Adakale and its People: History and Memory on the Danube
Silvana Rachieru, University of Bucharest
Date: 05.11.2026, Thursday
Time: 16:30-17:30
Venue: A130 Seminar Room
Abstract
Adakale used to be an island on the Danube, located at the border meeting point between the Ottoman Empire, Habsburg Empire, and Romanian Principalities, but was submerged in 1970 following the construction of the Iron Gates Dam by Romania and Yugoslavia. As a result of its protection that has varied over time, Adakale served as a political, military and cultural border and a crossroads of diverse cultures. Due to its unique character, as an Ottoman, later Turkish, enclave island on the Danube, and its strategic location between competing powers, Adakale is the focus of an important archival collection, produced both on the island itself and at the main political centers in its neighbourhood. The island has also been an inexhaustible and continuous source of inspiration for academic research and cultural projects. An urge to “rescue” Adakale and keep it “alive”, through photograph collections, postcards, paintings, objects and oral memories of those who lived there or just visited, has created an invaluable – yet methodological complex – archive. This presentation will focus on the history and collective memory of the island’s former inhabitants, an ongoing research project that integrates archival study, fieldwork, oral history, and photographic documentation.
Speaker Biography
Silvana Rachieru, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Turkish Studies, Faculty of History, University of Bucharest, and former Fulbright Visiting Scholar – University of California Berkeley (2023-2024)
PhD in History (2010, University of Bucharest) and MA in History (1998, Central European University Budapest). Historian of the Ottoman Empire and specialist on social and diplomatic history of the Ottoman Empire and Romanian-Ottoman relations during “the long 19th century”. Expertise in cultural diplomacy and cultural management at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Istanbul (project coordinator, deputy director, director – 2006-2015). Author of the book “Ottoman Diplomats and Subjects in the Old Kingdom. Ottoman-Romanian Relations between 1878-1908” (Romanian, Iasi, 2018) and coordinator of the volumes “The Century of Harmony: Romanian-Turkish Relations 1923-2023” (Romanian-Turkish, Iasi, 2023) and “Between Three Empires: Consular Network of Romania” (1879-1918), with Adrian-Bogdan Ceobanu (The Isis Press, Istanbul, 2024). Numerous articles on Romanian-Ottoman diplomatic relations after 1878, the Ottoman perspective on modernization of the Old Kingdom of Romania, and modern gender history in Romania. Visiting professor at universities in Greece, Turkey, and Japan. Founding Member of the CIVIS Turkish Studies Network, Europe’s Civic University Alliance, 2022. Member of the Scientific Board of IAOSEH – International Association of Ottoman Social and Economic History, 2017.