Ottomans’ further

The existence of the Bulgarian state became an obstacle on the way to the Ottomans’ further penetration into Central Europe. In spite of its weakness and dependence, it presented a constant threat to the right flank of the Turkish troops which had penetrated deep into the west. That is why Murad’s heir Bayazid I, The Lightning, decided to put an end to the Turnovo Kingdom. In 1393 he invaded Moesia at the head of a numerous army and after a siege which Lasted three months, succeeded in capturing Turnovo. One hundred and twenty boyars were massacred in the main church, thousands of Turnovo citizens were taken slaves and Patriarch Evtimi, who had headed the defence of Turnovo until the last moment, was sent into exile to the Rhodopes. Ivan Shishman hid himself in the Danubian stronghold of Nikopol, expecting help from the Hungarian King. The latter, however, never came to his assistance and Nikopol was captured and Ivan Shishman was killed. Only the Vidin Kingdom remained, but a Turkish garrison was also stationed in Vidin.

Powerful Hungarian Kingdom

The Ottomans reached the frontiers of the then powerful Hungarian Kingdom, which forced the Hungarian King Sigismund to prepare in 1396 a big crusade against the Turks. The Ruler of Vidin Ivan Stratsimir opened the gates of his town to the crusaders and joined them with his troops, but the army of the crusaders suffered utter defeat. That was the end also of the Vidin Kingdom.

Bulgaria’s fall under Ottoman domination, accompanied by ravaging devastations and cruel massacres of the population, was a veritable catastrophe for the Bulgarian people. The country’s political and intellectual elite was destroyed or forced to emigrate. The famous literary centres which had brought glory to Bulgarian mediaeval culture were extinguished. The persecutions were not only national, but also religious. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church was destroyed as a religious institution and the Moslem religion was proclaimed as official. The majority of Bulgarian towns were depopulated and occupied by the Turkish administration and military garrisons, while the productive Bulgarian population sought refuge in the mountains and remote regions. Thus, the social and economic base of the 14th century cultural renaissance of the Bulgarian people – the flourishing towns — was done away with.

Deprived of its state, cultural and religious institutions, the Bulgarian people were reduced to a Turkish rayah, without any rights, cruelly oppressed and exploited by the conquerors. A considerable part of the Bulgarians were forcefully assimilated, and their most fertile lands were taken by compact masses of Turkish colonists. The Ottomans pursued a systematic and purposeful policy of sapping the vitality of the subordinated peoples and enhancing their own national feelings. Thousands of Bulgarian girls were forcefully converted to the Moslem religion and taken into the harems of the Turkish feudal loids (spahis, beys). An inhuman tax called devshourme was introduced, according to which the healthiest, handsomest and cleverest Bulgarian boys were taken away from their families to special barracks where they were isolated from the outside world and turned into soldiers, excellently schooled and fanatically loyal to Islam. These were the notorious janissaries — known for their high military qualities and morale, crack infantry of the Sultan, which sowed terror in the subordinated population and covered the Turkish arms with glory. Some of the most capable janissaries rose to the ranks of Turkish dignitaries and military commanders, who contributed a lot to the successes of the Ottoman Empire.

 

Entering Turnovo

The peasant leader entered Turnovo triumphantly, welcomed enthusiastically by the people and with servile homage paid him by the boyars, who were scared to death. A. Crown Council, hastily convened, proclaimed Ivailo Tsar and the widowed Tsarina changed her mourning for a wedding dress. The ‘idyll’ in Turnovo, howevei, did not last long. The Tartar hordes of Nogai again invaded the country from the north and Ivailo had very soon to exchange his royal mantle and the splendour of his court for the hardships of army life.

In a great number of bloody battles which lasted for over two years, the ‘peasant Tsar’ succeeded in chasing the Tartars away; but while his courageous soldiers were defending their country’s independence, a boyar revolt was coming to a head in the capital. With the help of the cunning Tsarina the boyars had come into contact with the Byzantine government, and asked for help against Ivailo. The Byzantine troops passed the Balkan Range without encountering any resistance, and the boyars themselves opened to them the gates of Turnovo. Ivailo’s army defeated the Byzantines, but mercenaries hired by the boyars attacked him from behind. Ivailo escaped to his previous adversaries – the Tartars – and found his death there. An end was thus put in 1280 to the peasant uprising in Bulgaria.

