Ottoman yoke. Macedonia

In 1453 the Turks captured Constantinople. Since then, the face of the Western world has changed significantly. The successor of the Roman Empire - Byzantium has disappeared from the political map of the world. Numerous peoples, formerly part of it, were under the Ottoman yoke. The "heart" of the Orthodox world - the great Constantinople was flooded by Muslim invaders, changing the name of this city. From now on, it became known as Istanbul. Many architectural monuments have been lost, the achievements of art and science have been forgotten. The Turks sought to completely destroy the heritage of the culture that preceded them, to enslave the population, to break any intention and even thought to fight for their freedom. After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman invaders attacked the Balkans. In a few years, almost all Greek cities were conquered. In 1460, the Despotate of Morea and Athens fell.

The struggle of the islands with the Turkish conquerors

But the islands continued to resist. Muslim culture caused categorical rejection among Orthodox Greeks. There were almost no islands or cities that would surrender to the Turks without a fight. Lesbos and Euboea resisted the Ottoman invaders for about twenty years after the fall of Athens. Rhodes repelled the attacks of the Turks until 1522. The Ottomans were able to finally conquer Crete only in 1669. The conquest of this island put the final point in the capture of Greece. From now on, this country was completely under the Ottoman yoke, and remained under the rule of the Turks until 1829.

Migration of the Greeks

Almost 400 years of occupation did not break the desire of the Greeks to become free. The fight against the invaders did not stop. Such selfless and fierce resistance as the Greeks, the Turks did not have any nation. The actions of the Ottomans in the conquered lands consisted not only in the invasion of troops and the destruction of civilians. They understood that it was possible to gain a foothold in the territory only when the population supported the new government. Winning the support of the Greeks is not an easy task. Therefore, the Ottoman authorities began a mass migration of peoples. Ethnic Turks settled in lands that were Greek for centuries (mainly in Macedonia, Thessaly, Thrace), and the indigenous population was expelled to distant provinces of the empire, thereby hoping to reduce the likelihood of a rebellion. In addition to forced resettlement, the number of Greeks in Greece has also decreased due to voluntary migration. Many families, fleeing the Turkish yoke, themselves moved to live in other countries.

But the Turks did not limit themselves to one resettlement policy. On the conquered lands, the authorities introduced regular requisitions. Also on the territory of Greece, a “blood tax” was distributed - this was the name for the forced recruitment of children into Janissaries, the basis of the infantry of the Ottoman army. Until the end of the 17th century. the combat units of the Janissaries were completed only by the children of the conquered Christian nations. In order to effectively manage a large number of peoples that became part of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks divided the inhabitants into communities called millets. The division was carried out along national and religious lines. There were Jews, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Armenians. Almost all Greeks entered the community of Orthodox Christians, which was headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople appointed by the Sultan. Despite the mass migration, in Constantinople itself, as before, there were many Greeks, or, as they were also called, Phanariotes. Some of them managed to achieve a high position in the hierarchy of Ottoman power and collect a considerable fortune. There were also Greeks among wealthy merchants and provincial governors. As an example, we can cite the ruler of the Moldavian principality and Wallachia - Alexander Ypsilanti.

Greek struggle against Turkish occupation

Since many Greek families achieved prosperity and high position, it was more beneficial for them to support the existing Ottoman system of power. But in general, the discontent of the people increased. At the end of the 18th century the struggle of the Greeks against the Turkish occupation gradually increased its momentum. Anti-Ottoman forces concentrated mainly in Thessaly, Macedonia and Epirus. In 1770, a small squadron of Russian ships first appeared off the coast of Greece in the port of Vitula (or Itilo, Mani region). This was the impetus for a liberation uprising. Soon the rebellion swept the Morea and spread to other Greek provinces. Despite the support of the Russians, the uprising was soon crushed by the Ottoman authorities. This was followed by the famous Russian victory in the Battle of Chesme. And on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, pockets of rebellion began to appear everywhere. New ideas of equality and freedom were becoming popular in Europe. A liberation movement began in Serbia, a revolution took place in France. No less active was the struggle in Greece, where the partisan movement was especially powerful.

The role of the church in the victory over the Turks

With the assistance of the Orthodox Church in Greece, "secret schools" were created, which played a significant role in preserving the language, culture and shaping the national identity of the Greeks. In 1814, a "friendly society" was founded in Odessa. The emergence of this organization was facilitated by the Russian government and personally by the Russian Tsar Alexander I. The goal of the society was the liberation of the peoples from the Ottoman yoke. Mass entry into the organization began in 1818. Within a few years, the “friendly society” gained great influence in the countries where the Greeks lived. In 1820 the organization was headed by Alexander Ypsilanti. Liberation sentiments grew and in March 1821, Patriarch Germanos raised a revolutionary banner in Agia Lavra (monastery in Kalavryta). This was the signal for the beginning of the uprising, the goal of which was the independence of the Greek people. Almost all of Greece rose to fight the Ottoman yoke. The Turkish authorities were desperately trying to cope with the rebellious province. Civilians of the rebellious regions were massively sent to slave markets or exterminated.

