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The Thracian question is the question of the territory, population and historical heritage of Thrace. The Thracian question is part of the Eastern Question. [1]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2018) |
The Thracian question is the question of the territory, population and historical heritage of Thrace. The Thracian question is part of the Eastern Question. [1]
The Thracian question is an integral part of the Bulgarian national question and is a conditional indication of the struggle of the Bulgarians from Thrace to liberate them from Ottoman domination. The successful completion of the Eastern Rumelia Union with the Principality of Bulgaria in 1885 gave the struggling Thracians the hope that they would be able to achieve their liberation. They took an active part in the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903. [2]
Thrace is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea to the east, it comprises present-day southeastern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and the European part of Turkey, roughly the Roman Province of Thrace. Lands also inhabited by ancient Thracians extended in the north to modern-day Northern Bulgaria and Romania and to the west into Macedonia.
Bulgarians are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and its neighbouring region, who share a common Bulgarian ancestry, culture, history and language. They form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, while in North Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Albania and Greece they exist as historical communities.
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace, behind the state capital Sofia. It has a population of 346,893 as of 2018 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is a cultural hub in Bulgaria and was the European Capital of Culture in 2019. The city is an important economic, transport, cultural, and educational center. Plovdiv joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2016.
Kardzhali, sometimes spelt Kardžali or Kurdzhali, is a town in the Eastern Rhodopes in Bulgaria, centre of Kardzhali Municipality and Kardzhali Province. The noted Kardzhali Dam is located nearby.
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, and the largest by area in Bulgaria, with over 83% of its area in the southern part of the country and the remainder in Greece. Golyam Perelik is its highest peak at 2,191 meters (7,188 ft). The mountain range gives its name to the terrestrial ecoregion Rodope montane mixed forests that belongs in the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome and the Palearctic realm. The region is particularly notable for its karst areas with their deep river gorges, large caves and specific sculptured forms, such as the Trigrad Gorge.
Sliven is the eighth-largest city in Bulgaria and the administrative and industrial centre of Sliven Province and municipality in Northern Thrace.
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, was a secret revolutionary society founded in the Ottoman territories in Europe, that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, or simply the Ilinden Uprising of August–October 1903, was organized revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which was prepared and carried out by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization, with the support of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee, which included mostly Bulgarian military personnel. The name of the uprising refers to Ilinden, a name for Elijah's day, and to Preobrazhenie which means Transfiguration. Some historians describe the rebellion in the Serres revolutionary district as a separate uprising, calling it the Krastovden Uprising, because on September 14 the revolutionaries there also rebelled. The revolt lasted from the beginning of August to the end of October and covered a vast territory from the western Black Sea coast in the east to the shores of Lake Ohrid in the west.
Stara Zagora is a city in Bulgaria, and the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province and municipality. Its located in the Upper Thracian Plain, being near the cities of Kazanlak, Plovdiv, Sliven. Its population is around 158,563, making it the sixth largest city, just below Ruse and above Pleven.
The Muslim Bulgarians are Bulgarians who follow the faith of Islam. They are generally thought to be the descendants of the local Slavs who converted to Islam during Ottoman rule. Most scholars have agreed that the Bulgarian Muslims are a "religious group of Bulgarian Slavs who speak Bulgarian as their mother tongue and do not understand Turkish, but whose religion and customs are Islamic". Bulgarian Muslims live mostly in the Rhodopes – Smolyan Province, the southern part of the Pazardzhik and Kardzhali Provinces and the eastern part of the Blagoevgrad Province in Southern Bulgaria. They also live in a group of villages in the Lovech Province in Northern Bulgaria. The name Pomak is pejorative in Bulgarian and is resented by most members of the community, The name adopted and used instead of Pomak is Bulgarian Muslims.
Yambol is a city in Southeastern Bulgaria and administrative centre of Yambol Province. It lies on both banks of the Tundzha river in the historical region of Thrace. It is occasionally spelled Jambol.
