This might be the reason why, N. A. Oikonomides searched for the Mesopotamia
of the West in other areas, and placed it in the bend that the Danube makes from the
north to the south. On its way to the Black-Sea, the majestic river branches out,
creating two fairly large islands, surrounded by its waters. However, living conditions are harsh here, since they are often flooded because of rainfalls and ice.
We accept that, though singular, the Escorial taktikon provides tangible proof
that the Mesopotamia of the West did exist, yet as a surveying thema, with the
Danube, the river springing from Paradise, as its western border. This also holds
true for Dobrudja, “the land between the Danube and the Great Sea”, as Mircea the
Elderly designates it in his princely title.
Starting form the idea that, from the dawn of history, the Danube has played a
crucial role in the life of the autochthonous population, we need to substantiate
whether this has produced any significant effect on the name of the province
as well.
Indeed, no matter how surprising this may be, as we were when we began to
understand that the data in the bibliography corresponded to our own expectations,
and even before it became sacred in a mythology, an existential axis for the natives,
possessive vainglory for the Roman and the Byzantine empires, the name of
Dobrudja has been hiding in its original name, for millennia. To this end, we
must return to the sources, once more. Primitive peoples usually give simple
names to the places that constitute their vital space, with no determiners: the
Dacians called Apo
17 the Caras ¸, a river that, nowadays marks the RomanianSerbian border, the Hungarians named their lake Balaton, the Turks perceived the
peninsula through which they passed in then partially settled, as a mountain plateau,
and consequently termed it Balcan, the Slavs called Gra ˘dis ¸te the place where once
used to be a fortress (from grad „citadel”, with the suffix -is ¸te, which indicates
something that has disappeared). In Romanian toponymy, my great professor Iorgu
Iordan recorded Tra ˘va ˘i (Between Valleys), Tr^ ampoaie (Between the Branches of a
River, or Between Rivers), in the area of Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Dacia,
I ˆ ntregalde and Tra ˘galde (Between Rivers/Ponds), Suplac (Under Lake). Romanian
Tra ˘va ˘ile has an equivalent in French toponymy: Entre-Vail, attested in the year
958 under the Latin form Intervalles (Iordan 1963: 494 ff.).
In Transylvania, in the so-called Dacian zone, Mircea Homorodeanu recorded
Tra ˘pa ˘raie (Between Streams), that is a small Mesopotamia (1969: 107).
The Thracians named the great river simply Dana, probably meaning “river”, a
much-discussed hydronym in Romanian linguistics,
18 and that is why we do not
17 The name Apo, which the river from Western Banat used to bear, is a proof that, in Romanian,
the word inherited from Latin existed in the autochthonous language too, with the group qu- + a,
e > p: cf. Lat. aqua > Rom. apa ˘, like Lat. equa, eque > Rom. iapa ˘, iepe. The conclusion we can
draw proves to be very interesting, namely that the plural ape is synonymous to r^ auri (“flowing
waters”), therefore, with the same meaning as the autochthonous word dana “flowing water”
18 Vasile Fra ˘t ¸ila ˘, in his Studii de toponimie s ¸i dialectologie [Studies in Toponymy and Dialectology] (2002), provides a very useful synthesis of the Romanian hydronyms existing in the
autochthonous linguistic stratum.
2 Dobrudja, in the Mesopotamia of the West
37
of the West in other areas, and placed it in the bend that the Danube makes from the
north to the south. On its way to the Black-Sea, the majestic river branches out,
creating two fairly large islands, surrounded by its waters. However, living conditions are harsh here, since they are often flooded because of rainfalls and ice.
We accept that, though singular, the Escorial taktikon provides tangible proof
that the Mesopotamia of the West did exist, yet as a surveying thema, with the
Danube, the river springing from Paradise, as its western border. This also holds
true for Dobrudja, “the land between the Danube and the Great Sea”, as Mircea the
Elderly designates it in his princely title.
Starting form the idea that, from the dawn of history, the Danube has played a
crucial role in the life of the autochthonous population, we need to substantiate
whether this has produced any significant effect on the name of the province
as well.
Indeed, no matter how surprising this may be, as we were when we began to
understand that the data in the bibliography corresponded to our own expectations,
and even before it became sacred in a mythology, an existential axis for the natives,
possessive vainglory for the Roman and the Byzantine empires, the name of
Dobrudja has been hiding in its original name, for millennia. To this end, we
must return to the sources, once more. Primitive peoples usually give simple
names to the places that constitute their vital space, with no determiners: the
Dacians called Apo
17 the Caras ¸, a river that, nowadays marks the RomanianSerbian border, the Hungarians named their lake Balaton, the Turks perceived the
peninsula through which they passed in then partially settled, as a mountain plateau,
and consequently termed it Balcan, the Slavs called Gra ˘dis ¸te the place where once
used to be a fortress (from grad „citadel”, with the suffix -is ¸te, which indicates
something that has disappeared). In Romanian toponymy, my great professor Iorgu
Iordan recorded Tra ˘va ˘i (Between Valleys), Tr^ ampoaie (Between the Branches of a
River, or Between Rivers), in the area of Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Dacia,
I ˆ ntregalde and Tra ˘galde (Between Rivers/Ponds), Suplac (Under Lake). Romanian
Tra ˘va ˘ile has an equivalent in French toponymy: Entre-Vail, attested in the year
958 under the Latin form Intervalles (Iordan 1963: 494 ff.).
In Transylvania, in the so-called Dacian zone, Mircea Homorodeanu recorded
Tra ˘pa ˘raie (Between Streams), that is a small Mesopotamia (1969: 107).
The Thracians named the great river simply Dana, probably meaning “river”, a
much-discussed hydronym in Romanian linguistics,
18 and that is why we do not
17 The name Apo, which the river from Western Banat used to bear, is a proof that, in Romanian,
the word inherited from Latin existed in the autochthonous language too, with the group qu- + a,
e > p: cf. Lat. aqua > Rom. apa ˘, like Lat. equa, eque > Rom. iapa ˘, iepe. The conclusion we can
draw proves to be very interesting, namely that the plural ape is synonymous to r^ auri (“flowing
waters”), therefore, with the same meaning as the autochthonous word dana “flowing water”
18 Vasile Fra ˘t ¸ila ˘, in his Studii de toponimie s ¸i dialectologie [Studies in Toponymy and Dialectology] (2002), provides a very useful synthesis of the Romanian hydronyms existing in the
autochthonous linguistic stratum.
2 Dobrudja, in the Mesopotamia of the West
37