From "The Bulgarians and Anglo Saxondom", Published in 1919
By Constantine Stephanove, M.A. (Fellow of the American Geographical Society)
Until the Congress of Berlin Romania and Bulgaria were living as good neighbors and friends. Many common ties united the two peoples in the past. For nine hundred years the intellectual life of the Wallachians and Moldavians was Slav. The Bulgarian apostles Cyril and Methodius together with Christianity introduced among them the Slav letters and literature. From the ninth century down to the eighteenth all the ecclesiastic books and most of the official documents issued by the Wallachian and Moldavian voivodas were written in the old Bulgarian tongue).
The first Romanian chronicles were written in Slavic. Their authors were monks. In general, the Slavic language was considered sacred by the Romanians, as was the Latin to the Germans and the French, and Hellenic to the Greeks. The earliest printed books of the Romanians were in the Slavic tongue. And even when Bulgaria succumbed under the Turks the Slavic language continued to flourish in the Romanian churches and monasteries. The first to raise a cry against the attempt to introduce the Wallachian language in public worship were the very clergy and boyars, not only in Wallachia and Moldavia, but in Transylvania also. It was considered an act of profanity by them to pray to God in the yet unrecognised and uncultured Romanian dialect.
Prayers should be offered in a sacred tongue. Such, however, to them was the Slavic.
The Bulgarian language was the official medium of Romania as late as the reign of Couza (1864), when for the first time its employment in the churches and in official acts was prohibited. But notwithstanding all that, Slav influences are still felt in the Romanian culture, language, and customs. The whole Romanian life was dominated by those influences.
To this day the Slav language is being used in the Orthodox churches in Transylvania. It was during the regime of the Phanar princes that those Danubian provinces commenced to encourage
an opposition against the Bulgarian language.
Throughout the revolutionary period preparatory to the great struggle of 1876, the Bulgarian patriots found in Romania a most hearty welcome and encouragement. Braila, Bucharest, Galatz, Jassi, etc., had become great centres for Bulgarian intellectual and insurrectionary activities. Turkish persecution had driven thousands of Bulgarians to Romania. Hundreds of Bulgarian students flocked across the Danube. In Braila was founded the Bulgarian Literary Society which later on was moved to Sofia and was developed into the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In 1867 a secret agreement was concluded between the Roumanian Government and the Bulgarian Revolutionary Organisation for joint action against the Turks. In 1877 by capturing the Grivitza Redoubt the Romanians, as allies of the Russians, had won a great military renown and the eternal gratitude of the Bulgarian people. Danube for ages past was a most convenient natural boundary that separated the two peaceful neighbours. Their relations were so harmonious and amicable, that when in 1878, towards the close of the Russo-Turkish peace negotiations. King Charles of Romania was notified by the Russian Government of its intention of retaining Bessarabia in exchange for which Romania was to receive Dobroudja, he wrote to Tsar Alexander a touching letter of protest ending with the words:
Once Romania in possession of Dobroudja, on the other side of the Danube — the historic and natural boundary line between her and Bulgaria — an end was put to the good relations between the two countries. From now hence Roumania commenced to be uneasy about her unlawful acquisition, and feeling insecure there because of the discontent created in the hearts of the Bulgarians, one of the first anxieties of every Romanian Government was how best to protect Dobroudja from a future attack on the part of the Bulgarians. How pernicious seemed to the Romanians the decisions of the Berlin treaty may be surmised from the fact that at its sitting on June 28, 1878, the Romanian National Assembly passed a resolution teeming with intense resentment and disgust, which ended with the words:
What, however, could a small country like Romania do against the declared will of an imperialistic Europe ?
Russia, having been assured of the consent and sanction of England, dispatched her general Ehrenroth with the instructions to occupy Bucharest. Thus Lord Beaconsfield in trying to establish a defensible frontier for Turkey, that was indefensible and unnatural, ruined the traditional friendship of two countries which nature had provided with a frontier at once defensible and natural. Since then the relations between Romania and Bulgaria grew worse day by day. Having been, so to speak, "kicked" across the Danube, Romania, obviously enough, began to be deeply interested in the internal development and progress of the Danubian Principality, its suspicion and jealousy commenced to get gradually more conspicuous until she conceived the idea that in order to insure the safety of her trans-Danubian possessions, she needed a greater hinterland south, which desire was subsequently crystallized in her ambition to become the owner of the Roustchouk-Varna-Shoumen "triangle". That dream led to the unprovoked aggression and invasion in 1913, and to the treaty of Bucharest, according to which Romania wrested from Bulgaria another slice of territory. The Romano-Bulgarian conflict of 1916 was another disastrous sequel of Romania's imperialistic policy inculcated in her by the Powers signatories to the Berlin Compact. The climax of that nation's territorial appetite was reached when it became an open secret that a clandestine agreement between her and Russian Tsarism guaranteed her, besides the acquisition of the long-coveted "triangle", a free commercial outlet to the Aegean! How different this transaction from the declarations of General Ignatieff who when the condition of the San Stefano Treaty were published, sent to the Dobroudja Bulgarians a secret letter which General Belotcherkovitch read to the Toulcha notables and delegates of the Province at a secret meeting held in the hall of the Literary Society.
