KONGRE BİLDİRİLERİ
The alteration of the demographic status in the area (the decrease of the Turk-Tatar population
and the increase of the Romanian population) lead to a change in the vision of the Romanian authorities on the foreign names of the Dobrogean localities. Even though the naturalization of the foreign
names was suggested in 1887, concrete measures had not been noticed until the interwar period.
The most remarkable researcher on Dobrogean toponymy was Constantin Bratescu, professor at
the Normal School in Constanta and the director of the review “Analele Dobrogei”. In his article”Două
probleme dobrogene: colonizare, toponimie” it is analyzed the necessity to change the Turkish names15.
He noticed that on the Dobrogean territory, mainly on the part towards the Black Sea, the toponymy
is Turkish: Murfatlar, Hasancea, Omurcea, Enghez, Topraisar, Edilchioi, etc and this is not in concordance with “the historical changes and the demands of our conscience”16 and he suggested criteria for
changing the old Dobrogean names, mainly the Turkish. According to these criteria the Turkish names
from the Ottoman administration period should be translated if the name relates to a characteristic of
the place and if translated becomes “nice”17, meaning to be pleasant and easy to pronounced: Biulbiul
will become Privighetoarea (the Nightingale), but it should be changed to Ciocârlia (the Lark) because
there are no nightingales in Dobrogea. Also, the Turkish names that can not be translated will be replaced by names indicating a characteristic of the place or historical names related to Dobrogea (like
Traian, Mircea Vodă).
Most of the names suggested by Constantin Bratescu for Dobrogea were included in a bill draft
in 192418. Even though the bill was not adopted in 1924, the issue of toponymy in Dobrogea was very
much debated; the mayoralties should address suggestions for the new names to the Prefectures. Constantin Bratescu was very dissatisfied with the result of these activities because some of the mayoralties’
suggestions were political; others were – according to Bratescu- ridiculous: seven villages asked to be
named”General Averescu”, three”Take Ionescu”, others „Argetoianu”19.
But not all the experts of that time shared his opinions. For instance, Constantin Moisil sustained
that the old names of the localities are impregnated in people’s conscience, in spite of the authorities’
efforts. He said that the new colonists receive the names settled by the natives and transmit these names
to the future generations. All the villages in Dobrogea, except few officially established, developed on
the ruins of the old villages and preserved the names. The case of Calachioi village is typical: although
it was entirely rebuilt by Romanian veterans and officially named “General Grant”, the tradition was so
deep impregnated in the conscience of the inhabitants of neighboring villages that the name Calachioi
was preserved20.
A total different opinion from Bratescu had the well-known Romanian philologist Iorgu Iordan.
He believed that there is no much difference between the changes sustained by Bratescu in the review
”Analele Dobrogei” and those of the Latinists that wanted to eliminate all the foreign elements21.
In 1930 the Parliament voted the Law to change the foreign names in Dobrogea and the new
names were those suggested in 1923-1924.
The new names were not imposed in all cases: on 7th of February, 1939 the mayor of Cumpana
notified the Prefecture that the name Cumpana was changed to Hasiduluc22, the old name, by the Royal
Decree no 4036 of 9th0f December, 1938. A similar situation was in Basarabi where the mayor asked
the priest to intervene in order to restore the old name of Murfatlar “due to the vineyards and the good
quality products known abroad”23.
15 C. Brătescu, Do uă probleme dobrogene: colonizare, toponimie, în Analele Dobrogei, nr. 1., 1920, p.128.
16 C.Brătescu,Două probleme….p.131.
17 C.Brătescu,Două probleme…, p.140.
18 National Archives of Romania, Preşedinţia Consiliului de Miniştri, file 3/1924, p.3.
19 C. Brătescu, Noile denumiri de sate din Dobrogea veche, ”Analele Dobrogei”, V, 1926, p.134.
20 Constantin Moisil, Lupta pentru apărarea drepturilor românești asupra Dobrogei,”Arhiva Dobrogei”, vol.II, 2, 1920, p.160.
21 Iorgu Iordan, Încercare de bibliografie toponimică românească, Buccharest, 1928, p.12.
22 Constanţa County Department of National Archives,fond Prefectura județului Constanța, file 8 / 1939,p. 26.
23 Ibidem,,file 21/1940, p. 11.
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Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü
All these cases reflect the fact that approaching toponymy exclusively linguistic is definitely unproductive, if not confusing.
Even though the Ottoman Title deeds (Tapiuri) are generally considered as irrelevant, these are
important not only for the types of possession of land in the Ottoman Empire, but also for the different categories of taxes, and mainly for the research of the Turkish toponymy in Dobrogea, that, as we
presented above, after 1878 tended to disappear or to be replaced due to geo-political reasons.
The Turkish names in Dobrogea, now vanished from the current maps, are still preserved in the
Title deeds (tapu senedi) from the repositories of the National Archives of Romania. These documents
are important b ecause “the toponymy can be considered a real archive where is preserved the memory
of some many events, facts less or more important that happened in the past and impressed the people’
soul”24.
TheTitle Deeds(Tapiuri)collection preserved by the Department of Medieval Archives, Personal
Funds and Collections of the National Archives of Romania contains over 200000 archival pieces, about
33 running meters between 1843-1879. These title deeds reflect the Turkish toponymy of Dobrogean
villages and the onomastics in this geographical area during the last period of the Ottoman administration when Dobrogea became part of the sangeac of Tulcea. Unfortunately, the lack of specialists in
Turkish-Osman writing made the processing of the documentary information within these sources
very difficult. Currently this collection is almost ready to be made available at the study room. In 2013
will be ready a Toponymic index of Title Deeds collection (for Tulcea and Constanta). This Index will
be the first tool of research for the documents of the above mention collection.
The Toponymic Index of theTitle Deeds collection contains the name of the village from the 19th
century in Turkish and Romanian, the location of the village during the Ottoman administration (ante
1878), and Romanian (post 1878), and the current name. The geographic reality required a Table of
correspondence at the end of the index containing the name of the 352 Dobrogean localities in 19
century, according to the administrative structure from 1973 (211 localities in Constanta county and
141 in Tulcea county) with the names from the 19 century as resulted from the Romanian documents
and the title deeds. In this manner there were emphasized the villages established in the 20th century. Among these we may mention: in Constanţa the villages Eforie Nord and Eforie Sud, Satu Nou
(commune Mircea Vodă), Saligny (commune Mircea Vodă), 2 Mai (commune Limanu) and in Tulcea
villages Bălteni (commune Mahmudia), C.A.Rosetti (com. C.A.Rosetti), Mila 23 (commune Crişan),
Pătlăgeanca (com. Ceatalchioi), Vulturul (commune Maliuc).
The title deeds from the National Archives of Romania reflect the multicultural reality and the
ethnic multitude of Dobrogea within a context when the national states emerged in the Balkans. Hence,
the geographic space of Dobrogea appears at a simple lecture of the names of the localities as “a space
of synthesis´ for the linguistic diversity.
We find necessary to present the diversity of the etymologic origin of the Dobrogean toponymy.
As a general characteristic we noticed that the Romanian names and the Turkish names are equally
presented. This phenomenon is explained on the one side by the fact that after the establishment of
the Ottomans in Dobrogea, mainly after the Crusade in 1444, the colonization of the Turkish-Tatar
elements initiate the change of the toponymy, and on the other side by the period of time when the
documents from the Title deeds collection were issued- the final period of the Ottoman administration
in Dobrogea.
Hence, we mention:
Atmaca25 (today, village Atmagea, comuune Ciucurova)