the golden horde and the black sea 267
them explicit: “Bulgaria is placed North of the Danube. [.. .] alongside
the inscription Burgaria, above Mau(r)o Castro is drawn a flag with the
crescent moon and tamgha, the symbol for regions under Mongol rule.”505
Nothing could be clearer: Bujak was included in Bulgaria, but—nota
bene—a Bulgaria that had the status of a Golden horde province.506
even more significant for the profound changes which the carpathian-
Balkan region underwent at the start of the fourteenth century is the fact
that both Bujak and Dobruja, territories with sizeable tartar populations,
were placed under a foreign prince’s rule. evidence from the sources
shows that theodore Svetoslav made fullest use of the powers which
toqta delegated to him when he recalled his kinsmen from positions of
command in the carpathian-Balkan region: Western sources describe
concrete instances of Bulgarian high-handedness at akkerman.507 also
symptomatic for this transfer of power is the widespread reflection of the
fact in sources: while these are quite clear that events in Bujak transpired
under theodore Svetoslav’s authority, no source mentions any tartar cap-
tain or leader of any political importance in the region.
If the Bulgarians distinguished themselves by their brutality in the dis-
tant town at the mouth of the Dniester, it is obvious that their attitude
in the Dobruja would be no gentler. among the principal victims were
505 this is Spinei’s description of the map (Spinei, Moldova, p. 173), although he denies
that it shows the true state of affairs; for identical descriptions see Brătianu, “Bulgares,” pp. 61
ff. We should also consider the text by an anonymous geographer of 1308: Bulgaria est unum
imperium magnum per se. Sedes autem imperii dicti est apud budinium [= Vidin] ciuitatem
magnam. Imperatores autem eiusdem imperii [omnes] vocantur cysmani [= Shishman]. Terra
est multa lata et spatiosa. [.. .] Etiam per medium istius imperii transit danubius (Izvoare/
popa-Lisseanu, II, p. 27); evidently this author did not know that there were two Bulgarian
states, since his emphasis on the size of the country leads us to suspect that he had con-
flated the Despotate of Vidin, the only state he knew first-hand, with the very much larger
empire ruled from tarnovo. If this is so, then the Danube “flowing through that empire” is
the stretch separating Dobruja from Bujak, both under the tsar of tarnovo’s direct control.
otherwise, if our anonymous geographer was thinking only of the Despotate, it is hard to
accept that Shishman’s rule extended into the Severin Banate (cf. pavlov, “Mongolotatari,”
p. 117, and Spinei, Moldova, p. 173), since the Despot only occasionally intervened on the left
bank of the river and this only in the following decade (see below, p. 273).
506 Iorga, “Momente,” pp. 103–104, saw this clearly, describing theodore Svetoslav’s Bul-
garia as an “annex of the Mongol empire.”
507 In 1314 the franciscan angelo of Spoleto was killed in Mauro Castro [.. .] per Bul-
garos (Moule, “textus,” p. 106); the violence also affected Genoese merchants, prompting
the mother-city to proclaim a devetum on 22nd March 1316, banning subjects from trad-
ing with Bulgarians in countries ruled by Fedixclauus [= Svetoslav], tam in Mauro Castro
quam alibi (Sauli, “Imposicio,” col. 382). the Bulgarian tsar’s action against the Genoese
anticipates Dobrotich’s conflict with the republic’s merchants by about half a century, and
seems to have been caused by the same underlying economic factors.