The Bulgarians and the Bulgarian Lands in the Trade between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe during the 15th–18th Centuries

The chapter explores the role of the Bulgarian lands and population in the international trade between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe during the 15th to 18th centuries. Positioned strategically between East and West and integrated into both the Mediterranean and Ottoman economic spheres, the Bulgarian territories served both as a vital hinterland for the Ottoman capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), and a conduit for international trade flows. The paper explores how the Ottoman conquest altered the nature of economic and trade relations between these territories and the Western world, tracing shifts in commercial dynamics, regulatory frameworks, and actor networks over several centuries. The study emphasizes the methodological challenges of creating an ethnocentric narrative of trade in a period of lacking Bulgarian statehood and a region characterized by complex imperial, religious, and ethnic structures. The topic is therefore approached on three levels: the imperial level, which sets the general trends and legal framework of trade exchange, expressed in dynastic legislation (kanun) and the diplomatic regulation of trade relations between the empire and other states; the regional level, which reveals the particular place of the Bulgarian lands within these relations; and the ethnic level specifically concerning the participation of Bulgarians in international trade, insofar as it is discernible in the sources. After a general discussion of the legal regimes governing trade (including Sharia law, Ottoman dynastic law, and the capitulatory agreements), the chapter traces several key phases in the development of international trade in the Bulgarian lands. It begins with the dominance of Italian maritime republics in the 14th – 15th centuries, followed by the flourishing of Dubrovnik’s trade networks in the 16th century, and finally the rise of Ottoman merchants in the 17th – 18th centuries, with a particular focus on Jewish and Balkan Orthodox diasporas. The earliest attempts of the western colonial empires, most notably France, to enter the markets in the interior of the Ottoman Balkans in the late 17th and the 18th centuries are also discussed. These transitions are analyzed in the light of shifting political relations, legal frameworks, and the changing status of the Black Sea as a commercial arena. While showing the nature and dynamics of trade with certain commodities which formed the main part of “Bulgarian” export throughout the period – such as hides, wax, wool, and grains – the chapter pays particular attention to some trends in the commercial realization of the latter two as well as in slave trade. The Bulgarian lands remained peripheral to the main axes of East – West trade and stayed at the passive end of commercial networks, supplying agricultural goods and raw materials in exchange for Western manufactured textiles, ceramics, glass, metals, etc. Nevertheless, trade balance seems to have generally remained positive for the Ottoman side, and these exchanges kept the Bulgarians in touch with Christian Europe, while also allowing them to make their first steps in international trade.