Unusual Bulgarian Knife

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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)

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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