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 iSG2VS
 
 QUEEN ELEANORA OF BULGARIA.
 
 lulgaria 
 
 With an Account of the 
 
 Balkan Wars, Macedonia, and the 
 
 Macedonian Bulgars 
 
 tttU &. Monrot 
 
 Author of "Turkey and the Turks," "In Viking 
 Land," "Sicily, the Garden of the Mediter- 
 ranean," " Bohemia and the Cechs." 
 "Europe and Her People," etc. 
 
 3IUualratfi» 
 
 THE PAGE COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON ^ MDCCCCXIV
 
 Copyright, 1914, 
 Bt The Pagk Company 
 
 All riylits reserved 
 
 First Impression, September, 1914 
 
 THE COLOhaAL PRRSS 
 C. 11. SIMONDB CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
 
 srlF 
 
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 DR. LOUIvS N. WILSON, 
 
 Ct.ARK UNIVERSITY, 
 
 WOKCEHTKK, MASS., 
 
 U. 8. A.
 
 BULGARIA AND HER PEOPLE
 
 Works of 
 
 PROFESSOR WILL S. MONROE 
 
 Turkey and the Turks - - - - $3.00 
 In Viking Land: Norway, Its Peo- 
 ple, Its Fjords, and Its Fjelds - 3.00 
 Sicily, the Garden of the Mediterra- 
 nean - - 3.00 
 
 Bohemia and the Cechs - - - - 3.00 
 
 Bulgaria and Ber People - Net 3.00 
 
 Carriage paid, 3.20 
 
 0?<] 
 
 THE PAGE COMPANY 
 
 53 Beacon Street, Booton, Mass.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This is the first general book of travel and de- 
 scription, treating of the rejuvenated Bulgarian 
 kingdom, to be published in the EngUsh language. 
 Of all the peoples of the Balkan peninsula, the Bul- 
 gars are least well known in Europe and America; 
 and yet it is the universal testimony of the few 
 foreigners who have learned to know them inti- 
 mately that the inhabitants of " the peasant state,'* 
 although more recently liberated from the oppress- 
 ive Turkish rule than the other races of the penin- 
 sula, have outdistanced the Greeks, the Rumanians, 
 the Servians, and the Montenegrins in most of the 
 matters that make for social progress and civili- 
 zation. Illiteracy, for example, is distinctly lower 
 in Bulgaria than in the other Balkan states. The 
 Bulgars spend twice as much per inhabitant on 
 elementary education as the Servians, two and a 
 half times as much as the Greeks, and three times 
 as much as the Montenegrins. 
 
 As this book is intended for the general reader, 
 the author has stressed the human side of the sub- 
 ject, and treated of a reasonably wide range of gen- 
 eral topics, — geography, history, religion, educa- 
 tion, etlmic types, agriculture, industry, commerce, 
 
 vii
 
 VUl 
 
 Foreword 
 
 literature, painting, sculpture, music, — that throw 
 light on and lend interest to the developing civili- 
 zation of the new kingdom. 
 
 Considerable space is devoted to the two recent 
 Balkan wars and to the authoritative report of the 
 Carnegie commission. The author was in Bulgaria 
 during the second Balkan war, and his personal 
 investigations into the nature of and the responsi- 
 bility for the second Balkan war are in entire ac- 
 cord with the findings of the Carnegie commission. 
 
 Bulgaria was betrayed, attacked, and traduced 
 by her treacherous allies. She accomplished most 
 and lost most in the Balkan wars. The charges of 
 atrocities against Bulgarian soldiers were in the 
 main false. On the other hand, the barbarities com- 
 mitted by the victorious Greeks and Servians, and 
 notably by the former, — the torture of the wounded, 
 the murder of prisoners of war, the firing on Red 
 Cross and neutral flags, the violation of women, — 
 have shocked humanity. The report of the Car- 
 negie commission is a crushing indictment of the 
 Greeks and the Serbs and their shameful beha- 
 viour during the recent wars. 
 
 The author is under a large debt of gratitude to 
 a score of people in Bulgaria, who have aided him 
 in the collection and the verification of the facts in 
 his book; but they must be passed over with a 
 blanket statement of thanks. Four friends, how- 
 ever, must be named : Mr. Tvan A. Karastoyanoff, 
 the artistic photographer at Sofia, for many of the 
 illustrations used in this volume; the Reverend 
 Elia K. Kutukchieff, of Haskovo, Bulgaria, who
 
 Foreword ix 
 
 accompanied the author in his arduous travels in 
 Bulgaria during the second Balkan war; and Pro- 
 fessor Radoslav A. Tsanoff, formerly of Clark Uni- 
 versity but now of Rice Institute, Houston, Texas, 
 and Professor Amos W. Farnham, late of the Os- 
 wego Normal School, who submitted to the drudg- 
 ery of reading the proof sheets. 
 
 W. S. M. 
 June 1, 1914.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Geography of Bulgaria 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Physiography of the country — Nature of the Balkan mountains 
 
 — Divi.sions of the Stara Planina — The mountains of southern 
 Bulgaria — The Rilos — The Rhodopes — Mountain streams 
 
 — The Maritza river valley — Picturesque features of the 
 southern Rhodopes — Lakelets and mineral springs — Climate 
 of Bulgaria — Rainfall — Flora and fauna — Area and popu- 
 lation of the country — Bulgarians in the United States 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 
 
 Earliest inhabitants of Bulgaria — The ancient Thraco-Illyriana 
 
 — Reign of Philip of Macedon — Arrival of the Bulgars — 
 Their subjugation of the native Slavic tribas — The rule of As- 
 paruh and Ivruin — Prince Boris and the adoption of Chris- 
 tianity — Reign of Simeon — The royal palace at Preslav — 
 Golden age of Bulgarian literature — Conflicts with the By- 
 zantine emperors — The Bogomil heresy — Their doctrines 
 and persecution — Bulgaria a part of the Greek empire — 
 The house of Asen — The new capital at Tirnovo — The fate 
 of Baldwin, the Prankish emperor — Discord in Bulgaria — 
 Conquest of the country by the Turks 12 
 
 CH.VPTER III 
 
 Under the Turkish Yoke 
 
 The Turkish conquest of Bulgaria — Dark ages of Bulgarian 
 history — Turkish political oppression and Greek ecclesias- 
 tical tyranny — The corrupt Phanariotcs — Extinction of Bul- 
 garian learning — \Miy the movement for the Hcllcnization 
 of the Bulgars failai — Origin of the Poraak republic — Efforts 
 of the Bulgars to throw oil the Turkish yoke — Influence of 
 the literary ami historical revival — Labours of the monk 
 Paissy — The school at Kotel — Beginnings of revolutionary 
 movements — Services of Venelin — The school at Gabrovo 
 
 xi
 
 xii Contents 
 
 — Re^atablishment of the Bulgarian national church — Turk- 
 ish oppression following the Crimean war — Work of revolu- 
 tionary committees in Rumania 20 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Liberation ok Bulgaria 
 
 Beginning of the end of the Turkish rule — Massacres of the 
 bashi-bozouks — Responsibility of England for conditions in 
 Turkey — The Crimean war — Russia and the oppressed 
 Bulgars — The Massacre at Batak — Mr. Gladstone on the 
 Bulgarian " horrors " — Outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war 
 of 1877-78 — Russian successcis — How the Bulgars cooper- 
 ated with their liberators — The treaty of San Stcfano — 
 Anger of England — The congress of Berlin — The cunning of 
 Abdul-Hamid — Macedonia, Albania, and Thrace given back 
 to Turkey — Creation of the principalities of Bulgaria and 
 Eastern Rumelia 38 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The New Bulgarian Kingdom 
 
 Administrative affairs of Bulgaria in the hands of Russians — 
 The new constitution adopted at Timovo — Election of 
 Prince Alexander of Battenberg as niler of Bulgaria — The 
 Russophil party — The coup d'etat — Arrogance of the Rus- 
 sian officials — Restoration of the suspended constitution — 
 Departure of the Russian officials — Union of Eastern Rumelia 
 with Bulgaria — Appearance of Stefan StambolofT — The war 
 with Scrvia — Russian intrigues — Kidnapping of Prince 
 Alexander — His return to Bulgaria — Abdication of the 
 prince — What Prince Alexander had done for Bulgaria . 50 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Bulgaria Under King Ferdinand 
 
 Alienation of the Bulgarian sympathies by the intrigues of the 
 Russians — Election of Prince Ferdinand by the national 
 assembly — Refusal of the powers to recognize the election — 
 Non-recognition a distinct advantage — Stamboloff and the 
 friendly relations of Bulgaria with the governments of Europe 
 
 — Intriguing Russophil ecclesiastics — How StambolofT dis- 
 ciplined them — Birth of Prince Boris — Friction between 
 Ferdinand and his great minister — The downfall of StambolofT 
 
 — Sinister Russian influences again in evidence — Dedication 
 of the Russian chapel at Shipka pass — Independence of Bul- 
 garia from Turkey — What King Ferdinand has accom- 
 plished — Popularity of Prince Boris — His rebaptism to the 
 faith of the national Orthodox church 00
 
 Contents xiii 
 
 CHAPTER Vli 
 
 Stamboloff vh. Russian Intrigues 
 
 The early life of Stefan St.amholofT — His Russian experiences — 
 Connection with the Buigarian revolutionary committee — 
 Leader of the nprifiing at Stara Zagora — President of the 
 national assembly — His role in the union of the two Bulgariiis 
 
 — Prime minister to Prince Alexander — How he met the 
 attacks of Russia against Bulgarian independence — The 
 regency — Prime minister under Prince Ferdinand — Was hia 
 rule despotic? — How he punishtni Macedonian brigands — 
 His quarrels with the prince — Resignation from the ministry 
 
 — Cruel persecution by the Russophil government — His mur- 
 der — Pen picture of the great statesman — Estimates of his 
 scrvioea — Connection of Russia with his downfall and murder 
 
 — His faults and his virtues 73 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Balkan League 
 
 Responsibility for Turkish misrule in Macedonia — Guiding 
 principle of Ottoman statecraft — The revolutionary move- 
 ment and its consequences ~ Turkish mfissacre.s — Attempts 
 of Russia and Austria to inaugurate reforms — The Young 
 Turk party — Attemp<,s to Ottomanizc Macedonia — Why 
 the Macedonians ntvoltcd against Turkish rule — Early at- 
 tempts to form a Balkan league — Why StarabolofT rejected 
 the overture's of the Greeks — Venizelos and the Balkan 
 league of 1912 — Provisions of the league for the reform of 
 Mac<!donia — Bulgarian conventions with Greece, Servia, 
 and Montenegro 87 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The First Balkan War 
 
 Immediate causes of the war — Inefficiency of the great powers 
 
 — Demands of the allies — Turkey's refusal — Declaration of 
 war — Composition of the Bulgarian army — General SavofT 
 
 — Kutinrheff, Ivanoff, and DimitriefT — General Fitchefl — 
 The battle of Kirk Kliss^ — ■ Bulgarian successes at Lule 
 Burgas and Bonar Hissar — Before the Tchatalja lines — 
 Expediency of the attack — The siege of Adrianople — Armis- 
 tice and peace conference — Resumption of hostilities — 
 Capture of Adrianople — The part Bulgaria took in t^e first 
 Balkan war — Tribute to the splendid qualities of her 
 soldiers . , , 106
 
 xiv Contents 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The Second Balkan War 
 
 Causes of the second Balkan war — Conduct of the Greek and 
 Servian armies in Macedonia — AttemptH to disintegrate 
 Bulgarian social and national life — Maltreatment of Bul- 
 garian bishops and teachers — Secret understanding between 
 Greece and Servia before the close of the first Balkan war — 
 Vacillating policy of the prime minister of Servia — Violation 
 of the conditions of the Balkan league by Greeks and Servians 
 ^— Efforts of Russia to [)revcnt war — GueahofT and Pachitch 
 in conference — Outbreak of hostilities — Plan of General 
 Savo£f 's campaign against the Servians — Greeks attack the 
 Bulgarian garrison at SaloniJca — Retreat of General IvanofT 
 — Invasion of Bulgaria by Rumania — Turkey reconquers 
 Thrace — The peace treaty of Bucharest — \\Tiy the Balkan 
 question is not settled 116 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Alleged Bulgakian Atrocities 
 
 The press campaign of King Constantine of Greece — Isolation 
 of Bulgaria during the second Balkan war — Personal experi- 
 ences of the author — Testimony of refugees — What he saw in 
 the Rilo and the Rhodope moimtaina — Accounts of atrocities 
 published in Le Temps and the retraction — Bishops report.ed 
 killed by the Greeks found alive by the Carnegie commission 
 — How the Greeks forged the signature of an American mis- 
 sionary — Bulgaria demands the apj)ointment of an interna- 
 tional commission to investigate the atrocities of all the bel- 
 ligerents — Action of the Hague tribunal — Report of the 
 Carnegie commission — Its findings at Doxato, Seres, and 
 Demir Hiasar — Responsibility of the Greeks — Charges by 
 the Greeks of mutilation of bodies by Bulgarian soldiers pro- 
 nounced false by the commLssion 135 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 
 
 Responflibility of the Greek press in inciting feelings of hatred 
 against the Bulgars — The order of King Constantine for 
 Greek reprisals antedated the alleged Bulgarian provocation 
 — Sacking and burning Kukush by the Greeks — Tales of 
 torture by Macedonian refugees — Catholic priests and Ar- 
 menian doctors flogged for money — Attempts of Greek sol- 
 diers to violate nuns — Damaging evidence of the letters 
 found in the Razlog district of Macedonia — Greek soldiers 
 boast of their cruelties — One hundred and sixty Bulgarian 
 villages burned by the Greeks 162
 
 Contents xv 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The Pkoplk ok Bui.uahia 
 
 Ethnically the Bulgars of Finnic stock — Physical characteris- 
 tics — Mental traits — Industry and frugality — Peasant 
 costumes — Standards of morality — The community home 
 
 — Bulgarian language — Literacy of the people — Spirit of 
 toleration — Jews in Bulgaria — Gypsies — Greeks — Their 
 characteristic ethical defects — The Kutzo-Vlacka . . . 182 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 
 
 Fundamental principles of the Bulgarian constitution — Execu- 
 tive powers — The national assembly — How constituted — A 
 unique electoral law — Representation of minorities — Charges 
 of unfair elections — The grand eobranje — Sources of rev- 
 enue — Ix)cal government in Bulgaria — Municipal councils — 
 The judiciary — Bulgaria a well governed state — Political 
 parties — Conservatives and liberals — Other parties . . 192 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Religion and Monasteries 
 
 The national Ort.hodox church of Bulgaria — A static religion — 
 Dearth of intellectual life among its priests — Language of 
 the service — Place of fasts — Nature of church services — 
 The confessional — Celibacy required only of monks — Re- 
 ligious toleration in Bulgaria — The Pomaks or Bulgarian 
 Moslems — Moriasticism — -The famous Rilo monastery — 
 Other monasteries — The Mohammedan church in Bulgaria — 
 The Greek patriarchist church — Hebrews — Catholics and 
 Uniates — The American Protestant movement in Bulgaria — 
 Its educational influence — What Protestantism has done for 
 the country 208 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Education in BuLaAiiiA 
 
 Bulgarian culture effaced during the Rupremacy of the Greek 
 Phanariotes — The revival of learning in Bulgaria — Educa- 
 tion and the literary and historical renaissance — The second- 
 ary school at Gabrovo — Opposition of the Greek ecclesiastics 
 
 — Views of the American missionaries — Mission schools 
 conducted by Ameri(;anH — The national school system — 
 How elemental^' schools are supported — Course of study — 
 Education of girls — Normal schools for the training of 
 teachers — The university of Sofia — Special and technical 
 schools — Riipid decrease in the percentage of illiteracy — 
 Libraries 224
 
 XVI 
 
 Contents 
 
 PAQB 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 Bulgarian Folk - Sonq and Music 
 
 Rich folk-popt.ry of the (-onntry — How thesn aongs originated — 
 Earliest efforts to collect the folk-songs of Bulgaria and Mace- 
 donia — Opposition of the Greek ecclesiastics — Song of 
 Liuben the haiduk — Resemblance of the measures to Long- 
 fellow's Hiawatha — Ivan Popoff and the Fairy — Marko, the 
 legendary hero — Mental traits of the lyrics — Relation of 
 
 • the folk-songs to national dances — Tlie horo — Musical in- 
 struments used — Art music of Bulgaria — Works of modem 
 composers — Musical societies 238 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Modern Buluaiuan Literature 
 
 The literary revival and the movement for political liberty — 
 Christo Boteff — Liuben KaravelolT — Zachary Stoyanoff — 
 Petko R. ShiveikofT, the founder of modern Bulgarian litera- 
 ture — His political and educational activities — Collections 
 of folk-songs — Translation of the Bible — Ivan Vazoff, poet, 
 dramatist, and novelist — Early life and training — Con- 
 nection with the revolutionary movement — Early verses — 
 Under the Yoke — Other romances — Dramas — VlalkofF — 
 Stoyan Michailovsky, satirist — Aleko ConstantinolT, humour- 
 ist — Success of Bai Ganio — Pencho SlaveVkoff, the foremost 
 Bulgarian writer — Pen-picture of the poet — His art work — 
 Lyrical compositions — His great epic — Petko Todoroff, 
 poet and dramatist — Author of the finest Bulgarian prose — 
 Velitchkoff — Minor poets — Political and philosophical wri- 
 ters 252 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Paintinq and Sculptdrb 
 
 High rank of Bulgaria in painting — Earliest artists foreigners — 
 Profeasor Ivan D. Mirkvicka — Wide range of his artistic 
 activities — Studies of Bulgarian peasants — His historical 
 paintings — Mural paintings in the Alexander Nevsky cathe- 
 dral — Founder of the Academy of Fine Arts — Yaroslav 
 Veshin — Pavlovitch and Dospevsky — Professor Anton 
 Mitoff — Ivan Angeloff — Other painters — Sculpture — Col- 
 lections of paintings — Art school at Sofia 277 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Farms and Forests 
 
 Agriculture the mainstay — Peasant ownership — Conxmon 
 pasture lands — Cereal products — Cultivation of roses — 
 Orchard fruits — Growth of tobacco — Rearing of live-stock 
 — Bulgarian Agricultural Baak — Need of agricultural edu-
 
 Contents xvii 
 
 PAQB 
 
 cation — Social life of the peasant farmers — Forests of Bul- 
 garia — Government regulaliona — The forests of the Rilo 
 and the Rhodopc; mountaina 288 
 
 CHAPl^ER XXI 
 
 Inddstry and Trade 
 
 Handicrafts — Decline in home industries — Textile industries 
 at Sliven and Gabrovo — Silk-spinning at Timovo — Saw 
 mills — Social and economical evils at the industrial centres 
 
 — I^egislative labour restrictions — Encouragement of indus- 
 try by the national government — Special concessions — Min- 
 eral resources and mining — Numerous mineral Bprings in Bul- 
 garia — Commerce — Its rapid growth — Exports and im- 
 ports — Chief trading towns — Railways and hic;hwa3's — 
 System of measurements — The Bulgarian National Bank . 300 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 QuEKN Eleanora and Philanthropy 
 
 The Orthodox church not directly identiBed with philanthropic 
 movements — Indifference of the clergy — Queen Eleanora 
 at the heatl of philanthropic projects — The Florence Night- 
 ingale of the Russo-Turkish war — Her services in the two 
 Balkan wars — Tribute of Miss Abbott — Pen picture by Pro- 
 fessor Markham — The Clementine hospital and its needs — 
 Dearth of orphanges in Bulgaria 313 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 American Influence in Bulgaria 
 
 Large influence of the United States in the intellectual develop- 
 ment of the nation — Robert College — Work of Dr. Hamhn 
 
 — Dr. Waahburn and the college — ^Tiat it has done for Bul- 
 garia — Bulgarian statesmen educated at Robert College — 
 Present condition of the college — Influence of the American 
 College for Women at Constantinople — Work of the Ameri- 
 can missionaries — Anxericau Institute at Samokov — Ameri- 
 can School for Girls — The influence it has exerted through its 
 graduates 323 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Sofia, the Modern Capital 
 
 The site of an ancient city — Sofia in the eighteenth centurj' — 
 Transformation since it ceased to be a Turkish town — 
 The Djul-Dschamija mosque — The Bu\'uk Djamia — The 
 Black Mosque — New Cathedral of Alexander Ncvaky — 
 Bulgarian National Theatre — Palace of the Holy Synod — 
 Public ba'-h — Post-office — Statue of the Tsar Liberator — 
 Public gardens — The suburbs of Sofia 341
 
 XVlll 
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Other Cities and Towns 
 
 Philippopolifl, the capital of Eastern Rumelia — Principal quarters 
 in the city — Nature of the population — Rustchuk — Tir- 
 novo, the ancient capital — Historic church of the Forty 
 Martyrs — Recent destruction of the city by an earthquake — 
 Varna — Burgaa — Shumeu — Stara Zagora, Sliven, and 
 Kazanlik — Dubnitza — Samokov — Rilo .... 349 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 The Bulgabs of Macedonia 
 
 Why Macedonia was given back to the Turks after the Russo- 
 Turkish war — Revolt in the Struma valley — Organization 
 of the konutadjis — Revolution of 1902 — How it was sup- 
 pressed by the Turks — The wrecking of the bank at Salonika 
 
 — Capture of Misa Stone — Economic conditions in Mace- 
 donia — Methods of leasing the land — Physical and mental 
 characteristics of the Bulgars of Macedonia .... 359 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Macedonia after the Balkan Wars 
 
 Racial and religious elements of the population of Macedonia — 
 Conditions of the province at the close of the first Balkan war 
 
 — Disappearance of the population — The countrj' laid waste 
 by the Greeks — Work of pillage and murder — Verdict of Mr. 
 Wallis — Conditions in the part of Macedonia occupied by the 
 Servians — Report of the Carnegie commission — Oppression 
 of the Bulgarian population — Tyrannical order of Kmg Peter 
 
 — Methods of coercion — The reaulta 373 
 
 Bibuoqraphy 397 
 
 Index 401
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 -♦- 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Queen Eleanors of Bulgaria Frontispiece 
 
 MAP OF BULGARIA 2 
 
 Rilo Mountains — Rhodope Mountains 4 
 
 The lekcr River 6 
 
 Timovo, Capital of the Old Bulgarian Kingdom .... 12 
 
 Prince Boris (852-884) 15 
 
 The Monk Paissy 33 
 
 Christo BotefF, Leader of the Revolt against Turkey ... 36 
 
 Monument of the Tsar Liberator at Sofia 38 
 
 Batak 42 
 
 Shipka Pass 44 
 
 Prince Alexander 51 
 
 Royal Palaco at Sofia, erected by Prince Alexander ... 57 
 
 King Ferdinand 62 
 
 Prince Boris 71 
 
 Stefan StambolofT 74 
 
 A Peasant Citiien gQ 
 
 Macedonian Vlacks gg 
 
 Ex- Prime Minister Gueahoff 100 
 
 Father and Four Sons who fought in the First Balkan War . 106 
 
 General Savoff lOS 
 
 First Balkan War: Burying the Dead 114 
 
 Second Balkan War: Troops Marching to the Front . .110 
 
 Second Balkan War: Ox Train with War Materials . . .130 
 
 zix
 
 XX List of Illustrations 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Macedonian Refugece in the Mountains near Ichtiman . . 137 
 
 Refugees from Seres 145 
 
 Macedonians Fleeing Greek Atrocities 162 
 
 Tiu-kish Exiles from Macedonia 179 
 
 A Bulgarian Family 182 
 
 Typical Bulgarian Costumes 185 
 
 A Bulgarian Peasant 186 
 
 Group of Peasants 188 
 
 The Sobranje or Parliament House 192 
 
 The National Assembly (Sobranje) in Session 200 
 
 A Monastery near Sofia 208 
 
 Monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul 210 
 
 Bird*B-Eyc View of Rilo Monastery — Court, of Rilo Monastery . 217 
 
 PrLraary School at Sofia 230 
 
 Secondary School at Rustchuk — Agricultural School at Plevna . 234 
 
 Public Library at Shumen 237 
 
 Bulgarian Musicians 240 
 
 National Dance: The Horo 249 
 
 Ivan Vazoff 260 
 
 Aleko Constantinoff 268 
 
 Pencho SlaveikofT — Petko Todoroff 272 
 
 Ivan V. Mirkvicka 278 
 
 " The Rhodope Wedding " 280 
 
 Anton Mitoff 284 
 
 Ploughing w-ith Water Buffalo 288 
 
 Harvesting with Camels — Threi^hing Wheat 290 
 
 Factory at Gabrovo 301 
 
 Queen Eleanora as a War Nurse 314 
 
 Clementine Hospital, under the direction of Queen Eleanora . 321 
 
 Dr. George Washburn, Educator of IJulgarian Statesmen . . 331 
 
 Bulgarian Graduates of Robert, College and their Wives . . 336 
 
 Samokov, Seat of American Schools 338 
 
 Sofia, the Modem Capital 342 
 
 Alexander Nevsky Cathedral — Bulgarian National Theatre . 346 
 
 General View of Philippopolis 350 
 
 Rustchuk — Varna 353 
 
 The Captors of Miss Ellen M. Stone 364
 
 List of Illustrations xxi 
 
 FAOB 
 
 A Patriarchal Family 368 
 
 A Macedonian Village after the Balkan Wara 374 
 
 MacedoQiau Bulgars exiled by the Greeks 370 
 
 Macedonian Bulgara driven into exile by the Servians . . 382
 
 BULGARIA 
 AND HER PEOPLE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GEOGRAPHY OF BULGARIA 
 
 Physiography of the country' — Nature of the Balkan raountainfl — 
 Divisionfl of the Stara Planina — The mountaina of flouthern Bul- 
 garia The RiloB — The Ilhodopes — Mountain streams — The 
 Maritza river valley — Picturesque features of the southern Rhodopes 
 — Lakelets and mineral springs — Climate of Bulgaria — Rainfall — 
 Flora and fauna — Area and population of the country — Bul- 
 garians in the United States. 
 
 The kingdom of Bulgaria forms a part of the 
 mountainous Balkan peninsula. The physiography 
 of the country presents a combination of mountain 
 chains encircling broad and fertile mountain valleys. 
 The average elevation of the kingdom is 1,411 feet 
 above sea-level. The character of the country is 
 determined by the mountain systems. Structurally 
 four well defined sections may be noted : the Danu- 
 bian table-land in the north, the long chain of the 
 Balkan mountains extending west-east the entire 
 length of the country, the high and elevated mass 
 of the Rilo-Rhodope mountains in the south, and the 
 elevated plains between these two great parallel 
 mountain systems. 
 
 The Balkan mountains, or Stara Planina as thev 
 
 1
 
 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 are called by the Bulgars, extend from the Timok 
 river in the west to the Black sea in the east, a 
 length of 375 miles, the average width being about 
 20 miles. They are really a continuation of the 
 Carpathian system. The Balkans have been formed 
 by horizontal pressure from the south. They have 
 neither abrupt projections nor rocky peaks, but 
 many rounded domes which, for the most part, are 
 the remains of ancient volcanic cones. The higher 
 parts have a core of granite and metamorphic rock. 
 The northern slopes of the Balkans present a suc- 
 cession of terraces, which are so gentle that one may 
 approach the crest from the Danube river without 
 coming in sight of mountains. The southern slopes, 
 on the other hand, are very abrupt, with numerous 
 narrow and tortuous defiles. 
 
 There are three well marked divisions of the Bal- 
 kan, or Stara Planina, system. The western divi- 
 sion, a continnation of the Carpathian mountains, 
 extends from the Servian frontier to the gorge of 
 the Isker river; the central division from the Isker 
 to the Demir Kapia; and the eastern division from 
 the Demir Kapia to the Black sea. 
 
 The western Stara Planina is flanked north-south 
 along its entire length by parallel lines of peaks 
 abruptly cut into rough shapes. This is the most 
 rugged part of the Balkans and is extremely difficult 
 of access. It has only two passes — the Sveti 
 Nicola (3,916 feet above the sea), through which 
 leads the highway between Lom Palanka and the 
 Danube regions to the Nishava valley in Servia, and 
 the Ginci pass (4,737 feet elevation), with the high-
 
 G-eography of Bulgaria 
 
 way from Lorn Palanka to Sofia. The steepness of 
 the slopes and the narrowness of the defiles through 
 which the streams flow have combined to make rail- 
 way and highway construction matters of costly 
 engineering. 
 
 The central Stara Planina also has a number of 
 peaks north of the main ridge. The Isker river 
 pierces through this section of the Balkans on its 
 way to the Danube, forming the most picturesque 
 gorge in the entire system. Two other passes serve 
 as highways over the central section of the Stara 
 Planina — the Baba Konak (3,200 feet), through 
 which passes the road from Plevna to Sofia, and 
 Shipka pass (4,300 feet), with a military road lead- 
 ing from Gabrovo to Kazanlik. Yumrukchal (7,790 
 feet), the highest peak in the Balkan system, is in 
 the middle section of the Stara Planina. 
 
 The eastern Stara Planina is composed of broken- 
 down ridges, which gradually merge in the coastal 
 plains on the shores of the Black sea. South of the 
 Stara Planina, and extending parallel with it, is the 
 Sredna Gora. The Ichtiman range connects the 
 Sredna Gora with the Stara Planina, and is the 
 watershed that separates the Tsker and the Maritza 
 basins. The fertile i)lains of Zlatitza, Karlovo, 
 Kazanlik, and Sliven are between the Balkans and 
 the Sredna Gora. These are the famous rose val- 
 leys of Bulgaria, with hundreds of great damask- 
 rose gardens that produce the world's supply of 
 attar of roses. 
 
 The western section of the Stara Planina is con- 
 nected with the Rilo mountains by the Verila Pla-
 
 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 nina and the Vitosha, thus forming the watershed 
 between the Isker and the Struma river systems. 
 Between the high mountain ridges of western Bul- 
 garia are numerous plains, such as Sofia, Samokov, 
 Kustendil, Dubnitza, and Radomir, which are beds 
 of extinct lakes. 
 
 Southern Bulgaria is crossed by the Eilo-Rhodope 
 mountains. They present a central mass with vari- 
 ous branches stretching out in all directions and 
 with huge cliffs cut by deep valleys. The jagged 
 summits of the Rilo mountains contrast strikingly 
 with the rounded summits of the Balkans. They 
 have much of the character of the Swiss Alps. The 
 Rilo mountains are the highest in Bulgaria. They 
 contain the loftiest peak in the Balkan peninsula^ — 
 Mt. Mussalla, whose altitude is 9,588 feet. They 
 form the southern buttress of the Sofia plain ; their 
 upper slopes are dotted with numerous lakes in- 
 closed among rocky cliffs; and their lower slopes 
 are well forested with pine, larch, and beech. The 
 Rilo mountains do not have a continuous covering 
 of snow, as the highest peaks do not reach above the 
 snow-line; but recent investigations in the upper 
 valley of the Isker and on the slopes of Mt. Mussalla 
 have established the fact that the most southern 
 point in Europe, where traces of the ice age have 
 been found, is in the northern slopes of the Rilo 
 mountains. 
 
 The Rhodopes, a confused net-work of mountain 
 groups, are a continuation of the Rilo mountains 
 and extend through southern Bulgaria a distance of 
 180 miles. They are highest in the west; in the
 
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 Geography of Bulgaria 
 
 east they are split up into several chains extending 
 in different directions, which gradually sink into the 
 shores of the ^gean sea. 
 
 Many streams have their rise on the northern 
 slopes of the Ehodopes and emerge from narrow 
 valleys into the wide plain of the Maritza. The 
 largest of these streams is the Arda, which has its 
 rise in Ihe central part of the range and flows be- 
 tween two lines of hills, finally escaping through a 
 narrow gorge to join the Maritza near Adrianople. 
 The streams that rise on the southern slopes are for 
 the most part small, the largest being the Jardimula, 
 which traverses the wide cultivated plain east of 
 Gumuljina. 
 
 On the western side of the Rhodopes is the wide 
 basin of the Mesta, which rises in the Rilo moun- 
 tains. It flows through the deeply cut valley of the 
 Razlog district and enters the plain of Nevrokop, 
 but resumes the character of a mountain torrent 
 before it reaches Drama on its way to the JEgean. 
 There are no peaks of striking grandeur in the 
 Khodopes, the two most important being the Ibar 
 (8,747) and the Sivry Chal (8,671 feet). The chief 
 beauty of tliese mountains consists of the pineclad 
 summits and slopes, and the picturesque upland val- 
 leys. The northern spurs of the Rhodopes termi- 
 nate abruptly above the plain of the Maritza. 
 
 Concerning the beauty of the scenery of the south- 
 east slopes of the Rhodopo mountains, the Hon. 
 James Bryce writes: " One part of the southeast 
 Rhodopes, \]w part which lies between Xanthi and 
 Drama, contains one of the most beautiful pieces of
 
 6 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 scenery I have ever seen. It is a valley something 
 like thirty miles long, traversed by a river, where 
 the railway has been run along the edge of the 
 stream. Mountains rise from two to three thousand 
 feet above the stream; they are in part richly 
 wooded, and break in splendid crags down into an 
 excessively narrow valley, along which there is no 
 passage except the railway. The winding gorge, 
 with its limestone crags towering above it, is won- 
 derfully picturesque. There is hardly a more beau- 
 tiful piece of railway scenery in Europe, or perhaps 
 in America either, and it can be seen in perfect com- 
 fort in travelling along the line." 
 
 The most elevated and rugged part of the Rho- 
 dopes is in the west. Here the formation is of old 
 crystalline rocks, granite and gneiss, and the abrupt 
 slopes of the mountains are richly forested. A fine 
 carriage-road is being constructed by King Ferdi- 
 nand over this section of the Rhodopes to Mace- 
 donia. It crosses the ridge at an elevation of nearly 
 eight thousand feet. 
 
 The peculiar manner in which Bulgaria is broken 
 up into mountain ranges makes it impossible for 
 the streams to mingle, hence there are no conse- 
 quential rivers in the country. Those draining to 
 the north and joining the Danube are the Isker, 
 the Lorn, the Vid, the Ogosta, and the Yantra. All 
 of them, excepting the Isker, have their rise in the 
 Stara Planina, and are, therefore, short. The Isker 
 rises in the Rilo mountains and breaks through the 
 Stara Planina in a magnificent gorge. All these 
 streams furnish excellent water-power.
 
 
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 Geography of Bulgaria 
 
 The Maritza river drains the great valley between 
 the Balkans and the Rhodope mountains. It is 329 
 miles long and its basin has an area of 20,790 square 
 miles. It takes its rise in the Balkans and flows 
 southeast to the JEgeem sea. It is navigable for 
 small boats to Adrianople, but beyond that point it 
 is obstructed by rocks and sand-bars. It is an im- 
 portant fertilizing agent to the plains of Philippo- 
 polis. Its tributaries from the Stara Planina are 
 swift and deep during the rainy season in winter 
 and spring, but nearly dry during summer and au- 
 tumn ; while the tributaries from the forest-covered 
 Rhodope mountains on the soutli have nearly the 
 same flow throughout the year. The two largest 
 tributaries of the Maritza are tlie Tundja from the 
 Stara Planina and the Arda from the Rhodopes. 
 Both join the Maritza near Adrianople. The 
 Struma, in southwestern Bulgaria, has its rise on the 
 slopes of Vitosh, near Sofia, and flows west and then 
 south to the ^gean. 
 
 There are no large lakes in Bulgaria, although on 
 the higher slopes of the Rilo and Rhodope moun- 
 tains there arc more than one hundred small lake- 
 lets very similar to the " sea eyes " in the Carpa- 
 thian mountains. There are more than two hundred 
 hot and mineral springs in the country. 
 
 The climate of Bulgaria is relatively severe as 
 compared witli other parts of Europe in the same 
 latitude, due in the main to the general physiogra- 
 phy of the Balkan peninsula. North of the Balkan 
 mountains the plain is exposed to the bitter north 
 winds, and the thermometer sometimes falls as low
 
 8 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 as twenty-four degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). 
 But the summer heat is less intense because the 
 same range shuts out the hot winds from the south. 
 The Sofia tableland, although covered with snow in 
 winter, has a more equable climate than most other 
 parts of the kingdom. The air is bracing, the sum- 
 mer nights are cool, and the maximum temperature 
 is seldom higher than eighty-six degrees or the min- 
 imum lower than two degrees. The eastern part of 
 the country, however, suffers from both the extremes 
 of heat and cold. The Black sea sometimes freezes 
 over at Varna, and the eastern coastal plain is ex- 
 posed to violent winds. The sheltered plain of the 
 Maritza has a comparatively mild winter, although 
 the summers are hot. January is the coldest month 
 in Bulgaria, and July is the hottest month. 
 
 The heaviest rainfall is in the spring, and the 
 mean annual rainfall for the country is about 
 twenty-seven inches. In the less favoured regions 
 on the shores of the Black sea the average is less 
 than eighteen inches. Generally speaking Bulgaria 
 is a healthful countiy, the only unhealthful regions 
 being the marshes along the Danube and on the 
 shores of the Black sea. 
 
 The flora of Bulgaria is both rich and varied. On 
 the broad and gentle northern plain of the Stara 
 Planina the spring flowers are very like those found 
 on the steppes of Russia — crocuses, orchids, irises, 
 and tulips; and both the Rilo and the Rhodope 
 mountain regions are rich in indigenous plants that 
 are representative of the flora of the Alpine regions. 
 The jasmine grows wild on the southern slopes of
 
 Geography of Bulgaria 
 
 the Balkans, and the lilac through the Rilo and 
 Rhodope mountains. Among the wild flowers of the 
 plain are the salvia, the pink campion, the ragged 
 rohin, and the yellow lupin. 
 
 The northern slopes of the Balkans are liberally 
 wooded, but the southern slopes are comparatively 
 bare. Portions of the Rilo and Rhodope mountains 
 are forested. The principal trees are oak, beech, 
 ash, pine, poplar, and juniper. The pines are simi- 
 lar to those found in the Himalayas. The plains of 
 the country are for the most part treeless, barring 
 scrub oak, sumac, thorn, and elder. During the long 
 period of Turkish misrule the forests of the moun- 
 tains were largely destroyed. By a law of 1889 
 deforestation is prohibited, and the forests of the 
 kingdom have been placed under the supervision of 
 state foresters. 
 
 Wild animals are abundant in Bulgaria. Eagles, 
 vultures, kites, owls, and smaller birds of prey are 
 found in all parts of the kingdom; although song 
 birds are less abundant. The principal song birds 
 are the nightingales, the golden orioles, and the 
 hoopoes. Wild geese, swans, pelicans, and herons 
 haunt the marshes of the Danube and the lagoons 
 of the shores of the Black sea. Woodcock, quail, 
 and partridge are in the forests on the slopes of 
 the Balkan and Rhodope mountains. The crane 
 hibernates in the Maritza valley. The stork every- 
 where in Bulgaria adds a picturesque feature to vil- 
 lage life. Small brown bears are numerous in the 
 Rhodope mountains. Roe deer and chamois range 
 the forests of both the Rhodope and the Balkan
 
 10 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 mountains and lynx are in the Sredna Gora. Wild 
 boar, badger, and otter inhabit the marshes. 
 
 The area of the kingdom of Bulgaria, before the 
 recent Balkan wars, was 36,188 square miles. By 
 the conditions of the treaty of Bucharest, 2,969 
 square miles in the Silistria-Baltchik district were 
 ceded to Rumania, but she received 8,851 square 
 miles in Macedonia and Thrace as her part of the 
 former Turkish possessions, so that the present area 
 of the kingdom is approximately 43,310 square 
 miles. 
 
 The population of Bulgaria before the recent wars 
 was 4,329,108 people. There were 286,000 inhabit- 
 ants in the district ceded to Rumania ; and, with the 
 addition in the new territories, the present popula- 
 tion of the kingdom is about 4,700,000. The coun- 
 try is sparsely settled, there being only forty-five 
 inhabitants to the square mile. 
 
 The number of Bulgarians in the United States is 
 not large. It probably does not exceed thirty-five 
 thousand, including Bulgarians from Macedonia. 
 Between twelve and fifteen thousand returned to the 
 homeland during the Balkan wars, some of whom 
 were killed and many wounded. The largest Bul- 
 garian settlement is on the Illinois side of the Mis- 
 sissippi river opposite the city of St. Louis. It in- 
 cludes the towns of East St. Louis, Collinsville, 
 Madison, and Granite City. These towns have alto- 
 gether about seven thousand Bulgarians. They have 
 their own churches, publish newspapers in the Bul- 
 garian language, and possess other national insti- 
 tutions. The Bulgarians are regarded as sober, in-
 
 Geography of Bulgaria 11 
 
 dustrioiis, and law-abiding people. Elsewhere in 
 the United States there are smaller Bulgarian com- 
 munities. It is to be regretted that our Bulgarian 
 immigrants so generally find their way to steel mills 
 rather than to farms, since in their own country they 
 make excellent agriculturalists.
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 THE OLD BULGARIAN KINGDOM 
 
 Earliest inhabitants of Bulgaria — The ancient 'I'hraco-Illyrian.s — Rcit^^u 
 of Philip of Maecdon — Arrival of the Bulfiars — Their subjuga- 
 tion of the native Slavic tribes — The rule of Asparuh and Kruni — 
 Prince Boris and the adoption of Cliristianity — Reif^n of Simeon — 
 The royal palace at Prcslav — Golden ape of Bulj^arian literature — 
 Conflicts with the Byzantine emperors — The Bogomil heresy — 
 Their doctrines and persecution —, Bulgaria a part of the Greek 
 empire — The house of Asen — The new caj)ital at Tirnovo — The 
 fate of Baldwin, the Prankish emperor — Discord in Bulgaria — 
 [Conquest of the country by the Turks. 
 
 Little is definitely known concerning the early 
 history of the Bulgars. The country that they oc- 
 cupy to-day was inhabited at the dawn of tlie Cliria- 
 tian era by ancient Tbraco-Illyrian tribes. They 
 were an agricultural people, governed by democratic 
 local institutions, without national leaders or cen- 
 tral organization, the political unit being the tribe. 
 Herodotus wrote concerning them that " if they 
 were only ruled by one man, and could only agree 
 among themselves, they would become the greatest 
 of all nations." The ancient Illyrian speech is 
 prohably represented to-day in Albania. 
 
 Phili}) of Macedon brought the warring tribes of 
 the Balkans under his control and federated them 
 into the Macedonian emi)ire. But the union was 
 short-lived; and upon the death of Alexander the 
 Great they " returned to the congenial business of 
 flying at one another's throats." For a century the 
 
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 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 13 
 
 Thracian and Illyrian warriors struggled with the 
 Roman conquerors, but the country was iBnally 
 brought under Roman influence. Shortly after the 
 Roman conquest, hordes of wild and uncouth war- 
 riors began to pour into the peninsula. The Goths 
 first ravaged the country; the terrible Huns fol- 
 lowed; and in many parts of the Balkans the entire 
 native population perished at the hands of these 
 barbarians. 
 
 The Bulgars arrived in the seventh century. 
 Their origin is a vexed question. Recent ethno- 
 graphic and anthropological investigations suggest 
 that the Bulgars originally belonged to the Turanian 
 race and that ethnically they were related to the 
 Tatars, the Finns, and the Huns. We first hear of 
 them as wild, fierce liorsemen occupying a tract of 
 land between the Ural mountains and the Volga 
 river. They crossed the Danube in the year 679; 
 subjugated the Slavic tribes, and advanced to the 
 gates of Constantinople. The Byzantine empire 
 was forced to cede tliem large grants of land in the 
 Balkan peninsula and to pay them an annual trib- 
 ute. The Bulgars welded the scattered Slavic tribes 
 into a compact and powerful state; they assimi- 
 lated the language, customs, and institutions of the 
 Sla\dc tribes which they conquered, and in reality 
 became themselves Slavs. For several centuries 
 they played an important role in the history' of 
 southwestern Europe, and on several occasions they 
 threatened the very existence of the Byzantine em- 
 pire. 
 
 According to Bulgarian traditions, Asparuh was
 
 14 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 the first Bulgar warrior to leave the ancient home 
 on the Volga, where the ruins of Bulgari, their 
 former capital, are still pointed out to the traveller, 
 lie crossed the Dniester and the Dnieper, and set- 
 tled at a place called Onklos between the Transyl- 
 vanian Alps and the Danube. By the seventh cen- 
 tury his followers had occujiied the country that 
 bears their name to-day and absorbed the native 
 races. One of the earliest Bulgar rulers, concerning 
 whom we have authentic information, is Krum, who, 
 to borrow Gibbon's phrase, '' could boast the hon- 
 our of having slain in battle one of the successors 
 of Augustus and Constantino." He captured Sofia, 
 the present capital of the coimtry, in the year 809, 
 and occupied large joarts of what are to-day the 
 kingdoms of Servia and Rumania. The Byzantine 
 emperor, in an attempt to drive Krum out of the 
 Balkans, was himself killed and the entire imperial 
 army was annihilated. The \nctorious Bulgars then 
 marched into Thrace and laid siege to Constanti- 
 nople. The Byzantine rulers made terms with 
 Krum, offering him a largo yearly tribute, quanti- 
 ties of fine clothing, and a fixed number of Greek 
 maidens. Krum conquered the Struma valley, and 
 when he died his rule extended from Adrianople to 
 the Carpathian mountains. 
 
 The next Bulgarian ruler concerning whom we 
 have reliable information was Omortag. lie made 
 an expedition against the Franks, his neighbours on 
 the northwest, and conquered the Drave and the 
 Save river valleys. An inscription on a pillar in the 
 recently destroyed Church of the Forty Martyrs at
 
 Painted by Ivan \" Mirkvioka. 
 
 PRINCE BORIS (852-884). 
 
 Reprodured by permission of the artist.
 
 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 15 
 
 Tirnovo tells of liis execution of Christian mission- 
 aries and of his fruitless efforts to prevent the adop- 
 tion of Christianity by his people. 
 
 The Christian religion liad been spread through- 
 out Bulgaria by the large number of captives, many 
 of whom were priests and bishops, that Omortag 
 and his successors had brought from the Byzantine 
 empire. Bulgaria was, moreover, surrounded by 
 nations that had been converted by the teachings of 
 the two great Slavic missionaries and scholars, 
 Kyril and Method; hence Prince Boris (852-884), 
 for purely political reasons, decided to adopt the 
 religion that had been proscribed by his predeces- 
 sors. By a formal edict the Christian religion was 
 adopted in Bulgaria in 9G4 and Prince Boris was 
 baptized by the Byzantine emperor Michael III. 
 
 Soon after the adoption of Christianity in Bul- 
 garia, the great scliism broke out between tlie east- 
 ern and the western churches, and Boris wavered 
 for a long time as to which branch of the church he 
 would offer the allegiance of his country. But the 
 refusal of the pope of Rome to recognize an inde- 
 pendent national cluirch in Bulgaria, led him to 
 cast the lot of his country with the Greek patriarch. 
 The independence of the Bulgarian national church 
 was recognized; and this concession had special his- 
 torical significance in the separation of the national 
 church of Bulgaria from the Greek Orthodox church 
 in our own day. lie secured the rights of the Bul- 
 garian primates to the title of patriarchs, whose 
 sees were successively at Preslav, Sofia, Vodon, 
 Prospa, and Ochrida. Boris retired to a monasterv
 
 16 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 in 888. fie was succeeded first by his son Vladimir 
 and later by his son Simeon. 
 
 It was during the reign of Simeon (893-927), as 
 Gibbon points out, that " Bulgaria assumed a rank 
 among the civilized powers of the earth." This 
 period was the golden age of Bulgarian history. 
 The kingdom extended from the Adriatic to the 
 Black sea, and from the Save river and the Carpa- 
 thians to Thessaly. Simeon's title was '* tsar of all 
 the Bulgars and the Greeks," and his title was rec- 
 ognized by the pope of Rome. He had been care- 
 fully educated at Constantinople and had studied 
 " the masterpieces of ancient eloquence and philos- 
 ophy with so much zeal that his comrades called him 
 half Greek. But his acquaintance with Greek liter- 
 ature did not dispose him to look with favour upon 
 the Greek empire." He encouraged literature, art, 
 and industry; and Preslav, his capital, rivalled 
 Constantinople and its splendour excited universal 
 admiration. John the Exarch, a contemporary of 
 Simeon, gives this account of the palace at Preslav: 
 " If a stranger coming from afar enters the outer 
 court of the princely dwelling, he will be amazed, 
 and ask many questions as he walks up to the gates ; 
 and if he goes within, he will see on either side build- 
 ings decorated with stone and wainscoted with wood 
 of various colours. If he goes yet further into the 
 courtyard, he will behold lofty palaces and churches 
 decorated with marbles and frescoes without and 
 with silver and gold within. If he perchance espy 
 the prince sitting in robes covered with pearls, with 
 chains of coin about his neck, bracelets on his wrists.
 
 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 17 
 
 girt about with a purple girdle and a sword of gold 
 at his side, tlien will he say when he returns home 
 ' I know not how to describe it, for only thine own 
 eyes could comprehend such splendour.' " 
 
 While Slavic literature had gradually developed 
 since the days of Kyril and Method, the reign of 
 Simeon is remembered as the golden age of Bulga- 
 rian letters. He was himself an author of no mean 
 ability and he gathered at his court, Preslav, the 
 ablest writers and thinkers of his age. John the 
 Exarch wrote a descriptive account of the creation 
 of the world which he dedicated to Simeon. The 
 orations of Athanasius were translated into the ver- 
 nacular; Gregory, a Bulgarian monk, wrote a life 
 of Alexander the Great and compiled a Bible his- 
 tory; an encyclopajdia of contemporary learning 
 was translated from Greek authors; and several 
 notable treatises were composed on Slavonic phil- 
 ology. 
 
 Simeon was succeeded by his son Peter (927-969) 
 whose long reign marked a decline in Bulgarian 
 statesmanship. His marriage with the daughter of 
 the Byzantine ruler brought him under the evil influ- 
 ence of the Greek court. The Mag>vars invaded his 
 country five times and caused great damage ; and his 
 kingdom was menaced by an alliance with Russia. 
 Sviatoslav, a Russian chief, arrived with ten thou- 
 sand men at the mouth of tlie Danube; Silistria was 
 conquered, and an alliance with the Byzantine ruler 
 averted the calamity of the capital of Bulgaria fall- 
 ing into the liands of the Russians. While the coun- 
 try was thus menaced, Servia, which had been added
 
 18 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 to Bulgaria during the reign of Simeon, regained 
 her independence. 
 
 The Bogomii heresy added to the dissensions that 
 prevailed during the troubled reign of Peter. Sim- 
 ilar heresies had appeared among the Waldensians 
 and Albigenses of France, but the teachings of Bo- 
 gomii, the author of a number of mystical books, 
 foimd readier acceptance among the Bulgars than 
 similar doctrines had liitherto found among other 
 peoples in Europe; for the decadence of the coun- 
 try, under Greek influence, had been as marked in 
 religion as in letters and political affairs. The new 
 religion was at bottom a protest against the immo- 
 rahty and autocracy of the Orthodox clergy. 
 
 The Bogomiles denied the di\nne birth of Christ. 
 His miracles they interpreted in a spiritual, not a 
 material sense. They likewise denied the validity 
 of sacraments and ceremonies; baptism was re- 
 served for adults only, and their church organiza- 
 tion was purely congregational in character. They 
 selected their ministers, women as well as men, from 
 their own members, and ordination was conferred 
 by the congregation. They declared Christ to be 
 the son of God only through grace, like the other 
 prophets. The bread and wine of the eucharist they 
 held as merely symbolical, and not transformed into 
 flesh and blood. Images of the cross they regarded 
 as idols and they characterized the worship of saints 
 as idolatry. They regarded bloodshed with horror ; 
 forbade participation in warfare, and denounced 
 capital punishment. The Orthodox church perse- 
 cuted them with fire and sword, as the Roman church
 
 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 19 
 
 had persecuted the Waldensiaiis and the Albigenses. 
 The empress Theodora is said to have hanged or 
 drowned more than one hundred thousand. The 
 persecution of the churcli in Bulgaria was so great 
 that many fled to Servia, where they continued to 
 reside until expelled by King Stephen at the end of 
 the twelfth century. With the coming of the Turks 
 to the Balkan peninsula, their persecutions were at 
 an end, and tlioy continued their individual exist- 
 ence down to the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 when the few survivors were taken into the Roman 
 Catholic church. 
 
 The political distractions and religious dissen- 
 sions of the reign of footer had resulted in a divi- 
 sion of the Bulgarian kingdom. Shisliman, a Bul- 
 garian nobleman of Tirnovo, founded a western 
 Bulgarian empire that included most of Macedonia 
 and jjarts of Albania. His descendants continued 
 to rule western Bulgaria for nearly half a century 
 after the eastern kingdom had fallen under the 
 Byzantine yoke. 
 
 Boris II succeeded Peter as ruler of eastern Bul- 
 garia. But the Greeks took advantage of an inva- 
 sion of the Russians, and in 971 Boris was deposed. 
 The western part of the kingdom under Samuel 
 (976-1014), however, rose to importance. He con- 
 quered most of the Balkan peninsula and was undis- 
 puted ruler from the Danube to the Morea. The 
 Byzantine emperor, Basil IT, a ferocious tyrant who 
 concealed the most detestable vices under the mask 
 of rigid piety, and who had conquered the territory 
 of Boris II, found in Samuel a foeman worthy of
 
 20 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 his steel. A historian of this period writes of Basil 
 II: " From his early years this heartless ascetic 
 seemed to have but one desire, the complete subju- 
 gation of the Bulgarian race. It took him forty 
 years to accomplish his task, but at last he suc- 
 ceeded, and is now chiefly known by the epithet of 
 ' the Bulgar slayer,' which his cruelties and his vic- 
 tories won for him." 
 
 Basil conducted two unsuccessful campaigns 
 against Samuel. In a third campaign against the 
 Bulgars he captured fifteen thousand soldiers and 
 *' with a refinement of cruelty unparalleled even in 
 the annals of that barbarous age, Basil had their 
 eyes put out, allowing every hundredth man to re- 
 tain one eye, in order that he might be able to guide 
 his comrades to the headquarters of their sover- 
 eign." A^^len Samuel beheld the atrocities of his 
 protagonist, he fell into a swoon and died ten days 
 later. His son Gabriel succeeded him and for a few 
 years kept at bay the blood-thirsty Greek emperor; 
 but he was murdered by his cousin in 1018, at the 
 instigation of the emperor, and western Bulgaria 
 became a dependency of the Byzantine empire. 
 
 During the one hundred sixty-eight years (1018- 
 1186) that Bulgaria was an integral part of the 
 Greek empire every effort was made to stifle the 
 national feelings of the people. Although Basil 
 proclaimed that he would maintain the rights of the 
 conquered country, he divided it into provinces, over 
 which he placed governors with civil and military 
 authority. These officials rarely held office for more 
 than a year; and as they had paid dearly for their
 
 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 21 
 
 posts, they bad to recoup themselves promptly, with 
 the result that '* scarcely had one official been sati- 
 ated than another hungry placeman appeared in bis 
 stead," William Miller quite truly remarks in this 
 connection: " Under the Greek rule the Bulgarians 
 had a foretaste of the coming Turkish domination. 
 The men were different, but the methods were very 
 much the same." 
 
 The religious liberties of the Bulgars were also 
 curtailed. Basil substituted the title of archbishop 
 for that of patriarch of the national Bulgarian 
 churcli; Greeks were appointed to fill this and all 
 other important ecclesiastical posts; Bulgarian 
 church books were burned, and, whenever possible, 
 the Greek liturgy was substituted for the Slavic. 
 
 The long misrule of the Greeks was brought to 
 a close by the rapaciousuess of the emperor Isaac 
 Angelus. In order to meet the enormous expenses 
 connected with the marriage of Ins daughter to the 
 king of Hungary, and after extorting the last far- 
 thing from the sullen Bulgars, he ordered their flocks 
 and herds to be seized. This was the last straw. 
 Under the leadersliip of Ivan and Peter Asen, who 
 were descended from the Bulgarian king Shishman, 
 an insurrection broke out; the Greek ofllcials were 
 driven from the country, and witli such grace as he 
 could command, tlie feeble emperor was forced to 
 recognize the inde}-)cndence of Bulgaria. Ivan Asen 
 was crowned tsar of fhe Bulgarians and the Greeks, 
 and Tirnovo was made his capital. 
 
 The reign of Ivan Asen covered only nine years 
 (1186-1195). During his reign the boundaries of the
 
 22 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 rejuvenated kingdom were established; successive 
 armies sent against him from Constantinople were 
 repulsed, and a period of prosperity was inaugu- 
 rated. He fell at the hands of an assassin and was 
 succeeded by his brother Peter, who had been asso- 
 ciated with him in the insurrection that liberated his 
 country from the oppressive Greek yoke. Peter also 
 fell as Ivan had fallen, and the crown was seized by 
 Kaloyan (1197-1207). Ho formed an alliance with 
 the Greeks against the crusaders and won a great 
 victory over Baldwin in a battle near Adrianople 
 on the 15th of April, 1205. The Frank em})eror was 
 taken captive to Tirnovo and his fate is one of the 
 mysteries of history. It is known that he v.'ns im- 
 prisoned in a ruined castle there, and nothing more. 
 Whether he met with a violent death or was treated 
 kindly at the hands of his captor has never been 
 established. Years after the battle a false Baldwin 
 appeared in Flanders, although it was generally held 
 that the Frankish emperor had long before this died. 
 Upon the death of Kaloyan the throne was occupied 
 by his nephew^ Boril, and after much internal dis- 
 turbances he was deposed and Ivan Asen II (1218- 
 1241), the greatest of the rulers of the Asen dynasty, 
 succeeded him. His reign was one of peace, and a 
 contemporary wrote of liim: "He has neither 
 drawn his sword against his own countrymen, nor 
 disgraced himself by the murder of Greeks, and all 
 other nations loved him." He was a man of great 
 enlightenment, and governed his country with jus- 
 tice, wisdom, and moderation. Bulgaria attained 
 an unprecedented degree of prosperity under his
 
 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 23 
 
 rule; literature, the arts, and commerce flourished; 
 Tirnovo was enlarged and embellished; many 
 schools, churches, and monasteries were founded, 
 and under his wise leadership Bulgaria became the 
 first state in the Balkan peninsula. 
 
 At his death in 1241 the crown of Ivan Ascn II 
 passed in rapid succession to his sons, mere lads, 
 who died violent deaths. Then it passed to their 
 cousin Kaliman IT, who likewise died a violent death, 
 and in default of a lineal descendant, the Bulgars 
 elected Constantino of Servia as their ruler. His 
 marriage with a Greek princess brought great dis- 
 aster to the nation. The Greek wives of Bulgarian 
 rulers, notes an English historian, have left evil 
 records behind them, but Constantino's consort was 
 the worst of them all. ^* She made her husband's 
 severe illness an excuse for seizing supreme power 
 for herself in the name of her boy Michael. By 
 intrigues she ' removed ' all the most dangerous of 
 the Bulgarian nobles. Meanwhile the empire lay 
 open to the attacks of the Tatars, who, after over- 
 running Rumania, had begun to cross the Danube. 
 In this extremity, with a disabled tsar and a design- 
 ing woman on the throne, Bulgaria threw itself into 
 the arms of a restless adventurer, named Ivajlo, 
 who had abandoned the profession of a shepherd 
 for the more congenial one of a brigand." 
 
 Ivajlo told the Bulgars that the holy saints of 
 their country had appeared to him in dreams and 
 had prepared him for the great mission of driving 
 the Tatars from the kingdom. The people flocked 
 to his standard; he had remarkable success in his
 
 24 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 campaigns against ibem, but Constantine was killed, 
 and his crafty widow became the wife of the con- 
 queror. A rival for the throne, however, appeared, 
 George Terterii, who was sprung from an old Bul- 
 garian family. His aristocratic connections led the 
 Bulgars to prefer him to the humble shepherd with 
 the scheming Greek consort. Ivajlo fled to the court 
 of the chief of the Tatar liordc. Terterii was not 
 able to stem the tide of the Tatar invasion; with the 
 death of his son the Bulgarian empire gradually 
 went to pieces. The Bulgars elected Michael, a de- 
 scendant of the old Rumanian aristocracy, as their 
 ruler in 1323. But conflicts with Servia and the 
 appearance of the Turks soon caused the fall of the 
 old Bulgarian kingdom. 
 
 Stara Zagora and Philippopolis fell into the 
 hands of the Turks in 1362; Sofia was soon cap- 
 tured; and with the fall of the kingdom of Servia 
 on the plain of Kossovo, the 15th of June, 1389, the 
 Balkan peninsuhi was doomed to five centuries of 
 Turkish oppression. 
 
 Concerning the factors involved in the fall of the 
 old Bulgarian empire, Mr. William IMiller, the Eng- 
 lish historian of the Balkan states, writes: " The old 
 Bulgarian system was concentrated in an aristoc- 
 racy which, except under the iron hand of a strong 
 tsar, was rarely united. The masses, degraded to 
 the level of serfs and chained to the soil, had no 
 common interests with their lords. The clerg}"-, in- 
 stead of striving to raise and influence the people, 
 wasted their energies in hair-splitting theories or 
 passed their lives in monkish seclusion. Their in-
 
 The Old Bulgarian Kingdom 25 
 
 tolerance drove the Bogomiles of Bulgaria, as of 
 Bosnia, into the arms of the Turks, who seemed to 
 the persecuted heretics more generous than their 
 Christian oppressors. Morally, Bulgaria was slowly 
 but surely undermined by its intercourse with the 
 Byzantine empire. The nobles and the priesthood 
 were most affected by this sinister influence, and it 
 is noticeable that in the old as in the new Bulgaria 
 the ablest men have usually sprung from the virgin 
 soil of the peasantry."^ 
 
 ' The Balkans. By William Miller. New York, 1907, pp. 476.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 UNDER TUE TURKISH YOKE 
 
 The Turkish conquest, of Bulgaria, — Dark agos of Bulgarian history — 
 Turkish political oppres.sion and Greek ecclesiastical tyranny — 
 The corrupt Plianariotes — Extinction of Bulgarian learning — 
 Why tiic movement for tlie Hellenization of the Bulgars failed — 
 Origin of the Pornak republic — EtTorts of the Bulgars to throw ofT 
 the Turkish yoke — Influence of the literary and historical revival 
 
 — Labours of the monk Paissy — ■ The school at Kotcl — Beginnings 
 of revolutionary movements — Services of Venelin — The school 
 at (iabrovo — Reestablishment of the Bulgarian national church 
 
 — Turkish oppression following the Crimean war — Work of rev- 
 olutionary committees in Rumania. 
 
 Turkish troops ravaged the Maritza valley in 
 1340; Thrace was occupied twenty-one years later; 
 Ichtiman, Samokov, and Knstendil were captured in 
 1370; and Sofia fell in 1382. The battle of Kossovo 
 in 1389 decided the fate of the "Bulgars, although 
 Tirnovo, the capital of the country, did not capitu- 
 late until the 17th of July, 1393. The fate of Ivan 
 Shishman HI, the last of the Bulgarian tsars, is 
 not known. Tradition represents him as perishing 
 in the battle of Samokov. The occupation of Bul- 
 garia b}^ the Turks was completed by the expulsion 
 of Ivan's half brother from Vidin in 1398. 
 
 The five centuries that separate the fall of Tir- 
 novo and the fall of Plevna have been aptly char- 
 acterized as the dark ages of Bulgarian history. 
 For five hundred years the Bulgars bore the double 
 yoke of Turkish political oppression and Greek ec- 
 clesiastical tyranny. The Turks carried fire and 
 
 2n
 
 Under the Turkish Yoke 27 
 
 sword throughout the kingdom. They laid waste 
 towns and villages. Churches and monasteries were 
 sacked and burned. Fertile plains were converted 
 into desolate wastes. Peasants fled to tlie moim- 
 tains or crossed the Danube and found refuge in 
 Russia. Some of the nobles embraced the Moslem 
 religion and were rewarded with place and power 
 for their apostasy. Highways were neglected. 
 Khans and caravanseries fell into ruin. The flower 
 of Bulgarian youth was carried to Constantinople 
 to be trained for the janissaries. The fairest of 
 the maidens of the land were seized to grace the 
 harems of their Turkish masters. Every Christian 
 above the age of fourteen years had to pay a x)oll 
 tax; there was a tax on every head of cattle, and a 
 tenth of all the products of the soil was claimed 
 by the Ottoman government. Regular payment of 
 taxes was greatly augmented by the irregular ex- 
 tortions of Turkish governors, wlio were allowed to 
 recoup themselves for Ihe bribes they had paid for 
 their jobs. And worst of all, the peasants were 
 fixed to the soil and required to work a certain num- 
 ber of days each week on the estates of their feudal 
 lords. 
 
 But the political and economic bondage of the 
 Turks was scarcely less irksome than the religious 
 and intellectual bondage of llie Greeks. The entire 
 spiritual government of the Bulgars was turned 
 over to the Greek Phanariotes of Constantinople, 
 for liandsome financial considerations, of course! 
 Less than a year after the fall of Tirnovo the ven- 
 erable Patriarch Kumenius was expelled and the
 
 28 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Bulgarian see was subordinated to the patriarch of 
 Constantinople. Greek bishops displaced Bulgarian 
 bishops. Bibles in the Slavic tongue were replaced 
 by the Scriptures in Greek. All offices within the 
 church were for sale, and we hear of Greek barbers 
 and restaurant keepers holding posts as bishops; 
 and the ecclesiastical rulers from Constantinople, 
 like the political, having paid dearly for their offices, 
 had to recoup themselves at the expense of their 
 parishioners. " The art of extortion among Greek 
 bishops and priests," wrote a contemporary Ger- 
 man traveller in Bulgaria, " has been reduced to 
 a system, so that between Greek ecclesiastics and 
 Turkish governors the lot of the Bulgarian peasant 
 is a hard one." The Greek liturgy replaced the 
 Slavic throughout the country, and all Bulgarian 
 books and manuscripts were committed to the flames. 
 So late as the year 1823 the metropolitan Greek 
 Phanariot Hilarion, in repairing the cathedral at 
 Tirnovo, discovered a closed chamber that contained 
 numerous relics and the ancient libraries of the 
 Bulgarian patriarchs, including the library of Eu- 
 menius. The relics he sold in Rumania, and the 
 Bulgarian books and manuscripts he solemnly com- 
 mitted to the flames.^ Schools, such as existed in 
 the country, were conducted by Greek priests; the 
 Greek alphabet and Greek books were used, and the 
 Kyrillic alphabet of the Bulgarians was entirely 
 forgotten. " The Greek clergy ended what the 
 Turks began," remarks William Miller, and he adds, 
 
 > Histoire dc la Bulgarie. By R. P. Gu6rin Songeon. Paris, 1913, 
 pp. 480.
 
 Under the Turkish Yoke 29 
 
 " but the spiritual tyranny of the Phanariotes was 
 even worse than the political tyranny of the Turks. 
 For the Turks were not bigots, the Phanariotes 
 
 were." 
 
 The Hellenization of Bulgaria was never quite 
 complete. Although the Slavic language was no 
 longer taught, it continued to be spoken by the 
 peasants. Mr. Brailsford in his authoritative work 
 on the Races of Macedonia attributes this persist- 
 ence of the Bulgarian language to the failure of 
 the Greeks to make any sort of provision for the 
 education of Bulgarian women. He writes concern- 
 ing the growth of Greek influence after the advent 
 of the Turks in Bulgaria: " It depended almost 
 entirely upon the church, and ii must have been 
 immeasurably stronger in the Balkan peninsula 
 after the coming of the Turks than ever before. It 
 embraced not merely Macedonia, but Rumania, 
 Bulgaria, and even Scrvia as well. The few Slavs 
 in the interior who were educated at all were taught 
 to regard themselves as Greeks, and the very tra- 
 dition of their origin was in danger of dying out. 
 Two fatal errors alone wrecked what was nothing 
 less than a scheme for Hellenizing the Balkan penin- 
 sula. The women were not educated; and for all 
 the Greek schools might do, every Slav child learned 
 his own despised tongue at his mother's knee. The 
 peasants also were neglected. The Greeks regarded 
 them with the unmeasured and stupid contempt 
 which a quick town-bred people instinctively feels 
 for a race of cultivators. They w^ere barbarians, 
 beasts of burden, men only * in the catalogue.' The
 
 30 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Greeks denied the rights of men to the Slav peas- 
 ants and refused to accejit them as brethren. The 
 consequence was that the peasants never quite lost 
 their sense of separation, and a certain dim con- 
 sciousness of nationality remained, rooted in inju- 
 ries and hatred. The nemesis came at the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century."^ 
 
 Many of the Bulgars who inhabited the wildest 
 parts of the Rhodope mountains became converts 
 to the Moslem religion during the reign of Moham- 
 med IV (1648-1G87). They retained the habits, cus- 
 toms, and language of the Bulgars, but were hence- 
 forth known as Pomaks. The adoption of the creed 
 of Islam made them a privileged class in the con- 
 quered country. They received special concessions 
 from the sultans and acquired a large measure of 
 self-government. Tiiey were ruled by beys elected 
 from their own ranks; had their own police and 
 law courts; paid no taxes, and furnished no regular 
 recruits to the Ottoman army. 
 
 In return for these favours they furnished the 
 government of the sultans with special contingents 
 of soldiers during times of war. Thus there devel- 
 oped what w^as known as the Pomak republic. Sev- 
 eral sultans during the eighteenth century attempted 
 to curtail the privileges of the Pomaks and force 
 them to pay taxes, but with little success. '' It was 
 an evil day for any Turkish tax-collector," remarks 
 Mr. Bourchier, *' who ventured within the Pomak 
 territor>^ for the highlanders were armed to the 
 
 ^ Races of Macedonia. By H. N. Brailsford. London, 1906, pp. 
 340.
 
 Under the Turkish Yoke 31 
 
 teeth, and tauglit the intruders a lesson which they 
 were not likely to forget. It was thought prudent 
 to overlook these acts of vigorous self-assertion, and 
 so it came to pass that the little community of the 
 Rhodope enjoyed the sweets of self-government un- 
 molested and unhindered ; and though not recog- 
 nized by diplomatists, they possessed all the priv- 
 ileges of independent membership in the European 
 family." ' 
 
 It was not until the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury that the Pomaks attracted the attention of 
 western Europe. They were ruled at that time by 
 Hassan Aga, who was the recognized chief of tliirty 
 villages and twenty thousand people. He was suc- 
 ceeded in 18G0 by his son Achmet Aga, the leader 
 of tlie terrible massacre of Christian villages in 
 Bulgaria that precipitated the Eusso-Turkish war 
 of 1877-78. Some ethnologists regard the Pomaks 
 as the purest Bulgar stock, for the reason that their 
 adoption of the Moslem religion preserved their 
 women against the license of the Turkish con- 
 querors. 
 
 The acceptance of the Mohammedan religion did 
 not prevent thein from clinging to many of the 
 religious customs of their Christian forefathers. 
 Mr. Bourchier wrote of his visit to the Pomaks in 
 1893: " They still celebrate some Christian holi- 
 days; they still attend the consecration of a Chris- 
 tian sanctuary; they will even invite the prayers 
 of a Christian priest in cases of illness. The women 
 
 ' Pomaka of Rhodope. By J. D. Bourchier. Fortnightly Review, 
 Oct., 1893. Vol. 60, pp. 509-532.
 
 32 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 lament over tlie graves of their departed relatives, 
 using the old Christian jjrayers mxdatis mutandis 
 to suit their present creed. At the feast of Bairam 
 the maidens dance the Bulgarian horo — unveiled 
 this once; for it is then that the Pomak youths 
 select their brides; the young men may not dance, 
 but stand at a becoming distance and take stock of 
 their future partners for life." 
 
 With the aid of Michael of Wallachia, Aaron of 
 Transylvania, and Sigismund of Hungary, the Bul- 
 gars made an attempt to throw off the Turkish yoke, 
 but the revolution of Tirnovo of 1595 ended in de- 
 feat at Nicopolis. Beginning with the eighteenth 
 century, and the period of marked decline of Otto- 
 man power, the spirit of revolt became more appar- 
 ent. Organized guerilla warfare was carried on 
 against the Turks in the Balkan and Rhodope moun- 
 tains by outlaws whose exploits have been idealized 
 in the rich literature of Bulgarian folk-song. These 
 brigand chiefs, like Robin Hood in the English 
 ballads, were regarded as the protectors of the 
 rights of the people against the aggressions of the 
 Turks. 
 
 Hellenized as they had been by the unscrupulous, 
 rapacious, and corrupt Phanariot clergy; disheart- 
 ened by ages of Turkish oppression; isolated from 
 Christendom by their geographic position, and 
 cowed by the proximity of Constantinople, the Bul- 
 gars took no collective part in the revolutionary 
 movements that ultimately resulted in the liberation 
 of other parts of the Balkan peninsula. But the 
 long dormant national spirit was at last awakened
 
 Under the Turkish Yoke 33 
 
 in Bulgaria, as in Boliemia and other oppressed 
 countries in Europe, by the influence of a literary 
 and historical revival. 
 
 This movement was inaugurated by a monk in the 
 monastery at Mount Athos, who, in 1762, published 
 a history of the old Bulgarian kingdom. Father 
 Paissy's book marks the beginning of a literary 
 revival in Bulgaria that culminated a century later 
 in the liberation of his country from the spiritual 
 oppression of the Greeks and the political tyranny 
 of the Turks. He was born at Samokov in 1720 
 and educated in the monasteries at Hilandar and 
 Mount Athos. In tlie preface of his book he tells 
 us that he had frequently been insulted by the asser- 
 tions of Greeks and Servians that the Bulgars had 
 no national history and that his country had never 
 produced any political or spiritual leaders of con- 
 sequence. He travelled widely in Bulgaria, Aus- 
 tria, and Bussia, and searched carefully all historical 
 documents that he could find; and his Uistory of the 
 Bulgarian People with Accounts of their Tsars and 
 Saints, written in simple but graphic style, was the 
 spark that roused the dormant patriotism of the 
 Bulgars. 
 
 The Bulgar whom Paissy's book most deeply in- 
 fluenced was Stoi'ko Vladislavoff (1739-1815), better 
 known as Bishop Sophroni. Vladislavoff was twenty 
 years in charge of a school for peasant boys at 
 Kotel, where George Mamartchoff and most of the 
 other leaders in the revolutionary movement were 
 trained. He later became bishop of Vratza, but his 
 advocacy of the cause of the Bulgars aroused the
 
 34 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 hatred of both the Turkish ofTicials and the Greek 
 Phanariotes, and he was condemned to death. He 
 fled to the mountains and subsequently escaped to 
 Bucharest, where he devoted the closing years of 
 his life to literary labours. His writings were 
 among the first to be printed in the new Bulgarian 
 language. He directed his patriotic efforts,- as he 
 tells us in liis Memoirs (1804), chiefly to the peas- 
 ants, since by virtue of their very ignorance they 
 had been less influenced by Greek ideas and culture, 
 and it was easier to interest them in the glorious 
 piast of their country than the Bulgars who had been 
 tainted with cosmopolitan ideas. 
 
 Another important writer in the movement that 
 ultimately liberated the Bulgars was the Ruthenian 
 historian Juri I. Venelin (1802-1839). His Bulgars 
 of Former Times and To-day (1829) was a work of 
 recognized historical scholarship and recalled not 
 only to the Bulgars but to the historical students 
 of Europe the splendid place which this race once 
 occupied in the history of the Balkan peninsula. 
 He also published numerous documents bearing on 
 Bulgarian history; made a collection of folk-songs 
 and legends, and published a Bulgarian grammar. 
 In gratitude for his service to their nation the 
 Bulgars have erected a tomb to Venelin at Odessa 
 with this inscription: *' He recalled to memory 
 the forgotten but once mighty Bulgarian na- 
 tion." 
 
 The work of Venelin inspired two Bulgarian mer- 
 chants at Odessa to found a Bulgarian school at 
 Gabrovo in 1835. Neophyte Rilski, a famous Slavic
 
 Painted by Ivan V. Mirkvicka. 
 
 THE MONK PAISSY. 
 Repmduced with the artiat's permission.
 
 Under the Turkish Yoke 35 
 
 scholar in the monastery at Kilo, was chosen director 
 of the school. This school and similar ones estab- 
 lished at Karlovo, Svishtov, Koprivshtitza, and else- 
 where, brought tlie national spirit squarely face to 
 face with the spiritual domination of the Greek Pha- 
 nariotes, and inaugurated the long and bitter strug- 
 gle that ultimately resulted in the reestablishment 
 of the national Orthodox church in Bulgaria. The 
 literary movement was pushed with great vigour. 
 School books, novels, plays, and popular songs in 
 the vernacular were printed ; a translation of the 
 New Testament was made, and in 1844 there ap- 
 peared at Smyrna the first newspaper published in 
 the Bulgarian language. 
 
 The patriots that were trained under the influence 
 of the new^ literary movement believed that the 
 safest and quickest way to political freedom was 
 through the restoration of the national church, and 
 a bitter struggle followed. The (i reeks, more far- 
 sighted than the Turks, argued witli the Ottoman 
 authorities that the reestablishment of an independ- 
 ent Bulgarian church would unciuostionably lead to 
 the awakening of the Bulgarian national spirit, and 
 that Turkey would thus raise up for herself an 
 enemy in her own liouse. But as the settled policy 
 of the Sublime Porte was to create divisions among 
 the Christian subjects, the struggle led to the rees- 
 tablisiiment of an independent Bulgarian church in 
 1870. 
 
 The Bulgars sought more than deliverance from 
 their spiritual opi)ressors. They desired political 
 not less than religious autonomy. As early as 1836
 
 36 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 a revolutionary movement was inaugurated at Tir- 
 novo under the leadership of George Mamartchoff, 
 who was a pupil in the famous peasant school at 
 Kotel that gave so many patriots to Bulgaria. The 
 Greek metropolitan at Tirnovo learned of the or- 
 ganization, informed the Turkish authorities, most 
 of the leaders were executed, many symjjathetic 
 peasants were massacred, and many Bulgars fled 
 to Bessarabia. 
 
 After the Crimean war many thousands of Mos- 
 lem Tatars and Circassians from the Crimea were 
 settled on lands belonging to Bulgarian peasants, 
 who were not duly compensated for the expropria- 
 tion of their property. The new settlers were law- 
 less and were the cause of renewed discontent among 
 the Bulgarian peasants with the Turkish govern- 
 ment. The discontent of the people found expres- 
 sion in the revolutionary committees organized in 
 Rumania during the dozen years that preceded the 
 Russo-Turkish war. The refusal of the sultan of 
 Turkey to recognize Prince Charles as the rightful 
 ruler of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia 
 facilitated the activities of revolutionary bands of 
 Bulgarian emigrants that crossed the Danube and 
 tried to induce the Bulgarian peasants to revolt 
 against the Turkish government. Such agitation, 
 with the avowed object of complete emancipation 
 and independence from Turkish rule, gradually ex- 
 tended throughout Bulgaria. Many of the agitators 
 were arrested and executed or sent to prisons in 
 Asia Minor, but their places were promptly filled. 
 The severities practised by the Turks in the sup-
 
 CKRISTO BOTEFF, LEADER OK THF. REVOLT AGAINST TIRKEY
 
 Under the Turkish Yoke 37 
 
 pression of revolutionary movements did not in 
 the least lessen the enthusiasm and spirit of 
 emulation of the members of the revolutionary 
 bands.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 LIBERATION OF BULGARIA 
 
 Beginning of the end of the Turkish rule — Massacres of the baahi- 
 bozouks — ReaponsibiHty of England for conditions in Turkey — 
 The Crimean war — Russia and the oppressed Bulgars — The mas- 
 sacre at Batak — Mr. Ghidstone on the Bulgarian "horrors" — 
 Outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 — Russian suc- 
 cesses — How the Bulgara cooperated with their liberators — The 
 treaty of San Stefano — Anger of I'^ngland — The congress of Berlin 
 — The cunning of Abdul-Haniid — Macedonia, Albania, and Thrace 
 given back to Turkey — Creation of the principalities of Bulgaria 
 and Eaatern Rumelia. 
 
 The year of 1876 marks the beginning of the end 
 of Turkish rule in Bulgaria. The activities of the 
 patriots in agitating for governmental reforms in 
 their country led the Turks to retaliate witli the 
 most oppressive measures. "Whole villages were 
 slaughtered; and the Ottoman government justified 
 the action of its savage soldiers and the brutal bashi- 
 bozouks on the pretext that they were simply put- 
 ting down rebellion and restoring peace by armed 
 force. The cruelties in the Balkan peninsula be- 
 came so glaring that Russia asked England and the 
 other members of the European concert to force 
 Turkey to grant some of the reforms demanded by 
 the revolutionists, and to compel her to cease the 
 brutal massacre of innocent men, women, and chil- 
 dren. 
 
 The responsibility of England for conditions in 
 the Balkans cannot be passed over in silence. As 
 early as 1791 England grew conscious of the fact 
 
 38
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 X 
 
 'A 
 
 33 
 
 < 
 
 2 
 
 O
 
 Liberation of Bulgaria 39 
 
 that Turkey was in the clutches of Russia. She 
 formed a tripartite alliance with Holland and Prus- 
 sia and tried to make Catherine disgorge some of 
 her Turkish conquests, which the proud and self- 
 sufficing empress refused to do. The House of Com- 
 mons was asked to furnish the sinews of war to 
 bring Catherine to terms, but the opposition of 
 Burke and Fox defeated the measure. The over- 
 weening power Avhich Russia acquired by her share 
 in the overthrow of Napoleon caused a popular feel- 
 ing of dislike for her in Great Britain. " For then 
 came the new si)irit breathed into our foreign policy 
 by George (banning," remarks the Duke of Argyll, 
 '^ and especially our national and popular antipathy 
 to the Holy Alliance. Russia was the head and front 
 of that offending. That she should be allowed to 
 seat herself on the throne of Constantinople — to 
 make the whole Black sea a Russian lake, to com- 
 mand the Bos])orus and the Dardanelles, and to 
 issue from them into the Mediterranean with fleets 
 powerful in action and inaccessible in retreat — this 
 would indeed be a menace and a danger to the west- 
 ern world. To avert this danger, or at least to post- 
 pone it, the easiest plan was to keep up the Turkish 
 empire as long as possible."^ 
 
 But it is not entirely fair, as some writers have 
 done, to intei^pret the alliance of England with 
 Turkey during the Crimean war as British approval 
 of the oppression of Christian races in the Balkans. 
 William E. Gladstone, the honest and sturdy cham- 
 
 ' Our Responsibility^ for Turkey. By tlic Duke of Argyll (George 
 Doup;lafl Campbell). London, 1896, pp. 196.
 
 40 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 pion of national rights and personal liberty, was 
 one of the English statesmen directly responsible 
 for this alliance. The Duke of Argjil, who, with 
 Gladstone, was a member of the Palmerston cabinet, 
 wrote years afterwards in defence of the policy: 
 " On my own behalf, and on behalf of colleagues who 
 cannot now vindicate their own reputation — on be- 
 half, too, of a whole generation of British people 
 in \vhose name we acted — I emphatically deny that 
 such was our conduct or our position in the war of 
 1854-55, or in the treaty of 1856. For myself, in- 
 deed, I never did believe in the regeneration of 
 Turkey ; I doubt if any of my colleagues did — even 
 Lord Palmerston. But we did hope that lier gov- 
 ernment might at least be rendered tolerable for a 
 time, if it could be made to feel its dependence on 
 a united Europe instead of on Russia alone, and if 
 some time were given it to initiate and carry into 
 effect certain reforms which might be of a very 
 simple character, but which, nevertheless, might be 
 far reaching. I see now that it was a gross delusion 
 to believe even this. But, at all events, this is the 
 idea on which we did actually proceed, and which 
 did underlie the whole policy both of the war and 
 the treaty. We never did, even for a moment, enter- 
 tain the iniquitous policy of strengthening a gov- 
 ernment irredeemably vicious, corrupt, and cruel, 
 without caring at all for the sufferings it would 
 inflict on millions of subject populations." 
 
