26 March is Thrace Day – the date was included in the official Bulgarian calendar in 2006, but has been celebrated long before that. On this day in 1913 the Bulgarian army conquered the Edirne fortress, until then deemed “impregnable”. The defeat forced the Ottoman Empire to sign the peace treaty of London, by force of which it handed its Balkan territories over to the victorious Balkan allies.
In June the Second Balkan War began. The Bulgarian army fought against Greece and Serbia over the disputed territories in Macedonia, and against Romania for Southern Dobrudzha. Taking advantage of this, the Ottoman army breached the border along the Midia-Enos line, occupied Edirne Thrace and drove the Bulgarian population away with much brutality.
For Thracians the date 26 March is a symbol of the struggle for freedom, a day to commemorate the fallen heroes, but also a day to remember the victims who lost their lives in the pursuit of the national idea, saysthe Union of Thracian Associations in Bulgaria, an organization that brings together the descendants of the Thracian Bulgarians.
Varna is one of the cities where, in front of the Portal Monument to the 8th Infantry Sea Regiment, official ceremonies take place to mark the Day of Thrace and the 111th anniversary since the conquering of the Edirne fortress by the Bulgarian army during the Balkan War of 1912-1913.
“The main refugee waves took place after the Russo-Turkish of 1878, after the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903, and most of all after the Balkan War (1912-1913), after the ruination of the Thracian Bulgarians, that was when the Bulgarians were driven out of Eastern and Western Thrace as well. More than 350,000 Bulgarians were forced to leave their homes and go to Bulgaria,” says Rumyana Valcheva, chair of the Thracian Association Captain Petko Voivode. “Some of them settled in Varna and the environs. It is difficult to say how many there are at the moment, but if we go back in time, maybe there were more than 20,000 people coming to Varna during the different migration streams, and the number of their descendants in our day is much, much bigger. That is why we are particularly proud to note that the Bulgarian “face” of Varna was shaped precisely by the coming of the Thracian refugees, mostly from Eastern Thrace, but there are some from Aegean Thrace as well. Not to mention the role of the descendants of the Thracian refugees in the construction and evolution of Varna.”
Interview by Mariela Dimitrova, BNR-Varna
Compiled by Elena Karkalanova
Photos:BTA, BGNES, National Museum of Military History, archive
One of the three biggest Hebrew holidays, Pesach (Passover) starts at sundown (5 PM) on 22 April and ends on 30 April. It is a movable feast, falling after the 14 th day of the spring month of Nisan which starts after the spring equinox with the..
The founder of the Internal Revolutionary Organisation for the Liberation of Bulgaria, Vasil Levski, was the first to involve foreigners in the liberation movement when he set up revolutionary committees in the Bulgarian provinces. The first foreign..
"Man does not know the way to heaven, but the horse does," says an ancient Thracian proverb. That is why the Thracian kings were necessarily sent to the afterlife together with their horses. Because of the numerous burial mounds of rulers from the..
In the Valley of the Thracian Kings near the village of Shipka, where the most important burial tombs of the rulers of the ancient Thracian kingdom of the..
The town of Petrich is picturesquely located at the foot of one of the most beautiful and still untouched by tourism mountains -..
+359 2 9336 661