Eastern Rumelia Explained

Native Name:

Conventional Long Name:Eastern Rumelia
Common Name:Eastern Rumelia
Subdivision:Autonomous Province
Nation:Ottoman Empire
(in personal union with Bulgaria from 1886)
Title Leader:Governor-General
Leader1:Aleksandar Bogoridi
Year Leader1:1879–1884
Leader2:Gavril Krastevich
Year Leader2:1884–1885
Leader3:Aleksandar I
Year Leader3:1886
Leader4:Ferdinand I
Year Leader4:1887–1908
Capital:Plovdiv
Today:Bulgaria
Year Start:1878
Year End:1885
Event1:Treaty of Berlin
Date Event1:13 July 1878
Event End:United with Bulgaria
Date End:6 September
Image Map Caption:Principality of Bulgaria (dark green) and Eastern Rumelia (light green) after the Berlin Congress in 1878, formally in personal union from 1886.
    P1:Adrianople Vilayet
    Flag P1:Ottoman Flag.svg
    S1:Principality of Bulgaria
    Flag S1:Flag of Bulgaria.svg
    Stat Year1:1884
    Stat Pop1:975,030
    Government Type:Autonomous Province

    Eastern Rumelia (Bulgarian: Източна Румелия|Iztochna Rumeliya; Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: {{Script|Arab|روم الی شرقى; Greek, Modern (1453-);: Ανατολική Ρωμυλία|Anatoliki Romylia) was an autonomous province (oblast in Bulgarian, vilayet in Turkish) of the Ottoman Empire with a total area of 32,978 km2, which was created in 1878 by virtue of the Treaty of Berlin and de facto ceased to exist in 1885, when it was united with the Principality of Bulgaria, also under nominal Ottoman suzerainty.[1] It continued to be an Ottoman province de jure until 1908, when Bulgaria declared independence. Ethnic Bulgarians formed a majority of the population in Eastern Rumelia, but there were significant Turkish and Greek minorities. Its capital was Plovdiv (Ottoman Filibe, Greek Philippoupoli). The official languages of Eastern Rumelia were Bulgarian, Greek and Ottoman Turkish.[2]

    History

    Eastern Rumelia was created as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The region roughly corresponded to today's southern Bulgaria, which was also the name the Russians proposed for it; this proposal was rejected by the British.[3] It encompassed the territory between the Balkan Mountains, the Rhodope Mountains and Strandzha, a region known to all its inhabitantsBulgarians, Ottoman Turks, Greeks, Roma, Armenians and Jewsas Northern Thrace. The artificial[4] name, Eastern Rumelia, was given to the province on the insistence of the British delegates to the Congress of Berlin: the Ottoman notion of Rumelia refers to all European regions of the empire, i.e. those that were in Antiquity under the Roman Empire. Some twenty Pomak (Bulgarian Muslim) villages in the Rhodope Mountains refused to recognize Eastern Rumelian authority and formed the so-called Republic of Tamrash.

    The province is remembered today by philatelists for having issued postage stamps from 1880 on. See the main article, Postage stamps and postal history of Eastern Rumelia.

    Unification with Bulgaria

    After a bloodless revolution on 6 September 1885, the province was annexed by the Principality of Bulgaria, which was de jure an Ottoman tributary state but de facto functioned as independent. After the Bulgarian victory in the subsequent Serbo-Bulgarian War, the status quo was recognized by the Porte with the Tophane Agreement on 24 March 1886. With the Tophane Act, Sultan Abdul Hamid II appointed the Prince of Bulgaria (without mentioning the name of the incumbent prince Alexander of Bulgaria) as Governor-General of Eastern Rumelia, thus retaining the formal distinction between the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia[5] and preserving the letter of the Berlin Treaty.[6] However, it was clear to the Great Powers that the union between the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia was permanent, and not to be dissolved.[7] The Republic of Tamrash and the region of Kardzhali were reincorporated in the Ottoman Empire. The province was nominally under Ottoman suzerainty until Bulgaria became de jure independent in 1908. 6 September, Unification Day, is a national holiday in Bulgaria.