 Fearing that Russia might carry out her threat 
 to declare war against Turkey, a congress of the 
 powers was called at Constantinople, which drew
 
 Liberation of Bulgaria 41 
 
 up certain reform measures that the sultan was 
 asked to put into operation in the rebellious prov- 
 inces ; but Abdul-Hamid, sensible of the strong feel- 
 ing in England against Russia, assumed that the 
 government of the tsar would be held in check by 
 the English, promptly consigned the recommenda- 
 tions of the powers to the waste-basket. Bashi- 
 bozouks, irregular Turkish soldiers, were let loose 
 upon the helpless Christian population, and within 
 two months from the time the congress had made 
 its recommendations, fifty-eight villages in Bulgaria 
 had been destroyed, five monasteries had been de- 
 molished, and fifteen thousand people had been mas- 
 sacred. 
 
 Januarius A. MacGahan (1844-1878), an Ameri- 
 can Irishman, who was correspondent of the London 
 Daily Neivs, visited Batak, one of the villages whose 
 inhabitants had been massacred, and sent his news- 
 paper a graphic account of what he saw. He re- 
 ported that the bashi-bozouks, under the command 
 of Achmet Aga, a regular Turkish army officer, came 
 to the village, and after a desultory struggle, the 
 commander assured the inhabitants upon his word 
 of honour that not a hair of their heads would be 
 touclied if they would lay down their arms. They 
 complied with his terms, " only to be butchered like 
 sheep." Some took refuge in the church. The roof 
 was torn off by the Turkish soldiers, who flung burn- 
 ing pieces of wood and rags dipped in petroleum 
 down upon the poor wretches within. Torture was 
 applied to those who escaped death in order that 
 they might reveal to the Turkish soldiers where
 
 42 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 their treasures were hidden. Out of a population 
 of seven thousand, only two thousand survived; and 
 Achmet Aga, the Pomak leader who directed these 
 terrihle orgies, was decorated hy the sultan for 
 bravery! 
 
 AlacGahan's description of the blood-bath at 
 Batak came to the notice of William E. Gladstone. 
 He demanded an immediate official inquiry on the 
 part of England. An investigation conducted on 
 the spot confirmed the terrible story that MacGahan 
 had published in the London Daily Neivs. The com- 
 missioners reported that when they visited Batak, 
 nearly two mouths after tlie massacre, they found 
 the stench of the still unburied corpses overpower- 
 ing. '' Skulls with grey hair still attached to them, 
 dark tresses which had once adorned the heads of 
 maidens, the mutilated trunks of men, the rotting 
 limbs of children " — such were the scenes that met 
 the eyes of the British commissioners. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone wrote in his famous pamphlet on 
 Bulgarian Horrors: " There has been perpetrated, 
 under the immediate authority of a government to 
 which all the time we have been giving the strongest 
 moral, and for part of the time even material sup- 
 port, crimes and outrages so vast in scale as to 
 exceed all modern examples, and so utterly vile -as 
 well as fierce in character, that it passes the power 
 of heart to conceive, and of tongue and pen ade- 
 quately to describe them. These are the Bulgarian 
 horrors. As an old servant of the crown and the 
 state, I entreat my countrymen, upon wiiom far 
 more than upon any other people in Europe it de-
 
 Liberation of Bulgaria 43 
 
 ponds, to require and to insist that our government, 
 which has been working in one direction, shall work 
 in the other, and sliall ap})ly all its vigour to concur 
 with the states of Europe in obtaining tlie extinction 
 of the Turkisli executive power in Bulgaria. Let 
 the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only 
 possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. 
 This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliver- 
 ance, is the only reparation we can make to the 
 memory of those heaps on heaps of dead; to the 
 violated purity alike of matron, of maiden, of child; 
 to the civilization that has been affronted and 
 shamed ; to the laws of God or, if you like, of Allah ; 
 to the moral sense of mankind at large."' 
 
 The celebrated parai)hlet of Mr. Gladstone pro' 
 vided Russia with an excellent cause for aggression 
 against Turkey, and on the 24th of April, 1877, she 
 declared war. Abdul-IIamid relied confidently upon 
 the assistance of Phigland in case of war, and but 
 for the effect of Gladstone's pamphlet this assist- 
 ance would have been forthcoming. The British 
 government was forced to inform the sultan that 
 "it had now become practically impossible — 
 owing to the state of public feeling— for us to 
 intervene." 
 
 Russia formed an alliance with Rumania, the lat- 
 ter declaring Jier independence of Turkey, and the 
 Danubian provinces were invaded. Mukhtar Pasha 
 retained Kars for a time against the siege of the 
 Russians; but defeats soon began to come " thick 
 
 ' BuUjnrinn llnrrnrK mid the Question of the East. Ry William Kwart 
 Gladstonn. London, 187G, pp. (i1.
 
 44 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 and fast "; Lootsk was stormed by the Russians 
 the 3rd of September, 1877; Niksic was won by the 
 Montenegrins five days later; Plevna was stormed 
 the 11th of September; Mukhtar Pasha suffered a 
 severe defeat at Aladja Duga the 15th of October; 
 Gurko, the leading Russian general, stormed Gorin 
 Dubrik the 24th of October, and four days later he 
 captured Telish; Kars was successfully stormed 
 the 18th of November; the army of Osman Pasha 
 was nearly annihilated and forced to surrender 
 Plevna the 10th of December; and the same month 
 Gurko crossed the Balkans to continue the war in 
 central Bulgaria, 
 
 The year 1878 opened with the capture of Sofia 
 by Gurko on the 4th of January; an army com- 
 posed of Russian and Bulgarian soldiers crossed 
 Shipka pass the 7th of January and captured a large 
 body of Turkish troops; Nish and Antivari sur- 
 rendered the 10th of January; seven days later the 
 army of Suleiman was completely routed near Phil- 
 ippopolis ; and Adrianople fell the 20th of January. 
 Within a week the Russian troops were marching 
 towards the undefended Turkish capital. The sul- 
 tan sued for peace; an armistice was declared, and 
 the treaty of San Stefano, signed the 3rd of March, 
 1878, brought the Russo-Turkish war to a close. 
 Both sides had lost heavily; for, in the taking of 
 Plevna alone, the Russians had sacrificed 50,000 men. 
 
 Concerning the cooperation of the Bulgars with 
 their liberators, Mr. William Miller, the English 
 historian of the Balkans, writes: " Bulgaria, dis- 
 organized by nearly five centuries of Turkish rule.
 
 as 
 
 < 
 
 14
 
 Liberation of Bulgaria 45 
 
 could do little but provide a theatre for the war. 
 It was upon Bulgarian soil that the chief struggle 
 took place, and the siege of Plevna and the occu- 
 pation of Shipka pass attracted the eyes of the 
 whole world to this remote corner of the map of 
 Europe. To the best of their abilities the peasants 
 helped the Russian forces; wherever the tsar's 
 legions went the natives welcomed them; not be- 
 cause they wished to exchange the Turkish for the 
 Muscovites' domination, but because they regarded 
 them as instruments for the liberation of their coun- 
 try. Their local knowledge was placed at the dis- 
 posal of the invaders; Bulgarian guides directed 
 the Russian army through the mazes of the moun- 
 tains ; Bulgarian boys carried water to the Russian 
 soldiers in battle at the risk of their lives; volun- 
 teer corps were formed to fight by the side of the 
 Russian and the Rimianian regulars ; and five thou- 
 sand Bulgarians accompanied General Gurko in his 
 operations in the Balkans, and won the praise of 
 their allies by their gallant defence of the Shipka 
 pass, and by their conspicuous bravery at Stara 
 Zagora, where four-fifths of the Bulgarian com- 
 batants were left dead upon the field." ^ 
 
 The chief feature of the treaty of San Stefano 
 was the rehabilitation of the old Bulgarian kingdom. 
 The big Bulgaria that it created extended from the 
 Danube to Thessaly and embraced most of Albania, 
 Macedonia, and Thrace. Rumania received the re- 
 gion of the Dobrutja; Servia was granted the dis- 
 
 » The Balhnns. (Story of the Nations Series.) By William Miller. 
 New York, 1907, pp. 476.
 
 46 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Irict southeast of Nisli ; and Montenegro benefited 
 by portions of Bosnia and Albania. The big Bul- 
 garia created by the treaty of San Stefano was based 
 essentially on ethnic lines. The people were chiefly 
 Bulgars. Much of the bloodshed of the past thirty 
 years in the Balkan peninsula might have been 
 avoided if this treaty had been allowed to stand. 
 
 England, influenced by the dread which she enter- 
 tained of the creation of a great Bulgaria that might 
 become a powerful ally of Russia, was angered; 
 thirty million dollars were voted for arniamenls; 
 troops were ordered from India, and Eussia was 
 informed that the treaty of San Stefano must be 
 torn up, and that the whole matter must be sub- 
 mitted to a congress of the great powers. Russia 
 did not object to a congress, in spite of the fact that 
 she had fought the war of liberation of the Bulgars 
 without the aid of any of the powers, and that it 
 had cost her millions of dollars and the loss of the 
 lives of many thousand of her soldiers. 
 
 The congress of the powers met at Berlin the 8th 
 of June, 1878, and a month later they announced the 
 division of the big Bulgaria into five sections, one 
 of which was to be given to Seiwia, one to Rumania, 
 one given back to Turkey, and two created into 
 autonomous provinces under the suzerainty of the 
 sultan of Turkey. Of the two autonomous provinces 
 that were created, one was to be known as Eastern 
 Rumelia and the other as Bulgaria. " It was Eng- 
 land especially that insisted upon this arrange- 
 ment," writes Dr. Washburn, '' and also upon the 
 right of Turkey to occupy and fortify the range of
 
 Liberation of Bulgaria 47 
 
 the Balkans, all with the object of making it impos- 
 sible for tlie Bulgarians to form a viable state, which 
 might be friendly to Russia. The Englishmen who 
 knew Bulgaria understood the folly and wickedness 
 of this at the time, and all England has learned it 
 since. Thus far [1909] the results have been the 
 revolution of 1885, which resulted in the union of 
 Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, the war with Servia, 
 the insurrection in Macedonia and the province of 
 Adriano])le, and all the massacres and unspeakable 
 horrors of the last twenty-nine years in Macedonia, 
 to say nothing of what Bulgaria has suffered from 
 the intrigues of foreign powers ever since the treaty 
 of Berlin. The awful massacres and persecutions 
 from which tiie Armenians have suffered since 1886 
 have been equally the result of this treaty."^ 
 
 Nine days before the meeting of the congress of 
 Berlin England had concluded a secret treaty with 
 Turkey in which slie promised to maintain the integ- 
 rity of the Ottoman empire in Asia, and in consid- 
 eration for this service she was permitted to occupy 
 the island of Cyprus and hold the same in fee for 
 the sultan. In the treaty of San Stefano Turkey 
 had agreed to the maintenance of a Russian army 
 in Armenia as a guarantee against the slaughter of 
 Armenians by Moslem Kurds and Circassians; the 
 retention of certain Asiatic provinces which she had 
 wrested from Turkey by hard fighting, and the free 
 access to the Black sea to all nations both in time of 
 war and in time of peace. 
 
 ' yifiy I'cars in Conalanlinople. V>\ George Washburn. Boston, 
 IDOa, pp. 319.
 
 48 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 It delighted the cunning of Abdul-Hamid to make 
 this deal with Lord Beaconsfield rather than permit 
 Russia to protect his Christian subjects in Armenia. 
 The Duke of Argyll remarks in this connection: 
 " The Turk could see at a glance that, whilst it 
 relieved him from the dangerous pressure of Rus- 
 sia, it substituted no other pressure which his own 
 infinite dexterity in delays could not make abortive. 
 As for the unfortunate Armenians, the change was 
 simply one which must tend to expose them to the 
 increased enmity of their tyrants, whilst it damaged 
 and discouraged the only protection which was pos- 
 sible under the inexorable conditions of the physical 
 geography of the country."^ The awful butchery 
 of thousands — probably more than a hundred thou- 
 sand — of innocent men, women, and children in 
 Armenia, and the burning of more than forty Ar- 
 menian towns and villages are some of the direct 
 consequences of the substitution of the treaty of 
 Berlin for the treaty of San Stefano. 
 
 The treaty of Berlin provided for the small prin- 
 cipality, that it had created, a Christian government 
 subject to the sultan of Turkey. The prince was 
 to be freely chosen by the Bulgarian people, with the 
 approval of the sultan and the great powers. The 
 treaty provided that differences of religious views 
 should form no hindrance to the exercise of civil 
 and political rights and the holding of public office. 
 Commercial treaties that had been made by Turkey 
 were binding on Bulgaria, and she was not per- 
 
 1 Out Responsihililies for Turkey. By the Duke of Argyll (George 
 Douglas Campbell). London, 189G, pp. 19G.
 
 Liberation of Bulgaria 49 
 
 mitted to make any changes in the same without the 
 consent of the power concerned. No transit duties 
 could be charged on merchandise passing through 
 Bulgaria; Bulgarians travelling in Turkey were 
 subject to the Turkish authorities; Bulgaria was 
 required to pay tribute to Turkey, and to take part 
 in her debts. 
 
 Such were the conditions linked with the half- 
 hearted freedom that the great powers granted to 
 the Bulgars after five centuries under the oppressive 
 Ottoman yoke. A constitutional assembly met at 
 Timovo on the 10th of February, 1879, and adopted 
 a constitution for the kingdom, which, with slight 
 modifications, is still in force. On the 29th of April, 
 1879, the Bulgars unanimously elected Alexander of 
 Battenberg prince of their country.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NEW BULGABTAN KINGDOM 
 
 Administrative affairs of Bulgaria in the hands of Russians — The 
 new constitution adopted at Tirnovo — Election of Prince Alex- 
 ander of Baltenberg as ruler of Bulgaria — The Russophil paity — 
 The coup d'etat — Arrogance of the Russian olTi(;ial.s — Restoration 
 of the suspended constitution — Departure of the Russian oflicials 
 — Union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria — Appearance of Stefan 
 Stamboloff — The war with Servia — Russian intrigues — Kid- 
 napping of Prince Alexander — His return to Bulgaria — Abdica- 
 tion of the prince — ■ What Prince Alexander had done for Bulgaria. 
 
 The congress of Berlin had made provision for 
 the occupation of Bulgaria by an army of fifty thou- 
 sand Russian soldiers and the administration of the 
 conntry by an ini])crial Russian commission nntil 
 such time as a prince miglit be secured and a con- 
 stitntion adopted and jnit into force, l^rince Don- 
 dukoff-Korsakoff was tlie Russian officer selected by 
 tlie tsar to head the commission, and the administra- 
 tive alYairs of the country, both civil and military, 
 were placed in the hands of Russians. 
 
 A constitutional assembly met at Tirnovo the 10th 
 of February, 1879, to pass upon the new constitu- 
 tion that had been drawn up by Professor Gradov- 
 sky and General Doraontovitz, under the direction 
 of the provisional Russian government. The assem- 
 bly was composed of two hundred and thirty-one 
 members, of whom one hundred and five were a]")- 
 pointed from the Russian officials holding posts in 
 
 50
 
 PRINCE ALKXANDER.
 
 The New Bulgarian Kingdom 51 
 
 Bulgaria ; eighty-nine, chiefly peasants, were elected 
 by popular suffrage, at the rate of one member for 
 every ten thousand male inhabitants; and twenty- 
 one members represented the religious organiza- 
 tions of the country, Orthodox, Moslem, and Je\\ish. 
 The constitution which was passed on the 16th of 
 April, 1879, provided for a national assembly (so- 
 branje) to consist of a single chamber, elected by 
 manhood suffrage, to which any citizen who had 
 reached the age of thirty and could read and write 
 was eligible. The constitution provided that the 
 members of the cabinet should be nominated by the 
 ruler of the country and responsible to him only, 
 regardless of opposing majorities in the sobranje. 
 The civil list of the ruler was fixed at one hundred 
 twenty thousand dollars a year and the princely dig- 
 nity was made hereditary in the male line. Pro- 
 vision was made for liberty of the press, universal 
 conscription, and compulsory education. 
 
 On the 29th of April, 1879, Prince Alexander of 
 Battenberg, a cousin of Tsar Alexander of Russia, 
 was elected the first ruler of the new kingdom of 
 Bulgaria. He was twenty-two years old at the time 
 of his election and occupied a subordinate post in 
 the German army. He accepted, after some hesita- 
 tion, the olTico, and took the oath to the constitution 
 at Tirnovo the 91h of July, amid great enthusiasm 
 and with the confidence of the Euroj)ean powers, 
 and notably of Russia, whose nominee he liad been. 
 
 Concerning the qualifications of the young ruler 
 for the diflicult post that he had been selected to fill 
 William Miller writes: '* The first prince of Bui-
 
 52 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 garia is one of the most romantic figures in the his- 
 tory of our time. His career borders on the mar- 
 vellous, his character has something of the heroic 
 about it. His frank and open bearing, his social 
 charms, and his military prowess on behalf of his 
 adopted country on the field of Slivnitza, endeared 
 him to the cold hearts of a people which is seldom 
 enthusiastic. He was essentially a soldier, and was 
 the best possible ruler of a country like Bulgaria in 
 time of war. But he was lamentably deficient in the 
 arts of a statesman. A diplomatist, who knew him 
 intimately, has described to the writer the obsti- 
 nacy and singular incapacity which he showed in 
 matters of business, while he committed indiscre- 
 tions of speech which proved that he had, like some 
 other sovereigns, never mastered that aphorism of 
 Metternich, that ' a monarch should never talk. ' He 
 had a singular knack of quarrelling with his advi- 
 sers, which once drew upon him a sharp rebuke from 
 the tsar. He was not a great administrator or a 
 clever politician; but if he had had an old and ex- 
 perienced statesman to guide him he might have 
 succeeded. Unfortunately, he estranged first the 
 liberals, who included all the ablest men in Bulgaria, 
 and then the Eussians, and when the latter desired 
 his fall, he fell." 
 
 At the suggestion of the Russians, who had se- 
 cured him his throne, Prince Alexander selected the 
 members of his cabinet from the conservative, or 
 Russophil, party, which represented a very small 
 minority of the voters. As the first national assem- 
 bly was overwhelmingly liberal in politics, a dead-
 
 The New Bulgarian Kingdom 53 
 
 lock ensued, and the prince was forced to dismiss 
 his Russophil cabinet and nominate Dragan Zankoif, 
 then the chief antagonist of Russia in Bulgaria, as 
 prime minister. A brief experience with the bel- 
 ligerent government, convinced the prince that he 
 could not work with the national assembly; he exe- 
 cuted a coup d'etat, and on the 27th of April, 1881, 
 he suspended the constitution. 
 
 He made General Ernroth, a Russian, his prime 
 minister, and threatened to resign the throne unless 
 he was given absolute power for a period of seven 
 years. The constitution was suspended, and tlie 
 government was again turned over to the hands of 
 Russians. So long as Tsar Alexander II lived the 
 relations of Prince Alexander with Russia were 
 most cordial; but Tsar Alexander lU disliked his 
 cousin heartily, and the Russian officials soon made 
 it evident to the prince that tliey took their orders 
 from St. Petersburg. 
 
 Alexander chafed under the arbitrary rule of his 
 Russian masters, who were not at pains to spare the 
 feelings of the ostensible ruler of the country or the 
 Bulgarian people. It has frequently been remarked 
 by travellers that of all the races in the Balkans, 
 the Bulgars are the most thrifty and economical 
 and the most suspicious of foreigners. Yet the Rus- 
 sian government not only monopolized such offices 
 as president of the national assembly, minister of 
 war, chief of police, governor of Sofia, and several 
 hundred of the most lucrative posts in the army, but 
 the officials that came from St. Petersburg were 
 *' men who had proved either failures or firebrands
 
 54 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 wherever they had been employed, and spent money 
 — the peasants' money — right and left." 
 
 These conditions induced the prince to surrender 
 the irresponsible power in 1883 ; he restored the 
 constitution, and the Russians in indignation left 
 the country. A plot to kidnap the prince was dis- 
 covered, also proclamations announcing his expul- 
 sion from Bulgaria, and the formation of a provi- 
 sional government. Subsequent investigations im- 
 plicated Generals Kaulbars and Soboleff and other 
 Russian officials and estabhshed conclusively the 
 complicity of Russia in the plot. The liberals re- 
 turned to power and during^ the next ten years Rus- 
 sian influence in Bulgarian affairs was reduced to 
 a minimum. 
 
 In an earlier chapter attention was called to the 
 creation of Eastern Rumelia by the congress of 
 Berlin. The inhabitants of this province were al- 
 most entirely Bulgars, and early in the reign of 
 Prince Alexander they sent deputations to Sofia 
 asking that they might be united with that princi- 
 pality. Russia had originally favoured this union, 
 but the growth of an independent national spirit in 
 the rejuvenated nation caused her to change her 
 policy; and after the departure of the Russian of- 
 ficials from Bulgaria she opposed the union vigor- 
 ously. Alexander was not able, in consequence, to 
 comply with the wishes of the inhabitants of East- 
 ern Rumelia. 
 
 In September, 1885, the liberals of Eastern Ru- 
 melia took matters into their own hands. They took 
 the governor of the pro%ance captive, and without
 
 The New Bulgarian Kingdom 55 
 
 the loss of a drop of blood they proclaimed the union 
 of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria. Even then 
 Prince Alexander hesitated to further incur the hos- 
 tility of Russia. Stefan Staniboloff, who was later 
 to play such an important role in the history of the 
 young principality, was president of the national 
 assembly, and he is reported to have told Prince 
 Alexander that he had reached the cross-roads in 
 his career. ** One road," he said, '* leads to East- 
 ern Rumelia and as much further as God may lead; 
 but the other to the Danube and back to Darmstadt." 
 The prince chose the former, and on the 20th of 
 September he issued a proclamation which declared 
 the union of the two provinces. 
 
 War with Turkey was apprehended, and it is well 
 known that Russia advised the Porte to resist this 
 act of alleged aggression. But Turkey was momen- 
 tarily crippled; and Sir William White, the British 
 ambassador at Constantinople, strongly supported 
 the Bulgarian cause. England and Russia had ex- 
 changed places in their respective attitudes toward 
 Bulgaria. Seven years earlier at the congress of 
 Berlin Russia had favoured but England had op- 
 posed the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria. 
 
 Greece and Servia were both indignant because of 
 this increase of territory by a sister state, but the 
 former was prevented from declaring war by a 
 naval demonstration of the powers. King Milan of 
 Servia ordered the mobilizniion of the Servian 
 army the day of the official declaration of union of 
 the two Bulgarias. His army of seventeen thousand 
 soldiers crossed the Bulgarian frontier, where it
 
 56 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 met a Bulgarian force of eleven thousand and en- 
 countered a most humiliating defeat. In spite of 
 the fact that the Bulgarian army had only recently 
 been deprived of all its chief officers by the exo- 
 dus of the Russians, the courage of the prince and 
 the skill of the Bulgar soldiers triumphed every- 
 where against the Serbs ; and Belgrade, the capital 
 of Servia, would have been occupied but for the 
 intervention of the Austrians. Austria informed 
 Prince Alexander that if his army marched any 
 further it would have to encounter an Austrian 
 army allied with the Servian. 
 
 The Bulgars were forced to yield to superior 
 force ; and through the machinations of Austria and 
 Russia, Servia escaped unpunished for her war of 
 aggression, for the Bulgars did not get an inch of 
 land or a cent of war indemnity. Eastern Rumelia, 
 however, was secured to her by the war. 
 
 In spite of the honours showered upon Prince 
 Alexander as the *' hero of Slivnitza," and the 
 growing independence of the Bulgarian people, 
 Russia continued her intrigues. Shortly after the 
 close of the Servian war, a plot was discovered at 
 Burgas to carry off the prince, or if necessary, to 
 kill him. Another plot was soon hatched by the 
 Russophil party in Bulgaria. In the early morning 
 of the 21st of August, 1886, a party of conspirators 
 forced entrance into the palace at Sofia and at the 
 point of a revolver the prince was forced to abdi- 
 cate and leave the country. The leading conspira- 
 tors were Clement, the intriguing metropolitan of 
 the Orthodox church, Bendereff, acting minister of
 
 
 <! 
 O 
 
 a 
 
 >< 
 n 
 
 Q 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 <; 
 
 O 
 ■< 
 
 >^ 
 
 <) 
 
 O
 
 The New Bulgarian Kingdom 57 
 
 war, and Grueif, principal of the military academy. 
 The prince with an armed military escort was 
 hastily driven to the Danube, and from the Danube 
 taken to Russia. 
 
 The metropolitan Clement formed a cabinet of 
 his Russian partisans and issued a proclamation 
 assuring the people that order would promptly be 
 restored and promising them the protection of the 
 tsar of Russia! Stefan Stamboloff, as president of 
 the national assembly, and Colonel Mutkuroff, as 
 commander of the military forces in the newly ac- 
 quired province of Eastern Rumelia, issued a coun- 
 ter proclamation ; Clement and his colleagues were 
 denounced as traitors, and the Bulgarian people 
 were urged to rally in defence of the throne. The 
 provisional government of Clement and his con- 
 spirators was dissolved ; a regency was formed until 
 the prince could be found and induced to return. 
 The conspirators had taken him to Lemberg, where 
 the Russian authorities had released him. The 
 regency telegraphed him to return at once and re- 
 sume his post as the rightful ruler of the principal- 
 ity. The prince accepted the offer before the Rus- 
 sian commissioner could forestall him. He returned 
 to Rustchuk, where he was met by the local Russian 
 consul. At the suggestion of the latter he sent a 
 telegram to the tsar of Russia thanking him for 
 having restored to him the throne of Bulgaria. The 
 servile message read: ''Russia gave me my crown; 
 I am ready to return it into the hands of her sover- 
 eign." This caused the undoing of the prince. The 
 tsar replied: " Cannot approve of your return to
 
 58 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Bulgaria. I shall refrain from all interference with 
 the sad state to which Bulgaria has been brought so 
 long as you remain there." 
 
 He was forced by Russia to abdicate. Stamboloff 
 urged him in vain to remain and defy the tlireats 
 of the tsar, but he declined to keep the throne 
 against the wishes of the powerful Russian sover- 
 eign, and he promised to abdicate provided Russia 
 would consent to allow the Bulgars to elect his suc- 
 cessor. To this Russia consented; and on the 7th 
 of September, 1880, he made public his abdication, 
 and the appointment of Stamboloff, Karaveloff, and 
 Mutkuroff as regents until such time as the people 
 might select a prince as his successor. ' 
 
 " The next day," notes a historian of the period, 
 '* sadly and sorrowfully the prince bade farewell to 
 Bulgaria for ever. He summoned the chief men of 
 Sofia to the palace; told them how the welfare of 
 his adopted country had been his sole desire, and 
 confessed that he had failed because of the great 
 opposition that he had met. And then he set out 
 with Stamboloff, amidst the tears of his subjects, 
 sorry to leave them, yet glad to be freed from the 
 responsibilities of a Balkan throne. His memory 
 lived, and still lives after his death, among the 
 people of his adoption. Under the name of Count 
 Hartenau, happily yet humbly married, he tried to 
 bury the prince in the simple Austrian officer. But 
 long after his departure there were men in Bulgaria 
 who hoped for his return. His faults — and they 
 were many — were forgotten; it was remembered 
 that in seven brief years he had created an army,
 
 The New Bulgarian Kingdom 59 
 
 led a nation to victory, and united the two Bulga- 
 rias together. And when he died in 1893, many a 
 peasant in liis humble cottage mourned for the 
 soldier prince, the hero of Slivnitza."^ 
 
 1 The Balkans. By William Miller. New York, 1907, pp. 476.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BULGARIA UNDER KING FERDINAND 
 
 Alienation of the Bulgarian sympathies by the intrigues of the Russians 
 — Election of Prince Ferrlinand by the national assembly — Re- 
 fusal of the po\> ers to recognize tiie election — Non-recognition a 
 distinct advantage — iStaniboiulT and the friendly relations of Bul- 
 garia with the governments of Europe — intriguing Russophil ec- 
 clesiastics — How Stainboloff disciplined theui — • Birth of Prince 
 Boris — Friction between Ferdinand and his great minister — The 
 downfall of Stainbolofl' — Sinister Russian inlluences again in evi- 
 dence — Dedication of the Russian chapel at Shipka pass — Inde- 
 pendence of Bulgaria from Turkey — What Kmg Ferdinand has 
 accom])Iished — Popularity of Pnnce Boris — His rebaptism to 
 the faith of the national Orthodox church. 
 
 The constitution of Bnlj^^aria provided that in 
 case tlie throne sliould become vacant, elections to 
 the grand sobranjo for the choice of a successor 
 should take place within one month from the date 
 of such vacancy. Accordingly the regents made ar- 
 rangements for a general election in accordance 
 with constitutional requirement. The tsar of Rus- 
 sia, Avith the avowed object of " assisting the Bul- 
 gars in their difficulties," sent General Kaulbars to 
 Sofia. " To the action of this man more than to 
 any other ca«ise,*' writes William Miller, " may be 
 attributed the antipathy of Russia which has grown 
 up in the country which she helped to liberate." 
 
 Kaulbars came to Bulgaria " with a knout in his 
 hand." First he attempted to postpone the elec- 
 tions to the grand sobranje, and failing in this 
 he conducted an extremely indiscreet campaign 
 
 60
 
 Bulgaria Under Eling Ferdinand 61 
 
 throughout the country, in wliich by very question- 
 able means he endeavoured to secure the election of 
 an assembly with Russian sympathies. But Stam- 
 boloff and the liberal party secured an enormous 
 majority, and then Kaulbars attempted to nullify 
 the returns by the allegation that violence had been 
 used and that the verdict did not represent the will 
 of the majority of the Bulgarian electors. Violence 
 had been employed, but it was the violence incited 
 by the Russian consular agents and the Russophil 
 party. Disgusted with his humiliating defeat, Gen- 
 eral Kaulbars, accompanied by all the Russian con- 
 sular agents in Bulgaria, left the country and re- 
 turned to Russia. 
 
 The grand sobranje met at Tirnovo the 10th of 
 November, 1886, and unanimously elected Prince 
 Valdemar of Denmark as successor of Prince Alex- 
 ander. Prince Valdemar was a son of the king of 
 Denmark, brother of the princess of Wales and of 
 the dowager empress of Russia. It was felt that 
 the election of so near a relative of the tsar would 
 not be opposed by Russia. But Tsar Alexander III 
 refused to recognize the election as valid, and Prince 
 Valdemar declined the crown. 
 
 Europe was ransacked for a candidate, and it was 
 not until the following summer that a royal cadet 
 was found who was willing to accept the crowTi of 
 the uncertain Bulgarian princi[)ality. The grand 
 sobranje met at Tirnovo the 7th of July, 1887, and 
 elected Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Cobnrg-Gotha as 
 the sovereign of tiioir country. He accepted the 
 throne, and five wrecks later (the 14th of August)
 
 62 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 took the oath of office at the ancient capital of the 
 Bulgarian tsars. 
 
 Prince Ferdinand was the youngest son of Prince 
 Augustus of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Princess Clem- 
 entine of Bourbon-Orleans, a daughter of King 
 Louis Philippe of France. He was bom the 26th 
 of February, 1861. He married (first) the 20th of 
 April, 1893, Princess Maria Louise, eldest daughter 
 of the Duke of Parma. Four children were born to 
 them: Prince Boris, born the 20th of January, 
 1894; Prince Kyril, bom the 17th of November, 
 1895 ; Princess Eudoxia, born the 17th of January, 
 1898, and Princess Nadejda, born the 30th of Jan- 
 uary, 1899. The Princess Maria Louise died the 
 31st of January, 1899, and Prince Ferdinand mar- 
 ried (second) the 28th of February, 1908, Princess 
 Eleanora of Reuss-Kostritz. 
 
 The hostile Russians hounded Prince Ferdinand 
 and his government. The treaty of Berlin had 
 stipulated that tlie election of the ruler of Bulgaria 
 by the national assembly must be confirmed by the 
 great powers. Russia refused her consent to the 
 confirmation on the ground that the national as- 
 sembly which selected Ferdinand had not been le- 
 gally elected. Desirable as formal recognition may 
 have been to the sense of propriety of the prince, 
 it did not matter a pinch of snuff to the Bulgarian 
 people; and amid enthusiasm, the new sovereign 
 assumed the responsibilities of his crown. '' Indi- 
 rectl)^" writes an English historian, ** the non- 
 recognition of Prince Ferdinand had this advantage, 
 that there was no Russian agent accredited to his
 
 KING FERDINAND.
 
 Bulgaria Under King Ferdinand C)3 
 
 court, and consequently no Russian agency always 
 at work to undermine his throne." 
 
 Stefan Stamboloff, whose conspicuous services to 
 his country have been mentioned in a previous chap- 
 ter, was chosen prime minister by Ferdinand, the 
 1st of September, 1887, and this position he occu- 
 pied without intermission till his fall the 31st of 
 May, 1894, The first effort of the prime minister 
 was to establish friendly relations with Turkey, 
 which averted the interference of the Ottoman gov- 
 ernment with tlie practical independence of Eastern 
 Rumelia. To this friendly relation was due the 
 establishment of two additional Bulgarian bishops 
 in Macedonia and permission to organize a large 
 number of Bulgarian schools in different parts of 
 the Turkish empire where there were considerable 
 colonies of Bulgars. 
 
 Early in 1889 Clement, the metropolitan of the 
 national Orthodox church at Sofia, preached a ser- 
 mon at Tirnovo in which he attacked the prince and 
 his government in violent terms. It was well known 
 that the Russophil metropolitans had been plotting 
 against the Roman Catholics in Bulgaria ; and it 
 was rumoured that at a meeting of the Holy Synod 
 to be held at Sofia an anathema was to bo pro- 
 nounced against the prince, and this was to be the 
 signal for a Russophil uprising against the liberal 
 government. 
 
 When the Holy Synod was convoked at Sofia only 
 throe of the five metropolitans attended — Clement, 
 the notorious intriguer, who was a member of the 
 brief pro\'isional government that followed the coup
 
 64 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 d'etat, described above; Simeon, who had been sus- 
 pended by the regency of Stamboloff a year for 
 sedition, and Oonstantine, whose connection with the 
 Russian intriguers was notorious. Two of the met- 
 ropolitans, who wore friendly to the government, 
 did not attend the convocation. 
 
 The prelates were invited to pay their respects 
 to the prince, the prime minister, and the minister 
 of public worship. This they refused to do on the 
 ground that Ferdinand had encouraged the Roman 
 Catholic religion to the detriment of the national 
 Orthodox church, and that he and his ministers had 
 repeatedly infringed on the canons of the state re- 
 ligion. Stamboloff promptly informed them that 
 the government could have no relations with them 
 and they were ordered to return to their respective 
 dioceses within three days. They regarded the 
 order merely as a threat, assuming that no ministry 
 would dare use violence against the heads of the 
 established church. But they omitted the dogged 
 nature of Stamboloff in their calculation. At the 
 expiration of the three days the recalcitrant ecclesi- 
 astics were waited upon by the police and accom- 
 panied to their respective bishoprics. 
 
 The sympathy of Orthodox fanaticism against the 
 prince was enlisted; and some of the Russophil 
 statesmen, who later played leading roles in the gov- 
 ernment of King Ferdinand, petitioned the exarch 
 at Constantinople to redress the indignity that had 
 been heaped upon his metropolitans. But the 
 shrewd exarch waste-basketed the petition. 
 
 Cordial relations were also established with Ru-
 
 Bulgaria Under King Ferdinand 65 
 
 mania and other European powers, and a needed 
 loan on very favourable terms was secured from 
 foreign financiers. The marriage of Prince Ferdi- 
 nand presented a difficult political situation. The 
 Duke of Parma insisted that a condition of the mar- 
 riage of his daughter with the prince would be a 
 promise to rear the children that might result from 
 this union in the faith of the Roman Catholic church. 
 The Bulgarian constitution specifically stated that 
 the heir to tlie throne must belong to the Orthodox 
 national church. For political reasons Stamboloff 
 consented to the demands of the duke; the consti- 
 tution was changed, and Boris, the first-born, was 
 baptized a Roman Catholic. Two years later, and 
 after the fall of Stamboloff, the prince was rebap- 
 tized in the Orthodox national church. It was the 
 belief of Prince Ferdinand that if the heir apparent 
 to the Bulgarian throne should be converted to the 
 faith of the Orthodox church, it would be the means 
 of bringing about a reconciliation of his country 
 with Russia; and more important, his legal recog- 
 nition by the tsar. It was argued, and with reason, 
 that the future ruler of the country should profess 
 the same faith as the great majority of his subjects. 
 The Holy See at Rome was petitioned to grant the 
 change of the faith of the young prince ; but, as the 
 petition was denied, the conversion took place with- 
 out the consent of the authorities of the Roman 
 Catholic church. 
 
 Friction between Ferdinand and his prime minis- 
 ter developed shortly after the marriage of the 
 prince and the birth of an heir, and on the 31st of
 
 m Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 May, 1894, Prince Ferdinand dismissed Stamboloff 
 from his counsels. In a subsequent chapter the sig- 
 nificant services of Stamboloff in behalf of his coun- 
 try will be pointed out. In this connection it is only 
 necessary to indicate the justification of the prince 
 in the dismissal of his prime minister. An English 
 historian well states the cause of the rupture: 
 " Prince Ferdinand's marriage and the birth of an 
 heir strengthened the dynasty but weakened its 
 great minister. From that date the sovereign be- 
 came increasingly impatient of control, until at last 
 on the 31st of May, 1894, the world learned with sur- 
 prise that he had dismissed the ' Bismarck ' of Bul- 
 garia from his counsels. His alliance with a Bour- 
 bon princess had greatly increased his desire for 
 recognition, and he regarded his minister as the 
 chief obstacle in the way. There were intriguers 
 at the prince's elbow, old colleagues whom Stam- 
 boloff 's growing arrogance had alienated, who poi- 
 soned their sovereign's mind against the premier. 
 Relations between the two men became worse; con- 
 versations at the palace were faithfully reported to 
 the minister, who was not backward in telling his 
 master to his face what he thought of his conduct. 
 Stamboloff t^\^ce offered to resign; the prince de- 
 clined to accept his resignation, fearing that the 
 great popularity, which his minister had just gained 
 by the appointment of the second batch of Bulgarian 
 bishops in Macedonia, would make him even more 
 dangerous in opposition than in office. A domestic 
 scandal, in which one of Stamboloff 's most trusted 
 colleagues was involved, gave the prince his oppor-
 
 Bulgaria Under King Ferdinand 67 
 
 tunity. He pressed for the nomination of a favour- 
 ite of his own to the vacant portfolio, and carried 
 his point by threatening to abdicate rather than 
 yield. The ])resenco of an enemy within his cab- 
 inet embarrassed the premier and emboldened the 
 prince aud the opposition to further attacks." In 
 a moment of rage Stamboloff wrote a hasty letter 
 of resignation to his sovereign, which the prince 
 promptly accepted. 
 
 Dr. Stoiloff, an able lawj^er who had served as 
 private secretary to the prince, became prime min- 
 ister, and the policy of the new government was 
 one of conciliation towards Kussia. With the re- 
 baptism of Prince Boris into the faith of the Ortho- 
 dox national church, on tlie 14th of February, Rus- 
 sian influence became more apparent at Sofia. Fi- 
 nancial disorders caused the fall of the Stoiloff 
 ministry. A new cabinet was organized with Grc- 
 koff as premier, but his failure to secure a foreign 
 loan frustrated his efforts to improve economic 
 conditions. Ministries were formed and dismissed 
 in rather rapid succession. The efforts of Karavel- 
 of¥, who became prime minister for the third time 
 in March, 1901, to improve financial conditions in 
 the country, were abortive; and in June, 1902, a 
 new cabinet under Dr. Daneff was formed. Russian 
 influence now became predominant, and this influ- 
 ence brought tlic kingdom to the verge of ruin in 
 the second Balkan war. 
 
 Late in the summer of 1902 the Russians dedi- 
 cated a handsome cliapel at the foot of Sliipka pass 
 in the Balkan mountains to the memorv of the Rus-
 
 68 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 sian and Bulgarian soldiers who fell in the famous 
 encounter at this place in the war of liberation. 
 Many distinguished Russians were present; and 
 with a Russopliil-Bulgarian cabinet in power, it 
 looked for a brief time as though the Bulgars 
 had quite forgotten the long years of Russian 
 intrigue against the independence of their coun- 
 try. 
 
 The ardour of the Bulgars for Russia, however, 
 was soon dampened. The interference of the tsar's 
 government in Macedonia in an attempt to place a 
 Servian prelate in a Bulgarian see, the elforts of 
 the Russians to get control of the Bulgarian army, 
 and the discovery of an alleged plot to make Burgas 
 and Varna Russian ports caused a cabinet crisis 
 in May, 1903; the Russophil ministry fell, and the 
 Stambolovist, or liberal party, with General Pe- 
 troff as the prime minister, came into power. 
 
 On the 5th of October, 1908, Bulgaria declared her 
 independence of the suzerainty of the sultan of 
 Turkey, and Prince Ferdinand assumed the title 
 that had been used by the rulers of the old kingdom 
 of Bulgaria, that of tsar. The Porte protested to 
 the powers, but Russia proposed to advance an 
 indemnity, and the powers finally ratified the com- 
 plete independence of the country. Barbarities 
 committed by the Turks against the Bulgars in 
 Macedonia brought the country to the brink of war 
 with the Ottoman empire several times in recent 
 years. These disturbances will be described in 
 later chapters on Macedonia. 
 
 Under the rule of King Ferdinand Bulgaria has
 
 Bulgaria Under King Ferdinand 69 
 
 made enormous progress in matters of culture, in- 
 dustry, trade, and agriculture. His services to his 
 adopted country have been both varied and effect- 
 ive. Writing of Ferdinand in 1891, Mr. J. D. Bour- 
 chier, the veteran and distinguished correspondent 
 of the London Times at Sofia, says: *' He had em- 
 barked upon what seemed an almost liopeless adven- 
 ture; he was confronted with the hostility of a 
 power (Russia) which knew no scruple in the pros- 
 ecution of its designs; he had come into a country 
 honeycombed with the workings of Oriental con- 
 spiracy; he liad to deal wltli an army tainted witli 
 mutiny, and witli a hierarchy that had sold itself 
 to the enemies of Bulgarian freedom. All Europe 
 stood aloof; even Austria-Hungary scarcely ven- 
 tured to offer a word of encouragement; in England 
 the undeserved misfortunes of Prince Alexander had 
 excited a national indignation which seemed to ex- 
 clude all sympathy with his successor." 
 
 Against all these odds Mr. Bourchier wrote: 
 " Prince Ferdinand has held liis ground amidst the 
 snares and pitfalls of political life in a distracted 
 and still half-ci\-ilized country. He has learned 
 and is still learning to accommodate himself to the 
 peculiarities of Bulgarian character; he has mas- 
 1ered the Bulgarian tongue; he has found means 
 of acting in harmony with a minister (StambololT) 
 of autocratic disposition, whose great ability, cour- 
 age, and patriotism render him indispensable to the 
 national progress. He possesses not only diplo- 
 matic tact in reconciling hostile elements, but he 
 also knows how to yield at a proper time — a lesson
 
 70 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 whicli all constitutional sovereigns must sooner or 
 later learn; while his energy and tenacity of char- 
 acter enable him to grapple firmly with innumerable 
 difficulties. 
 
 '* Prince Ferdinand's devotion and self-sacrifice 
 are beginning to meet with their reward. The inter- 
 nal development of the country, its excellent finan- 
 cial condition, the spread of education, the construc- 
 tion of railways, the improvement of the capital, the 
 negotiation of treaties of commerce with foreign 
 powers, the practical recognition now accorded by 
 the latter to the existing regime, the recent diplo- 
 matic success with Turkey — all point to advance- 
 ment at home as well as abroad; one by one the 
 magnates of Europe have sounded the note of praise 
 and last, but not least, the Man of Blood and Iron 
 (Bismarck), who once so brutally expressed his 
 indifference to the fate of the j^oung principality, 
 has uttered words of approbation and encourage- 
 ment. There is no resisting the logic of facts. Bul- 
 garia under Prince Ferdinand has been a suc- 
 cess." ^ 
 
 Subsequent chapters will recite the development 
 of education, industry, and the arts during the more 
 than quarter-century reign of King Ferdinand, and 
 Bulgarians are themselves cognizant of this ad- 
 vancement and the large measure of credit that 
 belongs to their sovereign. And if, as M. de Launay 
 remarks, " the king is not popular in the ordinary 
 sense of that term as the royal head of the nation, 
 
 * Arrival of FeTdinnnd. Ry J. D. Bourchier. Fortnightly Renew, 
 Jan., 1891. Vol. 55, pp. 82-101.
 
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 PRINCE BORIS.
 
 Bulgaria Under King Ferdinand 71 
 
 certainly the practical Bulgars appreciate his value 
 as tlio president of a crowned repubUc."^ 
 
 Prince Boris, the heir apparent to the Bulgarian 
 throne, is a young man of promise and is highly 
 esteemed by his subjects. As already mentioned, 
 the young Boris was originally baptized in the faith 
 of the church of liis father and mother, in accord- 
 ance with tlie wishes of the latter and her father. 
 Stamboloff, for reasons of state, secured an altera- 
 tion of the constitution that these wishes might be 
 carried out. But the Bulgarian people resented the 
 change. After the reconciliation with Russia, Fer- 
 dinand wrote Tsar Nicholas his determination to 
 have the prince rebaptized. The tsar was much 
 pleased witli the decision. John MacDonald writes 
 in this connection: '* Looked at as a clever move in 
 the diplomatic game, the infant prince's conversion 
 at this particular time was far more effective for 
 the prince's conciliatory purpose than an Orthodox 
 baptism at birth would have been. The early rite 
 would have been universally regarded as a matter 
 of course. It would have made no impression on 
 the obdurate Tsar Alexander ITT. But the lost 
 sheep's return to the fold — the lost lamb's — was 
 an impressive event. . . . The 26th of February was 
 the appointed day for the Orthodox rite. The place 
 was the historic town of Tirnovo. The selection of 
 the old capital was another manifestation of the 
 prince's talent for mastership of the ceremonies. 
 The scene was almost as imposing as Prince Fer- 
 
 ' La liulgaric d'hicr cl de demain. By Ijouis dc Launay. Paris, 1912, 
 pp. 494.
 
 72 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 dinand's advent there niue years before to inau^- 
 rate the rebuilding of the Bulgarian state. Great 
 companies of country people, singing their old na- 
 tional songs, displaying banners with patriotic mot- 
 toes, filled the roads converging to the city. The 
 house fronts of Tirnovo were decorated with tro- 
 phies of Russian and Bulgarian flags combined. 
 The streets resounded with the Russian and Bul- 
 garian national hymns. It was a Russian festival 
 as well as a national one."^ 
 
 ^ Czar Ferdinand and his People. By John MacDonald. New York, 
 [1913], pp. 344.
 
 CHAPTER VIT 
 
 STAMBOLOFF VS. RUSSIAN INTRIGUES 
 
 The early lifo of Stefan Stamboloff — His Russian experiences — Con- 
 nection with the Bulgarian revohitionary committee — Leader of 
 the uprising at Stara Zagora — President of the national assembly 
 — Hi.s rolft in the union of the two Bulgarias — Prime minister to 
 Prince Alexander — IIow he met the attacks of Russia against Bul- 
 garian independence — The rngency — Prime minister under Prince 
 Ferdinand — Was his rule despotic? — How he punished Mace- 
 donian brigands — His quarrels with the prince — Resignation 
 from the ministry — Cru(>l persecution by the Russophil govern- 
 ment — His murder — Pen picture of the great statesman — Esti- 
 mates of his services -- Connection of Russia with his downfall 
 and murder — His faults and his virtues. 
 
 Stefan Stamboloff, who for eight years was the 
 practical dictator of Bulgaria and who carried to a 
 successful issue the long and bitter struggle that 
 prevented the absorption of his country by the Rus- 
 sian empire, was one of the half dozen greatest 
 European statesmen of the last half of the nine- 
 teenth century. And when it is recalled that he was 
 murdered at the early age of forty-one years, the 
 extraordinary career of this national patriot and 
 statesman is little less than marvellous. ** He was 
 a man who saw what he wanted done, and did it," 
 remarks Henry Crust. " PTe rescued an old coun- 
 try, and made a new one. And he was destroyed by 
 the very lowest and most monstrous thoughts, 
 words, and deeds of which human nature is capa- 
 ble."
 
 74 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Stamboloff was born at Tirnovo the 31st of Jan- 
 uary (old style), 1854. He attended an elementary 
 school up to the age of fourteen, when he was ap- 
 prenticed to a tailor. Later, when Shishmanoff, a 
 Bulgarian scholar who had studied at Paris, opened 
 a commercial school at Tirnovo, Stamboloff resumed 
 his studies. The pohtical and religious agitation in 
 the late sixties over the reestablishment of the Bul- 
 garian Orthodox church interested him keenly. He 
 decided to study for the priesthood, and in June, 
 1870, was granted a scholarship at Odessa that 
 had been founded by the emperor of Russia. He 
 spent two years in study at Odessa, but with keener 
 interest in the nihilistic teachings of his fellow stu- 
 dents than in the theological doctrines of his spiri- 
 tual instructors. Of the two hundred students in 
 the seminary at Odessa, he tells us, there were cer- 
 tainly not more than thirty or forty who were free 
 from the taint of nihilism. Not only Stamboloff 
 but all the Bulgarian students at Odessa and else- 
 where, " panting for freedom and intoxicated with 
 the breadth and grandeur of the new ideas, threw 
 themselves into the arms of the Russian nihilists." 
 
 The secret police of Odessa made a sudden raid 
 on the seminary and the students were arrested en 
 hloc. The Bulgars, as Turkish subjects, were given 
 twenty-four hours in which to leave Russia. Stam- 
 boloff made his way to Tirnovo. In August, 1874, 
 he represented his native town at a general revo- 
 lutionary conference held at Bucharest. During the 
 following year he shared with Christo Boteff the 
 leadership of the revolutionary committee. In the
 
 STEFAN STAMBOLOFF.
 
 Stamboloff vs. Russian Intrigues 75 
 
 capacity of a peddler he travelled about Bulgaria 
 forpaing revolutionary committees. He organized 
 and managed the uprising against Turkey at Stara 
 Zagora in 1875 ; joined the Russian staff in the war 
 of Servia against Turkey in 1876; and served with 
 the Bulgarian irregulars in the Russo-Turkish war 
 of 1877-78. 
 
 After the liberation of Bulgaria from the Turkish 
 yoke, Stamboloff took up the practice of law at Tir- 
 novo. He was elected to represent his native city 
 in the first national assembly and was chosen vice- 
 president. After the fall of the Zankoff ministry 
 he was chosen president of the assembly and held 
 this post during two critical years. It was entirely 
 due to his tact and energ)^ that the two Bulgarias 
 were united in 1885. To the indecision of Prince 
 Alexander as to the advisability of recognizing the 
 union of Eastern Rumelia with the principality of 
 Bulgaria, Stamboloff is reported to have said: 
 *' Sire, the union is made — the revolt is an accom- 
 plished fact past recall, and the time for hesitation 
 has gone. Two roads lie before Your Highness — 
 the one to Philippopolis and as much farther as 
 God may lead ; the other to the Danube and Darm- 
 stadt. I advise you to take the crown the Bulgarian 
 nation offers you," The prince replied: " I choose 
 the road to Philippopolis, and if God loves Bulgaria 
 He will protect me and her." 
 
 With characteristic courage and promptitude he 
 restored Prince Alexander to his throne after the 
 notorious consi)iracy the 21st of August, 1886. He 
 frustrated the conspiracy of General Kaulbars, men-
 
 76 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 tioned in a previous chapter; quelled a military 
 conspiracy that had been hatched by Russia at Si- 
 listria and Rustchuk, and secured the election of 
 Prince Ferdinand to the Bulgarian throne against 
 the unscrupulous opposition of Russia. The new 
 prince selected him as prime minister, and for eight 
 years he ruled Bulgaria with an iron hand; but 
 he accomplished great things for his country. 
 
 Without doubt Stamboloff's greatest service to 
 Bulgaria was the preservation of its independence 
 against the powerful and insidious influence of Rus- 
 sia. After the treaty of Berlin, the Bulgars were 
 given to understand that the primary cause of the 
 ^^'ar of 1877-78 was not the liberation of their coun- 
 try against the oppressive Ottoman rule, but the 
 establishment of a Russian advance post on the road 
 to Constantinople; The pretensions of the Russians, 
 that the liberation of the principality from Turkey 
 constituted a claim to eternal gratitude and sub- 
 mission, did not appeal to the hard-headed Bulgars, 
 and least of all to StambolofF and the other liberal 
 statesmen in the new country. The Bulgars have 
 been charged with ingratitude towards their Rus- 
 sian benefactors; but it should not be forgotten 
 that it was the autocratic and brutal policy of the 
 Russian officials sent to Bulgaria that estranged the 
 people and aroused the opposition of the patriots. 
 It was the thinly veiled intention of crushing out 
 the national idea of independence and the policy of 
 brutal interference with internal affairs that alien- 
 atcd the affections of the Bulgars for the Russians. 
 And it was Stamboloff who saved the young state
 
 Stamboloff vs. Russian Intrigues 77 
 
 from the menace of domination by Kussia. Under 
 his regime Russia had no representation at Sofia. 
 
 He kept Prince Ferdinand on his throne against 
 the active opposition of Russia, and he taught his 
 half-hearted countrymen to believe in Bulgaria. His 
 brief but stirring life was a living negation of the 
 charge of the Russophil party in Bulgaria that " we 
 cannot live without the guidance and support of 
 Russia." He shamed his countrymen out of the 
 belief in this treacherous declaration. He estab- 
 lished excellent relations with European powers — 
 Russia excepted — and best of all, he saw the great 
 political value of friendly relations with Turkey 
 and Rumania. 
 
 At home, as Henry Crust has remarked, '* he 
 planted and watered, and the increase came. Trea- 
 ties of commerce, railways, education, and all that 
 we call civilization, prospered apace. Europe was 
 more than friendly; and if the powers failed by 
 convention to recognize Ferdinand, they recognized 
 Stamboloff, and they recognized Bulgaria."^ 
 
 The charge has been made that the despotic rule 
 of StaraboloiT did not meet the approval of the Bul- 
 garian nation, and that he held power by the pres- 
 sure which the liberal party used at the polls. For- 
 eign students who knew both Stamboloff and the 
 character of the Bulgars of the first generation of 
 independence pronounce this charge false. They 
 assert that he was in complete s^nnpathy with the 
 Bulgarian people; that he shared their ideals and 
 
 ' Stamboloff. By Henry Cruet. Eclectic Magazine, Oct., 1895. Vol. 
 125, pp. 563-569.
 
 78 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 their prejudices; that he was simple in his tastes 
 and mode of life; tliat he was accessible to every- 
 body, and knew how to speak to his countrymen 
 after their own fashion. '* He was an ideal ruler 
 of a half-civilizcd community of small peasant farm- 
 ers," remarks an Elnglish writer. 
 
 A system of political assassination, which resulted 
 in the murder of two of his ministers and the nu- 
 merous attempts on his own life, forced liim to bathe 
 his hands in blood in the punishment of his country- 
 men who had been tempted by the intrigues of Rus- 
 sia. One of the victims was Olympi Panoff, an old 
 friend and one of the heroes of Slivnitza ; and in 
 the enforcement of measures for the maintenance 
 of order in the country and keej^ing I^rince Ferdi- 
 nand on his throne against the ill-will of Russia 
 and the political activity of the Russophil party in 
 Bulgaria, the closing years of his ministry amounted 
 to little less than a reign of terror. 
 
 He punished severely the brigands, many of whom 
 were Panslavists in the service of Russia and were 
 members of the Macedonian revolutionary bands. 
 Some of these brigands were refugees from Turkish 
 oppression. Others were Bulgarians who could not 
 shut their eyes and repress their sympathies for 
 their kinsmen in Macedonia. It was the conviction 
 of Stamboloff, however, that a revolution in Mace- 
 donia would give Russia an opportunity to interfere 
 with no disinterested motive; and he urged that 
 patience and friendly relations with Turkey would 
 in the end help Macedonia most. Many of the acts 
 of brigandage were directed against wealthy for-
 
 Stamboloff vs. Russian Intrigues 79 
 
 eigiiers; and by clearing Bulgaria of brigands he 
 certainly won the approbation of foreign countries, 
 even though ho incurred the enmity of the Mace- 
 donian brigands and their revolutionary friends. 
 
 The ultimate downfall of Stamboloff was brought 
 about by his tension with the prince, his severe pun- 
 ishment of ]>olitical opponents, whom he regarded as 
 the tools of Russia, and the growing political im- 
 portance of a group of statesmen with strong Rus- 
 Bophil and mild clerical ideals and aspirations. This 
 group included Gueslioff, Madjaroff, Vehtchkoff, 
 Daneff, and Bobtcheff — men who were at the head 
 of affairs in Bulgaria during the two decades that 
 followed the fall of Stamboloff and the close of tho 
 fatal war of the allies. 
 
 Attention has been called to the fact that after 
 his marriage and the birth of an heir, Prince Ferdi- 
 nand desired the recognition of the legal status of 
 his election; but Stamboloff felt that this recogni- 
 tion would mean disaffection and intrigue against 
 the established order of things that would follow 
 with the return of the Russian minister and the Rus- 
 sian consuls. Non-recognition by the powers en- 
 tailed constant slights and rebuffs; the prince felt, 
 and rightly, that his desires were not unreasonable. 
 Stamboloff, on the other hand, apprehended that 
 recognition would bring calamity to Bulgaria. There 
 grew up in consequence a divergence of policy be- 
 tween the prince and his prime minister. The two 
 men became incapable of understanding each other's 
 point of view, and it is not easy for foreigners to 
 disentangle the motives of their quarrels. That the
 
 80 
 
 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 prince bad long cbafed under the tutelage of his 
 arrogant and pig-headed minister, and that the lat- 
 ter had assumed a rough and insulting tone towards 
 his sovereign are facts that the most partisan ad- 
 mirers of Stamboloff admit; but they argue as an 
 extenuating circumstance, bis great ability, courage, 
 patriotism, and lasting service to bis country in 
 thwarting Russian aggressions. 
 
 The incidents attending the final resignation of 
 Stamboloff are too painful to recite in tbis connec- 
 tion ; and the subsequent venomous attack on Prince 
 Ferdinand, published as an interview in the Frank- 
 furter Zeitung, was unworthy of the great states- 
 man who for eight years bad so ably steered the 
 unsteady Bulgarian ship of state among uncertain 
 whirlpools of Russian intrigue into reasonably 
 smootb waters. Tn making this attack be committed 
 tbe greatest blunder of his life. His English biog- 
 rapher remarks in this connection: *' Stamboloff, 
 by tbis outburst, committed wbat was worse than 
 a crime — a mistake. There can be no real excuse 
 made for it. It may be urged that he was smarting 
 under great provocation, as he doubtless was, but 
 how much worthier and more dignified it would 
 have been to show himself superior to sucb petty 
 revenge by silence." 
 
 The subsequent persecution of Stamboloff by the 
 party that came into power after bis fall was equally 
 unworthy; for, in spite of shameful attempts to 
 pillory the sovereign of Bulgaria in a foreign news- 
 paper, it must not be forgotten, as Mr. Beaman 
 very properly insists, that it was Stamboloff wbo
 
 ^1^ 
 
 A PKASANT CITIZKN.
 
 Stamboloff vs. Russian Intrigues 81 
 
 had consolidated the union of Eastern Rumelia with 
 the principality; who had held the country single- 
 handed against the kidnappers of Prince Alexander; 
 had ruled Bulgaria as regent in the teeth of Russia; 
 had driven out the intriguing Russian commission- 
 ers and consuls; had brought in a new prince and 
 kept him on his throne through a series of plots and 
 dangers from within and without; had reconciled 
 the church and the state; and had closely drawn 
 the ties between Bulgaria and her suzerain, the 
 sultan. 
 
 Political and personal enemies were not satisfied 
 with his downfall; they clamoured for his disgrace 
 and punishment; and the responsible government 
 tacitly sanctioned a cruel and unjust persecution 
 that was certain to be attendcnl with fatal conse- 
 quences. He was not only subjected to indignities 
 and persecution; his property was confiscated, and 
 he was denied a passport that he might visit Bo- 
 hemia and recuperate his shattered health. It had 
 repeatedly been asserted in government circles that 
 so long as Stamboloff lived the desired reconcilia- 
 tion with Russia and the recognition of the election 
 of Prince Ferdinand were out of the question. He 
 was brutally attacked and mutilated the evening of 
 the 15th of July, 1895, and died three days later. 
 To the lasting shame of a really fine people, it must 
 be recorded that the Bulgarian government did abso- 
 lutely nothing to ferret out the instigators of this 
 appalling crime and to punish them. 
 
 Mr. Beaman, in his admirable English life of 
 Stamboloff, gives this pen picture of the great
 
 82 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 statesman: " His portrait gives some idea of his 
 face, but it fails entirely to reproduce the character 
 of the mouth and eyes. Looking at the photograph, 
 you see a somewhat heavy, sleepy-looking counte- 
 nance, giving no indication of the restless energy 
 and indomitable spirit of the man. In repose these 
 arc not so very marked, but as soon as he touches 
 upon a subject of interest, Mr. Stamboloff's whole 
 mien changes. The heavy brows arch or contract, 
 and the drooping lids lift under the searching flash 
 of his eyes, which glow like live coals. The thick full 
 lips form themselves into kindly smiles or sarcastic 
 twists with equal facility, and now and again they 
 draw back into a grim thinness in front of the white 
 teeth, while the close cropped hair bristles and 
 stands stiff over the massive forehead. In stature 
 he is short and thick-set, and in spite of continued 
 bad health, and a ceaseless hacking cough, which 
 scarcely gives him a moment's respite, he holds 
 liimself erect, and walks with a firm, decided tread. 
 His early life of hardship in the open-air has tough- 
 ened his frame, and his fondness for outdoor exer- 
 cise, particularly for shooting, has probably enabled 
 him to withstand the attacks of insidious diseases 
 aggravated by the intense mental strain which he 
 has undergone," ^ 
 
 Mr. Stoyan K. Vatralsky, a Bulgarian publicist, 
 after the murder of Stamboloff, wrote in an 
 American review concerning his great countrjonan : 
 " Built after the pattern and of the stuff of which 
 
 ' StnmholujJ. (Public Mfn of To-day Series). By A, Hulme Bea- 
 raan. London, 1895, pp. 240.
 
 Stamboloff vs. Russian Intrigues 83 
 
 nature builds greatness, his strength and his weak- 
 ness, his virtues and his vices, were alike great. 
 Judged by a high standard of Christian civiUzation 
 he can indeed be condemned ; but compared with his 
 antagonists he appears not only great, but noble 
 and upright. True, he was arbitrary and fierce, 
 but he plotted or committed nobody's murder. He 
 had traitors shot without mercy, but only after they 
 had been sentenced in an open court. He was no 
 coward. He struck right from the shoulder, and 
 stood in the light of day like a man ; the w^hole world 
 knew where he stood and what he was about. The 
 very reverse was the case of the Russophiles who 
 opposed him. They skulked in the dark; with re- 
 bellion in favour of a foreign power, fraud and 
 assassination were their chief weapons. The fiend- 
 ish temper of Russophilisni, which he fought and 
 held in check for so many years, is now well known 
 by the exhibition it made of itself at Stamboloff 's 
 murder. During the hours he was writhing, from 
 the fifteen terrible wounds it had dealt him, Russo- 
 philism broke forth with exultant rejoicing over 
 his agony; when he died, it insulted his remains, 
 and at his burial it danced around his grave." ^ 
 
 Russia has never forgiven Bulgaria for the inde- 
 pendence which she permitted Stamboloff to mani- 
 fest during the years that he directed the ship of 
 state. She was able to sip from the cup of revenge 
 when Bulgaria was dismembered by treacherous 
 allies during the second Balkan war. The Nation, 
 
 ' Study of a Notable Man: Slamhnlnff. By Stoyan K. Vatralaky. 
 Forum, Nov., 1895. Vol. 20, pp. 317-30;!.
 
 84 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 the ably edited, and certainly the best informed 
 English weekly journal on Balkan questions, said 
 in a leader in its issue of the 19tli of July, 1913: 
 " It is said that Bulgaria began this shameful and 
 disastrous war. Technically, that is true. Morally, 
 it is meanly false. The war was begun by Servia 
 and Greece, who, as far back as May, concluded 
 between themselves a treaty of alliance against Bul- 
 garia, by which Servia secured Greek help for the 
 seizure of regions which only a year before she had 
 by a no less solemn treaty of alliance acknowledged 
 as Bulgarian. 
 
 " The Bulgar armies did, indeed, march upon 
 these regions. It was the Servians who committed 
 the real aggression by holding them. But the real 
 reason for this shameful dismemberment is hardly 
 concealed. Bulgaria has become too strong. Six 
 months ago the whole of Europe was lost in admira- 
 tion for the victories, more wonderful as moral than 
 as physical achievements, which this peasant race 
 was enabled to win by the self -discipline and labour 
 of one generation of freedom. To-day, after her 
 first misfortunes, all that is forgotten, and official 
 persons talk solemnly about ihe balance of power. 
 The jealousy of Servia, Greece, and Rumania is 
 intelligible; each of them will gain directly by her 
 dismemberment. 
 
 ** But the real author of this concerted crushing of 
 Bulgaria is Russia. She it was who first encouraged 
 Servian pretensions, and then failed, if, indeed, she 
 sincerely tried, to impose her mediation. It is ad- 
 mitted even by her apologists that she incited the
 
 Stamboloff vs. Russian Intrigues 85 
 
 Rumanian invasion, and thereby tore up the settle- 
 ment which she herself negotiated. It is even sus- 
 pected that she has prompted the Turkish north- 
 ward march, meanly backed by Bulgaria's allies in 
 the work of emancipation. Bulgaria's real offence 
 has been her habit of independence, her refusal to 
 imitate Servia and Montenegro in grovelling defer- 
 ence to the leading Slav power. This may be a rea- 
 son why St. Petersburg should crush her." 
 
 This painful chapter — the most painful in the 
 whole history of the Bulgarian people, if we except 
 the fratricidal war of 1913 — may fittingly close 
 with a brief quotation from the pen of an English 
 publicist who knew intimately the great statesman 
 and the period of his country's existence when he 
 achieved his extraordinary triumphs. Mr. Edward 
 Dicey writes: ** In judging Stamboloff's life, the 
 western critic must take into consideration the sur- 
 roundings amongst which he was bred and lived. 
 If he ruled roughly, it was a rough people he had 
 to deal with. He was a young man, in almost abso- 
 lute power over a young nation. At the age when 
 most of our youths are wielding the oar and the 
 cricket bat, he was a leader in the forlorn struggle 
 of Bulgaria against Turkey. Taught in the hard 
 school of want and adversity, his nature was inigged 
 as the mountains which were his youthful home and 
 refuge. He was blamed, when in power, for beha- 
 ving with unnecessary rigour towards his opponents; 
 but politics in Bulgaria is not what it is in western 
 Europe. Political passions are so fierce that every 
 party looks upon the other as an actual physical foe,
 
 86 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 to be dealt with in a manner to cripple it and disable 
 it for ever. In Stamboloff we see the strong man 
 defending his house. Amidst plots and conspiracies, 
 surrounded by uncertain friends and open enemies, 
 he was often obliged to strike swiftly. And wheni 
 he struck, his hand was undoubtedly heavy." ^ 
 
 • The Slory of SlamboloJJ's Fall. By Edward Dicey. Fortnightly 
 Review, September, 1895. Vol. 64, pp. 891-404.
 
 CHAPTER Vin 
 
 THE BALKAN LEAGUE 
 
 Responsibility for Turkish miflrule in Macedonia — Guiding principle 
 of Ottoman statecraft — • The revolutionary movement and its con- 
 Bcquences — Turkish massacres — Attempts of Russia and Aus- 
 tria to inaugurate reforms — The Yoimg Turk party — Attempts 
 to Ottomanize Macedonia — Why the Macedonians revolted against 
 Turkish rule — Pearly attempts to form a Balkan league — AVTiy 
 StambolofF rejected the overtures of the Greeks — Venizelos and 
 the Balkan league of 1912 — Provisions of the league for the reform 
 of Maceiionia — Bulgarian conventions with Greece, Servia, and 
 Montenegro. 
 
 The revision of the treaty of San Stefano was 
 the direct cau.se of the Balkan wars. By its terms 
 Macedonia was included in the newly constituted 
 state of Bulgaria. But largely because of the jeal- 
 ousy of England that treaty was torn up. Disraeli, 
 then premier of England, vigorously opposed the 
 liberation of Macedonia from Turkish oppression 
 because he feared that a great Bulgaria would 
 strengthen Russia's power in the Balkan peninsula. 
 The treaty of Berlin dismembered Bulgaria and 
 gave Macedonia back to the Turks. " In the dev- 
 ilish ingenuity with which the powers placed every 
 obstacle in the path of racial unity," remarks Cyril 
 Campbell, '' with which Ihey traded on interstate 
 jealousy and played off people against people, can 
 be traced the cause of the sullen animosity so appar- 
 
 87
 
 88 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 ent in the long discord of the next three decades, and 
 for this the treaty of Berlin must be held respon- 
 sible."^ 
 
 The reforms promised to the Macedonians by the 
 treaty of Berlin never materialized. Turkey devised 
 a cunning system of decentralization that prevented 
 the growth of locnl opinion and checked the develop- 
 ment of ethnic consciousness. The guiding principal 
 of Ottoman statecraft was the application of the 
 divide et impera rule, which played off the Mace- 
 donian races against each other. Throughout the 
 reign of Abdul-Hamid (1876-1909) the use of the 
 word Macedonia was forbidden. The province was 
 divided into three administrative districts or vila- 
 yets — Monastir, Uskub, and Salonika — which cor- 
 responded to no natural division either racial or 
 geographic. More than half the people in the three 
 vilayets were Bulgars, a fifth were Turks, and the 
 remainder were Greeks, Servians, Vlacks, Albani- 
 ans, Jews, and gypsies; but the boundaries of the 
 \41ayets were so drawn that no one race might attain 
 undue prominence. The Bulgarians were strong in 
 all three vilayets; there were vServians and Albani- 
 ans in Uskub; and the Greeks were well represented 
 in Salonika. 
 
 Any display of national aspirations on the part 
 of any one of these races was punished by perse- 
 cution and massacre, while special favours were 
 bestowed upon its rivals. Thus, the Bulgarians 
 were favoured by the creation of several new bish- 
 
 > The Balkan War Drmna. By Cyril Campbell. New York, 1913, 
 V?' 206.
 
 'A 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 a 
 u 
 '■J
 
 The Balkan League 89 
 
 oprics in Macedonia as a punishment to the Greeks 
 for the war of 1897. But when the Bulgarians of 
 Macedonia rose in rebellion against misrule in 1903, 
 the Greeks, the Serbs, and the Vlacks were over- 
 whelmed with oflicial favours. '' In this way," notes 
 Cyril Campbell, " the first impulse was given to the 
 Greek campaign of proselytism and terrorism in the 
 vilayets of Monastir, Kossovo, Salonika, and Adri- 
 anople, which must remain as an indelible disgrace 
 in Greek history, and which to the lasting dishon- 
 our was aided and abetted or at least allowed to con- 
 tinue by Ottoman officials." 
 
 The Greeks were active and hostile, and in their 
 warfare against the Bulgarians they used their 
 familiar weapons — treachery and bribery. Inter- 
 nal conflicts followed; and, as the recent Carnegie 
 commission well states, ** from this time there was 
 no more security in Macedonia. Each of the rival 
 nations — Bulgarian, Greek, Servian — counted its 
 heroes and its victims, its captains and its recruits, 
 in this national guerilla warfare, and the result for 
 each was a long martyrology. By the beginning of 
 1904 the number of political assassinations in Mace- 
 donia had, according to the Englisli Blue Book, 
 reached an average of one hundred per month. The 
 Bulgarians naturally were the strongest, their bands 
 the most numerous, their whole militant organiza- 
 tion possessing the most extensive roots in the pop- 
 ulation of the country. The government of the Bul- 
 garian principality had presided at the origination 
 of the Macedonian movement in the time of Stefan 
 StambololT. There was, however, always a diver-
 
 90 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 geiice between the views of official Bulgaria, which 
 sought to use the movement as an instrument in its 
 foreign policy, and those of the revolutionaries 
 proper, most of them young people enamoured of 
 independence and filled with a kind of cosmopolitan 
 idealism. 
 
 '' The revolutionar)^ movement in Macedonia has 
 frequently been represented as a product of Bul- 
 garian ambition and the Bulgarian government held 
 directly responsible for it. As a matter of fact, how- 
 ever, the hands of the government were always 
 forced by the Macedonians, who relied on public 
 opinion, violently excited by the press, and the direct 
 propaganda of the leaders. There certainly was a 
 ' Central Committee ' at Sofia, whose president was 
 generally some one who enjoyed the confidence 
 of the prince. This committee, however, served 
 chiefly as the representative of the movement in the 
 eyes of the foreigner; in the eyes of the real lead- 
 ers it was always suspected of too great eagerness 
 to serve the dynastic ambitions of King Ferdinand. 
 It was in Macedonia that the real revolutionary 
 organization, uncompromising and jealous of its in- 
 dependence, was to be found. For the origin of 
 this internal organization we must go back to 1893, 
 when, in the little village of Resna, a small group 
 of young Bulgarian intellectuals founded a secret 
 society with the clearly expressed intention of * pre- 
 paring the Christiaii population for armed struggle 
 against the Turkhsh regime in order to win personal 
 security and guarantees for order and justice in 
 the administration,* which may be translated as the
 
 The Balkan League 91 
 
 political autonomy of Macedonia. The * internal 
 organization ' did not aim at the annexation of 
 Macedonia to Bulgaria; it called all nationalities 
 dwelling in the three vilayets to join its ranks. No 
 confidence Avas felt in Europe; hope was set on 
 energetic action by the people. To procure arms, 
 distribute them to the young people in the villages, 
 and drill the latter in musketry and military evo- 
 lutions — such viere the first endeavours of the con- 
 spirators. All this was not long in coming to the 
 notice of the Turks, who came by accident upon a 
 depot of arms and bombs at Vinnitsa. This dis- 
 covery gave the signal for Turkish acts of repres- 
 sion and atrocities which counted more than two 
 hundred victims. From that time on, there was no 
 further halt in the struggle in Macedonia. The peo- 
 ple, far from being discouraged by torture and mas- 
 sacre, became more and more keenly interested in 
 the organization. In a few years the country was 
 ready for the struggle. The whole country had been 
 divided into military districts, each with its cap- 
 tain and militia staff. The central ' organization,' 
 gathering force * everywhere and nowhere ' liad all 
 the regular machinery of a revolutionary organiza- 
 tion; an ' executive police,* a postal service, and 
 even an espionage service to meet the blows of the 
 enemy and punish ' traitors and spies.' Through- 
 out this period of full expansion, the people turned 
 voluntarily to the leaders, even in the settlement of 
 their private affairs, instead of going before the 
 Ottoman officials and judges, and gladly paid their 
 contributions to the revolutionary body. Self-confi-
 
 92 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 dence grew to such a point that offensive action 
 began to be taken. The agricultural labourers tried 
 striking against their Turkish masters for a rise in 
 wages, to bring them up to the minimum laid down 
 by the leaders of the * organization.' They grew 
 bolder in risking open skirmishes with the Turkish 
 troops; and the official report of the * organiza- 
 tion ' records that as many as 132 (512 victims) 
 took place in the period 1898-1902. At last Euro- 
 pean diplomacy stirred. The first scheme of re- 
 forms appeared, formulated by Russia and Austria 
 in virtue of their entente of 1897. The Austro-Rus- 
 sian note, of February, 1903, formulated demands 
 too modest to be capable of solving the problem. 
 The result was as usual; the Porte hastened to 
 prevent European action by promising in January 
 to inaugurate reforms. The Macedonian revolution- 
 aries were in despair. A little group of extremists 
 detached itself from the Conmnittee to attempt vio- 
 lent measures such as might stir Europe; in June 
 bombs were thrown at Salonika. On July 20 (old 
 style), the day of St. Elie (Ilinjah-den), a formal 
 insurrection broke out: the rayas saw that they 
 were strong enough to measure themselves against 
 their old oppressors. 
 
 " It was the climax of the ' internal organization * 
 and that of its fall. The heroism of the rebels broke 
 itself against the superior force of the regular army. 
 The fighting ratio was 1 to 13, 26,000 to 351,000; 
 there were a thousand deaths and, in the final 
 result, 200 villages ruined by Turkish vengeance, 
 12,000 houses burned, 3,000 women outraged,
 
 The Balkan League 93 
 
 4,700 inhabitants slain and 71,000 without a 
 roof.'" 
 
 The Macedonian uprising and the barbarities and 
 tortures that followed reminded Europe of the 
 promises made more than a quarter of a century 
 before by the treaty of Berlin ; and the great pow- 
 ers, however reluctantly, were compelled to inter- 
 vene. England took the initiative and through Lord 
 Lansdowne proposed the following reforms: (1) 
 The nomination of a Christian governor for Mace- 
 donia; (2) the nomination of European officers to 
 reform the gendarmerie; (3) withdrawal of all 
 bashi-bozouks from Macedonia; (4) each of the 
 great powers to send six officers to accompany the 
 Ottoman troops and thus exercise a restraining in- 
 fluence and secure reliable information, and (5) the 
 distribution of relief. 
 
 Two selfish and interested members of the con- 
 cert — Russia and Austria — were invested with 
 power to devise and supervise reform measures in 
 Macedonia. Their schemes were half-hearted and 
 their reforms remained a dead letter. The great 
 powers, largely from financial motives, were un- 
 willing to put any pressure on Turkey, because no 
 individual member of the concert was willing to 
 prejudice its own interests or jeopardize future 
 concessions by taking the initiative in the matter 
 of Macedonian reform. The matter dragged on 
 until the insurrection of the Young Turks in 1908. 
 
 * Report of the International Commissinn In Inquire into the Causes 
 and Ejects of the Balkan Warn, rublifihed by fhc Carnegie Endow- 
 ment for International Ji'cace. Washington, D. C., 1914.
 
 94 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 The overthrow of the autocratic rule of Abdul- 
 Hamid was hailed by the powers as the rainbow 
 of promise of Turkey's regeneration and the solu- 
 tion of the Macedonian question. In the final over- 
 throw of the sultan in April, 1909, and the revival 
 of the Turkish constitution, which had been *' sus- 
 pended " since the days of Midhat, races yesterday 
 on terms of irreconcilable hostility, embraced one 
 another as brothers. The Young Turks announced 
 that they would entirely reconstruct the Ottoman 
 empire. They promised the Macedonians to solve 
 all difficulties and to pacify all hatreds; to substi- 
 tute justice for arbitrarj^ rule; and to ensure com- 
 plete equality among the different races. The Mace- 
 donian revolutionists laid down their arms and re- 
 turned from their hiding-places in the Rilo and 
 Rhodope mountains to the towns. 
 
 Tlie dream of the Macedonians, that they could 
 become good Ottoman patriots while still faithful 
 to their national ambitions, was soon shattered. 
 Far from satisfying the reawakened nationalism of 
 the various races in Macedonia, remarks the report 
 of the Carnegie commission, " the Young Turks set 
 themselves a task to which the absolutism of the 
 sultan had never ventured: to reconstruct the Tur- 
 key of the Caliphate and transform it into a modern 
 state, beginning by the complete abolition of the 
 rights and privileges of the different ethnic groups. 
 These rights and privileges, confirmed by firmans 
 and guaranteed by European diplomacy, were the 
 sole means by which, the Christian nationalities 
 could safeguard their language, their beliefs, their
 
 The Balkan League 95 
 
 ancient civilizations. These barriers once down, 
 they felt themselves tlireatened by Ottoman assimi- 
 lation in a way that had never been threatened be- 
 fore in the course of the ages since the capture of 
 Constantinople by Mahomet 11. This assimila- 
 tion, this ' Ottomanization, * was the avowed aim 
 of the victor, the committee of ' Union and Prog- 
 ress.' 
 
 " Worse still: the assimilation of heterogeneous 
 populations could only be effected slowly, however 
 violent might be the measures threatening the future 
 existence of the separate nationalities. The men of 
 the Committee had not even confidence in the action 
 of time. They wished to destroy their enemies 
 forthwith, while they were still in powder. Since 
 national rivalries in Macedonia offered an ever- 
 ready pretext for the intervention of tlie powers, 
 they decided to make an end of the question with 
 all possible celerity. They were sure — and fre- 
 quently stated their assurance in the chamber — 
 that the ancien regime was to blame for the power- 
 lessness it had shown in Macedonia. They, on the 
 other hand, witli their new methods, would have 
 made an end of it in a few months, or at most a 
 few years. 
 
 " Nevertheless it was the old methods that were 
 employed. A beginning was made in 1909 by vio- 
 lating the article of the constitution which pro- 
 claimed the liberty of associations. The various 
 ethnic groups, and especially the Bulgarians, had 
 taken advantage of this article to found national 
 clubs in Macedonia. As the 1908 pre-revolutionary
 
 96 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 organizations had been dissolved by their heads, in 
 tlieir capacity of loyal Ottoman citizens, they had 
 been replaced by clubs which had served as the 
 nucleus of an open national organization. Their 
 objective was now electoral instead of armed con- 
 flict; and while secretly arming there was neverthe- 
 less a readiness to trust the Ottoman parliament, 
 to leave it to time to accomplish the task of regen- 
 eration and actual realization of constitutional prin- 
 ciples. The Bulgarian revolutionaries had even con- 
 cluded a formal agreement with the revolutionaries 
 of the Committee of Union and Progress, according 
 to which the return home of the insurgents was re- 
 garded as conditional only, and the internal organi- 
 zation only to be disbanded on condition that the 
 constitution was really put in force. 
 
 '' The committee once in power saw the danger of 
 these national political organizations and entered 
 on a systematic conflict mth its allies of yesterday. 
 From the spring of 1909 onwards, the partisans of 
 the Committee caused the assassination one after 
 another of all those who had been at the head of 
 revolutionary bands or committees under the pre- 
 vious regime. In the autumn of 1909 the final blow 
 was aimed at the open organizations. (The Union 
 of Bulgarian constitutional clubs included at that 
 moment sixty-seven branches in Macedonia.) In 
 November, the chamber passed an Association law 
 which forbade * any organization based upon na- 
 tional denomination.' An end was thus success- 
 fully put to the legal existence of the clubs, but not 
 to the clubs themselves. Revolutionary activity
 
 The Balkan League 97 
 
 began again from the moment when open legal con- 
 flict became impossible. 
 
 " The Christian populations had good reasons for 
 revolting against the new Turkish regime. Articles 
 11 and 16 of the revised constitution infringed the 
 rights and privileges of the religious comnumities 
 and national schools. The Ottoman state claimed 
 to extend the limits of its action under the pretext 
 of ' protecting the exercise of all forms of wor- 
 ship ' and ' watching over all public schools.' The 
 principles might appear modern but in practice they 
 were but new means for arriving at the same end — 
 the ' Ottomanization ' of the empire. This policy 
 aimed at both Greeks and Bulgarians. For the 
 Greeks, the violent enemies of the Young Turkish 
 movement from its beginning, it was the economic 
 boycott declared by the Committee against all the 
 Greeks of the empire in retaliation for the attempts 
 of the Cretans to reunite themselves with the 
 mother-country. It was forbidden for months that 
 the good Ottomans should frequent shops or cafes 
 kept by Greeks. Greek ships stopped coming into 
 Ottoman ports, unable to find any labourers to han- 
 dle their cargo. 
 