Support of the Greek people by famous personalities

Many progressive people of that time declared their support for the Greek people. Thus, Pushkin, Hugo, Lamartine, Chateaubriand openly advocated the independence of Greece. And the British poet Byron went to the Balkans to personally take part in the battles.

Rebellion of 1821

The uprising, started in 1821, developed into a war against the Ottoman yoke, which lasted 9 years and became the cause of a large-scale international conflict. The Turkish sultan, unable to suppress the rebellion in Greece on his own, asked Egypt for help. In 1824, the Egyptians landed on about. Crete, next year - in the Peloponnese, where they managed to suppress the rebellion, massacring thousands of civilians. Europe sympathized with the Greeks throughout the war. The massacre arranged by the Egyptians prompted the governments of European countries to take active steps against the Turks. The combined squadron of Russian, French and English ships in 1827 defeated the fleet of the Ottomans and Egyptians in Navarin Bay. The following year, the well-known Russian-Turkish war began, in which Russia won. A year later, a peace treaty was signed in Adrianople, according to which Turkey recognized the independence of Greece.

The most significant year for the Greeks over the previous 4 centuries was 1821, in which a large-scale anti-Turkish uprising began. The bloodless and destroyed country has embarked on a long path of struggle for freedom, for the return and restoration of its ancestral territories. In the history of Greece began a new period.

After the cancellation of the main article of the Treaty of Paris on the neutralization of the Black Sea, Russia again got the opportunity to provide more active support to the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula in the struggle against the Ottoman yoke.

In 1875 an uprising broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Soon it spread to the territory of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.

In the summer of 1876, Serbia and Montenegro declared war on the Sultan. However, the forces were unequal. The Turkish army brutally suppressed the resistance of the Slavs. Only in Bulgaria, the Turks slaughtered about 30 thousand people.

Serbia was defeated by Turkish troops. The small Montenegrin army took refuge high in the mountains. Without the help of the European powers, and in the first place Russia, the struggle of these peoples was doomed to defeat.

At the first stage of this crisis, the Russian government tried to coordinate its actions with the Western European powers. Wide sections of Russian society demanded that Alexander II take a more decisive position.

Russian Slavic committees of St. Petersburg, Moscow and some other cities were active. The most prominent representatives of the intelligentsia participated in their activities (writer and publicist I.S. Aksakov, literary critic V.V. Stasov, sculptor M.M. Antokolsky, scientists I.I. Mechnikov, D.I. Mendeleev, etc.). The committees were engaged in raising funds for "brothers by blood and faith", sent Russian volunteers to support the rebellious Serbs, Bulgarians and other Balkan peoples, among whom were doctors N.F. Sklifasovsky and S.P. Botkin, writer G.I. Uspensky, artists V.D. Polenov and K.E. Makovsky.

Given the passivity of Western Europe in the Balkan issue and yielding to public pressure, the Russian government in 1876 demanded that the Sultan stop the extermination of the Slavic peoples and make peace with Serbia. However, the Turkish army continued active operations: it crushed the uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina and invaded Bulgaria. In conditions when the Balkan peoples were defeated, and Turkey rejected all proposals for a peaceful settlement, Russia in April 1877 declared war on the Ottoman Empire. The second stage of the Eastern crisis began.

Russia sought to avoid this Russian-Turkish war (1877-1878) because it was poorly prepared. The military reforms that began in the 1960s were not completed. Small arms only 20% corresponded to modern models. The military industry worked poorly, and the army did not have enough shells and other ammunition. Russian military thought was in captivity of the German military doctrine, the father of which was Moltke.

At the same time, there were talented generals M.D. in the Russian army. Skobelev, M.I. Dragomirov, and V. Gurko. The War Department developed a plan for a quick offensive war, as it understood that protracted operations were beyond the strength of the Russian economy and finances. Russia mobilized and signed an agreement with Romania on the passage of Russian troops through its territory.

The plan of the Russian command provided for the end of the war within a few months, so that Europe would not have time to intervene in the course of events. Since Russia did not have a navy on the Black Sea, it was difficult to pass through the eastern regions of Bulgaria (near the coast). Moreover, in this area there were powerful fortresses Silistria, Shumla, Varna, Ruschuk, which formed a quadrangle, in which the main forces of the Turkish army were located, and advancement in this direction threatened the Russian army with protracted battles. It was decided to bypass these fortresses through the central regions of Bulgaria and go to Constantinople through the Shipka Pass.

By the beginning of June 1877, the Russian army, led by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich (185 thousand people), concentrated on the left bank of the Danube. She was opposed by approximately equal in number of troops under the command of Abdul-Kerim Pasha. The main part of the armed Turks was in the already indicated quadrangle of fortresses. The main forces of the Russian army concentrated somewhat to the west, near Zimnitsa. The main crossing over the Danube was being prepared there. Even further west, along the river, from Nikopol to Vidin, the Romanian troops (45 thousand people) were located.

