Mystery Weapons from Bulgaria

[TVV]

Originally Posted by erlikhan

Yes. Can reach Izmir villages by many ways. Still,what I think is, brass hilted samples look similar, and mass produced to me. About the one of your friend like Samakov museum, I agree it belongs to an older era for sure. I havent seen similar samples here. The fullers seem not to come together some distance before the tip as it is supposed to be. Could be shortened?

Erlikhan, I checked with my firend and he provided the following information: the guard is part of the blade and they have been wrought together, which is absolutely extraordinary for a steel weapon from that period. As Conogre pointed out, the only thing that is somewhat similar are certain bronze weapons more than two thousand years ago. The fullers converge, but 3-4 cm before the blade tip disappear. It does not look like it has been shortened.

Radu, thanks for your interest in the thread. I too myself often wondered of the reasons behind the almost complete lack of information on weapons from the Ottoman times in Bulgaria, while weapons from other parts of the Empire, such as the Arabian Peninsula have been well studied and do not fall under the general Ottoman description. I beleieve the main reason is quite stupid and political: 15 years ago a pro-Russian, anti-NATO totalitarian government in Bulgaria seeked to deny everything in our history that had to do with the 5 not so glorious centuries that we spent under the Ottomans. Weapons were no exception and they were associated with the Turkish, who then were "The Enemy". Now that we are no longer following certain pan-slavic myths and reevaluating our history, yataghans and other weapons are no longer frowned upon. Also, 15 years ago the collecting of any type of weapons was of course prohibited, but currently edged weapons are allowed for people to own with no restrictions. This certainly contributes to the increase of interest in all weapon types and they will gradually become better studied.
To conclude, I would not blame the western scholars for lumping Bulgarian weapons with the rest of the Turkish arms, as they had no access to Bulgarian museums and written research in Bulgaria on these weapons was almost absent. It is Bulgarian communist historians and archeologists that are to blame.

[erlikhan]

interesting . about the "Ottoman period- etnoghraphic weapons of Balkan peoples else than Turks" subject, according to my opinion, just opinion open to all corrections, matter is densely related to 1-religion 2- distance to Istanbul and how much direct the control over the land is.
Peoples like Albanians and Bosnians which entered Islam became politicaly equal citizens who could carry edged weapons. They continued to have and develop their own characteristic etnoghraphic arm styles under Ottoman rule,and we all know their characteristics from plenty of definite samples. Croatians,Hungarians were distant to Istanbul, total time under rule was relatively short, Turkish civil colonisation less or none, and control was weaker or indirect, which let their characteristic arms live too. western part of today's Romania was like that too. But , when it comes especially to Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece , as the control was direct, land strategically critical, Turkish colonisation was dense even reaching to 30-50s of the total population countrywide , local Christian people were not let to carry weapons,especially long ones I am sure strictly forbidden with perhaps very little exceptions. The environment wasnt suitable for the local types to live and evolve. For example, as all samples I have seen of what is called Greek yatagans and daggers carry clear Islamic prayers, dragon head and Turkish figures, I have to think they'd better be counted still of Turko-Islamic origin having geographical nuances, ordered by mostly Moslem customers to Turk or any other local Moslem or Christian craftmen. But of course this was till 1800s. Then, with the decrease and fall of Ottoman authority, rising nationalism and interest to ethnical roots, any model could be fastly recreated, developed ,modified using Turkish ones, or national types of pre-Ottoman middle age, any other types etc. This could explain the lack of characteristic national weapon samples from Ottoman era of before 19th c. in these Balkan countries. A good sample which can be attributed directly to these people must have some Christian religious or national signs. Are there such numerous samples that I dont know?
regards

[TVV]

Great points, Erlikhan. However, there were Christians who were permitted to carry weapons, for example some Christians occupying minor administrative positions, such as being in charge of high mountain passes, etc. Also, even before the 19th century there were quite a lot of outlaws in the Balkans, some of them Muslims and deserters from the Turkish army, and some were Christians. The latter are sometimes romanticized as rebels but the truth is the great majority of them had no nationalistic or revolutionary sentiments and took up arms with plundering as their sole motivation and attacked Muslims and Christians indiscriminately. There were also a number of small unsuccessful rebelions and uprisals, whose participants used a variety of weapons.
When talking about Bulgarian types and variations of edged weapons I am not trying to separate them into Christian and Muslim examples, on the contrary, I believe the same weapon types were used by both Christians and Muslims, which can be evidenced by photographs of Bulgarian haiduts and revolutionaries, posing with kilidjes and yataghans. What I was trying to state in the begining of this thread was that in the lands that are now Bulgaria the edged weapons looked a bit different to the ones in Anataolia, who looked different from the ones in Greece, etc. There were local preferences in design and decoration, and there were perhaps one or two weapon types that are found in this region only, such as the mystery wepons from the start of this thread. And even those may not be Christian at all.

[erlikhan]

I see. Do you think geographical differences of weapons from Bulgaria carry some signs or characteristics coming from pre Ottoman local styles? just as an idea, there are Pomaks in Bulgaria. Moslem Bulgars as far as I know? I dont know if they used to be efficient in military, but they should carry arms much more freely and perhaps could continue some kind of native Bulgar style, not? If they have own tribal weapon models, could be interesting to examine them.

[Yannis]

I have to add that these kamas are very similar to greek ones of north Greece. They were used from guerilla fighters of greek Macedonia before the liberation of 1913.

[TVV]

Originally Posted by erlikhan

I see. Do you think geographical differences of weapons from Bulgaria carry some signs or characteristics coming from pre Ottoman local styles? just as an idea, there are Pomaks in Bulgaria. Moslem Bulgars as far as I know? I dont know if they used to be efficient in military, but they should carry arms much more freely and perhaps could continue some kind of native Bulgar style, not? If they have own tribal weapon models, could be interesting to examine them.

The Pomaks are not famous for military exploits. However, there were quite a lot of Turks in Nortehrn Bulgaria, who often joined the Ottoman army as irregulars and they certainly carried a huge amount of edged weapons of all sorts. Those were Turks who lived in Northern Bulgaria for a few centuries and probably they had their own style preferences.

Yannis: it is hard to see from the photo much as of the style of the kindjal's hilt. It appears a bit bigger then the ones more typical of Bulgaria, and this style of small qamas was characteristic for Central Bulgaria, and my current research shows that it became popular only after 1878. It is very likely that some made their way into Macedonia though, as the VMORO fighters equipped themselves with all sorts of weapons, pretty much everything they could get their hands on. Maybe after his visit to Skopije, Erlikhan will tell us about what he found out about the edged weapons in this part of the Balkans.

[Yannis]

I wrote similar, not the same. I will post photos soon. And I am not talking about VMORO but the greek guerillas like the man in the photo Ioannis Martzios

[TVV]

Originally Posted by Yannis

I wrote similar, not the same. I will post photos soon. And I am not talking about VMORO but the greek guerillas like the man in the photo Ioannis Martzios

I am sorry, I probably misunderstood your post as the thread is dedicated to weapons from the lands that were once ethnically Bulgarian, which is obviously not the case with the photo you posted as it is from a different, although close, geographic area. My fault.
But you are right: similarities are sure to exist, and since I love edged weapons from the Balkans, I will appreciate it when you are able to post pictures of similar daggers.