 " Even more dangerous was the policy of Turki- 
 zing Macedonia by means of systematic colonization, 
 carried out by the mohadjirs — emigrants, Mos- 
 lems from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This measure 
 caused discontent with the new regime to penetrate 
 down to the agricultural classes. They were almost 
 universally Bulgarian tenant-farmers who had cul- 
 tivated the tchifliks (farms) of the Turkish beys
 
 98 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 from time immemorial. In the course of the last 
 few years they had begun to buy back the lands of 
 their overlords, mainly with the money many of 
 them brought home from America. All this was 
 now at an end. Not only had the purchase of their 
 holdings become impossible ; the Turks began turn- 
 ing the tenants out of their farms. The government 
 bought up all the land for sale to establish mohadjirs 
 (Moslem refugees from Bosnia) upon it. 
 
 ** This was the final stroke. The leaders of the 
 disarmed bands could now return to their mountains, 
 where they rejoined old companions in arms. The 
 ' internal organization ' again took up the direc- 
 tion of the revolutionary movement. On October 31, 
 1911, it ' declared publicly that it assumed respon- 
 sibility for all the attacks on and encounters with 
 the Turkish army by the insurgents in this and the 
 previous year, and for all other revolutionary mani- 
 festations.' The Young Turkish government had 
 not waited for this declaration to gain cognizance 
 of revolutionary activity and take action upon it. 
 So early as November, 1909, it had replied by an 
 iniquitous ' band ' law, making the regular author- 
 ities of the villages, all the families where any mem- 
 ber disappeared from his home, the whole popula- 
 tion of any village harbouring a komitadji, respon- 
 sible for all the deeds and words of the voluntary, 
 irregular associations. In the summer of 1910 a 
 systematic perquisition was instituted in Macedonia 
 with the object of discovering arms hidden in the 
 villagers* houses. The vexations, the tortures to 
 which peaceful populations were thus subjected, can-
 
 The Balkan League 99 
 
 not possibly be enumerated here. In November, 
 1910, Mr. Pavloff, Bulgarian deputy, laid the facts 
 before the Ottoman parliament. He had counted as 
 many as 1,853 persons individually subjected to 
 assault and ill treatment in the three Macedonian 
 vilayets, leaving out of account the cases of persons 
 executed en masse, arrested and assaulted, among 
 whom were dozens killed or mutilated. Adding them 
 in, Mr. Pavloff brought his total up to 4,913. To 
 this number were still to be added 4,060 w^ho had 
 taken refuge in Bulgaria or fled among the moun- 
 tains to escape from the Turkish authorities. 
 
 " The year 1910 was decisive in the sense of af- 
 fording definite proof that the regime established 
 in 1908 was not tolerable. The regime had its chance 
 of justifying itself in the eyes of Europe and 
 strengthening its position in relation to its own 
 subjects and to the neighbouring Balkan states; it 
 let the chance go. From that time the fate of Tur- 
 key in Europe was decided beyond appeal. 
 
 " This was also the end of the attempts at au- 
 tonomy in Macedonia. To realize this autonomy two 
 principal conditions were required : the indivisibil- 
 ity of Turkey and a sincere desire on the part of 
 the Turkish government to introduce radical re- 
 forms based on decentralization. No idea was less 
 acceptable to the ' Committee of Union and Prog- 
 ress ' than this of decentralization, since it was the 
 watchword of the rival political organization. 
 Thenceforward any hope of improving the condition 
 of the Christian populations within the limits of the 
 status quo became illusory. Those limits had to be
 
 100 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 transcended. Autonomy was no longer possible. 
 Dismemberment and partition had to be faced." 
 
 The idea of a Balkan league to drive the Turks 
 out of Europe and divide the Ottoman possessions 
 among the victors was suggested to Bulgaria by 
 Trikoupis, prime minister of Greece, in 1893. But 
 Stamboloff declined to become a party to such an 
 alliance. He recognized that the raw and untrained 
 peasant levies, which were all that the Balkan states 
 would be able at the time to muster, would be no 
 match for the trained soldiers of Turkey. He like- 
 wise recognized that Bulgaria, as the nearest bel- 
 ligerent, w^ould have to bear the brunt of the con- 
 flict. The Ottomanizing policy of the Young Turks 
 already referred to finally brought the Bulgarian 
 and the Greek to an understanding. 
 
 Venizelos, prime minister of Greece, proposed to 
 Malinoff, the prime minister of Bulgaria, in 1910, 
 that the two governments should cooperate and 
 bring pressure to bear on the Turkish government. 
 But no agreement was reached, because of differ- 
 ences with reference to the delimination of spheres 
 of influence. The Bulgars were unwilling to hand 
 over Kavala, Seres, Voden, Kastoria, and Lerin to 
 the Greeks. After the fall of the Malinoff cabinet 
 and the appointment of a Russophil ministry under 
 Gueshoff, pourparlers between the responsible heads 
 of the Bulgarian and the Greek governments on the 
 question of a defensive alliance were resumed. A 
 treaty between the two countries was signed at Sofia 
 the 29th of May, 1912. Peace was declared to be 
 the object of the alliance; but the document states
 
 EX-PRIME MINISTER GUESHOFF.
 
 The Balkan League 101 
 
 that this object can be best attained by a defensive 
 alliance, by the creation of political equality among 
 the different nationalities in Turkey, and by the 
 careful observation of treaty rights. To this end 
 the contracting parties agreed to cooperate to pro- 
 mote correct relations with the Ottoman government 
 and to consolidate the good will already existing 
 between Bulgarians and Greeks in Turkey. It was 
 furthermore agreed that if either was attacked by 
 Turkey, they woidd aid each other with their entire 
 forces, and conclude peace only by reciprocal agree- 
 ment. Both states were to use their influence to 
 reconcile animosities with kindred populations in 
 Macedonia, and to offer reciprocal assistance that 
 they might conjointly impress on Turkey and the 
 great powers the importance of the performance 
 of treaty obligations. The treaty w^s to run three 
 years, and for a fourth unless denounced six months 
 in advance, and was to be kept absolutely secret 
 between the two contracting parties. * 
 
 Bulgaria had already (the 13th of March, 1912) 
 concluded a treaty with Servia, The fundamental 
 point of the treaty was " the delimitation of the line 
 of partition ' beyond which ' Servia agreed ' to for- 
 mulate no territorial claim.' A highly detailed map 
 of this frontier was annexed to the treaty. Bul- 
 garian diplomatists still wished to keep an open door 
 for themselves. That is why they left the respon- 
 sibility for the concessions demanded to the tsar of 
 
 ' For an interesting account of the Balkan league, aee" the aeriea of 
 articles hy J. D. Hourchicr in the London Times for June 4th, 5th, 6th, 
 nth, and 13th, 1913.
 
 102 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Russia. ' Bulgaria agrees to accept this frontier,' 
 they added, * if the emperor of Russia, who shall 
 be requested to act as final arbiter in this question, 
 pronounces in favour of the line.' Their idea was 
 that the emperor might still adjudge to them the 
 
 * disputed zone ' they were in the act of ceding, be- 
 tween the frontier marked on the map and Old 
 Servda, properly so-called, ' to the north and west 
 of Shar-Planina.' ' It goes without saying,' the 
 treaty added, * that the two contracting parties un- 
 dertake to accept as definitive the frontier line which 
 the emperor of Russia may have found, within the 
 limits indicated beloiv, most consonant with the 
 rights and interests of the two parties.' Evidently 
 
 * within the limits indicated below ' meant between 
 Shar-Planina and the line marked on the map, ' be- 
 yond which Servia agreed to formulate no territorial 
 claim.' That was the straightforward meaning of 
 the treaty, afterwards contested by the Servians. 
 The line of partition of which the treaty spoke cor- 
 responded fully with the ethnographic conclusions 
 of the learned geographer, Mr. Tsviyitch; conclu- 
 sions which made a profound impression on the 
 Tsar Ferdinand at the time of his interview with 
 Mr. Tsvijdtch. It was these conclusions probably 
 which made the tsar decide to accept the compro- 
 mise. Mr. Tsviyitch was also the first to communi- 
 cate to the world, in his article of November, 1912, 
 in the Review of Reviews, the frontier established 
 by the treaty. The reason why Bulgarian diploma- 
 tists decided on making a concession so little accep- 
 table to public opinion is now clear. They did more.
 
 The Balkan League 103 
 
 After deciding on eventual partition they reverted 
 to the idea of autonomy and laid it down that par- 
 tition was only to take place in case the organiza- 
 tion of the conquered countries ' as a distinct au- 
 tonomous province,' should be found ' impossible * 
 in the ' established conviction ' of both parties. Up 
 to the ' liquidation,' the occupied countries were to 
 be regarded as * falling under common dominion — 
 condominium.* Finally the treaty was to remain 
 defensive purely, until the two parties * find them- 
 selves in agreement ' on * undertaking common mili- 
 tary action.' This ' action ' was to ' be undertaken 
 solely in the event of Russia's not opposing it,' and 
 the consent of Russia was to be obligatory. Turkey 
 had been expressly designated as the objective of 
 ' action ' in the cases forecast, but included was 
 * any one among the Great Powers which should 
 attempt to annex * * * any portion whatsoever of 
 the territories of the peninsula.' Such were the 
 precautions and provisions designed to giuirantee 
 Bulgarian diplomatists against abuse. All, how- 
 ever, were to fall away at the first breath of real- 
 
 ity. 
 
 " The Bulgarian military convention, foreshad- 
 owed by the treaty, was signed as early as May 12. 
 Bulgaria undertook in case of war to mobilize 200,- 
 000 men; Servia 150,000 — minimum figures, since 
 there could be no thought of conquering Turkey with 
 an army of 350,000 men. Of these 200,000 men, Bul- 
 garia was to dispatch half to Macedonia, and half 
 to Thrace. At the same time the convention took 
 into account the possibility of Austria-Hungary's
 
 104 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 marching upon Servia. In that case Bulgaria un- 
 dertook to send 200,000 men to Servia 's assistance. 
 " The basis of the Graeco-Bulgarian military con- 
 vention was different; it was concluded almost on 
 the eve of general mobilization, October 5. Bul- 
 garia promised, in case of war, an effective army 
 3fi0,000 strong; Greece, 120,000. Bulgaria under- 
 took to take the offensive ' with an important part 
 of its army ' in the three Macedonian vilayets ; but 
 in case Servia should take part in the war with at 
 least 120,000 men, * Bulgaria might employ the 
 whole of its military forces in Thrace.' Now that 
 real war was about to begin and the main Turkish 
 force was directed hither, it was high time to con- 
 template war in Thrace, which had been left, in the 
 hypothetical agreements, to Russia's charge, as Mr. 
 Bourchier assumes. This made it necessary to 
 change, define and complete the military agreement 
 with Servia of May 12. The document was now 
 more than once remodelled in consonance with new 
 agreements arrived at between the heads of the gen- 
 eral staff of the two armies — such agreements hav- 
 ing been foreshadowed in Articles 4 and 13. The 
 special arrangements of July 1 provides that the 
 necessary number of troops agreed upon might be 
 transported from the Vardar to the Maritza and 
 vice versa, ' if the situation demands it.' On Sep- 
 tember 5, the Bulgarians demand to have all their 
 forces for disposition in Thrace, the Servians make 
 objections and no agreement is reached. At last, 
 three days after the Greek military convention (Sep- 
 tember 28), an understanding was arrived at. ' The
 
 The Balkan League 105 
 
 whole of the Bulgarian army will operate in the 
 valley of the Maritza, leaving one division only in 
 the first days on the Kustendil-Doupnitsa line.' But 
 if the Ser^dan army repulsed the Turks on the 
 Uskub line and advanced southward, the Bulgarians 
 might recall their division to the theatre of the 
 Maritza to reinforce their armies, leaving only the 
 battalions of the territorial army in Macedonia. 
 Later, as is known, it was the Servians who sent two 
 divisions witli siege artillery to Adrianople. The 
 Servians were later to declare the arrangements 
 made by the two general staffs forced and not bind- 
 ing, and to use this as an argument for treaty re- 
 vision." 
 
 The Balkan alliance was completed by the inclu- 
 sion of Montenegro. As early as 1888 King Nich- 
 olas of Montenegro had memorialized Russia on the 
 subject of such an alliance. The Montenegrins, it 
 will bo recalled, took the initiative in declaring war. 
 Mr. Bourchier writes in this connection: *' Monte- 
 negro had been at peace for thirty-four years, a 
 period unprecedented in its history. The moun- 
 taineers were spoiling for a fight; their yatagans 
 were rusting in their scabbards; and the interven- 
 tion of Europe, with a scheme of Macedonian re- 
 form, threatened to deprive them of their heart's 
 desire. The liberation of the Macedonian rayahs 
 was only a secondary consideration from the Monte- 
 negrin point of view; the main object was to obtain 
 a * place in the sun,' and in order to achieve it, King 
 Nicholas determined to force the hand of bis allies."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FIRST BALKAN WAR 
 
 Immediate causes of the war — Inefficiency of the great powers — 
 Demands of the allies — Turkey's refusal — Declaration of war — 
 Composition of the Bulgarian army — General Savoff — Kutin- 
 cheff, Ivanoff, and DimitriefT — General Fitcheff — The battle of 
 Kirk Kiliss6 — Bulgarian successes at Lule Burgas and Bunar Ilis- 
 sar — Before the Tchatalja linos — Exjiediency of the attack — 
 The siege of Adrianople — ■ Armistice and peace conference — Re- 
 sumption of hostilities — Capture of Adrianople — The part Bul- 
 garia took in the first Balkan war — Tribute to the splendid quali- 
 ties of her soldiers. 
 
 The immediate causes of the first Balkan war 
 were the weakened condition of the Turkish military 
 forces due to the war with Italy; rivalry and dis- 
 cord among the army leaders; the uprising in Al- 
 bania; the powerlessness of Europe to itnpose on 
 constitutional Turkey the reforms which she had 
 attempted to introduce when Turkey was an abso- 
 lute monarchy; and the consciousness of increased 
 strength among the Balkan states which the alliance 
 had given. But the concentration of the Turkish 
 troops at Adrianople was the final cause of provo- 
 cation. 
 
 The thread-bare shibboleth of status quo of the 
 great powers was displayed with pathetic ineffi- 
 ciency. Montenegro, in defiance of the powers, de- 
 clared war against Turkey the 8th of October, 1912. 
 The army of the little mountain kingdom promptly 
 captured Detchich, Tuzi, and Raganj. It entered 
 the sanjak and took Byelopolyc. The other three 
 
 106
 
 FATHER AND FOUR SONS WHO FOUUHT IN THE FIRST BALKAN WAR 
 (three of the SONS WERE KILLED).
 
 The First Balkan War 107 
 
 Balkan allies sent to Turkey the 13th of October an 
 ultimatum in which they demanded (1) the adminis- 
 trative autonomy of European Turkey; (2) the rec- 
 ognition of ethnic principles in the determination of 
 provincial boundaries; (3) the appointment of Swiss 
 or Belgian provincial governors; (4) the reorgani- 
 zation of the Ottoman gendarmerie; (5) freedom in 
 the matter of organizing and supervising schools; 
 (6) the application of reforms to be under the man- 
 agement of a board to be composed equally of Chris- 
 tians and Moslems, and the supervision of the re- 
 forms to be under the control of the ambassadors 
 of the great powers at Constantinople arid the am- 
 bassadors of the four Balkan states; and (7) the 
 immediate demobilization of the Ottoman army. 
 
 Turkey professed sublime contempt for the ulti- 
 matum, and four days later Bulgaria and Servia 
 declared war. The Bulgars at once occupied Mus 
 tapha pass, and the 24th of October they captured 
 Kirk Kilisse. There were two separate theatres of 
 war during the Balkan struggle — eastern Thrace 
 and western Macedonia. The former was the chief 
 centre from the very outset; here all the hard fight- 
 ing was done, and the battles won by the Bulgars 
 in Thrace decided the results of the war. 
 
 The Bulgarian main army, with most of the troops 
 from tiie first, second, and third military districts, 
 won the victories in ^Fhrace. The first army was 
 under General Kutincheff; the second, under Gen- 
 eral TvanofF, and the third, under General Dimi- 
 trieff. Detachments from the sixth division were 
 concentrated at Kustendil to cooperate with the Ser-
 
 108 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 vians. General Savoff, the military adviser of King 
 Ferdinand, was the generalissimo of the Bulgarian 
 forces. 
 
 General Savoff, who played such an important role 
 in the two Balkan wars, was born at Haskovo the 
 14th of November, 1857. He studied in the military 
 school at Sofia, where, upon the completion of his 
 course, he received a commission as lieutenant in 
 the artillery. He was stationed for a time in East- 
 ern Rumelia, but subsequently pursued a course of 
 training at the military academy at St. Petersburg 
 and studied military matters in France and Austria. 
 He served as captain in the Servian war of 1885 
 and at its close was promoted to the rank of major. 
 He became minister of war in the Stamboloff cab- 
 inet, and applied himself with great zeal and effi- 
 ciency to the reorganization and development of the 
 Bulgarian army. After five years in the ministry, 
 he spent several years in private life, devoted chiefly 
 to travel in Europe. Upon his return he was ap- 
 pointed principal of the military academy at Sofia, 
 which he directed for eight years and made it one 
 of the most effective schools of its type in Europe. 
 He entered the cabinet of Petroff in 1903 as min- 
 ister of war. Large expenditures for heavy artil- 
 lery, shells, and other articles of war caused oppo- 
 sition in the sobranje to his policy and he resigned 
 in 1908. With the outbreak of the war with Turkey 
 he was by common consent chosen as the adviser 
 of the king to direct the Bulgarian forces. 
 
 General Kutincheff was born at Rustchuk the 25th 
 of March, 1857. He was graduated from the mill-
 
 GENEKAL SAVOFF.
 
 The First Balkan War 109 
 
 tary academy at Sofia; commanded a battalion in 
 the Servian war, and distinguished himself at Sliv- 
 nitza. He was in command of the first army in the 
 Balkan war and rendered admirable service to Gen- 
 eral Dimitrieff on his right flank. 
 
 General Ivanoff was born at Kalofer the 18th of 
 February, 1861; was graduated from the military 
 academy at Sofia and received a sub-lieutenant's 
 commission in 1879. He served in the Servian war; 
 distinguished himself for bravery, and was pro- 
 moted to the rank of first lieutenant. He was min- 
 ister of war in the Stoiloff cabinet. 
 
 General Radko Dimitrieff was born at Gradetz the 
 24th of September, 1859; was educated in the mili- 
 tary academy at Sofia ; studied at the military school 
 at St. Petersburg; and was with the famous left 
 wing that won the decisive battle against the Ser- 
 vians at Slivnitza in 1885. He spent ten years in 
 exile in Russia but returned to accept appointment 
 under the StoYIoff government. 
 
 General Pitcheff, joint officer with Savoff in the 
 Bulgarian campaign in the Balkan war, is probably 
 the ablest of the younger officers in the Bulgarian 
 army. He was born at Tirnovo the 15th of April, 
 1860; was educated in the secondary school at Tir- 
 novo and at the military academy at Sofia; was 
 made a lieutenant on the eve of the outbreak of the 
 war with Servia, and showed great ability as a com- 
 mander in the repulse of the Servians at Vidin. 
 He was sent to Italy to study in tlie military acad- 
 emy at Turin. Upon his return he was appointed 
 director of military education. He is a quiet, mod-
 
 110 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 est man of scholarly tastes and the author of two 
 able works on military subjects — Theory of Moun- 
 tain Warfare and The Siege of Vidin. Noel Buxton 
 writes of him: " Fitcheff's bright eyes conceal a 
 reserve impenetrable even for a Bulgar ; but on one 
 subject he opens out — the wrongs of a people 
 worthy of freedom." ^ 
 
 The first signal success of the Bulgarian forces 
 against the Turks was at Kirk Kilisse. Malko Tir- 
 novo had fallen into the hands of the Bulgarians on 
 their march from Mustapha Pasha. On the 23rd of 
 October the Bulgars were in close contact with the 
 Turkish forces at Kirk Kilisse. The town lies in 
 a hollow and is commanded by two forts that stand 
 on high ground. The Bulgarian infantry were 
 launched on the 24th in a continuous and successful 
 assault. The Turkish rear-guard was taken by a 
 direct frontal attack. Mahmud Muklitar with sev- 
 enty thousand Ottoman troops was defeated. Gen- 
 eral Radko Dimitrieff was the leader of the victori- 
 ous forces at Kirk Kilisse. It was not the most 
 important battle of the war, but its moral signifi- 
 cance was very great. 
 
 Mr. Noel Buxton, who was with the Bulgarian 
 statT, writes : '' It was a thrilling experience for one 
 who had visited Kirk Kilisse in bygone years to 
 enter it now with the victors. The superficial ap- 
 pearance of the town, which I had visited in the 
 Turkish epoch, was of itself sufficient to indicate the 
 liberation that had taken place. Every man had 
 
 1 With the Bulgarian Staff. By Noel Buxton. New York, 1913, 
 pp. 165.
 
 The First Balkan War lU 
 
 discarded with delight the red badge of ser\dtude 
 and adopted a European hat. A well-known Chris- 
 tian, who had been a member of the Turkish court 
 of appeal, apologized suddenly, while talking to me, 
 for wearing his hat. He had forgotten, he said, 
 that it was a hat and not the irremovable fez. The 
 streets wore quite a changed aspect in another way. 
 They had never before been full of women and girls. 
 One could not forget that for every good-looking 
 woman, thanksgiving was due for the present free- 
 dom from danger. It was not only happiness but 
 virtue which suffered from Turkish rule; and this 
 became more than ever evident when the Christians 
 were free to show themselves and express their 
 views. The licentious habits of the Turks, which 
 have always degraded the general standard in re- 
 gard to purity, meant at war time the rape and dis- 
 appearance of girls on an unprecedented scale."' 
 
 The first and third Bulgarian armies advanced 
 from Kirk Kilisse to Lule Burgas, where they en- 
 countered the main Turkish army with one hundred 
 and fifty thousand soldiers under the command of 
 Abdullah Pasha. The Bulgarian army made an 
 extraordinary dash the 29th of October. The fight- 
 ing was continuous for forty-eight hours. By noon 
 of the 31st of October it was apparent that the Turks 
 were no match for the Bulgars, and by evening re- 
 tirement became general and degenerated into a 
 rout. The Turks retreated in the direction of 
 Tchorlu. Another engagement took place at Bunar 
 
 1 With the Bulgarian Staff. By Noel Buxton. New York, 1913, 
 pp. 165.
 
 112 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Hissar, which resulted in the complete defeat of the 
 Turkish troops. Then the Turks retreated behind 
 the Tchatalja lines. In the fighting at Lule Burgas, 
 Bunar Hissar, and Tchorlu the Turks had lost in 
 killed forty thousand and the Bulgars about half 
 that number. 
 
 The entrenched lines of Tchatalja stretch from 
 the Black sea to the sea of Marmora, a distance of 
 about twenty-five miles. The actual front to be 
 defended, however, is only fifteen miles, as lakes and 
 arms of the sea that encroach upon tlie land reduce 
 the distance about ten miles. The line follows a 
 ridge and takes its name from the village of Tcha- 
 talja, which lies in front of the main line of defence. 
 The line is strongest in the central and southern 
 sections and weakest in the northern wooded part. 
 Behind these lines the Turkish troops were strongly 
 intrenched, with abundant opportunities of bringing 
 up food, ammunition, and troops from Constanti- 
 nople. 
 
 The expediency of the attack of the Tchatalja lines 
 has been seriously questioned by military experts. 
 Lieutenant Wagner of Austria, who was with the 
 Bulgarian army, writes concerning this question: 
 " From the military point of view it migbt be said 
 that even the most complete victory would give no 
 further advantage than had already been won, for 
 the positions already held by the Bulgarian army 
 in front of the Tchatalja lines were amply sufficient 
 for the military protection of the territory that had 
 been conquered, and the retention of these positions 
 by the army would entail no losses worth mention-
 
 The First Balkan War U3 
 
 ing. But from a political point of view a victory 
 over the Turkish army would undoubtedly break 
 down the resistance of the Porte and compel the 
 sultan's government to make peace on terms dic- 
 tated by the Balkan states."^ 
 
 The siege of Adrianople was one of the most 
 dramatic chapters in the first Balkan war. The city 
 had quite recently been strongly fortified, and the 
 construction of new forts of concrete and armour 
 plates had made it practically a defensible fortress. 
 The Turkish forces of the city were commanded by 
 Shukri Pasha, one of the ablest generals in the 
 Ottoman army. General Ivanoif was in charge of 
 the Bulgarian forces. 
 
 The Bulgarian army had crossed the Turkish 
 frontier and occupied Kurt Kale the 18th of October. 
 The Turkish troops were also driven from the Arda 
 valley at Ortakeui and Seimenli. The bombardment 
 of Adrianople was begun the 28th of October on the 
 northwest front of the fortress. The southeast and 
 southwest forts were invested the 8th of November. 
 It was recognized that the capture of the fort would 
 incur large losses of troops; so, as the fortress was 
 reported badly pro\'isionerl, it was determined to 
 starve out the city by a close blockade. This deci- 
 sion, however, did not diminish the fierceness of the 
 fighting, which continued to the moment of the ar- 
 mistice. 
 
 The peace conference convened at London the 16th 
 of December, 1912 ; but the dilator^' tactics of the 
 
 ' With the Victorious Bulgarians. Bv ITennenengild Wagner. Bos- 
 ton, 1913, pp. 273.
 
 114 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Turks caused the powers to send a note to thq. Otto- 
 man government on the 17th of January, 1913, ad- 
 vising the cession of Adrianople to the Balkan 
 states. The council of the sultan's government 
 accepted the suggestion; but Enver Bey, the hero 
 of 1908, caused a revolution in Constantinople that 
 overthrew the council. The Young Turk party re- 
 turned to power and promptly repudiated the action 
 of its predecessors. The Balkan states declared the 
 negotiations at an end and the armistice terminated. 
 The attack on Adrianople was resumed and the city 
 fell into the hands of the Bulgars the 26th of March, 
 1913. This brought to a close the first Balkan war. 
 
 Bulgaria had borne the brunt of the war. She 
 had done practically all of the hard fighting. A 
 nation of a little more than four million inhabitants 
 had put into the field a total army strength (in- 
 cluding line of communication) of a half million 
 troops. Fifteen per cent, of the total population 
 of the kingdom fought in the first Balkan war; a 
 proportion never reached by any other nation, not 
 even France during the reign of Napoleon. Lieu- 
 tenant Wagner remarks in this connection: " Of 
 the four allied Balkan states, Bulgaria was the one 
 to whose lot fell the most serious task of all. She 
 was to shatter the shield of the enemy and then deal 
 him the death stroke. And in the main, Bulgaria 
 had to accomplish this task alone, and without direct 
 support from any of the allies." 
 
 Foreigners who were eye-witnesses of the fighting 
 during the first Balkan war have borne abundant 
 testimony to the fine qualities of the Bulgarian sol-
 
 Q 
 < 
 
 Q 
 
 a 
 
 33 
 H 
 
 O 
 'A 
 
 n 

 
 The First Balkan War 115 
 
 diers. '^ They were human beings of a fine type,'' 
 wrote Noel Buxton, " peasants of pure blood, re- 
 markably free from immoral diseases, of courage 
 and endurance that has made them renowned as 
 fighters throughout Europe, with qualities of mind 
 and body unique among the peasants of the world." 
 The same author calls attention to the entire ab- 
 sence of love of show. There was no display of 
 pride in the marvellous victories that they had won 
 over the Turks. The quality of coolness, which 
 the Bulgars possess in such large measure, is not 
 a trait of the other races of the Balkan peninsula. 
 Mr. Buxton remarks that at no time during and after 
 the war did he see any sign of excitement. '' It is 
 enough for a Bulgarian that he knows what he has 
 to do and is carrying it oiit. He has no mannerisms ; 
 deep feeling would not be expressed by noise; the 
 whole instinct is towards reality. If a Bulgarian 
 utters an emotional aphorism he does it with studied 
 calm. ' '
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SECOND BALKAN WAB 
 
 CaueoB of the second Balkan war — Conduct of the Greek and Servian 
 armiea in Macedonia — ■ Attempts to disintegrate Bulgarian social 
 and national life — Maltreatment of Bulgarian bishops and teachers 
 — Secret understanding between Greece and Servia before the 
 close of the first Balkan war — Vacillating policy of the prime minis- 
 ter of Servia — Violation of the conditions of the Balkan league by 
 Greeks and Servians — Efforts of Russia to prevent war — Gue- 
 fihoff and Pachitch in conference — Outbreak of hostilities — Plan 
 of General SavofT's campaign against the Servians — Greeks attack 
 the Bulgarian garrison at Salonika — Retreat of General Ivanoff — 
 Invasion of Bulgaria by Rumania — Turkey reconquers Thrace — 
 The peace treaty of Bucharest — Why the Balkan question is not 
 settled . 
 
 The causes of the second Balkan war, the frat- 
 ricidal war of 'Tnly, 1913, among the allies, are ex- 
 tremely complex and little understood in America 
 and Europe. The recent report of the Carnegie 
 commission is so thorough and impartial in its dis- 
 cussion of the factors that brought about the con- 
 flict between the allies, that the author has thought 
 best to give in resume the findings of the commis- 
 sion. 
 
 The report calls attention to the fact that " there 
 had long existed germs of discord among the Balkan 
 nationalities which could not be stifled by treaties 
 of alliance. Rather the texts of these treaties cre- 
 ated fresh misunderstandings and afforded formal 
 pretexts to cover the real reasons of conflict. There 
 was but one means which could have effectually pre- 
 vented the development of the germs — to maintain 
 
 116
 
 The Second Balkan War 117 
 
 the territorial status quo of Turkey and grant au- 
 tonomy to tlie nationalities without a change of sov- 
 ereignty. This could not have been, it is true, a 
 definitive solution ; it could only be a delay, a stage, 
 but a stage that would have bridged the transition. 
 In default of an issue which Turkev rendered im- 
 possible by its errors, Europe by its too protracted 
 patience and the allies by their success, the change 
 was too abrupt. 
 
 '* We find this struggle in Macedonia from the 
 first days of the Servian and Greek occupation on- 
 wards. At first there was general rejoicing and an 
 outburst of popular gratitude towards the libera- 
 tors. The Macedonian revolutionaries themselves 
 had foreseen and encouraged this feeling. They 
 said in their ' proclamation to our brothers,' pub- 
 lished by the delegates of the twenty-five Macedo- 
 nian confederacies on October 5, 1912, i. c, at the 
 very beginning of the war: ' Brothers: — your suf- 
 ferings and your pains have touched the heart of 
 your kindred. Moved by the sacred duty of fra- 
 ternal compassion, they come to your aid to free 
 you from the Turkish yoke. In return for their 
 sacrifice they desire nothing but to reestablish peace 
 and order in the land of our birth. Come to meet 
 these brave knights of freedom therefore with tri- 
 umphal crowns. Cover the way before their feet 
 w^ith flowers and glory. And be magnanimous to 
 those who yesterday were your masters. As true 
 Christians, give them not evil for evil. Long live 
 liberty! Long live the brave army of liberation! ' 
 In fact the Servian armv entered the north oi' Mace-
 
 118 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 (Ionia, and the Greek army the south, amid cries of 
 joy from the population. But this enthusiasm for 
 the liberators soon gave place to doubt, then to 
 disenchantment, and finally was converted to hatred 
 and despair. The Bulgarian journal published at 
 Salonika, Bulgarine, first records some discouraging 
 cases, whose number was swollen by the presence of 
 certain individuals, chauvinists of a peculiar turn, 
 who gave offence to the national sentiment of the 
 country by the risks they ran. ' It is the imperative 
 duty of the powers in occupation,' said the journal, 
 * to keep attentive watch over the behaviour of irre- 
 sponsible persons.* Alas! five days later (Novem- 
 ber 20) the journal had to lay it down, as a general 
 condition of the stability of the alliance, that the 
 powers in occupation should show toleration to all 
 nationalities and refrain from treating some of them 
 as enemies. Four days later the journal, instead 
 of attacking the persons responsible, was denoun- 
 cing the powers who * in their blind chauvinism take 
 no account of the national sentiments of the people 
 temporarily subject to them.' They still, however, 
 cherished the hope that the local authorities were 
 acting without the knowledge of Belgrade. The next 
 day the editor wrote his leader under a question 
 addressed to the allied government : ' Is this a war 
 of liberation or a ivar of conquest? * He knew the 
 reply well enough; the Greek authorities forbade 
 the existence of this Bulgarian paper in their town 
 of Salonika. 
 
 " The illusion of the inhabitants likewise disap- 
 peared before the touch of reality. The Ser\dan
 
 The Second Balkan War 119 
 
 soldier, like the Greek, was firmly persuaded that 
 in Macedonia he would find compatriots, men who 
 could speak his language. He misunderstood or did 
 not understand at all. The theory he had learned 
 from youth of the existence of a Servian Macedonia 
 and a Greek Macedonia naturally suffered ; but his 
 patriotic conviction that Macedonia must become 
 Greek or Servian, if not so already, remained unaf- 
 fected. Doubtless Macedonia had been what he 
 wanted it to become in those times of Dushan the 
 Strong or the Byzantine emperors. It was only 
 agitators and propagandist Bulgarians who instilled 
 into the population the idea of being Bulgarian. 
 The agitators must be driven out of the country, 
 and it would again become what it had always been, 
 Servian or Greek. Accordingly they acted on this 
 basis. 
 
 ** Who were these agitators who had made the 
 people forget the Greek and Servian tongues? 
 First, they were the priests; then the schoolmas- 
 ters; lastly the revolutionary elements who, under 
 the ancient regime, had formed an * organization '; 
 heads of bands and their members, peasants who had 
 supplied them with money or food, — in a word the 
 whole of tlie male population, in so far as it was 
 educated and informed. It was much easier for a 
 Servian or a Greek to discover all these criminal 
 patriots than it had been for the Turkish authori- 
 ties, under the absolutist regime, to do so. The 
 moans of awakening the national conscience were 
 much better known to Greeks and Servians, for one 
 thing, since they were accustomed to use them for
 
 120 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 their own cause. Priests, schoolmasters, and bands 
 existed among the Greeks and Servians, as well as 
 among the Bulgarians. In Macedonia the differ- 
 ence, as we know, lay in the fact that the school- 
 master or priest, the Servian voyevoda or Greek 
 antarte, addressed himself to the minority, and had 
 to recruit his own following instead of finding them 
 ready made. Isolated in the midst of a Bulgarian 
 population, he made terms with Turkish power 
 while the national Bulgarian ' organizations ' fought 
 against it. Since the representative of the national 
 minority lived side by side with his Bulgarian neigh- 
 bours, and knew them far better than did the Turk- 
 ish official or policeman, he could supply the latter 
 with the exact information. He learned still more 
 during the last few years of general truce between 
 the Christian nationalities and the growing alliance 
 against the Turk. Almost admitted to the plot, 
 many secrets were known to him. It was but natural 
 he should use this knowledge for the advantage of 
 the compatriots who had appeared in the guise of 
 liberators. On the arrival of his army, he was no 
 longer solitary, isolated and despised; he became 
 useful and necessary, and was proud of serving the 
 national cause. With his aid, denunciation became 
 an all-pow^erful weapon; it penetrated to the re- 
 cesses of local life and revived events of the past 
 unknown to the Turkish authorities. These men, 
 regarded by the population as leaders and venerated 
 as heroes, were arrested and punished like mere 
 vagabonds and brigands, while the dregs were raised 
 to greatness.
 
 The Second Balkan War 121 
 
 ** This progressive disintegration of social and 
 national life began in Macedonia with the entry of 
 the armies of occupation, and did not cease during 
 the eight months which lie between the beginning 
 of the first war and the beginning of the second. It 
 could not fail to produce the most profound changes. 
 The Bulgarian nation was decapitated. A beginning 
 was made when it was easiest. The openly revolu- 
 tionary elements were gotten rid of, — tlie komi- 
 tadjis and all those who had been connected with 
 the movement of insurrection against the Turkish 
 rule or the conflict with the national minorities. 
 This was the easier because in the chaos of Mace- 
 donian law there was no clearly drawn line of de- 
 marcation between political and ordinary crime. 
 
 " To combat the Bulgarian schools was more dif- 
 ficult. The time was already long past when the 
 schoolmaster was necessarily a member of the ' in- 
 terior organization.' The purely professional ele- 
 ment had steadily displaced the apostles and mar- 
 tyrs of preceding generations. But the conquerors 
 saw things as they had been decades ago. For them 
 the schoolmaster was always the conspirator, the 
 dangerous man who must be gotten rid of, and the 
 school, however strictly * professional,' was a cen- 
 tre from which Bulgarian civilization emanated. 
 This is why the school became the object of sys- 
 tematic attack on the part of Servians and Greeks. 
 Their first act on arriving in any place whatsoever 
 was to close the schools and use them as quarters for 
 the soldiery. Then the teachers of the village were 
 collected together and told that their services were
 
 122 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 no longer required if tiiey refused to teacli in Greek 
 or Servian. Those who continued to declare them- 
 selves Bulgarians were exposed to a persecution 
 whose severity varied with the length of their re- 
 sistance. Even the most intransigent had to avow 
 themselves beaten in the end; if not, they were 
 sometimes allowed to depart for Bulgaria, but more 
 usually sent to prison in Salonika or Uskub. 
 
 ** The most difficult people to subdue were the 
 priests, and above all the bishops. They were first 
 asked to change the language of divine service. En- 
 deavours were made to subject them to the Servian 
 or Greek ecclesiastical authorities, and they were 
 compelled to mention their names in the liturgy. 
 If the priest showed the smallest inclination to re- 
 sist, his exarchist church was taken from him and 
 handed over to the patriarchists; he was forbidden 
 to hold any communication with his flock, and on the 
 smallest disobedience was accused of political prop- 
 agandism and treason. At first an open attack on 
 the bishops was not ventured on. When Neophite, 
 bishop of Veles, refused to separate the name of 
 King Peter from the names of the other kings of 
 the allies in his prayers, and used colours in his 
 services which were suspected of being the Bul- 
 garian national colours, Mr. Pachitch advised the 
 military powers at Uskub (January, 1913) to treat 
 him as equal to the Ser\'ian bishop and with cor- 
 rectitude. This ministerial order, however, did not 
 prevent the local administrator of Veles, some weeks 
 later, from forbidding Neophite to hold services and 
 assemblies in his bishopric, to see priests outside of
 
 The Second Balkan War 123 
 
 the church or to hold communication with the vil- 
 lages. As the bishop refused to take the veiled hints 
 given to him to depart for Bulgaria, an officer was 
 finally sent to his house accompanied by soldiers, 
 who took his abode for the army, after having beaten 
 his secretary. In the same way Cosmas, bishop of 
 Debra, was forced to abandon his seat and leave his 
 town. It was even worse at Uskub, where the holder 
 of the bishopric, the Archimandrite Methodius, was 
 first driven out of his house, taken by force, shut 
 up in a room and belaboured by four soldiers until 
 he lost consciousness. Cast out into the street, Me- 
 thodius escaped into a neighbouring house, in which 
 a Frenchman dwelt, who told the story to Mr. Car- 
 lier, French consul at Uskub. Under his protection, 
 Methodius left for Salonika on April 13, whence he 
 was sent to Sofia. The commission has in its pos- 
 session a deposition signed by the foreign doctors 
 of Salonika who saw and examined Methodius on 
 April 15, and found his story ' entirely probable.' 
 The Bulgarian leaders, intellectual and religious, of 
 the revolutionary movement, having been removed, 
 the population of the villages were directly ap- 
 proached and urged to change their nationality and 
 proclaim themselves Servian or Greek." ^ 
 
 It will thus be seen that while the Bulgarian forces 
 were still figliting at Tchatalja and Adriano])le, the 
 Greeks and Servians, who were merely holding 
 Macedonia for the allies, had already determined to 
 
 * Report of the Inlernalinnal Commission lo Inquire into the Causes 
 and Effects of the Balkan Wars. Published by the Carnegie Endow- 
 mcDt lor International Peace, Washington, D. C, 1914.
 
 124 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 retain permaneutly the territories they occupied, in 
 entire disregard of treaty obligations. That there 
 was a secret understanding between Servia and 
 Greece, subsecjuent events clearly indicated. The 
 Russophil Gucshoff and Daneff cabinets professed 
 to believe in the sacredness of treaty obligations. 
 But Servia and Greece cared very little about such 
 obligations and when the time for arbitration came 
 they openly denounced the treat}"" and made it clear 
 to Bulgaria that they would retain with the sword 
 what they held. The partition treaty had, accord- 
 ingly, been violated months before General Savoff 
 issued the order that is usually supposed to have 
 been the direct cause of the second Balkan war. 
 
 Another causal factor in the second Balkan war 
 was the greed of Servia and the vacillating pohcy 
 of Mr. Pachitch, her prime minister. The creation 
 of an autonomous Albania was certainly a great 
 disappointment to Servian ambition; and this dis- 
 appointment, it has been generally supposed, was 
 what led her to form an alliance with Greece against 
 her Slav neighbour. But the recent report of the 
 Carnegie commission shows that '* On September 
 28, 1912, that is to say, six and a half months after 
 the conclusion of the treaty, and twenty days before 
 the beginning of the first Balkan war, Servia 's 
 representative received a secret circular demanding 
 the incorporation in * Old Servia,' beyond the agreed 
 frontier, of the towns of Prilep, Kitchevo and 
 Ochrida. With the victories of the Servian army, 
 the list of concessions demanded rapidly lengthened. 
 Mr. Pachitch was still only talking of Prilep, the
 
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 The Second Balkan War 125 
 
 town of the legendary hero, Marko Kralievitch, 
 when the army was asking for Monastir. "SMien he 
 asked for Monastir, the army insisted on a frontier 
 coterminous with Greece. The government ended 
 by accepting all the conditions laid down by the 
 country, conditions that grew more and more exact- 
 ing. The military party was powerful ; it was led 
 by the hereditary prince; and it invariably suc- 
 ceeded in overriding the first minister, ahvays unde- 
 cided, always temporizing and anxious to arrange 
 everything pleasantly. The demands presented to 
 the Bulgarians by Mr. Pachitch were as vague and 
 indecisive as his home policy. Ho began in the au- 
 tumn of !I912, by offering a revision of the treaty 
 in the official organ. Then in December, in a private 
 letter to his ambassador at Sofia, he informed Mr. 
 GueshofT, the head of the Bulgarian cabinet, that 
 revision was necessarv. In January his ideas as to 
 the limits within which the said revision should take 
 place, were still undecided. In February he sub- 
 mitted written proposals to the Bulgarian govern- 
 ment, and suggested that revision might be under- 
 taken * without rousing public opinion or allowing 
 the great powers to mix themselves up with the 
 question of partition.' At this moment Mr. Pachitch 
 could still fancy that he had the solution of the con- 
 flict in his hand. He was to lose this illusion. His 
 colleague was already writing his * Balcanicus ' pam- 
 phlet, in which he took his stand on the clause 
 pacta servanda sunt, with the reservation rebus sic 
 stantibus, and pointing to the changes in the dispo- 
 sition of the allied armies between the two theatres
 
 126 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 of war, as infractions of the treaty which must lead 
 to revision. In his speech of May 29, Mr. Pachitch 
 ended by accepting this reasoning. At the same 
 time the military authorities in Macedonia had de- 
 cided to hold on. On February 27, 1913 they told 
 the population of Veles that the town would remain 
 in Servia. On April 3rd Major Razsoukanoff, Bul- 
 garian attache with the general staff of the Servian 
 army at Uskub, told his government that his de- 
 mands were not even answered with conditional 
 phrases. ' This is provisional, until it has been 
 decided to whom such and such a village belongs.' 
 Major Kazsoukanoff learned that at the instance 
 of the general staff the Belgrade government had 
 decided on the rivers Zletovska, Bregalnitsa and 
 Lakavitsa as the definite eastern limit of the occu- 
 pation territorj''. The interesting correspondence 
 published by Balcanicus in his pamphlet refers to 
 the forced execution of this resolution in the dis- 
 puted territories during the month of March. We 
 have here, on the one hand, the Bulgarian komi- 
 tadjis begging, according to the advice of the above 
 letter, for the arrival of the Bulgarian force, and 
 trying in its absence, to do its work, well or ill ; on 
 the other, the vServian army, setting up Serviati 
 administration in the villages, closing the Bulgarian 
 schools, driving out the komitadjis and ' reestablish- 
 ing order.' Between the two parties, contending in 
 a time of peace, stood the population, forced to side 
 with one or the other and naturally inclining to the 
 stronger." 
 
 The Rumanian green book confirms the fact that
 
 The Second Balkan War 127 
 
 ■ - ■ ■ 
 
 there was an agreement between Servia and Greece 
 long before the outbreak of hostilities. As early 
 as the 24th of March, 1913, the Servian ambassador 
 at Bucharest proposed to Rumania a treaty of alli- 
 ance against Bulgaria, and on the 2nd of May the 
 Greek ambassador made the same proposition. It 
 is now known that Greece and Servia entered into 
 an alliance against Bulgaria as early as the 9th of 
 March, although the convention was not concluded 
 until the IGth of May. In the meantime tlie Servian 
 general staff employed the time in fortifying the 
 central position at Ovtche-Pole; and the Greeks, 
 after increasing their Macedonian army by the addi- 
 tion of the regiments released by the capture of 
 Janina, also tried to take up advanced positions in 
 the area of the Bulgarian occupation at Pravichta 
 and Nigrita. These steps were taken while the 
 peace congress was still in session in London ! 
 
 The Carnegie commission reports as follows con- 
 cerning the next step taken by Servia: '* On May 
 25, Mr. Pachitch finally despatched to Sofia propo- 
 sitions relative to the revision of tlio treaty. He 
 justified the new Servian demands by two classes of 
 reasons. First, the clauses of the treaty had been 
 modified in application; secondly, external circum- 
 stances not foreseen by the treaty had profoundly 
 changed its tenor. The clauses of the treaty had 
 been violated by the fact that the Bulgarians had 
 not given the Servians military assistance, while the 
 Servians for their part had aided the Bulgarians. 
 The refusal to leave the Adriatic on the part of the 
 Servians, and the occupations of Adrianople and
 
 128 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Thrace by the Bulgarians, constituted two new vio- 
 lations of the treaty. Servia then was entitled to 
 territorial compensation; first, because the Bulga- 
 rians had not rendered the promised aid; second, 
 because Servda had assisted the Bulgarians; third, 
 because Servia had lost the Adriatic littoral while 
 Bulgaria had acquired Thrace. This time Mr. Pa- 
 chitch was in accord with public opinion. This same 
 public opinion had its influence on the Bulgarian 
 government. Since the treaty of February 29 re- 
 mained secret, the public could not follow the jurid- 
 ical casuistry based on a commentary on this or that 
 ambiguous phrase in the text. The public renounced 
 the treaty en hloc and would have nothing to do with 
 the * contested zone.' If the Servians transgressed 
 the terms of the treaty in their demands Bulgarian 
 diplomatists greatly inclined to act in the same way. 
 If the Servians demanded an outlet on the ^gean 
 as a necessary condition of existence after the loss 
 of their outlet on the Adriatic, and insisted on a 
 coterminous frontier with Greece to secure it, M. 
 Daneff left the allies and contravened the terms of 
 the treaty when he laid before the powers in Lon- 
 don a demand for a frontier coterminous with Al- 
 bania in the Debra region. At the same time Mr. 
 Daneff went against his ministerial colleagues and 
 followed the military authorities in refusing to hand 
 over Salonika. Kussia appeared to have promised 
 it him, after promising the Vardar plain to Servia. 
 Thus on the one hand complications and broils were 
 being introduced by the per\'ersion to megalomania 
 of the National Ideal: on the other (this was the
 
 The Second Balkan War 129 
 
 standpoint of Gueshoff and Theodoroff), tliere was 
 the endeavour to safeguard the alliance. With Ser- 
 via drawing near to Greece, Bulgaria had to join 
 hands with Rumania if it were not to find itself 
 isolated in the peninsula. This was what Austria- 
 Hungary wanted, and it favoured the polic}^ Ru- 
 mania accepted, but on condition of receiving the 
 recompense assured it by a secret convention with 
 Austria in the event of war with Bulgaria : an- 
 nexation of the Tutrakan-Baltchik line. On these 
 conditions Rumania would remain neutral ; it even 
 promised military assistance against Turkey! But 
 Turkey was defeated and the ministry pretended not 
 to desire war with the allies. Why then sacrifice 
 the richest bit of Bulgarian territory? Austria 'r 
 effort broke against these hypocritical and formal 
 — or too simple — arguments. At bottom war was 
 believed to be inevitable and Russia, it was thought, 
 would do the rest. Russia threatened Bulgaria with 
 Rumanian invasion, if it came to war. By the end 
 of May, Russian diplomacy made a final effort to 
 avoid conflict. While agreeing to play the part of 
 arbiter within the limits of the alliance, Russia gave 
 counsels of prudence. Go beyond the Servian de- 
 mands for compensation, they said: despite the 
 implicit promise the Sendans made you of demand- 
 ing nothing beyond what the treaty gave them, agree 
 to cede some towns outside the * contested zone,* 
 ' beyond ' the frontier which they had promised not 
 to ' violate.' 
 
 '' This Russian solution, which could not satisfy 
 the Servians, had not much chance of being accepted
 
 130 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 by the Bulgarians. The attitude taken by Russia 
 filled the opposing parties with some doubts as to 
 the impartiality of its arbitration. The Serv^ians 
 were sure that Russia had not forgotten the Bul- 
 garia of San Stefano and the Bulgarians could not 
 use Macedonia as a medium of exchange on the 
 international market. On both sides the conviction 
 was reached that the issue must be sought in armed 
 conflict. ' ' 
 
 Russia supported the lead of Bulgaria in the Bal- 
 kan league so long as she regarded the alliance as 
 an instrument against Austria. She evidently ex- 
 pected Turkey to win in the struggle; and then 
 under the pretext of '' saving the Balkans," she 
 could fix her price for the service. But the success 
 of Bulgaria in the first Balkan war disappointed 
 her, and she accordingly determined to crush the 
 independent upstart. Russia and Austria were as 
 one as to the undoing of the Balkan league. Russia 
 crushed it by crushing its heart — Bulgaria. 
 
 Gueshoff and Pachitch, the prime ministers of 
 Bulgaria and Servia, at a meeting at Tsaribrod 
 made one further effort to avert war; but nothing 
 came of the conference. The tsar of Russia made 
 a final effort to bring the two countries to a friendly 
 solution of their difficulties. " On May 26, he sent 
 a telegram to the kings of Servia and Bulgaria in 
 which, while noting the suggested meeting at Salo- 
 nika and its eventual continuation at St. Petersburg, 
 he reminded them that they were bound to submit 
 their findings to his arbitrament. He stated sol- 
 emnly that ' the state which begins the war will
 
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 H 
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 The Second Balkan War 131 
 
 answer for its conduct to Slavism.' He reserved 
 to himself entire freedom to decide what attitude 
 Russia would take up in view of the ' possible con- 
 sequences of this criminal strife.' The secret diplo- 
 matic correspondence explains this threat. If Ser- 
 via will not submit to Russian arbitration ' it will 
 risk its existence.' If it is Bulgaria that resists, 
 ' it will be attacked, in the war with the allies, by 
 Rumania and Turkey.' " 
 
 Neither Servia nor Bulgaria really cared for the 
 intervention of the tsar of Russia. He was dis- 
 trusted by both of the contestants. Mr. Gueshoff 
 had resigned as prime minister of Bulgaria the 17th 
 of May; and while the Daneff ministry was still 
 engaged in pourimrlers with Russia and the ex- 
 allies, hostilities were precipitated by General Sa- 
 voff by the provocation of the Servians. The mili- 
 tary spirit was strong at both Sofia and Belgrade, 
 and neither Mr. Daneff nor Mr. Pachitch possessed 
 the qualities of which great statesmen are made. 
 They yielded to an irresistible public pressure that 
 reopened the bloody strife. As the report of the 
 Carnegie commission well remarks in this connec- 
 tion: " A war of liberation became a war of con- 
 quest for the satisfaction of personal ambition : but 
 its causes, too, lay in strategic necessities ; in legit- 
 imate tendencies implicit in the traditional national 
 policy; in the auto-liypnosis of a people which had 
 never experienced a reverse and was intoxicated by 
 successes, justly recognized by all the world for 
 their military glory; in a misjudgment of their 
 opponents based on well known facts in the past and
 
 132 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 ignorance of the present; in a word in that pro- 
 found belief in their cause and their star which is 
 a part of the national character." 
 
 General Savoff's plan of the second Balkan war 
 was to surprise the Servians by throwing the prin- 
 cipal weight of the Bulgarian army against the Ser- 
 vian home territory by the passes leading from 
 northwest Bulgaria through the Balkan mountains. 
 His aim was to cut off Servian forces in Macedonia 
 from their base. After the attack had been ordered, 
 the Russian government tried to stop the movement 
 of the armies ; and Daneff , in obedience to the wishes 
 of St. Peterwsburg, ordered the retreat of the Bul- 
 garian troops. The delay was fatal. Servia learned 
 the direction of the Bulgarian march; hastily for- 
 tified the passes, and effected a union with the Greek 
 army in Macedonia. At first successful, the Bul- 
 garian army was checked and then thrown back by 
 the reenforcemeuts that Servia was able to push 
 forward by railways and highways. Bulgaria had 
 only the use of rough mountain roads. The Bul- 
 garian troops were thrown on the defensive, and 
 the operations assumed the character of a station- 
 ary holding contest, which prevented them from 
 turning in force against the Greeks, the Rumanians, 
 and the Turks. 
 
 On the 1st of July the Greeks fell upon the Bul- 
 garian garrison at Salonika, massacred some of the 
 soldiers and took the others prisoners. General 
 Ivanoff commanded the Bulgarian forces in the 
 south against the Greeks. His army was composed 
 of thirty-three thousand soldiers, most of them un-
 
 The Second Balkan War 133 
 
 trained local levies who had enrolled eight weeks 
 before. He was compelled to face a Greek force 
 of one hundred twenty thousand troops. Finding 
 himself outnumbered by nearly four to one, he pre- 
 pared to retire from his base, when he was attacked 
 at Kukush the 2nd of July. He drew in his extended 
 wings and made an orderly retreat. He was two 
 hundred miles from the Bulgarian frontier and 
 nearly three liundred miles from his base of sup- 
 plies, with no prospects of reenforcements for a 
 month. 
 
 Seeing that matters were going badly with the 
 Bulgars, Rumania decided to strike them in the 
 back. She mobilized with great celerity the 5th of 
 July, crossed the Danube on a bridge of boats and 
 occupied Nikopol. Cholera and the rising of the 
 river prevented lier army from joining the forces 
 of Servia, Greece, and Montenegro. The Bulgari- 
 ans made no resistance to the invading Rumanian 
 army. On the 12th of July the Turks took the of- 
 fensive and began the rcconqueat of Thrace. Lule 
 Burgas and Kirk Kilisse were taken the 21st of 
 July and Adrianoplo recaptured the 22nd. 
 
 It was apparent that Bulgaria could not meet suc- 
 cessfully the combined armies of five nations — 
 Greece, Servia, Montenegro, Rumania, and Turkey. 
 King Ferdinand appealed first to Europe and then 
 to the tsar of Russia to mediate. Mr. Daneff, who 
 had brought the country to the brink of destruction, 
 resigned. An armistice was declared and negotia- 
 tions were opened at Bucharest the 30th of July. 
 The peace of Bucharest, signed the 10th of August,
 
 134 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 brought to a close the war of l^ulgaria with Servia, 
 Greece, Montenegro, and Eumania ; and peace with 
 Turkey was concluded the 29th of Septemher. 
 
 By the conditions of the treaty of Bucharest, Bul- 
 garia was forced to cede to Rumania 2,969 square 
 miles of territory, containing 286,000 inhahitants, 
 all but fifty thousand of wliom are Bulgars. The 
 wheat alone from this territory yields eight million 
 dollars a year. Practically all of Macedonia was 
 lost to Greece and Servia; and the treaty which 
 was signed a few weeks later with Turkey deprived 
 ker of most of Thrace. The Bulgars were forced 
 to accept these wicked and unjust treaties under 
 force majeure, opposed as they wore on all sides by 
 enemies. But it must be the endeavour of the Bul- 
 garian nation to annul at the earliest possible mo- 
 ment the unfair and humiliating treaty her delegates 
 were forced to sign at Bucharest. Had Servia 
 yielded Kotchana, Tshtip, and Radovishta, and 
 Greece Kavala, the Bulgars might have regarded 
 the Balkan question as closed. But the extreme 
 coveteousness betrayed by her former allies at Bu- 
 charest makes reasonably certain a third Balkan 
 war. For the moment the Bulgars accept their 
 humiliation in grim silence, but they nurse with 
 none the less determination a spirit of revenge for 
 the manifest wrongs they have been forced to bear.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ALLEGED BULGARIAN ATROCITIES 
 
 The press campaign of King Constantino of Greece — Isolation of 
 Bulgaria during the second Balkan war — Personal experiences of 
 the author — Testimony of refugees — What he saw in the Rilo 
 and the Rhodopc mountains — Accounts of atrocities iiublisbed 
 in Le Temps and the retraction — Birthops report,ed killed by the 
 Greeks found alive by the Carnegie comniission — How the Greeks 
 forged the signature of an American missionary — Bulgaria de- 
 mands the appointment of an international commission to inves- 
 tigate the atrocities of all the belligerents — Action of the Hague 
 tribunal — Report of the Carnegie commission — Its findings at 
 Doxato, Seres, and Dcmir Hissar — Responsibility of the Greeks 
 — Charges by the Grecka of mutilation of bodies by Bulgarian 
 soldiers pronounced false by the commission. 
 
 Early in ^uiy, 1913, a few days after the out- 
 break of hostilities between the ]5ulgarians and their 
 former allies — the Greeks, the Servians, and the 
 Montenegrins — King Constantine of Greece took 
 the press of the world into his confidence and made 
 grave and specific charges of atrocities against the 
 soldiers in the Bulgarian army. In a dispatch ad- 
 dressed to the Greek legations in the capitals of 
 Europe he threatened reprisals, and authorized his 
 ministers to make his intentions known. During the 
 month of fighting in the second Balkan war the ani- 
 mosity of the Greek troops was kept at a fever heat 
 by the belief that the population of certain Greek 
 towns had been subjected to pillage, outrage, and 
 massacre by the Bulgars. At the time these charges 
 were made Bulgaria was isolated and her tele- 
 graphic communications cut. 
 
 135
 
 136 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 During the whole of the month of July Bulgaria 
 was completely out of touch with the rest of the 
 world. But from the 2nd of July the Greek press 
 agents kept the new^spapers of Europe and iVmerica 
 supplied wdth letters and photographs that com- 
 pletely alienated the sympathy of civilized nations 
 for the Bulgars. Unlike the Bulgarians, the Greeks 
 welcomed war correspondents and every resource of 
 pubUcity was placed at their disposal. As has been 
 shown by the retractions tliat certain European 
 journals have been forced to make, the foreign cor- 
 respondents were spared the trouble of gathering 
 and writing the alleged charges of Bulgarian atroci- 
 ties. Greek press agents generously did this work 
 for them. 
 
 It was not until after the termination of the sec- 
 ond Balkan war that the Bulgars knew anything 
 about the charges that the Greeks had made, as the 
 five nations with whom they were at war — Greece, 
 Servia, Montenegro, Rumania, and Turkey — cut 
 off all postal communications. While there were 
 practically no w^ar correspondents in Bulgaria at 
 the time, there happened to be a few Americans and 
 Europeans who were spending the summer in the 
 country. The author was one of these foreigners.' 
 He had reached Bulgaria the week before the out- 
 break of hostilities and he was one of the few non- 
 combatants who succeeded in penetrating to the 
 theatre of the war. He was with the Bulgarian army 
 and was in sight of the Greek army; and both be- 
 fore and after the armistice that terminated the sec- 
 ond Balkan war he visited parts of Macedonia that
 
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 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 137 
 
 liad been occupied by both the Greek and Bulgarian 
 forces. 
 
 The author found that in those parts of Mace- 
 donia through which the Greek army had marched 
 the country was devastated. Grain-fields, vineyards, 
 and all other sources of liveliliood had been des- 
 troyed. In his travels in Bulgaria and in excur- 
 sions in tlie Rilo and Khodope mountains he met 
 thousands of refugees who told him they were flee- 
 ing from the atrocities of the Greek army. Most 
 of the refugees were women and children ; they had 
 walked througli the mountains for many days, some 
 of them for twenty-five days ; most of them fled with 
 only the clothing on tlieir backs. He met a party 
 of refugees in the mountains near Ichtiman. It 
 numbered one hundred and five persons when they 
 started from Macedonia, but in a march of twelve 
 days, twenty-five of the children and one old man 
 had died. 
 
 Bulgaria is separated from Macedonia by steep 
 and rugged mountains that are crossed only by 
 mountain trails and rude roads. This is a scene that 
 the author was forced to witness practically every 
 day that he spent in mountain travel during July 
 and August : A party of refugees, old men, women, 
 and children, pausing in their weary journey to put 
 into the earth the body of a companion that had died 
 of exhaustion; a trench a few feet deep was dug; 
 tattered garments that could be spared by some 
 members of the party ser\^ed as sliroud and casket; 
 a few handfuls of earth covered the body; two twigs 
 tied together with grass or roots provided the cross
 
 138 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 that was left to mark the grave, and the homeless 
 pilgrims resumed the hard march towards Bulgaria. 
 The author interviewed hundreds of these refu- 
 gees. Their descriptions of atrocities committed by 
 the Greeks were heartrending, and w^ould have been 
 incredible, but for the overwhelming testimony on all 
 sides. This is the gist of the stories they told the 
 author: We were urged not to leave our homes, 
 that the Greeks would do us no harm. But when 
 we lingered until the Greek troops arrived, our vil- 
 lages were surrounded, the cavalry in many places 
 being employed for the purpose, and all those who 
 attempted to escape were indiscriminately sabred, 
 men, women, and children. In cases where seeming- 
 friendly emissaries sent by the Greek army per- 
 suaded the villagers to linger, no mercy was shown. 
 The men were compelled to give up to the Greek 
 soldiers any arms that they possessed, after which 
 they were shot. The pillagers gave themselves up 
 to orgies of rape, which were terminated by the mur- 
 der of the Bulgarian women they had ravished. A 
 few escaped to tell the fate of the villagers that 
 trusted to the promised mercy of the Greek emis- 
 saries. There was general agreement in their ac- 
 counts of the fiendish conduct of the Greek soldiers. 
 The narrators came from remote parts of Mace- 
 donia. They had left their villages by different 
 routes and had crossed by passes in the Rilo and 
 Rhodope mountains that were miles apart. Un- 
 thinkable as were the tales they told, collusion was 
 even more unthinkable. The report of the commis- 
 sion appointed by the Hague tribunal to examine
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 139 
 
 the question of culpability for the atrocities com- 
 mitted in the second Balkan war verifies the tales 
 told the author of this book by the hundreds of ref- 
 ugees that ho interviewed. 
 
 Although the author had been in Bulgaria and 
 Macedonia throughout the second Balkan war; had 
 travelled freely about the country; and, as above 
 related, had been told by eye-witnesses of outrages, 
 tortures, and murders committed by the Greeks, his 
 attention was first called to Greek charges of Bul- 
 garian atrocities in August. He was visiting the 
 Roman Catholic bishop at Rustchuk. A copy of 
 Le Temps of Paris had somehow come into the hands 
 of the prelate. It related with horrible reality the 
 torture and murder of the Greek bishop of Doiran 
 by the Bulgarian troops. The same journal gave 
 an account of the murder of the Greek archbishop 
 of Seres and of the terrible mutilation of the eccle- 
 siastic. His ears and nose had been cut off; his eyes 
 gouged out and other unmentionable mutilations had 
 preceded his death. Correspondents of Le Temps 
 stated that they personally participated in the mili- 
 tary funerals that were given the two ecclesiastics 
 by the Greek army; and that they had attended 
 requiem masses said in repose of the souls of the 
 bishop and the archbishop. L' Illustration of Paris 
 reproduced photographs of the mutilated and mur- 
 dered Greek prelates. 
 
 Througli the ([uick wit of King Constantine and 
 his press agents these and like charges of atrocities 
 against the soldiers in the Bulgarian army were tele- 
 graphed to the leading newspapers not only of Paris,
 
 140 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 but of Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, London, 
 New York and scores of other large cities in Europe 
 and America. In September Le Temps was forced 
 to publish a retraction. A mummery of the kind 
 had really taken place for the benefit of its corre- 
 spondents, but the ecclesiastics referred to in the 
 published article in July were alive and well ! The 
 recently published report of the Carnegie commis- 
 sion says of the Greek bishop of Doiran: '' We saw 
 him vigorous and apparently alive two months after- 
 wards " (that is, after the reported murder and 
 burial) ; and concerning the torture and murder of 
 the archbishop of Seres, the report remarks: '* This 
 distressing experience in no way caused this prelate 
 to interrupt his duties, which he still performs." 
 The murder of the bishop of Kavala was another 
 tale of atrocity reported by the Greeks, and for the 
 repose of whose soul requiem masses were cele- 
 brated. The Carnegie commission report says of 
 him: ** His flock welcomed him back to them while 
 we were in Salonika." ' 
 
 The story of the archbishop of Seres, with a pho- 
 tograph of a murdered Bulgar stripped and re- 
 clothed with Greek ecclesiastical vestments, was 
 sent to several papers in the United States. The 
 name of the Reverend E, B. Haskell, an American 
 missionary at Salonika, was appended to the account 
 as an eye-witness of the atrocities at Seres. The 
 Christian Herald of New York published the ac- 
 
 ' Re-port of the International Commission to Inquire into the Cause 
 and Effects of the Balkan Warts. Carnegie Endowment for International 
 Peace. Washington, D. C, 1914.
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 141 
 
 count. It was subsequently found that the signature 
 of Mr. Haskell was a forgery. He had been induced 
 by the Greeks to sign a petition for relief for the 
 refugees, after which his signature was adroitly 
 copied and appended to the article in question. 
 
 When Bulgaria learned of the charges that had 
 been made by King Constantine and the newspaper 
 correspondents that were with the Greek army she 
 asked for the appointment of an international com- 
 mission to make investigations of all atrocities 
 committed by the belligerents in the second Balkan 
 war. The Hague tribunal offered to select such a 
 commission and the Carnegie Endo^Tiient for Inter- 
 national Peace to finance it. Baron d'Estournelles 
 do Constant, senator of France and the French rep- 
 resentative to the first and second Hague confer- 
 ences, was selected as chairman of the commission 
 of inquiry. His associates on the commission were 
 Dr. Joseph Redlich, professor of jurisprudence in 
 the University of Vienna; Dr. Walther Shucking, 
 professor of law in the University of Marburg, Ger- 
 many; Dr. Henry Noel Brailsford, editor of The 
 Nation (London) and the best European authority 
 on the races of Macedonia; Professor Paul Milou- 
 l:ov, a member of the Russian duraa; Professor 
 Samuel Train Dutton, of Teacliers' College, Colum- 
 bia University, New York City, and Francis W. 
 Hirst, editor of The Economist, of London. 
 
 The report of the Carnegie commission has just 
 been published (May, 1914). Herbert L. Bridgman 
 in an editorial in a leading American journal says 
 of it:
 
 142 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 *' The report of the Carnegie Balkan Commission 
 is masterly and convincing. For many reasons it will 
 make a profound impression throughout the world 
 and become historic. Bulgaria has waited long for 
 her vindication; but, at last, it has come and is em- 
 phatic. Betrayed, attacked, isolated and traduced 
 by her treacherous allies, she asked investigation 
 and confidently awaited the verdict, which rests 
 upon exhaustive inquiry and bears every evidence 
 that it is both competent and impartial. It should 
 be borne in mind, too, that the commission presents 
 the first opportunity to see the endowTiient in action, 
 to witness the transmutation of ideas, theories and 
 capital into actual results, and it may be frankly ad- 
 mitted that the outcome more than justifies the most 
 sanguine hopes of its founders and friends and gives 
 promise of a new and powerful force in shaping 
 future events and opinions. 
 
 " Here again Bulgaria overplayed her enemies, 
 and by taking the initiative in a line of action alto- 
 gether new and which may become an important 
 precedent, commands universal respect and interna- 
 tional good will. Greece slammed its door in the face 
 of the commission on the ground that it had no juris- 
 diction. Servia gave it the ' frozen face ' of scantiest 
 courtesy and only in Bulgaria was it welcomed, and 
 evidence of all sorts, official, secret and personal, 
 placed at its command. Greek partisans and defend- 
 ers, who have carried on in the press and capitals of 
 Europe and America a campaign which for virulence 
 and mendacity was a fit counterpart to the orgy of 
 blood, lust, arson, and pillage in Macedonia, trans-
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 143 
 
 gressing even outward courtesy concerning the visit 
 of Queen Eleanora of Bulgaria to America, will now 
 have something else to engage their attention, and 
 it will be interesting to see whether they can resist 
 light and truth as violently as they defend and pro- 
 mulgate their opposites. 
 
 " Interest in the report centres on two points — 
 responsibility for the war of June and July between 
 the allies, and for its consequent reign of terror in 
 Macedonia — and on these the testimony is full and 
 conclusive. That Servia and Greece deliberately 
 planned and negotiated to strike Bulgaria and to 
 repudiate the treaties of 1912 is indisputable, and 
 while Bulgaria did actually fire the first shot on the 
 Bregalnitza, as did the Americans at Lexington, it 
 has never been held against them that they brought 
 on the Revolution. The report is particularly clear 
 and explicit on this point and its narrative of the 
 negotiations, for the first time i)lainly and consecu- 
 tively set forth, are a most valuable contribution to 
 history. 
 
 "As to the Macedonian horrors the report is 
 impartial and emphatic. In Seres, Doxato, Doi'ran 
 and other towns during the interval between the 
 withdrawal of the Bulgarian regulars and the Greek 
 occupation riot and lawlessness prevailed, but when 
 the Greek troops came tlie reign of terror began. 
 To those who followed the tale, as it was reported 
 at the time, it is sufficient to say that the commission, 
 after personal examination, accepts as genuine the 
 letters captured from the Greek soldiers, boasting 
 of their unspeakable atrocities by order of their
 
 144 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 officers, gives credence to the reports of barbarities 
 to the wounded, murder of prisoners of war and bru- 
 talities to others, of firing on Red Cross and neu- 
 tral flags, and, in short, declares that all the crimes 
 which shocked humanity and challenged the credu- 
 lity of the world are established by indisputable 
 evidence. Details are given in abundance, not for 
 the sake of sensational effect, but to demonstrate 
 the awful, repulsive truth, and it will bo impos- 
 sible to break the force of tins crushing indict- 
 ment. 
 
 " But the work of the commission and its report 
 are much broader and deeper than disposition of the 
 two immediate propositions which called it into exist- 
 ence. Balkan history, religions, politics, and social 
 orders were all within its competent and impartial 
 review; its report is a model of clear and logical 
 discussion of these highly intricate and complex top- 
 ics, and will at once take high nnd permanent rank 
 as a masterpiece in this crowded field of literature. 
 Besides its resume of the past and analysis of the 
 present it throws light forward, suggesting a com- 
 mission to compel observance by belligerents of arti- 
 cles of war to which they have subscribed, repudi- 
 ated and violated, as in the Balkan wars, and fore- 
 shadows the path of peace and prosperity in under- 
 standing and solidarity among nations antagonistic 
 in race, religion, and social order. All these are vast 
 and far-reaching questions, but the commission han- 
 dles them with courage and sagacity, as men who 
 are honestly striving to advance the day and estab- 
 lish peace on earth and good wall to men. It is not
 
 03 
 
 X 
 
 
 a 
 
 a
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 145 
 
 too much to say that the commission, the report and 
 the endowment responsible for them have laid the 
 world under large and lasting obligations."^ 
 
 The Carnegie commission having shown that the 
 charges made by King Constantine with reference 
 to the torture and murder of the Greek bishops of 
 DoTran and Kavala and the archbishop of Seres 
 had no foundation in fact, it remains to ask what 
 they found with reference to Greek charges of Bul- 
 garian murder and pillage at Doxato, Seres, and 
 Demir Hissar. For here, as in the charges with 
 reference to the Greek prelates, names and dates 
 are given; and as in the cases above examined, 
 the charges are specific. It was the specific nature 
 of the charges that led many Europeans and Amer- 
 icans to entertain the idea that the Bulgars must 
 have pillaged, murdered, and raped as the Greek 
 accounts charged. 
 
 The Carnegie commission made an exhaustive 
 and impartial investigation with reference to al- 
 leged atrocities committed by Bulgarians at Doxato, 
 Seres, and Demir Hissar. It says: ''In forming 
 an opinion upon the series of excesses which marked 
 the Bulgarian withdrawal from southeastern Mace- 
 donia," it is necessary to recall the fact that the Bul- 
 garians were here occupying a country whose pop- 
 ulation is mainly Greek and Turkish. The Bulga- 
 rian garrisons were small, and they found them- 
 selves on the outbreak of the second war in a hostile 
 countr>'. The Greek population of these regions is 
 wealthy and intensely patriotic. In several Greek 
 
 • Brooklyn Standard-Union, the 18th of May, 1914.
 
 146 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 centres insurgent organizations (andartes) existed. 
 Arms had been collected, and some experienced 
 guerilla chiefs were believed to be in hiding, and 
 ready to lead the local population. All oi" this in 
 existing conditions was creditable to Greek patri- 
 otism ; their race was at war with Bulgarians, and 
 the more enterprising and courageous among them 
 intended to take their share as auxiharies of the 
 Greek army in driving the Bulgarians from their 
 country. From a nationalist standpoint, this was 
 morally tlieir right and some might even say their 
 duty. But it is equally clear that the Bulgarians, 
 wherever they found themselves opposed by the 
 armed civil population, had also a right to take steps 
 to protect themselves. The steps which they elected 
 to take in some places grossly exceeded the limits 
 of legitimate defence or allowable reprisal." 
 
 With reference to the Doxato affair, the commis- 
 sion finds that five hundred persons (not two thou- 
 sand as stated in the Greek charges) were killed. 
 The depositions obtained "■ leave no doubt in the 
 mind of the Commission that the Greeks had organ- 
 ized a formidable military movement among the 
 local population ; that Doxato was one of its cen- 
 tres; and that several hundreds of armed men were 
 concentrated there. Provocation had been given not 
 only by the wanton and barbarous slaughter by 
 Greeks of Moslem non-combatants, but also by a suc- 
 cessful attack at Doxato upon a Bulgarian convoy. 
 There was, therefore, justification for the order 
 given from the Bulgarian headquarters to attack the 
 Greek insurgents concentrated in Doxato."
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 147 
 
 There was no doubt in the minds of the investi- 
 gators that the massacre was the work of the Turks, 
 and that the charges made by the Greeks that the 
 Bulgars had given the Tnrks orders to massacre the 
 Greeks were baseless. " But some part of the re- 
 sponsibility for the slaughter falls, none the less, 
 upon the Bulgarian officers. They armed the Turks 
 and left them in control of the village. They must 
 have known what would follow. The emplojTnent of 
 Turkish bashi-bozouks as allies against defenceless 
 Christian villagers was an offence of which Greeks, 
 Servians, and Bulgarians were all guilty upon occa- 
 sion. No officer in the Balkans could take this step 
 without foreseeing that massacre must result from 
 it. 
 
 *' It is fair none the less to note tliat the Bulgari- 
 ans were in a difficult position. They could not oc- 
 cupy the village permanentlj^ for they were threat- 
 ened by Greek columns marching from several quar- 
 ters. To leave the Turks unarmed was to expose 
 them to Greek excesses. To arm the Turks was, on 
 the other hand, to condemn the Greek inhabitants to 
 massacre. A culpable error of judgment was com- 
 mitted in circumstances which admitted only of a 
 choice of evils, ^^^nle emphasizing the heavy re- 
 sponsibility w^hich falls on the Bulgarian officers for 
 this catastrophe, we do not hesitate to conclude that 
 the massacre at Doxato ^vas a Turkish and not a 
 Bulgarian atrocity." 
 
 The findings of the commission with reference to 
 the charges of Bulgarian atrocities at Seres are 
 even more damaging to the Greeks. '' Seres is the
 
 148 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 largest town of the interior of eastern Macedonia. 
 The tohacco trade had brought considerable wealth 
 to its thirty thousand inhabitants ; and it possessed 
 in its churches, schools and hospitals the outward 
 signs of the public spirit of its Greek community. 
 The villages around it are Bulgarian to the north 
 and west, but a rural Greek population approaches 
 it from the south and cast. The town itself is pre- 
 dominately Greek, with the usual Jewish and Turk- 
 ish admixture. The Bulgarians formed but a small 
 minority. From October to June the town was 
 under a Bulgarian occupation; and, as the second, 
 war drew near, the relations of the garrison and the 
 citizens became increasingly hostile. The Bulgarian 
 authorities believed that the Greeks were arming 
 secretly, that andartes (Greek insurgents) were con- 
 cealed in the town, and that a revolt was in prepara- 
 tion. Five notables of the town were arrested on 
 July 1 with the idea of intimidating the population. 
 On Friday, July 4, the defeat of the Bulgarian forces 
 to the south of Seres rendered the position unten- 
 able, and arrangements were made for the evacua- 
 tion of the town. General Voulkoff, the governor 
 of Macedonia, and his staff left on the evening of 
 Saturday, July 5. The retirement was hastily 
 planned and ill executed. There is evidence from 
 Greeks and Turks, and from one of the American 
 residents, Mr. Moore, that some of the troops found 
 time to pillage before withdrawing. On the other 
 hand, stores of Bulgarian munitions, including rifles, 
 were abandoned in the town, and some of the ar- 
 chives were also left behind. We gather that there
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 149 
 
 was some conflict of authority among the superior 
 Bulgarian officers. 
 
 '' The plain fact is that at this central point tlie 
 organization and discipline of the Bulgarian troops 
 broke down. Some excesses, as one would expect, 
 undoubtedly occurred, but the Greek evidence on this 
 matter is untrustworthy. Commandant Moustakoff 
 believes that the notables who had been arrested 
 were released. We find, on the other hand, in the 
 semi-official Greek pamphlet Atrocites Biilgares, the 
 statement that the bodies of four Greek notables were 
 found outside the town killed by bayonet thrusts; 
 among them was the corpse of the director of the 
 Orient bank. For this assertion the authority of the 
 Italian and Austrian consuls general of Salonika is 
 claimed. The member of our commission who vis- 
 ited Seres had the pleasure of meeting this gentle- 
 man, Mr. Ghine, alive, well, and unharmed, and en- 
 joyed his hospitality. Such discoveries as this are 
 a warning that even official Greek statements re- 
 garding these events must be subjected to careful 
 scrutiny. 
 
 " The main body of the Bulgarian garrison, with 
 the headquarters, withdrew from Seres on Sat- 
 urday, July 5. A panic followed, and a squadron 
 of dismounted Bulgarian cavalry paraded the town 
 to maintain order. The Greek irregulars and armed 
 citizens were already under arms, and fired from 
 some of the houses at this squadron. It camped that 
 night outside the town, and entered it again on Sun- 
 day, but apparently without attempting to maintain 
 complete control. On Monday, July 7 (if not on
 
 150 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Sunday), the effective authority passed into the 
 liands of the local Greeks. The archbishop was 
 recognized as governor of the town, and at his pal- 
 ace there sat in permanence a commission of the 
 local inhabitants. Thirty armed Greeks wearing the 
 evzone (highlander) uniform, who were, however, 
 probably irregulars (andartes), had arrived in 
 Seres, and one witness states that they were under 
 the command of Captain Doukas. A Russian doctor 
 in the Bulgarian sanitary service, who was left in 
 the town, heard on Monday a Greek priest summon- 
 ing the inliabitants to the bishop's palace, where 
 arms were distributed, first to the Greeks, and later 
 to the Turks. From Monday morning to Thursday 
 evening these Greek irregulars and the citizen mil- 
 itia which they organized were in possession of the 
 town. Thrice they were threatened by small Bul- 
 garian detachments, which returned and skirmished 
 on the hills outside the town and at the distant rail- 
 way station. But these Bulgarian scouts were not in 
 sufficient force to enter the town. A telegram dis- 
 patched on Thursday by the archbishop to King 
 Constantine begs him to hasten to occupy the town, 
 which is, he says, defending itself successfully 
 against the attacks of the Bulgarians. lie mentions 
 that he is governing the town, and states that it has 
 been abandoned for a week by the Bulgarian author- 
 ities. He fears, however, that the citizens' power of 
 resistance may soon be exhausted. These rather 
 aimless Bulgarian attacks must have contributed to 
 excite the local Greeks, and to inflame a spirit of 
 vengeance.
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 151 
 
 '' The main concern of the archbishop's Greek 
 militia during this week was apparently to hunt down 
 the Bulgarian population within the town and in 
 some of the neighbouring villages. It is conceivable 
 that this measure may have been dictated in the first 
 instance by the fear that the small Bulgarian mi- 
 nority inside Seres would cooperate with the enemy 
 who attacked it from without. An armed Greek mob 
 followed a few uniformed men from house to house, 
 threatening the Bulgarians and all who should assist 
 them to hide. Their houses were pillaged and their 
 wives ill treated, while the men were arrested and 
 taken singly or in batches to the bishop's palace; 
 there they were brought before a commission of lay- 
 men over whom a priest presided. Whatever money 
 they possessed was taken from them by this priest, 
 and the only question asked about them was, whether 
 they were or were not Bulgarians. This process was 
 Adtnesscd by Dr. Klugmann, and the testiinony of 
 this Russian doctor entirely confirms that of our 
 Bulgarian peasant witnesses. From the bishopric 
 the prisoners were taken to the neighbouring Greek 
 girls' high school. In the school they were closely 
 confined in several rooms by fifties and sixties. 
 Fresh batches arrived continuously from the town 
 and from the villages, until the total number of 
 imprisoned Bulgarians reached two hundred or two 
 hundred and fifty. The gaolers were in part citizens 
 of Seres, some of whom can be named, and in part 
 uniformed irregulars. From the first they behaved 
 with gross cruelty. The prisoners were tightly bound 
 and beaten with the butt ends of rifles. The plan of
 
 152 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 ■ ■ ^1 ' ■ ' " ■ ■■ ■ .■—III .Ml ■■■■■■■■ ■ ,^m,, .— .^1 ,■■■ i», , ■ , S 
 
 the gaolers was apparently to slaughter their pris- 
 oners in batches, and they were led two by two to 
 an upper room, where they were killed, usually by 
 repeated wounds in the head and neck inflicted mth 
 a butcher's knife or a Martini bayonet. Each of 
 the butchers aimed at accounting for fourteen men, 
 which was apparently the number which each could 
 bury during the night. The massacre went on in 
 this leisurely way until Friday, the 11th. The pris- 
 oners included a few captured Bulgarian soldiers, 
 a few peasants taken with arms in their hands, and 
 at least one local Bulgarian, Christo Dimitroff, who 
 was known to be an active associate of the Bulgarian 
 bands. The immense majority were, however, in- 
 offensive tradesmen or peasants whose only offence 
 was that they were Bulgarians. Among them were 
 four women, who were killed with the rest. The 
 only mitigating circumstance is that five lads were 
 released in pity for their youth, after seeing their 
 fathers killed before their eyes. "We are unwilling 
 to dwell on the detailed barbarities of this butchery, 
 of which more than enough is recorded in the appen- 
 dices. 
 
 *' We must here anticipate a part of the narrative 
 to explain that in the early morning of Friday, July 
 11, a Bulgarian regular force with cavalry and light 
 artillery reached Seres, engaged the militia outside 
 the town, defeated it, and began toward noon to pen- 
 etrate into the towii itself. There were still sixty or 
 seventy of the Bulgarian prisoners alive, and their 
 gaolers, alarmed by the sound of cannon in the dis- 
 tance, resolved to finish their work rapidly. Two
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 153 
 
 at least of the Bulgarian prisoners contrived to over- 
 power the sentinels and escaped. Some of them, 
 however, were bound and others were too enfeebled 
 or too terrified to save themselves. They were led 
 to the slaughter by fours and fives, but the killing 
 this day was inefficient, and at least ten of the pris- 
 oners fell among the heaps of corpses, severely 
 wounded indeed, but still alive. They recovered 
 consciousness in the early afternoon, to realize that 
 their gaolers had fled, that the town was on fire, 
 and that the Bulgarian troops were not far distant. 
 Ten of them struggled out of the school, and eight 
 had strength enough to reach safety and their coun- 
 tr^Tuen. 
 
