Eastern Rumelia : The modern Greek population of SE Balkans

Thrace (Θράκη) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south and the Black Sea to the east. It comprises southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace) and the European part of Turkey (East Thrace). In terms of ancient Greek mythology the name appears to derive from the heroine and sorceress Thrace, who was the daughter of Oceanus and Parthenope, and sister of Europa. The provincial and urban policy of Roman emperors, with the foundation of several cities of Greek type (city-state), contributed more to the progress of Hellenization than to the Romanization of Thrace. So by the end of Roman antiquity, the phenomenon of Romanization occurs only upon the Lower Moesia, while Thrace lying south of the Haemus mountains had been almost completely Hellenized. The surviving eastern portion of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, later known as the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace until the end of 7th century when the northern half of the entire region was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Kingdom and the remainder was reorganized in the Byzantine Thracian theme. The Byzantine Empire regained the lost regions in the late 10th century until the Bulgarians regained control of the northern half at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, the region was changing in the hands of the Bulgarian and the Byzantine Empire. In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and occupying it for five centuries. In 1821, several parts of Thrace and Samothraki island rebelled during the Greek War of Independence (1821).
The term Rûm means "Roman", while Rumelia (Turkish: Rumeli) means "Land of the Romans" in Turkish, referring to the lands conquered by the Ottoman Turks from the Byzantine Empire, at the time still known as the Roman Empire (the neologism "Byzantine Empire" was coined only in 1557 by a German historian, Hieronymus Wolf). As such, "Roman" was long used in various languages around the Balkans to refer to the lands of Byzantine empire. Rumelia also known as Turkey in Europe, was the name of a historical region in Southeast Europe that was administered by the Ottoman Empire, mainly the Balkan Peninsula. Rumelia included the provinces of Thrace, Macedonia and Moesia, today's Bulgaria, bounded to the north by the rivers Sava and Danube, west by the Adriatic coast, and south by the Morea. Owing to administrative changes between 1870 and 1875, the name ceased to correspond to any political division.
Eastern Rumelia (Ανατολική Ρωμυλία, Anatoliki Romylia) was an autonomous territory in the Ottoman Empire, created in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin and de facto ended in 1885, when it was united with the principality of Bulgaria, also under Ottoman suzerainty. It continued to be an Ottoman province de jure until 1908, when Bulgaria declared independence. Eastern Rumelia was created as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. The region roughly corresponded to today's southern Bulgaria, which was also the name the Russians proposed for it; this proposal was rejected by the British.
It encompassed the territory between the Balkan Mountains, the Rhodope Mountains and Strandzha, a region known to all its inhabitants Greeks, Bulgarians, Ottoman Turks, Roma, Armenians and Jews as Northern Thrace. The artificial name, Eastern Rumelia, was given to the province on the insistence of the British delegates to the Congress of Berlin: the Ottoman notion of Rumelia refers to all European regions of the empire, i.e. those that were in Antiquity under the Roman Empire. Some twenty Pomak villages in the Rhodope Mountains refused to recognize Eastern Rumelian authority and formed the so-called Republic of Tamrash. The province is remembered today by philatelists for having issued postage stamps from 1880 on.
According to the Treaty of Berlin, Eastern Rumelia was to remain under the political and military jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire with significant administrative autonomy (Article 13). The law frame of Eastern Rumelia was defined with the Organic Statute which was adopted on 14 April 1879 and was in force until the Unification with Bulgaria in 1885. According to the Organic Statute the head of the province was a Christian Governor-General appointed by the Sublime Porte with the approval of the Great Powers. The legislative organ was a Provincial Counsel which consisted of 56 persons, of which 10 were appointed by the Governor-General, 10 were permanent and 36 were directly elected by the people. The first Governor-General was the Bulgarian prince Alexander Bogoridi (1879–1884) who was acceptable to both Bulgarians and Greeks in the province. Prince (Alexander Bogoridi (Αλέξανδρος Βογορίδης) (1822 - 1910) was an Ottoman statesman of Greek and Bulgarian origin. Born in Constantinople, Alexander Bogoridi was the youngest son of one of the most influential persons in the Ottoman Empire Stefan Bogoridi and brother of Nicolae Vogoride, who became a prominent Moldavian politician. Alexander Bogoridi studied in the Greek School in Phanar, in Constantinople and in France. The second Governor-General was Gavril Krastevich (1884–1885), a famous Bulgarian historian. Before the first Governor-General, Arkady Stolypin was the Russian Civil Administrator from 9 October 1878 to 18 May 1879. During the period of Bulgarian annexation Georgi Stranski was appointed as a Commissioner for South Bulgaria (1885 - 1886), and when the province was restored to nominal Ottoman sovereignty, but still under Bulgarian control, the Prince of Bulgaria was recognized by the Sublime Porte as the Governor-General in the Tophane Agreement of 1886.
