Dobruja, the land between Danube and the Sea, the border of the empires from antiquity until a century ago, is still linked to its Ottoman heritage. The establishment of the Ottoman administration in the 15th century in Dobruja, a former province of the Roman and Byzantine Empire, led to the gradual transformation of the territory between the Danube and the Black Sea, for more than four centuries, through the material and spiritual culture brought here from the East., in a mirror of Anatolia.
Mosques, Islamic religious schools (medrese), inns (caravanserai), Turkish baths (hammam), religious places for dervishes (tekke or zaviye), fountains and Sufi religious orders (tarikat), some of which are preserved to this day, but also several of them that are lost nowadays and recorded in historical sources, represent the testimony of a remarkable culture, between the XV-XIX centuries, when Dobruja was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman heritage is present in the most varied spheres of life. A persistent Ottoman heritage, such as that of Dobruja, is the one preserved in architecture, but also in popular culture, the last one detectable especially in gastronomy and music. The most important part of the Ottoman heritage is the demographic one, consisting of the ethnic and religious diversity of the Balkans, a trace of a common heritage of the region.
The Turkish and Tatar minorities are the demographic legacy of the Ottoman period in Dobruja. The history of the Turks in Dobruja begins early in the 13th century, when under the leadership of the Seljuk prince, Izzeddin Keykavuz and the dervish Sarı Saltuk Baba, a group of Seljuk Turks from Anatolia was placed by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII the Palaeologus, in Dobruja of those times. From the 14th century until the end of the 19th century, during the Ottoman administration of Dobruja, in the process of Turkish-Muslim colonization of the region, their number became larger, becoming a strong local community. The presence of the Tatars in the region also dates back to the 13th century, being related to the extension of the authority of the Golden Horde, more precisely of the Nogay Tatar tribes, on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Their presence became more and more intense in Dobruja during the same Ottoman period, when successive waves of Tatars emigrated from Crimea, after the entry of the Crimean Khanate under Ottoman protection (1475), then after the abolition of the Khanate by the Tsarist Empire in 1783, and later as a result of the Crimean War of 1853-1856.
At present, the Turks and Tatars from Dobruja have a rich and diverse heritage, but alive only at the internal level of a part of the community, not at all interactive and even less accessible to society, in general. Thus, we considered it necessary to look for ways to raise awareness and to sensitize upon this rich culture of the Turks and Tartars Dobruja.
MIRAS is a project initiated in 2019, by the Department for Interethnic Relations and the Institute for the Study of National Minority Issues, to harness on the historical and cultural heritage of the Turks and Tatars in Dobruja, by creating a virtual museum of the two communities.
It is a project designed as a quasi-complete virtual gallery of this cultural treasure. The gallery is more than just a simple archive of images, it is a collection of over 850 photos with Ottoman pieces, traditional pieces, with old but also newer images, postcards, video and audio recordings, all arranged thematically, in a circuit of moments, places, feelings, searches, desires, hopes, briefly everything that makes up the identity of Turks and Tatars in Dobruja.
The thematic spaces point out the trajectory of the gallery, offering to all those interested through image, movement and sound a cultural album of the two communities. The photographs of the exhibited pieces belong to cultural and research institutions, which have been carrying out the documentation and collecting work since the beginning of the 20th century. The virtual museum also contains media and new media materials, which are meant to strengthen the strong visual coordinate of the exhibition and to create the most authentic feeling of active participation. Last but not least, some materials come from the two communities themselves, either from members or from organizations representing Turks and Tatars.
Why MIRAS? Miras is a common word in Turkish and Tatar, which means the same thing, heritage.
More about the history of the Turks and Tatars:
Identity construction in the Turkish and Tatar communities in Dobruja.Workshop studies. Research on National Minorities in Romania. Working Papers in Romanian Minority Studies, no. 49, the Institute for the Study of National Minorities, Cluj Napoca, 2013, https://ispmn.gov.ro/node/construcia-identitar-la-comunitile-turc-i-ttar-din-Dobruja.
Turkish Tatar or Turkish Tatar. Identity issues in the Turkish and Tatar communities of Dobruja. Turk, Tatar or Turkish-Tatar. Identity Problems in the Turkish and Tatar Communities in Dobruja, Working Papers in Romanian Minority Studies, Nr. 58, Institute for the Study of National Minority Issues, Cluj Napoca, 2014, http://ispmn.gov.ro/uploads/ISPMN%20WP%2058-16-04(1).pdf.
Adriana Cupcea (editor), Turks and Tatars from Dobruja, Publishing House of the Institute for the Study of National Minority Problems, Cluj Napoca, 2015, https://ispmn.gov.ro/nodes/term/slug:carti.
Adriana Cupcea, Manuela Marin, Metin Omer, Medgidia Muslim Seminary. Documents and Memory. The Muslim Seminary in Medgidia. Documents and Memory, ISPMN Publishing House, Cluj Napoca, 2016, https://ispmn.gov.ro/nodes/term/slug:carti.
Adriana Cupcea and Kozák Gyula (coord.), History and identity of the Turks from Dobruja, ISPMN Publishing House, 2017, https://ispmn.gov.ro/nodes/term/slug:carti.
Metin Omer and Adriana Cupcea (coord.), A destiny at the Black Sea. Tartars from Dobruja, ISPMN Publishing House, 2017, https://ispmn.gov.ro/nodes/term/slug:carti.