 *' The commission saw three of these fugitives 
 from the Seres massacre, who all bore the fresh 
 scars of their wounds. These wounds, chiefly in the 
 head and neck, could have been received only at close 
 quarters. They were such wounds as a butcher 
 would inflict, who was attempting to slaughter men 
 as he would slaughter sheep. The e^adeuce of these 
 three, given separately, was mutually consistent. 
 We questioned a fourth witness, the lad Blagoi 
 Petrov, who was released. We were also supplied 
 with the written depositions, backed by photographs 
 showing their injuries, of three other wounded sur- 
 vivors of the massacre, who had found refuge in 
 distant parts of Bulgaria which we were unable to 
 visit. Among these was George Beleff, a Protestant, 
 to whose honesty and high character the American 
 missionaries of Samokov paid a high tribute. The 
 written depositions of the two men who escaped by
 
 154 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 rushing the sentinels aflforded another element of 
 confirmation. Dr. Klugmann's evidence, given to 
 us in person, is valuable as a description of the 
 way in which the Bulgarian civilians of Seres were 
 hunted down and arrested. The commission finds 
 this evidence irresistible, and is forced to conclude 
 that a massacre of Bulgarians to the number of 
 about two hundred, most of them inoffensive and 
 non-combatant civilians, was carried out In Seres 
 by the Greek militia with revolting cruelty. The 
 victims were arrested and imj^risoned under the 
 authority of the archbishop. It is possible that he 
 may have been misled by his subordinates, and that 
 they may have disobeyed his orders. But the fact 
 that when he visited the prison on Thursday, he 
 assured the survivors that their lives would be 
 spared, suggests that he knew that they were in 
 danger. 
 
 " The last stage of the episode of Seres began on 
 Friday, the 11th. Partly because the}' had left large 
 stores of munitions in the town, partly because 
 rumours of the schoolhouse massacre had reached 
 them, the Bulgarians were anxious to reoccupy the 
 town. Their small detachments had been repulsed, 
 and it was with a battalion and a half of infantry, 
 a squadron of horse and four guns, that Command- 
 ant Kirpikoff marched against Seres from Zernovo, 
 and at dawTi approached the hills which command 
 it. He overcame the resistance of the Greek militia 
 posted to the number of about one thousand men 
 on the hills, without much difficulty. In attempting 
 toward noon to penetrate into the town, his troops
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 155 
 
 met with a heavy iire from several large houses held 
 by the Greeks. Against these he finally used his 
 guns. From noon onward the town was in flames 
 at several points. The commandant does not admit 
 that his shells caused the conflagration, but in this 
 matter probability is against him. One witness, 
 George Beleff, states that the schoolhouse was set 
 on fire by a shell. The commandant states further 
 that the Greeks themselves, who were as reckless 
 as the Bulgarians, fired certain houses which con- 
 tained their own stores of munitions. It is probable 
 that the Bulgarians also set on fire the buildings 
 in which their own stores were housed. Both Greeks 
 and Bulgarians state that a high wind was blowing 
 during the afternoon. Seres was a crowded town, 
 closely built in the Oriental fashion, with houses 
 constructed mainly of wood. The summer had been 
 hot and dry. It is not surprising that the town 
 blazed. We must give due weight to the belief uni- 
 versally held by the Greek inhabitants that the town 
 was deliberately set on fire by the Bulgarian troops. 
 The inhabitants for the most part had fled, and few 
 of them saw what happened ; but one eye-witness 
 states that the soldiers used ]ietroleum and acted 
 on a systematic plan. This witness is a local Turk 
 who had taken service under the Bulgarians as a 
 police officer while they were still at war with his 
 country. That is not a record which inspires con- 
 fidence. On the other hand. Dr. Yankoff, a legal 
 official who accompanied the Bulgarian troops, 
 states that he personally made efforts to check the 
 flames.
 
 156 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 " The general impression conveyed by all the evi- 
 dence before us, and especially that of the Russian 
 Dr. Laznev, is that the Bulgarian troops were hotly 
 engaged throughout the afternoon, first with the 
 Greek militia and then with the main Greek army. 
 The Greek forces advanced in large numbers and 
 with artillery from two directions to relieve the town, 
 and compelled the Bulgarians to retreat before sun- 
 down. Their shells also fell in the town. The Bulga- 
 rians were not in undisturbed possession for so much 
 as an hour, and it is difficult to believe that they can 
 have had leisure for much systematic incendiarism. 
 On the other hand, it is indisputable that some Bul- 
 garian villagers who followed the troops did delib- 
 erately burn houses, and that a mob comprised 
 partly of Bulgarians and partly of Turks pillaged 
 and burned while the troops were fighting. It is 
 probable that some of the Bulgarian troops, who 
 seem to have been, as at Doxato, a very mixed 
 force which included some Pomak (Moslem) levies, 
 joined in this work. The Bulgarians knew that the 
 Greeks were burning their tillages, and some of 
 them had heard of the schoolhouse massacre. Any 
 soldiers in the world would think of vengeance under 
 these conditions. 
 
 " To sum up, we must conclude that the Greek 
 quarter of Seres was burned by the Bulgarians in 
 the course of their attack on the town, but the evi- 
 dence before us does not suffice to establish the Greek 
 accusation, that the burning was a part of the plan 
 conceived by the Bulgarian headquarters. But un- 
 questionably the whole conduct both of the attack
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 157 
 
 and of the defence contributed to bring about the 
 conflagration, and some of the attacking force did un- 
 doubtedly burn houses. There is, in short, no trust- 
 worthy evidence of premeditated or official incen- 
 diarism, but the responsibility for the burning of 
 Seres none the less falls mainly upon the Bulgarian 
 army. The result was the destruction of four thou- 
 sand out of six thousand houses, the impoverishment 
 of a large population, and in all likelihood the pain- 
 ful death of many of the aged and infirm, who could 
 not make good their escape. The episode of Seres 
 is deeply discreditable alike to Greeks and Bulga- 
 rians." 
 
 It remains to notice the charges of Bulgarian 
 atrocities at Demir Hissar; and the finding of the 
 Carnegie commission on this count is of special 
 importance because Demir Ilissar was used as a 
 pretext for the reprisals of the Greek army at the 
 expense of the Bulgarian population in accordance 
 with the order from King Constaniine already 
 quoted. An extremely damaging bit of evidence 
 brought out in the commission's report is the fact 
 that the Greek atrocities against defenceless Bulgars 
 " began in and around Kukush some days before 
 the Bulgarian provocation at Demir Hissar! " 
 
 The commission concludes that excesses were 
 committed by both Greeks and Bulgarians at Demir 
 Hissar. " The Bulgarian army, beaten in the south, 
 was fleeing in some disorder through Demir Ilissar 
 to the narrow defile of the Struma above this little 
 town. The Greeks of the town, seeing their con- 
 fusion, determined to profit by it, took up arms and
 
 158 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 fell upon the Bulgarian wounded, the baggage trains, 
 and the fugitive peasants. They rose too soon and 
 exposed themselves to Bulgarian reprisals. When 
 the Greek army at length marched in, it found a 
 scene of carnage and horror. The Greek inhabitants 
 had slaughtered defenceless Bulgarians, and the 
 Bulgarian rear-guard had exacted vengeance. 
 
 " The case of the bishop has naturally attracted 
 attention. Of the four Greek bishops who were said 
 to have been killed in Macedonia, he alone was in 
 fact killed. There is nothing improbable in the Bul- 
 garian statement that he was the leader of the Greek 
 insurgents, nor even in the further allegation that 
 he fired the first shot. The bishops of Macedonia, 
 whether Greeks or Bulgarians, are always the rec- 
 ognized political heads of their community; they 
 are often in close touch with the rebel bands, and 
 a young and energetic man will sometimes place 
 himself openly at their head. The Bulgarians allege 
 that the bishop, a man of forty years of age, fired 
 from his window at their troops. The Greeks admit 
 that he ' resisted ' arrest. If it is true that he was 
 found with a revolver, from which some cartridges 
 had been fired, there was technical justification for 
 regarding him as a combatant. The hard law of 
 war sanctions the execution of civilians taken with 
 arms in their hands. There is no reason to reject 
 the Greek statement that his body was mutilated, 
 dead or alive. But the Greek assertion that this was 
 done by a certain Captain Bostanov is adequately 
 met by the Bulgarian denial that any such officer 
 exists.
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 159 
 
 " Some of the men in the Greek list of dead were 
 presumably armed inhabitants who ong-aged in the 
 street fighting. Nine are young men of twenty and 
 thereabouts and some are manual labourers. Clearly 
 these are not ' notables ' collected for a deliberate 
 massacre. On the otlier hand, six are men of sixty 
 years and upwards, who are not likely to have been 
 combatants. These leaders of the Greek community 
 were evidently arrested on suspicion of fomenting 
 the outbreak and summarily ' executed.' It was a 
 lawless proceeding without form of trial, and the 
 killing was evidently done in the most brutal way. 
 We are far from feeling any certainty regarding 
 the course of events at Demir llissar. There ums 
 clearly not an unprovoked massacre as the Greeks 
 allege. But thei-e did follow on the cowardly ex- 
 cesses of the Greek inhabitants against the Bulga- 
 rian wounded and fugitives, indefensible acts of 
 reprisal, and a lawless and brutal slaughter of men 
 who may have deserved some more regular punish- 
 ment. 
 
 ** The events at Doxato and Demir Hissar, with 
 the burning of Seres, form the chief counts in the 
 Greek indictment of the Bulgarians. The other 
 items refer mainly to single acts of violence charged 
 against individuals in many places over a great 
 range of territory. These minor charges we have 
 not investigated, since they rarely involved an ac<;u- 
 sation against the army as a whole or its superior 
 officers. Wo regret that we were unable to visit 
 Nigrita, a large village, which was bunied during 
 the fighting which raged around it. Many of tlio
 
 160 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 inhabitants are said to liave perished in the flames. 
 We think it proper to place on record, without any; 
 expression of opinion, the Greek belief that this 
 place was deliberately burned by the Bulgarians. 
 We note also the statement made by a Greek soldier 
 in a captured letter that more than a thousand Bul- 
 garian prisoners were slaughtered there by the 
 Greek army. We have also before us the signed 
 statement of a leading Moslem of the Nigrita district 
 to the effect that after the second war the Greeks 
 drove the Moslems from the surrounding villages 
 with gross violence, because they had been neutral 
 in the conflict, and took possession of their lands 
 and houses. 
 
 " It remains to mention the charge repeatedly 
 made by some of the diplomatic representatives of 
 Greece in European capitals, that the fingers and 
 ears of women were found in the pockets of captured 
 Bulgarian soldiers. We need hardly insist on the 
 inherent improbability of this vague story. Such 
 relics would soon become a nauseous possession, and 
 a soldier about to surrender would, one supposes, 
 endeavour to throw away such damning evidence 
 of his guilt. The only authority quoted for this 
 accusation is a correspondent of the Times. We 
 saw the gentleman in question at Salonika, a Greek 
 journalist, who was acting as deputy for the Times 
 correspondent. He had the story from Greek sol- 
 diers, and did not himself see the fingers and ears. 
 The headquarters of the Greek army, which lost 
 no opportunity of publishing facts likely to damage 
 the Bulgarians, would presumably have published
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 161 
 
 this accusation also, with the necessary details, had 
 it been capable of verification. Until it is backed 
 by further evidence, the story is unworthy of belief. 
 " The case against the Bulgarians which remains 
 after a critical examination of the evidence relating 
 to Doxato, Seres, and Demir Hissar is sufficiently 
 grave. In each case the Bulgarians acted under 
 provocation, and in each case the accusation is 
 grossly exaggerated, but their reprisals were none 
 the less lawless and unmeasured. It is fair, how- 
 ever, to point out that these three cases, even on the 
 worst view which may be taken of them, are far 
 from supporting the general statements of some 
 Greek writers, that the Bulgarians, in their with- 
 drawal from southern Macedonia and western 
 Thrace, followed a general policy of devastation and 
 massacre. They held five considerable Gra^co-Turk- 
 ish towns in this area, and many smaller places — 
 Drama, Kavala, Xanthi, Gumurjina, and Dedea- 
 gatch. In none of these did the Bulgarians burn 
 and massacre, though some acts of violence occurred. 
 The wrong they did leaves a sinister blot upon their 
 record, but it must be \dewed in its just propor- 
 tions."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 GREEK ATROCITIES IN THE BALKAN WARS 
 
 Responsibility of the Greek press in inciting feelings of hatred against 
 the Bulgam — The ordrr of King Constantine for Greek reprisals 
 antedated the alleged Bulgarian provocation — Sacking and burn- 
 ing Kukush by the Greeks — Tales of torture by Macedonian ref- 
 ugees — Catholic priests and Armenian doctors flogged for money — 
 Attempts of Greek soldiers to violate nuns — Damaging evidence 
 of the letters found in the Razlog district of Macedonia — Greek 
 soldiers boast of their cruelties — One hundred and sixty Bulgarian 
 villages burned by the Greeks. 
 
 The Greeks were quite willing that the atrocities 
 of the Bulgarian soldiers should be investigated by 
 the Carnegie commission; but it was quite other- 
 wise when the commission sought to investigate the 
 atrocities that had been committed by the defenders 
 of Hellenism. " It was a matter for wonder and 
 for some reflection," writes Professor William M. 
 Sloane of Columbia University, '* when there began 
 to emanate from Greek sources long telegraphic dis- 
 patches calling the attention of the civilized world 
 to the atrocities permitted by Bulgaria. The ques- 
 tion was, had the Greeks been practising the guile 
 for which of old they were renowned, and taking a 
 leaf from the Bulgarian book? The agents they 
 dispatched with much publicity to investigate the 
 shameful deeds of others about which there was no 
 question, might possibly have been better employed 
 in investigating their own kinsfolk and ending for 
 
 162
 
 
 a 
 
 ■J 
 5 

 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 1G3 
 
 ever the activities of both the Greek and the Turkish 
 komitadjis along the frontiers of the northeast."^ 
 In spite of the veiled opposition of the Greek 
 government to the investigation by the Carnegie 
 commission of the atrocities of its soldiers, such an 
 investigation was, nevertheless, made, and the find- 
 ings of the commission are embodied in the follow- 
 ing paragraphs: ** It required no artificial incite- 
 ment to produce the race-hatred which explains the 
 excesses of the Christian allies, and more especially 
 of the Bulgarians toward the Turks. Race, lan- 
 guage, history, and religion have made a barrier 
 which only the more tolerant minds of either creed 
 are able wholly to surmount. It is less easy to 
 explain the excesses of which Greeks and Bulgarians 
 were guilty toward each other. The two races are 
 sharply distinguished by temperament. A tradi- 
 tional enmity has divided them from the dawn of 
 history, and this is aggravated in Macedonia by a 
 certain social cleavage. But for a year the two races 
 had been allies, united against a common enemy. 
 When policy dictated a breach, it was necessary to 
 prepare public opinion ; and the Greek press, as if 
 by a common impulse, devoted itself to this work. 
 To the rank and file of all three Balkan armies, the 
 idea of a fratricidal war was at first repugnant and 
 inexplicable. The passions of the Greek army were 
 roused by a daily diet of violent articles. The Greek 
 press had had little to say regarding the Bulgarian 
 excesses against the Turks while the facts were still 
 
 • The Balkans: a Laboratory of History. By William M. Sloane. 
 New York, 1914, pp. 322.
 
 164 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 fresh, and indeed none of the allies had the right 
 to be censorious, for none of their records were 
 clean. Now everything was dragged into the light, 
 and the record of the Bulgarian bands, deplorable 
 in itself, lost nothing in the telling. Day after day 
 the Bulgarians were represented as a race of mon- 
 sters, and public feeling was roused to a pitch of 
 chauvinism which made it inevitable that war, when 
 it came, should be ruthless. In talk and in print 
 one phrase summed up the general feeling of the 
 Greeks toward the Bulgarians, ' Dhen einai anthro- 
 poif ' (They are not human beings). In their ex- 
 citement and indignation the Greeks came to think 
 of themselves as the appointed avengers of civiliza- 
 tion against a race which stood outside the pale of 
 humanity. 
 
 " When an excitable southern race, which has 
 been schooled in Balkan conceptions of vengeance, 
 begins to reason in this way, it is easy to predict 
 the consequences. Deny that your enemies are men, 
 and presently you will treat them as vermin. Only 
 half realizing the full meaning of what he said, a 
 Greek officer remarked to the writer, * Wlien you 
 have to deal with barbarians, you must behave like 
 a barbarian yourself. It is the only thing they un- 
 derstand.' The Greek army went into the war, its 
 mind inflamed with anger and contempt. A gaudily 
 coloured print, which we saw in the streets of Sa- 
 lonika and the Pirseus, eagerly bought by the Greek 
 soldiers returning to their lioraes, reveals the depth 
 of the brutality to which this race-hatred had sunk 
 them. It shows a Greek evzone (highlander) hold-
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 165 
 
 ing a living Bulgarian soldier with both hands, while 
 he gnaws the face of his victim with his teeth, like 
 some beast of prey. It is entitled the Bulgarophagos 
 (Bulgar-eater), and is adorned with the following 
 verses : 
 
 The sea of fire which boils in my breast 
 And calls for vengeance with the aavage waves of my soul, 
 Will be quenched when the monsters of Sofia are still,' 
 And thy life blood extinguishes my hate.' 
 
 '* Another popular battle picture shows a Greek 
 soldier gouging out the eyes of a living Bulgarian. 
 A third shows as an episode of a battle scene the 
 exploit of the Bulgar-eater. 
 
 "As an evidence of the feeling which animated 
 the Greek army these things have their importance. 
 They mean, in plain words, that Greek soldiers 
 wished to believe that they and their comrades per- 
 petrated bestial cruelties. A print seller who issued 
 such pictures in a western country would be guilty 
 of a gross libel on its army. 
 
 " The excesses of the Greek army began on July 
 4 with the first conflict at Kukush (Kilkis). A few 
 days later the excesses of the Bulgarians at Doxato 
 (July 13), Seres (July 11), and Demir Hissar (July 
 7) w^ere knowTi and still further inflamed the anger 
 of the Greeks. On July 12 King Constantine an- 
 nounced in a dispatch which reported the slaughter 
 at Demir Hissar that he ' found himself obliged with 
 profound regret to proceed to reprisals.' A com- 
 parison of dates will shoiv tlmt the Greek ' re- 
 prisals ' had begun some days before the Bulgarian 
 * provocation.*
 
 166 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 " It was with the defeat of the little Bulgarian 
 army at Kukush, after a stubborn three days' de- 
 fence against a superior Greek force, that the Greek 
 campaign assumed the character of a war of devas- 
 tation. The Greek army entered the town of Ku- 
 kush on July 4. We do not propose to lay stress 
 on the evidence of Bulgarian witnesses regarding 
 certain events which preceded their entry. Shells 
 fell outside the town among groups of fugitive peas- 
 ants from the villages, while within the town shells 
 fell in the orphanage and hospital conducted by the 
 French Catholic sisters under the protection of the 
 French flag. It is possible and charitable to explain 
 such incidents as the effect of an unlucky chance. 
 The evidence of European eye-witnesses confirms 
 the statements of the Bulgarian refugees on one 
 crucial point. These shells caused no general con- 
 flagration, and it is doubtful wiiether more than 
 three or four houses were set on fire by them. When 
 the Greek army entered Kukush it was still intact. 
 It is to-day a heap of ruins — as a member of the 
 commission reports, after a visit to which the Greek 
 authorities opposed several obstacles. It was a 
 prosperous town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, 
 the centre of a purely Bulgarian district and the seat 
 of several flourishing schools. The bent standards 
 of its electric lamps still testify to the efforts which 
 it had made to attain a level of material progress 
 unusual in Turkey. That its destruction was delib- 
 erate admits of no doubt. The great rriajority of the 
 inhabitants fled before the arrival of the Greeks. 
 About four hundred, chiefly old people and children,
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 167 
 
 had found shelter in the Catholic orphanage, and 
 were not molested. European eye-witnesses de- 
 scribe the systematic entry of the Greek soldiers- into 
 house after house. Any of the inhabitants who were 
 found inside were first evicted, pillage followed, and 
 then, usually after a slight explosion, the house burst 
 into flames. Fugitives continued to arrive in the 
 orphanage while the town was burning, and several 
 women stated that they had been violated by Greek 
 soldiers. In one case a soldier, more chivalrous than 
 his comrades, brought a woman to the orphanage 
 whom he had saved from violation. Some civilians 
 were killed by the Greek cavalry as they rode in, 
 and many lives were lost in the course of the sacking 
 and burning of Kukush. Wc have received a de- 
 tailed list from a Bulgarian source of seventy-four 
 inhabitants who are believed to have been killed. 
 Most of them are old women, and eleven are babies. 
 " The main fact on which we must insist is that 
 the Greek army inaugurated the second war by the 
 deliberate burning of a Bulgarian to\'kTi. A singular 
 fact which has some bearing on Greek policy is that 
 the refugees who took shelter in the French orphan- 
 age were still, on September 6, long after the con- 
 clusion of peace, closely confined as prisoners within 
 it, though hardly a man among them is capable of 
 bearing arms. A notice in Greek on its outer door 
 states that they are forbidden to leave its precincts. 
 Meanwhile, Greek (or rather * Grecoman ') refugees 
 from Strumnitza were being installed on the sites of 
 the houses which once belonged to Bulgarians, and 
 in the few buildings (perhaps a dozen in number)
 
 168 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 which escaped the flames. The inference is irresist- 
 ible. In conquering the Kukush district, the Greeks 
 were resolved to have no Bulgarian subjects. 
 
 ** The precedent of Kukush was only too faith- 
 fully followed in the villages. In the caza (county) 
 of Kukush alone no less than forty Bulgarian vil- 
 lages were burned by the Greek army in its north- 
 ward march. Detachments of cavalry went from 
 village to village, and the work of the regulars was 
 completed by bashi-bozouks. It was a part of the 
 Greek plan of campaign to use the local Turkish 
 population as an instrument in the work of devas- 
 tation. In some cases they were armed and even 
 provided with uniforms. In no instance, however, 
 of which we have a record, were the Turks solely 
 responsible for the burning of a village. They 
 followed the Greek troops and acted under their 
 protection. We have no means of ascertaining 
 whether any general order was given which regu- 
 lated the burning of the Bulgarian villages. A 
 Greek sergeant among the prisoners of war in Sofia, 
 stated in reply to a question which a member of the 
 commission put to him, that he and his comrades 
 burned the villages around Kukush because the in- 
 habitants had fled. It is a fact that one mainly 
 Catholic village (Todoraki), in which most of the in- 
 habitants remained, was not burned, though it was 
 thoroughly pillaged. But the fate of other villages, 
 notably Akanjeli, in which the inhabitants not only 
 remained, but even welcomed the Greek troops, dis- 
 poses of this explanation. "Wliatever may have been 
 the terms of the orders under which the Greek
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 155 
 
 met with a heavy iire from several large liouses held 
 by the Greeks. Against these he finally used his 
 guns. From noon onward the town was in flames 
 at several points. The commanxlant does not admit 
 that his shells caused the conflagration, but in this 
 matter probability is against him. One witness, 
 George Beleff, states that the schoolhouse was set 
 on fire by a shell. The commandant states further 
 that the Greeks themselves, who were as reckless 
 as the Bulgarians, fired certain houses which con- 
 tained their own stores of munitions. It is probable 
 that the Bulgarians also set on fire the buildings 
 in which their own stores were housed. Both Greeks 
 and Bulgarians state that a high wind was blowing 
 during the afternoon. Seres was a crowded town, 
 closely built in the Oriental fashion, with houses 
 constructed mainly of wood. The summer had been 
 hot and dry. It is not surprising that the town 
 blazed. We must give due weight to the belief uni- 
 versally held by the Greek inhabitants that the town 
 was deliberately set on fire by the Bulgarian troops. 
 The inhabitants for the most part had fled, and few 
 of them saw what happened ; but one eye-witness 
 states that the soldiers used petroleum and acted 
 on a systematic plan. This witness is a local Turk 
 who had taken service under the Bulgarians as a 
 police officer while they were still at war with liis 
 country. That is not a record which inspires con- 
 fidence. On the other hand, Dr. Yankoif, a legal 
 official who accompanied the Bulgarian troops, 
 states that he personally made efforts to check the 
 flames.
 
 156 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 *' The general impression conveyed by all the evi- 
 dence before us, and especially that of the Russian 
 Dr. Laznev, is that the Bulgarian troops were hotly 
 engaged throughout the afternoon, first with the 
 Greek militia and then with the main Greek army. 
 The Greek forces advanced in large numbers and 
 with artillery from two directions to relieve the town, 
 and compelled the Bulgarians to retreat before sun- 
 down. Their shells also fell in the town. The Bulga- 
 rians were not in undisturbed possession for so much 
 as an hour, and it is difficult to believe that they can 
 have had leisure for much systematic incendiarism. 
 On the other hand, it is indisputable that some Bul- 
 garian villagers who followed the troops did delib- 
 erately burn houses, and that a mob comprised 
 partly of Bulgarians and partly of Turks pillaged 
 and burned while the troops were fighting. It is 
 probable that some of the Bulgarian troops, who 
 seem to have been, as at Doxato, a very mixed 
 force which included some Pomak (Moslem) levies, 
 joined in this work. The Bulgarians knew that the 
 Greeks were burning their \illages, and some of 
 them had heard of the schoolhouse massacre. Any 
 soldiers in the world would think of vengeance under 
 these conditions. 
 
 *' To sum up, we must conclude that the Greek 
 quarter of Seres was burned by the Bulgarians in 
 the course of their attack on the town, but the evi- 
 dence before us does not suffice to establish the Greek 
 accusation, that the burning was a part of the plan 
 conceived by the Bulgarian headquarters. But un- 
 questionably the whole conduct both of the attack
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 157 
 
 and of the defence contributed to bring about the 
 conflagration, and some of the attacking force did un- 
 doubtedly burn houses. There is, in short, no trust- 
 worthy evidence of premeditated or official incen- 
 diarism, but the responsibility for the burning of 
 Seres none the less falls mainly upon the Bulgarian 
 army. The result was the destruction of four thou- 
 sand out of six thousand houses, the impoverishment 
 of a large population, and in all likelihood the pain- 
 ful death of many of the aged and infirm, who could 
 not make good their escape. The episode of Seres 
 is deeply discreditable alike to Greeks and Bulga- 
 rians." 
 
 It remains to notice the charges of Bulgarian 
 atrocities at Demir Hissar; and the finding of the 
 Carnegie commission on this count is of special 
 importance because Demir Ilissar was used as a 
 pretext for the reprisals of the Greek army at the 
 expense of the Bulgarian population in accordance 
 with the order from King Constanline already 
 quoted. An extremely damaging bit of evidence 
 brought out in the commission's report is the fact 
 that the Greek atrocities against defenceless Bulgars 
 '* began in and around Kukush some days before 
 the Bulgarian provocation at Demir Hissar! " 
 
 The commission concludes that excesses were 
 committed by both Greeks and Bulgarians at Demir 
 Hissar. " The Bulgarian army, beaten in the south, 
 was fleeing in some disorder through Demir Hissar 
 to the narrow defile of the Struma above this little 
 town. The Greeks of the to\vn, seeing their con- 
 fusion, determined to profit by it, took up arms and
 
 158 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 fell upon the Bulgarian wounded, the baggage trains, 
 and the fugitive peasants. They rose too soon and 
 exposed themselves to Bulgarian reprisals. When 
 the Greek army at length marched in, it found a 
 scene of carnage and horror. The Greek inhabitants 
 had slaughtered defenceless Bulgarians, and the 
 Bulgarian rear-guard had exacted vengeance. 
 
 " The case of the bishop has naturally attracted 
 attention. Of the four Greek bishops who were said 
 to have been killed in Macedonia, he alone was in 
 fact killed. There is nothing improbable in the Bul- 
 garian statement that he was the leader of the Greek 
 insurgents, nor even in the further allegation that 
 he fired the first shot. The bishops of Macedonia, 
 whether Greeks or Bulgarians, are always the rec- 
 ognized political heads of their community; they 
 are often in close touch with the rebel bands, and 
 a young and energetic man will sometimes place 
 himself openly at their head. The Bulgarians allege 
 that the bishop, a man of forty years of age, fired 
 from his window at their troops. The Greeks admit 
 that be ' resisted ' arrest. If it is true that he was 
 found with a revolver, from which some cartridges 
 had been fired, there was technical justification for 
 regarding him as a combatant. The hard law of 
 war sanctions the execution of civilians taken witb 
 arms in their hands. There is no reason to reject 
 the Greek statement that bis body was mutilated, 
 dead or alive. But the Greek assertion that this was 
 done by a certain Captain Bostanov is adequately 
 met by the Bulgarian denial that any such oflScer 
 exists.
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 159 
 
 ** Some of the men in the Greek list of dead were 
 presumably armed inhabitants who engaged in the 
 street fighting. Nine are young men of twenty and 
 thereabouts and some are manual labourers. Clearly 
 these are not * notables ' collected for a deliberate 
 massacre. On the other hand, six are men of sixty 
 years and upwards, who are not likely to have been 
 combatants. These leaders of the Greek community 
 were evidently arrested on suspicion of fomenting 
 the outbreak and summarily ' executed.' It was a 
 lawless proceeding without form of trial, and the 
 killing was evidently done in the most brutal way. 
 We are far from feeling any certainty regarding 
 the course of events at Demir llissar. There urns 
 clearly not an unprovoked massacre as the Greeks 
 allege. But there did follow on the cowardly ex- 
 cesses of the Greek inhabitants against the Bulga- 
 rian wounded and fugitives, indefensible acts of 
 reprisal, and a lawless and brutal slaughter of men 
 who may have deserved some more regular punish- 
 ment. 
 
 " The events at Doxato and Demir Hissar, with 
 the burning of Seres, form the chief counts in the 
 Greek indictment of the Bulgarians. The other 
 items refer mainly to single acts of violence charged 
 against individuals in many places over a great 
 range of territory. These minor charges we have 
 not investigated, since they rarely involved an ac<;u- 
 sation against the army as a whole or its superior 
 officers. We regret that wo were unable to visit 
 Nigrita, a large village, which was bunied during 
 the fighting which raged around it. Many of the
 
 160 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 inhabitants are said to have perished in the flames. 
 We think it proper to place on record, without any; 
 expression of opinion, the Greek belief that this 
 place was dehberately burned by the Bulgarians. 
 We note also the statement made by a Greek soldier 
 in a captured letter that more than a thousand Bul- 
 garian prisoners were slaughtered there by the 
 Greek army. We have also before us the signed 
 statement of a leading Moslem of the Nigrita district 
 to the effect that after the second war the Greeks 
 drove the Moslems from the surrounding villages 
 with gross violence, because they had been neutral 
 in the conflict, and took possession of their lands 
 and houses. 
 
 " It remains to mention the charge repeatedly 
 made by some of the diplomatic representatives of 
 Greece in European capitals, that the fingers and 
 ears of women were found in the pockets of captured 
 Bulgarian soldiers. We need hardly insist on the 
 inherent improbability of this vague story. Such 
 relics would soon become a nauseous possession, and 
 a soldier about to surrender would, one supposes, 
 endeavour to throw away such damning evidence 
 of his guilt. The only authority quoted for this 
 accusation is a correspondent of the Times. We 
 saw the gentleman in question at Salonika, a Greek 
 journalist, who was acting as deputy for the Times 
 correspondent. He had the story from Greek sol- 
 diers, and did not himself see the fingers and ears. 
 The headquarters of the Greek army, which lost 
 no opportunity of publishing facts likely to damage 
 the Bulgarians, would presumably have published
 
 Alleged Bulgarian Atrocities 161 
 
 this accusation also, with the necessary details, had 
 it been capable of verification. Until it is backed 
 by further evidence, the story is unworthy of belief. 
 '' The case against the Bulgarians which remains 
 after a critical examination of the evidence relating 
 to Doxato, Seres, and Demir Hissar is sufficiently 
 grave. In each case the Bulgarians acted under 
 provocation, and in each case the accusation is 
 grossly exaggerated, but their reprisals were none 
 the less lawless and unmeasured. It is fair, how- 
 ever, to point out that these three cases, even on the 
 worst view which may be taken of them, are far 
 from supporting the general statements of some 
 Greek writers, that the Bulgarians, in their with- 
 drawal from southern Macedonia and western 
 Thrace, followed a general policy of devastation and 
 massacre. They held five considerable Gr<Tco-Turk- 
 ish towns in this area, and many smaller places — 
 Drama, Kavala, Xanthi, Gumurjina, and Dedea- 
 gatch. In none of these did the Bulgarians burn 
 and massacre, though some acts of violence occurred. 
 The wrong they did leaves a sinister blot upon their 
 record, but it must be \dewed in its just propor- 
 tions."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 GREEK ATROCITIES IN THE BALKAN WAES 
 
 Responsibility of the Greek press in inciting feelinga of hatred against 
 the Bulgars — The order of King Constantine for Greek reprisals 
 antedated the alleged Bulgarian provocation — Sacking and burn- 
 ing Kukush by the Greeks — Tales of torture by Macedonian ref- 
 ugeas — Catholic priests and Armenian doctors flogged for money — 
 Attempts of Greek soldiers to violate nuns — Damaging evidence 
 of the letters found in the Razlog district of Macedonia — Greek 
 soldiers boast of their cruelties — One hundred and sixty Bulgarian 
 villages burned by the Greeks. 
 
 The Greeks were quite willing that the atrocities 
 of the Bulgarian soldiers should be investigated by 
 the Carnegie commission; but it was quite other- 
 wise when the commission sought to investigate the 
 atrocities that had been committed by the defenders 
 of Hellenism. '' It was a matter for wonder and 
 for some reflection," writes Professor "William M. 
 Sloane of Columbia University, " when there began 
 to emanate from Greek sources long telegraphic dis- 
 patches calling the attention of the civilized world 
 to the atrocities permitted by Bulgaria. The ques- 
 tion was, had the Greeks been practising the guile 
 for which of old they were renowned, and taking a 
 leaf from the Bulgarian book? The agents they 
 dispatched with much publicity to investigate the 
 shameful deeds of others about which there was no 
 question, might possibly have been better employed 
 in investigating their own kinsfolk and ending for 
 
 162
 
 ■r. 
 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 ai 
 
 a 
 a 
 
 ■ji 
 
 o 
 
 Q 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 <! 
 
 S
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 163 
 
 ever the activities of both the Greek and the Turkish 
 komitadjis along the frontiers of the northeast."^ 
 In spite of the veiled opposition of the Greek 
 government to the investigation by the Carnegie 
 commission of the atrocities of its soldiers, such an 
 investigation was, nevertheless, made, and the find- 
 ings of the commission are embodied in the follow- 
 ing paragraphs: *' It required no artificial incite- 
 ment to produce the race-hatred which explains the 
 excesses of the Christian allies, and more especially 
 of the Bulgarians toward the Turks. Race, lan- 
 guage, history, and religion have made a barrier 
 which only tlic more tolerant minds of either creed 
 are able wholly to surmount. It is less easy to 
 explain the excesses of which Greeks and Bulgarians 
 were guilty toward each other. The two races are 
 sharply distinguished by temperament. A tradi- 
 tional enmity has divided them from the dawn of 
 history, and this is aggravated in Macedonia by a 
 certain social cleavage. But for a year the two races 
 had been allies, united against a common enemy. 
 When policy dictated a breach, it was necessary to 
 prepare public opinion ; and the Greek press, as if 
 by a common impulse, devoted itself to this work. 
 To the rank and file of all three Balkan armies, the 
 idea of a fratricidal war was at first repugnant and 
 inexplicable. The passions of the Greek array were 
 roused by a daily diet of violent articles. The Greek 
 press had had little to say regarding the Bulgarian 
 excesses against the Turks while the facts w^ere still 
 
 ' The Balkans: a Lnboralnry of FHnlory. By William M. Sloane. 
 New York, 1914, pp. 322.
 
 164 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 fresh, and indeed none of the allies had the right 
 to be censorious, for none of their records were 
 clean. Now everything was dragged into the light, 
 and the record of the Bulgarian bands, deplorable 
 in itself, lost nothing in the telling. Day after day 
 the Bulgarians were represented as a race of mon- 
 sters, and public feeling was roused to a pitch of 
 chau\^nism which made it inevitable that war, when 
 it came, should be ruthless. In talk and in print 
 one phrase summed up the general feeling of the 
 Greeks toward the Bulgarians, ' Dhen einai anihro- 
 poi! ' (They are not human beings). In their ex- 
 citement and indignation the Greeks came to think 
 of themselves as the appointed avengers of civiliza- 
 tion against a race which stood outside the pale of 
 humanity. 
 
 *' WTien an excitable southern race, which has 
 been schooled in Balkan conceptions of vengeance, 
 begins to reason in this way, it is easy to predict 
 the consequences. Deny that your enemies are men, 
 and presently you will treat them as vermin. Only 
 half realizing the full meaning of what he said, a 
 Greek officer remarked to the writer, * Wlien you 
 have to deal with barbarians, you must behave like 
 a barbarian yourself. It is the only thing they un- 
 derstand.' The Greek army went into the war, its 
 mind inflamed with anger and contempt. A gaudily 
 coloured print, which we saw in the streets of Sa- 
 lonika and the Piraeus, eagerly bought by the Greek 
 soldiers returning to their homes, reveals the depth 
 of the brutality to which this race-hatred had sunk 
 them. It shows a Greek evzone (highlander) hold-
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 165 
 
 ing a living Bulgarian soldier with both hands, while 
 he gnaws the face of his victim with his teeth, like 
 some beast of prey. It is entitled the Bulgarophagos 
 (Bulgar-eater), and is adorned with the follo^\ing 
 verses : 
 
 " ' The sea of fire which boils in my breast 
 
 And calls for vengeance with the aavage waves of my sou!, 
 Will be quenched when the monsters of Sofia are still,' 
 And thy life blood extinguishes my hate.* 
 
 " Another popular battle picture shows a Greek 
 soldier gouging out the eyes of a living Bulgarian. 
 A third shows as an episode of a battle scene the 
 exploit of the Bulgar-eater. 
 
 "As an evidence of the feeling which animated 
 the Greek army these things have their importance. 
 They mean, in plain words, that Greek soldiers 
 wished to believe that they and their comrades per- 
 petrated bestial cruelties. A print seller who issued 
 such pictures in a western country would be guilty 
 of a gross libel on its army. 
 
 *' The excesses of the Greek army began on July 
 4 with the first conflict at Kukush (Kilkis). A few 
 days later the excesses of the Bulgarians at Doxato 
 (July 13), Seres (July 11), and Demir Hissar (July 
 7) were known and still further inflamed the anger 
 of the Greeks. On July 12 King Constantine an- 
 nounced in a dispatch which reported the slaughter 
 at Demir TTissar that he ' found himself obliged with 
 profound regret to proceed to reprisals.' A com- 
 parison of dates ivill show tJmt the Greek ' re- 
 prisals ' had begun some days before the Bulgarian 
 ' provocation.*
 
 166 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 " It was with the defeat of the little Bulgarian 
 army at Kukush, after a stubborn three days' de- 
 fence against a superior Greek force, that the Greek 
 campaign assumed the character of a war of devas- 
 tation. The Greek army entered the town of Ku- 
 kush on July 4. We do not propose to lay stress 
 on the evidence of Bulgarian witnesses regarding 
 certain events which preceded their entry. Shells 
 fell outside the town among groups of fugitive peas- 
 ants from the villages, while within the town shells 
 fell in the orphanage and hospital conducted by the 
 French Catholic sisters under the protection of the 
 French flag. It is possible and charitable to explain 
 such incidents as the effect of an unlucky chance. 
 The evidence of European eye-witnesses confirms 
 the statements of the Bulgarian refugees on one 
 crucial point. These shells caused no general con- 
 flagration, and it is doubtful whether more than 
 three or four houses were set on fire by them. When 
 the Greek army entered Kukush it was still intact. 
 It is to-day a heap of ruins — as a member of the 
 commission reports, after a visit to which the Greek 
 authorities opposed several obstacles. It was a 
 prosperous town of thirteen thousand inhabitants, 
 the centre of a purely Bulgarian district and the seat 
 of several flourishing schools. The bent standards 
 of its electric lamps still testify to the efforts which 
 it had made to attain a level of material progress 
 unusual in Turkey. That its destruction was delib- 
 erate admits of no doubt. The great rriajority of the 
 inhabitants fled before the arrival of the Greeks. 
 About four hundred, chiefly old people and children,
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 167 
 
 had found shelter in the Catholic orphanage, and 
 were not molested. European e5'^e-witnesses de- 
 scribe the systematic entry of the Greek soldiers- into 
 house after house. Any of the inhabitants who were 
 found inside were first evicted, pillage followed, and 
 then, usually after a slight explosion, the house burst 
 into flames. Fugitives continued to arrive in the 
 orphanage while the iown was burning, and several 
 women stated that they had been violated by Greek 
 soldiers. In one case a soldier, more chivalrous than 
 his comrades, brought a woman to the orphanage 
 whom he had saved from violation. Some civilians 
 were killed by the Greek cavalr>^ as they rode in, 
 and many lives were lost in the course of the sacking 
 and burning of Kukush. Wc have received a de- 
 tailed list from a Bulgarian source of seventy-four 
 inhabitants who are believed to have been killed. 
 Most of them are old women, and eleven are babies. 
 " The main fact on which we must insist is that 
 the Greek army inaugurated the second war by the 
 deliberate burning of a Bulgarian to\vn. A singular 
 fact which has some bearing on Greek policy is that 
 the refugees who took shelter in the French orphan- 
 age were still, on September 6, long after the con- 
 clusion of peace, closely confined as prisoners within 
 it, though hardly a man among them is capable of 
 bearing arms. A notice in Greek on its outer door 
 states that they are forbidden to leave its precincts. 
 Meanwhile, Greek (or rather * Grecoman ') refugees 
 from Strumnitza were being installed on the sites of 
 the houses which once belonged to Bulgarians, and 
 in the few buildings (perhaps a dozen in number)
 
 168 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 which escaped the flames. The inference is irresist- 
 ible. In conquering the Kukush district, the Greeks 
 were resolved to have no Bulgarian subjects. 
 
 '' The precedent of Kukush was only too faith- 
 fully followed in the villages. In the caza (county) 
 of Kukush alone no less than forty Bulgarian vil- 
 lages were burned by the Greek army in its north- 
 ward march. Detachments of cavalry went from 
 village to village, and the work of the regulars was 
 completed by bashi-bozouks. It was a part of the 
 Greek plan of campaign to use the local Turkish 
 population as an instrument in the work of devas- 
 tation. In some cases they were armed and even 
 provided with uniforms. In no instance, howerer, 
 of which we have a record, were the Turks solely 
 responsible for the burning of a village. They 
 followed the Greek troops and acted under their 
 protection. We have no means of ascertaining 
 whether any general order was given which regu- 
 lated the burning of the Bulgarian villages. A 
 Greek sergeant among the prisoners of war in Sofia, 
 stated in reply to a question which a member of the 
 commission put to him, that he and his comrades 
 burned the villages around Kukush because the in- 
 habitants had fled. It is a fact that one mainly 
 Catholic village (Todoraki), in which most of the in- 
 habitants remained, was not burned, though it was 
 thoroughly pillaged. But the fate of other villages, 
 notably Akanjeli, in which the inhabitants not only 
 remained, but even welcomed the Greek troops, dis- 
 poses of this explanation. Whatever may have been 
 the terms of the orders under which the Greek
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 169 
 
 troops acted, the effect was that the Bulgarian vil- 
 lages were burned with few exceptions. 
 
 " Refugees have described how, on the night of 
 the fall of Kukush, the whole sky seemed to be 
 aflame. It was a signal which the peasants under- 
 stood. Few of them hesitated, and the general flight 
 began which ended in massing the Bulgarian popu- 
 lation of the districts through which the Greeks 
 marched within the former frontiers of Bulgaria. 
 We need not insist on the hardships of the flight. 
 Old and young, women and children, walked some- 
 times for two consecutive weeks by devious moun- 
 tain paths. The weak fell by the wayside from hun- 
 ger and exhaustion. Families were divided, and 
 among the hundred thousand refugees scattered 
 throughout Bulgaria, husbands are still looking for 
 wives, and parents for children. Sometimes the 
 stream of refugees crossed the path of the contend- 
 ing armies, and the clatter of cavalry behind them 
 would produce a panic, and a sauve qui pent in 
 which mothers lost their children, and even aban- 
 doned one in the hope of saving another. They 
 arrived at the end of their flight with the knowledge 
 that their flocks had been seized, their crops aban- 
 doned, and their homes destroyed. In all this misery 
 and loss there is more than the normal and inevitable 
 wastage of war. The peasants abandoned every- 
 thing and fled, because they would not trust the 
 Greek army with their lives. It remains to inquire 
 whether this was an unreasonable fear. 
 
 *' The immense majority of the Macedonian refu- 
 gees ii*'" Bulgaria were never in contact with the
 
 170 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Greek army and know nothing of it at first hand. 
 They heard rumours of excesses in other villages; 
 they knew that other villages had been burned ; they 
 fled because every one was fleeing; at the worst they 
 can say that from a distance they saw their owu 
 village in flames. It would be easy to ascribe their 
 fears to prejudice or panic, were it not for the testi- 
 mony of the few who were in direct touch with the 
 Greek troops. In the appendices will be found a 
 number of depositions which the commission took 
 from refugees. It was impossible to doubt that 
 these peasants were telling the truth. Most of them 
 were villagers, simple, uneducated, and stunned by 
 their sufferings, and quite incapable of invention. 
 They told their tales with a dull, literal directness. 
 In two of the more striking stories, we obtained 
 ample corroboration in circumstances which ad- 
 mitted of no collusion. Thus a refugee from Akan- 
 jeli, who had fled to Salonika, told us a story of 
 butchery and outrage which tallied in almost every 
 detail with the story afterwards told by another 
 fugitive from the same village who had fled to Sofia. 
 While passing through Dubnitza we inquired from 
 a group of refugees whether any one present came 
 from Akan.ieli. A youth stepped forward, who 
 once more told a story which agreed with the two 
 others. The story of the boy Mito Koleff, told in 
 Sofia, was similarly corroborated in an equally acci- 
 dental way by two witnesses at Samokov, who 
 stepped out of a crowd of refugees in response to 
 our inquirj^ whether any one present came from the 
 village in question (Gavaliantsi). We can feel no
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 171 
 
 doubt about the truth of a story which reached us 
 in this way from wholly independent eye-witnesses. 
 These two incidents are typical, and must be briefly 
 summarized here. 
 
 ** Mito Koleff is an intelligent boy of fourteen, 
 who comes from the Bulgarian village Gavaliantsi, 
 in the Kukush district. He fled with most of his 
 neighbours in the first alarm after the Bulgarian 
 defeat at Kukush, but returned next day to fetch his 
 mother, who had remained behind. Outside the vil- 
 lage a Greek trooper fired at him but missed him. 
 The lad had the vat to feign death. As he lay on 
 the ground, his mother was shot and killed by the 
 same cavalryman. He saw another lad killed, and 
 the same trooper then went in pursuit of a crippled 
 girl. Of her fate Mito, who clearly distinguished 
 between what he saw and what he suspected, knew 
 nothing, but another witness chanced to see the 
 corpse of this girl. Mito's subsequent adventures 
 were told very clearly and in great detail. The 
 essential points are (1) that he saw his village 
 burned, and (2) that another Greek cavalr>'man 
 whom he met later in the day all but killed him with 
 a revolver shot and a sabre cut at close quarters, 
 while he spared a by-stander who was able by his 
 command of the language to pass himself off as a 
 Greek. The material corroboration of this story is, 
 that Mito still bore the marks of his wounds. A 
 shot wound may be accidental, but a sabre wound 
 can only be given deliberately and at close quarters. 
 A trooper who wounds a boy with his sword cannot 
 plead error. He must have been engaged in indis-
 
 172 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 criminate butchery. Of tliis particular squad of 
 Greek cavalry, it is not too much to say that they 
 were slaughtering Bulgarian peasants at sight, and 
 that they spared neither women nor children. 
 
 ** The evidence regarding Akanjeli points to the 
 same conclusion. In this Bulgarian village near the 
 Lake of Doiran, refugees from many of the neigh- 
 bouring villages, Avho are said to have numbered 
 four thousand persons, had halted in their flight. A 
 squadron of Greek cavalry, numbering about three 
 hundred men, with officers at its head, arrived be- 
 tween 3 and 4 p. m. on Sunday, July 6. The villagers 
 with their priest went out to meet them with a white 
 flag and the Greek colours. The officer, in conver- 
 sation with the mayor, accepted their surrender and 
 ordered them to give up any arms they possessed. 
 The peasants brought bread and cheese, and thirty 
 sheep were requisitioned and roasted for the troops. 
 Some sixty of the men of the place were separated 
 from the others and sent away to a wood. Of their 
 fate nothing is known. The villagers believe that 
 they were slaughtered, but we have reason to hope 
 that they may have been sent as prisoners to Salo- 
 nika. While the rifles were being collected the troop- 
 ers began to demand money from both men and 
 women. The women were searched with every cir- 
 cumstance of indignity and indecency. One witness, 
 a well to do inhabitant of Kukush, was bound to- 
 gether with a refugee whose name he did not know. 
 He gave up his watch and five piastres and his life 
 was spared. His companion, who had no money, 
 was killed at his side. While the arms were being
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 173 
 
 collected, one which was loaded went off accidentally 
 and wounded an officer, who was engaged in break- 
 ing the rifles. Two youths who were standing near 
 were then killed by the soldiers, presumably to 
 avenge the officer's mishap. Toward evening the 
 soldiers forced their way into the houses and began 
 to violate the women. One witness stated that vio- 
 lations were carried out quite publicly by the road- 
 side and in the fields; he saw several cases. 
 
 '* Another witness, the butcher who roasted the 
 sheep for the troops, saw two young women, whom 
 he named, violated by three soldiers beside his oven. 
 Infantry arrived on Monday, and shortly afterwards 
 the village was set on fire. During Sunday i}ight 
 and on Monday morning many of the villagers were 
 slaughtered. It is impossible to form an estimate 
 of the number, for our witnesses were in hiding and 
 each saw only a small part of what occurred. One 
 of them estimated the number at fifty, but this was 
 clearly only a guess. We have before us a list from 
 a Bulgarian source of 356 persons from seven vil- 
 lages who have disappeared and are believed to have 
 been killed at Akanjeli. Turks from neighbouring 
 villages joined in the pillage under the eyes of the 
 Greek soldiers and their officers. The facts which 
 emerge clearly from our depositions are (1) that 
 the village submitted from the first; (2) that it was 
 sacked and burned; (3) that the Greek troops gave 
 themselves up openly and generally to a debauch 
 of lust; (4) that many of the peasants were killed 
 wantonly and without provocation. 
 
 " It would serve no purpose to encumber this ac-
 
 174 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 count of the Greek march with further narratives. 
 They all convey the same impression. Wherever 
 the peasants ventured to await the arrival of the 
 Greek troops in their villages, they had the same 
 experience. The village was sacked and the women 
 were violated before it was burned, and non-com- 
 batants were wantonly butchered, sometimes in twos 
 or threes, sometimes in larger numbers. We would 
 call attention particularly to two of these narratives 
 — that of Anastasia Pavlova, an elderly woman of 
 the middle class, who told her painful and dramatic 
 story with more intelligence and feeling than most of 
 the peasant witnesses. Like them, she suffered vio- 
 lation; she was robbed, and beaten, and witnessed 
 the dishonour of other women and the slaughter of 
 non-combatant men. Her evidence relates in part to 
 the taking of the town of Gevgheli. Gevgheli, which 
 is a mixed town, was not burned, but a reliable Eu- 
 ropean, well acquainted with the town, and kno^vn 
 to one member of the commission as a man of hon- 
 our and ability, stated that fully two hundred Bul- 
 garian civilians were killed there on the entry of 
 the Greek army. 
 
 " Another deposition to which we would j)artic- 
 ularly call attention is that of Athanas Ivanoff, who 
 was an eye-witness of the violation of six women 
 and the murder of nine men in the village of Kar- 
 tchevo. His story is interesting because he states 
 that one Greek soldier who protested against the 
 brutality of his comrades was overruled by his ser- 
 geant, and further that the order to kill the men 
 was given by officers. It is probable that some hun-
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 175 
 
 dreds of peasants were killed at Kirtchevo and Ger- 
 man in a deliberate massacre, carried out with gross 
 treachery and cruelty. For these depositions the 
 commission assumes responsibility, in the sense that 
 it believes that the witnesses told the truth; and, 
 further, that it took every care to ascertain by ques- 
 tioning them whether any obvious excuse, such as 
 a disorderly resistance by irregulars in the neigh- 
 bourhood, could be adduced. These depositions re- 
 late to the conduct of the Greek troops in ten \'il- 
 lages. We should hesitate to generalize from this 
 basis (save as to the fact that villages were almost 
 everywhere burned), but we are able to add in the 
 appendix a summary of a large number of deposi- 
 tions taken from refugees by Professor Miletich of 
 Sofia University. While it can not assume personal 
 responsibility for this evidence, the commission has 
 every confidence in the thoroughness with which 
 Professor Miletich performed his task. 
 
 " This great mass of evidence goes to show that 
 there was nothing singular in the cases which the 
 commission itself investigated. In one instance a 
 number of Europeans witnessed the brutal conduct 
 of a detachment of Greek regulars under three of- 
 ficers. Fifteen wounded Bulgarian soldiers took 
 refuge in the Catholic convent of Paliortsi, near 
 Gevgheli, and Avere nursed by the sisters. Father 
 Alloati reported this fact to the Greek commandant, 
 whereupon a detachment was sent to search the con- 
 vent for a certain Bulgarian voivoda (chief of 
 bands) named Arghyr, who was not there. In the 
 course of the search a Bulgarian Catholic priest,
 
 176 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Father Treptche, and the Armenian doctor of the 
 convent were severely flogged in the presence of 
 the Greek officers. A Greek soldier attempted to 
 violate a nun, and during the search a sum of £T300 
 was stolen. Five Bulgarian women and a young 
 girl were put to the torture, and a large number of 
 peasants carried off to prison for no good reason. 
 The officer in command threatened to kill Father 
 Alloatti on the spot and to burn down the convent. 
 If such things could be done to Europeans in a build- 
 ing under the protection of the French flag, it is not 
 difficult to believe that Bulgarian peasants fared 
 incomparably worse. 
 
 '* The commission regrets that the attitude of the 
 Greek government toward its work has prevented it 
 from obtaining any official answer to the charges 
 which emerge from this evidence. The broad fact 
 that the whole of this Bulgarian region, for a dis- 
 tance of about one hundred miles, was devastated 
 and nearly every village burned, admits of no denial. 
 Nor do we think that military necessity could be 
 pleaded with any plausibility. The Greeks were 
 numerically greatly superior to their enemy, and so 
 far as we are aware, their flanks were not harassed, 
 nor their communications threatened by guerillas, 
 who might have found shelter in the villages. The 
 Greeks did not wait for any provocation of this kind, 
 but everywhere burned the villages, step by step 
 with their advance. The slaughter of peasant men 
 could be defended only if they had been taken in 
 the act of resistance with arms in their hands. No 
 such explanation will fit the cases on which we have
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 177 
 
 particularly laid stress, nor have any of the war 
 correspondents who followed the Greek army re- 
 ported conflicts along the main line of the Greek 
 march with armed villagers. The violation of 
 women admits of no excuse; it can only be denied. 
 '' Denial unfortunately is impossible. No verdict 
 which could be based on the evidence collected by 
 the commission could be more severe than that 
 which Greek soldiers have pronounced upon them- 
 selves. It happened that on the eve of the armistice 
 (July 27) the Bulgarians captured the baggage of 
 the nineteenth Greek infantry regiment at Dobri- 
 nichte (Razlog). It included its post-bags, together 
 with the file of its telegraphic orders, and some of 
 its accounts. We were permitted to examine these 
 documents at our leisure in the Foreign OfTice at 
 Sofia. The file of telegrams and accounts presented 
 no feature of interest. The soldiers' letters were 
 written often in pencil on scraps of paper of every 
 sort and size. Some were neatly folded without 
 envelopes. Some were written on souvenir paper 
 commemorating the war, and others on official 
 sheets. Most of them bore the regimental postal 
 stamp. Four or five were on stamped business 
 paper belonging to a Turkish firm in Seres, whicli 
 some Greek soldier had presumably taken while 
 looting the shop. The greater number of the letters 
 were of no public interest, and simply informed the 
 family at home that the writer was well, and that 
 his friends were well or ill or wounded, as the case 
 might be. Many of these letters still await exam- 
 ination. We studied with particular care a series
 
 178 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 of twenty-five letters, which contained definite avow- 
 als by these Greek soldiers of the brutalities which 
 they had practised. Two members of the commis- 
 sion have some knowledge of modern Greek. We 
 satisfied ourselves (1) that the letters (mostly illit- 
 erate and ill written) had been carefully deciphered 
 and honestly translated; (2) that the interesting 
 portions of the letters were in the same handwriting 
 as the addresses on the envelopes (which bore the 
 official stamp) and the portions which related only 
 personal news; (3) that no tampering with the 
 manuscripts had been practised. Some minor errors 
 and inaccuracies are interesting, as an evidence of 
 authenticity. Another letter is dated by error July 
 15 (old style), though the post-bags were captured 
 on the 14th (27th). "VVe noted, moreover, that more 
 than one slip (including an error of grammar) had 
 been made by the Bulgarian secretary in transcri- 
 bing the addresses of the letters from Greek into 
 Latin script — a proof that he did not know enough 
 Greek to invent them. But it is unnecessary to 
 dwell on these minor evidences of authenticity. The 
 letters have been published in fac-simile. The ad- 
 dresses and the signatures are those of real people. 
 If they had been wronged by some incredibly inge- 
 nious forger, the Greek government would long ago 
 have brought these soldiers before some impartial 
 tribunal to prove by specimens of their genuine 
 handwriting that they did not write these letters. 
 The commission, in short, is satisfied that the letters 
 are genuine. 
 
 '* The letters require no commentary. Some of
 
 'A 
 o 
 
 
 r.
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 179 
 
 the writers boast of the cruelties practised by the 
 Greek army. Others deplore them. The statements 
 of fact are simple, brutal, and direct, and always 
 to the same effect. These soldiers all state that they 
 everywhere burned the Bulgarian villages. Two 
 boast of the massacre of prisoners of war. One 
 remarks that all the girls they met with were vio- 
 lated. Most of the letters dwell on the slaughter 
 of non-combatants, including women and children. 
 These few extracts, each from a separate letter, may 
 suffice to convey their general tenor: 
 
 " ' B}'' order of the king we are setting fire to 
 all the Bulgarian villages, because the Bulgarians 
 burned the beautiful town of Seres, Nigrita, and 
 several Greek villages. We have shown ourselves 
 far more cruel than the Bulgarians. We have vio- 
 lated all the young girls whom we met. * * * » 
 
 '' ' Here we arc burning the villages and killing 
 the Bulgarians, both women and children. * * * ' 
 
 " ' We took only a few [prisonersl, and these we 
 killed, for such are the orders we have received.' 
 
 '* ' We have to burn the villages — such is the 
 order — slaughter the young people and spare only 
 the old people and the children. * * * ' 
 
 '' ' What is done to the Bulgarians is indescriba- 
 ble; also to the Bulgarian peasants. It w^as a 
 butchery. There is not a Bulgarian town or village 
 but is burned.' 
 
 " * We massacre all the Bulgarians who fall into 
 our hands and burn the villages.' 
 
 " * Of the twelve hundred prisoners we took at 
 Nigrita, only forty-one remain in the prisons, and
 
 180 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 everywhere we have been we have not left a single 
 root of this race' 
 
 " * We picked out their eyes [five Bulgarian pris- 
 oners] while they were still alive.' 
 
 '* ' The Greek army sets fire to all the villages 
 where there are Bulgarians and massacres all it 
 meets. * * * God knows where this will end.' 
 
 '' These letters relieve us of the task of summing 
 up the evidence. From Kukush to the Bulgarian 
 frontier the Greek army devastated the villages, 
 violated the women, and slaughtered the non-com- 
 batant men. The order to carry out reprisals was 
 e\'idently obeyed. We repeat, however, that these 
 reprisals began before the Bulgarian provocation. 
 A list of Bulgarian villages burned by the Greek 
 army conveys some measure of this ruthless dev- 
 astation. At Seres the Bulgarians destroyed four 
 thousand houses in the conflagration which followed 
 the fighting in the streets. The ruin of this con- 
 siderable town has impressed the imagination of the 
 civilized world. Systematically and in cold blood 
 the Greeks burned one hundred and sixty Bulgarian 
 villages and destroyed at least sixteen thousand Bul- 
 garian homes. The figures need no commentary." 
 
 With reference to the Greek letters found in the 
 Razlog district, it may be noted that some of the 
 Greek journals pronounced them forgeries and de- 
 clared that there were no persons in Greece with 
 the names of the writers of the letters and no Greeks 
 bearing the names of the persons to whom they were 
 addressed. The Carnegie commission made a care- 
 ful examination of the letters and pronounced them
 
 Greek Atrocities in the Balkan Wars 181 
 
 authentic. Since the publication of the report, an 
 investigation made in the United States with refer- 
 ence to the names and addresses given in three of 
 the letters have been verified. These letters were 
 to friends or relatives in New York, Wisconsin, and 
 Minnesota, An investigation has located the Greeks 
 bearing the names and living at the addresses given 
 in the three letters iu question.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PEOPLE OP BULGARIA 
 
 Ethnically the Bulgars of Finnic stock — Physical characteristics — 
 Mental traits — Industry and frugality — Peasant costumes — 
 Standards of morality — The community home — Bulgarian lan- 
 guage — Literacy of the people — Spirit of toleration — Jews in 
 Bulgaria — Gypsies — Greeks — Their characteristic ethical de- 
 fects — The Kutzo-Vlacks. 
 
 Although the Bulgars are usually classed as 
 Slavs, the original ethnic stock came from the Fin- 
 nic group of the Sibiric branch of the Turanian race 
 in Asia. The forebears of the Bulgarians were kin 
 to the Tatars, Finns, and Huns. We first hear of 
 them in the fifth and sixth centuries, when they 
 occupied tracts of land between the Ural mountains 
 and the Volga river. In the seventh century they 
 crossed the Danube, subjugated the Slavic tribes in 
 the Balkan peninsula, and took over the language, 
 customs, and institutions of the conquered Slavs. 
 
 Outwardly the Bulgars are not an attractive peo- 
 ple, for the Turanian element in the physiognomy 
 is too pronounced to be beautiful. They are some- 
 what below the medium in stature, broad-shouldered, 
 wide-chested, strongly built, and have admirably 
 developed legs. The face is round, the nose straight 
 or slightly curved, the hair dark blond or black, 
 the complexion muddy, the eyes slightly slanting, 
 the eyebrows thick, and the cheek-bones and chin 
 
 182
 
 >- 
 
 J 
 
 X
 
 The People of Bulgaria 183 
 
 well developed. The expression of the face is seri- 
 ous and energetic. Vazoff's characterization of 
 Marko in Under the Yoke, ** he had a serious and 
 somewhat stern expression even when he smiled," 
 might be applied to the Bulgars in general. 
 
 The Bulgars are thrifty agriculturists and labori- 
 ous husbandmen. They are practical and stolid and 
 have inexhaustible powers of silence and self-re- 
 straint. They are hard-working and economical 
 peasants *' with all the peasant's meannesses and 
 prejudices, but also with all the peasant's virtues 
 of frugality and industry." 
 
 While uncommunicative and cautious, and inclined 
 to be suspicious, the Bulgars are not boasters or 
 agitators, and '* they do not claim an imagined 
 superiority or flaunt their nationality " like some 
 of the other Balkan races. They fulfill their duties 
 in life quietly and understandingly. While sensi- 
 tive to foreign criticism, the author has always 
 found them willing to discuss defects of the national 
 character and institutions with characteristic frank- 
 ness. 
 
 Professor Jiricek, the distinguished Bohemian 
 historian, who lived in the country for many years, 
 writes: '' Tlic Bulgarian is sober in every respect, 
 careful in his expenditures, and hard-working. The 
 energy he displays in the cultivation of the soil is 
 remarkable. Under the exterior of peasant cunning 
 and suspiciousness, the Bulgar conceals a shrewd 
 and observant mind. Being both docile and con- 
 scientious, whether as student, soldier, artisan or 
 trader, he identifies himself completely with the
 
 184 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 work he undertakes. Tbe whole mode of life of the 
 people is simple and frugal." ^ 
 
 Foreigners who best know the Bulgar character 
 credit it with patience, perseverance, and great 
 power of physical endurance. An English author 
 says of the race: " The Bulgarian is truly a son of 
 the soil, wedded to tlic uncompromising earth whose 
 very qualities he seems to have drawn into his being. 
 Unequalled obstinacy and tenacity of purpose, com- 
 bined with the most practical point of view, prom- 
 ise great things for his race. Frugal and taciturn, 
 he has none of the thoughtless cheeriness of the 
 Rumanian, the expansiveness of the Serb, or the 
 dreamy unpractical idealism of the Russian. He 
 resembles rather the Lowland Scot, and carries his 
 many admirable qualities beneath an exterior which 
 is not every one's good fortune to penetrate." 
 
 William Miller makes this contrast between the 
 Montenegrin and the Bulgar: *' Put the two in a 
 drawing-room, and the Montenegrin, who has never 
 bowed his neck to a foreign master, will look and 
 behave like a gentleman, while the Bulgar will look 
 and behave like a peasant. But put the two upon 
 a waste plot of ground, the Bulgar will convert it 
 into a garden of roses, while the Montenegrin will 
 look on." This is not to say that there are not many 
 highly educated and refined people in Bulgaria. 
 But taken as a whole, they are a nation of peasants. 
 
 There are neither rich people nor paupers in the 
 
 1 Das Fiirstenthum Bulqarien: seine Bodengeslnltung . Nalur, Bevdl- 
 kerung, W irlhsr.haftlichc Zuslande, gcislige Cultur, Staalsvcrfassung vnd 
 neuesie Gcschichte. Von Constantine J. Jiricek. Prague, 1891, pp. 573.
 
 TYPICAL UULGAHIAN COSTUMBS.
 
 The People of Bulgaria 185 
 
 country, and the peasant farmers have few wants 
 that they themselves cannot satisfy. Even among 
 those engaged in trade and commerce, life is simple. 
 Luxuries scarcely exist. The people are temperate 
 in both eating and drinking. There is no horse- 
 racing and little card-playing. While markedly less 
 emotional than the other races of the Balkan penin- 
 sula, the Bulgars are kindly, hospitable, and chiv- 
 alrous. 
 
 Mrs. Stobart, who directed the Woman's Convoy 
 Corps of England during the first Balkan war (her 
 entire corps of physicians, surgeons, nurses, etc., 
 being composed of women), pays this tribute to the 
 Bulgarian peasant soldiers: " I was prepared for 
 the possibility of annoyance from men who, in a 
 Turkish environment, would be unaccustomed to 
 seeing such work conducted solely by women. But 
 Bulgarian men of all classes could give lessons to 
 the men of most of the nations of Europe in their 
 attitude towards women. Our doctors and nurses 
 corroborated to their last day in the hospital the 
 impressions gained at the first — that in qualities 
 of courtesy, respect, and gratitude, no patients could 
 surpass these Bulgarian peasant soldiers."* 
 
 Bulgaria is essentially a peasant state and the 
 peasant costumes continue to be more generally worn 
 than in the other countries of Europe. Embroidery 
 is an important feature of the dress of the women, 
 and most of it is highly artistic. The garments of 
 the women hang loosely from the shoulders and they 
 
 » War and Women. By Mra. St. Glair Stobart. London, 1913, pp. 
 239.
 
 186 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 are unfettered by corsets or belts. The skirts are 
 narrow and short, and underneath there is a long 
 white petticoat which reaches to the ankles, and 
 which has beautiful insertion trimmings exposed 
 below the skirt line. Colour plays an important part 
 in the jackets and aprons, but the colours vary in 
 different provinces. Coloured handkerchiefs are 
 twisted into the plaits of hair that fall down the 
 back. Gold and silver ornaments and strings of 
 coins are worn about the neck. 
 
 The men in the district of Sofia wear white serge 
 trousers braided in black, and less baggy than those 
 worn in other parts of the country. The white shirts 
 are embroidered with red, as is also the black jacket 
 that comes to the waist and has a sort of a flap fall- 
 ing over behind. A red sash is worn about the waist 
 and the outer coat is of sheepskin. The fez, so long 
 worn by the men, has been abandoned for the kal- 
 pak or lambskin cap. Sheepskins and home-made 
 woollen, linen, and cotton cloth provide the materials 
 for the dress of the peasants. 
 
 Missionaries and other foreigners familiar with 
 social conditions in the Balkans have repeatedly 
 assured the author that the standard of sexual mo- 
 rality is higher in Bulgaria than in the other states 
 of the peninsula. Illegitimacy is very rare. Mar- 
 riage occurs early in life and families are very large. 
 
 The community home formerly occupied a prom- 
 inent place in the family life of Bulgaria. The home 
 community (zadruga) is a patriarchal institution 
 that dates back to early times. Related family 
 groups, sometimes ten or a dozen in number, dwell
 
 
 *f ]|^ ^1 iw^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H 
 
 .t 
 
 ^ 
 
 It^n .. f4 ' ' B^^^^^^^^^^^^^l 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 
 A iul(;aiu.\n peasant.
 
 The People of Bulgaria 187 
 
 together on a farm and observe communistic prin- 
 ciples. The property descends from generation to 
 generation to the family gronp. The association is 
 ruled by a house-father and a house-mother, who 
 assign to the different members their respective 
 tasks. Community groups are usually composed of 
 grandparents witli tlioir married children and 
 grandcliildren. The recent adoption of a law of 
 succession has tended to reduce tlie number of com- 
 munity homes by dividing the property among the 
 various members of the family. 
 
 With the disappearance of the community home 
 there has been marked development of cooperative 
 associations. In 1900 there were only six coopera- 
 tive societies in Bulgaria ; to-day there are nine 
 hundred thirty-one. 
 
 The language of the Bulgars belongs to the east- 
 em branch of the Slavic family of tongues, but it 
 has undergone more modifications than any other 
 Slavic speech. The highly synthetic character of 
 the Slavic Languages is only slightlj^ apparent in 
 the Bulgar. It is the only Slavic language that has 
 articles wluch are attached to the terminations of 
 nouns and adjectives, and it is the only Slavic lan- 
 guage that makes use of the infinitive. Cases have 
 disappeared, and instead of declining the nouns, 
 prepositions are used, as in English. Some of the 
 dialects of remote sections, as well as a few of the 
 old ballads, show traces of the inflection of nouns, 
 thus proving tlie antiquity of the language. After 
 the fall of the old Bulgarian empire, Greek was sub- 
 stituted for the literary language of the people, and
 
 188 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 for nearly five centuries the native language was 
 used only as an oral speech by the peasants. The 
 Kyrillic characters are used in the written language, 
 and the thirty-three letters of this alphabet make 
 ampler provision for the representation of sounds 
 than is the case with the Latin alphabet. 
 
 Although a nation of peasants, and more recently 
 liberated from Turkish rule than the other Balkan 
 states, education is more wide-spread in Bulgaria 
 and the percentage of illiteracy is lower than in 
 Rumania, Servia, Montenegro, or Greece. Educa- 
 tion was practically denied the peasants during the 
 five centuries of Turkish rule; and when they ac- 
 quired independence thirty-six years ago, illiteracy 
 was general. In 1880 the percentage of illiteracy 
 among army recruits was 90; in 1910 it was 10 per 
 cent., and in 1913 it was only 5 per cent. Wliile 
 an industrious and provident people, the keen sense 
 of what is practical has given them a correct notion 
 of the value of mental training, and they have vol- 
 untarily made large financial sacrifices for the 
 speedy establishment of an efficient educational ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 Bulgars constitute four-fifths of the population 
 of the kingdom. The non-Bulgar fifth is composed 
 of Turks, gypsies, Greeks, Albanians, Vlacks, Arme- 
 nians, and Jews; and the Turks comprise one- 
 fourth of the non-Bulgar fifth of the population. 
 The spirit of racial and religious toleration, which 
 is a marked characteristic of tlie Bulgarian peo- 
 ple, has averted the exodus of the Ottoman pop- 
 ulation that has taken place in all the other lost
 
 GKOll' <)1' I'KASANTS.
 
 The People of Bulgaria 189 
 
 provinces of the Turk. The Moslems and the Jews 
 in Bulgaria have known nothing of the bitter race 
 antagonisms that their compatriots in the other 
 Balkan states have had to face. Jews and Turks are 
 not only represented in the national assembly, but 
 they occupy posts of honour in the civil service of 
 the country. 
 
 Jews claim to have resided in Bulgaria since the 
 days of Roman rule under Trajan. Krum, one of 
 the earliest Bulgar rulers, is said to have brought 
 large numbers of Jewish prisoners from Thessaly 
 in the year 811. Many Byzantine Jews established 
 themselves at Nicopolis, Sofia, Virlin and Silistria 
 during the tenth century; and during the Asen dy- 
 nasty a large number of Jewish merchants from 
 Ragusa, Venice, and Geneva became identified with 
 the business affairs of the country. During the cen- 
 turies that the Turks were masters of the peninsula, 
 the Jews were less persecuted than in any country 
 in Europe. 
 
 With the organization of the rehabilitated Bul- 
 garian principality the Jews were accorded full civil 
 rights. They enjoy the privilege of suffrage; are 
 eligible to all the elective offices in the country; are 
 subject to military service; and enjoy the right of 
 military promotion. Each Jewish community is 
 governed by a special synagogical committee in all 
 matters touching religion, and the national govern- 
 ment makes special grants for the maintenance of 
 the Hebrew clergy. The cities in which Jews are 
 found in considerable numbers are Sofia, Rustchuk, 
 Philippopolis, and Vidin.
 
 190 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Gypsies constitute about two per cent, of the pop- 
 ulation of the kingdom. They are scattered through- 
 out the country, but have more settled abodes in 
 Bulgaria than in the other countries of eastern Eu- 
 rope. The men are engaged in such occupations as 
 black-smithing, horse-breeding, and horse hire. Pov- 
 erty is less in e^ddence than among the members of 
 their race in the other Balkan states. The men are 
 tall, handsome fellows, and many of them are the 
 finest physical types to be seen in the country. They 
 wear long flowing trousers held at the waist by a 
 sash, and the conventional Turkish fez. So far as 
 they profess any creed at all, it is that of the Mo- 
 hammedan church. The Bulgarian government has 
 made strenuous efforts to bring the gypsy children 
 within the pale of the compulsory education law, 
 but with little success. Gj^psy children are taught 
 by their parents to beg as soon as they can walk, 
 and when they grow older they are disciplined in 
 the art of theft. 
 
 The Greeks of Bulgaria are found almost entirely 
 in the larger cities of the interior and the maritime 
 towTis on the Black sea. They have strong aptitude 
 for trade and possess great subtlety in monetary 
 transactions, although they are regarded as 
 markedly deficient in practical ethics as compared 
 with the other races of the kingdom. " The cun- 
 ning of the Greek," remarks a foreign writer in 
 this connection, " comes very near fraud, and he 
 lies in the most impudent manner. He is noisy, 
 blustering, and obsequious. He has never been able 
 to cure himself of cheating. If he is a sharp, intelli-
 
 The People of Bulgaria 191 
 
 gciit merchant, that is not to say he is an honest 
 one." ^ 
 
 There are several villages of Vlacks in the prov- 
 ince of Vidin and numerous Kutzo- Vlacks in the 
 Ehodope momitains. The latter are a pastoral peo- 
 ple with a shy preference for mountain dwellings. 
 Their speech is a Latin tongue that has been cut off 
 from Latin culture, and the enrichment of the lan- 
 guage that has come to the other Romance tongues 
 through direct study of the classical Latin literature. 
 The Vlacks of Bulgaria are an unlettered folk ; and, 
 so far as their isolated and migratory life has per- 
 mitted them to acquire any culture, it has been from 
 the Orthodox church and the Greek literature. They 
 are a timid people, living apart from the other races ; 
 and although professing the same religion as the 
 Bulgars, they seldom intermarry with them. By 
 occupation they are shepherds, inn-keepers, and car- 
 riers in the mountainous districts. 
 
 1 The Evil oj the East. By Kesnin Bey. London,' 1888, pp. 327.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HOW BULGARIA IS GOVERNED 
 
 Fundamental principles of the Bulgarian constitution — Executive 
 powers — The national aanembly — How constituted — A unique 
 electoral law — Representation of minorities — Charges of unfair 
 elections — The grand aobranje — Sources of revenue — Local 
 government in Bulgaria — Municipal councils — The judiciary — 
 Bulgaria a wftll governed state — Political parties — Conservatives 
 and liberals — Other parties. 
 
 Bulgaria was created by the treaty of Berlin the 
 13th of July, 1878. It constituted the country an 
 autonomous and tributary principality under the 
 suzerainty of the sultan of Turkey with a Christian 
 governor and a national militia. The treaty pro- 
 vided that the prince should be freely elected by the 
 people and confirmed by the SuWime Porte with the 
 consent of the great powers. It further stipulated 
 that no member of the reigning houses of the great 
 powers should be eligible to the post. Bulgaria 
 declared her independence from Turkey the 5th of 
 October, 1908. 
 
 The fundamental principles of the Bulgarian con- 
 stitution are (1) separation of governmental au- 
 thorities into legislative, executive, and judicial; 
 (2) perfect equality oi citizens as regards civil and 
 political rights; (3) inviolability of person, resi- 
 dence, property, and correspondence; (4) liberty 
 of conscience, press, and public meetings; (5) di- 
 rect and secret universal manhood suffrage, and (6) 
 
 192
 
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 O 
 
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 o
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 193 
 
 local self-government. The constitution consists of 
 one hundred sixty-nine clauses, grouped into twenty- 
 two chapters.^ It follows in the main the consti- 
 tution of Belgium. 
 
 Bulgaria is a constitutional monarchy. Heredity 
 descends in the direct male line. The king must 
 profess the national Orthodox faith, only the first 
 and second rulers being released from this obliga- 
 tion. Legislative power is vested in the king in 
 conjunction with the national assembly (sobranje). 
 The king of Bulgaria possesses larger powers than 
 those exercised by most of the constitutional sov- 
 ereigns of Europe. He appoints and dismisses the 
 members of the ministry' but he cannot retain per- 
 manently a cabinet which is not in harmony with 
 the national assembly. He is the supreme head of 
 the army, supervises the executive power, and rep- 
 resents the nation in its foreign relations. 
 
 The executive power is vested in a ministry of 
 ten members, representing the following portfolios: 
 Foreign Affairs and Public Worship, Interior and 
 Public Health, Public Instruction, Finance, Justice, 
 War, Commerce and Industry, Agriculture, Public 
 Works and Communications, and Railways, Posts, 
 and Telegraph. The cabinet is responsible only to 
 the king. 
 
 The national assembly is composed of two hun- 
 dred forty-five members elected by manhood suffrage 
 in the proportion of one to twenty thousand of the 
 
 ' For the English version of the Rulgarian constitution, see Consti' 
 lution nf the Principality of Bulgnria. Parliament Sessional Papers for 
 1878-79. Vol. 80. London, 1879.
 
 194 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 population of the country. Candidates to the na- 
 tional assembly must be thirty years old and able 
 to read and write. The compensation to members 
 of the assembly from the city where it holds its ses- 
 sions is three dollars a day; to the other members 
 four dollars a day, including holidays and Sundays. 
 Travelling expenses are also paid. 
 
 The following classes of male citizens are ineli- 
 gible to membership in the national assembly: all 
 those engaged in actual military service; members 
 of the clergy ; individuals having contracts with the 
 government and those having pecuniary interest in 
 such contracts; and all public officials (members of 
 the cabinet excepted), mayors and assistant mayors, 
 and other persons occupying public posts. 
 
 The electoral law of Bulgaria is unique. It pro- 
 vides for the representation of minorities in the 
 national assembly, which makes the assembly truly 
 representative of the political sentiments of the 
 nation. The country is divided into electoral dis- 
 tricts, but a candidate may stand for election in 
 any one district in the kingdom, upon the petition 
 of ten voters in that district. The ballots are on 
 coloured papers, each party having its own colour, 
 and the party colours are duly registered. The 
 ballots contain the names of the candidates of a 
 particular party. There are, however, blank spaces 
 on the ticket, so that a voter may cross out the names 
 of such candidates on the ticket of his party for 
 whom he may not care to vote, and may add names 
 from the tickets of other parties. These coloured 
 ballots are placed in envelopes and deposited in the
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 195 
 
 election box. Bulgarians claim that their system 
 makes easier the counting of the votes and more 
 difficult efforts to tamper with the results. 
 
 The new election law of 1912 (amending article 
 120 of the election law of 1911) provides that within 
 five days from the date of the election the district 
 electoral colleges shall in public session tabulate the 
 votes cast in their respective electoral districts. 
 This tabulation shall include (1) the number of all 
 voters registered in the district, (2) the number of 
 votes actually cast at this particular election, (3) 
 the number of valid ballots, (4) the number of 
 spoiled or void ballots, (5) the number of votes cast 
 for the ticket of each political party, and (6) the 
 number of votes received by each individual can- 
 didate. 
 
 Upon the basis of the results, the respective elec- 
 toral colleges determine the election of the candi- 
 dates to the national assembly in the following man- 
 ner: The total number of valid ballots cast is di- 
 vided by the number of representatives to be sent 
 from the respective electoral districts, plus one. If, 
 for example, a given electoral district has a popu- 
 lation of 425,000 inhabitants, it will be entitled to 
 send twenty-one representatives to the national as- 
 sembly, the basis of representation being one assem- 
 blyman for twenty thousand of the population. The 
 electoral divisor being obtained by dividing the num- 
 ber of representatives from the district plus one by 
 the total number of votes cast. Each party ticket 
 sends as many of its candidates to the national as- 
 sembly as that divisor is contained times in the total
 
 196 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 number of votes cast for that particular party's 
 ticket. If, after such distribution, one or more rep- 
 resentatives should remain unallotted, then the first 
 undistributed representative is given to the party 
 receiving the highest average number of votes. In 
 the same way any other undistributed representa- 
 tives that may remain are apportioned. In case two 
 tickets should have the same number of votes, the 
 choice is determined by lot. 
 
 Perhaps the workings of the law may be made 
 a bit clearer by the following example. Electoral 
 district A, with a population of 425,000 inhabitants, 
 is entitled to twenty-one representatives in the na- 
 tional assembly. In a given election there are seven 
 tickets in the field, and each ticket, let us say, re- 
 ceives the following votes: liberals, 26,181; agra- 
 rians, 7,226; nationalists, 5,226; socialists, 4,985; 
 democrats, 4,976 ; national liberals, 2,575, and young 
 liberals, 2,041, with a total of 53,317 votes for the 
 seven parties in the electoral district. Dividing 
 53,317 by 22 (21 plus 1) gives 2,423, which becomes 
 the electoral divisor for this particular election. 
 Since the young liberals received less votes than 
 the electoral divisor, this party gets no representa- 
 tion from electoral district A in the national assem- 
 bly. Dividing consecutively the number of votes 
 cast for each of the other tickets by 2,423, the allot- 
 ment of representatives stands as follows : liberals, 
 10 representatives; agrarians, 2; nationalists, 2; 
 socialists, 2; democrats, 2; and national liberals, 2. 
 
