Ottoman Invasion Research Articles

A Contribution to the History of Repentance Prayers in the Slavic South during the 15th Century

The article explores and offers a diplomatic edition of A Very Useful Confession for Unction for Every Christian, for the Black and White Clergy. This is an autograph by Vladislav the Grammarian placed in the Trebnik of Monk David (1480s), manuscript 1/42 in the collection of the Rila Monastery. The analysis is based on the working hypothesis that after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans was perceived as a God’s punishment for the sins of the Orthodox Christians. This idea became strongly present in a number of texts. Penitential prayer patterns multiply in the literature. The Greek prototype of the text under study has not been identified yet, but features a close relation to the prayers with the so-called accumulation of sins. It is, in essence, a confession which is performed in connection with the sacrament of the eleosvet (anointing of the sick) before receiving communion and the anointing with holy oil. The textual unit was purposefully introduced into Monk David’s Trebnik and reflected topical textual additions to the basic composition of the Slavonic Trebnik.

The translation of “Dogmatic Panoply” by Euthymiоs Zigabenоs in Paleoslavistics: research state and perspectives

The article summarizes the known so far scholarly facts and focuses on the problematic research fields in the study of one of the most significant translations of the South Slavonic Middle Ages, such as that of Dogmatic Panoply by Euthymios Zigabenos. The Slavonic translation of the Second Book appeared on Mount Athos at the very beginning of the 15th century, and was associated with the activities of South Slavic monks-literati who maintained links with Greek scribes. The Athonite monasticism acted as main engine for this translation in the context of the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans, when the Orthodox literary legacy was the mainstay of identity.

Rejecting the Ottomans, Revisiting the Mamluks

Abstract This article queries the sociopolitical implications of a wave of popular interest in the legacy of the Mamluk dynasty (1250–1517) in post-2013 Egypt. Although the era’s sultans have traditionally been derided in mainstream culture as tyrannical ‘foreign’ leaders, they have recently been reframed as the last nationalist rulers before the Ottoman invasion. This revised characterization underpins the newfound fascination with their socio-political legacy, which has manifested in various cultural productions, including a new television series, Mamalik al-Nar (Kingdoms of Fire). In this article, we analyze the show’s content, its popularity in Egypt, the debates it has generated on social media and the regional production and distribution networks in which it is embedded. Through this analysis, we argue that the series—and the Mamluk ‘revivalism’ to which it is connected—is part of an unresolved debate about what it means to be Egyptian today.

Vassal Mamluk rulers of Egypt and Syria in the service of the Ottomans

The fall of the Mamluk Sultanate under the onslaught of the Ottoman invasion in 1516-1517 turned the entire course of events both in Egypt and throughout the Muslim world. However, the establishment of direct Turkish rule on the territory of the former Mamluk possessions was preceded by a short transitional period of vassalage. The Ottoman Sultan Selim I Yavuz (1512-1520) appointed in Egypt and Syria two devoted to him Mamluk emirs Khair-bek and Janbirdi al-Ghazali, whose actions infl the further strengthening of the power of the Turks in the Middle Eastern provinces. The main purpose of the study is to identify the reasons for such an abrupt change in the policy of the Ottomans in Egypt and Syria. The author examines in detail the period of rule of the vassal Mamluk emirs and tries to determine how their actions infl the decision of the High Porte to appoint their own governors and remove the Mamluks from power. Using the historical and genealogical method, the author begins with a description of the events of the Ottoman-Mamluk war of 1516-1517. During the confl both emirs showed far-sightedness and went over to the side of the Ottomans. Therefore, they earned the special favor of Sultan Selim. However, later, while in power, both Khair-bek and Janbirdi al-Ghazali showed a tendency to arbitrariness, which served as an alarm signal for the Ottomans. Moreover, after the death of Selim, Janbirdi openly opposed the Ottomans. The result of the reign of both commanders, therefore, was an even greater strengthening of the Turks and the further weakening of the Mamluks in the Islamic world.

