Суға батқан Адакале аралы

Former island on the Danube

Ada Kaleh (; from Adakale, meaning "Island Fortress"; Újorsova or italic=yes; Serbian and Bulgarian: Адакале, Adakale) was a small island on the Danube, located in Romania, that was submerged during the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric plant in 1970. The island was about downstream from Orșova and was less than two kilometers long and approximately half a kilometer wide (1.75 x 0.4–0.5 km). Ada Kaleh was inhabited by Turkish Muslims from all parts of the Ottoman Empire, and there were also family ties to the Turkish Muslim populations of Vidin and Ruse, Bulgaria due to exogamic marriages. The isle of Ada Kaleh is probably the most evocative victim of the Iron Gate dam's construction. Once an Ottoman Turkish exclave that changed hands multiple times in the 18th and 19th centuries, it had a mosque and numerous twisting alleys, and was known as a free port and a smuggler's nest. The islanders produced Turkish delight, baklava, rose water, fig and rose marmalade, and rose oil, and were well known for Turkish oil wrestling. The existence of Ada Kaleh was overlooked at the 1878 Congress of Berlin peace talks surrounding the Russo Turkish War, known in Romania as the War of Independence, which allowed the island to remain a de jure possession of the Ottoman Sultan until 1923.

Adakale Turks (Adakale Türkleri). The settlement of Turks began in 1699 when the Ottoman Empire took the island. In an Ottoman archive document, a brief history of the island and its inhabitants is described as follows: “After the 1770s, no boats crossed the Danube, presumably, and the Sipahi officers, who were under the command of an Ottoman pasha in Adakale, brought their families to Adakale. The people here are all descendants of these military families This is why the native language of the people is Turkish.”

In 1830, when the Serbian Principality was established in the territory of the Sanjak of Smederevo of the Ottoman Empire, the crowded Turks in Serbia community living in the Principality of Serbia was settled in 6 settlements that would be considered Ottoman lands. Adakale became one of these six Turkish quarters, each of which was considered a township. The islanders had family ties to the Turks of Vidin and Ruse, Bulgaria, due to exogamic marriages. A population census from 1913 shows that the majority of the inhabitans were Balkan Turks and Muslim Roma from Rumeli Eyalet, who came to the island after the Russo Turkish War. The unifying bond was the Turkish language, Turkish culture, and Islam. The population practiced Sufism. The men wore the fez and women the çarşaf until they were forbidden to do so under the Socialist Republic of Romania. The islanders produced lokum, rose water, and rose oil. They also made a living from tourism, the tobacco industry, and fishery. The island was well known for its Turkish oil wrestling and football team. During the Second Balkan War in 1913, the island was occupied by the Austro Hungarian Army, and after World War I in 1919 it was occupied by the Kingdom of Romania. Some Turkish families left the island and went to Istanbul as Muhacir. These occupations were not accepted by the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Trianon. After the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the island officially became a part of the Kingdom of Romania. From 1923 to 1938, due to Anti Turkish sentiment, a lot of Turkish Families from Ada Kaleh and Dobruja went to Turkey. In 1945, some Turks from Ada Kaleh went to Turkey, because they didn't want to live in Socialist Republic of Romania. In 1951, some Turkish Families from Ada Kaleh were forced to settle in the Bărăgan Plain. In 1967, the entire remaining Turkish island population emigrated before the island was flooded. The majority went to Turkey, others settled in Dobruja in Romania. In the period of communism in the 1950s and 1960s, some Romanian, German, and Hungarian women from Orșova married Turkish men from Ada Kaleh.

During the construction of the dam, some of the structures that were built on the island were relocated to the nearby Șimian Island, including part of the masonry of the fortress' catacombs, the mosque, the bazaar, Mahmut Pasha's house, the graveyard, and various other objects. However, the Ada Kaleh community decided to emigrate to Turkey after the evacuation of the island, instead of resettling on Șimian Island. A smaller part went to Dobruja, another Romanian territory with a Turkish minority, so the reconstruction of the "New Ada Kaleh" was never completed.

Ada Kaleh plays an important part in the novel of one of the most famous Hungarian authors, Mór Jókai. In the novel The Golden Man (Az Arany Ember), published in 1872, Ada Kaleh is called "No One's Isle" and it becomes an almost mythical symbol of peace, seclusion, and beauty, juxtaposed with the material outside world. In Between the Woods and the Water, the second volume of Patrick Leigh Fermor's narrative of his journey across Europe, the author describes a delightful visit in 1934 with a group of elderly inhabitants and discusses the history of the island.