 It will thus be seen that nineteen of the twenty- 
 one representatives from electoral district A have
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 197 
 
 been allotted. The two remaining places are given 
 to the parties having cast the highest average vote ; 
 and this average is determined by adding one to the 
 number of assignments to each party for a divisor. 
 The liberals had a total of 26,181 votes; dividing 
 this number by 11, their average is 2,380. The agra- 
 rians received 7,22G votes ; dividing this number by 
 3, the average is 2,408. Tlie nationalists had 5,333 
 votes; dividing their allotment by 3 gives 1,177. 
 The socialists received 4,985 votes; dividing again 
 by three, their average is found to be 1,166. Tho 
 democrats received 4,976 votes, and this number 
 divided by two gives 1,658. It will thus be seen that 
 the agrarians had the highest average, and the lib- 
 erals the second highest average, and these two par- 
 ties in consequence get each an additional represen- 
 tative. 
 
 The selection is made from the candidates who 
 have received the largest number of votes. Thus, 
 if in electoral district A the liberals had sixteen 
 names on their party ticket the eleven receiving the 
 largest number of votes are declared elected, and 
 so with the other tickets that are entitled to repre- 
 sentation in the national assembly. The system 
 makes possible the representation of minorities in 
 the sobranje, and these minorities often contain the 
 ablest men in the countr}\ Some of the really able 
 statesmen in recent national assemblies have been 
 chosen by insignificant parties. When, for example, 
 Alexander Malinoff became prime minister his party 
 numbered one other member in the sobranje besides 
 himself.
 
 198 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 If one should accept without examination the 
 charges of corruption and violence at the polls, it 
 would be easy to conclude that an absolutely free 
 election had never been held in Bulgaria. The highly 
 amusing account given by the Bulgarian humourist 
 Aleko Constantino fY in liis Bdi Ganio ^ tends to 
 confirm this suspicion. The pressure brought to 
 bear on the elections by the government party in 
 power may have been considerable in the days of 
 the rule of Stamboloff and the corrupting influences 
 of Russia. But in recent years elections have been 
 quiet and the party in power has probably influenced 
 very slightly the results of the returns. Even in 
 Stamboloff 's days, charges of governmental pres- 
 sure were probably grossly exaggerated by the vio- 
 lent and rancorous Russophil press. Mr. Beaman, 
 the English biographer of Stamboloff, remarks in 
 this connection: ** After every election the oppo- 
 sition invariably produces a long list of cases of 
 maltreatment, and the government as regularly pats 
 in a solemn and formal declaration that no force 
 was ever used. It is, however, a part of the pro- 
 gram in the elections, which everybody understands 
 perfectly well, that some heads should be broken, 
 and the complaints and lamentations of the defeated 
 are never treated seriously. The main returns are 
 not actually very much interfered with by these 
 amenities, as it is only in particular strongholds of 
 the opposition, as a rule, that the government inter- 
 
 * This chapter haa been translated into English by Natalie D. Son- 
 nichaen. See The Independent (New York) for Jan. 2, 1913. Vol. 74, 
 pp. 31-35.
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 199 
 
 feres ; and in the rest of the cases the majority bully 
 the minority, because they are the majority, and 
 therefore would elect their candidate, even without 
 violence."' Recent elections, it should be said to 
 the credit of the political intelligence of Bulgarian 
 electors, have been conducted with quiet, and few 
 charges of irregularity have been made. 
 
 The duration of the national assembly is four 
 years. It may be dissolved at any time by the king, 
 but new elections must take place within two months 
 from the date of dissolution. All legislative and 
 financial matters must first be discussed and voted 
 by the sobranje and sanctioned by the king. 
 Through his ministers the king may initiate legis- 
 lative measures, and he may issue regulations having 
 the obligatory force of laws whenever the state is 
 threatened with immediate internal or external dan- 
 ger. Such measures, however, must be adopted by 
 the cabinet since they entail the collective responsi- 
 bility of all the ministers; and they must be ap- 
 proved by the national assembly at its earliest ses- 
 sion. 
 
 The national assembly chooses its own officers, 
 consisting of a president, two vice-presidents, and 
 secretaries. Debates and voting are public, but the 
 chamber may decide to sit with closed doors. Any 
 member of the assembly has the right to introduce 
 bills if he is supported by one-fourth the members 
 present. Bulgarian citizens have the right to peti- 
 tion the national assembly. 
 
 The national assembly consists of only one cham- 
 
 » Stamboloff. By A. Ilulmc Bcanian. Ixindon, 1895, pp. 240.
 
 200 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 ber. There is, however, a grand national assembly 
 that meets by special convocation to decide on mat- 
 ters touching the revision of the constitution, acqui- 
 sition of territory, election of a ruler, appointment 
 of a regency, and authorization of the sovereign to 
 accept the government of another state. Its mem- 
 bers are elected in precisely the same way as the 
 members of the national assembly, save that the 
 electoral unit for twenty thousand inhabitants is 
 two instead of one. 
 
 The state budget must be submitted annually for 
 the approval of the national assembly, but it may 
 not strike out or modify any feature of the budget 
 without explaining the reasons which have deter- 
 mined its action. State loans may be contracted 
 only with the consent of the sobranje. 
 
 The main source of revenue is a direct land tax 
 of one-tenth the gross value of the products of any 
 farm, calculated on the average yield of the four 
 preceding years; tax levied on goats, sheep, and 
 pigs, at the rate of twenty cents a head for goats 
 and ten cents a head for sheep and pigs; and also 
 direct tax on tobacco, spirits, and playing-cards. 
 The indirect taxes come from import and export 
 duties. There are also excise duties upon all to- 
 bacco grown in the country, and upon the manufac- 
 ture of spirits and cigarette paper and the produc- 
 tion of salt. The imposts are made up of fees 
 charged for registration, legal certificates, pass- 
 ports, licenses to carry arms, fines levied by the 
 courts, and profits from state railways, posts, tele- 
 graphs, and telephones.
 
 O 
 
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 CO 
 
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 How Bulgaria Is Governed 201 
 
 Local government in Bulgaria is under the control 
 of the ministry of the interior. The kingdom is 
 divided into administrative departments. At the 
 head of each department there is a prefect appointed 
 by royal decree upon the recommendation of the 
 minister of the interior. He is the representative 
 of the central government, and as such represents 
 the executive authority of the kingdom. Pie is en- 
 trusted with the control of the towns and villages 
 in his department. He is assisted by a departmental 
 council, which meets in regular session one month 
 each year to assess taxes in the towns and villages 
 in the department, revise the accounts of the differ- 
 ent institutions under its control, and consult on all 
 matters relating to proposed construction of rail- 
 ways, roads, etc., in the department. Besides the 
 departmental council there is also a medical council 
 that superintends the sanitary conditions and public 
 hygiene in the department, and an educational coun- 
 cil that administers and supervises the schools in 
 the department. 
 
 The departments are again subdivided into dis- 
 tricts administered by sub-prefects, who act as ju- 
 diciary pohce and are held responsible for the public 
 safety of the district. Some of the more important 
 centres, such as Sofia, Philippopolis, Rustchuk, and 
 Varna, have in addition city prefects, who exercise 
 within the limits of their respective cities the func- 
 tions of chief of police. 
 
 To\\Ti government is the .smallest unit in the ad- 
 ministrative organization of the country. Every 
 Bulgarian subject must belong to a comnmne and
 
 202 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 figure in its registers, the laws of the country not 
 tolerating the state of vagrancy. This law has had 
 the effect of forcing upon the gypsies settled abodes. 
 The administrative bodies in the cities, towns, and 
 rural communities are the municipal councils. The 
 members of the municipal councils are elected by 
 universal suffrage in the same way and subject to 
 the same regulations as the members of the national 
 assembly. All members of the commune who are at 
 least thirty years of age and can read and write are 
 eligible to membership in the municipal council. 
 Those electors who have completed a secondary 
 school course may be elected at the age of twenty- 
 five. 
 
 The term of service in the town municipal coun- 
 cils is three years and in the rural communities, two 
 years. The council elects from its own members a 
 mayor and two assistant mayors. The mayor rep- 
 resents the community in its relations with the other 
 public departments of the government. In -the city 
 of Sofia the municipal council numbers thirty mem- 
 bers, all elected at one time. The council controls 
 the water system, electric lights, electric railways, 
 public health, parks and recreation centres, public 
 charities, elementary education, baths, and markets. 
 
 The judiciary power of Bulgaria is vested in law 
 courts and magistrates who act in the name of the 
 king. The civil and penal codes of the country are 
 largely based on Ottoman law. The lowest civil and 
 criminal court is that of the justice of the peace. 
 Such courts are found in all towns of any conse- 
 quence, and in Sofia there is a number distributed
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 203 
 
 between the various quarters of the capital. The 
 justice of the peace may try cases involving ci\nl 
 and commercial disputes up to two hundred dollars, 
 and criminal cases involving infractions and misde- 
 meanours entailing an imprisonment up to six 
 months and fines not exceeding one hundred dollars. 
 
 Departmental tribunals, or courts of the first in- 
 stance, are found in the chief towns of the different 
 departments. These courts have large powers; they 
 may pass sentence of death, penal servitude, and 
 deprivation of civil rights. In specified criminal 
 cases the departmental tribunals are assisted by a 
 jury of three persons chosen by lot from a panel of 
 forty-eight citizens. The duty of serving on the 
 jury is honorary and obligatory on all Bulgarian 
 subjects with a secondary education who know the 
 official language and pay at least one hundred dollars 
 a year in direct taxes. 
 
 The verdict of the jury, when unanimous, is final, 
 the only recourse being to the court of appeal, which 
 examines afresh the whole affair and decides the 
 case without the aid of a jury. The decision of the 
 court of appeal is final unless taken to the supreme 
 court of the kingdom. There arc three courts of 
 appeal in Bulgaria — at Sofia, Philippopolis, and 
 Rustchuk. 
 
 The supreme court, or court of cassation, has its 
 seat at Sofia. It has the power to reverse the judg- 
 ments of all the other courts of the land on points 
 of law or procedure. It is composed of a president 
 judge, two vice-president, and nine other judges. 
 
 The judiciary is open to all Bulgarian male sub-
 
 204 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 jects twenty-six years old, who have completed a 
 full legal course of instruction, know the official lan- 
 guage of the country, and have practised law in a 
 departmental court for at least six months. No 
 judge may at the same time practise law, serve as a 
 member of the national assembly, or pursue such 
 vocations as teaching, trade, or editor of a political 
 newspaper. Judges in Bulgaria are poorly paid; 
 and, as they may be removed by the government, 
 changes are frequent and sometimes for inadequate 
 causes. 
 
 In addition to the law courts, there are in the 
 kingdom certain special tribunals. Matters touching 
 marriage, divorce, and inheritance are under the 
 direction of the Orthodox, the Mohammedan, the 
 Jewish, and other religious organizations. There 
 are consular courts that deal with all civil and com- 
 mercial disputes arising between foreign subjects 
 and not involving landed property in Bulgaria. Mil- 
 itary courts pass upon all criminal cases involving 
 persons in active service in the army. 
 
 In spite of the fact that Bulgaria officials received 
 their political education in the two worst schools of 
 political pedagogy in Europe — Turkey and Russia 
 — it is the opinion of competent foreign critics that 
 the country has been better governed than any of 
 the other Balkan states. Frequent newspaper 
 charges of graft and corruption of public officials 
 carry little weight when one recalls the violence of 
 the Sofia press and its rancorous abuse of political 
 opponents. The officials who administer the affairs 
 of state have sometimes blundered and blundered
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 205 
 
 grievously; but when one recalls the difficulties 
 which they have had to face during the brief period 
 of national existence, the marvel is that they have 
 done so well in governmental matters. Mr. William 
 Miller, an English writer, well voices the sentiments 
 of the author in the statement: " With all their 
 faults, and in spite of all their trials and tempta- 
 tions, the peasant statesmen have achieved great 
 triumphs during tlic comparatively brief period of 
 their country's existence as a practically independ- 
 ent state." ^ 
 
 It is not easy for a foreigner to comprehend the 
 principles upon which the political parties are 
 founded, and for the obvious reason that most of 
 them have been founded upon personalities. One 
 hears, for example, much more often of the Gucshoff 
 party, the Radosavoff party or of the Zankoff party 
 than of the national party, the liberal party, or the 
 progressive liberal party. During the first years of 
 Ihc principality there were two political parties. 
 This division took place at the first constitutional 
 convention at Tirnovo. The Dondukoff-Korsakoff 
 project of a constitution for the Bulgarian people 
 gave rise to warm discussions and the participants 
 were ranged as conserv^atives and liberals. The 
 conservatives were aristocrats and numerically in 
 the minority. They followed the lead of Russia. 
 Their leaders were Marko RalabanofT and Burmoff. 
 The motto of the liberals was " Bulgaria for the 
 Bulgarians." They opposed the autocratic rule of 
 Russia, and sought to give expression to the will of 
 
 ^ The Balkans. By William MjiJler. New York, 1907, pp. 476.
 
 206 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 the people. Their leaders were Petko Karaveloff 
 and Dragan Zankoff, and later the great statesman, 
 Stefan Stamboloff. 
 
 In Eastern Rumelia there were also two par- 
 ties — the conservative " unionists " (Russophiles) 
 and the radicals, scornfull}- called by their oppo- 
 nents kazionni, or treasure-hunters. Both parties 
 in Eastern Rumelia favoured union with Bulgaria; 
 but when Russia, after Bogoridi's removal, turned 
 against the union, the conservatives became anti- 
 unionists. The radicals, however, under Zachary 
 Stoyanoff, effected at Philippopolis the union of 
 the two Bulgarias. After the union, the conserv- 
 atives from Eastern Rumelia joined forces with 
 those in Bulgaria ; and as a result of the combina- 
 tion wo have to-day what is known as the nationalist 
 (narodniak) party under the leadership of Ma- 
 djaroff, Velitchkoff, Ivan Vazoff, the Bobtcheffs, 
 Todoroff, and Gueshoff. The nationalist party is 
 mildly clerical and strongly Russophil. 
 
 Following the alienation of Prince Alexander 
 from Russia in 1885, Dragan Zankoff, hitherto a 
 leader in the liberal party, turned against the prince 
 and cast his lot with Russia. This was the ori- 
 gin of the liberal Russophil or Zankovist party, 
 which is to-day represented by Daneff and Luds- 
 kanoff under the name of the progressive liberal 
 party. The traitorous conduct of Petko Karaveloff 
 during the coup d'etat of 1886 and the regency that 
 followed caused the breach with Stamboloff and the 
 formation of a new liberal party that is represented 
 to-day by the democratic party under the leadership
 
 How Bulgaria Is Governed 207 
 
 of Malinoff and Takeff. Wlien Dr. Radoslavoff, the 
 present prime minister, became active in Bulgarian 
 politics, differences between the other liberal lead- 
 ers and himself caused a division in the party 
 into liberals (Radoslavists) and national liberals 
 (Stambolovists), the latter now led by Dr. Ghuena- 
 dieff, Tontcheff later withdrew from the Eados- 
 lavist party and established the young liberal party. 
 Recently the more radical members of the old 
 Karavelist (democratic) party, together with men 
 from other parties, have formed a party called the 
 radical democratic. It will thus be seen that most 
 of the political parties in Bulgaria are the result 
 of splits in the liberal party. There are two sec- 
 tions of the socialist party in Bulgaria — the broad 
 socialist party (shiroki), led by Sakuzoff, and the 
 strict socialist party (tessni), under the leadership 
 of Blagoeff. The most recent political party is the 
 agrarian, organized in consequence of an agitation 
 among the peasant farmers, and under the leader- 
 ship of Stamboliski and Dragieff.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 RELIGION AND AIONASTERIES 
 
 The national Orthodox church of l^ulgaria — A static religion — 
 Dearth of intellectual life among its priesfa — Language of the serv- 
 ice — Place of fasts — Nature of church services — The confes- 
 Bional — Celibacy required only of monks — Religious toleration 
 in Bulgaria — The PomaLs or Bulgarian Moslems — Monasticism 
 — The famous Rilo monastery — Other monasteries — The Mo- 
 hammedan church in Bulgaria — The Greek patriarchist church — 
 Hebrews — Catholics and llniatcs — The American Protestant 
 movement in Bulgaria — Its educational influence — \Miat Prot- 
 estantism haa done for the country. 
 
 The national clnirch of Bulgaria is the Orthodox, 
 sometimes called the Greek Orthodox, hecause Chris- 
 tianity arose in the east and Greek was the language 
 of the Scriptures and of the early services of the 
 church. To-day, however, the Orthodox church in- 
 cludes nine independent hranches, one of the less 
 important branches being the Hellenic church of 
 modern Greece. Russia, Servia, Rumania, Monte- 
 negro, and Bulgaria all have independent state or- 
 ganizations and employ the old Slavonic as the lan- 
 guage of the service. 
 
 It will be recalled that in the time of Constantine 
 the Christian church was divided into dioceses, over 
 which a bishop ruled in ecclesiastical matters. Later 
 the bishop in the chief city of a diocese rose to pre- 
 eminence and received the title of exarch. In time 
 the most distinguished exarchs received the title of 
 patriarch. ^Vhen the empire was divided there were 
 
 208
 
 o 
 
 M 
 K 
 
 >< 
 
 a 
 a 
 
 as 
 
 < 
 
 o
 
 Religion and Monasteries 209 
 
 three patriarchs : one at Rome, one at Antioch, and 
 one at Alexandria. Constantinople and Jerusalem 
 were later made patriarchates in the eastern church. 
 It thus happened that with four heads the Orthodox 
 church never became a despotic monarchy governed 
 from one centre. It beciime what it is to-day, an 
 oligarchy of patriarchs. Each patriarch is within 
 his own diocese what the pope is in the western 
 church. He is not amenable to his brother patri- 
 archs, but like them, he is within the jurisdiction of 
 ecumenical synods. 
 
 *' The attachment of the Bulgarian peasant for the 
 national Orthodox church," remarks Mr. Henry N. 
 Brailsford, the most competent European authority 
 on ethnic problems in the Balkan jDeninsula, '' is not 
 so much due to the religious instincts of the peasant 
 as to his political conditions, which explain his pas- 
 sionate attachment to his church and the great part 
 which it plays in his existence. His fidelity to his 
 church has been through five centuries one contin- 
 uous martyrdom. He has remained true to it not 
 merely from a reasoned or traditional faith in its 
 tenets, but simy)ly because apostasy involved a fore- 
 swearing of his nationality and a treason to the 
 cause of his own race." ^ 
 
 It is never easy for a foreigner to pass judgment 
 upon the worth and influence of an alien religion. 
 One may, however, as Mr. Brailsford has remarked 
 concerning the Orthodox church, draw some reason- 
 ably sure inference from certain glaring and quite 
 
 ' Macedonia: its Rnrcx nrui their Future. By Henry Noel Brails- 
 ford. London, 1900, pp. 34U.
 
 210 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 obvious facts. '* Nothing could be more remark- 
 able," he says, '' than the total absence of heresy 
 among the Christians of Turkey and the Balkan 
 states. The active speculation of the Greek mind 
 and its preoccupation with religion produced an 
 endless succession of more or less interesting here- 
 sies during the Middle Ages. With the Turkish 
 conquest they abruptly ceased. A patriarch who had 
 been educated in Germany played a little with Prot- 
 estantism in the seventeenth century. I believe there 
 is no other instance of any deviation from the monot- 
 onous path of official orthodoxy. There has been 
 schism, it is true, but always on political and never 
 on theological grounds. The explanation lies, I am 
 afraid, on the surface. There is no heresy in the 
 eastern church because there is no interest in relig- 
 ion. Turkish rule has crushed out every form of 
 intellectual life, and in the feud of conqueror and 
 conquered, Christianity has become no more than 
 a sort of mental uniform in which one party has 
 marched in a long and doubtful defensive warfare. 
 The conquest did, in fact, destroy a peculiarly inter- 
 esting heresy which flourished under the name of 
 Bogomilism among the Slavs of Macedonia and Bos- 
 nia and also in Albania. It seems to have been Uni- 
 tarian in its theolog>% Manichean in its metaphysics, 
 and so stubbornly idealist, so certain that all matter 
 and therefore all external forms are evil, that it 
 rejected the sacraments. The little one knows of it 
 suggests an affinity with some of the most spiritual 
 of the Russian peasant heresies. But the modern 
 Balkan peasant has neither the leisure nor the ease
 
 
 
 a 
 
 ■/J 
 
 o
 
 Religion and Monasteries 211 
 
 of mind to approach religion with any fresh and 
 original insight. And here the Christianity of the 
 eastern church compares unfavourahly with Tslam, 
 which proves its vitality by not a little unorthodox 
 speculation. . . . Indeed the Cross in the east has 
 become so much a mere symbol of warfare that it 
 is a little difTieult to define Orthodox Christianity 
 in any but negative terms. I doubt if it has any 
 important bearing on conduct, and certainly in its 
 traditions there is no longer a trace of that human- 
 itarian spirit of mercy and love which the modern 
 mind tends more and more to read into religion. 
 The Moslem at least has a theory that he may atone 
 for many sins by giving bread to the pariah dogs 
 of the streets. There is no such sentiment as this 
 among the Christians, and as little recognition of 
 any duty to the poor and the sick." 
 
 The Orthodox church has no creed in the sense 
 in which the word is used in Roman Catholic and 
 Protestant countries. But the doctrines of the 
 church are found in the confessions of faith. Old 
 Slavonic is the language used in the Orthodox 
 churches in Bulgaria. It differs from the modern 
 Bulgarian language about as much as the Anglo- 
 Saxon of Chaucer differs from modern English. 
 
 Fasts in the Orthodox church are frequent and 
 severe. Besides Wednesdav and Fridav, which are 
 fast days, there are four fasting seasons during the 
 year — Lent, Pentecost to Saints Peter and Paul, 
 Feast of the Sleep of Theotoxos (the 1st to the 15th 
 of August), and the six weeks' fast preceding Clirist- 
 mas. Indulgences are not recognized. The Virgin
 
 212 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 receives homage, but the dogma of her immaculate 
 conception is not admitted. 
 
 Apart from the ikons of the saints and the cru- 
 cifix, there are no " graven images " in the Ortho- 
 dox churches. Singing plays an important part in 
 the service, but there is no instrumental music. 
 Prayers are offered standing, with the face towards 
 the east. At Pentecost, however, the worshippers 
 kneel. The celebration of the Eucharist is an elab- 
 orate symbolical representation of the Passion. 
 Consecrated bread is broken into the wine and both 
 elements are given in a spoon. 
 
 The confessional, which is still nominally an in- 
 stitution of the Orthodox church, is rapidly falling 
 into disuse. Mr. Brailsford attributes this tendency 
 to ** the ignorance and degradation of the secular 
 clergy. To go for ethical guidance to the average 
 village priest would indeed be too ridiculous. The 
 married priests outside the larger towns are for 
 the most part totally uneducated, and lead the life 
 of peasants, only adding the fees paid by their flock 
 for marriages, baptisms, and funerals to the rev- 
 enues of their fields. They can read enough to mum- 
 ble through the ritual, and write sufficiently well 
 to keep the parish registers; but there their superi- 
 ority to the average peasant ends. Preaching is 
 practically unknown. Their function is not that of 
 the pastor or the teacher. They are simply petty 
 officials who perform the rites appropriate to the 
 crossing of the frontier between this world and the 
 next. They bury and baptize for a consideration, 
 much in the spirit of a customs' officer who takes
 
 Religion and Monasteries 213 
 
 toll on the border of him who enters and of him who 
 leaves." 
 
 The clergy of the Orthodox church are divided 
 into priests and monks. Priests must marry but 
 monks are required to remain celibates. Only 
 monks are eligible to appointment to bishoprics and 
 the highest offices in the church. The clergy are 
 paid by the state; they also receive fees for mar- 
 riages, burials, etc. The compensation, however, 
 is ridiculously small. Parish priests have very little 
 education, and they are esteemed with indifference 
 by their parishioners. The ignorance of the clergy 
 is the weak spot in the Orthodox church. Roman 
 Catholic priests and Protestant pastors in Bulgaria 
 are distinctly superior to the Orthodox clergy in 
 education, intelligence, and moral ideals. 
 
 The governing body of the Orthodox church of 
 Bulgaria is the Holy Synod, which consists of four 
 metropolitan bishops chosen for life by secret bal- 
 lot of all the bishops. Laymen take part in these 
 elections on the same footing as members of the 
 clergy. The Holy Synod is presided over by the 
 exarch, who is the nominal head of the national 
 church. More than thre<^- fourths of the people of 
 Bulgaria are adherents of the Orthodox church. 
 
 No other country in the Balkan peninsula gives 
 so large a measure of religious freedom as Bulgaria. 
 The Servian government prohibits by law all prose- 
 lytizing. The Greeks, although they welcomed the 
 aid of Protestants of England and America in their 
 war of liberation, have since enacted laws which 
 make the labours of Protestant missionaries and
 
 214 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 teachers in Hellas quite impossible. Mr. Ilerrick, 
 an American missionary, remarks in this connec- 
 tion: *' The circulation of the Bible in Greece in 
 the language of the country is forbidden, and in 
 Servia intolerance of missionary work is even more 
 rigid than in Greece." ^ 
 
 The tolerance in Bulgaria, however, has been due 
 to enliglitened statesmanship rather than to any 
 spirit of forbearance on the part of the clergy of 
 the Orthodox church. It may well be doubted 
 whether the priests of the national church are less 
 bigoted than their unenlightened confreres in 
 Greece, Servia, and Rumania. On the few occasions 
 when the Orthodox clergy of Bulgaria have had 
 the chance to assert authority, it has not been in 
 the dif-ection of tolerance towards Moslems, Roman 
 Catholics, and Protestants. Their attitude towards 
 the Pomaks in the Rhodope mountains is a point in 
 question. In the spring of 1913, after the Turks 
 had lost this region in the Balkan war, Orthodox 
 priests visited the Pomak villages and forcibly 
 " converted " the inhabitants to the religion of the 
 national church. After the recent war among the 
 allies, upon the strong representation of the Mos- 
 lem inhabitants of Bulgaria and Turkey, the Bul- 
 garian government was compelled to repudiate the 
 action of the Orthodox priests, and to forbid any 
 further attempts by force to reconvert the Pomaks 
 to the faith of the national church. 
 
 This stupid blunder is responsible for the charge 
 
 ^ Peac€ as the World Givcth. By George F. Herrick. Missionary 
 Review of the World, June, 1913.
 
 Religion and Monasteries 215 
 
 of intolerance against llie Bulgarians. Rather it 
 should be credited to the clerical Russophil Gue- 
 shofY-Daneff ministries and to certain leading ec- 
 clesiastics in the Bulgarian Orthodox church. Lib- 
 eral-minded Bulgars denounced the efforts to forci- 
 bly reconvert the Pomaks to the faith of the national 
 church as an outrage on humanity and a grave po- 
 litical error. Witness this published protest from 
 the pen of Anton Strashimiroff, one of the leading 
 Bulgarian men of letters: " Those who stand for 
 the thought and the honour of our country ought to 
 know that our authorities have, in the countries on 
 the frontier inhabited by the Pomaks and recently 
 liberated, acted in a way which is a disgrace to their 
 country and to humanity. One aim alone was kept 
 in sight — that of personal enrichment. Conversion 
 was only a pretext. It did not save the poor Pomaks 
 from atrocious treatment except where the priests 
 with whom they had to deal were conscientious men. 
 Such cases, however, were rare. The ecclesiastical 
 mission was beneath criticism. High rewards were 
 paid, but the priests sent to carry out this task in 
 the Pomak villages were drunkards and criminals 
 who could not be kept in Bulgaria. The behaviour 
 of the police was monstrous. In Bulgaria no one 
 has and no one can have any idea of the atrocities 
 committed by prefects, heads of police, and priests. 
 The device of the Pomaks now runs — ' Let any one 
 take us, only not the '* Pi.'^se htikiminfe Bulgnr '* 
 (the dirty Bulgarian government).' Yet at first 
 these Pomaks showed the most absolute submission 
 to our army. lu the last two decades they had con-
 
 216 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 ceived a hatred for Turkism. Their principal griev- 
 ance was the defective condition of their mountain 
 roads and the burden of annual duties. They knew 
 that this state of things had been largely remedied 
 in Bulgaria, and they held to the idea that the Bul- 
 garian government would at least give them roads. 
 At Dary-deri a Pomak, an officer in the reserve of 
 the Turkish army, came before the authorities and 
 had himself baptized because he was fired by the 
 idea that the Bulgarians brought nothing but good 
 with them. He was at last disillusioned, and he 
 and his children were massacred by their neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 '' Nevertheless the Bulgarian government is not 
 ignorant as to the steps which should be taken to 
 satisfy the population of the annexed region and 
 secure their gratitude. It has itself declared in a 
 manifesto addressed ' to the inhabitants of the newly 
 liberated region, published the day after the con- 
 clusion of the treaty with Turkey, September 29, 
 1913.' — most formal orders are given to the Bul- 
 garian civil and military authorities to display the 
 greatest kindness to the inhabitants of the annexed 
 territories, to respect their faith and their nation- 
 ality, to refrain from any attack on their personal 
 liberty, and to maintain the inviolability of their 
 houses and their property. The citizens of new Bul- 
 garia are to enjoy, without distinction of religion 
 or nationality, the same rights which are secured 
 by the constitution of the kingdom to all its citizens. 
 Respect for religious freedom and for education is 
 enjoined, and also respect for the religious beliefs
 
 BIRD 3-EYE VIEW OF RILO MONASTERY. 
 
 COURT OK RILO MONASTKKY.
 
 Religion and Monasteries 217 
 
 and usages, the mosques, cemeteries, and other holy 
 places of all citizens alike." 
 
 Monasticism is an important feature of the relig- 
 ion of the Orthodox church. There are seventy- 
 eight monasteries for men and forty for women in 
 Bulgaria. Among the well known monastic insti- 
 tutions of the kingdom are St. John of Rilo in the 
 Rilo mountains, St. Nicholas near Shipka pass, and 
 Tscherepish at the northern end of the Isker gorge. 
 The monastery of St. John is located in a gloomy 
 ravine hetween the lofty ridges of the richly forest- 
 clad Rilo mountains. Stupendous rocky summits 
 surround and protect the monastery. The steep 
 slopes of the mountains are covered with a prime- 
 val forest, and a foaming torrent dashes through the 
 narrow gorge in which the gi'eat national sanctuary 
 is situated. 
 
 Rilo monastery is to the Bulgars, as Professor 
 Jiricek has well remarked, what St. Michael in Nor- 
 mandy and Grande Chartreuse in Dauphiny were 
 so long to the French — the central point and focus 
 of not only the national religion, but also of the 
 national sentiment and aspiration. The monastery 
 was founded by St. John of Rilo (Ivan Rilsky). 
 He was born in 876; and after leading a holy life 
 in trees and caves for many years he selected this 
 wild and almost inaccessible spot in the Rilo moun- 
 tains as the permanent place of his devotions. His 
 great piety brought him great fame. Tt soon became 
 known that he possessed unusual power of exor- 
 cising demons and curing bodily maladies. Four 
 times a year devout pilgrims come to the monastery,
 
 218 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 sometimes as many as fifteen thousand, to commem- 
 orate the life of the saint, offer thanksgivings, and 
 seek fresh blessings. 
 
 Among other well-kno%vn monasteries in Bulgaria 
 are the monastery of the Transfiguration, overlook- 
 ing the narrow valley of the Yantra river; the Po- 
 ganovsk}'' monastery, near the Servian frontier, at 
 the gateway of the wild gorge of the Jerma river; 
 and the monastery of the Seven Altars, hidden in 
 the heart of wooded hills. In earlier times the mon- 
 asteries were the homes of the Slavic tongue and 
 preserved some of the remnants of the old literature 
 from complete destruction by the intolerant Greeks. 
 During the revolutionary period patriots and lead- 
 ers met at the monasteries to discuss plans and form 
 organizations. To-day, however, they exercise very 
 little political or intellectual influence in Bulgaria. 
 Peasants still reverence them as places where mira- 
 cles are worked, and where diseased souls and bod- 
 ies may be made healthy. The monks for the most 
 part are unlettered. They cultivate their vineyards, 
 care for stock and flocks, distil spirits from fruits, 
 and say perfunctory prayers. The monastericg own 
 vast tracts of land, and the Bulgarian government 
 has always respected their property. 
 
 The Mohammedan church ranks first in number 
 of communicants among the non-conformist relig- 
 ious bodies of Bulgaria. It has about a fifth as 
 many adherents as the national Orthodox church. 
 The Moslem population of the kingdom is organized 
 into religious communities which are administered 
 by muftis, whose duties are entirely spiritual. The
 
 Religion and Monasteries 219 
 
 muftis are freely chosen by the followers of the 
 Prophet, and are confirmed by the government. 
 Like the clergy of other denominations in Bulgaria 
 they are paid by the state. Tliere are thirty-six 
 Mohammedan churches in Bulgaria, and they are 
 administered by forty-two muftis. The mufti of 
 Sofia is the head of the organization in the coun- 
 try. 
 
 The mufti at the head of each Mohammedan com- 
 munity is assisted by one or more secretaries (whose 
 salaries are paid by the Bulgarian government) and 
 an administrative council, the members of which are 
 chosen by the Mohammedan population of the par- 
 ish. The mufti deals with all questions touching 
 divorce, property inheritance of his parishioners, 
 care of mosques and other religious establishments ; 
 he also deals with the matter of taxes on all landed 
 properties that have been bequeathed by Moham- 
 medans for purposes of charity and for the needs 
 of the Moslem churches. Most of the Mohammedans 
 of Bulgaria reside in the northern and eastern prov- 
 inces of the country. 
 
 The Greek church of Bulgaria is independent of 
 the national Orthodox church. It is under the di- 
 rect supervision of the patriarch of Constantinople. 
 The membership of the Greek church is about sixty 
 thousand. The religious communities are organized 
 in the same way as the communities of the other 
 faiths. The bishop is assisted by a council freely 
 chosen by the Greek population to administer the 
 affairs of the community and to decide on matters 
 touching marriage, divorce, and parochial education.
 
 220 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 The Greek bishoprics of Bulgaria are at Varna, 
 Philippopolis, Sozopol, Anchialo, and Messemvria. 
 
 There are about thirty-eight thousand adherents 
 of the Hebrew faith in Bulgaria. The spiritual 
 chief of the Jews is the grand rabbi of Sofia. He is 
 assisted in the direction of affairs touching religion 
 by a synagogical committee. There are similar 
 committees under the direction of rabbis in the 
 towns w^th Jewish congregations. There are about 
 fifteen thousand Gregorian Armenians in Bulgaria, 
 with a bishop at Rustchuk. While the organization 
 of the Armenian church is in a comparatively rudi- 
 mentary state, its priests receive the same ecclesi- 
 astical rights and aid as the other denominations in 
 the country. 
 
 The Roman Catholic church of Bulgaria numbers 
 about thirty thousand communicants, who, for the 
 most part, are descended from the Bogomiles, an 
 heretical sect that endured the persecutions of the 
 Orthodox church for several centuries. A writer 
 in the CatJwlic Times calls attention to the large 
 liberties enjoyed by Roman Catholics in Bulgaria 
 as compared with those in Greece and in other states 
 of the Balkans. " In Greece," he says, '' Catholics 
 are everywhere detested and considered rebels and 
 hostile to the institutions of the country.'* 
 
 The diocese of Nieopolis, with the bishop's resi- 
 dence at Rustchuk, contauis about thirteen thousand 
 Latin Catholics, divided into fourteen parishes. 
 There are parish schools for both boys and girls, 
 as well as religious houses of the Passionist, Marist, 
 and Assumptionist orders. The apostolic vicar of
 
 Religion and Monasteries 221 
 
 Philippopolis contains about fifteen thousand Latin 
 Catholics in thirteen parishes. There is a Catholic 
 college at Philippopolis under the order of the As- 
 sumptionists, and numerous elementary and second- 
 ary schools under the direction of the Brothers of 
 the Christian Schools and other Catholic teaching 
 orders. The intellectual status of the Roman Cath- 
 olic priests of Bulgaria is distinctly superior to that 
 of the priests of the Orthodox church. 
 
 An interesting ecclesiastical development in the 
 Balkan peninsula is the Catholic Uniate church. It 
 uses the language and liturgy of the Orthodox 
 church; its clergy marry and wear the garb of the 
 Orthodox priests, and in dogma as well as in ritual, 
 it is practically indistinguishable from the Orthodox 
 faith. But it recognizes the authority of the church 
 of Rome. There are about thirteen thousand Cath- 
 olic Uniates in Bulgaria, chiefly in districts that 
 formerly were parts of Thrace and Macedonia. 
 They are under the immediate jurisdiction of two 
 Bulgarian bishops appointed by the Holy See at 
 Rome. 
 
 The Protestant movement in Bulgaria is entirely 
 due to the religious and educational labours of 
 American missionaries. In 1857 the Methodist Epis- 
 copal church of the United States took as the field 
 of its labours that part of Bulgaria that lies between 
 the Danube river and the Balkan mountains. The 
 work was carried on amid difficulties and was t\\nce 
 practically suspended ; but in 1905, the Reverend 
 Elmer E. Count, an able American Methodist clergy- 
 man, was sent to the field as resident superintendent
 
 222 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 of the Methodist Episcopal churches in Bulgaria. 
 Since that date the church has made remarkable 
 progress and has to-day congregations at Plevna, 
 Sofia, Eustchuk, Varna, Lom, Lovetch, Vidin, Tir- 
 novo, Shumen, Voyvodevo, and nine other towns in 
 the kingdom. The Methodists maintain a secondary 
 school for Bulgarian girls at Lovetch, and publish 
 a paper, The Christian World, at Sofia. 
 
 The Congregational churches of the United States 
 occupied the territory between the Balkan mountains 
 and the ^gean sea. Their first missionaries were 
 sent to what was then European Turkey in 1858. 
 They located at Adrianople. During the next dozen 
 years iVmerican missionaries were sent to Stara Za- 
 gora, Philippopolis, Sofia, and Samokov. The Ban- 
 sko church in the Razlog district was organized in 
 1871. This has become one of the chief centres of 
 Protestantism in Bulgaria. Bansko is the birthplace 
 of the Reverend Marko N. Popoff, who, for nineteen 
 years, administered so efliciently the large Protes- 
 tant church at Sofia, the "Reverent D. N. Fornajieff, 
 the present pastor of the Protestant church of Sofia, 
 and other leaders of the Protestant movement. 
 
 The American Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Congregational church has been especially active 
 in establishing churches and preaching stations in 
 Macedonia. Beginning with 1873, stations were es- 
 tablished at Monastir, Resen, Prilep, Veles, Skopie, 
 Radovish, Doiran, Drama, Kuknsh, and at many 
 other points in Macedonia. 
 
 Besides the religious work of the missions, many 
 elementary schools were organized in Macedonia
 
 Religion and Monasteries 223 
 
 and in what is to-day Bulgaria. At Samokov in 
 Bulgaria there have been maintained for more than 
 half a century Bulgarian secondary schools for girls 
 and boys; and connected with the latter a theolog- 
 ical institute for the training of clergymen for the 
 work of pastors. Through the agency of the mis- 
 sions the Bible was translated into Bulgarian. 
 More than six hundred hymns and sacred songs 
 have been translated into the vernacular. Zornitza, 
 the weekly journal published in Bulgarian by the 
 Protestant churches of the kingdom, is the oldest 
 newspaper published in Bulgaria. 
 
 There are about six thousand Protestants in Bul- 
 garia, and the conspicuous part they have played in 
 the public life of the nation is altogether out of pro- 
 portion to their numerical strength. " If the Amer- 
 ican missionaries have not made large numbers of 
 converts to Protestantism," remarks Mr, Brails- 
 ford, ** they have made relatively well-educated 
 men, who found the stagnation and oppression of 
 the Turkish east comj)letely unendurable. Tlieir 
 colleges and secondary schools were so largely fre- 
 quented by native Christian lads that the eastern 
 churches were compelled in self-defence to imitate 
 them."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 EDUCATION IN BULGARIA 
 
 Bulgarian culture effaced during the supremacy of tht- Greek ^'lu.- 
 nariotes — The revival nf learning in Bulgaria — Education and 
 the literarj' and historical renaissance — The secondary school at 
 Gabrovo — Opposition of the Greek ecclcHiastics ■ — Views of the 
 American missionaries — Mission schools conducted by Americans 
 — The national school system — How elementary schools are sup- 
 ported — Course of study — Education of girls — Normal schools 
 for the training of teachers — The university of Sofia — Special 
 and technical schools — Rapid decrease in the percentage of illit- 
 eracy — Libraries. 
 
 During the dark ages of Bulgarian history, the 
 period when the Bulgars were under the spiritual 
 supremacy of the Greek church, schools in the ver- 
 nacular never entirely disappeared. The bigoted 
 Phanariotes did everything in their power to com- 
 pletely efface the native culture ; and although their 
 work at times seemed to have completely stamped 
 out the old Slavic language, here and there the stub- 
 born villagers maintained at their own expense pri- 
 mary schools where the mother tongue was the me- 
 dium of instruction. 
 
 With the destruction of the Byzantine empire by 
 the Turks and the assumption of temporal sover- 
 eignty of Bulgaria by the sultans, spiritual authority 
 over the conquered Slavs was vested in the Greek 
 patriarchate. *' The patriarchate," remarks quite 
 truly Mr. Brailsford, " was sold at frequent inter- 
 vals and at a steadily rising price to any Greek 
 adventurer who could buy his nomination. He re- 
 
 224
 
 Education in Bulgaria 225 
 
 conped himself by selling the consecration of bish- 
 ops, and they in turn, regarding this outlay as a 
 legitimate investment of capital, proceeded to farm 
 their dioceses. Out of this system there grew up 
 a Greek aristocracy in Constantinople, grouped 
 round the Phanar — as the patriarch's seat was 
 called. The lay members enjoyed the confidence of 
 the Porte, and bought offices of much profit and 
 power." 
 
 The Phanariotes exploited the church, and set be- 
 fore themselves the task of crushing the Slavs of 
 Bulgaria with the authority of the Ottoman govern- 
 ment behind them. They extinguished the Bulga- 
 rian patriarchate, closed the higher Bulgarian 
 schools, and burned the books in the Slavic language. 
 The Greek language, both as a literary and a church 
 language, was forced on the Bulgars. With Greek 
 churches, Greek priests, and Greek cloister schools 
 in their midst, it was impossible for the Bulgars to 
 retain the spiritual power necessary to successfully 
 resist the constant pressure of foreign supremacy, 
 both material and spiritual. 
 
 Down to the opening years of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury culture in Bulgaria was a close preserve for 
 the Greeks. A few monks of the SU^vic race pre- 
 served by discretion and dissimulation the mem- 
 ories of the days when Bulgaria was the most im- 
 portant kingdom in the Balkan peninsula. These 
 monks w^ere tlie real forerunners of the Bulgarian 
 renaissance that made possible ultimate freedom 
 from the intolerant and corrupt patriarchate and 
 the oppressive and tyrannical sultans.
 
 226 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 As related in a pre^doiiR historical chapter, it 
 was the Monk Pai'ssy who started the literary re- 
 vival that was to bring about the national independ- 
 ence. In 1762 he published his History of the Bul- 
 garian People, " a work with no pretensions to sci- 
 entific accuracy, but which aroused the dormant 
 patriotism of the people where a coldly critical and 
 impartial narrative would have failed." His pupil, 
 Stoiko Vladislavoff (1739-1815), afterwards Bishop 
 Sophroni, was the teacher in the school at Kotel that 
 trained most of the leaders in the movement that led 
 to the reestablishment of the national Bulgarian 
 church and tlic rehabilitation of the empire of the 
 old Bulgarian tsars. 
 
 In the spring of 1831:, Vassil Apriloff, a merchant 
 at Gabrovo, visited Constantinople and secured from 
 the Turkish government permission to open a sec- 
 ondary school in his native town, in which the lan- 
 guage of instruction should be Bulgarian. He made 
 appeals to his compatriots in Russia and Rumania, 
 and received pledges of several hundred dollars 
 towards the support of the school. Neophyt Rilsky, 
 who had been connected with the monastic institution 
 at Rilo from 1816 to 1828, was secured as principal 
 teacher. He spent some months at Bucharest pre- 
 paring text-books and i)lans for the school. He com- 
 posed a Bulgarian grammar; translated from the 
 Russian an arithmetic; secured copies of Boron's 
 reading book; and returning to Bulgaria, opened 
 a school at Gabrovo the 14th of January, 1835 — 
 '' the first Bulgarian secondary school," observes 
 a historian, " and one that was destined to be-
 
 Education in Bulgaria 227 
 
 come the nurseiy of the new Bulgarian educa- 
 tion." The school was patterned after the moni- 
 torial system of Bell and Lancaster. The system 
 was both cheap and (comparatively) effective; only 
 bare rooms were required ; few teachers were needed 
 for large numbers of pupils ; and the cost of main- 
 tenance was reduced to a minimum. 
 
 The school at Gabrovo is one of the milestones in 
 the history of Bulgarian education. Within ten 
 years similar schools were organized at Sofia, Kotel, 
 Rustchuk, Stara Zagora, Plevna, Kazanlik, Pana- 
 gurishto, Shumen, and ten other towns in the coun- 
 try. The Greek priests strongly opposed the schools, 
 but their opposition served rather to increase the 
 zeal of the Bulgarians. Young men, at their own 
 expense, or aided by benevolent persons, went 
 abroad to prepare themselves for the work of teach- 
 ing. The national spirit awakened with the educa- 
 tion of the people and the struggle for religious 
 emancipation from the tyranny of the corrupt Pha- 
 nariotes began. Tlu3 Greeks charged the Bulgars 
 with being revolutionists and of attempting to throw 
 off the Ottoman yoke. Turkey, as a result of the 
 sinister charges of the Greeks, imprisoned many 
 of the Bulgarian teachers and sent others into exile 
 in Asia Minor. 
 
 The fate of the Miladinoff brothers was the fate 
 of many Bulgarian schoolmasters at this period. 
 Dimiter and Constantine Miladinoff were Bulgarian 
 teachers, and the former was an ardent folk-lorist. 
 Through the generosity of the bishop of Djakovo, 
 they were able to publish their studies in Bulgarian.
 
 228 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 This roused the indignation of the Greek metro- 
 politan. Dimiter was denounced to the Turkish 
 officials as a revolutionist; he was arrested and 
 taken to Constantinople, where he was thrust into 
 prison. Plis brother Constantine, in the hope that 
 he might secure his release, made haste to follow 
 his brother; " but no sooner had he reached the 
 Turkish capital than he too was cast into prison, 
 and one fine day a couple of corpses were thrown 
 out into the sunlight. Joachim, the Greek patriarch, 
 whose acquaintance Dimiter had made when he at- 
 tended the Greek college at Janina, being anxious 
 that Heaven should not grieve for the lack of two 
 righteous souls, managed to procure for them the 
 cup of Socrates. They sleep in an unknown grave, 
 for the solitary witness of their burial, a fellow 
 countryman, was the next day compelled to die. 
 The brothers Miladinoff have their place in the roll 
 of Bulgarian martyrs."^ 
 
 ^^^len Dr. Elias Riggs, an American missionary, 
 made a tour of Bulgaria, in 1859, he was surprised 
 to find so many Bulgarian schools that had sprung 
 up in spite of the opposition of the powerful Greek 
 church and the hostility of the Turkish government. 
 He tells of a visit to a school at Sofia attended by 
 four hundred boys and another for girls with an 
 attendance of one hundred and twenty. '* "V^Tien 
 we remember that we are in Turkey," he writes, 
 ** it is an interesting fact to notice that the Bulga- 
 rians do not limit their laudable endeavours for 
 education to boys alone. This is a striking indica- 
 
 ' Shade of the Balkans. By Pencho Slaveikoff, et at. London, 1&04.
 
 Education in Bulgaria 229 
 
 tion that they are training themselves to give the 
 right place to women even at the ver^^ beginning 
 of their educational system." At Stara Zagora he 
 found a boys' school with eight hundred pupils and 
 a girls' school with one hundred thirty-five; and 
 he remarks that there are several schools in the 
 neighbouring villages. He pays a high compliment 
 to the Bulgarian teachers. He found them " men 
 with gentlemanly manners, making great self-sac- 
 rifices, and working without hope of financial re- 
 turns." 
 
 Dr. Byington, another American missionary, 
 writing to the Missionary Herald from Bulgaria in 
 1862, says: *' It is an encouraging fact that Bul- 
 garian schools are found not only in the cities, but 
 in many of the villages that I have visited, so that 
 the nation in a short time will be able to rank as 
 a nation that can read and write. The more intel- 
 ligent Bulgarians simply make an idol of learning. 
 T have heard them say that learning is the one thing 
 of which they have need and that it will transform 
 life and purify the heart." 
 
 The schools organized by the American mission- 
 aries in Bulgaria have also played an important 
 role in the educational history of the country. In 
 I860 a collegiate and theological institute was 
 opened at Philippopolis by the American Board 
 (Congregational) of Foreign Missions. Ten years 
 later the school was removed to Samokov. Up to 
 June, 1910, when the school celebrated its fiftieth 
 anniversary, eight hundred young men had been 
 enrolled as students. Most of the pastors connected
 
 230 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 with the Protestant missions in Bulgaria and Mace- 
 donia received their training, in whole or in part, 
 at the Samokov school; and many of the former 
 students occupy responsible positions in both the 
 public and private life of the nation. 
 
 The high school for girls at Samokov, organized 
 by the American Board in 1863, has also rendered 
 admirable service in the promotion of the higher 
 education of Bulgarian women. The Methodist 
 Episcopal church of the United States has main- 
 tained an excellent high school for girls at Lovetch 
 for many years. The very great influence of Robert 
 College and the American College in Turkey on the 
 development of education in Bulgaria will be dis- 
 cussed at length in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 The constitution of 1878 recognized primary edu- 
 cation as an essential factor of the state, but it made 
 no provision for the support of schools. The law 
 of 1881 left the matter of primary instruction en- 
 tirely in the hands of the individual communities, 
 only in the case of very poor communes was the 
 state authorized to aid in the maintenance of schools. 
 When Ferdinand came to the throne the keen inter- 
 est which he took in the matter of public education 
 resulted in considerable augmentation in the matter 
 of state expenditures for schools. 
 
 It was not until the organic law of 1891 was 
 passed, how^ever, that the state acquired supreme 
 control of the schools of Bulgaria. Since that date, 
 the growth of the national system of public schools 
 has been remarkable. There is a ministry of public 
 instruction in the king's cabinet that has entire
 
 o 
 
 ■r. 
 
 E- 
 
 J 
 D 
 O 
 

 
 Education in Bulgaria 231 
 
 control of the educational affairs of the country. 
 Associated with the minister of public instruction 
 are two directors — one of primary education and 
 one of secondary education. There is also a corps 
 of general inspectors who are the representatives 
 of the ministry in their respective departments. 
 
 There are departmental councils of education, 
 which exercise advisory and judicial functions; also 
 local school committees that have direct charge of 
 the schools, select the sites for buildings, and nom- 
 inate the teachers, who must, however, be approved 
 by the minister of public instruction. Women, pro- 
 vided they have completed a course in a secondary 
 school, are eligible to membership on the local com- 
 mittees. 
 
 Two-thirds of the funds required for the support 
 of the schools are supplied by the national govern- 
 ment, and the other one-third by the local communi- 
 ties. Qualifications of teachers, courses of study, 
 and school inspection are entirely in the hands of 
 the state. The compulsory school period is from 
 the ages of eight years to twelve. In country dis- 
 tricts the school is in session six months and in the 
 towns ten months. Many of the elementary schools 
 are coeducational, and nearly two-thirds of the 
 teachers in these schools are men. 
 
 The studies in the elementary schools include 
 religion and morals, the mother tongue, arithmetic 
 and geometry, geography, history, nature study, 
 drawing, singing, and gymnastics. Religion gets 
 two periods a week throughout the four years of the 
 compulsory period. During the first and second
 
 232 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 school years the children learn prayers and church 
 ceremonies, and have stories concerning the life of 
 Jesus and the saints ; the Old Testament forms the 
 basis of instruction in the third school year and the 
 New Testament the fourth year. Families are en- 
 tirely relieved of the religious education of their 
 children. 
 
 There are higher elementary schools that continue 
 the studies of the primary schools Avith the addition 
 of French, old Slavic, physics, chemistry, and nat- 
 ural history. These schools supplement the educa- 
 tion of those pupils who cannot take a complete sec- 
 ondary course. 
 
 The course of study in the secondary schools of 
 Bulgaria covers five years. It is generally divided 
 into three sections — modern language course, half 
 classical course, and classical course. The differ- 
 ence in the courses is largely a matter of the number 
 of foreign languages studied. In the modern course, 
 for instance, French or German and Russian are 
 studied; Latin is added to the half classical course, 
 and Greek to the classical course. The Bulgars, 
 however, are a very practical people, and they do 
 not esteem highly the classical languages. Most of 
 the students, therefore, in the secondary schools are 
 found in the modern course. There are in Bulgaria 
 seventeen secondary schools for boys and ten for 
 girls. 
 
 The education of girls in Bulgaria is still behind 
 that of boys; but it is far in advance of the edu- 
 cation of girls in the other Balkan states. During 
 the period of Turkish rule, such education as was
 
 Education in Bulgaria 233 
 
 available to girls was obtained at the convents, no- 
 tably at Kalofer and Samokov. Constantine Fo- 
 tinoff (1780-1858), founder of the first Bulgarian 
 newspaper, was an ardent advocate of the education 
 of women. The first public schools for girls were 
 opened at Stara Zagora in' 1852 and at Gabrovo in 
 1862. Recently the Bulgarian government has given 
 special attention to the subject, and there are now 
 ten secondary schools for girls in the country with 
 an attendance of 3,200. 
 
 Normal schools have been established for the 
 training of teachers. There are four such schools 
 for women and five for men. The course of instruc- 
 tion in the normal school covers four years and in- 
 cludes religion, Bulgarian language and literature, 
 l^edagogy and psychology, geography and history, 
 mathematics, French or German, Russian, physiol- 
 ogy and hygiene, natural history, agriculture, man- 
 ual training, drawing, and singing. The remunera- 
 tion of teachers in Bulgaria is still very low. In 
 the Turkish days the teachers in the village {kylien) 
 schools got from $40 to $60 a year; in 1887 the 
 average annual salary was only $120; to-day it 
 ranges from $250 to $400 a year. There has been 
 marked improvement in the qualifications of ele- 
 mentary teachers and the quality of the instruction. 
 
 The university of Sofia represents the higher 
 educational interests of the country. It was organ- 
 ized with a faculty of philology and history in 
 1888; faculties in mathematics and physical science 
 were added in 1889, and the faculty of law in 1902. 
 Medical students receive their education in the uni-
 
 234 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 versities of foreign countries, and theological stu- 
 dents are provided for in denominational semi- 
 naries. Nearly sixteen hundred students are en- 
 rolled each year in the university of Sofia, about 
 half of whom are in the law faculty. About a fifth 
 of the students are women. 
 
 The university has some excellently equipped lab- 
 oratories, but it does not have suitable permanent 
 quarters. Many years ago a Bulgarian patriot left 
 two and one-third million dollars for the erection of 
 university buildings. The money was, however, to 
 draw interest for a definite period before it was 
 available for the erection of buildings. The fund 
 has drawn more than $120,000 a year interest for 
 fifteen years and is now available. In the near fu- 
 ture Bulgaria will have at Sofia a fine new home for 
 its highest institution of learning. 
 
 Among the special educational institutions of the 
 country may be named the excellent art and indus- 
 trial schools at Sofia. The art academy, organized 
 by Professor Ivan Mirkvicka, has departments of 
 painting, sculpture, and ceramics. It has an able 
 corps of instructors and has already trained a num- 
 ber of men who are making their mark as creative 
 artists. There is also a conservatory of music at 
 the capital, which up to 1910 was a private insti- 
 tution with a grant from the state ; but since that 
 date it has been taken over by the government as 
 a national institution. 
 
 An institute of technology has recently been 
 opened at Sofia; agricultural and horticultural 
 schools have been organized at Sadovo and Plevna ;
 
 SECONDARY SCHOOL AT RUSTCHUK. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AT PLKVNA.
 
 Education in Bulgaria 235 
 
 and there is an excellent military academy at Sofia. 
 Hitherto Bulgarian students in very large numbers 
 have attended the universities, institutes of tech- 
 nology, and art schools of Germany, Russia, Swit- 
 zerland, France, and Belgium. With the organiza- 
 tion of special schools and the extension of facilities 
 for advanced study at home, this number is already 
 diminishing. 
 
 The expenditure for educational purposes during 
 the year 1912 reached five million dollars. Bulgaria 
 far exceeds the other Balkan states in the matter 
 of national and municipal expenditures for the edu- 
 cation of children. The amount spent for educa- 
 tional purposes in 1912 averaged $1.20 per inhabit- 
 ant. For Servia during the same period it was sixty 
 cents per inhabitant; Greece, fifty cents; Monte- 
 negro, forty cents, and Turkey, twenty cents. 
 
 The most remarkable achievement in the history 
 of Bulgarian education is the rapidity with which 
 the percentage of illiteracy has been reduced. In 
 1887 the percentage of illiteracy in the kingdom was 
 89, and in 1905 it was 72. These figures, however, 
 include more than six hundred thousand Moslem 
 Turks, Tatars, and gypsies, among whom the per- 
 centage of illiteracy is 97. These people are in 
 Bulgaria what the Indians and negroes are in the 
 United States. The government has made heroic 
 efforts to educate them, })ut with very indifferent 
 success. 
 
 In order to measure the efficiency of the Bulgarian 
 school system in terms of literacy, we must exclude 
 the Moslem population and all Bulgars over thirty-
 
 236 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 five years of age, since the country was not liberated 
 until 1878, and the people beyond this age had no 
 opportunity under the Turkish rule to learn to read 
 and write. With these exclusions, the percentage 
 of illiteracy for the year 1905 is 33 for both sexes, 
 22 per cent, for men and 43 per cent, for women. 
 
 The military statistics of the country probably 
 give the best index of the decrease in illiteracy. In 
 1878, when the army was organized, 90 per cent, of 
 the recruits were illiterate; in 1888 the percentage 
 of illiteracy was 70 per cent. ; ^ in 1910 it was 10 
 per cent.,^ and in 1913, only 5 per cent.^ When these 
 figures are compared with the statistics of the older 
 Balkan states, the result is even more striking. In 
 Greece 30 per cent, of the army recruits are illit- 
 erate, and in Rumania 41 per cent. {Statesman's 
 Year-Book for 1913.) The statistics for the army 
 recruits of Servia are not available ; but of the 
 entire Servian population, 83 per cent, are illiterate. 
 It should be noted in this connection that Bulgaria 
 has a Moslem Turk and gypsy population of over 
 600,000; Servia, 14,000; Rumania, 40,000, and 
 Greece practically none. Greece and Servia have 
 been liberated from Ottoman rule more than four 
 score years; Rumania more than half a century, 
 and Bulgaria only thirty-six years. 
 
 There are national libraries at Sofia and Philip- 
 popolis, a university library at Sofia, and municipal 
 
 ' Das Bulgarische Bildungswesen. Von W. Nikoltschoff. Leipzig, 
 1910. 
 
 ^ Dictionnaire de PMagogie. Par. F. Buisson. Paris, 1911. 
 
 ^ Bulgaria's Defence. By M. Momtchiloff. New York Times An- 
 nalist, January 12, 1914.

 
 Education in Bulgaria 237 
 
 libraries at Varna, Rustchuk, Shumen, and several 
 other places. The national library at Sofia contains 
 about fifty thousand volumes, and the one at Philip- 
 popolis about thirty-six thousand. Both are open 
 to the public. Bulgaria, however, is much in need 
 of public libraries, liberally administered, and made 
 readily accessible to all the people. The Bulgars 
 are serious-minded; and with the great increase of 
 literacy among the peasants, libraries might be 
 made a very valuable feature of the national edu- 
 cational system. Reading-rooms are found in many 
 towns, but they contain little besides newspapers; 
 and, as is elsewhere remarked, the Bulgarian news- 
 papers have very slight literary value.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BULGARIAN FOLK - SONG AND MUSIC 
 
 Rich folk-poetry of the country — How these songa originated — 
 Earhest efforts to collect the folk-songs of Bulgaria and Macedonia 
 — • Opposition of the Greek ecclesiastics — Song of Liuben the hai- 
 duk — Resemblance of the measures to Longfellow's Hiawatha — 
 Ivan PopotT and the Fairy — Marko, the legendary hero — Mental 
 traits of the lyrics — Relation of the folk-songs to national dances — 
 The horo — Musical instruments used — Art music of Bulgaria — 
 Works of modern composers — • Musical societies. 
 
 After the conquest of the Balkan peninsula by the 
 Turks, many of the Bulgars took to the mountains 
 and left the plains to be occupied by the conquerors 
 and such of their kinsmen as had embraced the faith 
 of Islam. It was among the mountain people that 
 the national traditions, language, and customs were 
 preserved ; and it was here that the rich literature 
 of folk-song had its birth. 
 
 Pencho Slaveikoff, the foremost poet of Bulgaria, 
 has given this account of the circumstances of the 
 birth and development of the folk -poetry of his coun- 
 try : " Those things which were dear to the hearts of 
 the people were preserved among such of the Bul- 
 gars as had taken to the mountains. Their lives were 
 spent in the narrow circle of the family, conducted 
 after the somnolent patriarchal fashion, so that they 
 concerned themselves almost exclusively with the 
 politics of a domestic world, as is faithfully and fas- 
 cinatingly depicted for us in their songs. In that 
 simple life of theirs it is not often that an event 
 
 238
 
 Bulgarian Folk-Song and Music 239 
 
 occurs which is beyond the dull round of every day; 
 there can, indeed, be nothing but what is coloured 
 by their condition of servitude. The solitary gleams 
 of light are the undying memories of the days of 
 freedom — tales and dark legends of a time that has 
 faded into hearsay, legends and tales that have long 
 been meaningless, but are still remembered by the 
 people because of the poetry that is in them. 
 
 " The Bulgar did not look merely into himself; 
 he went with open eyes and ears to make acquaint- 
 ance with surrounding nature, felt that she was 
 united organically with himself, and, being some- 
 what heathenishly inclined, he gave to her a cata- 
 logue of manners that were strange, original, and 
 full of a marvellous poetry. He celebrated her as 
 the sister of his grief and happiness, while in a sim- 
 ilar way he listened to the mournful rustling of the 
 woods around him, and of that everlasting sadness 
 made the sadness of his songs. 
 
 " These, in truth, are always with him through 
 the changes of life, from the cradle to the grave. 
 If he plows or if he sows or gathers in the harvest, 
 there is no helpmate like a song; it is the royal com- 
 rade of his journey; when he lies on the bed of sick- 
 ness it consoles him. The song usually lives in the 
 voice of the singer; although at times one meets 
 with the strange trio of violin, clarinet, and drum, 
 while banquets and dances are made delightful with 
 flute and fiddle and bagpipe. Only two of these in- 
 struments, the bagpipe and the flute, accompany the 
 Bulgar at his work — when he guards his flocks in 
 the pastures and when he traverses the bleak and
 
 240 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 lonely plain, plodding on behind his caravan. Of 
 these instruments, it is the flute which he loves the 
 best, for it will sing to him more truly than all of 
 them what the melodies contain of softness and of 
 oriental sorrow." ^ 
 
 One of the earliest attempts to collect and pre- 
 serve the folk-songs of Bulgaria was made by the 
 Miladinoff brothers — Dimiter and Constantine. 
 They published a volume of six hundred songs at 
 Agram in 1861. ^ Constantine tells us in the intro- 
 duction that the printed volume represents scarcely 
 a tithe of the material collected. From one young 
 girl he got one hundred fifty beautiful songs. The 
 authors found Bulgarians who could neither read 
 nor write but who could recite from memory hun- 
 dreds of folk-songs, ballads, and proverbs. 
 
 The melancholy fate of the authors of this volume 
 has been referred to elsewhere in this work. Be- 
 cause they had the temerity to publish their book 
 in the Bulgarian alphabet rather than the Greek, 
 they were accused of treason by the Greek authori- 
 ties and thrown into Turkish prisons. Upon the 
 representations of the Austrian and Russian consuls 
 that the men had been falsely accused, the Ottoman 
 government ordered their release. But when the 
 order sanctioning their liberation reached Constan- 
 tinople, both the brothers were dead. They had 
 been killed by the intriguing Greek ecclesiastics. 
 Constantine was under thirty and Dimiter a few 
 
 ' The Shade of the Balkans. By Pencho Slaveikoff, et al. London, 
 19(M, pp. 328. 
 
 =' Bulgarski Narodjii Pessni (Bulgarian National Songs). By Dimi- 
 ter and "Constantine Miladinoff. Agram, 1861, pp. 542.
 
 r. 

 
 Bulgarian Folk-Song and Music 241 
 
 years older. Such was the miserable fate of two 
 really fine Bulgarian scholars and patriots. Hellen- 
 ism forced them to drink the cup of Socrates for 
 no other reason than the laudable purpose of pre- 
 serving the folk-literature of their people.* 
 
 Stefan K. Verkovitch, a clergyman from Bosnia, 
 was another early student of Bulgarian folk-songs. 
 His labours were largely confined to the Bulgarian 
 peasants in Macedonia. His book was published in 
 Servian, but a Bulgarian-Servian vocabulary was 
 added. He relates that a woman in Macedonia re- 
 cited to him two hundred seventy folk-songs, show- 
 ing how many of the old songs were orally preserved 
 by the people in a country where books did not exist. 
 His collection contains some of the finest specimens 
 of the Bulgarian folk-poetry. Verkovitch subse- 
 quently tarnished his fame by the fabrication of the 
 Veda Slovena. 
 
 Among other early collections of Bulgarian folk- 
 songs M^ere those by Cholakoff ^ and Dozon.' A few 
 of the poems in Cholakoff's collection had already 
 appeared; but Dozon's collection, published at Paris 
 in 1875, was entirely new. Another ardent worker 
 in this field was Petko R. Slaveikoff, who made a 
 collection of 17,441 proverbs, which contain '' the 
 most certain record of the independence of the soul 
 of the people and of the philosophy which they cul- 
 tivated. In these proverbs there is mirrored more 
 
 ^ For an excellent account of the life and labours of the Miladinoff 
 brothers, see Casopis CcsMho Musca (Bohemian Literary Journal) 
 for 1866. 
 
 ^ Ridgarski Narodni Sbornik (Bulgarian National Misoellanv). Bel- 
 grade, 1873. 
 
 ' Chansons populaires Bulgarcs. By August Dozon. Paris, 1876.
 
 242 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 clearly than elsewhere that extreme individualism 
 which so sharply differentiates the Bulgar from his 
 neighbours." 
 
 Many of the Bulgarian folk-songs refer to the 
 haiduks, brigands of the Eobin Hood sort, whose 
 exploits were idealized by the common people. Some 
 of these songs, as Dozon has remarked, take a really 
 high note and show something more than the coarse 
 materialism of a life of thieving. The following is 
 a literal translation of the haiduk Liuben: 
 
 " Liuben, the youug hero, cried out 
 Of the summit of the old mountain. 
 Liuben bade adieu to the forest, 
 To the forest and mountain he spoke: 
 ' Oh, wood! oh, green wood, 
 And oh, cool sprinp;, 
 
 Dost thou know, forest, and dost thou remember 
 How often I have wandered over thee, 
 Have led my young heroes, 
 Have carried my red standards? 
 I have made many mothers weep, 
 Deprived many brides of their homes. 
 Even more have I made of little orphans. 
 So that they weep, forest, they curse me. 
 Farewell, forest, farewell, 
 For I shall go home. 
 So that my mother may betroth me 
 To the daughter of the priest, 
 The priest Nicholas.' 
 The forest never spake to any one, 
 And yet it spake to Liuben : 
 ' Liuben, thou hero, Liuben! 
 Enough hast thou wandered over me, 
 Led thy chosen youth 
 And carried thy red standard 
 On the mountain, on the old mountain, 
 By the cool thick shade of the trees,
 
 Bulgarian Folk-Song and Music 243 
 
 By t.he dew>' green grass. 
 
 Thou hast made many mothers weep, 
 
 Thou hast deprived many brides of their homes, 
 
 Thou hast left many little children orphans, 
 
 So that they weep, Liuben, they curse 
 
 Me, voivode, on thy account. 
 
 Till this time, Liuben, 
 
 The old mountain was thy mother, 
 
 The green forest was thy bride, 
 
 The grass gave thee a bed. 
 
 The leaves of the forest covered thee. 
 
 The clear brooklet gave thee drink, 
 
 The forest birds sang to thee; 
 
 For thee, Liuben, they spoke. 
 
 Rejoice, young hero, with thy comrades, 
 
 For the mountain is glad 
 
 And bidd'st thee adieu to the mountain. 
 
 For thou dost desire to go home 
 
 That thy mother may betroth thee, 
 
 May betroth thee and marry thee 
 
 To the daughter of the priest, 
 
 Of the priest Nicholas.' " 
 
 This is one of the many really fine ballads in the 
 rich Bulgarian folk literature. Surely, as an English 
 writer remarks, " never were the sympathies be- 
 tween nature and man more beautifully expressed 
 than in this delightful song, which has all tlie fresh- 
 ness of its native woods and mountains upon it. If 
 we could only do away with the savage accessories, 
 the cruel stories about widows and orphans, it might 
 be taken as one of Wordsworth's pantheistic pic- 
 tures. Something of the spirit of ' The Excursion ' 
 is in it and of that exquisite sonnet of sonnets, ' The 
 Brook '; and even more forcibly it reminds us of 
 some of the fine lines of Emerson." 
 
 Many of the selections in the collection by the
 
 244 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Miladinoff brothers resemble strikingly the style 
 and composition of Longfellow's Hiawatha. There 
 is the same measure, the absence of rhyme, the repe- 
 tition of words from the close of one line to the be- 
 ginning of the next, and the repetition of entire lines 
 in a question and its answer. The following lines 
 from the Bulgarian folk-ballad Ivan Popojf and the 
 Fairy suggests this resemblance: 
 
 " Out he started, Ivan Popoff, 
 To go off on Easter Sunday, 
 Easter Sunday to his plowing; 
 He had gotten only half way 
 When there issued out a fairy, 
 A wild fairy of the moimtains, 
 And she stopped the path before him. 
 ' Turn you, tiu-n you, Ivan Popoff, 
 Don't go forth on Easter Sunday, 
 Easter Sunday to your plowing.' 
 Ivan handsomely made answer: 
 ' Get away, be gone, you fairy. 
 Or I'll down from off my courser, 
 By your flaxen hair I'U catch you. 
 And I'll tie you to my courser, 
 To the tail of my swift courser. 
 And ril drag you like a harrow.' 
 Then the fairy she was angry, 
 And her flaxen hair she loosened, 
 And she tripped up his swift courser, 
 Longing his black eyes to swallow. 
 Then was angry Ivan Popoff, 
 And he caught the wily fairy, 
 By her flaxen hair he caught her, 
 And he tied her to his courser, 
 To the tail of his swift courser, 
 And he dragged her like a harrow, 
 Swiftly to his home he dragged her. 
 From afar he called his mother:
 
 Bulgarian Folk-Song and Music 245 
 
 ' Oh, come out, my dearest mother, 
 
 For a bride to you I'm bringing, 
 
 For a bride I bring a fairy, 
 
 To reheve you, dearest mother, 
 
 Wash the linen of my father, 
 
 Comb the hair of little brother. 
 
 Plait the tresses of my sister.' 
 
 Then he locked up her right pinion, 
 
 Locked her in a coloured casket. 
 
 For three years his bride lived with him. 
 
 And a little son she bore him. 
 
 Then they called a worthy sponsor 
 
 And the little son they christened. 
 
 Said the sponsor to the fairy : 
 
 ' Fairy bride, now dance a little, 
 
 Let us see a fairy dancer.' 
 
 Thus replied to her the fairy : 
 
 * Let but Ivan Popoff give me, 
 Let him give me my right pinion. 
 Then Fll dance for you with pleasure.' 
 
 * Ah, but fairy bride, we doubt you.' 
 
 * If you doubt me, Ivan Popoff, 
 If you fear that I'll escape you, 
 Then the door securcl}' fasten. 
 Fasten, too, the gate securely. 
 
 Then I'll dance for you with pleasure.' . 
 So the door secure they fastened, 
 Fastened, too, the gate securely. 
 But as she began her dancing 
 Quickly she flew up the chimney." 
 
 The chief legendary hero in Bulgarian folk-song 
 is Marko, an adventurer to whom nature gave great 
 intellectual and physical powers, as well as frailties 
 of character. He was, as Pencho Slaveikoff has well 
 said, a national god created by the people in their 
 own image. His castle was supposed to be near 
 Prilep, but his activities were shrouded in myster>\ 
 He was always accompanied in his exploits by his
 
 24G Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 faithful horse Sharko, " blue-grey with dark spots." 
 He is usually represented in the songs as the cham- 
 pion of the oppressed Christians against the Turks. 
 The follo^ving song which tells of the death of Marko 
 is taken from Slaveikoff's collection:^ 
 
 " There in the castle at the lofty battlement, 
 With his friend of friends sat the king's son Marko, 
 With his friend of friends, Philip the Hungarian, 
 And the wnfe of Marko, the fair young wife attended them, 
 Filling their cups with the noble wine. 
 Then it was they gazed o'er the plain of Prilcp, 
 And unto Marko spoke Philip the Hungarian : 
 ' Knowest thou what has befallen in the world? 
 Never dost thou sally forth beyond the threshold, 
 As if the world had nought save the beauty of thy wife. 
 And what befalls, of that thou knowest nothing. 
 There is invented a death machine 
 And inside it there is a little ball, 
 Out it flies and strikes a man, and out flies his soul.' 
 Then laughed Marko at the word of Philip, 
 Marko laughed and his wife was smiUng, 
 And these were the words of the great-hearted hero : 
 ' Widely, forsooth, my friend, hast thou travelled, 
 Too well thou knowest what happens in the world, 
 Yet have I fears for thy understanding. 
 How can a ball kill a noble hero? ' 
 Philip the Hungarian raised his voice and shouted, 
 Shouted with his voice o'er Prilep's plain: 
 ' Shepherd, come hither, leave the sheep grazing. 
 Young shepherd, come hither with your little gun.' 
 Then Marko laughed till the castle quivered: 
 ' Now wc shall see, now we shall be instructed.' 
 When the shepherd came, Marko seized his gun. 
 Throwing it about as if it were a feather. 
 ' And that you say can "send a hero into darkness? 
 Take your foolish gun, there is my hand for you. 
 
 1 Shade of the Balkans. By Pencho SUive'ikoff, cl al. London, 1904, 
 pp. 328.
 
 Bulgarian Folk-Song and Music 247 
 
 Let the ball fly forth and I will catch it.' 
 The ball flew forth and bored through Marko's hand. 
 Then he grew pale, the old great-hearted hero, 
 Sitting there in silence with his arms upon the table, 
 And at nightfall he went forth but returned no more. 
 
 " There is a story told by the people 
 That Marko hides between the lofty mountains, 
 Near to the chasm of Demir-Kapia, 
 Where the river Vardar winds like a serpent. 
 There \n a cave he lies hidden, 
 There the hero slumbers through the ages. 
 In the earth before it he has plunged liis lance 
 And against the lance his horse is fastened 
 Ever ready for the gallant Marko 
 When he rides again in pursuit of exploits. 
 Beyond the chasm winds a mountain path. 
 When the people go there they turn round and shout: 
 * Do you live, do you still live, father Marko? ' 
 And it is to them as though they heard this answer : 
 ' He lives, he still lives, the people's father Marko.' '" 
 
 Many of the lyrical pieces treat of human affec- 
 tions with considerable evidence of tenderness and 
 not without elegance. Some of the songs relate to 
 the Samovilas, mysterious beings who play an im- 
 portant role in Slavic mythology. The Samovilas 
 of the Bulgarian folk-song are the sisters of heroes 
 whom they are always prepared to help in times of 
 need. They are beautiful maidens, with fair hair 
 and blue eyes, and they wear w^hite silken robes that 
 are so long that their feet are not \'isible. Their 
 habitat is in the deep forest or on the shores of 
 mountain lakes. 
 
 Tn the ballad of the fair Strana and Samo^dla, 
 Strana is represented as a beautiful young girl
 
 248 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 dressing for the church service on the morning of 
 Easter Sunday. Her mother warns her not to go 
 to church before other people have arrived for fear 
 that the young priest might make love to her. She 
 is offended by the caution of her mother and goes 
 to the garden to pout. There she meets a Samovila, 
 who tears out her beautiful black eyes with the re- 
 mark: 
 
 " This is the way, fair Strana, 
 For thee to go to the Easter festival, 
 The Easter festival, the lucky day." 
 
 One of the lays in Slave'ikoff's collection tells how 
 a Samovila built her castle " not in the sky, nor in 
 the heaven, nor upon the hanging sky, but in the 
 dark clouds." The materials used in its construc- 
 tion were not stones and timbers, but brave warriors 
 and fair maidens. For the foundation stones she 
 took '* only warriors newly married " and for mor- 
 tar ** maidens with a face of whiteness." 
 
 Dragons and serpents also figure in the Bulgarian 
 folk-songs. Dragons fall in love with peasant girls 
 and carry them off to the clouds. Birds likewise 
 play an important role, and notably the falcon 
 (sokol), which is regarded by the Bulgarians as 
 the bird of heroes. One ballad tells of the trans- 
 formation of a young wife into a swallow. After 
 a severe punishment administered by her mother- 
 in-law, she prayed that she might be transformed 
 into a bird. The next day the old woman attempted 
 to punish her with a pair of scissors, and instantly 
 she was changed to a swallow and flew up the chim-
 
 o 
 
 K 
 O 
 
 a 
 
 X 
 
 u 
 
 <; 
 
 a 
 
 <: 
 
 O
 
 Bulgarian Folk-Song and Music 249 
 
 ney, but the scissors struck her before her escape, 
 as may be seen by the shape of the tail of the 
 swallow. 
 
 Many of these songs are sung in connection with 
 the horo or national dance. An unlimited number 
 of persons can participate in the horo. Each dancer 
 places her hand either in that of her neighbour or 
 upon the latter 's shoulder. A step is taken sideways 
 to the left and then three steps to the right. As 
 the dancers move, they assume the form of a serpent, 
 which coils and uncoils. There are several forms 
 of the horo. The form most generally found is 
 danced slowly, the music moving in two-quarter 
 measure. Another form calls for great agility of 
 leg movements. It is in quick tempo in the three- 
 eighth measure. A third form moves in two meas- 
 ures and is not unlike the tempo of the gallop. The 
 vocal music that goes with the horo is composed in 
 plain motives without any variations or modula- 
 tions, and the tunes in minor chords are expressive 
 of the cries of an oppressed people. 
 
 The native musical instruments include the gaida, 
 the gadulka, and the kaval. The gaida is not unlike 
 the Scotch bagpipe. The gadulka is the Bulgarian 
 violin. It is onion-shaped and strung with three 
 horizontal strings. The fiddler plays the melody 
 on one of the strings and the other two sound as 
 a double cadenza. The gadulka reposes not under- 
 neath the chin of the performer but on his chest. 
 The kaval is the national flute and is much used by 
 shepherds. It is made of a hollow piece of wood 
 twelve or fifteen inches long and consists of three
 
 250 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 parts, of which the middle part has six holes and 
 the other two parts one hole each. 
 
 The songs sometimes have a religious character, 
 or they tell of the exploits of saints with monsters 
 who inhabit the pools and tlie mountains. Most of 
 the songs are in minor chords and express forcibly 
 the wretched captivity in which the country so long 
 groaned. Slaveikoff calls attention to the fact that 
 among the thousands of Bulgarian folk-songs there 
 exist only five or six in which the motif is con- 
 sciously humourous. 
 
 With the inexhaustible treasures of folk-songs, 
 the tone artists of Bulgaria have a wealth of orig- 
 inal motives upon which to build a fine art music. 
 Little has been done in this field. Dobrey Kristoff 
 (born at Varna the 14th of December, 1875) is the 
 composer of several musical works based upon folk- 
 songs. His Songs of the Balkans is said to be a 
 work of considerable promise and he is the composer 
 of a music drama based on the first Balkan war that 
 has been cordially received. Dimiter Hadji-Georgi- 
 eff is the author of several notable operas and can- 
 tatas, as well as meritorious orchestral composi- 
 tions. George Atanasoff has an opera based on one 
 of the dramas of Ivan Vazoff, as well as several 
 operettas dealing with fairy stories. Petko Naumoff 
 has composed for the violin and the piano and is 
 the author of a rhapsody that has been well received 
 in Germany and other musical countries. Panyot 
 Pipoff has composed a number of child operas and 
 other compositions. 
 
 The Bulgarian National Theatre at Sofia produces
 
 Bulgarian Folk- Song and Music 251 
 
 the music dramas of native composers, as well as 
 the operas by Bohemians, Russians, and other for- 
 eign tone artists. There is a good orchestra at Sofia 
 and a national school of music has recently been 
 organized at the capital. The Rodna Pessen is the 
 leading musical society at Sofia. It gives symphonic, 
 choral, and chamber music concerts and aims to pop- 
 ularize art music. There are flourishing music soci- 
 eties at Philippopolis and in several other large 
 towns in the kingdom.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MODERN BULGARIAN LITERATURE 
 
 llie literary revival and the movement for political liberty — Chriato 
 Boteff — Liuben Karaveloff — Zachary Stoyanoff — Petko R. Sla- 
 veikoff tlie founder of modern Bulgarian literature ^ Ilis political 
 and educational activities — Collections of folk-songs — Transla- 
 tion of the Bible — Ivan Vazoff, poet, dramatist, and novelist — 
 Early life and training — Connection with the revolutionary move- 
 tnent — Early verses — Under the Yoke — Other romances — 
 Dramas — Vlaikoff — Stoyau Michailovsky, satirist — Aloko Con- 
 stantmoff, humourist — Success of Bai Ganio — Pencho Slavel- 
 koff , the foremost Bulgarian writer ^ Pen-picture of the poet — 
 His art work — Lyrical compositions — His great epic — Petko 
 Todoroff, poet and dramatist — Author of the finest Bulgarian 
 prose — Velitchkoff — Minor poets — Political and phiJosophical 
 writers. 
 
 Attention has heen called in previous chapters 
 to the tenacity with which the Bulgars retained for 
 centuries feelings of nationality in the face of the 
 double yoke they were forced to bear — the political 
 yoke imposed upon them by the Turks and the ec- 
 clesiastical and educational yoke imposed by the 
 Greek church. The modern literature of Bulgaria 
 had its birth in the Culturkawpf that raged for a 
 quarter of a century about the reestablishment of 
 the national church. The patriots who were the 
 leaders of the movement against the corrupt Pha- 
 nariot bishops in the struggle for the revival of the 
 national church were the founders of the new school 
 of Bulgarian letters. 
 
 The movement for ecclesiastical emancipation had 
 nationalistic aims, and it ultimately led to the organ- 
 
 252
 
 Modem Bulgarian Literature 253 
 
 ization in Euraania of revolutionary bands of Bul- 
 garian emigrants who advocated complete emanci- 
 pation and indejDendence. The dormant patriotism 
 of the nation was aroused by the lyrics, ballads, 
 pamphlets, collections of folk-songs, and romances 
 of Christo Boteff, Liuben Karaveloff, Zachary Stoy- 
 anoff, and Petko II. Slaveikoff. Professor Alfred 
 Jensen, the Swedish literary critic, remarks that, 
 " while the liberators of the Serbs were nothing 
 but warriors, the Bulgarian liberators were both 
 warriors and poets; and they aroused their country- 
 men from their lethargj^ by their patriotic songs 
 quite as much as by their patriotic acts." 
 
