Henry C. Barkley was one of those nineteenth–century travellers whose profession led them to Bulgaria. He was the man who brought the first real sign of technical progress into the dominion -- he built the first two railways in the Ottoman Empire. A civil engineer by profession, he came to Bulgaria in 1857 at the age of twenty and stayed, with some interruptions, until 1876. He was what we call an occasional writer. Friends convinced him to have his memories printed. Because of the Victorian political interest in the Eastern Question, a publisher was immediately found. Barkley' s writings record his experiences and adventures with the many nations living in the Bulgarian territories.
The two books that I will be concerned with are Between the Danube and the Black Sea and Bulgaria before the War. Although the author gives much information about the culture, traditions and customs of the native population, his writings mostly report the working habits of his multi-ethnical workers, the attitude to payment and money in general, and, what is necessarily bound to them, time awareness and time usage. The topic of my study will be to discuss these three aspects -- labour, money and time -- in connection with the characteristic features of the English, Turkish and Bulgarian national characters.
I think it necessary here to explain that in my paper I use the terms ' Turkey' , ' Bulgaria' , ' Dobrudga' and ' the east European part of the Ottoman Empire' synonymously to denote the territories about which Barkley writes. In the same way, the word ' Orientals' is used to mark all the inhabitants of eastern Turkey. Since Barkley does not use the word ' British' a single time, I also rarely employ it. Instead ' English' denotes both 'British' and 'English.
Barkley, Henry C. Between the Danube and the Black Sea or Five Years in Bulgaria (London: Murray, 1877).
Barkley, Henry C. Bulgaria before the War during Seven Years' Experience of European Turkey and Its Inhabitants (London: Murray, 1877).
Last modified 2001