Dobruja

Dobruja , Rom. Dobrogea, Bulg. Dobrudza, historic region, c.9,000 sq mi (23,300 sq km), SE Europe, in SE Romania and NE Bulgaria, between the lower Danube River and the Black Sea. The chief cities are Constanţa , in Romania, and Dobrich and Silistra , in Bulgaria. Dobruja comprises a low coastal strip and a hilly and forested inland. Largely agricultural, the region grows cereal crops, has vineyards, and breeds Merino sheep. The largest industrial concentration is in and around Constanţa. Tourism is also economically important, particularly in the Romanian part of Dobruja. The population includes Romanians, Bulgarians, Turks, and Tatars. Dobruja's original inhabitants were conquered in the 6th cent. BC by the Greeks, who founded colonies along the Black Sea coast. The region passed to the Scythians in the 5th cent. BC and to the Romans (who made it part of Moesia) in the 1st cent. BC As part of the Roman Empire and later of the Byzantine, it suffered frequent invasions from the Goths, Huns, Avars, and other tribes. Part of the first Bulgarian empire (681-1018), it was reconquered by the Byzantines. In 1186 it was included in the second Bulgarian empire. Tatar raids were common in the 13th cent. In the 14th cent. the region became an autonomous state under Walachian prince Dobrotich, from whom the name Dobruja derives. Turks conquered the region in 1411, and for the next five centuries it remained a sparsely populated and barely cultivated territory of the Ottoman Empire. In 1878 the Congress of Berlin awarded N Dobruja to Romania and a strip of land later known as S Dobruja to Bulgaria. As a result of the second Balkan War Bulgaria ceded (1913) S Dobruja to Romania. The Treaty of Neuilly, signed in 1919 between Bulgaria and the Allies of World War I, gave all of Dobruja to Romania. In 1940, however, the German-imposed Treaty of Craiova forced Romania to transfer S Dobruja to Bulgaria.

Dobruja (Bulgarian: Dobrudzha; Romanian: Dobrogea), Bulgaria‐RomaniaMoesia Inferior Lying south of the River Danube, the northern part is in south‐east Romania and the southern part is in north‐east Bulgaria. First colonized by the Greeks in the 6th century bc, the region then passed to the Scythians, Romans, and Byzantines before becoming part of the First Bulgarian Empire (681–1018). It was again subject to Byzantium until 1186 when it was included in the Second Bulgarian Empire. In 1357 it became an autonomous principality founded by the Wallachian Prince Dobrotič from whom the name Dobruja probably derives. Having been conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1411, it remained part of the Ottoman Empire until 1878 when northern Dobruja was awarded to Romania and the south to Bulgaria. As a result of the Second Balkan War in 1913 southern Dobruja was ceded to Romania. However, in 1940, at German insistence, southern Dobruja was returned to Bulgaria. There is an alternative, somewhat inappropriate, theory that the name comes from the Bulgarian dobriče ‘stony’ or ‘unfertile plain’; and another that it means the opposite, ‘Good (Land)’ from dobro ‘good’.