Myths about the Bulgarian settlers of Budzhak

The history of the "Danube migrants," which researchers traditionally include primarily Bulgarians, Gagauzes, Albanians, Danube Cossacks, and Moldovans, remains politically biased and sacralized. Any skeptical attitude toward the common historical clichés immediately evokes negativity and accusations of Bulgarophobia, anti-Romanism, and denial of history. However, the history of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Bulgarians of Budzhak is much more interesting than it is often portrayed in official historical works.

One of the earliest myths is that Bulgarians moved to Budzhak to escape the Ottomans, with the help of Russians. The resettlement of Bulgarians was initiated by the Ottoman government at the end of the eighteenth century. In fact, there was no resettlement as such, as Bulgarians had been living in Kilia and Izmail since the seventeenth century. Fearing the political instability of the Budzhak Horde, in 1769, after another Nogai uprising, the Ottomans began to resettle Bulgarians and Gagauzes. In 1769-1791, up to 2000 of these "Danube people" settled near Izmail, Bendery, Akkerman, and Kilia. By 1806, 1741 immigrant families (approximately 8500 people) had settled in 70 settlements. How much this is can be seen from the following Russian statistics: during 1812-1819, the number of Bulgarian families in Budzhak increased from 2.5 to 6.5 thousand. In particular, during 1808-1856, the Bulgarian population of Akkerman increased from 172 to 870 people. Indeed, the Russians intensified this process, but they were clearly not pioneers in this.

The main question was the reasons for this migration. Soviet researchers argued that the Ottomans abused Bulgarians, took boys to the Janissaries and girls to harems, and put economic pressure on Christians. These allegations are greatly exaggerated. For example, Christians, regardless of nationality, had a number of restrictions in the Ottoman Caliphate: churches should not be higher than mosques and additional taxes for non-Muslims were maktu (an annual tax on Christian households) and ispenje (a per capita tax on a Christian person). The maktu was paid depending on one's income (40-180 akçe annually), and the ispenje in Budzhak at the end of the sixteenth century did not exceed 22 akçe. How much this is is evident from the memoirs of the Russian traveler Pavel Sumarokov: "the inhabitants of all the settlements pay tithes of bread and other things, and the Porte pays 3 leva per family." At the same time, taxes on Muslims were higher. Christians paid 6 akche for Christmas and Easter (Gypsies paid 10 akche per household), and Muslims paid 500 kurush (up to 60 thousand akche) as zakkat (aid to the poor) during Ramadan Bayram.

As for the recruitment of Bulgarians into the Janissaries, the maximum that Bulgarian boys could hope for was to join the voluntary formations of the bashibuzuks, who were not considered part of the regular Ottoman army and fought for booty. It was forbidden to hire shepherds for the Janissaries, and rural Bulgarian boys were usually shepherds. The Ottomans favored Croats, Albanians, Bosnians, and Greeks. In particular, the well-known characters of modern Turkish TV series Ibrahim Pasha was Greek, Kenan Pasha was Albanian, and Damat Rustem Pasha was either Croatian or Bosnian. No Bulgarians by origin were recorded among the famous military officers of the sultanate.

The Bashibuzuks. IMAGE: safereactor.cc

As for the presence of Bulgarian women in harems, of course: episodes of their sale into slavery have been recorded. However, the Ottomans had a certain "fashion" and mostly bought girls from Circassia, Greece, and Venice. The least valued were Russians, Georgians, and Bulgarians. Only Vlachs bought Gypsies. The lack of demand for Bulgarians did not contribute to their sale to harems.

As we can see, the myths about the oppression of Bulgarians are somewhat exaggerated and they were quite willing to move to Budzhak during the Ottoman period.

No less widespread is the myth of Russian interest in Bulgarian immigrants and their friendly attitude towards them.

There was no consensus on the future legal status of the colonists. For example, the commander of the Danube Army Mikhail Kutuzov and the head of the settlers' administration Antonio Coronelli proposed to grant them an autonomous paramilitary or Cossack status similar to the Don Army; local officials (Admiral Pavel Chichagov, diplomat Ivan Capodistria) and landowners wanted to secure the rights of Moldovan tsarans or state peasants for the settlers. Emperor Alexander I himself was inclined to grant them the benefits of "German immigrants." The Russian authorities hesitated for a long time between Kutuzov's and Alexander I's plans. After all, granting the settlers the status of a military formation on the border with Turkey would have significantly worsened diplomatic relations with Istanbul.

