The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, beginning in the late 14th century, with the Ottoman conquest of smaller kingdoms from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire . In the late 19th century, Bulgaria was liberated from the Ottoman Empire , and by the early 20th century it was declared independent .
102-723: The brutal suppression of the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876 and the public outcry it caused across Europe led to the Constantinople Conference , where the Great Powers tabled a joint proposal for the creation of two autonomous Bulgarian vilayets, largely corresponding to the ethnic boundaries drawn a decade earlier with the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate . The sabotage of the Conference, by either
204-637: A Sanjakbey or Subasi accountable to the Beylerbey . Significant parts of the conquered land were parcelled out to the Sultan 's followers, who held it as benefices or fiefs (small timar , medium zeamet and large hass ) directly from him, or from the Beylerbeys. This category of land could not be sold or inherited but reverted to the Sultan when the fiefholder died. The lands were organised as private possessions of
306-621: A Christian. Burnaby's goal was to present a counter-narrative to the general Russophile attitude in Britain. According to Turkish historian Sinan Akıllı, his attempts manifested mixed results and were only partially successful in reversing the public opinion. The April uprising was not successful in itself, but its bloody suppression by the Ottomans caused such outrage across Europe that public opinion, even in Turcophile England, shifted, demanding
408-645: A colonial mindset, an ingrained anti-Turkish bias, "othering", preconceived ideas of Turkish barbarism and guilt or, at best, on pro-Russian leaning. McCarthy has since dedicated an entire book to the issue, where he attributes all negative perceptions of Turkey in the US to 19th century American missionaries—such as pastor James F. Clarke, who first gave an alert about the treatment of the Bulgarian rebels. However, McCarthy, Shaw and Millman have in turn themselves been accused by fellow Western historians of being an "apologist for
510-473: A complex set of factors behind the process. These include: pre-existing high population density owing to the late inclusion of the two mountainous regions in the Ottoman system of taxation; immigration of Christian Bulgarians from lowland regions to avoid taxation throughout the 1400s; the relative poverty of the regions; early introduction of local Christian Bulgarians to Islam through contacts with nomadic Yörüks ;
612-456: A cover-up because of the British Empire's strongly pro-Ottoman official stance and his own reputation as a Turkophile . After visiting 3 cities and 11 villages, Schuyler compiled a report detailing the burning of sixty-five villages, the demolition of five monasteries and the slaughter of at least 15,000 people—rebels and non-combatants alike. However, what Schuyler emphasised the most was
714-476: A makeshift cannon out of cherry-wood . In the progress of the preparation of the uprising, the organisers gave up the idea of a fifth revolutionary district in Sofia due to the deplorable situation of the local revolutionary committees and moved the centre of the fourth revolutionary district from Plovdiv to Panagyurishte . On 14 April 1876, a general meeting of the committees from the fourth revolutionary district
816-570: A minority of Circassians) were counted as "Established", while colonists who still benefited from a tax exemption (as a rule, Circassians arriving in 1864 or later) were regarded as "Muhacir". Contemporary European geographers, such as German-English Ravenstein , French Bianconi and German Kiepert similarly counted Crimean Tatars with Turks in Islam millet. April Uprising of 1876 Uprising suppressed The April Uprising ( Bulgarian : Априлско въстание , romanized : Aprilsko vastanie )
918-531: A number of other restrictions: they were barred from testifying against Muslims in inter-faith legal disputes. Even though they were free to perform their own religious rituals, this had to be done in a manner that was inconspicuous to Muslims, i.e., loud prayers or bell ringing were forbidden. They were barred from certain professions, from riding horses, from wearing certain colours or from carrying weapons. Nevertheless, there were specific categories of rayah who were exempt from nearly all such restrictions, such as
1020-503: A particularly poignant issue after jizye collection in most of the country was taken over by the Six Divisions of Cavalry . Bulgarians also paid a number of other taxes, including a tithe ("yushur"), a land tax ("ispench"), a levy on commerce, and various irregularly collected taxes, products and corvees ("avariz"). Generally, the overall tax burden on the rayah (i.e., Non-Muslims), was twice as high as that on Muslims. Christians faced
1122-722: A pro-Russian position on the conflict and was not concerned with the expansion of Russia's power projection. In contrast, the works of Frederick Burnaby present a pro-Turkish understanding of events. To investigate the accounts of massacres in British media, Burnaby embarked on a travel through Ottoman lands; his memoirs were published under the titles A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia (1876) and On Horseback through Asia Minor (1877). According to Burnaby, many Western accounts of atrocities were exaggerated and sometimes fabricated and atrocities against Muslims were omitted from
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#17328486611581224-479: A reform of the model of Ottoman governance. As a result, the Great Powers called the Constantinople Conference in December 1876, where they presented the Sultan with a combined proposal that envisaged the creation of two autonomous Bulgarian provinces, largely overlapping with the borders of the Bulgarian Exarchate . By splitting the autonomy in two and ensuring extensive international oversight of provincial affairs,
