Unification Day: How Bulgaria Did Not Become a Russian Province

"Next to the April Uprising and the struggle for the creation of the Bulgarian Exarchy, the Unification in the fall of 1885 is one of the rare bright events in Bulgarian history that can be said to be entirely the work of Bulgarians. What is kept silent and to this day by many Bulgarian historians, is that the Unification not only removes one of the injustices of the Berlin Treaty, but also puts an end to the threatening Russian hegemony in the newly resurrected Bulgarian state after five centuries of Ottoman rule," says Professor Plamen Tsvetkov.

He clarifies that until the Unification, the Minister of War of the Principality of Bulgaria, created in 1878, was necessarily appointed by St. Petersburg and was subordinated not to the prince (knyaz) of the Bulgarians, but to the Russian Imperial General Staff. The newly formed Bulgarian army was commanded by Russian officers and Russian was necessarily spoken in it.

It was the army that proved to be the pincers in the hands of the Russian Emperor Alexander the Third in his attempt to stop the Bulgarians from both sides of Stara Planina.

The Wrath of Alexander the Third

Learning about the creation of a united Bulgarian state announced in Plovdiv, Alexander the Third ordered the immediate withdrawal of all Russian officers from the Principality. The anger of the autocrat was caused by the danger that two long-considered ideas to impose Russian hegemony on the Balkans will fail.

"The conquest of Constantinople and the Black Sea straits was the star dream of the Russian Empire, and any talk of the noble thoughts of the imperial government towards the Bulgarians when they declared war in 1877 is simply ridiculous. The creation of a united and significantly...