    Government

    According to the Treaty of Berlin, Eastern Rumelia was to remain under the political and military jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire with significant administrative autonomy (Article 13). The law frame of Eastern Rumelia was defined with the Organic Statute which was adopted on 14 April 1879 and was in force until the Unification with Bulgaria in 1885.[8] According to the Organic Statute the head of the province was a Christian Governor-General appointed by the Sublime Porte with the approval of the Great Powers. The legislative organ was the Provincial Counsel which consisted of 56 persons, of which 10 were appointed by the governor-general, 10 were permanent and 36 were directly elected by the people.

    thumb|right|250px|Map of subdivisions of Eastern Rumelia Vilayet in 1907, as shown on an Ottoman AtlasArkady Stolypin was the Russian civil administrator from 9 October 1878 to 18 May 1879. The first governor-general was Prince Alexander Bogoridi (1879–1884), a Bulgarian aristocrat, who was acceptable to both Bulgarians and Greeks in the province. The second governor-general was Gavril Krastevich (1884–1885), a Bulgarian historian.

    During the period of Bulgarian annexation Georgi Stranski was appointed as a commissioner for South Bulgaria (9 September 1885 – 5 April 1886), and when the province was restored to nominal Ottoman sovereignty, but still under Bulgarian control, the prince of Bulgaria was recognized by the Sublime Porte as the governor-general in the Tophane Agreement of 1886.

    Governors-general

    No.PortraitName
    Term of office
    Took officeLeft officeDuration
    1Knyaz Aleksandar Bogoridi
    18 May 187926 April 1884
    2Gavril Krastevich
    26 April 188418 September 1885
    3Knyaz Aleksandar I of Bulgaria
    17 April 18867 September 1886
    4Knyaz Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
    7 July 18875 October 1908

    Administrative divisions

    Eastern Rumelia consisted of the departments (called in Bulgarian окръзи okrazi, in Ottoman terminology sanjaks) of Plovdiv (Пловдив, Filibe), Tatarpazardzhik (Татарпазарджик, Tatarpazarcığı), Haskovo (Хасково, Hasköy), Stara Zagora (Стара Загора, Eski Zağra), Sliven (Сливен, İslimye) and Burgas (Бургас, Burgaz), in turn divided into 28 cantons (equivalent to Bulgarian околии okolii, Ottoman kazas).[9]

    The cantons were:

    Population and ethnic demographics

    Pre 1878

    The following is a district-by-district population extract from the 1876 Ottoman salname for the Vilayet of Adrianople, which is in turn based on the vilayet-wide census of 1875.[10] [11] As is common for Ottoman statistics, figures refer to males only (figures at the bottom are male-female aggregated estimates):

    Kaza (District)
    Islam millet%Bulgar & Rum millet%Ermeni millet%Roman Catholic%Yahudi millet%Muslim Roma%Non-Muslim Roma%Total%
    Filibe/Plovdiv35,40028.180,16563.63800.33,4622.76910.55,1744.14950.4125,767100.00
    Pazarcık/Pazardzhik10,80522.833,39570.5940.2-0.03440.72,1204.55791.247,337100.00
    Hasköy/Haskovo33,32355.025,50342.130.0-0.0650.11,5482.61450.260,587100.00
    Zağra-i Atik/Stara Zagora6,67720.024,85774.5-0.0-0.07402.29893.0900.333,353100.00
    Kızanlık/Kazanlak14,36546.514,90648.2-0.0-0.02190.71,3844.5240.030,898100.00
    Çırpan/Chirpan5,15823.915,95973.8-0.0-0.0-0.04201.9880.421,625100.00
    Ahi Çelebi/Smolyan18,19757.85,34637.72681.9-0.0-0.03772.7-0.014,188100.00
    Sultanyeri/Momchilgrad113,33696.92621.9-0.0-0.0-0.01591.2- 0.013,757100.00
    Filibe sanjak subtotal105,728 33.07194,785 60.924770.153,6421.142,0590.6411,6353.641,4210.44319,747100.00
    İslimye/Sliven8,39229.817,97563.81430.5-0.01580.65962.19143.228,178100.00
    Yanbolu/Yambol4,08430.48,10760.4-0.0-0.03963.04593.43773.213,423100.00
    Misivri/Nesebar2,18240.03,11851.6-0.0-0.0-0.01532.8-0.05,453100.00
    Karinâbâd/Karnobat7,65660.53,93831.1-0.0-0.02502.06845.41251.012,653100.00
    Aydos/Aytos10,85876.02,73519.2190.1-0.0360.25844.1460.314,278100.00
    Zağra-i Cedid/Nova Zagora5,31029.411,77765.2-0.0-0.0-0.08804.91030.618,070100.00
    Ahyolu/Pomorie1,77233.73,11359.2-0.0-0.0-0.03787.220.05,265100.00
    Burgas4,26222.114,17973.6460.2-0.040.04482.33201.619,259100.00
    Islimiye sanjak subtotal44,51638.264,94255.72080.2-0.08440.64,1823.61,8871.6116,579100.00
    Male Population Islimiye & Filibe sanjak150,24434.43259,72759.536850.163,6420.832,9030.6715,8173.633,3080.76436,362100.00
    Total Population3 Islimiye & Filibe sanjak300,48834.43519,45459.531,3700.167,2840.835,8060.6731,6343.636,6160.76872,652100.00
    Kızılağaç/Elhovo21,4259.611,48989.0N/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/A12,914100.00
    Manastir/Topolovgrad24091.526,13998.5N/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/A26,548100.00
    Eastern Rumelia GRAND TOTAL3302,32233.15557,08261.081,3700.157,2840.795,8060.6431,6343.476,6160.72912,114100.00

