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Manastir Kilims: In Search of a Trail
- By Mizrahi, Davut
- Published 21 March 2008
- Carpets
- Unrated
Mizrahi, Davut
Davut Mizrahi is a dealer in a small, selected range of rugs, flatweaves and textiles mainly dating from the 19th century. Strongly commited to presenting the most authentic, unusual textile art pieces with a strong visual impact and artistic value.
Mizrahi Fine Arts
Seilerstätte 28
A-1010 Vienna
Austria
t. +43 1 512 51 58
www.turkotek.com
by Davut Mizrahi and Erhardt Stöbe
Editor's Note: This essay is excerpted and somewhat modified from a book by the authors, of the same title.
THE MAGIC OF THE MANASTIR: ABOUT COLLECTING
Kilims that were once produced in the European regions of the great Ottoman Empire, now northern Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia, are generally known as Sarköy, Pirot or Thracian kilims. One other group of attractive, mostly small, flat-weaves made its appearance in the past two centuries: the so-called Manastirs. Conceived as prayer carpets and mainly with a yellow ground, their harmony of color and form distinguishes them from those that were until recently called Turkish.
In the mid-1980s, the Viennese carpet landscape was enriched by the exhibitions organized several times a year at the Weber Gallery by the carpet merchant, Muammer Kirdök. This is when I saw my first Manastir, a yellow-based prayer kilim - it was love at first sight. During the next fifteen years, Kirdök’s exhibitions mainly focused on Sarköys and Manastirs. My interest in both groups and in the geographical and historical facts about them grew and, naturally, I succumbed to the temptation and bought.
What makes the Manastir kilims so special? They certainly differ from the Sarköy products in color and motif although they both stem from the same geographical region. There are two subgroups of Sarköy; the west Bulgarian kilims differ from their east Bulgarian cousins in color, density of weave and pattern. To me it is important to note that despite Bulgaria’s five-hundred-year domination by ethnic Turks, a gradual fusion between Bulgarian weaves and Turkish motifs came about. Slavic ethnic groups adopted the patterns and varied them; Bulgarian weavers in the nineteenth century primarily produced for their Ottoman clients. The kilims continued to be produced as Bulgarian and Serbian products even after the Turkish domination had ended - well into the twentieth century. Following the civil war in Yugoslavia, Sarköy-type kilims occasionally turned up in Vienna’s flea market, but they were more recent products and poor in quality. The predecessors of this flatweave were nineteenth century west Bulgarian products known in Serbia as Pirot kilims.
Of the many assumptions about the Manastir family tree, those made by S. Berntsson seem the most plausible to me: parts of the Karaman Confederation were deported to Macedonia in the mid-fifteenth century, that is, to the province of Manastir (today around the border between Macedonia and northern Greece), where they were made to settle. One could ask: In contrast to the Sarköy kilim, why did none of the Manastir techniques infiltrate weaving styles in the Balkans? Is there a connection with the forced resettling? Do tribal groups adhere more strongly to their traditions in times of adversity? By delimiting themselves from their neighbors, do they hold on more to the familiar symbols of their homeland?
It is the simplicity and the ostensibly naïve imagery of the Manastir weaves that makes them especially impressive. They speak of their wide valleys, far mountains, the heat and the barren landscape - about Asia and not Europe; about a simple and long gone rhythm of life. The prayer arches are reminiscent of entrances to Lycaonian rock graves. Looking at Manastirs takes one on a journey to far-off lands and long-lost times. They are doorways through time and space.
Heinz Arnold
Vienna, August 2002
The Manastir kilim, a small category of textiles, has primarily thrown up questions and only provided very few hesitant answers. Though known by this name for the past twenty years, only single items turn up by that name on the market, and very little knowledge about them exists. A variety of assumptions about their origins have been in circulation: they were either known as Balkan kilims or west Anatolian kilims. The name “Balkan kilim” made them unattractive to the market and, consequently, also to the collector; it was a devaluation in the hierarchy of provenance because they were not “really Turkish.” This prejudice needs to be corrected as our comprehension of the connected cultural content strongly deviates from the Turkish interpretation of its own history.
Oral tradition and literature both contain very sparse and contradictory facts. Not so long ago - let’s say about twenty-five years - one called the “Manastir carpet” a monastery carpet because Manastir in fact does mean “monastery” in the native language. Until recently, Sarköy kilims produced in neighboring regions were traded as Ghiördes kilims. Such superficial and hasty classifications, however, became insufficient as soon as one began to test and compare. The questions were always, “What is it?” and “What is it for?”
