GRIGOR BOYKOV OTTOMAN PLOVDIV Schriften zur Balkanforschung Band 5 Herausgegeben vom Forschungsbereich Balkanforschung des Instituts für die Erforschung der Habsburgermonarchie und des Balkanraumes OTTOMAN PLOVDIV SPACE, ARCHITECTURE, AND POPULATION (14TH–17TH CENTURIES) GRIGOR BOYKOV Accepted by the publication committee of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences: Michael Alram, Rainer Bauböck, Andre Gingrich, Hermann Hunger, Sigrid Jalkotzy-Deger, Nina Mirnig, Renate Pillinger, Franz Rainer, Oliver Jens Schmitt, Danuta Shanzer, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz Published with the support of the Holzhausen Foundation. Cover image: Public buildings and street pattern of Ottoman Plovdiv. Source for the visualization Boykov, G. (2023) “Ottoman Plovdiv_geodataset“. Zenodo. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.10046836 This publication was subject to international and anonymous peer review. Peer review is an essential part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press evaluation process. Before any book can be accepted for publication, it is assessed by international specialists and ultimately must be approved by the Austrian Academy of Sciences Publication Committee. The paper used in this publication is DIN EN ISO 9706 certified and meets the requirements for permanent archiving of written cultural property. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-3-7001-9364-7 Copyright © Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2024 Layout: Maria Baramova,Sofia Print: Prime Rate, Budapest https://epub.oeaw.ac.at/9364-7 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at Made in Europe Contents List of abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 List of maps, plans, and figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Documentary archaeology: recreating Ottoman Plovdiv. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City cadastral plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Historical photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Written sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Population sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Building a skeleton: a digital spatiotemporal model of the Ottoman city . . . . . 25 28 28 39 43 46 49 Regional geography and conquest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Upper Thrace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 The Ottoman conquest of Plovdiv and the region of Thrace in the 1360s–1370s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 The region of Plovdiv in the Ottoman administrative system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Urban topography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Urban topography of Roman and Medieval Plovdiv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Urban space of Ottoman Plovdiv: general observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Ottoman adaptations of the urban morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 First Ottoman buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Urban core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Şihabeddin’s time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 The Imperial residence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Water for a Muslim city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Population geography: dynamics, spatial distribution, and density . . . . . . . . . . . . Time of growth: the second half of the fifteenth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Towards a population peak in the sixteenth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Forced relocation (sürgün) of Muslims to the west in the 1520s . . . . . . . . . . . . On the path to recovery: population dynamics in the second half of the sixteenth century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 157 181 190 197 6| Ottoman Plovdiv A second population peak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Population dynamics in the early seventeenth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Completing Muslim city’s urban fabric: public buildings from the late sixteenth and seventeenth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Epilogue: toward a composite portrait of an Ottoman provincial center . . . . . . . 229 Appendices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.1 Plan of Plovdiv’s quarters in the nineteenth century . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.2 Identified buildings from the Ottoman period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.3 Total population distribution in 1472 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.4 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1472 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.5 Total population distribution in 1489 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.6 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1489 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.7 Total population distribution in 1516 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.8 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1516 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.9 Total population distribution in 1525 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.10 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1525 . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.11 Total population distribution in 1530 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.12 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1530 . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.13 Total population distribution in 1570 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.14 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1570 . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.15 Total population distribution in 1596 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.16 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1596 . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.17 Total population distribution in 1614 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 1.18 Population density per quarter (inh./ha) in 1614 . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 2.1 Total population by quarter, 1472–1614 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix 2.2 Population by quarter, 1472–1614 (rough tahrir data) . . . . . . . . Appendix 2.3 List of tahrir registers, 1472–1614 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 255 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297