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History of Arbanasi


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Early history

The lack of other documentary material leaves different opinions and speculations about the settlement's origin, name and population. It is accepted by some scholars that the village was populated by Bulgarian boyars that came from the westernmost parts of the Second Bulgarian Empire after Ivan Asen II's important victory over the Byzantines nearKlokotnitsa on 9 March 1230, when the tsar conquered "the land of the Albanians". This assumption is supported by 19th century notes from Georgi Rakovskiand other scholars, but by no direct evidence or contemporary source.

The earliest written document that marks the beginning of Arbanasi's history is a royal decree by the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent from 1538, according to which the sultan offered the lands of the modern localities of Arbanasi, Lyaskovets, Gorna Oryahovitsa and Dolna Oryahovitsa to his son-in-law Grand Vizier Rustem Pasha as a gift. The four villages are united under the nameArnaud Kariyeleri ("the Albanian villages") in the document, and the first settlers may have been Albanians and Greeks from Epirus; although Albanian-sounding names could be found in the Ottoman tax registers, Orthodox and Slavic names already prevailed.

The tax registers of 1541�1544 describe Arnavud k�y (also Dar? ova) as a village of 63 households and 72 unmarried men. In 1579�1580, it already numbered 271 households and 277 unmarried men, or a quadruple increase for forty years, indicating an influx of settlers. The village preserved its purely Christian character and prospered in the 17th century.



Other sources that mention Arbanasi are the notes of Pavel ?or?i? from 10 January 1595 addressed to the Transylvanian Prince Sigismund B�thory. The village is also mentioned by the Roman Catholic bishop of Sofia Petar Bogdan Bakshev, who visited Tarnovo in 1640. He remarked there was a village up in the mountains, from where the whole of Tarnovo could be seen, that had
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