Precedents The earliest plans for building this canal were drawn in the late 1830s. The 1829
Treaty of Adrianople canceled the trade monopoly of the
Ottoman Empire in the
Danubian Principalities of
Wallachia and
Moldavia, allowing these countries to build their own fleets by 1834. Both Romanian and non-Romanian ships used mostly the Danube port cities of
Brăila and
Galați, which saw an economic boom. But there were a number of barriers to this trade: the Ottomans controlled the navigation regime on the Danube, while the
Russian Empire controlled access to the
Black Sea in the
Danube Delta, and there was little the Danubian Principalities could do to rectify this situation. Both countries welcomed the
Austrian Empire's 1834 decision, endorsed by Count
István Széchenyi, to extend the steamboat navigation to the maritime Danube. The Austrian initiative was badly received by the Russians, who considered their trade through
Odesa and ports in the
Crimea threatened by the development of Brăila and Galați. Without resolving to direct measures, the
Russian Empire, who controlled the
Sulina branch, started to show rigidity, instituting on February 7, 1836, a compulsory
quarantine on the island of
Letea, collecting taxes to cover the Russian financial deficit, and by not performing maintenance for the navigation on the Sulina branch to remove the continuous deposits of sand. This prompted the Austrians to conceive the idea of building a canal to connect the Danube with the Black Sea at the shortest point before the Delta, between
Rasova or Cernavodă (
Bogaz Köi) and Constanța (
Küstendjie), and a parallel railway. The Austrian project, however, was rejected by the
Ottoman Porte. Western diplomats and newspapers accused the Russian government that through bribing and intimidation, it determined the Ottoman officials to reject the proposal of Szechenyi's company. In 1839, Széchenyi got the approval of his and Ottoman governments to ensure the transport of goods and people without getting to Sulina by a
transshipment on dry land. Carts and coaches made a 7–8 hour trip from Cernavodă to Constanța, where people and goods were boarding other ships for
Istanbul. The enterprise was scrapped after 4 years due to non-profitability because of a low number of passengers, high cost of transport, and poor conditions of cargo handling in the unfit
roadstead of the port of Constanța. In its place, a new Brăila–Istanbul route was established. However, by 1844, the depth of the Sulina branch had decreased to 7–9 feet, from 13–14 feet in 1836, due to lack of dredging by the Russian authorities which controlled the passage. The Austrian government made a new attempt to cut a canal, sending the military engineer Colonel Baron
Karl von Bigaro to prospect the land. But the idea had to be abandoned again due to technical problem, first of all due to the unfitness of the port of Constanța for large international trade. In 1850, the Moldavian scholar
Ion Ionescu de la Brad proposed yet another project, supported by
Ion Ghica and by the
Scottish diplomat
David Urquhart, the secretary of the
United Kingdom's Embassy in the Ottoman Empire. The
Crimean War of 1854–1856, added a military and strategical dimension for this plan. The British and
French allies landed at
Varna in the summer of 1854, followed by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Wallachia and Moldavia and the advancement of Ottoman and Austrian ones. In 1855, the French government put forward an initiative, and the Ottomans approved it, for the cheapest solution: build a strategic road between Cernavodă and Constanța. Engineer
Charles Lalanne was put in charge of these works, that started in the summer of 1855 and were finished by the year's end. According to the newspaper
Zimbrul of
Iași, the work was performed by 300 physically strong men of moderate character selected in Moldavia and Wallachia. The building of the road did not eliminate, however, the need for a canal, and the Austrian government renewed its persuading efforts. According to
Gazeta de Transilvania in July 1855, Baron
Karl Ludwig von Bruck, the Austrian Finance Minister, founded a
stock company to build the desired canal. According to an article in
Zimbrul on July 23, 1855, the project was of interest to Britain, the French Empire and the Austrian Empire, who were asking the Ottoman government to allot the concession of the canal and the fitting of the port of Constanța to a
consortium under the direction of the three countries. The Ottomans were to lease a
league of land on each side of the canal for 99 years, where colonist could be settled. Goods were to travel freely, with ships having to pay only a
per tone tax, significantly lower than the one on the Sulina branch. According to the newspaper
