Every Bulgar is a yeoman farmer and maintains himself, his family, and his aged relations, and pays his taxes by the cultivation of what is practically his own land. In order to do this, he must possess capital in the shape of oxen, horses, sheep, cows, &c., and the possession of these gives an appearance of greater wealth than perhaps is justified by the actual balance of his accounts at the year' s end.' (Barkley, Bulgaria, 90.)
All information about the Bulgarians in Barkley' s books consists of reliable facts. The Englishman has a realistic view of the state of affairs in Turkey. The picture of Bulgaria he draws is an utterly pragmatic one:
They [the Bulgarians] are all, or nearly all, peasant proprietors, cultivating land which nominally belongs to the Sultan, but which is practically their freehold property. In Bulgaria there are no feudal chiefs like in Bosnia. […] As the population of Bulgaria is scanty and the soil fertile, there is not much 'earth-hunger'. Each man […] has as much land as he can conveniently cultivate; and though of course disputes about land do sometimes arise, they are much less frequent than might be expected in a country where legal landmarks are almost unknown. (Barkley, Bulgaria, ix.)
English rural life in the nineteenth century was very different, if not completely contrary. The land belonged to big landowners. ' There is no other body of men in the country [than the landlords] who administer so large a capital on their own account' -- writes Caird in The Landed Interest and the Supply of Food (Caird, 58.). On the basis of the information provided in this book Briggs (Briggs, 407.) makes the general point that many landlords were regional benefactors; many of them were conscious of their obligation towards their tenants. The peasant was hired the way any worker was hired and at an advance age was financially secure. Barkley also gives evidence of that:
[The peasant] in England works from the 1st of January to the 31st of December for a daily wage, and […] when worn out is provided with subsistence by the general community. (Barkley, Bulgaria, xi.)
The Bulgarian equivalent of the English landowners were the chorbadjis (chorbadji -- Bulgarian for ' landlord' , or, to give Barkley' s definition, ' head of the village, whose business it is to provide for strangers, as his name ' Soup man' denotes' (Barkley, Bulgaria, 214.)). They were well-off people who enjoyed the respect of the community. They had the obligation to provide for strangers who might come into the village, to arrange community matters, act as judges, settle question of disagreement, etc.. However, it was not always the case that these people did what was expected from them. Barkley explains in an indignant tone how badly he was treated by a chorbadgi when, lost in a snow storm, he and his friends had to seek shelter in the nearest village. The Englishman despised the Bulgarian ' soup man' for the way he changed his attitude to them when he understood who his unexpected guests were:
Soon after supper the Tchorbadji appeared to pay us a visit; his manners had greatly changed since he learnt that we were not a set of poor destitute devils as he had supposed, and he came sidling into the room salaaming and cringing like the very cur he was. I could not stand the beast, so jumped up and seizing a stick sent him flying from the door, much to the delight, though somewhat to the alarm, of out Bulgar friends. They were delighted to see the bully discomfited, but were fearful lest he should visit on them his wrath when our backs are turned.' (Barkley, Bulgaria, 217.)
Obviously, Barkley presents the chorbadji as contaminated by the Ottoman disease of licking the boots of the powerful and suppressing the subordinate. On the other hand, used as they were to constant oppression, ordinary people were afraid of anybody with power even if he was ethnically one of them. According to Craik' s review of The People of Turkey, the fear and patience with which the simple peasants responded to this situation was due to the ' long misfortune [that] had changed the once conquering Bulgarian into one who is ordinarily the most patient of mortals' (Craik, 264.). Mrs John Elijah Blunt, the author of The People of Turkey, from which Craik quotes, puts her judgement about the Bulgarians in slightly different words -- she simply sees them as a peaceful nation:
They [the Bulgarians] seem a peace-loving, hard-working people, possessing many domestic virtues, which if properly developed under a good government, might make the strength of an honest and promising State. (Craik, 264.)
This is an opinion with which Barkley would have agreed. Taking sides in the discussion of the Eastern Question, Barkley uses non-diplomatic language to make his point. He defends the thesis that if the Bulgarian population were given its freedom, it would be able to prosper:
I have no doubt that were the Turks banished out of Bulgaria, the Bulgars would soon convert it into one of the finest and most prosperous countries in Eastern Europe. (Barkley, Danube, 175.)
The last two points in the observation differ slightly: while Mrs Blunt talks of ' an honest and promising State' , Barkley foresees a ' prosperous country' . One of the top priorities of the Englishman was obviously hard work. For this reason, his judgements are again determined by the Victorian concepts of labour and thrift. The Bulgarians come out well in Barkley' s books, contrary to the other nations, and most of all contrary to Turkish habits, they possess the advantage of not being lazy by nature. This virtue was characteristic of both sexes.
The women are equally industrious with the men, and my experience leads me to believe that where this is the case communities thrive; whereas, where the converse obtains, or where the women only work under compulsion, no community, or indeed family, prospers. (Barkley, Bulgaria, xi.)
Thanks to female industriousness ' the houses of the Bulgarians are generally clean and comfortable' (Barkley, Bulgaria, xi.), which made them a favourite place of residence during Barkley' s trips in the countryside.
What Barkley particularly liked the Bulgarians for was that they were capable of doing anything "whether the work be ploughing a Bulgarian plain, doing navvy work in a railway cutting, studying in a village school or in that admirable institution the Robert' s College at Constantinople" (Barkley, Bulgaria, xi.). They were ' among the natives proper far the best and most intelligent workmen' (Barkley, Danube, 174-75.) . In discussing the Bulgarian attitude to labour Barkley again employs his preferred method of contrasting the Ottoman nations with one another:
As the poaching loafer of a country village often becomes a hero on such an emergency as a fire or an inundation, so is the Turk good at a pinch, but for steady continuous work give me the Bulgar. (Barkley, Danube, 176.) As workmen and employés I prefer them to all others. They are both preserving and intelligent; and very shortly, under English instruction attained to a higher class of work than, as far as I can recollect, was reached by any other native of those regions. (Barkley, Danube, xi.)
Of course, in extreme emotional states, e.g. due to his irritation with the primitiveness of the country, Barkley groups the Bulgarians together with the other Oriental nations and accuses them of being barbarians. Still, his opinion on this group remains one of the most favourable ones shown towards an Ottoman nation.
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).
Briggs, Asa, The Age of Improvement. 1783-1867 (London: Longmans, 1963).
Caird, Sir James, The Landed Interest and the Supply of Food (1878).
Craik, Henry, "The People of Turkey: Twenty Years' Residence among Bulgarians,
Greek, Turks, and Armenians", Art. IX, in: Quarterly Review
146 (1878), pp. 256-88.
Last modified 2001