Dobrudja in the 17th-18th Centuries: Hârşova – A Case Study
Dobrudja in the 17th-18th Centuries: Hârşova – A Case Study

Summary/Abstract: During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the medieval fortress of Hârşova was one of the most important ones on the Lower Danube line due to its strategic position. It appears as such in many historical sources. The first description is due to the Turkish chronicler Evlia Celebi in the second half of the eighteenth century. Its image is captured in two prints from 1826 (Fig. 1), and the plan was drawn up by Baron von Moltke during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829 (Fig. 2). The fortress is involved in conflicts between the Gate and Tsarist Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was destroyed and rebuilt many times. After the peace of Adrianople (1829) it is demolished and abandoned along with all Ottoman fortifications on the right bank of the Danube. Debris walls were gradually dismantled. Recent research has led to the identification of a semicircular tower (bastion) at the intersection with the east precinct north of the entrance gates and west of the first site and three-site walls on the west side, the most exposed to armed conflicts. They were raised in all probability, in the first part of the eighteenth century, at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century. Thanks to archaeological excavations, the medieval fortress enclosure route of Hârşova could be established accurately in terms of locality (Fig. 3).

• Details
• Contents