S3 



BULGARIA. 



understood that the C/.ar would never accept ac- 

 complished facts in Bulgaria until the situation 

 should turn to the advantage of Russia, and Rus- 

 sian influence should be restored in Sofia, If Aus- 

 tria and Great Britain were disposed at any time to 

 use their influence with the Forte during the Stam- 

 bulolT n't/iini' to propose the recognition of Prince 

 Ferdinand, it was because Russian influence was in 

 the ascendency at Constantinople. The rapprwhf- 

 nii-nt between Bulgaria and Russia was accom- 

 plished when Stambulofl was dismissed in 1894, but 

 the conversion of Prince Boris was needed before 

 the ( '/car would alter his attitude toward the Prince, 

 whom Russia had treated as an alien usurper in 

 Bulgaria. On Feb. 11 the Porte, acting, as in all 

 Oriental matters, at the instigation of Russia, sent 

 out a communication to the signatory powers re- 

 questing their assent to the recognition of Ferdi- 

 nand as Prince of Bulgaria. The Austro-Hunga- 

 rian Government replied that it had never refused 

 its assent to the Prince's election. The Italian 

 Government stated in its reply that it considered 

 the election of the Prince as an expression of the 

 will of the people, and that it now noted that it 

 was accepted by all the powers. To show clearly 

 that the Prince's recognition was solely due to 

 Russia, the Government of St. Petersburg requested 

 the Porte to postpone the application for the 

 Prince's recognition until after the conversion of 

 Prince Boris, and in compliance with that recom- 

 mendation instructions to that effect were dis- 

 patched to Turkish representatives abroad, although 

 the step was one exclusively appertaining to the 

 suzerain rights of the Sultan. The other powers 

 gave their assent also. As soon as the unanimous 

 assent of the six powers was obtained the Sultan 

 granted the firman of investiture in accordance 

 with the stipulationsiof the Treaty of Berlin, under 

 the provisions of which Prince Ferdinand pro- 

 ceeded to Constantinople and was formally in- 

 vested on March 26. The Russian Government 

 appointed one of its most promising young diplo- 

 matists, who had fought bravely as a volunteer of 

 hussars in the Russo-Turkish war for the liberation 

 of Bulgaria, M. Tcharykoff, to be diplomatic agent 

 at Sofia, where there had been no official representa- 

 tive of Russia since 1886. Russian consuls were 

 appointed in all the chief towns, and plans were 

 made to compete for the trade in textiles, arms, and 

 metal goods that had gone to Austria and England, 

 and also to start Bulgarian manufactories with 

 Russian capital. The subsidized Russian steam- 

 ship company that formerly navigated between 

 Odessa and Varna and Burghas, connecting them 

 also with Constantinople, resumed its trips to those 

 two and other Bulgarian towns. In connection 

 with the formal recognition of Prince Ferdinand 

 the Sultan gave his sanction to the decorations that 

 the Prince already bestows, but he will not be at 

 liberty to found any new order without the Sultan's 

 permission. In April Ferdinand visited the Czar. 



The Macedonian Question. The plan to start 

 an insurrection in Macedonia in the summer of 

 isii."), when the Turkish Government was involved 

 in the Armenian difficulty, originated in Bulgaria. 

 A committee in Sofia directed the movement. The 

 ' of the leaders was to attract the attention of 



K u rope, to the Macedonian cause by provoking the 



Turks to commit atrocities on the Christian popu- 

 lation. They hoped in this way to obtain for the 

 Macedonian Christians the autonomous institutions 

 stipulated fur i h,.m l,y the Berlin treaty. The 

 method that they took v a< to attack and kill some 

 of Hit- Turk-, in ord. r that the Turks might fall 

 upon the Chri-tians and kill a great number, neces- 

 sitating Hi- intervention of Europe. Bands of the 

 Bulgarian revolutionists, who were described in the 



dispatches as insurgents, entered Macedonia in 

 June, 1895, but they found the Macedonians in no 

 mood for rising, while the Turkish military authori- 

 ties were exceedingly alert, and the latter took such 

 efficient measures that the bands were compelled, 

 after a few weeks, to take refuge in Bulgaria. 

 There they still attempted to carry out their pro- 



framme of provoking Turkish atrocities by mnr- 

 ering and decapitating Mussulman citizens of 

 Bulgaria, which had the effect of spreading terror 

 among the latter and causing many to desert their 

 homes, but provoked no acts of revenge or reprisal 

 on either side of the border. The Austrian and 

 other European cabinets took cognizance of the 

 recrudescence of the Macedonian agitation only to 

 warn the Bulgarian Government against permitting 

 its citizens to foment disorder. The Russian influ- 

 ences that were formerly active in fostering agita- 

 tion in Macedonia were nowhere evident : on the 

 contrary, there were indications that the policy of 

 the Russian Government, both before and after the 

 open reconciliation with Bulgaria, was opposed not 

 only to the momentary disturbance of tranquillity 

 in the Balkan peninsula, but to the idea of Bulga- 

 rian expansion and to the ambition indeed of Servia 

 or Montenegro as well under the existing state of 

 affairs. The preservation of the status quo was a 

 condition, no doubt, of the confidence of the Sul- 

 tan's Government in the Czar and the continuance 

 of the incontestable predominance of Russia in 

 Turkey. The Slavonic societies responded to the 

 requirements of Russian policy by ceasing to give 

 any encouragement to Macedonian agitation, thus 

 depriving the great Bulgarian movement of its 

 chief inspiration and support. In the summer the 

 report of a federation or alliance between Bulgaria, 

 Montenegro, and Servia, the three proteges of Rus- 

 sia in the Balkans, awakened the suspicions of 

 Greece and Austrophile Roumania. The new 

 Balkan alliance, it was stated, reserved to itself 

 the right to instigate at the fitting moment a peace- 

 ful solution of the Macedonian question. Premier 

 Stoiloff, who had remained blind to the misdeeds 

 of Bulgarian agitators the previous year, before the 

 Sobranje separated uttered a plain warning against 

 co-operation with Macedonian insurgents. 



The Bulgarian Church. Almost simultane- 

 ously with the conversion of Prince Boris and the 

 recognition of Prince Ferdinand negotiations were 

 opened in Constantinople for a reconciliation be- 

 tween the national Church of Bulgaria and the 

 parent Greek Church over which the Patriarch of 

 Constantinople presides. Like the other Orthodox 

 countries formerly subject to the patriarchal see of 

 Constantinople, Bulgaria, upon throwing off the 

 temporal yoke of the Sultan, also renounced spir- 

 itual allegiance to the patriarch, who has jurisdic- 

 tion over the Sultan's Orthodox subjects. The na- 

 tional movement in Bulgaria, instead of assuming 

 in the first instance a political form, as in Greece, 

 Roumania, and Servia, first appeared in the sphere 

 of religious government. Resistance to the polit- 

 ical views and actions of the bishops appointed by 

 the oecumenical patriarch prepared the way for the 

 subsequent national agitation. The Church having 

 been turned into an instrument for the promulga- 

 tion of the Panhellenic idea, the national suscepti- 

 bilities of the Bulgarians were awakened, and the 

 agitation was begun that resulted in the establish- 

 ment of a national Bulgarian Church, presided over 

 by an exarch who resides in Constantinople and 

 lias from the first exercised authority over Eastern 

 Roumelia as well as over Bulgaria proper. In 

 Macedonia, whose inhabitants when the movement 

 for independence was confined to Greece had been 

 imbued with the Hellenic spirit, a desire to join 

 the new Bulgarian Church manifested itself in the 