Щрихи към ранната история на средногорския превод на Съкровище от Дамаскин Студит: Нов поглед към ръкопис НБКМ432

Two sixteenth-century translations of Treasure, made soon after its first edition in 1557–1558, mark a return to active literary pursuits in the eastern part of the Balkans after the Ottoman invasion two centuries earlier. NBKM432, an anonymous miscellany, containing the earliest preserved record of the Sredna-Gora translation, provides evidence of its state three consecutive handwritten copies after the translation was made. The article reviews the manuscript’s history, content and formatting, as well as its paleographic, codicological, artistic and orthographic characteristics through the prism of the conclusions reached by the textual study of its components ascending to the Sredna-Gora translation: seven homilies by Damaskēnós Stoudítēs and two by Theophánēs Eleavoûlkos. The article fixes the timeframe, within which this miscellany was produced, in the 1580s–1590s and concludes that the Sredna-Gora translation must have taken place – most likely during the 1570s or 1580s – in a scriptorium of unknown whereabouts within the Tarnovo Diocese, which belonged to the cultural centres that had preserved to some extent the pre-Ottoman Tarnovo cultural heritage and the output of which displayed a preference for certain formatting and decorative solutions.

The relationships between the Moscow government and the Cossack Hetmanate and the deportation of population (“zgon”) from the Middle Dnepr region in the spring of 1679

After battles of Chigirin in 1677–1678 were finished, the Russian government and the Hetman Ivan Samojlovich were expecting a new massive Ottoman invasion, mainly aimed at Kiev. Therefore, the population of the Right-Bank Middle Dnepr region was deported to the Left-Bank Ukraine to make supply and accommodation difficult for the Ottoman army. Those events were studied in details by Nikolaj Kostomarov, based on archival sources. He stated, that Hetman Ivan Samojlovich organized the deportation by an order from Moscow. However, a new study of archival documents, especially those not used by Kostomarov, reveals that it was Samojlovich who initiated the deportation (“zgon”), sending to the Right-Bank Ukraine troops under the command of his son, Semen Samojlovich. The Tsar’s letter to approve this decision had not yet been received in Baturin (the Hetman’s residence) at that point. The Moscow government supported the action taken by Samojlovich and sent a Russian troop under the command of voivode Grigorij Kosagov to take part in the operation. The deportation was completed quickly because the local population did not resist and, moreover, was ready to move. People of the Right-Bank Ukraine did not want to recognize the Ottoman authority, as the previous attacks of the Ottoman army were accompanied by total devastation of cities and massive killings.

Report: Hungarian Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference 2022

Report: Hungarian Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference 2022

Machiel Kiel and his View of the Bulgarian Empire on the Eve of the Ottoman Invasion

Machiel Kiel’s attitude towards the culture of the Second Bulgarian Empire was extremely negative. In this regard, he blatantly manipulated and falsified the results of historical and archaeological studies. In his opinion, the Bulgarian cities of the 13th–14th centuries were small and unsightly, the churches were rough and impersonal, and the palaces of the kings were poky and ugly. Kiel told outright lies about the conquest of Bulgaria by the Ottoman Turks in the late 14th century. A careful examination of the available data shows quite a different picture. According to demographic studies of world-renowned academicians, such as P. Bairoch, J. Batou and P. Chèvre, medieval Bulgarian cities ranked among the best developed cities on the Old Continent. Moreover, according to the latest study, the capital of Tarnovgrad was on par with Rouen, the second largest city in France, and the southern capital of Toulouse, and had almost as many inhabitants as Cologne, the capital in the Holy Roman Empire. In Tarnovgrad, a total of 64 Christian churches have been uncovered so far, almost all of which were icon-painted and had marble and ceramic artistic decoration. In comparison, in the early 15th century, there were 53 churches and 19 monasteries in Thessaloniki, the second largest city of the Byzantine Empire.

Supplements ad: Nikolay Ovcharov. Machiel Kiel and his View of the Bulgarian Empire on the Eve of the Ottoman Invasion

Supplements ad: Nikolay Ovcharov. Machiel Kiel and his View of the Bulgarian Empire on the Eve of the Ottoman Invasion

Nâlî’nin Kürtçe Divanında Türkçe Unsurlar

Kurdish is a widely spoken language in many countries. It has been influenced by Persian and Arabic a lot through the history. Kurdish has been enclosed and interacted with Turkish right after Ottoman invasion in Iraq. There is no study about Turkish influence on Kurdish so far according to our scanning so that this study will be the first one ever. We have scanned, the Divan of Nali, a book by Nali who wrote poems in Sorani Kurdish in 19th century. In his Divan, there were 40 words in total: 33 Turkish words, 3 words carried into Kurdish by Turkish, and 4 words that have Turkish prefixes or suffixes. The outcomes have been categorized by phonetic, thematic, semantic, and etymologic respectively. After the evaluations, we have found out that there is a significant Turkish influence in Nali`s Divan. We have used a combined method in this study. Keywords: Nali, Nali`s Divan, Classical Ottoman Poetry, Kurdish Divan, Turkish Loanwords in Kurdish

