Unusual Bulgarian Knife

[Aurangzeb]

Hello All!

Here is an odd piece that has been lurking around my collection for a while. The person I bought it from said that it was a 19th. century Bulgarian folding knife from the Ottoman period, to me this seems likely because the person I bought it from was in Bulgaria but thats why I posted it here to hopefully find out more about this knife or where it really came from.
Any information or comments are welcome.

Mark...

[TVV]

Hi Mark,
What you have is called "kundre" in Bulgaria and it was a small, folding knife that women in Bulgaria used during the 19th century, and probably before that. It had various applications, the most famous being cutting a newborn's umbilical cord. Overall it was a utility tool, and by no means a fighting weapon, despite that it could have some limited application in self defence.
That is about it, but because you would probably ask how it was worn, well, it was worn on a string underneath the skirts. That is waht the ring is for.
Regards,
Teodor

[Yannis]

I agree with TVV but I have to add few words. This is also a greek folding knife, with the name “sougias”. I was lucky enough to find a better example in Ebay recently.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=6573941130

The blade of mine is defiantly greek, with greek words and date 1902. It is very beautiful blade with engraving and acid made black color to give this aesthetic result.

There is also a mystery here because it has a hilt of bone, worked and painted in an exotic style. It is the first time I see a hilt like this. The normal hilts are wood for the common pieces or silver for the higher ones. I wish your comments about the hilt. Also if anyone here has in his collection a piece, please post it.

[erlikhan]

it is a common simple farmer's tool , still used by some Turkish villagers with the name "nacak". I guess for choping and picking corn, sunflower etc. I dont know if Mike's sample is from the Ottoman period, but as the materials and shape hasnt evolved since then, it shouldnt differ so much , if antique or not. The second one probably belonged to a richer landowner looking for some difference and luxury as much as the limited village life let him.

regards

[Aurangzeb]

Hello All!

Was it strickly a womens knife? So it seems this knife is widely ditributed inparts of the balkans. Very interesting, thanks every one for the information.

Mark...

[Rick]

It's a fairly common style ; I'm not sure if one country alone can really claim it as originating there .
Yannis example shows a slight similarity to a navaja .

[TVV]

Yannis, your sougias is a marvellous example, by far the best one I have seen. The clip knives I have seen in Bulgaria are always simple ones, like Mark's and the one I have attached to this message. I do not have a time machine and I cannot be 100% certain if they were strictly used only by women, but men preferred small qamas, similar to this mundane example from my collection, referred to as Bachelor's qamas.

[Yannis]

Originally Posted by Rick

It's a fairly common style ; I'm not sure if one country alone can really claim it as originating there .
Yannis example shows a slight similarity to a navaja .

There are some special features in this Greek and Bulgarian knife that make the difference. (a) The hilt is very thin and like half circle. (b) The blade is very wide, often with flowers etching and the back side has a angle and sometimes a very obvious cusp (I found the last word in a dictionary ). I hope you can see what I mean. Unfortunately I have no picture of a fine silver example this time.

[eftihis]

Hallo, here is a silver example, but i cannot tell if it comes from a specific country.
What is very interesting is the ending of the handle where we can see a lion holding an open book, an image that reminds me very much Venice.
Propably then, it comes from an area of the Balkans that was once under venetian domination or influence, and this design just continued to be made because of habit even in the 19th century under Ottoman domination.

[Yannis]

Eftihis
Your piece is exelent but it is not exactly what I had in my mind. You know the ones with half circle hilt. This is the same family but more western as you say.

[DOMENICO]

Originally Posted by eftihis

Hallo, here is a silver example, but i cannot tell if it comes from a specific country.
What is very interesting is the ending of the handle where we can see a lion holding an open book, an image that reminds me very much Venice.
Propably then, it comes from an area of the Balkans that was once under venetian domination or influence, and this design just continued to be made because of habit even in the 19th century under Ottoman domination.

Good day, I have found a similar knife in a farm in France many years ago, but this has a brass handle. The decoration are pretty similar though.
See pictures attached. Brgds. Andrea

[kronckew]

Similar small folders were used to score the seed pods of opium poppys.

[gp]

Originally Posted by Aurangzeb

Hello All!

....So it seems this knife is widely ditributed inparts of the balkans. ...

Mark...

indeed, mine is from Herzegowina and is also quite old ( bought it near Mostar and could be traced back by the previous owner to his family around 1910 ).
Even antique I think ( Ottoman or just post Ottoman times / early Habsburg maybe)

[gp]

on the use of this knife:

next to being used for hunting, poaching, fishing in the former Yugoslavia ( Southern Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Hercegowina, Montenegro, Serbia and parts of Makedonia...could well be also Kosovo or Albania ) during the last 100 to 150 years (maybe more but I could not find any reference in my literature on a date prior that)
it was also given to young boys as a kind of toy or preparation in their boyhood to becoming an adult man who would wear a knife; the so called "cakija".
As the cakija was too dangerous and it was simply "not done " to give a cakija to a minor or underaged.

* Çakı:*knife[1], pocket knife ENfromTR çak- +Ig → çak- Oldest source: çakı "açılıp kapatılabilen bıçak" [Ahmet Vefik Paşa, Lugat-ı Osmani (1876)]*

Cakija hat it's root in the turkish word ÇAKI, what means little knife and is actually a knife or small dagger.

