There had been a literary revival preceding the dawn of independence in
Greece. In Bulgaria, which was the last of the Balkan states to become
independent, the national regeneration was also fostered by a literary
and educational movement, of which the founding of the first Bulgarian
school--that of Gabrovo--in 1835 was undoubtedly the most important
event. In the next five years more than fifty Bulgarian schools were
established and five Bulgarian printing-presses set up. The Bulgarians
were beginning to re-discover their own nationality. Bulgarian schools
and books produced a reaction against Greek culture and the Greek
clergy who maintained it. Not much longer would Greek remain the
language of the upper classes in Bulgarian cities; not much {24} longer
would ignorant peasants, who spoke only Bulgarian, call themselves
Greek. The days of the spiritual domination of the Greek patriarchate
were numbered. The ecclesiastical ascendency of the Greeks had crushed
Bulgarian nationality more completely than even the civil power of the
Turks. The abolition of the spiritual rule of foreigners and the
restoration of the independent Bulgarian church became the leading
object of the literary reformers, educators, and patriots. It was a
long and arduous campaign--a campaign of education and awakening at
home and of appeal and discussion in Constantinople. Finally the
Sultan intervened and in 1870 issued a firman establishing the
Bulgarian exarchate, conferring on it immediate jurisdiction over
fifteen dioceses, and providing for the addition of other dioceses on a
vote of two-thirds of their Christian population. The new Bulgarian
exarch was immediately excommunicated by the Greek patriarch. But the
first and most important official step had {25} been taken in the
development of Bulgarian nationality.
The revolt against the Turks followed in 1876. It was suppressed by
acts of cruelty and horror unparalleled even in the Balkans. Many
thousands of men, women, and children were massacred and scores of
villages destroyed. I remember vividly--for I was then in England--how
Gladstone's denunciation of those atrocities aroused a wave of moral
indignation and wrath which swept furiously from one end of Great
Britain to the other, and even aroused the governments and peoples of
the Continent of Europe. The Porte refusing to adopt satisfactory
measures of reform, Russia declared war and her victorious army
advanced to the very gates of Constantinople. The Treaty of San
Stefano, which Russia then enforced upon Turkey, created a "Big
Bulgaria" that extended from the Black Sea to the Albanian Mountains
and from the Danube to the Aegean, leaving to Turkey, however,
Adrianople, Saloniki, and the {26} Chalcidician Peninsula. But this
treaty was torn to pieces by the Powers, who feared that "Big Bulgaria"
would become a mere Russian dependency, and they substituted for it the
Treaty of Berlin. Under this memorable instrument, which dashed to the
ground the racial and national aspirations of the Bulgarians which the
Treaty of San Stefano had so completely satisfied, their country was
restricted to a "tributary principality" lying between the Danube and
the Balkans, Eastern Roumelia to the south being excluded from it and
made an autonomous province of Turkey. This breach in the political
life of the race was healed in 1885 by the union of Eastern Roumelia
with Bulgaria; and the Ottoman sovereignty, which had become little
more than a form, was completely ended in 1908 when the ruler of the
enlarged principality of Bulgaria publicly proclaimed it an independent
kingdom. In spite of a protest from the Porte the independence of
Bulgaria was at once recognized by the Powers. {27} If Bulgaria owed
the freedom with which the Treaty of Berlin dowered her to the swords,
and also to the pens, of foreigners, her complete independence was her
own achievement. But it was not brought about till a generation after
the Treaty of Berlin had recognized the independence of Servia,
Montenegro, and Roumania and delegated to Austria-Hungary the
administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet the progress made by
Bulgaria first under Prince Alexander and especially since 1887 under
Prince Ferdinand (who subsequently assumed the title of King and later
of Czar) is one of the most astonishing phenomena in the history of
Modern Europe.