View source for Destruction of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913

{{Short description|1918 book by Lyubomir Miletich}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2017}}
{{italic title}}
[[File:Ethnographic-map-Thrace-1912.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Ethnic map of Adrianople Thrace in 1912 according to the academic Lyubomir Miletich. The areas with a Bulgarian majority are coloured green, Turkish red, and Greek brown.]]
[[File:Balkan Wars Boundaries.jpg|right|thumb|200px|[[Balkan Wars]] boundaries.]]
The '''''Destruction of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913''''' ({{langx|bg|Разорението на тракийските българи през 1913 г.}}, ''Razorenieto na trakiyskite balgari prez 1913 g.'', also translated as "The Devastation"<ref>{{cite journal|author=Magdalena Elchinova|title=Memory, Heritage and Ethnicity: Constructing Identity among the Istanbul-based Orthodox Bulgarians|journal=Ethnologia Europaea|volume=46|issue=1|year=2016|page=113}}</ref> or "The Ruin of the Thracian Bulgarians in 1913"<ref>{{cite book|author=Valentina Ganeva-Raycheva|title=Migration, Territories, Heritage: Discourses and Practices in Constructing the Bulgarian-Turkish Border|chapter=Migration, Memory, Heritage: Socio-cultural Approaches to the Bulgarian-Turkish Border|publisher=IEFSEM-BAS|year=2012|page=62}}</ref>) is a book published by the Bulgarian academic [[Lyubomir Miletich]] in 1918, which describes the [[Genocide|mass extermination]] and [[ethnic cleansing]] of the [[Thracian Bulgarians|Bulgarian population]] in [[Eastern Thrace]] (now mainly in [[Edirne Province]], [[Kırklareli Province]] and [[Tekirdağ Province]] in Turkey and Eastern [[Rhodope Mountains]] in [[Evros (regional unit)|Evros Prefecture]] in Greece) during the [[Second Balkan War]] and in a short period after it. On the other hand, [[Bulgarian Turks]], [[Pomaks]] and [[Muslim Roma]] from [[Northern Thrace]] in Bulgaria, were expelled and settled in the whole [[Eastern Thrace]] in 1913.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Pekesen |first1=Berna |title=Expulsion and Emigration of the Muslims from the Balkans |url=https://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/europe-on-the-road/forced-ethnic-migration/berna-pekesen-expulsion-and-emigration-of-the-muslims-from-the-balkans |website=ieg-ego.eu |date=2012}}</ref>
==Content==
When the military actions between [[Serbia]], [[Greece]], [[Montenegro]] and [[Romania]] against [[Bulgaria]] were in full progress, the [[Ottoman Empire]] took advantage of the situation to recover some of its former possessions in [[Thrace]] including [[Adrianople]]. In the beginning of July 1913 its forces crossed the Bulgarian border on the line [[Kıyıköy|Midiya]]-[[Enez|Enos]], settled by the [[Treaty of London (1913)|Treaty of London]] in May 1913. Because the Bulgarian troops had all been allocated to the front with Serbia and Greece, the Ottoman armies suffered no combat casualties and moved northwards and westwards without battles. Thus reoccupied territories were given back to the Ottoman Empire by the [[Treaty of Constantinople (1913)|Treaty of Constantinople]], signed on September 16. Despite that, the mass extermination and ethnic cleansing continued in the areas controlled by the Ottomans even after this date. Shortly after the end of the hostilities, the author interviewed hundreds of refugees from these regions, travelled himself in the places where these tragic events happened and systematically depicted in detail the atrocities, committed by the [[Young Turks]]' regular army, Ottoman paramilitary forces and partly by local [[Greeks]]. As a result of this violent process, approximately 200,000 Bulgarians were killed or forced to leave their homes and properties forever, seeking salvation in territories, controlled by Bulgarian army and paramilitary formation [[Internal Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization]]. Ottoman military campaign lasted for a mere 3 weeks from 20 July 1913 to 10 August 1913. According to Carnegie Commission 15.960 Bulgarians were "either killed burned in the houses or scattered among the mountains" and several thousands more were massacred in Western Thrace within this period.<ref name=":0" /> There were also [[Anatolian Bulgarians|Bulgarians in Anatolia]] concentrated around [[Marmara Region]]. A number of them during this period after the exchange agreements between the Kingdom of Bulgaria and Ottoman Empire after the Second Balkan War left while there were still 6,587 Bulgarians in [[Marmara Region]]. The deportation of Thracian Bulgarians was signified with the exchange treaty where 46.764 Eastern Thracian Orthodox Christian Bulgarians and 48.570 Muslims (Turks, Pomaks, and Muslim-Roma) from Northern Thrace were exchanged.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Majstorovic|first=Darko|date=2019|title=The 1913 Ottoman Military Campaign in Eastern Thrace: A Prelude to Genocide?|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14623528.2018.1534979|journal=Journal of Genocide Research|volume=21|issue=1|pages=25–46|doi=10.1080/14623528.2018.1534979|s2cid=81824984}}</ref> After the exchange, [[1914 Ottoman census|in 1914]] there still remained 14,908 Bulgarians belonging to the [[Bulgarian Exarchate]] in Ottoman Empire, 2.502 in Edirne, including [[Bulgarian–Ottoman convention (1915)|the area that was ceded to Bulgaria in 1915]], 3,339 in Constantinople and its environs and 338 in [[Çatalca]].<ref name=":5a">[[Kemal Karpat]] (1985), [https://kupdf.net/downloadFile/59e4a7b908bbc56144e653d7 Ottoman Population, 1830-1914, Demographic and Social Characteristics], [[The University of Wisconsin Press]], p. 168-169</ref> Their descendants in contemporary [[Bulgaria]] are about 800,000 people.