Steaua Dunării from January 24, 1856, the
Sultan issued a
firman to the Anglo-French–Austrian consortium Wilson–Morny–Breda, represented by
Forbes Campbell, authorizing it to build the canal which was to be called
Abdul Medjid. The 12 articles of the Concession Act were published in
Bukurester Deutsche Zeitung. Following the opening of the line, goods were easily and inexpensively transported from Constanța by rail, so plans for a canal were again abandoned. It has since been found out that Stalin's initiative was based on a secret study, commissioned in 1947–1948, which recommended building a Soviet submarine base at the
Port of Midia, which was suitable due to its proximity to the
Bosphorus and because of the rocky foundation. Work started on June 29. In a speech held on August 22, 1949
Anna Pauker hailed the construction of the canal claiming "we are building the canal without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie". Banners with this slogan were set up in all construction sites of the canal. In October 1949, the authorities established a General Directorate to oversee both the works and the penal facilities, answering directly to the national leadership. Its first head was
Gheorghe Hossu a former mechanic and tractor driver who had been promoted to the position of first-secretary of the Romanian Worker's party in
Tulcea County and administrator of the State Fisheries. He was replaced in 1951 by
Meyer Grünberg, in turn replaced by
Mihail Povstanschi under the name of Vasile Posteucă, who held the position from 1952 to 1953. According to historian
Adrian Cioroianu, all three were insufficiently trained for the task they were required to accomplish. By 1952, the Directorate came under the direct supervision of the
Internal Affairs Ministry, and the
Securitate was allowed direct intervention on the construction site. (according to some sources, the closure had been ordered by Stalin himself, as early as 1952). In 1952, more than 80% of the workforce at the canal consisted of detainees. By 1953, the number of prisoners had swelled to 20,193, or as high as 60,000; other estimates put the number at 40,000 for the entire period. British historian and
New York University professor
Tony Judt assessed in his book,
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, that, overall, one million Romanians had been imprisoned in various prisons and labor camps, including those on the path of the canal. The construction effort surpassed the resources available to the Romanian economy in the 1950s. The canal was assigned inferior machinery, part of which had already been used on the Soviet
Volga–Don Canal, According to the 2006 report of the
Tismăneanu Commission, Albon employed torture methods against the detainees, and personally killed many of them. Other security officers who used often cruel and deadly methods with the prisoners were senior lieutenant Liviu Borcea, at the Midia Camp; captain Petre Burghișan, at the
Galeș and
Peninsula camps; lieutenant Chirion at Peninsula; captain , director of the
Securitate's Regional Directorate Constanța; and sergeant Grigore Ion Iliescu. The prisoners were dispossessed farmers who had attempted to resist
collectivization, former activists of the
National Peasants' Party, the
National Liberal Party, the
Romanian Social Democratic Party, and the
fascist Iron Guard,
Zionist Jews, as well as
Orthodox and
Catholic priests. The canal was referred to as the "graveyard of the Romanian
bourgeoisie" by the Communist authorities, and the physical elimination of undesirable
social classes was one of its most significant goals. According to
Marius Oprea, the death rate among political prisoners at the canal was extremely high; for instance, in the winter of 1951–52, there were one to three detainees dying every day at the
Poarta Albă camp, near Galeșu village. as a result of exposure, unsafe equipment, malnutrition, accidents,
tuberculosis and other diseases, over-work, etc., while political analyst
Vladimir Socor had estimated the number of deaths to be "considerably in excess of 10,000". Investigations conducted by the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Romania (AFDPR) Constanța, based on death records from the villages found along the Canal route, indicate 6,355 "Canal workers" (a
euphemism for detainees) died during the 1949–1953 period. In parallel, authorities left aside sectors of employment for skilled workers, kept in strict isolation from all others, Authorities also claimed the construction site was offering training to previously unskilled workers New and large machinery, produced inside Romania, was introduced to the site. In 2018, more than 32.9 million tonnes of cargo were carried over the Danube–Black Sea Canal (an increase of 4.7% compared to the previous year). ==In art==