    Post 1878

    According to a British report before the 1877–1878 war, the non-Muslim population (consisting mostly of Bulgarians) of Eastern Rumelia was about 60%, a proportion that grew due to the flight and emigration of Muslims during and after the war.[12] The 1878 census show a population of 815,946 people- 573,231 Bulgarians (70.29%), 174,759 Muslims (21.43%), 42,516 Greeks (5.21%), 19,524 Roma, 4,177 Jews, and 1,306 Armenians.[13]

    The results of the first Regional Assembly elections of 17 October 1879 show a predominantly Bulgarian character: Of the 36 elected deputies, 31 were Bulgarians (86.1%), 3 were Greeks (8.3%) and two were Turks (5.6%).[14] The ethnic statistics from the censuses of 1880 and 1884 show a Bulgarian majority in the province. In the discredited[15] census of 1880, out of total population of 815,951 people some 590,000 (72.3%) self-identified as Bulgarians, 158,000 (19.4%) as Turks, 19,500 (2.4%) as Roma, and 48,000 (5.9%) belonged to other ethnicities,[16] notably Greeks, Armenians and Jews. The repetition of the census in 1884 returned similar data: 70.0% Bulgarians, 20.6% Turks, 2.8% Roma and 6.7% others.

    The Greek inhabitants of Eastern Rumelia were concentrated on the coast, where they were strong in numbers,[17] and certain cities in the interior such as Plovdiv (known in Greek as Philippopolis), where they formed a substantial minority. Most of the Greek population of the region was exchanged with Bulgarians from the Greek provinces of Macedonia and Thrace in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars and World War I.

    Eastern Rumelia was also inhabited by foreign nationals, most notably Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians, French people and Italians.

    The ethnic composition of the population of Eastern Rumelia, according to the provincial census taken in 1884, was the following:[18]

    Ethnicity (1884 census) Population Percentage
    681,734 70.0%
    200,489 20.6%
    53,028 5.4%
    27,190 2.8%
    6,982 0.7%
    1,865 0.2%
    Total 975,030100%

    The population's ethnic composition in the Bulgarian provinces of Pazardzhik, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Sliven, Yambol and Burgas, which have approximately the same territory as Eastern Rumelia according to the 2001 census is the following:

    Ethnicity (2001 census)[19] Population Percentage
    Bulgarians 2,068,787 83.7%
    Turks 208,530 8.4%
    Roma (Gypsies) 154,004 6.2%
    Armenians 5,080 0.2%
    Russians 4,840 0.2%
    Greeks 1,398 0.1%
    Jews 251
    Others 8,293 0.3%
    Unspecified 21,540 0.9%
    Total 2,472,723100%

