars as backward people indulging heavily in coffee-drinking and pipe-smoking.345 Well-known painters including Alexandru Satmary, Iosif Iser, Gheorghe Petraşcu, Ion Theodorescu-Sion, and

Ipolit Strâmbu brought these stereotypes to life in their canvases. Muslims would often

344 Apud C.C. Giurescu, Din istoria nouă a Dobrogei (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1928), 17. Kogălniceanu had mentioned the same line of thought in his Parliament interventions from September 28 and 30, 1878. However, he used it in both instances to show how narrow was the vision of his fellow dignitaries in judging the useless addition of Dobruca to Romania. He used the report of government officials on the state of Dobruca from July 1878 in order to emphasize the importance of this province for the economic growth of the country. A committee of experts appointed by the indigenous government in July 1878 researched the state of Dobruca’s land and peoples for a month in order to estimate Romania’s future investment in the area (Tudor Mateescu, “Date privind situaţia românilor dobrogeni în momentul revenirii Dobrogei la ţară,” Revista arhivelor 2 (1992): 187). The European powers entrusted this province to Romania, Kogălniceanu said, so that the country can “fulfill its European mission at the mouths of the Danube,” and “defend and preserve in its hands this major European interest, which is to assure the liberty of the Danube” up to where it empties into the Black Sea. Mihail Kogălniceanu, Opere IV: Oratorie II (1864-1878), Partea a IV-a (1874-1878) (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1978), 618, 620-21; Opere V: Oratorie III (1878-1891), Partea a II-a (1881-1883) (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1986), 163). 345 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 135-38. 140

be portrayed as exotic beings consuming coffee, displaying colorful clothing, and living in dilapidated houses. Muslim women holding their children, sitting in front of their houses in traditional clothing, or posing as half-naked odalisques also became part of the romanticized version of everyday Muslim life in the province.346

Even the most serious histories of Dobruca published after 1878 retained biased perceptions of Dobrucans. Grigore Gr. Dănescu, the author of the impressive Dicţionarul geografic, statistic, economic şi istoric al judeţului Constanţa (Geographic, Statistic,

Economic and Historical Dictionary of the Constanţa County), described life in one of the county’s small towns in the following words: “During days of rest, the Wallachian or

Romanian workers danced their national dances, the horas, while the Russian, the

Cossack, and the Bulgarian drank rakı abundantly until they fell together, some of tiredness, others of drunkenness. The Greek, the Jew, and the Armenian mingled in this crowd looking, as usual, for some profit. The backward Tatar smoking tobacco looked like he regretted the severity of the Prophet, while the Turk sitting with crossed legs in front of a coffee house preserved his indolence from which he never departed.”347 These were, in fact, the same words as those of French physician Camille Allard published in the 1850s in travel literature that included descriptions of Dobrucan population.348 The reiteration of such descriptions proves that in spite of his scientific background, Dănescu contributed heavily to the perpetuation of unfortunate stereotypes common to nineteenth- century western observers who visited the region.

346 Păuleanu, Balcicul în pictura românească (Bucharest: Editura Arc, 2007). 347 Grigore Gr. Dănescu, Dicţionarul geografic, statistic, economic şi istoric al judeţului Constanţa, (Bucharest: Tipografia și Fonderia de Litere Thoma Basilescu, 1897), 280. 348 Allard, La Dobrutcha, 16 ; idem, La Bulgarie Orientale, 49. 141

The Romanian nationalist discourse labeled as backward both the habits and the appearance of Dobruca’s Muslims, whose collective features became equated with lack of civilization in the minds of officials. In spite of these biased observations, however,

Romanian officials had never considered the peculiarity of Muslim everyday life as an affront to “Romanianness,” as happened in Bulgaria. Mary Neuburger has shown in her work on modern how, after 1878, Bulgarian officials aimed to erase the Muslim symbols of womanhood (veil and baggy pants or shalvars) and manhood (fez, turban, and circumcision), which they considered to be an affront to “Bulgarianness” and progress simply because they constituted reminders of a backward Ottoman past.349

Although numerous Romanian officials accepted these biases at face value and therefore became frustrated with the attention paid to Dobruca by the prince and the government, the new province had its defenders.350 Mihail Kogălniceanu, the architect of governmental policies for Dobruca, and also a famous historian, publicist, theater critic, editor and organizer of cultural life,351 fought constantly to correct the misinformed opinion of officials about this territory. Kogălniceanu succeeded in taming the opposition by building a strong case for the province, the role of which for the nation was

349 Mary Neuburger, The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 14. 350 On September 29, 1878, the former president of the Council of Ministers, , concluded his speech in the Senate with the following words: “How long is it since, on account of the Dobruca, Old Rumania no longer deserves any attention? What will become of Galaţi, Brăila, when we construct in Küstendje a new port by a special line for the direct traffic of Rumanian and foreign goods? Have you the right to ruin these two most important parts of the country in order to make a new port and that in a territory that you yourself do not know how long we will be able to hold it?” ( G. Markoff, The Political Lot of the Dobrudja After the Berliner Congress (Lausanne: Librairie Centrale Des Nationalités Rue Caroline, 1918), 8). 351 Monika Baár, Historians and Nationalism: East-Central Europe in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 40-45. 142

emphasized on various occasions in parliament or elsewhere. He underlined that

European powers did not regard Dobruca as compensation for the loss of Southern

Bessarabia. Rather, the annexation of the province was supposed to strengthen Romania in the face of Russian expansion at the mouths of the Danube. A stronger Romania would also keep Bulgaria weak and would ensure the separation of northern from southern Slavs.352 The most successful strategy to strengthen the country was, in his view, to nationalize the province through the implementation of appropriate legislation throughout its territory.353 In addition, Dobruca offered rich lands, good climate, fertile agricultural grounds, natural resources, and three ports on the Black Sea. Furthermore, the province could support itself economically and would not require additional funds for the modernization of the newly acquired territory.354 “Thus, gentlemen,” Kogălniceanu stated in the Senate, “I believe that what is best to do in this matter is to subject ourselves to the decisions of Europe, take Dobruca, rule it well, make it ours, make it one with

Romania, make it the patrimony of our children […], prove to Europe from the very first day that we take it for Romanians and that we understand not to sell it to Bulgarians.”355

This task was a national endeavor that had to be undertaken in stages,

Kogălniceanu believed. During the first stage, Dobruca needed to be populated and civilized. Only upon the successful completion of this particular task, during the second stage of development, would Dobruca be able to receive a transfusion of Romanian

352 Senate Session, September 28, 1878 (Kogălniceanu, Opere IV: Oratorie II (1864-1878), Partea a IV-a (1874-1878) (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1978), 618-20; Senate Session, September 30, 1878 (Ibid., 628). 353 Kogălniceanu, Opere V, 163. 354 Kogălniceanu, Opere IV: Oratorie II (1864-1878), Partea a IV-a (1874-1878), 621. 355 Ibid., 622. 143

“character, soul, and sentiment.” Kogălniceanu hoped that eventually the Muslims, who constituted the religious majority in Dobruca, would become Romanian to such an extent that the only difference in the population of the region would be that one group attended mosques, while the other attended churches.356 This idea resembled the enlightened vision of the Ottoman sultan Mahmud II, who reportedly stated that he distinguished among his subjects “Muslims in the mosque, Christians in the church, Jews in the synagogue,” but that there was “no difference among them in any other way.”357

Mahmud II’s statement paved the way for the notion of equality (Ottomanism) formulated in the Tanzimat period, in the same way that Kogălniceanu’s vision helped to consolidate the more inclusive approach to minority policies in the Dobruca region.

However, analysis of the activity of the Romanian Parliament in the aftermath of the Treaty of Berlin demonstrates that Kogălniceanu’s progressive ideas, though supported by liberal politicians and the prince, did not translate easily into laws. Conservative politicians embraced visions of nation-building starkly different from those popular within the leading body of liberal politicians to which Kogălniceanu belonged.

Temporary Administrative Regime in Dobruca (1878-1880)

Following a series of hard-fought debates in the Romanian Parliament between the politicians favoring annexation and those opposing it, the Senate and the Chamber of

Deputies sanctioned the annexation on two separate occasions on September 28 and

356 Kogălniceanu, Opere V, 164 (speech given by Kogălniceanu on 27 February 1882, in the Chamber of Deputies and reproduced partially in Kogălniceanu, Dobrogea, 1879-1909, 29). 357 Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 31. 144

September 30, 1878. Four major legislative periods marked the interval between 1878 and

1914. These included the “regulatory period,” when the government issued adhoc regulations (1878-80); the period when Dobruca functioned on separate citizenship and property legislation (1880-1909); the interval when provincial legislation was harmonized with that of Romania (1909-13); and the period when new legislation was formulated to serve the incorporation of Southern Dobruca into Romania (1913-14).358 During this time, new laws followed old ones with dizzying speed, aiming to either correct or adjust previous legislation, particularly between 1884 and 1912. The multiplicity of these changes demonstrats the difficulty Romanian officials had in conceiving a viable plan for the administration of a territory with a profoundly Ottoman character. The monarchy and the parliament sanctioned a number of measures designed to organize the territory administratively, clarify citizenship status, reform property principles, enforce the use of the , and create new provincial elites loyal to the state. These policies coincided with the consolidation of Romania’s national frontier in southeastern Europe in the aftermath of the acquisition of state independence. The connection between nation- building and ethno-cultural expansion was to become one of the most significant features in the evolution of Dobruca in this period.

The “regulatory period” began in 1878 with a series of regulations regarding the province’s juridical organization, administrative division, and taxation.359 In 1879, an

358 For a good contemporary analysis of these laws, see Ioan N. Roman, Dobrogea și drepturile politice ale locuitorilor ei (Constanţa: Tipografia , 1905). 359 More specifically, these regulations were the following: “Regulation Regarding the Public Administration of Juridical Organization in Dobruca” (11 November 1878); “Regulation for the Administrative Division and Organization of Dobruca” (13 November 1878); and “Regulation for the Establishment and Collection of 145

additional regulation concerning the administration of customs, state domains, forests, and the local treasury was issued. The Muslim population acquired a series of rights during this particular period. The Regulation for the Administrative Division and Organization of

Dobruca (13 November 1878) allowed them to vote and run for the mayor’s office and local council positions. In 1878, for example, Ferhat Emin became mayor and city councilman of Mankalya/Mangalia, while brothers Mustafa and Mehmed Vartoğlu became members of the city council of Isakçı/Isaccea.360 Local elections for village councils resulted in an overwhelming majority of Turkish and Tatar councilmen in 1880.361

The Regulation Regarding the Public Administration of Juridical Organization in

Dobruca (11 November 1878) established Islamic courts in the provincial counties of

Köstence/Constanţa and Tulça/Tulcea. These courts had jurisdiction over disputes between

Muslims regarding marriage, divorce, custody, succession, and estate proceedings.362 Any other disputes, as well as those involving Muslims and non-Muslims, were resolved in

Romanian courts. Each Islamic court included the imam (religious leader) of the county and two members elected by the Muslim community and confirmed by the Romanian

Ministry of Justice on the recommendation of the county müfti (official expounder of

Muslim law). Hacı Mustafa Şerif and Enis Efendi were the first two müftis elected by local

Muslims and confirmed by the aforementioned ministry for both Constanţa and Tulcea counties.

Taxes” (14 November 1878). The “Regulation for the Administration of Customs, General Treasury, and Administration of State Domains and Forest” was issued on 7 November 1879. 360 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 76-77. 361 Farul Constanţei, no. 16 (24 August 1880), 2-3, and no. 17 (31 August 1880), 2-3. 362 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 80-82. 146

In addition to regulating the province from a juridical, administrative, and financial viewpoint, state officials began to seriously consider improvements in the economy of the territory. A plan for the economic development of Dobruca prioritized investments in local industry and communications. Steps were taken towards the construction of railroads, roads, and the main harbor in Köstence/Constanţa. In particular, the inauguration of the

“King Carol” bridge over the Danube River in 1895 was extremely important in terms of connecting not only Dobruca to Romania proper but also Western Europe to Asia Minor

(Figure 15). At the time of its construction, the bridge was the longest structure of its kind in Europe and the second longest in the world.

The harbor of Constanţa also benefited from official attention. Major construction projects led to the creation of an infrastructure that gave an impulse particularly to exports.

A series of administrative regulations helped to urbanize the province. It is worth noting that while the urban population increased in number, Romanian nationals gradually replaced the non-Romanian professionals. Romanian legislators made sure to issue laws after 1880 supporting the settlement of the Romanian element in the province in an effort to consolidate the national frontier in this region.

Citizenship and Property Legislation in Dobruca (1880-1909)

The application of a separate administrative regime in Dobruca was reinforced by the decision of the Romanian parliament to implement two additional laws in 1880 and

1882, namely the Law Concerning Dobruca’s Administrative Organization (March 1880)

147

Figure 15. King Carol I Bridge over the Danube River from the East Gateway (1890-1895). Source: The Library of Congress, Divisional Catalogue: Romania.

and the Law Concerning Immovable Property in Dobruca (April 1882). The two laws were meant to solve the pressing notions of citizenship and property as well as to encourage Romanian nationals to settle in the new province.

The Law Concerning Dobruca’s Administrative Organization (which Kogălniceanu named “The Constitution of Dobruca”)363 stipulated that “all the inhabitants of Dobrogea, who, on 11 April 1877, were Ottoman citizens, have become Romanian citizens” (article

3). Most importantly, the inhabitants of Dobrogea who became Romanian citizens were

363 Dobruca was not included in the revised version of the Romanian Constitution of 1879. The only “organic” law concerning this province was the 1880 law. For this reason Kogălniceanu called it a “Constitution” (Roman, Dobrogea și drepturile politice, 25). 148

equal before the law, enjoyed all civic rights, and could be appointed to public office, regardless of their ethnicity or religion (article 5). Dobrucans could practice any faith, yet the Christian Orthodox denomination was recognized as “the dominant religion in

Dobruca” (article 15).

Muslims thus received Romanian citizenship and could enjoy certain civic rights.

In particular, the law granted them freedom of religion, education, expression, and the right to petition Romanian officials as well as the opportunity to establish Islamic schools with financial help from the government.364 However, these advantages came at a very high price for the Muslim community. The government made sure to extend the model of state- supported education and religion to include Islam, and ultimately turned Muslim education into a state project and Muslim clergy into a class of civil servants. Turkish and Tatar children, for instance, obtained free education, but the Romanian Ministry of Public

Instruction reserved the right to control the school curriculum and include Romanian as the language of instruction in addition to Turkish (article 20). The Muslim Medrese

(Seminarul Musulman) in Babadağı/Babadag, the most prestigious Ottoman school in

Dobruca, had to function under such restrictions. The purpose of the school was to train hocas (teachers) and imams (religious leaders) for the local Muslim community, yet its administration and curriculum were closely controlled by the aforementioned ministry

(article 21). The Muslim religion was monitored by the state, which undertook the

364 For the text of the law, see AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 8, 1-32. For a detailed analysis of this particular law, see Rădulescu and Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 353-55. 149

payment of salaries for the religious and administrative personnel functioning in the main mosques of the province (article 17).

This legislation allowed for the establishment of several Muslim cultural associations and newspapers, which constituted real foci of cultural advancement for both

Tatars and Turks. Tatar intellectuals like Mehmed Niyazi, Hakkı Hafız Veli, and Müstecib

Haci Fazıl participated habitually in associations which they founded for the purpose of increasing the cultural level of their coreligionists.365 Such associations generally published books, newspapers, and journals, but also funded promising Muslim students and organized public lectures to educate the population on various topics from hygiene to politics. The Young Turk activists from the Balkans, who found in Dobruca propitious conditions for their underground movement against Abdülhamid II, also established associations and newspapers while in the region.366 Enjoying full support from Romanian officials, Ibrahim Temo, Kırımızade Ali Rıza, Ibrahim Naci, M. Racib, Hüseyin Avni,

Mahmud Çelebi, and Vehibullah Çelebi published a number of periodicals up until

Abdülhamid II pressured the Romanian authorities to demand their closure.367 Some of the

Young Turks became the intellectual leaders of Dobrucan Muslims thanks to their impressive organizational skills and important contribution to the cultural advancement of the Muslims through education. Ibrahim Temo, for instance, became a teacher at the

Muslim medrese in Babadağı (later moved to Mecidiye) and contributed to the establishment in 1911 of the Association of the Medrese Students of Mecidiye (Mecidiye

365 Tahsin Gemil, “Asociaţia din România a ‘Junilor Turci’,” 180; M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 152-54. 366 Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, 152. 367 Gemil, “Asociaţia din România,” 181-82. 150

Müslüman Seminarı Mezunlari Cemiyeti), the frontrunner of activities advocating the cultural autonomy of Dobrucan Muslims.

Despite providing facilities for Dobrucan Muslims in the cultural realm, Romanian officials extended their control over the community by introducing compulsory military service and issuing special regulations for Muslims who migrated to the Ottoman Empire during and after 1878. The 1880 law stipulated that Muslims should constitute special military units equipped with kitchens whose cooks were instructed to prepare traditional

Muslim food. Muslim soldiers could, if they wished, preserve their Ottoman headgear (fez or turban) (article 68).368 State officials also tried to repopulate the Dobrucan territory deserted by thousands of people during the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78. According to the law, Muslim emigrants could return home and reclaim their belongings (article 73).

The return period was established as of three years, but the count started retroactively with

October 23, 1878. If the emigrants did not return within this timely framework, the state reserved the right to confiscate any belongings they might have left behind in their villages and cities of origin.

In terms of the status of Dobruca’s immovable property, the law kept intact the

Ottoman legislation operating prior to 1878. Specifically, individuals could keep, transfer, and lose property according to the Ottoman Land Law of 1858 until new Romanian legislation replaced it. The law specified that the Romanian state had the same rights as the

Ottoman Empire with regard to landownership (article 11).369 The state thus became the

368 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 8, 22. 369 Ibid., 3. 151

owner of the entire cultivable surface of the region, which amounted to a little over one million hectares (almost two and a half million acres).370

This particular law did not grant Dobrucans any political rights. Article 4 stipulated that “a special law will determine the conditions under which Dobrucans will be able to exercise their political rights and buy immovable property in Romania proper. Another law will stipulate the representation of the inhabitants of Dobruca in the Romanian

Parliament.”371 The scope of the law was therefore meant to serve the gradual incorporation of the province into Romania. Dobrucans were practically excluded from the political process and had little input in what was happening at the national level.

According to Kogălniceanu, the law “was made for nothing else but for Dobruca to become part of Romania, and its inhabitants to slowly assimilate and become Romanians.”372

A sizable body of officials, charged with extensive executive powers, was assigned to implement the legislation (articles 25-35).373 But in the early 1880s numerous complaints emphasized the corrupt nature of the work of these officials who used their absolute power to inappropriately enforce the law in the region. Critics overlooked, however, the fact that these administrators enjoyed a similar amount of power to their counterparts in Romania proper. By law, the prefects represented the authority of the

Ministry of the Interior at provincial levels, and thus enjoyed the right to supervise and

370 In 1880, landowners by tapu in Dobruca possessed 208,113 hectares of land, representing 26 percent of the entire surface area of cultivable land available in the province which amounted to 785,734 hectares. The remainder of the surface up to 1,562, 362 hectares (total area of Tulcea and Constanţa counties) represented bodies of water, forests, swamps, and unfertile land (Răduleascu, Bitoleanu, Istoria Dobrogei, 357-58). 371 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 8, 2. 372 Roman, Dobrogea și drepturile politice, 42. 373 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 8, 8-12. 152

validate the overall administrative work in all Romanian counties (judeţe).374 The micromanaging of county affairs was, therefore, a standard practice of the Romanian regime in all provinces, not only in Dobruca.

The so-called “Constitution of Dobruca” triggered criticism from the Conservative opposition, who argued that Liberal legislators turned Dobrucans into a “herd of slaves” by denying them access to public life.375 Conservatives supported the Dobrucans’ acquisition of full constitutional rights rather than their gradual integration into Romanian society.

Nothing was mentioned about the striking similarities between the status of Dobrucans and that of the inhabitants of Romania proper. The bulk of the population living in Romania proper, including peasants and the urban working class, was underrepresented in national politics. As historian Keith Hitchins has explained, the voting strength of the peasantry

“was diluted by high income qualifications for the ballot,” while the urban workers lacked representation in the Chamber of Deputies. The income requirements for voting, the system of electoral colleges, and government manipulation restricted participation to a very small percent of Romanians in political life.376 The national political system “gave the majority of citizens little, if any, experience in managing their own affairs.”377

In the following period, Romanian policy makers focused their attention on the agrarian problem. In 1882, Parliament issued the Law Concerning Immovable Property in Dobruca, which was meant to replace the 1858 Ottoman Land Code (Arâzı

Kânûnnâmesi) applied in Dobruca during the late Tanzimat period. The Ottoman law

374 Hitchins, Rumania, 1866-1947, 95. 375 Roman, Dobrogea și drepturile politice, 41. 376 Hitchins, Rumania, 1866-1947, 93. 377 Ibid., 95. 153

granted individuals the right to possess property in accordance with the doctrine that distinguished between ownership of the substance (rakabe) and ownership of the usufruct (tasarruf).378 Prior to 1858, the Ottoman land tenure system acknowledged the state’s right to land ownership, the peasant’s right to land cultivation, and the tax farmer’s right to collect revenue. 379 The Land Code of 1858 eliminated the intermediary role of tax farmers (mültezims), thus allowing peasants to pay fees directly to the state.380 Five categories of land existed in Ottoman Dobruca: miri (state property), mülk (private property), vakıf (lands entrusted to Islamic pious foundations), metruk (lands used collectively), and mevat (wastelands).381 Certain plots, which were converted into orchards or vineyards located within or near villages, in addition to houses and vegetable gardens, were mülk lands and they could be inherited or donated.382 In contrast, miri lands belonged to the state. Peasants could cultivate state property in exchange for a fee

(“tenth,” öșür) or any other taxes requested by state officials. In order to keep their plots, peasants were not allowed to leave the land uncultivated for more than three years. The acquisition of cultivation rights on miri lands or possession of mülk and vakıf properties were certified by title deeds (tapu).383 The Land Code of 1858 no longer limited the

378 Anton Minkov, “Ottoman Tapu Title Deeds in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Origin, Typology, and Diplomatics,” ILS 1 (2000): 71. 379 Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity, 55. 380 Aristachi Bey, Législation Ottomane, 61. 381 For a detailed presentation of these categories as stipulated in the 1858 Ottoman Land Code (ibid., 57- 65). For an authoritative study of Ottoman land tenure and the 1858 law, see Heim Gerber, The Social Origins of the Modern Middle East (Boulder: L. Rienner; London: Mansell, 1987). 382 Ibid., 59-60. 383 On the function and role of tapus in Ottoman society, see the excellent contribution of Anton Minkov, “Ottoman Tapu Title Deeds in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” 65-101. 154

bequeathing of cultivation rights to sons, while other blood relatives of the landowner could inherit cultivation rights on the condition that they paid land taxes.384

Through the 1882 property law, Romanian authorities aimed to convert the former miri lands into private property. Current or prospective landowners were required to pay the state one-third of the total price of the plot they wished to possess. The amount represented, in the Romanian view, the equivalent of the former Ottoman annual tithe

(öșür) (article 11).385 But Romanian officials tied nationality to landownership by allowing only Romanian citizens to become landowners (article 2). A Romanian citizen could be a former Ottoman subject or an ethnic Romanian from Romania proper or from the diaspora who considered settling in the province for good.

One way to provide land for the newcomers was to plots that had formerly belonged to Ottoman citizens who had migrated to the Ottoman Empire during and after

1878. The law warned emigrant landowners who possessed tapu lands to return within one year if they still wished to be recognized as proprietors in the province. State lands were divided into lots of three to ten hectares and further allotted to individuals unable to prove land ownership in Dobruca or willing to increase their estates by up to ten hectares.

A fee of 55 lei (equivalent to 55 francs) per hectare had to be paid in yearly installments of 2 lei. These plots were mostly assigned to peasants seeking to settle in the province as colonists. According to one official from the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture and

Public Domains, the law aimed to populate the province with as many ethnic Romanians

384 Aristachi Bey, Législation Ottomane, 100-104. 385 Art. 11 of the 1882 land law. 155

as possible.386 Additional laws issued in 1884, 1888, 1889, 1903, 1910, and 1912 facilitated the allotment of properties of up to 150 hectares to war veterans, army officers, and state officials of Romanian origin.387

By consistently striving to pass favorable legislation for prospective colonists of

Romanian origin, the government intended to solidify the Romanian character of the national border. Surprisingly enough, there were a few pieces of legislation that undermined these very colonization efforts. The 1889 law, for example, legitimized state confiscation of properties from individuals who missed paying the fees associated with landownership on two consecutive occasions. The threat of property confiscation was also present in the 1910 law, which stipulated that owners of plots of up to 25 hectares could lose their properties if they did not pay the required fees for three consecutive years. These legislative additions disadvantaged the low-income population, but the fatal strike was applied to the emigrants whose properties had been subjected to repeated campaigns of land confiscation in the years following the promulgation of the 1882 property law.

The manner in which Romanian officials dealt with the agrarian problem in

Dobruca raised serious concerns within official circles in Istanbul. Ottoman authorities protested against the unfavorable terms stipulated for Dobrucan Muslims, especially for those who emigrated to the empire during the devastating war of 1877-78. The drastic

386 Toma Ionescu, “Asupra proprietăţii și colonizărilor din Dobrogea,” in Dobrogea. Cincizeci de ani de viaţă românească, 268. 387 M. Stanciu and V. Ciorbea, “Aspecte ale problemei agrare în Dobrogea de la sfârşitul sec. XIX şi începutul sec. XX,” Anuarul Institutului de Istorie şi Arheologie “A.D. Xenopol,” XVII (1980): 411-13.

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regime of land confiscation that Romanian officials initiated after 1882 was virulently condemned in Istanbul.388 Indeed, despite the validation in 1882 of title deeds (tapus) belonging to former Ottoman subjects for a surface area of 195,738 hectares, Romanian officials launched an intensive program of land confiscation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.389 In 1901, for example, on the basis of the same article, the state confiscated an additional 89,403 hectares that belonged to a total of 8,340 emigrants, most of whom were Muslim.390 In total, over more then two decades (1889-

1912), the state confiscated 127,483 hectares, of which 82,127 hectares were further redistributed to ethnic Romanians to ensure the growth of this particular population on the state’s eastern frontier.391

Due to this policy, more arable land came into the possession of ethnic

Romanians. In 1882, Romanians owned only 40,638 hectares of Dobruca’s cultivable surface of 175,075 hectares. The Turks and Tatars owned almost 50 percent of it (87,753 ha), while Bulgarians, Russians, and Lipovans together possessed much less than

Romanians. In 1900, however, of a total of 609,059 hectares of arable land in Dobruca,

Turks and Tatars owned only 49,895 hectares, while Romanians possessed almost ten

388 BOA., HR.HMȘ.IȘO 164/43 (8 Cemazülevvel 1299 [28 March 1882]); 218/23 (5 Rebiülahir 1304 [31 December 1886]); 112/25 (18 Ramazan 1326 [14 October 1908]). 389 In 1889, for example, 6,265 proprietors of tapu lands lost properties due to failure to pay tithes to the state as specified in article 14 of the 1882 law (Ionescu, “Asupra proprietăţii și colonizărilor din Dobrogea,” 266-67). 390 Dobrogea Nouă, 28 January 1910, 1. In 1910, another 20,823 hectares were confiscated in Constanţa County and 8,840 hectares in , this time on the basis of article 26 of the 1910 law. The article specified that Romanian officials were entitled to confiscate properties from landowners who had not yet settled in Dobruca, did not reside on their properties, or preferred to rent instead of cultivating the estate personally (Ionescu, “Asupra proprietăţii și colonizărilor din Dobrogea,” 269). 391 Ibid., 274. For a breakdown of the land surface that was confiscated in this period, see Stanciu and Ciorbea, “Aspecte ale problemei agrare în Dobrogea,” 416. 157

times more land (429,933 hectares).392 These policies obstructed the natural development of the Muslim community in Dobruca, and this situation created further tensions between the Romanian and Ottoman governments.

Ottoman officials condemned the Romanian regime for eliminating from the 1882 property law the clause entitling Muslim emigrants to financial compensation for the loss of their properties. Moreover, the Ottoman government described the land confiscation llowed by the law as “a punishment for a crime that emigrants did not commit by choosing to establish their residence outside of Dobruca” and further pledged to protect the rights of Muslims.393 The latter commitment was kept. Ottoman officials signed treaties or conventions with Romania only on condition that reiteration of the importance of fixing the property issue in Dobruca be stressed.394 Ottoman diplomats requested that

Romania compensate Muslim landowners with 70 million lei (equivalent to 70 million francs). Even though Muslim landownership was recognized in Romanian courts and legislation, representatives of the Romanian government deemed impractical the compensation of emigrants with such a large amount, or any amount for that matter.

In addition to the property issue, Ottoman officials criticized Romanian authorities for adopting 11 April 1877 as the deadline for the retroactive application of citizenship and property-related legislation in Dobruca. How could they use this particular date, the Ottomans rightly argued, when the province had been Ottoman in that period? Ottoman officials maintained that the claim was contrary to the situation on the

392 Ibid., 415, 418. 393 BOA., HR.HMȘ.IȘO 164/43 (8 Cemazülevvel 1299 [28 March 1882]), 1. 394 Ibid. 158

ground and could not be taken as a landmark for the granting of citizenship and property rights. Therefore, Romanian authorities were to validate transactions completed by

Ottoman Dobrucans until the promulgation of the Treaty of Berlin.395

Protests concerning property legislation also emerged from within Romanian official circles. Vasile Kogălniceanu, a former member of parliament, and Scarlat

Vârnav, a former of Constanţa, decried the arbitrariness of land confiscation.

Both officials found it absurd that such an enormous amount of land could be taken away from the population. Kogălniceanu blamed it on the corrupt administration that functioned in the province and criticized the existence of an authoritarian administrative regime in Dobruca, where petty functionaries did whatever they wished to enhance their personal revenues. Vârnav likewise condemned the narrow vision of administrators who went so far as to seize properties when owners were not found at home during the process of land inventory.396 Despite such protests Romanian legislators continued their activity in the province, working especially on legislation regarding citizenship rights.

Harmonizing provincial with national legislation (1909-1913)

Following decades of controversy around the issue of whether Dobrucans should receive political rights, Liberal Romanian legislators issued a series of laws that conferred these privileges unevenly. According to the first law from 19 April 1909, only

Ottoman citizens who had resided in Dobruca on or before 11 April 1877 and their

395 Ibid., 2. 396 Dobrogea Jună, 14 November 1910, 1.

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descendants, as well as ethnic Romanians (regardless of their place of birth, so long as they owned rural properties in the province) and their descendants would receive full political rights. An additional law issued on 14 April 1910 granted similar rights to individuals who owned urban property. A third law, promulgated on 3 March 1912, this time under the Conservative regime, awarded political rights to a larger array of people.

Among the beneficiaries were former Ottoman subjects, ethnic Romanians with or without property, and foreign colonists with rural property.397 The only category left out was that of urban non-ethnic Romanians (i.e., Jews, Greeks, and Armenians) who settled in Dobruca after 11 April 1877.