In terms of combat training, the Russian army was superior to the Turkish one, but in terms of the quality of weapons it was inferior to the Turks. So, the Turkish army was armed with the latest American and British rifles. The Turkish infantry had more cartridges and trench tools (shovels, picks, etc.). Russian soldiers had to save ammo. An infantryman who used up more than 30 rounds of ammunition (more than half of the cartridge bag) during the battle was threatened with punishment.

On December 24, 1877, Turkey, defeated by Russia, turned to the powers with a request for mediation. Only the British government responded and notified St. Petersburg of this appeal. Answer A.M. Gorchakov said: if the Port wants to end the war, then with a request for a truce, it should apply directly to the commander-in-chief of the Russian army. The granting of a truce was conditional on the preliminary acceptance of the provisions of a future peace treaty.

On January 8, 1878, the Port addressed the Russian commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (senior), with a request for a truce. The offensive of the Russian troops developed successfully, so the Russian government was in no hurry with the actual start of negotiations.

England tried to intervene in the negotiations, but Austria-Hungary did not support the belligerent position of the British. The Turkish representatives, who arrived in Kazanlak on January 20, 1878, after listening to the terms of peace, rejected most of the Russian demands. Russian troops continued to rapidly approach the Turkish capital. On January 31, 1878, at Adrianople, the Turks signed an armistice agreement, which included Turkey's agreement to the preliminary terms of the peace treaty proposed to it.

Austria-Hungary demanded that the terms of the future Russian-Turkish peace be submitted to the discussion of an international conference. After some hesitation, England acceded to this demand. The Russian government did not dare to go into conflict with them. England sent her fleet to the Turkish shores. In response to this, Russian troops stopped 12 km from the Turkish capital, in the town of San Stefano. On February 19 (March 3), 1878, a preliminary (preliminary) peace treaty was signed in San Stefano, which ended the Russian-Turkish war. The contract was signed by Russian representatives - Count N.P. Ignatiev, former ambassador to Constantinople, and head of the diplomatic office under the commander-in-chief A.I. Nelidov, and from the Turkish side - the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Port of Savfet Pasha and Sadullah Bey.

The Treaty of San Stefano significantly changed the map of the Balkans. A significant part of the Aegean coast was transferred to Bulgaria. Bulgaria became a principality in nominal vassalage to the Sultan, stretching from the Danube and the Black Sea to the Aegean in the south and the Albanian mountains in the west. Turkish troops were deprived of the right to remain within Bulgaria. Within 2 years it was to be occupied by the Russian army. For the patrons of Turkey - British and Austro-Hungarian diplomacy - such a situation seemed unacceptable.

The British government feared that by including Bulgaria in its sphere of influence, Russia would actually become a Mediterranean power. In addition, the new borders of Bulgaria came so close to Constantinople that the straits and the Turkish capital were under constant threat of attack from the Bulgarian bridgehead. In view of this, the San Stefano Treaty met with a negative attitude from England.

Just as little did the San Stefano Treaty meet the interests of Austria-Hungary.

In Reichstadt and in the Budapest Convention of January 15, 1877, it was agreed that there would be no creation of a large Slavic state in the Balkans. In order to finally prevent the formation of such a state, the Constantinople Conference (December 1876) divided Bulgaria into two parts along the meridional direction in its project, and Western Bulgaria was to enter the sphere of Austrian influence. The Russians did not adhere to these projects, as they considered Bulgaria as a single state that would cover a significant part of the Balkan Peninsula.

The Treaty of San Stefano also proclaimed the complete sovereignty of Montenegro, Serbia and Romania, the provision of a port on the Adriatic to Montenegro, and Northern Dobruja to the Romanian principality, the return of Southwestern Bessarabia to Russia, the transfer of Kars, Ardagan, Bayazet and Batum. Serbia and Montenegro had some territorial acquisitions.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, reforms were to be carried out in the interests of the Christian population, as well as in Crete, Epirus and Thessaly. Turkey had to pay Russia an indemnity in the amount of 1 billion 410 million rubles. However, most of this amount was covered by territorial concessions from Turkey. The actual payment was 310 million rubles. The question of the straits in San Stefano was not raised by the Russians.

The Treaty of San Stefano, in fact, divided the European and Asian possessions of the Ottoman Empire, which significantly weakened the political and economic power of the Porte and contributed to the further rise of the national liberation struggle of the peoples remaining under its rule. For the lands that gained independence, he opened up opportunities for national, economic and cultural development.

England and Austria-Hungary, with the support of France, demanded the convening of a European congress to discuss the articles of the treaty and, in order to put pressure on Russia, began military preparations. Exhausted by the war, Russia was forced to agree.