Interesting from a linguistic perspective : also occurs in Persian in the form "Chaqu". "Chaqu-kesh" is a knife-wielding thug.
The latter repution quite some "Yu"men got in Europe because of the use of their knives in fights.

Funny that during my stay in the Balkans mid 80ies, travelling around on a bike in summer, I got approving nods when I took mine out when folks said "aah, cakija ...good lad" whilst its use was for preparing my breakfast along the road; cutting bread and slicing sausages or fruit ☺☺☺


Nice to see this Turkish reference ( I think the writer made a typo / typing error and the year should be 1890 instead of 1990, also with reference to the Russian war and overall Ottoman- Russian Balkan troubles between 1850 and 1890) although it's still nice to see the flick knife reappearing again in Turkey now

[gp]

Originally Posted by eftihis

.....
What is very interesting is the ending of the handle where we can see a lion holding an open book, an image that reminds me very much Venice.
Propably then, it comes from an area of the Balkans that was once under venetian domination or influence, and this design just continued to be made because of habit even in the 19th century under Ottoman domination.

you're 100 % correct: it is indeed Venetian and can be found all over the Southern part of what was called the Dalmatian coast.

You can see the Venetian Lion in Southern Croatian Adriatic towns; specially the gates, coinage (coins used in Croatian Dalmatia), etc.
But also Kotor or Cattaro as it was called in the past in today's Montenegro ( picture of the Medieval city wall) when the Venetian Republic covered both sides of the Adriatic Sea as can be seen on the map

and could have easily travelled its way later through the Mediterranean to Crete , to the likes of Captain Michaelis ( with thnx to and reference to Nikos Kazantzakis!☼)

[Ian]

Most interesting discussion. Thanks to all for their contributions!

I'm not sure whether this topic is better suited to the European Forum, but it is certainly ethnographic and can stay here, particularly as we compare these knives to similar ones used elsewhere.

Krockew has already noted similar knives in SE Asia/southern China. The blade form and shape of the hilts shown here are indeed reminiscent of work knives in mainland SE Asia and more widely in the region. In the Golden Triangle area these are still used in opium farming, and similar style knives were used by scribes in the past to incise text on palm leaves.

This simple folding design with a sturdy clipped blade seems to have been recognized as a useful utility knife for a long time in widespread areas of the world.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by kronckew

Similar small folders were used to score the seed pods of opium poppys.

Does this knife fully open or does it stay sickle like to aid in the scoring/scraping process? Interesting in that I had heard that a piece of glass was preferred for the scoring. Maybe a status thing, or that glass was at one point hard to come by.

[gp]

although most of these are short ( hence giving them to boys), there are also "mature" ones. Like this example from my collection 27 cm long

[gp]

and here is another one....

to make it more international and more interesting;

the name on the blade

Sorbas...

is a village in Almeria Spain; but we can ignore that with regard to this type of knife!

Sorbas? I hear you think...
wasn't that the name of.....
what was that chap's name again....?
Yes...
Alexander Sorbas or Zorba ; Αλέξη Ζορμπά
Written by the most famous Cypriot Nikos Kazantzakis !

Then again.. Zorba wasn't Greek...he was also not even a fictional person but actual a real existing one : a Makedonian
(and met Nikos on Mount Athos where Zorba was a monk after quite an interesting life that inspired Nikos to write the novel;
Sorbas / Zorba never actually set a foot on Cyprus).

Back to the knife ( before Bulgars and Greek chase me with the cat o'nine tails over the Makedonian issue ):

what it comes down it that this specific knife might vary in size but actually was found in the past in the Balkans from what we call now from Croatia down to to Greece and Bulgaria, with Bosnia, Serbia, Makedonia in between and nowadays still in Turkey ( Bursa).

This one, not in my possension but some one I know, might be made somewhere between 1950 - 1960 ( perhaps a little later even)
Dimensions : 21,6 cm (open), 9,5 cm (blade), 12,1 cm (grip/handle), material : goat horn

[gp]

Originally Posted by eftihis

Hallo, here is a silver example, but i cannot tell if it comes from a specific country.
What is very interesting is the ending of the handle where we can see a lion holding an open book, an image that reminds me very much Venice.
Propably then, it comes from an area of the Balkans that was once under venetian domination or influence, and this design just continued to be made because of habit even in the 19th century under Ottoman domination.

just stumbled on a publication of the Austrian Museum of Folklore from 2004/5 about knives (126 pages) which has this one plural times and described as Ragusian (Dubrovnik); in the pics you can see some silver ones with tulip motives and the (Venetian) Lionshead. Enclosed a pic from Dubrovnik's Lionshead Fountain

the other 2 pics are knives from the surrounding region Dalmatia, made in goat's horn and the other knives for women from Southern Croatia.
The publication is very nice and in German and contain very interesting info. Even if you do not understand the lingo, it shows some nice items. The legal download is available from the museum's site :

https://www.volkskundemuseum.at/jart...8569903086.pdf

[kai]

just stumbled on a publication of the Austrian Museum of Folklore from 2004/5 about knives (145 pages)

Great, thanks a lot!

[ariel]

My Turkish friends told me that Chaku is the Turkish slang for a hoodlum’s knife.
But what is interesting , the same word is a “knife” in Hindi, Marathi, Kannada and Sanskrit. And,- a cherry on top,- in Gypsy/Roma.
I am wondering whether they might have been the ones to bring this word to Europe and Anatolia.

[ariel]

Tarik Kozo book “ Balkan Arms” is full of such folding knives.