FOREIGNERS AND MINORITIES IN MEDIEVAL BULGARIAN TOWNS: WRITTEN AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL FRAGMENTSKazimir Popkonstantinov - Rossina Kostova (Veliko Trnovo)
A paper dealing with foreigners and minorities in a society must start with the notion of a "foreigner" and more generally, with the definition of the "other" developed and applied throughout the period under question. Unfortunately, the evidence for such a concept in Bulgarian medieval society is not so apparent and definitely not abundant. The aim of the present paper, however, is far from approaching this vast problem. Rather we will undertake the modest task of making a comprehensive presentation of the contribution of the "others" to the spatial and architectural appearance of Bulgarian medieval towns and the attitude of the natives towards foreigners and minorities there in light of the available written and archaeological data.
The statement of the archbishop of Ohrid, Demetrios Chomatenos (1216-1230), seems to provide the best statement of the problem. By answering the question whether the Armenians were free to built churches in Christian towns, he states that "….it is permitted and possible that Jews, Armenians, Ismalians, Agarians, and others…. live free in the Christian towns, yet not together with the Christians, but separately." To what extent may this reference to the status of the non-Greek-speaking population and the "infidels" on the territory of the Byzantine Empire be applied to the status of the ethnic and religious minorities in Bulgaria at that time?
Concerning the Jews, hagiographic works and dynastic history provide sufficient evidence of the influential position of the Jewish community in the capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, Turnovgrad. On one hand, mass Jewish attacks against Christian churches and priests provoked the assembly of a Church Council in 1359, when three Jews were subjected to the court, and, on the other hand, Theodora-Sara, the second wife of Tsar John Alexander, was of a Jewish origin. Surviving material traces from the powerful Jewish community in Turnovgrad, however, are rather poor: an inscription in Hebrew and 15 graves at the northwest foot of the hill of Trapezitsa, occupied by the medieval town, are attributed to Jews. The literary evidence for a minority in a town, however, is not always confirmed by archaeological data and vice versa. For instance, a so-called ascama issued by the Jewish community in Vidin (a strong fortified town on the Danube) in 1376/1377 demonstrates considerable rights in practicing Jewish customs in deciding everyday legal cases. Not a scrap of evidence for the location and architectural setting of this powerful Jewish community in the town itself, however, is attested.
The presence of Armenian communities in Bulgarian medieval towns is also demonstrated by indicative, though scarce, sources. For instance, a marginal note from 1258 tells of an Armenian pope ordained in Turnovo who was given financial support by two Armenian laymen there. Local tradition about the existence of an Armenian church in the town is argued to have been confirmed through archaeological excavations in the late 1980's. The ruins of a church on the left bank of the river Jantra outside and south of the fortress on the hill of Tsarevets have been identified as the medieval Armenian church.
While Jews and Armenians can be considered somewhat traditional minorities in medieval Bulgaria, the formation of Venetian and Genoese quarters in Bulgarian medieval towns must be seen as a result of the active economic and political role played by the two Italian cities in the eastern Balkans in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However, while attesting the place and role of those communities in particular towns one faces the same discrepancy between written and material evidence. Thus, literary evidence indicates Venetian and Genoese quarters in a number of towns on the Western Black Sea coast (e.g. Varna, Messembria, Anhialo-Azilo, Sinopoli-Sizopoli, etc.), but no archaeological or toponymic evidence is available for the exact location of distinctive quarters or buildings related to those minorities in the towns. Only in Turnovo has local tradition transmitted to the present the memory of a medieval Latin quarter in the city, the so-called Frank-hissar.
The place of the late nomads (Cumans and Tatars) in Bulgarian medieval towns, either given or occupied, might seem to provide one more point of view towards the "others" in urban space. Besides the well-known and well-studied active role both Cumans and Tatars played in the political life of late medieval Bulgaria, however, one can hardly add anything more precise about the way they lived in Bulgarian towns, if they lived there at all. The few Bulgarian inscriptions found in towns (e. g. Preslav and Shumen in northeastern Bulgaria) referring to Cumans and Tatars show rather the fear and hostility of the locals. In contrast, various kinds of literary sources provide witness for the relatively high social position of Jews in the towns, as learned people, and for the numerous privileges of the Venetians and Genoese given them by the Bulgarian rulers.
In sum, if, following the formula of the title of the present workshop, we must find a keyword for defining the way foreigners and minorities were treated in medieval Bulgarian towns and in medieval Bulgarian society, we will choose the word "tolerance" as the most appropriate.