The Congress opened on June 13, 1878 in Berlin. It was attended by Russia, England, France, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Italy and Turkey. Representatives of the Balkan states were admitted to Berlin, but were not members of the congress. Bismarck was the chairman of the congress. Each question brought up for discussion provoked heated debate. On the thirteenth of July, the Congress ended its work with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, which changed the Treaty of San Stefano. Russia was deprived of a significant part of the fruits of its victory. But the national interests of the Balkan peoples were also flagrantly violated in favor of the political and strategic considerations of England and Austria-Hungary.

The congress deprived the Bulgarian people of the unity that the Treaty of San Stefano had provided them with, and for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkish rule was replaced by Austro-Hungarian. An uprising broke out against the new owners, which was brutally suppressed. The "defenders" of Turkey - England and Austria - captured without a shot: the first - Cyprus, the second - Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, the essence of the Berlin Treaty was reduced to a partial partition of Turkey.

In January 1879, a peace treaty between Russia and Turkey was signed in Constantinople, which established that the articles of the Treaty of San Stefano, repealed or amended in Berlin, were replaced by the terms of the Berlin Treaty. The unamended articles of the Treaty of San Stefano were also finalized.

• Turkey rejected the London Protocol of the Six European Powers, signed on March 31 (19), 1877.

In Balkan Horror

Dahl explains the word "arnaut" as "fiend, brutal man, infidel." In 1878, the Turkish authorities, prompted by British diplomats, came to the conclusion that it was the Albanians who would be the best means in the fight against the Slavic and, in general, the Christian "threat." With their help, the two empires in the Balkans each solved their own task with one common task - to weaken Russia in every possible way and deprive her of allies - even if through the genocide of the Slavs and Christians.

"Bulgarian martyrs" 1877 art. K. Makovsky

After the defeat of the Europeans in 1690, the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire was retaliated by the Turks and became the victims of what was, in effect, the first documented ethnic cleansing in history. The devastating Turkish military campaigns created the conditions for the resettlement of the Albanian population from their ancestral territories to the lands of their neighbors - Slavs and Greeks. In the 18th century, large masses of Albanian pastoralists from the mountainous regions began to descend into the fertile regions of the region of Kosovo and Metohija, where the vast majority of the population were Orthodox Serbs (1). A little over a year ago, in 1909, under the pseudonym Archibald Smith, the Austrian book illustrator Gottfried Sieben produced a series of "Balkangreuel" (The Balkan Nightmare) of twelve lithographs showing the rape and murder of Christian women in the Balkans.

The most significant changes in the ethnic structure of the population of this part of the Balkan Peninsula occurred in the period from the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. The Albanian great power program appeared at the end of the 19th century. All attempts by Balkan Christians to enlist Albanians in a joint struggle against the domination of the Ottoman Empire for national liberation and the modernization of their society had practically no result.

At the beginning of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875-1878), the Albanians who were in the ranks of the Turkish regular and irregular (Bashi-Bazouks) troops were especially cruel. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs were forced to move out from the territory of modern Kosovo (then Kosovo Vilayet) in the period from 1876 to 1912.

The main role of the Albanians under the Sultan was the functions of punishers, directed both against the enslaved peoples of Europe and against the enslaved peoples of Asia. The most obscure and backward sections of the population of Albania, having no traditions of statehood, willingly went into the service of anyone. The Turks created the bashi-bazouk movement - that is, they formed detachments of Albanian volunteers of the Turkish irregular infantry. The name "bashi-bazouk" has become a household name for characterizing a person capable of the most outrageous violence in its cruelty.
Here is a quote from the usual, far from politics, tourist guide: “The name Arnavutkey means“ Albanian village ”: in the old days, the Sultan’s Life Guards were recruited from the local residents, after clashes with which the word“ Arnaut ”appeared in Russian (Dal interpreted it as "monster, brutal man, infidel")" (2).

Pre-revolutionary evidence from the book “Life in Ildiz (from Contemporary Review)”: “Since Abdul-Hamid was on the throne ... Not trusting others, the Sultan vigilantly controls the guard himself ... In addition to military officials, there are always about two dozen in the palace sentries belonging to the Albanian tufenkji (gunners); armed from head to toe, they are placed with their boss in a special room, ready to appear at the first call.
The Soviet reference publication testifies similarly, reporting in an article about Abdul-Hamid that he “drowned his opponents in the Bosphorus, walled them up in stone walls, referred to death in the African deserts, surrounded himself with a guard of Albanian cutthroats” (4).

McGahan's reports in the English newspaper were terrifying in their documentary nature and the facts presented in them. “... Captain Ahmet-aga, being at the head of a detachment of bashi-bazouks, killed eight thousand inhabitants of the city, far from the places of anti-Turkish uprisings - Batak. Even before the destruction of the inhabitants began ... two hundred young girls were taken out of the city, they were forced to dance, raped, and then they were all killed, dumping the corpses to rot in the heat of the sun. So... This particular Akhmet-aga was promoted to pasha and appointed a member of the commission, established at the insistence of Russia to investigate the atrocities committed by ... bashi-bazouks! ”(3).
The acts of the Albanian bashi-bazouks are described in the book "Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria" of 1880. For example, historians cite the fact that Bulgarian villages were massacred everywhere by Albanian punishers. Having carried out the extermination of the civilian population, the wild Albanian bashi-bazouks arranged their ritual, reeking of infernal beginnings, dances on the ashes, had fun, rejoiced, like hunters after a successful hunt. What even the Turks refused to do, the Albanians did.
F.M. Dostoevsky in his journal, referring to information from the liberal publication Novoye Vremya, wrote: “Even special artists of their craft appeared - bashi-bazouks, who were clever at tearing Christian babies at once, grabbing them by both legs” (5).

