Ottoman Bulgaria

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History of Bulgaria
Odrysian kingdom 460 BC – 46 AD Roman times 46–681 Dark Ages c. 6th–7th cent. Old Great Bulgaria 7th cent., 632–668 First Bulgarian Empire 681–1018 Christianization Golden Age 896–927 Cometopuli dynasty 968–1018 Byzantine Bulgaria 1018–1185 Second Bulgarian Empire 1185–1396 Second Golden Age 1230–1241 Mongol invasion 1274–1300 Recovery and expansion 1300–1371 Bulgarian–Ottoman wars 1371–1396 Ottoman Bulgaria 1396–1878 Resistance after 1413 National Revival 1762–1878 Establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate 1870 April Uprising 1876 Liberation War 1877–1878 Third Bulgarian State 1878–present Serbo-Bulgarian War 1885 Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising 1903 Balkan Wars 1912–1913 World War I 1915–1918 World War II 1941–1945 Communist era 1946–1990 Transition era since 1990
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The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, from the conquest by the Ottoman Empire of the smaller kingdoms emerging from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire in the late 14th century, to the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878. As a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the Principality of Bulgaria, a self-governing Ottoman vassal state that was functionally independent, was created. In 1885 the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia came under the control of the Bulgarian Tsar. Bulgaria declared independence in 1908.

Administrative organization[]

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The Ottomans reorganised the Bulgarian territories, dividing them into several vilayets, each ruled by a Sanjakbey or Subasi accountable to the Beylerbey. Significant parts of the conquered land were parcelled out to the Sultan's followers, who held it as benefices or fiefs (small timars, medium ziyamet and large hases) directly from him, or from the Beylerbeys. This category of land could not be sold or inherited, but reverted to the Sultan when the fiefholder died. The lands were organised as private possessions of the Sultan or Ottoman nobility, called "mülk", and also as an economic base for religious foundations, called vakιf, as well as other people. Bulgarians regularly paid multiple types of taxes, including a tithe ("yushur"), a capitation tax (jizyah), a land tax ("ispench"), a levy on commerce, and also various irregularly collected taxes, products and corvees ("avariz").

Religion[]

Christian-born Devşirme, would later serve in the elite Jannisary. In this miniature Janissaries march to the tunes played by the Mehter.

The Ottomans did not normally require the Christians to become Muslims. Nevertheless, there were many cases of individual or mass conversion, especially in the Rhodopes.^[1] According to Thomas Walker Arnold, Islam was not spread by force in the areas under the control of the Ottoman Sultan.^[2] A 17th-century author said:

Meanwhile he (the Turk) wins (converts) by craft more than by force, and snatches away Christ by fraud out of the hearts of men. For the Turk, it is true, at the present time compels no country by violence to apostatise; but he uses other means whereby imperceptibly he roots out Christianity...^[2]

Non-Muslims did not serve in the Sultan's army. The exception to this were some groups of the population with specific statute, usually used for auxiliary or rear services, and the infamous blood tax (кръвен данък), also known as devşirme, whereby every fifth young boy was taken to be trained as a warrior of the Empire. These boys went through harsh religious and military training that turned them into an elite corps subservient to the Sultan. These corps were called Janissaries (yeni çeri or "new soldier") and were an elite and loyal unit of the Ottoman army. Recruits were rarely gained through voluntarily accessions, as some parents were often eager to have their children enroll in the Janissary service that ensured them a successful career and comfort.^[2]

First revolts and the Great Powers[]

Battle of Nicopolis in the year 1396

While the Ottomans were ascendant, there was overt opposition to their rule. The first revolt began at the time Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund established the chivalric Order of the Dragon, 1408, when two Bulgarian nobles, Konstantin and Fruzhin, liberated some regions for several years. The earliest evidence of continued local resistance dates from before 1450. (alternatively Radich) was recognised by the Ottomans as a voyvoda of the Sofia region in 1413, but later he turned against them and is regarded as the first hayduk in Bulgarian history. More than a century later, two Tarnovo uprisings occurred - in 1598 (First Tarnovo Uprising) and 1686 (Second Tarnovo Uprising) around the old capital Tarnovo. Those were followed by the Catholic Chiprovtsi Uprising in 1688 and insurrection in Macedonia led by Karposh in 1689, both provoked by the Austrians as part of their long war with the Ottomans. All of the uprisings were unsuccessful and were drowned in blood. Most of them resulted in massive waves of exiles, often numbering hundreds of thousands. In 1739 the Treaty of Belgrade between Austrian empire and the Ottoman Empire ended Austrian interest in the Balkans for a century. But by the 18th century the rising power of Russia was making itself felt in the area. The Russians, as fellow Orthodox Slavs, could appeal to the Bulgarians in a way that the Austrians could not. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 gave Russia the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs to protect the Sultan's Christian subjects.

