Presentation of certificates

Opening of IP

DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY OTTOMAN ARCHITECTURE ON BULGARIAN TERRITORY. MAHMUD BEY’S IMARET IN IHTIMAN - Alexander Antonov

The present article focuses on one of the imarets in the Bulgarian lands – that of Mahmud Bey in Ihtiman. For the study of its establishment, development and architecture, Ottoman narratives and registers, documents of the National Institute for Immovable Cultural Heritage, and field research have been used. The main goal is to study the architectural characteristics of a forgotten piece of early Ottoman architecture, hardly researched so far, which marks the beginning of urbanization of today’s town of Ihtiman.
 

The imaret in Ihtiman belongs to early Ottoman architecture on the Bulgarian territory and shows both the continuity in construction techniques and decorations with the Balkan-Byzantine tradition, and the new architectural tendencies in the urbanization of conquered lands. The purpose of this newly constructed building was to appropriate for Islam a newly sprung settlement on the Diagonal road, strategically important for communication.

PEACE IN THE HOUSE OF JACOB. A Few Remarks on the Ideology of Two Biblical Themes in the Oration ‘On the Treaty with the Bulgarians’ – Assist. Prof. Dr. Kirił Marinow

Who were the Byzantines and the Bulgarians according to the Byzantine point of view? What did connect or divide them?

This paper studies the ideological background of the relationship between the Byzantines and the Bulgarians, their political, religious and, of course, everyday life. The way of life in which the peace was the basis of the human’s everyday life, and war was a disturbance, violence which destroyed the holy order of every time repeating circle of time, circle which guaranteed safeness.

We could called it – standards of coexistence (the basis of the relationships between these medieval societies, the way which would have to characterize their relations, would have to become their common way of living). From the sociological and anthropological point of view the abovementioned standards of coexistence between the Byzantines and Bulgarians would have to influence their everyday life in its whole spread too.

TOPOI OF URBAN SPACE – TARNOVO IN THE 19TH CENTURY – Assist. Prof. Dr. Gergana Georgieva

I would like to trace the development of the urban space and urban structure – how it changed in different centuries and in different periods on the basis of mixture of Bulgarian, Western and Ottoman Turkish sources.

The confirmation of Tarnovo as important urban center became in the 12^th c., when it turned to capital of the Bulgarian kingdom. Its initial core was Tsarevets, Trapezitsa and the neighborhoods between them. After the Ottoman conquest, the medieval center was occupied by Muslim neighborhoods. The town developed and spread, from east to west. New quarters appeared and the core moved from Tsarevets to the so called Old town – mainly around the Konak – the seat of the Ottoman governor (nowadays known also as the National Assembly). In the 19^th c. there were 14 Muslim mahalles in Tarnovo with 872 households and 22 mosques in it and 10 non-Muslim mahalles with 12 churches.