ABOUT HISTORY
Finally, it was Sonny Berntsson’s article in HALI 112 that threw light on aspects relating to the geographical provenance and the historical and cultural environment of the ethnic groups who are supposed to have woven the Manastir kilims. In combination with other opinions that were published earlier, it is currently the most extensive account. Although some of the pieces of the puzzle did not seem to fit well as they may have either been incorrect, extraneous or inappropriate to the generally accepted information, the above-mentioned article is regarded today as the most comprehensive report. Amongst all those who have written on the subject, Berntsson was the only one to have found access to members of ethnic groups in the form of an oral history relating to Manastir carpets.
What information can augment these oral traditions? How does the local history of the Manastir people fit in with the greater Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of today’s Turkey?
Our (Central European) perspective of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire differs from the way the Turkish view themselves. We see the Balkan States as just a peripheral region of Europe; we must concede that our focus in Europe lies elsewhere. For the emergent Ottoman Empire, however, the Balkan areas (today’s Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, parts of Romania and Serbia) were not peripheral states but its heartland. In this Empire’s geographical designs, the Bosporus zone (Byzantium as an enclave) was conceived of as the center so that the settlement areas expanded in equal measure to east and west; the Mongol invasions from the east forced the ethnic Turks to move westwards. In the fourteenth century, when the first regions in the Balkans were arrogated, Ottoman conquests were primarily made with the intention of appropriating land for settlement east of the Bosporus. Their first capital city Edirne (1366 under Murad I) also lies close to the assumed axis of the Bosporus. After the united Bulgarian and Serb forces were ultimately defeated near Kossova in 1389, nothing stood in the path of the foundation of the Ottoman state; the conquered regions were thus integrated into the growing Empire.
Various Yörük tribes and the Oghuz Turks as well as nomadic tribes from the Saruhan (in Anatolia) - tribes who were the cause of much turbulence - were the first to be made to settle into the Sar region (today Macedonia). But Ottoman policy did not exclude settlement in the other direction: after 1369, Bulgarians were transplanted to Asia Minor (cf. Nickel, Osteuropäische Baukunst, Du Mont, 1981). Colonization continued in full force well into the eighteenth century.
Amongst the colonizers were also Karamanogullari tribes from the Toros region, who captured residential and pasture land around Manastir in Macedonia; this supposedly happened between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. As the products were often named after the place of trade, it is assumed that it was this ethnic group that produced the Manastir textiles.
MANASTIR KILIMS
The Turkish settlement policy reached its zenith in the eighteenth century, but also its end; the nineteenth century witnessed the settlement of both Turkish as well as non-Turkish peoples in these Balkan areas in equal percentage.
Historical events in the nineteenth century led to a reversal; the declining Ottoman Empire lost several wars and, therefore land. A wave of remigration to Anatolia resulted. The first big setback came with the Crimean War (1853-56), followed by the Ottoman-Russian War from 1877 to 1878, which led to the establishment of the independent Balkan States. In 1885 came the annexation of Rumelia, i.e., the Tuna province, by the newly founded Bulgaria. Meanwhile, remigration continued between these important dates as the population of Turkish origin felt unwanted and no longer secure; the situation culminated in 1924 with the agreement to mutually repatriate the mainly Greek and Turkish populations. There are about one million ethnic Turks living in Bulgaria today. This historical outline is based on Bilal N. Simsir, The Turks of Bulgaria, Rustem & Brother, London, 1988.
The remigrants (muhajir in Turkish) could, of course, not be settled in one area. They were spread over regions where they could fit in with other tribes living there, whose way of life corresponded to their own, and where they could be held in control. The tribes were split up: ‘Divide and Rule,’ a legacy of the East Roman Empire that we should know well. This is also the reason for varying accounts. Information about the place of origin of Manastir textiles can help reconstruct this ethnic dividing.
These partially conflicting accounts, however, do create altogether a picture: descriptions of old settlements in the Balkans often point at Manastir (Bitolja); neighborly relations to the Sarköy groups are particularly emphasized here. A clear connection with Bulgaria, where large numbers of ethnic Turks still live, is supported by Istanbul’s bazaar. Today, Bulgaria is considered to be the richest source of Manastir weaves; there is usually silence about the reason for this connection. The following could well be the real reason: large segments of the ethnic group obviously did not return to western Anatolia as muhajir, but remained in the Balkans in Turkish settlements. They apparently took along with them all their household goods, which is why their old textiles could be bought in Bulgaria, and also why their later products show strong Bulgarian influences (cotton warp, pattern elements, etc.). Turkish dealers usually do not differentiate between the names Manastir and Sarköy, which often causes some misunderstandings.
