ABSTRACT
Bulgaria emerged as a state after the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877–8. The preliminary San Stefano peace treaty of March 3, 1878, created a Greater Bulgaria that would have established Russian predominance in the Balkans. Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, the other Great Powers, hastily convened a congress in Berlin (June 13 to July 13, 1878) and concluded a much more restricted settlement. The Berlin Treaty divided the San Stefano territories into a small Bulgarian state north of the Balkan range including Sofia up to the Danube, which was to be an autonomous Principality under Ottoman suzerainty but a de facto Russian protectorate; the Province of Eastern Rumelia south of the Balkan range with Plovdiv as the main city was established as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire, whereas Macedonia was returned to direct Ottoman rule. “San-Stefano-Bulgaria” became the national ideal and long-term political objective of subsequent Bulgarian governments, justified by the claims of the Bulgarian national revival movement to these territories in the 1860s. In the short run, there was a sizeable emigration from Ottoman Macedonia to Bulgaria as a consequence of the peace settlement in Berlin.