After a bloodless revolution on 6 September 1885, the province was annexed by the Principality of Bulgaria, which was de jure an Ottoman tributary state but de facto functioned as independent. After the Bulgarian victory in the subsequent Serbo-Bulgarian War, the status quo was recognized by the Porte with the Tophane Agreement on 24 March 1886. With the Tophane Act, Sultan Abdul Hamid II appointed the Prince of Bulgaria as Governor-General of Eastern Rumelia, thus retaining the formal distinction between the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia and preserving the letter of the Berlin Treaty. However, it was clear to the Great Powers that the union between the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia was permanent, and not to be dissolved. The Republic of Tamrash and the region of Kardzhali were reincorporated in the Ottoman Empire. The province was nominally under Ottoman suzerainty until Bulgaria became de jure independent in 1908. September 6, Unification Day, is a national holiday in Bulgaria.
On 18 September 1885, Bulgaria and the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia declared their unification in the city of Plovdiv. After the declaration of unification massive protests broke out in Greece, in fear of the creation of a greater Bulgarian state in the Balkans, calling upon the Greek government to declare war on Bulgaria. Serbia proposed to Greece a joint military action against Bulgaria but Greece rejected the proposal. Serbia took the initiative in starting the war but was decisively defeated. Austria demanded Bulgaria stop its invasion, and a truce resulted. No territorial changes were made to either country, but the Bulgarian unification was recognized by the Great Powers. However, the relationship of trust and friendship between Serbia and Bulgaria, built during their long common fight against Ottoman rule, suffered irreparable damage.
In the period under examination, the Hellenism of Thrace and Eastern Rumelia suffered systematic blows from both Bulgarians and the Young Turks after 1908. In addition, Thrace was a pawn in the international diplomatic game. In July and August 1906 the great persecution of the Greeks of Eastern Rumelia took place. Demonstrations of armed bands and violent anti-Greek manifestations rapidly developed into pillaging, arson and vandalism not only in Philippopolis (Plovdiv), the centre of the riots, but also in Pyrgos (Burgas), Stenimachos, Anchialos (Pomorie) and elsewhere. From September 1906 the Greek population of the area fled as refugees to Greece and eastern Thrace, while those who remained underwent Bulgarization. In May 1914 new persecutions completed the extermination of 1906. With a special Greco-Bulgarian convention within the Treaty of Neuilly (1919) the two countries decided upon a voluntary exchange of populations. On the basis of this convention, Hellenic official presence in Eastern Rumelia came to an end. From 1900 onwards, armed Bulgarian bands living in hide-outs in the Bulgarian-speaking areas of Bunar-Hisar and Saranta Ekklisies, attacked centres of Greek population. The Bulgarian komitadjis sought, through violence and intimidation, the Bulgarization of the Greek population. This continued until 1911. In the meantime, Athens was organizing a plan to protect the Greeks of Thrace and to awaken their national consciousness. It sent officials, teachers and commercial and insurance agents there. Georgios Kondylis and Stylianos Gonatas engaged in resistance activity. At the beginning of 1908 the Pan-Hellenic Organization was founded, with its headquarters in Athens. Its goal was resistance not only in Thrace but throughout all areas of 'unreedemed' Greece. During the same period the Political Organization was established in Constantinople. Its founding members included the secretary general of the Greek embassy in Constantinople, Ion Dragoumis, Captain Athanassios Souliotis-Nikolaidis and the deputy Giorgos Bousios, who was in collaboration with the committees of the Pan-Hellenic Organization. Stylianos Gonatas was in charge of the Thracian branch of the organization and with arms dispatched there the groups of Bulgarian komitadjis were dealt with summarily. The Slav threat inspired the Ottoman Empire to a policy of friendship towards the Greeks. Thus, generally speaking, the position of the Greeks of Thrace was a good one in this period. With the revolution of the Young Turks, the Greeks of Thrace, as all the Greeks of the Empire, hoped for the amelioration of their position believing in the declarations of equality and brotherhood. They were soon disillusioned, however, since the measures of the Young Turks against the Greek communities affected many of their privileges. The economy of Thrace (arable and cattle farming and trade) was hit by heavy taxation and the wars. During the First World War and under the pretext of the 'military security' of the Turkish cities, a large part of the population of eastern Thrace was deported towards the hinterland of Asia Minor hinterland (as was the case with the population of Asia Minor and Pontos). Many were forced to convert to Islam, and they were distanced from the Patriarchate and had no access to Greek schools. A large part of the male population was exterminated in amele taburu or labour batallions. Many fled as refugees to Greece. Thrace was occupied by the Greek troops during the Asia Minor Campaign. But she would share the fate of the rest of Hellenism in the East as a consequence of the Catastrophe. Western Thrace, however, was annexed to Greece.