Although the legislation proved to be more inclusive as time passed, many individuals were confused about how they could prove continuous residence in the province prior to 11 April 1877. None of these laws contained specifics about the types of paperwork that would guarantee the recognition of residence in Dobruca by that particular date. Whenever Ottoman identity papers (tezkere-i Osmâniyye) were used to argue continuous residence in the province, Romanian officials rejected them by pointing out that the Ottomans used the term “subject” rather than “citizen” to define Dobrucans prior to 1878.398 The Ottoman Nationality Law of 1869 defined individuals living in the

Ottoman Empire (except for foreigners or their protégés) as Ottoman subjects (tebaa-yı

397 The category of former Ottoman subjects included only those individuals who had resided in Dobruca as of 11 April 1877, and those emigrants who had returned from places where they had emigrated during and after the last Russo-Ottoman war at least two years before the promulgation of this particular law (Constantin Hamangiu, Codul General, vol. 7 (1911-1913) (Bucharest: Editura Librăriei Leon Alcalay, no year), 936-38). 398 Dobrogea Jună, 30 January 1911, 1. 160

Osmâniyye).399 But as historian Ariel Salzmann has argued, this formula was used because “the law merged the principles governing Islamic religious heredity with political affiliation by residence and birth (effectively, jus soli and jus sanguinis via paternal descent).”400 The wrongful interpretation of Ottoman nationality legislation in

Dobruca led to cases when only one member per family received full citizenship rights, while the others did not.401 Due to numerous protests in the press and at the royal court,

King Carol I himself urged the president of the committee in charge of the recognition of full citizenship rights to “make as many citizens as possible.” When the president of the committee informed Prime Minister P.P. Carp that seven to eight thousand petitions for full citizenship rights had been rejected, he received the answer that by rejecting so many papers he made as many enemies of Romania.402

A closer examination of the first electoral statistics from 1912 points out the insignificant representation of Dobrucans in national politics. Just 12,872 individuals out of a population of 368,189 received political rights following the application of the above-mentioned legislation.403 The population of Dobruca could send only eight representatives to the parliament. This situation was starkly different from the other two

Romanian provinces, which together dispatched to the parliament over 150 representatives. In this way Dobrucans continued to be of peripheral importance in national politics. They seemed to have failed to inspire the benevolence of Romanian

399 Aristachi Bey, Législation Ottomane ou Recueil des Lois, 7-8. 400 Ariel Salzmann, “Citizenship in Search of a State,” 45. 401 Dobrogea Jună, 1 September 1911, 1. 402 Dobrogea Jună, 8 May 1911, 1. 403 Iordachi, “The California of Romanians,” 143. 161

legislators, who were more interested in maintaining central control in the province than in empowering its population at the national level.

This situation could be explained by the fact that Dobruca was administered by a majority of bureaucrats recruited from outside the province who were mostly looking to enhance their personal fortunes. In addition, Romanian laws had completely changed the composition of the provincial elite body. No longer did Muslim landowners, administrators, military officials, and urban professionals occupy the dominant position in society. A vigorous body of colonists, mostly of Romanian ethnicity, replaced them after 1878.

Some of the new elites condemned the forceful involvement of central authorities in local affairs. For example, in his 1905 study devoted to Dobrucan affairs,

Transylvanian jurist Ioan N. Roman criticized the exceptional administrative regime in the province that led to numerous abuses and limitations in the role citizens had in local and national affairs. Others, however, supported state efforts to strengthen the Romanian element in Dobruca even further. Bessarabian historian Constantin Brătescu went so far as to suggest changing place names to Romanian names.404 He was hoping that by supporting such an initiative, Romanian authorities would finally erase the “Turkish and ” character of the region.405 Due to financial difficulties, however, the

404 Constantin Brătescu, “Populaţia Dobrogei,” 253-57; i8dem, “Dobrogea regelui Carol I şi colonizările dobrogene,” Analele Dobrogei III (1938): 95. 405 Constantin Brătescu, “Două probleme dobrogene: colonizare; toponimie,” Analele Dobrogei 1 (1921): 130. With little support from language experts, Brătescu managed to translate some Turkish names into Romanian, while replacing others with the names of Romanian personalities or with the old names of cities or villages from the ancient Greek and Roman periods. For instance, the village of Yeniköy (“New Village,” Ottoman) became Mihail Kogălniceanu, while the village of Yenisala became Heracleea. The translation of terms was not always accurate, and Brătescu complained about the government’s lack of 162

government did not fully endorse the translation process, and little progress was made during the first two decades of the twentieth century in having foreign names translated into Romanian or replaced with new Romanian names. Lack of government support and local activism left a void that was filled by Romanian elites such as Brătescu who furthered government policy while at the same time serving their own interests.

Incorporation of Southern Dobruca (1913-14)

In August 1913, the Treaty of Bucharest concluded the Second Balkan War and granted Romania the territory of Southern Dobruca with a population of approximately

280,000 and a surface area of 7,780 square kilometers, divided unevenly between the districts of Durostor (headquartered in Silistra) and Kaliacra (headquartered in Dobrici or

Bazarcik).406 According to the treaty, the new frontier between Romania and Bulgaria was established on a continuous line linking Turtucaia in the west with Balçik in the east. The stipulations of the Treaty of Bucharest sanctioned the existence of a sizable military and civil administration that Romanians had already established in this territory, which they called New Dobruca (Dobrogea Nouă), back in 28 June 1913. In April 1914, Romanian legislators issued the Law Concerning the Organization of New Dobruca, the goal of which was to legitimize various practices applied in the past throughout the province as well as to

support in providing language experts to verify the correct spelling of words. Historian Nicolae Iorga found the new names “ridiculous and meaningless” and labeled the entire project “bizarre.” “Why bizarre?” Brătescu replied, “if we, the inhabitants of Dobruca, desire it; if we feel that it is necessary; if this issue has become a matter of consciousness?” (Constantin Brătescu, “Noile numiri de sate din Dobrogea-Veche,” Analele Dobrogei V-VI (1924-25): 202). 406 Constantin Tudor, Administraţia românească în Cadrilater (1913-1940) (Călărași: Editura Agora, 2005), 70. 163

implement new ones. The law contained regulations about the division of the land, the administration of justice, the organization of the army, the rights of the citizens, and the nature of landed property. One important shortcoming, however, was the fact that the nature of this law was similar to that of the legislation implemented in Northern Dobruca after 1878. The law did not aim to fully include the population and the territory Romania, but to ensure a gradual incorporation into the Romanian nation of the inhabitants of this territory along with their properties and personal loyalties.407 The population did not obtain full citizenship rights and could not participate in national politics. The law had been amended several times by September 1940, when Southern Dobruca was re-annexed to

Bulgaria.

In regard to the Muslim majority living in this territory, the law stipulated the establishment of Islamic courts in Silistra, Turtucaia, Bazarcik, and Balçik. As in Northern

Dobruca, the courts had jurisdiction only over the Muslims’ family affairs. Additionally, the law allowed them to acquire Romanian citizenship if they wished to do so. The law specified that “all Bulgarian citizens, who on 28 June 1913 resided in the New Dobruca, have become Romanian citizens” (article 3).408 Those who did not wish to obtain

Romanian citizenship should inform the authorities within a period of one year. Very significant was the specification that all inhabitants would enjoy full civic and political rights (article 7). But World War I impeded both the conclusion of the work of the committee granting Romanian citizenship to Southern Dobrucans and the organization of

407 D. Stoicescu, “Organizarea Dobrogei Noi și principiile de justiţie,” Analele Dobrogei 2 (1938): 169-170. 408 “Legea pentru organizarea Dobrogei Noi,” MO, nr. 1 bis, 1/14 April 1914. 164

elections at the local level. Neither political meetings nor elections were held locally between 1914 and 1918. Most Romanian officials were appointed temporarily until people could vote for their own candidates.

The efforts of Romanian officials to regulate the regime of land property failed as well. Despite the fact that the law postulated the creation of local committees in each district of Southern Dobruca to verify the Muslims’ title deeds (tapus) and turn them into

Romanian titles, these committees were unable to complete the task due to the beginning of

World War I. Land ownership of the Romanian state over most of the region was acknowledged during this period, but the population could not receive the recognition of property rights since this would have entailed a process lasting a year or more.409

The Romanian government made sure to introduce in Southern Dobruca the same model of state-supported education and religion, including Islam, as in the northern part of the province. Muslim education and religion were closely controlled by the state. For example, Romanian became the main language of instruction in Muslim schools, as was the case for all educational establishments irrespective of their ethnic or religious backgrounds.

Turkish schools, as well as their Bulgarian and Armenian counterparts, used both

Romanian and either Turkish, Bulgarian, or Armenian on a daily basis.410

A significant point of departure from practices implemented in Northern Dobruca was the fact that colonization did not represent a state project in this region. Several hundred peasants emigrated to Southern Dobruca for personal reasons rather than following

409 Tudor, Administraţia românească în Cadrilater, 95-96. 410 Ibid., 121. 165

precise governmental instructions. In the 1920s, some voices argued for the colonization of this territory with Romanian nationals by pointing out the missed opportunity of the government in strengthening the frontier in this part of Romania.411 Due to the imminence of World War I, Romanian authorities in Bucharest argued that they could not find the proper environment to initiate nationalizing policies in Southern Dobruca after 1913 similar to those implemented in the northern part of the province beginning with 1878. Such efforts would be deemed failures due to lack of support from both central and local authorities in this part of Romania.

Conclusion

The nationalization of the Turks and Tatars of Dobruca by the young nation-state of

Romania and the impact this process had on the two ethnic groups under study provide important insights into the issue of national minority integration into “incomplete” societies caught in a nation-building project. Romanian nationalizing policies aimed at integrating the Turks and Tatars administratively, socially, and culturally as a result of the implementation of the Treaty of Berlin, but also verged on assimilation and ultimately nationalization. The colonization of Northern Dobruca with Romanian nationals, in conjunction with citizenship and property legislation, may be seen as measures to achieve complete nationalization. Full political integration was set aside for decades after the annexation, however, which resulted in the exclusion of minorities in the policy-making process and their withdrawal from the cultural sphere. Nevertheless, the laws that granted

411 Roman, “Drepturi ce trebuiesc valorate,” Analele Dobrogei 2 (1921): 162-164. 166

the Turks and Tatars citizenship, freedom of religion, free education, and land ownership showed a certain benevolence towards the minorities but did still allow for abuses, occurring mainly at the local level. The hardship of nationalization (or Romanianization) was reflected in the dramatic drop in the number of Turkish and Tatar residents of

Dobruca, from sixty percent in 1878 to eleven percent in 1913.

Indeed, in order to avoid social fragmentation and ensure national cohesion, the

Romanian government made efforts aimed at preserving the cultural life of the two minorities. In addition, it allowed for the establishment of schools, newspapers, and cultural associations in their native languages. To a certain extent, the Romanian government allowed for the involvement of the Young Turk activists from the Balkan area in the cultural progress of Dobruca’s Muslim population. However, the support of the

Romanian government and Muslim elites for ethnocultural transformation did not prevent large numbers of Turks and Tatars from departing to the Ottoman Empire during and after the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877-78. The following chapter will examine the process of emigration, as well as its causes and consequences for the people involved in and affected by it.

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Chapter 4: Emigration of Dobrucan Muslims to the Ottoman Empire, 1878-1914

On 4 January 1904, Romanian journalist Constantin Pariano published in a local newspaper in the city of Constanţa the story of fifty Muslim Turkish families from the village of Ghiuvegea/Güveca in Dobruca who were fined and sentenced to prison without their knowledge by the Romanian authorities for collecting spare wood from the local forest on Friday, the Islamic day of communal prayer, rather than Sunday as prescribed by the law. The heads of these families were some of the village’s most affluent individuals who became prosperous, most likely from farming and raising cattle, under

Ottoman rule and apparently preserved their wealth and social status after Romanians took over the province in 1878. According to the account, shortly after being informed of the sentence, these families abandoned their properties and fled to Anatolia “unclothed, hungry, crying, and cursing.”412 Before departing, the Turks auctioned their belongings, including housewares and cattle, which were sold for five percent of their total value to an acolyte of the very Romanian officials who had pressed charges against the families.

Revolted by the situation, Pariano lamented the arbitrariness of the law, which limited wood-gathering to Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, and criticized local authorities for their poor judgment in enforcing a law that bluntly ignored the multi-confessional

412 Farul, 4 January 1904, 1. 168

fabric of the region. He interpreted this instance as an effort by certain Romanian officials to appropriate the fortunes of vulnerable people who chose to emigrate rather than challenging the questionable judgment and corrupt behavior of local authorities.

Pariano related an occurrence that became common after Dobruca’s incorporation into Romania. Similar to other inhabitants of the province, the Turks of Ghiuvegea had to flee their homeland due to the chaotic application of laws throughout the region. The efforts of Romanian officials to deal with the post-Ottoman situation in Dobruca resulted in the application of several reforms, the content of which often lacked specificity, and the results of which were sometimes confusing and prejudiced. Thus, inappropriate measures were taken by local officials who were unable or unwilling to apply the law properly. As shown in the previous chapter, Dobruca was a multi-confessional and multi-ethnic territory, the juridical status of which had recently been established by the

European powers in Berlin. Conflicting visions of Romanian officials regarding the creation and application of laws in Dobruca had a major impact on the population of the province in the sense that it often pushed individuals, especially Muslims, to migrate to the Ottoman Empire. French historian and honorary member of the Romanian Academy

Jean Henri Abdolonyme Ubicini, who authored studies on the late Ottoman Empire, estimated that approximately 90,000 Dobrucan Turks and Tatars sought permanent refuge in the empire after 1878.413 These emigrants accounted for two-fifths of the entire

413 Jean Henri Abdolonyme Ubicini, "La Roumélie orientale depuis le traité de Berlin," Revue de Géographie, VI (1880); Inalcik, "Dobrudja." This information appears also in Alexandre Toumarkine, Les migrations des populations musulmanes balkaniques en Anatolie (1876-1913) (Istanbul: Les Éditions Isis, 1995), 33, and Alexandre Popovic, L’Islam balkanique: Les musulmans du sud-est Européen dans la période post-ottomane (Istanbul : Les Éditions Isis), 197. 169

regional population and almost half of the total Muslim population of this particular territory.414

More broadly, such an event resulted from irreversible regional and local transformations associated with the reconfiguration of political space that was occurring in the wake of the Ottoman-Russian war of 1877-1878. In an incredibly short time span, the

Ottoman Empire lost thirty-eighty percent of its entire territory and sixty-nine percent of the population of its southeastern European and Balkan territories, but the flood of Muslims out of these newly transferred territories into what remained of the Ottoman Empire during and after the war brought a slight demographic recovery in terms of the total population living within Ottoman borders. Scholars estimate that about five million Muslim immigrants from Russia, the Balkans (Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Albania), and southeastern Europe (Romania) entered the Ottoman Empire between 1854 and 1908.415

The migration from Dobruca to the Ottoman Empire thus represents a part of the larger nineteenth-century phenomenon of widespread emigration that altered the ethno-religious landscape of many areas in southeastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East.416

Wars ushered in periods of political instability and displaced large numbers of individuals from their , wreaking havoc on societies transitioning from empire to nation- state. While many individuals migrated to the Ottoman Empire in search of protection and

414 Karpat, Ottoman Population, 199. 415 Ibid., 11. Russian Muslims who immigrated to the Ottoman Empire, for instance, constituted around one million individuals (James H. Meyer, “Immigration, Return, and the Politics of Citizenship: Russian Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, 1860-1914,” IJMES 39 (2007): 15). 416 For a recent work, see Isa Blumi, Ottoman Refugees, 1878-1939: Migration in a Post-Imperial World (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2013). 170

a new beginning, others opted to leave the empire in hopes of finding better opportunities in the Americas, Southeast and Central Asia, Manchuria, and Russia.417

Scholarship dedicated to Muslim emigration from Dobruca to the Ottoman

Empire is sparse, lacks breadth, and makes little or no use of combined Ottoman and

Romanian archival material despite the widening access of historians to primary sources during the last several decades in both Turkey and Romania.418 Scholars usually frame this topic in the broader context of nineteenth-century population movements in the late

Ottoman Empire. This broader view and the use of largely secondary sources led to brief and often hasty conclusions. The general trend has been to underline the importance of empirical data by analyzing the chronology of the phenomenon, the number of people arriving in the empire, and their settlement in different Ottoman locations. While this approach provides valuable information, its scope is limited in terms of showing the complexity of emigration, in particular the details of refugee life. Furthermore, very little attention has been given to explaining why these individuals left their homeland and what

417 For a good analysis of Syrian emigration to the Americas, see Kemal Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America, 1860-1914, “IJMES 17 (1985): 175-209. For a recent examination of Arabic-speaking immigrant communities from Greater Syria (contemporary Syria and , historical Palestine, and parts of Turkey and ) to northwestern Argentina, see Steven Hyland, “Margins of the Mahjar: Arabic- Speaking Immigrants in Argentina, 1880-1946,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 2011. 418 Müstecib Ülküsal, Dobruca ve Türkler (Ankara: Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü, 1966); Bilal Şimșir, Rumeli’den Türk Göçleri. Belgeler, Vol. I (1877-1878) and Vol. II (1879) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1989); Faruk Kocacık, “Balkanlar’dan Anadolu’ya Yönelik Göçler (1878-1890),” Osmanlı Araștırmaları I (1980): 137-190; Karpat, Ottoman Population; Nedim İpek, Rumeli’den Anadolu’ya Türk Göçleri (1877-1890) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1994); Alexandre Toumarkine, Les migrations des populations musulmanes balkaniques en Anatolie (1876-1913) (Istanbul: Les Éditions Isis, 1995); Ahmet Halaçoğlu, Balkan Harbi sırasında Rumeli’den Türk göçleri (1912-1913) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1994); Ahmed Gündüz, “Migration to and from Turkey, 1783- 1960: Types, Numbers and Ethno-Religious Dimensions,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 24, 1 (1998): 97-120; H.Y. Ağanoğlu, Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Balkanların Makûs Talihi Göç (Istanbul: Kum Saati, 2001); Sezer Arslan, “Balkan Savașları sonrası Rumeli’den Türk Göçleri ve Osmanlı Devleti’nde İskânları,” unpublished M.A. thesis, Trakya Üniversitesi, 2008. 171

particular issues they encountered after arriving in the empire. Kemal Karpat argues that after 1878, Muslims living in Dobruca left their homeland because of lack of political leadership and significant means of subsistence.419 While this assertion is partially accurate, I contend that emigration occurred mostly because of the insecure environment characterizing Dobruca in the aftermath of the application of Romanian legislation.

Yet the most significant feature of the period was the effort of Muslim emigrants to improve their personal situation by learning how to navigate most effectively both

Romanian and Ottoman societies. Once settled in the empire, they used diplomatic avenues in Istanbul to recover properties abandoned in their homeland, avoid military service, deal with specific domestic issues, and clarify citizenship status when necessary.

They were soon entangled in all sorts of complications resulting from the unclear nature of Romanian laws concerning Muslims, as well as from high-level discussions between the Romanian and Ottoman central authorities regarding the general condition of Muslim emigrants. Similar to other groups affected by the crumbling of the traditional multi- ethnic, multi-confessional empires in central and eastern Europe and the Balkans,

Dobrucan Muslims became part of a triangular relationship that strongly connected them with the governments of Romania (former homeland) and the Ottoman Empire (host land).420 This relationship had important consequences for the quality of life of the

Muslim emigrants, who had to learn survival techniques to improve their situation.

Those who failed in this attempt returned home in a pronounced state of misery.

419 Karpat, Ottoman Population, 76. 420 Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 55-57. 172

This chapter represents a first scholarly attempt at discussing the migration of

Dobrucan Muslims to the Ottoman Empire from a combined Ottoman-Romanian perspective using both Ottoman and Romanian primary sources.421 These sources provide a wealth of information concerning individuals who migrated to Ottoman lands, reasons for their departure, issues they faced during and after settlement, and the process of repatriation of immigrants who were unable to adapt to the new locale. I draw in particular on correspondence between Ottoman and Romanian officials as well as communications between the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its diplomatic representatives in Romania.422 Given its focus on the daily experience of emigrants, this material offers a unique bottom-up perspective on the migration of Dobrucan Muslims to the Ottoman Empire between 1878 and 1914.

The chapter opens with a description of why Dobrucan Muslims left their homeland and the reasoning behind this important decision. The discussion then turns to significant issues that concerned the emigrants who settled in the Ottoman Empire, including property rights, military service, citizenship status, and family affairs. The end of the chapter

421 BOA., Hariciye Nezâreti: HR.MHC (02), HR.H, HR.HMȘ.IȘO, HR.SYS, and HR.TO. Other documents on immigration are included in other BOA collections, including Bâb-i Âli Evrâk Odası (BEO, BEO.AYN.d.), Dahiliye Nezareti Mektûbi Kalemi (DH.MKT), Yıldız (Y.MTZ.d., Y.MTV., Y.PRK.ASK., Y.PRK.EŞA., and Y.PRK.KOM.). In Romania: Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (AMAE.), Collection Constantinopol, Vols. 417-418 (Muslim properties in Dobruca, 1879-1912); 419-420 (Muslim emigration from Dobruca, 1880-1914); 434 (Repatriation of Muslim immigrants, 1879-1882); Romanian National Archives in Bucharest (ANRB.) and Constanţa (ANRC.): Collections of the Royal House, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Parliament, Prime Ministry, Brătianu and Sturdza Families); Library of the Romanian Academy of Sciences (D.A. Sturdza Archive) (ADAS); County Library “I.N. Roman” of Constanţa (local newspapers: Dobrogea Jună, Farul, Steaua Dobrogei, Constanţa). 422 BOA., HR.H., Dosya 66-99 (Bükreș Sefaret-i Seniyyesi ile yapılan muhtelif yazıșmalar [Various correspondence with the Ottoman Imperial Legation in Bucharest]; Dosya 260-272 (Romanya’daki Osmanlı Şehbenderlikleri [Ottoman Consulates in Romania]. 173

examines the policies that allowed Romanian colonists to settle lands formerly belonging to the emigrants and concludes with a closer look at return emigration (repatriation) from the

Ottoman Empire back to Dobruca.

Both Ottoman and Romanian documents used in this chapter employed the conventional terms for “immigrant” and “emigrant” when identifying individuals who participated in migration. Specifically, Ottoman sources employed the term muhâcirler when distinguishing the newcomers from the old inhabitants of the empire. A muhâcir was an individual who changed residence by migrating from one place to another as a fugitive or a refugee, and more often referred to an individual emigrating from southeastern Europe and the Balkans into Ottoman territory. This term had an obvious religious significance as it was initially used for those who participated in the first

Muslim migration (hijra) from to in 622 C.E.423 In various documents dispatched to Ottoman and Romanian authorities, Dobrucan emigrants identified themselves mostly in accordance with their status as either emigrants or immigrants, as well as by employing religious, regional, or local affiliations. However, ethnic affiliation was mentioned in Romanian documents on a regular basis, particularly in cases involving

Tatar immigrants, who had a more pronounced sense of identity than the Turks due to their recent settlement in Dobruca during and following the Ottoman-Russian wars of the first half of the nineteenth century. In contrast with Ottoman officials, Romanian officials displayed a keener sense of identifying the emigranţi (emigrants) according to

423 For a detailed analysis of the linguistic significance of this term, see Stéphane de Tapia, “Le lexique Anatolien de la mobilité et de la migration (göçebe, yörük, yaylacı, , göçmen, gurbetçi),” Turcica 42 (2010): 96-97. 174

their ethnic affiliations. When ethnicity was unclear, Romanian authorities would use the term Musulmani (Muslims) as a generic category for both Turks and Tatars.

Leaving the homeland

As noted in the previous chapters of this dissertation, in 1878 the Turks and Tatars of Dobruca made up two-thirds of the region’s population, which was unequally distributed among twelve ethno-cultural groups based on religious affiliation (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) and occupations (traders, agriculturalists, herders, bureaucrats, etc.).

Approximately 70,000 Tatars and 49,000 Sunni and Shi‘ite Turks were living amid 46,000

Romanians, 30,000 Bulgarians and several thousand Russians, Circassians, Germans,

Italians, Greeks, and Armenians.424 Among them, the Turks and the Tatars constituted an especially unstable demographic factor in the region. Any major political change or military conflict was followed by the movement of these individuals back and forth between Dobruca and Anatolia, particularly during the volatile nineteenth century and especially during and after the 1877-1878 war. According to the official numbers compiled by the Refugee Settlement Commission (İskân-ı Muhâcirin Komisyonu), which the

Ottoman government established under the nominal presidency of Sultan Abdülhamid II in

1878 and charged with the transportation and settlement of immigrants to Ottoman lands, over a million refugees from southeastern Europe and the Balkans entered the empire between 1876 and 1895 alone.425 During the second half of 1878 alone, 387,804 emigrants

424Karpat, Ottoman Population, 199. 425 Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. II, 116. 175

arrived in the Ottoman Empire.426 Slightly over 50,000 individuals remained in Istanbul, while approximately 62,000 went to the countryside and the rest were unequally dispatched by sea or land to different Anatolian and Arab provinces.

The distribution of immigrants in the empire was part of the immigration policy that

Ottoman authorities had implemented since 1857, when the first Refugee Code (Muhâcirin

Kânûnnâmesi) was put in place to manage the massive flow of immigrants into imperial territories as a result of Ottoman territorial losses in European wars. According to the

Code, a minimum capital of sixty gold pieces (about 1,500 French francs) was needed for settlement in the empire. In exchange, immigrants received land and exemption from taxes for a period of six years if relocating in Rumeli and for twelve years if relocating in

Anatolia. In addition, they received the right to practice their religions freely and to build settlements but were restricted from selling or abandoning the land for a period of twenty years. In 1860, a Refugee Commission (Muhâcirin Komisyonu) was established to handle immigration and all related issues.427 By the end of the empire, the Commission, whose members were high officials in the Ottoman government, would come to oversee “not only refugee matters but also questions of citizenship and thus identity.”428

Like other immigrants, Dobruca’s Turks and Tatars arrived in the Ottoman Empire by either sea or land. Boats rented by the Ottoman government from Austrian, French, and

Italian transportation companies departed from the port of Köstence/Constanţa destined for the Ottoman capital. Several newspapers in Istanbul mentioned the depopulation of entire

426 BOA., Y.A.HUS 162/43 (13 Ramazan 1296 [31 August 1879]). 427 Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, II, 115. 428 Reșat Kasaba, A Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants & Refugees (Seattle and London: University of Seattle, 2009), 111. 176

cities in Dobruca. According to the French-language newspaper La Turquie, during June

1877, most of the inhabitants of Sünne/Sulina and Köstence/Constanţa abandoned their possessions and embarked on boats destined for Istanbul. Even the staff of the customs office in Tulça/Tulcea, armed with the office’s archives, reached the Ottoman capital at the end of the month.429 If during the war the refugees had left their homeland en masse, their departure slowed afterwards, but steady migration to the empire never ceased until 1914.

For instance, twenty Muslim families comprising 139 individuals left Köstence for Istanbul on an Italian boat in July 1901.430 Additional groups of Muslims followed until 1914,431 thus creating a movement which peaked in 1908 and 1912-13 during periods of great political change in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans (Figure 16).432

In addition to boats, trains and carriages transported large numbers of Dobrucan refugees through Bulgaria to Istanbul, but no matter the means of travel, the refugees’ situation was deplorable. Henry Layard, the British Ambassador in Istanbul, mentioned this issue in a letter addressed to the British Foreign Secretary on January 11, 1878: “Five trains crowded with fugitives left Adrianople to-day for Constantinople. On arrival there many of the fugitives will be in need of immediate relief, as it is snowing, and most of them are in open trucks; two children died from cold at the station to-day.”433 Only six

429 La Turquie, 3 July 1877, 2. 430 BOA., Y.PRK.ZB. 28/54 (28 Rebiülevvel 1319 [15 July 1901]). 431 BOA., Y.PRK.ASK. 175/113 (23 Cemazülahir 1319 [7 October 1901] and 27 Cemazülahir 1319 [11 October 1901]; Y.PRK.ZB. 35/9 (11 Rebiülevvel 1320 [18 June 1902]; Y.A.RES. 124/32 (14 Zilkâde 1321 [1 February 1904] and 17 Zilkâde 1321 [4 February 1904]); Y.PRK.ZB. 34/24 (5 Zilhicce 1321 [22 February 1904]); Y.PRK.ZB. 38/31 (7 Şaban 1324 [26 September 1906]) and 36/57 (18 Safer 1324 [13 April 1906]). 432 Popovic, L’Islam balkanique, 197. 433 Ibid. 177

months earlier Layard had informed the same British official about the “pitiful sight” of the refugees who experienced “the utmost misery” while “packed together, men, women, and children, in steam-boats and in railway trains.”434 Istanbul newspapers frequently published accounts of cases similar to those mentioned in official western European documents.435

Figure 16. Family of refugees with their buffalo cart on a street in Istanbul (1913). Source: The Library of Congress, Stereograph Collection: Turkey.

434 Ibid., 174. 435 See for example the gruesome depiction of immigrants transported by train from the Balkans to Istanbul in La Turquie, 14 January 1878, 1. 178

The pitiful condition of the immigrants did not improve in later years. Large numbers of them continued to arrive in Istanbul, and, having been exposed to dire physical and psychological experiences and diseases, many died en route. Those who did not perish prematurely often ended their lives in misery in different Ottoman locations due in large part to lack of financial and moral support. Despite such difficulties, Muslim emigration from Dobruca to the Ottoman Empire continued until the beginning of World War I. It is only by analyzing how states and peoples dealt with post-war situations that we can better understand the motivations for these additional migrations.

Causes of emigration

The case of Dobrucan Turks and Tatars illustrates the nationalization of ethnic groups by young nation-states, in this case Romania, associated with the reconfiguration of political space emerging from the fall of multiethnic empires. Central and eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries underwent important transformations in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman, Habsburg, and Romanov empires. The various ethnocultural groups contained within the borders of the collapsing empires became separated by new national borders and thus subjected to specific nationalizing policies aimed at transforming them into citizens of new nation-states. Ethnocultural groups such as the Turks, Tatars, , Greeks, and became victims of what sociologist Rogers Brubaker calls the “triadic nexus,” which he defines as a dynamic interplay among national minorities, nationalizing states, and external national

179

homelands.436 According to this triadic formula, ethno-cultural groups belong to the nationalizing state strictly by citizenship, while they remain faithful to the external national homeland on account of their ethnicity and religion.

Brubaker’s theory applies to a variety of post-war situations at the end of the nineteenth century and during the twentieth century, in which, as he points out, “the triadic relational nexus has been engendered, or given new urgency, by the new (or at least newly salient) mismatch between cultural and political boundaries.”437 In the case under study, this mismatch led to the establishment of an interdependent relationship among Dobrucan

Muslims, Romania, and the Ottoman Empire. After 1878, the nation-state of Romania was faced with the difficult task of administering a former Ottoman territory inhabited by a variety of ethno-cultural groups and a Muslim majority. Its poorly constructed laws, which aimed to include Dobrucans in the national framework, affected the entire population of the province, especially the Muslims, who found in the Ottoman Empire a diligent advocate willing to monitor the condition of its co-religionists and former subjects. As “external national homeland,” the Ottoman Empire asserted, via Ottoman-Romanian agreements, its right and obligation to defend the Muslims whenever their rights were endangered or violated under Romanian rule. This intervention was most obvious when Ottoman high officials in Istanbul and Bucharest assisted the Muslim émigrés in dealing with Romanian authorities.

436 Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 55-76. 437 Ibid., 55. 180

I argue that the main cause of emigration was the Muslims’ rejection of Romanian official policies implemented in post-war Dobruca. In Romania, a state with an overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian population, Turks and Tatars no longer enjoyed the privileges accorded to them under Ottoman rule. Indeed, they ceased to occupy the most important positions in local administration, to be protected by the principles of Ottoman law, and to look at Istanbul as the unique source of leadership. Instead, they had to cope with new regulations forcing them to prove lawful residence and defend individual rights in their own homeland. They had to struggle continuously to preserve religious and cultural autonomy within the boundaries of the nation-state of Romania. This shocking change of circumstance made a large number of Muslims determined to start their lives anew, far from home, preferring to live on Muslim land rather than under such dire conditions.

Romanian publicists of the period considered the decision of Muslim immigrants to remain in the empire and of additional Muslims to leave Dobruca after the war a “passive protest” against the Romanian property law promulgated in 1882.438 The Law Concerning the Regulation of Rural Property in Dobruca, as it was called, granted Turks and Tatars the right to purchase land from the state but only within the boundaries of their province and under certain conditions. Under the Ottomans, most of Dobruca was considered the property of the state (miri),439 but plots of various sizes belonged to private individuals

(mülk) or to Islamic pious foundations (vakıf). Through the 1882 property law, Romanian authorities aimed to sell what had been considered miri and mülk plots under the Ottomans.

438 Constanţa, 19 January 1892, 1. 439 Farmers of miri lands had use rights, which were a form of property. State ownership (miri) did not deprive them of rights; it was a form of guarantee of their rights with specific conditions. 181

Cultivators with use rights on miri land should not have had to “buy” the land, actually. In effect, a Romanian miscromprehension of the miri concept turns it into a money-making scheme for the state, or a way to dispossess existing landholders, in ways that the Ottoman

Empire could not historically have imagined. In addition, the law of 1882 was also daunting in the sense that it raised major problems about who had the right to purchase the land, how much land should be purchased, what title fee should be paid, and what plots were available for sale. Although all inhabitants had the right to purchase land, they needed to prove that they were Ottoman citizens who had owned a plot prior to 1878.440

This stipulation was particularly challenging for those who had lost Ottoman identity papers (tezkere-i Osmâniyye) and property deeds (tapu) during the war.

