Комадно-управленски апарат на войнушката институция в българските земи под османска власт през ХV–ХVІ век: йерархична структура, функции и кадрови ...
Command and control of Voynuk Institution in the Bulgarian lands under the Ottoman rule in the fifteenth and sixteenth century; hierarchical ...

Summary/Abstract: Command and control of Voynuk Institution in the Bulgarian lands under the Ottoman rule in the fifteenth and sixteenth century; hierarchical structure, functions and personnel staff / The study analyzes the statute, functions and personnel staff of voynuk command, as well as its distribution by local government units and settlements - mainly, according to a voynuk register of 1528/29. The author upholds the view that the two most inferior command posts, which were only occupied by Christians, had very different functions: the lagators were true lower commanders while the primikurs were more like intermediaries between the population and authority in tax collection in voynuk settlements. Thorough details are given about the middle and senior management staff of vоynuk institution, manned only with Muslims: seraskers, voynuk sancakbey, the two mirahors and their kethuds. The research offers a well-grounded suggestion that to these positions only people from the ranks of the so-called Sultan slaves (kul) were allowed, which was an insurmountable barrier to the career development of the lower ranks of the corps, even if they converted to Islam. This partly explains the insignificant percentage of Islamized people in the ranks of voynuks The paper discusses an important feature of the organization of vоynuk institution in the Bulgarian lands, traceable in the register of 1528/29. It is about the fact that while in Sofia and Nikopol sandzhaks a number of middle rank officers called seraskers or cheribashiyas were in charge of the voynuks, in Silistra Sandzak and in Filibe kaza, Tatar kaza, Pazardzhik kaza and Edirne kaza were no such officer appointments and the voynuks of these areas were directly subordinate to the voynuk sancakbey. This differentiation according to the author of this study corresponds to the development of the voynuk institution itself during the Ottoman conquest, as the voynuks of the earliest conquered territories of South and Northeast Bulgaria, which is where the institution was actually founded, remained under the direct command of the voynuk bey. Again working on Ottoman documents from the sixteenth century, the author expresses the opinion that at that time there was only one voynuk sancakbey for all of Rumelia, and that its headquarters was in Filibe. The grounds for this assumption is the fact that in the sixteenth century the so called yamaks of the voynukbey came mostly from the region of Filibe as well as the fact that in the late seventeenth century there was a voynuk sancakbey in that city.

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