Eastern Rumelia was an autonomous province 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. 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. The official languages of Eastern Rumelia were Bulgarian, Greek and Ottoman Turkish.
The Russo-Turkish War was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire which included Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. Additional factors included the Russian goals of recovering territorial losses endured during the Crimean War of 1853–1856, re-establishing itself in the Black Sea and supporting the political movement attempting to free Balkan nations from the Ottoman Empire.
The Congress of Berlin was a diplomatic conference to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), which had been won by Russia against the Ottoman Empire. Represented at the meeting were Europe's then six great powers: Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Germany; the Ottomans; and four Balkan states: Greece, Serbia, Romania and Montenegro. The congress concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, replacing the preliminary Treaty of San Stefano which had been signed three months earlier.
The 1878 Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano was a treaty between the Russian and Ottoman empires at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. It was signed at San Stefano, then a village west of Constantinople, on 3 March [O.S. 19 February] 1878 by Count Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev and Aleksandr Nelidov on behalf of the Russian Empire and by Foreign Minister Saffet Pasha and Ambassador to Germany Sadullah Bey on behalf of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire was founded c. 1299 by Osman I as a small beylik in northwestern Asia Minor just south of the Byzantine capital Constantinople. In 1326, the Ottomans captured nearby Bursa, cutting off Asia Minor from Byzantine control. The Ottomans first crossed into Europe in 1352, establishing a permanent settlement at Çimpe Castle on the Dardanelles in 1354 and moving their capital to Edirne (Adrianople) in 1369. At the same time, the numerous small Turkic states in Asia Minor were assimilated into the budding Ottoman sultanate through conquest or declarations of allegiance.
In diplomatic history, the Eastern question was the issue of the political and economic instability in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th to early 20th centuries and the subsequent strategic competition and political considerations of the European great powers in light of this. Characterized as the "sick man of Europe", the relative weakening of the empire's military strength in the second half of the eighteenth century threatened to undermine the fragile balance of power system largely shaped by the Concert of Europe. The Eastern question encompassed myriad interrelated elements: Ottoman military defeats, Ottoman institutional insolvency, the ongoing Ottoman political and economic modernization programme, the rise of ethno-religious nationalism in its provinces, and Great Power rivalries. In an attempt to triangulate between these various concerns, the historian Leslie Rogne Schumacher has proposed the following definition of the Eastern Question:
The "Eastern Question" refers to the events and the complex set of dynamics related to Europe's experience of and stake in the decline in political, military and economic power and regional significance of the Ottoman Empire from the latter half of the eighteenth century to the formation of modern Turkey in 1923.
In the late 18th century, the Ottoman Empire faced threats on numerous frontiers from multiple industrialised European powers. In response, the empire initiated a period of internal reform, attempting to bring itself into competition with the expanding West. The period of these reforms is known as the Tanzimat, and led to the end of the Old Regime period. Despite the Ottoman empire's precarious international position, the central state was significantly strengthened. The process of reforming and modernization in the empire began with the declaration of the Nizam-I Cedid during the reign of Sultan Selim III and was punctuated by several reform decrees, such as the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane in 1839 and the Hatt-ı Hümayun in 1856. Over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became increasingly powerful and rationalized, exercising a greater degree of influence over its population than in any previous era.
The Hamidian massacres also called the Armenian massacres, were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1890s. Estimated casualties ranged from 100,000 to 300,000, resulting in 50,000 orphaned children. The massacres are named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who, in his efforts to maintain the imperial domain of the declining Ottoman Empire, reasserted pan-Islamism as a state ideology. Although the massacres were aimed mainly at the Armenians, in some cases they turned into indiscriminate anti-Christian pogroms, including the Diyarbekir massacres, where, at least according to one contemporary source, up to 25,000 Assyrians were also killed.