 The influence of Christo Boteff (1847-187G) on the 
 younger writers of Bulgaria was veiy great indeed; 
 and this influence has been considerable on the later 
 verse-writers of the country. There was artistic 
 intensit}' in his lyrics and ballads. *' Of all the poets 
 of the past," writes Pencho Slaveikoff, Bulgaria's 
 greatest poet, " Boteff is the dearest to ns; he comes 
 nearest to our souls, because he never separated 
 poetry from the life and feeling of the people." 
 
 Professor Kadoslav A. Tsanoff characterizes Bo- 
 teff as the Bulgarian Marlowe. " A torrential soul 
 who perished at Marlowe's own age at the head of 
 a band of patriotic desperadoes, who flung reason 
 to the winds, and crossed the Dainibe to sliatter tlie 
 Ottoman empire." Again lie remarks: *' Boteff 
 was a poet of Marlowe's intensity, if not of the 
 latter's sweep of imagination — a genius that might 
 have done wonders had he lived, judging from the 
 handful of lyrics he left beliind him."
 
 254 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Boteff with less than three hundred followers fell 
 in the battle near Vratza in 1876. His head, remark- 
 able for its beauty, was displayed by the Turks on 
 a pole as a warning to insurgent Bulgarians. Hadji 
 Dimiter, a revolutionary leader, had been slain not 
 long before and his army shattered. Boteff' s best 
 poem is entitled The Death of Hadji Dimiter. It 
 is full of fine poetic feeling and choice imagery. 
 In this poem, as the English translator remarks, 
 Boteff unconsciously foreshadowed his own death, 
 so similar in all respects to that of the hero he 
 brooded over with such intense affection. An Eng- 
 lish version of the poem by Lucy C. Ball will be 
 found in the World's Best Literature.^ 
 
 Liuben Karaveloff (1837-1879) was poet, novel- 
 ist, journalist, and statesman. He played an im- 
 portant role in the movement that culminated in 
 the emancipation of the Bulgarian church and na- 
 tion. For Karaveloff literature was chiefly a means 
 of arousing the national consciousness of his coun- 
 trymen ; nevertheless, some of his character sketches 
 — and notably his sketches dealing with Greek 
 treachery and depravity and the descriptions of 
 the peasant customs in his native village of Ko- 
 privshtitza • — will long occupy an important place 
 in the short story literature of Bulgaria. His work 
 as a journalist and editor was also important in 
 connection with Liberty, Independence, Knowledge, 
 and Banner. Some of these publications he edited 
 in collaboration with Christo Boteff. 
 
 » World's Best Literature. Edited by Charles Dudley Warner. Vol. 
 24. New York, 1897.
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 255 
 
 Zachary Stoyanoff (1850-1889) was another mem- 
 ber of the revolutionary band that precipitated the 
 insurrections that were the prelude to the libera- 
 tion of the Bulgars from the rule of the Turks. His 
 Autobiography,^ an excellent English version of 
 which has lately appeared, gives perhaps the best 
 account of the spirit of emulation and enthusiasm of 
 the activities of the central revolutionary commit- 
 tee at Bucharest and the sub-committees in Bul- 
 garia. 
 
 Stoyanoff, in his Autohio graph}/, describes his 
 early life at Kotel, and gives an account of his 
 peasant home, of his first occupation as a shepherd, 
 and of his ardent desire for an education. He 
 joined the revolutionary movement at Rustchuk; 
 took part in the revolts of 1875 and 1876; was 
 captured by the Turks, but escaped condemnation. 
 After the emancipation he was associated with 
 Stefan Stamboloff as the editor of Svohoda {Lib- 
 erty). He held several official posts, one of which 
 was that of president of the national assembly. Be- 
 sides the Autobiography, he was the author of nu- 
 merous works, most of which deal with the insur- 
 rectionary period. Mr. Potter, his English trans- 
 lator, says of his literary work: '*^His remarkable 
 command of language and his great facility in de- 
 scribing humourously the events which he had wit- 
 nessed lend to all his writings a peculiar charm." 
 
 The real founder of modern Bulgarian literature, 
 however, was Petko R. Slaveikoff (1827-1895). He 
 
 * Pages from the Aulobiogrnphy of a Bulgarian Insurgent. By Zach- 
 ary Stoyanoff. Translated by M. W. Potter. London, 1913, pp. 316.
 
 256 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 was the son of an illiterate but musical copper- 
 smith; and, after a brief course in the Turkish and 
 Bulgarian schools, he was apprenticed to his fa- 
 ther's trade. It was subsequently decided that he 
 should prepare for the priesthood, and with this in 
 view he studied for a time in a Greek school. He 
 engaged instead in teaching and laboured for many 
 years in different Bulgarian villages and towns. 
 This was the period when the Bulgars were attempt- 
 ing to restore tlieir ancient language by the organ- 
 ization of national elementary schools. The work 
 of Slaveikoff brought him into active opposition 
 with the Greeks, then the spiritual rulers of Bul- 
 garia. 
 
 Slaveikoff was active in the movement that se- 
 cured the emancipation of the Bulgarian Orthodox 
 church from the domination of tlie Greek Phanari- 
 otes; he participated in the revolutions that ulti- 
 mately freed his country from Turkish rule; he 
 fought in the Turko-Russian war of 1877-78, and 
 the Servian war of 1885; he was active in political 
 life; served for a number of years as a member of 
 the national assembly; and was twice a member of 
 the cabinet — once as minister of public instruction 
 and once as minister of the interior. 
 
 His son Pencho Slaveikoff, the leading man of 
 letters in Bulgaria, writes of his father: " His life, 
 the life of a man of the Bulgarian renaissance, is 
 of itself a legend. I need only mention that in the 
 course of his variegated career he was relentlessly 
 pursued by Turks and Greeks, was arrested by them 
 some thirty times, and more than once by the gov-
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 257 
 
 — ' 
 
 ernment of his liberated fatherland. But never did 
 his lucky star desert him ; once indeed it saved his 
 life when he was standing with his bands manacled 
 upon the scaffold. His exploits and his services for 
 the national awakening made him the most popular 
 personage in Bulgaria, so that the people conferred 
 upon him the title of ' Grandfather,' whicli the 
 Bulgars are accustomed to bestow upon tlie men 
 whom they most deeply reverence. It is not easy 
 to measure the debt whicli literary Bulgaria owes 
 to him, especially with regard to the language, the 
 present literary language — seeing that he is to all 
 intents its creator. In spite of the close personal 
 attention which he gave to bis profession and to 
 the political movements of the day, there was ap- 
 parently no lack of time for a great mass of literary 
 work, which included the collection of folk-lore and 
 of material for histories. It was only a small por- 
 tion of the latter which saw the light, all the rest 
 having been destroyed by the Turks in 1.S77. He 
 is considered as the best among our poets — having 
 been also the first among them to lay down laws for 
 the technical side of Bulgarian verse." ^ 
 
 Slaveikoff 's greatest service to the modern litera- 
 ture of Bulgaria was the reestablishment of the 
 vernacular as a literary language. Greek had held 
 the national literary spirit in fetters for more than 
 four hundred years. He clearly saw that the surest 
 road to the use of the Bulgaria]] as a literary lan- 
 guage was to publish in the vernacular the proverbs 
 
 ' The Shade nf Ihc lialkans. By Poncho Slavoikoff, cl nl. London, 
 1001, pp. 328.
 
 258 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 and folk-songs which had been handed down orally 
 for many generations. One of his first literary 
 tasks was the collection of proverbs that were cur- 
 rent among the peasants. This collection includes 
 17,441 saws and maxims that contain the soul of 
 the people and the philosophy which they cultivated 
 during the five centuries that they were under the 
 political bondage of the Turks and the ecclesiastical 
 bondage of the Greeks. " There is more clearly 
 mirrored in these proverbs than anywhere else," 
 remarks Slaveikoff, *' that extreme individualism 
 w^hich so sharply differentiates the Bulgar from his 
 neighbours." 
 
 He was indefatigable in his efforts to secure the 
 representative folk-songs of the Bulgarian peasants, 
 many of which he printed; but after his death there 
 was found among his papers an enormous number 
 of unprinted folk-songs, many of which have since 
 been published by Dozon, Rakovsky, and Bezsonoff. 
 Most of the fragments of folk-songs given elsewhere 
 in this volume are from his unpublished collection. 
 He was the first to write down the old Bulgarian 
 epics of Krali Marko, which the Russian Academy 
 of Sciences published in 1855. 
 
 The excellent literaiy quality of the modern Bul- 
 garian translation of the Bible, which was published 
 by the American Bible Society, must be credited to 
 the cooperation of Slaveikoff. The publication of 
 the Scriptures in Bulgarian has had an enormous 
 influence in determining the character of the written 
 language. During the centuries that the Bulgarian 
 was used only as a spoken language among the peas-
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 259 
 
 ants, numerous dialects appeared ; and many of the 
 earlier writers of the modern renaissance made use 
 of these dialects. Dr. Albert Long, an Amqrican 
 missionary in Bulgaria, and later a professor in 
 Robert College, wrote of Slaveikoff at the time of 
 his death: '' A grateful nation will cherish his name 
 as connected with some of the sweetest songs, most 
 attractive stories, vigorous polemics, earnest pa- 
 triotic appeals, and valuable folk-lore contributions 
 made by any writer during the renaissance period 
 of Bulgarian literature. But foremost among his 
 literary contributions and his influence upon the 
 language and the moral development of the nation, 
 will ever stand his work upon the Bulgarian Bible." 
 
 Certainly the most popular author in Bulgaria 
 to-day is Ivan Vazoff, poet, dramatist, and novelist. 
 Vazoff was born at Sopot the 9th of July, 1850. 
 Professor Radoslav A. Tsanoff writes of him: " His 
 father was a prominent local merchant, an honest 
 old style tradesman of devout orthodoxy and un- 
 flinching honesty. To his mother's literary taste 
 Vazoff owes his early book culture. Old Vazoff 
 wanted his son to master Turkish and modem 
 Greek, the two dialects necessary for a merchant of 
 that day. Ivan learned French and Russian, the 
 two languages indispensable for a poet revolution- 
 ist."^ 
 
 The revolutionary movement of the early sev- 
 enties forced most of the educated Bulgars to reside 
 in foreign countries. Vazoff took up his residence 
 
 • Ivan Vazoff, Balkan Pnct and Novelist. By Radoelav A. Tsanoff. 
 Poet Lore, 1908. Vol. 19, pp. 98-110.
 
 260 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 in Riiniania and contributed to the Periodic Revieiv, 
 published at Braila, ** that first tender leaf of the 
 budding Bulgarian literary spirit." He was a mem- 
 ber of the revolutionary committee that directed 
 the insurrectionary movements against the Turks in 
 1875 and 1876. He returned to Bulgaria in 1877 to 
 accept a government post at Svishtov under Prince 
 Tcherkasky after that town had been captured by 
 the Kussians. It was there that he learned the sad 
 fate of Sopot — the complete destruction of the 
 town and the murder of his father by the Turks. 
 
 During his years of exile he published three vol- 
 umes of patriotic lyrics — Sorrows of Bulgaria, 
 Banner and Lyre, and The Deliverance, In the first 
 he voices the sorrows of his oppressed countrymen, 
 and in the last their joys of deliverance from a long 
 and oppressive yoke. After the independence of 
 the country he was elected to the national assembly 
 of Eastern Rumelia. He settled at Philippopolis, 
 where he published his earliest prose works — Not 
 Long Ago, Mitrofan, Hadji Akhil, and The Out- 
 casts. To the same period belongs Mikhalaki, his 
 first dramatic work. He published two collections 
 of verses in 1883 — Gusla and Fields and Woods — 
 and the next year Italy, in which, as Professor 
 Krsteff remarks, he struck a deeper and truer poetic 
 note. " This work was the first book of poems in 
 Bulgarian in which a native poet revealed to his 
 countrj'men the inmost recesses of his soul." 
 
 Vazoff was in the Servian war of 1885; and on 
 the battle-fields of Slivnitza, Tsaribrod, and Pirot, 
 amidst dying soldiers and "within sound of the roar
 
 IVAN VAZOFK.
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 2G1 
 
 of cannon, lie sang the valour of liis countiymen in 
 ditliyrambic strains in Slivnitza (1885). Some of 
 the verses in this volume are of high merit and 
 establish his clahn to artistic rank as a poet. 
 
 Following the downfall of the Russian party in 
 Bulgaria, Vazoff spent three years in exile at 
 Odessa. Professor Tsanoff writes in this connec- 
 tion : " Vazoff has from the very first been a devout 
 Russophil. His poetic adoration for the Tsar Lib- 
 erator shut his eyes to the vile hypocrisy of the St. 
 Petersburg diplomats. He could see nothing wrong 
 coming from Russia. The word of the Great ^Yliite 
 Tsar had been the gospel of his father; it was a 
 sacred truth to him. While others were paid for 
 their services, Vazoff considered it a mere act of 
 patriotism to ' stand pat ' by Russia. Rut there 
 was a man in Bulgaria, Stefan Stamboloff, the Bis- 
 marck of the Balkans, who succeeded in setting Rus- 
 sia's plotting to nought. Wliile being himself a 
 poet and respecting everything literary, Stamboloff 
 was before all else a statesman. Vazoff was a friend 
 of Russia, therefore, in the statesman's eyes, an 
 enemy of the people. The ])ard of Sopot was ex- 
 iled." 
 
 "WHiile in exile at Odessa he wrote Pod Igoto 
 (Under the Yoke), the novel that was to make him 
 famous. Upon his return to Bulgaria in 1889 it 
 appeared serially in Shoniik, a literary review pub- 
 lished under the auspices of the ministry of public 
 instruction. This novel has been tmnslated into 
 all the languages of Europe and two of the lan- 
 guages of Asia. There is an excellent English ver-
 
 262 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 sion, with a graceful introduction by Edmund 
 Gosse.^ 
 
 In Under the Yoke, as Mr. Edmund Gosse has 
 joointed out, Vazoff has concentrated in riper form 
 than elsewhere the peculiar gifts of his mind and 
 style. '' The first quality that strikes the critic in 
 reading this v-ery remarkable book is its freshness. 
 It is not difficult to realize that in its original form, 
 this must be the earliest work of genius written 
 in an unexhausted language. Nor, if Vazoff should 
 live eighty years, and should write with unbated 
 zeal and volume, is it very likely that he will ever 
 recapture this first fine careless rapture. Under 
 the Yoke is a historical romance, not constructed 
 by an antiquary or imagined by a poet out of vague 
 and insufficient materials accidentally saved from 
 a distant past, but recorded by one who lived and 
 fought and suffered through the scenes that he sets 
 himself to chronicle. It is like seeing Old Mortality 
 written by Morton or finding the autobiography of 
 Ivanhoe. It is a history seen through a powerful 
 telescope, with mediaeval figures crossing and re- 
 crossing the seventies of our own discoloured nine- 
 teenth century. When the passion which animates 
 it is taken into consideration, the moderate and 
 artistic tone of Under the Yoke is worthy of great 
 praise. In the episode out of the epic of an intox- 
 icated nation, great extravagance, great violence 
 might have been expected and excused. But this 
 tale of forlorn Bulgarian patriotism is constructed 
 
 1 Under the Yoke: a Romance of Bulgarian Liberty. By Ivan Vazoff. 
 With an Introduction by Edmund Gosse. New and Revised Edition. 
 London, 1912, pp. 301. First English edition, 1893.
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 263 
 
 with delicate consideration, and jDasses nowhere into 
 bombast. The author writes out of his heart things 
 which he has seen and felt, but the moment of frenzy 
 has gone by, and his pulse as an observer has recov- 
 ered its precision. The passion is there still, the 
 intense conviction of intolerable wrongs, scarcely 
 to be wiped out with blood. Tlie strenuous political 
 fervour of this romance is relieved bv a multi- 
 tude of delicate, touching, and humourous epi- 
 sodes." 
 
 The later romances of Vazoff include Neiv Coun- 
 try (1896) and The Queen of Kazalar (1902), in 
 which he has given a picture of the social life of 
 his country since its liberation. But he has not 
 reached the high mark of merit attained in Under 
 the Yoke. Vazoff possesses remarkable powers of 
 observation; but, as the Swedish critic, Professor 
 Jensen, has remarked, " He knows little or nothing 
 about racial psj'chology, and probably cares little 
 about it." Vazoff has also tried his hand at drama. 
 Vagabonds (1894), his most popular dramatic work, 
 deals with the life and activities of the Bulgarian 
 exiles in Rumania just before the liberation. Over 
 the Abyss, a later drama, based upon ancient Bul- 
 garian history, strikes a higher note and indicates 
 better workmanship. Iva'ilo (191.3), Vazoff 's most 
 recent dramatic piece, deals with the second half of 
 the thirteenth century, just after the close of the 
 glorious reign of Tvan Asen II in Bulgaria. Like 
 his other dramatic compositions it makes a strong 
 patriotic appeal. His dramas have received cordial 
 reception at the National Tlieatre at Sofia ; and it
 
 264 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 is the opinion of capable critics that they are certain 
 to hold a prominent place in the theatres of Bulgaria 
 because of tlieir effective situations. 
 
 The melodious character of Vazoff s lyrics makes 
 him tlic favourite poet with children; the school 
 readers of the country contain many of his poems, 
 and he enjoj'S more popularity \vith tlie masses of 
 his countrymen than any other Bulgarian writer. 
 Tlis poems have been translated into Russian, Slo- 
 venian, Servian, and Boliemian. The translation 
 into Bohemian by Voracek (Prague, 1891) is said 
 to be one of the best of the foreign versions. The 
 Pine Tree appears in an English version, by Lucy 
 C. Bull, in the World's Best Literature. Concern- 
 ing tlie Epic of the Forgotten Ones Professor Tsa- 
 noff writes : '* It appealed to the very noblest senti- 
 ments of a dauntless race. In a series of fire-breath- 
 ing odes, swinging in a wildly torrential rhythm, 
 Vazoff sings the glories of the fallen heroes. The 
 language is steeped in passion. Eulogies of brave 
 champions intermingle with almost savage anathe- 
 mas at the tyrant Turks and the maliciously jealous 
 Phanariotes." Some of Vazoff 's latest publica- 
 tions are A Wanderer's Songs, Under Our Sky, All 
 Sorts of People, and Things Seen and Heard. The 
 first and second are volumes of verses, and the last 
 two stories and sketches. 
 
 A novelist who has not reached the popularity 
 of Vazoff, but who gave early promise of becoming 
 a worthy competitor of the author of Under the 
 Yoke, is Theodore Vlaikoff (born in 1865). His 
 material is drawn from the life of the Bulgarian
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 265 
 
 peasants, and liis romances are adroitly constructed 
 on psychological problems. Slavtcho's Grand- 
 daughter (1887) is a charming idyl of village life. 
 RicJier in human content and more acute in psy- 
 chological analysis is The Servant (1892). In this 
 story he describes the cares and sufferings that fol- 
 lowed the disappearance of the frugal habits and 
 patriarchal customs of earlier days. The interest 
 of the story is directed not so much upon artistic 
 effects as upon the thoughts and feelings of the 
 characters. Probably his most effective novel was 
 The Officer's Servant (1896), in which he describes 
 the new life of his country. Exceptionally well 
 drawn are the officer, his old mother, and his serv- 
 ant. The great artistic merit of this work aroused 
 hopes for the future literary superiority of Vlaikoff 
 that have not been realized. Shortly after its ap- 
 pearance, he renounced letters for politics, and his 
 later years have been entirely occupied with social, 
 economic, and political matters. 
 
 Stoyan Michailovsky, satirist and polemist, was 
 born at Elena in 1856; he studied in the French 
 lycee at Constantinople, and later pursued courses 
 in jurisprudence at the university of Aix in France. 
 He became active in the literature of political jour- 
 nalism after his return to Bulgaria, and for some 
 years he was professor in the nniversity at Sofia. 
 His first important publication was a dramatic poem 
 entitled The Song of Evil (1882). It was a rather 
 obscure work that dealt with the fall of man. A 
 more significant work was Suspiria de profundis 
 (1883), a mystical composition that deals with the
 
 266 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 sorrows of the Slavs in tlie ages past and tlie rain- 
 bow of promise in the future. His most important 
 work, a satirical poem, is The Book for the Bulga- 
 rian People (1897). It purports to deal with polit- 
 ical affairs in Asia, but in reality it is a veiled 
 attack on the early years of the reign of King Fer- 
 dinand and the government of Stamboloff. 
 
 Among the other writings of Michailovsky are 
 Novissima Verba, Lamentations and Tears, Philo- 
 sophical and Satirical Sonnets, The Diary of a Lone- 
 some Man, and Concealed Thoughts. " These 
 works," remarks Professor Krsteff, a candid but 
 thoroughly judicious critic of Bulgarian literature, 
 ** bespeak a profound and contradictory character 
 to whom the riddle of existence does not remain 
 concealed. Michailovsky called hi7nself a lonesome 
 man and the statement is quite true. He has always 
 been a poet among politicians and a politician among 
 poets, and he has never l)een entirely at home in 
 either camp. He has continued to be more or less 
 a stranger in his own time and country. In his 
 ideas and language, as in the artistic forms in which 
 he has chosen to give expression to his political 
 and social woes, he has clung rather closely to 
 French models." 
 
 Most of the writings of Michailovsky have a com- 
 mon character. They abound with epigrams, aph- 
 orisms, and meditations inspired by love, duty, and 
 the struggle of life, and are tinged with a gloomy 
 religious mysticism that gives the tone feeling to 
 so many of the creations of Slavic poets. In his 
 satires he assails graft and corruption and boodle
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 207 
 
 in political life, and vice and hypocrisy and unbelief 
 in social life. Pessimism is the dominant note ; but 
 it is not the pessimism of the sentimentalist, but 
 tlie prea'-lunent of the social and political reformer. 
 His prose writings are polemic, even vehement, fiiU 
 of invective and bitter liarangue. 
 
 Aleko Constantinoff (1SG3-1897), a refined hu- 
 inourist, was an author of the first rank. He was 
 born at Svislitov the 1st of January, 1S63. He 
 studied in the elementary school at Svishtov, and 
 at the age of eleven entered the secondary school at 
 Gabrovo. After the war of 1877-1878, he was sent 
 to Russia to complete liis education. During the 
 seven years sjtent abroad in study, he wrote several 
 sTuall pieces for the theatre, a comic poem published 
 in 1882, and published in collaboration with several 
 friends a humourous review. He returned to Bul- 
 garia in 1885 and received an official appointment 
 as judge in the district court of Sofia. This post 
 he soon lost, however, '* through the most miserable 
 of political motives." 
 
 He then tool: up the practice of law, and while 
 Avaiting for clients turned his attention to literature. 
 He made translations of the poems of Pushkin, Lcr- 
 montoff, Nekrassoff, Francois Coppee, and Moliere, 
 and wrote literary criticisms for the papers of Sofia. 
 He visited America In 180.3, and u])0ii liis returii 
 to Bulgaria published his first book, To Chicago and 
 Back. It w^as a nota])le book of travel and gave 
 him a place of distinction among the writers of his 
 country. 
 
 It was, however, th(^ Bni O'anio, the Bulgarian
 
 268 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Tartarin, that established his fame. In this work he 
 gives an account of the visit of a typical Bulgarian 
 peasant to Bohemia. All the weak points in the 
 character of the peasant citizen are laid bare; but 
 merciless as was the veracity of the story, its hu- 
 mour was so calm and irresistible that even the Bul- 
 garian peasants enjoyed it. Bdi Ganio is one of 
 the finest contributions to the literature of modern 
 European humour, and it is to be regretted that 
 it has never been translated into English. There 
 is, however, a very satisfactory French ver- 
 sion.^ 
 
 In 1894 he joined the ranks of the young demo- 
 cratic party under the leadership of Karaveloff and 
 began the publication of a series of feuilletons in 
 the newspapers of Sofia, which he continued up to 
 the moment of his untimely death. " For these 
 feuilletons/* remarks Professor Krsteff, '' he chose 
 the simplest possible themes, but his language was 
 so powerful, his style so forceful, and, withal, so 
 charming, that thej^ acted like war songs on the peo- 
 ple. He controlled the literary world of Bulgaria 
 and kept the people in breathless expectancy until 
 his death in 1897." ^ 
 
 While carriage-riding in the mountains between 
 Bulgaria and Macedonia, and accompanied by Mr. 
 Takeff, minister of the interior in the Malinoff cab- 
 inet, Constantinoff received revolver bullets that 
 
 * Bal Ganio. Par Aleko Constantinoff. Traduit du Bulgare par 
 Matel Gueorguiev et Jean Jagerschmidt. Paris, 1911, pp. 245. 
 
 2 Die neue bulgarische Liiteralur. Von K. Krsteff-Miroljuboff. In- 
 ternationale Wochenschrift fiir Wissenschaft Kunst und Technik, 23rd 
 January, 1909.
 
 ALEKO CONSTANT! NOFF.
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 269 
 
 were intended for liis companion, and died almost 
 instantl}'. At the spot where he fell there has been 
 erected a monument to his memory which hears this 
 inscription: " Travellers, tell to future generations 
 that at this spot Aleko Constantinoff, poet-author, 
 was assassinated by hired murderers, the 11th of 
 May, 1897." A collection of his works, with an 
 appreciative sketch by Pencho Slave'ikoff, was pub- 
 lished after his death. (Sofia, 1901.) 
 
 There is, so far as the author knows, practical 
 unifonnity of judgment among competent European 
 students of Bulgarian literature with reference to 
 the name that stands at the head of the list of men 
 of letters in the peasant state. Pencho Slave'ikoff 
 (1866-1912), son of Petko Slaveikoff, the father of 
 modern Bulgarian literature, struck a higher intel- 
 lectual note, employed more refined literary canons, 
 and projected liimsclf more effectively into the fu- 
 ture than any of his contemporaries. Professor 
 Jensen of Sweden says of him: '' He brouglit the 
 new poetry of Bulgaria into living relationship with 
 European culture, while at the same time he jeal- 
 ously preserved its unique national characteristics. 
 No Bulgarian poet has sung more effectively than 
 he in honour of the martyr pioneers; yet no artist 
 has more ruthlessly lashed the political and social 
 shortcomings of the Bulgarian people than Pencho 
 Slaveikoff." 
 
 An English literary critic, who knew Slave'ikoff 
 personally, gives this account of him: " He is the 
 caged lion of Sofia. Great massive shoulders, a 
 massive head, swarthy, with beard of black and
 
 270 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 silver, a brow that sets one tliinking, and eyes — 
 eyes weary with the world's troubles, eyes of the 
 twilit woods, then of a woodland faun, eyes that 
 lure you and dance away from you, eyes that laugh 
 at you and their owner, unbearable eyes. Slaveikoff 
 is the figure of revolt. As he walks painfully 
 through the town — for his feet are unwilling trav- 
 ellers — he longs with a fierce desire to be where 
 no man knows him. The passion of revolt is in his 
 blood; it burns in the poems he wrote in Germany, 
 whither the spirit of Nietzsche summoned him. In 
 that series of remarkable poems he celebrates Bee- 
 thoven, Lenau, Shelley, Nietzsche, Michael Angelo 
 — men who wrong great things out of anguish." 
 
 Pencho Slaveikoff was the first Bulgarian poet 
 who placed special emphasis both on the form and 
 the content of his creations. His predecessors and 
 contemporaries had been concerned primarily with 
 the spiritual life of the people; but Slaveikoff rec- 
 ognized that the poet must be an artist, and that his 
 songs must be cast in forms that will bear the test 
 of the highest canons of poetic art. The magical 
 perfection of his phrasing, the classical purity of 
 his language, and the appropriateness of his im- 
 agery may well serve as models for the younger 
 poets of Bulgaria. 
 
 His first really great lyrical composition was the 
 poetical cycle, the Kaledari, so named in honour of 
 the wandering folk -bards who at Christmas time 
 went from place to place singing songs of well- 
 wishing, for which they were paid with small gifts. 
 Here, as in his other works, the diction is of a rich
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 271 
 
 and permanent texture; and the thrill of the prop- 
 erly chosen word, which gratifies at once the ear, the 
 imagination, and the understanding, is more marked 
 than in any otlier Bulgarian poet. 
 
 A melancholy note pervades Epic Songs (1890- 
 1897), and Dreams (1898), A Dream of Happiness 
 (1908), and Island of the Blessed (1910). They are 
 brilliantly coloured shadows in a brilliantly coloured 
 shadowland; and there is behind these songs, as 
 Henry Bernard has remarked, " a living back- 
 ground of Bulgarian nature — the tawny-coloured 
 plains, the vast pine-clad Eilo mountains, the cele- 
 brated rose-fields of Rumelia. Straggling hamlets 
 of grey and yellow and at intervals a Turkish case- 
 ment; dark, active-looking men, despite their bulg- 
 ing pantaloons; girls in gauzy robes of blue with 
 ancient belts of silver-work, with coins and red and 
 yellow flowers twined among their strands of hair; 
 children, whose garment is often the sunlight, con- 
 gregating in the dust of villages or about the little 
 river which disports itself between the cobblestones 
 of the tortuous main street — no phase of rural life 
 which is unknown to our poet." 
 
 Slaveikoff's masterpiece is Kurvava Pessen (A 
 Bloody Song). It is a groat epic, which was unfin- 
 ished at the time of the death of the poet. Its cen- 
 tral figure is no human being, but the genius of the 
 Bulgarian race is personified by Father Balkan — 
 the spirit of the vast chain of mountains that is 
 inseparably connected with the life of the nation. 
 The story of the sufferings of the Bulgarian people 
 under the Turks and their deliverance by the llus-
 
 272 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 sians is unfolded in the epic manner with large 
 inset episodes. In intellectual comprehension, 
 moral sublimity, and rich description it takes high 
 rank among the epics of modern European litera- 
 ture. It has an admirable Swedish version ; and, 
 but for the untimely death of the poet, would have 
 secured him the Nobel prize. 
 
 Professor Krsteff, one of the most discriminating 
 of Bulgarian critics, writes concerning the work of 
 Pencho Slaveikoff : " His poetical development was 
 determined in part by the Russian novelists and in 
 part by the German lyric poets. He united the ten- 
 der and dreamy soul of the Slav with the thoughtful 
 and artistic mind of the Teuton. He was the first 
 Bulgarian poet who combined lofty standards of 
 form with virile content." He took the spiritual 
 life of the Bulgarian people, as embodied in folk- 
 song, and gave it new poetic energy and beauty. 
 Wliile Bulgarian literature is still in a state of trans- 
 ition, which makes it difficult for the foreign critic 
 to pronounce with any finality what is better and 
 what is best, there can be but one judgment with 
 reference to the work of Pencho Slaveikoff: It is 
 increasingly recognized that he reached the highest 
 point which the authors of Bulgaria have attained 
 in the field of letters. For Slaveikoff was more 
 than a Bulgarian poet; he was a poet. 
 
 Petko Todoroff (born 1879), author of ballads, 
 dramas, and essays, is probably the most significant 
 of the younger living authors of Bulgaria. He is 
 the most modern of the poets and approximates 
 most nearly the high rank attained by Pencho Slave-
 
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 Modern Bulgarian Literature 273 
 
 ikoff. Inconstant, Beivitched, Shadoivs, and The 
 Marriage of the Sun (all of which have been excel- 
 lently translated into German by Dr. G. Adam) por- 
 tray Bulgarian peasant life in all the freshness of 
 its beauty and simplicity. 
 
 His dramas likewise are notable creations. In 
 The Masons he describes the slow awakening of the 
 national Bulgarian consciousness, with w^hich he 
 has admirably blended the religious feelings of the 
 peasant folk. This is one of the popular pieces in 
 the National Theatre at Sofia. The First Ones, a 
 social drama, deals with the period of intellectual 
 emancipation from Greek culture. 
 
 Todoroff's greatest dramatic achievement is The 
 Mountain Fairy, in which the poet has attained a 
 degree of poetic perfection not liitherto reached by 
 other Bulgarian authors in the field of dramatic lit- 
 erature. It is a work of genuine poetic inspiration, 
 as well as fine artistry in construction, and is cer- 
 tain sooner or later to find its way into the reper- 
 toire of European and American theatres. 
 
 All of Todoroff's writings display unusual imag- 
 ination and suggest the idealistic philosophy that 
 mirrors the author's fine personality. His sketches 
 of folk-life and his prose writings are probably the 
 finest that have been produced by any Bulgarian 
 author. 
 
 Constantine Volitclikoff (1857-1897) is one of the 
 minor poets of Bulgaria. He was bom at Tatar 
 Pazardjik ; studied in the French lycee at Constan- 
 tinople, and participated in the revolutionary move- 
 ment against Turkey that preceded the war of
 
 274 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 1877-78. lie was captured and imprisoned by the 
 Turks, and has since publislied In Prison, in which 
 he gives his experiences during that stirring and 
 dangerous period. After the liberation of Bul- 
 garia he became minister of public instruction in 
 the province of Eastern Kumelia. He has been a 
 careful translator of many foreign poems into the 
 Bulgarian — Macheth of Shakespeare, Inferno of 
 Dante, and Misantliro'pe of Moliere. In 1889 he 
 published a volume of sonnets, most of them in a 
 melancholy vein, but all of tliein indicating poetic 
 talent of no mean order. In his prose works, as 
 in Letters from Rome (1895), he shows marked 
 power of description and keen sense of appreciation 
 of natural beauty. 
 
 Anotlicr minor poet is Kyril Christoff (born in 
 1875). He is the author of patriotic v(u'ses, erotic 
 songs, and dramas. He was early in life a devotee 
 of Italian poetry, and some of his poems of passion 
 show unmistakable Italian influences. In a more 
 recent volume, Na Krustopnt (At the Parting of the 
 Ways), he has shown finer feeling and a higher 
 order of poetic genius. His Selected Poems (1904) 
 show mastery of lyric verse forms. He has shown 
 keen interest in working over folk-song motives and 
 folk-ballads. He has achieved no marked success in 
 dramatic literature, but his dramas have unmistaka- 
 ble elements of promise; and as he is a compara- 
 tively young writer, his best work in this field may 
 lie in the future. 
 
 Payo Yavoroff (born 1877) is a lyric poet of rec- 
 ognized ability. His Poeyns (1901) showed the un-
 
 Modern Bulgarian Literature 275 
 
 mistakablc infliieuce of the revolutionary versifiers, 
 and notably of Christo Botcff; })nt in a later vol- 
 ume, Sleeplessness (1907), tliere is independence of 
 thought and marked growth in poetic power. He 
 was a volunteer in the Macedonian revolutionary 
 movement; and his recent volume of iuiiduk songs 
 (1909) has both beauty of form and fine lyric senti- 
 ment. Many of the choice lyrics of this collection 
 are richly coloured hy the racial psycliology of the 
 Bulgarian people. Yavoroif's mastery of verse 
 technique is remarkable, lie has shown, as no one 
 else, the rare flexibility of Bulgarian, both in rhythm 
 and rhyme. 
 
 Anton Strashirairoff (born 1875), a symbolical 
 and mystical writer, is the author of a number of 
 novels and dramas that deal with the life of the Bul- 
 garian peasants. A significant work of fiction by 
 Strashimiroff is the novel Troubled Times (1899), 
 which deals wdth political events in Bulgaria fol- 
 lowing the coup d'etat of 1886. His later novels, 
 An Autumn Day (1901) and The Crossroad (1904), 
 deal w'ith the social and political yu'oblems of sturdy 
 village folks who have grown up in close touch with 
 nature. His most important dramatic composition 
 is The Unmarked Grave (190fi). 
 
 The writer who knows most intimately the life 
 of the Bulgarian peasant is Ijlin-Pelin (Demeter 
 Ivanoff), a child of the common people, w^hose short 
 stories are delightful genre pieces. His best known 
 romance, Guerachs, portrays the hard realities of 
 peasant existence during the period of transition; 
 but the grim life of the obstinate old Guerach is
 
 276 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 relieved by the penetrating humour and the keen 
 observation of the peasant-author. 
 
 Eeference should also be made to Tsanko Tser- 
 kovsky, born at Bela Tservka in 1869, the peasant 
 poet par excellence of Bulgaria. He is a peasant 
 poet not only in his choice of subjects, but in his 
 point of view. He has tried to do with the Bulgarian 
 folk-song what few others have done in Bulgaria: 
 not modernize it, but catch its spirit, and in its spirit 
 express the joys and sorrows of the present peasant 
 life. 
 
 Among modern political writers may be named 
 Simeon Eadeff, journalist, historian, and essayist, 
 author of the Builders of Bulgaria, and probably 
 the ablest journalist in the country; St. Daneff, 
 politician and lawyer, and author of works on juris- 
 prudence and political science; Stephen S. Bob- 
 tcheff, diplomat and politician, and writer on legal 
 and political subjects; and Vasil Zlatarsky, the his- 
 torian. 
 
 In the field of literary criticism should be named 
 A. Balabanoif, Ivan Shishmanoff, Boyan Penneff, 
 and Constantine Krsteff. Authors in the field of 
 philology and folk-lore include Jordan Ivanoff, 
 Benu Tsoneff, Lubomir Miletitch, and A. Arnaou- 
 doff ; Peter Neukoff and Ivan Georgoff are the two 
 leading writers on pedagogy and psychology; a 
 really forceful and original writer in the field of 
 philosophy is Dimiter Michaltscheff, and among 
 notable scientific writers may be mentioned George 
 Zlastarsky, Stephen Petkoff, and George Boncheff.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PAINTING AND SCULPTURE 
 
 High rank of Bulgaria in painting — Earliest artists foreigners — 
 Professor Ivan D. Mirkvicka — Wide range of his artistic activ- 
 ities — Studies of Bulgarian peasants — His historical paintings — 
 Mural paintings in the Alexander Nevsky cathedral — Founder of 
 the Academy of Fine Arts — Yaroslav Veshin — Pavlovitch and 
 Dospevsky — Professor Anton MitofT — ^ Ivan AngelolT — Other 
 painters — Sculpture — Collections of paintings — Art school at 
 Sofia. 
 
 When it is recalled that for a period of five hun- 
 dred years the Bulgars were subjected to the mis- 
 rule of the Turks, and that they have enjoyed free- 
 dom from the Ottoman yoke for less than thirty-six 
 years, it wall surprise even well informed people 
 to hear that Bulgaria is already taking an honour- 
 able place among the culture-nations of modern 
 Europe. The political and literary activity of the 
 rejuvenated nation has reacted favourably on the 
 art movement of the country, and already the young 
 kingdom has a very satisfactory list of paintings 
 and painters to her credit account. 
 
 The artist who has done most to win distinction 
 for Bulgaria in the field of painting is Professor 
 Ivan V. Mirkvicka, a Bohemian by birth but a Bul- 
 gar in spirit. After the freedom of Bulgaria from 
 Turkish rule, a dozen artists flocked to the new 
 country from Germany, Bohemia, Russia, and 
 France; but most of them soon became discouraged 
 
 277
 
 278 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 with tlie unfavourable conditions they had to face, 
 and loft the country. The conditions for art work 
 were most adverse ; there were no galleries or art 
 collections or exhibits; even art materials and mod- 
 els were obtained with great difficulty. 
 
 But Mirkvicka became acclimated; the life of the 
 young nation interested him. Writing in later life 
 of his early experiences in Bulgaria he says: " At 
 the school I tried my best to inspire my pupils with 
 artistic taste and a love of art. As for myself I 
 lived a very quiet life. The splendid scenery around 
 me, and the characteristic faces I met at every step, 
 aroused the artist within me, and made me long to 
 put all these things on canvas. I devoted myself 
 to the study of Bulgarian nature and to the national 
 ethnic types, and in doing so derived great pleasure. 
 Nowhere can one find such varied types and such 
 interesting costumes as are to be found here. Things 
 have kept the natural imprint, and neither the bar- 
 bers nor the fashion papers have succeeded in giv- 
 ing the same appearance to every one. The homme 
 du peuple has preserved his manner of wearing his 
 clothes, of putting on his fur cap and belt, and of 
 leaving his chest bare. All this has something in- 
 dividual about it." 
 
 Mirkvicka is an astonishingly productive artist. 
 There is scarcely any branch of painting — genre 
 pieces, landscapes, portraits, historical composi- 
 tions, icons, mural i)aintings — at which he has not 
 tried his hand and in which he has not attained 
 extraordinary results. But it is the Bulgarian peas- 
 ants that supply the groundwork of his best paint-
 
 1 
 
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 P^" 
 
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 ^^i- 
 
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 IVAN V. A11KK\1CKA.
 
 Painting and Sculpture 279 
 
 ings. It is in genre pieces that lie readies the ripest 
 maturity of bis genius. And his Bulgarian peasants 
 are full of dignity and beauty. He docs not paint 
 them '' as darkened by the pall of an unremediablo 
 fatality, but as strong men and women fronting with 
 strength the vicissitudes of their existence." 
 
 No other artist has given such a sympathetic and 
 varied survey of the inhabitants of the peasant 
 state. His genre pieces have grown out of and into 
 the circumstances of peasant life in Bulgaria and 
 Macedonia. They represent all the traits of a hardy 
 peasant folk, the characteristic gestures, the heavi- 
 ness of the motley dress, and an extravagance of 
 colour that sometimes offends the western eye un- 
 familiar with life in the Balkans; but tliere is a 
 beautiful humanity in all the paintings tliat tell the 
 story of Bulgar life, and it is the humanity of the 
 Bulgar nature. 
 
 A good example of this kind of work by IMir- 
 kvicka is " The horo in a Bulgarian khan." The 
 horo is the national dance of the country, danced 
 on holidays by the peasants attired in all their 
 finery. There is a comprehension of details in this 
 painting, as complete as that of the Dutch masters. 
 You see the Turkish coiTee-pot on the wall, the Bul- 
 gars in their highly coloured costumes, with the 
 characteristic sandals, and lacings running u\) the 
 home-spun woollen stockings. You feel as you look 
 at the painting the absorption of the artist in the 
 emotions of the dancers and his desire to give the 
 whole affair faithful reproduction. This phase of 
 Mirkvicka's work will have lasting value; for these
 
 280 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 peasant types and customs are certain to pass away 
 with time, and his pictures will come to have large 
 historical significance. 
 
 Another interesting example of his genre work 
 is " All Souls' Day in a Country Churchyard." 
 Peasants have come to the graves of their departed 
 kin with dishes of boiled wheat, baskets of bread 
 and cake, flasks of oil and honey, and bunches of 
 flowers. Black robed priests bless the food which 
 the mourners place on the graves, at the same time 
 chanting dirges which recount the virtues of the 
 departed. It is a scene of exquisite refreshment 
 to the spirit. *' Burning of a Macedonian Village," 
 "The Pursuit," and "The Rhodope Wedding" 
 are other notable examples that deal with the life 
 of the common people. '^ The Rhodope Wedding," 
 owned by Mr. Charles R. Crane of Chicago, is big 
 in life and art. The simple faith and habits of 
 mountain peasants are represented with noble seri- 
 ousness and a tenderness that is irresistibly appeal- 
 ing. 
 
 Mirkvicka has also achieved notable results as a 
 portrait painter. In all his portraits there is an 
 amazing suggestion of actuality. His painting of 
 the Princess Maria Louisa, first wife of King Ferdi- 
 nand of Bulgaria, is executed in the old mosaic style 
 and represents the princess as the founder of the 
 new Bulgarian dynasty. She is seated on an an- 
 tique throne and is garbed in the beautiful costume 
 of media?,val Bulgarian queens. His portrait of 
 King Ferdinand, also in the antique style, gives one 
 a good notion of the artist's delicate schemes of
 
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 Painting and Sculpture 281 
 
 colour and the excellent adjustment of their values. 
 Another interesting portrait is his conception of 
 Paissy, the monk and scholar of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 His historical paintings are full of tragic horror, 
 but they give the actuality of the terrible events 
 which always seizes his imagination, and one is 
 pretty certain to discover in these historical paint- 
 ings the fundamental note of humanity beneath his 
 tragic actors. 
 
 The new Alexander Nevsky cathedral at Sofia 
 contains some of Professor Mirkvicka's latest work. 
 The cathedral was built, at a cost of more than one 
 million dollars, as a token to Russia for the libera- 
 tion of the Bulgarian people from the Turkish yoke. 
 These mural paintings represent a rather wide 
 range of historical and religious subjects, such as 
 "Christ in the Temple," "The Seven Saints to 
 the Slavs," " Holy Zlata," " John the Baptist," 
 " Salome and Herod," and " Moses and Aaron." 
 These mural paintings show breadth of picturesque 
 style and a refined pictorial sense. They are ad- 
 justed with wonderful skill to the architectural 
 spaces embellished. 
 
 Professor Mirkvicka was the founder of the Acad- 
 emy of Fine Arts at Sofia and its first president; 
 he organized the first art exhibit held in Bulgaria, 
 and has been the teacher of most of the men who are 
 doing distinguished work in art in the country. His 
 paintings were exhibited at Paris in 1900, at St. 
 Louis in 1904, at Liege in 1905, and at Brussels in 
 1910. Most of his pictures are in the palaces and
 
 282 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 public and private buildings in Bulgaria and Servia, 
 although several adorn the home of that well-known 
 American friend of Slavic art, Mr. Charles R. Crane 
 of Chicago. 
 
 Yaroslav Vesliin, also a Bohemian by birth, is 
 another foreigner who has contributed to the devel- 
 opment of the art life of the young kingdom. 
 Veshin had studied in the art academies at Prague 
 and Munich, and had acquired considerable repu- 
 tation as a painter before he came to Bulgaria. He 
 taught for a time in secondary schools and the art 
 academy after coming to the country, and was later 
 connected with the war department as ofTicial 
 painter. His most important paintings take as 
 subjects winter landscapes, hunting scenes, and old 
 Turkish villages. " Tn his genre pictures," writes 
 Protitch, " especially in his paintings of peasants, 
 gypsies, and Turks, he introduces a sense of humour 
 quite personal to himself. With his well-established 
 style Veshin has exercised a profound influence on 
 all his pupils."^ Mihoff and Petroff, two of the 
 Bulgarian artists who have attained distinction, 
 were trained by Veshin. 
 
 The Polish artist Piotrovsky, who came to Bul- 
 garia as correspondent and artist for various jour- 
 nals in 1885, painted a number of important war 
 pieces. His most important work was " The Mas- 
 sacre in Batak." T^rotitch says of this historical 
 painting: '' It displays great mastery in individu- 
 alizing crowds and in rendering events in a simple 
 and easily comprehensible form : to the right, the 
 
 ' Fine Art in Bulgaria. By Audrey Protitch. Lx)ndon, 1907, pp. 37.
 
 Painting and Sculpture 283 
 
 burning village of Batak; to tlie left, mutilated, 
 dying Bulgarians and the victors covered with their 
 cheap glory — Circassians, baslii-bozouks, Turkish 
 women, and gypsies revelling in the dreadful spec- 
 tacle presented by the burning village." 
 
 Among native Bulgai-ians tlie first to attain dis- 
 tinction in art were Nicholas Pavlovitch and Vladi- 
 slav Dospevsky. Pavlovitch was born at Svishtov 
 in 1835; studied in the art academies at Munich 
 and Vienna, and travelled in Russia. He returned 
 to Bulgaria in 1861 and endeavoured by means of 
 paintings and lithographs dealing with the ancient 
 history of the country to stimulate the x3atriotism 
 and intellectual life of his compatriots. He also 
 endeavoured to reform ilie icon ])aintings for the 
 Orthodox church, but without appreciable results. 
 He made two unsuccessful attempts to organize a 
 school of painting. In 1867 he illustrated for the 
 Turkish pasha ;it Bustchuk a history of the janis- 
 saries. After the liberation of Bulgaria from Turk- 
 ish rule he sei*ved for seven years as an inspector 
 of schools (1878-1885). 
 
 Vladislav Dospevsky studied in Russia and was 
 largely interested in church paintings. He joined 
 with Pavlovitch in an effort to modernize church 
 painting in accordance with the requirements of 
 modern artistic technique, but Avithout much success. 
 
 Professor Anton Mitoff, an associate of Professor 
 Mirkvicka in the Academy of Vmo Arts at Sofia, 
 is also a painter of high merit. ]\litoff is a Bulgar; 
 he was born at Stara Zagora the 31st of March, 
 1862; graduated at the art academy at Florence,
 
 284 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 and lias passed his active life as a teacher and 
 painter. He has exhibited at Rome, Venice, St. 
 Louis, and Liege, and his pictures are to be found 
 chiefly in public and private collections in Sofia and 
 Belgrade. 
 
 There is a note of unmistakable force and inde- 
 pendence in all of Mitoff's work, and it is some- 
 times tempered with fine poetic feeling. His pic- 
 torial sense is one of the sources of greatness in 
 his art, and his best paintings represent the life of 
 his people. *' Market Scene at Sofia," " Lemonade 
 Vendor at Stara Zagora," " Washing by the Brook 
 at Plevna," and " Death of the Patriarch Eftimi " 
 are full of significant suggestion. 
 
 Mitoff is also liberally represented in the new 
 cathedral of Alexander Nevsky at Sofia. There is 
 piquancy and virility in his conception of St. 
 Method, St. Kyril, and King Boris; and fine feeling 
 in the altar-piece, '* Christ and the Virgin." The 
 mosaics of the king's altar in the cathedral are from 
 drawings by Mitoff. The superb decorations of the 
 walls and ceiling of the council chamber of the Bul- 
 garian Agricultural Bank at Sofia are the joint la- 
 bours of Mitoff and Mirkvieka. 
 
 Ivan Angeloff, who studied at Rome and Munich, 
 is a Bulgarian artist of the Millet school. He has 
 caught the spirit of the Bulgarian peasant, and his 
 discrimination of light values links his art with 
 that of the impressionists. His most notable paint- 
 ing is ^' Peasants Taking the Oath." Nicholas 
 Petroff is a water-colour painter who shows unusual 
 comprehension of the subtle qualities of rural life
 
 ANTON" MITOFF.
 
 Painting and Sculpture 285 
 
 in his scenes on the banks of the Danube in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Vidin. 
 
 Stefan Ivanoff, the most distinguished icon 
 painter in Bulgaria, has done some creditable work 
 with the methods of the impressionists. Marin 
 Georgieff, a student of Mirkvicka, has some pleas- 
 ing paintings of ancient church ruins; Alexander 
 Moutafoff, some interesting melancholy subjects; 
 Christo Berberoff, some fine bits of landscape; 
 Nicholas Mihailoff, some excellent portraits; and 
 Krali Marko suggests an artist's dream of atmos- 
 phere and colour in his representations from Bul- 
 garian folk-lore. 
 
 Alexander Bojinoff, who is reasonably well known 
 in Europe as a caricaturist, has a number of ad- 
 mirable symbolical landscape works in water colours 
 and pastel. But his caricatures of village life in 
 Bulgaria represent his best work. 
 
 Bulgaria has made less notable contributions to 
 sculpture than to painting. Andrcy Protitch is 
 authority for the statement that this backwardness 
 is due to the puritanical attitude of the Bulgarian 
 people towards undraped figures. Andrea Niko- 
 lofT has made creditable busts of the artists Mir- 
 kvicka and Mitoff and the poet Vazoff, as well as 
 heads of children. 'J'lie historical monument at 
 Kustendil is by him. There is an interesting group 
 of miners in the national museum at Sofia by Alex- 
 ander Andraeff ; Marin VassilefT has a creditable 
 bust of Alexander of Battenberg, and several pieces 
 by Yetcho Spiridonoff have artistic wortli. The 
 workers in ceramics by young artists connected with
 
 286 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 the school of painting at Sofia have done some alto- 
 gether noteworthy pictorial work on vases. 
 
 The most important collections of paintings in 
 Bulgaria are found in the royal palaces at Sofia, 
 Varna, Philippopolis, Tcliam-Koria, and Gorubli- 
 nay. The Bulgarian Agricultural Bank at Sofia 
 contains a number of mural paintings by Mirkvicka 
 and Mitoff. The w^alls of the national assembly 
 at the capital contain portraits of the Tsar Libera- 
 tor (Alexander II of Russia), Prince Alexander of 
 Battenberg, King Ferdinand, Princess Maria Lou- 
 isa, and Prince Boris by Nicholas Mihailoff. The 
 new cathedral of Alexander Nevsky and the palace 
 of the Holy Sjaiod, described elsewhere, also con- 
 tain rich collections of paintings by modern Bul- 
 garian artists. The national government has made 
 a beginning in the matter of a collection of paint- 
 ings representative of the art life of the nation. 
 But this meagre collection, badly housed in the 
 national museum at Sofia, gives a very inadequate 
 idea of the present state of art in Bulgaria. 
 
 Several art exhibitions have been held in Bulgaria 
 and Bulgarian artists have exhibited at most of 
 the recent European expositions. Two societies of 
 artists have been fonned — '' The Society of Bul- 
 garian Artists " and " The Modern Art Society." 
 
 In 1895 the national government organized a state 
 scliool of art at Sofia for the training of students 
 of plastic and fine arts ; teachers of painting, draw- 
 ing, and manual arts in the secondary and technical 
 schools; and artists for the various art industries, 
 such as icon painting, wood carving, goldsmiths'
 
 Painting and Sculpture 287 
 
 work, and ceramics. Most of the leading artists 
 of the country are or have been members of the 
 facnlty, and practically all of the younger artists 
 have studied in the school.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 FARMS AND FORESTS 
 
 Agriculture the mainstay — Peasant ownership — Common pasture 
 lands — Cereal products — Cultivation of rosea — Orchard fruits 
 — Growth of tobacco — Rearing of live-stock — Bulgarian Agri- 
 cultural Bank — NcckI of agricultural education — Social life of 
 the peasant farmers — Forests of Bulgaria — Government regula- 
 tions — The fore^sts of the llilo and the Rhodope mountains. 
 
 Agriculture is the mainstay of Bulgaria. Three- 
 foiirtlis of the people are farmers, and products of 
 the soil are the chief source of wealth. The pop- 
 ulation of the country is sparse ; capital is not abun- 
 dant; the peasants are conservative, and agi'icul- 
 tural methods are primitive. Fertilizers are not 
 generally used ; rotation of crops is little practised, 
 and modern farming implements are rather rare. 
 Water buffalo and oxen are the chief beasts of bur- 
 den, although camels are still used to a slight ex- 
 tent in the northeastern part of the kingdom. The 
 water buffalo are strong and patient animals, but 
 they require much care. There are few horses in 
 the country, but the Bulgarian horse, although small, 
 is hardy and intelligent. 
 
 Peasant proprietorship is general. Farms are 
 small, the average being about eighteen acres. To 
 except the lands owned by the monasteries, tliere 
 
 288
 
 
 X 
 
 •J)
 
 Farms and Forests 289 
 
 are no large estates in Bulgaria. Ver}' few people 
 in the agricultural districts work for wages. Each 
 farmer cultivates his own small holding and depends 
 for his livelihood upon the products of his own 
 hands. The method of inheritance, adopted after 
 the liberation from the Turkish yoke, has tended 
 to make the holdings smaller and smaller. There 
 are one hundred thousand farmers in Bulgaria with 
 farms of two and one-half acres, and less than one 
 hundred farmers with more than seven hundred 
 acres. 
 
 The Bulgarian farmers as a class live roughly, 
 even sordidly. They enjoy very few rude comforts, 
 but they are independent and contented. Their 
 industry is proverbial. Their power of endurance 
 is remarkable. Poverty, in the sense in which the 
 word is used in Europe and America, is simply 
 unknown in Bulgaria; for the peasant farmers are 
 not only industrious: they add to the capacity for 
 hard work the virtues of temperance and frugal- 
 ity. 
 
 In addition to their farms, the peasants have cer- 
 tain pasture lands that are held in perpetuity by 
 the communities. Farmers have the right of pas- 
 turing their domestic animals on these communal 
 meadows. Certain forest lands are also held in 
 common, from which wood for fuel may bo taken. 
 No taxes are paid on the lands held by communities. 
 The house-community was until very recent times 
 an important institution of farm life. Family 
 groups lived together in patriarchal fashion. Some- 
 times as many as ten or a dozen families lived to-
 
 290 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 gether on a large farm and observed communistic 
 principles. 
 
 About forty-six per cent, of the area of Bulgaria 
 is susceptible of cultivation. Three-fourths of the 
 products of the soil are cereals ; wheat, maize, bar- 
 ley, oats, and rye being the chief cereal products. 
 The best wheat and maize lands are on the plains 
 that border the Danube. From the Dobrudja region, 
 which Bulgaria was forced to cede to Rumania as 
 a result of the last war, the yield of wheat alone 
 exceeded eight million dollars annually. The adop- 
 tion of modern methods of agriculture would greatly 
 augment the yield of cereals. The primitive wooden 
 plough of Biblical days is still generally used. It 
 does scarcely more than scratch the soil. Harrows 
 are seldom used. The Bulgarian farmer makes lit- 
 tle use of manures in his cultivation of cereals. 
 Rape and hemp are also grown; the former for 
 exportation and the latter for its fibre, which is 
 made into rope in the large rope factories near 
 Sofia. 
 
 The cultivation of roses is the chief occupation 
 of one hundred fifty villages in a sheltered valley 
 between the Balkan mountains and the Sredna Gora. 
 The valley is eighty miles long and thirty miles 
 wide, with an area of eighteen thousand acres de- 
 voted to the cultivation of roses. The world's sup- 
 ply of that expensive luxury known as attar of roses 
 comes from this valley. The attar is obtained by 
 the distillation of the rose petals. Damask roses 
 are chiefly cultivated. The rose-fields are cultivated 
 after the manner of vineyards. The petals are gath-
 
 HAKVESTINU WITH CAMELS. 
 
 THRESHING WHKAr
 
 Farms and Forests 291 
 
 ered at the end of May or the beginning of June. 
 They are taken from the rose-bushes in the early 
 morning while the half-opened buds are still wet 
 with dew, the rose being broken off just below the 
 calyx. A wax-like substance sticks to the hands of 
 the girls and women who gather the roses. This 
 is scraped off from time to time and manufactured 
 into a substance that is used for coating metal neck- 
 laces. 
 
 An acre of land will produce about four thousand 
 pounds of roses, but it takes two hundred pounds 
 of petals to produce a single ounce of rose oil. 
 After the petals have been gathered they are taken 
 to the distillery. In the process of distillation, the 
 tiny yellow globules of oil come to the surface and 
 are skimmed off with a feather. Kazanlik, Karlova, 
 and Klissura are the chief distilling centres of the 
 attar of roses. 
 
 The orchard fruits cultivated are plums, apples, 
 peaches, and apricots. Figs and pomegranates are 
 grown in abundance in Eastern Rumelia. The most 
 productive orchard lands are the plains of Kusten- 
 dil and Gabrovo. Quantities of nuts are grown, 
 including walnuts, almonds, and hazel nuts. Anise, 
 sesame, and colza seeds are produced in the south- 
 ern parts of the country. 
 
 Tobacco is an important agricultural product. 
 The tobacco regions are in the districts of Xanthi, 
 Kustendil, Philippopolis, and Haskovo. Before the 
 Balkan wars, the yield of tobacco exceeded eight 
 thousand pounds a year. The tobacco lands in the 
 Silistria district, however, have been ceded to Ru-
 
 292 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 mania; but Bulgaria has acquired the rich tobacco 
 lands in the Xanthi district, where the finest quality 
 of Turkish tobacco has long been grown. With the 
 acquisition of new tobacco districts in Thrace and 
 Macedonia the acreage devoted to tobacco culture 
 will be doubled, and the yield will probably reach 
 twenty million pounds a year. The Bulgarian gov- 
 ernment encourages the growth of tobacco by dis- 
 tributing seed of a good quality free of cost to the 
 planters, by placing a bounty on the tobacco ex- 
 ported, and by authorizing the Bulgarian National 
 Bank to grant loans to the planters on surety cer- 
 tificates until they are able to dispose of their crops 
 advantageously. 
 
 The cultivation of beet-root has recently been 
 introduced in the country, chiefly in the province 
 of Sofia, and there has been established in the 
 suburbs of the capital a sugar refinery that utilizes 
 the whole crop. There are vineyards on the slopes 
 of the Balkans, the Sredna Gora, and the Rhodopes, 
 and the yield of wine is considerable. Rice is grown 
 in the provinces of Philippopolis and Kustendil, 
 and beans are grown in considerable quantities in 
 many parts of the kingdom. Some cotton is grown 
 in the lower Maritza valley. 
 
 The rearing of live-stock constitutes an important 
 branch of rural economy in Bulgaria. With the 
 rapid agricultural development of the country that 
 began twenty-five years ago, many of the pasture 
 lands were brought under cultivation and the forage 
 ranges of the shepherds accordingly greatly de- 
 creased. The government has attempted to help
 
 Farms and Forests 293 
 
 the goat and sheep herders increase the quantity 
 of food supply for their flocks by supplying them 
 without cost lucern and vetch seed, and by exempt- 
 ing such pasture lands from taxation. There has 
 been in consequence very great increase in the num- 
 ber of sheep and some increase in the number of 
 goats and cattle. Poultry-raising and dairying are 
 growing in importance, as are bee-culture and the 
 growth of silk-worms. A beginning has been made 
 in the matter of agricultural education. This is the 
 imj)erative need of tlie hour. 
 
 The Bulgarian Agricultural Bank is an important 
 adjunct of the farm interests of the country. It is 
 located at Sofia and has eighty-five branches in 
 cities and towns, and seventy-six agencies in vil- 
 lages. It is administered by a council which con- 
 sists of a governor and four administrators ap- 
 pointed by the king. The capital amounts to $8,000,- 
 000. The bank accepts deposits; advances loans 
 guaranteed by mortgages or securities ; lends farm- 
 ers money for bu>"ing cattle, seed, or farming im- 
 plements; opens uncovered accounts with farmers 
 and cooperative societies; makes loans guaranteed 
 by cattle and agricultural produce; buys farming 
 implements, cattle, and seed for farmers; advances 
 loans to departments and \'illages, when such loans 
 are destined for public improvements; transfers 
 and collects commercial bills. Agricultural banks 
 pay 5 per cent, on deposits for five years; 4 per 
 cent, for three years, and 3 per cent, for one year. 
 One per cent, is paid on deposits left for unlimited 
 l)Griods. Six per cent, is charged on loans guar-
 
 294 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 anteed by the deposit of securities, 7 per cent, 
 on mortgage loans, and 8 per cent, on personal 
 guarantees.^ 
 
 The greatest need of the Bulgarian farmer to-day 
 is agricultural education. The national government 
 has made a beginning. There are state schools of 
 agriculture at Sadovo and Rustchuk, with model 
 farms connected with each, and a school of horti- 
 culture and viticulture at Plevna ; but the immediate 
 need could be met by the organization of brief 
 courses in agriculture in the elementary rural 
 schools. A beginning has been made in this direc- 
 tion in a few villages, and the subject of agriculture 
 is now required in the state normal school. There 
 is a national agricultural society; a journal is pub- 
 lished devoted to the interests of the farm, and an 
 attempt has been made to publish a few books, treat- 
 ing in a popular and elementary style practical agri- 
 cultural subjects. 
 
 In spite of the mountainous nature of the coun- 
 try, there are many fine tracts of farming land in 
 Bulgaria, and the peasants make excellent farmers. 
 They are attached to the soil; they have enormous 
 capacity for hard work, and are frugal and temper- 
 ate in their habits. The rapidity with which illit- 
 eracy has diminished since the country was freed 
 from the Turkish yoke indicates their desire for 
 education and their capacity for training. In all 
 these qualities they are unmistakably superior to 
 the same class of workers in Greece, Rumania, and 
 
 ' Banque Agricole dc Bulgarie (Sofia, 1907) and Comptc- Rendu de 
 la Banque Agricole de Bulgarie (Sofia, 1912).
 
 Farms and Forests 295 
 
 Servia. Already one of the most important agri- 
 cultural countries in the Balkans, with the right sort 
 of agricultural education, of an elementary and sec- 
 ondary sort, Bulgaria would soon outdistance all the 
 other states in the peninsula. 
 
 An American, who knows rather intimately the 
 life of the peasant farmer, writes: ** Bulgaria is 
 a nation constituted almost entirely of peasants, and 
 while these peasants are faithful to their wives, they 
 do not show them affectionate esteem or chivalrous 
 regard. At a youthful age they marry the women 
 selected by their parents, and without compunction 
 permit them to engage in the roughest, coarsest, 
 most disagreeable out-door work. Under such cir- 
 cumstances the men of Bulgaria have come to look 
 with no little disdain on ' woman's work.' More- 
 over, the peasant of Bulgaria is extremely unap- 
 preciative, or if ho does appreciate the efforts of 
 others he is marvellously successful in concealing 
 it. Again he, like the people in many rural conunu- 
 nities, lives in a small world and is largely engaged 
 in looking after his sheep, making his butter and 
 cheese, tending his crops, and, in short, in fashion- 
 ing him a dry and comfortable place — T have not 
 said a soft and easy one — under his own vine and 
 fig-tree. He spends no money for books or stere- 
 oscopic views, and reads the newspaper only once or 
 twice a week. His tastes are simi)le and his aspi- 
 rations limited. The young village belles would not 
 know a corset from a coat of mail, and the young 
 men feel much more fittingly bedecked when their 
 abdomen is copiously encompassed by a bright red
 
 296 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 belt two feet wide and twelve feet long than they 
 would if an immaculate boiled shirt reflected the 
 resplendent rays of shiny stones from their bosom. 
 And one who had seen the human species bedecked 
 in both habiliments would rather hesitate to con- 
 demn their judgment. 
 
 ** I by no means wish to belittle the worth of the 
 Bulgarian peasants. They are farmers with the 
 somewhat magnified defects of farmers. They have 
 also in a magnified degree the virtues of farmers.. 
 They are healthy, strong, industrious, peaceable, 
 reliable, and with a fortitude and endurance beyond 
 all belief. They are literate, patriotic, ready to 
 learn, and are more and more coming in touch with 
 the great movements of the world. They own their 
 own farms, live in their own houses, and the new 
 machinery which they are continually buying be- 
 longs to them. Their youth are capable and ambi- 
 tious, eager, indeed passionate, for an education, 
 and very progressive. Still the great bulk of the 
 Bulgarian nation lives in little uncouth villages more 
 or less out of touch with the trend of events, and 
 is altogether disinclined to support Sunday supple- 
 ments or a swarm of illustrated magazines." 
 
 The forests of Bulgaria occupy nearly one-third 
 of the area of the country. The state owns one- 
 third of the forests, communities one-half, and re- 
 ligious organizations and private individuals the 
 remainder. Bulgaria possesses a great variety of 
 deciduous and evergreen trees, those in the former 
 class being the most abundant : oak, beech, common 
 ash, elm, plane-tree, lime, willow, and poplar are
 
 Farms and Forests 297 
 
 among the most important deciduous trees, and the 
 pines and firs the chief evergreen trees. 
 
 When Turkey conquered Bulgaria more than five 
 hundred years ago, the country was covered with 
 virgin forests; but during the five centuries of 
 Ottoman rule no control was exercised over the 
 destruction of the forests, and no measures were 
 taken for their preservation. Entire liberty was 
 granted to the people to pasture their flocks and 
 herds in the forests, and the right to cut wood upon 
 the payment of a tax hastened the deforestation of 
 the country. When Bulgaria won her freedom in 
 1878 the forests had largely disappeared. 
 
 One of the earliest enactments of the new govern- 
 ment (1878) had for its object the protection of the 
 forests. The measure provided for foresters, pro- 
 hibition of the export of wood, and regulations with 
 reference to forest areas that might be felled. But 
 the measure met with obstinate resistance on the 
 part of the peasants. Subsequent forestry legis- 
 lation by the national assembly did not prove very 
 efficacious. 
 
 It was not until 1890 that the government was 
 able to secure the passage of laws that were really 
 effective in preventing the deforestation of the coun- 
 try. A survey was made of the forest lands in the 
 kingdom; nurseries for the growth of young trees 
 were started, and a course of instruction provided 
 for the education of foresters. Since that date great 
 progress has been made in the matter of preserving 
 the forests already in existence and in planting vast 
 areas of waste land with young trees.
 
 298 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Tlio superiuteiideiice of the forests of the king- 
 dom is in the hands of the ministry of agriculture. 
 The country is divided into forest districts under 
 the control of expert foresters. The state fells the 
 trees in its own forests and those belonging to the 
 communities, and regulates the conditions under 
 which private forests may be felled. The right of 
 felling is disposed of by auction or sold in the form 
 of a concession. The proceeds go to the national 
 government, but all the revenues from the forests 
 of villages are used for the development of the for- 
 estry interests of the particular communities from 
 which the revenues come. 
 
 Communities situated in forests are obliged to 
 afforest forty-five per cent, of their land; villages 
 near forests, twenty-five X3er cent., and those in the 
 open country, six per cent. Many communities fall- 
 ing short of these requirements have been active in 
 recent years in the work of tree-x^lanting. The fact 
 that the soil of the country is rich in vegetable mat- 
 ter, young trees take root easily and grow vigor- 
 ously. The forests are patrolled by special officials, 
 those in state and parish forests being paid by the 
 national government, but owners of private forests 
 are required to pay their own keepers. In spite of 
 the vigilance of the keepers, much damage is done 
 to the forests by sheep and cattle, by fires, and by, 
 the theft of the peasants. 
 
 The finest forests of large trees are on the mosf 
 inaccessible heights of the Rilo, the Rhodopes, the 
 Sredna Gora, and the Stara Planina (Balkans). 
 The forests belonging to the Rilo monastery are
 
 Farms and Forests 299 
 
 especially valuable, and include the most valuable 
 coniferous areas in the kingdom. The best beech 
 forests are in the region of Bcrkovitza, Vratza, 
 Teteven, Klissura, and Staro Novo Selo. The best 
 ash and elm forests are found along the Kamtchia 
 river from Longosa to the Black sea. Bulgarian 
 wood is distinguished by its numerous annual rings, 
 its bright colours, and its relative flexibility. 
 
 Bulgaria exports considerable quantities of hard 
 wood and imports soft wood. AVliile the export 
 trade has steadily increased since the government 
 took charge of the matter of the forests, there has 
 been a marked decrease in the import trade. The 
 export of forest products is chiefly to Turkey, and 
 the imports come from Austria-Bohemia-Hungary.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 INDUSTRY AND TRADE 
 
 Handicrafts — Decline in home industries — Textile industries at 
 Sliven and Gabrovo — Silk-spinning at Tirnovo — Saw mills — 
 Social and economical evils at the industrial centres — Legislative 
 labour restrictions — Encouragement of industry by the national 
 government — Special concessions — Mineral resources and mi- 
 ning — Numerous mineral springs in Bulgaria — Commerce — 
 Its rapid growth — Exports and imports — Chief trading towns — 
 Railways and highways — System of measurements — The Bul- 
 garian National Bank. 
 
 Up to the time of emancipation from Turkish rule, 
 the industries of Bulgaria were limited to handi- 
 crafts, most of which were carried on in the homes. 
 Weaving is the oldest of the home industries, and 
 from the earliest times down to 1878 it was widely 
 spread in the country. Quantities of wool were 
 produced and woven into coarse cloth, carpets, 
 braids, and the like. Bulgarian woollen cloth was 
 held in high esteem and was in constant demand not 
 only in the Turkish empire hut in Greece, Austria, 
 and other countries. The cloth for the uniforms of 
 the Ottoman army was entirely woven in Bulgaria. 
 There were 2,500 weaving-sheds for coarse cloth at 
 Stara Zagora and 700 at Pirdop at the time of eman- 
 cipation. 
 
 Since 1878 there has been marked decline in the 
 home industries of the country; and they retain 
 their original character only in the more remote 
 villages. With the freedom from Turkish rule large 
 
 300
 
 Industry and Trade 301 
 
 estates were divided and the large patriarchal 
 homes began to disappear. The population for- 
 merly was in villages and small towns. In recent 
 years there has been marked growth in the popu- 
 lation of large towns and cities. Before 1878 there 
 were no railways and few public roads; and, in 
 consequence, little or no commercial intercourse. In 
 conformity with the spirit of the constitution of 
 the rejuvenated kingdom, Bulgaria was declared 
 open for trading purposes with foreign countries, 
 railways were constructed, and the foreign products 
 brought to the country modified markedly both the 
 social and the industrial life of the people. 
 
 The textile industries are largely concentrated in 
 Sliven and Gabrovo. Less important centres are 
 Samokov, Karlovo, Kazanlik, and Kotel. Besides 
 the fifty-seven large textile factories in Bulgaria, 
 there are seventy-nine factories engaged in the prep- 
 aration of food and drinks ; twenty factories en- 
 gaged with the manufacture of leather and leather 
 products; fourteen chemical plants; nine devoted 
 to the manufacture of wood and furniture; seven 
 to metal wares; and various other industries are 
 followed. The industrial development has been 
 most rapid in the northeastern part of the country. 
 
 Silk-spinning has recently become an important 
 industry at Tirnovo; work in leather at Shumen; 
 brewing and distilling liquor from plums at Slivo- 
 vitsa; sugar at Sofia; copper wares at Stara Za- 
 gora; and pottery and porcelain at Rustchuk and 
 Trn. An excellent beginning has been made in 
 native ceramics of a high order of artistic merit in
 
 302 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 the art school of Sofia. This is an industry that 
 might yield large returns to the country if encour- 
 aged hj the national government. 
 
 There are many saw-mills in the central section 
 of the Rhodope mountains. Primitive machinery is 
 worked by water-power. The boards and planks are 
 transported on the backs of mules to the coast ports. 
 One of the interesting sights of mountain travel is 
 the caravan of mules laden with lumber slowly wend- 
 ing down the steep and tortuous mountain trails. 
 The finest logs are found in the forests at the source 
 of the Motsa river. The chief timbers are Scotch 
 firs, oak, birch, larch, and juniper. The firs are 
 chiefly manufactured into railway ties, and a resin 
 is extracted from the waste parts of the trees. 
 
 The decline in handicrafts, with the rapid increase 
 in taxation for the development of the new govern- 
 ment, brought distress to the peasant artisans and 
 farmers. They found it quite impossible to compete 
 with the cheap machine-made goods imported from 
 Austria-Hungary. The government attempted by 
 means of tariff measures to protect the peasant 
 industries, but such artificial measures proved un- 
 availing. 
 
 It was soon discovered that the industries of the 
 country could no longer be carried on in a primitive 
 fashion, and that the hand labour must in a large 
 measure be replaced by machines. In consequence 
 the old industrial regime has gradually been trans- 
 formed during the past twenty years. New methods 
 of production have been introduced; the mountain 
 streams have been utilized for powder purposes;
 
 Industry and Trade 303 
 
 industries have been centralized in tlie towns; and 
 foreign capital has been brought to the country. 
 
 Tlie new industrial development, however, has 
 brought in its train not a few social and economic 
 evils. The working hours have been lengthened and 
 the wages of the workmen decreased; large num- 
 bers of women and children have entered into com- 
 petition with men as wage-earners. In the days of 
 the peasant industries the workers spent a part of 
 the year in the fields; to-day they live in towns and 
 are confined to the direction of machines in factories 
 that leave much to be desired from the standpoint 
 of sanitation. 
 
 Since 1905 the government has seen the necessity 
 of making ?;ome legislative restrictions to meet the 
 growing social ills of llie new industrial develop- 
 ment. Laws have been [)assed regulating the em- 
 ployment of women and children, making provision 
 for the inspection of sanitary conditions in factories, 
 and the establishment of funds for the insurance of 
 factory workers. Children under twelve years of 
 age cannot be employed in factories and workshops; 
 children uTuk'r fifteen and women under twenty-one 
 cannot be employed in mines, ((iiarries, or other 
 subterranean industries. AVorkers of either sex 
 under the age of eigliteen are not allowed in fac- 
 tories where the work is specially deleterious to 
 health. The working day for children under the 
 age of fifteeTi is eight liours, njid for women, ten 
 hours. WomcTi and childi-en must be given a period 
 for rest after five consecutive working hours. 
 Night work is forbidden to women and to children
 
 304 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 under fifteen, and they are not allowed to work more 
 than six days a week. Tliis law, however, does not 
 include the workers in home industries. 
 
 With a view to the encouragement of local indus- 
 tries and the attraction of foreign capital, the law 
 of 1905 grants the following general privileges to 
 all industrial enterprises : The use of water-power 
 without payment, where this is not on private prop- 
 erty; exemption from customs duties for such ma- 
 chines and parts of machines needful for the install- 
 ation of industrial plants; exemption from customs 
 duties for raw material, when it is imported in order 
 to be exported again, after having been worked up; 
 free grant of land belonging to the state or local 
 community for the erection of factories, the land 
 granted to be determined by the needs of the enter- 
 prise, but in no case to exceed nine acres ; machin- 
 ery, tools, and fuel to be carried by the state rail- 
 ways at a rate 35 per cent, below the lowest usual 
 charge for such commodities. Public institutions 
 are compelled to buy from home manufacturers, 
 even though native commodities may be dearer (up 
 to 15 per cent.) than similar articles manufactured 
 abroad. 
 
 The enjoyment of special privileges is reserved 
 for certain enterprises of at least five horse-power, 
 employing at least fifteen workers for not less than 
 six months a year, and with an investment in indus- 
 trial plant of not less than $4,000. The specially 
 favoured enterprises are sugar and sugar products ; 
 the spinning and weaving of wool, cotton, silk, hemp, 
 and jute; manufacture of pottery, water-pipes, and
 
 Industry and Trade 305 
 
 brick ; construction of vehicles ; mining and cutting 
 of marble, granite, and metals ; milling of flour and 
 preparation of foods ; wood, paper, iron, glass, and 
 chemical industries; tanneries and dye works; beer- 
 brewing and the distillation of alcohol; silk-worm 
 culture, and the installation of electric plants for 
 motor-power. The special i)rivileges enjoyed by 
 these favoured industrial enterprises include ex- 
 emption from customs duties for raw or partially 
 wrought material, if such material cannot be ob- 
 tained in the country; exemption from land tax, 
 patent duties, and stamp taxes; coal needed for 
 such enterprises may be obtained from the state 
 mines at reduced rates; free use of state land to 
 obtain stone, sand, gravel, clay, and other materials 
 for purposes of building and manufacture, and the 
 transportation of raw materials, things needed for 
 the construction and equipment of factories, and 
 manufactured products over state railways at a 
 reduction of 35 per cent, of the usual tariff. 
 
 Formerly the government gave exclusive rights 
 of manufacture of certain commodities in definite 
 districts for periods of thirty years; but such con- 
 cessions are now rarely made. In recent years the 
 national government has attempted to rcguLite 
 trade organizations and professional associations. 
 No one can practise a trade without possessing a 
 certificate granted by the syndic of his guild, after 
 lie lias given proof of knowledge of and training 
 in the trade he proposes to follow. One of the 
 avowed objects of this law is the improvement in 
 handicrafts by the foundation of vocational schools,
 
 306 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 " 
 
 the establisliment of industrial museums, and the or- 
 ganization of exhibits. The government has estab- 
 lished a vocational school at Trn for training in 
 tlio manufacture of Oriental rugs and carpets, and 
 schools for training in woodwork at Koprivitza and 
 Etropole. 
 
 Very little has been done as yet to develop the 
 mineral resources of the country. While the mines 
 of Bulgaria were of considerable consequence in 
 ancient times, they were largely abandoned after the 
 Turkish occupation. Recent researches in the re- 
 gion of Vratza, Sliven, and Burgas have brought 
 to light pits, galleries, slag and other evidences of 
 the mining of copper, lead, and zinc by the Romans. 
 
 To except the mines at Samokov, no mining op- 
 erations were carried on after the coming of the 
 Turks. At Samokov iron was obtained from mag- 
 netite ore found in the Vitosh mountains and smelted 
 in charcoal furnaces. The industry survived the 
 five centuries of Ottoman rule; but with tlie fall in 
 the price of iron, due to the development of railways, 
 it was not found profitable to continue the iron in- 
 dustry at Samokov. 
 
 In 1879 the government opened a coal mine at 
 Mochino which yields a moderate quality of brown 
 coal (lignite). Twelve years later another coal mine 
 was opened at Pernik, and more recently coal has 
 been discovered in the districts of Gabrovo, Stara 
 Zagora, Sliven, and Lom. All the coal mines are 
 the property of the state. 
 
 Copper is being mined in the provinces of Vratza 
 and Burgas, manganese in the districts about Varna
 
 Industry and Trade 307 
 
 and Yamboli, and lead in the provinces of Trn and 
 Kustendil. Excellent potter's clay is found at Tor- 
 lak, lime-stone at Lovetch, and lithographic stone 
 at Ncgochevo. Several kinds of granite occur in 
 quantities at Dubnitza and Kustendil, marble in 
 the districts of Kazanlik and Vratza, brown build- 
 ing-stone in the districts about Eustchuk and Vratza, 
 and a beautiful serpentine comes from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Philippopolis. 
 
 Bulgaria has more than two hundred mineral 
 springs. A few of them arc operated by the state 
 and a few by municipalities, but most of them are 
 undeveloped. The national government has taken 
 charge of the hot mineral springs at Meritschleri, 
 Banki, Varshetz, and Hissar. Buildings have been 
 erected and attemjjts have been made to convert 
 these places into pleasure and health resorts. There 
 are twenty-three hot mineral syn-ings in the immedi- 
 ate vicinity of Sofia. Over the one in the heart of 
 the capital the municipal government has erected a 
 handsome pu])lic bath at a cost of one million five 
 hundred thousand dollars. The water as it comes 
 from the earth has a temperature of 84 degrees 
 Fahrenheit. At Dolnia Bania, in the vicinity of 
 Sofia, the temperature of the water is 110 degrees 
 Fahrenheit. The baths at Hissar, near Philippop- 
 olis, are celebrated through the East. There are 
 several hot mineral springs in the heart of the Eho- 
 dope mountains. The waters of the hot springs at 
 Meritschleri have many of the reputed medicinal 
 virtues of the famous Kai'lsbad waters in Bohemia. 
 The hottest spring in Bulgaria is at Bania, near
 
 308 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Dubnitza. The temperature of the water is 148 
 degrees Fahrenheit. With the development of rail- 
 way and hotel facilities, the hot mineral springs of 
 Bulgaria might easily attract large numbers of tour- 
 ists from western Europe and America. 
 
 Tliere has been enormous growth in the volume 
 of the commerce of Bulgaria during the last dozen 
 years. Two years after emancipation (1880) the 
 combined imports and exports amounted to $16,- 
 268,368; in 1912 they reached $65,397,800. The 
 chief imports are cotton and cotton cloth, iron, ma- 
 chinery and farming implements, lumber and build- 
 ing materials, hides, skins, and leather. Bulgaria 
 imports more from Austria-Bohemia-Hungary than 
 from any other country. The other nations that 
 rank liigli in the matter of imports are, in the order 
 of importance, Germany, Great Britain, France, 
 Turkey, and Belgium. From 1900 to 1908 the value 
 of the exports exceeded the imports, but since that 
 date the imports have been in excess of the exports. 
 
 Thirty-seven per cent, of the imports enter the 
 country through the seaports at Varna and Burgas, 
 the former being much in the lead. Many of the 
 imports that entered the country by rail from Sa- 
 lonika, when that port was in the hands of the Turks, 
 will now enter by the new Bulgarian seaports on 
 the ^gean sea at Dede Agatch and Porto Lagos. 
 Twenty-seven per cent, of the imports enter the 
 country through river ports on the Danube. The 
 important river ports are Rustchuk, Svishtov, Sa- 
 movit, Vidin, and Orehovo, the first being the most 
 important. Importation by land and railway is
 
 Industry and Trade 309 
 
 principally made through the customs houses at 
 Sofia, Philippopolis, and Harmanly. 
 
 The chief articles of export are wheat, maize, live- 
 stock, silk cocoons, hides, attar of roses, tobacco, 
 and fruit. Belgium is the largest purchaser of Bul- 
 garian products; Turkey ranks second; Great Brit- 
 ain, third ; Germany, fourth ; Greece, fifth ; and 
 France, sixth. P^orty-six per cent, of the exports 
 are by sea and twenty-seven per cent, each by lan'l 
 and river ports. 
 
