Исторически преглед

Издание на Института за исторически изследвания при БАН

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И.Ист.И.

Some Questions on the Urban Economy of the Danubian Bulgarian Settlements in the Scholarly Works of Professor Virginia Paskaleva

Някои въпроси на градската икономика на дунавските български селища в трудовете на проф. Виржиния Паскалева

Исторически преглед, 82 (2026) No. 3, pp. 158-183 (ISSN 0323-9748)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71069/IPR3.26.IN06

Ivaylo Naydenov / Ивайло Найденов

Ch. Asst. Prof. Ivaylo Naydenov, PhD - Institute for Historical Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria; Web of Science Researcher ID: AAW-3278-2021, e-mail: ivo_ngdek@abv.bg

Abstract: This article analyses the scholarship of Prof. Virginia Paskaleva (1923–2012) on the urban economy of Bulgarian settlements along the Lower Danube in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with particular attention to her views on trade and merchants in Vidin, Lom, Oryahovo, Nikopol, Ruse, and Svishtov. It surveys her articles, studies, monographs, and documentary publications issued from the late 1950s to the late 1980s and situates them within broader debates on the emergence, evolution, and specificities of capitalist relations in the Bulgarian lands under Ottoman rule. The article argues that Paskaleva approached these issues in depth, drawing on a wide range of primary sources and scholarship, while also being shaped by the political and ideological transformations after 9 September 1944. It highlights her emphasis on the shifting political and economic situation in Central Europe, Austria’s (Austria-Hungary’s) expansion along the Middle and Lower Danube, and the impact of these processes on economic and social change in the settlements under review. The author concludes that many of Paskaleva’s arguments remain persuasive and continue to be used today, even as some of her theses have been superseded and/or revised, thereby contributing to the development of historical knowledge.

Keywords: historiography, Virginia Paskaleva, urban economy, Bulgarian Danubian settlements.