Separated from the mountains by the foothill regions, lie the plains and steppes of the Danubian Borderland, an ecological zone of the utmost importance for understanding the region's human and natural dynamics. There are five major grassland sub-regions within the borderland,
50 Roumania 1920, p. 22.
51 Roumania 1920, pp. 17-21.
52 Bulgaria 1920, pp. 13-20.
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which, although separated from one another by rivers and, in some places, mountains and hills, nonetheless form a more-or-less connected series of lowlands extending south and west from the great Eurasian Steppe. These are, in order moving south and west, 1) the Bessarabian/Moldavian
Plain, 2) the Dobrogea, 3) the Wallachian Plain, 4) the north Bulgarian Plain, and 5) the Hungarian Plain (including the Banat) in the far west. A sixth lowland zone, the south Bulgarian
or Thracian Plain, lies south of the Stara Planina, largely outside the Danube watershed, but closely linked to the regions north of the Balkan range by the low hills along the Black Sea coast of Thrace.
Fig. 1.4 Major lowland topographic zones of the Danubian-Balkan region.
While each of these sub-regions has its own distinctive character, they all have some features in common, particularly the presence of steppe biomes covering some percentage of their areas. A few general words on steppe geography and ecology are in order before surveying each sub-region
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individually. Classic steppe biomes are characterized by an almost complete absence of trees, save along watercourses, and while this type of environment can be found in a few places, such as in certain parts of the Dobrogea, and the area directly east of Bucharest,54 the vast majority of the steppe land within the Danubian Borderland is better described as forest steppe, that is, a transitional landscape dominated by a mosaic of grassland and small forest groves.55
Fig. 1.5 Forest-steppe environment in the central Hungarian Plain near Fülöpszállás, Hungary.
In a setting free from human influence, which the Danubian Basin has never been for at least the last ten millennia, steppe ecosystems are dependent on two natural factors, one geological, and the other climatic. The first is the presence of loess soil, that is, fine-grained silt produced mainly by the grinding action of continental glaciers during the Pleistocene, and originally deposited in regions south of the ice by wind action. This type of soil, which can be found in many areas across Eurasia,
54 Roumania 1920, p. 24, 34.
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is highly fertile, yet it tends not to be conducive to the growth of trees, when present in sufficient depth, except in regions with annually consistent rainfall, because of its exceptional ability to wick away soil moisture into underlying strata. Thus, in the fully-continental environments north of the Carpathians one finds forests growing in loess zones because of the prevailing wetter conditions, but in regions with even slightly more seasonal variation in precipitation, as is the case throughout the bulk of the Danube Basin, trees have a slightly more difficult time taking root in deep loess, and thus, according to traditional interpretations, steppe reigned as the dominant lowland biome prior to intensive cultivation of loess zones during the 18th and 19th centuries.56
The assumption that the Hungarian steppe, and by extension, other Danubian grasslands, evolved naturally during the early Holocene has been questioned since the middle 20th century. The vast grasslands that characterized the Hungarian puszta/Alföld since the Middle Ages, together with their pastoral inhabitants, formed an integral part of Hungary's developing national
consciousness since the arrival of the Magyars in the tenth century. To simplify a complex phenomenon, it will suffice to say that because of the cultural importance grassland holds for the modern Hungarian people, until fairly recently, most scholars simply assumed that so characteristic an ecosystem was a natural product of the region's climate and topography.57 More recently, however, scholars have noted that most Danubian lowlands are far from homogenous, exhibiting, instead, the forest steppe ecosystem described above. Further, in many places, grasslands and oak- lime parkland exist in close proximity under virtually identical soil, water, and atmospheric
