During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures. 

Vampire cases in Europe have been documented very well. Often, they occurred in the border land of the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire in now eastern Europe. Today though, most of the written down sources are from the Europeans. One can almost count the found Ottoman accounts of vampires on one hand.

In 1833, a document was sent to the capital by Ahmed Şükrü Efendi, who was Kadi or a judge of Tirnivo about something strange going on in the city. The Bulgarian city Veliko Tarnovo was in the 19th century a Balkan city within the Ottoman Empire. The document was published in issue 69 of the Takvîm-i Vekâyi’ Gazette, the first official state newspaper from the 19 Rebiulahir 1249 /October, 1833.

Veliko Tarnovo: Veliko Tarnovo is one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria, with a history of more than five millennia. Tarnovo was a stronghold of the First Bulgarian Empire and capital of the second. The Ottoman Empire captured the city on 17 July 1393. Bulgarian resistance against Ottoman rule remained centered in Tarnovo (then known as Tırnova) until the end of the 17th century. On 7 July 1877 ended the 480-year rule of the Ottoman Empire.

The Vampire in Veliko Tarnovo

Vampirism was not a common belief in Muslim Anatolian populations like it did with the Slavic people, although there are definite stories of it. Almost all of the instances recorded in Ottoman sources concern Christian populations and show the gaze of the Ottoman authorities, commissioned to uphold the principles of Islamic orthodoxy, in the context of which the souls of the dead had no way of returning among the living. Still, there kept coming in stories of the undead.

According to the reports, they started assaulting the houses in the city after sunset. They were not accused of rising from the grave to drink the blood of the locals though. They were said to turn invisible and torment them instead. They mixed together foods like flour, butter and honey, or spoiled them with earth. They tore the pillows, the blankets, the mattresses and the wrapping clothes that they found in the cupboards to pieces. They threw stones, earth, jars and pots onto people. Nobody could see anything though, but it is claimed that the vampires also assaulted some men and women. 

These latter have been summoned and interrogated by the state. They said they felt like a water-buffalo was sitting on them, but no perpetrators were found. Because of the troubles in town, it is claimed that the population of two quarters left their homes and fled elsewhere. The inhabitants of the town agreed that all these things were the works of evil spirits called cadı. 

Vampires or the Ottoman Empire: The cadı is often translated into witch or some sort of sorcery, but was in some cases used for vampirism cases like this. According to Arminius Vambery, one of the founding fathers of the science of Turkology, reported that “According to a widespread belief in the Ottomans, vampires hide in tree hollows and hunt there. Vampires that are captured are beheaded, put in a sack, and thrown into the sea.”

A man named Nikola, called Cadıcı Nikola, reputed for exorcism in the town of Islimye was brought from Sliven, and hired for eight hundred kuruş. His scheme was to hold a painted piece of wood, to go to the graveyard, and to turn the piece of wood on his finger. Almost like an ouija board. The painting showed the grave haunted by the evil sprit.

A huge crowd went to the graveyard. As he turned the painted piece of wood on his finger, the painting stood in front of the graves of two brigands, Tetikoğlu Ali and Apti Alemdar, formerly members of the Janissary corps, and bloody tyrants when they were alive.

The Janissary Corps: was a member of the elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan’s household troops. Its members were recruited/enslaved from among the Christian youth of the Empire, especially in the Balkans. They gradually became a formidable war machine, certainly one of the best infantry troops in military history. They were forbidden from marriage until their retirement at 40. They lived in huge military barracks in the midst of Istanbul, a kind of holy shrine, whose access was strictly prohibited to civilians.

The graves of the former Janissary soldiers were opened in front of everyone. It was discovered that the bodies had grown, and their hair and nails had also grown three or four times longer. Their eyes were covered in blood, and looked terrifying. The entire crowd in the cemetery saw this, the article claimed. In hindsight though, there has been speculation that the entire situation was some sort of propaganda stunt. 

The Janissary Threat to the Ottoman Empire

When alive, these men had committed all kinds of mischief, including rape, theft and murder; when their corps was abolished, they had not been delivered to the executioner, interestingly, as evidenced by their age they had died a natural death. How? Not many years ago, the sultan had actually purged the Ottoman Empire for Janissary soldiers to replace with a new order. The story goes on to claim that they returned as evil spirits. 

The Janissary Assassinations: As Western Europe modernized its military organization and technology, the Janissaries became a reactionary force that resisted all change within the Ottoman army. By the 18th century, they had become an undisciplined army, extorting the entire city of Istanbul, refusing to go to war and participating actively in the intrigues of the Palace. In 1826, Mahmud II annihilated the Janissaries by using his modern troops, specifically the artillery, trained in the European fashion, with the help of the civilian population and the Muslim clergy. Within two days, thousands of Janissaries were killed, arrested, or exiled, perhaps as many as 6000. The survivors were persecuted in the whole empire and, when arrested, delivered to the executioner for strangulation. Even their tombstones were dismantled

Could it all have been a propaganda stunt to unite against the former order? Or was the cemetery actually filled with people waiting for the hired exorcist to get rid of the city tormentors? 

According to the description of the witch Nikola, in order to drive out such evil spirits, a wooden stake was driven into the navel of the corpses and their hearts were boiled in boiling water. Both Ali Alamdar and Abdi were exhumed and a wooden stake was driven through their navels and their hearts were boiled in a pot of boiling water. But it had no effect. The witch said, “These bodies must be burned.” An official religious permission (fatwa) was obtained for this matter, and the bodies of the two Janissaries, which were exhumed, were burned in the cemetery. This was said to have worked. 

Bulgarian Vampire Panic: This was not the only time the city had vampire cases though. A skeleton was found in 2012. The skeleton is of a man about 30 years of age, and it is yet to be dated, but Bulgaria’s top archeologist, Nikolay Ovcharov, is quoted saying it is several centuries-old. Ovcharov explains that the man has not been a vampire, but was buried with a pagan rite to prevent him from turning into one after the death. The skeleton was found during archeological digs in a monastery near the central city of Veliko Tarnovo, where 10 years ago Ovcharov’s team came upon a very similar find. // Source

The described incident follows European witchcraft methods with slight differences. For example, in European belief, the stake is driven into the heart line instead of the navel, and cutting off the heads of corpses is traditionally an effective remedy as well as boiling the hearts. 

It is estimated that such baseless rumors like about the janissary vampires were put forward to incite the people against the undisciplined Janissaries as part of the state propaganda to further defame the soldiers. And as the newspaper was often used for propaganda stories for the state, we can wonder if this really happened at all. Or was it actually vampires tormenting the people of Veliko Tarnovo?

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References:

Xortdan — Vikipediya

Janissary – Wikipedia

Balkan Vampires before Ottoman Courts

Ottoman Accounts of Vampirism (Review essay: S. F. Kırgi, Osmanlı Vampirleri: Söylenceler, Etkileşimler, Tepkiler, Istanbul: İletişim 2018)

Meçkey – Vikipedi