Budjak
Budjak | |
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Historical region | |
UTC+3 (EEST ) |
Budjak, also known as Budzhak (
Name and geography
Historically, Budjak was the southeastern steppe region of Moldavia. Bordered by the northern Trajan's Wall at its north end, by the Danube river and Black Sea to its south, by Tigheci Hills (just east of the Prut River) to the west, and Dniester River to the east, it was known as historic Bessarabia until 1812, when this name was given to the larger region situated between the two rivers, including Budjak. As used in the Middle Ages, the term might (if referring to the geographical area) or might not (if referring to the area predominated by Nogai Tatars) include the environs of Akkerman, Bender, and Kiliia.
The name Budjak itself was given to the area during Ottoman rule (1484–1812) and derives from the Turkish word bucak, meaning "borderland" or "corner", referring roughly to the land between what was then Akkerman (now Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi), Bender, and Ismail.
After 1812, the term Bessarabia came to apply to all of Moldavia east of the Prut River. Consequently, Budjak is sometimes referred to as "Southern Bessarabia".
After the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia in 1940, its southern part, which along with its northern part was included in the Ukrainian SSR (unlike the rest of Bessarabia, which was included in the Moldavian SSR), became known as Budjak, thus being slightly smaller than the historical term.
Besides Southern Bessarabia, other descriptive terms that have been applied to the region include Bulgarian Bessarabia (Ukrainian: Болгарська Бессарабія, translit. Bolhars'ka Bessarabiia), Akkermanshchyna (Ukrainian: Аккерманщина), and Western Odesa Oblast (Ukrainian: Західнa Одещина, translit. Zakhidna Odeshchyna).
The area
History
Early history
The Budjak culture of the North-West Black Sea region is considered to be important in the context of the Pit-Grave or Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppe, dating to 3,600–2,300 BC. In particular, Budjak may have given rise to the Balkan-Carpathian variant of Yamnaya culture.[1]
In Classical antiquity, Budjak was inhabited by
Budjak area, the northern Lower Danube, was described as the "wasteland of the
The
The area lay along the predominant route for migratory peoples, as it was the westernmost portion of the
(12th century) and others.Although the Byzantines held nominal suzerainty of the region (at least of the sea shore) until the 14th century, they had little or no sway over the hinterland.
In the early Middle Ages a Tigheci "Republic" was formed by several villages occupying the nearby Tigheci hills, in order to offer more security for themselves, while the steppe area between that and the seashore, unsuited for agriculture due to lack of water and frequently invaded by Eastern populations, remained void of permanent settlements. From the 7th to the 12th centuries, the region was under the authority of the First Bulgarian Empire, Pechenegs, and later of Cumans, who irregularly collected tribute from the indigenous villagers.
Moldavian and Ottoman rule
After the
In 1484 Stephen the Great of Moldavia was forced to surrender the two main fortresses of Chilia (Kiliia) and Cetatea Albă (Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi) to the Ottoman Empire, the last Black Sea ports to fall into Ottoman hands. In 1538 the Ottomans forced prince Petru Rareș of Moldavia to give up the fortress-city Tighina as well.
Under the Ottomans, Tighina was renamed Bender, while Chilia lost importance due to the construction of the Ismail fortress at the location of the Moldavian village Smil.[5][6] Despite returning from Muslim to Orthodox Christian sovereignty, the latter names were retained by the Russian Empire.
Under Ottoman rule, the three major cities each were the center of a
Modern history
During the
With Russia's 1856 defeat in the
After World War I, Budjak, which was part of the Russian
In 1939, the secret appendix to the
On 7 August 1940 the Soviets formed
Upon
During the administrative reform of Ukrainian SSR, on 15 February 1954, Izmail Oblast was liquidated, and all raions of the oblast were included into Odesa Oblast. By territory, Odesa oblast is now the largest oblast in Ukraine.
With the fall of the
Budjak is now a part of independent Ukraine, linked to the rest of Odesa oblast by two bridges across the Dniester River. The northernmost connection enters Moldovan territory for a 7.63 km (43⁄4 miles) stretch of road, which is controlled by Ukraine as per an agreement between the two countries.
Petro Poroshenko, the former President of Ukraine, was born in the Budjak town of Bolhrad in 1965.