56 Childe 1929, pp. 3-4; Magyari 2010, p. 916.
57 For a discussion of these early arguments on the natural openness of the loess lowlands of the Danubian region, see
Garnett 1945, pp. 133-134. Fleure (1960) is a good example of mid-20th century scholarship that begins from an a priori
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conditions, a phenomenon which has caused some to argue that the extensive steppe lands of the early modern period were not a purely natural phenomenon. As observed above, the continental climate, with its more even rain distributions, still exerts a strong influence over much of the Danubian Borderland, particularly in the north-west region where the Hungarian Plain is located, and so it has been argued that much of the lowlands can theoretically support trees despite
historically attested steppe ecosystems. According to this theory, the great steppes of the Danubian Borderland grew out of a more thickly forested period due to a combination of environmental change and human agency, but with a strong emphasis on the latter. Deforestation through burning and timber harvesting followed by intensive animal husbandry created environments hostile to forest growth and greatly facilitated the spread of grassland in a region already well suited to such floral communities.58
It seems highly likely that human actions did have a hand in spreading steppe biomes through the Danube Basin, but the extent of this phenomenon and the periods of its occurrence remain extremely unclear. Some have argued that the main period of deforestation occurred in the Middle Ages, while others point to a much earlier, Neolithic phase.59 Overall, the case for some degree of very early deforestation seems most persuasive, yet the possibility that there was somewhat less steppe present during the Roman period than was documented during the early modern period will need to be factored into later discussions. For now, let us conclude that the result of this farrago of topographic, climatic, pedological, and anthropogenic influences was some version of the forest steppe ecosystem still found in those parts of the Danubian lowlands spared the ravages of the
58 Borojević 2006, pp. 110-6.
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mechanized plow.60 Regions without loess, such as hill country and river valleys, are heavily
forested, while those covered by this soil type show trees where local conditions manage to mitigate against the water-wicking abilities of the loess. Grassland reigns elsewhere in the loess zones, although not through natural means alone.
※ The major lowland zones
1). The Bessarabian/Moldavian Plain begins east of the river Prut, and south of Chișinău,
as hill systems extending out from Bukovina and Moldavia dwindle away into undulating
grassland.61 The plain's southern boundary is marked by the final length of the Danube, including its great marshy delta.62 The plain's eastern edge is usually drawn at the Dniester, but, in truth, the Bessarabian grasslands have no geographic eastern border since they are, in reality, simply the western-most portion of the South-Russian steppe. In Bessarabia, we encounter our first example of the harshness of steppe climate. The grasslands are both dryer than the hilly country north of Chișinău, and also subjected to harsher, more capricious weather systems characterized by frequent strong winds coming off the larger steppes to the northeast.63
Movement into the Bessarabian Plain from the South-Russian steppe involves crossing the Dniester which, in common with many larger rivers in the region, is flanked in its lower reaches by significant marshland.64 Tervingi Goths attempted to use the Dniester as a bulwark against hostile Hunnic and Alan raiders in the late fourth century, yet the ease with which the ersatz barrier was
60 Specifically, the mixture of continental, Mediterranean, and Pontic climatic conditions with uneven loess deposition,
variable water tables, and the potentially destructive action of deforestation and animal grazing.
61 Bessarabia 1920, pp. 1-2.
62 Bessarabia 1920, p. 4.
63 Bessarabia 1920, pp. 4-5.
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crossed should warn us against viewing even the largest rivers as serious impediments to human mobility.65 The Danube presents similar obstacles when leaving the region to the south, but the Prut offers less challenge in this regard.66
2). The region of the Dobrogea begins on the southern side of the Danube delta, and is
bordered on three sides by the course of the river, which is flanked by wide marshy zones in many places. The southern boundary is usually drawn to coincide with the political border between Romania and Bulgaria, but this also reflects a transitional topographic zone known as the Deli Orman (“Crazy Forest” in Turkish), characterized by rough low hills extending north from the eastern terminus of the Stara Planina near Varna, and clearly distinct from the steppe land to the north which occupies the bulk of the Dobrogea.67
The highest elevations in the Dobrogea are found in the north-west corner and never extend above 400 meters. The rest of the roughly-rectangular region consists of undulating grasslands edged with coastal lakes and lagoons, and riverine marshes.68 The combination of loess soil above limestone bedrock serves, in many places, to render the grasslands more arid than its moderate rainfall patterns would suggest, but in areas, such as near rivers or in hillier districts, where steppe conditions do not prevail, the land appears much more vibrant and verdant.69 As with Bessarabia to the north, Boreas keeps an icy grip on Dobrogea during the winter months, bringing harsh, frigid conditions out of South Russia. Dobrogea is blessed during the other three seasons, however, with a
65 A.M. 31.3.4-7. 66 Bessarabia 1920, p. 4. 67 Roumania 1920, p. 33; Bulgaria 1920, pp. 14-15. 68 Zahariade 2006, pp. 8-10. 69 Roumania 1920, p. 34.
