Rumelia

With Rumelia ( Ottoman روم ايلى, IA Rum - ili, rum -ELI; Turkish Rumeli, approximately "land of Rhomäer " or " Rhomäerland " ) the Turks since the 15th century referred to the European, located on the Balkan peninsula part of the Ottoman Empire. The name is made up of rum ( Romania ) and the old Turkish il ( Land), is a geographical name. Rumeli (s) is in contrast to Anadolu / اناطولى / Anatoly - Anatolia; from Turkish with the meaning motherland or perhaps originally from the Greek meaning " in the east ".

The name is derived from the ( eastern ) Roman Empire, which dominated the Balkans against the Ottomans and had culturally. The Ottoman Turks borrowed from the Greek rum Romania ( Ρωμανία ) and used the lemma thus formed Rum - eli as the counter name to Anatolia. But without the addition of rum still retained its original meaning, namely the territory that was ruled by the Seljuk Rum (Anatolia). Because since about 1350 the Greeks had lost control of most of Anatolia, it lent itself to the rest of the European Eastern Roman Empire to refer to the later Ottoman province as a country or province of the Greeks, Turkish Rum ili. In European languages ​​the word was slurred to Rumelia.

From the Turkish administration, the term was used until 1864 for the entire European part of the Empire, with the exception of Bosnia, Hungary and the Morea. 1864-1878 the Serbian Nis, northern Bulgaria ( Vidin to Varna ) and the Romanian Dobrogea for Tuna Vilayet were reshuffled.

Also, Eastern Rumelia ( Southern Bulgaria) in 1878 autonomous and united by an officer putsch in 1885 with Bulgaria.