Chapter 2
Dobrudja, in the Mesopotamia of the West
Marin Petris ¸or
Abstract Seen as a prolongation of the Scythian lands north of Black Sea, and
consequently called Mikr a Skythia by Strabo, this region that belonged to the Getae,
the south-Danubian branch of the Dacians, was early colonized by the Greeks, who
founded a number of cities of great importance there, among them, Tomis,
Constanta today, the place of exile of the poet Ovidius, who wrote his Tristia
here, conquered and colonized by the Romans later on, Dobrudja, through which
the Slavs poured into the Byzantine Empire and constituted themselves as peoples,
has a rich, fascinating and tumultuous history, like the waves of the Aks ˇeina Sea,
“the black and dark sea” in the ancient scholar’s Geography, which the Greeks
somehow attempted to “tame” by means of an antonym: eu ´xeinos (Pontos
Eu ´xeinos, “welcoming, hospitable sea”). Like the history of these lands, the name
of Dobrudja has aroused strong passions and sparked off heated debate among
historians and linguists, who have not yet reached a satisfactory conclusion as
regards the origin of the toponym in discussion. Romanian scholars, among them,
researchers of great authority, such as Nicolae Iorga, Vasile P^ arvan, Radu Vulpe,
C. Bra ˘tescu, proposed Dobrotic ˇ as etymon, the name of the strategos of Slav origin,
to whom, at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth
century, the Byzantine emperor entrusted the governorship of the thema lying
between the Danube and the Black Sea (it was from him that Mircea the Elderly,
Voyvod of Wallachia, took possession of the land by force). In a study published in
Limba rom^ ana ˘, 1965, no. 1, issued by the Romanian Academy, we rejected this
etymon, on the grounds that the same name is mentioned, much earlier, in the travel
account of Idrissi, the Arabic traveler, who, somewhere between 1110 and 1146,
crossed the south-Danubian Berg˘an on his way to Kiev. The discovery of a tenth
century taktikon, a list of Byzantine offices, dignities, and titles, in the royal
medieval library of El Escorial, including the strategoi and the catepani of the
Mesopotamia of the West, has re-opened the discussion on the origin and, especially on the evolution of the name of Dobrudja province, which is, in fact, the
result of a long chain of linguistic calques, closely connected to the location of the
territory near the great river that almost surrounds it.
M. Petris ¸or (*)
Academy of Romanian Scientists, University Ovidius of Constant ¸a, Constant ¸a, Romania
e-mail: mpetrisor88@gmail.com
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018
C.W. Finkl, C. Makowski (eds.), Diversity in Coastal Marine Sciences, Coastal
Research Library 23, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57577-3_2
27
Dobrudja, in the Mesopotamia of the West
Marin Petris ¸or
Abstract Seen as a prolongation of the Scythian lands north of Black Sea, and
consequently called Mikr a Skythia by Strabo, this region that belonged to the Getae,
the south-Danubian branch of the Dacians, was early colonized by the Greeks, who
founded a number of cities of great importance there, among them, Tomis,
Constanta today, the place of exile of the poet Ovidius, who wrote his Tristia
here, conquered and colonized by the Romans later on, Dobrudja, through which
the Slavs poured into the Byzantine Empire and constituted themselves as peoples,
has a rich, fascinating and tumultuous history, like the waves of the Aks ˇeina Sea,
“the black and dark sea” in the ancient scholar’s Geography, which the Greeks
somehow attempted to “tame” by means of an antonym: eu ´xeinos (Pontos
Eu ´xeinos, “welcoming, hospitable sea”). Like the history of these lands, the name
of Dobrudja has aroused strong passions and sparked off heated debate among
historians and linguists, who have not yet reached a satisfactory conclusion as
regards the origin of the toponym in discussion. Romanian scholars, among them,
researchers of great authority, such as Nicolae Iorga, Vasile P^ arvan, Radu Vulpe,
C. Bra ˘tescu, proposed Dobrotic ˇ as etymon, the name of the strategos of Slav origin,
to whom, at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth
century, the Byzantine emperor entrusted the governorship of the thema lying
between the Danube and the Black Sea (it was from him that Mircea the Elderly,
Voyvod of Wallachia, took possession of the land by force). In a study published in
Limba rom^ ana ˘, 1965, no. 1, issued by the Romanian Academy, we rejected this
etymon, on the grounds that the same name is mentioned, much earlier, in the travel
account of Idrissi, the Arabic traveler, who, somewhere between 1110 and 1146,
crossed the south-Danubian Berg˘an on his way to Kiev. The discovery of a tenth
century taktikon, a list of Byzantine offices, dignities, and titles, in the royal
medieval library of El Escorial, including the strategoi and the catepani of the
Mesopotamia of the West, has re-opened the discussion on the origin and, especially on the evolution of the name of Dobrudja province, which is, in fact, the
result of a long chain of linguistic calques, closely connected to the location of the
territory near the great river that almost surrounds it.
M. Petris ¸or (*)
Academy of Romanian Scientists, University Ovidius of Constant ¸a, Constant ¸a, Romania
e-mail: mpetrisor88@gmail.com
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018
C.W. Finkl, C. Makowski (eds.), Diversity in Coastal Marine Sciences, Coastal
Research Library 23, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57577-3_2
27