National Awakening of Bulgaria - The April Uprising

The April Uprising

In April 1876 the Bulgarians revolted in the April uprising. It was organised by the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, and inspired by the insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina the previous year. The revolt was largely confined to the region of Plovdiv, certain districts in northern Bulgaria, Macedonia, and in the area of Sliven. The uprising was brutally crushed by the Ottomans who brought irregular Ottoman troops (bashi-bazouks) from outside the area. Many villages were pillaged and around twelve thousand people were massacred, the majority of them in the insurgent towns of Batak, Perushtitza and Bratzigovo in the area of Plovdiv. The massacres aroused a broad public reaction led by liberal Europeans such as William Ewart Gladstone, who launched a campaign against the "Bulgarian Horrors". The campaign was supported by a number of European intellectuals and public figures, such as Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi.