Demographic and Economic Development of Veles during the Bulgarian National Revival

Демографско и стопанско развитие на Велес през Възраждането

Исторически преглед, 82 (2026) No. 3, pp. 24-41 (ISSN 0323-9748)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71069/IPR3.26.VMMLM02

Ventsislav Muchinov, Maria Levkova-Muchinova / Венцислав Мучинов, Мария Левкова-Мучинова

Assoc. Prof. Ventsislav Muchinov, DSc - Institute for Population and Human Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0338-8288, SCOPUS Researcher ID: 57214930612, e-mail: vencim_80@abv.bg
Asst. Prof. Maria Levkova-Muchinova, PhD - Institute for Historical Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9380-7245, e-mail: m_levkova@abv.bg

Abstract: This article examines the demographic and economic development of the town of Veles and its inhabitants during the Bulgarian National Revival (up to 1878). It analyses the main factors behind Veles’s transformation from a small town into one of the major urban centres in the central Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire by the mid- and third quarter of the nineteenth century. The study highlights the predominance of Bulgarian Christians in the ethno-religious structure of the population in Veles and the surrounding region, which provided grounds for the Ottoman authorities to allow the Veles eparchy to be incorporated into the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Exarchate, established in 1870. It also explores the economic entrepreneurship of the local population in a range of activities, including the production and trade of processed leather (sahtiyan), the grain trade along the Vardar River, viticulture and the production of wine and rakia, sericulture, and others. Veles families occupied important positions in the Ottoman Empire’s commercial connections abroad, especially with the Habsburg (Austrian) Empire. It was from these circles that activists emerged who led the Bulgarian national movement in Veles and in the surrounding areas of Macedonia.

Keywords: Veles, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire, Bulgarian National Revival, demographic and economic development in the nineteenth century, modernisation.

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