In spite of its tragic end, Ivailo’s uprising is a fact of great importance not only for Bulgarian, but also for Euro-pean history. It is the earliest known organized peasant anti-feudal uprising of such a scale and scope in Europe, and Ivailo was the first peasant leader in those days who succeeded in seizing state power and in holding it for more than three years. Credit is also due to the Bulgarian peasants who had risen in revolt against feudal exploita-tion, for having barred with their blood the way of the Tartar hordes to Bulgaria and for having weakened their pressure against the Balkans and Central Europe.

Decline

After the defeat of the peasant uprising, the boyars placed Georgi Terter on the throne. His twelve-year-long reign has gone down in history marked by the fact that the Tartars resumed their incursions and made him their vassal. During the reign of the next Bulgarian Tsar, Smilets, the Tartars established their complete rule over Bulgaria. In 1298 Smilets was dethroned and Nogai’s son Chaka ascended the Bulgarian throne. In less than two years, however, Chaka fell victim to a plot and the throne was occupied by Terter’s son Todor Svetoslav, who ruled for 21 years. During his reign Bulgaria waged successful wars against Byzantium and succeeded in taking back the region enclosed between the Balkan Range, the Strandja Mountains and the Black Sea.

 

Decline of the Bulgarian State

Under Simeon’s successor, Tsar Peter, the Bulgarian state began to decline irresistibly. The Magyars took away the Bulgarian lands north of the Danube. The Serbians rose to arms and won their independence. Chaos reigned in the country. Encouraged by Bogomil preachers, the peasants refused to pay taxes and to perform the diverse corvees. The number of feudal lords (boyars) who refused to obey the Tsar was growing, which weakened the central power.

The Byzantine Empire could hardly have found a more opportune moment to square accounts with its dangerous northern neighbour. In 968, summoned by the Byzantine Emperor, Russian contingents of the Kiev Prince Svyatoslav invaded North-Eastern Bulgaria. The Byzantines, however, were taken by surprise when Svyatoslav signed an agreement with the Bulgarian Tsar Boris II for joint struggle against Byzantium. In face of this fresh menace, the Empire gathered forces and in 971 managed to defeat the Russian and Bulgarian troops. Boris II was taken prisoner and brought to Constantino-ple, but this was not the end of the Bulgarian state. After the fall of the Bulgarian capital and of the eastern parts of the country, the other regions continued to offer stubborn resistance for another half century. The sons of Komit Nikola – David, Moses, Aaron and Samuil – played an exceptional role during the years of this resistance. They were rulers of southwestern Bulgaria. The first two were killed in battle, Aaron as bribed by the Byzantines and Samuil killed him for this treason.

Samuil proclaimed himself as Tsar of Bulgaria and Prespa (today in Yugoslavia) – as his capital. He waged a manly struggle against the Byzantines for almost thirty years, and for a short period of time he even enlarged his state by liberating the country’s northeastern part and conquering the whole of Thessaly, present-day Albania, and some Serbian territories. In 986 Samuil dealt a crushing blow on the Byzantine Emperor Basil II at the Trayanova Vrata Pass (Trayan’s Gate) near the town of Ihtiman. The Emperor saved himself by some miracle and for a long time had no desire whatever to fight the Bulgarians. Almost twenty years had passed before he ventured again to attack Bulgaria in 1014.

Armies of Bulgaria and Byzantium

The armies of Bulgaria and Byzantium, led by the two rulers, met at the northern foothills of the Belassitsa Mountains, not far from the present-day town of Petrich. The front attack brought the Byzantines no success, so they used roundabout paths, appeared in the Bulgarians’ rear and routed the army. Basil had his revenge for the defeat at Trayanovi Vrata, but he was not satisfied. In order to break the morale of the Bulgarians and make them give up all further resistance, he ordered all 14,000 Bulgarian soldiers taken prisoner to be blinded and sent them back to Samuil in Prespa through the winter bliz-zards. He had left one soldier with one eye in every 100 blinded men to show them the way. For his cruelty which had no equal even in those cruel times, Basil II was nicknamed Bulgaroctonos — Slayer of the Bulgarians.

