Bulgarian irredentism is a term to identify the territory associated with a historical national state and a modern Bulgarian irredentist nationalist movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, which would include most of Macedonia, Thrace and Moesia.
Bulgarian irredentism is a term to identify the territory associated with a historical national state and a modern Bulgarian irredentist nationalist movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, which would include most of Macedonia, Thrace and Moesia.
The larger proposed Bulgarian state was suggested under the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878.
The issue of irredentism and nationalism gained greater prominence after the Treaty of San Stefano. It established a Principality of Bulgaria, with territory including most of Moesia - the plain between the Danube and the Balkan mountains range (Stara Planina), the regions of Sofia, Pirot, and Vranje in the Morava Valley, Thrace - Northern Thrace, parts of Eastern Thrace, and nearly all of Macedonia. This treaty laid grounds for much of the later claims for a Greater Bulgaria. However, the Treaty of San Stefano was a preliminary one, and the borders of the newly created Bulgaria were established in the Treaty of Berlin. It saw the previous territory divided in three – the Principality of Bulgaria, the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, and Macedonia, which remained under Ottoman control.
In the early 20th century, control over Macedonia was a key point of contention between Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia who fought both the First Balkan War of 1912–1913 and the Second Balkan War of 1913. The area was further fought over during the Macedonian Campaign of World War I (1915–1918).
Just before entering World War II, Bulgaria had peacefully secured the return of Southern Dobruja from Romania in the Treaty of Craiova. [1] During World War II, some of the territories in question were briefly added to Bulgaria by Nazi Germany, as a reward to Bulgaria, which had fought with Germany as one of the Axis powers. It was granted territory in Greece, namely Eastern Macedonia and parts of Western Thrace, as well as Yugoslav Macedonia (Vardar Macedonia). [2] With the exception of Southern Dobruja, these concessions were reversed with the Allied victory (i.e. at the Paris Peace Conference of 1947).
The Balkan Wars were a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defeated it, in the process stripping the Ottomans of their European provinces, leaving only Eastern Thrace under the Ottoman Empire's control. In the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria fought against the other four original combatants of the first war. It also faced an attack from Romania from the north. The Ottoman Empire lost the bulk of its territory in Europe. Although not involved as a combatant, Austria-Hungary became relatively weaker as a much enlarged Serbia pushed for union of the South Slavic peoples. The war set the stage for the July crisis of 1914 and thus served as a prelude to the First World War.
The history of Bulgaria can be traced from the first settlements on the lands of modern Bulgaria to its formation as a nation-state, and includes the history of the Bulgarian people and their origin. The earliest evidence of hominid occupation discovered in what is today Bulgaria date from at least 1.4 million years ago. Around 5000 BC, a sophisticated civilization already existed which produced some of the first pottery, jewellery and golden artifacts in the world. After 3000 BC, the Thracians appeared on the Balkan Peninsula. In the late 6th century BC, parts of what is nowadays Bulgaria, in particular the eastern region of the country, came under the Persian Achaemenid Empire. In the 470s BC, the Thracians formed the powerful Odrysian Kingdom which lasted until 46 BC, when it was finally conquered by the Roman Empire. During the centuries, some Thracian tribes fell under ancient Macedonian and Hellenistic, and also Celtic domination. This mixture of ancient peoples was assimilated by the Slavs, who permanently settled on the peninsula after 500 AD.
The Treaty of Berlin was signed on 13 July 1878. In the aftermath of the Russian victory against the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the major powers restructured the map of the Balkan region. They reversed some of the extreme gains claimed by Russia in the preliminary Treaty of San Stefano, but the Ottomans lost their major holdings in Europe. It was one of three major peace agreements in the period after the 1815 Congress of Vienna. It was the final act of the Congress of Berlin and included Great Britain and Ireland, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Chancellor of Germany Otto von Bismarck was the chairman and dominant personality.
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 Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine required Bulgaria to cede various territories, after Bulgaria had been one of the Central Powers defeated in World War I. The treaty was signed on 27 November 1919 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.