The state reserved its right to confiscate the land of those Turks and Tatars who were unable to return from Anatolia, where they had emigrated during the war, or failed to claim their properties within a time frame established by Romanian officials. However, the irony was that even those individuals who possessed property deeds had their ownership rights refuted by the Romanian government, which often accused them of forging the documents. In 1892, Zelika Hanım and her sister-in-law Eda Hanım claimed the inheritance of Zelika’s deceased father Abdullah Efendi, who was originally from Dobruca.

The subject of the claim was a forest in the county of Tulça/Tulcea which has been entrusted through tapu by Ottoman authorities to Abdullah Efendi sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century. Since the tapu presented for the verification of ownership was a copy of the original property deed, Romanian officials doubted the authenticity of the

440 One hectare represents ten thousand square meters (100 m by 100 m). 182

document. Further investigations into the case showed that the forest was assigned to

Abdullah Efendi in 1859. Since the original tapu perished in a fire in 1866, a copy was released in 1868. Abdullah Efendi’s claim to the ownership of the forest had been rejected repeatedly during his lifetime as well as after his death in 1889. The trial ended in 1893 with an unfavorable decision for the plaintiffs, who had to pay an enormous amount of money to the Romanian state to cover trial expenses.441

In the words of Romanian Foreign Minister Mihail Kogălniceanu (1876-78), the difficulties Muslims encountered in having property rights acknowledged by Romanian officials and Ottoman title deeds changed into Romanian certificates of ownership turned

Dobruca into a province “without property.”442 The minister complained that Romanian bureaucrats created additional difficulties for the majority of Muslim agriculturalists, especially the Tatars, who possessed few financial resources and only small plots of land.

Local authorities told them they had to go to Bucharest, the capital, to manage issues regarding their land, without even considering that many did not have the means to pay for the trip. Others feared that the Romanian officials’ lack of morality and professionalism could turn Dobruca into a land prone to “national crimes.” This fear came true.443 In 1905,

Ioan N. Roman, doctor of jurisprudence and member of the County Council of

Constanţa/Köstence, stated that if cases of abuse by Romanian government officials

(prefects) and bureaucrats were to be researched in public archives, the findings would make up an entire library.444 He went so far as to compare the arrival of Romanian

441 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 9, f. 102-104. 442 Kogălniceanu, Opere V, 520. 443 Steaua României, 4 August 1878, 2. 444 Roman, Dobrogea şi drepturile politice ale locuitorilor ei, 80. 183

bureaucrats in Dobruca with the invasion of a “pack of crows that treated the indigenous population worse than the janissaries from the Ottoman Empire.”445 This occurrence became a subject of debate among Romanian officials, especially after the publication of the Giuvegea Turks’ story in the local newspaper Farul. In an official report addressed to the Romanian Minister of Internal Affairs in 1879, the Prefect of Tulça/ Tulcea argued that during Ottoman rule the inhabitants of Dobruca had had the right to use wood from state forests for their daily necessities without being treated as criminals. He suggested a return to those practices, which, he believed, would help people rebuild their houses and thus handle the post-war situation more effectively.446 In 1905, this issue raised questions about the viability of the former prefect’s suggestion.

Romanian authorities further abused the property law by initiating the confiscation of land from those Turks and Tatars who did not live on their land, such as professionals working in neighboring localities or women who owned land in their native villages but married men from other villages. Other confiscations occurred when individuals were elected to high positions in rural locations but were not on good terms with government representatives from Dobruca’s administrative centers. These confiscations could become almost ridiculous, as in the case of the mayor of the village of Bülbül/Ciocârlia, who had to sign the papers for the confiscation of his own land.447

In addition to being caused by the negative reaction of Muslims to the property law, emigration appeared to have been connected to particular events. In the 1880s, one of the

445 Ibid., 82. 446 Librăria Academiei Române de Ştiinţe, ADAS, XVI. Varia 147. 447 Roman, Dobrogea şi drepturile politice ale locuitorilor ei, 103. 184

Romanian officials who participated in the implementation of the property law in Dobruca argued that emigration occurred because of foreign propaganda and conscription into the national army rather than the wrongful application of the 1882 property law.448 “Foreign propaganda” referred to the activities of Muslim hocas (teachers) arriving from the

Ottoman Empire to stir up Dobruca’s Muslims against the Romanian government and pressure them to emigrate. In May 1886, a group of Ottoman hocas and theology students filed a complaint with the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs against the Romanian government, which forbade them to spend the holy month of Ramadan in the region.

Romanian officials defended their refusal by stating that Dobruca had a sufficient number of hocas to provide services for the Muslims during Ramadan. They further argued that the government could not tolerate “the regular and systematic exploitation of poor peasants by this class of preachers who used the situation to encourage people to migrate to Turkey.”449

The Ottoman government denied such accusations, arguing that the hocas were not agents of emigration since it was part of the medrese curriculum to have them spend religious holidays in villages, and that the students had the right to return since they were originally from the region. Ottoman officials asked Romanian local authorities to return the they had confiscated from the students in order to allow them to return safely to their schools in Istanbul.

Not only were the hocas and students prevented from entering Dobruca; Qur’ans were also confiscated at various points of entry in the province. In 1892, for example, the

448 ANRB., Fond Ministerul Afacerilor de Interne, dos. 166/1882. 449 BOA., HR.H. 94/5 (22 Şaban 1303 [26 May 1886]). 185

Cernavodă/Boğazköy chief of customs confiscated 300 , tore them apart, and threw them into the Danube. The Qurans, which belonged to theology student Davud Ahmed, were meant to be distributed to the Muslims of Constanţa/Köstence.450 Needless to say, the

Sublime Porte condemned such measures and those who had implemented them via diplomatic avenues without any significant success.

Forced conscription into the Romanian army constituted yet another reason for

Muslim emigration beginning in the early 1880s. Similar to Bulgarian and Russian

Muslims, some Dobrucan Muslims preferred to emigrate rather than follow the orders of

Christian officers, while others resisted the idea of being taken away from family.451 In the summer of 1893 Mangalia Muslim Mehmed bin Haci Keșfi emigrated to Istanbul with his entire family to avoid military service. When asked about the shrinking of the Muslim community in the region during a brief meeting with Romanian King Carol I in 1909, one of the Muslim notables of Köstence/Constanţa stated that the imposition of military service on Muslims was one of the major reasons for emigration. According to the notable, eighty percent of young Muslims had migrated to the Ottoman Empire in order to avoid Romanian conscription. The king was asked to correct this situation by ordering conscription officers to appoint Muslim soldiers for military duty only in the region of Dobruca.452

Another factor that triggered emigration was the severe drought recorded in 1898-

1899.453 Muslim agriculturalists had been profoundly affected by the drought, which

450 BOA., HR.H. 75/50 (8 Cemazülevvel 1310 [28 November 1892]). 451 Toumarkine, Les migrations des populations musulmanes, 45; Meyer, “Immigration, Return, and the Politics of Citizenship,” 20. 452 Dobrogea Jună, 5 March 1909, 1. 453 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 89-91. 186

reduced them to a state of unbearable poverty. Impoverished peasants from all around

Dobruca flocked to Istanbul in a migration that was documented in both Ottoman and

Romanian sources. Official documents recorded the arrival of a sizable number of emigrants who abandoned their homeland due to the extreme poverty and misery that characterized Dobruca immediately after 1898.454 In 1901, The Levant Herald was still reporting on the destruction caused by the drought, which had wrought havoc in the region.455

The Romanian administration was unable to stop the emigration of Muslims to the

Ottoman Empire. Having no anti-emigration policy in place, Romanian officials were limited to witnessing the flow of Muslims into the empire, which they blamed mainly on the flawed nature of the Muslims. In a report from October 29, 1883, the prefect of

Köstence/Constanţa, Grigore Grămăticescu, explained Muslim emigration to Prime

Minister Ion Brătianu in the following words: “The region’s Muslim population, by nature stubborn, lazy, superstitious, fatalistic, and unaffected by reform and culture, seems to disappear sooner rather than later from places where Christian domination exists. It was so because two things totally opposed, when they came in contact with one another, could not coexist and it would be necessary that one of them should disappear.”456 Religion was also used by Romanian officials to justify Muslim emigration. In an official report dispatched in 1897 to the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the representative of the government

454 For instance, Muslims from Babadağı left their homes due to extreme poverty in 1899 (BOA., HR.H. 82/23 (18 Muharrem 1319 [7 May 1901]), 82/46 (18 Cemazülevvel 1319 [2 September 1901]), 82/59 (15 Cemazülahir 1319 [29 September 1901]), 83/74 (1 Recep 1319 [14 October 1902]). 455 The Levant Herald, 22 February 1901. 456 ANRB., Fond Familia Brătianu, 47/1883, 5. 187

in Tulça/Tulcea County in northern Dobruca explained emigration in the following words:

“During the nineteen years of Romanian administration in this county, despite the kind and liberal laws of the Kingdom, the Muslim population emigrated in large part because of their faith and traditions, and especially because, unlike other nations, this nation does not bind itself to its native land, but to the state that flies the green flag of Prophet Muhammad.”457

Muslim emigration from Dobruca to the Ottoman Empire between 1878 and 1914 resulted thus from a number of factors. Attributing the movement solely to the community’s lack of leadership and poverty diminishes the complexity of the emigration issue. Muslims felt compelled to flock to the empire due to difficulties in handling personal needs under Romanian administration. Often the application of Romanian legislation resulted in land confiscation, difficulty in proving ownership, and conscription into the national army. The occurrence of natural disasters (the drought at the end of the

1890s) constituted another motivation for impoverished Muslims to leave. However, living conditions in this region were challenging for the entire population. Dobrucan Christians and Jews had also migrated to Ottoman lands seeking protection and a better living there.

The move from one place to another was a complicated matter, however, as proven by the difficulties arising from the demanding and often frustrating process of settlement.

Settlement in the Ottoman Empire

The settlement process was especially difficult for those refugees who did not reunite with relatives upon arrival but instead had to wait to be assigned by the Refugee

457 Librăria Academiei Române de Ştiinţe, ADAS., XVI. Varia 131. 188

Commission to cities and villages in different parts of the empire. These individuals received only a small daily allowance from the Ottoman authorities and were housed in tents, in or near mosques, in inns, and even in private residences longer than was desirable (Figure 17).458 In spite of the efforts of Ottoman authorities and representatives

Figure 17. Refugees Living in the Square Facing the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul (1913). Source: The Library of Congress, Stereograph Collection: Turkey.

458 BOA., Y.PRK.KOM. 1/12 (21 Muharrem 1295 [25 January 1878]) (for hosting refugees in mosques); Y.PRK.KOM. 1/13 (22 Muharrem 1295 [26 January 1878]) (for hosting refugees in inns); BEO.AYN.d., 1553, s. 1 (27 Muharrem 1297 [10 January 1880]) (for Muslims from Romania, , and Bulgaria settled in 1879 in the house of Mustafa Fazıl Pașa, the patron of the Young Ottomans during their European exile and one of the richest individuals in the Ottoman Empire); Stamboul, 11 July 1877, 1. 189

of foreign powers in Istanbul to collect funds from various organizations or through charity events, including concerts and private donations, money was short.459 Soup kitchens and housing for those who remained in Istanbul could not ensure a good standard of living since assistance was temporary.460 For those who were dispatched to

Anatolian and the Arab provinces, the settlement process proved to be even more cumbersome (Figure 18). Bosnian Muslims were settled in Macedonia, Bulgarian

Muslims in Thrace, Albanian Muslims in Epirus (northwestern Greece/northwestern

Albania), and Romanian Muslims in northern and northwestern Anatolia.461 Some 800

Dobrucan Muslim families were sheltered on one of the sultan’s estates. 462

Figure 18. Tents of Muslim Émigrés in Amasya, Anatolia (1898). Source: Servet, no. 113 (1898), 1.

459 La Turquie, 13 September 1877, 1 and 21 March 1878, 1. The British Embassy hosted several charitable events to raise funds for the refugees (BOA., Y.PRK.EŞA. 2/43 (5 Safer 1297 [18 January 1880]). 460 La Turquie, 15 January 1878, 1 461 Toumarkine, Les migrations des populations musulmanes balkaniques, 75. Often mixed groups of Muslims from the Balkans and southeastern Europe would be dispatched to the same location. For instance, Muslim immigrants from Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia were sent to certain Anatolian and Arab provinces together (BOA., BEO.AYN.d., 1553, s. 5 (27 Muharrem 1297 [10 January 1880]). 462 “Dobruca muhâcirlerinden yüz seksen hane halkının muʻahharan dahi emlâk-ı hümâyûndan Bosna Çiftliğin’de tavtîn” (Ibid., s. 4). 190

In terms of actual settlement, Sultan Abdülhamid II would usually approve the decisions of the Refugee Commission and local authorities to settle individuals in particular locations. Similar to previous years when Ottoman authorities had had to deal with thousands of refugees seeking shelter in the Ottoman Empire, the financing of the settlement was mainly left in the hands of local authorities who possessed limited resources to handle the newcomers.463 More often than not, refugees were dispatched to locations with nothing to offer in terms of housing or food. It was a common occurrence for immigrants to live in tents for longer than the period initially estimated, without food, employment, or hope of changing the circumstances of their settlement, despite desperate petitions to Ottoman authorities. In 1893, for instance, Ömer Rıfkı, the head of fifty families of Dobrucan Tatar immigrants who had been assigned to settle in Eskișehir, petitioned the Ottoman authorities, including the sultan, on two separate occasions for land and housing. Receiving no answer, he wrote a third time to both the Eskișehir governor and the Refugee Commission demanding a solution to this problem.464

Additional petitions must have reached the sultan in this period.

463 Kasaba, A Moveable Empire, 111. 464 “Dobruca muhâcirlerinden kabilesi halkı olan elli hanenin Eskișehir każâsı dâḫilinde Yedi Değirmenler nâm maḥalde iskânları muḳarrer iken ȋcâbı icrâ olunmadığından ve sefâletlerinden bahisle istidʻâ-yı icrâ-yı merhameti hâvî muhâcirin-i merḳûme ümerâsından Ömer Rıfkı imżâsıyla verilen arzuhal üzerine bunların devâm-ı müsâferet ve sefâletleri gayr-i câ’iz olduğundan bir mahzûr-ı sahîh olmadığı hâlde mahall-i mezkûrda sür‘at-ı icrâ-yı tavtînleri lüzûmu Muhâcirin Komisyonu ifâdesi ile 18 Haziran sene 1308 târiḫinde savb-ı âlî-i dâverîlerine yazıldığı gibi mûmâileyh tarafından vuḳûʻ bulan müstedʻiyât üzerine de 8 Teșrîn-i evvel sene 1308 ve 5 Kânûn-ı evvel sene 1308 tarihlerinde te’kîd-i keyfiyet olduğu hâlde henüz ȋcâbı icrâ olunduğuna dair cevâb alınamamıș ve merḳûm tarafından bu kerre de verilüp leffen savb-ı âlî-i Vilâyet-penâhîlerine isrâ kılınan arżuḥâlde devâm-ı sefâlet ve perișanîlerinden bahisle emr-i iskânlarının bir ân evvel icrâsına istidʻâ kılınıp bu sûret gayr-i lâyıḳ bulunmuș olduğundan ișʻâr-ı sâbıḳ vechile iḳtiżasının 191

In 1906, emigrants from Romania, Bulgaria, and asked to be removed from boats docked at Sirkeci, where they had been residing in difficult conditions for several months.465 In 1908, additional Dobrucan immigrants petitioned

Istanbul via the governor of about the difficulties of living in that particular location with no land or food.466 No answers appear to have been given to these petitions.

In spite of difficulties generated by the settlement of émigrés in the Ottoman

Empire, some Dobrucan Muslims experienced successful relocation in many of its provinces. In 1894, Hasan bin Receb, a Muslim from the Dobrucan city of Maçin/

Măcin, was mentioned in tax registers as kahveci, or coffee-maker, in the judicial district

(kaza) of Feriköyü (in Istanbul). Twenty-seven years earlier, Hasan had emigrated from his native village to reunite with his uncle in Mihaliç (Karacabey, Bursa province).

Shortly after arriving, he married and relocated to Deraliyye (in Istanbul); he later registered himself as an inhabitant of the kaza of Feriköyü.467 During the same year, eighty families from Dobruca had settled successfully on approximately fifty thousand dönüms (equivalent to 4,500 hectares or 11,119 acres) which constituted part of the formerly uncultivated state lands in Eskișehir in northwestern Anatolia.468 In 2000, the

müsâra‘aten ifâ ve inbâsına himmem-i aliyye-i dâverîleri derkâr buyurulmak bâbında. Fî 16 Receb 1310 ve fî 27 Kânûn-ı Sânî 1308” (BOA., DH.MKT. 2048/71 (16 Recep 1310 [3 February 1893]). 465 BOA., Y.MTV. 282/2 (1 Zilhicce 1323 [January 27, 1906]). 466 BOA., BEO. 3489/261603 (17 Muharrem 1327 [February 8, 1909]). 467 BOA., BEO. 353/26410 (24 Recep 1311 [31 January 1894]). 468 BOA., BEO. 420/31438 (8 Zilhicce 1311 [12 June 1894]). 192

province of Eskişehir, which included the city with the same name, was the province with the largest number of Tatar settlers of Dobrucan origin in modern-day Turkey.469

Issues disputed by emigrants

Despite the adversities on the ground and, most probably, fearing the change of political regime at home, a substantial number of Dobrucan Muslims decided to seek permanent residence in the empire after the war ended. The Nationality Bureau of the

Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs had periodically informed the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs in Bucharest of the identity of emigrants who renounced Romanian citizenship in order to become Ottomans.470 In the early 1880s, a few hundred Tatar men, women, and children originally from Dobruca became Ottoman subjects upon settlement.471 Routinely, emigrants sought the assistance of Ottoman officials in Istanbul whenever personal matters had to be solved in the former homeland. The main areas of interest concerned the recovery of property, exemption from Romanian military service, clarification of nationality, and elucidation of family status.

Nevertheless, Ottoman officials serving in Romania had limited powers to handle such matters due to the lack of a consular agreement between the two states. After 1878,

Ottoman and Romanian officials failed to agree on the stipulations of such an agreement on three separate occasions. Apparently, Romania had no real interest in concluding such an agreement, since its representatives in the Ottoman Empire benefited from all privileges

469 Henryk , “Crimean Tatars and Noghays in Turkey,” Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları 10 (2000): 116. 470 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vols. 419-420. 471 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 419. 193

accorded to foreign diplomats. In addition, Romania was reluctant to solve the complex issue of property in Dobruca, which constituted an important condition invoked by

Ottoman officials in concluding the consular agreement.472 Thus, the sizable Ottoman diplomatic corps serving in Romania as consuls and vice-consuls functioned without the official recognition of the Romanian administration. 473 The frustration felt during this period by many members of this corps was voiced in a report addressed to Ahmed Tevfik

Pașa, the Ottoman Minister of Foreign Affairs, in 1907. The author of the report and vice- consul of Tulça/Tulcea, Dimitraki Teodosyadi Efendi, urged Tevfik Pașa to inform

Romanian officials that “imperial consuls were not appointed in Romania only to issue and stamp passports, but to defend and protect the rights of their citizens.” He further underlined that during the four years he had held the post, he had been unable to intervene successfully whenever Romanian employees abused the rights of Ottoman citizens.474

The limited authority of Ottoman diplomats in dealing with Romanian officials often had a negative impact on the situation of emigrants, particularly when property matters constituted the subject of negotiation. In May 1881, for instance, the Ottoman consulate in Köstence/Constanţa was unable to assist Mustafa Efendi, a student at the

Imperial Military School in Istanbul, in cancelling the mortgage his uncle had placed on his house in Köstence. The Ottoman consul urged Mustafa Efendi to plead the case in person in the local court because Romanian officials “rejected the intervention of foreign

472 Silvana Rachieru, “Relaţiile româno-otomane între anii 1878-1908,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, , 2009, 146. 473 Ottoman consulates were located in Bucharest, Galaţi, Brăila, Constanţa, Iași, Turnu Severin, and Craiova; vice-consulates in Tulcea, Giurgiu, Sulina, , and Turnu Măgurele (Ibid., 245-49). 474 BOA., HR.SYS., 1053/4 (26 Cemazülevvel 1325 [7 July 1907]). 194

consulates or embassies on behalf of their citizens.”475 In another case, the Ottoman

Legation in Bucharest refused to assist a certain Atiye Hanım in claiming a property inherited firom her deceased father in Babadağı/Babadag by invoking its lack of influence over Romanian authorities.476

Cases of inheritance were routinely subjected to court trials and recorded successful outcomes only when plaintiffs showed up in person with certificates of ownership and legal papers validating the claims and the identities of the heirs.477 Limited success was, however, achieved in some instances. In 1880, Şerife Hanım, a Muslim from Tulça/Tulcea who immigrated to Istanbul after the war, was able to benefit from the services of the

Ottoman Legation in Tulça regarding the sale of her house and the dispatch of her mother to the Ottoman capital.478 Two years later, Mehmed Halil, an emigrant from Köstence/

Constanţa, recovered his property of five hundred dönüms in the village of Hasança/

Hasancea thanks to the mediation of the Ottoman consulate in Köstence/Constanţa.479

These accomplishments were dwarfed by thousands of unresolved cases connected with the property issue. According to the Law for the Organization of Dobruca issued in

March 1880, rural Muslims who immigrated to the Ottoman Empire during the war could retrieve their property if they returned home within three years of their departure. But this stipulation was applied retroactively from October 23, 1878, thus giving the emigrants only

475 BOA., HR.H. 68/79 (28 Şaban 1298 [26 May 1881]). 476 BOA., HR.H. 80/58 (24 Cemazülevvel 1317 [30 September 1899]). 477 BOA., HR.H. 68/63 (30 Muharrem 1297 [13 January 1880]) and HR.H. 68/68 (25 Safer 1298 [27 January 1881]). 478 BOA., HR.H. 68/55 (17 Zilkâde 1297 [21 October 1880]). 479 BOA., HR.H. 69/31 (1 Zilkâde 1299 [14 September 1882]). 195

iabout one year to return home.480 The law further mentioned that those who failed to return would lose their property rights.481 An additional regulation issued on June 5, 1880, established an administrative commission to verify all Ottoman tapus and issue Romanian replacements for each of them.482

The 1882 Property Law for Dobruca established yet another commission to perform a similar task to that undertaken by the 1880 commission.483 Those Muslims who failed to return or submit property deeds in a timely fashion lost their right to ownership. Yet some of them tried to employ the assistance of Ottoman officials in having their cases solved in spite of eluding Romanian regulations. In 1893, Esma Hanım, the heir of Alioğlu Mustafa from Tulça/Tulcea, submitted fourteen property deeds to the Ottoman Legation in

Bucharest, which forwarded them for examination to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign

Affairs. Shortly afterwards, Ottoman officials received the property deeds with a brief note that the Ministry had no authority to examine such cases.484 A similar decision was applied to the case of Atiye Hanım, who claimed her rightful inheritance in the village of

Babadağı/Babadag. Atiye Hanım unsuccessfully explained that she was a minor during the period when the commission for the verification of property deeds was functioning.485 The recognition of property rights of former inhabitants of Dobruca became the subject of long

480 It is unclear why 23 October 1878 was chosen by Romanian legislators as the date to mark the beginning of the émigrés’ return to Dobruca. As a matter of fact, Romanian authorities took formal possession of northern Dobruca one month later, on 23 November 1878. 481 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 9, 23 (article 73). This law received criticism from officials in the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs who considered it to be abusive because it created obstacles for the emigrants to recover their properties (BOA., HR.HMŞ.IŞO. 163/30 (30 Rebiülevvel 1297 [12 March 1880]). 482 Roman, Studiu asupra proprietăţii rurale în Dobrogea, 80. 483 BOA., HR.HMŞ.IŞO. 218/23 (7 Recep 1306 [9 March 1889]). 484 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 9, f. 107. 485 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 9, f. 113. 196

and cumbersome court trials, sometimes lasting for several years. Frequently, they ended with trivial pecuniary compensation or, worse, the outright rejection of property claims.486

In the early 1900s, due to the sizable number of complaints regarding the property issue in Dobruca, a mixed Ottoman-Romanian Commission (Muhâcirin Komisyonu) was established temporarily in the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs to verify property deeds which had not previously been presented to the authorities. This Commission had some predecessors stipulated by Romanian laws. Several announcements were sent to various newspapers throughout the empire to inform Dobrucan emigrants that the Commission met weekly, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, to record the property deeds of the emigrants, who had to submit them in person within three months.487 Individuals claiming property rights based on witness testimony or documents issued by incompetent authorities, as well as property deeds lacking the seal of the Ottoman Office of Land Registry (Defterhâne), were excluded from examination.488 Over two thousand emigrants from Dobruca living in the

Ottoman Empire submitted their tapus for validation during this period, hoping to receive recognition of their property rights.489 As previously mentioned, Romanian members of the Commission questioned the validity of property deeds whenever the tapus were copies of originals. This was the case for many Muslims, including a group from the Dobrucan

486 For more details, see the cases of Abdullah Efendi, Haci Islam, Esma Hanım, Atiye Hanım, and Mehmed Ali Bey (AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 9). 487 BOA., Y.MTV. 234/92 (16 Cemazülahir 1320 [20 September 1902]). 488 BOA., HR.HMŞ.IŞO. 112/25 (18 Ramazan 1326 [14 October 1908]), s. 12. 489 These property deeds comprise a sizable collection of documents known under the name of Romanya Muhâcirin Komisyonu Evrâkı (HR.MHC. (02)) which is part of the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ collection located in the Prime Ministry’s Ottoman Archives in Istanbul. 197

cities of Hırsova/Hârșova and Babadağı/Babadag whose deeds were returned, each with a brief rejection note written on the back in Romanian.490

By the time of its conclusion, the Commission had recorded 2,611 requests for an equal amount of properties comprising 504,046 dönüms valued at 2,363,261 kuruș.491 The

Ottoman government insisted that emigrants whose properties were not returned should obtain pecuniary compensation from the Romanian government. Ottoman officials in

Istanbul knew that the Romanian administration had given many of these properties to

Romanian colonists in order to increase agricultural productivity.492 In a letter dispatched in March 1918 to the Ottoman Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Nesimi Bey, the former

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Halil Bey, expressed his lack of confidence that the Romanians would ever pay the compensation of seventy-five million francs agreed upon at the conclusion of the Romanian-Ottoman commercial treaty of 1908. According to the provisions of the treaty, the Romanian government was obligated to dispatch the amount to the Ottoman government within six months. The agreement included the establishment of an adhoc Ottoman tribunal whose main task was to determine the amount of compensation for each emigrant. Finally, any leftover money would be returned to the Romanian government. However, Halil Bey argued that the amount was insufficient for the needs of the emigrants and suggested an increase. He was further hoping that the allies of the empire would support the decision taken by Ottoman officials not to evacuate certain

490 BOA., HR.MHC. (02), 12/8 (16 Zilkâde 1321 [3 February 1904]) and 17/13 (23 Muharrem 1321 [21 April 1903]). 491 BOA., HR.MHC. (02), 74/32 (23 Safer 1324 [18 April 1906]). 492 BOA., HR.HMŞ.IŞO. 163/30 (10 Rebiülevvel 1298 [12 March 1881]), s.2. 198

Romanian territories in case the compensation was not paid.493 The “evacuation” would have entailed the ceding of property rights by the owners of those lands, who were

Dobrucan Muslims, to the Romanian authorities. Disputes over the landed property in

Dobruca continued in the following years, often ending in court with unsuccessful results.

Although the great majority of emigrants contacted Ottoman authorities for property concerns, some of them also requested assistance to be exempted from Romanian military service. Muslims traveling between the two nations for business purposes were often puzzled when Romanian officials conscripted them into the army by force. Ottoman subject Habibullah bin Zeidullah complained to the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs that during a business trip to Romania in 1898, he was forcibly enrolled in the national army. Having lived in the empire for twenty-two years upon emigrating from

Köstence/Constanţa with his entire family, Habibullah claimed exemption from military service based on his rights as an Ottoman citizen.494 In another case, Ali Riza, emigrant from Köstence/Constanţa, was expelled from that city in 1898, during a brief sojourn, after refusing to serve in the army. Ali Riza argued that he had migrated to the Ottoman Empire twelve years before and was in Köstence/Constanţa on business rather than to seek residence. Following the intervention of the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ali Riza was assured by Romanian officials that he would be able to continue his business in the city if he presented proof of Ottoman citizenship to the recruitment committee.495

493 BOA., HR.HMŞ.IŞO. 221/38 (27 Rebiülevvel 1337 [31 December 1918]). 494 BOA., HR.H. 86/3 (10 Muharrem 1324 [6 March 1906]). 495 BOA., HR.H. 72/32 (27 Cemazülevvel 1306 [29 January 1889]). 199

Nationality constituted the most hotly debated subject when Muslims had passports confiscated in Romania and received orders to perform military service in the national army. In these situations, Ottoman diplomats serving in Romania would offer unconditional support to those who possessed valid papers certifying when and how

Ottoman nationality was obtained. For instance, the Ottoman legation in Bucharest issued free passports for three young Muslims who were pursuing religious studies in Istanbul but were originally from Dobruca, on the basis of nationality certificates issued by the Ottoman

Nationality Bureau on January 10, 1885.496 According to the Law of Nationality issued in

1869, all individuals living within imperial confines were considered Ottoman citizens unless they claimed foreign protection. Refugees acquired nationality upon arrival in the empire, while others received a similar status after residing in the empire for five years or performing good service for the empire.497 Although the law defined Ottoman nationality in territorial terms, the importance of bloodline was also emphasized. Young males born of parents who possessed Ottoman nationality became automatically Ottoman nationals.

This feature of Ottoman citizenship law was invoked whenever Ottoman citizens received requests to enroll in the national armies of other states or to prove citizenship status. In 1894, Manas Gross, a Jew living in Galaţi, argued against his conscription into the Romanian army based on his and his father’s Ottoman citizenship status, derived from being born in Istanbul.498 Tensions between the foreign ministries of Romania and the

Ottoman Empire resulted in this case from the debate surrounding the birthplace of Manas

496 BOA., HR.H. 71/36 (6 Şevval 1304 [28 June 1887]). 497 Kasaba, A Movable Empire, 112. 498 BOA., HR.H. 96/22 (13 Ramazan 1311 [20 March 1894]). 200

Gross. Whereas Ottoman officials acknowledged the certificate of nationality issued for

Manas Gross based on the registers of the Grand Rabbinate in Istanbul, Romanian officials claimed that such evidence could easily have been falsified. Romanian investigations regarding this particular case concluded that the entire family of Manas Gross had been living continuously in Romania for many years and that Manas Gross had been born in

Romania. Manas Gross’ father married in 1862 in Moldavia and only ten years before the court case had moved to Maçin/Măcin, where he had resided continuously ever since.

From the viewpoint of Romanian officials, it was impossible for Manas Gross to have been born in Istanbul. The Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested proof of this continuous residence and the birth of Manas Gross in Romania, which was never delivered by the Romanian authorities. To push things even farther, in 1905, Nicolas George Kiriazi claimed to be an Ottoman rather than a Romanian citizen based on the birth of his parents in the Ottoman Empire, rather than on his own place of birth and residence in Romania.499

After a thorough investigation, the Ottoman authorities decided that the nationality of

Kiriazi should be established according to the nationality of his parents.

Disputes between the two governments and their respective ministries of foreign affairs continued to occur throughout the period. This situation arose in large part because both administrations embraced a concept of nationality that placed residence and place of birth above everything else. Romanian officials considered all inhabitants of Dobruca who were Ottoman subjects on 11 April 1877 (when Romania declared general mobilization in the war against the Ottoman Empire) to have become Romanian citizens once the territory

499 BOA., HR.H. 85/48 (24 Muharrem 1323 [31 March 1905]). 201

fell under Romanian control.500 However, this particular definition of citizenship “by annexation” received recognition from the Ottoman authorities only in instances when individuals claiming to be imperial subjects could not provide papers certifying birth in the empire to Ottoman parents or nationality certificates issued by Ottoman authorities.

Nationality claims were closely examined whenever Romanian officials contested their validity. Numerous cases of fraud had been identified over time, particularly in the case of

Jews and Christians trying to elude military conscription in Romania based on false nationality papers.501

In addition to matters related to property, military conscription, and nationality, the intervention of Ottoman officials on behalf of Romanian immigrants to the Ottoman

Empire extended to domestic life. Most cases represented inquiries about male family members who had left wives and children in various locations in the empire to take jobs in

Dobruca. Often women solicited the help of Ottoman officials in identifying men who had abandoned them and their children in a state of misery and without means of subsistence.