In that letter Count Ignatieff says:
By Constantine Stephanove, M.A. (Fellow of the American Geographical Society)
Until the Congress of Berlin Romania and Bulgaria were living as good neighbors and friends. Many common ties united the two peoples in the past. For nine hundred years the intellectual life of the Wallachians and Moldavians was Slav. The Bulgarian apostles Cyril and Methodius together with Christianity introduced among them the Slav letters and literature. From the ninth century down to the eighteenth all the ecclesiastic books and most of the official documents issued by the Wallachian and Moldavian voivodas were written in the old Bulgarian tongue).
The first Romanian chronicles were written in Slavic. Their authors were monks. In general, the Slavic language was considered sacred by the Romanians, as was the Latin to the Germans and the French, and Hellenic to the Greeks. The earliest printed books of the Romanians were in the Slavic tongue. And even when Bulgaria succumbed under the Turks the Slavic language continued to flourish in the Romanian churches and monasteries. The first to raise a cry against the attempt to introduce the Wallachian language in public worship were the very clergy and boyars, not only in Wallachia and Moldavia, but in Transylvania also. It was considered an act of profanity by them to pray to God in the yet unrecognised and uncultured Romanian dialect.
Prayers should be offered in a sacred tongue. Such, however, to them was the Slavic.
The Bulgarian language was the official medium of Romania as late as the reign of Couza (1864), when for the first time its employment in the churches and in official acts was prohibited. But notwithstanding all that, Slav influences are still felt in the Romanian culture, language, and customs. The whole Romanian life was dominated by those influences.
To this day the Slav language is being used in the Orthodox churches in Transylvania. It was during the regime of the Phanar princes that those Danubian provinces commenced to encourage
an opposition against the Bulgarian language.
Throughout the revolutionary period preparatory to the great struggle of 1876, the Bulgarian patriots found in Romania a most hearty welcome and encouragement. Braila, Bucharest, Galatz, Jassi, etc., had become great centres for Bulgarian intellectual and insurrectionary activities. Turkish persecution had driven thousands of Bulgarians to Romania. Hundreds of Bulgarian students flocked across the Danube. In Braila was founded the Bulgarian Literary Society which later on was moved to Sofia and was developed into the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In 1867 a secret agreement was concluded between the Roumanian Government and the Bulgarian Revolutionary Organisation for joint action against the Turks. In 1877 by capturing the Grivitza Redoubt the Romanians, as allies of the Russians, had won a great military renown and the eternal gratitude of the Bulgarian people. Danube for ages past was a most convenient natural boundary that separated the two peaceful neighbours. Their relations were so harmonious and amicable, that when in 1878, towards the close of the Russo-Turkish peace negotiations. King Charles of Romania was notified by the Russian Government of its intention of retaining Bessarabia in exchange for which Romania was to receive Dobroudja, he wrote to Tsar Alexander a touching letter of protest ending with the words:
"The friendship of a nation is more precious than a piece of territory."
Once Romania in possession of Dobroudja, on the other side of the Danube — the historic and natural boundary line between her and Bulgaria — an end was put to the good relations between the two countries. From now hence Roumania commenced to be uneasy about her unlawful acquisition, and feeling insecure there because of the discontent created in the hearts of the Bulgarians, one of the first anxieties of every Romanian Government was how best to protect Dobroudja from a future attack on the part of the Bulgarians. How pernicious seemed to the Romanians the decisions of the Berlin treaty may be surmised from the fact that at its sitting on June 28, 1878, the Romanian National Assembly passed a resolution teeming with intense resentment and disgust, which ended with the words:
''An annexation to Romania of a territory found on the other side of the Danube is not in the interest of Romania which does not loish to become the cause for future disturbances, and, the? Before, she under no circumstances would agree to the annexation of Dobroudja''
What, however, could a small country like Romania do against the declared will of an imperialistic Europe ?
