| Eastern Rumelia Източна Румелия (Bulgarian) Ανατολική Ρωμυλία (Greek) رومایلی شرقی ولایتی (Ottoman Turkish) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autonomous Province ofOttoman Empire (in personal union with Bulgaria from 1886) | |||||||||
| 1878–1885 | |||||||||
.svg) Principality of Bulgaria (dark green) and Eastern Rumelia (light green) after theBerlin Congress in 1878, formally inpersonal union from 1886.
| |||||||||
| Capital | Plovdiv | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 1884 | 975,030 | ||||||||
| Government | |||||||||
| • Type | Autonomous Province | ||||||||
| Governor-General | |||||||||
• 1879–1884 | Aleksandar Bogoridi | ||||||||
• 1884–1885 | Gavril Krastevich | ||||||||
• 1886 | Aleksandar I | ||||||||
• 1887–1908 | Ferdinand I | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 1878 | ||||||||
| 13 July 1878 | |||||||||
| 6 September 1885 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Bulgaria | ||||||||
Eastern Rumelia (Bulgarian:Източна Румелия,romanized: Iztochna Rumeliya;Ottoman Turkish:رومایلی شرقی ولایتی,romanized: Rumeli-i Şarkî Vilayeti;Greek:Ανατολική Ρωμυλία,romanized: Anatoliki Romylia) was an autonomous province (oblast in Bulgarian,vilayet in Turkish) of theOttoman Empire with a total area of 32,978 km2 (12,733 sq mi), which was created in 1878 by virtue of theTreaty of Berlin andde facto ceased to exist in 1885, when it wasunited with the Principality of Bulgaria, also under nominal Ottomansuzerainty.[1] It continued to be an Ottoman provincede jure until 1908, whenBulgaria declared independence.Ethnic Bulgarians formed a majority of the population in Eastern Rumelia, but there were significantTurkish andGreek minorities. Its capital wasPlovdiv (OttomanFilibe, GreekPhilippoupoli). The official languages of Eastern Rumelia wereBulgarian,Greek andOttoman Turkish.[2]
Eastern Rumelia was created as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire by theTreaty of Berlin in 1878. The region roughly corresponded to today'ssouthern Bulgaria, which was also the name the Russians proposed for it; this proposal was rejected by the British.[3] It encompassed the territory between theBalkan Mountains, theRhodope Mountains andStrandzha, a region known to all its inhabitants—Bulgarians,Ottoman Turks,Greeks,Roma,Armenians andJews—asNorthern Thrace. The artificial[4] name, Eastern Rumelia, was given to the province on the insistence of theBritish delegates to theCongress of Berlin: the Ottoman notion ofRumelia refers to all European regions of the empire, i.e. those that were in Antiquity under theRoman Empire. Some twentyPomak (Bulgarian Muslim) villages in the Rhodope Mountains refused to recognize Eastern Rumelian authority and formed the so-calledRepublic of Tamrash.
The province is remembered today byphilatelists for having issuedpostage stamps from 1880 on. See the main article,Postage stamps and postal history of Eastern Rumelia.
After a bloodlessrevolution on 6 September 1885, the province was annexed by thePrincipality of Bulgaria, which wasde jure an Ottomantributary state butde facto functioned asindependent. After the Bulgarian victory in the subsequentSerbo-Bulgarian War, thestatus quo was recognized by thePorte with theTophane Agreement on 24 March 1886. With the Tophane Act,SultanAbdul Hamid II appointed the Prince of Bulgaria (without mentioning the name of the incumbent princeAlexander 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 theBerlin 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] TheRepublic of Tamrash and the region ofKardzhali were reincorporated in theOttoman Empire. The province was nominally under Ottoman suzerainty until Bulgaria becamede jure independent in 1908. 6 September,Unification Day, is anational holiday in Bulgaria.
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 ChristianGovernor-General appointed by theSublime Porte with the approval of theGreat 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.
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Arkady Stolypin was the Russian civil administrator from 9 October 1878 to 18 May 1879. The first governor-general was PrinceAlexander Bogoridi (1879–1884), a Bulgarian aristocrat, who was acceptable to both Bulgarians and Greeks in the province. The second governor-general wasGavril Krastevich (1884–1885), a Bulgarian historian.