Editor's Note: This essay is excerpted and somewhat modified from a book by the authors, of the same title.
THE MAGIC OF THE MANASTIR: ABOUT COLLECTING
Kilims that were once produced in the European regions of the great Ottoman Empire, now northern Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia, are generally known as Sarköy, Pirot or Thracian kilims. One other group of attractive, mostly small, flat-weaves made its appearance in the past two centuries: the so-called Manastirs. Conceived as prayer carpets and mainly with a yellow ground, their harmony of color and form distinguishes them from those that were until recently called Turkish.
In the mid-1980s, the Viennese carpet landscape was enriched by the exhibitions organized several times a year at the Weber Gallery by the carpet merchant, Muammer Kirdök. This is when I saw my first Manastir, a yellow-based prayer kilim - it was love at first sight. During the next fifteen years, Kirdök’s exhibitions mainly focused on Sarköys and Manastirs. My interest in both groups and in the geographical and historical facts about them grew and, naturally, I succumbed to the temptation and bought.
What makes the Manastir kilims so special? They certainly differ from the Sarköy products in color and motif although they both stem from the same geographical region. There are two subgroups of Sarköy; the west Bulgarian kilims differ from their east Bulgarian cousins in color, density of weave and pattern. To me it is important to note that despite Bulgaria’s five-hundred-year domination by ethnic Turks, a gradual fusion between Bulgarian weaves and Turkish motifs came about. Slavic ethnic groups adopted the patterns and varied them; Bulgarian weavers in the nineteenth century primarily produced for their Ottoman clients. The kilims continued to be produced as Bulgarian and Serbian products even after the Turkish domination had ended - well into the twentieth century. Following the civil war in Yugoslavia, Sarköy-type kilims occasionally turned up in Vienna’s flea market, but they were more recent products and poor in quality. The predecessors of this flatweave were nineteenth century west Bulgarian products known in Serbia as Pirot kilims.
Of the many assumptions about the Manastir family tree, those made by S. Berntsson seem the most plausible to me: parts of the Karaman Confederation were deported to Macedonia in the mid-fifteenth century, that is, to the province of Manastir (today around the border between Macedonia and northern Greece), where they were made to settle. One could ask: In contrast to the Sarköy kilim, why did none of the Manastir techniques infiltrate weaving styles in the Balkans? Is there a connection with the forced resettling? Do tribal groups adhere more strongly to their traditions in times of adversity? By delimiting themselves from their neighbors, do they hold on more to the familiar symbols of their homeland?
It is the simplicity and the ostensibly naïve imagery of the Manastir weaves that makes them especially impressive. They speak of their wide valleys, far mountains, the heat and the barren landscape - about Asia and not Europe; about a simple and long gone rhythm of life. The prayer arches are reminiscent of entrances to Lycaonian rock graves. Looking at Manastirs takes one on a journey to far-off lands and long-lost times. They are doorways through time and space.
Heinz Arnold
Vienna, August 2002
The Manastir kilim, a small category of textiles, has primarily thrown up questions and only provided very few hesitant answers. Though known by this name for the past twenty years, only single items turn up by that name on the market, and very little knowledge about them exists. A variety of assumptions about their origins have been in circulation: they were either known as Balkan kilims or west Anatolian kilims. The name “Balkan kilim” made them unattractive to the market and, consequently, also to the collector; it was a devaluation in the hierarchy of provenance because they were not “really Turkish.” This prejudice needs to be corrected as our comprehension of the connected cultural content strongly deviates from the Turkish interpretation of its own history.
Oral tradition and literature both contain very sparse and contradictory facts. Not so long ago - let’s say about twenty-five years - one called the “Manastir carpet” a monastery carpet because Manastir in fact does mean “monastery” in the native language. Until recently, Sarköy kilims produced in neighboring regions were traded as Ghiördes kilims. Such superficial and hasty classifications, however, became insufficient as soon as one began to test and compare. The questions were always, “What is it?” and “What is it for?”