1326-454: A sensual paradise." The political impact of the reports was immediate and dramatic. As the leader of the opposition, Gladstone called upon the government to withdraw its support for Turkey. "I entreat my countrymen" , he wrote, "upon whom far more than upon any other people in Europe it depends, to require and to insist that our government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in
1428-418: A slow, but steady process of Islamisation until the mid-1600s when the tax burden became so unbearable that most of the remaining Christians either converted en masse or left for lowland areas. These factors had an impact on the entire country. Due to them, the population of Ottoman Bulgaria is presumed to have dropped twofold from a peak of approx. 1.8 million (1.2 million Christians and 0.6 million Muslims) in
1530-556: A well-known American war correspondent, Januarius MacGahan , by a German correspondent, and by a Russian diplomat, Prince Aleksei Tseretelev. Schuyler's group spent three weeks visiting Batak and other villages where massacres had taken place. Schuyler's official report, published in November 1876, said that fifty-eight villages in Bulgaria had been destroyed, five monasteries demolished, and fifteen thousand people in all massacred. The report
1632-627: Is also a member of, and has received grants from, the Institute of Turkish Studies . Contemporary Bulgarian historians generally accept the number of Bulgarian casualties at the end of the uprising to be around 30,000. According to British and French figures, 12,000–15,000 Bulgarian civilians were massacred during the uprising. News of massacres of Bulgarians reached European embassies in Istanbul in May and June 1876 through Bulgarian students at Robert College ,
1734-627: Is beginning to be horrible. An article about the massacres in the Daily News on 23 June provoked a question in Parliament about Britain's support for Turkey, and demands for an investigation. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli promised to conduct an investigation about what had really happened. In July, the British Embassy in Istanbul sent a second secretary, Walter Baring, to Bulgaria to investigate
1836-610: Is commonly accepted to have started with the historical book, Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya , written in 1762 by Paisius , a Bulgarian monk of the Hilandar monastery at Mount Athos , lead to the National awakening of Bulgaria and the modern Bulgarian nationalism , and lasted until the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 . The Millet system
1938-614: The Austrians as part of their long war with the Ottomans. All of the uprisings were unsuccessful and were brutally suppressed . Most of them resulted in massive waves of exiles, often numbering hundreds of thousands. In 1739 the Treaty of Belgrade between Austrian empire and the Ottoman Empire ended Austrian interest in the Balkans for a century. But by the 18th century the rising power of Russia
2040-637: The British or the Russian Empire (depending on theory), led to the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) , whereby the much smaller Principality of Bulgaria , a self-governing, but functionally independent Ottoman vassal state was created. In 1885 the Ottoman autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia unified through a bloodless coup with the Principality of Bulgaria . The Ottomans reorganised the Bulgarian territories, dividing them into several vilayets , each ruled by
2142-571: The British Empire , eventually led to the re-establishment of a separate Bulgarian state in 1878. In Europe, in the 18th century, the classic non-national states were the multi-ethnic empires such as the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire , whose population belonged to many ethnic groups and spoke many languages. The idea of nation state became more prominent during the 19th century. The most noticeable characteristic
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#17328486611582244-846: The Bulgarian church in Constantinople in pursuance of the March 12 [ O.S. February 28] 1870 firman of Sultan Abdülaziz of the Ottoman Empire. The foundation of the Exarchate was the direct result of the struggle of the Bulgarian Orthodox population against the domination of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in the 1850s and 1860s. In 1872, the Patriarchate accused
2346-465: The Constantinople Conference (1876-1877), and along with the strategic interests of Russia on the Balkans, was a reason for the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 that ended with the reestablishment of independent Bulgarians state in 1878, albeit under the Treaty of Berlin Bulgarians were divided, and the territory of the Principality of Bulgaria was far smaller than what Bulgarians had hoped for and what
2448-577: The Dervendjis , who guarded important passes, roads, bridges, etc., ore-mining settlements such as Chiprovtsi , etc. Some of the most important Bulgarian cultural and economic centres in the 19th century owe their development to a former dervendji status, for example, Gabrovo , Dryanovo , Kalofer , Panagyurishte , Kotel , Zheravna . Similarly, Christians living on wakf holdings were subject to lower tax burden and fewer restrictions. The Ottoman Empire's greatest advantage compared to other colonial powers,
2550-634: The First Tarnovo Uprising , the Chiprovtsi uprising , the Second Tarnovo uprising and Karposh's rebellion , which led to the massive flight of Christian Bulgarians to Wallachia and the Austrian Empire , the population of present-day Bulgaria in the 1680s is assumed to have dropped to approx. 0.9 million in the 1680s, divided into 450,000 Christians and 450,000 Muslims (or a ratio of 1:1). From