In the autumn of 2014 there were reports of plots to proclaim a pro-Russian
Subdivisions
In the Ukrainian SSR and Ukraine, until July 2020, the historical territory of Budjak was subdivided into two cities and nine administrative districts (raions) of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast:
Name | Ukrainian name | Area (km2) |
Population Census 2001 |
Population estimate[8] (1 Jan 2012) |
Capital |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (city) | Білгород-Дністровськ (місто) | 31 | 58,436 | 57,206 | Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi |
Izmail (city) | Ізмаїл (місто) | 53 | 84,815 | 73,651 | – |
Artsyz Raion | Арцизький район | 1,379 | 51,251 | 46,213 | Artsyz |
Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Raion | Білгород-Дністровський район | 1,852 | 62,255 | 60,378 | Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi |
Bolhrad Raion | Болградський район | 1,364 | 73,991 | 69,572 | Bolhrad |
Izmail Raion | Ізмаїльський район | 1,254 | 54,550 | 52,031 | Izmail |
Kiliia Raion | Кілійський район | 1,359 | 58,707 | 53,585 | Kiliia |
Reni Raion | Ренійський район | 861 | 39,903 | 37,986 | Reni |
Sarata Raion | Саратський район | 1,475 | 49,911 | 45,813 | Sarata |
Tarutyne Raion | Тарутинський район | 1,874 | 45,175 | 41,975 | Tarutyne |
Tatarbunary Raion | Татарбунарський район | 1,748 | 41,573 | 39,164 | Tatarbunary |
Total | 13,250 | 620,567 | 577,574 |
After July 2020, the area is split between Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Bolhrad, and Izmail raions.
Ethnic groups and demographics
The main
Muslim, Turkic-speaking Nogai Tatars inhabited Ottoman-dominated Budjak until the start of the 19th century, but were forced to abandon the region once the Russian Empire got control over the territory. They resettled in the Caucasus, Dobruja (both in the Romanian and Bulgarian parts) or in modern Turkey.
Budjak was also home to a number of
Like Moldova, Budjak is home to a small minority of Gagauzes: an Orthodox Christian Turkic people who arrived from the eastern Balkans in the early 19th century,[9] and settled part of the area vacated by the Nogais.
The Bulgarians of the region are known as Bessarabian Bulgarians, and, like the Gagauzes, are descendants of settlers from the eastern Balkans (today eastern Bulgaria) who moved to the area vacated by the Nogais, in order to escape Muslim domination.
During the same period,
Until World War II, the region was also home to a significant number of Jews, a portion of whom were killed in
According to the
Although the majority of Russians and Moldovans declared the language of their ethnicity as their mother tongue, only roughly half of Ukrainians did so, while the other half indicated Russian as their native language. The Bulgarians also tend to use Russian more than Bulgarian, especially in public. The above numbers reflect the declared ethnicity, not the native language. The most common spoken language in everyday public use in Budjak is Russian.
Bulgarians are the largest ethnic group in the Artsyz (39%), Bolhrad (61%), and Tarutyne (38%) raions (districts, pre-2020), Moldovans – in the Reni Raion (50%), Russians – in the city of Izmail (44%), and Ukrainians – in the Kiliia (45%), Tatarbunary (71%), Sarata (44%), and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (82%) raions, and in the city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi (63%).
In the Izmail Raion, 29% of the population is Ukrainian, 28% Moldovan, and 26% Bulgarian. Since the previous census in 1989, its Moldovan population increased by 1% relative to the number of Ukrainian and Bulgarians, although the actual number of Moldovans has decreased in absolute terms, yet at a slower rate than that of Ukrainians, Russians and Bulgarians, probably due to the fact that a portion of the non-Moldovan population of the area were relatively recent arrivals from other regions of the former Soviet Union, and chose to return upon its dissolution.
