In Search of Modernity to the East: Bulgarian Students at Leading Educational Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Constantinople

In: Transforming Southeast Europe During the Long 19th Century
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Orlin Sabev
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Abstract

The current paper deals with the Bulgarian youths who studied in nineteenth-century Ottoman Constantinople. Many schools operated by Catholic and Protestant missionaries, as well as those opened by the Ottoman government following the French pattern, attracted a lot of students and provided them with modern education in accordance with the academic standards of Western Europe and the USA. The Bulgarians who attended these schools learned foreign languages (mainly Greek, French, English, and Turkish) and attained valuable knowledge that shaped their mindset and broadened their skills. The paper pays special attention to the relationship between them, on one hand, and their close contacts with the lively Bulgarian colony in Constantinople on the other. The student societies within the schools they attended as well as the student association for all Bulgarians studying in the then Ottoman capital are taken into consideration. Both the school societies and the city association were quite active: their members organized public lectures, education courses and theatrical performances for the Bulgarians living and working in Constantinople. After graduation most of them returned to Bulgaria and became prominent politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen. It is noteworthy that most of the Bulgarian ambassadors to late Ottoman Constantinople and early Republican Ankara were alumni of Constantinople schools.

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Transforming Southeast Europe During the Long 19th Century

Persons and Personalities as Agents of Modernization in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Space

Series:  Balkan Studies Library, Volume: 35
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