Dr. Alexander Antonov, TIME IS MONEY. THE OTTOMAN EXPRESS (ULAK) SERVICE IN THE LATE 17TH AND IN THE 18TH CENTURY

The lecture is based on Ottoman documents kept in Baş bakınlık Osmanlı Arşivi and the Oriental Department of the National Library in Sofia and tracing the development of the express (Ulak) service in the Ottoman Empire in the late 17^th and during the 18^th century. The lecture aims at presenting the mechanism of financing and the effectiveness of the express (Ulak) service during some of the most troublesome centuries for the Empire in military aspect.

The firmans through which in the 18^th century the authorities tried to regulate the menzil system as well as the information from the separate menzil defters show how difficult it was to reform the system because of the difference in the interests of the central authorities and the vilayet âyâns. The menzils (route stations) turned out to be a substantial source of wealth. The means from the by-the-hour payments were lost in them and the horses were used rather for private ends. The time for travelling was turned into money which was never returned into the system but catered for private interests. After 1696 the number of the menzil defters kept by the superintendents of the route stations and certified by the kadis grew substantially. This type of defters was kept as late as the 19^th century when Mustafa Reshid Pasha founded the Post khane system modeled after the modern European post office service.

Assoc. Prof. Maria Ivanova, THE BULGARIAN FAMILY – TRADITIONS AND INNOVATIONS

 

The present lecture discusses problems concerning characteristic features of the Bulgarian family – its form, structure, the average number of its members. Special attention is paid to the different forms of the Bulgarian family as a household. The inner family organization is considered according to the sex and the age of the family members.

The lecture examines some innovations in the family structure of the Bulgarians mostly characteristic of the urban family. Traditionally the village remained a preferable object of research until the 60s of the 20^th century. Only after this period the town got into the field of study of ethnologists because of the changes that were in progress in the Bulgarian village resulting in its gradual depopulation and the turning of the town into a place for making a living and adaptation for the migrated village population. Therefore most of the ethnologic research works are devoted to the process of transformation of the peasant into an industrial worker and the influence of urban environment over family way of life.