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Orthodoxy and Bulgarian Ethnic Awareness Under Ottoman Rule, 1396-1762 Orthodoxy and Bulgarian Ethnic Awareness Under Ottoman Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Dennis P. Hupchick
Dennis P. Hupchick*
Affiliation:
Wilkes University
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Extract

By the year 1453, when the vestigial remains of the Byzantine Empire were destroyed with the fall of Constantinople, much of the Balkan peninsula was already in the hands of the conquering Ottoman Turks. The overthrow of Byzantium in that year was the capstone in a century-long process that transformed an originally militant Muslim Anatolian border emirate into a powerful Muslim empire that straddled two continents and represented a major contender in contemporary European great power politics. Over half of the population subject to the Ottoman sultan were Christian European inhabitants of the Balkans: Greeks, Serbs, Vlahs, Albanians and Bulgarians. With the conquest of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih, the victorious Turkish ruler, faced the quarrelsome problem of devising a secure means of governing his vast, Muslim-led empire that contained a highly heterogeneous non-Muslim population.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 21 , Issue 2: Special Issue - The Ex-Soviet Nationalities Without Gorbachev , Fall 1993 , pp. 75 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities of the USSR and Eastern Europe, Inc. 

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References

Notes

1. The number of ocaks in 1543 in the Bulgarian lands of the empire totalled 694, with 10 to 40 individuals in each. See N. Todorov and A. Vlekov, Situation démographique de la Péninsule balkanique (fin du XVe s. début du XVIe s. (Sofia, 1988), pp. 33–34. The total population figure includes estimated average family size for each member of the ocak as 5 persons.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., p. 33.Google Scholar

3. P. H. Petrov, Sudbonosni vekove za bulgarskata narodnost. Kraya na XIV vek-1912 godina (Sofia, 1975), pp. 141f, 293f. A general study of the process of Turkish colonization in the Bulgarian lands is N. Todorov, “Turskata kolonizatsiya i demografskite promeni v bulgarskite zemi,” Etnogenizis i kulturno nasledstvo na bulgarskata narodnost (Sofia, 1971), pp. 69–74.Google Scholar

4. Petrov, , Ibid., p. 76.Google Scholar

5. Todorov, See N., The Balkan City, 1400-1900 (Seattle, 1983), pp. 53–56. Contemporary seventeenth-century descriptions of Bulgarian urban centers can be found in: Evliya Celebi, Putepis, S. Dimitrov, ed. and trans., (Sofia, 1972); P. Durvingov, Evliya Chelebi i zapadnite bidgarski zemi. Evliya Chelebi i knizhovnite mu trudove. Turtsiya i bulgarite v XV, XVI i XVII v. (Sofia, 1943); and P. Bogdan, “Opisanie na Bulgariya ot 1640 g. na arhiepiskopa Petur Bogdan (Po sluchai 300-godishninata),” Iv. Duichev, ed. and trans., Arhiv za poselishtni prouchvaniya, II, 2 (1939-1940), pp. 174–210.Google Scholar

6. Ts. Georgieva, Enicharite v bulgarskite zemi (Sofia, 1988), pp. 95f. The ages of the Bulgarian devsirme children varied. In 1601 and 1666 the age limitations were set at between 15 and 20 years. In just one year (1623), 8,013 Bulgarian children were collected by the devsirme. See: P. H. Petrov, Po sledite na nasilieto. Dokumenti za pomohamedanchvaniya i poturchvaniya, I (Sofia, 1987, 2nd. ed.), pp. 236,243,248; P. Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1687), p. 38; and R. Knolles The Turkish History, II (London, 1687), p. 959. For the devsirme in general, see The Encyclopaedia of Islam, II, B. Lewis, C. Pellet and J. Schacht, eds., (London, 1965), pp. 21–211. For the devsirme in the Bulgarian lands, see: Georgieva, Enicharite, pp. 66f; and Petrov, Sudbonosni vekove, pp. 74f.Google Scholar

