Photo by D. W. Iddings. Copyright by Keystone View Co. 

 BULGARIAN WOMEN MAKING NATIVE: BREAD 



suffered grievously from their rapacity 

 and venality. 



THE BULGARIAN LANGUAGE WAS WRITTEN 

 IN GREEK CHARACTERS 



So effectually had the process of Hel- 

 lenization been carried out that by the 

 end of the i8th century Greek had be- 

 come the language of the upper classes 

 in the Bulgarian towns, while the igno- 

 rant peasants, though retaining their 

 Bulgarian speech, declared themselves 

 to be Greeks. Similar conditions prevail 

 today with regard to the Bulgarian peas- 

 ants in Macedonia who remain under the 

 jurisdiction of the Patriarchate, the so- 



called "Rulgarophone Greeks," who 

 number perhaps 300,000, and who, witii 

 the Patriarchist Vlachs and Serbs, are 

 styled "Greeks" in statistics compiled at 

 Constantinople and Athens (see page 

 1127). 



The resurrection of the Bulgarian na- 

 tion is one of the wonders of the past 

 century. Every trace of the former na- 

 tional existence, every record of the old 

 Bulgarian dynasties had vanished ; "with 

 the Ottoman conquest literature disap- 

 peared ; the manuscripts became the food 

 of moths and worms or fell a prey to the 

 fanaticism of the Phanariote clergy." 

 The library of the Patriarchs of Tirnova 



1 108 



