Dobroudja

The Dobroudja ( Bulgarian Добруджа in , Rumanian Dobrogea in and Dobrogée in the old French documents), is a territory covering is Romania and the North-East of the Bulgaria, is roughly south of the low-Danube to the Black Sea. In Romania, Dobroudja is subdivided in two departments including/understanding the largest port of the Black Sea: Constanţa and the delta of the the Danube; in Bulgaria, this area is regarded as the “attic with corn” of the country).

Dobroudja is currently an agricultural and tourist area, whose main cities are the ports of Tulcea and Constanţa in Romania, and the towns of Dobritch and Silistra in Bulgaria.

History

Dobroudja is inhabited since the Paléolithique, and the Neolithic culture of Hamangia (thousand-year-old IVe before J.C.), in Dobrogée Rumanian, is universally known.

The area is populated in Antiquity by the tribes Daces or Gètes belonging to the unit Thrace. The local population makes trade with the Greek colonies of the Black Sea until the Roman conquest (Rome will control the Mésie during 7 centuries, relayed by the empire of Byzance), then undergoes the invasions of the migrating people Slaves and Turcophone S (Huns, Avars, Bulgares, Ouzes, Pétchénègues, Coumans known as Polovtses, Tatars known as Tartar, Othoman).

Dobrogée is integrated into the first kingdom of the Bulgares from 795 to 917, becomes again Roman (Byzantine) from 917 to 1186, then belonged to the " Regnum Valachorum" based on bottom the Danube by the Wallachian princes of the dysnastie Asan de Tarnova, until 1261 when it is again reconquered by Byzance.

In 1346 it becomes a despotat independent founded by Bulgarian prince Balko of Dobritch (Pazarcik), with the capital with Kaliakra close to Karvouna (today Kavarna). Populated (according to the chronicles génoises) of Slavon S (" bulgares"), of Rumanian (" valaques"), of Greek (" romées"), of Jews Yévanique S (" romiotes") and of Armenian (" hermins"), this despotat extends on the low-Danube since the mouths from the river to the course Haeminos (Emina) in the south from Varna. It opens to the merchants génois who ensure prosperity of it, provides him naves and weapons, and installs the counters of San-Giorgio (Giurgiu, Djurdjevo), Dorostolo (Silistra), Barilla (Braila, Ibrahil), Caladda (Galaţi), Licovrissi (Obluciţa, Izmail), Licostomo (Chilia Veche), Constanza (Constanţa, Kustendje), Carvouna (Kavarna), Danissa (Balcik) and Odessa (auj. Varna; the modern name of Odessa, in Ukraine, comes well from there, but modern Odessa was founded only at the 18th century). Othoman Turkish having taken foot on two banks of Dardanelles, the génois is évincés Black Sea, and in 1404 Dobrogée enters, after the duchies of Olténie (banat of Severin) and of Arges, in the federation constituting Voévodat of Valachie. The bishop of Vicina (in the north of Dobrogée) becomes the métropolite of Valachie. But this protection does not prove very effective because the Othoman sultans will occupy Dobrogée between 1421 (15th century) and 1878 (19th century) by colonizing there many Tatars and Moslem Turks. Dobrogée is integrated in the exarchat of Proïlavon which has as a Braila head office and includes the Othoman territories with majority (still) Christian between Varna and the estuary of Dniestr.

At the time of the Russo-Turkish wars of 1877-1878 Dobrogée is asserted as well by the Romania as by the Bulgaria lately independent of the Ottoman Empire. A commission austro-allemande divides it with the forceps between the Romania (for two thirds) and the Bulgaria (a third): it consequently becomes a bone of contention between the two countries. In 1913 Romania benefits from the difficulties of Bulgaria at the time of the first Balkan War, to tear off the to him Dobroudja of the South. Bulgaria takes its revenge at the sides of the Germans during the First World War, by occupying it also all Dobroudja. The peace of 1918 gave again it entirely in Romania, but an arbitration of Hitler, in 1940, into force gave the initial division of 1878, on bottom of treaty between fascistic Germany and the Soviet Union of Stalin (Pacte Molotov-Ribbentrop). Ratified by the Treated of Craiova, the border of 1940 today is fully recognized by Romania and Bulgaria. The two States being members of the European Union since 2007, the border became from now on permeable in any case.

Agriculture

Dobrogea Rumanian (in north), whose grounds are loess like, is a ground of ovine pasture (Merinos sheep), orchards and vines (wines of Murfatlar). The plain of Bulgarian Dobroudja (southern) is planted vast cereal pieces, several hundreds of hectares each one and having the characteristic to be separated by hedges from 10 to 20 m broad which were planted at the end of the communist time to fight against the erosion of the grounds. In spite of an increasingly intensive agriculture, whose nitrates contaminate surface waters, these hedges have an important function of reception and refuge for fauna useful for agriculture. Moreover, there exist still forests of holm oaks (Quercus ilex) residual, both in Romania and in Bulgaria.

Environment

Dobrogée is rich faunistiquement in spite of the environmental catastrophes of the communist time (mode which promoted " the fight of the Man against Nature"). The richest area is in north, with the mouth of the Danube, which still shelters many water birds (of which Pélican S) and an ichtyologic fauna in reduction since the privatization of the fishing rights, while an unrestrained urbanization of leisures, with all that implies like harmful effects, threatens the unit of the mediums. The Natural reserve of the Biosphere of the Delta of the Danube, at the average tiny rooms, done what it can to limit the damage. The geopolitical situation at the Eastern borders of the European Union prevents the two directors of the reserve, one Rumanian and the other Ukrainian, to collaborate as much as it would be needed, because the point of authorized frontier passage nearest is to 250 km towards the west, out of Dobrogée and the Delta of the Danube.

In the Bulgarian part, the forests of holm oaks and the hedges wind-cutter were preserved better than in the Rumanian part, often become steppe, sometimes even semi-desert because of deforestation. One finds in these hedges and these forests the wild tube ('' Buteo rufinus ), the tube pattue ( Buteo lagopus ) and the falcon swivel ( Falco columbarius ) which contribute to control micro the fond of delicacies cereal mammals. The Greater bustard ( Otis delayed ) attends also Dobrogée. But so in Romania entirety of the zones " Natura 2000 " proposed by the scientists were validated by the authorities, in Bulgaria on the other hand only half was validated by the Department of the Environment, which, moreover, reduced half the surface suggested for Natural reserve of the Cape Kaliakra…

Dobrogée knew the Avian flu in 2005.

It is in Dobrogée, at the roumano-Bulgarian border but Rumanian side, which was discovered extraordinary the Grotte of Movile, completely isolated from the outside world since a half-million years and sheltering a single endemic fauna in the world, adapted to the lack of light and oxygen, and whose survival is founded on the proliferation of bacteria nourishing suspended matter in water.

Dependant article

Dobroudja of the South

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