The Cultural and Musical Tradition of Elbasan (16th - 20th Century)

The aim of this paper is to explore and review the role and contribution of Elbasan city in the well-known cultural and musical tradition of Albania. Referring to documents, this tradition dates back in the 16th century with the creation of the first musical bands, characteristic of that time, known otherwise as fanfarat or tajfat. During Ottoman invasion, especially during the 16th-17th century, oriental influence on Albanian folk music has been quite evident. Some musicologists think that this impact has been more evident especially in the music of the middle part of Albania. It needs to be emphasized that this influence has not been absolutely strict, since in most songs it appears either as a collaboration or a parallel version. After the 17th century in Elbasan, as well as in its surrounding regions, there was born folk music, firstly as the music of beano, and later on as a typical civic folk music accompanied by the orchestra. Ethnomusicologists think that prior to folk city music, there used to be country folk music, in the north eastern part of Elbasan, in the villages around Zaranika estuary, where old songs were sung, and very soon they were spread even in Elbasan. Meanwhile, by the years 20s and 30s of the 20th century in Elbasan there was spread civid folk music whose founders were the trio of: Isuf Myzyri, Leksi i Vinit as well as Mustafa Bodini. Folk songs of Elbasan belong to the musical style of the middle part of Albania; since they are sung in the dialect of Elbasan, they are considered as the civic folk songs of Elbasan. There needs to be highlighted that even during the first half of the 20th century, a great role in the musical and cultural tradition was played by the social and patriotic clubs, such as “Bashkimi” (1908), “Drita”, Vllaznia (18 April 1908) as well as the creation of patriotic society known as “Afërdita”. The latest one, in 1917 reestablished a musical band as well with the same name “Afërdita”, which existed before. This band besides various marches, it used to play hymns too by using wind instruments, folk music not only in Elbasan but even in other towns in Albania. The band “Afërdita” functioned until the early years of World War 2. 
 
 Received: 6 February 2021 / Accepted: 20 April 2021 / Published: 17 May 2021

Digital Geographies and Virtual Landscape Archaeology : Reconstructing the Iron Gates Castle System Under the Miasma of COVID-19

The Iron Gates gorge system is formed by the convergence of the Carpathians and Balkan mountain ranges that collide and plunge directly into the Danube River (Fig. 1). The geographical conditions of this region have created a frontier zone in different periods, and the historical context of this article deals specifically with the period between 1429 and c. 1435 when this castle system was placed under the control of a contingent from the Teutonic Order to help defend the Kingdom of Hungary against an impending Ottoman invasion. The Teutonic Order’s mission was a military expedition and King Sigismund’s use of a contingent from the Teutonic Order as a military force in this region was a part of his overall strategy to protect his kingdom from further invasion by Ottoman armies under Sultan Murad II (1404–1451). The Danube river, itself, at this time served as the frontier between the Kingdom of Hungary and the recently conquered Ottoman territory on the southern bank. The theme of this article centers on the application of traditional techniques of landscape archaeology to perform a military analysis of these fortifications in the Iron Gates castle chain using more novel avenues of research- given travel bans and other restrictions brought about by the on-going Corona-19 crisis.

A Critique of Islamophobia – in Defence of European Culture

The fear of refugees and migrants that has flooded Europe in the last few years emphasises the threat posed to contemporary European culture by the supposedly radically different Islamic culture. However, the roots of European Islamophobia reach far beyond that, all the way back to the Crusades; while Central and parts of Eastern Europe have mostly been feeding these roots with memories of Ottoman invasions. After inspecting these roots, this article sheds light on the irrefutable Christian sources of European culture, but also exposes other influences without which the culture would not exist today – especially the antecedent Greco-Roman antiquity, and the subsequent Renaissance, Humanism and Enlightenment. This outlines modern European and Western culture, characterised mainly by secularity, which is the precondition for religious freedom of non-Christian, alternative, and ‘non-native’ religions as well. This article emphasises that it would be difficult to include Islam amongst these latter religions since it has been an important contribution to the shaping of European culture for centuries. The old antagonisms between European and Islamic cultures therefore do not stem from their irreconcilable differences but from their resemblances – in other words: in the West, we are not afraid of Muslims because they are so radically different but because they are strikingly similar. The real threat to European and Western culture is therefore not Muslim migrants but a demagogic fuelling of the fears of the supposed Islamic threat.