The Russian government finally rejected Kutuzov's plan in 1818, as a result of the increased emigration of the "Danube migrants." The settlers feared their enslavement in the future and did not want border clashes with Turkish guards. Therefore, the government finally decided in favor of colonial status for the settlers and refused to recruit them into the Russian army.

However, not all government officials were favorable to the Bulgarians. The migrants' attachment to sheep farming caused dissatisfaction among Russian officials. Alexander Klaus considered them "homeless beggars who are undesirable for the settlement of Budzhak". Mikhail Derzhavin considered them "cattlemen who were forced to become farmers from nomadic cattlemen." The relatively weak orientation of the colonists' farms is evidenced by the following information: in 1851, almost 370 thousand hectares of their land were under hayfields and pastures, and only 123 thousand hectares were under crops, which did not exceed 25% of the suitable land.

The colonists were clearly not law-abiding citizens. The files of the Bolhrad village council contain information about constant conflicts and quarrels between them, cutting down neighboring trees, and fights over land. The Bulgarians deliberately avoided giving their real names because of their criminal past in Turkey and usually bought certificates of deceased residents of Akkerman. Some of these "residents" were over 100 years old according to the documents, which is why the ironic expression "Akkerman long-liver" has been preserved. Russian teachers were also shocked by the reluctance of village children to study in Russian, their disdain for anything that was not Bulgarian, their weak desire for knowledge, and their parents' apparent neglect of their children's education.

Map of Bulgarian settlements in Budzhak. IMAGE: newsmaker.md

The Bulgarians of Budzhak. IMAGE: press.try.md

However, the Russian government did not explain something to the colonists. In 1871, their autonomous status was abolished, recruitment (military) service was introduced, and the peasants themselves were classified as state citizens. This step was explained by the final end of the grace years. But they were most disappointed with their land allotments. The 60 acres recognized by the government were not enough for all emigrants. Therefore, in 1832 The Ministry of the Interior proposed to reduce their allotments to 30 acres. Thanks to the personal intervention of Ivan Inzov, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foreign Immigrants of Bessarabia, the allotment of the Danube colonists was reduced to only 50 acres. The actual allotment depended on the availability of free land in the colony and the year of the colonists' resettlement. If the colonists settled before 1819, they received a smaller allotment. In particular, in the village of Tabak in the Izmail district, the allotment was only 16 acres, while among the residents of Bolhrad it was 24 acres. In 1832, a colonist family owned an average of 48 acres in the Prut district, 39 acres in the Kahul district, 44 acres in the Izmail district, 61 acres in the Verkhnobudzhak district, 46 acres in the Nizhnobudzhak district, and 81 acres in the Akkerman district.

A village of Bulgarians in the nineteenth century. PHOTO: nokta.md

The landlessness of some colonists prompted them to move further. In 1866, the Chamber of State Estates collected information on the state of the farms of Bulgarian emigrants. It turned out that in the villages of Spaske, Tatarbunary, Tashlyk, Chimishliya, Chenak, and Tarakliya, most refugees did not have their own farms. As early as 1895, 590 families from the villages of Kubey and Tatar-Kobchak applied to the Akkerman Volost Administration to allow them to move to Siberia. In 1899, 102 families from the villages of Chok-Maidan, Avdarma, and Kyryutnya in the Bendery district wrote similar appeals. Due to a lack of funding, local officials allowed only 6 families from Kyriutnia to leave, paying them for the fare on the Odesa-Vladivostok steamer. In 1907, more than 3,000 families of tithe farmers in the Akkerman district wrote a petition asking for money to move. In 1908, governmental commissions were established to assist immigrants to the Turgai-Ural region. Two representatives (the Kurtov brothers) were sent from the Akkerman district to inspect land plots in the region for settlers.

During 1909-1910, these inspectors were given 276 certificates to leave for Siberia. The settlers were to receive 15-16 tithes in the Turgai-Ural, Semipalatinsk, and Akmola regions. In total, 1893 families of mostly Bulgarian and Gagauz colonists from the Akkerman and Bendery districts left for Siberia. According to the Moldovan researcher Savelii Novakov, 15-20 thousand Bulgarians and Gagauzes left for Siberia, accounting for more than 30% of the total number of immigrants from Bessarabia.

Thus, relations with imperial officials were complex and controversial.

The stereotype of the dominant number of Bulgarians in Budzhak at that time and their significant economic role is very popular.