2652-648: The millet system and the autonomy each denomination had within legal, confessional, cultural and family matters, nevertheless, largely did not apply to Bulgarians and most other Orthodox peoples on the Balkans, as the independent Bulgarian Patriarchate was destroyed and all Bulgarian Orthodox dioceses were subjected to the rule of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople and made part of Rum millet (Greek Orthodox millet). Thus, instead of helping Christian Bulgarians maintain their customs and cultural identity,
2754-523: The "Five Bulgarian Sanjaks" as per 1865 Pop. Registry According to the "Kuyûd-ı Atîk" Ottoman Population Register, the male population of the five sanjaks to eventually form the future Principality of Bulgaria was divided into the following ethnoconfessional communities in 1865: Between 1855 and 1865, the population of the Danube Vilayet underwent seismic changes, as the Ottoman authorities settled more than 300,000 Crimean Tatars and Circassians on
2856-449: The "established Muslims" column and additional 20,000 were left out or simply lost in the carry-over. The division of Muslims into "Established" and "Muhacir" in the 1873-1874 Census and the 1875 Ottoman Salname was not based on origin, as the name might suggest, but on "taxability". Thus, colonists whose tax exemption had expired and were liable to taxation (i.e., those of them who had settled prior to 1862—Crimean Tatars, Nogais, etc. and
2958-501: The 1490s. At the same time, there are records of at least two forced relocations of Bulgarians to Anatolia, one right after the fall of Veliko Tarnovo and a second one to İzmir in the mid-1400s. The goal of this "mixing of peoples" was to quell any unrest in the conquered Balkan states, while simultaneously getting rid of troublemakers in the Ottoman backyard in Anatolia. However, Ottomans never pursued or practiced forced Islamisation of
3060-668: The 1580s to approx. 0.9 million in the 1680s (450,000 Christians and 450,000 Muslims), after growing steadily from a base of approx. 600,000 (450,000 Christians and 150,000 Muslims) in the 1450s. While the Ottomans were ascendant, there was overt opposition to their rule. The first revolt began at the time Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund established the chivalric Order of the Dragon , 1408, when two Bulgarian nobles, Konstantin and Fruzhin , revolted and liberated some regions for several years. The earliest evidence of continued local resistance dates from before 1450. Radik ( alternatively Radich)
3162-588: The American college in the city. Faculty members at Robert College wrote to the British Ambassador and to the Istanbul correspondents of The Times and the Daily News . But let me tell you what we saw at Batak ... The number of children killed in these massacres is something enormous. They were often spitted on bayonets, and we have several stories from eye-witnesses who saw the little babes carried about
Ottoman Bulgaria - Misplaced Pages Continue
3264-656: The April Uprising's casualty figures is fellow historian Hakem Al-Rustom's critique that "Justin McCarthy is an apologist for the Turkish state and supports the official version of history, which denies the Armenian genocide. He thus might have exaggerated the number of Muslim victims in the Balkans in order to underplay the number of Armenian victims in Anatolia." Both McCarthy and Shaw are Armenian Genocide denialists. McCarthy
3366-567: The Arabic word rā'ī راعي which means "shepherd, herdsman, patron" ) was a member of the tax-paying lower class of Ottoman society, in contrast to the askeri and kul . The raiyah made up over 90% of the general population in the millet communities. In the Muslim world, raiyah is literally subject of a government or sovereign. The raiyah (literally 'members of the flock') included Christians, Muslims, and Jews who were 'shorn' ( i.e. taxed) to support
3468-585: The Bulgarian population, as had earlier been claimed by Communist Bulgarian historiography. According to scholarly consensus, conversion to Islam was voluntary as it offered Bulgarians religious and economic benefits. According to Thomas Walker Arnold , Islam was not spread by force in the areas under the control of the Ottoman Sultan . A 17th-century author said: Meanwhile he (the Turk) wins (converts) by craft more than by force, and snatches away Christ by fraud out of
3570-479: The Danube Vilayet, Bulgarian statistician Dimitar Arkadiev has found that men aged 15–60 represented, on average, 49.5% of all males and that the coefficient that would make it possible to calculate the entire male population is therefore 2.02 . To compute total population, male figures are then usually doubled (Bulgarian authors have suggested a coefficient of 1.956, but this has not gained international acceptance). Using this method of computation, (N=2 x (Y x 2.02)) ,
3672-522: The Empire and the term was used for legally protected religious minority groups , similar to the way other countries use the word nation . New millets were created in 1860 and 1870. The Bulgarian Exarchate (a de facto autocephalous Orthodox church) was created as separate Bulgarian diocese based on voted ethnic identity . It was unilaterally (without the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch ) promulgated on May 23 [ O.S. May 11] 1872, in
3774-608: The Exarchate that it introduced ethno-national characteristics in the religious organization of the Orthodox Church, and the secession from the Patriarchate was officially condemned by the Council in Constantinople in September 1872 as schismatic . Nevertheless, Bulgarian religious leaders continued to extend the borders of the Exarchate in the Ottoman Empire by conducting plebiscites in areas contested by both Churches. In this way, in
