Today is March 3rd – The National Holiday of the Republic of Bulgaria. On this date in 1878, the foundations of the Third Bulgarian State were laid.
Many believe that the dates September 6, 1885 – when the two parts of divided Bulgaria (Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia) were united or September 22, 1908, when Prince Ferdinand solemnly declared the independence of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire, are more suitable for a national holiday, since the events then were carried out with the efforts of the Bulgarians themselves.
However, it should not be forgotten that in the Russo-Turkish War selflessly
Bulgarian militia also fought,
which, especially in the epic of Shipka, contributed to its victorious outcome. There, 16,000 Turks were thrown against 3,500 Bulgarians and a few Russians. On January 8-9, 1878, the entire militia entered the battle in the attack on the fort fortified by the Turks near Sheinovo. At the headquarters of Gen. Skobelev is the writer P.R. Slaveikov, who knows the passes in the Balkan Mountains. About him A. N. Kuropatkin, chief of staff of the Skobelev column, writes: “And it is really hard to say what we would have done without Slaveikov. He provided us with countless information about the situation of the Turks beyond the Balkans. He had organized entire detachments that passed there and inspected the Turkish positions. Along the way, during the descent of Skobel's detachment, he removed numerous obstacles and supplied two and a half divisions with everything they needed…And only then did he rest when we crossed the Balkans and the Turks were destroyed at Sheinovo“.
March 3 is the date that marks the resurrection of the Bulgarian state, which is also the reason for celebrating our national holiday today.
On March 3, 1878, in the town of San Stefano, today's Yesilköy, a suburb of Istanbul, a peace treaty was signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. It put an end to the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation (1877-1878) and created the Bulgarian state after 500 years of Ottoman rule.
The date was not chosen by chance.
It coincides with the coronation of Alexander II in 1855 and the liberation of serfs in Russia in 1861, for which the Russian emperor received the nickname Liberator. The treaty was preliminary – i.e. preliminary and subject to approval by the other Great Powers. According to it, liberated Bulgaria is an autonomous, tributary (paying tax), vassal principality with its own people's government and army. Its area is over 170,000 sq. km.
One of the main reasons for the Russo-Turkish War was the cruel suppression of the April Uprising of 1876, which caused a huge resonance in Europe. A number of prominent European public figures and statesmen, among whom the names of William Gladstone and Victor Hugo stand out, raised their voices in support of the oppressed Bulgarians.
San Stefano Bulgaria, with few exceptions, overlaps the map of the Exarchate from 1870, with which the Sultan legitimized the Orthodox spirituality of the Bulgarian population.
Unfortunately, the treaty was revised by the Great Powers. The Berlin Congress, opened on June 13, 1878, in which Russia, England, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany and Turkey participated, decided to divide Bulgaria.
By virtue of its clauses, San Stefano Bulgaria was divided into five parts
- Northern Bulgaria and the Sofia Sanjak formed the vassal Principality of Bulgaria, which paid an annual tribute to the Turkish Sultan, had its own militia and was led by a prince elected by the people, but with the consent of the Great Powers and the Sultan; the lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Rhodope Mountains were separated into a separate autonomous region called Eastern Rumelia, governed by a governor-general appointed by the Sublime Porte; Macedonia and the Adrianople region remained within the borders of the Ottoman Empire under the direct authority of the Sultan; the cities of Pirot and Vranja were handed over to Serbia, and Romania received Northern Dobrudja.
One of the important results of the Treaty of San Stefano is,
that it created an ideal that was the basis of both the great successes and the national catastrophes for the Bulgarian statehood after 1878
The great successes, as we know, were the Unification and the declaration of independence. The two successive national catastrophes - during the Inter-Allied War and the First World War, however, put an end to the ideal of a “Bulgaria on three seas“. A wave of refugees set out from the then lost Bulgarian lands, who settled within the framework of the Bulgarian state and gradually integrated into it.
For the first time, March 3 was celebrated in 1880 - two years after the Liberation - as the Day of the Ascension to the Throne of Emperor Alexander II. Since 1888, the holiday has been celebrated as the Day of the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. The day was celebrated once as a national holiday in 1978 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Liberation. Ten years later, in 1988, it became an official holiday, and in 1990, when changes began in Bulgaria, by decision of the Grand National Assembly, the date was declared a national holiday of the country.
On this day, the national flag is raised and wreaths are laid at the monument to the Unknown Soldier in Sofia, in memory of the Bulgarians who died in the fight for the liberation of the Fatherland. In the evening, a solemn torch-lighting ceremony is held on the square in front of the National Assembly, next to the monument to Tsar Liberator - Alexander II. Citizens lay wreaths and flowers at the monument to the Russian, Finnish and Romanian soldiers who died for the liberation of Bulgaria.
A large part of those who fought for the liberation of Bulgaria
Officers and soldiers were Ukrainians.
And there is nothing strange in this - the Russian imperial headquarters preferred to use the military potential of its internal colony closest to Bulgaria, instead of sending garrisons from the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions. Therefore, mobilization for the war was carried out primarily among the Ukrainian population of the Kiev, Odessa and Kharkov military districts.
The structure of the then fighting army included a large number of regiments and other military formations, whose names betrayed the origin of the recruited soldiers - Kiev, Kharkov, Poltava, Grodno, Zhytomyr, Chernigov, Mariupol and dozens of others. The army also included a large number of Ukrainians with Bulgarian roots, who with great enthusiasm set out to liberate their ancestral homeland, and some of the officers remained in Bulgaria afterwards to prepare its young army.
The composition of the first Russian military unit to set foot in Bulgaria is also interesting. This was the 14th Infantry Division, which created a bridgehead for the invasion. It is composed mainly of Ukrainians and is led by General Mykhailo Dragomirov.
Happy holiday!