Everyone, from seven to seventy, was in fear, and when everyone retreated to their homes after sunset, what happened made the night narrow and the morning difficult.
These beings, who are said to haunt the city and are thought to be “vampires”, terrified the people of Tarnova; It has even been the subject of newspapers. It may sound funny while reading it right now, but when you imagine it’s evening in lonely houses with gas lamps, it looks like a horror movie.
There were inexplicably strange events happening in the town that only happened at night.
Everything in the house, such as beds, quilts, pillows, was scrutinized and distributed. Some people even said they were attacked. After these increased cases, people could not find out who did them; it was decided that this could at most be a witch’s invasion.
This fearful news was given to the public in the official newspaper of the state, Calendar-i Vekayi.
It is highly likely that the public will squint, assuming they are delusions, and those from Rumelia will say, “What are our old wives’ tales doing in the official newspaper?” These news, which he will read with amazement, are nothing but the horrifying events created by the witches who appeared in Tarnova.
The “witches” of Rumelia were not like the witches we know.
Today we use the word witch in many senses. However, it is very important that we evaluate the discourses according to the periods. Here we need to know that the name given to the vampire and the ghoul by the Muslim people in Rumelia is witch.
When we look at the ghoul fatwas given by Ebussuud Efendi, the important sheikh al-Islam of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, we can more or less understand the effect of this belief among the people. We can encounter vampire/ghoul events in regions such as Manastır, Doyran, Thessaloniki, Yeniköy and Edirne, which we come across in both Ottoman Empire sources and foreign travel books.
This event went down in history as a case of mass hysteria.
This incident was learned from the letter of Ahmed Şükrü Efendi, one of the professors of Tırnova, in September 1833. Looking at the letter, fearful hours of night began for the people. The witch of Tarnova in question was entering the houses in the evening and mixing the supplies in the pantry. It turns out that he’s not just mixing up supplies; it was falling on people like a nightmare at night. There was no limit to those who left the city because of this incident.
The word was sent to Nikola Efendi, who is known as the witch.
When Nikola Efendi walked around the scene, listening to the events from the mouth of the people, he said “all these things are the work of witches”. After long negotiations, he was persuaded to cleanse the town of witches for 800 cents. It was on the way to the cemetery to determine the graves where the witches lay.
The witcher, Nikola Efendi, looks around by turning a wooden icon on his finger in the Tarnova Cemetery. According to the belief, it was said that the vampire lay in the grave where the tip of the icon on his finger was located.
When the icon stopped, the people were astonished.
The people were astonished, because the people knew very well the two tombs that the icon showed. These graves belonged to Tetikoğlu Ali Alemdar and Abdi Alemdar, the bloody tyrants of the Janissary Corps. These two people were well known by the public as they committed all imaginable bullying, such as theft, extortion, murder and rape during their lifetime.
Many people talk about the fact that the state used this event against the janissaries with the effect of the Vaka-i Hayriye in 1833, which took place after the abolition of the Janissary Corps.
The background in the matter was ignored: Ali and Abdi Alemdar were already dead when the stove was removed.
When the tomb was opened, the people were horrified. Because the body forms of the two janissaries are still the same; nails and hair had grown as long as possible. Actually, this was quite normal. A corpse’s hair and nails could grow and swell. However, the people perceived it as a ghost as a result of their belief structure.
They were resurrected when evil spirits entered their bodies due to the sins they committed with the “bloodshot eyes” emphasized in the fatwa given by Ebussuud Efendi. One of the reasons for this situation is thought to be the anger of the sultan. Sultan II, who removed the hearth. It is implied that they fell into this situation because they opposed Mahmut.
The Witcher Nikola said that in order to expel these spirits from the town, stakes must be driven into the stomachs of the corpses and their hearts must be scalded in boiling water. All this was done; but there was no change. In the letter, it is stated that they did not work and the bodies were set on fire by Nikola.
The people, believing that their town was purified from evil spirits as a result of Nicholas’s methods, sent letters of thanks to the sultan.
In the official letter sent to Istanbul by the judge of Tırnova, Ahmet Şükrü Efendi, everything that happened was described in this way. This event was published in the issue of the official newspaper of the state, Calendar-i Vekayi, dated September 5, 1833.
It is hard to believe, but this event, which was even published in the official newspaper, was enough to frighten all the people. According to some, this event was real, while according to others, it was a smear campaign against the Janissaries. We cannot know the truth; however, it is a fact that it is extremely frightening when we interpret it according to its period.
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