The bulgari or boulgari () is a string instrument that originates from Turkey, especially from

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

among the

Oghuz Turks The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...

living in the

Taurus Mountains The Taurus Mountains (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar,'' Greek language, Greek'':'' Ταύρος) are a mountain range, mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coastal reg ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

. belonging to the ' tampoura' family and closely related to the ' tzoura', it is played with strings plucked with a pick. This long-necked lute first appeared towards the end of the 18th century and became well-known after 1915 through the Greeks of Asia Minor. It was mainly played in Rethimno during the mid-war and owes its popularity to Stelio Foustalieri. It is rarely come across in Crete today.

Origin

The bulgari originates from Turkey as an evolution of the saz, a six to eight sting chordophone that most likely descended from other central Asian instruments. It would take its name from the

Volga Bulgars Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria (sometimes referred to as the Volga Bulgar Emirate) was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now Europea ...

with which the Turks had been in contact with. It, however, has no direct link with the Danube Bulgaria, another similar lute also called a tambura, due to the isolation of the Bulgars. The Bulgari belongs to the family of tambûrs, an instrument class that started in early Mesopotamia, which started to spread in the Ottoman Empire approximately around 14th-century. The French musicologist William André Villoteau mentioned in his journal an instrument with two strings existing in Cairo called the tanbour boulghari or bulgarie The bulgari proceeded to implant itself into Greek culture through Crete when refugees came from Anatolia in 1920, although a type of bulgari seems to have existed in the 19th-century among Christian and Muslim populations.{{Cite book, title = Crete, last = Facaros, first = Dana, publisher = New Holland Publishers, year = 2003, pages = 61

Construction

The sound box of the bulgari is either carved from a mulberry wood block or molded laminated wood with a soundboard made of pine or spruce. There is an ear with a rosette located either at the base or on the upper side. The long handle is equipped with anywhere from sixteen to twenty-two movable frets, although some musicians such as Stelios Foustalierakis replaced them with fixed frets. There are usually six to eight cords but variants have been seen with as low as three cords.

Examples of the Bulgari

Below are audio and visual examples of the bulgari in use:
Labis Xylouris plays Bulgari
(YouTube user rotonda100 has a few great examples of the bulgari in action)
"Cecen Kizi,"
by Ross Daly
"Tsiftetelli Kurdi,"
by Periklis Papapetropoulos, a famous bulgari musician

References

Lute family instruments Music of Turkey