Where and Why an Entrepreneurial Class Did Not Appear During the National Revival Period

During the Bulgarian National Revival period there were settlements across Ottoman Bulgaria where a number of public figures, revolutionaries and businessmen were born and raised. The reasons for the appearance of such alert people are numerous and interrelated. Among the factors can be mentioned the specific natural and climatic conditions, the favourable geographical location of such settlements; the awake public atmosphere in them; intensive development of craft production and trade; availability of near and distant markets; the institutional changes in the Ottoman Empire; etc. On the other hand, it seems that very important are social, family and human capital – assets that are purposefully created and maintained in such settlements. The purpose of the current article is to shed light on regions and settlements where rapid economic and social development was not available in the 18th and 19th centuries. The main question I will try to give an answer is why an entrepreneurial class did not emerge in some regions and settlements during the Bulgarian National Revival period. There are several factors that contributed to the fact that a Bulgarian entrepreneurial class did not appear in regions such as the Black Sea area, the western and south-eastern Bulgarian lands (with some exceptions), etc. The factors are as follows: the privileged status of the local population in the 18th and 19th centuries did not have a positive impact on the socio-economic processes later; the low influence of the Tanzimat reforms; the absence of more active market relations; the slower incorporation of some of the mentioned regions into the emerging national market; the lack of a larger urban centre in the region of Gorna Struma, which would stimulate more active economic processes and connections in the region and beyond it; the presence of competing ethno-confessional groups (Greeks, Jews) that have entrepreneurial experience and contacts; the specific economic conditions that helps to cultivate archaic mentality in some regions; the complete or partial absence of social and family capital; the lack of human capital, as well as institutions (such as secular schools, etc.) that could contribute to its creation and maintenance; the lack of Greek cultural influence, which contributed to the formation of people with a particular economic thinking and behaviour in other regions. There are regions and settlements across Ottoman Bulgaria that did not impress with their dynamic socio-economic and public development during the National Revival period. Their historical destiny deserves to be researched because it could give us a more realistic idea of the socio-economic transformations that took place in the 18th and especially during the 19th century.