The Ottoman Legal Framework and the Economic History of Bulgarian Lands in the 15th – 18th Centuries

The focus of this chapter is on several main issues. The changes in the approaches and methodology of researching the Ottoman economy and the economic history of the Bulgarians in the 15th – 18th centuries in Bulgarian and world Ottoman studies are outlined. The discussion theses and hypotheses are commented in the post-liberation historiography and in the studies of V. Mutafchieva, B. Tsvetkova, S. Dimitrov, E. Grozdanova, etc. until the end of the 1980s, influenced by the so-called formational theory of the development of the society, but also by the achievements of the best Ottoman scholars (Ö. L. Barkan, M. Gökbilgin, H. Inalçık, M., Genç, Ö. Ergenç etc.). Qualitatively different approaches to the study of this issue at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries have been highlighted in the studies of Tsv. Georgieva, E. Radushev, St. Parveva, Sv. Ivanova, M. Petkova, K. Mutafova, P. Andonova and others. In the context of the latest research and the available source base (kanuns, kanunnames, fermans, fetvas of the Ottoman Şeyhülislams, etc.), including unpublished Ottoman kanuns and kanunnames, preceding the detailed descriptive registers (mufassal defters and tahrir defters) for the land holdings and population in the individual sancaks of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman legal framework determining the development of economic life and the place of the Bulgarians in it is traced. One of the accents is placed on the legal cases and regulations concerning Ottoman agrarian relations and institutions in the legislations (kanuns, kanunnames, etc.) and the legislative acts of the Ottoman sultans. A number of issues of the centralized policy and legal frameworks of the development of the urban economy in the Ottoman Empire and in the Bulgarian lands in the 15th – 17th centuries are clarified.