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climate rendered warm and somewhat wet by winds prevailing from the Aegean. The mild climate continues into the autumn due to the mitigating influences of the Danube and the Black Sea.70
3). Crossing the Danube from Dobrogea, one enters the eastern edge of the Wallachian Plain, one of the largest and most diverse of the Danubian Borderland's grassland zones. The plain
extends north from the Danube as far west as the Iron Gates. Elevations gradually rise as one moves north, and eventually the plain merges seamlessly into the foothills of the Southern Carpathians.71 As with the other grasslands surveyed above, the Wallachian Plain is characterized by thick loess
deposits, particularly in its eastern portions. Unlike the Dobrogea, however, in most parts of
Wallachia, the loess overlays thick gravel strata which holds water better than the limestone bedrock east of the Danube. Precipitation percolates quickly through the loess layers but is then held in the underlying gravel strata. This phenomenon produces dry steppe land atop the loess and verdant, spring-watered valleys wherever one of the Danube's many tributaries manages to cut through to the underlying gravels.72 In modern times, deep wells have allowed for agricultural exploitation of the fertile loess soils outside the river valleys, but historically, most human settlement in the
Wallachian plain has been along the rivers, or in the foothills that make up the region's hazy northern border.73
4). The counterpart to the Wallachian plain is the North Bulgarian Plain, which extends
south from the Danube until it merges with the northern foothills of the Stara Planina Balkans. The topography of this region is somewhat similar to that of the Wallachian plain, in terms of the
70 Zahariade 2006, pp. 11-12.
71 Roumania 1920, p. 23.
72 Roumania 1920, pp. 23-4.
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presence of wooded steppe ecosystems, but the loess deposits here rest upon higher bedrock than in the region north of the river, and this has resulted in a more dramatic landscape of valleys and plateaus, often with steep cliffs marking the transition between plain and riverine zones. Indeed, in most places, the northern edge of the Bulgarian plain rises from the Danube valley in sheer,
imposing cliffs of 150 meters or more, standing in marked contrast to the northern bank which is generally low and often marshy.74 The particulars of the geography here have made the Bulgarian plain somewhat easier to cultivate than much of the Wallachian plain to the north, and while both regions have been extensively planted in modern times, the Bulgarian plain proved more suitable to traditional agricultural practices.75
5). The final grassland region within the Danubian Borderland is the Hungarian Plain or Alföld. This sub-region is massive: over 40,000 square kilometers of lowland,76 now largely under intensive cultivation, filling the bulk of the Pannonian Basin between the Apuseni foothills in the east and the Dinaric Alps in the west. To the north, it is bounded by the Northern Carpathians, while the southern limit is marked by the rough uplands between the Dinaric Alps and the western beginnings of the Stara Planina.77 The rivers Danube in the west and Tisza in the east divide the Pannonian Basin vertically into rough thirds. Not all of this immense area consists of plains, but the region lying between the Danube and the Tisza - the ancient Sarmatian barbaricum - is almost entirely covered by forest steppe of the sort described above. Steppe ecosystems extend out to the east and west of these rivers, but coverage is less complete, and tends to taper off further away from
74Handbook of the River Danube 1915, pp. 18-19; Bulgaria 1920, pp. 13-14.
75 Handbook of the River Danube 1915, pp.70-71.
76 Lindner 1981, p. 14.
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the Danube-Tisza core.78 By the early 20th century, the fertility of the Hungarian Plain had been fully recognized and exploited, but this was a phenomenon of the early modern age, and in
antiquity, forest steppe was extensive between the Danube and the Tisza.79 The Hungarian Plain is somewhat isolated from the other grasslands within the Danubian Borderland, leading some scholars to exclude it from regional Danubian studies.80 However, analysis of the plant taxa found in both the Hungarian, Wallachian/Bulgarian, and South Russian plains strongly suggests that there has been longstanding ecological exchange between these regions, most likely through the Iron Gates region, although perhaps also through gaps in the Northern Carpathians.81