The ancient Thracian city of Perperikon is located in the Eastern Rhodopes, 15 km northeast of the present-day town of Kardzhali, Bulgaria on a 470 m high rocky hill, which is thought to have been a sacred place. The village of Gorna krepost is located at the foot of the hill and the gold-bearing Perpereshka River flows nearby. Perperikon is the largest megalith ensemble site in the Balkans.
St. Thomas Island or Zmiyski ostrov, is a Bulgarian island in the Black Sea.
The Destruction of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913 is a book published by the Bulgarian academic Lyubomir Miletich in 1918, which describes the mass extermination and ethnic cleansing of the Bulgarian population in Eastern Thrace during the Second Balkan War and in a short period after it. On the other hand, Bulgarian Turks, Pomaks and Muslim Roma from Northern Thrace in Bulgaria, were expelled and settled in the whole Eastern Thrace in 1913.
Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC),, also known as Supreme Macedonian Committee was a Bulgarian paramilitary and political organization, active in Bulgaria as well as in Macedonia and Thrace regions of the Ottoman Empire. It was based in Bulgaria from 1895 to 1905. Macedonian Bulgarian and Thracian Bulgarian emigrants in Bulgaria were a great number. Led by Trayko Kitanchev, they formed in 1895 the “Macedonian-Adrianople Organization”, at the head of which was “Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee”. Its official declaration was also a struggle for autonomy of Macedonia and Thrace. At the same time, being impatient for the liberty to come sooner, and strongly convinced that it would come only with the help of the Bulgarian Army. Later they directed their efforts in activities for involving the country into war with the Ottoman Empire as for example during the Supreme Macedonian Committee chetas' action in 1895, and the Gorna Dzhumaya Uprising in 1902. As a rule its leaders were members of the Bulgarian Officers' Brotherhoods and had strong connections with the governments. At the end their main idea was, waging struggle for a direct unification with Bulgaria.
Dragoynovo is a village in central southern Bulgaria, in the Parvomay municipality of Plovdiv Province.
Bulgarians in Turkey form a minority of Turkey. They are Bulgarian expatriates in Turkey or Turkish citizens was born there of full or partially Bulgarian descent. People of Bulgarian ancestry include a large number from the Pomak and a very small number of Orthodox of ethnic Bulgarian origin. Bulgarian Christians are officially recognized as a minority by the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty of 18 October 1925.
The Strandzha Commune, also known as the Strandzha Republic, was a short-lived anarchist commune in East Thrace. It was proclaimed during the Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903 by rebels of the Internal Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), in the Adrianople vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.
Bulgarian Millet was an ethno-religious and linguistic community within the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th to early 20th century. The semi-official term Bulgarian millet, was used by the Sultan for the first time in 1847, and was his tacit consent to a more ethno-linguistic definition of the Bulgarians as a nation. Officially as a separate Millet in 1860 were recognized the Bulgarian Uniates, and then in 1870 the Bulgarian Orthodox Christians. At that time the classical Ottoman Millet-system began to degrade with the continuous identification of the religious creed with ethnic identity and the term millet was used as a synonym of nation. In this way, in the struggle for recognition of a separate Church, the modern Bulgarian nation was created. The establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, meant in practice official recognition of a separate Bulgarian nationality, and in this case the religious affiliation became a consequence of national allegiance. The founding of an independent church, along with the revival of Bulgarian language and education, were the crucial factors that strengthened the national consciousness and revolutionary struggle, that led to the creation of an independent nation-state in 1878.
Lyuba Ognenova-Marinova was a pioneering Bulgarian archaeologist. She was the first underwater archaeologist in the country and headed the investigations of the ancient Thracian city of Nesebar. She became one of the leading Bulgarian researchers specializing in ancient and Thracian archeology, authoring over 100 scientific publications. She served on the faculty of Sofia University and as a senior researcher at the National Archaeological Museum in Sofia.