==Population estimates==
Alongside the 1911 official Ottoman figures, Lyubomir Miletich made the following estimates of the ethnic composition, using linguistic criteria rather than religious affiliation:
{| border=1 cellpadding=7 cellspacing=0 style="margin: 10px 0 10px 25px; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #AAA solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 100%; float: center;"
|- bgcolor=#DDDDDD
|colspan=8 align=center|Population estimates of Edirne Vilayet
|- bgcolor=#f0f0f0 align=center
!Group
!Ottoman 1893<ref>Kemal H. Karpat. [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=2665648&jid=MES&volumeId=9&issueId=02&aid=2665640 Ottoman Population Records and the Census of 1881/82-1893] Int. J. Middle East Stud. 9 (1978), 237–274, p. 37.</ref>
!Ottoman 1911<ref>{{cite book|url=http://cdrsee.org/jhp/pdf/workbook3_eng_ed2.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191024045758/http://cdrsee.org/jhp/pdf/workbook3_eng_ed2.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2019-10-24|title=Teaching Modern Southeast European History: Alternative Educational Materials|editor1=Valery Kolev|editor2=Christina Koulouri|publisher=Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe|year=2009|edition=2nd|page=24|isbn=978-960-88963-7-6}}</ref>
!Miletich estimate<ref name="Miletich estimate">The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913, Lybomir Miletich, 1918, pp. [http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/bmark/lm_tr/lm_tr_pril_1.htm 291] and [http://www.kroraina.com/knigi/bmark/lm_tr/lm_tr_pril_2.htm 301]</ref>
|-align=center
|Muslims||434,366||795,706
|-align=center
|Muslim Turks||||||NA
|-align="center"
|Muslim Bulgarians (Pomaks)||||||95,502
|-align=center
|Greeks ([[Eastern Orthodox Church|EOC]] members)||267,220||395,872
|-align=center
|(ethnic) Greeks||||||200,000–250,000
|-align="center"
|Bulgarians ([[Bulgarian Orthodox Church|BOC]] members)||102,245||171,055
|-align=center
|Orthodox Bulgarians||||||203,224
|-align=center
|Armenians||16,642||33,650
|-align=center
|Catholics||1,024||12,783
|-align=center
|Other||827||44,552
|-align=center
|- bgcolor=#f0f0f0 align=center
|Total||836,041||1,426,632
|-
|}
The Ottoman authorities divided the population by religion, so all Patriarchists were counted as Greeks and the Pomaks as Muslims. The other two sources divided the population by language, so for example 24,970 Bulgarian patriarchists and 1700 Uniates were added by Miletich to the total figure for Orthodox Bulgarians.<ref name="Miletich estimate"/>
==Illustrations==
<gallery class="center">
File:Bulgarian refugees from Bulgarkyoi 1913.jpg|Bulgarian refugees from Bulgarkyoi (nowadays [[Ellinochori, Evros|Ellinochori]], Greece), 1913
File:Remains of Bulgarians after the battle of Fere 1913.jpg|Remains of Bulgarians after the battle of [[Feres, Evros|Fere]] in 1913
File:Ruins of the town of Fere 1913.jpg|The ruins of [[Feres, Evros|Fere]] after the battle, 1913
File:Dead sucklings in the Armaganska Valley 1913.jpg|Dead Bulgarian infants in the Armaganska Valley, 1913
</gallery>
==Footnotes==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
*On-line publication of the phototype reprint of the first edition of this book in Bulgarian [http://www.promacedonia.org/bmark/lm_tr/index.html here] (in Bulgarian "Разорението на тракийските българи през 1913 година", Българска академия на науките, София, Държавна печатница, 1918 г.; II фототипно издание, Културно-просветен клуб "Тракия" – София, 1989 г., София; in English: "The Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913", [[Bulgarian Academy of Sciences]], Sofia, State printing house, 1918; II phototype edition, Cultural and educational club "Thrace" – Sofia, 1989, Sofia).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Destruction of Thracian Bulgarians in 1913}}
[[Category:Bulgarian books]]
[[Category:History books about ethnic groups]]
[[Category:History books about the 20th century]]
[[Category:History books about wars]]
[[Category:1918 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Genocide studies]]
[[Category:Second Balkan War]]
[[Category:Genocides in Europe]]
[[Category:War crimes in the Balkan Wars]]
[[Category:Turkish nationalism]]
[[Category:Ottoman war crimes]]
[[Category:Ethnic cleansing]]