The Jewish population of Sofia in the 18th century according to the documents of the kadi’s court

The Jewish were one of the most numerous ethnic groups among the urban population of the Ottoman Empire’s Balkan provinces, and the Jewish community in Bulgaria is one of the oldest in Europe. In the Ottoman state, the co-existence of different religious representatives as determined by the millet system, which was adopted by the Ottoman Turks from other Muslim states and developed at the initial stage of the Empire's existence. It assumed a certain autonomy for religious communities. The Jewish community had its own religious court, beit-din, with the help of which civil cases were resolved. The Jewish Religious Court forbade representatives of the Jewish community from appealing to the Sharia courts on issues within its competence. However, if the parties to a legal dispute were a zimmi (i.e. non-Muslims) and a Muslim, then the dispute should have been unconditionally considered in a Sharia court with the application of the norms of Islamic law. An analysis of the kadi court’s documents related to the cases of representatives of other confessions makes it possible to draw some conclusions about their occupations and the degree of integration into the urban society of Sofia. So, we can refute the thesis about the semi-autonomous existence of Jewish quarters in Balkan cities – we can talk about the erosion of the ethnic isolation of the places of residence of Jews in Sofia, and their active settlement, first of all, traditionally Christian quarters. An analysis of the source allows us to conclude that Jews actively interacted with representatives of other religions, participating in transactions for the sale of property with Muslims, while often it was not so much about the sale of residential buildings but about investing capital. A large number of shop sales deals testifies to the fact that members of the Jewish community had an active business life.

Towards Spheres of Influence and the End of the «Balkan Polyphony»: Southeast Europe in the Strategic Calculations of Great Britain at the Final Stage of World War II

The research analyzes Britain’s approaches to the post-war arrangement of the political space of Southeastern Europe at the final stage of World War II. In an effort to maintain its status as a global power, Great Britain took an active part in developing the foundations of a new world order. British strategic planning paid special attention to the Balkan region, where British interests traditionally clashed with the Russian/Soviet ones. The author tries to trace the elements of continuity and variability in British policy in the Balkans. This will enable us to get a more nuanced understanding of the new balance of forces in the region, one of the main manifestations of which was the extinction of the «Balkan polyphony».

Activities of the Asian Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in coordination of the Russian Balkan policy (first half of the 19th century)

The study is devoted to the activities of the Asian Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that served as a curator of the Russia-Balkans relations in the first half of the 19th century. The Asian Department (set up in 1819) was in charge of the diplomatic, economic, cultural and church relations of Russia with the countries of the «East», and, above all, with the Ottoman Empire. Relations with the Orthodox Balkan nations - Serbs, Bulgarians and Montenegrins – remained traditionally close. This department supervised the policies related to the Balkan region, developed instructions for Russian envoys in Constantinople and Athens, stored consular reports from all over the Balkan region, and, as a result, elaborated approach of the Russian government in relations with Turkey.

The problem of studying the Montenegrin legislation of the early 20th century: normative and sociological approaches

The author of the article considers the development of Montenegrin law in the 19th - early 20th centuries and tries to assess the results of the legislative activities of the Montenegrin authorities, that issued new regulations and carried out large-scale codification work on regular basis. From the point of view of the normative approach, widely used in legal science, these activities seemed quite successful; the laws that met urgent needs of the state's development were created within short periods of time. However according to the sociological approach, one has to admit that the significant part of Montenegrin legislation was just a formality and was hardly implemented in practice.

Why November 27th? On the Story behind the Treaty of Neuilly 1919

The Treaty of Neuilly imposed by the victors in the First World War on Bulgaria was signed on November 27, 1919. This date coincides with the military holiday of the Bulgarian army – the Victory Day, which commemorates the Bulgarian victories in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885. At the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was celebrated on November 15th according to the Julian calendar, which was then official for Bulgaria. After the country adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1916, the holiday was transferred to November 27th. During the First World War it was established as one of the grandest Bulgarian holidays and was marked with military parades, church services and civil celebrations, that took place across the country including the lands of Macedonia and Pomoravia. The research provides evidence that the signing the Treaty of Neuilly on the date when the Bulgarian military holiday was celebrated was not a coincidence, but a deliberate and sought-after exacerbation of Bulgarian national dignity in general and of Bulgarian military glory in particular.