7. See Dimitrov, S., “Some Aspects of Ethnic Development, Islamization and Assimilation in Bulgarian Lands in the 15th-17th Centuries,” Aspects of the Development of the Bulgarian Nation (Sofia, 1989), pp. 47–49.Google Scholar

8. Contemporary accounts of such premeditated policy were furnished by two Englishmen who resided in Istanbul during the early to mid-seventeenth century: Sir Paul Rycaut, The Present State, pp. 37–39; and Sir Richard Knolles, The Turkish History, II, p. 920.Google Scholar

9. For the sixteenth-century mass conversions, see Petrov, Sudbonosni vekove, pp. 91f, 412, and passim.Google Scholar

10. The Rhodope conversions of Bulgarians are the most thoroughly documented and studied of such phenomena in Bulgarian history. See Hupchick, D. P., “Seventeenth-Century Bugarian Pomaks; Forced or Voluntary Converts to Islam?” Society in Change Studies in Honor of Béla K. Király, S. B. Várdy and A. H. vády, eds., (Boulder, 1983), pp. 305–13, for a summary of sources and some possible interpretations. For the word pomak, see S. N. Shishkov, Pomatsite v trite oblasti: Trakiya, Makedoniya, i Miziya, I (Plovdiv, 1914), pp. 19f, for the use of the word, as well as of others acquired by Bulgarian converts to Islam (i.e., ahryanin, torbesh, apovnik, murvak and poganik).Google Scholar

11. For details, see Hupchick, The Bulgarians in the 17th Century: A Slavonic Christian Culture under Foreign Domination (Dissertation, Pittsburgh, 1983), pp. 39f.Google Scholar

12. See Dimitrov, “Some Aspects of Ethnic Development,” pp. 41f.Google Scholar

13. Population estimates based upon data and extrapolations of data given in Ottoman taxation documents published in E. Grozdanova, Bulgarskata narodnost prez XVII vek. Demografsko izsledvane (Sofia, 1989), passim.Google Scholar

14. A brief but scholarly study of Tsamblak can be had in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences' Istoriya na bulgarskata literatura, I (Sofia, 1963), pp. 326–44.Google Scholar

15. See: Muravyov, A., Snosheniya Rossii s Vostokom po delam tserkovnym, II (St. Petersburg, 1860); and Iv. Snegarov, Kulturni i politicheski vruzki mezhdu Bulgariya i Rusiya prez XVI-XVII v. (Sofia, 1953).Google Scholar

16. For further studies of literary interrelationships between Bulgarians and Russians, see two works by Angelov, B. S.: Iz istoriyata na rusko-bulgarskite literaturni vruzki (Sofia, 1972); and “Iz istoriyata na ruskoto kulturno vliyanie v Bulgariya (XV-XVIII v.),” Izvestiya na Institut za bulgarska istoriya, VI (1956), pp. 291–325.Google Scholar

17. For the Romanian-Bulgarian cultural connection, see: E. Turdeanu, La littérature bulgare du XIVe siècle et sa diffusion dans les pays roumains (Paris, 1947), the definitive work; S. M. Romanski, “Bulgarskata knizhnina v Rumuniya i edno neino proizvedenie,” Izvestiya na Seminara po slavyanska filologiya pri Universitet v Sofiya, I (1905), pp. 1–60; and the relevant studies in Bulgaro-rumunski vruzki i otnosheniya prez vekovete, I (Sofia, 1965).Google Scholar

17. A published text of the Saga can be found in Angelov, B. S., Iz starata bulgarska, ruska i srubska literatura, II (Sofia, 1967), pp. 211–30.Google Scholar

18. See Yu. Trifanov, “Srubsko-bulgarska bezyusova redaktsiya v starata knizhnina na yuzhnite slavyani,” Makedonski pregled, XII, 2 (1940), pp. 27–55, for a detailed discussion of the differentiation between the Bulgarian and Serbian literary languages during the period. The Resava variant is specifically dealt with on pp. 46–49. In this article, Trifanov argues that the so-called Serbian variant was actually a mixed Bulgarian-Serbian language.Google Scholar

