Ottoman buildings in Romania and their conservation problems

This study aims to identify the artifacts built by Ottoman Empire in Romania through the period when Eflak, situated in Romania nowadays, was first dominated by Ottoman Empire in 1393 and in 1457 under the leadership by Yıldırım Bayezid and Fatih Sultan Mehmed respectively, and later terminated its sovereignty by Berlin treaty during Ottoman-Russian War (1877-1878). At the end of the research, it was revealed that there were totally 354 monuments built in Ottoman period and only 73 monuments of them could reach to the present day. These 73 monuments consist of 44 mosques, 4 shrines, 21 fountains, 3 inns and 1 bath. 281 monuments left out of use because of both communist regime and abandoning of muslim people were demolished deliberatively and systematically. The facts that %53 of the extinct monuments took place out of Dobruca and there is no muslim population out of Dobruca can be indicated as one of the important reasons for this destruction. Hence, this can be explained that nearly all of the extant monuments take place in Dobruca and muslim population in Dobruca adopts the monuments. There has not been any study which investigates all of monuments in Romania architecturally so far. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the area with regard to providing a detailed investigation and document all the monuments which were swiftly demolished by both natural conditions and political reasons. Another contribution of the present study for the researchers might be tracking all changes of the extant monuments choronologically during the period from 1574 to 1922 in Romania. Furthermore, the present study suggests some precautions for protecting physcial conditions of the extant monuments and handing down it to the next generations.