Keywords Etymon • Dobrudja • The Mesopotamia of the West • The Land to the
River • Paristrion/Paradunavion
From early times, Dobrudja, a significant part of the Romanian ethnogenetic space,
arouse much interest among researchers for its millennial problems, many of which
have remained open until today. We have been especially preoccupied with the
origin of its name, which, for many scholars, remains an elusive enigma. In 1965,
we published an article (Petrișor 4: 433–437) in a journal of the Romanian Academy, in which we proposed an etymon that, later on, we abandoned, although the
great Romanian Slavist and dialectologist, Emil Petrovici had expressed his support
for it. In the years that have passed since then, we have searched for an answer,
re-reading the bibliography of the problem and closely studying the works which
continued to appear after that moment. It became obvious that finding an answer
was possible only by carefully analyzing the long history of the province, which,
officially, bore more names, given by the peoples who inhabited it, or who traversed
it, lured by the splendor of Byzantium. All this time we have always believed that
there must have been a name given by the autochthonous population too.
The earliest inhabitants of the land stretching between the Danube and the Black
Sea were the Thracians.
1 Occupying the center of the Balkans Peninsula, the
Thracian tribes
2 eventually reached the Danube and the Black Sea, and peopled
both banks of the sacred river, which they made an axis of their existence. For our
particular problem, we are interested in the Getae,
3 who lived on the right bank of
1 A branch of the Indo-Europeans of the satəm type, arriving here with the great Sumerian
migrations, begun in the period which the Old Testament, corresponding to The Babel Tower,
and located in the north-east of the Balkan Peninsula. Their neighbors, deriving from the same
family, however from the grouping kentum, included the Greeks, the Armenians (who later
migrated into the Caucasus), the Illyrians and the Latins (who, after the Trojan war, migrated
across the land, while a part of them crossed the Mediterranean, settled in Lavinia, as it is narrated
in the Aeneid). Archeological research dates the migrations of the Sumerians to the end of the
Bronze Age, that is before the year 1200 BC, which corresponds with the disarray of the tribal
society, and the movement toward a superior epoch, i.e., the Iron age (1200–450 BC.), a process in
which the Thracians played an active role. The Thracian ethnos defined itself in the region between
the Rhodope Mountains, the Northern Carpathians, the Black Sea and the rivers Vardar, Morava
and Tisa. The main tribes were the Geto-Dacians, the Odrisi, the Besii, the Moesians and the
Tribalii (cf. Costin Scorpan (1997); D. Berciu (1965, I: 57–62).
2 Like the Tigris and the Euphrates of Mesopotamia which they had left behind, the Danube was a
sacred river, which, in the Old Testament, bears the name of Φυσω ν (Fis on), and springs from
Paradise (cf. A. Lambrino (1924, 2
e partie: 191–213; P. Popovic ´ (1936: 161–176); N. A.
Oikonomides (III (1965), no. 1–2: 60).
3 The Getae, which the Greeks called Getai and the Romans, Getae, then Geti, are mentioned by
Herodotus, on the occasion of expedition of Darius, the Persian king, who came to Scythia Minor
to punish the Scythians, in the years 512–514 BC. The Getae fiercely resisted his army. The Greek
historian enthused about them, and writes that „of the Thracians, they are the bravest and the most
honest”. Yet, at the same time, he criticizes them for the recklessness of opposing Darius. Living in
the latter half of the sixth century BC, Hecateus of Miletus is the first of the classical writes to
28
M. Petris ¸or
River • Paristrion/Paradunavion
From early times, Dobrudja, a significant part of the Romanian ethnogenetic space,
arouse much interest among researchers for its millennial problems, many of which
have remained open until today. We have been especially preoccupied with the
origin of its name, which, for many scholars, remains an elusive enigma. In 1965,
we published an article (Petrișor 4: 433–437) in a journal of the Romanian Academy, in which we proposed an etymon that, later on, we abandoned, although the
great Romanian Slavist and dialectologist, Emil Petrovici had expressed his support
for it. In the years that have passed since then, we have searched for an answer,
re-reading the bibliography of the problem and closely studying the works which
continued to appear after that moment. It became obvious that finding an answer
was possible only by carefully analyzing the long history of the province, which,
officially, bore more names, given by the peoples who inhabited it, or who traversed
it, lured by the splendor of Byzantium. All this time we have always believed that
there must have been a name given by the autochthonous population too.
The earliest inhabitants of the land stretching between the Danube and the Black
Sea were the Thracians.
1 Occupying the center of the Balkans Peninsula, the
Thracian tribes
2 eventually reached the Danube and the Black Sea, and peopled
both banks of the sacred river, which they made an axis of their existence. For our
particular problem, we are interested in the Getae,
3 who lived on the right bank of
1 A branch of the Indo-Europeans of the satəm type, arriving here with the great Sumerian
migrations, begun in the period which the Old Testament, corresponding to The Babel Tower,
and located in the north-east of the Balkan Peninsula. Their neighbors, deriving from the same
family, however from the grouping kentum, included the Greeks, the Armenians (who later
migrated into the Caucasus), the Illyrians and the Latins (who, after the Trojan war, migrated
across the land, while a part of them crossed the Mediterranean, settled in Lavinia, as it is narrated
in the Aeneid). Archeological research dates the migrations of the Sumerians to the end of the
Bronze Age, that is before the year 1200 BC, which corresponds with the disarray of the tribal
society, and the movement toward a superior epoch, i.e., the Iron age (1200–450 BC.), a process in
which the Thracians played an active role. The Thracian ethnos defined itself in the region between
the Rhodope Mountains, the Northern Carpathians, the Black Sea and the rivers Vardar, Morava
and Tisa. The main tribes were the Geto-Dacians, the Odrisi, the Besii, the Moesians and the
Tribalii (cf. Costin Scorpan (1997); D. Berciu (1965, I: 57–62).
2 Like the Tigris and the Euphrates of Mesopotamia which they had left behind, the Danube was a
sacred river, which, in the Old Testament, bears the name of Φυσω ν (Fis on), and springs from
Paradise (cf. A. Lambrino (1924, 2
e partie: 191–213; P. Popovic ´ (1936: 161–176); N. A.
Oikonomides (III (1965), no. 1–2: 60).
3 The Getae, which the Greeks called Getai and the Romans, Getae, then Geti, are mentioned by
Herodotus, on the occasion of expedition of Darius, the Persian king, who came to Scythia Minor
to punish the Scythians, in the years 512–514 BC. The Getae fiercely resisted his army. The Greek
historian enthused about them, and writes that „of the Thracians, they are the bravest and the most
honest”. Yet, at the same time, he criticizes them for the recklessness of opposing Darius. Living in
the latter half of the sixth century BC, Hecateus of Miletus is the first of the classical writes to
28
M. Petris ¸or