19. See Angelov, op. cit., pp. 200–4, for tracing the road taken by the Saga into the Bulgarian lands, bringing the Resava variant in its wake.Google Scholar

20. See Hupchick, The Bulgarians in the 17th Century, pp. 124f.Google Scholar

21. Paisii's work has been published numerous times by various editors. The most scholarly definitive edition is considered to be the one published by I. Ivanov, Istoriya slavenobolgarskaya sobrana i narezhdena Paisiem ieromonahom v leto 1762 (Sofia, 1914).Google Scholar

22. The Boyana and Etropole monastic beadrolls contained lists of Serbian rulers as well as of medieval Bulgarian rulers. See: S. Stanchev and M. Stancheva, Boyanskiyat pomenik (Sofia, 1963); and M. Stoyanov and H. Kodov, Opis na slavyanskite rukopisi v Sofiiskata narodna biblioteka, III (Sofia, 1964), #1017. For a listing of Bulgarian writings containing hagiographies of Sava, see those Mss (totalling 66) listed in the index of proper names to B. Hristova, D. Karadzhova and A. Ikonomova, Bulgarski rukopisi ot XI do XVIII vekzapazeni v Bulgariya. Svoden katalog, I (Sofia, 1982). For the relics of Uros in Sofia, see: S. Gerlach, Dnevnik (Tagbuch) na edno putuvane do Osmanskata porta v Tsarigrad, M. Kiselincheva, trans., (Sofia, 1976), p. 264; and Bogdan, “Opisanie,” pp. 182–83.Google Scholar

23. For a brief analysis of the 17th-Century sbornik, see Dinekov, P., “Bulgarskata literatura prez XVII v.,” Literaturna istoriya, I (1977), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

24. A brief biography of Studite is furnished in the excellent study of damaskin literature by D. Petkanova-Toteva, Damaskinite v bulgarskata literatura (Sofia, 1965), pp. 6–12.Google Scholar

25. Sprostranov, E., Opis na rukopisite na bibliotekata na Rilskiya manastir (Sofia, 1902), #78.Google Scholar

26. Petkanova-Toteva lists and describes all of the Bulgarian damaskins on pp. 237–55 of her major study of the genre.Google Scholar

27. See D. P. Hupchick, “17th-century Developments in Bulgarian Education: Laying the Groundwork for Modernity,” Bulgarian Historical Review, XVI, 2 (1988), pp. 42, 44.Google Scholar

28. For full details on this subject, see Ibid., esp. pp. 33f,44f. Historical scholarship in the past has tended to play down or denigrate outright the Bulgarian cell school system of education on the grounds that it was too limited and intrinsically impractical for secular applications. By the opening of the nationalist period in the late eighteenth century such evaluations certainly were correct, but within the context of the pre-national conditions with which this study deals, the new developments in cell school education were significant. It was the changes wrought by the passing of the pre-national eras that ossified the cell school system and rendered it obsolete.Google Scholar

29. This version of the story of Constantine was contained in the Sliven, the two Dryanovo, and the Tryavna damaskins from the seventeenth century. See: B. Tsonev, Opis na slavyanskite rukopisi v Sofiiskata narodna biblioteka, II (Sofia, 1923), #709, 710,711; and H. Kodov, Opis na slavyanskite rukopisi v bibliotekata na Bulgarskata akademiya na naukite (Sofia, 1969), #89.Google Scholar

30. Kovachev, M., Bulgarski ktitorski v Sveta-Gora. Istoricheski ocherk, izsledvaniya i dokumenti (Sofia, 1943), pp.150, 152, gives the two tsar lists.Google Scholar

31. The Zograf beadroll is published in I. Ivanov, Bulgarski starini iz Makedoniya (Sofia, 1931), pp. 489f.Google Scholar