And the famous V.A. Gilyarovsky in his immortal "Shipka" places memories of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of Bulgaria by the Russian army from the Turkish yoke. He personally was at the celebrations among the Russian guests. The Bulgarians honored the Russians as heroes. “... I saw heart-to-heart meetings everywhere, and peered into the smallest details of the general, exciting delight of the people ... They all remember the Turkish yoke, the atrocities of the Bashi-Bazouks, their devastated villages, their abducted wives and daughters, the desecrated shrine ... men and older women...
Judging by modern history, the majority of the inhabitants of the Balkans either chose to forget about this for the sake of momentary benefits (promises thereof), or simply abandoned their history. The same Bulgarians fought against Russia in both world wars, and continue it today.

As for modern Turkey, Erdogan sets the same goals as Abdul Hamid II, the last autocrat of the Ottoman Empire, who tried to keep it from disintegration on pan-Islamism and committed any crimes for this purpose. As a result, Turkey turned into a semi-colony of European powers. The economic successes of the end of the past - the beginning of this century turned the heads of the Turkish rulers. Deciding that they grabbed Allah by the beard and could bargain with the United States on an equal footing, the leaders of Turkey consistently and systematically drove the state into a trap that almost slammed shut.

Turkey had a potential ally - Russia. Now there are only opponents around Turkey. Given the open support of the Kurds from Washington, the issue of the collapse of the state from the category of rhetoric is moving into a practical plane. It is possible that the Yankees set their sights on complete control of the straits - with their ambitions, this is quite possible. This is not a question of a year or five, but ... but "dali bude."

Sources:
(1) - “Federal Russia: Problems and Prospects” (Ed. Ivanov V.N.), M., 2008, Chapter 10, Chapter 10. RUSSIA - FRY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL AND FEDERAL RELATIONS
(2) - Quot. by Online Voyage, 2009
(3) - Quot. according to Yu. Senchurov "The Balkan Liberation ... or the Way to Calvary."
(4) - See Small Soviet Encyclopedia, M., 1930
(5) - New time. 1877. 14(26) Aug. No. 524. Det. "Latest news". "According to the stories of Bulgarian fugitives from the Kazanlak valley".
Paintings -

Exactly 140 years ago, on March 3, 1878, a peace treaty was signed in San Stefano between the Russian and Ottoman empires, which put an end to the Russian-Turkish war. The result was the appearance on the world map of new independent states - Bulgaria and Montenegro, and international navigation along the Danube was also opened. This date is extremely significant for a number of Balkan states: Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, but the most important anniversary of the signing of the document remains for the Bulgarian society. In this state, March 3 is officially considered Independence Day and is a non-working day.

The Ottoman Empire owned the Bulgarian, Serbian, as well as a number of Montenegrin and Romanian territories since 1382. At the same time, severe restrictions on rights and freedoms were introduced for the Christian part of the population of these lands. Christians were heavily taxed, could not fully manage their property, and did not have the right to personal freedom.

In particular, the Turkish authorities could not hesitate to take Christian children in infancy to work in the Ottoman Empire, while the parents were forbidden to see their sons and daughters later. Moreover, at one time the Turks had the right of the first night to Christian women who wanted to marry other Christians.

To top it off, in most cities in Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christians were prohibited from living on certain lands.

This policy led to a series of protests against Turkish rule in the 19th century. At the end of that century, Christian Serb uprisings broke out simultaneously in Bosnia, as well as the April Uprising in Bulgaria in 1875-1876. All these speeches were severely suppressed by Turkey, and the Turks distinguished themselves with particular ruthlessness precisely during the suppression of the April uprising, when, according to documents, out of 30 thousand of the total number of those killed during the dispersal of the rebels, only 10 thousand were somehow involved in hostilities against the Ottoman Empire, the rest were either relatives or acquaintances of the rebels. In addition to killings, Turkish military and irregular formations were marked by massive looting of Bulgarian houses and rape of Bulgarian women. These events were dedicated to the picture of the Russian artist-wanderer "Bulgarian martyrs", written in 1877.

The events in the Balkans at that time caused indignation in the society of different countries of the world. This was facilitated by the articles of the American war correspondent Januariy McGahan, who wrote for a series of reports on the crimes of the Turks against the Bulgarians of both sexes.

A number of prominent politicians and artists of the late 19th century condemned Istanbul's policies. Among them were writers Oscar Wilde, scientist, politician and revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi.

