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| ===Background=== | ===Background=== | ||
| All Orthodox Christians in the ] were subordinated to the ], which was dominated by Greek ]. The Orthodox Christians were included into the ]. The belonging to this Orthodox comunity became more important to the common people than their ethnic originsand the Balkan Orthodox people identified themselves simply as Christians. During the late 18th century, the Enlightenment in Western Europe provided influence for the initiation of the National awakening of the Bulgarian people. The ] in the early 19th century brought opposition to this situation. The Bulgarian nationalists then considered the ] to be oppressed as an ethnic community not only by the Turks, but also by the ]. They considered the ] as their main oppressor. The clergy oppressed the Bulgarians by forcing them to educate their children in Greek schools and by imposing Church services exclusively in Greek in order to ] the Bulgarian population. | All Orthodox Christians in the ] were subordinated to the ], which was dominated by Greek ]. The Orthodox Christians were included into the ]. The belonging to this Orthodox comunity became more important to the common people than their ethnic originsand the Balkan Orthodox people identified themselves simply as Christians. Nevertheless, ethnonyms never disappeared and some form of ethnic identification was preserved as evident from a Sultan's ] from 1680, which lists the ethnic groups in the Balkan lands as follows: Greeks (Rum), Albanians (Arnaut), Serbs (Sirf), Vlachs (Eflak) and Bulgarians (Bulgar).<ref>История на българите. Късно средновековие и Възраждане, том 2, Георги Бакалов, TRUD Publishers, 2004, ISBN 9545284676, стр. 23. (Bg.)]</ref> During the late 18th century, the Enlightenment in Western Europe provided influence for the initiation of the National awakening of the Bulgarian people. The ] in the early 19th century brought opposition to this situation. The Bulgarian nationalists then considered the ] to be oppressed as an ethnic community not only by the Turks, but also by the ]. They considered the ] as their main oppressor. The clergy oppressed the Bulgarians by forcing them to educate their children in Greek schools and by imposing Church services exclusively in Greek in order to ] the Bulgarian population. | ||
| ===School and Church struggle=== | ===School and Church struggle=== | ||
Revision as of 09:06, 5 December 2013
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Bulgarian Millet or Bulgar Millet was an ethno-religious and linguistic community (millet, i.e. nation), within the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th to early 20th century. Initially as Millet were recognized the Bulgarian Uniates, and then the Bulgarian Orthodox Christians (Eksarhhâne-i Millet i Bulgar).
History
Background
All Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire were subordinated to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which was dominated by Greek Phanariotes. The Orthodox Christians were included into the Rum Millet. The belonging to this Orthodox comunity became more important to the common people than their ethnic originsand the Balkan Orthodox people identified themselves simply as Christians. Nevertheless, ethnonyms never disappeared and some form of ethnic identification was preserved as evident from a Sultan's Firman from 1680, which lists the ethnic groups in the Balkan lands as follows: Greeks (Rum), Albanians (Arnaut), Serbs (Sirf), Vlachs (Eflak) and Bulgarians (Bulgar). During the late 18th century, the Enlightenment in Western Europe provided influence for the initiation of the National awakening of the Bulgarian people. The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century brought opposition to this situation. The Bulgarian nationalists then considered the Bulgarians to be oppressed as an ethnic community not only by the Turks, but also by the Greeks. They considered the Greek Patriarchal clergy as their main oppressor. The clergy oppressed the Bulgarians by forcing them to educate their children in Greek schools and by imposing Church services exclusively in Greek in order to Hellenize the Bulgarian population.
School and Church struggle
During the early nineteenth century, national elites used ethno-linguistic principles to differentiate between “Bulgarian” and “Greek” identity into the Rum millet. The Bulgarian Slavs, wanted to create their ownand schools in a common modern literary standard. By the middle of the century, Bulgarian activists shifted their attention from language to religion and started debate on the establishment of a separate Bulgarian church. As result until the 1870s the Bulgarian National Revival was focused on the struggle for a Bulgarian Church, independent from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In the Ottoman state, cultural, administrative and even political independence from the Patriarchate could only be obtained through the establishment of a separate millet or nation. The coordinated actions, carried out by Bulgarian national leaders supported by the majority of the Slavic population in today Bulgaria, Eastern Serbia, Republic of Macedonia and Northern Greece in order to be recognized as a separate millet constituted the so-called "Church struggle". Significantly, in their confrontations with the Patriarchists, the Bulgarians often relied on the Ottoman authorities as allies.
