Bulgaria Marks Unification Day 2 over Craiova Treaty

Bulgaria marks Friday the 72nd anniversary of the signing of the historical Craiova treaty under whose terms Romania returned the southern part of Dobrudza to Bulgaria.

Speaking for the Bulgarian news agency Focus, Petar Boychev, Director of the History Museum in the Danube town of Tutrakan, said that for people in northeastern Bulgaria this day is as important as the Unification of Bulgaria in 1885.

Celebrations are held across Dobrudzha in cities and towns such as Dobrich, Silistra, Tutrakan.

The Treaty of Craiova was signed on September 1940 between the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Romania. In addition to returning southern Dobrudzha to Bulgaria, Romania agreed to participate in a population exchange. The treaty was approved by Germany, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Italy, USA, and France.

Terms of the Treaty provide for the mandatory resettlement of Romanian citizens of Bulgarian ethnicity living in Northern Dobrudza to Bulgaria, and the resettlement of ethnic Romanians living in Southern Dobruja to Romania. 110 000 Romanians (80 000 of them from South Dobrudza) had to leave their homes. Most of them were colonists who had settled there after the Second Balkan War in 1913, when the territory was annexed by Romania. 65 000 Bulgarians left their homes in Northern Dobrudza and resettled in Bulgaria.

Southern Dobrudzha was detached from Bulgaria under the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine signed on November 27 1919.

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