During the period of Bulgarian annexationGeorgi 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, theprince of Bulgaria was recognized by the Sublime Porte as the governor-general in theTophane Agreement of 1886.
| No. | Portrait | Name (Birth–Death) | Term of office | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Duration | |||
| 1 |  | KnyazAleksandar Bogoridi (1822–1910) | 18 May 1879 | 26 April 1884 | 4 years, 344 days |
| 2 |  | Gavril Krastevich (1813–1898) | 26 April 1884 | 18 September 1885 | 1 year, 145 days |
| 3 |  | KnyazAleksandar I of Bulgaria (1857–1893) | 17 April 1886 | 7 September 1886 | 143 days |
| 4 |  | KnyazFerdinand I of Bulgaria (1861–1948) | 7 July 1887 | 5 October 1908 | 21 years, 90 days |
Eastern Rumelia consisted of thedepartments (called in Bulgarian окръзиokrazi, in Ottoman terminologysanjaks) ofPlovdiv (Пловдив, Filibe),Tatarpazardzhik (Татарпазарджик, Tatarpazarcığı),Haskovo (Хасково, Hasköy),Stara Zagora (Стара Загора, Eski Zağra),Sliven (Сливен, İslimye) andBurgas (Бургас, Burgaz), in turn divided into 28cantons (equivalent to Bulgarian околииokolii, Ottomankazas).[9]
The cantons were:
The following is a district-by-district population extract from the 1876 Ottoman salname for theVilayet of Adrianople, which is in turn based on the vilayet-wide census of 1875.[10][11] As is common for Ottoman statistics, figures refer tomales 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/Plovdiv | 35,400 | 28.1 | 80,165 | 63.6 | 380 | 0.3 | 3,462 | 2.7 | 691 | 0.5 | 5,174 | 4.1 | 495 | 0.4 | 125,767 | 100.00 |
| Pazarcık/Pazardzhik | 10,805 | 22.8 | 33,395 | 70.5 | 94 | 0.2 | - | 0.0 | 344 | 0.7 | 2,120 | 4.5 | 579 | 1.2 | 47,337 | 100.00 |
| Hasköy/Haskovo | 33,323 | 55.0 | 25,503 | 42.1 | 3 | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 65 | 0.1 | 1,548 | 2.6 | 145 | 0.2 | 60,587 | 100.00 |
| Zağra-i Atik/Stara Zagora | 6,677 | 20.0 | 24,857 | 74.5 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 740 | 2.2 | 989 | 3.0 | 90 | 0.3 | 33,353 | 100.00 |
| Kızanlık/Kazanlak | 14,365 | 46.5 | 14,906 | 48.2 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 219 | 0.7 | 1,384 | 4.5 | 24 | 0.0 | 30,898 | 100.00 |
| Çırpan/Chirpan | 5,158 | 23.9 | 15,959 | 73.8 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 420 | 1.9 | 88 | 0.4 | 21,625 | 100.00 |
| - | - | - | ||||||||||||||
| - | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 1.2 | - | 0.0 | |||||||||
| Filibe sanjak subtotal | 105,728 | 33.07 | 194,785 | 60.92 | 477 | 0.15 | 3,642 | 1.14 | 2,059 | 0.64 | 11,635 | 3.64 | 1,421 | 0.44 | 319,747 | 100.00 |
| İslimye/Sliven | 8,392 | 29.8 | 17,975 | 63.8 | 143 | 0.5 | - | 0.0 | 158 | 0.6 | 596 | 2.1 | 914 | 3.2 | 28,178 | 100.00 |
| Yanbolu/Yambol | 4,084 | 30.4 | 8,107 | 60.4 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 396 | 3.0 | 459 | 3.4 | 377 | 3.2 | 13,423 | 100.00 |
| Misivri/Nesebar | 2,182 | 40.0 | 3,118 | 51.6 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 153 | 2.8 | - | 0.0 | 5,453 | 100.00 |
| Karinâbâd/Karnobat | 7,656 | 60.5 | 3,938 | 31.1 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 250 | 2.0 | 684 | 5.4 | 125 | 1.0 | 12,653 | 100.00 |
| Aydos/Aytos | 10,858 | 76.0 | 2,735 | 19.2 | 19 | 0.1 | - | 0.0 | 36 | 0.2 | 584 | 4.1 | 46 | 0.3 | 14,278 | 100.00 |
| Zağra-i Cedid/Nova Zagora | 5,310 | 29.4 | 11,777 | 65.2 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 880 | 4.9 | 103 | 0.6 | 18,070 | 100.00 |
| Ahyolu/Pomorie | 1,772 | 33.7 | 3,113 | 59.2 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | - | 0.0 | 378 | 7.2 | 2 | 0.0 | 5,265 | 100.00 |
