Krzysztof Popek

The new Bulgarian state, which reappeared on the map of Europe in 1878, was inhabited by a multiethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural population. The unification of the national structure was treated as an important task being faced by the authorities in Sofia. Part of this demographic mosaic were Pomaks – Bulgarian-speaking Muslims whose number in the country increased after the Balkan War. Compared to the policies of other Balkan countries, Bulgaria had a relatively tolerant attitude towards Muslims, who were mostly Turks. The Pomaks were perceived by the state as Bulgarians who had cut themselves off from their ancestors. This attitude led to repeated waves of state repression throughout the 20th century, including the period of socialism. The article attempts to trace actions taken by the Bulgarian state to separate Pomaks from the Muslim tradition, which – although unsuccessful – left serious wounds in the historical memory of both Christians and Muslims.

With the fall of the sultan’s rule in the Balkans, the natural aspiration of the rural population was to take control over the lands belonging to the great Muslim landowners – in the case of Bulgarians and Serbs, the agricultural reforms implemented in 1880 became the fulfilment of these expectations. The comparative method was used to formulate the new conclusions on the property relations in these two South Slavic countries at the end of the 19th century, provide an indication of the characteristics of the Serbian and Bulgarian villages as well as to highlight the common features of both countries. An attempt will be made to define the factors that could have contributed to these differences and similarities.

The aim of the article is to present the fate of the would-be settlement of Poles from the Koźle county to the district of Svishtov in northern Bulgaria in 1882, based on the Ministry of Finance’s materials found in in the Central State Archives in Sofia. As a result of the information provided by the missionary Grzegorz Piegza operating in the area of Svishtov, about 150 families from Upper Silesia expressed their willingness to move to the Balkans and live among the Catholic communities functioning there. It seemed that they could take advantage of the settlement action organized by the Bulgarian authorities from 1880, which assumed the distribution of land to the newcomers. However, these petitions met with a refusal by the authorities in Sofia, who wanted to bring only Bulgarians living outside the Balkans. Petitions sent from Upper Silesia to the Bulgarian authorities in 1882 are a source of information not only on the causes of migrations from this part of Prussia, but also provide knowledge about the identity of Silesians at the end of the 19th century. The analysis also served as a starting point for reflection on Bulgarian migration policy of this period.

The article discusses the federalist concepts of the Bulgarian economist Boncho Boev, formulated during the Bulgarian-Serbian rapprochement in 1904. The creation of a South-Slavic State would take place through the economic integration of Serbia and Bulgaria, which, by improving their economic position, would simultaneously strengthen their political situation and join Macedonia. Boev’s views are presented on the basis of speeches given during the Student Balkan Congress in Sofia on 6–8 March (22–24 February old style) 1904, and subsequently published in the Journal of the Bulgarian Economic Society as “Poseshtenieto na Srŭbski kral i srŭbsko-bŭlgarskoto sblizhenie” [The Visit of the King of Serbia and the Serbian-Bulgarian Rapprochement] and “Balkanskata federatsiia kato ideal na srŭbsko-bŭlgarskata mladezh” [The Balkan Federation as the Ideal of the Bulgarian-Serb Youth].

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 is traditionally called as the “Liberation War” by the Bulgarians. The conflict led to gaining freedom from the “Turkish Yoke” and started creation process of the modern Bulgarian state. The Turkish perspective on these events is significantly different. The War of 1877–1878 is remembered through the lens of the tragic experience of refugees (muhajirs) and the suffering of the Muslim civilians linked to the pogroms, emigration and exile. The paper will focus on the depiction of the fate of civilians during the conflict in contemporary Bulgarian and Turkish historiography, in which the topic is marked not only by the reliability of historical research, but also by the presence of stereotypes (as is the whole history of the 19th-century Christian-Muslim relations in Bulgaria).

The article presents the problem of Muslim emigration from the Balkan states (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Montenegro) and other territories (Bosnia and Herzegovina), which were separated from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The process is analyzed in the context of the power takeover by the Christians in these territories, and the  main reasons for the Muslim exodus. These migrations in the Balkans led to a great transformation in the spheres of politics, society, and culture.

One of the main goals of Serbian Uprisings was to banish Muslims from the Serbian lands. After creation of the modern Serbian state, Serbia’s status was still that of a half-autonomic province, and so its authorities tried to use agreements with the Sublime Porte to achieve this goal. Although Ottoman authorities repeatedly permitted the eviction of the Muslim population from the Principality, later on they did not implement the agreements, taking advantage of the weak Serbian position. In 1833, however, things changed: The Sublime Porte allowed the Serbian authorities to banish Muslims from their territory, including the six nahiyahs then incorporated into the Serbian state (Krajina, Crna Reka, Paraćin, Kruševac, Stari Vlah and Jadar with Rađevina).

In the 1840s Hôtel Lambert started to operate in the Balkan Peninsula – they wanted to use the animosities between the Great Powers in the region to create international conditions to regain independence for Poland. One of the territories of their activity was Bulgaria, where they cooperated with the activists of the Church Movement: Neofit Bozveli and Ilarion Makariopolski. The specific character of the activity of  Hôtel Lambert in Bulgaria lay in the close relations with the Catholic Missionaries, with whom Polish agents were trying to realize their main purpose: to reach the union of the Church and to weaken the influences of Orthodox Russia in the Balkans. The main agent of Czartoryski in Constantinople, Michał Czajkowski, led to the escape of Neofit and Ilarion from the Athos in 1844 and organized the action of sending petitions about Bulgarian national rights to the sultan. The Polish involvement yielded important results for the development of the Bulgarian national movement.