 

Unification of the Balkan Slav into one single state

Asparouh’s successor, Khan Tervel, not only succeeded in preserving what he had inherited from his father, but also expanded Bulgaria’s frontiers to the south of the Balkan Range as far as Eastern Thrace. The Bulgarian ruler got involved in the struggles for the Byzantine throne which broke out in 705, helped Justinian II to ascend to it and in return had the new frontiers of his state confirmed by the new Emperor. Three years later the Byzantines broke the peace but the Bulgarians dealt them a crushing blow and their triumphant march ended under the walls of Constantinople. In 717 they were once again at the walls of Constantinople, this time as allies of the Byzantine Emperor in his war with the Arabs who had laid siege to his capital. The invincible Bulgarian cavalry attacked the camp of the Arabs, destroyed it and thus saved the Byzantine capital which was at the end of its resources. In expression of his gratitude, the Byzantine Emperor gave rich presents to Khan Tervel and proclaimed him Caesar. The death of Khan Tervel was followed by internecine struggles among the Proto-Bulgarian aristocracy, the ‘bolls’, but the military campaigns undertaken by the Byzantines for doing away with the new state proved fruitless. By the century’s end, under Khan Kardam, the internecine struggles were quenched, and under his successor, Khan Kroum (803-814) the Bulgarian state became one of the great political powers in Europe of those days. Khan Kroum was a tested warrior and a wise statesman; he ruled firmly and evoked respect in his enemies who gave him the name of ‘Kroum the Terrible’. In 805 the Bulgarians destroyed the once powerful state of the Avars in Pannoma, and in 809 they took the Byzantine stronghold of Serdica (later Sredets, present-day Sofia), thus cutting off the Old Road which was of vital importance to the Empire. The frontiers of the Bulgarian state reached as far as the River Hron (in present-day Slovakia) and the Bulgarians became neighbours of the Frankish Empire.

Young Bulgarian state

In order to consolidate the enormous successes of the young Bulgarian state, Khan Kroum issued the first laws in the history of the Bulgarian state and started the gradual replacement of the federal principle in the country’s administrative division, which gave the Slav knyazes (princes) too great an independence, by the territorial principle. In his aspirations to enable Bulgaria to join the then civilized world and to strengthen the positions of the budding feudal aristocracy, Khan Kroum envisaged in his laws severe punishments for stealing, drinking, loose morals and insubordination to the central state power. The implacable ruler even ordered all vineyards to be pulled up by the roots,

Manifesting remarkable political far-sightedness, Khan Kroum pursued a consistent policy of unification of the Balkan and Panonian SLavs into one single state, which would be in a position to withstand the pressure on the part of the two Christian empires: the Byzantine Empire and the Frankish Empire. A decisive step was made under his rule towards liquidating the privileged status of the Proto-Bulgarian aristocracy with regard to the Slavs, and towards the gradual merger of Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians into one ethnical community.

One you are in Bulgaria, in your Bulgaria tour, you will see all these amazing historical parts.

Balkan provinces of the Byzantine Empire

Once they had settled in the Balkan provinces of the Byzantine Empire, the Slavs entered into direct contact with its highly developed material and spiritual culture, which accelerated their social and economic development. The Slavs, on their part, who had not passed through the stage of slavery, contributed to the ‘rejuvenation’ of the Empire and to doing away with the last vestiges of slave relations in it. The policy of assimilation adopted by the Byzantine Emperors with regard to the immigrants influenced the regions where the Slavs were not the predominant power (Central and Southern Greece, Asia Minor), but in Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia the Slavs were the masters of the situation. Too weak to oppose on their own the powerful pressure of Byzantium, the Slav tribes began to unite into tribal unions (the beginning of a state) and courageously to defend their independence. In their struggle against the Byzantine Empire during the last decades of the 7th century, they suddenly acquired a peerless ally in the Proto-Bulgarians.

Ethnicity of Proto-Bulgarians

The Proto-Bulgarians ethnically belonged to the Turkic tribes which inhabited the steppes of Central Asia. Their origin and name have to this day not been positively established. It is known that early in our era they had settled in the northern part of the foot of the Caucasus. Those lands had been populated from time immemorial by the Sabiri and Alani. It is probable that the Alani gave the Proto-Bulgarians their name, for in the language of that tribe ‘bulgaron’ meant ‘people living at the foot of the mountain’.

