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Fluctuating Geographical Position Within a Geopolitical and Historical Context

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Fluctuating Geographical Position Within a Geopolitical and Historical Context ISSN 0354-8724 (hard copy) | ISSN 1820-7138 (online) Fluctuating Geographical Position within a Geopolitical and Historical Context. Case Study: Romania Radu Danut SăgeatăA Received: June 10, 2019 | Revised: September 30, 2019 | Accepted: October 03, 2019 doi: 10.5937/gp24-22083 Abstract The geographical position of a territory is a statically element strictly determined by mathematical landmarks and by those of the natural background. For all that, different historical and geopolitical events that happened in the course of time, can make the geographical position fluctuate by including a territory / state into territorial aggregates established on less arbitrary criteria. Thus, many interwar authors placed Romania, by geographical criteria, in Central Europe; after 1945 they would include it in Eastern Europe, or in short, in the East, a political-ideological homogeneous territory, but heterogene- ous geographically, historically and cultural. With the downfall of political-ideological barriers and the deep-going mutations in the geopolitics of Central and Eastern Europe, Romania’s geographical position should be reconsidered based on objective criteria: geographical, mathematical and last but not least, cultural and economic. This study is also important because some recent works place Romania errone- ously in South-Eastern Europe, either in Eastern or in Balkan Europe. The work concludes that Romania in a state situated in the south-eastern part of Central Europe. The arguments brought in favour of it have in view to push forward the current stage of knowledge on Romania’s geopolitics. Keywords: Geographical Position; Geopolitical & Historical Context; Central Europe; Romania Introduction, Methods and Data In one of the last studies on Romanian geopoli- That is why, Romania has in the course of time been tics published before the communist regime came placed by various authors either in Central Europe, to power, Conea (1944), quoting Vogel (1922), said South-Eastern Europe, or Eastern Europe. Proceed- that the geographical position is a static and some- ing from mathematical, natural, cultural-historical, how permanent characteristic, while the geopoliti- but also economic-geographical arguments, we shall cal position is changing. Romania belongs to a high- try to demonstrate that Romania is a Central-Euro- ly sensitive area of geopolitical friction, a territory pean state. known and defined as a “zone of geopolitical earth- The present study, more theoretical, is based on the quakes”. The same author goes on saying that Roma- interpretation, within a geopolitical, geostrategic and nia has a central position, being surrounded by pow- historical context, of some geographical sources that erful states; it is a position far more dangerous, yet in place it in different regional settings. time of peace it offers also multiple advantages, giv- Analysing sources that place Romania within var- en the possibilities of establishing a lot of fruitful re- ious regional assembles (Central Europe, South-East- lations and influences (Alexandrescu & Deică, 2002). ern Europe, Eastern Europe, Balkan Europe), we shall A Institute of Geography, Romanian Academy, Dimitrie Racoviţă Street, no. 12, Bucharest, RO-023993, [email protected] Geographica Pannonica • Volume 24, Issue 1, 25–41 (March 2020) 25 Fluctuating Geographical Position within a Geopolitical and Historical Context. Case Study: Romania argument why Romania “migrated” from Central Eu- For the purpose of this research, recognizable rope to the South and East of the Continent in the ge- methods for approaches to collecting, analysing and opolitical context of the Communist period, a local- comparing the data were used. For data collection, dif- ization wrongly taken over even after the fall of the ferent sources were resorted to. Historical maps and Iron Curtain. The arguments included in this study pictures were analysed and compared to the present are aimed at improving current knowledge on this situation. Contributions to the evolution of borders in subject, contributing to elucidating some unclear- Central and Eastern Europe were reviewed with spe- nesses and eliminate some errors still made in placing cial attention to Romania. Findings were compared to Romania within a geographical context. statistical data and publications of different authors discussing this problem. Discussions The “evolution” of Romania’s geographical trian-Hungarian Empires in the centre, and Romania, position reflected in geographical Serbia and Bulgaria in the south-east (Figure 1). and cartographical sources in the first half Made up exclusively on the basis of historical ar- of the 20th century guments, this regional outline does not