Senior Russian Foreign Ministry officials on Greece in times of World War I of 1914–1917 (According to new materials from the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs)

The study is devoted to the main problems faced by Greece and the great powers during the First World War in the interpretation of senior officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry in 1914–1917.

Between «dual liberation» and occupation: Bulgarian society on the outcome of World War II

The research is devoted to the perception of the contemporary Bulgarian society of the «dual liberation» thesis, i.e. the assertion that Russia, after liberating Bulgaria from the Turkish rule in 1878, also liberated her from the German Nazis in 1944. The review of the historians’ disputes and of the heated debates in public space is concentrated around the second liberation and is connected with the analysis of several issues. First, the declaration of war by the Soviet Union on Bulgaria, which led to the inclusion of Moscow in the peace talks of the Western forces with Sofia and the conclusion of armistice, according to which the Central Control Commission under the leadership of the Soviet High Command was established and the country was put under an occupation regime. Second, the cost for the Bulgarians to maintain Soviet occupation troops is also estimated. And finally, it is considered what fate of the Soviet army monuments built in different locations in Bulgaria during the period 1944–1989 should expect.

Serbian statehood in 1903–1914. The myth of the «age of Pericles»

The article is devoted to the analysis of the state development of Serbia in the early 19th century. It is shown that despite the myth prevailing in Serbian and Russian historiography about the progressive development of the country at the beginning of the 20th century and Serbia's adoption of European economic and political standards, the country was at a difficult stage of transformation of the structures of traditional society, which significantly affected its nationwide development, leading to serious systemic crises of power.

‘Russkiy mir’: Russian Identity as a Soft Power in the Balkans

The research is focused on different civilizational vectors of the Russian popular doctrine ‘Russkiy mir’(i.e. ‘Russian world’) and its impact on the Balkans. The author also pays attention to the Slavic ideological vector of Russia in the Balkans – Panslavism, the historiosophic vector of Russian Idea as European and Messianic at the same time, the spiritual identity of Russkiy Mir – the ‘Holy Russia’ and the religious identity of Russian Orthodox civilization. The Great Return of Russia to the Black Sea region after the reunification with the Crimea (2014) and the transformation of the doctrine ‘Russkiy Mir’ from an "reintegration strategy" into a geopolitical reality. The Crimea is also the terminus-ante-quem of the chronological period of ‘post-Soviet Russia’ (1991–2014). The reunification with the Crimean marks the end of the post-Soviet period for Russia as well as rehabilitation of its great power status, lost after the collapse of the USSR. The Belarusian and the Ukrainian points of view about the Russkiy mir concept are also identified by the term ‘East Slavic Mir’. The Bulgarian Orthodox identity, based on the Church Slavonic or Bulgarian medieval languages – from the other side, is the spiritual historical link to Russkiy Mir. It is almost impossible to render in English the difference in the spelling between the political idea of ‘Russkiy Mir’, which is spelled “Русский мир”, and the church doctrine of ‘Russkiy Mir’, spelled “Русский мiр”. So, the ‘i’the church doctrine will be highlighted and italicized ‘i’. Conceiving of ‘Russkiy Mir’ only as an ideology or as a geopolitical doctrine underestimates the spiritual vector of ‘Russkiy Mir’. The spiritual reality is not abstract, but is a field of serious historical, cultural and geopolitical clashes. The annexation of a spiritual territory is more painful than any other territorial or material loss. The attempt on the part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to violate canon law by assisting the Kiev authorities in favour of the schismatics (the Kiev Patriarchate) and against the Orthodox (the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate) could lead to a split in Orthodoxy into the Slavic and the Greek ones.

Features of the political process in Bulgaria from the perspective of the Russian subjects (late 19th – early 20th centuries)

The paper examines the functioning of the Bulgarian political system in the first 40 years of its existence (1878–1918) according to the Russian eyewitnesses observations. Involvement of this type of sources as well as Bulgarian memoirs and scientific works allowed us to consider the real implementation of such components of the constitutional state as equality, freedom of speech, political competition, the electoral process and their perception by the Bulgarians themselves. The data used in the research enabled us to conclude that these components of the political system have been adapted to local realities, which largely changed the essence of the aforementioned concepts.