The current text is an attempt to shed light on the entrepreneurial activity of a little-known person – Atanas Genkov Simov (1832 – 1897), born in Kalofer. He was a distant relative of the prominent merchant Hristo Petkov Tapchileshtov who was also born in Kalofer and settled down in Istanbul. Atanas worked for Taphileshtov as an agent. He was responsible for purchasing and forwarding clarified butter form the town of Sofia and the nearby villages. The research is based on commercial correspondence (63 letters) and 3 contracts written in Bulgarian language. The bulk of the letters encompasses the period from the summer to the end of 1874. Several other primary sources give some information about Atanas’ entrepreneurial dealings in 1873 and in 1875. The mentioned documents give us interesting evidences of the everyday life of a typical commercial agent from the period of the Bulgarian National Revival. Moreover, it is evident that he possessed entrepreneurial mentality and particular economic culture.

The article examines the polemical anti-Latin writings “The Tale of how Rome fell away from the Orthodox Greek faith” (according to manuscript TSIAI 1161) and “Word of how Rome fell” (according to manuscript SANU 147) in the context of the theme of apocalyptic prophecies and the expectation of severe, but God’s just punishment for sins committed. A study of these short but message-laden late medieval texts reveals not only the perception of the conflict between East and West among ordinary people, but also the fear of catastrophic consequences for the world as a result of the violation of church tradition. The change of custom also implies an intervention in the plan of the Creator and changes in the physically visible and spiritual world.

In the article, the subject of research and analysis is the situation and status of the Turkish and Albanian minorities in the Yugoslav Federation after the Second World War, with an emphasis on Kosovo and Macedonia and the Yugoslav policy towards them. Because of the conflict with Kominform in June 1948 and the deterioration of the Yugoslav-Albanian relationship, the Belgrade leadership was worried about the reaction of the Albanian population in Yugoslavia. At the same time, to limit the demographic and ethnic invasion of the Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia, Yugoslav authorities started a political campaign for their exportation. After the signing of the Yugoslav-Turkish agreement in 1953, which confirmed the convention from 1938 for the exportation of Turks from Yugoslavia in Turkey, the emigration into Turkey not only of Turks, but also Albanians, was legalized. Albanians in the Yugoslav federation got the possibility to define themselves as “Turks”, and thus to immigrate to Turkey (not Albania). In that way, many Albanians in Yugoslavia, mainly from Kosovo and Macedonia, declared themselves as “Turks”. In those years, Belgrade decided to intensify and renew the idea of emigrating the Muslim population, such as the Turks and Albanians, after World War II.

Grandiose celebrations took place in 1902 in Bulgaria on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the epopee of Shipka. The idea for the celebration belongs to the “Tsar Osvoboditel Alexander IIˮ Committee. Started as a public initiative, the preparations for the jubilee received the full support of the Bulgarian prince, and at a later stage, the government in Sofia became involved. The present study reveals the activity of the Bulgarian country to organize the celebration and to ensure Russian presence at it. The different visions of Sofia and Petersburg regarding the nature of the celebrations and the reasons for the difficult communication between the two countries are presented. Moreover, the article emphasizes the efforts of the Bulgarians to turn the anniversary into a demonstration of the close relations between Bulgaria and Russia. Last but not least, the study interprets the Shipka celebrations as the first manifestation of the so-called jubilee diplomacy, which gained momentum in this period and used landmark historical events and the celebrations organized in their honor to achieve political goals.

The following article examines the issue of the merger between the liberals with the people’s liberals in one party in 1899, during the rule of D. Grekov. In historical literature, the opinion that this coalition was unprincipled, and was created because of the benefits of power, in which the Liberal Party made an attempt to “swallow” the Stambolovists, prevailed for a long time. The author of this work disputes the stated thesis and believes that there is no “unification” between the two parties, regardless of the signed official documents. The coalition is between organizations with similar political beliefs, and the reason for the split is the unequal positions of the weaker People’s Liberal Party, the strained relationship between the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior, and some organizational problems.

Popular preachers and storytellers (quṣṣāṣ; sg. qāṣṣ) appeared towards the middle of the first/seventh century and quickly became the earliest informal historians and exegetes in Islam. Before long, the Umayyad caliphs recognized the political impact of their sermons and institutionalized preaching and storytelling (qaṣaṣ) as a state office. Notwithstanding this fact, informal qaṣaṣ did not vanish altogether, sometimes giving voice to pious discontent with the ruling dynasty. In the present study, I demonstrate that during the Marwānid period qaṣaṣ was combined with judgeship and other official positions. A comparison with documentary sources suggests that during the same period the term qāḍī (judge) was not yet used, and it may have been retroactively grafted onto the Umayyad past by early ʿAbbāsid historical literature. Literary sources also imply the existence of regional hierarchies of quṣṣāṣ. During the second/eighth century, qaṣaṣ lost its significance to the professional collection and transmission of traditions (ḥadīth) for the needs of Islamic jurisprudence and exegesis. Ḥadīth transmitters and critics eventually came to dismiss the quṣṣāṣ with contempt and derision.

The article aims to trace the rapprochement negotiations between the Bulgarians and the Serbs in the period 1908 – 1909, initiated by the government officials in Belgrade. Through this maneuver, they are trying to secure their Eastern border, which would allow them to focus on their other pressing foreign policy tasks. An important role in the negotiations conducted during the mentioned period was played by the newly appointed Bulgarian diplomatic representative in the Serbian capital Andrey Toshev. A significant part of the research is based on a thorough study and analysis of reports and telegrams written by him to the ruling Democratic Party government in Bulgaria, preserved in funds 176 K (fund of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Confessions) and 315 K (fund of the Bulgarian Legation in Belgrade) of the Central State Archives in Sofia. The later works of the experienced Bulgarian diplomat, concerning the period in question, are also examined, in order to take into account his later positions on the subject. The main method used in the article is historical analysis. Тhe author pays special attention to the tendency of the Serbs to demonstrate ambivalent behavior towards their potential political allies in Sofia, which discourages the latter that rapprochement is a realistic scenario.