Manastir Kilims
And the
Balkan Weaving Context
Tim and Penny Hays
September 2011
The Textile Museum
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Manastir Kilims And The Balkan Weaving Context
Weaving Took Place Across the Balkans
Dalmatia (Croatia)
Romania
Bessarabia
Serbia
Bulgaria
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Macedonia
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EASTERN EUROPE
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Kilim Weaving Centers
Western Balkans and Western Bulgaria: Urban and Organized
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Pirot (Serbia)
Vojvodina (Serbia but more rural than Pirot)
Chiprovtsy (Bulgaria)
Macedonia
The above are collectively known as Sarkoy in the
trade and among collectors
Romania (Oltenia and Moldavia)
Romania (Maramures,Banat, Hunedora: these
Areas more Rural)
Bessarabia (Moldova and Ukraine)
Bosnia-Herzegovia (especially after 1878)
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Production Types
Eastern Bulgarian Weaving
 Manastir (Bulgaria) Rural, individual
weavers
 Pomaks (Bulgaria/Turkey) Rural,
individual weavers
 Kotel (Bulgaria) Urban and organized
 Weaving design, technique, and motifs
have more Anatolian influences
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ROMANIA
Walachia - Moldavia - Transylvania
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Bulgaria
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Bulgaria
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Religious Background Of The Weavers
 Orthodox and Roman Catholic in Romania,
Bessarabia, Western Bulgaria and Serbia
 Areas of mixed religious practice and ethnicity in
the Balkans
 Muslim in Eastern Bulgaria, Macedonia, and
Bosnia
 Mostly Sunni
 In Eastern Bulgaria a significant number were
Bektashi and Alevi
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THE MANASTIR WEAVING CULTURE
 The Manastir Heartland was Eastern Bulgaria
 The weavers were descendants of Yoruk and
Turkman (Kizyl Bash) immigrants from Anatolia,
resettled to this area by the Ottomans
 Many Bektashi and Alevi
 Re-immigration to Western and Central Anatolia
probably began in the late 1870’s
 May have begun as early as the mid-1850’s
(Russo-Turkish war)
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THE MANASTIR WEAVING CULTURE
 Manastir weaving occurred in both Bulgaria and in several
areas in Anatolia
 In Bulgaria, production of flatweaves was the norm:
 Prayer kilims
 Geometric ‘eye-dazzler’ and striped kilims
 Blanket-weave covers (striped)
 Non-directional kilims (various sizes)
 Kilim yastiks in prayer and non-directional formats
 Bags and trappings not known
 Earliest West Bulgarian kilims were geometric. Sarkoy
group began late 17th and 18th century
 Earliest Manastir weavings known are early- to mid19th Century (per Velev and Stankov)
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MANASTIR WEAVING TECHNIQUE
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Blanket weave
Plain weave
Tapestry
Slit tapestry
Brocading
Only occasional use of eccentric wefting which was much
more common elsewhere in the Balkans
Wefts sometimes of different diameters in a single piece
Warp threads are wool or cotton but always very tightly
spun. Goat hair known in Sarkoy weavings
Weft threads always wool, some cotton after turn of the
20th Century.
Vertical looms
Eastern Bulgarian weaving is distinctive. Differs from that
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of western Bulgaria and the urban weaving centers
MANASTIR WEAVING MOTIFS AND DESIGNS
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Stripes
Prayer arches (often floating)
Protective amulets
Hands of Fatima
Multiple compartments
Generally sparsely filled open fields of solid colors
Designs are often austere and somewhat archaic
Pre-1925 kilims were not the product of organized weaving
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Manastir Weaving Color Schemes
 Manastir weavings from Bulgaria and Anatolia
have similar colors, but probably have different
dyestuffs
 Bulgarian production may feature:
 Red from Balkan kermes or cochineal
 Woad blue
 Yellow (weld or fustic)
 Anatolian production seems to utilize colors typical
of the areas to which the weavers relocated:
 Red from madder
 Blue from indigo
 Yellows from one of several yellow dyestuffs
 More contemporary weavings from this group are
synthetic versions of the original color scheme
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Manastir Weaving Color Schemes
 Generally fields in Manastir kilims are yellow, red, or blue
 Manastir kilims made in Balkans use woad rather than
indigo. The actual dye chemical indigotin is the same
 Greens are woad blue overdyed onto yellow
 Many shades of red ranging from pale pinks, purple reds,
to brick red. Possible use of beet root, rose root, cherry
skins
 Yellows are mustard through wheat
 Yellow not used in weaving by Slavic Bulgarians
 Light sensitivity and color fastness vary considerably
 Wefts are white wool, or cotton and warps are white and
brown wool and cotton (or a mix) – cotton generally
indicates later production
 Goat hair Warps? Sometimes in Sarkoy pieces from West
Bulgaria
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Mosques in the Manastir Heartland
 Ali Pasha Mosque in Razgrad
 Tombul Mosque in Shumen
 In Razgrad small Manastir
prayer kilims were observed in
use in the Women’s Gallery
 These are two of the three
largest mosques in the Balkans
 Area is known to be populated
by non-orthodox Muslims even
today
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The two slides that follow are of the images of the
Bulgarian countryside in the Balkan mountains north
of Pirot, Serbia and Chiprovsty, Bulgaria.
This is the landscape which supported the original
Yoruk and Kizlbash Turkmen during the period of
Ottoman dominance (pre-1878).
Stari Planina
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Stari Planina
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The image that follows is of the
town of Chiprovsty, Bulgaria,
one of the main weaving towns in
contemporary Bulgaria.
Kilims made here are a
contemporary version of the
Sarkoy type.
Chiprovski
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We hope to obtain photos of the
Manastir production areas of
northeast and east central
Bulgaria during a Fall, 2012
research trip.
This is the end of the lecture.
Now we’ll look at the
examples in the room.
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