3876-702: The Future Principality of Bulgaria in 1875 At the same time, a flash summary of the results of the Danube Vilayet Census published in the Danube Official Gazette on 18 October 1874 (also covering the Sanjak of Tulça ) gave twice as many male Circassian Muhacir , 64,398 vs. 30,573, and slightly fewer "established Muslims" than the final results published in 1875. According to Turkish Ottomanist Koyuncu, 13,825 male Circassians were carried over to
3978-513: The Ottoman administrative system. The boys were picked from one in forty households. They had to be unmarried and, once taken, were ordered to cut all ties with their family. While a minority of authors have argued that "some parents were often eager to have their children enrol in the Janissary service that ensured them a successful career and comfort" , scholarly consensus leans very much the other way. Christian parents are described to have resented
4080-411: The Ottoman government at the time did not claim more than 500 Muslims killed—most of whom in battle. Polish scholar Tomasz Kamusella opines that the numbers of victims may not distinguish between Orthodox Christians and Muslims, but acknowledges that there were only some 500 Muslim deaths. This is countered by American historian Richard Millman , who states that Schuyler visited in person only 11 of
4182-547: The Sanjak of Sofia (male Muslim population of 2,896 and male non-Muslim population of 8,038) to the Ottoman Empire and the kaza of Mankalya from the Sanjak of Varna (male Muslim population of 6,675 and male non-Muslim population of 499) to Romania and attached the kaza of Iznebol (male Muslim population of 149 and male non-Muslim population of 7,072) from the Sanjak of Niš to the Principality of Bulgaria. Ethnoconfessional Groups in
Ottoman Bulgaria - Misplaced Pages Continue
4284-416: The Sultan or Ottoman nobility, called "mülk", and also as an economic base for religious foundations, called vakιf , as well as other people. The system was meant to make the army self-sufficient and to continuously increase the number of Ottoman cavalry soldiers, thus both fuelling new conquests and bringing conquered countries under direct Ottoman control. From the 14th century until the 19th century Sofia
4386-460: The Turkish Government asked Britain for help, but the British government refused, citing public outrage caused by the Bulgarian massacres as the reason. During the 19th century, British Empire typically supported Ottomans against their conflicts against Russian Empire, a common rival at the time, to curb its pan-Slavist and Orthodox Christian influence in Balkans. William Gladstone assumed
4488-418: The Turkish and Muslim population in mixed regions opposing the uprising. These actions include killing, arson of property and homes and seizure of assets. On the other hand, Muslims who did not resist were to be protected in the same way as the Bulgarian population. The committee also gave approval for torching towns and villages. However, there is no evidence that this plan was implemented. In conformity with
4590-413: The Turkish state" , of having "an indefensible bias toward the Turkish official position" (McCarthy), of suffering from a "Turkish-nationalist bias" , of offering a "vehemently anti-Armenian and Hellenophobic interpretation of modern Turkish history" (Shaw), of "being irredeemably pro-Turkish and pro-Disraeli" (Millman), etc. multiple times throughout their careers. Most relevant in the context of
4692-526: The blame for the failure of the Conference on the go-to villain in modern Bulgarian history, the English. However, newer research rather indicates that the power that sabotaged the Conference was the Russian Empire itself. The Russians had already apportioned Ottoman holdings in Europe amongst themselves and Austria-Hungary by virtue of the secret Reichstadt Agreement and Budapest Convention and stood to lose
4794-801: The boys to attempt to preserve their faith and some recollection of their homeland and their families. For example, Stephan Gerlach writes: They gather together and one tells another of his native land and of what he heard in church or learned in school there, and they agree among themselves that Muhammad is no prophet and that the Turkish religion is false. If there is one among them who has some little book or can teach them in some other manner something of God's world, they hear him as diligently as if he were their preacher. When Greek scholar Janus Lascaris visited Constantinople in 1491, he met many Janissaries who not only remembered their former religion and their native land but also favoured their former coreligionists. One of them told him that he regretted having left
4896-474: The decisions taken at Oborishte , the local rebel committee attacked and surrounded the headquarters of the Ottoman police in Koprivshtitsa on 20 April 1876. At least two Ottoman police officers were killed, and the commander, Necip Aga, was forced to release arrested rebel suspects. Necip Aga and his close officials managed to escape the siege. However, due to this incident, the Bulgarian rebels had to proclaim
4998-545: The desire to stop paying jizya as a primary incentive for conversion to Islam in the Balkans, and Bulgarian researcher Anton Minkov has argued that it was one among several motivating factors. Two large-scale studies of the causes of adoption of Islam in Bulgaria, one of the Chepino Valley by Dutch Ottomanist Machiel Kiel , and another one of the region of Gotse Delchev in the Western Rhodopes by Evgeni Radushev reveal
5100-667: The early 1700s, the Christian population is assumed to have started growing again. According to the 1831 Ottoman census , the male population in the Ottoman kazas that fall within the current borders of the Republic of Bulgaria stood at 496,744 people, including 296,769 Christians, 181,455 Muslims, 17,474 Romani , 702 Jews and 344 Armenians . The census only covered healthy taxable men between 15 and 60 years of age, who were free from disability. Millets in present-day Bulgaria as per 1831 Ottoman Census By using primary population records from