With the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Northern Thrace was incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which united with Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of Thrace was divided among Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century, following the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greco-Turkish War.
Πηγή : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Rumelia
http://www.ime.gr/chronos/13/en/foreign_policy/choros/07.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumelia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrace
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bogoridi
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbo-Bulgarian_War

Panagyurishte treasure - The famous Thracian gold of ancient Greece

The Thracians were a group of Northern Greek tribes inhabiting a large area in Central and Southeastern Europe, centred in Bulgaria, Northern Greece and Eastern Thrace in Turkey. They were bordered by the Scythians to the north, the Celts and the Illyrians to the west, the Southern Greeks to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. The Thracians either had skillful craftsmen themselves, or access to Greek craftsmen. They made beautifully ornate golden and silver objects such as various kinds of vessels, rhytons, facial masks, pectorals, jewelry, weapons, etc. These show strong, and increasing, influence from the neighbouring cultures, especially the Southern Greeks. They used to bury rich hoards of precious objects both to hide them in times of enemy invasions and unrest as well as for ritual purposes. To date, more than 80 Thracian treasures have been excavated in Bulgaria.
Ancient Greek and Roman historians agreed that the ancient Thracians, who were of Indo-European stock and language, were superior fighters; only their constant political fragmentation prevented them from overrunning the lands around the northeastern Mediterranean. Although these historians characterized the Thracians as primitive partly because they lived in simple, open villages, the Thracians in fact had a fairly advanced culture that was especially noted for its poetry and music. Their soldiers were valued as mercenaries, particularly by the Macedonians and Romans. The Greeks founded several colonies on the Thracian coasts, the most notable being Byzantium. Others were on the Bosporus, Propontis, and Thracian Chersonese peninsula. On the Aegean were Abdera near the Néstos delta and Aenus near Alexandroúpoli. Farther north on the Black Sea’s Gulf of Burgas, the Milesians founded Apollonia (7th century BCE), and the Chalcedonians founded Mesembria (end of the 6th century BCE). Most Thracians became subject to Persia about 516–510 BCE. Members of the Odrysae tribe briefly unified their fellow Thracians into an empire that in 360 BCEsplit three ways and was quite easily assimilated (356–342) by Philip II of Macedon. The Thracians provided Philip’s son, Alexander the Great, with valuable light-armed troops during his conquests. In 197, Rome assigned much of Thrace to the kingdom of Pergamum, though the coastal area west of the Maritsa was annexed to the Roman province of Macedonia. In the 1st century BCE, Rome became more directly involved in the affairs of the whole region, and dynastic quarrels among the local Thracian rulers, who had by then become client kings of Rome, prompted the emperor Claudius I to annex the entire Thracian kingdom in 46 CE. Thrace was subsequently made into a Roman province. The emperor Trajan and his successor, Hadrian, founded cities in Thrace, notably Sardica (Sofia) and Hadrianopolis (Edirne). About 300 CE, Diocletian reorganized the area between the Lower Danube and the Aegean into the diocese of Thrace.
The Panagyurishte treasure is by far the richest and most brilliant gold hoard yet discovered which was unearthed by accident by three brothers Pavel, Petko and Michael Deykovs in 1949, during clay digging near the town of Panagyurishte. Town of Panagyrishte is located 90 km east of Sofia, 80 km northwest of Plovdiv and only 35 km distant from the Temple of Thracian cult in Starosel village. The Panagyurishte gold has been dated to the 4th century BC. The Panagyurishte find consists of nine solid gold vessels of highest and most sophisticated perfection in craftsmanship, decorated with different zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures, including seven rhyta, a rare amphora-rhyton and a phiale. The amphora-rhyton, the four rhyta shaped like animal heads/fore-parts and decorated with mythological scenes of the Scynthian-Sarmatian cultures, the three jug rhyta shaped like women’s heads, and the phiale decorated with representations of warrior men’s heads and acorns are all pieces of a ceremonial tableware drinking set for feasts that belonged to a Thracian king (presumably Seuthes III), from the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd centuries BC. The inscriptions on the phiale and on two of the vessels refer to the town of Lampsak on the Dardanelles as the place where they had been made. The origin of the Panagyurishte treasure and the interpretations of the scenes on the vessels, however, still remain disputable among researchers.
