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Rumelia (Ottoman Turkish:روم ايلى,romanized: Rum İli,lit. 'Land of theRomans';[a]Turkish:Rumeli;Greek:Ρωμυλία) was ahistorical region inSoutheastern Europe that was administered by theOttoman Empire, roughly corresponding to theBalkans. In its wider sense, it was used to refer to all Ottoman possessions andvassals inEurope. These would later be geopolitically classified as "the Balkans", althoughHungary andMoldova are sometimes excluded.[1][2] In contemporary English sources, Rumelia was known asTurkey in Europe.
In this context,Rûm means “Romans” andėli means “land”, henceRumelia (Ottoman Turkish:روم ايلى,Rūm-ėli; Turkish:Rumeli) literally “Land of the Romans” inOttoman Turkish. The term referred to territories of theOttoman Empire in Europe that had formerly belonged to theByzantine Empire (the empire known to its own rulers and subjects as theRoman Empire), whose citizens styled themselvesRhomaioi (“Romans”). Although Greek became the predominant administrative and liturgical language, the empire was multiethnic and its Roman identity was civic and imperial rather than purely linguistic or ethnic.
In medieval Islamic and Ottoman usage,Rûm denoted the lands and peoples of the Roman Empire centred onConstantinople, not the medieval Latin West. TheSeljuks calledAnatolia “the land ofRûm” after its gradual conquest from Byzantium following theBattle of Manzikert (1071). Their Anatolian polity was known to contemporaries as theSultanate of Rum, meaning a sultanate established in the lands of the Romans; it was centred in central Anatolia until the defeat at theBattle of Köse Dağ (1243), after which it fragmented into theAnatolian beyliks.
With theOttoman expansion across Anatolia and into the Balkans, and especially after thefall of Constantinople in 1453,Rumeli came to apply primarily to the empire’s European provinces in the Balkans. The region remained largely Christian for centuries, while processes of Islamisation affected some populations, includingAlbanians,Bosniaks and certain communities amongGreeks,Serbs,Bulgarians andVlachs.
The term “Roman” for the Byzantine polity also appears in Western sources. Latin documents, including those fromGenoa, frequently usedRomania as a name for the Byzantine Empire during theMiddle Ages.[3]
The name survives in several Balkan languages:Albanian:Rumelia;Bulgarian:Румелия,Rumeliya;Greek:Ρωμυλία,Romylía, andGreek:Ρούμελη,Roúmeli;Macedonian:Румелија,Rumelija;Serbo-Croatian:Румелија,Rumelija; andRomanian:Rumelia. Manygrand viziers,viziers,pashas andbeylerbeyis were of Rumelian origin.
Rumelia comprised the Ottoman lands in the Balkans, notablyThrace,Macedonia and much ofMoesia—covering most of present-dayBulgaria,North Macedonia,Western Thrace inGreece, and the Turkish part ofEastern Thrace. It was bounded to the north by theSava andDanube, to the west by theAdriatic, and to the south by theMorea. The beylerbey’s seat was first atPlovdiv (Filibe) and later atSofia.[4] The name "Rumelia" was ultimately applied to a province composed of central Albania and northwestern Macedonia, withBitola being the main town.
Following theadministrative reorganization made by the Ottoman government between 1870 and 1875, the nameRumelia ceased to correspond to any political division.Eastern Rumelia was constituted as an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire by theTreaty of Berlin (1878),[4] but on September 6, 1885, after a bloodless revolution, it wasunited withBulgaria.[5] TheKosovo Vilayet was created in 1877.[6]
InTurkey, the wordTrakya (Thrace) has now mostly replacedRumeli (Rumelia) to refer to the part of Turkey that is in Europe (the provinces ofEdirne,Kırklareli,Tekirdağ, the northern part ofÇanakkale Province and the western part ofIstanbul Province). However, "Rumelia" remains in use in historical contexts and is still used in the context of the culture of the current Turkish populations of the Balkans and the descendants of Turkish immigrants from the Balkans. The region in Turkey is also referred to asEastern Thrace, or Turkish Thrace. InGreece, the termΡούμελη (Rumeli) has been used since Ottoman times to refer toCentral Greece, especially when it is juxtaposed with thePeloponnese or Morea. The wordRumeli is also used in some cases, mostly in Istanbul, to refer exclusively to the part of Istanbul Province that is west of theBosphorus strait.
Many Western observers held Hungary to be one of the nations of the Balkans. But Hungary never regarded itself as part of that region, especially since the term 'Balkans' carried negative connotations.
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