Η βουλγαρική παροικία της Κωνσταντινούπολης

Abstract

Bulgarians first settled in Constantinople in the middle and late Byzantine
period. However they began to migrate to the Ottoman capital more
systematically in the reign of Mahmud II (1808-39), when the Sultan himself
brought more than a thousand tailors from Kalofer, Koprivstica, and Sliven to
make the uniforms for the newly-formed imperial army Nizam-ι Cedid. In the
years which followed, the Bulgarian population increased until it had reached
80-100,000 by the turn of the century. There are no more than 500 left today,
which means that one more piece of the Ottoman Empire’s varied
demographic mosaic is on the verge of disappearing for ever.