ABOUT HISTORY
Finally, it was Sonny Berntsson’s article in HALI 112 that threw light on aspects relating to the geographical provenance and the historical and cultural environment of the ethnic groups who are supposed to have woven the Manastir kilims. In combination with other opinions that were published earlier, it is currently the most extensive account. Although some of the pieces of the puzzle did not seem to fit well as they may have either been incorrect, extraneous or inappropriate to the generally accepted information, the above-mentioned article is regarded today as the most comprehensive report. Amongst all those who have written on the subject, Berntsson was the only one to have found access to members of ethnic groups in the form of an oral history relating to Manastir carpets.
What information can augment these oral traditions? How does the local history of the Manastir people fit in with the greater Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of today’s Turkey?
Our (Central European) perspective of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire differs from the way the Turkish view themselves. We see the Balkan States as just a peripheral region of Europe; we must concede that our focus in Europe lies elsewhere. For the emergent Ottoman Empire, however, the Balkan areas (today’s Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, parts of Romania and Serbia) were not peripheral states but its heartland. In this Empire’s geographical designs, the Bosporus zone (Byzantium as an enclave) was conceived of as the center so that the settlement areas expanded in equal measure to east and west; the Mongol invasions from the east forced the ethnic Turks to move westwards. In the fourteenth century, when the first regions in the Balkans were arrogated, Ottoman conquests were primarily made with the intention of appropriating land for settlement east of the Bosporus. Their first capital city Edirne (1366 under Murad I) also lies close to the assumed axis of the Bosporus. After the united Bulgarian and Serb forces were ultimately defeated near Kossova in 1389, nothing stood in the path of the foundation of the Ottoman state; the conquered regions were thus integrated into the growing Empire.
Various Yörük tribes and the Oghuz Turks as well as nomadic tribes from the Saruhan (in Anatolia) - tribes who were the cause of much turbulence - were the first to be made to settle into the Sar region (today Macedonia). But Ottoman policy did not exclude settlement in the other direction: after 1369, Bulgarians were transplanted to Asia Minor (cf. Nickel, Osteuropäische Baukunst, Du Mont, 1981). Colonization continued in full force well into the eighteenth century.
Amongst the colonizers were also Karamanogullari tribes from the Toros region, who captured residential and pasture land around Manastir in Macedonia; this supposedly happened between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. As the products were often named after the place of trade, it is assumed that it was this ethnic group that produced the Manastir textiles.
MANASTIR KILIMS
The Turkish settlement policy reached its zenith in the eighteenth century, but also its end; the nineteenth century witnessed the settlement of both Turkish as well as non-Turkish peoples in these Balkan areas in equal percentage.
Historical events in the nineteenth century led to a reversal; the declining Ottoman Empire lost several wars and, therefore land. A wave of remigration to Anatolia resulted. The first big setback came with the Crimean War (1853-56), followed by the Ottoman-Russian War from 1877 to 1878, which led to the establishment of the independent Balkan States. In 1885 came the annexation of Rumelia, i.e., the Tuna province, by the newly founded Bulgaria. Meanwhile, remigration continued between these important dates as the population of Turkish origin felt unwanted and no longer secure; the situation culminated in 1924 with the agreement to mutually repatriate the mainly Greek and Turkish populations. There are about one million ethnic Turks living in Bulgaria today. This historical outline is based on Bilal N. Simsir, The Turks of Bulgaria, Rustem & Brother, London, 1988.
The remigrants (muhajir in Turkish) could, of course, not be settled in one area. They were spread over regions where they could fit in with other tribes living there, whose way of life corresponded to their own, and where they could be held in control. The tribes were split up: ‘Divide and Rule,’ a legacy of the East Roman Empire that we should know well. This is also the reason for varying accounts. Information about the place of origin of Manastir textiles can help reconstruct this ethnic dividing.
These partially conflicting accounts, however, do create altogether a picture: descriptions of old settlements in the Balkans often point at Manastir (Bitolja); neighborly relations to the Sarköy groups are particularly emphasized here. A clear connection with Bulgaria, where large numbers of ethnic Turks still live, is supported by Istanbul’s bazaar. Today, Bulgaria is considered to be the richest source of Manastir weaves; there is usually silence about the reason for this connection. The following could well be the real reason: large segments of the ethnic group obviously did not return to western Anatolia as muhajir, but remained in the Balkans in Turkish settlements. They apparently took along with them all their household goods, which is why their old textiles could be bought in Bulgaria, and also why their later products show strong Bulgarian influences (cotton warp, pattern elements, etc.). Turkish dealers usually do not differentiate between the names Manastir and Sarköy, which often causes some misunderstandings.