Bulgaria Marks 106 Years since Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising

Society | August 2, 2009, Sunday // 10:01|  views

Bulgarian rebels from the town of Ohrid during the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising.

Bulgaria marks Sunday the 106th year since the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903.

On August 2, 1903, which is St. Elijah's Day (Ilinden) under the Gregorian Calendar, Bulgarians in Macedonia and Thrace rebelled trying to unify the country as large swaths of territories populated by Bulgarians were left in the Ottoman Empire at the Berlin Congress of 1878.

The Uprizing was an organized revolt against the Ottoman Empire prepared and carried out by the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committee

The uprising took place in the Bitola vilayet and the northeastern part of Adrianople vilayet - parts of the regions of Macedonia and Thrace. The rebellion in the Bitola vilayet was proclaimed on 2 August (Gregorian Calendar, which corresponds to 20 July of the Julian Calendar) 1903, Ilinden in Bulgarian and Macedonian or St. Elias' Day, the celebration of the ascension of the Prophet Elijah to Heaven.

The Adrianople vilayet joined the uprising on 19 August 1903, the Transfiguration, or Preobrazhenie in Bulgarian.

Although the rebellion in both regions initially was successful, the intervention of the Ottoman Turkish regular army led to the dissolution of the rebels' detachments. Some 25 000 badly armed rebels faced 300 000 Ottoman troops.

By the time the rebellion had started, many of its most promising potential leaders, including Goce Delchev, had already been killed, and the effort was quashed within eleven days. The survivors managed to maintain a semi-successful guerilla campaign against the Turks for the next few years, but its greater effect was that it persuaded the European powers to attempt to convince the Ottoman sultan that he must take a more conciliatory note toward his Christian subjects in Europe.

 

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Tags: Ilinden, St. Elijah's Day, Uprising, Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, macedonia, Thrace, Ottoman Turkey, Ottoman Empire, national unification, Gotse Delchev, Berlin Congress

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