Boshnjaks. In other words: Jihad vs. McWorld and other theories...

The Ottoman invasion of the Balkans that began in the 14th century led to an imbalance in the process of self-identification among the Bosnian people, having crucial influence on the process of establishing their sense of belonging, identification and national awareness. It particularly influenced the process of conceptualizing the cultural identity of Boshnjaks, whose ancestors converted to Islam and changed the ethnic and religious landscape of Balkans to a large extent. The author focuses on the political and social factors determining the shape of Bosnian identity, its origin and historical circumstances which influenced not only identification processes but also the course of the conflict in the Balkans between 1992 and 1995. This paper also provides data on many controversial facts regarding influences of Islamic radicals on Bosnian society before and after the fall of Yugoslavia. On the basis of social and historical analysis the author indicates that contemporary theories on cultural origin of conflicts, reduced to the dichotomy Jihad vs. McWorld are not applicable in the case of the unique, multicultural identity of Bosnian Muslims.

“Bulgarian Anonymous Chronicle”: Essay on Analytical Decomposition

Introduction. The article analyzes а chronicle in the Slavo-Vallachian miscellany manuscript (mid 16th c.) (currently in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in Kiev, Pochaev Lavra Collection, 116, l. 440a–447b). This text is known in scholarly literature as “Bulgarian anonymous chronicle”. Usually it is considered as a wholesome work created in the early 15th c. by an unknown scribe, who followed the traditions of the Tyrnovo literary school and possessed Bulgarian ethnopolitical identity. There were hypotheses that the work was based upon Slavonic translation of a lost work by Byzantine writer John Chortasmenos or upon an early Slavo-Moldavian chronicle. Concentrating their attention on the contents of the chronicle as a historical source or trying to identify its author as one of the contemporary scribes known by name, scholars used to divide the text of the chronicle into parts due to their contents or main persons. The article aims to precisely attribute the chronicle’s origin and composition, to separate its components and to connect them with the military and political events, as well as with the sociocultural environment of the orthodox Balkans in the early 15th c. Method. Applying the method of multi-level analytical decomposition of the text, the author reveals the chronicle’s structure and considers the revealed parts in three contexts: the military and political situation in the Balkans during the first five decades of the Ottoman conquest (1352–1402); the social and cultural environment of the Southern Slavic and Greek polities and their literary heritage. Analysis. The chronicle is based on three extensive historical narratives concerning the first stage of the Ottoman invasion before the establishment of the Turks’ control on crossing of the Gallipoli strait, the battle at Nicopolis in 1396 and the siege of Constantinople by Bayezid I in 1396–1402. They are connected with smaller stories on important episodes of the Ottoman conquest accompanied with historical notes integrated into the main text or left as marginal glosses. Three layers of the text differ with their composition and contents as well as with their language and style features, which allow to suppose that they had been created separately and became parts of the chronicle at its completion. Results. The chronicle was composed in the early 15th c. from several kinds of historical records. Extensive historical narratives reveal their Byzantine origin, while short records lead to Bulgarian and Serbian samples of history writing, and the whole work could be completed in a Slavonic scriptorium of a Vallachian or Moldоvian monastery, where its manuscript was copied for the Pochaev miscellanea in the mid 16th c., and in the early 17th c. used by Michail Moxa to compose his “General history” in Vlacho-Moldovian.

Варненската митрополия в историографските проучвания

The Ecclesiastical work in Varna started during the Late Antiquity when the Ancient city of Odessos became a bishopric centre and later on a metropolitan archdiocese. There is no explicit data that during the First Bulgarian state the city was a seat of a high clergyman. In the period 13th–14th century, Varna established itself as one of the most important cities in the country and a metropolitan archdiocese. The Ottoman invasion and the fact that the city was captured by the Turks didn’t influence upon the strategic significance of the city, which remained a metropolitan archdiocese during the whole Ottoman period. The eparchy of Varna and Veliki Preslav has been one of the biggest spiritual centres in the Bulgarian lands since the Liberation in 1878 up to nowadays. The institution that has been in existence for more than thousand years and its importance, requires a significant work on its history to be written. Currently, some attempts for fractional studies have been made, but still there is no common research on the history of the institution. The presented historiographical review in this research doesn’t pretend to be comprehensive. The most important researches on the development and the role of the metropolitan archdiocese of Varna during the centuries and some other researches related to the topic are presented in the research. The basic problems which have occurred throughout the years have been dealt upon.

