The Kirdzhalis have been a social phenomenon in the European possessions of the Ottoman Empire since the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Although they are often artistically depicted as brigands [1] [2] or bandits in the field, from the literal meaning in Ottoman Turkish, they are well-armed and organized gangs at the disposal and submission of the local Ottoman Ayans.
The beginning of the phenomenon was in Ottoman Albania on the eve of the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) and during the Orlov revolt. Because robbers operated in the mountains of the Armatolis, i.e. daalii in Ottoman Turkish, they are not referred to as kirdzhalis. Moscopole was ruined at that time.
In the 1780s, the phenomenon gained momentum and was in full swing under Sultan Selim III. It was a response to the attempts to reform the empire under this sultan and at the same time a response to Nizam-I Cedid. [3]
Kirdzhalis are a phenomenon in Rumelia and to some extent in Bosnia, peripherally affecting Wallachia and Morea on the eve of the Greek War of Independence. The social phenomenon subsided with the Ottoman coups of 1807–1808 and gradually disappeared with the attenuation of the Napoleonic Wars [ why? ].[ citation needed ]
The most prominent leader of the Kirdzhalis was Osman Pazvantoglu. With the assassination of Ali Pasha of Ioannina, the phenomenon ended. In world literature this phenomenon appeared in Pushkin's novel of the same name — Kirdzhali.
The name of the Bulgarian town Kardzhali, despite the similarity, has unrelated meaning (at the time of the kirdzhalis phenomenon it was just a small settlement).
The Balkans, corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Musala, 2,925 metres (9,596 ft), in the Rila mountain range, Bulgaria.
The Ottoman Empire, also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe, between the early 16th and early 18th centuries.
A janissary was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops. They were the first modern standing army, and perhaps the first infantry force in the world to be equipped with firearms, adopted during the reign of Murad II. The corps was established under either Sultans Orhan or Murad I, and dismantled by Mahmud II in 1826.
Edirne, historically known as Adrianople, is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated 7 km (4.3 mi) from the Greek and 20 km (12 mi) from the Bulgarian borders, Edirne was the second capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1369 to 1453, before Constantinople became its capital.
The Russo-Turkish War was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire which included Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. Additional factors included the Russian goals of recovering territorial losses endured during the Crimean War of 1853–1856, re-establishing itself in the Black Sea and supporting the political movement attempting to free Balkan nations from the Ottoman Empire.
Rumelia was the name of a historical region in Southeastern Europe that was administered by the Ottoman Empire, roughly corresponding to the Balkans. In its wider sense, it was used to refer to all Ottoman possessions and vassals in Europe. These would later be geopolitically classified as "the Balkans", although Hungary, Moldova and Slovakia are often excluded. During the period of its existence, Rumelia was more often known in English as Turkey in Europe.
Devshirme was the Ottoman practice of forcibly recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats from among the children of their Balkan Christian subjects and raising them in the religion of Islam. Those coming from the Balkans came primarily from noble Balkan families and rayah (poor) classes. It is first mentioned in written records in 1438, but probably started earlier. It created a faction of soldiers and officials loyal to the Sultan. It counterbalanced the Turkish nobility, who sometimes opposed the Sultan.
The Ottoman Empire was founded c. 1299 by Osman I as a small beylik in northwestern Asia Minor just south of the Byzantine capital Constantinople. In 1326, the Ottomans captured nearby Bursa, cutting off Asia Minor from Byzantine control. The Ottomans first crossed into Europe in 1352, establishing a permanent settlement at Çimpe Castle on the Dardanelles in 1354 and moving their capital to Edirne (Adrianople) in 1369. At the same time, the numerous small Turkic states in Asia Minor were assimilated into the budding Ottoman sultanate through conquest or declarations of allegiance.
The rise of the Ottoman Empire is a period of history that started with the emergence of the Ottoman principality in c. 1299, and ended c. 1453. This period witnessed the foundation of a political entity ruled by the Ottoman Dynasty in the northwestern Anatolian region of Bithynia, and its transformation from a small principality on the Byzantine frontier into an empire spanning the Balkans, Anatolia, Middle East and North Africa. For this reason, this period in the empire's history has been described as the "Proto-Imperial Era". Throughout most of this period, the Ottomans were merely one of many competing states in the region, and relied upon the support of local warlords Ghazis and vassals (Beys) to maintain control over their realm. By the middle of the fifteenth century the Ottoman sultans were able to accumulate enough personal power and authority to establish a centralized imperial state, a process which was achieved by Sultan Mehmed II. The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 is seen as the symbolic moment when the emerging Ottoman state shifted from a mere principality into an empire therefore marking a major turning point in its history.
