Advanced Academia Fellows’ Presentations

This research project is part of the Advanced Academia Independent Fellowship Program funded by the America for Bulgaria Foundation. The presentation will start at 16.00 at CAS office on 7 Stefan Karadja Str.

 

For the study of Ottoman society, the urban economic and social system and the activities of its main components (raya and askeri), are of prime importance. The level of urbanization in the 18th-century Ottoman Empire and the economic state of the urban population, however, seem to be almost entirely neglected topics in present-day research. The so-called classical period (15th - 17th c.c.) is much better studied from different points of views - administrative, economic, demographical, fiscal, etc. This is almost equally true about the Tanzimat period, partly due to the availability of numerous historical sources.

Because of the importance and interest in these two periods, stemming, among others, from political considerations, the immediate pre-Tanzimat era has been altogether neglected. As a result, little is known about the size of the population, the social and economic differentiation, the social and professional activities of the citizens, as well as the changes in these activities, the level of prices and the cost of living in the 18th-century Ottoman Empire.

The proposed project will focus on these issues through case-studies of the towns of Sofia, Ruschuk and Vidin which happened to play a significant role in Ottoman political and economic history. The case-studies of the social and economic history of these cities will contribute to delineate the economic model of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century