Formation and Modification of Notions ‘Revolution’ and ‘War’: Bulgarian Case

Related notions of war and revolution are not something primordial and constant. They are constructed and constantly changing. The paper traces some aspects of these processes in the mentality of the 19th and early 20th century Bulgarians, with attention to their Balkan context.
 The lack of the own state for a long period of time (1396–1878) determined the initial negative image of the war. For the Bulgarians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries a war was something definitely negative, as it brings death, troubles, and disasters; it was also something alien or external as only few of them were recruited in the Ottoman army. The wars between Russia and Ottoman Empire generated some hopes for independence among certain elite groups of society (although not so much among common people). The Greek War for Independence (started in 1821) and other uprisings in European dominions of Turkey had their impact on Bulgarians. The idea of revolution grew in the 1860s and 1870s within the group of radicals, mainly the alumni of Russian Universities and high schools. Literature played a serious role in this process, and April uprising (1876), not without some debates, was represented as ‘revolution’ in the last decades of the 19th century. The two notions were mixed after the Russian-Turkish Liberation War (1877–78), especially in later interpretations.
 The newly established Principality of Bulgaria lived in constant threat (real or imagined) of Ottoman invasion and soon got drawn into the war with Serbia (1885) which contributed to creating the fully positive image of a patriotic war. This image persisted during the First (1912–1913) and Second (1913) Balkan wars, called in Bulgaria ‘inter-allied’. The defeat motivated to shift the image of war from something patriotic to something making the ordinary people suffer. This was a gradual change catalyzed by the World War I (1914–18) that made the previous image problematic. The notion of revolution that was previously associated only with the past (1876, 1878) also shifted and became associated in some leftist minds with the future as well. First and still shy anti-war humanitarian ideas appeared; the last poems of Dimcho Debelianov (1887–1916), who died in the war, were the most representative examples of this trend.

The Integration of the Armenian Immigrants in István Lakatos’s Siculia

Abstract The relatively short history of the Transylvanian Principality (one hundred and fifty years or so) was full of unexpected changes. From the tragic Battle of Mohács, fought against the Ottoman invasion (1526), until the Diploma Leopoldinum, which integrated the Principality in the huge Habsburg Empire, events like the rise of Lutheran, Calvinian or Unitarian reforms, the Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation – despite the Edict of Torda in 1568, which declared religious tolerance and freedom of conscience – brought forth more disagreements. In the 1670s a new population coming from Moldova appeared in the Principality: the Armenians. The history of the establishment of this population was mentioned by the Catholic priest István Lakatos in his work Siculia (1702). Through the analysis of this work, we search for answers to the question regarding the relatively short integration period of this ethnic group.

루터와 오스만 투르크 : 오스만 투르크 침공에 대한 루터의 신학적 인식의 변천과정 연구

루터와 오스만 투르크 : 오스만 투르크 침공에 대한 루터의 신학적 인식의 변천과정 연구

A study of the Bodrogköz population in north-eastern Hungary by Y chromosomal haplotypes and haplogroups.

We have determined the distribution of Y chromosomal haplotypes and haplogroups in population samples from one of the most important areas in north-eastern Hungary from many villages in the Bodrogköz. The Bodrogköz region was chosen due to its isolated nature, because this area was a moorland encircled by the Tisza, Bodrog, and Latorca Rivers and inhabitants of this part of Hungary escaped from both Tatar and Ottoman invasions, which decimated the post-Hungarian Conquest populations in many parts of the country. Furthermore, in the first half of the tenth century, this region served as the Palatial Centre and burial grounds of the Hungarian tribes. It has thus been assumed that the present population in this area is likely to be more similar to the population that lived in the Conquest period. We analysed male-specific markers, 23 Y-STRs and more than 30 Y-SNPs, that reflect the past and recent genetic history. We found that the general haplogroup distribution of the samples showed high genetic similarity to non-Bodrogköz Hungarians and neighbouring populations, despite its sheltered location and historical record. We were able to classify the Y-chromosomal haplogroups into four large groups based on STR mutation events: pre-Roman/Roman ancient lineage, Finno-Ugric speakers arriving into the Carpathian Basin, Migration period admixture, and post-Hungarian Conquest admixture. It is clear that a significantly larger database with deep haplogroup resolution, including ancient DNA data, is required to strengthen this research.