Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T21:15:59.397Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Techno-Nationalizing the Levees on the Danube: Romania and Bulgaria after World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2019

Stelu Șerban
Stelu Șerban*
Affiliation:
Institute for South East European Studies, Bucharest, Romania
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I focus on the context in which levees were constructed on the Lower Danube, along the Bulgarian–Romanian border. I argue that after World War II, while the two states shared the management of the river in this region, Romania pursued a techno-nationalist hydraulic policy, which led to the complete damming of the left bank of the Danube with levees. Bulgaria also succeeded in building levees on its side of the Danube, that is the right bank of the common border; however, Bulgaria used different technologies and its building works proceeded at a different pace. Techno-nationalism as delineated in this article considers nation-states as basic units in the analysis of technologies. Technological development is not a flowing process, as it becomes entangled with the interests of nation-states seeking legitimation. Hydraulic technology may strengthen nation-states, and in some circumstances leads to the emergence of nationalistic ideologies.

Keywords

Danubehydrotechnical constructionsleveestechno-nationalismSoutheast Europe
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 48 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue on National Cultural Autonomy in Diverse Political Communities: Practices, Challenges, and Perspectives , March 2020 , pp. 373 - 387
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Akrich, Madeline. 1992. “The De-Scription of Technical Objects.” In Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, edited by Bijker, W. E. and Law, J., 205–224. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Allouche, Jeremy. 2010. “The Multi-Level Governance of Water and State Building Processes: A Longue Durée Perspective.” In The Politics of Water: A Survey, edited by Wegerich, Kai and Warner, Jeroen, 45–67. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Angelov, Boris. 1933. Navodnenie po dolnata techenie na Dunav [Floods on the Lower Danube Course]. Sofija, Bulgaria.Google Scholar
Antipa, Grigore. 1910. Regiunea inundabilă a Dunării [The Danube Flooded Area]. Bucureşti: Institutul de arte grafice Carol Göbl.Google Scholar
Armiero, Marco, and von Hardenberg, Wilko Graf. 2013. “Green Rhetoric in Blackshirts: Italian Fascism and the Environment.” Environment and History 19 (3): 283–311.Google Scholar
Banu, A. C. 1967. “Agricultura şi silvicultura” [“Agriculture and Forestry”]. In Limnologia sectorului românesc al Dunării: studiu monographic [The Limnology of the Romanian Part of the Danube. A Monograph], edited by Ardelean, I., Arion-Prunescu, Elena, and Banu, A. C., 529–579. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei RSR.Google Scholar
Benea, Ciprian. 2009. Dunărea. Geopolitică şi negociere [The Danube. Geopolitics and Negotiation]. Iaşi: Institutul European.Google Scholar
Bijker, Wiebe E. 2007. “Dikes and Dams. Thick with Politics.” Isis 98 (1): 109–123.Google Scholar
Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Blackbourne, David. 2006. The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Blidaru, V., Georgescu, I., Gheorghiu, I. M., and Vlădescu, D.. 1962. Hidroamelioraţiile în Republica Populară Română. Monografie [Hydrotechnical Works in Popular Republic of Romania. A Monograph]. Bucureşti: Editura Agro-silvică.Google Scholar
Bocquet, Denise. 2007. “Engineers and the Nation in Italy (1750–1922): Local Traditions and Different Conceptions of Unity and Modernity.” History and Technology 23 (3): 227–240.Google Scholar
Botzan, M., Haret, C., Petrescu, N., and Merculiev, O.. 1959. Probleme de irigații și desecări ale Câmpiei Bărăganului [Irrigations and Drainage Problems in the Baragan Plain]. București: Ed. Academiei RPR.Google Scholar
Boţan, Marcu, Haret, Constantin, Stanciu, Ionel, Visinescu, Ion, and Buhociu, Liviu. 1990. Valorificarea hidroameliorativa a luncii Dunarii romanesti si a Deltei [The Hydraulic Improvement of the Romanian Danube Wetland and Delta]. Bucureşti: Centrul de material didactic si propaganda agricola.Google Scholar