Recognition
The movement for union with Rome led to the initial recognition of a separate Uniat Millet in 1860, but in 1870 the Orthodox Millet was also recognized. As result, two armed struggle movements started to develop as late as the beginning of the 1870s: the Internal Revolutionary Organisation and the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee. Their armed struggle reached its peak with the April Uprising which broke out in 1876. It resulted into the Russo-Turkish War from 1877–1878, and led to the foundation of the third Bulgarian state after the Treaty of San Stefano. At that time the clergy’s shifts from the Orthodox to the Catholic Church and vice versa were symptomatic of the foreign powers’ game that the clergy got involved after the 1878 Berlin Treaty. Thus, in the interplay between the Orthodox and the Uniat doctrine, Bulgaria supported the Orthodox Exarchate. Russia supported Bulgaria. The Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople supported the Greek national idea. France and the Habsburg Empire supported the Uniats. The Ottoman Empire’s attitude was depending on how it had to balance its own interests in the game with the Great Powers.
Thrace and Macedonia
The ideas of Bulgarian nationalism grew up in significance, following the Congress of Berlin which took back the regions of Macedonia and Thrace, returning them under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Also an autonomous Ottoman province, called Eastern Rumelia was created in Northern Thrace. Аs a consequence, the Bulgarian nationalist movement proclaimed as its aim the inclusion of most of Macedonia and Thrace under Greater Bulgaria. Eastern Rumelia was annexed to Bulgaria in 1885 through bloodless revolution. During the early 1890s, two pro-Bulgarian revolutionary organizations were founded: the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. The Macedonian Slavs then, were regarded and self-identified predominantly as Macedonian Bulgarians. In 1903 they participated together with the Thracian Bulgarians in the unsuccessful Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising against the Ottomans in Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilajet. That was followed by series of conflicts between Greeks and Bulgarians into both regions. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 restored the Ottoman Parliament, which had been suspended by the Sultan in 1878. After the Revolution armed factions laid down their arms and joined the legal struggle. The Bulgarians founded the Peoples' Federative Party (Bulgarian Section) and the Union of the Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs and participated in Ottoman elections. Soon, the Young Turks turned increasingly nationalist and sought to suppress the national aspirations of the various minorities in Macedonia and Thrace.
Dissolution
The effect of the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913 was the partition of Ottoman empire territories in Europe, which was followed by an anti-Bulgarian campaign in areas under Serbian and Greek administration. They expelled the Bulgarian churchmen and the Bulgarian language was prohibited there. The Slavic population was proclaimed either as "Southern Serbs" or as "Slavophone Greeks". In the Adrianople region, that the Ottomans managed to keep, the whole Thracian Bulgarian population was put to ethnic cleansing. As a consequense many Bulgarians fled from the territories of present-day Greece, Republic of Macedonia and European Turkey to what is now Bulgaria. Subsequently, the Ottoman Empire lost virtually all of its possessions in the Balkans, which put de facto to end the community of the Bulgarian millet.
References and notes
- Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity, Andreas Wimmer, Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 052101185X, pp. 171-172.
- Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict Praeger Series in Political Communication, Patrick James, David Goetze, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, ISBN 0275971430, pp. 159-160.
- История на българите. Късно средновековие и Възраждане, том 2, Георги Бакалов, TRUD Publishers, 2004, ISBN 9545284676, стр. 23. (Bg.)]
- Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia Historical Dictionaries of Europe, Dimitar Bechev, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 0810862956,p. 134.
- From Rum Millet to Greek and Bulgarian Nations: Religious and National Debates in the Borderlands of the Ottoman Empire, 1870–1913, Theodora Dragostinova, Ohio State University, 2011, Columbus, OH.
- Bulgaria, Oxford history of modern Europe, R. J. Crampton, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-19-820514-7, p. 74-77.
- During the 20th century, Slavo Macedonian national feeling has shifted. At the beginning of the 20th century, Slavic patriots in Macedonia felt a strong attachment to Macedonia as a multi-ethnic homeland... Most of these Macedonian Slavs also saw themselves as Bulgarians. By the middle of the 20th. century, however Macedonian patriots began to see Macedonian and Bulgarian loyalties as mutually exclusive. Regional Macedonian nationalism had become ethnic Macedonian nationalism... This transformation shows that the content of collective loyalties can shift. Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Ethnologia Balkanica Series, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2010, ISBN 3825813878, p. 127.
- Up until the early 20th century the international community viewed Macedonians as regional variety of Bulgarians, i.e. Western Bulgarians. Nationalism and Territory: Constructing Group Identity in Southeastern Europe, Geographical perspectives on the human past: Europe: Current Events, George W. White, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, ISBN 0847698092, p. 236.
- Ivo Banac, "The Macedoine" in "The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics", pp. 307-328, Cornell University Press, 1984.
- Nationality on the Balkans. The case of the Macedonians, by F. A. K. Yasamee. (Balkans: A Mirror of the New World Order, Istanbul: EREN, 1995; pp. 121-132.