Etudes balkaniques (Sofia) Issue 2017 N 4
Blagovest NJAGULOV, LOYALTIES UNDER STRAIN: THE DOBRUDJA “MAHZAR” OF 1940
Institute for Historical Studies, BAS
Abstract: The topic of the so-called Dobrudja “Mahzar” is an inseparable part of the events in the area between the Danube and the Black Sea that preceded and followed the Craiova Treaty of 1940. On the one hand, this topic illustrates one of the methods used by Romanian propaganda to preserve the territorial status quo with regard to Southern Dobrudja. On the other hand, the case of the Declaration of loyalty to Romania casts light on the state of the Bulgarian community in Dobrudja and its loyalties on the eve and after the Treaty that divided “definitely and forever” this land between Bulgaria and Romania. The paper presents in the form of an investigation the history of this Declaration, considering the Bulgarians’ participation in the initiative, and its consequences. The controversial topic raises the question of the possible and impossible dual loyalties of minorities.
Keywords: Loyalties, Bulgarians, Dobrudja, Romania
Etudes balkaniques (Sofia) Issue 2016 N 2
Blagovest NJAGULOV, Entre le paradis et l’enfer : l’histoire, Baltchik et la Dobroudja mises au point
Abstract: Why and how the seaside town Balchik (Bulgarian until 1913 and after 1940, but Romanian in-between) converts in „the little paradise of Greater Romania“, whose reminiscences today attract many tourists and create a special research interest? The responses of the famous in Romania and abroad historian Lucian Boia in his eponymous book have occasion to go back to the Dobrudja topic in the Bulgarian-Romanian relations. The focus in this article is the author’s and national specifics in the historiographical interpretations of the history of Balchik and the land between Danube and Black sea. After reviewing the Boia’s positions as historian and the reactions they evoked, in the article are presented sequentially his version about the real and imaginary Romanian Balchik, a critical look on the deficits in Dobrudja context of the book, the different accents on the same topic in Bulgarian bibliography. Unlike the mostly one-dimensional “national” representation of Dobrudja history in the period 1878-1940, it actually took place, metaphorically speaking, mostly in the areas between heaven and hell. A professional duty of the historians in Romania and Bulgaria today remains overcoming the unipolar interpretations of the history of disputed region and the bilateral relations.
Keywords: History, Historiography, Myth, Dobrudja, Balchik