1876 metų Balandžio sukilimas Bulgarijoje Plovdivo metropolijos laiškuose ir inteligentijos likimas

Abstract

The article describes the situation in South Bulgaria after the suppression of April 1876 Popular Uprising. For the determining of the situation and for the explanation of the role and destiny of intelligentsia during that tragical period in the life of the people the author used the manuscript „Book of copies“ from her personal archives. In this book, copies of letters written by Plovdiv Bulgarian metropolis and personally by metropolitan Panaret and his deputy bishop Gevrasiy Levkiyski, to Bulgarian exarch Antim I to Stambul in 1876, also the letters sent to metropolis and other correspondence, were collected. On the basis of the materials of the „Book of copies“, the arrests, tortures and killings of the Plovdiv diocese priests and teachers, the burning and plunder of cloisters and schools, as well as the aspirations of Bulgarians conscious of the national problems, had been described. The letters sent to the exarch Antim I to Stambul reached the foreign press, too. Thus, the European society could get acquainted with the repressive actions of the Turkish Government in Bulgaria. At that time, the activities of the Bulgarian metropolis in Plovdiv were treated as the centre of the national organization of the whole South Bulgaria.