MASTERING OF THE SPACE IN THE HINTERLAND OF THE TOWN OF EDIRNE: CONTINUITY AND CHANGES (14th-16th C.)

Author(s): Stefan Dimitrov / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

This article examines and analyses the degree of succession among the settlements which existed in the pre-Ottoman and the Ottoman period in the northern hinterland of the city of Adrianople /Edirne/ in the period of 14th – 16th century; the changes in their status which occurred after the establishment of the new Ottoman authority and the demographic development changes of the Muslim and non-Muslim population in the settlements. The present survey highlights three settlements – Skutarion, Bukelon and Provaton which in the Middle Ages were part of a group of castles protecting Adrianople from the North. After the conquest of the Balkans and their inclusion into the Ottoman military – administrative system their status changed and the three castles were transformed into centers of administrative units. Our conclusions draw on the achievements of contemporary historiography and on information, found in unpublished Ottoman tax registers from the collections of the Ottoman archives in Istanbul (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi).

“THE BULGARIAN SALONICA”

Author(s): Yura Konstantinova / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The Balkan Wars put an end to the Bulgarian presence in Salonica, but not to the Bulgarian imagination relative to the city. Almost until the second decade of the 20th c. Ottoman Salonica used to be a bigger, richer and more modern city than the Bulgarian capital. It evoked much feeling and interest among Bulgarians, who saw in it many economic, political and cultural opportunities. For Bulgarians, however, Salonica was primarily linked with their freedom fighting, so its image is dominated by themes of death and self-sacrifice, of fear and courage, of prisons and concentration camps. To them it is simultaneously a city of prisons and a city of light, a city of youth and nostalgia, of education and pogrom, of economic opportunity and wasted effort.

ON THE PAST, MEMORY, RECOLLECTIONS AND HISTORY OF THE BULGARIANS IN “SIMVASILEVUSA”

Author(s): Malamir Spasov / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

In the past one feels at home. One comes from that home, where the ones before him are, to go back one day and become one of them, a home for those that are to come. Think of it, that home is in one and one is that home. That’s why the past is cozy. Our awareness of the past is rooted in memory. Memory permeates all aspects of our life. Even our present is largely dedicated to memory, insofar as we spend a great part of it in fortifying our ties with the past. Our memory of the past is an indispensable condition for our sense of identity. We need the collective memory, i.e. the recollections of others, in order to affirm our own recollections, and in this way give them value. The opposite is also fully true, for life is fundamentally dialogical and the discovery of self is unthinkable without the others. If memory and history are processes penetrating the past, the vestiges of the past would put one on the track of processes that have produced that past. Often such traces are sparse, which makes them all the more valuable. Sometimes a few old photographs are the only remnants that have remained in place of one’s roots. In other cases only recollections replace places left long ago. Well, such places don’t have to be outstanding in order to be unforgettable. For many Bulgarians Salonica is just that kind of place. But Salonica is not some ordinary, unremarkable and insignificant city.

Средновековната крепост и манастир Урвич край София в светлината на български и западноевропейски извори

Author(s): Nikolay Ovcharov,Dimitar Stoimenov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2020

The two authors dwell on the much commented in recent years interesting medieval Fortress of Urvich near the village of Kokalyane in the vicinity of Sofia. According to the findings of the archaeological excavations, a fortification was built on the steep slope as early as the 4th–6th centuries to safeguard the important road. Abandoned in the time of the Barbarian invasions, it was reconstructed during the First Bulgarian Empire in the 10th–11th centuries. The fortification developed rapidly and flourished particularly during the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 12th–14th centuries. There are documents evidencing that Urvich was involved actively in the defence of Sofia against the Ottoman invasion and suffered the same unfortunate fate as the big city. The excavations show that in the 15th–17th centuries an important Christian monastery was founded on the ruins of the fortress; the monastery was burnt to ashes by the Ottomans during the Bulgarian uprisings inspired by the Austro-Turkish Wars in the late 17th – the first half of the 18th centuries. Information from various historical sources on the fate of the Urvich Fortress is gathered and analysed in this article. The earliest is a seal from the 11th century, belonging to the Byzantine aristocrat Nikolay Οὐρβίτζιον – the Greek spelling for the Bulgarian “Urvich”. Worthy of note is the rich Bulgarian folklore tradition, describing the resistance of the Bulgarians against the Ottoman invasion, where the Urvich Fortress is repeatedly mentioned. In this regard, it is mentioned also in the Slavo- Bulgarian History completed in 1762 by Paisius of Hilendar. A definite contribution of the two authors is the discovery that Urvich was mentioned as Oruitro in several Western European travelogues and road maps from the 17th and18th centuries. Their descriptions and designations make it clear that at that time the walls of the ancient fortress were preserved in good height, and that there was a “beautiful monastery” within the walls. This description corresponds and corroborates fully the data from the archaeological excavations.

