War, Changes, and Resource Management in Bulgaria between the 800s and the 830s

The article examines two political, social, and economic processes in Bulgaria that occurred and developed between the 800s and the 830s – the expansion of the state and the ramifications of voluntary and forced migration of population, as well as the emergence of new economic and production activities due to this influx. For their interpretation, the author proposes an interdisciplinary framework that synthesises elements from the theories of the new institutional economy, historical institutionalism and technological change. The first process involves several voluntary and forced migrations of population from the Byzantine themes of Thrace and Macedonia as a result of Byzantine-Bulgarian war during the reigns of Krum and Omurtag. This process ignited the second process of economic, institutional, and technological transfer from the Byzantine Empire to Bulgaria and its subsequent transformation. The article delves into one aspect of this change. Namely, the restoration of the water-conduits and installation of a new water supply system of the palace and the internal city of Pliska. The author surveys the written, archaeological, and epigraphic evidence for the production of new pipes and the management of water resources in mediaeval Bulgaria. The water supply system in the Pliska area was in ruins since the local population abandoned the area in Late Antiquity. Bulgarians partially restored it in the first half of the ninth century. The author argues that the forced migration of the skilled population, resulting from Krum’s and Omurtag’s campaigns, facilitated the institutional change in Bulgarian society and the technological transfer from the Byzantine Empire to its northern neighbour and rival for Balkan supremacy.