Cain, Daniel. 2012. Diplomaţi şi diplomaţie în sud-estul european. Relaţiile româno-bulgare la 1900 [Diplomats and Diplomacy in Southeastern Europe: The Romanian–Bulgarian Relationships at 1900]. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Române.Google Scholar
Camprubi, Lino. 2014. Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cartianu, Paul, and Albert, Hermina. 1996. Electrificarea în România 1951–1992. Bucureşti: Editura Tehnică.Google Scholar
Costinaş, Sorina. 2004. “Dezvoltarea electroenergeticii românesti la mijlocul secolului al XX-lea” [“The Development of the Romanian Energetic Industry at the Mid-20th Century”]. Noema 3 (1): 134–149.Google Scholar
Crețan, Remus, and Vesalon, Lucian. 2017. “The Political Economy of Hydropower in the Communist Space: Iron Gates Revisited.” Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 10 8 (5): 688–701.Google Scholar
Deletant, Denis. 2007. “‘Taunting the Bear’: Romania and the Warsaw Pact, 1963–89.” Cold War History 7 (4): 495–507.Google Scholar
Dinculescu, Constantin. 1981. Electrificarea României. De la primele începuturi până al anul 1950 [Electrification in Romania: From the Beginnings to the 1950s]. Bucureşti: Ed. Tehnică.Google Scholar
Donev, Kiril. 1972. Irrigated Agriculture in Bulgaria. Sofia: Sofia Press.Google Scholar
Dolores, Augustine. 2007. Red Prometheus: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1945–1990. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dorondel, Ştefan, Şerban, Stelu, and Cain, Daniel. In press. “The Play of Islands: Danube Dynamics and Border Establishment in Modern Southeast Europe (1830–1900).” Environment and History. In press.Google Scholar
Dragostinova, Theodora. 2006. “Competing Priorities, Ambiguous Loyalties: Challenges of Socioeconomic Adaptation and National Inclusion of the Interwar Bulgarian Refugees.” Nationalities Papers 34 (5): 549–574.Google Scholar
Edgerton, David. 2006. The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900. London: Profile Books.Google Scholar
Edgerton, David. 2007. “The Contradictions of Techno-Nationalism and Techno-Globalism: A Historical Perspective.” New Global Studies 1 (1): 1–34.Google Scholar
Feenberg, Andrew. 2010. Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Féaux de la Croix, Jeanne. 2014. “‘Bringing Lights to the Yurts’: Visions of Future and Belonging Surrounding Pastures and Hydropower in Kyrgyzstan.” Anthropology of East Europe Review 32 (2): 49–67.Google Scholar
Fitzmaurice, John. 1998. Damming the Danube: Gabčikovo and Post-Communist Politics in Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Florescu, G. G. 1975. Navigaţia în Marea Neagră, prin strâmtori şi pe Dunăre. Contribuţii la studiul dreptului riveranilor [The Navigation on the Black Sea, through the Gorges, and Danube]. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei RSR.Google Scholar
Georgescu, A. 1964. “Electrificarea ţării după 20 de ani de regim democrat popular. Realizări şi perspective” [“Country Electrification after 20 Years of Democrat People Regime: Achievements and Perspectives”]. Hidroelectrica 18 (8): 352–360.Google Scholar
Groza, O., and Cogǎlniceanu, A.. 1964. “Dezvoltarea hidroenergeticii” [“The Development of Hydro-Energetic Domain”]. Hidroelectrica 18 (8): 361–372.Google Scholar
Härd, Mikael. 1993. “Beyond Harmony and Consensus: A Social Conflict Approach to Technology.” Science, Technology & Human Values 18 (4): 408–432.Google Scholar
Härd, Mikael, and Jarnison, Andrew. 2005. Hubris and Hybrids: A Cultural History of Technology and Science. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harris, Leila M. 2012. “State as Socio-Natural Effect: Variable and Emergent Geographies of the State in Southeastern Turkey.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32 (1): 25–39.Google Scholar
Harper, Krista. 2005. “‘Wild Capitalism’ and Ecocolonialism’: A Tale of Two Rivers.” American Anthropologist 107 (2): 221–233.Google Scholar
