Цариградските българи и акцията в защита на националните интереси след Априлското въстание
The Constantinople Bulgarians and the Campaign in Defence of the National Interests after the April Uprising

Summary/Abstract: During the National Revival and in the history of our emigration during the 19th c. the Bulgarians in Constantinople occupied a particular place. They were simultaneously in a position .inside. and .outside., they were at the same time in emigration and not. On the one hand this phenomenon was determined by the number of the Bulgarians inhabiting the Capital of the Empire (some 15 000-20 000 according to the available data), and by their relations with the Moslem majority and with the other minority groups in the city that were numerically stronger. On the other hand, however, by their economic, political and cultural activity the colony in Constantinople grew as a kind of National Revival capital of the Bulgarians which exerted an essential influence on all spheres of their socio-political and economic life. The peculiar position of the Bulgarians in Constantinople also determined the character of their activity after the cruel suppression of the April Uprising. Already in the first weeks of May 1876 in some circles was observed a cardinal reappraisal of the reformism to that point and the adoption of a more radical attitude. The basic political objective in their activity from then on became the winning of external support of the liberation cause. The negation of the uprising seen in a number of documents of the Constantinople Bulgarians was the result not so much of ideological considerations than of a purely pragmatic attitude to the events. In the same way as during the diplomatic mission of Dr. Tsankov and M. Balabanov in the autumn of 1876, again during the Constantinople ambassadors. Conference and afterwards the Bulgarians in the city on the Bosphorus played an important role in the defence of the Bulgarian national cause. Irrespective of the obstacles and difficulties at that moment it was with dignity that they defended their position of a leading centre of the nation during the National Revival.

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