5202-436: The enormous repercussions of their deeds, American Protestant missionary and author Henry Otis Dwight called the revolt "the maddest freak that ever led men to death" . The most detailed contemporary account of the uprising was prepared by American diplomat Eugene Schuyler . He learned about the events from faculty members at Robert College , who feared that the coming investigation of Englishman Walter Baring would turn into
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#17328486611585304-404: The exceptional, highly unnecessary brutality employed, in particular, at Batak . Eventually, despite his reputation as a Turkophile, Baring by and large confirmed Schuyler's findings. The report of his investigation only reduced the estimated number of victims to 12,000. Januarius MacGahan also put the number of Bulgarian casualties at 15,000, with the reservation that the figure does not cover
5406-463: The forced recruitment of their children, and would beg and seek to buy their children out of the levy. Many different ways of avoiding the devshirme are mentioned, including: marrying the boys at the age of 12, mutilating them or having both father and son convert to Islam. In 1565, the practice led to a revolt in Albania and Epirus, where the inhabitants killed the recruiting officials. It was not rare for
5508-406: The grass was growing luxuriantly. It emitted a sickening odour, like that of a dead horse, and it was here that the dogs had been seeking a hasty repast when our untimely approach interrupted them ... The ground is covered here with skeletons, to which are clinging articles of clothing and bits of putrid flesh. The air was heavy, with a faint, sickening odour, that grows stronger as we advance. It
5610-547: The hearts of men. For the Turk, it is true, at the present time compels no country by violence to apostatise; but he uses other means whereby imperceptibly he roots out Christianity... Thus, in a number of cases, conversion to Islam can be said to have been the result of tax coercion, due to the much lower tax burden on Muslims. While some authors have argued that other factors, such as desire to retain social status, were of greater importance, Turkish writer Halil İnalcık has referred to
5712-449: The heavy Muslim population losses earlier in the century, but also counteracted continued population loss and led to an increase in its Muslim population. In this connection, Karpat also refers to the material differences between Muslim and non-Muslim fertility rates, with non-Muslims growing at the rate of 2% per annum and Muslims usually averaging 0%. Koyuncu also notes a much higher natural rate of increase among Non-Muslims and attributes
5814-706: The insurrection north of the Balkan . Subsequent investigations by the French and Russian Consuls estimated the number of Bulgarian casualties at 25,000–40,000. In mid-June 1876, Turkish sources claimed some 18,000 casualties, and Bulgarian ones 30,000. According to Baring, the civilian Muslim population was not materially affected by the rebellion. This is also substantiated in the reports of Eugene Schuyler and James F. Clarke, who testify that very few peaceful Muslims were killed. According to Schuyler, Muslim casualties numbered 115, of whom 12 women and children. Ottoman officials at
5916-507: The insurrection two weeks in advance of the planned date. Within several days, the rebellion spread to the entire Sredna Gora and to a number of towns and villages in the northwestern Rhodopes . The insurrection broke out in the other revolutionary districts, though on a much smaller scale. The areas of Gabrovo , Tryavna , and Pavlikeni also revolted in force, along with several villages north and south of Sliven and near Berovo (in present-day North Macedonia ). The Ottoman response
6018-454: The last sparks of resistance was poet Hristo Botev 's attempt to come to the rebels' rescue with a detachment of Bulgarian political émigrés resident in Romania, which ended with the unit's rout and Botev's death. Nevertheless, a unit of Circassian paramilitaries managed to commit a final atrocity well after the end of hostilities. They butchered 145 non-combatants at Boyadzhik after confusing
6120-462: The last waves of Muslim migrants from Anatolia. As a result of the near-constant war led by the Ottoman Empire from the mid-1500s to the late 1600s, the need for additional tax revenues, the sixfold increase in jizye tax rates, which pauperised the Christian population, the Little Ice Age in the 1600s that caused crop failures and widespread famine and several important Bulgarian uprisings, e.g.,
6222-442: The millet system actually promoted their assimilation. Bulgarian ceased to be a literary language, the higher clergy was invariably Greek, and the Phanariotes started making persistent efforts to hellenise Bulgarians as early as the early 1700s. It was only after the struggle for church autonomy in the mid-1800s and especially after the Bulgarian Exarchate was established by a firman of Sultan Abdülaziz in 1870 that this policy
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#17328486611586324-568: The most from a Bulgarian state that was not under their control—namely, their century-old dream of controlling the Turkish Straits and having a warm-water port (a.k.a. Catherine the Great 's " Greek Plan "). Rayah A raiyah or reaya (from Arabic : رعايا raʿāyā , a plural of رعيّة raʿiya "countryman, animal, sheep pasturing, subjects, nationals, flock", also spelled raiya , raja , raiah , re'aya ; Ottoman Turkish رعايا IPA: [ɾeˈʔaːjeː] ; Modern Turkish râiya [ɾaːˈja] or reaya ; related to