According to the 1827 census, the share of the Moldovan population amounted to 33.5%, while the Ukrainian population dropped to 19.4%. The share of the Bulgarian population decreased to 22.7%, and the share of Russians did not exceed 9.4% of the population. Until 1831, Russian officials also understood Bulgarians as Gagauzes and did not separate them. Only in 1856 the total number of Bulgarian settlers was estimated at 99 thousand people. According to the 1897 census, the number of Bulgarians in the province was 103.2 thousand (5.3% of the total population). Most of the former colonists lived in the Akkerman district (21.3% of the total). According to Lev Berg: "The majority of the population of Akkerman county are Little Russians and Moldovans... There are many Germans, Bulgarians, and Gagauzes. In Shabo there are Swiss people... Moldovans make up almost half of the population in the Izmail district. There are a lot of Bulgarians and Little Russians, followed by Old Believers-Russians. Albanians live in the village of Karakurt". Thus, the number of Bulgarians was not dominant, but it had a significant impact on the ethnic map of the region.

Bulgarians played a dominant role in sheep breeding and milling. They hardly engaged in fishing like the Lipovans, did not breed cattle like the Germans and Ukrainians, and had a rather lukewarm attitude toward agriculture.

Since the 1830s, the center of sheep breeding has been established by Bulgarian colonists. The spread of sheep farming here is explained not only by economic reasons. Among the former Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, the May holiday of Eid al-Adha (Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr), on which every Bulgarian family has to slaughter a sheep and treat relatives and neighbors, became widespread. Therefore, sheep farming was not only an economic but also a religious part of the settlers' culture. The sheep symbolized prosperity, and only very poor families (19% in 1846) did not own sheep. The pioneers of this business were the colonists from Bolhrad-Kyrylo Minko, Dmytro Kanazyrskyi, and Dmytro Denkov. During 1833-1852, Minko kept a flock of 3500 sheep. In 1838, Kanazyrskyi had 1020 sheep, and Denkov had 1000 sheep. In the 1840s and 1850s, the number of sheep in the colonies of Bolgrad, Chishya, Impucita, Taraklia, and Tashbunar increased from 570 to 629 thousand.

In 1820, the Bulgarians had 294 mills near Bolgrad and Komrat. In 1851, 83 Bulgarian colonies had 1618 mills (1470 windmills, 132 horse-drawn mills, 16 water mills, i.e. 19-20 mills per village). Only 2 windmills operated in Bolgrad, but in the village of Volkanesti (15 miles from Bolgrad) there were more than 30 windmills, and in Chishia during 1820-1843 the number of mills increased from 45 to 75. Despite their weak focus on agriculture, Bulgarians were quite active in flour production and contributed to the economic growth of the region.

The last myth is quite unpleasant and concerns Bulgarian-Romanian relations. Unlike the Russian Empire, the Principality of Moldova (Romania since 1861) did not play democracy, but immediately raised 2 painful issues: land reform to reduce the size of farms and increase land taxes and conscription into the Moldovan army. This immediately caused a conflict. During 1857-1876, the local population was obliged to pay Romania a "state loan", a "highway tax", and other fees worth 4.2 million francs. Moreover, 1.5 million francs of taxes were collected illegally. While Bulgarians were forced to pay increased taxes in 1860-1868, the decree on recruitment angered them. On November 8, 1860, the Legislative Assembly of the Principality of Moldova extended recruitment to the colonists, which completely contradicted the Moldovan decrees of 1857-1858. On the same day, bloody clashes between the colonists and government troops took place in Bolgrad, killing up to 20 Bulgarians. Outraged by this attitude and incited by Russian agents in Izmail and Bolhrad, the colonists began emigrating to Russia. During November 8-14, 1860, 382 colonists crossed the border. On January 2, 1861, Russian Minister of State Property Mikhail Muravyov reported to the Russian ambassador in Bucharest Alexander Gorchakov that 2639 Bulgarian and 50 Moldovan families had crossed the Russian border. Between November 1860 and March 1861, more than 25.1 thousand Bulgarian colonists left the region as a result of restrictions on the benefits and rights of Bulgarians in Bessarabia, as well as clashes with the Moldovan police, and 1.5 thousand Danube Cossacks, burghers, and state peasants crossed the border. As we can see, the vast majority of refugees were Bulgarians. Later, the Romanian government in the twentieth century did not draw the right conclusions and forced more than 20 thousand Bulgarians to emigrate from Bessarabia. Thus, this myth turned out to be true, and relations between Bulgaria and Romania have a cool tint because of these events.

Thus, the history of the Bulgarians of Budzhak turned out to be more unexpected and interesting, and has many more unsolved secrets and politicized myths.

Андрій Шевченко