Ottoman era textile canopy from Bulgaria.

Bulgarian National Awakening and Revival[]

Bulgarian lion, a symbol of revolutionary struggle during the second half of the 19th century.

The Bulgarian National Revival was a period of socio-economic development and national integration among Bulgarian people under Ottoman rule. It is commonly accepted to have started with the historical book, Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya,^[3] written in 1762 by Paisius, a Bulgarian monk of the Hilandar monastery at Mount Athos, lead to the National awakening of Bulgaria and the modern Bulgarian nationalism, and lasted until the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.

The Millet system was a set of confessional communities in the Ottoman Empire. It referred to the separate legal courts pertaining to "personal law" under which religious communities were allowed to rule themselves under their own system. The Sultan regarded the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Constantinople Patriarchate as the leader of the Orthodox Christian peoples of his empire. After the Ottoman Tanzimat (1839–76) reforms, Nationalism arose in the Empire and the term was used for legally protected religious minority groups, similar to the way other countries use the word nation. New millets were created in 1860 and 1870.

The Bulgarian Exarchate (a de facto autocephalous Orthodox church) was created as separate Bulgarian diocese based on voted ethnic identity.^[4] It was unilaterally (without the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch) promulgated on May 23 [O.S. May 11] 1872, in the Bulgarian church in Constantinople in pursuance of the March 12 [O.S. February 28] 1870 firman of Sultan Abdülaziz of the Ottoman Empire.

The foundation of the Exarchate was the direct result of the struggle of the Bulgarian Orthodox population against the domination of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in the 1850s and 1860s. In 1872, the Patriarchate accused the Exarchate that it introduced ethno-national characteristics in the religious organization of the Orthodox Church, and the secession from the Patriarchate was officially condemned by the Council in Constantinople in September 1872 as schismatic. Nevertheless, Bulgarian religious leaders continued to extend the borders of the Exarchate in the Ottoman Empire by conducting plebiscites in areas contested by both Churches.^[5]

In this way, in the struggle for recognition of a separate Church, the modern Bulgarian nation was created under the name Bulgar Millet.^[6]

Also the Bulgarian Uniat Church was created.

Armed resistance to the Ottoman rule escalated in the third quarter of the 19th century and reached its climax with the April Uprising of 1876 that covered part of the ethnically Bulgarian territories of the empire. The uprising, along with the strategic interests of Russia on the Balkans, was a reason for the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 that ended with the establishment of an independent Bulgarian state in 1878, albeit far smaller than what Bulgarians had hoped for and what was originally proposed in the Treaty of San Stefano of 1878.

Picture of a Bulgarian family in the city of Salonika (now Thessaloniki), the Ottoman Empire, 19th century

Gallery[]

• Bulgarian man of Sofia, from Les costumes populaires de la Turquie en 1873, published under the patronage of the Ottoman Imperial Commission for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair

• Bulgarian woman of Roustchouk, from Les costumes populaires de la Turquie en 1873, published under the patronage of the Ottoman Imperial Commission for the 1873 Vienna World's Fair

See also[]

• Bulgarian Exarchate
• Ottoman Vardar Macedonia
• Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878
• Treaty of San Stefano

Footnotes[]

References[]

• DEVŞİRME USULÜ - ACEMİ OĞLANLAR OCAĞI MÜESSESESİ - article about devshirme method (in Turkish)
• "Dervisirme" in "Encyclopaedia of the Orient"
• website on the Ottoman Empire - original German version; here its Janissary page
• Papoulia, B.D., Ursprung und Wesen der “knabenlese” im Osmanischen Reich. München, 1963 (in German, title means 'origin and nature of the 'boy harvest' in the Ottoman Empire)
• A Guide to Ottoman Bulgaria by Dimana Trankova, Anthony Georgieff and Professor Hristo Matanov; published by Vagabond Media, Sofia, 2011

External links[]