Panagyurishte is a town in Pazardzhik Province, Southern Bulgaria, situated in a small valley in the Sredna Gora mountains. It is 91 km east of Sofia, 43 km north of Pazardzhik, and 37 km south of Zlatitsa. The town is the administrative centre of the homonymous Panagyurishte Municipality. As of December 2009, it has a population of 17,959 inhabitants. The root of the name, "panagyur", comes from the Greek πανηγύρι, panēgýri, a festival or fair. Eastern Rumelia (Ανατολική Ρωμυλία, Anatoliki Romylia) was an autonomous territory in the Ottoman Empire, created in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin and de facto ended in 1885, when it was united with the principality of Bulgaria, also under Ottoman suzerainty. It continued to be an Ottoman province de jure until 1908, when Bulgaria declared independence. The population in Eastern Rumelia was mainly Christian Orthodox (Greek and Slavic) with Ottoman minorities. The artificial name, Eastern Rumelia, was given to the province on the insistence of the British delegates to the Congress of Berlin: the Ottoman notion of Rumelia refers to all European regions of the empire, i.e. those that were in Antiquity under the Roman Empire (Rum=Roman, Byzantine). According to the Treaty of Berlin, Eastern Rumelia was to remain under the political and military jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire with significant administrative autonomy. The law frame of Eastern Rumelia was defined with the Organic Statute which was adopted on 14 April 1879 and was in force until the Unification with Bulgaria in 1885. According to the Organic Statute the head of the province was a Christian Governor-General appointed by the Sublime Porte with the approval of the Great Powers. The legislative organ was a Provincial Counsel which consisted of 56 persons, of which 10 were appointed by the Governor-General, 10 were permanent and 36 were directly elected by the people. The first Governor-General was the Bulgarian prince Alexander Bogoridi (1879–1884) who was acceptable to both Bulgarians and Greeks in the province because his parents were Greek or Bulgarian. Panagyurishte was part of Eastern Rumelia.
Panagyurishte is overshadowed in tourism by nearby Koprivshtitsa, which has a much larger collection of restored Bulgarian Revival style houses. Like Koprivshtitsa, Panagyurishte has a picturesque location in the Sredna Gora mountains, and is one of the towns associated with the historic April Uprising in 1876. Panagyurishte also gained fame for the "Panagyurishte gold" treasure discovered there in 1949 and the Apriltsi National Memorial Complex erected in 1976 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the April Uprising. It is situated on the historic hill above the town known as Manyovo Bardo. It is also near the mineral water spas of Banya, and recreational facilities in Panagyurski koloni (Panagyur columns).
The Panagyurishte treasure is unique not only for its weight in gold a total of 6.1 kg, but also for the originality of its shapes and ornamentation, as well as for its exquisite craftsmanship. The Panagyurishte treasure combines the artistic tastes of the Greek world and the Orient, blending Eastern forms with imagery of Greek origin. The archaeological finding indicates the emergence of the Hellenistic style in the scenes of Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera before the judgment of Paris and demonstrates the significant role played by the Thracians. The Panagyurishe golden artifacts reveal the virtuosity of the ancient goldsmiths, who have reached the pinnacle of arts. The Panagyuristhe treasure is a witness to a particularly brilliant civilization and impress with their decorative richness. The Panagyurishte Treasure confirms the stories of ancient Greek writers and historians that the Thracians, besides the horses and wine, loved gold ornaments and jewelry most of all. The golden Thracian treasure from Panagyurishte has been touring the world for years, making the civilization of the Ancient Thrace famous all around the globe. It was exhibited in numerous towns and capitals London, Rome, Paris, New York, Moscow, Budapest, Tokyo, Mexico, Montreal, Madrid, Boston, Detroit, New Delhi, Helsinki, Berlin, Prague. Permanent place of display of the Panagyurishte Thracian gold is the National History Museum on Sofia. The perfect original copy of the Panagyuristhe Thracian gold is exhibited in the History Museum in Panagyurishte.
Πηγή : http://www.panacomp.net/panagyurishte-thracian-treasury/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_treasure
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panagyurishte
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Rumelia
https://www.britannica.com/place/Thrace