Bulgaria's fall under Ottoman domination, accompanied by ravaging devastations and cruel massacres of the population, was a veritable catastrophe for the Bulgarian people. The country's political and intellectual elite was destroyed or forced to emigrate. The famous literary centres which had brought glory to Bulgarian mediaeval culture were extinguished. The persecutions were not only national, but also religious. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church was destroyed as a religious institution and the Moslem religion was proclaimed as official. The majority of Bulgarian towns were depopulated and occupied by the Turkish administration and military gar-risons, while the productive Bulgarian population sought refuge in the mountains and remote regions. Thus, the social and economic base of the 14th century cultural renaissance of the Bulgarian people – the flourishing towns — was done away with.

Deprived of its state, cultural and religious institutions, the Bulgarian people were reduced to a Turkish rayah, without any rights, cruelly oppressed and exploited by the conquerors. A considerable part of the Bulgarians were forcefully assimilated, and their most fertile lands were taken by compact masses of Turkish colonists. The Ottomans pursued a systematic and purposeful policy of sapping the vitality of the subordinated peoples and enhancing their own national feelings.

Thousands of Bulgarian girls were forcefully converted to the Moslem religion and taken into the harems of the Turkish feudal loids (spahis, beys). An inhuman tax called devshourme was introduced, according to which the healthiest, handsomest and cleverest Bulgarian boys were taken away from their families to special barracks where they were isolated from the outside world and turned into soldiers, excellently schooled and fanatically loyal to Islam. These were the notorious janissaries — known for their high military qualities and morale, crack infantry of the Sultan, which sowed terror in the subordinated population and covered the Turkish arms with glory. Some of the most capable janissaries rose to the ranks of Turkish dignitaries and military commanders, who contributed a lot to the successes of the Ottoman Empire.

Bulgarian national feeling

The Bulgarian people proved to be in the worst situa-tion of all peoples conquered by the Ottomans, for they were in the very centre of the boundless Turkish ocean, without any direct links with the free Christian states. The oppressive Turkish domination over the Bulgarian people, which lasted for nearly five centuries in the conditions of the primitive and conservative Moslem state, delayed for centuries the historical development of Bulgaria and deeply wounded the soul of the people. Bulgarian national feeling, however, had struck deep roots. Bulgaria had had a state history spanning more than five hundred years, had reached the heights of an Empire and had passed through two 'Golden Ages' in its cultural development. Such a people, steeled in fierce battles with experienced and powerful enemies, cannot be obliterated even by the cruellest vicissitudes of history.

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