In 1882, for instance, Halime Hanım, an immigrant from Hırșova living in Istanbul with two children, complained that her husband had abandoned her “in a state of misery.”502

She had requested the help of Ottoman officials in finding her husband, who was eventually discovered to have departed from Dobruca for Istanbul four months before.

Sometimes requests such as this one had positive outcomes, particularly when husbands returned or dispatched money to their families. On other occasions, husbands

500 Hamangiu, Codul General, vol. 2 (Bucharest: Editura Librăriei Leon Alcalay, 1914), 95. 501 For these cases, see BOA., HR.H. 68-99 (23 Muharrem 1273 [23 September 1856] – 2 Cemaziülevvel 1332 [29 March 1914]). 502 BOA., HR.H 69/18 (17 Cemazülevvel 1299 [6 April 1882]). 202

were not found or, worse, they were found remarried or ready to grant divorce and alimony to their wives in exchange for freedom. Such was the case of Hanım, whose husband returned from work in Tulça/Tulcea to divorce her, and Habibe Hanım, whose husband was forced in a Muslim religious court in Romania to pay the deferred part of the mahr, the “bride price” that the man usually owes to his wife when the marriage is terminated by divorce or death (the first half being due prior to the pronouncement of the divorce).503

Colonization policies

While the situation of Muslim emigrants was a subject of concern for both the

Romanian and Ottoman administrations during the period under study, Romanian officials additionally had to deal with the gradual depopulation of Dobruca following

1878. Some extreme voices in the Romanian parliament argued that repopulation measures should be taken in order to erase any trace of “the barbarian and Mongolian character” of the region.504 “We have the duty to completely Romanianize Dobruca,” the

Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dimitrie Sturdza wrote in 1878, “that is, to include all heterogeneous elements from there in the framework of our national life.”505 Sturdza proposed that the most effective means of nationalizing the province was to settle

“serious and hardworking people” from other Romanian provinces in Dobruca. Russia had applied the same policy in Bessarabia after its 1812 annexation but with the unique

503 BOA, HR.H 92/7 (9 Şaban 1298 [7 July 1881]) and HR.H 92/6 (5 Cemazülahir 1298 [May 5, 1881]). 504 Brătescu, “Noile numiri de sate din Dobrogea-Veche,” 194. 505 Librăria Academiei Române de Ştiinţe, ADAS., XVI, varia 153. 203

purpose of undermining the position of the indigenous Moldavian population.506

Sturdza’s opinion represented one view regarding who should colonize Dobruca.507 The absence of a coherent colonization policy for Dobruca before 1882 allowed for a broader formulation of the identity of colonists. Individuals from the Ottoman and Habsburg

Empires, as well as ethnic Romanians from abroad, were invited to settle in the province.

From 1882 onwards, Romanian authorities became more selective with the newcomers.

Colonization constituted a state monopoly and property ownership was entrusted only to

Romanian citizens. The latter comprised the inhabitants of Dobruca who were Ottoman citizens until 11 April 1877, as well as Romanian citizens living in Romania or expatriates.508

In Dobruca, those Turks and Tatars who left for Anatolia in 1877-78 were summoned to return to their cumulative 20,000 hectares (about four thousand acres) of land.509 Between 1889 and 1912, the state confiscated 127,483 hectares of land (315,017 acres) from both native Dobrucans who did not redeem land tithes and those colonists who did not pay their land installments or who failed to relocate in the province.510 In order to consolidate the Romanian element in the province, the state distributed over half of the confiscated land to ethnic Romanian colonists between 1889 and 1914. The land of Muslims who failed to return from the Ottoman Empire was further distributed to the

506 Alexandru Arbore, “Coloniile germane din Basarabia şi din Dobrogea,” Analele Dobrogei 2 (1921): 475-76. 507 For details, see Constantin Iordachi, “Citizenship, Nation- and State-Building: The Integration of Northern Dobrogea into Romania, 1878-1913,” The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, Number 1607, 2002, 1-86. 508 Hamangiu, General Code, vol. 2, 99. 509 Stanciu and Ciorbea, “Aspecte ale problemei agrare în Dobrogea,” 410. 510 Iordachi, “Citizenship, Nation- and State-Building,” 31. 204

approximately 20,000 herders and peasants who had steadily relocated from the provinces of Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia to Dobruca before 1885.511 Herders from Transylvania (the Mocani) sought good pasture for their sheep and cattle, while peasants from Wallachia and Moldavia sought land for crop cultivation. German colonists settling to the south of the Cernavodă-Constanţa railroad line in the 1890s also benefited from these regulations.512 The colonization of Dobruca by Romanians, in addition to the emigration of the Turks and Tatars to Anatolia, resulted in a significant decrease in the Muslim population in the region. While sixty percent of the population of

Dobruca was Muslim in 1876 (Figure 19), only eleven percent was Muslim by 1913

(Figure 20).513

Return of Muslims to Dobruca

A small percentage of Muslims living in Dobruca in 1913 included individuals who had emigrated to the Ottoman Empire during the war and had returned in the 1880s as a result of the failure of the Ottoman authorities to place the entire immigrant population in favorable settings. Although a definitive count of Dobruca’s repatriated

Muslim is difficult to obtain, documents available in the Archives of the Romanian

Ministry of Foreign Affairs testify to the existence of several hundred Muslims requesting help from Romanian authorities in Istanbul to ensure their safe return home.514

511 Nicolina Ursu, “Evoluţia demografică a Dobrogei între anii 1878-1916,” Analele Dobrogei VII (2002): 79. 512 Ion Georgescu, “Coloniile germane din Dobrogea. O călătorie de Crăciun în Dobrogea la 1884 de Dr. Carl Schuchhardt,” Analele Dobrogei VII (1926): 38-40. 513 Brătescu, “Populaţia Dobrogei,” 227. 514 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 434. 205

Figure 19. The Population of Dobruca in 1876. Source: N.P. Comnène, La Dobrudja (Lausanne, 1918).

206

Figure 20. The Population of Dobruca in 1913. Source: N.P. Comnène, La Dobrudja (Lausanne, 1918).

Between 1880 and 1882 efforts were made to issue free passports and boat tickets to those applicants requesting return due to severe poverty in the empire. In 1880, for example, Hafizi Hanım requested and obtained a free and boat tickets to return

207

to Köstence/Constanţa with her five children. In a letter addressed to the Romanian embassy in Istanbul, she asserted that she was too poor to pay for the return ticket.515

The procedure followed by the Romanian consulate in Istanbul was to consult the papers submitted by each immigrant on behalf of his or her family in order to decide whether or not to release a unique passport for the whole family. The immigrant papers consulted by Romanians in Istanbul, which were issued by the Ottoman Refugee

Commission, certified the place of origin for each immigrant and his or her current location in the empire. Burdened with the expenses of repatriation, the Romanian

Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to put an end to Muslim repatriation in August 1882 by invoking the need to verify whether the immigrants were indeed from Dobruca.516 In a letter addressed to the Romanian ambassador in Istanbul, the Romanian Minister of

Foreign Affairs explained that the reasoning behind this decision was “to avoid the transformation of Dobruca into a colony inhabited by foreigners who wanted to exploit the region to their own advantage.”517

Thus Romanian authorities in the Ottoman capital no longer had the right to issue passports unless immigrants possessed certificates of origin issued by Romanian authorities in Dobruca. The Romanian officials’ lack of faith in the Ottoman Refugee

Commission’s authority made things harder for the immigrants, especially when the

Romanian government reserved the right to decide who could return home. Romanian officials stated that the emigrants had plentiful time to return to the province at their own

515 Ibid. 516 Ibid. I517 Ibid. 208

expense. In reality, such measures were meant to impede the emigrants’ negotiation of their status as both Romanian and Ottoman citizens. In a confidential note to the

Romanian ambassador in Istanbul, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was hopeful that by investigating the background of the emigrants more closely, Romanian authorities

“would no longer have to deal with individuals who were Romanians in Dobruca and

Ottomans in the Ottoman Empire according to their own convenience.” The term

“convenience” applied to those individuals who “were showing one day the issued by the Romanian consulate in Istanbul, and another day the Ottoman passport issued by the Ottoman consular authorities in the Dobruca” in order to escape certain responsibilities related to tax payments or military service. Nevertheless, after a brief interruption, the repatriation of Muslims to Dobruca was carried out by the

Romanian government until the end of the nineteenth century.

Many Dobrucan Muslims living in the Ottoman Empire returned to Dobruca temporarily to attend to personal matters related to inheritance or business, or simply to seek employment. In 1890, the son of Abdullah Efendi paid a brief visit to Bucharest to verify the status of his inheritance of a property in Dobruca.518 While in Romania, some

Muslims found themselves in the unpleasant situation of being conscripted into the national army. Ali Riza and Habibullah bin Zeidullah had to seek the assistance of the

Ottoman embassy in Bucharest to avoid military service.519 Still others resided in the province as workers for periods ranging from a few months to several decades prior to

518 AMAE., Fond Paris, Vol. 9, f. 97. 519 BOA., HR.H. 73/32 (27 Cemazülevvel 1306 [29 January 1889]) and 86/3 (10 Muharrem 1324 [6 March 1906]). 209

returning to their impoverished families. The husband of Aleviye Hanım, for instance, spent ten years in Tulça/Tulcea before returning to Istanbul.520 There were cases when husbands refused to return home. In 1883, Hussein Ahmed requested the return of his son-in-law Haçıoğlu Selim, who had abandoned his wife back in Istanbul for two and a half years. Selim was eventually identified by the Ottoman authorities in Mangalia, but, unwilling to lose his job with the municipality, he decided to stay.521 Such instances occurred frequently, and Ottoman officials could not find effective methods to prevent them.

Conclusions

After the 1877-78 war, numerous Muslims from Dobruca left for the Ottoman

Empire, mostly due to unsettling events that made them feel unwelcome in their homeland. Previous studies have touched upon this aspect when mentioning the conscription of Muslims into the Romanian army, for instance, but have not provided a thorough explanation of what caused such a massive migration to occur. Influential scholarship has pointed out the Muslims’ lack of political leadership and means of subsistence as the main causes for emigration. In light of the archival material considered here, this explanation should be broadened to include the effect that

Romanian state policies had on the population of the province, especially on its Muslim majority. State policies aimed to limit the use of property in the province, appropriate the

520 BOA., HR.H. 68/50 (14 Şaban 1297 [22 July 1880]). 521 BOA., HR.H. 93/3 (19 Cemazülahir 1309 [20 January 1892]). 210

lands of emigrants, and colonize the area with ethnic Romanians. In conjunction with environmental crises, these particular policies drove Muslims away and caused most of those who were already residing in the Ottoman Empire never to return to their previous homes.

Muslims strove to improve their personal situations by finding effective ways to navigate both Romanian and Ottoman societies. Benefiting from the triadic relationship established among them, Romania, and the Ottoman Empire, Dobrucan Muslims used diplomatic avenues to recover properties abandoned in their homeland, avoid military service, clarify nationality status, and deal with specific domestic issues. In certain situations Ottoman officials serving in Romania were able to assist emigrants in recovering properties, in having their names erased from conscription registers, and in reuniting with family members. However, the nonexistence of a consular agreement between the two states limited this type of intervention. Not all Muslim emigrants could solve such personal problems, in no small part because Romanian authorities restricted the intervention of Ottoman consuls and diplomats on behalf of Ottoman citizens in cases regarding property and citizenship status. Both states claimed the right of intervention in the affairs of Muslim migrants based on similar concepts concerning citizenship rights, which were formulated in territorial terms. Yet emigrants tried to find ways to challenge regulations and pursue such matters to their own advantage.

By the beginning of World War I, Dobruca had been repopulated with Romanian colonists and a few hundred repatriated Muslims. Many ethnic Romanians became colonists following the implementation of favorable governmental policies. Romanian

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authorities did not aim to colonize Dobruca with just any newcomers. Their main goal was to Romanianize the province with ethnic Romanians in order to assimilate the population of the region into the national framework. Such policies provided continuous guidance to Romanian officials serving in the Ottoman Empire whenever Muslim emigrants requested to return to Dobruca. Whereas repatriation regulations were liberal in the early 1880s, allowing all applicants to receive free passports and boat tickets, later on the access of expatriates to these facilities was drastically limited, as Muslims’ intention to return came to be seen as contrary to Romanian policy goals. Romanian authorities refused to permit any Muslim to enter the country permanently until proof of

Dobrucan origin was certified by Romanian papers. True, Muslims could obtain temporary residence in the province when seeking business or employment opportunities.

Yet Romanian official policy had been permanently transformed by the fear of having

“foreign colonies” in Dobruca.

If this chapter has shown how a large number of Dobrucan Muslims reacted to the regime change after the Treaty of Berlin by migrating to the Ottoman Empire, the following chapter discusses how the remaining Muslims coped with the change by adapting to the new regime and complying with its policies. This strategy, as will be soon demonstrated, afforded the community a certain degree of autonomy and agency in matters of religion, education, and culture.

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Chapter 5: “Speaking National” in Dobruca: Muslim Adaptation to Romanian National Policies after 1878

A group of Dobrucan Muslims requested permission to apply for Ottoman nationality, from their home location in Romanian Dobruca, in a collective petition addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Istanbul in November 1883. During the same month, Romanian officials from the Ottoman capital informed the Minister of

Foreign Affairs in Bucharest about this matter in a confidential letter which suggested that only the desire to escape national military service could have caused the submission of such requests. The letter concluded that the Sublime Porte had not yet responded to petitioners and would probably abstain from doing so since granting Ottoman nationality to a group of individuals applying from a foreign state was against both Ottoman and international law.522

Collective petitions of Dobrucan Muslims for Ottoman nationality were atypical in this period, but individual cases were common. Soon after the Romanian state extended the military draft to Dobrucan men aged twenty-one or over in 1883, numerous

Muslims moved to Ottoman territories and opted for imperial subjecthood. Concurrently, there were Muslims in Romania who retained their Ottoman nationality, declaring loyalty to both the Ottoman sultan and the , under whose “paternal protection”

522 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Volume 110. 213

they chose to live.523 Other Muslims, who opted exclusively for Romanian citizenship, considered themselves fully immersed in the Romanian national body despite wearing different dress and professing a distinct religion from that of the majority of Romanian nationals. During the opening session of the Romanian Teachers’ Congress in Constanţa in the summer of 1910, one Muslim teacher greeted participants with a passionate speech reinforcing the idea that the thirty-three years of Romanian administration in Dobruca had turned the region’s diverse population into a “uniform dough of Romanian consistency."524 He used the occasion to present himself as an equal to all other

Romanian nationals, insisting that apart from his attire and faith, nothing distinguished him from his Romanian peers. “Like you,” he underlined, “I look with endless trust at the future of Romania, our beloved country. My heart throbs like yours with the same love for the soldiers of the country and its courageous captain, His Majesty King Carol

I.”525 In taking such a stance, the teacher probably wished to open the congress on an equal footing with the other participants, who were ethnic Romanians. His appeal to national allegiance was meant in this case to erase religious and ethnic boundaries in a society dominated and ruled by a Christian majority.

These examples illustrate the existence of a variety of responses to identical state policies, reinforcing the complex nature of internal dynamics within border societies transitioning from provinces of empires to nation-states after 1878. The frequency of such cases in the successor states to the Ottoman Empire in Europe demonstrates that, in

523 BOA., HR.H., 83/6 (11 Şevval 1319 [21 January 1902]). 524 Ovidiu, 1-30 July 1910, 53. 525 Ibid. 214

the extraordinary circumstance of sudden incorporation into a state for which the “nation” was in the making, the people’s claim to national belonging corresponded to specific needs and interests. And in the act of claiming, individuals unwittingly became part and parcel of the complex process of nation-making.

In this chapter I examine how the Muslim population of Dobruca coped with the complicated issue of belonging to the Romanian “nation” during 1878-1914. For this population it was rather challenging to “imagine” its place in a completely new society undergoing major transformations in the postwar era. Up to 1918, when Greater

Romania emerged as a result of the unification of several provinces, including Dobruca,

Romania found itself caught in the nation-building process. Romania’s annexation of

Dobruca in 1878 complicated this process due to the existence in the new territory of diverse populations and economic underdevelopment. Political changes to correct the situation created a rift within the local Muslim community, whose elites and commonfolk were left to examine anew both their personal lives and their existence as a community different in religion and ethnicity from the dominant, ruling community of Romanian

Christians.

Muslims invoked a certain national allegiance in an effort to negotiate their own place in the society that emerged after the establishment of the Romanian administration in Dobruca. The negotiation drew them closer to both the Ottoman Empire and Romania, states looking to start their mutual relations afresh following the acknowledgment of

Romanian independence in 1878. But these salutary attempts were complicated by the fate of Muslims whose national belonging, legal rights, and responsibilities constituted

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the subject of heated debates during face-to-face negotiations and in correspondence between the foreign ministries of the two states. This “in-betweenness” forced Muslim elites and commonfolk alike to identify swift strategies of adaptation to the new circumstances and to find an answer to the pressing question of remaining Ottoman or becoming Romanian. However, taking sides proved to be a complicated affair. In the process, Muslims often displayed extraordinary ability in successfully navigating the two states, particularly when using claims of commonality and difference to define themselves in a manner that best suited personal needs and interests. In this context, invoking the nation (or "speaking and acting national," to use an already known expression in the field of nationality studies) constituted a salient tool of social integration for Muslims seeking state benefits in order to secure a better standard of living for themselves and their coreligionists.

This chapter examines how Muslims “spoke and acted nationally” in Romanian

Dobruca. The findings point out that elites and commonfolk alike found innovative ways to claim national belonging, as they wished to carve out a special place in Romanian society. Such efforts helped to preserve a certain degree of autonomy in religious affairs, education, and the cultural realm. In practice, speaking and acting nationally in Dobruca equated with the Muslims’ public expression of loyalty for the state and the monarchy.

Often Muslim religious and secular elites used the Romanian language in letters addressed to Romanian officials, spoke Romanian in public, wrote effusive newspaper articles in favor of the administration, delivered public speeches with nationalist undertones in the presence of state officials, and established cultural associations. The

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chapter is divided into four sections that show how the use of loyalty and exemplary citizenship was particularly emphasized in situations when individuals made specific demands for financial and moral support, particularly for mosques, schools, and cultural associations, which constituted the main foci of Muslim activity in the period under examination.

Romanian officials considered the Muslims to be members of one cohesive religious community, one of the many “fragments of the nation” that had to be identified first and then dealt with at both local and national levels. For reasons of simplification,

Romanian legislators ignored the Muslims’ distinctive (but not always discernible) ethnic identifications as Turks, Tatars, Circassians, or Roma (Gypsies), in addition to their dissimilar religious practices as Sunni and Shi’a. A nuanced identification of Muslims emerged, however, from that listed them according to gender, age, residence, and profession, in addition to citizenship and religion. In their turn, Muslims identified themselves in religious terms, as members of the Muslim community of Romania

(cemaat-i Islâmiyye) and the wider Muslim community (ümmet). Only the Tatars occasionally specified their ethnic origins. In certain contexts, Muslims presented themselves in relation to their professions, genders, ages, residences, citizenship, and national allegiances. Given that the province of Dobruca had been located along the paths of military campaigns and migrations since ancient times, the population living there constituted a mosaic of people. The Muslim community itself was diverse and far from being unified. As will soon become apparent, different Muslim factions fell easily

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under the influence of either state officials or their own elite members when important state and community interests were at stake.

It is fundamental for the case under examination to understand that the ways in which the state identified individuals and the ways in which individuals identified themselves were highly contingent on context. As Frederick Cooper and Rogers

Brubaker make clear in their work on identities, “self- and other-identification is fundamentally situational and contextual.”526 Relational and categorical modes of identification played a significant role in how individuals presented themselves. In certain contexts, self-identification was closely related to the position of people in specific networks, including a web of kinship and patron-client ties, and student-teacher relations (relational identification). In other contexts, self-identification depended on people’s membership in specific communities based on citizenship, nationality, religion, language, ethnicity, and other identifiers (categorical identification). There was considerable overlap between relational and categorical identifications since individuals chose to self-identify with specific networks and communities at different moments. A

Muslim school director from Dobruca, for instance, who petitioned state officials for financial assistance to cover the employment of additional staff in his institution, would introduce himself to authorities as a member of the Muslim community, a school teacher, and a Romanian citizen. To increase his chances of obtaining the funding, the director would make patriotic statements in his letters dispatched to Romanian authorities.

526 Cooper and Brubaker, “Identity,” 71. 218

Numerous other Muslims seeking financial help for individual or collective projects would take a similar approach. Taking Romanian citizenship and manifesting loyalty to the regime were means Muslims employed to achieve a peaceful existence under the new administration. Elites played an extremely significant role in the community as leaders and guides for the remaining Muslims. Demonstration of loyalty in writing and in public resulted in financial assistance from different Romanian institutions. In providing such assistance, elites helped maintain a degree of autonomy for the entire community in matters of religion, jurisprudence, education, and culture.

Taking an active role in shaping the culture and political views of the Muslims, the elites managed to engage in a savvy interaction with state officials, whose financial and moral support they constantly sought during the time under discussion. This further suggests that like other eastern European and Balkan populations of the day, Dobrucan Muslims

“were not simply objects of state-sponsored national policies but were active agents that shaped the national discourse and practice to serve their needs and priorities.”527 There was thus a striking resemblance between the Muslims of Dobruca and the Greeks of

Bulgaria in terms of their use of national rhetoric in interactions with state officials at the local level, for by acting in this manner both groups hoped “to improve their situations within the aggressively nationalizing states.”528 While it is true that, as in other places, in

Dobruca “nationality remained an individual choice made relatively free of state influence,”529 the Muslims were in a better position to claim state assistance if they

527 Dragostinova, Between Two Motherlands, 13. 528 Ibid., 14. 529 See for a comparative case Bryant, Prague in Black, 4. 219

became Romanian citizens. Romanian officials did tie citizenship to property and political rights. Invoking the nation constituted a viable tool of social integration for

Muslims seeking state benefits in order to secure a better standard of living for themselves.

The Muslim Voice: “Speaking and Acting Nationally” in Dobruca

June 24, 1910, was a day of celebration for the Muslim community of Köstence/

Constanţa, where the cornerstone for the most important religious establishment was laid in the presence of a mixed audience of Romanian and Ottoman officials from ministries and consulates in Bucharest, as well as the Muslim elites and the common people of the city. The event marked the opening of the famous Melike Mosque (also known as Carol

I), which served local Muslims to such a degree that over time it came to be the most important Islamic landmark of modern Dobruca (Figure 19). That morning, the

Romanian Minister of Public Instruction, Spiru Haret, and the Ottoman minister in

Bucharest, Safa Bey, received a warm welcome from the local elites and a group of

Muslim students and soldiers, who stunned the audience with their handsome appearance and impeccable skills in reciting patriotic poems in Romanian. When Romanian officials took their turn to speak, they readily emphasized the obedience and devotion of Dobrucan

Muslims to Romania. In their view, what had led to the foundation of the mosque was without doubt the Muslims’ “love for the patrie (motherland), their devotion to

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Romanian institutions, and the blind faith with which they served and still serve the country that shelters them.”530

Figure 21. The Melike Mosque (Carol I) in Constanţa (early 20th century). Source: Romanian National Archives. The Photograph Collection.

Muslim elites, represented at the highest level by the county müfti, Hafız Rifat

Efendi, also used the occasion to define the community as a unified body whose unquestionable loyalty to the prince (king since 1881) and the country and exemplary citizenship made them valuable members of the Romanian “nation.” After readings from the Qur’an in Arabic and prayers in Turkish, the müfti spoke in perfect Romanian about the historical importance of the event, which helped cement “forevermore a strong

530 Drapelul, 27 June 1910, 2. 221

brotherhood and affection between Dobruca’s Romanians and Muslims, [who were] the sons of the same patrie.”531 He underlined that the government’s financial assistance for the construction of the mosque constituted yet another proof that Romanian officials understood and respected the variety of languages, traditions, and faiths found in

Dobruca. Rifat Efendi also praised the government’s distribution of equal justice to all individuals irrespective of ethnicity and religion. “We, the Muslims of Dobruca,” the müfti said, “lovers of our motherland Romania, respectful followers of the holy Qur’an that teaches us endless work and enlightenment through learning and honesty, must demonstrate through deeds that we deserve the sacrifices the country makes for us.”

Before concluding, he emphasized once more that Muslims should appreciate living under the “high protection of our beloved sovereign” and the patronage of the Romanian authorities.532

The public display of Muslim loyalty to everything Romanian went back to the establishment of Romanian administration in the province. Eager to fulfill the expectations of the new political regime, Muslim elites and commonfolk alike had joined their Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Russian, Armenian, and Jewish compatriots in celebrating the arrival of Romanian officials in Dobruca during the second half of

November 1878. In a telegram addressed to Carol I on November 18, about fifty elites and five hundred common people representing the aforementioned nationalities residing in Tulça/Tulcea pledged loyalty to Prince Carol I and the Romanian nation while

531 Ibid. 532 Ibid. 222

expressing hopes for a better life under the new regime.533 In both Köstence/Constanţa and Tulça/Tulcea, the days following the dispatch of the telegram were dedicated to the public celebration of the arrival of Romanian troops in the region. People prayed in churches, mosques, and synagogues, gave public speeches, performed traditional songs and dances in festive clothing, shared food and drink, and threw flowers to the marching soldiers from balconies heavily decorated with carpets and garlands.534 Romanian journalists provided plenty of detail about these sudden demonstrations of local enthusiasm even as they cautioned officials to avoid “wasting days and years with unimportant matters” rather than working hard to solve the complex issues confronting the province.535 Several days prior to these celebrations, the prince assured the same population that the new regime would take upon itself the important task of incorporating them and the province into the “nation” through peaceful and effective means.536

The narrative that both Romanian officials and Muslim elites used in the years after the annexation became an integral part of the national rhetoric, which served to conceal the real objectives of these people. Romanian officials appropriated this discourse to consolidate control over citizens and resources in their attempt to homogenize the local society. At the same time, by accepting as well as crafting the image of obedient and devoted citizens of Romania, Muslim elites and commoners sought to earn a particular place within Romanian society.537 As long as they preserved

533 Pressa, 23 November 1878, 2. 534 Ibid., 23 November 1878, 1-2; 24 November 1878, 1. 535 Ibid., 24 November 1878, 1. 536 See chapter 3 of the current thesis, 1-3. 537 Some went so far as to argue that this constructed image privileged Muslims in many respects. One army veteran who supported the Romanianization of the province was shocked when meeting peasants who 223

their religion, traditions, and jurisprudence, the responsibilities associated with being loyal Romanian citizens were not a burden impossible to bear. Thus, the role of the state in the periphery was strongly accentuated by its relationship with such local elites. As

Michiel Baud and Willem Van Schendel explain, “When borderland elites were well integrated into networks of state power, they could become important allies of the state in its efforts to control borderland society.”538

During the same period, in imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Muslim elites made use of similar strategies to carve out a special place for themselves and their coreligionists in society. Robert Crews has shown how Russian Muslim elites used official occasions to “demonstrate their loyalty to the monarchy and patriotism for Russia but also to assert their rights as ‘citizens.’”539 Prior to World War I, they used Qur’anic verses and Prophetic demanding obedience to authorities to underline that love for the motherland (in this case Russia) strengthened rather than weakened the Islamic faith.540 In this fashion, the Muslims of imperial Russia made efforts to fit into the larger imperial picture by defining themselves as loyal citizens of the state just as the Sephardic

Jews of the Ottoman Empire did. According to Julia Phillips Cohen, Jewish elites provided support for the Islamic ideology propagated throughout imperial domains

knew little or no Romanian during his visit to rural Dobruca in the early 1910s. In the remote village of Bașpınar in Constanţa County, none of the villagers knew Romanian. By the veteran’s account, the village felt Asian, and there was no sign of progress (or Romanian administration), no shops, and no tavern, except for two “primitive coffee houses located in bordeie (earth houses).” “To be in Anatolia or in Syria or in Dobruca’s Bașpınar, it was all the same,” he maintained. For more detail, see Dobrogea Jună, 10 , 2. 538 Baud and Van Schendel, “Towards a Comparative History of Borderlands,” 217. 539 Robert D. Crews, For Prophet and : Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 350. 540 Ibid., 351. 224

during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1908). They came to tell “each other stories about the and of the glory of Islamic martyrs because these were formal elements of the Islamic Ottomanism of their day.”541

This type of relationship between the rulers and the ruled was considered mutually beneficial. In the case examined here, the involvement of the Romanian administration in Islamic affairs, according to the official discourse, allowed for a better integration of Muslims, elite and non-elite, into Romanian society. At the same time, the

Muslims’ display of obedience and loyalty to the Romanian administration permitted the preservation of the Islamic character of the Muslim community. Underneath the neat façade of harmony between the Romanian administration and Dobrucan Muslims, however, there was a certain degree of tension that allowed both Muslim elites and commoners to play an active part in the decision-making process regarding their communal affairs. On the religious and cultural fronts, for instance, they would make their voices heard in the election of their own religious heads (the müftis), the organization of their schools, and the foundation of their cultural associations. The intrusiveness of the Romanian administration in Islamic communal affairs yielded to the assertiveness of local Muslims, who took the liberty to express their wishes in petitions meant to give them some agency in communal affairs. The examination of the main domains of Muslim life in Dobruca, namely mosques, schools, and cultural activity,

541 Julia Phillips Cohen, “Between Civic and Islamic Ottomanism: Jewish Imperial Citizenship in the Hamidian Era," IJMES 44 (2012): 249. 225

demonstrates the agency of the Muslims, particularly the elites, who took their intermediary role between the state and the local community very seriously.