6426-403: The nearly constant Ottoman conflict with the Habsburgs from the mid-1500s to the early 1700s; the resulting massive war expenses that led to a sixfold increase in the jizya rate from 1574 to 1691 and the imposition of a war-time avariz tax; the Little Ice Age in the 1600s that caused crop failures and widespread famine; heavy corruption and overtaxation by local landholders—all of which led to
6528-424: The need for a separate Bulgarian church and millet, thus initiating the Bulgarian nation-building process even under foreign rule, and through the blood shed by the hothead revolutionaries who had managed to cause a seismic shift in European public opinion. However, on 20 January 1877, Grand Vizier Midhat Pasha officially and finally rejected the autonomy proposal. Bulgarian historiography has traditionally cast
6630-423: The other hand, Barbara Jelavich , who admits that the beginning of the April Uprising was accompanied by a massacre of Muslim civilians, upholds Baring's estimate of 12,000 Bulgarian casualties. According to British historian Richard Shannon , the insurgents killed less than 200 Muslims, very few of whom were non-combatants. According to the report written by Schuyler and American journalist Januarius MacGahan ,
6732-462: The other, and shall apply all its vigour to concur with the states of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves ..." Prominent Europeans, including Charles Darwin , Oscar Wilde , Victor Hugo , and Giuseppe Garibaldi , spoke against the Turkish behavior in Bulgaria. When war with Russia started in 1877,
6834-497: The population of present-day Bulgaria in 1831 would stand at 2,006,845 people. The Principality of Bulgaria was established on 13 July 1878 and incorporated five of the sanjaks that used to be part of the Ottoman Danube Vilayet : The Sanjaks of Vidin , Tirnova , Rusçuk , Sofya and Varna , with individual border changes, cf. below. The two other sanjaks in the Danube Vilayet, those of Niš and Tulça , were ceded to Serbia and Romania, respectively. Ethnoconfessional Groups in
6936-411: The preparation for a Bulgarian holiday with a rebellion in the making. The Porte 's refusal to send additional regular army detachments, and the decision of the Beys of Edirne and Filibe to instead arm bashi-bazouk forces greatly determined the number of casualties and the aftermath of the uprising's suppression. Thus, the village of Bratsigovo , which was one of the best prepared centres of
7038-444: The press reports. The landlord of Burnaby in Ankara complains to him about this as such, Your newspapers always published the accounts of the Bulgarian women and children who were slaughtered, and never went into any particulars about the Turkish women who were massacred by the Bulgarians, or about our soldiers whose noses were cut off, and who were mutilated by the insurgents in the Herzegovina. A Turk values his nose quite as much as
7140-463: The proposal reflected all of the British Empire 's wishes and allayed its fears that the provinces would become Russian puppets. Thus, the decades-long Bulgarian struggle for self-governance and freedom appeared to finally bear fruit. And this the Bulgarians had achieved entirely by themselves—through the efforts of both clergy and the young Bulgarian bourgeoisie, which had successfully argued before and succeeded in convincing Grand Vizier Âli Pasha in
7242-493: The rebellion and managed to fiercely resist enemy attacks for days, suffered only 250 casualties, very few of whom civilian, after fighting a regular Ottoman army unit. The leader of the Bratsigovo resistance, Vasil Petleshkov , also assumed all blame for what had happened. By contrast, Perushtitza , Panagurishte and Batak , which faced bashi-bazouk forces, all suffered enormous casualties, estimated by Schuyler at approx. 1,000, 3,000 and 5,000, respectively. Schuyler qualified
7344-428: The religion of his fathers and that he prayed at night before the cross which he kept carefully concealed. Islam in Bulgaria spread through both colonisation with Muslims from Asia Minor and conversion of native Bulgarians. The Ottomans' mass population transfers began in the late 1300s and continued well into the 1500s. Most of these, but far from all, were involuntary. The first community settled in present-day Bulgaria
7446-433: The revolt, while putting Bulgarian casualties at 3,000–12,000. He also stresses that Russian atrocities against Muslims during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 were far worse than those against insurgent Bulgarians. In History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey , Stanford Shaw claims that far more Muslims than Christians were killed in the uprising. He also estimates Bulgarian casualties at fewer than 4,000. On
7548-599: The severe internal and external problems which the Ottoman Empire experienced in the middle of the 1870s. In 1875, taxes levied on non-Muslims were raised for fear of state bankruptcy , which, in turn, caused additional tension between Muslims and Christians and led to the Herzegovinian rebellion and the Stara Zagora revolt in Bulgaria. The failure of the Ottomans to handle the Herzegovinian uprising successfully showed
7650-467: The stories of atrocities. Baring did not speak Bulgarian (although he did speak Turkish) and British policy was officially pro-Turkish, so the Bulgarian community in Istanbul feared he would not report the complete story. They asked the American Consul in Istanbul, Eugene Schuyler , to conduct his own investigation. Schuyler set off for Bulgaria on 23 July, four days after Baring. He was accompanied by
7752-412: The streets, both here and at Olluk-Kni, on the points of bayonets. The reason is simple. When a Mohammedan has killed a certain number of infidels he is sure of Paradise, no matter what his sins may be ... It was a heap of skulls, intermingled with bones from all parts of the human body, skeletons nearly entire and rotting, clothing, human hair and putrid flesh lying there in one foul heap, around which
