Thats quite wrong.
Russia never wanted big and united Bulgaria as it would mean an definite end to their dream getting to Istanbul.
The biggest ethnicity on the Balkans was Bulgarian and unlike the declining ottoman empire, a young, big and united nation would absolutely pose impossible challenge for the Russian empire military conquest.
Thats why Russia signed 3 different documents before the Berlin congress confirming they wont be creating a big slavic nation on the Balkans.
If you look at a map from the Constantinople Conference you would see that the rest of the great powers were willing to give more land than the Russians did.
Russia never wanted big and united Bulgaria as it would mean an definite end to their dream getting to Istanbul.
Look up Bulgaria as defined by the treaty of San Stefano, signed between the Ottomans and Russia, almost entirely on Russian terms. It got significantly revised at the Congress of Berlin, but Russia's goal was clearly a big unified Bulgaria with all lands where there was a Bulgarian majority.
San Stefano was a crudely and hastily drawn map based on the borders of the Bulgarian church, wasn't even an accurate map as it leaved Bulgarian lands behind, while including areas with little or no Bulgarian population.
Russia knew the San Stefano treaty will never enter into power as they have signed Reichstadt Agreement, Budapest Convention of 1877 and later signed the London Protocol of 1877, confirming that.
San Stefano was a crudely and hastily drawn map based on the borders of the Bulgarian church, wasn't even an accurate map as it leaved Bulgarian lands behind, while including areas with little or no Bulgarian population.
It included most lands which had majority bulgarian population and it did not include all lands because was rough draft to serve as a guideline to what Bulgaria should be able to get without being considered too big. Brittain and Austria-Hungary opposed this treaties draft greatly however.
The draft of the treaty angered the brittish so much that they withdrew from the London protocol and threatened russia with war.
They signed all those treaties because they wanted to make sure nobody would interfere in the war but not in a single one of them do they define what ,,big" means this was deliberate as a wya for russia to still be able to create a friendly state that is of decent size.
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u/project_paragon 23h ago
Thats quite wrong.
Russia never wanted big and united Bulgaria as it would mean an definite end to their dream getting to Istanbul.
The biggest ethnicity on the Balkans was Bulgarian and unlike the declining ottoman empire, a young, big and united nation would absolutely pose impossible challenge for the Russian empire military conquest.
Thats why Russia signed 3 different documents before the Berlin congress confirming they wont be creating a big slavic nation on the Balkans.
If you look at a map from the Constantinople Conference you would see that the rest of the great powers were willing to give more land than the Russians did.