In the late 18th century, the Ottoman Empire faced threats on numerous frontiers from multiple industrialised European powers. In response, the empire initiated a period of internal reform, attempting to bring itself into competition with the expanding West. The period of these reforms is known as the Tanzimat, and led to the end of the Old Regime period. Despite the Ottoman empire's precarious international position, the central state was significantly strengthened. The process of reforming and modernization in the empire began with the declaration of the Nizam-I Cedid during the reign of Sultan Selim III and was punctuated by several reform decrees, such as the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane in 1839 and the Hatt-ı Hümayun in 1856. Over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became increasingly powerful and rationalized, exercising a greater degree of influence over its population than in any previous era.
The caliphate of the Ottoman Empire was the claim of the heads of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty to be the caliphs of Islam in the late medieval and early modern era. During the period of Ottoman expansion, Ottoman rulers claimed caliphal authority after the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by sultan Selim I in 1517 and the abolition of the Mamluk-controlled Abbasid Caliphate. This left Selim as the Defender of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina and strengthened the Ottoman claim to leadership in the Muslim world.
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922) was a period of history of the Ottoman Empire beginning with the Young Turk Revolution and ultimately ending with the empire's dissolution and the founding of the modern state of Turkey.
The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, beginning in the late 14th century, with the Ottoman conquest of smaller kingdoms from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire. In the late 19th century, Bulgaria was liberated from the Ottoman Empire, and by the early 20th century it was declared independent.
Russo-Turkish wars or Russo-Ottoman wars were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European history. Except for four wars, the conflicts ended in losses for the Ottoman Empire, which was undergoing a long period of stagnation and decline; conversely, they showcased the ascendancy of Russia as a European power after the modernization efforts of Peter the Great in the early 18th century.
In AD 1453, the city of Constantinople, the capital and last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Ottoman Empire. By this time Egypt had been under Muslim control for some eight centuries. Jerusalem had been conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate Muslims in 638, won back by Rome in 1099 under the First Crusade and then reconquered by Saladin's forces during the siege of Jerusalem in 1187. Later in the seventh Crusade, it was briefly taken back by the Catholics once again. It was conquered by the Ottomans in 1517. Orthodoxy, however, was very strong in Russia which had recently acquired an autocephalous status; and thus Moscow called itself the Third Rome, as the cultural heir of Constantinople. Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Orthodox Church acquired power as an autonomous millet. The ecumenical patriarch was the religious and administrative ruler of the entire "Greek Orthodox nation", which encompassed all the Eastern Orthodox subjects of the Empire.
The territorial evolution of the Ottoman Empire spans seven centuries.
The history of Skopje, North Macedonia, goes back to at least 4000; remains of Neolithic settlements have been found within the old Kale Fortress that overlooks the modern city centre. The settlement appears to have been founded around then by the Paionians, a people that inhabited the region. It became the capital of Dardania, which extended from Naissus to Bylazora in the second century BC. Roman expansion east brought Scupi under Roman rule on the eve of the 1st century AD. When the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves in 395 AD, Scupi came under Byzantine rule from Constantinople. During much of the early medieval period, the town was contested between the Byzantines and the Bulgarian Empire. It served as Bulgarian capital from 972 to 992. After 1018, it was a capital of Byzantine theme of Bulgaria after the fall the First Bulgarian Empire. In 1189 the town was part of the Serbian realm later becoming the capital of the Serbian Empire. In 1392 the city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and they named the town Üsküb. The town stayed under Ottoman rule for over 500 years. During that period it was famous for its oriental architecture.
Rūm millet was the name of the Eastern Orthodox Christian community in the Ottoman Empire. Despite being subordinated within the Ottoman political system, the community maintained a certain internal autonomy.
Bulgarian Millet was an ethno-religious and linguistic community within the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th to early 20th century.
The Bulgarian National Awakening is the initial period of the Bulgarian National Revival in the history of Bulgaria, from the Treaty of Karlowitz to the Ottoman coups of 1807–08. During this historical period of enlightenment, the interest in self-identification and self-knowledge was aroused and revived in the conditions of the gradual decline of the Ottoman Empire, especially after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.
