Struggle for Independence
The Bulgarians gained independence after a rebellion and a terrible war that took place in 1877–1878 between Russia, the Bulgarian rebels, and the Ottoman Empire. The beginning was a few years earlier, with the establishment of the movement for the liberation of Bulgaria, led by two prominent personalities: one was Hristo Botev, who was born in the town of Kalofer at the foot of the Balkan Mountains and is considered the national poet of Bulgaria; the other was Vasil Levski, who was born about 40 km away in the town of Karlovo, at the foot of the same mountains.
The Balkan Mountains are called the “good Mountain” by the Bulgarians, It is a wooded, high, relatively narrow and very long range of Mountains, crossing Bulgaria from east to west. At its foot are important towns that served as centers of Christianity, culture and Bulgarian nationalism during the Ottoman rule. The high Mountains, steep and close to the settlements, were an ideal place of refuge for the Hayduks (rebels against the Sultan), and for anyone who wanted to get away from the Ottomans.
The young people in the towns at the foot of the Balkan Mountains were influenced by the ideas of European education, Russian nationalism and Western Romanticism. In the middle of the 19th century there is a revival of the Bulgarian language, culture and education. Slogans calling for equality, brotherhood and justice were chanted by everyone. The Bulgarians wanted to be like all the other nations of Europe, and not to be at the mercy of a corrupt Muslim state that is being conducted as in past times. It was clear to all that it was being kept alive artificially by Christian European powers, who could eliminate it if they wanted to.
The Bulgarians watched their Serbian neighbors win their independence after a long struggle, the Romanians who had been independent for a long time, the Greeks who successfully rebelled against the Ottomans, and the Springtime of Nations in Europe, and they too wanted independence and freedom. The underground cells of the rebellion in the homeland were organized by Levski, while Botev, who went into exile in Romania, organized the Bulgarian diaspora, which numbered about half a million, to participate in and support the rebellion. This was manifested in the distribution of leaflets and books, and the formation of battalions of volunteer soldiers who would join the struggle once the rebellion broke out.
The idea was that the uprising would cause the Ottomans to react violently, and as a result, public opinion in the West would shift in favor of the Bulgarians, and pressure would be put on the British and French governments to withdraw their support for the Ottomans against the Russians (in the Crimean War, the English and French saved the Ottomans from defeat by the Russians). And then the way will be paved for the Russian army to invade the Balkans and liberate their Slavic brothers.
The Turks found out about the organization, arrested Levski and executed him, but a few months later the rebellion broke out and was brutally suppressed, with brutal massacres that shocked the West (as expected). But this was not enough to change English policy. And at this point Botev, who was in charge of the Bulgarian Diaspora in Romania, decided to act. At the head of a battalion of volunteers and in a well-publicized, heroic and hopeless journey, they invaded Bulgaria and marched to their certain death in the face of much superior forces. This act reverberated throughout the world. The heroic death of Botev and his friends shocked public opinion in England, and it caused its government to stop opposing the expected Russian invasion.
The Russians, given the green light for action, crossed the Danube and advanced to the Balkan Mountain range and beyond. A large Ottoman army was surrounded and besieged in the City of Pleven, a sort of Stalingrad of the Ottomans. An even bigger army came to its rescue, but the defenders of the Balkan Mountain passages stood the pressure in the winter and spring of 1788, and blocked the advance of the Ottomans towards Pleven at the Shipka pass. The Ottoman army surrounded in Pleven surrendered and the battle for the Balkans was decided. Bulgaria was liberated and gained de facto independence, which was declared de jure at the post-war Congress of Berlin. The time of the Third Bulgarian State (Empire) began.
The new country declared Sofia as its capital, was headed by a king, a nobleman imported from Germany (Alexander), and was for a while the most populous and developing country in the Balkans. At the same time, not all the territories inhabited by Bulgarians were liberated. Only two years later, Plovdiv and the Rhodope Mountains were liberated, while Macedonia and Greek Thrace, which according to the Bulgarians’ view are an integral part of Greater Bulgaria, remained outside the country’s borders to this day.
In 1912, Bulgaria, together with Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, started the First Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire, with the aim of taking control of more territories in the Balkans, primarily Ottoman Macedonia and Thrace. Surprisingly, the dwarves beat the giant on the thigh, but in the division of the spoils, Bulgaria lost its share, and as a result, she went to war against all her neighbors, with the aim of correcting the wrong and gaining control of Macedonia. This was the Second Balkan War, which ended in a Bulgarian defeat at the end of 1912. As a result, Bulgaria made an alliance with Germany against Serbia and Greece three years later, as part of the First World War. This war also ended in disaster for the Bulgarians, who usually joke about themselves by saying that “Bulgaria has never lost a battle and never won a war.”
As far as the Bulgarians are concerned, Macedonia is a Bulgarian territory, but the inhabitants of this country have forgotten their affiliation and today identify themselves with a different independent nationality. The last attempt to gain control of Macedonia and obtain a port in the Mediterranean Sea was in World War II, when Bulgaria joined Germany and the Axis countries with the aim of creating a great Bulgaria, and this attempt also ended in defeat and disaster. The period of great wars and losses in the first half of the 20th century eventually led the Bulgarians to give up their ambition to regain Macedonia and Thrace and reconcile with the borders of their country.
With the acceptance of independence, and in fact already several years before, the Bulgarian Patriarchate was re-established and the place of the Holy Synod was located in Sofia. Christianity was recognized as a national historic religion supported by the state. Patriarch Kiril was recognized as an independent patriarch by all denominations and Churches of the Orthodox world, and in 1953 also by the Patriarchate in Constantinople. Churches began to be built all over Bulgaria and especially in Sofia, and thus we can today enjoy magnificent monuments such as the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and the Sveti Nadela Church in Sofia. The liberation of Bulgaria supported by the Church resulted in a burst of enthusiasm and religious creativity, the past connected with the future, and the angels returned to dwell in the land.
