French politics and the Bulgarians in the early 18th century.

Abstract

The problem of the penetration of European influence in the Ottoman Empire is very topical in contemporary historiography. Recently, a considerable number of studies have appeared treating particular moments and aspects of this long and complex process. The active interest in the topic is also due to the fact that, at the current level of research, its comprehensive illumination is a necessary condition for clarifying both the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and the revival movements of the Balkan peoples. Previous studies of the dynamics, stages and degree of penetration of capitalist relations of production and bourgeois ideas in the Balkan world have shown the determining role of the policy of the European powers towards the Ottoman Empire and the Christian peoples included in its territories.
The Bulgarian historiography already contains numerous studies that directly or indirectly deal with the ways, forms and results of the policy of one or another of the European states to penetrate the Bulgarian economy, the political and spiritual life of Bulgarian society.