Cholera, Quarantines and Social Modernisation at the Danube Border of the Ottoman Empire: The Romanian Experience between 1830 and 1859


 This study focuses on the history of the quarantine system established at the naval border of the Romanian Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia) between 1830 and 1859. We survey both the state’s ability to organise defences against contagious diseases and the society’s reaction to strict quarantine rules. In the end, we show that the Danube quarantine was not only a means of combating contagious diseases but also an instrument of pressure, surveillance and state regulation. To reconstruct an image of that period, we used information from five categories of sources: archive documents, health legislation, the press of the time, memoirs and diplomatic reports. By bringing the Romanian quarantine experience to the foreground, this study broadens both the perspective on quarantines and modernisation in the Romanian Principalities and also the knowledge regarding the free movement, politics and economy at the Danube border of the Ottoman Empire.