Headrick, Daniel. 1988. The Tentacles of Progress. Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1940. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hecht, Gabrielle. 2001. “Technology, Politics, and National Identity in France.” In Technologies of Power: Essays in Honor of Thomas Parke Hughes and Agatha Chipley Hughes, edited by Allen, Michael Thad and Hecht, Gabrielle, 253–294. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Thomas. 1983. Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society 1880–1930. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Thomas. 2012. “The Evolution of Large Technological Systems.” In The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, edited by Bijker, Wiebe E., Hughes, Thomas P., and Pinch, Trevor, 45–76. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ionescu, Ghiţă. 1994 (1964). Comunismul în România [Communism in Romania]. Bucuresti: Litera.Google Scholar
Jechev, Dragomir, and Petrov, Valentin. 1963. S blagodatnite vodi na Dunav: Iz opita na Brushlijanskata napoitelna sistema [The Wonderful DanubeWwaters. The Attempt of Building the Irrigation System in Brushlen. Sofija: BKP.Google Scholar
Jensen, John J., and Rosegger, Gerhard. 1985. “Xenophobia or Nationalism? The Demands of the Romanian Engineering Profession for Preference in Government Gontracts 1898–1905.” East European Quarterly 19 (1): 1–14.Google Scholar
Josephson, Paul R. 1995. “‘Projects of the Century’ in Soviet History: Large-Scale Technologies from Lenin to Gorbachev.” Technology and Culture 36 (3): 519–559.Google Scholar
Josephson, Paul R. 2016. “Introduction: The Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature and the East European Experience.” In In the Name of the Great Work: Stalin’s Plan for the Transformation of Nature and Its Impact in Eastern Europe, edited by Olšáková, Doubravka, 1–41. Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Josephson, Paul R., Dronin, Nicolai, Cherp, Aleh, Mnatsakanian, Ruben, Efremenko, Dmitry, and Larin, Vladislav. 2013. An Environmental History of Russia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kaika, Maria. 2006. “Dams as Symbols of Modernization: The Urbanization of Nature Between Geographical Imagination and Materiality.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96: 276–301.Google Scholar
Klingensmith, D. 2007. “One Valley and a Thousand”: Dams, Nationalism, and Development. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Koleva, Daniela. 2012. “Belene: Remembering the Labour Camp and the History of Memory.” Social History 37 (1): 1–18.Google Scholar
Kostov, Alexandre. 1995. “Trade and Navigation on the Lower Danube: Romania and Bulgaria, 1880–1912.” In Inland Navigation and Economic Development in Nineteenth-Century Europe, edited by Kunz, Andreas and Armstrong, John, 105–118. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
Kostov, Alexandre. 2009. “Les ponts et chaussées français et les pays balkaniques pendant la seconde moitié du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle: Les cas de la Roumanie, de la Serbie et de la Bulgarie.” Quaderns d’Historia de l’Enginyeria 10: 367–389.Google Scholar
of Nations, League. 1926. Scheme for the Settlement of Bulgarian Refugees. General Description and Principal Documents. Lausanne: Imp. Reunies S.A.Google Scholar
Liu, Ts’ui-jung, and Beattie, James, eds. 2016. Environment, Modernization and Development in East Asia: Perspectives from Environmental History. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Manfredini, Laerte. 2010. “Le bonifiche del primo Novecento dal progetto alla realizzazione: Manufatti idraulici, sistemi idrografici ed edilizia rurale.” In Uomini e acque a San Benedetto Po. Il governo del territorio tra passato e futuro. Atti del Convegno Mantova-San Benedetto Po, 10-12 maggio 2007, edited by Ambrosini, Cristina and Marina, Paola, 101–108. De Marchi Borgo S. Lorenzo: All’Insegna del Giglio.Google Scholar
McCaffrey, Stephen C., and Neville, Kate J.. 2010. “The Politics of Sharing Water: International Law, Sovereignty and Transboundary Rivers and Aquifers.” In The Politics of Water: A Survey, edited by Wegerich, Kai and Warner, Jeroen, 18–45. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCully, Patrick. 2001. Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Menga, Filippo. 2015. “Public Construction and Nation-Building in Tajikistan.” In Nation-Building and Identity in the Post-Soviet Space: New Tools and Approaches, edited by Isaacs, Rico and Polese, Abel, 193–205. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Menga, Filippo, 2016. “Domestic and International Dimensions of Transboundary Water Politics.” Water Alternatives 9 (3): 704–723.Google Scholar