 Bulgaria has twelve hundred miles of railway 
 constructed by the state at a cost of fifty million 
 dollars. Two hundred miles of railway are now 
 in course of construction. A new line, one hundred 
 ten miles in length, is soon to be constructed from 
 the Maritza valley to Porto Lagos on the ^'Egean 
 sea. The line will start at Kayadjik in the district 
 of Philippopolis, pass near Haskovo, and cross the 
 Rhodope mountains to the valley of the Arda. It 
 will cost five million dollars, and about four years 
 will be required for its construction. 
 
 In addition to the main railway line that connects 
 Sofia with Europe and Turkey, there is another line 
 that traverses the entire length of the country from 
 Kustendil to Varna, which also passes through the 
 capital. There are a half-dozen branches that con- 
 nect Danube river ports with the latter line; also 
 a branch from Philippopolis through Stara Zagora, 
 Tirnovo, and Pustchuk, connecting this line with the 
 transcontinental line. Rustehuk is connected with 
 Varna on the Black sea, and tliere is a line from 
 Stara Zagora that connects with Burgas, the other
 
 310 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Black sea port. The recently completed line be- 
 tween Stara Zagora and Tirnovo through the Bal- 
 kan mountains was constructed at enormous cost 
 and required great engineering skill. A line is con- 
 templated from Sofia to Sliven that will pass 
 through Karlovo and Kazanlik and the numerous 
 villages in the rose valleys between the Balkan 
 mountains and the Sredna Gora. The railway lines 
 of Bulgaria are government property and are op- 
 erated by the state. In spite of the enormous cost 
 of construction and the relatively large cost of 
 operation, the state railways of Bulgaria yield a 
 net annual revenue of about two and one-fourth 
 per cent. 
 
 The construction and maintenance of raihvays and 
 public highways are under the direction of the min- 
 istry of public works, roads, and communications. 
 There has been great development in the matter of 
 public roads as well as railways during the past 
 twentj-five years. As the country is very mountain- 
 ous, the roads crossing the Balkans and the Rho- 
 dopes have been constructed at enormous cost. The 
 new highway that crosses the Rilo mountains near 
 Samokov is one of the finest and best built mountain 
 roads in Europe. 
 
 The metric system has been officially adopted for 
 Bulgaria, although the old Turkish measures are 
 still considerably used in local trade. The Bulgarian 
 monetary system is based on the double standard 
 of gold and silver. The unit is the lev, nominally 
 of the value of a franc (twenty cents in American 
 money), with its multiple of one hundred stotiuki
 
 Industry and Trade 311 
 
 to a lev. For some years after the creation of the 
 Idngclom the government tolerated the circulation 
 of foreign money, but the country was flooded with 
 foreign coins; and in 1887 a law was passed pro- 
 hibiting the circulation of Servian, Rumanian, and 
 Russian coins. The coinage of Bulgarian money 
 is in nickel, copper, silver, and gold, there being 
 very little of the latter. The gold coins comprise 
 pieces of one hundred, twenty, and ten levs; the 
 silver of five, two, and one lev ; and the copper and 
 nickel pieces of twenty, ten, five, two, and one sto- 
 tinka. The gold coins of the Latin monetary union 
 are received at their nominal value. 
 
 The Bulgarian National Bank is a state institu- 
 tion. It en.ioys the exclusive privilege of issuing 
 bank notes, up to the triple of its capital and reserve 
 fund, provided it has in its vaults bullion at least 
 one-third of the value of the bank notes in circula- 
 tion. Seven series of bank notes are in circulation, 
 five, ten, twenty, and one hundred lev notes in gold, 
 and five, ten, and fifty lev notes in silver. 
 
 The Bulgarian National Bank is located at Sofia, 
 with branches at Rustchuk, Varna, Philippopolis, 
 Tirnovo, and Burgas, rfnd agencies at Vidin, Plevna, 
 Svishtov, and Sliven. Branches of the Bulgarian 
 Agricultural Bank act as correspondents of the Bul- 
 garian National Bank in the smaller towns. The 
 administration of the National Bank is vested in a 
 council appointed by the king, and consists of a 
 governor and four administrators. The manage- 
 ment of the branches is in the hands of boards of 
 directors appointed by the king.
 
 312 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 The Bulgarian National Bank accepts deposits 
 from public institutions and private persons; it 
 advances loans secured by mortgages to individuals, 
 provinces, and communities ; grants loans on goods 
 and bills of lading; discounts and collects commer- 
 cial bills; handles letters of credit; accepts on 
 deposit all kinds of securities; receives the state 
 revenues; and effects governmental payments to 
 the extent of these revenues. The profits are dis- 
 tributed as follows: ten per cent, to the reserve 
 fund, three per cent, as premiums to the bank offi- 
 cials, and eighty-seven per cent, to the national gov- 
 ernment. The bank pays interest on deposits.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 QUEEN ELEANORA AND PHILANTHROPY 
 
 The Orthodox church not directly identified with philanthropic move- 
 ments — Indifference of the clergy — Queen Eleanora at the head 
 of philanthropic projects — The Florence Nightingale of the Russo- 
 Turkish war — Her services in the two Balkan wars — Tribute 
 of Miss Abbott — Pen picture by Professor Markham — The Clem- 
 entine hospital and its needs — Dearth of orphanages in Bulgaria. 
 
 In the chapter on religion in Bulgaria attention 
 is called to the fact that the Orthodox church does 
 not concern itself with humanitarian movements 
 which form such important features of the activities 
 of the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in 
 America and Europe. The spirit of mercy and love, 
 if it ever formed a part of eastern Christianity has 
 very largely, if not quite entirely, disappeared. 
 There is in consequence little or no recognition of 
 any duty to the poor and the sick and other unfor- 
 tunate classes of society. 
 
 Europeans who have worked in the hospitals in 
 the Balkan peninsula have noted the manifest in- 
 difference of the Orthodox clergy towards the sick 
 and the wounded. A foreigner who serveti as a 
 nurse in one of the Balkan wars related to the au- 
 thor the fact that there was an Orthodox priest 
 connected with his contingent of the army, but that 
 he never visited the suffering soldiers unless called 
 upon to render official service. If patients wished 
 to confess, he was always ready to hear their con- 
 
 313
 
 314 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 fessions. If they died, he was on hand to conduct 
 the burial service. But he seldom, if ever, visited 
 the hospital voluntarily to offer religious consola- 
 tion or render humanitarian aid. 
 
 Mr. Brailsford, who was in active service in Mace- 
 donia in connection with the British Relief Fund 
 after the massacres of 1903-1904, writes in the same 
 strain: " Both at Ochrida and Castoria we made 
 several vain attempts to induce the Bulgarian clerg^^ 
 tO' visit the sick and wounded in our hospitals, to 
 bring them some spiritual consolation, to read aloud 
 to them, and at all events to cheer them with a kindly 
 human word. But evidently ministrations of this 
 sort do not enter into the eastern ideals of Chris- 
 tianity. The only concern the clergy displayed in 
 our patients was a very keen anxiety lest we should 
 encourage these miserable creatures, in need of 
 every attention and nourishment, to break the ter- 
 ribly severe fasts which the Orthodox churcli im- 
 poses for thirty days before Christmas as well as 
 during Lent. ' ' ^ 
 
 Philanthropic movements, so far as they exist at 
 all in Bulgaria are connected with the state, munic- 
 ipal organizations of a lay character, the missions 
 of the Protestant and Catholic churches, and the 
 royal family. Queen Eleanora is really the moving 
 spirit in most of that which is best in the national 
 philanthropy. She is at the head of the Red Cross 
 movement in Bulgaria; she has been the leader in 
 the movement for the reorganization of hospitals; 
 
 ' Maccdnnia: il.'i Races and their Future. By Henry Noel Brails- 
 ford. London, 190G, pp. 340.
 
 i^l'KKN KLKANdllA AS A W A It NIJHSE.
 
 Queen Eleanora and Philanthropy 315 
 
 she has taken the initiative in the matter of the 
 organization of special schools for defective, de- 
 pendent, and delinquent children, and most of the 
 other agencies in the kingdom tliat represent awa- 
 kened social consciousness and rational cooperation. 
 Queen Eleanora is of the Grerman house of Reuss- 
 Kostritz; she is a Protestant; she served as a 
 nurse in the Russo-Japanese war, and was acclaimed 
 a Florence Nightingale on the blood-stained plains 
 of Manchuria. Her marriage with King Ferdinand 
 took place the 28th of February, 1908. Miss Inez L. 
 Abbott, principal of the American School for Girls 
 at Samokov, writes of the queen: " Her Majesty, 
 Queen Eleanora of Bulgaria, the royal nurse of 
 Europe, is one of the world's great philanthropists. 
 That she has a heart of tender sympathy that goes 
 out in a most practical way to every form of suffer- 
 ing known to her, there has been abundant evidence 
 throughout lier life. In her girlhood days near 
 Vienna she received instruction in the rudiments of 
 medicine-making from an old priest, and with the 
 knowledge thus acquired she relieved the sufferings 
 of many sick people wlio came to her from miles 
 around. A little later the establishing of a hospital 
 in the woods near Vienna for children who were the 
 victims of rickets ; the opening of day nurseries for 
 the care of the babies of working women, and the 
 formation of an organization for nurses — all these 
 philanthropic agencies were the result of the initia- 
 tive of the queen. These organizations are still 
 in existence and they are still maintained by her 
 majesty.
 
 316 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 '' The regular training course for nurses, wliieli 
 she took in her young womanhood, fitted her to be- 
 come the Florence Nightingale of the Russo-Japan- 
 ese war. It followed naturally that in 1908, when she 
 became the first lady of Bulgaria, that the kind of 
 work to which her life had been devoted should con- 
 tinue to be her supreme interest. The erection of 
 a new building for the blind and deaf in Sofia ; the 
 establishment of a brush factory in the same city 
 where these unfortunates may find employment; the 
 founding of a sanitarium for tubercular children on 
 the shores of the Black sea; the reorganization of 
 the hospitals, and the organization of the Good 
 Samaritan Society, under whose direction nearly 
 five hundred women have received a six months' 
 training course in first aid to the injured, indicate 
 the line of her majesty's activities in the land of 
 her adoption. 
 
 '' It was, however, during the Balkan wars that 
 the queen has done the best work of her life. The 
 establishment and direction of military hospitals at 
 her own expense; the services of competent sur- 
 geons and nurses that she was able to secure; vis- 
 itation of the wounded on the fields of battle; ex- 
 penditure of money for the relief of needy women 
 in poor mountain districts, whose husbands were in 
 the wars; personal care of thousands of refugees 
 from Macedonia; and a thousand and one other 
 ministrations of mercy have filled to overflowing the 
 hours of Eleanora the Good and justly won for her 
 first rank among the world's great philanthropists." 
 The author bears willing witness to the tribute
 
 Queen Eleanora and Philanthropy 317 
 
 of Miss Abbott. The efTicicnt and continuous serv- 
 ice of the qneen during the second Balkan war was 
 a matter of surprise to every foreign resident in the 
 kingdom. She gave evidence of not only great 
 energ}^ but remarkable knowledge and skill in the 
 matter of hospital work and the care of sick and 
 wounded soldiers. Professor Markham, who is con- 
 nected with the American Institute at Samokov, 
 writes of Queen Eleanora: '^ Her manners are full 
 of grace and elegance, and her general attitude is 
 very dignified and serious; yet she never fails to 
 put those about her at tlieir ease, to charm them 
 with her genial spirit, lier simplicity, her extreme 
 freedom from ostentation, and her interest in com- 
 mon things and common people. No one for a 
 moment would venture to encroach upon iier dig- 
 nity, and yet one feels that if she were liis neigh- 
 bour he really wouldn't hesitate to ask her what 
 to do when the baby got sick or to seek her opinion 
 as to which gown would be most suitable to wear 
 at the president's reception. When one has the 
 honour of meeting her he rejoices that Bulgaiia has 
 such a handsome, shapely, and stately queen; but 
 a still stronger emotion is his wish that he might 
 have for a friend and counsellor just such a wise, 
 thoughtful, and sjanpathetic person as she is. ITer 
 majesty combines to an unusual degree those two 
 qualities which we so much admire in our American 
 women, seriousness and unimpeachable dignity on 
 the one hand, together with simplicity, sympathy, 
 spontancousness and a spirit of democracy on the 
 other.
 
 318 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 " It is a common sajdng in Bulgaria, and unfor- 
 tunately one well substantiated by facts, that a 
 ' second mother ' is a cause of pain and trouble. 
 Queen Eleanora is a most pleasing exception to this 
 rule. She is a second mother to four vigorous and 
 promising children and to a whole nation of strange 
 people, yet she is esteemed and loved by them all. 
 Her majesty is a woman of extraordinary ability 
 and the highest culture. She speaks English, Ger- 
 man, French, Russian, and Bulgarian fluently. Her 
 tastes whether in clothes or scenery or in the dec- 
 orating of a house invariably reveal most excellent 
 judgment. She dresses simply but most becomingly. 
 Her appearance on all public occasions is stately 
 and impressive. Her powers of conversation, of 
 expressing herself in incisive original sentences, 
 are brilliant. She is fond of horses and enjoys out- 
 of-door life. Through the latest books and the 
 standard magazines in three chief languages of 
 Europe she keeps in close touch with the modern 
 world. 
 
 ** During the years of her young womanhood she 
 spent a great deal of time in Russia, where she has 
 not a few relatives with royal connections. Whil© 
 there she took a course of training in the nursing 
 of surgical and infectious diseases, at the end of 
 which she received a diploma as a trained nurse. 
 ^Vlien the Japanese war broke out she offered her 
 services and was placed in charge of a hospital train, 
 where she often had to look after as many as five 
 hundred wounded soldiers. Besides this she directed 
 a field ambulance attached to the army of General
 
 Queen Eleanora and Philanthropy 319 
 
 Kuropatkin. The staff of helpers which she had 
 Tinder her consisted of no less than one hundred 
 nurses. During her faithful and arduous service in 
 this war, besides enduring daily hardships, she was 
 sometimes placed in acute danger, being more than 
 once actually under the fire of the enemies' guns. 
 
 " Some time after this experience she entered 
 Bulgaria as her princess, for in 1908 Bulgaria was 
 not yet a kingdom. The fact, however, that she had 
 become the first lady of a whole nation did not 
 change in the least her interests and pursuits of 
 former years. Her heart and mind were still wdth 
 the unfortunate and the suffering. She at once 
 became interested in an institution for the blind 
 and deaf in Sofia, and herself secured money for 
 a new building for the unfortunates sheltered there. 
 She also lent her support to some four hospitals in 
 four of the large cities of Bulgaria, and one of these 
 she is having rebuilt. Besides all this she has her- 
 self founded and now oversees a beautiful and spa- 
 cious seaside sanitarium for children afflicted with 
 tuberculosis. Besides these institutions which she 
 supports in part or maintains in full from her own 
 limited resources, she organized a few years ago 
 a ' Good Samaritan Society,' through which she 
 succeeded in giving a six months' course of train- 
 ing in ' first aid to the injured ' to not less than 
 450 young women. It was these ' good Samaritans ' 
 who did by far the greater part of the nursing 
 during the recent wars in which Bulgaria has en- 
 gaged. 
 
 ** Perhaps, however, the greatest service which
 
 320 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Queen Eleanora has rendered to Bulgaria was given 
 during the recent wars. Her activities for almost 
 a year after the outbreak of the war with Turkey 
 were incessant. Surely very few generals in his 
 majestj^'s service worked more indefatigably than 
 did Queen Eleanora. She established and directed 
 hospitals of lier own and interested herself in not 
 a few others besides. Nor did she by any means 
 direct her operations from Sofia. The general staff 
 safely protected itself in the heart of Bulgaria or 
 on the secure border of the newly conquered terri- 
 tory, while lier majesty was working untiringly in 
 the very heart of Thrace. She oversaw hospitals, 
 gave directions to workers, and even bound up the 
 wounds of grimy, uncouth soldiers with her own 
 hands. And in her treatment of her helpers and 
 patients her thoughtfulness and good-will were re- 
 markable. Every worthy helj^er felt that the queen 
 was his particular friend, and hundreds of rude, 
 brave peasants throughout Bulgaria will bequeath 
 to their children the gracious words and the ex- 
 quisite little presents given to them by her majesty 
 while they were suffering for their fatherland in 
 the war against Turkey. Her activities during the 
 war with the allies were even more unwearying; 
 her days in the palace in Sofia were still less. 
 
 " To this her adopted people has Queen Eleanora 
 devoted her life. Amid the turmoil and suffering, 
 the hatred and ignorance, the uncertainty and in- 
 security of the Balkans, this brilliant woman of pure 
 manners, rich culture, and broad interests scatters 
 cheer and health and culture among a simple, worthy
 
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 Queen Eleanora and Philanthropy 321 
 
 people. Political parties may rage, cabinets may 
 rise and fall, Bulgaria's enemies may form every 
 kind of a plot against her, but in the midst of it 
 all her majesty, Queen Eleanora, offers hope to 
 the blind, makes the deaf to rejoice, binds up the 
 wounds of the maimed, gives health to the sick, pro- 
 vides sustenance for the widow and orphan, and 
 with her life preaches the gospel of love, sympathy, 
 and service to the whole nation." 
 
 The Clementine hospital at Sofia, which is under 
 the immediate supervision of Queen Eleanora, is 
 an international institution and one in which the 
 American and English people should have a very 
 direct interest. This hospital is under Red Cross 
 management and is the only liospital in Bulgaria 
 where foreigners may be received and get the kind 
 of service found in the countries of western Europe 
 and in America. The needs of the hospital are 
 great, and generous people in Great Britain and 
 Ireland and the United States should come to the 
 aid of Bulgaria's philanthropic (pieen and provide 
 her with the means to make improvements and the 
 ariditions that are so urgently demanded. 
 
 The recent Balkan wars made painfully apparent 
 not only the need of better hospital facilities, but 
 the dearth of institutions for the care of orphans. 
 The Protestant and (Catholic church organizations 
 in Bulgaria have done what they could to meet this 
 situation; but they have been able to care for rela- 
 tively few of the thousands of homeless orphans. 
 Funds have been contributed by generous Amer- 
 icans througli the agency of the Christian Herald
 
 322 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 of New York thai will care for a few of the children 
 who were orplianed by the recent wars or by the 
 barbarities of the Greek armies in Macedonia. Of 
 the many thousands of Bnlgars in Macedonia, who 
 were forced to flee from the atrocities of the Greek 
 soldiers during the second Balkan war, most of them 
 were women and children, the Imsbands and fathers 
 having been massacred by the Greeks or met death 
 as soldiers in the war. The false and malicious 
 charges of atrocities made by King Constantine and 
 the press agents in the service of the Greek govern- 
 ment served to dam the springs of charity. Char- 
 itably disposed persons in Europe and America, 
 who otherwise would have contributed to the care 
 of the orphans, have responded half-heartedly to 
 the appeals for aid in behalf of worthy Bulgarian 
 philanthropic enterprises. Now that the report of 
 the Carnegie commission of the causes and effects 
 of the Balkan wars has vindicated the Bulgars, and 
 has made clear the enormous extent of atrocities 
 committed bj'^ the Greeks, it is to be hoped that 
 sympathy of a practical sort may be forthcoming 
 in the near future.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AMERICAN INFLUENCE IN BULGARIA 
 
 Large influonco of tho United St/ites in the intellectual development 
 of the nation — Robert Colicif^e — -Work of Dr. Hamlin — Dr. 
 Washburn and the college — What it has done for Bulgaria — 
 Bulgarian statesmen educated at Robert College — Pre.sent condi- 
 tion of the collegf — Influence of the American College for Women 
 at Constantinople — Work of the American missionaries — Amer- 
 ican Institute at Samokov — American School for Girla — The 
 inlluence it liaa exerted through its graduates. 
 
 Bulgaria is tlio only country in Europe in which 
 the United Stntes lias played an important role in 
 the development of a state; hut in Bulgaria Amer- 
 ican influence has heen considerahle, and the Bul- 
 gars gratefully recognize their obligation. In pre- 
 vious chapters attention has been called to the move- 
 ment to check the Hellenization of Bulgaria, a move- 
 ment that ultimately resulted in throwing off the 
 ecclesiastical yoke of the Greek church. It was at 
 this period that Americans found themselves in po- 
 sition to help a people struggling for religious lib- 
 erty. 
 
 It was at the time of the conflict between zealous 
 Bulgarian patriots and the intolerant and corrupt 
 Phanariotes that American missionaries settled in 
 the country. The M(>thodist Episcopal church of 
 the United States sent its first missionaries to Euro- 
 pean Turkey in 1857 and the American Board (Con- 
 
 323
 
 324 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 gregational church) a year later. The former was 
 to confine its labours to the region lying between the 
 Danube and the Stara Planina (Balkans) ; and the 
 latter, from this geographic line south to the ^gean 
 sea. This was the beginning of the missionary work 
 in what to-day is Bulgaria. 
 
 About the same time there was planned the open- 
 ing of a non-sectarian Christian college in Turkey 
 under the auspices of Americans interested in mis- 
 sion work. Hitherto the only work of the mission- 
 ary had been to preach the Gosi^el. But the time 
 had come when some at least of the missionaries 
 saw the necessity of a new departure. Mr. Chris- 
 topher Robert, an American business man who had 
 for many years been identified with the American 
 Home Missionary Society, Avas the first man of 
 means in America to sec and appreciate this need. 
 
 The idea of founding in Turkey an institution 
 after the pattern of American colleges was sug- 
 gested to Mr. Robert in 1857 by James and William 
 Dwight, graduates of Yale University and sons of 
 an American missionary in Turkey. Funds were 
 not forthcoming and the plan was abandoned. Mr. 
 Robert had visited Constantinople during the Cri- 
 mean war and was keenly impressed with the need 
 of such an institution. In 1859 he wrote to the Rev- 
 erend Cyrus Hamlin, then engaged in educational 
 work in connection with the American Board of For- 
 eign Missions, and proposed that he should join him 
 in an effort to raise funds to establish a college at 
 Constantinople, which should offer to young men, 
 without distinction of race or creed, the opportunity
 
 American Influence in Bulgaria 325 
 
 to secure a thorough education, equivalent to that 
 obtainable in a first-class American college and 
 based on the same principles. 
 
 Dr. Hamlin came to America during the summer 
 of 1860; but it was not a favourable time to raise 
 money for such a project. The country was ab- 
 sorbed in the conflict between the free and the slave 
 states. The presidential election and the subse- 
 quent outbreak of civil war made it impossible to 
 awaken interest and secure funds, and Mr. Robert 
 and Dr. Hamlin were accordingly left to undertake 
 the work alone. Dr. Hamlin returned to Turkey 
 in June, 1861, to make such arrangements as might 
 be possible for the erection of a building and the 
 organization of the college. 
 
 There were delays in securing the necessary au- 
 thorization from the Ottoman government, but these 
 delays, according to Dr. Washburn, did not orig- 
 inate with the Turks. " If left to themselves," he 
 writes, '' they would probably have regarded it as 
 a matter of very little importance in any way. The 
 powers that he (Dr. Hamlin) had to contend with 
 were France, Russia, and the Roman Catholic 
 church. Their influence was pushed to the utmost to 
 prevent the establishment of a college which would 
 promote and extend the use of the English language 
 and the influence of Protestant, English and Amer- 
 ican, ideas. They were formidable enemies because 
 at that time our friends were weak. America, en- 
 gaged in a great civil war, had little influence here; 
 Prussia and Holland were friendly, but without 
 much influence ; England at the close of the Crimean
 
 326 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 war had lost her dominant position at Constanti- 
 nople." ^ 
 
 With these forces arrayed against the college it 
 was not possible to secure at this time the necessary 
 permission to erect a college building. It was ac- 
 cordingly decided to begin work in a rented house at 
 Bebek on the Bosporus, near Constantinople. Two 
 American professors — H. A. Schauffler and G. A. 
 Perkins — and four native tutors were appointed, 
 and the institution was formally opened the 16th 
 of September, 1803. The first class was graduated 
 in 1868. It included an Armenian and a Bulgar: 
 Hagopos Djedjizan, who has ever since been asso- 
 ciated with the college as professor of the Armenian 
 language and literature, and Petko Oorbanoff, who, 
 up to his death in 1909, was in constant public serv- 
 ice in his country after its liberation from Turkey. 
 He was a member of the national Bulgarian assem- 
 bly, and was for some time its vice-president; he 
 served on the administrative council for the con- 
 struction of the international railway; was general 
 secretary to the Bulgarian minister of justice; and 
 was assistant mayor of the city of Sofia. 
 
 There were six graduates in the class of 1869, all 
 of them Bulgarians, and. all of them have filled im- 
 portant posts in the government of Bulgaria. The- 
 odor J. Djabaroff taught at Sluimen and was prefect 
 at Svishtov, Plevna, Varna, and Razgrad ; he served 
 as secretary of the commission of the state railways ; 
 was director of the Varna, Rustchuk, and Burgas 
 
 • Fifty Years in Constantino jde and Recollections of Robert College. 
 By George Washburn. Boston, 1911, pp. 319.
 
 American Influence in Bulgaria 327 
 
 railway; member of the commission in the minis- 
 try of public works; and director of the national 
 printing establishment. Jordan J. Economoff 
 taught in a secondary school at Vania; studied 
 theology at the Drew Theological Seminary in 
 America, and engaged in the work of the Protestant 
 ministry. Peter M. Mattheoff served as postmaster 
 at Sofia ; secretary to the governor-general of East- 
 ern Rumelia ; member of the Bulgarian national 
 assembly; inspector of administration of the min- 
 istry of the interior; director general of Bulgarian 
 posts and telegraphs; chief commissioner of the 
 Bulgarian section of the St. Louis exposition; and 
 Bulgarian diplomatic agent to Greece. Naiden 
 Nicoloff has been administrator of the Bulgarian 
 National Bank and held other posts of trust. Stefan 
 Thomoff taught at Yambol; studied theology at 
 Drew Theological Seminary; and engaged in the 
 work of the Protestant ministry. 
 
 Only one person graduated in the class of 1870, 
 and he was an Armenian. The graduating class of 
 1871 numbered five, all Bulgars, and all have held 
 important positions in their country. Ivan El. Guo- 
 shoff, recently prime minister of Bulgaria, was a 
 member of this class. He has served as mayor of 
 Philippopolis; been a member of the national as- 
 sembly; has been the representative of the Bul- 
 garian government at Paris, Constantinople, and 
 Vienna. Stefan Panaretoff has served as a special 
 envoy of the Bulgarian government, and for many 
 years he has been professor of the Bulgarian la<n- 
 guage and literature at Robert College. Ivan Slave-
 
 328 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 ikoff was an instructor at Robert College and later 
 at Pliilippopolis, Sliven, and Sofia ; lie was secretary 
 of the Bulgarian legation at Bucharest; member of 
 the national assembly ; mayor of Sofia, and minister 
 of public instruction of Bulgaria. Constantine 
 Sto'i'loff was a member of the court of appeals at 
 Pliilippopolis ; president of the court of appeals at 
 Sofia; member of the national assembly; minister 
 of foreign affairs and prime minister of Bulgaria. 
 Petko Taptchileshtoff w^as secretary of the Bulga- 
 rian cabinet and became merchant and banker. It 
 will thus be seen that the class of 1871 furnished 
 Bulgaria with two mayors, three ambassadors, four 
 members of the national assembly, and three cabinet 
 members, two of whom were prime ministers! 
 
 Of the eight graduates in the class of 1872, six 
 were Bulgars. Constantine Caltchoff was a member 
 of the national assembly; served as an envoy to 
 the great powers ; was vice-director of finance in 
 Eastern Kumelia, and engaged in banking. Stefan 
 M. Cambouroff was a lieutenant in the Bulgarian 
 army and died ten years after graduation. Peter 
 Dimitroff was first a teacher and later prefect at 
 Pliilippopolis; served in the Bulgarian diplomatic 
 service at Belgrade, Bucharest, Constantinople and 
 Athens; was chief Bulgarian commissioner at the 
 Paris exposition; and has served as secretary gen- 
 eral to the ministry of foreign affairs. Dimiter 
 Economoff was sub-prefect at Tulcea and Nicopol, 
 and prefect at Varna and Shumen. Ivan D. Gue- 
 shoff was secretary of the Bulgarian diplomatic 
 service at Belgrade and Constantinople; charge
 
 American Influence in Bulgaria 329 
 
 d'affaires at Belgrade; member of the national 
 assembly; and until quite recently mayor of the 
 city of Sofia. 
 
 There was only one graduate in the class of 1873 
 and lie was a Bulgar, John J. Sitchanoff, who taught 
 in the American school at Samokov ; was pastor of 
 Protestant churches at Bansko and Panagnrishte, 
 and is now the editor of a religious paper published 
 at Sofia. All the members of the class of 1874 were 
 Bulgarians. Ivan Bradinoff was chief engineer for 
 the district of Sofia and principal of the Polytechnic 
 School at Sofia. Dossi Economoff was chief of the 
 section of the ministry of justice ; vice-president of 
 the court of appeal, and president of the high judi- 
 cial administrative committee of the ministry of 
 public works. Peter Gobranoff was teacher at Shu- 
 men; prefect at Rustchuk, Tirnovo, and Philippop- 
 olis; and mayor of Elena. Peter Tcherneff was 
 under-secretaiy of the ministry of foreign affairs; 
 diplomatic representative at Bucharest; member of 
 the national assembly; and mayor of Sofia. 
 
 This list of the graduates during the first ten 
 years of the work of the college gives some notion 
 of the splendid service that the institution has ren- 
 dered for the new Balkan state. The reader must 
 have observed the preponderance of Bulgars among 
 those com])leting the four years' course in the col- 
 lege. Dr. Washburn remarks in this connection: 
 " For twenty years the great majorit}^ of the grad- 
 uates were of this nationality. During the previous 
 decade the Bulgarians had awakened from the sleep 
 of centuries. They had thrown off the yoke of the
 
 330 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Greek patriarch of Constantinople and had begnn 
 to dream of escaping from that of the Turk. It was 
 a nation of peasants, held in ignorance by a double 
 bondage. Wlien they began to seek for enlighten- 
 ment , their attention was first directed to Robert 
 College by Dr. Long, then an American missionaiy 
 in Bulgaria and later a professor in tlie college. 
 Although Dr. Hamlin had interested himself in the 
 Bulgarians in 1856 and used his influence to have 
 missions established in Bulgaria, it does not appear 
 from their correspondence that either he or Mr. Rob- 
 ert had ever thought of them as possible students 
 in the college; and Mr. Robert died without know- 
 ing that he had played an important part in found- 
 ing a new state in Europe." 
 
 It is interesting likewise to note the positions 
 occupied by the Bulgarian students after their grad- 
 uation from Robert College. Their records for pub- 
 lic service are remarkable. Dr. Washburn, for so 
 many years the distinguished president of the col- 
 lege, in the work from which the above quotation 
 was made, mentions the fact that in the class of 
 1881 there were nine Bulgars, two Armenians, and 
 one Greek. All of the Bulgars engaged in some form 
 of public service — teaching, consular or diplomatic 
 service, or as members of the national assembly or 
 municipal government. One of the Armenians en- 
 gaged in teaching, and the other took up the prac- 
 tice of medicine. The Greek engaged m hu>siness. 
 
 Robert College has furnished men for hundreds 
 of important and responsible posts in Bulgaria — 
 cabinet officers and members of the national assem-
 
 DR. GEORGE WASHHURN, EDUCATOR OF BULGARIAN STATESMEN.
 
 American Influence in Bulgaria 331 
 
 bly, ambassadors and consuls, mayors of cities and 
 judges of courts, educators, physicians, clergymen, 
 lawyers, librarians, journalists, army officers, and 
 bankers. These men came in contact with the finest 
 type of American manhood, educators of the fine 
 quality of Dr. Hamlin and Dr. Washburn, the first 
 presidents of the college, during their four years 
 at the institution. They were instructed by pro- 
 fessors with good training and high ideals from 
 American institutions like Amherst, Bowdoin, Will- 
 iams, Dartmouth, and Oberlin. And they have car- 
 ried back to the fatherland a large measure of the 
 spirit of service for which Robert College has al- 
 ways been so conspicuous. 
 
 As already noted, the college began its work at 
 Bebek. It was removed to Rumeli Ilissar in 1871. 
 Dr. Hamlin continued president of the college until 
 1878, when he was succeeded by Dr. George Wash- 
 burn. Dr. Washburn had graduated at Amherst 
 College; taken a theological course at the Andover 
 Theological Seminary, and had been a missionary 
 in Turkey from 1858 to 18G2. In 1862 he became 
 one of the professors of Robert College; and from 
 1870 to 1878 he was acting president of the college. 
 Upon the resignation of Dr. Hamlin in 1878 he was 
 chosen president of the college, and this position 
 he held until 1903, when he resigned and was made 
 president emeritus. Dr. C. Frank Gates is now 
 president of the college. 
 
 Under the presidency of Dr. Washburn, Robert 
 College rose to recognized rank among the higher 
 institutions of Europe. It is everywhere in the near
 
 332 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 east regarded as a model Christian college; and 
 in the development of manliness and the spirit 
 of social service among its students, it probably 
 stands in a class by itself among collegiate insti- 
 tutions in Europe, ^^lile its special eminence has 
 been in the matter of the development of the finest 
 social and spiritual qualities of its students, it has 
 likewise taken high rank in the matter of scholar- 
 ship, and many of its graduates occupy posts of 
 honour in European and American colleges and uni- 
 versities. 
 
 The college occupies a beautiful site of fifty acres 
 at Rumeli Ilissar on the Bosporus, a few miles from 
 Constantinople. Through the generosity of Amer- 
 ican philanthropists, seven liandsome college build- 
 ings and thirteen residences for professors have 
 been erected on the grounds. The faculty includes 
 thirty professors and thirty-six instructors. Six 
 hundred students, representing nineteen nationali- 
 ties, are at present enrolled in the college. There 
 are about a hundred Turks, the same number of Bul- 
 garians, and a considerable number of Armenians, 
 Albanians, Greeks, Persians, and Jews. Through 
 the generosity of Mr. Charles R. Crane of Chicago, 
 six scholarships have been establislied for Albanian 
 students. 
 
 Dr. Washburn writes concerning the unique serv- 
 ice rendered Bulgaria by Robert College: '' In our 
 college work we did nothing for the Bulgarians 
 which we did not do for other nationalities or which 
 we might not have done for the Turks if any num- 
 ber of them had come to the college. It was not our
 
 American Influence in Bulgaria 333 
 
 purpose to denationalize our students, to make 
 Americans of them or cosmopolitans. We were cos- 
 mopolitan in the fifteen nationalities represented in 
 the college, and we did our best to teach them mu- 
 tual respect and good-will, but our purpose was to 
 train each one to be a worthy member and a wise 
 leader of his own nationality. It is true that English 
 was the language of the college, but this was made 
 necessary because we must have a common language 
 where the students of many mother-tongues could 
 meet on equal terins and because this language 
 opened to them the learning and the literature of 
 the world. At the same time we spared no pains 
 to make them masters of their o\vii language, litera- 
 ture, and history. Our curriculum was adapted as 
 far as possible to their conditions. 
 
 ** It was in this way that Robert College became, 
 as King Ferdinand has called it, a nursery of Bul- 
 garian statesmen. Through the long, hopeless 
 years before the dawn of independence, young Bul- 
 garians were fitting themselves there under Chris- 
 tian and American influence to be leaders of tlieir 
 I)eople out of tlie bondage of serfdom into the free- 
 dom of self-government. When the opportunity 
 came they were ready for it. Graduates of otlier 
 nationalities might have done as well, if a similar 
 opportunity had come to them. 
 
 '* Another and quite unexpected line of influence 
 was opened to Bobert College by the fact that its 
 establishment in Constantino])le had attracted tlie 
 attention of all the great powers of Europe and led 
 to a long conflict between those who opposed and
 
 334 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 those who favoured it. It brought us into specially 
 intimate relations with England, with statesmen of 
 both parties, the press and the embassy. It was 
 a unique position. "We had no favours to ask for 
 ourselves, and we were believed to have a better 
 knowledge of what was going on in Turkey than 
 any one else. On the other side our relations with 
 the people were such that they had confidence in 
 our wisdom and our devotion to their interests. 
 Both parties sought our advice and aid. They did 
 not always follow our advice, but in the case of the 
 Bulgarians we were able to be of great service to 
 them in some of the most critical periods of their 
 history. We came into actual conflict with the Eng- 
 lish government only once. That was when Dis- 
 raeli was prime minister, and the Turks were mas- 
 sacring the Bulgarians. It is too long a story to 
 be told here, but having first appealed privately to 
 England in vain, we appealed to the world, and Mr. 
 Disraeli denounced our statements in parliament 
 as * coffee-house babble.' It was then that Horace 
 Majmard, our ambassador, came to the rescue and 
 sent Consul General Schuyler to Bulgaria to inves- 
 tigate. It was Mr. Schuyler's report which first 
 moved Mr. Gladstone to enter upon the campaign 
 which roused the indignation of Europe and led to 
 the conference of Constantinople, the Russo-Turk- 
 isJi war, and the independence of Bulgaria. As our 
 graduates came to the front in the organization and 
 development of the country it was natural for them 
 to seek our advice and aid. One of them, Mr. Stoi- 
 loff, was the private secretary and most intimate
 
 American Influence in Bulgaria 335 
 
 friend of Prince Alexander. Another, Mr. Dimi- 
 troff, occuj^ied a similar position in Eastern Ku- 
 melia, before the union of that province with Bul- 
 garia. Others occupied important positions in the 
 ministry and the national assemblies. Our confi- 
 dential relations with them and with the English 
 government, which was then dominant at Constan- 
 tinople, enabled us to aid them in many ways, spe- 
 cially during the years when Russia, under Alex- 
 ander III, was an active enemy of Bulgaria. The 
 Russian newspapers at that time accused us of hav- 
 ing spent half a million pounds of English money 
 to overthrow their influence. It is an interesting 
 fact that the Turkish government never accused us 
 of plotting against it, and never complained of our 
 relations with Bulgaria. I suppose that our well- 
 known relations with the British embassy satisfied 
 them that we had never in any way encouraged any 
 revolutionary movements, which was true. 
 
 " The Bulgarians are a grateful people and they 
 never fail to count us among the founders of the 
 kingdom. It will be seen that American influence 
 in Bulgaria was chiefly moral and only incidentally 
 political, but I think that it is true that without this 
 influence Bulgaria would have been dominated by 
 Russian ideals rather than American, and would 
 never have been the free state which she is to-day. 
 A small state, with a homogeneous population, un- 
 trammelled by traditions, she has made more prog- 
 ress during the last thirty years than any other 
 country in the world." 
 
 Another American institution tliat has exercised
 
 336 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 large influence in Bulgaria is the American College 
 for Women at Constantinople. It was established 
 by the American Board of Foreign Missions in 1871 
 as a secondary school for girls. The aim of the 
 school was to offer facilities for the higher educa- 
 tion of women in a part of Europe where such op- 
 portunities did not exist. The school was first es- 
 tablished at Scutari, a suburb of Constantinople, on 
 the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus. The institution 
 was raised to the rank of a college in 1890 ; and in 
 1912 it was moved to its beautiful new quarters near 
 Robert College and re-christened Constantinople 
 College. It has a faculty of twenty-five professors 
 and instructors in the collegiate department ; fifteen 
 instructors in the secondary department ; and eight 
 instructors in the school of music. Dr. Mary Mills 
 Patrick, an American woman of recognized scholar- 
 ship and administrative ability, has been president 
 of the college for many years. 
 
 Like Robert College it has drawn its students 
 from the numerous nationalities of the near east; 
 and, like Robert College, Bulgaria has been most 
 largely represented in its student body, and the Bul- 
 garian graduates have exerted the largest measure 
 of influence. About twenty-six per cent, of the total 
 number of alumnae have been Bulgars; and many 
 other Bulgarian women have pursued courses in the 
 college and taken the course in tlie secondary school. 
 All these women have exerted a strong influence 
 among their people. Bulgarian girls in large num- 
 bers entered the American school after the Russo- 
 Turkish war. Ellenka Dimitrieva (now Mrs. Peter
 
 73 
 
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 2 
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 American Influence in Bulgaria 337 
 
 Yencheff) was the first Bulgarian woman to grad- 
 uate. Two of her daughters have recently been 
 graduated from the college. The college graduated 
 a class of twenty-three in 1912, eleven of whom were 
 Bulgars. Through the munificence of Mr. Charles 
 R. Crane of Chicago six scholarships have been es- 
 tablished for Albanian girls. The Bulgarian women 
 who have studied at the Constantinople College 
 have rendered most efficient social service in their 
 country, as teachers, nurses, and social workers. 
 Many of them have married prominent statesmen 
 and publicists. The Constantinople College has 
 been well characterized by Bulgarians as '' the 
 institution that trains the mothers of our states- 
 men and leaders." 
 
 Besides the influence of these two splendid Amer- 
 ican educational institutions, is that of the mission- 
 aries sent out by the Protestant churches of the 
 United States. As already mentioned, the work of 
 missionaries during the past half-century has not 
 been confined to ** the oral utterance of the Gospel 
 in public or in private." Missionaries have engaged 
 heartily in educational work in diverse forms. Be- 
 sides the elementary and secondary schools that they 
 established, the missionaries were instrumental in 
 sending large num])ers of young men to the United 
 States to pursue courses in colleges and technical 
 schools, and practically all sucli students returned 
 to the fatherland and became men of mark in public 
 and private life. 
 
 Dr. A. S. TsanolT, the veteran editor of Zornitza, 
 the oldest journal published in the Bulgarian Ian-
 
 338 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 guage, was educated at Amherst College forty years 
 ago; the Reverend Marko N. Popoff, who for 
 nineteen years was the pastor of the Protestant 
 community at Sofia and made that church a self- 
 supporting and highly effective religious organiza- 
 tion, was graduated from Hamilton College; Stoyan 
 K. Vatralsky, a publicist and writer, was graduated 
 from Harvard University; Constantino Stepha- 
 nove, at the head of the department of the English 
 language and literature in the University of Sofia 
 and the author of the standard English-Bulgarian 
 dictionary, was graduated from Yale University; 
 the Reverend D. N. Furnajieff, pastor of the Prot- 
 estant church at Sofia, was graduated from Prince- 
 ton University. Scores of men in public life in 
 Bulgaria — lawyers, judges, physicians, teachers, 
 journalists, preachers, engineers — have been edu- 
 cated in American institutions. And these men, 
 like the graduates of Robert College, have been 
 active exponents of American ideals and culture. 
 Americans of superior character like Elias Riggs, 
 Albert N. Long, George D. Marsh, J. F. Clarke, and 
 J. "W. Baird have spent their entire lives in the 
 mission work in Bulgaria. These men went directly 
 after graduation from college to the Balkans, where 
 they laboured with a disinterested zeal that is found 
 among no other class of workers. 
 
 The American Institute at Samokov, a secondary 
 school for boys, organized fifty-three years ago by 
 the American Board of Foreign Missions, has given 
 an excellent secondary education to nearly a thou- 
 sand Bulgarian youths. Nearly all the pastors and
 
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 American Influence in Bulgaria 339 
 
 preachers connected with the Protestant mission 
 work in Bulgaria and Macedonia have received their 
 training in this school; and many of the Bulgars 
 who have come to America for collegiate courses 
 were prepared for college at Samokov. A consid- 
 erable number of former students of the American 
 Institute occupy responsible positions in the public 
 and private life of Bulgaria. A Bulgarian writer 
 pays this tribute to the work of the American Insti- 
 tute: *' Through the example and instruction of its 
 teachers, an unconscious influence is exerted for the 
 building of character. Spiritual culture is more 
 ideal and more solid at Samokov than anywhere 
 else among us." The principal of the school is the 
 Reverend L. F. Ostrander. The annual enrollment 
 varies from seventy-five to a hundred students. A 
 theological seminary, with a course covering two 
 years, is affiliated with the institute. Graduates of 
 the institute, who wish to engage in the work of the 
 Protestant ministry, may receive their training 
 here. 
 
 The American School for Girls at Samokov is 
 another institution that has exerted large influence 
 in Bulgaria. It was opened at Stara Zagora in 1863 
 and was the fiirst school of its rank for the education 
 of girls opened in the country. Eight years later, 
 chiefly because of the more favourable climate, the 
 school was moved to Samokov, a mountain town of 
 ten thousand inhabitants near the Macedonian fron- 
 tier. The school has been directed from the first by 
 the finest type of American college women. Miss 
 Esther Tappan Maltbic, of Oberlin College, was the
 
 340 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 principal of the school from 1870 to 1906, and Miss 
 Inez L. Abbott, of the University of Michigan, and 
 later of the school for classical studies at Rome, has 
 been principal since 1907. Miss Ellen M. Stone, 
 Miss Mary M. Haskell, and Miss Agnes M. Baird 
 have also rendered admirable service for the school. 
 More than eight hundred Bulgarian women have 
 been students at the school, and the graduates occupy 
 important posts as teachers in the national schools, 
 nurses, and religious and social workers. The wives 
 of most of the Protestant pastors of Bulgaria and 
 Macedonia have been educated at the Samokov 
 school. Throughout the kingdom Samokov gradu- 
 ates are distinguished for social service. Several 
 graduates have taken up professional and business 
 callings. The proprietor of the leading book-store 
 at Sofia, for example, is a graduate of the American 
 school at Samokov. It has also served as a fitting 
 school for Bulgarian girls who have taken courses 
 at the American College at Constantinople and vari- 
 ous collegiate institutions in the United States. It 
 is the testimony of competent Bulgarian critics that 
 the school has rendered significant service to the 
 nation not only in preparing teachers of superior 
 character, but in fitting Bulgarian women to become 
 home-makers, housekeepers, and intelligent mothers. 
 For the splendid work the school has done during 
 the last fifty years and the large field before it for 
 equally useful work in the future, it certainly merits 
 the hearty support of philanthropic Americans.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 SOFIA, THE MODERN CAPITAL 
 
 The site of an ancient city — Sofia in the eighteenth century — Trans- 
 formation since it ceased to be a Turkish town — The Djul-Dscha- 
 mija mosque — The Buyuk Djamia — The Black Mosque — New- 
 cathedral of Alexander Nevsky — Bulgarian National Theatre — 
 Palace of the Holy Synod — Public bath — Post-office — Statue 
 of the Tsar Liberator — Public gardens — The suburbs of Sofia. 
 
 Sofia, the handsome capital of the noAv kingdom, 
 was an important town in pre-Roman days. The 
 Shop tribes of peasants who live in the mountains 
 near by may be the descendants of the ancient Da- 
 cians who occupied the town when Diocletian made 
 it the capital of Lower Dacia. It was a prosperous 
 town when it was captured by Krum and his Bulgars 
 in 809. He made it the capital of his kingdom. It 
 was occupied by the Turks in 1383 and remained in 
 their hands, save for a brief period when it was 
 occupied by the Hungarians under John Hunyady 
 in 1443, until they were driven out by General 
 Gurko in 1878. 
 
 Lady Montagu of England tarried in Sofia a few 
 days on her way from London to Constantinople in 
 1717. She tells us that Sofia is one of the most beau- 
 tiful to\vns in the Turkish empire. Under Turkish 
 rule Sofia was the residence of an Ottoman governor, 
 and for many years it was an important centre for 
 trade with Ragusa. It was the headquarters of 
 Mustafa Pasha during the Turko-Russian campaign 
 
 341
 
 342 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 of 1829. An English traveller who visited the city 
 in 1860 calls it *' a miserably poor place." The same 
 traveller in 1890 writes: '' Of all the cities of the 
 east, Sofia has made the greatest improvement." 
 
 On the eve of liberation Sofia is described as " a 
 concourse of mean, red-tiled little houses and cab- 
 ins of wood and plaster. Its crooked, narrow lanes, 
 leading nowhere in particular, were unpaved. In 
 rainy weather they were no better than sewers. In 
 Turkish Sofia no Christian woman dared venture out 
 of the house after dark, or far from it in the day- 
 time. There were no street lamps. No man went 
 out of doors in the night-time without a lantern," 
 
 When the author visited Sofia for the first time 
 fourteen years ago, it still retained the character of 
 a Turkish to^v^l. But a great transformation has 
 taken place during the last dozen years. A beauti- 
 ful city has been created upon the ruins of the old 
 squalid Turkisli town. Handsome public buildings 
 and private residences, broad and well-paved streets, 
 tramways and electric lights, and all the appurte- 
 nances of a modern city are now found at the mod- 
 ern capital, which is the social and intellectual as 
 well as the political centre of the new national life. 
 
 The process of transformation was begun under 
 the reign of Prince Alexander of Battenberg. He 
 built the royal palace and had constructed a number 
 of public buildings. The royal palace is a solid 
 rectangular edifice surrounded by high drab-col- 
 oured walls. The entrance to the palace is through 
 massive iron gates. It can scarcely be called a hand- 
 some building.
 
 Sofia, the Modern Capital 343 
 
 When King Ferdinand got firmly seated on his 
 throne he took up the matter of transforming his 
 capital into a thoroughly modern city. Large parts 
 of the old Turkish town were pulled down. Five- 
 story houses, chiefly of brick encased in stucco, re- 
 placed the hovels of wood and mud. Narrow, dirty 
 alleys were widened into broad thoroughfares and 
 paved with macadam. The work of building the 
 new city was interrupted by the Balkan wars, but 
 it has been actively resumed during recent months. 
 
 The Djul-Dschamija, with its slender minaret, is 
 one of the few reminders of the evil Turkish days. 
 Parts of the mosque are said to have been erected 
 by Trajan as a heathen temple in the Roman days. 
 Constantino the Great consecrated it as a Christian 
 church and dedicated it to Saint George. The Turks 
 five hundred years ago transformed it into a mosque 
 and added the minaret. It is still used as a house 
 of worship by the Moslem residents of Sofia. 
 
 The Buyuk Djamia, with its nine metal cupolas, 
 was the most important sanctuary during the days 
 of Turkish occupation. To-day it houses the Bul- 
 garian National Museum. The museum contains the 
 begiuning of a collection that will ultimately rep- 
 resent the historical development of the country 
 from earliest Dacian times to the present day. A 
 considerable number of monuments belonging to 
 pre-historic times, as well as numbers of relics be- 
 longing to the Eoman and Byzantine periods of 
 Macedonia and Bulgaria, have been secured. Many 
 of the old Slavic inscriptions in stone have great 
 historical value. The museum has notable coUec-
 
 344 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 tions of bas-reliefs, bronzes, and coins. Here also 
 is found the beginnings of a national gallery of 
 painting and sculpture. Such works of art as have 
 been purchased by the national government are 
 displayed in the museum. Bulgaria also has an 
 interesting ethnographic collection at present housed 
 in a private building. An ethnographic museum 
 building is shortly to be erected at Sofia. 
 
 The Tscherna Djamia, or Black Mosque, is now 
 used as a place of worship by the Orthodox church. 
 The most significant religious monument in the city 
 is the ruin of the church of St. Sofia, a basilica with 
 three naves that dates from the year 1329. The 
 cathedral or church of Sveti Krai, with three cupo- 
 las, is one of the least attractive public buildings in 
 the city. It is a modem structure and is the chief 
 place of worship of the state religion. It contains 
 the remains of the Servian king Stefan Uros II. 
 
 The new cathedral of Alexander Nevsky, just com- 
 pleted at a cost of one and one-fourth million dol- 
 lars, is the most important building in the city. It 
 was erected as a memorial to Russian valour in the 
 war of liberation. It is built in the Russian-By- 
 zantine style. The general details of the church, such 
 as the large central dome and many of the smaller 
 bulbous domes, are distinctly Russian. The domes 
 arc gilded and produce a rather fierce and dazzling 
 effect. The facade is of local white stone, and the 
 marbles used in the interior decorations were 
 brought from Italy, Brazil, and Africa. Quantities 
 of Mexican onyx were also used in the decoration 
 of the interior.
 
 Sofia, the Modern Capital 345 
 
 A Russian, Professor Pomerantzeff, was the chief 
 architect, and the interior decorations were en- 
 trusted to Russian and Bulgarian artists. The walls 
 and domes of the interior are covered with paint- 
 ings of Scriptural and historical subjects and the 
 chapels are ornate with mosaics and paintings. The 
 thrones for the bisliop and the king are especially 
 rich in ornaments. One feels, however, a lack of 
 intimate relation behind the forces that produced 
 the great and costly cathedral — architect, artists, 
 decorators, and building commission. Divided re- 
 sponsibility must account for some of the ill-ad- 
 justed relations. Instead of farming out the inte- 
 rior decorations to a considerable number of Bul- 
 garian and Russian artists, it probably would have 
 been better to have placed the matter in the hands 
 of one artist and held him responsible for the har- 
 monizing of details. 
 
 The paintings by Bulgarian artists are the best 
 in the cathedral. There are some notable paintings 
 by Mirkvicka, such as " The seven saints to the 
 Slavs," '' The Virgin and Child, '» " The prophets 
 Moses and Aaron," '' The contest of Christ and the 
 devil," *' God the Father," and " Christ in the Tem- 
 ple." Mi toff also has done some highly creditable 
 work in the new cathedral. Among his paintings 
 are Saints Kyril, Method, and Boris, the Patri- 
 arch Eftmi, '' Ivan Rilsky," and " Maria and the 
 Child." The frescoes over the right altar are by 
 Mitoff, and the mosaics of the king's throne were 
 made from his drawings. " Christ with the Poor," 
 ** St. George," and several other saints are the work
 
 346 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 of Stefan Ivanoff. There is an interesting series 
 of holy men by Malinoff, Petroff, Berberoff, and 
 Mihailoff. 
 
 The Bulgarian National Theatre, the home of 
 opera and drama, is a handsome modern structure 
 erected at a cost of four hundred thousand dollars. 
 It has a competent corps of actors and singers and 
 produces standard works by native and foreign 
 dramatic and music composers. The theatre re- 
 ceives an annual appropriation from the national 
 government. 
 
 Two other recent public buildings are the palace 
 of the Holy Synod and the public bath, both the 
 work of the Bulgarian architect Momtchiloff. All 
 the decorations in the Holy Synod are the work of 
 Bulgarian artists — Mirkvicka, Mitoff, and Iva- 
 noff. Besides the paintings, there are some fine 
 wood carvings and tapestries in the palace of the 
 Holy Synod by native artisans. 
 
 The new public bath at Sofia is the finest insti- 
 tution of its land in the world. It was erected at a 
 cost of six hundred thousand dollars over a hot 
 spring that has been famed for its mineral prop- 
 erties since the days of the Romans. The tempera- 
 ture of the water as it comes from the ground is 
 117 degrees Fahrenheit, The bath is not only a 
 handsome structure in the Byzantine style of archi- 
 tecture, but its equipment is modern and commodi- 
 ous. 
 
 The new post-office is the work of the Bulgarian 
 architect Jordan Malinoff, who has also planned 
 many of the fine private residences of Sofia. He
 
 ALEXANDER NBVSKY CATHEDRAL. 
 
 BULGARIAN NATIONAL THEATRK.
 
 Sofia, the Modern Capital 347 
 
 was the president of the cominission that had charge 
 of the cathedral of Alexander Nevsky. The cham- 
 ber of commerce is the work of the Bulgarian archi- 
 tect Fingoff. The Bulgarian Agricultural Bank is 
 an attractive modern building. It has interesting 
 mural paintings in the council chamber by Mir- 
 kvicka and Mitoff. Tlie sobranje, or parliament 
 house, is one of the older buildings of the capital, 
 but it produces a good effect. The academy of arts 
 when completed will be one of the striking public 
 buildings of the capital, and costly new university 
 buildings are shortly to be erected. 
 
 In the public square in front of the sobranje is 
 the handsome equestrian statue of the Tsar Lib- 
 erator, Alexander II of Eussia, to whom Bulgaria 
 pays willing homage. Among other monuments at 
 the capital is one erected in memory of Vassil Lev- 
 sky, a Bulgarian patriot, executed by the Turks in 
 1873, and another commemorating the services of 
 the physicians and surgeons who fell in the Russo- 
 Turkish war of 1877-78. 
 
 There is a small but attractive public garden in 
 the heart of the city, and a larger public garden in 
 the suburbs, with its fine acacias, its fountain, and 
 its miniature lake. The lion's bridge spanning the 
 river that flows through the city is an interesting 
 piece of work. The city is well drained; it has an 
 excellent water supply that is brought from Mount 
 Vitosha; there are several broad and attractive 
 avenues, and all the thoroughfares are well lighted. 
 
 Sofia is situated on a rolling upland plain that 
 is encompassed in every direction by lofty mountain
 
 348 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 ranges. Its elevation is 1,700 feet above the level 
 of the sea. The plateau on which the city is built 
 extends for miles in all directions, thus affording 
 infinite space for expansion. The dilapidated Turk- 
 ish town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants has 
 grown in a quarter of a century to a handsome city 
 of one hundred five thousand inhabitants. In the 
 suburbs of the cit)^ are breweries, sugar-refineries, 
 and cotton mills and silk mills. The climate of the 
 city is healthful; and, overlooking the plain on 
 which it is located, is the superb peak of Mount 
 Vitosha.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 OTHER CITIES AND TOWNS 
 
 Philippopolis, the capital of Eastern Rumelia — Principal quarters 
 in the city — Nature of the population — Rustchuk — Tirnovo, 
 the ancient capital — Historic church of the Forty Martyrs — 
 Recent destruction of the city by an earthquake — Varna — Bur- 
 gas — Shumen — Stara Zagora, Shven, and Kazanlik — Dubnitza 
 — Samokov — Rilo. 
 
 Philippopolis (Plovdiv), the capital of Eastern 
 Rumelia before the two Bulgarias were united, is 
 the second city of importance in the kingdom. It 
 is situated in the valley of the Maritza in the midst 
 of a vast fertile plain that stretches between the 
 Balkans and the Rhodope mountains. Isolated 
 crags emerge from the plain to the south of the 
 city. Here and there the monotony of the plain is 
 broken by the mammoth mounds scattered through 
 the valley that mark the burial-places of ancient 
 warriors. 
 
 The city is built on three granite eminences on 
 the right bank of the Maritza. There are many 
 comfortable homes on the hills built at all angles on 
 the rocks. It is a very old city, having been cap- 
 tured and re-christened by Philip of Macedon in 
 842 B. c. The Franks held it from 1204 to 1235. It 
 was occupied by the Turks in 1363; was destroyed 
 by an earthquake in 1818 and suffered by a fire in 
 1846. It enjoyed a brief period of independent ex- 
 istence from 1878 to 1885. 
 
 349
 
 350 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 The principal quarters of the city nestle between 
 two crags, and from this centre it stretches in all 
 directions into the plain. There are many well- 
 built houses in the older part of the city. The great 
 mosque at the foot of the hill is the centre of the 
 industrial life. The broad avenue that leads from 
 the railway station to the town is lined with sub- 
 stantial residences. The old national assembly 
 house has been converted into a public library. It 
 has a collection of forty thousand books. The city 
 has an excellent water system, the water being 
 brought from the Rhodope mountains, ten miles 
 distant. 
 
 An exhibition park was laid out in 1892. Near by 
 is the fine Djumaja mos(iue. On one of the hills 
 is a monument erected by the Russians in com- 
 memoration of the war of 1877-78, and one of the 
 other hills is crowned with a clock tower. There are 
 numerous churches, schools, and colleges. The city 
 has forty-eight thousand inhabitants, most of whom 
 are Bulgarians. There are, however, small colonies 
 of Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Jews, and gypsies in 
 the city. There are about four thousand Catholics 
 at Philippopolis. They are under the charge of 
 parish priests. There is a Catholic college that is 
 conducted by a French teaching order, and a hospital 
 under the direction of the Sisters of Mercy of 
 Agram. The orchards of Dermendere are near by, 
 and not very distant is the ancient Orthodox mon- 
 astery of Bachkovo. 
 
 Rustchuk, on the Danube, is the largest city in 
 northern Bulgaria. It has forty-six thousand in-
 
 Z
 
 other Cities and Towns 351 
 
 habitants and is growing rapidly. In the Turkish 
 days it was a squalid village with a small European 
 quarter facing the river. It is to-day a handsome 
 city and teems with commercial activity. It has 
 broad and well-paved streets that are lined with 
 shops, banks, schools, and public buildings. It has 
 factories for the manufacture of tobacco, soap, 
 spirits, and pottery, and it is the chief wheat market 
 in the country. Besides being the chief Danube 
 river port, it is an important centre for traffic by 
 rail. 
 
 Rustchuk was a city in Roman days. It was des- 
 troyed by the barbarians in the seventh century. 
 The Russians occupied it twice before it was finally 
 recovered from the Turks — in the Russo-Turkish 
 wars of 1828-29 and 1853-54. It was a fortified city 
 down to 1878. 
 
 Tirnovo is the capital of the old Bulgarian king- 
 dom. It is situated on the Yantra river as it leaves 
 the mountains and winds through an amphitheatre 
 of steep bluffs on which the city is built. During 
 the Asen dynasty Tirnovo was one of the chief cities 
 of Europe. No other place in Bulgaria is so inti- 
 mately associated with the life of the nation. Leg- 
 ends tell us that it was built by the hands of giants. 
 For several centuries it rivalled Constantinople. 
 '' It witnessed the rise of Shishman and his doughty 
 line. AVithin its walls Asen received the crown from 
 the hands of the people; and in its modest inn the 
 ill-starred Stamboloff, the ablest modern Bulgarian 
 statesman, first saw the light. Here were the palace 
 of the tsars and the residence of the head of the
 
 352 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Bulgarian church ; here too was the great cathedral, 
 long since gone." 
 
 The historic church of the Forty Martyrs, des- 
 troyed the 24th of June, 1913, by a terrible earth- 
 quake, was the burial-place of the tsars. The church 
 was built by Tsar Ivan Asen II in 1230. An inscrip- 
 tion in the church gives this chronicle of the found- 
 er's conquests: " In the year 1230, I, Ivan Asen, 
 Tsar and Autocrat of the Bulgarians, obedient to 
 God in Christ, son of the old Asen, have built this 
 most worthy church from its foundations, and com- 
 pletely decked it with paintings in honour of the 
 forty holy martyrs, by whose help, in the 12th year 
 of my reign, when the church had just been painted, 
 I set out to Rumania to the war and smote the Greek 
 army and took captive the Emperor Theodore Kom- 
 nenus with all his nobles. I have conquered all the 
 land from Adrianople to Durazzo, the Greek, the 
 Albanian, and the Servian lands. Only the towns 
 round Constantinople and that city did the Franks 
 hold; but these too bowed themselves beneath the 
 hand of my sovereignty, for they had no other tsar 
 but me, and prolonged their days according to my 
 will, as God so ordained. For without Him no word 
 or work is accomplished. To Him be honour for 
 ever." 
 
 Tirnovo was the capital of Bulgaria from 1186 
 until it was captured by the Turks the 17th of July, 
 1394. It was occupied by the Russians in 1877. All 
 the sessions of the grand sobranje have been held 
 here. Here King Ferdinand was crowned and here 
 Prince Boris was initiated into the faith of the na-
 
 RUSTCHUK. 
 
 VARNA.
 
 other Cities and Towns 353 
 
 tional Orthodox clinrch. Here Count Baldwin, who 
 was elected to the imperial throne of Constantinople 
 by the crusaders, was imprisoned in 1205 by the 
 Bulgarian ruler Kaloyan. He was imprisoned in 
 one of the towers of the city that is still known as 
 Baldwin's tower, but the fate of the Frank emperor 
 is one of the mysteries of history. 
 
 There are numerous ancient remains, many of 
 which were badly damaged by the recent earthquake, 
 which completely destroyed parts of the cities of 
 Tirnovo, Gornia-Orechovitza, and Lcskovetz. Be- 
 sides the destruction of many of the most important 
 ancient and modern buildings in the old capital, two 
 hundred persons were killed and six hundred 
 wounded. The greatest loss was the church of the 
 Forty Martyrs. It contained the most ancient and 
 valuable historical relics relating to the origin and 
 rise of the Bulgarian people. 
 
 Bulgaria has two seaports on the Black sea — 
 Varna and Burgas. While the transformation of 
 Varna has been less rapid than at Rustchuk, there 
 have been many improvements during the last fif- 
 teen years. The government has built at consider- 
 able cost a breakwater that permits vessels to lie at 
 anchor within the bay with safety. Quays have also 
 been constructed so that ships of large burden may 
 load and unload without employing lighters. 
 
 The city has a large export trade in wheat, cattle, 
 dairy products, and lumber. The vineyards in the 
 neighbourhood produce considerable wine, and there 
 are tanneries, breweries, and cloth factories in the 
 citv and suburbs.
 
 354 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Near by is the chateau of Euxinograd, one of the 
 residences of King Ferdinand. The chateau itself 
 possesses little architectural interest; but it is sit- 
 uated on a sightly clitf overlooking the Black sea 
 and is surrounded by parks and gardens constructed 
 after the models of those at Versailles and St. Cloud 
 in France. The chateau contains a considerable 
 collection of paintings. An immense aviary is one 
 of the features of the grounds. 
 
 Burgas is at the head of a gulf with the same 
 name. It is built on a low foreland between lagoons. 
 It has a fine harbour five fathoms deep, and large 
 vessels may enter without difficulty. Behind the 
 town is Sozopolis, the ancient Appolonia, perched 
 high on a picturesque rock and encircled by undu- 
 lating downs. The seaport is surrounded by vil- 
 lages, vineyards, and fertile plains. 
 
 Shumen, fifty miles west of Varna, is built in a 
 rugged ravine within a cluster of hills. A broad 
 street and a rivulet divide the upper and the lower 
 quarters of the to^^^l. In the upper part is the mag- 
 nificent mausoleum of the Turkish pasha, Jezairli- 
 Ilassan, who enlarged the fortifications during the 
 eighteenth century. Silks, embroideries, and copper 
 and tin wares are manufactured in the town. There 
 is also a large trade in wine and grain. Shumen 
 was burned by the Emperor Nicephorus in the year 
 811 ; it was besieged by Alexius I in 1087 and sur- 
 rendered to the Turks in 1.S88. 
 
 Stara Zagora, Sliven, and Kazanlik are also grow- 
 ing towns. Plevna, on the banks of the Tutchinitza, 
 a branch of the Vid, is situated in a plain that is
 
 other Cities and Towns 355 
 
 surrounded by a aeries of hills a few hundred feet 
 in elevation. At the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish 
 war the town was occupied by sixty thousand Otto- 
 man troops. It was besieged for five months and 
 surrendered the 10th of December, 1877; but fifty 
 thousand Russian troops were sacrificed in its cap- 
 ture. Plevna has many handsome modem buildings, 
 including a town hall, schools, and a memorial 
 church built with materials captured from the con- 
 quered Turks. In the suburbs is the Skobeleff park 
 and public gardens. 
 
 Dubnitza is a town of ten thousand inhabitants. 
 It is the birthplace of Yani Sandansky, the Mace- 
 donian brigand who captured Miss Stone, an Amer- 
 ican missionary, and held her for a ransom of sixty 
 thousand dollars. It is a picturesque town, many 
 of the buildings being made of lathes that are filled 
 in and covered over with mud, after which they are 
 given a coat of blue or pink whitewash. It has an 
 imposing Orthodox church surrounded by granite 
 pillars, and the ruins of a mosque that was destroyed 
 in the Russo-Turkish war. The gypsy quarter is 
 composed of one-roomed huts, but the brown-skinned 
 nomads lend colour to the squalor of the hovels. 
 Dubnitza is in the centre of a rich tobacco dis- 
 trict. 
 
 Samokov, a to^vn of ten thousand inhabitants, is 
 located on the slopes of the Rilo mountains near the 
 headwaters of the Isker river at an elevation of 
 3,075 feet above the level of the sea. In ancient 
 times it was the centre of the iron industry, but the 
 mines are no longer worked. Here are located the
 
 356 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 schools and missions tliat direct the educational and 
 religious activities of the American Board of For- 
 eign Missions of the Congregational Church. An 
 account of these schools is given elsewhere in this 
 work. 
 
 A mountain trail leads from Samokov to the Rilo 
 monastery, which is perched high in the mountains 
 in a narrow gorge that is guarded by a natural gate- 
 way of rocks. The monastery is half palace and 
 half fortress. The building is an irregular penta- 
 gon with a number of galleries that extend around 
 it and open into a great court. The corridors are 
 supported by stone arches which rise tier upon tier 
 and form a series of picturesque arcades. The top- 
 most gallery forms a veranda beneath a projecting 
 roof resting on great oak beams. The masonry of 
 the buildings is white and red. In the centre of the 
 court is the gaudy Byzantine church, the most bril- 
 liant and variegated of the buildings. Its alcoves 
 are filled with gorgeous frescoes. Near the church 
 is an ancient and majestic tower, the oldest existing 
 part of the monastery. 
 
 The interior of the church contains the body of 
 St. John of Kilo (Ivan Rilsky), the founder of the 
 monastery. The body is encased in gold leaf. One 
 arm of the saint is visible for the adoration of de- 
 vout pilgrims. The crude and weird frescoes that 
 adorn the walls of the church represent gruesome 
 scenes that depict the terrors of hell in truly Ortho- 
 dox fervour. One of the frescoes represents the day 
 of judgment. At the top sits God the Father with 
 Christ and the Virgin. Groups of saints stand on
 
 other Cities and Towns 357 
 
 the clouds that are floating through the air. Heaven 
 is represented as a court-yard, and the twelve 
 apostles stand at the gate, Peter opening the portal 
 with his great key. On another wall one gets a good 
 notion of culture and ethics in the Balkans during 
 the middle ages. Bulgarian rulers and saints are 
 surrounded by angels, and below them the damned 
 are suffering all the torments of hell. Brigands, im- 
 postors, law-breakers, fraudulent shopkeepers, dis- 
 honest millers, and the unchaste are suffering pun- 
 ishments appropriate to their transgressions. 
 
 In the ancient tower mass is celebrated once a 
 month; and down in its dark dungeons the rings 
 to which the insane were chained may still be seen. 
 Here, in tlie dark ages of the history of lunacy, these 
 unfortunates w^ere allowed to beat out their brains. 
 The library of the monaster^' is rich in ecclesias- 
 tical manuscripts, books, and relics. Ten thousand 
 pilgrims may be entertained in the rooms of the vast 
 dormitories that surround the court. The stables 
 will accommodate a thousand horses, and there are 
 outbuildings for the various crafts essential to the 
 life of the monastery. 
 
 There is a grotto in the rocks near the monastery 
 that is pointed out as the site of the original chapel 
 of the founder. Through this narrow grotto i)ious 
 pilgrims make their way. It is a difficult feat, even 
 for those with slender bodies; but it is the belief of 
 the devout that only sinners get caught in the crev- 
 ice. The monastery suffered greatly during the cen- 
 turies of Turkish rule. It stood innumerable sieges. 
 Several times it was almost completely destroyed
 
 358 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 by fire. It was often captured by brigands, who 
 exacted heavy ransoms from the monks. As the 
 home of Slavic culture it suffered frightful perse- 
 cution at the hands of the intolerant Greek church.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE BULGARS OF MACEDONIA 
 
 Why Macedonia was given back to the Turks after the Russo-Turkish 
 war — Revolt in the Stnima valley — Organization of the komi- 
 tadjis — Revolution of 1902 — How it was suppressed by the Turks 
 
 — The wrecking of the bank at Salonika — Capture of Miss Stone 
 
 — Economic conditions in Macedonia — Methods of leasing the 
 land — Physical and mental characteristics of the Bulgars of Mace- 
 donia. 
 
 It was the fear of England that Bulgaria would 
 be a mere vassal of Russia that tore up the treaty 
 of San Stefano and brought to an end the momen- 
 tary and elusive hope of the Macedonian people that 
 they were to be liberated from centuries of Turkish 
 oppression. The treaty of Berlin decreed that they 
 must return to the Ottoman yoke. '' There is no 
 reason in the history or nature of things," remarks 
 Mr. Brailsford in his authoritative work on Mace- 
 donia, " why these two regions should have been 
 subjected to such different fates. In both the pop- 
 ulation is predominantly Slavic, and in both there 
 is a minority of Turks and Greeks. Both took up 
 arms to cooperate with the liberating Russian in- 
 vader. Both had revolted from the Greek form of 
 Orthodoxy and freely joined the Bulgarian exar- 
 ch ist church." ^ 
 
 In the Struma valley the people revolted and 
 seized the mountain passes. But Europe had given 
 
 ' Maccdnnin: its Races and their Future Bv Ilenrv N. Brailsford. 
 London, 1900, pp. 340. 
 
 359
 
 360 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 its decision. The Macedonian Bulgars must con- 
 tinue to endure the oppression of their Turkish mas- 
 ters. The revolting Macedonians were forced to 
 submit to the decrees of the great powers. But they 
 endured their fate sullenly. They turned their at- 
 tention to education and sought to solve the prob- 
 lem of political servitude by intellectual develop- 
 ment. Education made them even more conscious 
 of the evils of the Ottoman political system and 
 its enfeebling and crushing social organism. 
 
 Fifteen years after the signing of the Berlin 
 treaty there was initiated by the Macedonia komi- 
 tadjis a revolutionary movement with the ultimate 
 object of the freedom of the country from Turkish 
 rule. From this date down to the formation of the 
 Balkan league (1912), the komitadjis waged a iSerce 
 guerilla warfare with knife, revolver, and bomb. 
 Students, teachers, college professors, lawyers, phy- 
 sicians, and merchants to the number of twelve thou- 
 sand were enrolled in the ranks of the komitadjis 
 during the twenty years of its active operations. 
 Major Panitza, who distinguished himself in the 
 Servian war; General NikolaieflP, who later served 
 in the Bulgarian cabinet in the Malinoff ministry; 
 Traiko Kikantscheff, a gifted man of letters; Da- 
 mian Grueff and Yani Sandansky, distinguished 
 schoolmasters ; Christo Tatarcheff, a leading physi- 
 cian, and other men of eminence were leaders in 
 the revolutionary movement.' 
 
 ^ For an excellent popular account of the work of the komitadjis, 
 see Confessions of a Macedonian Bandit by Albert Sonnichsen (New 
 York, 1909). Mr. Sonnichsen is an American man of letters who waa 
 connected with the work of the komitadjis for several years.
 
 The Bulgars of Macedonia 361 
 
 Tlic great powers of Europe had obligated them- 
 selves by the conditions of the treaty of Berlin to 
 protect the Christian races in Macedonia; bnt the 
 scores of piteous appeals sent to them met with no 
 response. In the autumn of 1902 General Tzoncheff, 
 at the head of one branch of the Macedonian komi- 
 tadjis, proclaimed a general uprising against Tur- 
 key. With a force of about four hundred men he 
 carried on a gallant guerilla campaign for a month 
 in the region of Djumaia and the Raslog. The 
 enterprise did not receive the sanction of the united 
 revolutionary committee and had to be given up. 
 General Tzoncheff and his band returned to Bul- 
 garia, and the peasants, who had taken little part 
 in the uprising, were left to bear the brunt of Turk- 
 ish vengeance. 
 
 Mr. Henry N. Brailsford, who visited the region 
 shortly afterwards to distribute relief among the 
 victims of Ottoman vengeance for the adventure, 
 says that there was wholesale beating of the peas- 
 ants, some torture, some violation of women, and 
 some burning of houses. The terror that the Turks 
 established in the district was general enough and 
 serious enough to drive three thousand peasants 
 in the rigour of a Balkan winter across the moun- 
 tains of the frontier into the kindly refuge of Bul- 
 garia. Mr. Brailsford writes: *' Although the in- 
 ternal organization (of the komitadjis) had no share 
 in these events, and tried to frustrate General Tzon- 
 cheff 's wild enterprise, the Turks made no nice dis- 
 tinctions, and all over Macedonia the burden of the 
 Turkish yoke grew heavier. Villages were searched
 
 362 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 for arms, which means that all the peasants were 
 beaten and tortured until they produced them, and 
 if they really possessed no rifle they were often 
 constrained to buy one m order to surrender it to 
 the Turks." 
 
 The uprising in the Djumaia and Raslog districts 
 had the effect of calling the attention of the great 
 powers to the serious nature of the Macedonian 
 question. The powers, however, took the fatal step 
 of allowing two interested members of the concert 
 — Austria and Russia — to manage the affair as 
 they pleased. The sultan of Turkey, anticipating 
 intervention on the part of the powers, announced 
 reforms of his own. But the reform measures of 
 both Austria and Russia and of the sultan of Tur- 
 key remained dead letters. Their sole effect, writes 
 Mr. Brailsford, " was to convince the Bulgarians 
 that Europe would do nothing without some power- 
 ful stimulus, some bloody and sensational object- 
 lesson, which would convince her that the misman- 
 agement of Macedonia is an evil which calls for 
 drastic remedy. But what form should that object- 
 lesson take? Petitions, deputations, notes of pro- 
 test and appeal from the friendly Bulgarian govern- 
 ment attract no attention whatever. Partial revolts 
 and brutal repressions result in nothing more than 
 futile remonstrance and feeble counsels of reform. 
 Europe acts with energy only when the lives and 
 property of her own subjects are endangered. Then 
 indeed the ironclads move, and the spectacle of 
 cleared decks induces the sultan to yield to superior 
 force. The younger men among the Macedonian
 
 The Bulgars of Macedonia 363 
 
 extremists were full of this idea, and wild plans for 
 attacking the railways and the consulates were in 
 the air. It was thought that if the insurgents could 
 create a state of anarchy dangerous to European 
 capital the concert would intervene." 
 
 Two episodes in the plans of the extremist wing 
 of the komitadjis may be mentioned in this connec- 
 tion — the effort to destroy the Ottoman bank at 
 Salonika and the capture of Miss Ellen M. Stone, 
 an American missionary. The Ottoman bank at 
 Salonika represented European capital. The rev- 
 olutionists opened a small grocer's shop beside the 
 bank. Steadily but secretly they mined under the 
 bank for weeks, carrying away the earth from the 
 tunnel in paper bags. The Turks had been warned 
 of what was going on, but '' nothing could induce 
 them to interfere, and the inference is either that 
 they were bribed or that they were clear-sighted 
 enough and Machiavellian enough to allow the Bul- 
 garians to discredit themselves in the eyes of Eu- 
 rope.'* 
 
 The bank was blown up in April, 1903. Salonika 
 was plunged into panic and bombs were thrown at 
 a number of public buildings without success. A 
 French steamer in the bay was wrecked. Most of 
 the revolutionists were killed, either in resisting 
 arrest or by their own bombs. A massacre was 
 averted by the energy of the Turkish vali, who man- 
 aged to utilize and control his troops before more 
 than sixty Christians had been done to death. This 
 outrage shocked Europe and alienated the sympa- 
 thies of the great powers, who were directly re-
 
 364 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 sponsible for the conditions tliat made possible the 
 acts of the terrorists. It was a grim commentary 
 on the indifference of Europe. The measures which 
 the Turkish officials adopted to suppress the komi- 
 tadjis were drastic and wholesale. All the notables 
 in the Bulgarian towns of Macedonia were thrown 
 into prison. Schools were closed because the teach- 
 ers that had not been herded into filthy Turkish 
 jails had fled to escape arrest. Practically all the 
 educated Bulgars in Macedonia were placed under 
 arrest. Towns were in a state of siege, Turkish 
 soldiers patrolled the streets, and the Bulgarian 
 inhabitants were forbidden to stir abroad after sun- 
 down. The entire male Moslem population were 
 called to the colours, reenforced by ragged Ottoman 
 regiments from Asia Minor and undisciplined levies 
 from Albania. 
 
 The author visited during the summer of 1913 
 Yani Sandansky, the Macedonian brigand and rev- 
 olutionary, who was responsible for the capture of 
 Miss Stone, the American missionary. Sandansky 
 was a school-teacher before he joined the brigands. 
 He had been condemned to death by the courts of 
 Bulgaria. The revolutionary band with which San- 
 dansky was connected was greatly in need of money 
 to carry on its work. It was felt, moreover, that 
 the capture of a prominent European would call 
 attention to the conditions that existed in Mace- 
 donia. " Here were Turkish regular soldiers and 
 irregular bashi-bozouks," said Sandansky to the 
 author, " carrying off our wives and daughters 
 daily; and although we had acquainted the great
 
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 The Bulgars of Macedonia 365 
 
 powers of the outrages again and again, a deaf ear 
 was turned to our appeals. We thought we would 
 see just how Europe might take the matter if we 
 carried off one of your women." Miss Stone was 
 captured at Bansko by Yani Sandansky, Christo 
 Tchenopaeff, and Krusty Bulgarias. With a com- 
 panion, Mrs. Gregory M. Tsilka, she was held in 
 captivity in the mountains for six months. The 
 original ransom demanded by her captors was one 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. She was 
 finally released for sixty thousand dollars, a sum 
 that had been raised by American friends of mission 
 work. It was the belief of Sandansky and his 
 colleagues that the Turkish government would 
 promptly pay the ransom to avoid complications 
 with the United States and the great powers of 
 Europe.^ 
 
 Economic as well as political matters grew worse 
 rather than better after the treaty of Berlin ; for 
 the hand of the Turk was always raised against the 
 intellectuals in Macedonia ; and the social and eco- 
 nomic conditions of the Christian farmers steadily 
 deteriorated. The economic servitude of the Chris- 
 tians as conquered peoples had always been an 
 axiom of the Turkish mind. The administrative 
 efforts after 1878 tended to make the Christian races 
 feel the weight of this servitude, and all the officers 
 of the Ottoman government, from the highest func- 
 tionaries to the humblest Adllage policemen, worked 
 
 ^ For Miss Stone's account of her captivity, see her aeries of articles 
 entitled " Six Months Among Brigands " in McClure'a Magazine, 
 June to October, 1902, Vol. 19.
 
 366 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 towards that end. The means might vary, but the 
 result was always the same — the impoverishment 
 of the Christians. It was a regular system, skil- 
 fully planned and skilfully executed. 
 
 The economic state of the Christian races in 
 Macedonia at the outbreak of the first Balkan war 
 is one of the darkest pages in the Ottoman political 
 organization. It condemned to a life of wretched- 
 ness a thrifty and industrious race like the Bulgars 
 of Macedonia. The excessive labour of the farmer 
 failed to ensure him a modest subsistence. The 
 efforts of several generations, the toil shared by all 
 the members of the family, children and adults, 
 procured nothing but a shelter exposed to every 
 act of violence and spoliation. This condition of 
 affairs arose from two circumstances: (1) from the 
 absence of government officials capable of restrain- 
 ing crying abuses and (2) from the social and eco- 
 nomic relations of the dominant Mussulman minor- 
 ity with the unfortunate Christian serfs. 
 
 Agriculture is almost the sole means of livelihood 
 for the Christian races of Macedonia, and partic- 
 ularly of the Bulgars who occupy the inland dis- 
 tricts. Cattle-breeding is rare, as an exclusive 
 means of subsistence, except in the regions of Priz- 
 rend, Guiliani, Fiorina, and Kastoria. In the eyes 
 of the Ottoman law the Macedonian cultivators were 
 classed as landowners, farmers sharing in the prod- 
 uce (tschiftchis), and labourers or farm servants. 
 The landowners were the Mussulman beys. They 
 were the masters of the Christian villagers, who 
 worked their farms and shared the produce. The
 
 The Bulgars of Macedonia 367 
 
 farm servants also were Christians. There were a 
 few Christian proprietors, but their estates were 
 small. Christian farmers were largely represented 
 by Greeks in the districts of Seres, Drama, and 
 Salonika. 
 
 The system of leasing land at half profits was 
 in operation over three-fourths of all the arable 
 land of Macedonia. But this system was directly 
 responsible for the frightful wretchedness of the 
 Christian population of the villages. It made pos- 
 sible the permanent tyranny and abuses of the beys. 
 Theoretically, the beys gave the farmers land, ac- 
 cording to the size of the families. Free dwellings 
 and seeds were furnished by the beys. The profits, 
 after deducting the tithes, were divided into equal 
 parts between the landlord and the labourer. This 
 division brought the landlord an annual profit of 
 from eighteen to twenty-five per cent, on his cap- 
 ital. But he was rarely satisfied with this profit; 
 and as absolute master of the fate of the Christian 
 fanner, whose work he exploited according to his 
 own wishes, he generally succeeded in wresting froni 
 the farmer the better part of his earnings. 
 
