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The High Western Rhodopes in the Middle Ages

Summary/Abstract: The material is a historical retrospection of the fate of the Western Rhodopes and, more precisely, of the region of Dospat, Devin and Batak. It spans the period between the Slavic settlement of the Balkan peninsula and the time of the Islamization processes in that region during the first centuries of the Ottoman domination. There is a brief review of the chief Medieval objects, evidenced by archeology. With regard to the entering of Islam among the native Bulgarian population, it is represented as a long-running process with the new faith adopted either individually or en masse in a different way – not only by force, but also as a result of gaining tax and social privileges, the inevitable change of people’s mentality, etc. Possibly, in that direction there was an influence from the views of the Medieval Bulgarian Bogomils – a “heretical” community which had its positions in the Rhodopes – as is known, it is in the Rhodopes where the Bogomil community of “Dragovichia” existed. The analogy with Bosnia and Herzegovina is indicative – the followers of Bogomilism the readopted Islam because of the hostile attitude of both the Orthodox and the Catholoc churches which had been demonstrated towards them for centuries.

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