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Enisala is a beautiful medieval fortress strategically built at the beginning of the 14th century on the top of the Gras Hill (116 m) located west of Razim Lake, which at that time had great maritime importance as a bay on the Black Sea. Thus, the fortress supervised the sea and land routes in the coastal area. The fortress is located about 2 km from the village of Enisala, 11 km east of Babadag and about 100 km north of Constanta. After the last series of archaeological research (1991-1999), the fortress was partially rebuilt and arranged for tourism.
The Enisala fortress is shrouded in an aura of mystery because there are still question marks and conflicting opinions about the name, origin and history of the fortress.
Everyone agrees that the name Enisala represents the romanian of the term "Yeni-Sale", meaning "New Village", "Yeni" in Turkish meaning "new", and "Sale" in the Slavic languages and not in Turkish (as wrongly is often mentioned) meaning "village". Incidentally, in Bulgarian, the settlement is called Novoe Selo = New Village. Archeological historians point out that the common speculation regarding the perpetuation of the name "new village" since Roman antiquity after the Latin inscription (Vicus Novus = New Village) identified in the area is "improbable or impossible", given the long hiatus of habitation. Anyway, in another order of ideas, the Enisala village area is very rich in archaeological sites that determine different periods of habitation, namely the Eneolithic, Bronze, Iron, Roman and Medieval ages.
On the other hand, there is currently no document attesting who built the fortress and why. The land of Dobrogea at that time was under the rule of the Tatars of the Golden Horde, but there are no arguments to accuse them of being great founders. On the other hand, important architectural details absolutely similar to those of the Carsium Citadel (Hârșova) and the enclosure wall in Constanta, which we know for sure were built by the Genoese, make them guilty of raising the fortress. And of course it is so, because at that time Genoa was a great European commercial and maritime power, it had the commercial monopoly in the Black Sea and it also had other fortresses in the maritime area and the Danube: Chilia, Vicina, Likostomion, White Fortress, Caffa (in Crimea).
Also, the hypothesis of building the fortress on an older, Byzantine fortification from the 10th-11th centuries, is not confirmed, as is the name attributed to that hypothetical fortress, Heracleea, a name that has been widely circulated in popularization articles.
Towards the end of the 14th century, Enisala Fortress and all of Dobrogea became part of the Wallachia led by the great voivode Mircea the Elder "lord ... as far as the Great Sea". Shortly after his death (1418), Dobrogea, including Enisala, gradually came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks enjoyed this fortress for only about two centuries. The strategic role of the fortress was reduced to a minimum for two different reasons: on the one hand, the Ottomans expanded their territory to the north beyond the Danube, and on the other hand, the mouth of the former Razim Bay was blocked with a coastal strip, the bay turning into in the lake. The last commander of the Turkish garrison is known in 1651, after which the fortress was abandoned. To the delight of today's tourists, this early abandonment of the fortress is of great importance because following the Russo-Turkish wars, through the Peace of Adrianople in 1829, which ordered that all fortresses with Turkish garrisons be destroyed, the Enisala Fortress survived. And so Enisala remained the only medieval fortress in Dobrogea.
Enisala fortress has two enclosures. The inner enclosure, in fact the fortress, also so-called „The Castle” has an irregular polygonal, almost trapezoidal shape, the walls up to 3 m thick and 6-7 m high being reinforced by 4 corner towers and 3 buttresses. Among the towers, the southern one from the area of the main gate of the fortress, stands out in terms of size. It has a hexagonal profile and rises 6 m above the wall. A kind of vault in the wall next to the northern tower has been interpreted as a secondary, rescue gate. This was necessary because only to the north, about 50 m from the fortress, on the break line of the slope, another fortified wall with 5 towers was built. Very little of this wall has been preserved. Inside the "castle" there is not muchto see. Attached to the southern wall is the former tank for water.
Next to the "castle", in a small, new building, a museum has been set up that presents the natural setting of the Enisala area and the history of the fortress.
15 мар 2024