At the end of the 4th and the first half of the 5th cen-tury A. D. the Proto-Bulgarians became members of the motley conglomerate of peoples called ‘Hunnish tribal union’ and took part in the horror-sowing Hunnish raids in Central and Western Europe. After the Union dis-integrated, part of the Proto-Bulgarians settled in Italy, others went back to their former places – along the northern Black Sea coast. For several decades they formed part of the powerful Avar Khaganate and numerous Proto-Bulgarian contingents again went as far as Pannonia and, after the internecine wars within the Khaganate during the middle of the 7th century, part of them went to settle in Italy, and another part, a more numerous one, led by Kouber, penetrated deep into the Balkan Peninsula and settled in the Bitola Plain in Macedonia.

Proto-Bulgarians

The Proto-Bulgarians who had remained in their former settlements fell for a short time under the domination of Turkic tribes which had come from the east, but after a persistent and bloody struggle, they managed to free themselves and by the year 630 they had formed a powerful multi-tribal union known under the name of ‘Great Bulgaria’. Legend has it that the leader of Great Bulgaria, Khan Koubrat, gathered his five sons at his death-bed and made them take turns in breaking a bunch of tightly bound resilient twigs. After none of them succeeded in doing so, he undid the bunch and without any effort started breaking the twigs, with his fingers of an old man, one after the other. In this way he bequeathed to them his advice – never to quarrel or fight with each other, in order to be unbreakable, like the tightly bound bunch of twigs.

Cultural Development in Arbanassi

Naturally, not all of the people of Arbanassi were involved in trade, but with prosperity came the demand for goods and services, and many craftsmen and women made their way to the town to provide the required foodstuffs, clothing, shoes, ceramic products, gold and silver smithing, jewelry making, decorative and other forms of art. Due to the comparative wealth of its citizens, most of the surviving artifacts from the time indicate an emphasis on quality, and this would have only enhanced the reputation of the town within the region.

Most importantly, people require places to live in, and so architects and builders were in high demand in Arbanassi, and this is the most visible legacy that remains today of this unique town.

In 1640, Catholic Bishop Peter Bogdanov writes in a letter that – ” There, up in the mountains from which you can see Turnovo, there are at least 1,000 fine houses of good construction”.

In the tradition of the times the houses were massively built with stone, with high stone walls around the perimeter, which then formed the narrow labyrinth of streets around the town. The town itself has no defined centre, or village square within its layout, but notable public areas are the public fountains and springs, laid in stone, which in a society where the horse was highly valued, would have provided an area for casual meetings and discussion while watering the horses. Two of these places well preserved are the “Konska Chishma” and the “Parzarska Chishma”

The architectural look of the houses in Arbanassi is a practical mixture of Balkan building traditions to suit the climate, the everyday requirements of the times for food storage and animal stabling, and the blending of the many cultural aesthetic influences particular to the region.

The main house is sited within the walled perimeter, with other structures.

It is facing a large courtyard. Entry to the courtyard was through heavy wooden gates in two parts, the smaller for pedestrian use, the larger for horses, carts and livestock. Just inside the gates were small niches for guards and watchmen.

To one side of the courtyard would be the agricultural buildings and stables, the other the main residential structure. The house was usually of a two story design, with the ground floor massively constructed of stone, providing the cellar, pantry and storage areas, and hidden or secret rooms for hiding goods and even people in times of danger. The second floor is a large spacious area functional for family living, reached by two types of staircase, one more formal the other for services. The rooms were divided into again formal and service types, with bedroom and guest rooms set apart from the rest of the house. (Some houses having both summer guest rooms and winter guest rooms.) Heating was provided by large built in fireplaces contained within the walls. Decoration was varied, with carved wood popular, or rendered walls providing the backdrop for wool, fabric and ceramic ornaments.

The best surviving examples

From the period, the best surviving examples are – Konstantcalievata, Hadgilievata, the homes of Kandilarovi, Nuku Kultuki, Na Baba Kali  Hadji Pop Paniot  and of these Konstantcaleivata is the most original. Built in the 17th century, with some slight alterations in later times, the huge ground floor contains guard and hiding rooms, cellars, stables, main and secondary staircases. The main door is a massive metal and wood framed structure, with special locks against intruders. The second floor contains formal rooms – salon, dining room and sitting room, all of which are interconnected, the large dining room itself being connected with the kitchen, pantry and bakery, bathrooms. The bedrooms are placed around a central corridor, and at the farthest part of the house is a purpose built maternity room. The interior walls are rendered in a soft white plaster framed by wood carvings, providing space for numerous handmade weaving, the floor coverings also being colorful handmade wool weavings.

It is a great example of how life in the 17th century could have obviously been very comfortable in a house such as this.