Russia, having been assured of the consent and sanction of England, dispatched her general Ehrenroth with the instructions to occupy Bucharest. Thus Lord Beaconsfield in trying to establish a defensible frontier for Turkey, that was indefensible and unnatural, ruined the traditional friendship of two countries which nature had provided with a frontier at once defensible and natural. Since then the relations between Romania and Bulgaria grew worse day by day. Having been, so to speak, "kicked" across the Danube, Romania, obviously enough, began to be deeply interested in the internal development and progress of the Danubian Principality, its suspicion and jealousy commenced to get gradually more conspicuous until she conceived the idea that in order to insure the safety of her trans-Danubian possessions, she needed a greater hinterland south, which desire was subsequently crystallized in her ambition to become the owner of the Roustchouk-Varna-Shoumen "triangle". That dream led to the unprovoked aggression and invasion in 1913, and to the treaty of Bucharest, according to which Romania wrested from Bulgaria another slice of territory. The Romano-Bulgarian conflict of 1916 was another disastrous sequel of Romania's imperialistic policy inculcated in her by the Powers signatories to the Berlin Compact. The climax of that nation's territorial appetite was reached when it became an open secret that a clandestine agreement between her and Russian Tsarism guaranteed her, besides the acquisition of the long-coveted "triangle", a free commercial outlet to the Aegean! How different this transaction from the declarations of General Ignatieff who when the condition of the San Stefano Treaty were published, sent to the Dobroudja Bulgarians a secret letter which General Belotcherkovitch read to the Toulcha notables and delegates of the Province at a secret meeting held in the hall of the Literary Society.
In that letter Count Ignatieff says:
"The accession of Dobrudja to Romania is dictated by state necessity and in order to justify the annexation of Bessarabia to Russia. It need not, however, scare or alarm the Dobrudja Bulgarians, as it is provisional, and Dobrudja in the near future will again be united with free Bulgaria".
Such is the sad history of the Romano-Bulgarian relations ever since 1878, when an evil fate decreed that Dobroudja, the cradle of the Bulgarian race, the land of Asparouch, Kroum, Simeon, the Assenides, of Dobroditius after whom it was christened, the country which for more than seven centuries had been known to history as Black Bulgaria, Maritime Bulgaria, Danubian Bulgaria, - Dobroudja, should be dealt with as chattels, and that the firm friendship of the two young states be ruined merely for a "peace of territory."
All this was a direct result of the Berlin Treaty.
Had it not been for the evil designs of the Great Powers, which were given a concrete form at Berlin 1878, Romania and Bulgaria would have to this day remained the best of friends and a model of neighbors, and the Balkans and Europe would have been spared so much of unnecessary turmoil, conflicts, and bloodshed.
About Dobruja
According to the peace treaty of 681, signed after the Bulgarian victory over Byzantines in the Battle of Ongala, Dobruja became part of the First Bulgarian Empire. Shortly after, Bulgars founded near the southern border of Dobruja the city of Pliska, which became the first Bulgarian capital, and rebuilt Madara as major Bulgarian pagan religious centre.[ According to the Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle, from the 11th century, Bulgarian Tsar Ispor "accepted the Bulgarian tsardom", created "great cities, Drastar on the Danube", a "great wall from Danube to the sea", "the city of Pliska" and "populated the lands of Karvuna". According to Bulgarian historians, during the 7th–10th centuries, the region was embraced by a large net of earthen and wooden strongholds and ramparts. Around the end of the 8th century, wide building of new stone fortresses and defensive walls began. The Bulgarian origin of the walls is disputed by Romanian historians, who base their position on the construction system and archaeological evidence. Some of the ruined Byzantine fortresses were reconstructed as well (Kaliakra and Silistra in the 8th century, Madara and Varna in the 9th). According to some authors, during the following three centuries of Bulgarian domination, Byzantines still controlled the Black Sea coast and the mouths of Danube, and for short periods, even some cities. However, according to Bulgarian archaeologists, the last coins, considered a proof of Byzantine presence, date in Kaliakra from the time of Emperor Justin II (565–578), in Varna from the time of Emperor Heraclius (610–641), and in Tomis from Constantine IV's rule (668–685).
At the beginning of the 8th century, Justinian II visited Dobruja to ask Bulgarian Khan Tervel for military help. Khan Omurtag (815–831) built a "glorious home on Danube" and erected a mound in the middle of the distance between Pliska and his new building, according to his inscription kept in SS. Forty Martyrs Church in Veliko Tarnovo. The location of this edifice is unclear; the main theories place it at Silistra or at Păcuiul lui Soare. Many early medieval Bulgar stone inscriptions were found in Dobruja, including historical narratives, inventories of armament or buildings and commemorative texts. During this period Silistra became an important Bulgarian ecclesiastical centre—an episcopate after 865 and seat of the Bulgarian Patriarch at the end of 10th century. In 895, Magyar tribes from Budjak invaded Dobruja and northeastern Bulgaria. An old Slavic inscription, found at Mircea Vodă, mentions Zhupan Dimitri , a local feudal landlord in the south of the region in 943.
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