However, Russian society was most outraged by the actions of the authorities of the Ottoman Empire, in which the issues of oppression of the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula were traditionally perceived painfully.

The uprising in Bosnia and Bulgaria received extensive press coverage. In Russian Orthodox churches and in the editorial offices of newspapers, fundraising began to help the rebels, public organizations helped to accept Bulgarian refugees, in addition, dozens of volunteers went to the Balkans to fight against the Ottomans. For some time, they tried to abandon a direct war with Turkey, since military reform had not yet been completed in Russia, and the economic situation was not very favorable.

In December 1876, Russia, England, France and Turkey held a conference in Istanbul, where the Russian side demanded that the Turks recognize the autonomy of Bulgaria and Bosnia under the protectorate of the world community. The Ottoman Empire defiantly refused this. And in April of the following year, under pressure from public opinion and a number of politicians, Russia declared war on Turkey.

From the very beginning, it was extremely difficult for Russia to develop. With great difficulty, the Russian troops crossed the Danube. In addition, Turkish supporters managed to raise an uprising in Abkhazia, Chechnya and Dagestan. As a result, almost the entire Black Sea coast on the Abkhaz territory was taken by the Turks by the spring of 1877. To suppress these speeches, the Russian authorities were forced to transfer reinforcements from the Far East.

In the Balkans, the fighting was also difficult for the Russian army: the lack of modern weapons and problems with the supply of food and medicine to the army affected. As a result, the Russian troops managed to win the key battle of the war and take the city of Plevna only a few months after it began. Nevertheless, the Russian troops, supported by volunteers from among the Bulgarians, Romanians and Serbs, managed to liberate the entire territory of Bulgaria, part of Bosnia and Romania from Turkish rule. The general's divisions occupied Adrianople (modern Edirne) and came close to Istanbul. The commander-in-chief of the Turkish army, Osman Pasha, was captured by the Russians.

The war found a wide response in Russian society. Many people went to participate in hostilities voluntarily. Among them were famous people, including doctors, Sergei Botkin, writers and.

The commander of the 13th Narva Hussar Regiment of the Russian Army, the son of the great Russian poet and prose writer, also took part in the hostilities.

Stolen Victory

After a series of military setbacks, Turkey was forced to hastily conclude peace with Russia. It was signed in the western suburb of Istanbul, San Stefano (now known as Yesilkoy). On the Russian side, the agreement was signed by the former Russian ambassador to Turkey, Count and head of the diplomatic office of the commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Balkans, Alexander Nelidov. From Turkish - Foreign Minister Savfet Pasha and Ambassador to Germany Saadullah Pasha. The document proclaimed the creation of an independent state of Bulgaria, the Principality of Montenegro, a significant increase in the territories of Serbia and Romania. At the same time, Bulgaria received a number of Turkish territories, where Bulgarians lived before the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans: the Bulgarian territory stretched from the Black Sea to Lake Ohrid (modern Macedonia). In addition, Russia received a number of cities in Transcaucasia, and the autonomy of Bosnia and Albania was formed.

However, a number of European powers did not agree with the provisions of the document, primarily Great Britain. The English squadron approached Istanbul, there was a serious threat of war between the United Kingdom and Russia. As a result, a new treaty was concluded in Berlin, called the Berlin Treaty. According to it, Bulgaria was divided into two parts, one proclaimed an independent state with its capital in Sofia, and the second proclaimed autonomy, but as part of the Ottoman Empire. Also, Serbia and Romania had to abandon some of the acquisitions of the San Stefano Treaty, and Russia was forced to return part of the Transcaucasian acquisitions. However, she retained the historically Armenian city of Kars, which was actively populated by Russian settlers.

Also, under the Berlin Agreement, Austria-Hungary received the right to establish a protectorate over Bosnia and Herzegovina, which eventually became one of the reasons for the First World War.

“The liberation war of 1877-78 is considered by a number of historians to be the most just, since after the brutal suppression of the April uprising, it was the all-Slavic rise that became its driving force. This liberation war was started, in fact, by the people, and they won it. And the Treaty of San Stefano fixed the independence of Bulgaria within its historical borders. However, Russia's military victory then turned into a diplomatic defeat for both the Russian Empire and Bulgaria," he argues in an interview with Gazeta.ru. Ru" Bulgarian Ambassador to Russia Boyko Kotsev.

According to him, this was due, among other things, to the fact that the San Stefano Peace was developed by some people, primarily Count Ignatiev, and another delegation was sent to Berlin for negotiations, headed by Count Mikhail Gorchakov. “Being at an advanced age and not having information from his ambassadors, some of whom were engaged not so much in state as in personal affairs, he could not protect the interests of Russia, as a result of which she lost a number of achievements of the war. This also affected Bulgaria, which lost some of its historical lands as a result of the Berlin Diktat, as we called it, forever. Nevertheless, we remember those who made their invaluable contribution to the formation of the Bulgarian state, and since then, Count Ignatiev, who developed the draft San Stefano Agreement, has been considered a national hero of Bulgaria,” Kotsev concluded.