7854-535: The struggle for recognition of a separate Church, the modern Bulgarian nation was created under the name Bulgar Millet . Also the Bulgarian Uniat Church was created. Armed resistance to the Ottoman rule escalated in the third quarter of the 19th century and reached its climax with the April Uprising of 1876 that covered part of the ethnically Bulgarian territories of the empire. The uprising, provoked
7956-460: The territory of the province. The settlement took place in two waves: one of 142,852 Tatars and Nogais , with a minority of Circassians, who settled in the Danube Vilayet between 1855 and 1862, and a second one of some 35,000 Circassian families (140,000–175,000 settlers), who arrived in 1864. According to Turkish scholar Kemal Karpat , the Tatar and Circassian colonisation of the vilayet not only offset
8058-531: The time claimed approx. 500 Muslim casualties. While contemporary witnesses are unanimous on the scale of destruction of human life and property among the rebels and agree that there were few Muslim casualties, there is disagreement on both issues among modern Western historians. Some of them not only take issue with the number of Muslim victims but also disparage or negate Bulgarian casualties. Thus, American historian Justin McCarthy claims that more than 1,000 Muslims were slaughtered and many more expelled during
8160-586: The town square and the church. Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone published a pamphlet on 6 September 1876, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East , attacked the Disraeli government for its indifference to the Ottoman Empire's violent repression of the April Uprising. Gladstone made clear his hostility focused on the Turkish people , rather than on the Muslim religion. The Turks he said: "... were, upon
8262-415: The tremendous rate of increase in the Muslim population of the five Bulgarian sanjaks plus the Sanjak of Tulça of 84.23% (220,276 males) vs. 53.29% (229,188 males) for Non-Muslims from 1860 to 1875 to the colonisation of the vilayet with Crimean Tatars and Circassians. Ethnoconfessional Groups in the "Five Bulgarian sanjaks" as per 1873-74 Census The Congress of Berlin ceded the kaza of Cuma-i Bâlâ from
8364-403: The uprising as poorly prepared and undeserving of the brutality of the Ottoman response. Modern Bulgarian historiography also calls it premature and poorly prepared and considers that the organisers only wanted to draw European and Russian public attention to the plight of Ottoman Bulgarians, with no illusions that the revolt would succeed. In view of the poor preparation of the insurgents, but
8466-462: The villages he reported on, even though Schuyler himself admits that on the first page of his report. However, it is certain that Schuyler visited Batak and other towns and villages that suffered a particularly gruesome fate, e.g., Perushtitsa and Panagyurishte . Millman also claims that the accepted reality of the massacres is largely a myth. McCarthy, Shaw and Millman all blame the accounts of Baring, MacGahan, Schuyler and Gladstone's actions on
8568-558: The weakness of the Ottoman state, and the atrocities committed during its suppression discredited it internationally. In the late 19th century, European ideas of nationalism were adopted by the Bulgarian elite. In November 1875, activists of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee met in the Romanian town of Giurgiu and decided that the political situation was suitable for a general uprising. The uprising
8670-421: The whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and as far as their dominion reached, civilisation disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force, as opposed to government by law. For the guide of this life they had a relentless fatalism: for its reward hereafter,
8772-468: The wide-scale migration of Muslims from Anatolia and emigration of Christians to Wallachia, etc. Both the Christian and Muslim population then grew steadily until the 1580s, reaching approx. 1.8 million, or 1.2 million Christians and 0.6 million Muslims (or a Christian-to-Muslim ratio of 2:1 or 66 per cent to 33 per cent), where the higher growth among the Muslims is attributed to both conversion of Christians and
8874-586: The wider European public. Their reports of the events, which came to be known in the press as the Bulgarian Horrors and the Crime of the Century , caused a public outcry across Europe and mobilised both common folks and famous intellectuals to demand a reform of the failed Ottoman model of governance of the Bulgarian lands. The shift in public opinion, in particular, in the Ottoman Empire's hitherto closest ally,
8976-531: Was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire from 1864 to 1878 with a capital in Ruse . In the late 19th century it reportedly had an area of 34,120 square miles (88,400 km) and incorporated the Vidin Eyalet , Silistra Eyalet and Niš Eyalet . Christians paid disproportionately higher taxes than Muslims, including poll tax, jizye , in lieu of military service. According to İnalcık, jizye
9078-631: Was a set of confessional communities in the Ottoman Empire . It referred to the separate legal courts pertaining to "personal law" under which religious communities were allowed to rule themselves under their own system. The Sultan regarded the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Constantinople Patriarchate as the leader of the Orthodox Christian peoples of his empire. After the Ottoman Tanzimat (1839–76) reforms, Nationalism arose in
