Sharing the Lower Danube During the Cold War

Project Information

FluidBorder

Grant agreement ID: 101207821

DOI

10.3030/101207821

Project terminated on 30 April 2026

EC signature date 19 March 2025

Start date 3 November 2025

End date 2 November 2027

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 226 420,56

Coordinated by

FONDATION NATIONALE DES SCIENCES POLITIQUES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FluidBorder (Sharing the Lower Danube During the Cold War)

Reporting period: 2025-11-03 to 2027-11-02

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project “FLUIDBORDER. Sharing the Lower Danube During the Cold War” investigates the complex and often fraught relationship between Romania and Bulgaria along their shared Danube frontier during the second half of the twentieth century. The two countries share more than 450 kilometers of riparian border. For over four decades, both were governed by communist regimes and belonged to the same ideological bloc. Yet, despite their political and ideological alignment, only two bridges connect the two banks, no joint hydropower plant was ever completed, and cooperation on navigation or environmental management remains limited even today.
This raises a set of key questions: Why did a common political allegiance fail to transform the Danube into a space of cooperation? To what extent did the river’s management influence bilateral diplomacy between Bucharest and Sofia? How did the lower Danube and its hydrological dynamics shape Romanian–Bulgarian dialogue, and conversely, to what degree did Cold War transboundary governance influence the river’s present ecological and infrastructural configuration?
By addressing these questions, FLUIDBORDER pursues three overarching research objectives:
O1. To pave the way for a nuanced understanding of the relationship between communism and the environment, highlighting the multiple factors that shaped management strategies in Eastern Europe and the extent to which these evolved across the region.
O2. To offer a new perspective on international relations within the so-called Communist Bloc, underscoring the often-overlooked role of natural resource management in strengthening—or undermining—the diplomatic ties between ideologically aligned states.
O3. To provide the first historical account of the lower Danube’s evolution during the second half of the twentieth century, demonstrating how the river itself served alternately as a catalyst for cooperation and as a source of dispute between the two regimes.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the reporting period, substantial progress was achieved despite the fellowship being shorter than originally planned following the award of a tenure-track position. The project advanced significantly, establishing a strong basis for its continuation.

The work began with an extensive literature review and the development of a detailed research strategy, providing the methodological framework for the project.

A major accomplishment was the archival research mission conducted in Romania, where hundreds of primary historical documents were collected from national archives. These materials enabled the validation of several initial research hypotheses. The collected sources were subsequently translated, organized, and systematically analysed.

The research generated important findings on the management of the Lower Danube during the Cold War, demonstrating the differing approaches adopted by Romania and Bulgaria toward transboundary river governance, navigation, and energy development. The archival evidence highlighted Romania's emphasis on national sovereignty in river management, while revealing Bulgaria's stronger support for regional integration, although always pursuing its own economic interests. Preliminary analysis also identified the environmental consequences of large-scale hydropower projects, particularly the downstream effects of the Iron Gates dams on the Bulgarian riverbank.


Although the shortened duration of the fellowship prevented the completion of some planned activities—including archival research in Bulgaria, preparation of a journal article, and broader public outreach—the work completed during the six-month period established a robust research foundation, confirmed the project's main hypotheses, expanded the documentary evidence available for future research, and positioned the project for successful continuation in the new academic appointment.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Current historiographical production on the relationship between Eastern European communism and the environment has only superficially explored the socio-political, physical, and cultural context in which environmental concerns and management strategies of the different regimes emerged, why they materialized at specific historical junctures, and how they evolved over the years. FluidBorder will innovate the current state of the art by engaging more actively with theoretical approaches developed outside the field of political history, thus problematizing the current interpretative framework. FluidBorder builds on the assumption that analyzing communist approaches to the environment only in terms of ecocide or environmentalism risks being overly simplistic. A variety of political, ecological, economic, and scientific factors influenced how Eastern European regimes approached nature and its management. These factors considerably diverged across the region, frequently thwarting transnational cooperation schemes. FluidBorder will examine these factors, thus gaining a complete and nuanced understanding of human-nature relationship between 1945 and 1989.

Moreover, no study addressed the everyday management of a fundamental natural resource shared by two communist states, the power dynamics embedded in it, nor the active role of nature in shaping their bilateral relationships. By retracing the trajectory of the lower Danube’s management, FluidBorder will add complexity to the history of communist international relations, going beyond analysis overly focused on high politics and economics.

Lastly, FluidBorder will fill an important gap in European environmental history: the history of the Danube river in the second half of the XX century. Surprisingly, Europe’s second-longest river remains marginal to the new wave of studies on international watercourses. The Austrian section of the river has received the most attention . Even for the Cold War period, the upper and the mid-section are the most studied. As for the lower Danube, valuable monographs have appeared over the past few years, featuring specific attention to the international dimension of river management. Still, they focus on the early-modern period or the first half of the XX century. Besides a few sporadic exceptions, no study has been dedicated to the post-WWII period and the attempts to use the river as a tool of communist integration. FluidBorder will insert, for the first time, the Danube the Danube into the historiographic account of Cold War Southeastern Europe.