    Property rights

    Property abandoned by Muslims fleeing the Imperial Russian Army during the 1877–1878 war was appropriated by the local Christian population. The former owners, mostly large landholders, were threatened with trial by military court if they had committed crimes during the war so that they would not return. Two Turkish landowners who did return were in fact sentenced to death thus preventing others from desiring to come back. Those Turkish landowners who were not able to take possession of their land were financially compensated, with the funds collected by the Bulgarian peasants, some of whom were indebted as a result. For those who did return a 10% property tax was issued, forcing many to sell off their property in order to pay the tax.[20] [21] Michael Palairet claimed that land rights of Muslim owners were largely disregarded, despite being guaranteed by the great powers, and the de-Ottomanization of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia led to economic decline in the region.[22] Though this is contradicted by many other authors, who show rapid growth of the economy as well as rapid industrial development and growth of exports in Bulgaria after 1878.[23] [24] [25]

    Notes and references

    Notes




    Sources

    External links

    Notes and References

    1. Book: Statelova, Elena. 1999 . История на България. Том 3 . History of Bulgaria. Volume 3 . Издателска къща „Анубис“ . София . 16 . 954-426-206-7.
    2. Web site: Art 22 in The Organic Statute of Eastern Rumelia, promulgated in the three equally valid language versions: Bulgarian, Greek and Osmanlica (Ottoman Turkish). 1879. Saedinenieto.bg. bg. 2022-04-08.
    3. [Luigi Albertini]
    4. Balkan studies: biannual publication of the Institute for Balkan Studies, Volume 19, 1978, p.235
    5. Emerson M. S. Niou, Peter C. Ordeshook, Gregory F. Rose. The balance of power: stability in international systems, 1989, p. 279.
    6. Stanley Leathes, G. W. (George Walter) Prothero, Sir Adolphus William Ward. The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 2, 1908, p. 408.
    7. Charles Jelavich, Barbara Jelavich. The establishment of the Balkan national states, 1804–1920, 2000, p. 167.
    8. See
    9. Web site: Historical data about administrative-territorial structure of Bulgaria after 1878. National Statistical Institute of the Republic of Bulgaria.
    10. Web site: Aşkın . KOYUNCU . 1877-1878 Osmanlı-Rus Harbi Öncesinde Şarkî Rumeli Nüfusu . The Population of Eastern Rumelia Before the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War. tr . 1 December 2013 . 191.
    11. Web site: Muhammed . Köse . İngiltere Konsolosluk Raporlarında 1878 Yılında Türkiye Avrupa'sının Demografi k Yapısı . Demographic Structure of Turkey in Europe in 1878 in British Consular Reports* . tr . 158.
    12. Studies on Ottoman social and political history: selected articles and essay, Kemal H. Karpat, p.370
    13. Bŭlgarii︠a︡ 1300-institut︠s︡ii i dŭrzhavna tradit︠s︡ii︠a︡: dokladi na tretii︠a︡ Kongres na Bŭlgarskoto istorichesko druzhestvo, 3–5 oktomvri 1981, p. 326
    14. Делев, "Княжество България и Източна Румелия", История и цивилизация за 11. клас.
    15. Web site: Council of Europe, Ministers' Deputies, 6.1 European population committee (CDPO), Section 3. Wcd.coe.int. 2022-04-08.
    16. Web site: Eтнически състав на населението в България. Методологически постановки при установяване на етническия състав. MIRIS – Minority Rights Information System. bg. 2 January 2010. 15 July 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180715123204/http://miris.eurac.edu/mugs2/do/blob.html?type=html&serial=1039432230349. dead.
    17. A Short History of Russia and the Balkan States, Donald Mackenzie Wallace, 1914, p.102
    18. Web site: 6.1 European population committee (CDPO) . Council of Europe . II. The Demographic Situation of Ethnic/minority Groups 1. Population Size and Growth.
    19. Web site: POPULATION AS OF 01.03.2001 BY DISTRICT AND ETHNIC GROUP. Nsi.bg. bg. 2022-04-08.
    20. Jelavich, p. 164.
    21. The Balkans since 1453; Leften Stavros Stavrianos, Traian Stoianovich; p. 442
    22. Book: Palairet, Michael R.. The Balkan Economies C.1800–1914: Evolution Without Development. 1997. 174–202. Cambridge University Press . 9780521522564.
    23. An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Volume 2; Halil İnalcık, Donald Quataert; 1997; p. 381
    24. The Balkans Since 1453; Leften Stavros Stavrianos; 2000; p.425
    25. [Mikulas Teich]