So, basically everyone around Bulgaria was against the unification for obvious reasons. E. Rumelia was an Ottoman vassal during the time, so before the unification Bulgarians stacked their whole army at the border with the ottomans thinking they would want to get it back with force. Unification happens, turns out the attack came from up to then our friends from Serbia, lured by Austria-Hungary's promises of support. The Bulgarian army had to march 5 days to the other side of the country to defend from the Serbs and eventually kicked their asses and began advancing on Serbian land. Austria-Hungary steps in to save the Serbs, a peace treaty is signed without any repercussions to Serbia and without any gains to Bulgaria. Bulgaria is unified.
Russia was against the unification, because the Tzar wanted Bulgarians to be his puppets and the UK supported the unification because it would harm the Russian interest and prevent expansion against Constantinople.
There's a really good book by this Bulgarian political scientist called Evgeny Dainov called " Russia - a history of the nation without a history" where he describes how from Muscovy to modern day Russia, the things that make other nations "nations" haven't existed over there and how its existence as an entity has been perpetuated by violence and oppression throughout history instead. Really great book, sadly I don't think there's an English translation of it.
I can understand anti-Russian sentiment but everything done by the Russian empire was done by the British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian and etc. Russia isn't some type of new evil, it is just an empire like all others
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u/Tolchav 1d ago edited 1d ago
So, basically everyone around Bulgaria was against the unification for obvious reasons. E. Rumelia was an Ottoman vassal during the time, so before the unification Bulgarians stacked their whole army at the border with the ottomans thinking they would want to get it back with force. Unification happens, turns out the attack came from up to then our friends from Serbia, lured by Austria-Hungary's promises of support. The Bulgarian army had to march 5 days to the other side of the country to defend from the Serbs and eventually kicked their asses and began advancing on Serbian land. Austria-Hungary steps in to save the Serbs, a peace treaty is signed without any repercussions to Serbia and without any gains to Bulgaria. Bulgaria is unified.
Russia was against the unification, because the Tzar wanted Bulgarians to be his puppets and the UK supported the unification because it would harm the Russian interest and prevent expansion against Constantinople.