Some historians believe that the reason for the signing of the Berlin Agreement by St. Petersburg was the unwillingness of Russia to fight with England. As a result of the battles of the war of 1877-1878, 15.5 thousand Russian soldiers and officers died, about 3.5 thousand Bulgarian volunteers, in addition, 2.5 thousand militiamen from Serbia and Montenegro were killed.

Bulgarians think differently

Despite the fact that the date of the conclusion of the Treaty of San Stefano is one of the main national holidays in Bulgaria, now there are people in the intellectual and political elite of the country who began to advocate for the removal of references to this event from Bulgarian history textbooks. “In Bulgaria there is a certain stratum of people who are in favor of the broadest cooperation with a number of European countries and with the United States, but they prefer to forget about the role of Russia.

I remember well my conversation with one activist. In front of me, she was indignant that in Bulgaria they dared to put up monuments to Russian soldiers, they, they say, were occupiers and killed the Bulgarians, and did not defend them. And when the Russian Patriarch came to Bulgaria, she was shaking with anger, shouting: “Kakva impudence! Kkva impudence!!!" (What impudence - Bulgarian.). It turns out that the Patriarch had the “impudence” to call Russians and Bulgarians a single people.

“They, these Russians, want to occupy Bulgaria again through the church!” she almost shouted. I dared to object that he meant the Slavic brotherhood, and she replied that, they say, it doesn’t matter, ”said Danko Malinovsky, a traveler and Balkanist, who has Russian and Macedonian roots, to Gazeta.Ru.

Some Bulgarian public figures acknowledge that there are people in the country who do not recognize the significance of the San Stefano Treaty in Bulgarian history, but emphasize that they are in the minority.

“There are such people in Bulgaria, this is about 4% of our society, who are trying to give this event a political and economic flavor, trying to show that at that time Russia had the goal of reaching the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and the liberation of the Bulgarians was not interested in it,” says “ Gazete.Ru” Chairman of the Bulgarian national movement “Russophiles” Nikolai Malinov. He stressed that the vast majority of Bulgarians have a completely different position on this matter. “Let's not forget that after the liberation of Bulgaria, Russia actually created the Bulgarian fleet and army, created the constitution of our country and laid the foundations of our statehood. Two years after the end of the war of 1877-1878, the Russians left all this to us and simply left without demanding anything in return. And, of course, we have not forgotten it. Today, up to 100,000 people will come to the Shipka Pass, where one of the key battles of that war took place, to commemorate the dead Russian soldiers and officers, as well as the Bulgarian militias. It is expected that the memorial on Shipka will also be visited, ”added Malinov.

How can Russian-Bulgarian relations be characterized today? How is Bulgaria trying to untie the historical knot tied by the 500-year-old Ottoman yoke? Are Bulgarians grateful to Russia for their liberation?.

Bulgaria chooses between Turkey and Russia?

Celebration of liberation from the Ottoman yoke

- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was invited to the celebration of the liberation from the Ottoman yoke, but Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited. How would you comment on this?

“I can't imagine how our president will be on holidays with President Rosen Plevneliev, who says he's proud to be against Russia. In general, the latest statements of the Bulgarian leaders - the President, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of War - in relation to Russia are exclusively hostile, there is a constant broadcast that Russia is to blame for everything, Russia brings war, that Bulgaria is ready for anything in the name of Europe.

On the other hand, the case with Erdogan should not be viewed through the prism of the current crisis in Russian-Turkish relations. Because the Bulgarian leadership, we must give it its due, pursued this policy even before the Russian-Turkish crisis.

The Bulgarian president refused to come to Moscow to celebrate the Victory Day. The Bulgarian Prime Minister thwarted a number of Russian-Bulgarian projects, including "". I can say that the Bulgarian political leadership is consistently pursuing an anti-Russian policy. Whether this is necessary for Bulgaria should be decided by the Bulgarian people and the Bulgarian political class.

But the Bulgarian political class is small, and I have such an attitude that the top of it has long been controlled by European structures, and the American ambassador, in my opinion, in Bulgaria feels like if not a vizier pasha, then a governor general. I have a feeling that Bulgaria as an independent state no longer exists, that is, it has all the institutions of an independent state, but it is controlled from outside.

- And tell us what happened on March 3, 1878? Why is this date celebrated in Bulgaria?

- There is a position of the head of the Turkish community that everything was fine under the Ottomans, and Bulgaria lived better than anyone, and then uninvited Russian guests came, and everything became bad. In fact, Bulgarians, Christians, were officially second-class people. The testimony of a Christian in court was not equal to that of a Muslim, a Christian had no right to bear arms, he could be killed, he could be deprived of property. In fact, they were disenfranchised people.

