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Rumelia

Coordinates: 41°00′00″N 21°20′00″E / 41.0000°N 21.3333°E / 41.0000; 21.3333
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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 101.179.104.172 (talk) at 09:49, 19 September 2019 (→Etymology: Rum is a borrowed word from Latin and Greek because the Turkish could not pronounce the correct word ρωμαίος Romanios (transliteration) from the Latin Romanus). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the entire historical region. For the Ottoman province of Rumelia, see Rumelia Eyalet. For the Ottoman autonomous province, see Eastern Rumelia.
"Turkey in Europe" redirects here. For the part of modern Turkey geographically part of Europe, see East Thrace.
Map of Rumelia in 1801

Rumelia (Template:Lang-ota, Rūm-ėli; Template:Lang-tr; Template:Lang-el), etymologically "Land of the Romans" was the name of a historical region in Southeast Europe that was administered by the Ottoman Empire, mainly the Balkan Peninsula. Rumelia included the provinces of Thrace, Macedonia and Moesia, today's Bulgaria and Turkish Thrace, bounded to the north by the rivers Sava and Danube, west by the Adriatic coast, and south by the Morea. In 1844, Rumelia spanned 325,805 km² – an area larger than mainland Norway.[1]

Owing to administrative changes between 1870 and 1875, the name ceased to correspond to any political division. Eastern Rumelia was constituted as an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Today, in Turkey, the word Trakya (Thrace) has mostly replaced Rumeli (Rumelia) when referring to the part of Turkey which is in Europe (provinces of Edirne, Kırklareli, Tekirdağ, the northern part of Çanakkale Province and the western part of Istanbul Province), though Rumelia remains in use in some historical contexts as a geographic region.

Etymology

The term Rûm means "Roman", while Rumelia (Turkish: Rumeli) means "Land of the Romans" is a borrowed word from Latin and Greek in the Turkish, referring to the lands occupied by the Ottoman Turks after the Byzantine Empire, that was at the time still known as the Roman Empire (the neologism "Byzantine Empire" was coined only in 1557 by a German historian, Hieronymus Wolf, in his work Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ[2]). As such, "Roman" was long used in various languages around the Balkans to refer to the lands of that empire. Indeed, today the region is known by Template:Lang-bs, Template:Lang-el, Romylía, or Ρούμελη, Roúmeli; Template:Lang-sq; Macedonian and Template:Lang-sr, Rumelija and Template:Lang-bg, Rumeliya. In old Latin Genoese documents it is known as Romania, the common name for the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages.

Originally, the Seljuk Turks used the name "Land of the Rûm" (Romans) for defining Anatolia, which was gradually conquered by the armies of the Seljuk Empire from the Byzantine Empire following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (1077–1307) meant the "Sultanate of Anatolia".

However, following the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Anatolia and the Balkans starting from the second half of the 14th century, and the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 by Mehmed II, the term Rumeli (Land of the Romans) was applied exclusively to define the Balkan regions of the Ottoman Empire, which remained primarily populated by Christians.

Geography

Rumeli Hisarı (Rumelian Fortress, 1452) on the European shore of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul.

Rumelia included the provinces of Thrace, Macedonia and Moesia, today's Bulgaria and Turkish Thrace, bounded to the north by the rivers Sava and Danube, west by the Adriatic coast, and south by the Morea.[3] The name Rumelia was ultimately applied to a province composed of central Albania and north-western Macedonia, with Bitola for its chief town.

Owing to administrative changes effected between 1870 and 1875, the name ceased to correspond to any political division. Eastern Rumelia was constituted as an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin, 1878,[3] but on September 6, 1885, after a bloodless revolution, it was united with Bulgaria.[4] The Kosovo Vilayet was created in 1877.[5]

Today, in Turkey, the word Trakya (Thrace) has mostly replaced Rumeli (Rumelia) when referring to the part of Turkey which is in Europe (provinces of Edirne, Kırklareli, Tekirdağ, the northern part of Çanakkale Province and the western part of Istanbul Province), though Rumelia remains in use in historical contexts and the word is used in the context of the culture of current Turkish populations of the Balkans and descendants of Turkish immigrants from the Balkans. This region in Turkey is also referred to as Eastern Thrace or Turkish Thrace. In Greece, the term Ρούμελη (Rumeli) has been used since Ottoman times to refer to Central Greece, especially when juxtaposed with the Peloponnese or Morea. The word Rumeli is also used in some cases (mostly by Istanbul denizens) to refer exclusively to the part of Istanbul Province that is situated west of the Bosphorus.

Map of Rumelia in 1795

See also

References

  1. ^ Dimitrov et al. (2017) Bitola – from Eyalet capital to regional centre in the Republic of Macedonia, Urban Development Issues, vol. 55, pp. 67–82 DOI: 10.2478/udi-2018-0006. Researchgate.net. Retrieved 1 August 2019
  2. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica – Rumelia at Encyclopædia Britannica.com
  3. ^ a b Reclus, Onésime; Ibáñez, Vicente Blasco; Reclus, Élisée; Doré, Gustave (1907). Novísima Geografía Universal (in Spanish). Madrid La Edit. Española-Americana. p. 636. OCLC 432767489.
  4. ^ Frucht, Richard (2004). Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture. ABC-CLIO. p. 807. ISBN 1576078000.
  5. ^ Verena Knaus; Gail Warrander (2010). Kosovo. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 11. ISBN 1841623318.

Sources

41°00′00″N 21°20′00″E / 41.0000°N 21.3333°E / 41.0000; 21.3333

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