9180-654: Was an insurrection organised by the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876. The rebellion was suppressed by irregular Ottoman bashi-bazouk units that engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of both rebels and non-combatants (see Batak massacre ). The American community around Robert College in Istanbul, the Protestant mission in Plovdiv headed by J.F. Clarke as well as two other Americans, journalist Januarius MacGahan and diplomat Eugene Schuyler , were indispensable in bringing knowledge of Ottoman atrocities to
9282-580: Was an important administrative centre in the Ottoman Empire. It became the capital of the beylerbeylik of Rumelia ( Rumelia Eyalet ), the province that administered the Ottoman lands in Europe (the Balkans ), one of the two together with the beylerbeylik of Anatolia . It was the capital of the important Sanjak of Sofia as well, including the whole of Thrace with Plovdiv and Edirne , and part of Macedonia with Thessaloniki and Skopje . The Danube Vilayet
9384-564: Was held in the Oborishte locality near Panagyurishte to discuss the proclamation of the insurrection. However, one of the delegates disclosed the plot to the Ottoman authorities. As a result, the Ottoman police made an attempt to arrest the leader of the local revolutionary committee in Koprivshtitsa , Todor Kableshkov on 2 May [ O.S. 20 April] 1876. The Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee 's minutes from 17th of April 1876 chaired by Benkovski discuss retaliation against
9486-417: Was immediate and severe. Irregular bashi-bazouks , sometimes accompanied by army detachments, were swiftly mobilized. These forces attacked the first insurgent towns as early as 25 April. The Ottomans massacred civilian populations, the principal places being Panagurishte , Perushtitza , Klisura , and Batak (see Batak massacre ). By the middle of May, the insurrection was completely suppressed. One of
9588-467: Was made up of Tatars who willingly arrived to begin a settled life as farmers, the second one a tribe of nomads that had run afoul of the Ottoman administration. Both groups settled in the Upper Thracian Plain , in the vicinity of Plovdiv. Another large group of Tatars was moved by Mehmed I to Thrace in 1418, followed by the relocation of more than 1000 Turkoman families to Northeastern Bulgaria in
9690-532: Was making itself felt in the area. The Russians, as fellow Orthodox Slavs, could appeal to the Bulgarians in a way that the Austrians could not. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 gave Russia the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs to protect the Sultan's Christian subjects. The Bulgarian National Revival was a period of socio-economic development and national integration among Bulgarians under Ottoman rule. It
9792-412: Was originally proposed in the Treaty of San Stefano . The effect of the Ottoman conquest on Bulgarian demography is uncertain and subject to much contention. However, the population of present-day Bulgaria in the 1450s is estimated to have hit a low of 600,000 people, divided into approx. 450,000 Christians and 150,000 Muslims (or a Christian-to-Muslim ratio of 3:1 or 75 per cent to 25 per cent) following
9894-646: Was recognised by the Ottomans as a voyvoda of the Sofia region in 1413, but later he turned against them and is regarded as the first hayduk in Bulgarian history. More than a century later, two Tarnovo uprisings occurred - in 1598 ( First Tarnovo Uprising ) and 1686 ( Second Tarnovo Uprising ) around the old capital Tarnovo . Those were followed by the Catholic Chiprovtsi Uprising in 1688 and insurrection in Macedonia led by Karposh in 1689, both provoked by
9996-514: Was reprinted as a booklet and widely circulated in Europe. Baring's report to the British government about the massacres was similar but put the number of victims at about twelve thousand. MacGahan's vivid articles from Bulgaria moved British public opinion against Turkey. He described in particular what he had seen in the town of Batak, where five thousand of a total of seven thousand residents had been slaughtered, beheaded or burned alive by Turkish irregulars, and their bodies left in piles around
10098-474: Was reversed. Non-Muslims did not serve in the Sultan's army. The exception to this were some groups of the population with specific statute, usually used for auxiliary or rear services, and the infamous blood tax (кръвен данък), also known as devşirme , where young Christian Bulgarian boys were taken from their families, enslaved and converted to Islam and later employed either in the Janissary military corps or
10200-496: Was scheduled for April or May 1876. The territory of the country was divided into five revolutionary districts with centers in Vratsa (leader- Stoyan Zaimov ), Veliko Tarnovo ( Stefan Stambolov ), Sliven ( Ilarion Dragostinov ), Plovdiv ( Panayot Volov —who later gave his position to his assistant Georgi Benkovski ) and Sofia ( Nikola Obretenov ). The rebels had been hoarding arms and ammunition for some time and even constructed
10302-441: Was the degree to which nation states used the state as an instrument of national unity in economic, social and cultural life. By the 18th century, the Ottomans had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in science, technology, and industry. However, the Bulgarian population was also suppressed socially and politically under Ottoman rule. Additionally, more immediate causes for the greater mobilisation compared to earlier revolts were
10404-495: Was the single most important source of income (48 per cent) to the Ottoman budget, with Rumelia accounting for the lion's share, or 81 per cent of the revenues. By the early 1600s, the timar system had virtually been abolished, and almost all land had been divided into estates ( arpalik ) granted to senior Ottoman dignitaries as a form of tax farming , which created conditions for severe exploitation of taxpayers by unscrupulous land holders. According to Radishev, overtaxation became
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