The National Revival and the Liberation

The National Revival (1762–1878)

After Paisius’s “Slavonic-Bulgarian History”, a movement began for Bulgarian education, church and state.

• 1835 – the first secular Bulgarian school opened in Gabrovo.
• 1856 – the first chitalishta were founded – community cultural centres where people learn, read, sing and argue. Today Bulgaria has more than three thousand chitalishta, and some are older than the state itself.
• 1870 – a sultan’s decree (a firman) created the Bulgarian Exarchate. Bulgarians had their own church again.

The Apostles

• Georgi Rakovski – the ideologist of armed struggle.
• Vasil Levski (1837–1873) – the Apostle of Freedom. He built a network of secret revolutionary committees. Hanged in Sofia in 1873. For most Bulgarians he is the brightest figure in their history.
• Lyuben Karavelov and Hristo Botev – writers and revolutionaries in Bucharest.

The April Uprising (1876)

The uprising broke out in Koprivshtitsa on 20 April 1876. It was put down with great brutality – Batak, Peruschitsa, Bratsigovo. The news, reported by the American journalist Januarius MacGahan and by Gladstone in England, shocked Europe. The “Bulgarian horrors” became an international issue.

The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)

Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. The battles at Shipka and Pleven decided the outcome. The Bulgarian volunteers (opalchentsi) helped too. The Treaty of San Stefano of 3 March 1878 created a Greater Bulgaria. A few months later the Congress of Berlin split it into three parts. The third of March is Bulgaria’s National Day.