Нахията Чепино и селищата с войнушко население в подножието на Западните Родопи според османските войнушки, тимарски и вакъфски регистри от ХVІ век
The Chepino nahiya and the settlements with voynuk population at the foot of the Western Rhodopes according to the Ottoman registers of the voynuks, timars and waqfs from ХVІ century

Summary/Abstract: On the basis of one voynuk register from 1529, as well as of three lists of timars and waqfs from 1516, 1530 and 1570, new data about the voynuk and rayah population of eleven settlements situated south of today’s town of Pazardzhik at the foot of the Western Rhodopes, is presented in the article. Most of these voynuk villages were within the borders of the Chepino nahiya, which in different times was part of the Samokov or Tatar Pazardzhik kazas. The data from the voynuk register of 1529 and from one waqf list from 1570 gives reasons to disprove the legendary knowledge about the presence of a big group of voynuks in the Chepino region, who according to the published by Stefan Zahariev “chronicle story” of Priest Metodi Draginov, became the main reason for the allegedly violent imposing of Islam among the local population. There was the opinion that this part of the “chronicle story” is fictional interpretation by Stefan Zahariev himself. The obvious contradiction between the historical reality and the “chronicle” of Metodi Draginov consists of the fact that in the first half of ХVІ century no big group of voynuks, except for three voynuk families from the village of Rakitovo, lived in the villages in the Chepino region. In ХVІІ century, when according to the “chronicle note”, the dramatic events of islamization of the voynuks from the Chepino region allegedly happened, this population category had long before disappeared from the historic scenery of this region of Bulgaria, as around 1570 the last voynuks from Rakitovo were recorded as ordinary rayah from the waqf of Sultan Suleiman I Kanuni.

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