Menga, Filippo, and Swyngedouw, Erik, eds. 2018. Water, Technology and the Nation-State. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ministère des Affaires Etrangers, France. 1921. Conférence internationale pour l’établissement du statut définitif du Danube. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.Google Scholar
şi Domeniilor, Ministerul Agriculturii. 1929. Indiguirile regiunii inundabile a Dunării. Dezbaterile Comisiunii îndiguirilor ianuarie – aprilie 1929 [The Levees Construction of the Danube Flooded Area. The Debates of the Levees Construction Commission: January–April 1929]. Bucureşti: Tipografiile Române Unite.Google Scholar
Misa, Thomas J. 2003. “The Compelling Tangle of Modernity and Technology.” In Modernity and Technology, edited by Misa, Thomas J., Brey, Philip, and Feenberg, Andrew, 1–32. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Molle, François. 2009. “River-Basin Planning and Management: The Social Life of a Concept.” Geoforum 40: 484–494.Google Scholar
Molle, François, Foran, Tira, and Käkönen, Mira, eds. 2009. Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region: Hydropower, Livelihoods, and Governance. London: Sterling VA.Google Scholar
Montresor, Sandro. 2001. “Techno-Globalism, Techno-Nationalism and Technological Systems: Organizing the Evidence.” Technovation 21: 399–412.Google Scholar
Olšáková, Doubravka, ed. 2016. In the Name of the Great Work: Stalin’s Plan for the Transformation of Nature and Its Impact in Eastern Europe. Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Papazov, Krasjo.1981. Razvitie i izpolzavane na nationalna komplex Dunav [Development and Use of the Danube National Complex]. Varna: G. Bakalov.Google Scholar
Pavel, Dorin. 1933. Plan général d’aménagement des forces hidrauliques en Roumanie. Bucarest: Imprimérie Nationale.Google Scholar
Petrescu, Nicolae. 1974. Formes nouvelles d’organisation dans l’agriculture roumaine: recherche de la F.A.O. sur les changements contemporains de la structure agraire. Bucharest: Romanian Academy for Agricultural Sciences and Forestry.Google Scholar
Picon, Antoine. 2007. “French Engineers and Social Thought, 18–20th Centuries: An Archeology of Technocratic Ideals.” History and Technology 23 (3): 197–208.Google Scholar
Pietz, David Allen. 2015. The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pinch, Trevor, and Bijker, Wiebe E.. 2012. “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other.” In The Social Construction of Technological Systems : New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, edited by Bijker, Wiebe E., Hughes, Thomas P., and Pinch, Trevor, 11–46. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Polese, Abel, and Horák, Slavomir. 2015. “A Tale of Two Presidents: Personality Cult and Symbolic Nation-Building in Turkmenistan.” Nationalities Papers 43 (3): 457–478.Google Scholar
Polese, Abel, Morris, Jeremy, Pawłusz, Emilia, and Seliverstova, Oleksandra, eds. 2018. Identity and Nation Building in Everyday Post-Socialist Life. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Popescu-Zeletin, Ion. 1967. “Vegetaţia forestieră din lunca şi Delta Dunării” [“The Forests in the Danube Flooded Area and Delta”]. In Limnologia sectorului românesc al Dunării: studiu monographic [The Limnology of the Romanian Part of the Danube: A Monograph], edited by Ardelean, I., Arion-Prunescu, Elena, and Banu, A. C., 547–577. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei RSR.Google Scholar
Pritchard, Sara B. 2011. Confluence: The Nature of Technology and the Remaking of the Rhône. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schmid, Martin. 2013. Towards an Environmental History of the Danube / Zu einer Umweltgeschichte der Donau. Understanding a Great European River Through Its Transformation as a Socio-Natural Site, c.1500–2000. Hab. Thesis, Wien.Google Scholar