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS WITH SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS IN THE BALKAN TOWN. URBAN VOYNUKS AND FALCONERS IN THE 16th CENTURY

Author(s): Krastyo Yordanov / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The fate of the representatives of these two categories of population in three towns of today’s Bulgaria (Plovdiv, Sofia and Vratsa) is followed in the article on the basis of several unpublished Ottoman registers of voynuks and falconers from the Central Balkans from the 16th century. Their social and economic status, as well as their service lands, and their ethnoreligious and organizational structure are examined. As far as the source basis allows it, an attempt was made to show the reflection of the urban life on the livelihood and the way of living of these Christians. Although voynuks and falconers were predominantly rural population, permanently bound to agriculture through their service lands (bashtinas), in the 16th century we also find their presence in the towns of the Central Balkans and, in particular, in the Bulgarian lands. Some of the voynuks and falconers had actually been residents of the towns for a long time. But data from the registers shows that most of these people were in fact migrants from villages in the region around large towns which were directly linked to town markets. Very often the service lands of voynuks and falconers were still in one of the nearby villages, although their owners had permanently settled in towns. It is possible that those voynuks and falconers, who had long lived in towns, also had rural descent. As the voynuks and falconers who settled in towns were predominantly Orthodox Bulgarians, their settlement was around the roads on which towns were gradually becoming Bulgarian or the numbers of the Bulgarian Orthodox community was kept constant. Voynuks and falconers who permanently settled in towns adapted to the town’s trade and artisanal lifestyle. This is proved by the fact that sometimes their service bashtinas included their trade and craft shops and only a few vineyards, orchard and vegetable gardens in the complete absence of arable lands ( fields). This shows that they relied entirely on craftsmanship, trade and the markets of large towns to provide for their families.

PROTESTANTS IN A BALKAN TOWN: THE ACTIVITIES OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARIES AMONG THE BULGARIANS IN BITOLA (19th – EARLY 20th CENTURY)

Author(s): Elmira Vassileva / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The most influential Protestant society which operated in the Ottoman Empire was the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Its mission station in Monastir (Bitola) was active from 1873 to 1920. There were several aspects of the Protestant activities in the town: evangelistic, educational, literary, medical and relief work. The mission was oriented predominantly towards the Bulgarian population. In addition, the Americans attempted to widen their missionary field, the Albanians being the most responsive. The greatest achievements of the Protestant Mission in Bitola were the establishment of the American Girls’ Boarding School and the Bulgarian Evangelical Church.

Росица Лельова. Българските градски общини в Македония 1878–1903. София, ИК „Гутенберг“, 2016. 370 с. + 1 цв. Карта. ISBN 978-619-1760-89-3

Author(s): Dimitar Hristov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2020

Book Review

Никола Стоянов. Живот и дейност: Мемоари (1875–1939). Дневник (1940–1944). Състав.: Калинка Анчова, Алека Стрезова София, издателство на Нов български университет, 2020. 771 с. + ил. ISBN 978-619-233-102-3

Author(s): Nikolay Poppetrov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2020

Book Review

The Emergence of Turkish Ḥurūfism in the 15th Century Anatolia and its Reflection in the Early Ottoman Literature

Author(s): Slobodan Ilić / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2020

After the notorious persecution of its Khurasani protagonists, profiting from the political and ideological vacuum of the interregnum and the upsurge of the Shiite propaganda of the late 15th century, the Hurufi teaching penetrated Eastern and Central Anatolia, partly disguised under the tenets of different Batini indoctrinated groups, making these regions by the end of the century, its new stronghold. The main stage of the events became the Ottoman lands. Particularly in the years after the Ankara disaster of 1402, Asia Minor and the Balkans became a fertile soil for all unorthodox doctrines, especially those, like Hurufi one, nurturing apocalyptic or messianic expectations. Simultaneously, Persian and the Gurgani vernacular retreated before the Anatolian Turkish as its written medium. The paper concentrates on the exegetical attempts of the second generation of Fażl Allāh Astarābādī (d. 1394)’s disciples, in particular the first Turkish translations and commentaries on his seminal works.