| Burgas | 4,262 | 22.1 | 14,179 | 73.6 | 46 | 0.2 | - | 0.0 | 4 | 0.0 | 448 | 2.3 | 320 | 1.6 | 19,259 | 100.00 |
| Islimiye sanjak subtotal | 44,516 | 38.2 | 64,942 | 55.7 | 208 | 0.2 | - | 0.0 | 844 | 0.6 | 4,182 | 3.6 | 1,887 | 1.6 | 116,579 | 100.00 |
| Male Population Islimiye & Filibe sanjak | 150,244 | 34.43 | 259,727 | 59.53 | 685 | 0.16 | 3,642 | 0.83 | 2,903 | 0.67 | 15,817 | 3.63 | 3,308 | 0.76 | 436,362 | 100.00 |
| Total Population3Islimiye & Filibe sanjak | 300,488 | 34.43 | 519,454 | 59.53 | 1,370 | 0.16 | 7,284 | 0.83 | 5,806 | 0.67 | 31,634 | 3.63 | 6,616 | 0.76 | 872,652 | 100.00 |
| Kızılağaç/Elhovo2[11] | 1,425 | 9.6 | 11,489 | 89.0 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 12,914 | 100.00 |
| Manastir/Topolovgrad2[11] | 409 | 1.5 | 26,139 | 98.5 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 26,548 | 100.00 |
| Eastern Rumelia GRAND TOTAL3 | 302,322 | 33.15 | 557,082 | 61.08 | 1,370 | 0.15 | 7,284 | 0.79 | 5,806 | 0.64 | 31,634 | 3.47 | 6,616 | 0.72 | 912,114 | 100.00 |
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.[13] 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.[14]
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%).[15] The ethnic statistics from the censuses of 1880 and 1884 show a Bulgarian majority in the province. In the discredited[16] 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,[17] 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.[18]
The Greek inhabitants of Eastern Rumelia were concentrated on the coast, where they were strong in numbers,[19] and certain cities in the interior such asPlovdiv (known inGreek asPhilippopolis), where they formed a substantial minority. Most of the Greek population of the region was exchanged with Bulgarians from the Greek provinces ofMacedonia andThrace in the aftermath of theBalkan Wars andWorld War I.
Eastern Rumelia was also inhabited by foreign nationals, most notablyAustrians,Czechs,Hungarians,French people andItalians.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgarians | 681,734 | 70.0% |
| Turks | 200,489 | 20.6% |
| Greeks | 53,028 | 5.4% |
| Roma (Gypsies) | 27,190 | 2.8% |
| Jews | 6,982 | 0.7% |
| Armenians | 1,865 | 0.2% |
| Total | 975,030 | 100% |
The population's ethnic composition in theBulgarian provinces ofPazardzhik,Plovdiv,Stara Zagora,Haskovo,Sliven,Yambol andBurgas, which have approximately the same territory as Eastern Rumeliad according to the 2001 census is the following:
| Ethnicity (2001 census)[20] | 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 | 2,472,723 | 100% |
Property abandoned byMuslims fleeing theImperial Russian Army during the 1877–1878 war was appropriated by the localChristian 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.[21][22] 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.[23] 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.[24][25][26]
^a From 1885 Eastern Rumelia wasde facto part of the Principality of Bulgaria
^b The western part of this canton refused to recognize the authority of Eastern Rumelia, formed the so-calledRepublic of Tamrash and in 1886 was ceded back to the Ottoman Empire by theTophane Agreement
^c The canton of Kardzhali was ceded back to the Ottoman Empire by the Tophane Agreement
^d Burgas, Haskovo, and Pazardzhik provinces also include territory that was not part of Eastern Rumelia, while other parts of Eastern Rumelia are now in the provinces ofSofia,Smolyan andKardzhali. The de facto independentRepublic of Tamrash, which is now divided between the provinces of Smolyan andPlovdiv, did not participate in the 1884 census.
Media related toEastern Rumelia at Wikimedia Commons
