Eastern Rumelia
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Eastern Rumelia or Eastern Roumelia (Bulgarian: ; Ottoman Turkish: Rumeli-i Sarki; Modern Turkish: Sarki Rumeli, Greek Ανατολική Ρωμυλία Anatoliki Romylia) was an autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire from 1878 to 1885 (nominally to 1908). Its capital was Plovdiv (Пловдив in Bulgarian Cyrillic, Philippopolis in Greek, Filibe in Turkish).
History
Eastern Rumelia was set up as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. It encompassed the territory between the Balkan Mountains, the Rhodope Mountains and Strandzha Mountain, a region known to all its inhabitants - Bulgarians, Greeks and Ottoman Turks - as Northern Thrace. The artificial name Eastern Rumelia was given to the province on the insistence of the British delegates to the Congress of Berlin. Some 20 Pomak (Muslims speaking Bulgarian as their mother tongue) villages in the Rhodope Mountains refused to recognize Eastern Rumelian authority and formed the so called Pomak Republic.
According to the Treaty of Berlin Eastern Rumelia was to remain under the political and military jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire with significant administrative autonomy (Article 13). The head of the province was a Christian Governor General appointed by the Sublime Porte with the approval of the Great Powers.
The eastern provinces of Anatolia were called by the Ottomans as Rum while the western provinces as Rumelia. These names were taken by the Ottomans since they had a long history of being under the Roman Empire.
Politics
The first Governor-General was the hellenized Bulgarian prince Alexander Bogoridi (Aleko Pasha) (1879-1884) acceptable to both Bulgarians and Greeks in the province. The second Governor-General was Gavril Krstevic (1884-1885), a famous Bulgarian historian.
Annexation
After a bloodless revolution on September 6th 1885, the province was annexed by the tributary Principality of Bulgaria. After the Bulgarian victory in the subsequent Serbo-Bulgarian War the status quo was recognized by the Porte with the Tophane Act on March 24th 1886. With this Act Sultan Abdul Hamid II appointed the Prince of Bulgaria (without mentioning the name of the incumbent prince Alexander of Bulgaria) as Governor-General of Eastern Rumelia. The Pomak Republic was reincorporated in the Ottoman Empire.
The province was nominally under Ottoman rule until Bulgaria became officially independent in 1908.
September 6th - the Unification Day, is a national holiday in Bulgaria.
Postage stamps
The province is remembered today by philatelists for having issued postage stamps from 1880 on. The first issue consisted of several kinds of overprints on stamps of Turkey, including "R.O.", a pattern of bars, and "ROUMELIE / ORIENTALE". These overprints are uncommon and extensively counterfeited.
Stamps of the contemporaneous Turkish design appeared in 1881, differing from Turkish stamps by having the French inscription "ROUMELIE ORIENTALE" in small letters along the left side. A second issue of this design, with changed colors, was issued in 1884. Most of these types are quite common.
On 10 September 1885, the existing Rumelian issues were overprinted with two different images of the Bulgarian lion, and then with the lion in a frame and "Bulgarian Post" in Bulgarian (Cyrillic letters). As with the first overprints, these are uncommon, with prices ranging from US$6 to $200, and counterfeits are widespread.
From 1886 on, the province used Bulgarian stamps.
See also
External links
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