The Mosque

Soon after the establishment of the Romanian administration in Dobruca, the prefect of Constanţa County, Remus Opreanu, met with the heads of the Muslim community of

Constanţa in their main mosque. The visit occurred at the request of the prefect and was meant to have symbolic significance for both parties. At the time of the visit, Muslims were celebrating Kurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha), or the feast of the sacrifice, which marked the end of the annual hajj to Mecca (Figure 22). Therefore, the prefect desired to reassure the community leaders about his, and implicitly the administration’s, respect for the

Muslim faith and, by extension, for all faiths practiced in the county. Notables offered in return a letter in Ottoman affirming complete satisfaction with the Romanian authorities and assurance of devotion and obedience to the laws of Romania.542

Officials like Opreanu, supporting free expression of religion not only at the county level but throughout Dobruca, knew little of the difficulties the community had been battling in recent years. Even so, Opreanu and his peers did encounter cases suggesting the precarious condition of Muslims, either through personal assessments of the situation or via collective and individual petitions that Muslims dispatched to them regularly. It was immediately obvious to these officials that despite the considerable

542 ANRB., Ministerul Afacerilor de Interne, Divizia Administrativă (1878-79), 226/1878, 30 November 1878. 226

number of urban and rural mosques in the province, the community entrusted with the financing of both mosques and schools was not well-off. In fact, there were few funds

available for the upkeep, renovation, or construction of mosques and for the payment of the staff associated with them. The viable property endowed to the vakıf (pious foundation) of Köstence/Constanţa, for instance, comprised only one shop and seven buildings that failed to provide sufficient revenue for the maintenance of the city’s

Figure 22. Turkish Gypsies Celebrating the Bayram in Tulcea (early 20th century). Source: www.delcampe.net.

mosques despite being rented throughout the year. The remaining vakıf properties, including one Muslim school, one house for religious personnel, and one barren plot of land where a mill had once stood, were in ruins.543 Worse still, some other shop revenues

543 ANRC., Fond Primărie, 5/1879, 11 August 1879. 227

destined for two different mosques (Hünkâr and the so-called Tatar Mosque) went instead to City Hall. In Tulça/Tulcea County, the vakıf that an Ottoman official, Gazi Ali Paşa, had established in 1610 in Babadağı/Babadag to support a mosque and the medrese attached to it was confiscated by the government after 1878.544 Invoking obedience to the authorities, the heads of the mosques requested the restitution of these revenues, albeit unsuccessfully.545

By the time major legislation was put in place in the province in the early 1880s,

Muslim petitions, though thick with patriotic appeals and calls for justice, had recorded limited success. Professions of obedience and devotion to the state elicited financial support from the government solely for several mosques in the county of Köstence/

Constanţa.546 One mosque in Tulça/Tulcea benefitted from funds from the Ministry of

Public Instruction to carry out various repairs in 1879.547 Some additional financial assistance came from private sources, such as the purse of Prince Carol and those of high-

544 This vakıf was the oldest Islamic pious foundation established in the territory of Romania on which complete information has been identified in the archives. Other such foundations were established by Sultan Bayezid II in Babadağ in 1484 and by Esmahân Sultan, daughter of Sultan Selim II and wife of grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Paşa, in Mangalia in the 1560s. For details, see Tahsin Gemil, “Vakîfuri otomane fondate pe teritoriul României (sec. XV-XVIII),” Faţetele istoriei, existenţe, identităţi, dinamici, eds. Tudor Teoteoi, and Ştefan Ştefănescu (Bucharest: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2000), 193-197. 545 For the vakıf in Constanţa, see ANRC., Fond Primărie, 5/1879, 3 January 1879. 546 According to the report of the prefect of Constanţa County, governmental assistance was provided to mosques in Hırsova/Hîrșova, Köstence/Constanţa, Mecidiye/Medgidia, Boğazköy/Cernavodă, and Mankalya/Mangalia in 1881 (Farul Constanţei, 1 February 1881, 4). 547 AMAE., Fond Problema 16, Vol. 8. 228

ranking Romanian officials visiting the province on a regular basis.548 In spite of their narrow scope, such actions received a warm welcome in Istanbul and Dobruca. In

August 1879, for instance, the Ottoman newspaper Vakit praised the prince for granting funds to the less fortunate among the Dobrucan Muslims.549 Similar feelings found their way into a letter signed by a certain Süleyman on behalf of the Muslims of Sünne/Sulina, grateful to have received financial support from the prince for their mosques and communal needs.550

Sustained assistance for the Muslim community began in the 1880s, once the state had sanctioned its involvement in communal affairs through legislation placing Islam under government control. Already in November 1878, the functioning of Islamic courts and the confirmation of müftis had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of

Justice. In March 1880, under the guise of granting religious freedom to all Dobrucans, the Law Concerning Dobruca’s Administrative Organization turned Muslim clergy into state employees. The state initially undertook the payment of salaries for the religious and administrative personnel attached to the six main mosques of the province and, beginning in 1904, extended the same compensation to the employees of the remaining mosques in the province. The Prefect’s Office in Köstence/Constanţa included in its

548 For instance, on the occasion of his visit to Dobruca in November 1879, Carol I offered money to “the Turks and Tatars whose mosques I have visited; they received me with much pleasure and addressed me as Sultan Carol, a greeting which I found to be less enchanting.” (ANRB., Casa Regală Carol I - Personale, File V.B.438.) 549 Vakit, 13 Ramazan 1296 (31 August 1879), 2. 550 AMAE., Fond Problema 16, Vol. 8. 229

annual budget over 1,000 lei (equivalent to 1,000 francs) for the Islamic court and the müfti’s office that covered expenses related to rent, repairs, and heating.551

Arguably, the most important financial contribution the government undertook in the years following the annexation was the construction of the Melike Mosque in

Constanţa in the early years of the twentieth century. The government invested in this project an impressive amount of resources, human as well as material. The famous

Romanian architect Victor Ştefănescu was hired to design the mosque and supervise its construction. Benefiting from substantial governmental funding, the architect made several visits to Istanbul to study other religious establishments and seek advice from religious authorities regarding mosque interiors and exteriors. He had the mosque’s inscriptions executed in Istanbul, with the blessing of the Romanian authorities, who were eager to show the Ottoman government “the concern the Romanian government had for its Muslim subjects.”552

The inauguration of the mosque took place on 31 in the presence of the , as well as Romanian and Ottoman officials, and was positively received in the Ottoman Empire. In a telegram from 17 May 1913, Sultan expressed his gratitude to Carol I for contributing to the well-being and prosperity of Romanian

Muslims.553 The Young Turk newspaper Kurșun, published in Monastir, described in glowing terms the efforts of the Romanian government in financing the project. Given

551 Due to destruction during World War II and relocation between 1944 and 1946, the Romanian National Archives, Constanţa Branch, include only budgets from 1905-1919. I was able to consult budget files from 1905-06, 1906-07, 1907-08, and 1912-13 (ANRC., Fond Prefectură, 1/1905-1920). 552 This opinion was stated by the Romanian Minister of Public Instruction in a letter sent to the Romanian legation in Istanbul on January 10, 1912 (AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 110, f. 240). 553 AMAE., Fond Problema 16, Vol. 8. 230

that governments of neighboring nations had destroyed Muslim buildings, the newspaper characterized the construction of the Melike Mosque as a “humanitarian act,” an expression of tolerance that should serve as a model for all governments dealing with

Muslim subjects.554

This positive experience sponsoring the construction of mosques and other community-related projects in Dobruca encouraged Romanian officials to expand their control over the Muslim community even further. They often tried to influence the appointment of müftis in Dobruca by undermining the role of the Bâb-ı Meșihat (seat of the șeyhülislâm in Istanbul) in conferring legality and legitimacy on the office. In 1892, aiming to change regulations affecting this office, Romanian officials sought to secure the right of the Ministry of Public Instruction to remove unsuitable müftis from their posts, which was the prerogative of the șeyhülislâm in Istanbul.555 They further wished to make the appointment of müftis contingent on proof not only of solid religious education and moral probity but also of Romanian citizenship and Dobrucan origin. There had been several occasions in the past, officials argued, when Istanbul had appointed müftis who not only demonstrated unfamiliarity with the Romanian language but also created tensions with local Muslims due to their lack of solid Islamic knowledge and dubious moral behavior. In addition, Romanians wished to eliminate the intermediary role

Ottoman officials in Bucharest and the two administrative centers of Dobruca had in the appointment of müftis.

554 Kurșun, 3 Cemazülevvel 1329 (2 May 1911), 1. 555 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 110, f. 117-18. 231

To these sustained efforts the șeyhülislâm responded by invoking Article 44 of the

Treaty of Berlin, which stipulated that “the freedom and outward exercise of all forms of worship shall be assured to all persons belonging to the Romanian state, as well as to foreigners, and no hindrance shall be offered either to the hierarchical organization of the different religious communions, or to their relations with their spiritual chiefs.”556 He pointed out that the müftis of Dobruca functioned (and should continue to function) according to the rules stipulated in the document that regulated the religious affairs of

Muslim communities from Greece, Romania, Serbia, , and Bulgaria, issued back in 1886. These asserted that the șeyhülislâm had the exclusive right to confirm müftis through diplomas (singular, menșur) issued at Bâb-ı Meșihat, particularly because müftis and the șeyhülislâm mediated between the local Islamic community and the caliph

(the Ottoman sultan). The procedure originated in the Ottoman period when müftis, entrusted with the conduct of religious services as well as the interpretation and preaching of the şeriat (Islamic law), were nominated and deposed by the șeyhülislâm.

For the time being Romanians had to comply with these regulations, and it was not until the 1920s that the appointment of Dobruca’s müftis came under the complete control of the state.

Local Muslims were torn between the roles Istanbul and Bucharest had in determining their religious leaders. In 1891 conflict arose within the community in regard to the appointment of the Tulça/Tulcea müfti. According to the report of the county prefect addressed to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Instruction in

556 The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, 354. 232

October 1891, Hüseyin Ali, the judge (kadı) of the Tulça/Tulcea Islamic court, wished to replace the müfti of Tulcea County, Reșit Efendi. To reach this goal, he persuaded one

Muslim faction and the Ottoman vice-consul in the city to support his efforts at having

Reșit Efendi deposed in Istanbul. Having been informed of Hüseyin Ali’s maneuvering, four different groups of Muslims representing the cities of Tulça/ Tulcea, Isakçı/Isaccea,

Maçin/Măcin, and Babadağı/Babadag dispatched letters of protest to the șeyhülislâm in

Istanbul on behalf of Reșit Efendi. In these petitions, the Muslims presented themselves as members of the larger Islamic community that enjoyed the protection of the “padișah”

Abdülhamid and the Romanian government. They appealed to the highest Islamic religious authority to protest accusations made by “people with evil intentions” against the current müfti and hoped that, given his success in leading the Muslim community “to progress,” the müfti would be reinstated in the post that was rightly his.557

In this context, the local prefect took the side of Reșit Efendi, who “presented more guarantees of Romanian nationalism than his antagonist, the judge Hussein Ali, who did not even know Romanian.”558 In his view, Hüseyin Ali was but a “fanatical

Turk,” an individual whose behavior was completely inappropriate, and furthermore, a person who had attempted “to occupy a Romanian post without the knowledge of our government but through impositions from outside.”559 The prefect also condemned the

Ottoman Vice-Consul in Tulça/Tulcea, a certain Kadri Bey, for going beyond his

557 AMAE., Fond Problema 16, Vol. 15, f. 1 (the Ottoman petitions are separate, no page). 558 Ibid. In 1887, the Romanian government appointed Reșit Efendi as müfti of Tulça/Tulcea despite the fact that the șeyhülislâm had confirmed in the post a certain Mehmed Rüșdü Efendi, the former müfti of Sarayköy. Reșit Efendi was known for his amiable relations with the Romanian authorities (BOA., HR.TO., 41/13, 16 Muharrem 1305 [4 October 1887]). 559 AMAE., Fond Problema 16, Vol. 15. 233

authority by “meddling in business that, although of religious, private nature, was a matter of national and public security.”560 When asked about Kadri Bey, whose wealthy family lived in a village in Köstence/Constanţa County, the prefect of this county attributed Kadri Bey’s schemes against Reșit Efendi to accusations the latter had made about the non-Islamic lifestyle of the former. In response, Kadri Bey criticized the müfti for being “insufficiently Muslim and pro-Christian,” always eager to offer a warm welcome and effusively nationalistic speeches to Romanian ministers and the king whenever they visited the province.561 The dispute concluded with the clear victory of the șeyhülislâm and the appointment of Hüseyin Ali as müfti of Tulça/Tulcea in 1892.

Until the beginning of World War I, various other müftis who were favored either by local Muslims or by the Romanian government were found unsuitable for the task by the authorities in Istanbul.

Occasionally, the election of religious leaders was a highly politicized event. In

1908, the Muslims of Köstence/Constanţa County elected a new müfti in the person of

Hafız Rifat Efendi (former imam of a Mecidiye mosque) following the death of Hüseyin

Ali, who had occupied the post since 1900, when the two county müfti positions merged into one post at the request of Romanian authorities.562 But Ottoman officials in

560 Ibid. 561 Report dated 17 December 1891 (Ibid.) 562 Hafız Rifat Efendi lobbied hard for this position both locally and nationally. On June 15, 1908, he dispatched from Mecidiye a letter to the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs requesting that he be appointed müfti. It is interesting that he employed nationalist rhetoric to convince the minister that he was the right candidate. “It is necessary for the müfti of the county (who is a religious head),” he wrote, “to be an industrious individual, younger, intelligent, and able to work; to know his duties well; to inspect the communes very often in order to improve religious establishments and to advise the Muslim population; to not emigrate; and to live in harmony and love with his peers from other religious groups. In addition, the müfti should be of Dobrucan origin because only in this case would he work wholeheartedly for the 234

Bucharest urged the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to disregard the election because the result did not represent the choice of the entire Muslim community but only that of a few members active in the religious council of the county. The Romanian

Minister of Foreign Affairs attributed the reaction of the Ottoman officials to the Porte’s efforts to “preserve control over the opinions and actions of Romanian subjects living in the territory of our country.”563 Aware of the presence of Young Turks like Ibrahim

Temo and Ali Riza, who favored Rifat Efendi, in the religious council, the Porte was utterly concerned about the possible influence of the Young Turk movement over local

Muslims whose spiritual leader was the müfti.564 At the insistence of local Muslims,

Rifat Efendi ultimately received the official blessing of Istanbul and ended up serving in the post from 1909 to 1914.

This particular event afforded Romanian officials the opportunity to reopen the issue of the influence that the șeyhülislâm, and by extension the Porte, had in Romanian internal affairs. They looked, albeit unsuccessfully, into concluding with the Porte an agreement similar to those that Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria had concluded in 1907 in regard to their Muslim subjects. Despite such efforts, occasionally the Istanbul religious authorities continued to appoint müftis of their liking, regardless of the wishes of the local community. In 1913, for example, the request of the Muslims of Dobrici in Southern

Dobruca to appoint as müfti of Silistra a certain Hassan Mustafa, a graduate of a

inhabitants and the country where he was born and where he resides. It is well known that the child never has a sincere love for the stepmother” (AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 110, f. 141-153). 563 Report of Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs to Romanian Minister in Istanbul, dated June 1908 (AMAE., Fond Problema 16, Vol.18, no page). 564 Ibid. 235

theological school in Istanbul, received no consideration in Istanbul. Under the pretext that Hasan Mustafa was not knowledgeable enough to occupy the post, the șeyhülislâm appointed Hacı Sadık Efendi to be müfti of Silistra in his place.

The seriousness of these interventions led some Muslims to seek mediation by the

Romanian state. But state intervention was subservient to national interests and did not always support the demands of various factions of Muslims. However, officials made an effort to understand the arguments that reached their desks. Despite occasional adversity,

Muslims continued to plead their cases to both Romanian and Ottoman authorities, and occasionally succeeded in getting religious leaders of their liking appointed to local posts.

The School

In addition to the mosque, the school constituted a major concern for the Muslim community, particularly because the new administration decided to place education under the control of Romanian Ministry of Public Instruction. Beginning in 1880, the

Romanian language became obligatory and schools had to incorporate it into their curricula. From that moment onward, Muslim students had to study in both Romanian and their native languages. Public instruction was a permanent preoccupation for the

Romanian government, especially beween 1897 and 1910, when Spiru Haret was

Minister of Public Instruction. Since illiteracy prevailed throughout the country in 1899

(78 percent overall, 85 percent in the countryside), Haret launched the “peasant enlightenment” program to decrease illiteracy in villages.565 At the national level, the

565 Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania, 30-34. 236

implementation of the program resulted in the creation of 1,700 teaching jobs and 3,000 elementary schools enrolling students of all religious and ethnic backgrounds. Following this sustained effort, increased from 22 percent in 1899 to 39 percent in 1911.

Yet instruction in Dobruca was problematic because of lack of funding for public education. Following the annexation, private education was left in the hands of local communities, as had been the case during the Ottoman administration of the province.

Local statistics from 1879 indicated thirty-seven rural elementary schools and 270 urban elementary schools in the County of Köstence/Constanţa, most of which were funded by the community and only a few by the state. In rural areas only five schools were Tatar

(Mecidiye, Kahraman, Topeka Ipsora, Osmanfacı, and Büyük Ingles) while one was

Turkish (Esenköy). The situation of education was even poorer in the County of Tulça/

Tulcea, where only forty-four elementary schools functioned, including one school for

Muslim boys and another for Muslim girls.566 During the period 1879-1919, the number of elementary schools at the provincial level decreased to about 100 rural and eighteen urban due to lack of funding.567 Most of the schools the government established after 1878 in mixed areas inhabited by Turks, Tatars, and Romanians, especially in the southern part of

Dobruca, disappeared after several months of activity because of financial difficulties and scarcity of students.568 According to Müstecib Ülküsal, Muslim parents could not understand the benefits of education in Romanian schools and in consequence refused to

566 Steaua Dobrogei, August 1879. 567 Vasile Helgiu, “Școala primară din Dobrogea în curs de 40 ani (1879-1919),” Analele Dobrogei (1937): 236. 568 Ibid., 236-38. 237

register children in state institutions.569 In January 1881, the prefect of Köstence/Constanţa maintained, in a detailed report to the county council, that Muslim parents were indeed reluctant to send children to state schools out of fear that Romanians would persuade students to change their religion. “When I requested the appointment of hocas, teachers of

Islamic religion, for Muslim students enrolled in Romanian schools,” he stated in the report, “what doubt could there remain about the humanitarian and patriotic purpose of our schools? What the patria (fatherland) wants most of all is enlightened, honest people, and respectable citizens.”570 Passionate declarations such as this did not change the state of things, however. For reasons ranging from fear of having children converted to the state religion to unwillingness to study the , parents continued to avoid enrolling children in Romanian schools.

The large majority of Muslim children attended privately funded confessional schools that the community had established either during the Ottoman period or under the new political regime. In spite of the fact that these schools were fully managed by community members without the involvement of the government, lack of resources occasionally pushed the schools to request financial assistance from state officials (Figure

23). In doing so, the leadership of the school requesting assistance and sometimes even the religious heads of the community would repeatedly invoke in official petitions the role of the state in forming loyal citizens through education. In a letter written in February 1905

569 Ülküsal, Dobruca ve Türkler, 151. 570 Farul Constanţei, 8 February 1881, 3. 238

on behalf of the Muslim community of Köstence/Constanţa, the county müfti, Hüseyin

Ali, urged the mayor to provide funding for four teachers, two Muslim and two Romanian, at the school the community had established in the city in 1897. In the beginning of the letter, the müfti explained that “because Muslim inhabitants have no other patrie

(fatherland) besides our Romanian country and because they do not wish to have connections with any other country, we believe that it is our duty to have children raised in our traditional law as Muslims but also as Romanian citizens.”571 Towards the end of the letter, he worried that Muslim students might remain behind their peers educated in state schools if help were not immediately provided to them. Similar petitions requesting financial assistance for the employment or payment of teachers, as well as for acquisition of fuel and furniture, for this particular school had reached the desks of city authorities in previous years.572 By arguing that financial help would turn students into “better and prouder citizens” of Romania, Muslim notables achieved considerable success in obtaining the desired funding.573 Muslim students enrolled in Romanian educational institutions also

571 ANRC., Fond Primărie, 23/1905, f. 20. 572 Muslim notables dispatched petitions to the mayor of Constanţa in 1900, 1901, and 1902 (Ibid., 25/1900, 24/1901, and 22/1902). 573 Ibid., 24/1901. 239

Figure 23. Dobrucan Turks in front of a school building (early 20th century). Source: www.delcampe.net.

also benefited from the support of the Prefect’s Office in the form of generous scholarships meant to cover purchases of books, clothing, and school supplies.574

This type of assistance was more prevalent in cities than in villages due to the higher level of income generated by a variety of sources but also because in rural areas

Muslim education and funding constituted the exclusive preoccupation of local communities. The schools attached to mosques (mekâtib-i sıbyân), providing children under the age of ten with basic instruction in literacy and Qur’an, received financial assistance only from the community. The imams put in charge of the management of such schools and the instruction of students were paid in crops or livestock in most cases.575

574 ANRC., Fond Prefectură, 1/1905-1920. 575 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 145. 240

During the Ottoman period, these institutions were deemed to be essential in preparing students for the secondary level of education.576 Secondary schools (singular, rüșdiye) instructed children over ten years of age for a period of three years in a variety of disciplines, including the Qur’an, Arabic, Persian, ethics, orthography, geometry, algebra,

Ottoman history, Islamic history, geography, pedagogy, music, drawing, writing, and physical education.577 The Ottomans had established these institutions in Dobruca’s major cities, including Köstence/Constanţa, Tulça/Tulcea, and Mecidiye/Medgidia, and ranked them as the highest state schools of the day in the province. After 1878, rüșdiye schools came under the control of the Romanian Ministry of Public Instruction, which approved school curricula and paid teachers’ salaries. With few exceptions most teachers in these schools came from indigenous Muslim elites. When exiled Young Turks came to occupy teaching posts here, the schools became centers for the spread of their ideas, meant to influence both Muslim youth and the community at large.578

The institution that contributed most to the formation of Dobruca’s Muslim intellectual elite was the Muslim medrese (seminary) of Babadağı/Babadag, which was relocated in 1910 to Mecidiye.579 Established by the Law for the Organization of Dobruca in 1880, the medrese began to function in 1889 as an institution that prepared the future

576 Selçuk Akşin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839-1908: Islamization, Autocracy, and Discipline (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 74. 577 These disciplines correspond to those that existed in 1904 in Ottoman rüșdiye schools (Ibid., appendix 5). 578 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 146-147. 579 For details regarding the medrese, see Alexandru Alecu, “Istoricul Seminarului Musulman din Megidia,” Analele Dobrogei II (1928), 181-87; idem, Anuarul Seminarului Musulman din Megidia pe anul şcolar 1930-1931 (Constanţa: Tipografia “Aurora” Ilie M. Grigoriu, 1931); Dobrogea Jună, no. 9 (16 March 1914), 1; no. 10 (23 March 1914), 2. 241

hocas and imams of the local community. Prior to 1878, the medrese was attached to the ensemble of institutions financially supported by the vakıf of Gazi Ali Paşa, established in

Babadağı/Babadag in 1610. After the Romanian state confiscated the vakıf and its 8,000 hectares of land in 1878, the government took over the management of the school and used the income to remunerate the person in charge with the former possessions of the pious foundation. After its relocation to Mecidiye/Medgidia, the medrese preserved its religious curriculum and even augmented it. In 1904 the Ministry of Public Instruction added the study of Islamic religious law to the already compulsory study of Arabic language and interpretation of the Qur’an. The disciplines included in the curriculum were taught in a mix of Romanian, Arabic, and Turkish.580 In 1928, the Romanian Ministry of Instruction included the medrese in the category of state secondary schools.581

This institution fulfilled different roles for the Muslim community and for the

Romanian state. As a source of manpower for local schools and mosques, the medrese fulfilled the needs of Muslims seeking cultural advancement and good social positions in a predominantly Christian society that was engaged in nation-building. As a source of

Muslim elites, the same institution provided the nationalizing state with educated loyal citizens. From this point of view, the goals of the Romanian authorities were no different from those of the founders of the nineteenth-century Ottoman civil schools, who “expected

580 Courses of general culture such as the Romanian language, , world history, geography, natural sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, administrative and constitutional law, hygiene, folk medicine, agriculture (the cultivation of trees and vegetables), pedagogy, and music were taught in Romanian. The Qur’an, the interpretation of the Qur’an, Arabic language, and Islamic jurisprudence were taught in Arabic, while the Ottoman language and literature, and the were taught in Turkish (Alecu, “Istoricul Seminarului Musulman,” 184). 581 ANRC., Fond Prefectură, 1/1928, 2-3. 242

a feeling of solidarity to emerge among those who had gone through that educational system.”582 As Benjamin Fortna points out, during this period “throughout the world universal education and literacy were the vehicles through which the state was to pursue its aim of both creating and then shaping national identity and loyalty.”583 The expectations of

Haret, the Minister of Public Instruction, were made clear in a letter addressed to the medrese director, Alexandru Alecu: “Moral education and the adaptation of students to state needs would be the object, of course, of the [educational] committee’s most lively preoccupations. I put all my hope in your enterprise and patriotism that you will finish well the work that I expect from you.”584

Some of the medrese students delivered on the expectations that Haret outlined in the aforementioned letter. In his final examination paper, one of the students recounted with effusive words the impression King Carol I made upon him during a student visit to the summer royal residence in : “A beautiful face, a noble head, a great appearance, an elegant figure, a majestic air that penetrates you, and above all, a sweet and attractive voice which wins you over from its first sound – this is the very impression His Majesty

King Carol made on me when I had the fortune to be welcomed at the Peleş Castle in

Sinaia. I entered the palace with a trembling heart, and when I walked out of it I felt as if I could have raced myself even against the fastest train… this was how much thrill I had

582 Randi Deguilhem, “Reflections on the Secularization of Education in the 19th Century Ottoman Empire: The Syrian Provinces,” in The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation, Volume 2: Economy and Society, ed. Kemal Çiçek (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye Publications, 2000), 663. 583 Benjamin C. Fortna, Learning to Read in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 15. 584 Alecu, “Istoricul Seminarului Musulman,” 183. 243

inside of me.”585 The organization of regular visits of Muslim students to the grandiose royal palace in Sinaia, located in the eighty miles from Bucharest and a little over 200 miles from Constanţa, constituted yet another way for the administration to appeal to the hearts of the Muslim community. As the influence of students over the community was deemed considerable, officials believed that students could play an important role in the decision of parents to enroll their children in state schools, and ultimately hoped that positive student experiences in state schools could change the parents’ plans to migrate to the Ottoman Empire.

In spite of state efforts to improve the condition of the local Muslim community, some Dobrucan Muslims criticized the government for not doing enough in this direction.

In a letter published in the Ottoman newspaper İkdâm on January 12, 1909, one of them remarked that instruction was poor in Dobruca, and “a nation without education was like a body without a soul.”586 He opposed the government’s imposition of the Romanian language in schools, which he interpreted as a sign of discrimination, and further complained that Muslim teachers and religious preachers in villages with a Muslim majority failed to receive state compensation, while those in cities had insignificant salaries. “Romanians argue that they respect the national and religious feelings of the

Muslim population by allowing the wearing of the fez during military service,” the author of the article wrote. “Instead, by taking discriminatory measures, they destroy the Muslim population in such a way that we do not shy away from naming this state of things as

585 Ibid., 186. 586 İkdâm, 19 Zilhicce 1326 [12 January 1909]), 2. 244

despotism within a constitutional regime.”587 The poor situation of Muslims in Dobruca, he finally argued, should be attributed not to ignorance and religious fanaticism, as some of the local Muslim notables had stated in the past, but to the “administrative despotism” of the Romanian government.588

The author of the letter, who preserved his , was probably alluding to the explanation that Ismail Sabri Bey had given for the backwardness of Dobruca’s Muslims in a letter published in the same newspaper on 29 December 1908. Attempting to explain the worrisome proportion of Muslim emigration to the Ottoman Empire, Sabri Bey, an officer in the Romanian army, found that ignorance and fanaticism constituted the main reasons for which his coreligionists left Dobruca in spite of the advantageous conditions Romanian authorities had created for them in the province. Muslims benefited from having their own schools, houses, religious institutions, freedom of expression, and privileged conditions in the national army, yet they continued to emigrate, hoping that the Ottoman government would provide them with a better situation. Even worse, Muslim parents refused to enroll their children in state schools, which they found to be contrary to religious law (şeriat) and preferred to keep them in ignorance. And Muslim youth preferred to mutilate themselves rather than serve in the national army. “I have seen with my own eyes,” Sabri Bey stated,

“how several young men cut with an axe their own fingers from their right hands to escape military service.” “We are like the savages of Africa,” he concluded, “unable to make any progress and unwilling to enjoy the benefits the state created for us.”589

587 Ibid. 588 Ibid. 589 Ibid., 30 Zilkâde 1326 [24 December 1908], 2. 245

The letters mentioned above constitute two extreme and obviously biased positions taken by both Muslims disgruntled with what had happened within the community after

Romanian authorities took over the province in 1878. Rejecting the new political regime that imposed instruction in the national language and entrusted rural instruction to local communities, the anonymous writer regarded state regulations as markers of social discrimination. From his point of view, the excessive control of the state over the education of youth, in addition to other restrictive measures, turned local governance into a despotic regime. In contrast, Sabri Bey, an officer in the Romanian national army and part of the new provincial administrative structure, interpreted the same policies as a form of toleration that allowed the state to intervene in the affairs of the community in a positive manner. Listing the different kinds of benefits community members had acquired under the new regime, Sabri Bey could not comprehend the reasons for which his coreligionists continued to seek refuge in the Ottoman Empire. Like other Muslims, he was certainly aware of the administrative abuses of petty functionaries in the application of Romanian legislation at the provincial level but maintained that the government punished the wrong- doers in spite of their position and role in local administration. Sabri Bey’s positive attitude toward the regime, and especially toward the abuses that affected the local population following the skewed application of laws on the ground, was meant to change the minds and hearts of Muslims preparing to leave the province.

Other Muslim notables holding high-ranking posts in the new administration manifested similar acquiescence in state policies out of a desire to hasten the cultural progress of the community to which they belonged. In 1911, Mahmud Çelebi, a member of

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the city council of Köstence/Constanţa, wrote in a local Muslim newspaper that “the justice shown by the state in the administration of Dobruca could not be contested. Some abuses of a few small functionaries could not constitute a reason to find the state responsible for this situation because the state, while still young … was unable to train bureaucrats sufficiently to know their rights and duties.”590 In this case Mahmud Çelebi praised the

Romanian state merely to draw attention to the important matter of education in Muslim schools. He took the occasion to lament that confessional schools were being closed or were unable to function due to lack of funding from community members. To help with the overall progress of the community, students had to receive proper instruction.

Otherwise, there would be a danger of a generation of illiterate Muslim youth in the province.

From the point of view of the central and local administration, what led to the closing of confessional schools was the students’ failure to reach proper academic standards. Officials paid the salaries of some teachers (particularly language teachers), and the expectation was that Muslim students would acquire not only fluency in the Romanian language but also proficiency in various disciplines that would qualify them to move on to a superior level of instruction. Inspectors from Bucharest would be sent on a monthly basis to evaluate both teachers and students and to suggest further improvements in the quality of instruction and the hygiene of the school. But the reports the inspectors wrote were not at all positive. For instance, the evaluation of the Muslim school in Köstence/Constanţa, mentioned in the opening of this section, which was founded in 1897 and for which müfti

590 Teşvik, 15 Rebiülevvel 1329 (16 March 1911), 1. 247

Hussein Ali requested financial help in 1905, was mostly negative. According to the inspectors, the quality of instruction was poor. In 1903, only fifty-three students, out of a total of 147 enrolled at the elementary level, studied Romanian for a total of four hours per week.591 Given the very limited time assigned for the study of the official language, students spoke Romanian with great difficulty and often used inappropriate diction when reading from textbooks.592 In most cases, teachers were behind with the curriculum because they had to translate from Romanian into Turkish to enhance the students’ understanding of the material.593 Some students were older than appropriate for their grades because parents enrolled them in school late or because they had failed to pass the exams that would have allowed them to advance. None of the students spoke Romanian when they started school, and even after several years of instruction they still could not speak it fluently.594

The poor quality of instruction in this particular institution resulted in low rates of final exam attendance and even lower rates of graduation.595 Following more than a decade of frustrating visits to the school, one inspector recorded in his report that “the Romanian government was wasting money on instruction that had no positive outcome.”596 He was puzzled that students manifested no real interest in education or instruction in the official

591 Report from 13 March 1903 (ANRC., Fond Comunitatea musulmană şi şcoli turco-tătare, 3/1902-16). 592 Ibid., Reports from 5 February 1908 and 16 June 1908. 593 Ibid., Report from 17 December 1907. 594 Ibid., Report from 14 December 1913. 595 Ibid., Report from 16 June 1908. 596 Ibid. 248

language in spite of their being “Romanian subjects who need to know perfectly the language of the surrounding population.”597

When confessional schools ceased to function in the 1910s, Muslim youth from

Köstence/Constanţa County went to Bucharest to persuade officials in the Ministry of

Instruction to reopen them. They hoped to sway authorities to cease to force Muslim children to attend Romanian schools. In addition, this intervention intended to convince the minister that instruction in confessional schools, if reopened, should be carried out solely in Turkish.598 Disgruntled with such initiatives, some voices in the local media argued that confessional schools should stay closed due to their overall poor quality.

Confessional schools reopened after all for Turkish and Tatar students, and the government continued to pay the salaries of Romanian language teachers serving in those institutions.

The Muslim community did find an ally in state authorities in the end, even if this meant that its youth had to learn Romanian in order to become part of the new establishment.

Cultural activity

In the cultural realm, Muslim elites paid special attention to the organization of various institutions meant to spread and enhance education among their coreligionists after 1878. The state afforded them considerable freedom in founding cultural associations, publishing books, and making their voices heard in local and national media. Aware of the poor level of education and instruction among the mass of

597 Ibid., Report from 18 March 1913. 598 Dobrogea Jună, 29 January 1912, 1. 249

community members, elites took upon themselves the daunting task of “illuminating the masses” by organizing various institutions and events that afforded more effective social interaction. But to ensure complete liberty of action, sustained efforts at attracting the benevolence of state authorities were made throughout the period at each major step of the way. Whether of a literary or a journalistic nature, many elite writings contain expressions of loyalty for the state and the monarchy but also feelings of attachment to

Dobruca. A pronounced sense of regional attachment had gradually emerged from these writings alone. The main idea that intellectual elites wished to promote among their coreligionists was that the state and the province would be better served if the community was properly equipped intellectually as well as culturally.