 The farmer was further obliged to convey the 
 bey's share of the produce to whatever point he 
 might indicate. It often happened that the bey 
 found it most profitable to sell his share of the 
 produce in towns fifty or sixty miles away. The 
 farmer must deliver it at its destination. The beasts 
 of burden and the wagons the farmer was compelled 
 to provide at his own expense. Each farmer was 
 compelled to furnish his landlord with four cart-
 
 368 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 loads of firewood a year. The fanner was obliged 
 to work for ten days a year in fields reserved by 
 the bey, no matter how distant these fields might 
 be. If the bey owned a mill, as was usually the case, 
 the operation and the maintenance of the mill fell 
 to the farmer, in return for the right to grind his 
 own grain. Rural policemen, with whose aid the 
 beys terrorized the Christian farmers, were almost 
 always paid by the farmers. There were other 
 obligations which the caprice of a bey might impose 
 upon the farmers. 
 
 Here for example is the substance of a contract 
 imposed by a bey who enjoyed the reputation of 
 being one of the best landlords in his district. The 
 head of the family is a Bulgarian named Blajo. 
 Sixteen members of the family are registered in the 
 contract: Blajo, the head, fifty years old; his wife, 
 Doitza, forty-eight years old ; a son Christo, twenty- 
 five years old ; his wife, Stephana, twenty-five years 
 old; their son Mitra, one year old; a second son 
 of the head of the family, Anghel, twenty-two years 
 old; his wife, Bira, twenty years old; their son 
 Constantine, one year old; a third son of Blajo, 
 named Christo, ten years old; a daughter Helena, 
 eight years old ; a nephew of the head of the family, 
 Vassil by name, thirty years old ; his wife, Sirma, 
 twenty-eight years old ; their son, Spasso, ten years 
 old ; another son, Pietro, one year old ; a daughter, 
 Sto'ina, eight years old, and another daughter, 
 Draga, one year old. 
 
 The contract provides that Blajo and all the mem- 
 bers of the family must work for the bey. The
 
 
 
 lit 
 
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 5 
 
 H 
 
 0.
 
 The Bulgars of Macedonia 369 
 
 entire family must work one day a week in the pri- 
 vate fields of the bey — plow, dig, reap, carry wood, 
 and convey the produce of the bey to such places 
 as he may care to sell it. The house which serves 
 as a dwelling-place for the family is built of sun- 
 dried bricks, with a roof of tiles, and resting on a 
 foundation of wood two and a half feet from the 
 ground. The walls are of mixed earth and straw. 
 The sleeping-rooms are about four by three feet, 
 and from four to five persons occupy a room. The 
 house includes an entry, a cellar for provisions, and 
 a corridor. The whole building forms a quadrilat- 
 eral in a court one hundred and thirty feet broad 
 by three hundred and thirty feet long. In this court 
 there is a small bread oven and two storehouses. 
 There is a kitchen near the house ; a small vegetable 
 garden; and a fruit orchard. The average annual 
 yield to this family of sixteen persons in chiniks is 
 as follows: wheat, 150; barley, 80; oats, 80; rye, 
 50; maize, 50, and buckwheat, 100. 
 
 As elsewhere noted, the Bulgarians far outnumber 
 all the other races in Macedonia. While racially 
 they are of close kin to the people of Bulgaria, they 
 represent a lower class intellectually because they 
 have not had the same facilities for education as 
 their kinsmen in the kingdom north of the moun- 
 tains. Mr. Brailsford says of them: " A traveller's 
 first impressions of the Bulgarians of Macedonia 
 are rarely favourable. It is a race with few ex- 
 ternal attractions; and it seldom troubles to sue 
 for sjTTipathy, or assist the process of mutual under- 
 standing. It is neither hospitable nor articulate.
 
 370 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 The Slav peasant has no password to the foreign- 
 er's heart. He cannot point, like the Greek, to a 
 great past ; he cannot boast that his forebears have 
 been your tutors in civilization. He leaves you to 
 form what opinion of him you please, and shows 
 himself only in the drab of his daily costume of 
 commonplace. He will not call on you unbidden at 
 your hotel, or invite you to his schools, or insist that 
 you shall visit his churches. And, perforce, you 
 study him from the outside. You find him dull, 
 reserved, and unfriendly, for experience has taught 
 him to see in every member of an ahen race a prob- 
 able enemy. He lacks the plausibility, the grace, 
 the quick intelligence of the Greek. He has noth- 
 ing of the dignified courtesy, the defiant independ- 
 ence, the mediaeval chivalry of the Albanian. Nor 
 has he physical graces to recommend him ; and even 
 the women are unprepossessing. He has no sense 
 for externals, no instinct for display. If he is 
 wealthy he hoards his wealth. If he is poor he lives 
 in squalor and dirt. His national costumes are 
 rarely picturesque, Ms national dances monotonous, 
 his national songs unmusical. You may learn to 
 respect his industry, his vast capacity for uninter- 
 esting w^ork; but it is all the toil of the labourer, 
 and the spirit of the artist and the craftsman is not 
 in him." 
 
 And yet, as Mr. Brailsford admits, time and acci- 
 dent bring the clue to a different reading of his 
 character. " The more one learned to know of the 
 Bulgarians of Macedonia, the more one came to 
 respect their patriotism and courage. These are no
 
 The Bulgars of Macedonia 371 
 
 flamboyant or picturesque virtues ; tiiey have grown 
 up in the soil of serfdom among a reserved and 
 unimaginative race. They are consistent with com- 
 promise and prudence. There is something ahnost 
 furtive in their manifestations. And yet wlien the 
 Bulgarian seems most an opportunist and a time- 
 server, he still cherishes his faith in the future of 
 his people, and still works for its realization. He 
 has no great past to boast of, no glorious present 
 to give him courage. He does not flaunt his nation- 
 ality like the Greek, or claim an imagined superi- 
 ority. He will risk no needless persecution for the 
 pure joy of calling himself by the name of his ances- 
 tors. . . . And yet tliese men, when the occasion 
 comes to throw away their lives for any definite 
 purpose, are capable of an utterly reckless heroism. 
 The komitadjis never found a difficulty in obtaining 
 volunteers for such work as mining, bridge-wreck- 
 ing, or bomb-throwing, which involved almost cer- 
 tain death. Education among the Bulgarians, so 
 far from weakening the primitive tribal instinct of 
 self-sacrifice, seems only to intensify it, instead of 
 softening it with humanitarian scruples. . . . The 
 Bulgarians of Macedonia are to be judged not by 
 the standard of morality and civilization which in 
 fact they have attained, but by their courage and 
 their determination in striving for better things. 
 The history of their ten years' struggle is their 
 title to our s>Tnpat]iy. If they lack some of the 
 dignified and gracious virtues which their Albanian 
 neighbours possess, let us remember that tlio honour 
 of the Albanian stands rooted in unfaithfulness. He
 
 372 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 renounced his religion, and received as his reward 
 the right to bear himself erect, to carry weapons 
 and to hector it, an overman amid a race of serfs. 
 The Bulgarian held to the faith which the centuries 
 had bequeathed to him, bowed himself to his daily 
 task and his habitual sufferings, learned to lie be- 
 fore men that he might be true to God, and acquired 
 the vices of a slave that he might keep the virtues 
 of a martyr." ^ 
 
 ' Macedonia: its Rncrs and their Future. By Henrj' Noel Brailfiford. 
 London, 1906, pp. 340.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 MACEDONIA AFTER THE BALKAN WARS 
 
 Racial and religious elements of the population of Macedonia — Con- 
 ditions of the province at the close of the first Balkan war — Dis- 
 appearance of the poi)ulation — The country laid waste by the 
 Greeks — Work of pillage and murder — Verdict of Mr. Wallis — 
 Conditions in the part of Macedonia occupied by the Servians — 
 Report of the Carnegie conunission — Oppression of the Bulgarian 
 population — Tyrannical order of King Peter — Methods of coer- 
 cion — The results. 
 
 The majority of the iuhabitants of Macedonia are 
 Bulgarians. Greeks largely inhabit the southern 
 coast, and there are Turks, Vlakhs, Albanians, and 
 Servians in various parts of the province. The 
 population of Macedonia is about two million and 
 a quarter. Of this number about eight hundred 
 thousand profess the Mohammedan religion, sev- 
 enty-five thousand the Hebrew, three thousand six 
 hundred the Eoman Catholic, two thousand the 
 Protestant, and the remainder the Orthodox relig- 
 ion. Some of the Orthodox are affiliated with the 
 Bulgarian national church and some with the Greek 
 branch. 
 
 The story of the partition of Macedonia after the 
 Balkan wars has been recounted in previous chap- 
 ters in this work. It remains to note the manner 
 in which heirs of Turkey treated their inheritance. 
 Through the machinations of the Greeks and the 
 Servians, the portion of iMacedonia that fell to Bul- 
 
 373
 
 374 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 garia was very small. Greece got the lion's share, 
 although a considerable portion became the posses- 
 sion of Servia. 
 
 The conditions of eastern Macedonia (now New 
 Greece) as they were last June before the second 
 Balkan war, and as they are to-day, are carefully 
 treated in a recent article by Mr. H. M. Wallis 
 published in the Quarterly Review for April, 1914.^ 
 Mr. Wallis spent six months in the Balkans in the 
 winter of 1912-1913, distributing relief on behalf of 
 the Society of Friends of England to the victims of 
 the first Balkan war. He has recently made a study 
 of the region devastated by the Greeks during the 
 second Balkan war. He expresses the conviction 
 that Macedonia is one of the most beautiful and 
 fruitful parts of Europe. It is the seat of one of 
 the most ancient civilizations but little known to- 
 day. For five centuries it was vilely governed by 
 the Turks. Since 1887 it has been the cockpit of 
 rival sectaries, patriarchist Greeks and Bulgarian 
 exarcists. It was traversed by the Turkish army 
 in the first Balkan war, but it suffered surprisingly 
 little. It was ruled by the Bulgars for six months 
 (to June, 1913). The conquerors paid for what they 
 took ; discipline was rigid ; no looting was allowed. 
 There was some local friction, due to fanatical Greek 
 ecclesiastics. The skirmishes at Pangaion and Ni- 
 grita were the consequences of Greek troops in- 
 truding upon districts under Bulgarian adm.inistra- 
 tion. 
 
 ' The Devastation of Macedonia. By H. M. Wallia. Quarterly Re- 
 view, April, 1914. Vol. 220, pp. 50&— 523.
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 375 
 
 The population of 'eastern Macedonia was not 
 homogeneous. The most important city in the prov- 
 ince was predominantly Hebrew. The Ohalkidic 
 peninsula, the coast-line, and the trading towns were 
 largely Greek. The rural population was solidly 
 Bulgarian in the northern half of the territory and 
 largely so to within a few miles of the ^gean 
 sea. There were considerable Turkish districts and 
 smaller settlements of Kutzo-Vlakhs and gypsies. 
 But the mass of the population from the Rhodope 
 mountains to the sea were Bulgarians, speaking the 
 Bulgarian language and worshipping according to 
 the rites of the Bulgarian exarchist church. The 
 people were consciously and ardently attached to 
 their brothers in the kingdom of Bulgaria. They 
 Avere courteous, industrious, and virile. They lived 
 for the most part upon their own properties and 
 produced wine, silk, cotton, tobacco, leather, and 
 foodstuffs. Despite much discouragement from 
 their former Turkish masters, they had educated 
 themselves. The schoolhouse was a conspicuous 
 object in a majority of the villages, and in all the 
 towns the school-teacher was the leading man. Such 
 was the condition of the Bulgarians in eastern Mace- 
 donia in June, 1913. 
 
 Where arc these Macedonian Bulgars to-day? 
 Mr. Wallis says they have disappeared. '' So far 
 as human agency can effect it, they have been ob- 
 literated. By shot, shell, and bayonet, by torture 
 and fire, by proscription, imprisonment, and forci- 
 ble exile, the whole non-Greek element has been des- 
 troyed or chased out. Nor have destruction and
 
 376 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 proscription stopped at Bulgarians. Eoman Cath- 
 olics and Protestants, and a mixed multitude of 
 Turks, Kutzo-Vlakhs, and Jews have been impar- 
 tially maltreated, robbed, and expelled at the point 
 of the bavonet. 
 
 *' Whither? Into Bulgaria. At the present mo- 
 ment more than one hundred villages and several 
 towns which were in June last as peaceable and 
 prosperous as any in the Balkans, and in point of 
 good order and education would have compared 
 favourably with a similar number in the kingdom 
 of Greece, lie wasted, roofless, and without inhab- 
 itants. This devastation, by whomsoever effected, 
 was done during or immediately after the harvest, 
 and with extreme severity. It appears that it was 
 no part of the destroyer's plan that the population 
 should escape. Efforts were made to intercept es- 
 cape, in many cases successful efforts. Those who 
 saved themselves (and many thousands did so) 
 fled at a moment's notice, carrying children upon 
 their backs, and dragging others by the hand. 
 These fugitives, two-thirds of whom were women, 
 w^ere questioned by Englishmen and Americans as 
 they entered Bulgarian territory. Most of them 
 brought away nothing but the working summer 
 clothes in which they stood at the moment, and in 
 these garments, long since reduced to filthy rags, 
 an enormous number are at this hour enduring the 
 rigours of a Bulgarian winter. I believe that of 
 approximately 130,000 refugees, who are now King 
 Ferdinand's guests, and are fed by his bounty and 
 the bounty of the Bulgarians, there are about
 
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 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 377 
 
 100,000 whose homes were in what is now New 
 Greece. 
 
 '* These are admitted facts upon whicli I ask 
 judgment. Neither Greeks nor Bulgars deny that 
 New Greece lies waste, or that this abominable and 
 wholesale ruin was wrought within the space of 
 about four months. Who did it and why? The 
 Greeks lay it at the door of the Bulgarians; these 
 accuse the Greeks. 
 
 ** First let us decide whether it was an act of 
 war and can be defended as such. A hard-pressed 
 force may plead justification for setting fire to the 
 villages and towns through which it retreats. Noth- 
 ing delays pursuit like this. The beaten Turks 
 wasted Thrace as they fell back from Losengrad to 
 Lule Burgas. The Times war correspondent held 
 that ninety per cent, of the destruction visible south 
 of Adrianople was their doing. The Bulgarians 
 have never claimed this excuse for what they did 
 or did not do. In the first place their retreat from 
 Kilkis (Kukush) to the mountains was a leisurely 
 movement. They covered about six-and-a-quarter 
 miles a day, and except for a few hours on one day 
 were never pressed; they had therefore no need 
 to destroy the country behind them. They deny 
 having done so; it belonged to their own people; 
 nor will they admit for a moment having perpe- 
 trated massacres and compelled wholesale emigra- 
 tions. Nor do the refugees accuse them; with one 
 voice they accuse the Greeks. Is it reasonable to 
 suppose that from party feehng, or any other con- 
 ceivable impulse, an enormous multitude of women
 
 378 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 and children, without means of collusion and iso- 
 lated in widely-separated harbours of refuge, should 
 all invent and adhere to the same mendacity? 
 
 '' Observe, too, the circumstances under which 
 their stories were first told. The depositions of 
 very many were taken (for the most part at vari- 
 ous points along the frontier, and before they had 
 any opportunity of contact with Bulgarian officials, 
 or others) by impartial foreigners, whose good faith 
 cannot be doubted, who speak Bulgarian, questioned 
 the refugees directly witliout the aid of interpreters, 
 and took notes in common.* 
 
 " How then shall I treat the mass of evidence 
 which encumbers my desk? How make selection 
 from Bulgarian official publications, private mem- 
 oranda placed at my disposal, notes of conversations 
 with eye-witnesses, letters from personal friends'? 
 I cannot deal with one per cent, of it. The merest 
 catalogue of villages sacked and burnt, men flogged 
 to death, women raped and mothers ripped, wounded 
 slaughtered in hospital, prisoners of war tied to 
 trees with telegraph-wire and burned alive, or 
 buried to the neck and left, would occupy a score 
 of pages. The advance of the Greek army has been 
 held up to the admiration of military men as a 
 miracle of speed. Its slowness is the fact which calls 
 for explanation ; two furlongs per hour is no Mara- 
 thon race, but it is all King Constantine was able to 
 exact from a force outnumbering its opponents by 
 
 1 The auUior was one of tlio foreigners who took the depoKitionH of 
 hundreds of the refugees at various phices along the frontier between 
 Bulgaria and Macedonia. With one accord they accused the P'eeka 
 of the abominable and wholesale desolation of their grainfields, viiJages, 
 and towns.
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 379 
 
 four or five to one. Why? Because his gallant boys 
 had something else to do. From almost the first 
 contact with the enemy, desertion became epidemic. 
 The Greek, making away with his uniform, donned 
 clothes looted from countrymen, and forewent the 
 joy of battle and the crowded hour of glorious life 
 to revert to liis congenial, and shall we say ancestral, 
 calling of thief. Regiments depleted, or encumbered 
 with heterogeneous loot, make slow marchers and 
 timid fighters. What went on behind the line of 
 Greek advance no pen may tell. The maltreatment 
 of Bulgarian women seems to have been a specialty 
 of these dastards, who during their month of ' fight- 
 ing * could never, as General Ivanoff assures me, 
 be got to charge with the bayonet. 
 
 " WHiat emerges plainly from this mass of evi- 
 dence is a systematic plan. The Greek method was 
 to send ahead of their army seeming-friendly emis- 
 saries, often wearing Bulgarian dress, who warn the 
 country people to remain in their villages. Next 
 day the cavalry arrive; a cordon is draw^n around 
 the doomed hamlet or town; the men are summoned 
 to surrender their arms, then rounded up and shot; 
 search for money and valuables follows; then the 
 pillagers give themselves up to an orgy of rape. 
 Last comes an indiscriminate killing of women, chil- 
 dren and elders. This was connnon form, not in 
 one valley, or in the path of this or that regiment, 
 but over the entire area of the war from a little 
 north of Salonika to Petrich on the Bulgarian march. 
 It was extended to districts outside the line of fight- 
 ing. It was meted out to non-Bulgarian races. The
 
 380 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 Kiitzo-Vlakhs are a docile^ wooden-faced, slow- 
 spoken breed, hereditary herdsmen, and of no par- 
 ticular politics. But they are not Greeks! These 
 thrifty, harmless folk were scattered sporadically 
 in groups of little hamlets among the mountains. 
 Uproot them ! burn ! kill ! was the word ; and whole 
 settlements were obliterated with torch and sabre. 
 Four villages at Oshen and Oshani went up in flame ; 
 the smoke of their burning was visible for many 
 a mile, and was testified to by Bulgarians of another 
 valley. The survivors tell of returning next day to 
 find wife, child, stock and cottage lost, gone, or des- 
 troj'ed. 
 
 " Such were the methods; what was the object? 
 The extermination of the non-Hellenic elements in 
 the population of New Greece. In certain instances 
 this object was fully attained. In preparing the 
 lists of voters for the recent elections, the Bulgarian 
 authorities found that from some of the villages all 
 the males had disappeared except some old men and 
 children. The aim is openly avowed in the inter- 
 cepted letters, from which we take the following 
 as typical examples. Pericles Soumblis writes to 
 his father, G. P. Soumblis, Megali Anastasova, Ala- 
 gonia, Calamas: * We have taken no prisoners, for 
 such are our orders. Everj^vhere we burn the Bul- 
 garian villages, so that that dirty race may never 
 be able to recover itself. I embrace you, etc' ' By 
 order of the king, we set on fire all the Bulgarian 
 villages.' ' We burn all the villages here and kill 
 the Bulgarians, women and children.' ' Our orders 
 are to burn the villages and massacre the young,
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 381 
 
 sparing only the old men and children.' ' What we 
 are doing to the Bulgarians is indescribable, as also 
 to the Bulgarian villages — a butchery — there is 
 not a Bulgarian town or village which has not been 
 burnt.' ' Need I teli you, brother, that all the Bul- 
 garians we take — and there are a good many — 
 are put to death! ' * Of the 1200 prisoners we took 
 at Nigrita only forty-one remain, in the prisons, and 
 wherever we have passed we have left no root of this 
 race.' ' We burn all the Bulgarian villages that we 
 occupy and kill all the Bulgarians who fall into our 
 hands.' * Not a cat escapes us.' ' We shoot them 
 like sparrows.* But enough of these horrors. In- 
 augurated with a shriek for vengeance, the brief 
 campaign was a pandemonium of lust, loot and 
 blood, deliberately organized for political ends. 
 
 *' King Constantino had a singular opportunity of 
 proving to Europe the capacity, ci\'ilization and 
 magnanimity of himself and his people. lie pre- 
 ferred to play the role of Tamerlane; he has made 
 a desert and calls it ' Greece.' " 
 
 So much for the part of Macedonia that the Bu- 
 charest conference awarded to Greece. But what 
 about Servian Macedonia? Here the author prefers 
 to let the Carnegie commission tell the present con- 
 dition of affairs. The report remarks that the king- 
 dom of Servia suddenly doubled its area by the addi- 
 tion of peoples described as " Slav-Macedonian — 
 a euphemism designed to conceal the existence of 
 Bulgarians in Macedonia. And their acquisitions 
 under the treaty of Bucharest went beyond their 
 most extravagant pretensions. They took advan-
 
 382 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 tage of the Bulgarians' need to conclude peace at 
 any price to deprive them of territories to the east 
 of the Vardar, for example, Chtipe and Radoviche, 
 where Bulgarian patriotism glowed most vividly 
 and where the sacrifices accepted by Bulgarian pa- 
 triots for the sake of freeing Macedonia, had always 
 been exceptionally great. This was adding insult 
 to injury. 
 
 '* Mr. Skerlits, a Servian deputy and member of 
 the opposition, closed his speech in the skuptchina 
 on October 18, 1913, with these memorable words: 
 ' We do not regard territorial results as everything. 
 Enlarged Servia does not spell, for us, a country in 
 which the number of policemen, tax-collectors, and 
 controllers has been doubled. New Servia, greater 
 Servia, must be a land of greater liberty, greater 
 justice, greater general well being. May Servia, 
 twice as great as she was, be not twice as weak but 
 twice as strong.' 
 
 " Unfortunately these generous words are but pia 
 desideria. For some time the government hesitated. 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Pachitch must have understood 
 that the question whether Servia 's acquisitions 
 were to make her twice as weak or twice as strong 
 depended on the pohcy pursued in Macedonia. Dur- 
 ing the days spent by the Commission at Belgrade 
 the question was debated. There were two antag- 
 onistic views. One, represented by Mr. Pachitch 
 himself, wanted a ' liberal ' regime in Macedonia 
 and the avoidance, at any price, of a * military dic- 
 tatorship.' The population of the new territories 
 was to be left to express its loyalty spontaneously;
 
 ■n 
 'A 
 
 < 
 
 X 
 
 a 
 
 73 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 a 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 a 
 a
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 383 
 
 to wait ' until it realized that its new lot was sweeter 
 than the old.' Military circles, however, did not 
 share this view. They were for a military adminis- 
 tration, since a civil administration, in their view, 
 * must be incapable of repressing the propagandism 
 sure to be carried on by the Bulgarians.' True, the 
 ' liberal ' regime as projected by Mr. Pachitch was 
 not so liberal as the Bulgarian manifesto to the 
 inhabitants of the annexed countries had hoped. 
 The new citizens were not to possess the franchise 
 for fear lest a new ' Macedonian ' party should thus 
 be brought into the skuptchina to upset all the rela- 
 tions between the contending parties in the kingdom 
 and form the mark of common jealousy. Some sort 
 of local franchise or self-government was consid- 
 ered. A kind of compromise was suggested in the 
 shape of military administration with a civil annex 
 and representatives of the departments at Belgrade, 
 on the familiar plan employed in Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina before the 1908 annexation. In any case, the 
 question of the administration to be erected in Mace- 
 donia displayed so wide a divergence between the 
 views of Mr. Pachitch and his colleagues, apart from 
 the military group, that Mr. Pachitch 's resignation 
 was talked of. 
 
 '* Mr. Pachitch neither resigned nor insisted on 
 his own standpoint. Silence fell on such isolated 
 voices as that of the president of the skuptchina, 
 Mr. Andre Nicolits, who protested in the foreign 
 press against the exceptional regime in Macedonia 
 and asked for constitutional guarantees. The Pie- 
 mont, the organ of the military parly, declared that
 
 384 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 such notions were ' opposed to the interests of the 
 state,' and assured the Servian public that ' the pop- 
 ulation of Macedonia had never for a moment 
 thought of elections, or communal self-government,' 
 etc. ; that ' nothing save a military regime could be 
 entirely just, humanely severe and sufficiently firm 
 to break the will of individuals or groups hostile to 
 the state.' 
 
 '' Such was the spirit in which the Servian gov- 
 ernment on September 21 issued a decree on * public 
 security ' in the recently acquired territories, which 
 amounted to the establishment of a military dicta- 
 torship, and called forth cries of horror in the for- 
 eign press. The document is so characteristic and 
 so important that, despite its length, w^e quote it 
 in extenso. 
 
 '' Article 1. The police authorities are author- 
 ized, in case of a deficiency in the regular organiza- 
 tion for securing the liberty and security of persons 
 and property, to ask the Military Commander for the 
 troops necessary for the maintenance of order and 
 tranquillity. The Military Commander is bound to 
 comply immediately with these demands, and the 
 police is bound to inform the Minister of the Interior 
 of them. 
 
 " Article 2. Any attempt at rebellion against the 
 public poivers is piinishable by five years penal serv- 
 itude. The decision of the police authorities, pub- 
 lished in the respective communes, is sufficient proof 
 of the commission of crime. If the rebel refuses to 
 give himself up as prisoner ivithin ten days from'
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 385 
 
 such publication, he may he put to death by any pub- 
 lic or military oiJicer. 
 
 ^' Article 3. Any person accused of rebellion in 
 terms of the police decision and who commits any 
 crime shall be punished with death. If the accused 
 person himself gives himself up as a prisoner into 
 the hands of the autliorities, the death penalty shall 
 be commuted to penal servitude for ten or twenty 
 years, always provided that the commutation is ap- 
 proved by the tribunal 
 
 *' Article 4. Wliere several cases of rebellion 
 occur in a commune and the rebels do not return 
 to their homes within ten days from the police notice, 
 the authorities have the right of deporting their 
 families whithersoever they may find convenient. 
 Likewise the inhabitants of the houses in which 
 armed persons or criminals in general are found 
 concealed, shall be deported. The heads of the po- 
 lice shall transmit to the Prefecture a report on the 
 deportation procedure, which is to be put in force 
 immediately. The Minister of the Interior shall, if 
 he think desirable, rescind deportation measures. 
 
 *' Article 5. Any person deported by an order 
 of the Prefecture who shall return to his original 
 domicile without the authorization of the Minister 
 of the Interior shall be punished by three years' 
 imprisonment. 
 
 " Article 6. If in any commune or any canton 
 the maintenance of security demands the sending 
 of troops, the maiyitenance of the latter shall he 
 charged to the commune or the canton. In such a 
 case the Prefect is to be notified. If order is re-
 
 386 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 stored after a brief interval and the culprits taken, 
 the Minister of the Interior may refund such ex- 
 penses to the canton or the commune. The Minister 
 may act in this way as often as he may think desir- 
 able. 
 
 " Article 7. Any person found carrying arms 
 who has not in his possession a permit from the 
 police or from the Prefect, or who shall hide arms 
 in his house or elsewhere, shall be condemned to a 
 penalty varying from three months' imprisonment 
 to five years' penal servitude. Any one selling arms 
 or ammunition without a police permit shall be liable 
 to the same penalty. 
 
 " Article 8. Any person using any kind of ex- 
 plosives, knowing that such use is dangerous to the 
 life and good of others, shall be punished mth 
 twenty years' penal servitude. 
 
 " Article 9. Any one who shall prepare explo- 
 sives or direct their preparation or who knows of 
 the existence of explosives intended for the commis- 
 sion of a crime shall, subject to Article 8, be pun- 
 ished by ten years' penal servitude. 
 
 " Article 10. Any person receiving, keeping or 
 transporting explosives intended for a criminal pur- 
 pose shall be punished by five years' penal servitude, 
 except where he does so with the intention of pre- 
 venting the commission of a crime. 
 
 " Article 11. Any person who uses an explosive 
 without any evil intent, shall be punished by five 
 years' penal servitude. 
 
 " Article 12. (1) Any one deliberately harming 
 the roads, streets or squares in such a way as to
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 387 
 
 endanger life or public health, shall be punished by 
 fifteen years' penal servitude. If the delinquency 
 be unintentional the penalty shall be five years. (2) 
 If the author of the crime cited above causes danger 
 to the life or health of numerous persons, or if his 
 action results in the death of several individuals 
 (and this could be foreseen), he shall be punished 
 by death or twenty j'ears' penal servitude. If the 
 crime be unpremeditated the punishment shall be 
 ten years. 
 
 " Arttclp: 13. Any attempt at damaging the rail- 
 way lines or navigation, shall be punished by twenty 
 years' penal servitude. If the attempt is not pre- 
 meditated the punishment shall be for ten years. If 
 the author of sueli attempt has endangered the life 
 of several individuals, or if his action results in 
 death or wounds to several persons, he shall be pun- 
 ished by death or twenty years' penal servitude. 
 
 "• Article 14. Any person injuring the means of 
 telegraphic or telephonic communication shall be 
 punished by fifteen years' penal servitude. If the 
 act is not premeditated the penalty shall be five 
 years. 
 
 " Article 15. Generally speal<ing the conceal- 
 ment of armed or guilty persons shall be punished 
 by ten years' penal servitude. 
 
 *' Article IG. Ani/ one who knows a malefactor 
 and does not deyiounce him to the Authorities shall 
 be 'punished hy five years* penal servitude. 
 
 " Article 17. Those instigating to disobedience 
 against the established powers, the laws and the 
 regulations with the force of law; rebels against the
 
 388 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 authorities or public or conmmnal oiTicers; shall be 
 punished by twenty-one months' imprisonment up 
 to ten years' penal servitude. If such acts produce 
 no effects, the penalty may be reduced to three 
 months. 
 
 " Article 18. Any act of aggression and any re- 
 sistance either by word or force, offered to a public 
 or communal officer charged with putting in force 
 a decision of the tribunal, or an order of the com- 
 munal or police public authority, during the exer- 
 cise of his duties, may be punished by teti years* 
 penal servitude or at least six months' imprison- 
 ment, however insignificant he the magnitude of the 
 crime. Any aggression against those helping the 
 public officer, or experts specially called in, may be 
 punished by the same penalty. If the aggression 
 offered to the public officer takes place outside the 
 exercise of his official duties the penalty shall be 
 two years' imprisonment. 
 
 " Article 19. Where the crimes here enumerated 
 are perpetrated by an associated group of persons, 
 the penalty shall be fifteen years' penal servitude. 
 The accomplices of those who committed the above 
 mentioned misdeeds against public officials shall be 
 punished by the maximum penalty, and, if this is 
 thought insufficient, they may be condemned to penal 
 servitude for a period amounting to twenty years. 
 
 " Article 20. Those who recruit bands against 
 the State, or with a view to offering resistance to 
 public authorities shall be liable to a penalty of 
 twenty years' penal servitude. 
 
 " Article 21. Accomplices of rebels or of bands
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 389 
 
 offering armed resistance to Servian troops or the 
 public or communal officers shall be punished by 
 death or by at least ten years' penal servitude. 
 
 ** Article 22. Persons taking part in seditious 
 meetings which do not disperse when ordered to do 
 so by the administrative or communal authorities 
 are liable to terms of imprisonment up to two years. 
 
 *' Article 23. In the case of the construction of 
 roads, or, generally speaking, of public works of 
 all kinds, agitators who incite workmen to strike or 
 who are unwilling to work or who seek to work else- 
 where or in another manner, from that in which they 
 are told and who persist in such insubordination, 
 after notification by the authorities shall be pun- 
 ished by imprisonment from three months up to two 
 years. 
 
 *' Article 24. Any soldier or citizen called to 
 the colours who does not follow the call, or who 
 refuses in the army to obey his superiors, shall be 
 condemned to a penalty varying from three months' 
 imprisonment to five years' penal servitude. Sol- 
 diers who assist any one to desert from the army 
 or who desert themselves, and those who make en- 
 deavours to attract Servian subjects to serve with 
 foreign troops, shall be punished by ten years' penal 
 servitude. In time of mobilization or war the pen- 
 alty for this delinquency is death. 
 
 '* Article 25. Any one releasing an individual 
 under surveillance or under the guard of officials or 
 public employees for surveillance, guard or escort, 
 or setting such person at liberty, shall be condemned 
 to penal servitude for a maximum period of five
 
 390 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 years. Where such delinquency is the work of an 
 organized group of individuals, each accomplice 
 shall be liable to a penalty of between three and five 
 years' penal servitude. 
 
 *' Article 26. The Prefects have the right to 
 prescribe in their name police measures to safeguard 
 the life and property of those subject to their ad- 
 ministration. They shall fix penalties applicable to 
 those who refuse to submit to such measures. The 
 penalty shall consist of a maximum period of three 
 years' imprisonment or of a pecuniary fine up to a 
 mousand dinars. The edicts of the Prefects shall 
 come into force immediately, but the Prefects are 
 bound to communicate them at once to the Minister 
 of the Interior. 
 
 ** Article 27. The crime set forth in the present 
 regulations are to have precedence of all other suits 
 before the judicial tribunals and judgment upon 
 them is to be executed with the briefest possible 
 delay. Persons indicted of such offences shall be 
 subject to preventive detention until final judgment 
 is passed on their case. Within a three days' delay 
 the tribunal shall send its findings to the High Court, 
 and the latter shall proceed immediately to the ex- 
 amination of this decision. 
 
 " Article 28. The law of July 12, 1895, as to the 
 pursuit and destruction of brigands, which came into 
 force on August 18, 1913, is applicable to the an- 
 nexed territories, in so far as it is not modified by 
 the present regulations. 
 
 " Article 29. Paragraphs 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 
 302 b, 302 c, 303 d (so far as concerns paragraphs b
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 391 
 
 and c), 304, 306, and 360, and Section III of the penal 
 code which do not agree with the present regulation, 
 are null and void. 
 
 " Article 30. The present regulation does not 
 abolish the provisions of paragraph 34 of the penal 
 military code, in connection with paragraph 4 of the 
 same code, paragraphs 52 and 69 of the penal mili- 
 tary code and paragraph 4 of the same, which are 
 not applicable to civil persons. 
 
 " Article 31. The present regulation is in force 
 from the day of its signature by the King and its 
 publication in the Servian press. 
 
 '' We order our Council of Ministers to make the 
 present regulation public and to see that it is car- 
 ried into effect : we order the public authorities to 
 act in conformity with it, and we order each and 
 all to submit to it. 
 
 '' Executed at Belgrade, September 21, 1913. 
 
 Peter, ' ' 
 
 *' In the words of the socialist Servian paper 
 Radnitchke Novine, ' If the liberation of these ter- 
 ritories is a fact, why then is this exceptional regime 
 established there? If the inhabitants are Servians 
 why are they not made the equals of all the Servi- 
 ans; why is the constitutional rule not put in opera- 
 tion according to which '* all Servians are equal 
 before the law "? If the object of the wars was 
 unification, why is not this unification elTectively 
 recognized, and why are these exceptional ordi- 
 nances created, such as can only be imposed upon 
 conquered countries by conquerors? Moreover, our
 
 392 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 constitution does not admit of rules of this na- 
 ture! " 
 
 '' As a matter of fact, if one did not know what 
 Macedonia is, one might guess it from the publica- 
 tion of these ordinances. Clearly Macedonia was 
 not ' Old Servia ' unified, since tlie population is 
 treated as * rebels in a perpetual state of revolt.* 
 AVliat the ordinances had in view were not isolated 
 criminals, — they had accomplices and people who 
 would hide them everywhere. To punish the cul- 
 prit? That was not enough w^liile his family re- 
 mained ; his family must be deported and the friends 
 who were um\dlling to ' denounce ' the culprit, his 
 ' associates,' who seized the opportunity of ' setting 
 him at liberty ' when he was ' under surveillance, 
 guard or escort ' by officials or public employes — 
 they must be deported too. In short, a whole pop- 
 ulation was * recalcitrant,' and to resist it there were 
 only these * public or communal officers ' invested 
 with extraordinary powers. What were they to do, 
 when the population, not content with offering pas- 
 sive resistance, became ' aggressive.' This popula- 
 tion, called to the colours, refused ' to obey the call.' 
 Wlien asked to * work ' on the ' construction of 
 roads ' or on any communal works, they struck, they 
 preferred to work ' elsewhere or in some other man- 
 ner.' Finally, each one ' refused to give himself 
 up as a prisoner,' always holding himself ready to 
 attack the public officers, ' to resist them if not by 
 force at least by word ! ' This last crime is punished 
 by the ordinances by ' ten years' penal servitude, or 
 at least six months' imprisonment Jioivcver insignifi-
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 393 
 
 cant be the ivurds or the deeds.' The hope openly 
 expressed to the members of the commission from 
 the first half of August onwards, was that thanks to 
 these measures an end will be made qf the resistance 
 of the alien population in Macedonia in five or six 
 years ! ' ' 
 
 A regime of anarchy prevails in Servian Mace- 
 donia. The condition of affairs is well sunnned up 
 in an article in the Manchester Guardian. After 
 citing the vicious Servian ordinances, already 
 quoted in the extract from the report of the Car- 
 negie commission, the English journal says: '' This 
 is the theory of Servian coercion. The practice is 
 worse. Servia is not a country with a large edu- 
 cated population. It has indeed some eighty per 
 cent, of illiterates. It has to supply rulers for a 
 conquered territoiy which almost equals it in extent, 
 and the abler men regard life in rural Macedonia 
 as exile. Unworthy' agents are invested with sov- 
 ereign powers. The consequences are vividly, if 
 briefly, described in a personal letter which arrived 
 recently, and is translated below. The writer is a 
 man of high character and a minister of religion — 
 it is safer not to indicate his church. He is a native 
 of the country, but has had a European education, 
 and is not himself a member of the persecuted Bul- 
 garian community : 
 
 *' * The situation grows more and more unbear- 
 able for the Bulgarians — a perfect hell. I had op- 
 portunities of talking with peasants from the inte- 
 rior. "What they tell us makes one shudder. Every 
 group of four or five villages has an official placed
 
 394 Bulgaria and Her People 
 
 over it who, with six or seven underlings, men of 
 disreputable antecedents, carries out perquisitions, 
 and on the pretext of searching for arms steals 
 everything that is worth taking. They indulge in 
 flogging and robberj'' and violate many of the women 
 and girls. Tributes under the form of military con- 
 tribution's are arbitrarily imposed. One village of 
 110 families had already been fined 6,000 dinars 
 (£250) and now it has to pay another 2,000 (£80). 
 The priest of the village, to avoid being sent into 
 exile, has had to pay a ransom of £T.50. Poor emi- 
 grants returning from America have had to pay 
 from ten to twenty napoleons for permission to go 
 to their homes. The officials and officers carry out 
 wholesale robberies through the customs and the 
 army contracts. The police is all-powerful, espe- 
 cially the secret service. Bands of Ser\dan terror- 
 ists {komitadjis) recruited by the government, 
 swarm all over the country. They go from village 
 to village, and woe to any one who dares to refuse 
 them anything. These bands have a free hand to 
 do as they please, in order to serbise the population. 
 Shepherds are forbidden to drive their flocks to 
 pasture lest (such is the excuse) they should supply 
 the Bulgarian bands with food. In a word it is an 
 absolute anarchy. We shall soon have a famine, 
 for the Serbs have taken everything, and under pres- 
 ent conditions no one can earn a living. Every one 
 would like to emigrate, but it is impossible to get 
 permission even to visit a neighbouring village.* " 
 After five centuries of Turkish rule the Bulgars 
 of Macedonia still retained their language, cus-
 
 Macedonia After the Balkan Wars 395 
 
 toms, and nationality. Tlie brutal methods of de- 
 nationalization employed by the Greeks and Servi- 
 ans merit the severe condemnation of all civilized 
 nations. Servia, for example, has suppressed all 
 Bulgarian books and newspapers; closed the schools 
 and the churches; driven away the priests and the 
 teachers, and forced the inhabitants to change their 
 names, substituting the Servian itch for the Bul- 
 garian off. A Bulgarian in Servian Macedonia 
 who wants any legal document cannot obtain it 
 unless he writes his name with the Servian ending. 
 If he attempts to defend his Bulgarian nationality 
 the police deal with him on some trumped-up 
 charges, and he is sent to prison. Sixteen hundred 
 teachers have been expelled from Servian Mace- 
 donia ; and hundreds of priests, not only the priests 
 of the Bulgarian national church but also those of 
 the Catholic and Protestant churches have been 
 driven into exile. 
 
 THE END.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY^ 
 
 (a) ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BOOKS ^ 
 
 1. Barkley, Henry C. Between the Danube ami the Black Sea: or 
 
 Years in Bulgaria. London, 1876, pp. 313. 
 
 2. Beaman, a. IIulme. Slamboloff. (Public Men of To-day.) Lon- 
 
 don, 1895, pp. 240. 
 
 Not only a wcU-vrrittcn life of Bulgaria's great statesman, 
 but an excellent survey of the history of the country from its 
 re-estabUshincut to the tragic death of StambolofT. 
 
 3. BiiAiLSFORD, Hrnry Noel. Macedonia: its Races and their Future. 
 
 London, 1906, pp. 340. 
 
 The most authoritative work on the ethnic problems in Mace- 
 donia published in any language. Contains valuable chapters 
 on the Bulgara of Macedonia and gives excellent accounts of the 
 Macedonian revolutionary movement. 
 
 4. Bulgaria of To-day. Pubhshed by the Bulgarian Ministry of 
 
 Commerce and Agriculture. London, 1907, pp. 209. 
 
 An official document that contains a large amount of useful 
 statistical information. 
 
 5. BrrxTON, Noel. With the Bulgarian Staff. London, 1913, pp. 165. 
 
 A sympathetic sketch of the first Balkan war and the 
 peasant soldiers of Bulgaria. 
 
 6. Dicey, Edward. The Peasant State. Ix)ndon, 1894, pp. 332. 
 
 An admirable account of social and economic matters in 
 Bulgaria from 1878 to 1894. 
 
 7. Green. Francis Vinton. The Campaign in Bulgaria: 1877-78. 
 
 London, 1903, pp. 262. 
 
 History of the Rusao-Turkish war. 
 
 8. Macdonald, Jodn. Czar Ferdinand and his Peopk. New York, 
 
 1913, pp. 341. 
 
 9. Mach, Richard von. The Bulgarian Exarchate: its history and 
 
 the Extent of its Authority in turkey. London, 1907, pp. 105. 
 
 10. Miller, William. The Balkans: Rumania, Bulgaria, Servia, 
 
 and Montenegro. (Story of the Nations.) New York, 1907, 
 pp. 476. 
 
 The besit historical account of Bulgaria in English. Pages 
 119 to 248 arc devoted to Bulgaria. 
 
 11. Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the Causes 
 
 and Effects of the Balkan Wars. Published by the Carnegie 
 Endowment for International Peace. Washington, 1914. 
 
 The report is characteri/.ed by scientific accuracy and im- 
 parti.ality. It is a painstaking piece of work, and throws a flood 
 of light not only on the Balkan wars but also on the ethnic and 
 political problems in Bulgaria and Macedonia. 
 
 1 See also bibliographic footnotes throughout the volume. 
 
 397
 
 398 Bibliography 
 
 12. Sloane, William M. The Balkans: a Laboratory of History. 
 
 New York, 1914, pp. 322. 
 
 13. SoNNicnsEN, Albert. Confessions of a Macedonian Bandit. New 
 
 York, 1910. 
 
 An interesting account of the revolutionarj' movement that 
 precipitated the Balkan wars. 
 
 14. Stobart, Mrs. St. Clair. War and Women. London, 1913, 
 
 pp. 239. 
 
 Account of the work of women in the first Balkan war. 
 
 15. TsANOFF, CoRRiXN'E AND Radoslav. Pawns of Liberty: a Bal- 
 
 kan Tale of Yesterday. New York, 1914. 
 
 A story of the organization of revolt and of peasant and town 
 life in Macedonia before the first Balkan war. 
 
 16. Wagner, Hermenengild. With the Victorious Bulgarians. New 
 
 York, 1913, pp. 273. 
 
 Perhaps the best English account of the first Balkan war. 
 
 17. Washburn, George. Fifty Years in Constantinople. Boston, 
 
 1913, pp. 319. 
 
 An intimate account of the political situation in the Balkan 
 peninsula during a half century. Excellent survey of the r61e 
 played by Robert College in the development of Bulgaria. 
 
 18. WiNLOw, Clara Vostrovskt. Our Little Bulgarian Cousin. 
 
 Boston, 1913, pp. 114. 
 
 An interesting children's book of peasant life and customs in 
 Bulgaria. 
 
 19. There are excellent English versions of Vazoff's Under the Yoke 
 
 (London, 1912), StoyanofT's Autobiography (London, 1913), 
 and Slaveikoff's Shade of the Balkans (London, 1904). 
 
 20. For a Bulgarian grammar see W. R. Morfill's Grammar _ of the 
 
 Bulgarian Language (London, 1897), and for dictionaries see 
 Constantinc Stephanove's English-Bulgarian and Bulgarian- 
 
 English dictionaries (Sofia, 1913). 
 
 (b) FRENCH, GERMAN, AND BOHEMIAN BOOKS 
 
 1. Bousquet, Georges. Histoire du pcuple Bulgare depuis les 
 
 origines jusqu'A nos jours. Paris, 1909, pp. 435. 
 
 2. Brancoff, D. M. La Macidoine et sa population ChrUienne. 
 
 Paris, 1905, pp. 270. 
 
 3. GuERiN Songeron, R. p. Histoire de la Bulgarie depuis les 
 
 origines jusqu'd, nos jours: 485-1013. Paris, 1913, pp. 480. 
 
 4. JiRECEK, C. J. Cesty po Bulharska. Prague, 1888. 
 
 5. JiRECEK, C. J. Das Fiirstenthum Bulgarien. Prague, 1891, pp. 573. 
 
 6. JiRECEK, C. J. Gcschichte dcr Bulgarien. Prague, 1876. 
 
 The writings of Professor Jirccek, published originally in 
 Bohemian, contain the most valuable historical accounts of 
 the origin of the Bulgarian people and the rise of the old Bul- 
 garian kingdom. 
 
 7. Launay, Louis de. La Bulgarie d'hier et de demain. Pans, 1912, 
 
 pp. 494. 
 
 8. Leger, Louis. Turcs et Grecs centre Bulgares en MacMome. 
 
 Paris, 1904, pp. 228. 
 
 9. Miletitch, L. Atrocit63 Grecques en Macedoine pendant la Guerre 
 
 Greco'Bulgare. Sofia, 1913, pp. 180. With a map and 53 
 illustrations.
 
 Bibliography 399 
 
 10. Sis, Vladimir. Kriticke dny BuUiarska: dojmy, promridniky, 
 
 livahy. Prague, 1914, pp. 168. 
 
 11. Weiss - Bartenstein, W. K. Bulgarieris VdlkswirtchafUiche Ent- 
 
 vxickelung. Berlin, 1913, pp. 151. 
 
 (c) AMERICAN AND ENGLISH PERIODICAL ARTICLES 
 
 1. Abbott, G. Bulgarians in the United States. Charities, Jan. 9, 
 
 1909. Vol. 21, pp. 653-G60. 
 
 2. BouRcniER, J. D. On the Black Sea with Prince Ferdinand. 
 
 Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1891. Vol. 55, pp. 82-101. 
 
 3. Brailsford, Hekry N. The Macedonian Revolt. Fortnightly 
 
 Review, Sept. 1903, pp. 428-444. 
 
 4. Buxton, Noel. Freedom and Servitude in the Balkans. West- 
 
 minster Review, May, 1903, pp. 481-490. 
 
 5. DiCET, Edward. Russia and Bulgaria. Fortnightly Review, 
 
 April, 1S96, pp. 663-676. 
 
 6. Marsh, B. C. Bulgarian at Home. Charities, Jan. 9, 1909. 
 
 Vol. 21, pp. 649-650. 
 
 7. ScELLE, Georges. Bulgarian Independence. American Journal 
 
 of International Law. 1912. Vol. 6, pp. 86-106. 
 
 8. Thompson, Ellinor F. B. Bulgaria To-day. Living Age, April 
 
 7, 1906. Vol. 249, pp. 31-42. 
 
 9. ToNJOROFF, SvETOZAR. Bulgaria and the Treaty of Berlin. North 
 
 American Review, 1908. Vol. 188, pp. 833-841. 
 
 10. TsANOFF, CoRRiNNE Stephenson. \\Tiat I Saw in Bulgaria. 
 
 Chautauquan, Nov. 1913. Vol. 72, pp. 215-218. 
 
 11. Wallis, H. M. Bulgaria and her Traducera. Nineteenth Century, 
 
 1913. Vol. 74, pp. 1342-1346. 
 
 12. Wallis, H. M. The Devastation of Macedonia. Quarterly Re- 
 
 view, April, 1914. Vol. 220, pp. 506-523.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aaron of Transylvania, 32 
 
 Abbott, G., 399 
 
 Abbott, Inez L., 315, 340 
 
 Abdul-IIamid, 41, 43, 48, 88 
 
 Abdulla Paaha, 111 
 
 Achraet Aga, 41 
 
 Adrianoplc, 7, 14, 44, 89, 113, 114, 
 
 123, 127, 222 
 Agrarian party, 207 
 Agriculture, 288-299 
 Agricultural banks, 286, 293, 347 
 Agricultural education, 234, 294 
 Akanjcli, 168, 170 
 Albania, 12, 19, 45, 46, 124, 210 
 Albanians, 370 
 Albigenaes, 18 
 Alexander II, Tear of Russia, 51, 
 
 53, 286, 347 
 Alexander III, Tear of Russia, 53, 
 
 61, 71 
 Alexander, Prince of Bulgaria, 
 
 50-59, 69, 75, 285 
 Alexander the Great, 12 
 Alexander Ncvsky cathedral, 281, 
 
 286, 344 
 Alexandria, 209 
 American Bible Society, 258 
 American Board of Foreign Mis- 
 sions, 222, 229, 323 
 American College for Girls. See 
 
 Constantinople College 
 American influence in Bulgaria, 
 
 323-340 
 American Institute at Saraokov, 
 
 229^ 338-339 
 American School for Girls at 
 
 Samokov, 339-340 
 Amherst College, 331 
 Anaomloff, A., 276 
 Andartefl, 145 
 Andracff, Alcxandier, 285 
 
 Angeloff, Ivan, 284-285 
 
 Antarte, 120 
 
 Antioch, 209 
 
 Antivari, 44 
 
 Apriloff, Vassil, 226 
 
 Arda river, 5, 7 
 
 Area of Bulgaria, 10 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, 39, 48 
 
 Arghyr, 175 
 
 Armenia, 47 
 
 Army, 204 
 
 Army recruits, 188 
 
 Art 277—287 
 
 Art' Academy, 234, 281, 286-287 
 
 Art collections, 286 
 
 Art. exhibitions, 286 
 
 Asen, Ivan, I, 21 
 
 Asen, Ivan, II, 23, 263 
 
 Asen, Peter, 21 
 
 Asparuh, 13 
 
 Atanaaoff, George, 250 
 
 Attar of roses, 3, 290 
 
 Athos, Mount, 33 
 
 Augustus, Prince, 62 
 
 Austria, 56, 69, 93, 130, 308 
 
 B 
 
 Baba Konak, 3 
 Bachkovo monastery, 350 
 Baird, Agnes M., 340 
 Baird, J. W., 338 
 Balabanoff, A., 276 
 BalabanofT, Marko, 205 
 Baldwin, Count, 22 
 Balkan league, 87-105, 130 
 Balkan moimtains, 1, 46 
 Ball, Lucy C, 254 
 Banki, 307 
 Banks, 293,311-312 
 Bania, 307 
 Bansko, 222, 365 
 Barkley, Henry C, 397 
 
 401
 
 402 
 
 Index 
 
 Bashi-Bozouks, 38, 41, 147, 168 
 
 Basil II, 19 
 
 Batak, 41, 282 
 
 Baths, 307. 346 
 
 Bcaconsfield, Lord, 48 
 
 Beaman, A. Hiilme, 80, 82, 198, 
 
 397 
 Bee-culture, 293 
 Beet sugar, 292 
 Belgrade, 56 
 
 Bell and Lancaster systems, 227 
 Bendereff, 56 
 Berberoff, Christo, 285 
 Berlin, 140 
 
 Berlin, treaty of, 46, 48, 55, 76, 97 
 Bessarabia, 36 
 Bibliography, 397-399 
 Black sea, 3 
 Blagoeff, 207 
 
 Bobtcheff, Ilia S., 79, 206 
 Bobtcheff, Stephen S., 79, 206, 
 
 276, 376 
 Bogorailes, 18-19, 25, 210 
 Bohemia, 33, 277, 282, 299, 307, 
 
 308 
 Bojinoff, Alexander, 285 
 Boncheft, George, 276 
 Boris I, 15 
 Boris II, 19 
 Boris, Prince, 62, 65, 67, 71, 286, 
 
 352 
 Bosnia, 46, 210, 383 
 Bostanov, Captain, 158 
 Boteff, Christo, 74, 253, 275 
 Bourchier, J. D., 30, 69, 101, 104, 
 
 399 
 Bousquet, Georges, 398 
 Bowdoin College, 331 
 Bradinoff. Ivan, 329 
 Brailsford, Henry Noel, 29, 30, 
 
 141, 209, 212, 223, 314, 361, 
 
 369, 397, 399 
 Brancoff, D. M., 398 
 Bregalnitza, 126, 143 
 Bridgman, Herbert L., 141 
 Brigandage. 78 
 British Relief Fund, 314 
 Brothers of the Christian Schools, 
 
 221 
 Brycc, James, 5 
 Bucharast, treaty of, 10, 133 
 Buffalos, 288 
 Buisson, Ferdinand, 236 
 Biilgarians in the United States, 
 
 10 
 Bulgarius, Krusty, 365 
 
 Bunar Hissar, 111 
 Burgas, 306, 308, 309, 354 
 Buxton, Noel, 110, 115, 397, 
 
 399 
 Byclopolye, 106 
 Byington, Dr., 229 
 
 CaltchofF, Constantine, 328 
 
 Campbell, Cyril, 87 
 
 Campbell, George Douglas. See 
 
 Argyll, Duke of 
 Cambouroff, Stefan M., 328 
 Canning, George, 39 
 Caricatures, 285 
 Carlier, Mr., 123 
 Carnegie commission, 89, 116, 
 
 124, 127, 131, 140, 141, 162, 
 
 180, 322, 381, 397 
 Castoria, 314 
 Catherine of Russia, 39 
 Catholic church. See Roman 
 
 Catholic church 
 Catholic Times, 220 
 Catholic Uniate church, 221 
 Ceramics, 285 
 Cereals, 290 
 
 Charles, King of Rumania, 36 
 Chatalfa. See Tchalja 
 Cholakoff, 241 
 Cholera, 133 
 Chorlu. .SeeTchorhi 
 Christian Herald, 140, 321 
 Christian World, 222 
 ChristofT, Kyril, 274 
 Circassians, 36, 47 
 Cities of Bulgaria, 349-358 
 Clarke, J. F., 338 
 Clement, Metropolitan, 56, 63 
 Clementine hospital, 321 
 Clementine, Princess, 62 
 Clergy, 213 
 Climate, 7, 348 
 Co.al, 306 
 
 Commerce. See Trade 
 Concessions, 304 
 Congregational church, 222, 229 
 Conservative party, 52, 205 
 Constantine, King of Greece, 135, 
 
 145, 157, 165, 179, 322, 378, 
 
 381 
 Constantine, Metropolitan, 64 
 Constantine of Servia, 23 
 Constantinoff, Aleko, 198, 267- 
 
 269
 
 Index 
 
 403 
 
 Constantinople, 22, 32, 39 
 Constantinople College, 335-337, 
 
 340 
 Constitution, 50, 60 
 Consular courts, 204 
 Copper, 30G 
 Cosmos, Bishop, 123 
 Cotton, 292 
 Count, Elmer E., 221 
 Coup d'6tat, 53, 206 
 Courts, 202-204 
 Crane, Charles R., 280, 282, 332, 
 
 337 
 Cretans, 97 
 Crimean war, 39 
 Crusades, 22 
 Crust, Henry, 73, 77 
 Cyprus, 47 
 Cyrill. See Kyrill 
 
 D 
 
 Dance. See Horo 
 
 DancfT, Stefan, 67, 79, 124, 128, 
 
 131. 133, 215, 276 
 DanuDo river, 6 
 Danubian provinces, 43 
 Danubian table-land, 1 
 Dartmouth College, 331 
 Dary-deri, 216 
 Debra, 123, 128 
 Dcd(5 Agatch, 161, 308 
 Demir Hisaar, 145, 157, 159, 161, 
 
 165 
 Demir Kapia, 2 
 Democratic party, 206 
 Detchich, 106 
 Dicey, Edward, 85, 86, 397, 
 
 399 
 DimitrofT, Christo, 152 
 DimitrofF, General Radko, 109, 
 
 110 
 Dimitroff, Peter, 328, 335 
 Dimitrieva, Ellenka, 336 
 Djabaroff, Theodor J., 326 
 Djedjizam, Hagopos, 326 
 Djakovo, 227 
 Djiimaia, 361 
 Dobrinichtc, 177 
 Dobnidja, 45, 290 
 Doirau, 143, 145 
 DoTran, Lake of, 172 
 Dolni Bania. 307 
 Domontovitz, General. 50 
 Dondukoff-KorsakofT, Prince, 50 
 Dospeveky, Vladislav, 283 
 
 Doxato, 143, 145, 146, 159, 161, 
 
 165 
 Dozon, August, 241 
 Dragieff, 207 
 Drama, 5, 161, 250, 367 
 Drew Theological Seminary, 327 
 Dubnitza, 4, 170, 307, 355 
 Dutton, Samuel Train, 141 
 Dwight, James, 324 
 Dwight, William, 324 
 
 E 
 
 Eastern Rumelia, 54, 55, 75 
 Economoff, Dimiter, 328 
 EconomofT, Dossi, 329 
 EconomolT, Jordan J., 327 
 Education, 224-237 
 Eleanor, Queen of Bulgaria, 62, 
 
 313-322 
 Elections, 198 
 Electoral law, 194-197 
 Elin-Pelin. See Ivanoff, Dimiter 
 England, 38, 87 
 English blue book, 89 
 Enroth, General, 53 
 Estournelles, Baron de, 141 
 Etropole, 306 
 Eudoxia, Princ&ss, 62 
 Eumenius, 27 
 Euxinograd, 354 
 Evzone, 164 
 Exports, 309 
 
 Farms. See Agriculture 
 
 Fasts, 211 
 
 Fauna, 9 
 
 Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria, 6, 
 
 60-72, 79, 280, 333, 376 
 Finns, 13, 182 
 Fitcheff, General, 109 
 Flora, 8 
 Fiorina, 366 
 
 Folk-music. See Folk-songs 
 Folk-songs, 238-251 
 Forests, 9, 296-299 
 Fortv Klartyrs, church of, 352- 
 
 353 
 Fotinoff, Constantino, 233 
 France, 308 
 
 Frankfurter Zeitung, 80 
 French Catholic Sisters, 166 
 Fruit, 291 
 Furnajieff, D. N., 222, 338
 
 404 
 
 Index 
 
 G 
 
 Gabrovo, 3, 34, 226, 227, 291, 
 
 301 
 Gadulka, 249 
 Ga5da, 249 
 Gates, C. Frank, 331 
 Gavaliaiitsi, 170, 171 
 Geneva, 189 
 Geography, 1-11 
 GeorgielT, Dimiter. See Hadji- 
 
 Georgieff, Dimiter 
 Georgieff, Ivan^ 276 
 GeorgicfT, Marin, 285 
 Germany, 308 
 Gevgheli, 174 
 Ghenadieff, Dr., 207 
 Gibbon, 16 
 Ginci pass, 2 
 Gladstone, William E., 39, 42, 
 
 43 
 GobranofT, Peter, 329 
 Good Samaritan Society, 316 
 Gorbanoff, I'etko, 326 
 Gorin Dubrik, 44 
 Gosse, Edmund, 262 
 Goths, 13 
 
 Government, 192-207 
 Gradovsky, Professor, 50 
 Great Britain, 308 
 Greece, 55, 84, 100, 127, 134, 188, 
 
 235, 236, 374 
 Greek army atrocities, 137, 142, 
 
 162-181, 373-381 
 Greek church, 219 
 Greeks, 89, 190 
 Greene, Francis Vinton, 397 
 Gregory, 17 
 
 GrueEf, Damian, 57, 360 
 Guerin-Songeron, R. P., 398 
 Gueshoff, Ivan D., 328 
 Gueshoff, Ivan E., 79, 124, 125, 
 
 129, 130, 206, 215, 327 
 Guiliani, 366 
 Gumuljini, 5, 161 
 Gurko, General, 44, 45 
 Gypsies, 190, 375 
 
 H 
 
 Hadji-Georgieff, Dimiter, 250 
 Hague tribunal, 138. 141 
 Hamilton College, 338 
 Hamlin, Cyrus, 324, .331 
 Handicrafts. .S'ee Indu.stry 
 Harmanly, 309 
 
 Hartenau, Count. (See Alexander, 
 
 Prince of Bulgaria 
 Harvard University, 338 
 Haskovo, 108, 291, 309 
 Haskell, E. B., 140 
 ILiskell, Mary M., 340 
 Hassan Aga, 31 
 Hebrews, 51, 220 
 Helleni/.ation of Bulgaria, 29 
 Herodotus, 12 
 Ilerrick, George F., 214 
 Highways, 370 
 Ililander, 33 
 Ililapion, 28 
 Hirst, Francis W., 141 
 Hissar, 307 
 Holland, 39 
 
 Holy Synod, 63, 213, 286, 346 
 Horo, 32, 249, 279 
 Horses, 288 
 Hospitals, 314, 321 
 Hot springs. See Mineral springs 
 House community, 186, 289 
 Hungary', 21, 129', 308 
 Huns, 13, 182 
 Hunyady, .John, 341 
 
 Ibar mountain, 5 
 
 Ichtiman, 3, 26, 137 
 
 Ikons, 212 
 
 Illegitimacy, 186 
 
 Illiteracy, 188, 235-236 
 
 lUyrians, 12 
 
 Imports, 308 
 
 India, 46 
 
 Indulgences, 211 
 
 Industry, 300-312 
 
 Iron, 306 
 
 Isker gorge, 2, 6 
 
 Isker river, 3, 4, 6 
 
 I-shtip, 134 
 
 Islam, ,30 
 
 Ivajlo, 23 
 
 IvanofT, Athanas, 174 
 
 IvanofF, Dimiter, 275-276 
 
 IvanofT, General, 109, 113, 132, 
 
 379 
 Ivanoff, .Jordan, 276 
 Ivanoff, Stefan, 285, 346 
 
 Janina, 127, 228 
 Jardiraula, 5
 
 Index 
 
 405 
 
 Jenaen, Alfred, 253, 269 
 
 L 
 
 Jerma river, 218 
 
 
 Jews, 189 
 
 Labor laws, 303 
 
 Jiricek, Constantme J., 183, 398 
 
 Lakaviata, 126 
 
 John, the Exarch, 16 
 
 Lakes, 7 
 
 Judiciary, 202 
 
 Language, 187 
 
 Judges, 204 
 
 Lansdowiie, Lord, 93 
 
 Justice, 202 
 
 Larenay, Louis dc, 70, 398 
 
 
 Laznev, Dr., 156 
 
 K 
 
 Leger, Louis, 398 
 
 
 Levsky, Vassil, 347 
 
 Kaliman II, 23 
 
 Liberal party, 54, 76, 205 
 
 Kalofer, 109, 233 
 
 Libraries, 236-237 
 
 Kaloyan, 22 
 
 Literacy, 235-236 
 
 Kamlchia river, 299 
 
 Literature, 252-276 
 
 Karaveloff, Liuben, 58, 67, 254 
 
 Liuben, the haiduk, 242 
 
 Karaveloff, Pelko, 206 
 
 Live stock, 292 
 
 Karlovo, 3, 291,301,310 
 
 Local government, 201 
 
 Kara, 43 
 
 Lom, 222 
 
 Kastoria, 100, 366 
 
 Lom Polanka, 2, 3 
 
 Kaulbars, General, 60, 61, 75 
 
 Lom river, 6 
 
 Kaval, 249 
 
 London, 140 
 
 Kavala, 100, 134, 140, 161 
 
 London Daily News, 41 
 
 Kayadjik, 3t)9 
 
 London, peace of, 1 13, 127 
 
 Kazanlik, 3, 227, 291, 301, 354 
 
 London Times, 377 
 
 Khans, 27 
 
 Ixjng, Albert, 259, 330, 338 
 
 Kikautscheff, Traiko, 360 
 
 Lootsk, 44 
 
 KilkiH. See KukuHh 
 
 Losengrad, 377 
 
 Kirk Kilis.s6, 107, 110, 111, 1.33 
 
 Louis Philippe, King, 62 
 
 KirkpikolT, Commandant, 154 
 
 Lovetch, 222, 307 
 
 Kilchevo, 124, 174 
 
 LuleBurges, 111, 133,377 
 
 Klissura, 291 
 
 
 Klugmann, Dr., 151, 154 
 
 M 
 
 KolefT, Mito, 170, 171 
 
 
 Komitadjis, 98, 360-365 
 
 MacDonald, John, 71, 397 
 
 Koprivshtitza, 35, 306 
 
 Macedonia, 19, 47, 66, 87, 90, 
 
 Kossovo, 24, 89 
 
 117, 130, 132, 148, 158, 163, 
 
 Kotchana, 134 
 
 359-395 
 
 Kotel, 33, 226, 227, 255, 301 
 
 MacGahan, Januarius A., 41 
 
 Krum, 14, 341 
 
 Mack, Richard von, 397 
 
 Krali, Marko, 258 
 
 MadjarolT, 79, 206 
 
 Kristoff, Dobrey, 250 
 
 Magyars. 17 
 
 Mahmud Mukhtar, 110 
 
 Kristoff, Constantine, 266, 268, 
 
 276 
 
 MalinofI, Alexander, 100, 197, 
 
 Kukush, 133, 157, 165, 166, 168, 
 
 207 
 
 169, 172, ISO, 377 
 
 MalinofT, Jordan, 34G 
 
 Kumanian aristocracy, 24 
 
 Maiko Tirnovo, 110 
 
 Kurds, 47 
 
 Maltbie, Esther Tappan, 339 
 
 Kuropatkin, General, 319 
 
 Manchester Guardian, 393 
 
 Kusten.lil, 4, 26, 291, 307, 309 
 
 Maria Louisa, Princess, 62, 280, 
 
 Kutiucheff, General, 107, 108 
 
 286 
 
 Kutzo-VIakhH, 191, 375 
 
 Maritza river, 5, 7, 8, 10-1 
 
 Kylien. Sec Education 
 
 Maritza vallev, 26, 309 
 
 Kyriliic alphabet, 28 
 
 M.irkham, R."lL, 317 
 
 Kyril, Prince, 62 
 
 Marko, Krali, 285 
 
 Kyril, Saint, 15, 17 
 
 Marsh, B. C„ 399
 
 406 
 
 Index 
 
 Marsh, George D., 338 
 Mamartchoff, George, 33, 36 
 Marriage, 180 
 Massacre of Bulgara, 179 
 Mattheoff, Peter M., 327 
 Maynard, Horace, 334 
 Meritschleri, 307 
 Method, Saint, 15, 17 
 Methodist Episcopal church, 221, 
 
 230, 332 
 Metric systems, 310 
 Michael, 15, 23 
 
 Michailovsky, Stoyan, 265-267 
 Michaltscheff, Dimiter, 276 
 Midhat Pasha, 94 
 MiliailoiT, Nicholas, 285, 280 
 Mihoff, 282 
 
 Miladinoff, Constantine, 227, 240 
 MiladinotT, Diiniter, 227, 240 
 Milan, King, 55 
 Miletitch, Lubomir, 175, 276, 
 
 398 
 Military statistics, 236 
 Miller, WilUam, 21, 24, 44, 60, 
 
 184, 397 
 Miloukov, Paul, 141 
 Minerals, 306-307 
 Mineral springs, 307-308 
 Mining, 306 
 Ministry, 193 
 Mirkvicka, Ivan, 234, 277-282, 
 
 285, 286, 345 
 Missionaries, 186, 222, 230, 337- 
 
 338 
 Mitoff, Anton, 283-284, 285, 286, 
 
 346 
 Mohadjirs, 97 
 Mohammed IV, 30 
 Mohammedans. See Moslems 
 Mochino, 306 
 Momtchiloff, M., 237 
 Monasteries, 217 
 Monastir, 88, 89, 125 
 Montague, Lady, 341 
 Montenegro, 44, 46, 85, 106, 188, 
 
 235 
 Mo'rfill, W. R., 398 
 Moslems, 51, 97, 218-219 
 Moustakoff, Commandant, 149 
 Moutafoff, Alexander, 285 
 Muftis, 219 
 Mukhtar Pasha, 43 
 Municipal councils, 202 
 Music, 250-251 
 Musical instruments, 239, 249- 
 
 250 
 
 Musalla, 4 
 
 Mustafa Pasha, 110, 341 
 
 Mutkuroff, Colonel, 57 
 
 N 
 
 Nadejda, Princess, 62 
 Narodniak. See Nationalist party 
 Nation (London), 83 
 National assembly, 51, 193, 199, 
 
 286 
 National bank, 311-312 
 National dance. See Horo 
 National liberal party, 207 
 National museum, 343-344 
 National party, 206 
 National theatre, 250, 263, 346 
 Naumoff, Potko, 250 
 Neophite, Bishop, 122 
 Neukoff, Peter, 276 
 Nevrokop, 5 
 New York, 140 
 Newspapers, 35, 198, 237 
 Nicolitis, Andr^, 383 
 Nicoloff, Naiden, 327 
 Nicopolis, 32, 189, 220 
 Nigrita, 127, 159, 160, 179, 374, 
 
 381 
 Nihilism, 74 
 Nikolaieff, General, 360 
 Nikoloff, Andrea, 285 
 Nikolschoff, W., 236 
 Niksic, 44 
 Nish, 44, 46 
 Nishava valley, 2 
 Nuts, 291 
 
 O 
 
 Oberlin College, 331 
 
 Ochrida, 15, 124, 314 
 
 Odessa, 34, 74 
 
 Ogosta river, 6 
 
 Old Servia, 124, 392 
 
 Omortag, 14 
 
 Onklos, 14 
 
 Orehovo, 308 
 
 Orthodox church, 15, 18, 51, 64, 
 
 208-218, 313 
 Orphanages, 321-322 
 Oshani, 380 
 Oshen, 380 
 Osman Pasha, 44 
 Ostrander, L. F., 339 
 Ovtch6-Pol6, 127 
 Oxen, 288
 
 Index 
 
 407 
 
 Pachitoh, premier of Scrvia, 122, 
 
 124, 125, 127, 130, 382 
 Painting, 277-287 
 Paissy, Monk, 33, 226, 281 
 Paliortsi, 175 
 Palmerston, Lord, 40 
 Panagurisht6, 227 
 Pauaretoff, Stefan, 327 
 Pangaion, 374 
 Panitza, Major, 360 
 Panoff, Olympia, 78 
 Panslavists, 78 
 Paris, 130 
 
 Parma, Duke of, 62, 65 
 Patriarchal home, 289 
 Patrick, Marv Mills, 336 
 Pavloff, 99 
 
 Pavlova, Anastasia, 174 
 Pavlovitch, Nicholas, 283 
 Peneff, Boy an, 276 
 Perkins, G. A., 326 
 Pcrnik, 306 
 
 Peter, King of Servia, 122, 391 
 Petkoff, Stephen, 276 
 Pctrich, 379 
 PetrolT, Nicholas, 282 
 Petrov, Rlagai, 153 
 Phanariotes, 27, 32, 225 
 Philanthropy, 313-322 
 Phihp of Macedon, 12 
 Philippopolis, 24, 44, 189, 222, 
 
 309, 311, 349-350 
 Profcrovsky, 282 
 PiprofT, Panyot, 250 
 Pirdop, 300 
 Pirot, 260 
 Plevna, 3, 44, 45, 222, 227, 234, 
 
 294, 354-355 
 Plovdiv. See Philippopolis 
 Poganovsky monastery, 218 
 Political parties, 205-207 
 Pomaks, 30-32, 42, 156, 214 
 Poraerantzeff, Professor, 345 
 PopofT, Ivan, 244 
 PopofT, Marko N., 222, 338 
 Population, 10, 188 
 Porto Lagos, 308 
 Potter, M. W., 255 
 Potterv, 301 
 Povert.v, 289 
 Pravichta, 127 
 Prefects, 201 
 Preslav, 16 
 Preepa, 15 
 
 Press, 124, 204 
 
 Prilcp, 245 
 
 Princeton University, 339 
 
 Prizrcnd, 366 
 
 Progressive liberal party, 206 
 
 Protctrt.ant church, 210, 211, 221- 
 223, 230, 313, 321, 337, 395 
 
 Protitch, Andrey, 282, 285 
 
 Prussia, 39 
 
 Public instruction. See Educa- 
 tion 
 
 Public libraries. See Libraries 
 
 Q 
 
 Queen Eleanora. Sec Eleanora, 
 Queen of Bulgaria 
 
 R 
 
 Radeff, Simeon, 270 
 
 Radical democratic part.y, 207 
 
 Radomir, 4 
 
 Radoviche, 134, 382 
 
 Radoslavoff, Vassil, 205, 207 
 
 Ragusa, 189 
 
 Raganj, 106 
 
 Railwavs, 309-310 
 
 Rainfall, 8 
 
 Rayas, 92 
 
 Razlog district, 5, 177, 180, 361 
 
 Razsoukanoff, Major, 126 
 
 Reading-rooms, 237 
 
 Red Cross, 314 
 
 Rciilich, Joseph, 141 
 
 Refugees, 137 
 
 Religion, 208-223 
 
 Religious toleration, 188, 214 
 
 Rcvenu&s, 200 
 
 Review of Reviews, 102 
 
 Revolutionarj' committee, 255 
 
 Rhodope mountains, 4, 31, 137 
 
 Rice 292 
 
 Riggs, Ehas, 228, 338 
 
 Rilo monaster}', 217, 356-358 
 
 Rilo mountains, 3, 4, 6, 137 
 
 Rilskv, Ivan, 217 
 
 Rilsky, Neophyt, 34, 226 
 
 Rivers, 0-7 
 
 Roads, 310 
 
 Robert., Christopher, 324, 330 
 
 Robert College, 230, 324-335 
 
 Rodna Pessen, 251 
 
 Roman Catholic church, IS, 63, 
 
 6-1, 65, 166, 175, 211, 220-221, 
 
 313, 321, 395
 
 408 
 
 Index 
 
 Romans in Bulgaria, 13 
 
 Rome, 140, 209 
 
 Roaes 290 
 
 Rumania, 84, 129, 188, 236 
 
 Rumelia. See Eastern Rumelia 
 
 Rumeli Hiesar, 332 
 
 Russia, 38, 46, 60, 69, 73, 80, 83, 
 
 93, 102, 128, 130 
 Russophil party, 52, 68, 77, 198, 
 
 206, 215 
 Russo-Turkiah war, 31, 75 
 Rustchuk, 57, 76, 189, 222, 227, 
 
 294, 308, 311, 350-357 
 Rye, 290 
 
 S 
 
 Sadova, 234, 294 
 
 Saint John of Rilo, 356 
 
 Saint Nicholas monastery, 217 
 
 Sakuzoff, 207 
 
 Salonika, 88, 89, 118, 121, 128, 
 
 140, 160, 170, 363, 367, 379 
 Samokov, 4, 26, 170, 229, 233, 
 
 306, 310, 355-356 
 Samovilas, 247 
 Samovit, 308 
 
 Sandansky, Yani, 360, 364 
 San Stefano, treaty of, 44, 46, 87, 
 
 130, 359 
 SavofF, General, 108, 124, 132 
 Saw-mills, 302 
 Scelle, GeorRes, 399 
 Schauffler, H. A., 326 
 Schools, 226 
 Sculpture, 285-287 
 Seres, 100, 139, 140, 143, 145, 147, 
 
 148, 153, 156, 159, 165, 177, 
 
 179, 180, 367 
 Servia, 17, 24, 45, 46, 55, 84, 85, 
 
 101, 104, 107, 127, 134, 188, 
 
 235, 236 
 Seven Altars, monastery of, 218 
 Shar Planina, 102 
 Shipka pass, 3, 44, 45 
 Shishman, 19, 21 
 Shishman, Ivan, III, 26 
 Shishmanoff, Ivan, 276 
 Shucking, Walther, 141 
 Shukri Pasha, 113 
 Shuraen, 222, 227, 301, 354 
 Silistria, 17, 76, 189 
 Silk-spinning, 301 
 Simeon, 16 
 
 Simeon, Metropolitan, 64 
 Sis, Vladimir, 399 
 
 SitchanofT, John J., 329 
 
 Sivry Chal, 5 
 
 Slaveikoff, Ivan, 327 
 
 Slaveikoff, Pencho, 228, 238, 245, 
 
 269-272, 398 
 Slaveikoff, Petko R., 241, 255- 
 
 259 
 Slavic language, 224 
 Slavic literature, 17 
 Slavs, 182 
 
 Sliven, 3, 301, 306, 310, 311, 354 
 Slivnitza, 260 
 
 Sloane, William M., 162, 398 
 Sobranje. See National assembly 
 Socialist party, 207 
 Sofia, 3, 4, 14, 15, 170, 189, 222, 
 
 307, 309, 310, 321, 341-348 
 Sofia table-land, 8 
 Sonnichsen, Albert, 360, 398 
 Sonnichson, Natalie D., 198 
 Sophroni, Bishop, 33, 226 
 Soumblis, Pericles, 380 
 Spiridonoff, Yetcho, 285 
 Sredna Gora, 3 
 Stamboloff, Stefan, 55, 57, 61, 63, 
 
 65, 73-86, 89, 100, 198, 206, 
 
 207 
 Stara Planina, 1, 3, 6 
 Stara Zagora, 24, 45, 75, 222, 227, 
 
 233, 300, 309 339, 354 
 Stephanove, Constantine, 338, 
 
 398 
 Stephen, King, 19 
 Stobart, Mrs. St. Clair, 185, 398 
 Stoiloff, Constantine, 67, 328, 
 
 334 
 Stone, Ellen M., 340, 363, 364- 
 
 365 
 Stoyanoff, Zachary, 206, 255, 
 
 398 
 Strana, 247 
 
 Strashimiroff, Anton, 215, 275 
 Struma river, 4, 7, 14 
 Strumnitza, 167 
 Suleiman, 44 
 Supreme court, 203 
 Sveti Nicola, 2 
 Sviatoslav, 17 
 Svishtov, 35, 308, 311 
 Svoboda, 255 
 
 Takeff, 207, 268 
 Taptchelcshtoff, Petko, 328 
 Tatarcheff, Christo, 3Gt)
 
 Index 
 
 409 
 
 Tatar Pazardjik, 273 
 Tatars, 13, 23, 3G, 182 
 Taxes, 200, 289 
 Tchalja, 112, 123 
 Tcham-Koria, 28G 
 TcheinopaefT, Christo, 3C5 
 Tcherkasky, Prince, 2G0 
 Tcherneff, Peter, 329 
 Tchifliks, 97 
 Teachers, 231, 233 
 Technology, 234 
 Temps, Le, 139 
 Terterii, George, 24 
 Textile industries, 301 
 Theodoroff, 129 
 Thessaly, 45 
 Thomoff, Stefan, 327 
 Thompson, Ellinor F. B., 399 
 Thrace, 26, 45, 128, 133, 161, 
 
 377 
 Thraco-IUyrians, 12 
 Timok river, 2 
 Tirnovo, 14, 19, 21, 27, 50, 61, 
 
 71, 74, 222, 351-353 
 Tobacco, 291 
 Todoraki, 168 
 TodorofT, Petko, 272-273 
 Tonjoroff, Svetozar, 399 
 Tontcheff, 207 
 Town government, 201 
 Trade, 300-312 
 Tranefigviration, monastery of, 
 
 218 
 Treptch6, Father, 176 
 Trikoupis, 100 
 Tm, 306, 307 
 Tsankoff. See ZankofT 
 Taaribrod, 260 
 Tsar Liberator. See Alexander 
 
 II of Russia 
 Tsanoff, A. S., 337 
 Tsanoff, Corrimie Stephenson, 
 
 398, 399 
 Teanoff, Iladoslav A., 253, 261, 
 
 264, 398 
 Techerepish monastery, 217 
 Tserkovsky, Tsanko, 276 
 Tsilka, Mrs. Gregory M., 365 
 Tsoneff, Benu, 276 
 Turanian race, 13, 182 
 Tundja river, 7 
 Turkey, 46, 55, 75, 87, 235, 
 
 365 
 Turks, 24, 26 
 Tuzi, 106 
 Tzonchell, General, 361 
 
 U 
 
 Uniate church. See Catholic 
 
 Uniate church 
 Union and Progress, Committee 
 
 of 95 96 99 
 United States, 181, 222, 337, 340, 
 
 365 
 University of Sofia, 233 
 Uskub, 88, 122, 123 
 
 Valdemir, Prince, 61 
 
 Vannitsa, 91 
 
 Vardar plain, 128 
 
 Vardar river, 104 
 
 Varna, 8, 222, 306, 308, 309, 311, 
 
 353-354 
 Varshetz, 307 
 Vassileff, Marin, 285 
 Vatralsky, Stoyan K., 82, 338 
 Vazoff, Ivan, 183, 206, 250, 259- 
 
 264, 285, 398 
 Veda Slovcna, 241 
 \{:\ba, 122, 126 
 Velitchkoft, Constantine, 79, 
 
 273 
 VonelLn, Juri I., 34 
 Venice 189 
 
 Verkovitch, Stefan K., 241 
 Verila Planina, 3 
 Veshin, Yaroslav, 282 
 Vid river, 6 
 
 Vidin, 26, 189, 222, 308, 311 
 Vienna, 140 
 Vineyards, 292 
 Vitosha mountain, 4, 347 
 Vlacks, 88, 191 
 Vladimir, 16 
 
 Vladislavoff, Stolko, 33, 226 
 Vlaikoff, ThwKlore, 264-265 
 Vocational schools, 305 
 Voden, 15, 100 
 Voracek, 264 
 Voulkoff, General, 148 
 Voy6voda, 120 
 Vratza, 33, 306 
 
 W 
 
 Wagner, TIermeningild, 1 13, 398 | 
 
 Wuldensians, 18 
 
 Wallachia, 32 
 
 WalliH, n. M 374, 399 
 
 Warner, Charles Dudley, 255
 
 410 
 
 Index 
 
 Washburn, George, 46, 325, 329, 
 
 330, 331-332, 398 
 Weaving, 300 
 
 Weights and measures, 310 
 Weiss-Bartenstein, W. K., 399 
 Wheat, 290 
 White, Sir WilHam, 55 
 Williams College, 331 
 Winlow, Clara Vostrovsky, 398 
 Women, 29 
 
 Xanthi, 5, 161, 291 
 Y 
 
 Yale University, 338 
 Yamboli, 307 
 
 Yamrukchal, 3 
 YankofT, Dr., 155 
 Yanthra river, 6, 218 
 Yavoroff, Payo, 274-275 
 Yencheff, Mrs. Peter, 337 
 Young Turks, 93, 97 
 
 Z 
 
 Zadruga, 186 
 
 Zankoff, Dragan, 53, 75, 205. 
 
 206 
 Zemovo, 154 
 Zlatarsky, George, 276 
 Zlatarsky, Vassil, 276 
 Zlatitza, 3 
 Zletovska, 126 
 Zomitza, 223, 337
 
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