The Ottoman Armenian population varied throughout history. The number of Armenians within the empire between 1914 and 1915 is a controversial topic. Most estimates by Western scholars range from 1.5 to 2.4 million. According to Britannica prior to 1915 and Samuel Cox, American Embassy in Istanbul from 1880-1886, it was 1.75 million and 2.4 million, respectively.
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922) was a period of history of the Ottoman Empire beginning with the Young Turk Revolution and ultimately ending with the empire's dissolution and the founding of the modern state of Turkey.
Mkrtich Khrimian was an Armenian Apostolic Church leader, educator, and publisher who served as Catholicos of All Armenians from 1893 to 1907. During this period he was known as Mkrtich I of Van.
The Armenian national awakening resembles that of other non-Turkish ethnic groups during the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire in development of ideas of nationalism, salvation and independence in Armenia, as the Ottoman Empire tried to cover the social needs by creating the Tanzimat era, the development of Ottomanism and First Constitutional Era. However, the coexistence of the communities under Ottomanism proved to be a dysfunctional solution as did the Second Constitutional Era which also ignited the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
The following is the Timeline of Armenian national movement which is the collection of activities during the Armenian national movement.
The Armenian national movement included social, cultural, but primarily political and military movements that reached their height during World War I and the following years, initially seeking improved status for Armenians in the Ottoman and Russian Empires but eventually attempting to achieve an Armenian state.
The Ottoman Armenian population mostly belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Armenian Catholic Church. They were part of the Armenian millet until the Tanzimat reforms in the nineteenth century equalized all Ottoman citizens before the law. Armenians were a significant minority in the Empire. They played a crucial role in Ottoman industry and commerce, and Armenian communities existed in almost every major city of the empire. Despite their importance, Armenians were heavily persecuted by the Ottoman authorities especially from the latter half of the 19th century, culminating in the Armenian Genocide.
Armenian nationalism in the modern period has its roots in the romantic nationalism of Mikayel Chamchian (1738–1823) and generally defined as the creation of a free, independent and united Armenia formulated as the Armenian Cause. Armenian national awakening developed in the 1880s in the context of the general rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire. The Russian Armenia followed with significant causes. The Armenian Apostolic Church has been a great defender of Armenian nationalism, with leaders like Khrimian Hayrik who devoted his life to the peasantry. The establishment of modern Armenia (1991) and Armenian social fabric becoming more complex gradually decrease the political influence of Hye Dat and shifted towards a modern Armenian nationalism modeled as a liberal nationalism.
The Armenian reforms, also known as the Yeniköy accord, was a reform plan devised by the European powers between 1912 and 1914 that envisaged the creation of two provinces in Ottoman Armenia placed under the supervision of two European inspectors general, who would be appointed to oversee matters related to the Armenian issues. The inspectors general would hold the highest position in the six eastern vilayets (provinces), where the bulk of the Armenian population lived, and would reside at their respective posts in Erzurum and Van. The reform package was signed into law on February 8, 1914, though it was ultimately abolished on December 16, 1914, several weeks after Ottoman entry into World War I.
The Kars oblast was a province (oblast) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire between 1878 and 1917. Its capital was the city of Kars, presently in Turkey. The oblast bordered the Ottoman Empire to the west, the Batum Oblast to the north, the Tiflis Governorate to the northeast, and the Erivan Governorate to the east. The Kars oblast included parts of the contemporary provinces of Kars, Ardahan, and Erzurum Province of Turkey, and the Amasia Community of the Shirak Province of Armenia.
The Six Vilayets, the Six Provinces, or the Six Armenian Vilayets were the main Armenian-populated vilayets ("provinces") of the Ottoman Empire. These were Van, Erzurum, Mamuret-ul-Aziz, Bitlis, Diyarbekir and Sivas.
The Armenian National Delegation is a diplomatic mission and an Armenian organization whose objective is to advocate for the claims of the Armenians of Western Armenia between 1912 and 1925. The organization was established by Georges V Soureniants and initially led by the businessman and diplomat Boghos Nubar Pasha until 1921.
