Bulgaria Celebrates Anniversary of Unification of Bulgarian Principality and Eastern Rumelia

Jerusalem, 6 September, 2022 (TPS) -- SOFIA, 06.09.2022 (BTA)
Bulgaria Tuesday celebrates the 137th anniversary of the Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in 1885. It is a public holiday, with observances held across the country.

President Rumen Radev will be in Plovdiv, south-central Bulgaria, to participate in a traditional ceremonial tattoo and deliver a speech on the occasion. The tattoo will be the culmination of the observances.

The National Service for Protection has set in place special security arrangement in Plovdiv for the entire day and banned drones in the area of the celebrations.

The Unification

The 1879 Treaty of Berlin, which finalized the settlement after the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War, established Eastern Rumelia as an Ottoman autonomous province (vilayet) on 35,208 sq km south of the Balkan Range, with Plovdiv as its administrative capital. The same Treaty constituted Bulgaria as an autonomous and tributary principality under the suzerainty of the sultan.

In a nearly bloodless military coup, local irredentists in Panagyurishte, Chirpan, Pazardjik, Golyamo Konare and other Eastern Rumelian settlements ousted the provincial government and reunited Eastern Rumelia with the Principality of Bulgaria on September 6, 1885 (New Style September 18) in defiance of the Great Powers’ settlement of the Eastern Question. The Union was eventually recognized by Turkey, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia by the March 24/April 5, 1886 Convention of Top-Khane. Under the Convention, the Prince of Bulgaria was appointed Governor General of Eastern Rumelia, thus keeping de jure the status of Eastern Rumelia as an Ottoman province despite its de facto administrative merger with the Principality. The Unification was legally finalized as late as in 1908, when Bulgaria declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire.