Traits communs du développement économique et social des peuples balkaniques et du Sud-Est Européen à l’époque ottomane

Abstract

In the beginning of his communication, the author states that he intends
to concentrate on certain economic and social features of the nations of South-
Eastern Europe, as the topic would otherwise be difficult to handle on account
of its width.
Thus, he notes that the major feature is the common political, economic
and social order whose chief characteristic is the Turkish feudal system of
fiefs. During the first centuries of the Turkish conquest, a few Christian fief
holders still exist, remnants of the old Byzantine pro noiarii, whose fate the
author attempts to trace. On the whole, all these feudal landlords were
converted to Islam; those retained their faith lost their lands.
He then proceeds to examine the Klephts, a common feature of the times,
its emergence and development as well as the emergence of the institution of
the Armatoloi, set up originally c. 1421 as a counterbalance to the klephts,
but disbanded by Sultan Ahmed IK in 1721. Nevertheless, armatoloi, who
lacked the official support of the Porte are still active in Greek Lands as late
as 1800. These were chiefly klephts, but the institution of the armatoloi in
Greek Lands seams to have revived and spread since the beginning of the
19th century. The author then examines the political economy and society of
this era, which bears similarities with the Homeric age.
Finally, the author examines the issue of the migrations of the Greek,
Bulgarian, Albanian, Serbian and other populations not only within the confines
of the Ottoman Empire, but also outside it; the routes of these migrations,
their influence as well as the development of the emigrant technicians and artisans into active and ingenious traders, who grew to represent the bourgeois

of the Balkans.