correspond Proceeding from Europe’s political outline in the ear- to the geographical reality, pushing the limits of Cen- ly 20th century, when Romania acted as a buffer-state tral Europe southward. Although in the past they among the influence zones of three empires (German, were part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Bulgar- Russian and Ottoman), the Geographisches Handbuch ia, Serbia and Montenegro belong to Southern Europe zu Andrees Auflage (1902), placed only the German and in no way to Central Europe. States, Switzerland and Austro-Hungary (together The assertion of national identity in a Europe of with Transylvania, but without Bosnia-Herzegovi- multi-national empires and the beginning of the First na and Dalmatia1) in Central Europe (Mitteleuropa), World War created the premisses for ever more per- having in view their cultural affinities and common sonalities of European science and culture to become historical relations. Partsch et al. (1903) enlarged this aware of the appurtenance of the Carpathian-Danubi- Figure 1. Central Europe according to J-F. Partsch, C. Black and H-J. Mackinder (1903) concept, including in Central Europe all the geopoliti- an space to Central Europe. Thus, Sievers (1916) traced cal diagonal line between the North Sea and the Baltic the Central-European frontier on the Dnistre and the Sea, consisting of the following states: Benelux in the Danube, basically including the entire Romanian eth- north-east, Switzerland and the German and the Aus- nical bloc. By the end of the First World War, and sub- sequently during the inter-war period, similar delimita- tions were made by other representatives of the German 1 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dalmatia were included into South- geographical school: Arldt (1917), Hassinger (1917, 1923), ern Europe. In geographical terms, it is better to include Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia in South-Eastern Europe. Heiderich (1926) and Machatschek (1925, 1929). Repre- 26 Geographica Pannonica • Volume 24, Issue 1, 25–41 (March 2020) Radu Danut Săgeată Figure 2. Central Europe according to Giselher Wirsing (1932) sentative for this opinion is Wirsing (1932), who includ- Ubersichtskarte von Mitteleuropa, 1937 or Generalkarte ed Romania, together with the Baltic States, Poland, von Mitteleuropa, 1937), placed all of Romania within former Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the countries Central-Europe, while others, e.g. Ethnographical Map of the former Yugoslav space, as well as Albania and of Central Europe, 1942, integrated only Transylvania Bulgaria, into “Middle Europe” (Zwischeneuropa) sug- and Bukowina into Central Europe (Sinhuber, 1954). gested also by Penck as early as 1915. Also in this re- Fundamental early 20th-century French works also gional outline, the limits of Central Europe are arbitar- confirmed that Romania belonged to the Central-Eu- ily pushed southward by including some Balkan states ropean area. In a work published in Paris by the Ser- (Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia), that belong to the bian geographer Cvijić (1918), the northern boundary South-European geographical realm (Figure 2). of the Balkan Peninsula was the Danube River; speak- On the other hand, the geographers who placed Ro- ing about the borders of the Balkan Peninsula, Ancel mania in the south-east of the Continent (Unstead, 1927; (1930) says that “sometimes the Danube is taken to be Schüssler, 1939, etc.), limited the Central-European space the northern limit of the Balkan Peninsula. But the only to the two German-speakig empires and, in some middle section of the Danube has never been a bor- cases, also to their neighbour countries in which popu- derline (...), the Danube does not divide, but unites the lations of Germanic origin lived. Speaking of Romania’s Romanian and the Balkan lands”. However, six years appurtenance to the Balkan space, Schmidt (1932) con- later he would change his views and place Romania in tended that, “before the War, although Romania, speak- Central Europe, setting just the big River as the south- ing strictly geographically, did not belong to the Bal- ern boundary (Figure 3). kan Peninsula, it was nevertheless considered so, being But he who best defined the notion of Central Eu- the only country that lay outside the natural borders of rope truly scientifically was geographer Emmanuel de this Peninsula”, while in Höpker’s views (1936), “Roma- Martonne, an excellent connoiseur of Romania from nia did not belong to the Balkan Peninsula in a strict- the beginning of the 20th century (Boulineau, 2001; ly geographical sense... it is rather a question of a Bal- Palsky, 2002; Bowd & Clayton, 2015). This term, Mar- kan mentality, a psychological complex one could hardly tonne would say (1934), should be used to designate define”. At the same time, other representative carto- the middle position of
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