The official term for Christians in the Ottoman Empire is translated as cattle. That was prosperity. Bulgarians were Turkish cattle. That is, for 500 years Bulgaria was under the Turkish yoke, as a result of the conquest, a huge number of cultural monuments were destroyed. And in the 1960s, the process of national revival began. To some extent, this was facilitated by the fact that at that time the Danube vilayet was ruled by Midhat Pasha, who believed that it was necessary to create some kind of unity between these "cattle" and the Turks, gave the opportunity to create schools for the Bulgarians.

But at the same time there was a ferocious suppression by the Turks of any discontent. The uprising of 1876 was suppressed with monstrous cruelty, somewhere between 5-7 thousand people were killed. Entire regions, in which there was a Bulgarian population, were empty as a result of mass extermination, eviction of people. And Muslims settled in these areas.

And when the next stage of the physical destruction of the Bulgarians began, Russia, led by Alexander II, intervened. I must say that there were a lot of people who were against this intervention. They reasoned like this: why do we need to shed Russian blood in this Russian-Turkish war, why do we need a liberated Bulgaria? Some people said that this gift would not end well.

When the war was already in full swing, in November 1877, our great writer Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his diary that our brother Slavs would never forgive us for having liberated them, and as soon as these Slavs were recognized by Europe, they would immediately betray us and be us take revenge. Everything that Dostoevsky said applies, first of all, to the Bulgarian political class. There is also the Bulgarian people, who, in general, treat Russia well, but follow their political class. And the war was very difficult, about 250 thousand Russians died or were wounded.

- So what is the name of this holiday of the liberation of Bulgaria today?

- San Stefano, and earlier it was called the Day of Liberation from the Ottoman Yoke. On January 31, 1878, negotiations on a truce began in Andrianopol, in Turkish Edirne. A truce was concluded, but after that unpleasant events began.

First, the English squadron Geoffrey Hornby entered the Sea of ​​Marmara. It was a threat of intervention by England, and potentially by Austria-Hungary. The situation was very difficult. And in order to speed up the negotiations, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich the Elder moved the headquarters to San Stefano, a suburban suburb of Constantinople. It was located 12 kilometers from the Turkish capital. In my opinion, Ataturk International Airport is located there now. And there, in conditions when there was a threat already directly to the capital, the Turks hastened the signing of a peace treaty.

According to this peace treaty, the principality of Bulgaria was to be created - from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. Bulgaria revived, despite the fact that Bulgaria then had to maintain vassal dependence on Turkey, which was reduced only to the formal payment of tribute to the Sultan.

And then Russia found itself isolated, it was forced to agree to a revision of the terms of this treaty in Berlin. At the Berlin Congress, the position of Bulgaria changed very significantly, it was actually divided into three parts. But all the same, Bulgaria survived. For the Bulgarian national consciousness, San Stefano Bulgaria has always been a kind of guiding star, an ideal that Bulgarian politicians have always tried to achieve.

Bulgaria: the people separately, the elites separately

- I read the comments of the Bulgarians themselves about those invited to the holiday, and there, probably, 80 percent, if not 90, consider the rulers to be traitors. They write that we cannot treat those who conquered us like that, and we must be friends with the Russians. Will there ever be a consolidation between the people and the government of Bulgaria?

Never, because that's the way it is. Take, for example, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. Consider the crisis of February 2013, when a prominent right-wing politician suddenly realized that electricity was not being taken from the outlet and reacted by raising prices to such an extent that people could not pay.

In, in a country so lively, an epidemic of political suicides and a huge mass of protests began. Boyko Borisov declared that he had a heart attack and fled to the hospital.

There was also a situation in Bulgaria, when the power lay, and no one wanted to be a technical prime minister. Nobody wanted to be suicidal. But nevertheless, after such a catastrophic failure, after such a loss of face, they still managed to sort it all out and again bring Boyko Borisov to power through the coalition. Because you can not give a damn about everything, and after a certain time go out and promise something again.

Politicians rarely keep their promises. These are different things - promises and real politics. Their interests are connected with completely different places. Here, for example, is the dream of getting into the European Parliament, certain opportunities provided by European structures, institutions, and so on. Understand, in the Balkans consciousness is a little different, including political consciousness. A person can treat Russia well and at the same time choose a Russophobic politician because he thinks he will benefit.

- In Sofia, as I understand it, the Turkish community is quite influential.

- As for the Turks, just as we have our own tradition of looking at these events, the Turks also have their own tradition. If for the Bulgarians this is 500 years of slavery, then the Turks believe that this is 500 years of life. They considered Bulgaria their country. I think that in another 100-150 years, it would have happened there, as with the Armenians and Georgians. They would simply destroy part of the people, and assimilate part.

- How can the Russian side build relations with Bulgarian politicians?

- Here it is necessary to build relations with politicians and with the people of Bulgaria. But these relations are not built by organizing collective drinking parties. Relationships must be built for the future: today it is a simple student in Russia, and tomorrow it is a member of the government in Bulgaria. It is necessary to support the pro-Russian forces in Bulgaria so that tomorrow they can declare themselves.

Prepared for publication by Maria Snytkova