Much of the literature authored by Turks and Tatars in this period emphasized the need for the Muslims to play an active and effective part in the progress of their community and, through this, in the progress of the Romanian “nation.” Yusuf Isa Halim

(1894-1982), a famed poet and author of the first Romanian-Turkish dictionary, was one of the most forceful supporters of this particular idea. A native of Dobruca, Halim graduated from the Muslim medrese in Mecidiye/Medgidia in 1915. He devoted a good part of his life to teaching in several rural areas of the province. In addition, he was well- known not only for his attachment to Dobruca, which he described in many of his poems, but also for his strong patriotism and desire to improve the condition of the Muslim community through education and work. One of his poems, titled Çalışalım (Let Us

Work), urged Muslims to become propellers of progress in their homeland:

Brothers, it is time to wake up,

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Let us work, let us give our lives for the nation

Let us make the name of the people famous

The foreigners shall not look down on us

They shall not speak badly of us

Let us open the doors to industry and commerce

So that our homeland becomes more prosperous

Let us work, let us give our lives for the nation

So that Dobruca and our beloved homeland,

Will become our reputed, honorable, our haven.599

Halim was convinced that hard work and sacrifice for Dobruca would lead to a more prosperous condition for the community as a whole.

Surprisingly enough, similar feelings found their way into . The folklore that Dobrucan Turks produced in this period revolved generally around themes related to the main occupations of the population, seasonal activities, and special events associated with everyday life, such as birth, marriage, and death. But occasionally folkloric creations would be passed from one generation to the other in the forms of poems and songs describing strong attachment for the land of Dobruca. A well-known folk song originating in a Turkish village depicts Dobruca as the homeland and the Turks as its sons:

599 Ey kardeşler, artık biz uyanalım/ Çalışalım, millete can verelim/ Halk namına şan verelim./ Ecnebi bizi tahkir eylemesin/ Hakkımızda fena söz söylemesin/ San’at, ticaret kapılarını açalım/ Vatana feyzül saadet saçalım/ Çalışalım, millete can verelim/ Dobruca ve sevgili vatanımız/ Olsun şanlı, şerefli yatağımız,” (Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 175). 251

Dobruca, famous homeland,

May our lives be a sacrifice for you.

We are the children of Dobruca!

We give fame to the nation.

We give our lives to the homeland.

The “nation” is today a sacrifice for you

Famous homeland, may you live thousands of years.600

Historian of Dobruca Mehmed Ali Ekrem has suggested that the song might have been a local adaptation of Tanzimat-era Turkish poetry due to its rhythmicality and vigorous construction, which reminds him of the literary work of and

Namık Kemal.601 If this were indeed the case, one would be inclined to think that the song was meant to inculcate in Dobrucan Muslims the same sense of belonging to the

“nation” that Tanzimat intellectuals endeavored to create in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century.

Similar goals lay behind the foundation of Muslim associations in Dobruca. In the period under examination, only two cultural associations functioned in the cities of the province. The first, Dobruca Tamim-i Maarif Cemiyeti (Association for the Spread of

Education in Dobruca), was established in 1909 by Mehmed Niyazi (1878-1931), a

Dobrucan of Tatar origin, trained as a teacher in Istanbul at the turn of the century.602

Niyazi became one of the major poets of the Dobrucan Muslim community during his

600 “Ey, Dobruca, şanlı vatan! / Canlar sana olsun feda; / Dobruca evlâdiyiz!/ Millete şan veririz, / Vatana can veririz./ Millet bugün kurban sana!/ Şanlı vatan, binler yaşa!”(Ibid., 168). 601 Ibid. 602 Ülküsal, Dobruca ve Türkler, 165. 252

lifetime, a status that he still retains today.603 During its almost two years of existence, the association was headquartered in Köstence/Constanţa, spread to Mecidiye/ Medgidia and Hırșova/Hîrșova, and published a variety of books and journals, as well as the newspaper Dobruca Sadasi (The Voice of Dobruca). A number of association members held public lectures meant to “illuminate” Muslims in both rural and urban areas, and supported the most talented Muslim students with scholarships.604 In 1911 the Muslim medrese in Mecidiye established its own association, Mecidiye Müslüman Seminarı

Mezunları Cemiyeti (Association of Graduates of the Muslim Seminary). Given the profession of its members, the association aimed to educate Muslims about what it meant to live in Romanian society as members of the Muslim community and as Romanian citizens. In their public lectures, members of the association made efforts to instill a sense of pride in their coreligionists by emphasizing the importance of their religious identity as well as their inclusion in the Romanian state.

The sustained activity of Young Turk members in Dobruca from the 1890s onwards gave a considerable boost to many aspects of Muslim cultural life. In particular, the

Turkish and Tatar press had emerged from the collaboration of the local Muslim elite with the exiled Young Turk activists from the Balkan area. The supposition that local Muslim intellectuals responded favorably to Young Turk propaganda because of frustration caused by the Romanian administration has little factual support.605 In reality, indigenous

Muslims welcomed the Young Turks, including Ibrahim Temo (the founder of the

603 Karadeniz, 1 and 4 July 2001. 604 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 155. 605 Tahsin Gemil, “Asociaţia din România a ‘Junilor Turci’,” 154. 253

Committee of Union and Progress), Kırımızade Ali Rıza, Ibrahim Naci, M. Ragib, Hüseyin

Avni, Mahmud Çelebi, and Veliyullah Çelebi, because of their seriousness and dedication in helping the community grow intellectually and understand their belonging to a larger community of believers.

Since the examination of the activity of Young Turks in Dobruca is the purview of the following chapter, suffice it to say for the moment that the members of this particular movement were the ones who most helped the community to advance culturally due to their roles as teachers, publishers, and organizers of communal life in the province.

Ibrahim Temo, for example, contributed to the intellectual formation of the students enrolled in the Mecidiye medrese, whose role as the main center of Muslim intellectual activity in the province grew in this period. From Mecidiye, Temo organized the activity of Young Turk cells in Dobruca and Bulgaria and initiated contacts with the European representatives of the movement.606 In his memoirs, Temo confessed that his Balkan activity was subservient to the interests of his homeland (vatan) and that his purpose was to foment a Turkish national revolution.607 This objective was repeatedly stated in the newspapers that he and his friend Şefik Bey had established at the turn of the century in

Bucharest and Constanţa, namely Hareket (1896), Sadakat (1897), Sadayı Millet (1898), and Dobrogea (1901). The declared mission of each newspaper was to “illuminate” the

Muslim population through the spread of progressive ideas and to foster loyalty to the

606 Ibrahim Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyetinin Teşekkülü ve Hidematı Vataniye ve İnkilâb-i Milliye dair Hatiratım (Romanya: Mecidiye, 1939), 48-49. 607 Sadakat, 10 Muharrem 1314 (12 June 1896), 1. 254

Romanian state, but the expectation was always that Muslims would develop in time a certain loyalty and attachment to the revolutionary cause of the Young Turk movement.608

The wide influence of the Young Turk movement in Dobruca was meant to be diminished, if not terminated, through the publication of the newspaper Şark in Constanţa in 1896. Founded under the direction of Tahir Bey, a protégé of who was

Abdülhamid II’s secretary, the newspaper stated that its main goal was to illuminate the backward Muslim population of Dobruca.609 But the virulent attacks against the Young

Turk movement which filled every issue of the newspaper demonstrated that the true objective of the editor was to counterbalance the preponderance of Young Turk newspapers in the region and, ultimately, to eliminate the influence these newspapers had on the political opinions of local Muslims. Since this objective was not achieved, Şark disappeared after less than three months.

In addition to the publications of the Young Turks and the Ottoman government, the newspaper Dobruca Gazetesi (Dobruca Gazette) was published in 1881 with funds from the Romanian government. In publishing a newspaper in Turkish for the Muslim community, the government wished to spread Romanian culture among Turks and Tatars as it hoped to gain their support for the Romanian national cause.610

Beginning in 1914 the Tatar community published its first newspaper, Işık (The

Light) under the direction of Mehmed Niyazi (1878-1931). Of Tatar origin, Niyazi targeted particularly the Tatar population, whom he found to have been “kept in the dark as

608 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 182. 609 Şark, 12 Cemazülevvel 1314 (19 October 1896), 1. 610 Ibid. 255

a consequence of ignorance, indifference, and wrong beliefs.” It was thus of major importance, Niyazi believed, to clean their “black hearts and rusted minds” and to “wake them up from the sleep of ignorance, silence, and laziness.”611 The contribution of this newspaper, printed in Arabic script in the first house in Mecidiye/Medgidia, was indeed fundamental for the cultural advancement of the Dobrucan Tatar population. The ideas published in the newspaper spread throughout Dobruca during the early decades of the twentieth century. People read articles aloud, discussed them, and in time adhered to the national ideas that filled the pages of different newspaper issues. Although a native of

Dobruca, Niyazi founded a national movement that advocated a strong attachment to the

Crimea, described in his writings as the Green Island (Yeșil Ada). Interestingly enough, the Romanian government did nothing to stop the spread of these ideas as long as the

Tatars fulfilled their obligations to the state and proved loyal to the monarchy, and later to the various political regimes that replaced the monarchical system.

The articles that appeared in the aforementioned newspapers discussed political, socioeconomic, and cultural issues that affected the Muslim communities of Dobruca.

Each newspaper had a specific political agenda as it tried to attract the support of different

Muslim factions. Their lack of criticism of Romanian nationalizing policies indicated that in pursuing particular goals, publishers attempted to avoid tension with the government, from which they expected moral support. In this context the main goal of Muslim elites was to preserve the cultural freedom that the government permitted to the community rather than to antagonize the central authority. As is demonstrated in the next chapter, the

611 Ișık, 5 Rebiülevvel 1332 [1 February 1914], 1. 256

Romanian government was tolerant of Muslims and Islam to the extent that it permitted the spread of both the ideas of the Young Turk movement and those of Crimean nationalism, propagated by Mehmed Niyazi in his writings. As long as Muslims proved to be good citizens and avowed publicly their loyalty for the state and the monarchy, the Romanian government did not interfere much in the cultural development of its Muslim subjects.

Conclusion

Following the annexation of Dobruca to Romania and the implementation of state legislation in the province, the members of the local Muslim community reacted in two fundamentally different ways to these changes. Rejecting the new status quo, a considerable number of Muslims found it appropriate to migrate to the Ottoman Empire in subsequent years in search of a better situation in a state with a Muslim majority that functioned according to Islamic principles. The remaining Muslims, however, opted to adapt to the new regime and comply with state policies. This strategy at least afforded the community a certain degree of autonomy and agency in matters of religion, education, and culture.

Elite members in particular understood the potential benefits of living under

Romanian administration. Despite nationalization measures that hit the entire community hard, they perceived governmental policies as avenues for the preservation of their religious identity, as well as for cultural advancement. Being aware that Romania would invest resources in the process of nation-building to make itself “complete” and therefore advance the condition of minority communities, the elite preferred to cooperate with state

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officials rather than criticize the establishment for the inequitable application of state policies on the ground. The avenue chosen in this context was the employment of nationalist rhetoric that portrayed the entire community as a unified body of obedient citizens devoted to both the state and the monarchy. In this context Muslim elites played an important role as intermediaries between the state and their coreligionists, thus expediting the formation of a civic consciousness among their Turkish and Tatar compatriots.

Display of loyalty for the state and monarchy was part of a well-thought-out strategy aiming to attract the benevolence and assistance of state officials in community and individual projects. Appeals along national lines also allowed for a smoother adaptation of Muslims to state policies meant to homogenize local society. Muslim elites and commonfolk alike decided to “speak and act nationally” in order to obtain state benefits. They made use of the Romanian language in petitions dispatched to Romanian officials, spoke Romanian in public, wrote articles in favor of the administration, delivered public speeches with nationalist undertones whenever state officials attended communal events, and established cultural associations that allowed for a wider spread of nationalistic ideas among community members. As a reward for doing so, Muslims obtained financial support, particularly for mosques and schools, which secured their positions in society, and benefited from freedom in organizing their own cultural associations and in publishing newspapers and books in their own languages.

Romanian officials had also allowed the spread of Young Turk ideas and Niyazi’s

Crimean nationalist ideas among Dobrucan Turks and Tatars. Although such lenience on

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the part of the government might seem quite puzzling given the nationalizing efforts that

Romanian officials had undertaken in this period, it is not wrong to state that the government would have not permitted these interferences if they have posed any danger to the act of governance in Dobruca.

The purpose of the following chapter is to examine in greater detail the extent to which the ideas of both the Young Turks and Mehmed Niyazi affected the local Muslim community at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.

Given its content, the chapter aims to close the argument that I have proposed in this thesis in regard to the formation of national identity among the Muslims of Dobruca between 1878 and 1914. As previously stated, the formation of minority identity cannot be understood solely through state policies and the reaction of minorities to these policies. As will be demonstrated in the following chapter, transnational connections, such as the movement of political elites and ideas, also defined the options for political action and shaped national identity.

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Chapter 6: Transnational Networks and the Muslims of Dobruca since the 1880s

Romanian national policies implemented in the Dobruca region and the response they generated within the local Muslim community were not the only factors that affected identity formation among the region’s Muslims between 1878 and 1914. The presence of transnational networks, in particular the Young Turks and the Crimean national movement, also played a significant role in the way Dobrucan Muslims defined themselves. Most importantly, the ability of these networks to foster cross-border connections by ensuring the free movement of ideas and individuals across national frontiers contributed to the intellectual development of the community as a whole.

Rather than resist foreign influence, Muslim elites became the bearers of a new political and cultural consciousness among their coreligionists.

Both Ottoman and Romanian sources indicate the existence of a significant exchange of ideas between Dobrucan Muslims and members of the Young Turk movement, whose subversive activities against Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1909) found a positive reception in southeastern Europe and the Balkans, as they did elsewhere in

Europe. Born in Istanbul in the late 1880s, the Young Turk movement emerged as an organization founded by members of the Turkish intelligentsia who received a modern

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education in the Ottoman capital.612 Its members sought to remove the sultan and to restore a parliamentary and constitutional regime throughout Ottoman territories. In their view, Abdülhamid had to be removed from power because of his abusive leadership, which obstructed the development of Ottoman society along modernist and secular lines.

The commitment to this cause had significant consequences for most of the Muslim communities that welcomed the Young Turks and favored their anti-Hamidian activity. As in other parts of Europe, in Romanian Dobruca the Young Turks’ insistence that active individuals striving for improvement in both private and public domains were catalysts for societal development led to the advancement of local Muslims, both intellectually and politically. The spread of Young Turk ideas enabled community members to better understand and react to contemporary events occurring in the region and in the broader

Turkic world. Options for political action and internal reorganization, mostly at a cultural level, helped Muslims acquire a particular sense of self at both personal and collective levels.

Most of the Young Turks present in Dobruca assimilated into the indigenous

Muslim community and gradually became part of the provincial middle-class establishment as a result of the positions of leadership they occupied in the local Muslim society. While working steadily to oppose Hamidian policies from exile, the Young Turks also voiced the wishes of local Muslims in their newspapers, in the classroom, in public gatherings, and in meetings with Romanian officials. Soon after settling in Dobruca, individuals like Ibrahim

612 There is an extensive bibliography related to the Young Turks. For the background of the movement, in this chapter I rely mainly on Şükrü Hanioğlu’s The Young Turks in Opposition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 261

Temo, one of the founders of the Committee of Union and Progress (C.U.P), helped reorganize the Muslim community both politically and intellectually. Temo and his fellow

Young Turks not only employed printing and education as means of spreading and speeding up the inclusion of Muslims in the life of the Romanian state, but they also helped produce the future Muslim elites of the region. The new elites communicated their modern ideas in mosques, schools, and publications that acquired an important audience at both local and international levels. In doing so, they generated significant change within the local Muslim society. This status allowed the Young Turks to play a crucial role in shaping political discourse in the region. It also permitted them to serve as intermediaries between local Muslims and Romanian officials upon their assimilation into the region’s social fabric.

This intermediary position was hardly unique during this period. Partha Chaterjee has argued, for instance, that during the late nineteenth century a politically and economically British-dominated indigenous middle class in Calcutta played an important role in “creating the dominant forms of nationalist culture and social institutions in

Bengal.”613 They achieved success due to their position as intermediaries between the local population and British colonial authorities. This position allowed them to act as “a subject” who stood “in the middle,” who worked upon and transformed “one term of a relation into the other.”614 This “consciousness of middleness” offered indigenous elites the opportunity not only to mediate between the local population and the British

613 Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, 35. 614 Ibid. 262

authorities but also to lead their followers on both intellectual and political fronts. In both India and Dobruca this relationship took the shape of a “collaborative structure.”

Nevertheless, while in India Britisih authorities imposed an imperialist regime, in

Dobruca Romanian authorities operated within the framework of “internal colonialism,” a regime they implemented in this particular peripheral region of the country they ruled.

While primarily Muslim Turks in Dobruca came under the influence of modernist concepts propounded by the Young Turks, their Tatar coreligionists came under that of the Crimean Jadidist movement led by Ismail Gaspıralı (also known as Gasprinsky, 1851-

1914), whose ideas spread across the Turkic world during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Jadidist movement emerged in tsarist-ruled during the nineteenth century and was the product of a Muslim intellectual middle class attempting to modernize the local Muslim society. Its main exponent, Ismail Gaspıralı, argued that Muslims should borrow ideas from the more technologically advanced West in order to revitalize their intellectual and social life.615 Similar to the members of the

Young Turk movement, Gaspıralı believed that Muslims should become active members of a modernized society without losing their Islamic identity.616 These ideas, as well as his defense of the ethno-national status of and support for the unity of the world’s Turkic population through common “language, ideas, and action,” made

Gaspıralı the most influential Crimean Tatar of his time.617

615 For an excellent study of the movement, see Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 616 M. Özgür Tuna, “Gaspıralı V. Il’Minskii: Two Identity Projects for the Muslims of the Russian Empire,” Nationalities Papers 30, 2 (2002): 268. 617 For example, the case of Gaspıralı’s considerable influence on is the topic of an excellent study authored by Ömer and Kyle Evered, “Jadidism in South-eastern Europe: The 263

In Dobruca, Gaspıralı’s legacy found its expression in the work of Mehmed

Niyazi (1878-1935), a Crimean Tatar born in Dobruca, who was in his youth an active member of the Balkan branch of the Young Turk movement. In his various capacities as activist, teacher, journalist, and poet, Niyazi emphasized the importance of cultural modernization among the Muslims of Dobruca. What made Niyazi famous during and after his lifetime, however, was his advocacy of the idea that Dobrucan Tatars should identify as a community with their historic homeland, the Crimean Peninsula (often mentioned in his work as Yeșil Ada or “the Green Island”). Although part of the wider

Turkic world, Niyazi argued, Tatars had their own identity based on a shared ethnicity, cultural heritage, and a common language. Because the Crimean Peninsula was part of the Russian Empire when Niyazi conceived his ideas, the Tatar “nation” that he envisioned was still a political project in the making. Unable to effect any immediate political change, the poet was limited to expressing his strong attachment to and longing for the Tatar homeland in a series of poems and journal articles printed and distributed locally during the early twentieth century. His works were widely read in the region and served as an inspiration for the Dobrucan branch of the Crimean national movement later in the twentieth century.618

By facilitating the exchange of modernist intellectual and political ideas between local Muslims and members of either the Young Turk movement or the Crimean national movement, informal transnational connections informed Muslims of their options for

Influence of Ismail Bey Gaspirali among Bulgarian Turks,” MES 41, 4 (2005): 481-502. For a broader perspective, see also Yonca Köksal, “Transnational Networks and Kin States: The Turkish Minority in Bulgaria, 1878–1940,” Nationalities Papers 38, 2 (2010): 199–202. 618 Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 283-84. 264

political action as much as they shaped their political identity. Ideas of Turkish modernism were, therefore, introduced to Dobruca by political exiles from Istanbul and activists from the broader Turkic world. Their reformist nature, however, had a double- edged effect on the local Muslims as it deepened the division within the community between conservatives and reformists.

These particular transnational networks formed the local dimension of the broader transnational connections linking Dobrucan Muslims to the outside world. The formal relationship among them, their country of origin, Romania, and their supposed ethnic fatherland, the Ottoman Empire, provided the international and interstate dimensions of this broader transnational connection.619 Positive relations between Romania and the

Ottoman Empire between 1878 and 1914 helped Muslims preserve religious and juridical autonomy in Dobruca and elsewhere in Romanian territory. The presence of good bilateral relations also gave ppthem access to transnational networks which connected them to the wider Turkic world and to the ideas of modernism. Romanian authorities allowed the flow of ideas and intellectuals from the Turkic world to Romanian territory.

It would be hard to imagine any intellectual and political development in the Muslim community without at least the passive support of Romanian officials. Although these officials occasionally obstructed the Young Turk activities against the Hamidian regime due to the pressure of the Porte, they did not hinder Young Turk efforts to assist local

Muslims with means to improve the intellectual condition of the entire community.

619 For the case of Bulgarian Muslims, see Yonca Köksal, “Transnational Networks and Kin States,” 191- 211. 265

Furthermore, neither the modernization of the Muslim community as a whole nor the local brand of nationalism espoused by Dobrucan Tatars was perceived as an attack on

Romanian nationalism or the process of Romanianization that was in progress in Dobruca at that time. The Romanian government treated the Muslims as minorities and, in several circumstances, used them to obtain benefits for Romanians living in the Ottoman Empire.

The Muslims of Dobruca did not experience persecution in the same measure their

Balkan coreligionists did under the other regimes born out of the disintegration of the

Ottoman or Habsburg Empires in Europe.

Without a proper understanding of the triangular relationship among Dobrucan

Muslims, the Ottoman Empire, and Romania, it is difficult to comprehend the crucial importance informal transnational networks had in the formation of Muslim political identity. The first section of this chapter discusses this particular relationship. The chapter continues with an examination of the two types of transnational networks that exercised the most influence on the local Muslim community in the period under examination. The first case focuses on the influence of the Young Turk movement on

Dobrucan Muslims, in particular the Turks. This section begins by discussing early attempts made by the Young Turks to establish networks for the diffusion of their modernist ideas in Dobruca through the formation of political cells, local newspapers, and cultural associations at the turn of the twentieth century. In order to emphasize their major role in the development of the entire Muslim community, the teaching activity of

Young Turks in Dobruca will also be scrutinized. The second case looks at the local

Tatar community, analyzing the impact of the Crimean nationalist ideas formulated and

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diffused in the region by Ismail Gaspıralı and Mehmed Niyazi during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The examination of these cases sheds light on the ability of informal cross-border networks to influence the organizational capacity of the Muslim minority of Dobruca as well as the formation of their political identity. Both Muslim

Turks and Tatars were exposed to modern ideas. The Tatars were additionally introduced to nationalist ideas emphasizing their emotional connection with the Crimean homeland.

Modernity, therefore, led to the emergence of a modern Muslim identity, one shaped by secular rather than religious principles. As will soon become apparent, political aspirations were intertwined with cultural concerns at this stage in the development of the region’s Muslim community.

Formal Connections among Dobrucan Muslims, Romania, and the Ottoman Empire

The disintegration of and the subsequent emergence of its successor states in the early 1990s presented sociologist Rogers Brubaker with an opportunity to study how nationality worked in areas born out of the process of state disintegration. In an article published in 1995, he maintained that scholars should study the nationalities of the populations that became minorities in the successor states resulting from state disintegration through examining the triangular relationship formed by minority groups whose nationality was scrutinized, the nationalizing states in which they lived at the time

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of disintegration, and the external national homelands where they had resided prior to the collapse of the .620

The origin of the triangular relationship Brubaker examines in his work could certainly be pushed back in time and extrapolated to the case of multilingual, multireligious, and multiethnic empires. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when state borders changed in the aftermath of wars, political treaties, and migrations, people and cultures with little or nothing in common were forced to coexist within the same “national” space. This “mismatch” led to the emergence of national minorities who were “attached by formal citizenship to one state (in most cases a new – and nationalizing – state) and by ethnonational affinity to another.”621 Such was the case for the more than 200,000 Muslims living in Dobruca. As soon as Romanian administration took over the region, Muslims had to come to terms with the reconfiguration of their political space. From that moment onwards, they remained connected via ethnonational affiliation with their external “national” homeland, the

Ottoman Empire, while becoming attached by formal citizenship to Romania, the nationalizing state that incorporated Dobruca after the war.

620 Rogers Brubaker, “National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External National Homelands in the New Europe,” Daedalus 2 (1995): 107-132. Brubaker defines “homeland” as a political rather than territorial concept. He argues that “a state becomes an external national ‘homeland’ for ‘its’ ethnic diaspora when political or cultural elites define ethnonational kin in other states as members of one and the same nation, claim that they ‘belong,’ in some sense, to the state, and assert that their condition must be monitored and their interests protected and promoted by the state; and when the state actually does take action in the name of monitoring, promoting, or protecting the interests of its ethnonational kin abroad” (Ibid., 110). 621 Ibid., 108. 268

During the first several years after the establishment in 1878 of Romanian administration in Dobruca, reports in the Ottoman press and statements issued within foreign diplomatic circles in Bucharest underlined the existence of positive relations between the Ottoman Empire and Romania. The favorable treatment the region’s

Muslim community enjoyed under Romanian administration received special accolades.

In 1879, for example, the Ottoman newspaper Vakit (Time) published a brief article praising the generosity of Prince in providing impoverished Muslims with funds from his own purse.622 News of Carol’s charity and the favorable treatment of

Dobrucan Muslims also reached Sultan Abdülhamid, who expressed his appreciation while celebrating the appointment of Dumitru Brătianu as Romanian minister plenipotentiary minister in Istanbul in 1880.623 Foreign diplomats stationed in Bucharest also made positive remarks regarding how the Romanian administration treated their

Muslim population. The Austro-Hungarian minister in the Romanian capital, Andrassy

Hoyos, for example, dispatched a report to Vienna in 1881 in which he mentioned the sympathy Muslims had for Romanian authorities. This sympathy, he argued, came naturally because the central government acknowledged Muslims’ right to own property and practice Islam free of state interference.624

News about the harmonious relationship between Dobrucan Muslims and

Romanian officials also reached the Greek authorities of Thessaly, a former Ottoman territory with a Muslim population that was incorporated into the Greek Kingdom in

622 Vakit, 13 Ramazan 1296 [31 August 1879], 2. 623 AMAE., Vol. 110, 25/1881, f. 1. 624 ARNB., Fond Casa Regală, 20/1880, f. 104. 269

1881. Hoping to implement similarly successful regulations in Thessaly, Greek authorities inquired at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in September 1882 about the organization of Dobruca and the legislation the government had implemented in the region for the Muslim population.625 Copies of Dobrucan legislation and a detailed report by Köstence’s prefect explaining the peculiarities of provincial organization and the condition of the Muslim community were made available to the Greeks in 1883.626

These reports, however, obfuscated the reality on the ground. Although painted by Ottoman and foreign officials in glowing colors, the situation of the Muslim community was far from perfect. What had initially appeared to be a seamless relationship between Romanian officials and local Muslims, who hoped to return to normality after the war ended, became a relationship whose terms were dictated mainly in

Bucharest and the two administrative regional centers, Köstence/Constanţa and

Tulça/Tulcea. It was during these years that legislation in Dobruca was first implemented to bring Islam under the control of Romanian authorities. Muslims had been turned into wards of the state in 1878 and were barred from participation in national politics until

1909. Muslim immigrants to the Ottoman Empire were restricted in matters of property, and those who attempted to recover property from their cities and villages of origin encountered great difficulties having title deeds recognized in Romanian courts.

Moreover, in 1882 the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs put a halt to the return of

Muslim emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Dobruca. The explanation provided on

625 AMAE., Vol. 417, no file number. 626 Ibid. 270

this occasion was that many return émigrés were non-native Dobrucan Muslims who intended to take advantage of government benefits once settled in the region. In reality,

Romanian officials feared the transformation of Dobruca into a colony of foreigners, which would have created major problems for the Christian colonists who had settled on former Muslim lands in the 1880s with the permission of both central and local authorities.627

In the early 1880s, Romanian officials made considerable efforts to maintain good relations with the Ottoman Empire. It helped that Romania formed a political alliance in

1883 with the Dual Alliance powers, and Austria-Hungary. Sultan Abdülhamid favored Germany during his reign, and an alliance between Germany and Romania was well regarded in Ottoman circles. But the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and

Romania was complex. One of the most sensitive issues between the two states was the situation of the Muslim community of Dobruca. In April 1897, a Romanian delegation invited to the court of Abdülhamid informed the sultan of the willingness of Romanian authorities to improve the situation of Dobrucan Muslims. The members of the delegation maintained that the central government could help the Muslims acquire even more rights provided that the Sublime Porte granted augmented privileges to members of the Kutzo-Vlach (Aromanian) community, an Orthodox Christian group living as a minority in the Balkan territories of the Ottoman Empire scattered among the larger groups of ethnic Turks, Greeks, Serbians, Albanians, and Bulgarians. The Ottoman

627 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 434.

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government had granted the community a series of privileges and recognized them by their collective name since the fifteenth century. Despite the fact that they were concentrated in Macedonia, the Kutzo-, whose number reached about half a million at the turn of the twentieth century, failed to make up the majority of the population in any one particular region and could not, therefore, claim political autonomy as a group.628 The Kutzo-Vlachs spoke a Romanian dialect, and despite their residence in the Ottoman Empire, Romanian officials considered them part of the Romanian “nation.”

Romanian officials requested the official recognition of the Kutzo-Vlachs’ religious leader by the Ottoman Porte. They also requested that the Porte revise its capitulations with Romania, agreeing to extradite any Ottoman and non-Ottoman citizens who committed crimes against Romanian nationals, and to allow Romanian citizens the right to purchase urban and rural property in the Ottoman Empire.629

The Sublime Porte, however, intended to form a military alliance with Romania to prevent the deterioration of the status quo established by the Treaty of Berlin in the

Balkans. Ottoman officials wished to conclude a defensive treaty with the Romanians rather than grant additional rights to their Kutzo-Vlach subjects.630 War with Greece and fear that Serbia and Bulgaria could interfere militarily in the conflict made the empire vulnerable in this period, and the Ottomans needed a strong ally in the Balkans. Due to its balanced and non-aggressive approach to political developments in the region,

Romania was the partner the empire wanted to protect its interests in this part of the

628 Kemal Karpat, “The Memoirs of N. Batzaria: The Young Turks and Nationalism,” IJMES 6, 3(1975): 287-88. 629 AMAE., Fond Problema 21, Dosar 35, f. 72-73, 78-79. 630 ARNB., Fond Casa Regală, 19/1891, f. 1. 272

world. A series of laudatory articles in the Ottoman press, praising Romania’s value as an ally, aimed to win the hearts and minds of the Romanian authorities. An article published in Sabah (Morning) went so far as to propose the establishment of a Balkan , which would be placed under the authority of the sultan and in which

Romania would play a crucial role.

But neither diplomacy nor the press could convince Romanian officials of the beneficial nature of the proposed treaty.631 The proposal was rejected in Bucharest on the grounds that such an alliance could potentially not only threaten Romania’s alliances with some Balkan states but also harm Romanian interests in the Balkan Peninsula. This reaction and the fact that the Romanian government refused to take serious measures against the Albanian and Young Turk propaganda against the sultan, which was coordinated from Bucharest, led to the temporary waning of diplomatic contacts between the two states in 1902.

It took about three years for reconciliation to occur. The sultan finally capitulated to the Romanian government, and in May 1905, he issued an irâde (imperial decree) recognizing the rights of the Kutzo-Vlachs in the Ottoman Empire and the free use of the

Romanian language in their schools.632 Despite such success on some fronts, the two states remained stubbornly locked in conflict regarding the situation of Dobrucan Muslim

émigrés. Diplomats were once again unable to agree on the financial compensation due to the Muslims whose lands had been forcibly or unjustly confiscated in Dobruca.

631 AMAE., Fond Problema 21, Dosar 34, f. 93. 632 Ibid., Dosar 47, f. 97. 273

Negotiations halted as soon as the sultan was deposed in 1909. The change in political regime did not bring about a change in talks related to the subject of compensation. The two (1912-13) and World War I (1914-18) took their toll and this particular matter remained unresolved, with attempts to reopen the subject ending in failure.

