Destruction of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913
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The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913
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The Destruction of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913 (
Eastern Thrace in 1913.[3]
Content
When the military actions between
Internal Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization. Ottoman military campaign lasted for a mere 3 weeks from 20 July 1913 to 10 August 1913. According to Carnegie Commission 15.960 Bulgarians were "either killed burned in the houses or scattered among the mountains" and several thousands more were massacred in Western Thrace within this period.[4] There were also Bulgarians in Anatolia concentrated around Marmara Region. A number of them during this period after the exchange agreements between the Kingdom of Bulgaria and Ottoman Empire after the Second Balkan War left while there were still 6,587 Bulgarians in Marmara Region. The deportation of Thracian Bulgarians was signified with the exchange treaty where 46.764 Eastern Thracian Orthodox Christian Bulgarians and 48.570 Muslims (Turks, Pomaks, and Muslim-Roma) from Northern Thrace were exchanged.[4] After the exchange, in 1914 there still remained 14,908 Bulgarians belonging to the Bulgarian Exarchate in Ottoman Empire, 2.502 in Edirne, including the area that was ceded to Bulgaria in 1915, 3,339 in Constantinople and its environs and 338 in Çatalca.[5] Their descendants in contemporary Bulgaria
are about 800,000 people.
Population estimates
Alongside the 1911 official Ottoman figures, Lyubomir Miletich made the following estimates of the ethnic composition, using linguistic criteria rather than religious affiliation:
| Population estimates of Edirne Vilayet | |||||||
| Group | Ottoman 1893[6] | Ottoman 1911[7] | Miletich estimate[8] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Muslims | 434,366 | 795,706 | |||||
| Muslim Turks | NA | ||||||
| Muslim Bulgarians (Pomaks) | 95,502 | ||||||
| Greeks (EOC members) | 267,220 | 395,872 | |||||
| (ethnic) Greeks | 200,000–250,000 | ||||||
| Bulgarians (BOC members) | 102,245 | 171,055 | |||||
| Orthodox Bulgarians | 203,224 | ||||||
| Armenians | 16,642 | 33,650 | |||||
| Catholics | 1,024 | 12,783 | |||||
| Other | 827 | 44,552 | |||||
| Total | 836,041 | 1,426,632 | |||||
The Ottoman authorities divided the population by religion, so all Patriarchists were counted as Greeks and the Pomaks as Muslims. The other two sources divided the population by language, so for example 24,970 Bulgarian patriarchists and 1700 Uniates were added by Miletich to the total figure for Orthodox Bulgarians.[8]
Illustrations
-
Bulgarian refugees from Bulgarkyoi (nowadays Ellinochori, Greece), 1913 -
Remains of Bulgarians after the battle of Fere in 1913 -
The ruins of Fere after the battle, 1913 -
Dead Bulgarian infants in the Armaganska Valley, 1913
Footnotes
- ^ Magdalena Elchinova (2016). "Memory, Heritage and Ethnicity: Constructing Identity among the Istanbul-based Orthodox Bulgarians". Ethnologia Europaea. 46 (1): 113.
- ^ Valentina Ganeva-Raycheva (2012). "Migration, Memory, Heritage: Socio-cultural Approaches to the Bulgarian-Turkish Border". Migration, Territories, Heritage: Discourses and Practices in Constructing the Bulgarian-Turkish Border. IEFSEM-BAS. p. 62.
- ^ "Expulsion and Emigration of the Muslims from the Balkans".
- ^ S2CID 81824984.
- The University of Wisconsin Press, p. 168-169
- ^ Kemal H. Karpat. Ottoman Population Records and the Census of 1881/82-1893 Int. J. Middle East Stud. 9 (1978), 237–274, p. 37.
- ISBN 978-960-88963-7-6. Archived from the original(PDF) on October 24, 2019.
- ^ a b The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913, Lybomir Miletich, 1918, pp. 291 and 301
External links
- On-line publication of the phototype reprint of the first edition of this book in Bulgarian here (in Bulgarian "Разорението на тракийските българи през 1913 година", Българска академия на науките, София, Държавна печатница, 1918 г.; II фототипно издание, Културно-просветен клуб "Тракия" – София, 1989 г., София; in English: "The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913", Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, State printing house, 1918; II phototype edition, Cultural and educational club "Thrace" – Sofia, 1989, Sofia).