The Emergence of the Pomaks in the Ottoman Sources and Etymology of the Term Pomak

Author(s): Aşkın Koyuncu / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2020

Pomaks, a Bulgarian speaking community based on a religious identity emerged as a result of Islamization process which occurred among the local Slavic people in the regions of Loveč, the Rhodope Mountains, Western Thrace and Macedonia during the Ottoman period in the 15th–18th centuries. It is stated in the literature that the term Pomak was first used in Bulgarian sources in 1812, in British sources in 1833 and in French sources in 1840 to identify Bulgarian speaking Muslims living in the Loveč region. In this study, after examining the process of Islamization, the terms used to define Pomaks, and appearing of the term in the international literature, based on some new and unused Ottoman sources I will show that the term Pomak used by the Ottomans earlier than previously assumed. According to my findings, the Pomak term was first used in Ottoman sources in the 17th century regarding statesmen that were of Pomak origin. But as a separate community Pomaks emerged for the first time in Ottoman sources during the 1806–1812 Russo-Ottoman War. State Chronicler Şanizade Mehmed Ataullah Efendi recorded that around 10–14.000 soldiers were recruited from among the Loveč Pomaks and also described them as a military element, in 1809. Besides, Ottoman documents reveal that during this war, the Pomaks ambushed and defeated the Russian troops entering the Balkan Mountains and played an active role in defending the Loveč region in general. However, Ottoman documents also indicate that some apostate Pomaks together with volunteer Bulgarians joined the Russian army and attacked to Loveč in 1811 January. The earliest record defining the Bulgarian speaking Muslims in the Rhodope Mountains as Pomaks in Ottoman sources, was dated 1833. In addition, after looking at the views about the origin and identity of the Pomaks among the Bulgarian intellectuals and western circles in the 1860s–1870s, I will also be examining the etymology of the term Pomak in view of the Ottoman sources which support the thesis that term Pomak come from the Bulgarian word pomagači (helpers).

OCJENE I PRIKAZI

Author(s): Hilmo Neimarlija,Fikret Karčić,Enes Pelidija,Edin Radušić,Ruhulah Hodžić,Ahmed Zildžić,Sead Bandžović,Mirza Sarajkić,Amer Maslo,Emina Mostić,Hadžija Hadžiabdić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 41/2020

Review of: Hilmo Neimarlija - Enes Karić i Mustafa Spahić, NASUPROT ZLU : MUSLIMANSKE REZOLUCIJE IZ 1941. – ZAJEDNIČKA IZJAVA IZ 2015, Sarajevo: El-Kalem, 2019, 120 str. Fikret Karčić - David Motadel, ISLAM AND NAZI GERMANY’S WAR, Cambridge Mass., The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014, 512 str. Enes Pelidija - Šerbo Rastoder, MURTEZA KARAĐUZOVIĆ (1865–1941) : MUFTIJA CRNOGORSKIH MUSLIMANA, Podgorica: Almanah, 2019, 326 str. Edin Radušić - Aladin Husić, KADILUK TEŠANJ U DRUGOJ POLOVINI 18. STOLJEĆA (TEŠANJ, MAGLAJ I ŽEPČE U SVJETLU AKATA TEŠANJSKOG SUDA), Sarajevo: Gazi Husrev-begova biblioteka u Sarajevu, 2020, 304 str. Ruhulah Hodžić - ZBORNIK RADOVA PRVE MEĐUNARODNE KONFERENCIJE O ZAŠTITI PISANOG NASLIJEĐA, SARAJEVO 16. i 17. 9. 2019, Sarajevo: Gazi Husrev-begova biblioteka u Sarajevu, 2020, 233 str. Ahmed Zildžić - Munir Mujić, MOĆ I GRANICE KOMENTARA: KOMENTAR AL-MAQĀME AL-RŪMIYYE NEPOZNATOG AUTORA, Sarajevo: Centar za napredne studije (CNS) i Orijentalni institut Univerziteta u Sarajevu, 2020, 248 str. Sead Bandžović - Fikret Karčić, SHARIʻA COURTS IN YUGOSLAVIA 1918–1941, Sarajevo: Center for Advanced Studies, 2019, 196 str. Mirza Sarajkić - Esad Duraković, CLASSICAL POETRY IN THE ARABIC, PERSIAN AND TURKISH LANGUAGES: A POETOLOGICAL APPROACH, Translated by Selma Đuliman, Ankara: Turkish Academy of Sciences, 2019, 269 str. Amer Maslo - Olga Zirojević, IZ OSMANSKE BAŠTINE, Beograd: Balkanski centar za Bliski istok, 2018, 157 str. Emina Mostić - Ahmed Zildžić, I PRIJATELJ I NEPRIJATELJ: RANO OSMANSKO DRUŠTVO I IBN ʻARABĪ, Univerzitet u Sarajevu, Orijentalni institut, Posebna izdanja LXI, Sarajevo, 2020, 261 str. Hadžija Hadžiabdić - Nurija Agić, BOSNA U EVROPSKIM ENCIKLOPEDIJAMA ili Hronologija krivotvorenja historijske logike, Bosanska riječ, Tuzla 2019, 421 str.