Schwabach, Aaron. 1996. “Diverting the Danube: The Gabčikovo-Nagymaros Dispute and International Freshwater Law.” Berkeley Journal of International Law 14 (2): 291–343.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Simeonova, Sibila. 2011. Mezhdunarodnopraven rezhim na Dunav v evropejskata vodna transportna sistema reka-more] [The Danube International Regime in the European System of River-Sea Transport on Water]. Sofija: Paradigma.Google Scholar
Sneddon, Chris, and Fox, Coleen. 2006. “Rethinking Transboundary Waters: A Critical Hydropolitics of the Mekong Basin.” Political Geography 25: 181–202.Google Scholar
Štanzel, Arnošt. 2017. Wasserträume und Wasserräume im Staatssozialismus. Ein umwelthistorischer Vergleich anhand der tschechoslowakischen und rumänischen Wasserwirtschaft 1948–1989. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Spirov, Mire. 2000. Еlectrifikatsijata na Bulgarija i neinite stroiteli. Tom 2 [Electrification in Bulgaria and Its Builders. Volume II]. Sofija: Heron Pres.Google Scholar
Stematiu, Dan. 2011. “Personalităţi de seamă în domeniul gospodăririi apelor” [“Personalities in the Water Management Domain”]. Hidrotehnica 56 (10–11): 16–33.Google Scholar
Stokes, Raymond G. 2000. Constructing Socialism: Technology and Change in East Germany 1945–1990. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Stoiculescu, Cristian D. 2008. Reconstrucţia ecologică a zonei inundabile a Dunării [The Ecological Restoration of the Danube Flooded Area]. Bucureşti: Green Steps SRL.Google Scholar
Sutton, Antony C. 1973. Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1945–1965. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Publications.Google Scholar
Swyngedouw, Erik. 2007. “TechnoNatural Revolutions—The Scalar Politics of Franco’s Hydro-Social Dream for Spain, 1939–1975.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 32 (1): 9–28.Google Scholar
Swyngedouw, Erik. 2015. Liquid Power: Contested Hydro-Modernities in Twentieth-Century Spain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tănăsescu, Florin–Teodor. 2010. “Dorin Pavel și hidrografia Dunării” [“Dorin Pavel and Danube Hydrography”]. Știinţă și inginerie 17: 7–15.Google Scholar
Theesfeld, Insa, and Ivan, Boevsky. 2005. “Reviving Pre-Socialist Cooperative Traditions: The Case of Water Syndicates in Bulgaria.” Sociologia Ruralis 45 (3): 171–186.Google Scholar
Tismăneanu, Vladimir. 2003. Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Trischler, Helmuth, and Weinberger, Hans. 2005. “Engineering Europe: Big Technologies and Military Systems in the Making of 20th Century Europe.” History and Technology 21 (1): 49–83.Google Scholar
Turnock, David. 1986. “The Danube-Black Sea Canal and Its Impact on Southern Romania.” GeoJournal 12 (1): 65–79.Google Scholar
Turnock, David. 2008. “The Drive for Modernisation in Interwar Eastern Europe: Changes in Rurality in the Carpathian Mountains 1918–1945.” Geographica Pannonica 12 (1): 12–38.Google Scholar
White, Richard. 1995. The Organic Machine. The Remaking of the Columbia River. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Wilcocks, William. 1914. Raport asupra proiectului de irigaţii şi navigaţiune în România [Report on the Project of Irrigations and Navigation in Romania]. Bucureşti: Avântul.Google Scholar
Worster, Donald. 1992. Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zeisler-Vralsted, Dorothy. 2015. Rivers, Memory, and Nation-Building: A History of the Volga and Mississippi Rivers. New York: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Zinzani, Andrea. 2018. “Development Initiatives and Transboundary Water Politics in the Talas Waterscape (Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan): Towards the Conflicting Borderlands Hydrosocial Cycle.” In Water, Technology and the Nation-State, edited by Menga, Filippo and Swyngedouw, Erik, 147–166. London: Routledge.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

TsDAV - Bulgarian State Archive, Vidin Branch.Google Scholar
TsDAP - Bulgarian State Archive, Pleven Branch.Google Scholar
AMAE - Archive of Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Romanian Government.Google Scholar
Romanian National Archives, Galaţi Branch.Google Scholar
Romanian National Archives, Teleorman Branch.Google Scholar