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 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 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 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.
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.