UNKNOWN 19th CENTURY ATHONITE POEM ABOUT A QUARREL FOR LAND AND CHOLERA

Author(s): Cyril Pavlikyanov / Language(s): English,Greek, Modern (1453-) Issue: 1/2021

The article analyses an Athonite poetical text which describes a conflict between the monasteries of Zographou and Chilandar over landed property situated inside the Holy Mountain. It refers to no place names, but pays special attention to the visit of a nameless Ottoman governor of Thessalonica, accompanied by the consuls of France, Russia and Austria, to Mount Athos. His intention was to solve the difference and to reconcile the two monasteries, but his efforts failed. He then granted a special document (ilam) to Zographou, and met an unnamed ex-patriarch of Constantinople in the monastery of Espigmenou. The authorized representatives of Zographou and Chilandar, Dositheos and Onouphrios, travelled to Constantinople in order to present the case to the sultan’s court, but during their stay in Istanbul cholera struck the city and the final decision was postponed until the end of the epidemy. Three Greek and two Turkish documents make it clear that Zographou and Chilandar were claiming the terrain of Giovantza on the northwest coast of Mount Athos as well as that the conflict was rather important for the two monasteries.

“Showered with Privileges by Our Government:” Russian Self-Presentation to Muslim Communities in Ottoman Syria

Author(s): Paul du Quenoy / Language(s): English Issue: 40/2020

Traditional scholarship of Russia’s involvement in the Middle East has focused on confessional politics, usually arguing that Russian policies were designed to support the region’s minority Orthodox Christian populations to build pro-Russian constituencies among them. Important as this work is, it has devoted relatively little attention to Russian interaction with the region’s other confessional communities, including, oddly, its Muslims. Following the work of Edward Said and other theorists of “Orientalism,” some work on that relationship has argued that Russians looked down upon Middle Eastern Muslims, finding them in some contexts inferior and primitive, in others similar enough to provoke unsettling challenges to the assumption by Russians of a “Western” identity, and in still others simply uninteresting. More recent studies, however, have argued that this interpretation is neither consistent with the Russian Empire’s treatment of its own large domestic Muslim population nor uniformly accurate in its interactions with Muslims beyond its borders.

MUSTAFA IMAMOVIĆ, HISTORIJA BOŠNJAKA

Author(s): Robert Holjevac / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 3/2000

Review of: Robert Holjevac - Mustafa IMAMOVIĆ, Historija Bošnjaka, Sarajevo 1996

Prikazi i osvrti

Author(s): Aleksandar Horvat,Hrvoje Miletić,Nikola Cik,Gabrijela Baričić,Miroslav Akmadža,Tizian RASPOR,Ivan Milec,Ana Rajković,Domagoj Đerek,Milan Vrbanus,Anđelko Vlašić,Josip Parat,Franjo Lacković / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 20/2020