Prior to 1914, Romania had consolidated its political prestige in southeastern

Europe and the Balkans, particularly after its success in mediating the conflict among

Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. In 1913, Romania switched political allegiances from the Dual Alliance to the comprising

Great Britain, France, and Russia. The strongest supporter of Romania’s alliance with

Germany and Austria-Hungary, King Carol, was old and weak, and most Romanian politicians, already known for their pro-French feelings, rushed to turn their foreign policy aspirations into reality. Paul Schroeder has argued that this “realignment meant a decisive shift in the Balkan balance of power in favor of Serbia and Greece against

Bulgaria and, to an extent, against Turkey.”633 However, Ottoman-Romanian relations were not immediately affected by Romania’s shift in political allegiance. Aside from difficulties related to the compensation of Muslim émigrés, a period of stability characterized interstate relations prior to World War I. In 1913, King Carol I (1866-

1914) and Sultan Mehmed V (1909-18) exchanged letters emphasizing the importance of preserving cordial relations between the two states. The sultan praised the king for using his personal funds to build the Melike (Royal) Mosque in Köstence/Constanţa in the early

633 Paul W. Schroeder, “Rumania and the Great Powers before 1914,” Rumanian Studies: An International Annual of the Humanities and Social Sciences III (1973-1975) (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), 3. 274

1910s. The sultan also wished to make clear that good service to the Muslim community and keeping the peace between Romania and the Ottoman Empire were worthy of considerable recognition and awarded prestigious Mecidiye to the relevant

Romanian officials. But when the Great War began, the Ottoman Empire and Romania faced one another as enemies once more. Decades of cordial relations were temporarily erased in favor of a war that would exact heavy death tolls on both sides.

Informal Links between the Dobrucan Turks and the Young Turk Movement

Good relations between Romania and the Ottoman Empire benefited Dobrucan

Muslims in many significant ways in the period prior to World War I. Most importantly, the community’s religious and juridical autonomy was acknowledged on Romanian territory. Freedom to practice Islam, have cases judged in Muslim courts, establish confessional schools, and express thoughts in writing without state censorship helped community members preserve their Islamic identity. It is not an overstatement to regard this interval as one of cultural and political expansion for the region’s Muslims.

Although not every Muslim in Dobruca experienced progress equally, due to the gap that existed between rural and urban areas and the conservative nature of certain Muslim groups (especially those located in rural areas), much had changed since 1878.

The cultural boost did not have much to do with the radical transformations occurring deep within the community, however. Müstecib Ülküsal (1899-1996), a native of the region and a lawyer by profession, claimed that until 1895, when the Young Turks

275

reached Dobruca, “Dobrucan Turks lived in the darkness of a powerful fanaticism.”634

Due to this fanaticism, he explained, most Muslims were unable to even understand the meaning of the word hürriyet (freedom).635 Other Muslim authors from the region support this assertion. For instance, Ibrahim Temo (1865-1945), the most significant

Young Turk active in Dobruca, mentioned in his memoirs that at the time of his arrival in the region in 1895 most local Muslims embraced “fanaticism and ignorance” (taasup ve cehalet), and supported the rule of Abdülhamid.636 According to these sources, the

Muslim community was not only religiously and politically conservative but was also culturally underdeveloped. The cultural boost experienced by local Muslims in this period, therefore, had to do with outside factors. Among those with the most significant impact on the region’s Muslim community was the Young Turk movement. Indeed, the

Young Turks were the ones who, in an effort to gain adherents for their cause, introduced new political and cultural ideas to a traditionally conservative Muslim community.

Because of the Young Turks this community experienced a veritable cultural revival, which further led to the overall modernization of Dobrucan Muslims in the period under study.

The members of the Young Turk movement were urban Muslims of mostly non-

Turkish origin educated in modern schools where they embraced modern, progressive ideas. They sought to establish a constitutional regime that would “cut the ground from under the feet of both the nationalist separatists and the European imperialists, taking

634 Ülküsal, Dobruca ve Türkler, 148-150. 635 Ibid. This observation was first brought to the attention of reasearchers by Tahsin Gemil, “Asociaţia din România a Junilor Turci,” 180. 636 Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki, 285. 276

away their arguments for intervention in the internal affairs of the empire.”637 The establishment of a constitutional regime and the view that Abdülhamid’s rule was tyrannical and backward and had to be replaced had served as the movement’s unifying principles since its emergence in 1889 from within the student body of the Istanbul’s

Military Medical Academy. 638 A mixed group of students of Albanian, Kurdish, and

Circassian origin formed the original nucleus of the movement and its umbrella organization, the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti).639

Among the founders of the movement was Ibrahim Temo, an Albanian also known as Ibrahim Ethem Sojliu or Ibrahim Starova, who would later form the Balkan branch of the movement, which was coordinated from the Dobruca region.640 Born in

1865 in () in present-day Macedonia, Temo moved to the Ottoman capital to pursue secondary education after completing elementary school in his native town. In

1887, he enrolled as a medical student in the Military Medical Academy located in

Istanbul.641 It was there that he founded the anti-Hamidian organization that would later be known as the Young Turk movement, together with several other students. Desire for

637 Erik Jan Zürcher, “Young Turks, Ottoman Muslims and Turkish Nationalists: Identity Politics 1908- 1938,” in Ottoman Past and Today’s Turkey, ed. Kemal Karpat (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000), 151. 638 Idem, “The Young Turks: Children of the Borderlands?” IJTS 9 (2003): 279-81. 639 The founders of the movement were Albanian Ibrahim Temo (1865-1945), Circassian Mehmed Reșid (1872-1919), and Kurd (1869-1935) and İshak Sükuti (1868-1902). Shortly after its establishment, the movement aquired adherents from among students enrolled in professional and technical schools, the bureaucracy, and military personnel. For more details about the role of the Albanian members of the movement, see George Gawrych, The Crescent and the : Ottoman Rule, Islam, and the Albanians, 1874-1913 (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 141-42. 640 Only Albanian scholarship mentions him under the name Ibrahim Starova (Gawrych, The Crescent and the Eagle, 141). In Romania, he is known as Ibrahim Temo. 641 Ibrahim Temo and Ahmet Riza, Biz İttihatçılar (Istanbul: Örgün Yayınevi, 2009), 49. This work is a Turkish translation of Temo’s and Riza’s memoirs, accompanied by brief biographical information on both authors. 277

regime change, however, turned the members of the movement, including Temo, into opponents of the official establishment, and persecution at the order of the sultan soon ensued.

To escape arrest, within less than a decade of the movement’s birth, many Young

Turks left the empire for Europe. Some of them chose Paris as a temporary residence, while others, preferring to live closer to Ottoman imperial lands, settled in the Balkans and southeastern Europe. Still others sought refuge in Egypt. Bucharest, Paris, , and Cairo became the main centers of Young Turk activity outside the Ottoman Empire.

Ibrahim Temo took refuge in Romania. He arrived in the main harbor of the country, Köstence/Constanţa, in November 1895, after stowing away on the Romanian ship Meteor. The Kutzo-Vlach connections Temo had in Istanbul arranged the trip and found him a place to hide on the boat. Temo first settled in Bucharest. With assistance from the Albanian organization headquartered in the Romanian capital, he was able to make important political connections and train in ophthalmology so he could practice medicine.642 It was only after completing medical training in Bucharest in the winter of

1896 that Temo decided to settle permanently in the Dobruca region, which became the hub of Young Turk activity in the Balkans. In his memoirs, Temo mentions several of his reasons for settling in Dobruca. First, he saw potential for the spread of Young Turk ideas because Romanian authorities were known for sympathizing with nationalist movements within the Ottoman Empire, such as those of the Bulgarians and the

Albanians, and for supporting the branches they established on Romanian territory.

642 Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki, 62-63. 278

Second, the strategic location of the region allowed easy access to Young Turk contacts in Europe. And finally, the large number of Dobrucan Muslims, in addition to the familiar temperate and dry climate, had potential to offer Temo the comfort of home away from home.643

In December 1896, when he settled in Dobruca, Temo decided to live in

Mecidiye/ Medgidia, a city with a Muslim majority founded during the first half of the nineteenth century by Crimean Tatar émigrés who were granted permission to settle there by the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid. He later claimed in his memoirs that he settled there because he wished to serve Dobrucan Muslims both intellectually and medically (hem fikren ve hem de tıbben müslüman ahaliye hızmet etmek).644 Mecidiye became a hub of sustained Young Turk activity in southeastern Europe and the Balkans. In rural areas, the village of Tatlıcak (present-day 23 August) fulfilled a similar role.645 Romanian Young

Turk cells mushroomed under Ibrahim Temo’s leadership at the turn of the twentieth century (Figure 24).

The benefits of the interaction between local Muslims and political exiles like

Temo went both ways. For the local Muslim community, the Young Turks played a fundamental role in the organization of their community and the intellectual formation of

643 Ibid. 644 Ibid., 112-13. 645 23 August (Douăzeci şi Trei August) is a commune located in Constanţa County, southeast Romania, named after the day in 1944 that King Michael of Romania dismissed the pro-Nazi government of Marshal Antonescu and when Romania switched sides from the Axis (Germany, , ) to the Allies (France, Britain, Russia) by declaring war on Germany. Currently, the commune includes the villages of 23 August (former Turkish name Büyük Tatlıcak; former Romanian names Tatlâgeacul Mare, Domniţa Elena), Dulcești (former Turkish name Küçük Tatlıcak; former Tatlâgeacul Mic), and Moșneni (former Turkish name Perveli; former Romanian name Pervelia). 279

Figure 24. Ibrahim Temo, Leader of the Young Turks in Dobruca (1865–1939). Source: .ro.

its future elites, as will soon be apparent. For the Young Turks, self-imposed exile meant remoteness from home, but it also meant access to unexpected material and human resources. Distance from the Ottoman capital turned the Balkans and southeastern

Europe into a fertile ground for Young Turk activism.

Among the closest collaborators Temo had in the struggle against Abdülhamid’s regime in Dobruca were Mecidiye’s mayor Kemal Haci Ahmed, navy lieutenant

Kırımızâde Ali Rıza, teacher Hüseyin Avni, sheikh Şevki Celâleddin, Ali Kadir,

Veliyullah Çelebi, and Mustafa Ragıp. Şefik Bey, the Ottoman consul in Giurgiu

(Yergöğü), and Alfred Rüstem Bey, the secretary at the Ottoman legation in Bucharest, likewise assisted Temo in spreading anti-Hamidian propaganda in the region.646 In this period the Young Turk movement was largely involved in organizing meetings and

646 Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki, 115-17. 280

publishing newspapers and brochures that targeted the Hamidian regime. Şükrü

Hanioğlu has pointed out that until 1906, when the movement gained favor within the officer corps of the Third and Second Ottoman armies in Macedonia and Thrace (who succeeded in forcing the sultan to reinstate the parliament and the constitution in July

1908), the movement prioritized discussions of scientific and cultural matters.647

Practically speaking, the C.U.P functioned as an organization composed of loosely affiliated factions that enjoyed a large degree of independence until 1902.

As founder of the Balkan branch of the Young Turk movement, Temo took the liberty of publishing a brochure entitled “Hareket” (Action) in which he criticized the

Hamidian regime and promoted Young Turk ideas.648 The brochure enjoyed great success following the distribution of 500 copies in Europe and the Ottoman Empire, bringing significant attention to the Young Turks’ cause throughout the region.

“Hareket” was only one of the 150 publications, ranging from brochures to full-fledged newspapers, published in various languages in Young Turk centers in Europe and smuggled into the Ottoman Empire. The most famous of these was Meșveret

(Consultation), a Paris-based newspaper published in French under the supervision of

Ahmed Rıza, the head of the Young Turk Central Committee headquartered in the French capital.649

At the time that the brochure “Hareket” was spreading anti-Hamidian propaganda throughout the region, the Young Turk organization in Dobruca expanded beyond the

647 Hanioğlu, The Young Turks in Opposition, 208. 648 Ibid., 67. 649 Gemil, “Asociaţia din România a Junilor Turci,” 179. 281

two main centers of Mecidiye and Tatlıcak. This was mainly the work of young enthusiasts born in the region like Mehmed Niyazi, Mahmud Çelebi, and Hacıoğlu Salih.

The Dobrucan organization of the Young Turks incorporated, therefore, not only political

émigrés from the Ottoman Empire but also local Muslim elites, in particular writers and teachers. There were a few occasions when religious heads (müftis) such as Hafız Rıfat

Efendi, for example, supported the movement. The müftis of Dobruca were traditionally loyal to the Ottoman sultan. It was simply dangerous to be on the side of individuals or groups that opposed the sultan’s regime.

One of the initiatives local elites took in this period was to appoint political exiles from the Ottoman Empire to teaching positions in rural areas populated by Muslims.

Such an initiative (also present in Bulgaria) gave a boost to the movement, as teachers helped to spread Young Turk ideas among the youth enrolled in these schools and there was hope within the organization that the youth would gain adherents for the movement from among family members.650 Writing about this period in 1929, Mehmed Niyazi maintained that progressive books and newspapers from Paris, Geneva, Cairo, and various cities in Bulgaria were widely circulated and read in Dobruca.651 To encourage an even wider spread of propaganda, the Young Turks took steps to ensure that these publications reached even the most remote areas of the region.

Reformist ideas found a positive reception especially among the students and staff of the Mecidiye medrese, an institution turned into a Muslim elite school over the course

650 Like the Young Turks settled in Dobruca, many others who found refuge in Bulgaria became teachers in elementary schools. In his memoirs, Temo notes that these teachers “worked for the nation without expecting anything in return” (Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki, 119). 651 Apud Ülküsal, Dobruca ve Türkler, 150. 282

of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The school was well-known for preparing the region’s future Muslim teachers and religious leaders. Students acquired knowledge in both Islamic and Western disciplines, just as their peers who attended modern institutions established within the Ottoman Empire did. Over the years, the medrese became the main center of Muslim intellectual activity in Dobruca, a status it retained until the Communist regime shut it down in 1964. Writing in 1936, Rașid

Müsellem, one of the Turkish teachers at the medrese, claimed that he and his colleagues were the main representatives of Muslim culture in Dobruca. Müsellem made this remark during a period when Muslim emigration from the region to the Turkish Republic was high. He blamed the strength of the emigration movement on the lack of culture and education found among his coreligionists. In spite of the constant encouragement of both the Romanian government and the Young Turks, not all Muslim children studied at the medrese or in the secondary schools (rüșdiye) that provided students with a modern education. Some parents preferred to keep their children at home, an issue that caused much debate during this period, particularly in Romanian official circles.652 This decision possibly reflected the reluctance of Muslim parents to have their children exposed to either Christian influence or reformist ideas. Whatever the explanation, the reality was that the level of instruction among Muslims was rather low compared to that of non-Muslims at the time Müsellem wrote.653

652 For details, see chapter 5. 653 Halk, 13 June 1936, p. 1. 283

During his years in Dobruca, Ibrahim Temo worked tirelessly to make a difference in the community. He was deeply involved in the education of the youth, the creation of cultural associations, and the publication of liberal newspapers. At the

Mecidiye medrese he had the opportunity to educate students on hygiene and basic medicine. The annals of the school mention his name and teaching assignments from

1911 to 1916, though he must have been preoccupied with the situation of the school prior to 1911.654 Historian Tahsin Gemil argues that Romanian officials relocated the medrese from Babadağı to Mecidiye in 1901 following Temo’s suggestions.655 The reason behind the move was that the once populous Muslim community of Babadağı had decreased considerably since 1878 due to emigration. The medrese thus could no longer find enough students to fill its classes. With its Muslim majority, Mecidiye was a logical place to relocate the school. Although hired on a contractual basis, with up to three hours of teaching per week, Temo influenced the intellectual formation of the students enrolled in the medrese. With his assistance and most probably on his initiative, medrese alumni established their own association in 1911 (Figure 25). In line with the elevated goals of the Young Turks, the association organized meetings that focused on scientific and cultural matters meant to increase awareness of these issues among the least educated

Muslims. The topics discussed in this context ranged from medicine to current events.

Muslim elites paid special attention to cultural initiatives meant to enhance education among their coreligionists, and this was yet another effort in that direction.

654 Anuarul seminarului musulman din Medgidia pe anul școlar 1911-1912 (Constanţa: Tipografia “Aurora” Ilie M. Grigoriu, 1912), 3. Temo appears in the same position in all the annals of the school for the years of 1912-1916. 655 Gemil, “Asociaţia din România a Junilor Turci,” 190. 284

Figure 25. Leaders of the Muslim Association of Dobruca (early 20th century). Source: Halk, 1 June 1939.

Similar goals lay behind the foundation of the first Muslim voluntary association organization in Dobruca in 1909, the Dobruca Tamim-i Maarif Cemiyeti (Association for the Spread of Education in Dobruca).656 Such cultural associations were viewed within

Dobruca as crucial institutions for the development of the community and the preservation of its ethno-religious identity and values. Emphasis on education and cultural betterment turned them into beacons of progress within the local Muslim community. Publications connected to these organizations also promoted Islamic values in spite of being a product of the Muslim secular intelligentsia.

656 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 155. 285

The establishment of Mecidiye Müslüman Seminarı Mezunları Cemiyeti proved to be an immense achievement for Temo. Unpleasant experiences with Muslims from more remote areas of Dobruca in the past had left him relatively hopeless regarding the progress of the community as a whole. One particular experience is vividly recounted in his memoirs. After returning from the Young Turk Congress in Paris in 1902, Temo moved to the city of Hırsova/Hârșova in central Dobruca (Constanţa/Köstence County) to take a position at the local hospital. The location of the city on the Danube River, Temo thought, would allow him to dispatch propaganda easily via boat to the Black Sea region.

The presence of a sizable Muslim community that needed medical assistance was equally enticing for him. But the local community was split between deeply religious, older

Muslims and the uneducated, uncouth Muslim youth. The existence of a generation gap caused major disagreements between the two groups. Due to the tensions resulting from this rift, Temo ended up resigning from his position, not without regret. Temo could not generate any significant change within the Muslim community of Hırșova. He was unable to educate the youth and moderate the religious conservatism of the older generation. He was able, however, to provide the community with his medical services, sometimes at no cost. With characteristic humor, Temo states in his memoirs that his generous nature made even the women cry when he left the city.657 Before departing, however, Temo made efforts to procure teachers for the city, and succeeded in installing a teacher trained in Istanbul, most probably a Young Turk like him.658

657 Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki, 188. 658 Ibid., 188-89. 286

Similar efforts to employ teachers sympathetic to the cause of the Young Turks became Temo’s objective upon his move from Hırșova to Köstence/Constanţa sometime before 1907. A series of reports dispatched from the Ottoman consulate in Köstence to the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 1907 and 1908 comment on his attempt to bring more progressive teachers to the region. Consulate officials deemed the initiative dangerous since Temo provided Muslim schools only with teachers who shared

Young Turk views. Ottoman officials knew that the Young Turks had established a considerable number of Muslim schools in Dobrucan villages with Muslim populations.659 In those locations, the houses of Young Turks and their sympathizers soon turned into veritable clubs and libraries. One Young Turk went so far as to place an inscription at the entrance door to his house which read Kâșane-i Hürriyet (The

Dwelling-Place of Freedom).660 The efforts of the Young Turks to convince parents to enroll their children in schools where they would be taught progressive ideas alarmed

Ottoman officials in both Romania and the Ottoman Empire. For his part, Temo claimed that the reports were fictitious; they simply aimed to discredit him in the Ottoman capital and to hinder the acquisition of skilled teachers meant to provide local youth with a modern education.661

The attitude of Ottoman officials was not at all surprising. After the establishment of the Young Turk movement, Temo became persona non grata in the

Ottoman capital. A failed attempt to assassinate the sultan in the 1890s triggered a death

659 Ibid., 117-118. 660 Ülküsal, Dobruca ve Türkler, 149. 661 Ibid., 190-93. 287

sentence for Temo and the other plotters, which was pronounced in 1901.662 However, the sentence could not be carried out because the culprit lived in Romania and had

Romanian citizenship. Unable to arrest him, the Ottoman government pursued diplomatic avenues to at least stop his influence in the region.

An incident from 1908, which occurred in connection with the election of a new müfti in the Köstence district, would allow Ottoman officials to intervene, albeit unsuccessfully, in the internal affairs of the local Muslim community. As the vice president of the Muslim Committee of Romania, Temo was involved in promoting and validating the election of a candidate for the müfti position in the Köstence district left vacant after the death of Hüseyin Ali, who had occupied the post since 1900. Temo’s favorite candidate was Hafız Rifat Efendi, known for his liberal views and friendly relations with the Young Turks. The election procedure for a müfti involved several steps. First, male Muslims residing in the district voted for a candidate, and the candidate with the most votes was declared victorious. Second, the committee charged with monitoring the election validated the choice of the majority. Third, the same committee informed Romanian authorities of the outcome of the election. Fourth, the Romanian

Legation in Istanbul, on the instructions of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, obtained the confirmation of the müfti from the Bab-ı Meșihat, the seat of the șeyhülislâm in Istanbul. The sultan then responded with a customary letter of congratulations for the

662 For the failed attempt to assassinate the sultan, see Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki, 156-57; for the death sentence, see AMAE., Fond Problema 21, Dosar 40, f. 143. 288

new müfti and thanks to the Romanian government for providing support during the election and issuing the final confirmation of the müfti via royal decree.

This time, however, the Ottoman government had a different response. Since the election committee included two Young Turks, namely Ibrahim Temo and Kırımızâde

Ali Rıza, Ottoman officials in Bucharest contested the validity of Rifat Efendi’s confirmation in this position.663 Although Rifat Efendi ended up being confirmed as müfti in both Istanbul and Bucharest, the Ottoman government was displeased with the situation. Another defeat for the Ottoman government meant yet another victory for the

Balkan Young Turk movement.

Ibrahim Temo maintained in his memoirs that his activity in this part of Europe was subservient to the interests of his homeland (vatan) and that his purpose was to hasten the advent of a Turkish revolution.664 In collaboration with Şefik Bey and Kadri

Bey (of Tatar origin), Temo established a series of newspapers in Bucharest and

Köstence criticizing the sultan and urging action against his regime. These papers were

Sadakat (Devotion) (1897), Sadayı Millet (The Voice of the Nation) (1898), and

Dobrogea (Dobruca) (1901), and their editors claimed that their main purpose was to enlighten and modernize local Muslims. But the editors’ actual expectation was that the

Muslims would gradually develop an attachment to the goals of the Young Turks upon reading their publications.665

663 Report of Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs to Romanian Minister in Istanbul, dated June 1908 (AMAE., Problema 16, Vol.18, no page number). 664 Sadakat, 10 Muharrem 1314 [12 June 1896], 1. 665 Ekrem, Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni, 182. 289

The Hamidian regime fought hard against the growing influence of the Young

Turks in Dobruca. In response to the publication of Temo’s famous “Hareket” pamphlet in

1896, Sultan Abdülhamid himself supported the establishment of a pro-Hamidian newspaper in Köstence one year later. The newspaper was entitled Şark (The East) and functioned under the patronage of Tahir Bey, the protégé of Abdülhamid’s secretary,

Tahsin Bey. The newspaper’s mission was not only to enlighten the region’s backward

Muslim population but also to strengthen relationships between the Ottoman Empire and

Romania.666 Nevertheless, virulent attacks on the Young Turks in practically every issue of the newspaper indicated the real purpose of this publication, which was to stop the Young

Turks’ influence in the region. Şark’s existence was cut short, however. Within three months of the first issue’s publication, Tahir Bey and Ottoman officials in Romania announced the disappearance of most of the Arabic type used to print the newspaper.

Blame fell on the newspaper’s former director, Kemal Efendi, and his associate Kadri

Efendi, both suspected of having used the missing type to publish the anti-Hamidian newspaper Sadayı Millet, which appeared in Bucharest in February 1898, shortly after

Tahir Bey reported the disappearance of the type.667 The resemblance among the fonts of

Şark, Sadayı Millet, and Meșrutiyet (Constitution), the last published at a later date in Paris, led Ottoman officials to believe that the same type was used to print all three newspapers.668 The missing type, they argued, was stolen and further used to print Young

Turk publications in Bucharest and Paris. Despite the repeated requests for assistance that

666 Şark, 12 Cemazülevvel 1314 (19 October 1896), 1. 667 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 384, f. 37. 668 Ibid. 290

Tahir Bey and Ottoman officials addressed to Romanian authorities, the type was never recovered.669

During 1898, Abdülhamid put considerable pressure on the Romanian government to put an end to anti-Hamidian propaganda in Romania. The weekly newspaper Sadayı

Millet was the main target of the sultan’s wrath. During the same year, the sultan also condemned the brochure entitled “The Albanian-French Alphabet,” published in Romania with the purpose of making Albanian more familiar to Romanian elites who were already cognizant of the . The sultan, however, believed that the publication aimed to threaten his leadership and foment a revolution in Albania.670 It was unclear how this brochure could produce a revolution given its strictly linguistic content. Nevertheless, the sultan was concerned about the negative impact of the publication. This was not the first time that Abdülhamid had tried to stop propaganda against his regime from being disseminated in Romania. The first attempt occurred in February 1895, when the sultan asked Romanian authorities to prevent the staging of a certain play scheduled to open at a local theater in Giurgiu. The play was staged at the initiative of local Greeks and

Macedonians and was performed in Greek. The sultan had reason to believe that the play’s sole intention was to discredit his regime, and he provoked the intervention of Romanian officials in the name of the preservation of good relations between the two states.671

Regrettably, the outcome of his intervention remains unknown.

669 İn March 1901, Tahir Bey was still pressuring Romanian officials in Istanbul to recover the missing letters (Report dated 15/28 March 1901, Istanbul, no page) (Ibid.). 670 Raport of Lahaille to Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Djuvara (Ibid., f. 43-44, 22 March/3 April 1898). 671 Report from the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs (AMAE., Fond Problema 16, Vol. 15, 16 February 1895, no page). 291

But nothing outraged the sultan more than the publication of the weekly newspaper

Sadayı Millet, which was distributed for free throughout the entire Ottoman Empire in sealed packages to avoid Ottoman censorship.672 The newspaper was printed in Bucharest under the patronage of former Romanian parliament member Vasile Kogălniceanu, the son of illustrious historian and politician Mihail Kogălniceanu, who was the mastermind behind the first legislation implemented in Dobruca after 1878. Known for his liberal views and sympathy for anti-Hamidian movements, including that of the Young Turks, Vasile

Kogălniceanu agreed to direct the newspaper and write its weekly editorial. Members of the newspaper’s staff were former employees of Şark and members of the Romanian branch of the Young Turks.673

The first issue of Sadayı Millet appeared on 22 February 1898, and the goals of the newspaper were clearly expressed on the front page. The newspaper wished to work in the interest of both the Ottoman Empire and Romania and to help maintain and foster good relations between the Ottoman nation (Osmanlı milleti) and all other nations in the empire irrespective of religion, and especially with the Romanians. It also claimed to work for the prosperity of both nations and promised to write only the truth.674 “Sadayı Millet (Vocea

Naţiunii) will spare no sacrifice to discover the pure truth...and to show where there is justice and where there is not,” the editorial stated.675 “Despite the truth contained in the

Ottoman proverb ‘whoever tells the truth today is crushed even by justice’ and despite those who will dislike the honest call of Sadayi Millet,” the editorial continued, “we are

672 Sadayı Millet, 20 Zilkâde 1315 (12 April 1898), 1. 673 Temo, Ittihad ve Terakki, 123-124. 674 Sadayı Millet, 30 Ramazan 1315 (22 February 1898), 1. 675 Ibid. 292

determined to follow the path we have chosen especially because the tribunal that we address is human consciousness itself.”676 Another article included in the same issue, entitled “The Ottoman Nation and the Romanian Nation,” asked, among other things, for the establishment of a constitutional regime in the empire and deemed the sultan’s clique

“odious” and the sultan himself gullible and too trusting of his “abhorrent” spies.677

Future issues labeled Abdülhamid a despot, condemned his corrupt policies, denounced his lavish parties, and demanded his removal from the throne.678 In March

1898, for example, the newspaper published an article stating that the sultan was “more venomous than a snake.” Instead of implementing reforms to rescue the empire from ruin, he was injecting the “body of the nation (vatan) and his people with venom.”679 Rather than wasting imperial funds on the lavish of his daughter and exquisite parties for foreign dignitaries, the editors maintained, the sultan should use them to ease the pain of the poor people of the empire who live in hunger day after day.680 In one of the April issues of the same year, the sultan was also blamed for the many territorial losses that the empire had suffered under his rule and for not granting enough rights to Balkan populations, especially the Bulgarians and the Kutzo-Vlachs living in Macedonia.681 The newspaper claimed to represent the voice of the Ottoman population, in particular in the

Balkans.682 “Wake up, Muslim!” was the title of yet another article in this issue that asked

676 Ibid. 677 Ibid. 678 The entire collection is preserved today at the Library of the Romanian Academy of Science in Bucharest (under the label P IV 1252, Sadayı Millet). 679 Sadayı Millet, 26 Şevval 1315 (22 March 1898), 1. 680 Ibid. 681 Sadayı Millet, 13 Zilkâde 1315 (5 April 1898), 1. 682 Sadayı Millet, 20 Zilkâde 1315 (12 April 1898), 1. 293

all persecuted people in the Balkans to rise together against the tyrannical power of the sultan.683

Irritated by the ideas found in the newspaper, and visibly disturbed that its issues arrived weekly at Yıldız Palace, breaching his famously tight security system, Abdülhamid asked the Romanian authorities to close the newspaper.684 On February 25, 1898, the dragoman of the Romanian legation in the Ottoman capital, A. Lahaille, reported to the

Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he had received an invitation to the imperial palace to discuss the pressing issue of Sadayı Millet.685 The pressure put on Romanian officials in both Istanbul and Bucharest resulted eventually in the closing of the newspaper at the end of April 1898. Only nine issues had been printed by the time the decision was carried out.

The news generated a protest among the members of the Young Turks’ Paris branch. On 1 July 1898, their newspaper Meșveret (Consultation) published an article entitled “The Sultan of Romania” in which it mocked Romanian authorities for their leniency towards the Hamidian regime.686 The anonymous author of the article asked for an explanation of why the Liberal Party that governed Romania at the time would initiate such actions against their own party member, Vasile Kogălniceanu, and wage war against the very liberal ideas that they themselves supposedly supported. “Were Romanians renewing their century-long servitude to the empire under the man who deserved the least

683 Ibid., 2. 684 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 384, no page (report dated 4/16 March 1898). 685 Ibid., f. 33-34 (report dated 25 February/9 March 1898). 686 Meșveret, 1 July 1898, 1. 294

to possess any royal authority?” the journalist asked rhetorically towards the end of the article.687

In spite of the constant pressure of Ottoman officials, the Young Turk movement did gain numerous adherents in Romania, especially among youth wishing to be educated along modern lines. Most students enrolled in Muslim schools had at least one Young

Turk teacher who instilled in them appreciation for the ideas of freedom and progress.