Raion (district) or City | Total | Ukrainians | Bessarabian Bulgarians | Russians | Moldovans | Gagauzians |
Other ethnic groups2 | Number of settlements3 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Artsyz Raion | 51,700 | 14,200 | 20,200 | 11,500 | 3,300 | 900 | 1,600 | 1+0+17(26) |
Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Raion | 62,300 | 51,000 | 800 | 5,500 | 3,900 | 200 | 900 | 0+0+27(57) |
Bolhrad Raion | 75,000 | 5,700 | 45,600 | 6,000 | 1,200 | 14,000 | 2,500 | 1+0+18 (21) |
Izmail Raion | 54,700 | 15,800 | 14,100 | 8,900 | 15,100 | 200 | 600 | 0+1+18 (22) |
Kiliia Raion | 59,800 | 26,700 | 2,600 | 18,000 | 9,400 | 2,300 | 800 | 1+1+13 (17) |
Reni Raion | 40,700 | 7,200 | 3,400 | 6,100 | 19,900 | 3,200 | 900 | 1+0+7 (7) |
Sarata Raion | 49,900 | 21,900 | 10,000 | 7,900 | 9,400 | 200 | 500 | 0+1+22 (37) |
Tarutyne Raion | 45 200 | 11,100 | 17,000 | 6,300 | 7,500 | 2,700 | 600 | 0+4+23 (28) |
Tatarbunary Raion | 41,700 | 29,700 | 4,800 | 2,700 | 3,900 | – | 600 | 1+0+18 (35) |
city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi | 51,100 | 32,200 | 1,900 | 14,400 | 1,000 | 200 | 1,400 | 1+2+0 (0) |
city of Izmail | 85,100 | 32,500 | 8,600 | 37,200 | 3,700 | 800 | 2,300 | 1+0+0 (0) |
Total | 617,2001 | 248,0001 | 129,0001 | 124,5001 | 78,3001,2 | 24,7001 | 12,7001 | 7 cities + 9 towns + 163 incorporated administrations (250 villages) = 266 settlements |
- 1 All numbers are averaged to hundreds for each raion and city. The entries of the row "total" contain the sums of the respective entries for each line, hence bears a theoretical margin error of plus/minus 550. Numbers provided by other sources differ, but fit within this margin of error.
- 2 The "Others" category includes people who declared themselves as Romanians. For the entire Odesa Oblast (which includes the raions that comprise historic Budjak) 724 people declared themselves as Romanians.[11] For discussion about Moldovan/Romanian identity controversy, see Moldovenism.
- 3 Certain settlements are called "cities" (7 here). Some of them are called "regional cities" (2 here), and have administrations that are financed and receive directions from the oblast administration. Others are called "raion cities" (5 here), and are component parts of raions. Raions have administrations just like regional cities, only that they consist of mainly rural areas.
Some settlements (9 here) used to have an intermediate status, between that of a village and that of a city. They were designated as urban-type settlements, but were abolished in 2024 and became rural settlements.
Local and regional authorities do not collect taxes. They are considered state institutions of the country at the local level, not institutions of local self-administration.
References
- ^ Ivanova S.V., Balkan-Carpathian variant of the Yamnaya culture-historical region. Российская археология, Number 2, 2014 (in Russian)
- ^ Unknown article. Archived 14 April 2006 at the Wayback Machine Viața Basarabiei. I.6 (June 1932). (in Romanian)
- ^ Niculiță, Ion; Sîrbu, Valeriu; Vanchiugov, Vladimir, The Historical Evolution of Budjak in the 1st–4th c. AD. A few observations. ISTROS (Vol. 14/2007)
- ^ "Toponymy and ethnic Realities at the Lower Danube in the 10th Century. 'The deserted Cities' in the Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De administrando imperio." Stelian Brezeanu.
- ^ Ion Nistor, "Istoria Basarabiei".
- ^ C. Stamati, "Despre Basarabia și cetățile ei vechi", Odessa Geographical Society, 1837 (translation from Russian, 1986)
- ^ The Economist, 3 January 2015, p 24.
- ^ State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, Kyiv
- ^ Lipka, Michael (22 May 2022). "The Gagauz: 'Christian Turks' between two worlds". TRT World.
The Gagauz, a Turkic-Orthodox Christian people, have lived in the Balkans for hundreds of years, managing to preserve their language and culture.
- ^ "Всеукраїнський перепис населення 2001 | Результати | Основні підсумки | Національний склад населення | Одеська область". 2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
- ^ Romania si Ucraina vor monitoriza respectarea drepturilor minoritatilor[permanent dead link]", Buletin Divers, nr. 25 (265) / 6 iulie 2006
External links
- (in German) Karte deutscher siedlungen in Bessarabien Map of German settlements in Bessarabia in 19th–20th centuries