Review of: Franjo Lacković - Henrik MOURITSEN: Politics in the Roman Republic. Key themes in ancient history (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 202 str. ISBN 978-1-107-65133-3. Josip Parat - Branka MIGOTTI, Marjeta ŠAŠEL KOS, Ivan RADMAN-LIVAJA: Roman Funerary Monuments of South-Western Pannonia in their Material, Social, and Religious Context (Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd, 2018). 275 str. ISBN 978-178969-021-7. Nikola Cik - Drago ROKSANDIĆ: Čovjek i prostor, čovjek u okolišu (Ekohistorijski ogledi) (Zagreb: Izdavačka kuća Meridijani, 2018). 432 str. ISBN 978-953-239-209-8. Anđelko Vlašić - Antal MOLNÁR: Confessionalization on the Frontier. The Balkan Catholics between Roman Reform and Ottoman Reality (Rim: Viella, 2019). 266 str. ISBN 978-883313-080-4. Milan Vrbanus - Denis NJARI: Popis katoličkog stanovništva u istočnoj Slavoniji 1767. godine / A kelet-szlavóniai katolikus lakosság 1767. évi összeírása (Osijek - Pečuh: Državni arhiv u Osijeku – Pečuški biskupijski arhiv, 2019). 1121 str. + 2 karte. ISBN 978-953-6446-75-9. Domagoj Đerek - Dinko ČUTURA: Stjepan Sarkotić – posljednji zemaljski poglavar Bosne i Hercegovine (Zagreb: AGM, 2019). 491 str. ISBN 978-953-174-510-9. Ana Rajković - Dubravka ZIMA: Praksa svijeta. Biografija Ivane Brlić-Mažuranić (Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak, 2019). 415 str. ISBN 978-953-355-336-8. Ivan Milec - Krešimir REGAN: Sporazum ili nesporazum? Srpsko pitanje u Banovini Hrvatskoj (1939.-1941.) (Zagreb: Breza, 2019). 397 str. ISBN 978-953-8139-29-1. Tizian Raspor - Max BERGHOLZ: Nasilje kao generativna sila: identitet, nacionalizam i sjećanje u jednoj balkanskoj zajednici, prev. Senada Kreso (Sarajevo-Zagreb: Buybook, 2018). 410 str. ISBN 978-953-8226168. Miroslav Akmadža - Nenad BUKVIĆ: Privid demokracije. Sabor u prvim godinama komunističke Hrvatske (1945.-1953.) (Zagreb: Hrvatski državni arhiv, 2018). 631 str. ISBN 978-953-7659-60-8. Gabrijela Baričić - Roman DOMOVIĆ: U zasjedi dezinformacija. Informacijske operacije u medijskom prikazu Domovinskog rata. (Zagreb: Hrvatski memorijalno- dokumentacijski centar Domovinskog rata, Tehničko veleučilište Zagreb, 2019). 239 str. ISBN 978-953-7439-91-0. Nikola Cik - Luka JAKOPČIĆ: Gladijadori: povijest svakodnevnog života u Hrvatskoj s pokojom turističkom preporukom (Zagreb: Recider projekt, 2019). 308 str. ISBN 978-953-488-230-6. Hrvoje Miletić - Zbornik Muzeja Đakovštine, sv. 14, gl. ur. Borislav Bijelić (Đakovo: Muzej Đakovštine, 2019). 351 str. ISSN 1334-773X. Aleksandar Horvat - Naučna konferencija Baranja kroz vekove: slojevi kulture Baranje, Muzej Vojvodine i Vukova zadužbina, Novi Sad, 5. listopada 2019.

Bulgarische Familien zur Zeit der Wiedergeburt (In Memoriam Panajot D. Maždrakov)

Author(s): Antoaneta Zapryanova / Language(s): German Issue: 1-2/2000

Milena Stefanova. Un livre sur les “tchorbadjis” (les notables) bulgares. Sofia, Editions de l’Université “St Clément d ’Ohrid”, 1998, 166 p.

Author(s): Yana Koleva / Language(s): French Issue: 1-2/2000

Book review / abstract

The Confiscation and Repossession of Monastic Properties in Mount Athos and Patmos Monasteries, 1568-1570

Author(s): Eugenia Kermeli / Language(s): English Issue: 3-4/2000

Из началната история на българската църква в Браила през ХІХ в.

Author(s): Nikolay Zhechev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

The article tells about the early history of the Bulgarian church in the Romanian town of Braila in the third quarter of the 19th century. In this city at that time there was a large Bulgarian emigrant community, resettled there mainly after the Russo-Turkish war of 1828–1829. It was distinguished by its active economic and socio-cultural activities and in the 1860s turned the city into the cultural capital of the Bulgarian diaspora in Romania. There was a Bulgarian school there, Bulgarian newspapers were published, Bulgarian printing houses functioned; prominent Bulgarian writers, playwrights, publicists such as Dobri Voynikov, Vasil Drumev, Hristo Botev lived and worked in the city for some time… The Bulgarian Literary Society (predecessor of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) was founded there (in 1869), a community center and other social and cultural organizations operated, and a fruitful theatrical activity developed. But even in the 1860s, the Bulgarian community still did not have its own church to worship in their native language. The article traces, on the basis of the currently available documentary and other sources, the preparation and implementation of the construction of the Bulgarian Church of the Ascension of Christ in Braila, carried out mainly in the years 1868–1875. This endeavor was guided by the elected church boards, which managed to mobilize for this purpose the spiritual potential and material resources of the Bulgarian community there. The funds for the construction of the temple were raised through voluntary donations and loans, in which representatives of all strata of the Bulgarian diaspora participated: rich merchants and bankers, as well as smaller merchants, craftsmen, innkeepers, gardeners, etc., as well as many activists of the local intelligentsia, active participants in the national liberation movement, etc. Thus, the construction of the Bulgarian church in Braila, which still exists today – a century and a half later, became a real nationwide affair and despite some accompanying negative phenomena, became one of the most positive and successful pages in the history of Bulgarian emigration to Romania.

За българската общност в Солун от средата на XIX в. до Балканските войни.

Author(s): Rositsa Stoyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

Book review