While the younger generation of Muslims leaned towards modernity, the older generation remained conservative and staunchly loyal to the sultan. In 1902, 500 Abdülhamid loyalists signed a petition to the Ottoman consul in Köstence/Constanţa condemning the participation of Sheikh Şevki Celâleddin in the Young Turk Congress held in Paris earlier that year.688 The signatories of the letter labeled the action of the sheikh “wicked,” and thought it part of a plot to dethrone the sultan. In doing so, they confirmed the undying loyalty of their group for the sultan by openly distancing themselves from the progressive segment of the region’s Muslim population.689

In response to this sudden opposition, the Romanian branch of the Young Turk movement took measures to further enhance its dominance in Dobruca. During the same year in which the loyalists condemned Şevki Celâleddin for taking part in the Paris

687 Ibid. Several Romanian newspapers would later accuse the government in power of being servile to the sultan. The newspaper Evenimentul (The Event), for instance, criticized the government for agreeing to expel several Young Turks from Romania in November 1898 at the request of the Ottoman government (Tahsin Gemil, “Asociaţia din România,” 187). Failure to conclude an Ottoman-Romanian consular convention and to resolve the issue of Muslim property in Dobruca triggered further criticism in the Romanian press in the early 1900s. The target was Minister of Foreign Affairs Dimitrie Sturdza, known for his pro-Hamidian views. The newspapers Adevărul (The Truth), Echo de Roumanie (The Echo of Romania), and Roumanie (Romania) blamed Sturdza for his servile attitude toward the Porte (AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 310). 688 This protest is mentioned in BOA., I.HUS. 116 (27 Safer 1322 [13 May 1904]). 689 BOA., A.MKT.MHM, 546/27 (19 Zilkâde 1319 [27 February 1902]). 295

Congress of the organization, the Young Turks established an Islamic Society (Cemiyet-i

Islâmiye) in Köstence, which they placed under the leadership of Kırımızâde Ali Rıza. Ali

Rıza enjoyed a good reputation within the local branch because of his close ties with Temo and outstanding activism on behalf of the organization. He was also known for the publication in 1900 of Dobrogea (Dobruca), a newspaper financed by his father-in-law, the

Young Turk activist Veliyullah Çelebi, which spread the usual progressive ideas among the region’s Muslims under the claim of generating mass enlightenment.690

Until 1909, when the sultan was removed from the throne, Ibrahim Temo and his collaborators continued their activity in the Balkans despite the repeated obstructions put in place by Ottoman officials. The fact that Temo was a strong supporter of the Kutzo-Vlach and Albanian nationalist movements, backed by the Romanian government itself, contributed to the longevity and relative prosperity of the Young Turks in Romania. Şükrü

Hanioğlu notes that after the 1907 union between the C.U.P and the Ottoman Freedom

Society, “the branch in Romania acquired the utmost importance, because the center deemed both an agreement with the Albanian committees and the support of the Muslim

Albanian notables indispensable.”691 Temo was essential in maintaining these connections, especially because of his activity in the Albanian movement of Romania, which he carried out in parallel with his Young Turk endeavors. In the late 1890s he founded the Albanian society Bașkimi (Union) in Köstence/Constanţa and served as its vice president.692

690 Gemil, “Asociaţia din România a Junilor Turci,” 188. 691 Hanioğlu, Preparation for a Revolution, 153. 692 Stavro Skendi, The Albanian National Awakening, 1878-1912 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 335-36. 296

In 1909, after an unsuccessful attempt to build a career in Istanbul as part of the official establishment dominated by the Young Turks, Temo returned to Romania. His prodigious activity as physician, teacher, publisher, community organizer, and participant in the Romanian army with the rank of major during World War I earned him the high esteem of Romanian Muslims. Temo represented the Muslims in the Romanian parliament as senator beginning in the 1920s and, prior to that, served as a leading member of various

Muslim committees and associations.693 It is thus not surprising to find his handwriting and on property deeds exchanged among various committees charged with the verification of property rights of Dobrucan Muslims that functioned in both Bucharest and

Istanbul at the turn of the century. Temo made efforts to assist the local Muslim community in all possible ways during his lifetime. Because of his remarkable influence among Dobrucan Muslims, he is still remembered and celebrated today as the Albanian

Young Turk who put the Muslim community of Dobruca on the path of modernity and progress.694

In the end, the Young Turk organization in Romania failed to find ideological soul mates among all Dobrucan Muslims. Its secular and modernist vision rather aggravated local differences and created a rift between educated Muslims, who tended to be more progressive, and uneducated Muslims, who remained conservative and pro-Hamidian. But the entirety of its work, including the establishment of the first Muslim cultural associations, the modernization of the Mecidiye medrese, the creation of numerous modern

693 Agi Amet Gemal, Dicţionarul personalităţilor turco-tătare din România (Constanţa: Editura Metafora, 1999), 307. 694 Gelcu Maksutovici, “Dr. Ibrahim Temo (1865-1939), animator al vieţii spirituale albanezo-turco-tătare din Dobrogea,” Albanezul, 17 December 1994. 297

village schools, and the tremendous success in educating the youth of countless remote locations in the region, was in itself an extraordinary achievement. Temo and his fellow

Young Turks had fully contributed to the making of the new Muslim elites of Dobruca.

These modern elites preached in mosques, taught in schools, published newspapers, and traveled back and forth between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The impact of the

Young Turks on shaping the ideology and political activity of Dobrucan Muslims went far beyond the anti-Hamidian goals that set them in motion prior to the arrival in the region.

Some of these elites also inspired the Tatar segment of the Muslim population who adhered to the ideas of Crimean Tatar Ismail Gaspıralı. Gaspıralı was the leading representative of Jadidism, a modernist movement of the nineteenth century that emphasized the importance of modern education in the development of Muslim youth.

Mehmed Niyazi, who started his political career as a Young Turk activist, was one of

Gaspıralı’s disciples (Figure 26). As such, he represented the bridge between the two types of reformist ideas embraced by the Young Turks and the Crimean national movement.

Through his poetry and journalism, Niyazi encouraged his fellow Tatars to see themselves as part of the larger community of Turkic people and the smaller community of Crimean

Tatars, and to think of their homeland as the Crimean Peninsula rather than Dobruca.

Niyazi was among the first Tatar nationalists of Dobruca. The influence of Gaspıralı on

Dobrucan Tatars and the activity of Mehmed Niyazi in the local Tatar community will be the subject of the following section.

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Figure 26. Mehmed Niyazi, leader of the Crimean National Movement in Dobruca (1878-1931). Source: ilmiyqirim.blogspot.com.

Informal Links between the Muslim Tatars and the Crimean National Movement

During the nineteenth century, a reformist movement emerged among the Turkic population of tsarist Russia. Known as Jadidism ( is Arabic for “new”), the movement was the product of members of a progressive middle class posing as the bearers of a new cultural and political consciousness among the Turkic segment of

Russian society. Wealthy and highly westernized, this middle class included Kazan and

Crimean Tatars who received education at the University of Kazan, where they assimilated into Russian culture. In spite of their upbringing in Russian schools, these

Tatars appreciated the Turkish and Muslim heritage of their culture, while acknowledging at the same time the backwardness that characterized most of the Tatar community.695

The conceptualization of the usul-i jadid (new method) as a program of educational

695 Adeeb Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform, 1-2. 299

reform targeting the Tatar youth was an initiative meant to correct such a shortcoming.

This program later developed into a political movement urging the unification of all

Turkic peoples into a single “nation.” The movement emphasized in particular the importance of education in the advancement of the Turkic populations, whose cultural level, they believed, was much lower than that of other populations residing in the

Russian empire. The movement’s adherents took upon themselves the task of enlightening their least educated coreligionists. The most important leader of the movement was the Crimean Ismail Gaspıralı.

Before settling permanently in the Crimean Tatar capital of Bahçesaray in the

1870s, Gaspıralı received a Muslim and Russian education in his native region, completed higher education in , traveled to the Ottoman Empire and Europe

(where he served as assistant to famous Russian author Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev), and even tried (though unsuccessfully) to become an Ottoman officer.696 During his lifetime, he not only defended the ethno-national status of the Turkic peoples but also promoted their unity through language, ideas, and action.697 The means through which Gaspıralı’s ideas became known in the Turkic world was the publication in 1883, by his own printing press in Bahçesaray, of a newspaper titled Tercüman (The Translator). This was the first

Tatar newspaper published in the Crimea, and the only one that enjoyed a long-lasting career and considerable influence among both Russian Muslims and diaspora Tatars.

696 Hakan Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity among the Crimean Tatars (1905-1916) (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 33. 697 Turan and Evered, “Jadidism in South-eastern Europe,” 481. 300

As both a publisher and an educator who had introduced the modern system of jadid schools in Bahçesaray, Gaspıralı had the opportunity to implement his reformist program in the local Muslim community. “Unity in Language, Thought, and Deed”

(Dilde, Fikirde, ve İște Birlik) was the motto Gaspıralı promoted vigorously during this period in his newspaper and through his teachings. Emphasis on these particular issues allowed him to avoid unwanted Russian attention. According to Hakan Kırımlı, a scholar of Crimean Tatar nationalism, Gaspıralı never expressed any interest in supporting the unity of the Turkic peoples in political terms; he only laid the socio-cultural groundwork to make it possible.698

The distribution of the newspaper was extensive and Gaspıralı’s ideas made an impact on numerous Eurasian Muslims, including those living in Dobruca. Writing in

1928, Fuad Köprülü noted that “Tercüman had an important effect not only on the

Crimea, but in Kazan, the Caucasus, , Chinese Turkestan, Siberia, Romania,

Bulgaria, everywhere in the Ottoman Empire, in short, in the entire Turkic World. It produced great hope, laid foundations for the accomplishment of that hope, of a national renewal for the Turks, especially for the Russian Turks. Its editor’s name, Ismail Bey, is known everywhere.”699 In his 1942 book on Balkan Muslims, journalist M. Necmettin

Deliorman maintained that Gaspıralı visited the Muslim community of Romania on two separate occasions in 1897 and 1898.700 Based on Ziya Gökalp’s Türkçülüğün Esasları

698 Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 40. 699 Fuad Köprülü, “Ismail Bey Gasprinski,” Cumhuriyet (Istanbul), 7 March 1928. Quoted in Alan W. Fisher, “A Model Leader for Asia, Ismail Gaspirali,” in The Tatars of Crimea: Return to the Homeland – Studies and Documents, ed. Edward A. Allworth, 2nd edition (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 31. 700 M. Necmettin Deliorman, Meșrutiyet’ten Önce Balkan Turklerinin Tarihi (Istanbul: Birinci Kitap, 1942), 145. 301

(The Principles of Turkism), Deliorman also claimed that one hundred issues of

Tercüman were sold to Dobruca’s Crimean Tatars.701

It is very likely that Dobrucan Tatars had access to both the person of Gaspıralı and the information he published in Tercüman. Brian Glyn Williams argues that there was considerable communication between the Tatars of Dobruca and those from the Crimea, especially on the eve of the .702 The two Tatar communities had most probably been in contact for more than a century, as many Crimean intellectuals visited

Dobruca beginning in the eighteenth century, when the first major wave of Crimean

Tatars left the peninsula following the 1783 Russian annexation and settled in Dobruca with the permission of the Ottoman sultan. Gaspıralı himself seems to have stayed in

Köstence/Constanţa very briefly in 1895 while on his way to Bulgaria.703 In spite of his visit(s) to the region and the influence of his newspaper among Romanian Muslims,

Gaspıralı was not directly involved in the internal organization of the local Muslim community. That was to be the exclusive task of the Balkan branch of the Young Turk movement in the coming years. Gaspıralı remains relevant, however, for his role in introducing for the first time the deeply conservative Muslim community of Dobruca to the ideas of modernity and secular education.

He therefore continued the century-long tradition of exchange of ideas between the

Tatars of Crimea and those of Dobruca. Such connections allowed the latter community

701 However, Ömer Turan and Kyle T. Evered have rejected such claims based on their unsuccessful attempt to identify this information in Gökalp’s work. Nevertheless, they have agreed on the likelihood that Deliorman could unintentionally have confused the actual source of the information with Gökalp’s book (Turan and Evered, “Jadidism in South-eastern Europe,” 489). 702 Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 282. 703 Information provided by Müstecib Ülküsal and cited in Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 282. 302

“to maintain some form of communal identification with the Crimean Peninsula as their historic homeland and it was from this area that many of the most influential twentieth- century Crimean Tatar nationalists were to emerge.”704 One example was Şevki Bektöre, a second-generation émigré, who was born in the Dobrucan village of Kavaklar in 1888 and migrated during his childhood to the Ottoman Empire with his family. Educated in

Eskișehir and Istanbul, Bektöre soon became linked with the Crimean Student Society headquartered in the Ottoman capital.705 During World War I, he kept in touch with the

Crimean Tatar nationalist circles active in the Ottoman Empire. Following the end of the war, Bektöre left the empire together with his wife and a group of fifty Crimean Tatars with the goal of teaching in Tatar schools in the Crimea.706 He was not successful and ended up being arrested by Russian authorities shortly after reaching the Crimean

Peninsula. Bektöre died much later in Turkey, where he resided after being released from a twenty-five-year long imprisonment in Russia.

The most famous example, however, was that of Mehmed Niyazi (1878-1935), who had a distinguished career as a Young Turk. Born in Dobruca in 1878, Niyazi completed primary education in his native village of Avçılar/Vânatori. At the age of eleven, he moved to Istanbul with his family due to difficulties experienced in Dobruca.

Several years of severe drought led to famine that caused many of the region’s Muslims, including Niyazi’s family, to move to Istanbul and other places in the Ottoman Empire in search of better living conditions. After training for a teaching career in Istanbul, Niyazi

704 Ibid. 705 Nermin Eren, “Crimean Tatar Communities Abroad,” in The Tatars of Crimea, 343. 706 Ibid., 250. 303

decided to move to the Crimea to teach in Tatar schools. But Russian persecution during the period when he worked there (1898-99) and the death of his father (1904) played an important role in his decision to return to Dobruca at the beginning of the twentieth century. The records of the Tatar school of Köstence/Constanţa mention Niyazi as a teacher between 1906 and 1916. In 1916, he relocated with his entire family to Mecidiye following his appointment as teacher at the prestigious Muslim medrese.707

For Niyazi, as for any other member of the Young Turk movement or the Jadidist movement, education was not restricted to school-related activities. Realizing the growing cultural gap between the Muslims and the rest of the region’s population (in the sense that the Muslims were culturally different), Niyazi devoted the remainder of his life to the growth of his coreligionists’ intellectual life, especially in his dual capacity as a journalist and poet. He became the chief editor of the newspapers Dobruca (1909) and Ișık (The

Light) (1914-15), and an occasional contributor to other regional publications, including

Dobruca Sadası (The Voice of Dobruca) and Mektep ve Aile (The School and the Family).

As a journalist, Niyazi did not shy away from portraying his community as backward.

Visibly disappointed by the intellectual state of his coreligionists, he announced in an editorial in the first issue of Ișık that the purpose of his publication was to enlighten ignorant Muslims and bring them into the modern era.708

707 Gemal, Dicţionarul personalităţilor turco-tătare, 225-29. 708 Ișık, 5 Rebiülevvel 1332 [1 February 1914], 1. 304

Mehmed Niyazi embraced the view prevalent amongst the Muslim elite of the

Crimea that Crimean Tatars should identify themselves collectively on the basis of their ethnicity and their original homeland, which was the Crimean Peninsula. Crimean Tatars dreamed of national unity, and such a dream had great appeal for “certain intellectual segments of the Dobrucan Tatar population,” including Niyazi.709 Beginning in 1906,

Crimean Tatars conceived their new identity in secular rather than religious terms. Until that moment, the paramount collective identity embraced by Tatars was religious, though regional and clan affiliations were also extremely important. The term “Tatar” itself, as

Hakan Kırımlı remarks, “had been ascribed to the Muslim Turkic people of the Crimea by the Slavs and by the Ottomans as a reference to the background of the ruling dynasty.”710

Specifically, it refers to the Mongols. After 1878, Romanian officials had also employed the term to refer to the members of this community. This terminology was soon adopted by

Dobrucan Tatars themselves in official documents such as emigration papers or petitions submitted to state authorities.711

Mehmed Niyazi heralded a new age in the evolution of the local Tatar community.

He was the first major intellectual to use ethnicity and place of origin as identification markers for himself and his fellow Tatars. The most effective means through which he accomplished this goal was poetry. Between 1900 and 1930, Niyazi authored a series of poems under the title “The Green Island” (Yeșil Ada) or “The Green Homeland” (Yeșil

Yurt), which was very well received in the community. Generations of Tatars grew up

709 Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 282. 710 Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 37. 711 AMAE., Fond Constantinopol, Vol. 419-20, passim. 305

with these poems, which Tatar nationalists recited at their gatherings in the 1920s and

1930s.712 Dobrucan Tatars still acknowledge Niyazi today as their national poet, the intellectual whose work represented the peak of Tatar culture worldwide in general, and that of Dobrucan Tatar culture in particular.713

Niyazi’s poetry expressed his perception of his own identity, as well as the collective identity of his community. The poem “Tatar barmı dep, soraganlarga” (To

Those Who Ask about the Tatars) emphasizes the blood connection between Niyazi and the

Tatar community, and by extrapolation the Turks of the wider world:

To those who ask, I answer that I am a Tatar….

I am a young Tatar who knows his glorious history well.

I have no other blood relation in the world but the .

I am a șongar,714 a brother, and a simple Turk,

I am named the same as the Turkish people, but in history

My name is known as a Tatar; it is written in this way.715

The poet urged Dobrucan Tatars to unite, to acknowledge their noble origin and learn about the history of their homeland. Aware of the Russian persecution of Tatars in the Crimea, which impeded the return of Tatar (immigrants) to their former homes, Niyazi

712 William, The Crimean Tatars, 284. 713 Güner Akmolla in the introduction to Mehmed Niyazi, Olimsiz șiirler/ Poeme nemuritoare (Constanţa: New Line, 2007), 3. 714 "Șongar" is the name of a region in Crimea (Melinda Dincă, “Turkish-Tatar Communities from Dobrudja, Romania. Social Identity Dynamics,” European Review of Applied Vol. 7, 9 (2014): 28). 715 “Tatar barmı? Dep, kım soray, men barman./ Atın, șanın, bek tanıgan, caș tatarman./ Turkten ozge toganım yok dunyada,/ Turknın ozi, oz kardașı, șongarman./ Millet adım Turk bolsada, tarihte,/ Şanlı adım tatar…Şay dep yazarman.” (Niyazi, Olimsiz șiirler/Poeme nemuritoare, 70). 306

wished to strengthen the identity of his fellow Tatars by linking them to their former homeland. For him, to be a Tatar meant to be connected to the wider Turkic world and to identify with the Crimea if one’s place of origin was the Crimean Peninsula. To him, the

Crimea was the most beautiful place on earth. No other poem expressed this idea more effectively than his famous “Yeșil Ada” (The Green Island), which would later become the standard for how Tatars imagined their long lost homeland.

Gathered with divine hands from the flowers embellishing nature,

You are a finely organized bouquet, Green Island!

Though at times your leaves may wither and fall,

There is not in the whole world another place to resemble you.

It is as if you have been beautified by heavenly craftsmen,

And with the purest of air your face they fed.

The waves that listen to the sea’s sacred secrets,

Kiss your weary hem night and day….716

Described in a sweeping romantic fashion, the Crimea acquires an almost sacred status in Niyazi’s poetry. All the poet’s affection, dreams, and hopes are linked exclusively to the Crimean homeland. There is no mention of attachment to Dobruca. Brian Glyn

Williams finds two explanations for this attitude. First, Niyazi could not regard Dobruca as his homeland because of the province’s inclusion in the Romanian national homeland and its large Romanian population. Second, the time when Crimean Tatars settled in this area

716 Niyazi, Olimsiz șiirler, 83-84. 307

was recent in the memory of the Tatar community, and there were Tatars wishing to return to the lands inhabited by their grandparents.

Whatever the explanation, Niyazi did urge the Tatars to learn Romanian and remain loyal to the Romanian state and its monarchy. A variety of books published by Niyazi’s printing house in Mecidiye during the early twentieth century were intended to help

Muslims experiencing difficulties with the Romanian language to improve their linguistic skills. Since these publications were often bilingual, there was hope that Muslims, in particular the older generation, could improve their Romanian in the comfort of their homes.717 In almost all of his writings, Niyazi encouraged his coreligionists to learn the official language, to be acquainted with the Romanian culture, and to remain loyal citizens of Romania.718 Like the members of the Jadidist movement in tsarist Russia, Niyazi urged the population to remain loyal to the state in which they resided in order to avoid complications with the central government. Romanian authorities welcomed this attitude and continued to tolerate the Tatars and their ideas until the advent of the Communist period of Romanian history, which began after World War II.

Conclusions

This chapter has discussed the impact of transnational networks on the formation of Muslim political identity in Dobruca between 1878 and 1914. The findings point out that these networks, in particular the Young Turks and the Crimean national movement,

717 This information was included in the report of Alexandru Ghica, the Romanian minister in Istanbul, dated , 1901 (AMAE., Fond Problema 21, Dosar 39, 128-29). 718 Gemal, Dicţionarul personalităţilor turco-tătare din România, 230. 308

played an important role in the way Dobrucan Muslims defined themselves in the public sphere. Because of their actions, the Muslim community became even more divided into reformists and conservatives. The ability of networks to foster cross-border connections by ensuring the free movement of ideas and individuals across national frontiers contributed to the intellectual development and modernization of the entire community.

The evidence suggests that during the process of modernization the Muslims became active agents rather than passive targets of state policies.

Transnational connections and actors played dual roles. The circulation of political activists contributed to the formation of Muslim organizations, which played a crucial role in (re)formulating collective identity. Transnational connections increased political activity within the Muslim community. As Young Turk and Crimean modernist ideas penetrated Muslim society, the debates and divisions from the Ottoman Empire and the broader Turkic world espoused by the representatives of the two movements were also brought to Dobruca.

Although there were various projections of Muslim identity, depending on the divisions in the community (for or against the Young Turks, Abdülhamid, or the Crimean modernist movement), Muslims agreed to remain loyal to the Romanian state. There was no real attempt within the community as a whole to break away from Romania, and the option of migration to the Ottoman Empire was utilized when Muslims faced difficulties related to either Romanian legislation or natural disasters.

The case of Dobrucan Muslims has shown the importance of transnational connections at the societal level. Friendly relations between Romania and the Ottoman

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Empire provided the Muslims with a certain freedom of action. With the steady help of the Young Turks they were able to establish schools, cultural associations, newspapers, and various other publications. Options for political action and internal reorganization, mostly at a cultural level, helped Muslims acquire a particular sense of self on both personal and collective levels. Dobrucan Turks became modern and engaged in political activity in their community, while Dobrucan Tatars became more aware of their collective Tatar identity. Ibrahim Temo and Mehmed Niyazi played essential parts in introducing modernizing ideas into Dobruca, and both made efforts to raise awareness among Muslims about their identity and role in society. For someone like Ibrahim Temo,

Dobruca became something of a privileged site, enabling him to do things that he could not have done in the Ottoman Empire and even produce an impact there, as well as in

Romania.

The examination of the impact of the Young Turk and the Crimean national movements on the local Muslim community sheds light on the ability of informal cross- border networks to influence the organizational capacity of the Muslim minority of

Dobruca as well as the formation of their collective identity. In conjunction with the impact of state policies, the influence of transnational networks on local Muslims was key to the development of political identity and activity of minorities. In fact, such connections became crucial for the development of local Muslims, both intellectually and politically.

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Conclusions

For the peoples living in southeastern Europe and the Balkans, the nineteenth century occupied a distinctive place in their memory that set it apart from previous eras.

This was the period when the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled over these territories since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, gradually lost its possessions and gave way to new forms of political organization known as nation-states. For the peoples who experienced the empire-to-nation transition, the nineteenth century came as a challenge, for both the Ottoman Empire and its successor states articulated their own visions of who should become part of the “nation,” a vision that did not always coincide with that of the populations living within their confines. In an effort to cope with the change, these populations had to reconsider their place in society, a process that often supposed the rethinking of their collective identities, especially when they belonged to specific religious communities.

The Muslims of Dobruca, as inhabitants of an Ottoman region granted to

Romania in 1878 through a stipulation of the Treaty of Berlin, were no exception, and between the period from the beginning of the Ottoman reform era (1839) to the outbreak of World War I (1914), they too made the transition from subjecthood to citizenship.

When both Ottoman and Romanian officials sought to incorporate the Muslims of

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Dobruca into their respective “nations” as either Ottomans or Romanians, the Muslims declared loyalty for the state and its ruling dynasty whenever community projects were at stake. During the Ottoman period, the Muslims reacted positively to reform projects and embraced the type of supra-nationalism (Osmanlılık) crafted by Ottoman reformers in

Istanbul, which stressed equality among imperial subjects and the need for accelerated modernization. Under Romanian rule, however, only those who remained in Dobruca following the Ottoman-Russian war of 1877-78 dealt with the nationalizing policies of the new regime and claimed loyalty to the and the state in an effort to preserve the community’s autonomy in the realms of education, jurisprudence, and religious organization. These Muslims did their best to fit into the larger picture of the Romanian

“nation” in a manner that resembled the behavior of the Russian Muslims described by

Robert Crews and the Ottoman Sephardic Jews examined by Julia Phillips Cohen.

Discouraged by nation-state policies, which placed them at a disadvantage in a society dominated by ethnic Romanians, the bulk of the Muslim community decided to migrate to Ottoman territories and build a new life there. Massive emigration waves occurred after the establishment of Romanian administration in the region in 1878.

While Romanian independence challenged the communal and “national” identity of the

Muslims, the transnational networks from the wider Turkic world, including the Young

Turks and the Crimean Tatar movement, appealed anew to Dobrucan Muslims’ ethnic and religious loyalties at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the next.

Under these influences, Dobrucan Muslims continued to modernize and make progress especially in the cultural domain of their everyday lives.

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Muslims gradually became the dominant demographic element in Dobruca due to

Ottoman policies of settlement, the goal of which was to ensure the defense of their northern frontier and the economic growth of the region. During the reform period,

Tanzimat officials attempted to turn Dobrucan Muslims from passive subjects into engaged Ottomans in a period when state policies, driven by both internal and external factors, aimed at the modernization of the entire imperial framework. Especially from the 1850s onwards, the region of Dobruca underwent a process of modernization resulting in economic development and social change. Dobrucan Muslims became gradually involved in local projects meant to trigger regional growth, probably more than they wished given the financial and physical burden laid upon them. Yet there was an eagerness, if one could call it that, on the part of Ottoman officials to paint a happy picture of the Dobrucan Muslims who participated in reform efforts. The Ottomans wished to prove in this way the success of their reforms, which aimed to create an egalitarian society in which all subjects prospered irrespective of religious affiliation (the concept of Osmanlılık, the belonging of Ottoman subjects to the larger Ottoman “nation,” was indeed a Tanzimat creation). This was done through the use of a specific language, the language of the Tanzimat, which the Ottomans deployed to create and disseminate an idealized image of a population fully committed to the Ottoman imperial modernist project launched in 1839. But the enthusiastic reaction of the Muslims to reform efforts appears exaggerated, since historical evidence suggests that the burden of most public projects rested on their shoulders. It should be noted, however, that the region’s Muslims understood the value of being (or being perceived as) Ottoman and sometimes used the

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same Tanzimat language in interactions with Ottoman authorities. Statements that assured the sultan and state officials of their affection and loyalty for the dynasty and the state appeared in official petitions published in the official newspaper of the Danube

Province from 1865 onward. Petitioners most likely used this language to improve chances for a positive response to their needs.

The transition from empire to nation-state did not change much in terms of how

Muslims reacted to state policies and how they crafted their collective identity. Similar displays of loyalty, this time for Romanian authorities and institutions, continued to be present in the Muslim discourse. Like the Ottomans, Romanian officials attempted to emphasize the success of their policies regarding their Muslim co-nationals. It is likely that Romanian officials wished to prove that they had suceeded in taming the “savage”

Turks who ruled Dobruca prior to 1878. In Romanian political circles of the time, as well as in studies concerning the Dobruca region, the paradigm of the “Turkish yoke” was readily deployed to describe the nature of Ottoman rule in this part of Romania. Such inaccuracy was without a doubt an ideological artifice meant to highlight the “beneficial” nature of Romanian rule in the region by undermining any positive role the Ottomans had played there prior to 1878. But historical evidence makes it clear that the Muslims were treated as second-class citizens after 1878. Their political rights were restricted until

1910, and even after receiving such rights, they had little say in regional and national politics. Abuses by local officials, including unjustified cases of property confiscation, as well as other offenses, proved to be decisive factors in the decision of most Dobrucan

Muslims to migrate to the Ottoman Empire in such great numbers that their presence in

314

Dobruca decreased from sixty percent of the population in 1878 to eleven percent in

1913. The only way in which the remaining Muslims could survive was to claim allegiance to the Romanian state and its monarchy in an effort to at least preserve autonomy in education, jurisprudence, and religious organization. Thus statements of the region’s Muslims underlining their loyalty to the Romanian state and its ruler were no more than well-thought-out strategies to attract the benevolence of state officials for local projects. As Palmira Brummett aptly maintains, the “language of nationalism” was being practiced in both the empire and the nation-state just as “the problems of generating allegiance to the ‘nation’ remained the same as those of generating allegiance to the empire.”719

In addition to discussing state policies and how the Muslims handled them, this dissertation details the connections between local Muslims and the representatives of transnational networks from the wider Turkic world, namely the Young Turks and the

Crimean national movement. Because of the ability of these networks to foster cross- border connections by ensuring the free movement of ideas and individuals across national frontiers, the Muslim community, led by its elite members, increased their understanding of local politics and participated in its own intellectual growth. Rather than resist foreign influence, local Muslim elites became in this context the bearers of a new political and cultural consciousness among their coreligionists. Transnational connections increased political activity within the Muslim community, but as Young

719 Palmira Brummett, Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911 (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), 319. 315

Turk and Crimean modernist ideas penetrated Muslim society, the debates and divisions from the Ottoman Empire and the broader Turkic world espoused by the representatives of the two movements were also brought to Dobruca. Although there were various projections of Muslim identity, depending on the divisions in the community (for or against the Young Turks, Sultan Abdülhamid, or the Crimean modernist movement),

Muslims agreed to remain loyal to the Romanian state. There was no attempt within the community to break away from Romania, and the option of migration to the Ottoman

Empire was utilized whenever Muslims faced difficulties related to either Romanian legislation or natural disasters.

Friendly relations between Romania and the Ottoman Empire during this period provided the Muslims with a certain freedom of action. With the steady help of the

Young Turks in particular they were able to establish schools, cultural associations, newspapers, and various other publications within Romania for the first time in their history. Options for political action and internal reorganization, mostly at a cultural level, helped Muslims acquire a particular sense of self on both personal and collective levels.

Dobrucan Turks became engaged in political activity in their community, while

Dobrucan Tatars became more aware of their collective Tatar identity. Ibrahim Temo and Mehmed Niyazi, the leaders of the two movements, played essential parts in introducing modernizing ideas into Dobruca, and both made efforts to raise awareness among Muslims about their identity and role in society. In conjunction with the impact of state policies, the influence of transnational networks on local Muslims was a crucial factor in the development of the Muslim community, both intellectually and politically.

316

For the Muslims of Dobruca, the long nineteenth century was a period of struggle to cope with state policies and preserve their collective identity as state designs required of them loyalty to the monarchy and devotion to the state. The struggle continued in the twentieth century. The Muslims aquired minority status after the Great War but saw their rights limited by nationalist policies. The interwar period witnessed new waves of

Muslim emigration from Dobruca to the Republic of Turkey due to lack of resources and discriminatory official policies in regards to voting and property rights.720 Because of the

“combined assault of state-sponsored in the classrooms and the more subtle threat of material progress, urbanization, and modernization,”721 the Muslims underwent a process of secularization and became even more restricted in their rights during the

Communist period (1947-89). The Romanian Communists, however, did not persecute

Muslims in the same manner as their Bulgarian or Serbian counterparts in the 1980s and

1990s, respectively. Following the collapse of the Romanian Communist regime in 1989,

Muslims were challenged yet again to reconsider their own ideas of community and communal identity. Revived connections with their coreligionists from the wider Turkic world allowed them to establish political organizations, to publish in their native languages, and to travel extensively in Turkey and the Crimea as representatives of the diaspora. Muslim residents of Dobruca claimed, in a series of interviews recorded from

2012 to 2014 by researchers interested in learning more about the cultural patrimony and social identity dynamics in the region’s Muslim communities, that in spite of regime

720 Valentin Ciorbea, “Turco-tătarii ȋn Dobrogea interbelică,” in Tătarii ȋn istoria românilor, ed. Marian Cojoc (Constanţa: Muntenia, 2004), 55-58. 721 Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 289. 317

change they preserved their Muslim identity by continuing to practice their faith, carry on with their traditions, and maintain more or less their traditional occupations.722 Since the

Romanian government had no interest in Romanianizing the Muslims after 1989, a more relaxed relationship between them and the majority of the population composed of ethnic

Romanians came into being. The president of the Democratic Tatar-Turkish Muslim

Union of Romania, headquartered in Constanţa, stated in 2013: “Well, you know, we don't celebrate our holidays, like the religious ones, the Bayrams, alone. As we also celebrate Easter and Christmas with the others. Less the eating [of] pork thing. […] So we have a wonderful symbiosis here. If you know anybody who lives in Constanţa and says he’s from Constanţa, and he doesn’t know or doesn’t have any Muslim or Tatar friend, then it means he’s not really from there.”723

This shows the success of the integration of the Muslims in Romanian society, even if their number has decreased over the centuries.724 Dobrucan Muslims traveled a long road during the transition from empire to nation-state, one rife with stories of both success and failures. Ultimately, the Muslim community of Dobruca can be understood as an example of the successful adaptation of Muslims to state policies and external influences that enhanced their understanding of community goals and their belonging to the broader Turkic world. This further allowed them to find ways of defining and

722 Melinda Dincă, “Turkish-Tatar Communities from Dobrudja, Romania. Social Identity Dynamics,” European Review of Applied Sociology Vol. 7, 9 (2014): 22-33. 723 Ibid., 29. 724 The Romanian census of 2002 indicated 50,989 Dobrucan Muslims out of nearly 22 million Romanian nationals. 318

redefining themselves as members of a modernized community linked through faith, historical origin, language, traditions, and mores.

319

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