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 Treaty of Bucharest was concluded on 10 August 1913, by the delegates of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. The Treaty was concluded in the aftermath of the Second Balkan War and amended the previous Treaty of London, which ended the First Balkan War. About one month later, the Bulgarians signed a separate border treaty with the Ottomans, who had regained some territory west of the Enos-Midia Line during the second war.
The Balkans and parts of this area may also be placed in Southeastern, Southern, Eastern Europe and Central Europe. The distinct identity and fragmentation of the Balkans owes much to its common and often turbulent history regarding centuries of Ottoman conquest and to its very mountainous geography.
After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the 1878 Treaty of Berlin set up an autonomous state, the Principality of Bulgaria, within the Ottoman Empire. Although remaining under Ottoman sovereignty, it functioned independently, taking Alexander of Battenberg as its first prince in 1879. In 1885 Alexander took control of the still-Ottoman Eastern Rumelia, officially under a personal union. Following Prince Alexander's abdication (1886), a Bulgarian Assembly elected Ferdinand I as prince in 1887. Full independence from Ottoman control was declared in 1908.
The Tsardom of Bulgaria, also referred to as the Third Bulgarian Tsardom, sometimes translated in English as the "Kingdom of Bulgaria", or simply Bulgaria, was a constitutional monarchy in Southeastern Europe, which was established on 5 October 1908, when the Bulgarian state was raised from a principality to a tsardom.
The Principality of Bulgaria was a vassal state under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. It was established by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878.
The Liberation of Bulgaria is the historical process as a result of the Bulgarian Revival. In Bulgarian historiography, the liberation of Bulgaria refers to those events of the Tenth Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) that led to the re-establishment of the Bulgarian state under the Treaty of San Stefano of 3 March 1878.
The National awakening of Bulgaria refers to the Bulgarian nationalism that emerged in the early 19th century under the influence of western ideas such as liberalism and nationalism, which trickled into the country after the French Revolution, mostly via Greece, although there were stirrings in the 18th century. Russia, as fellow Orthodox Slavs, could appeal to the Bulgarians in a way that Austria could not. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 gave Russia the right to interfere in Ottoman affairs to protect the Sultan's Christian subjects.
The Kingdom of Bulgaria participated in World War I on the side of the Central Powers from 14 October 1915, when the country declared war on Serbia, until 30 September 1918, when the Armistice of Salonica came into effect.
The Bulgarian Crisis refers to a series of events in the Balkans between 1885 and 1888 that affected the balance of power between the Great Powers and the conflict between Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. It was one of several episodes in the continuing Balkan Crisis as vassal states struggled for independence from the Ottoman Empire but achieved a mosaic of nascent nation-states (Balkanisation). They featured unstable alliances that frequently led to war and eventually to the First World War.
The history of Macedonians has been shaped by population shifts and political developments in the southern Balkans, especially within the region of Macedonia. The ideas of separate Macedonian identity grew in significance after the First World War, both in Vardar and among the left-leaning diaspora in Bulgaria, and were endorsed by the Comintern. During the Second World War, these ideas were supported by the Communist Partisans, but the decisive point in the ethnogenesis of these South Slavic people was the creation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia after World War II, as a new state in the framework of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The military history of Romania deals with conflicts spreading over a period of about 2500 years across the territory of modern Romania, the Balkan Peninsula and Eastern Europe and the role of the Romanian military in conflicts and peacekeeping worldwide.
Bulgarian Millet was an ethno-religious and linguistic community within the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th to early 20th century.
Bulgaria–Yugoslavia relations were historical foreign relations between Bulgaria and now broken up Yugoslavia. Despite some substantial unification proposals in the aftermath of the World War II, Bulgarians were the only South Slavic nation which did not join the Yugoslav federation.
Germany–North Macedonia relations are the diplomatic relations between Germany and North Macedonia. The Foreign Office of Germany describes the relationship between Germany and North Macedonia as good. Both states are members of the Council of Europe, NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Germany is a member, North Macedonia is a candidate for accession to the European Union.
