Ottoman Bulgaria

History of Bulgaria
Prehistory Odrysian kingdom 460 BC–46 AD Old Great Bulgaria 632–668 First Bulgarian Empire 681–1018 Christianization Golden Age 896–927 Byzantine conquest 968–1018 Second Bulgarian Empire 1185–1396 Second Golden Age 1230–1241 Mongol invasion 1274–1300 Recovery and expansion 1300–1371 Ottoman conquest 1371–1396 Ottoman Bulgaria 1396–1878 Resistance after 1413 National Revival 1762–1878 Liberation War 1877–1878 Third Bulgarian State 1878–1946 Unification 1885 Balkan Wars 1912–1913 World War I 1915–1918 World War II 1941–1945 Communist era 1946–1990 Transition era since 1990
List of monarchs Military history Struggle for Macedonia 1893-1945
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The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, from the conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire by the Ottoman Empire in 1396, to its liberation in 1878. Bulgarian territories were administrated as the Rumelia Eyalet. The Ottoman rule was a period marked by oppression and misgovernment and represents a deviation of Bulgaria's development as a Christian European state.^[1][2] A process of cultural revival occurred with the weakening of the Ottoman administration after 1700, which ultimately resulted in an organized, armed struggle for liberation. As a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Bulgaria regained its freedom but was divided into the Principality of Bulgaria, a self-governing Ottoman vassal state, and the vilayet of Eastern Rumelia. It was reunified in 1885 and recognized as a fully independent state in 1908.

Administrative organization

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

Condition of the Bulgarian population

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

In the Ottoman Empire, Christian subjects (known as “gavurs”, deformed version of "kuffar" plural form of Arabic kafir, i.e. non-believers) had a legal, tributary and judicial status different from those of Muslims

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.^[3] According to Thomas Walker Arnold Islam was not spread by force in the areas under the control of the Ottoman Sultan.^[4] Rather, Arnold concludes by quoting a 17th century author who stated:

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...^[4]

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 sometimes 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.^[4]

After the Ottoman conquest all major centers of Bulgarian culture were destroyed, most of the written works were lost and the educated clergy that survived escaped to other Slavic countries.^[5] Bulgarian culture entered a long period of slumber, during which it was isolated from many of the processes that occurred throughout the rest of Europe.

First revolts and the Great Powers

While the Ottomans were ascendant, there was overt opposition to their rule. The first revolt began in 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. Radik (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 haydut 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.

Bulgarian awakening

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 Constanstinople Patriarchate as the leader of the Orthodox Christian peoples of his empire. After the Ottoman Tanzimat (1839–76) reforms, the 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 for Uniate and Orthodox Bulgarian Christian communities. In this way a separate Bulgarian diocese was established, based on ethnic identity rather than principles of Orthodoxy and territory.^[6]

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 and was suppressed by Ottoman troops, taking the lives of many. The uprising 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 and what was projected by the preliminary Treaty of San Stefano of 1878.

See also

• Treaty of San Stefano
• Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878
• A Guide to Ottoman Bulgaria" by Dimana Trankova, Anthony Georgieff and Professor Hristo Matanov; published by Vagabond Media, Sofia, 2011 [1]

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 (to be further exploited)
• 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)

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