April Uprising of 1876

The April Uprising (Bulgarian: Априлско въстание, romanized: Aprilsko vastanie) was an insurrection organised by the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876. The rebellion was suppressed by irregular Ottoman bashi-bazouk units that engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of both rebels and non-combatants (see Batak massacre).

The American community around Robert College in Istanbul, the Protestant mission in Plovdiv headed by J.F. Clarke as well as two other Americans, journalist Januarius MacGahan and diplomat Eugene Schuyler, were indispensable in bringing knowledge of Ottoman atrocities to the wider European public.

Their reports of the events, which came to be known in the press as the Bulgarian Horrors and the Crime of the Century, caused a public outcry across Europe and mobilised both common folks and famous intellectuals to demand a reform of the failed Ottoman model of governance of the Bulgarian lands.

The shift in public opinion, in particular, in the Ottoman Empire's hitherto closest ally, the British Empire, eventually led to the re-establishment of a separate Bulgarian state in 1878.

Background

In Europe, in the 18th century, the classic non-national states were the multi-ethnic empires such as the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose population belonged to many ethnic groups and spoke many languages. The idea of nation state became more prominent during the 19th century. The most noticeable characteristic was the degree to which nation states used the state as an instrument of national unity in economic, social and cultural life. By the 18th century, the Ottomans had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in science, technology, and industry. However, the Bulgarian population was also suppressed socially and politically under Ottoman rule.