Throughout the centuries, the Bulgarian people were subjected to direct and indirect extermination. The sword of various invaders often caused that and for long periods, but during the Ottoman Period that process took the shape of outright genocide. Both the male warriors and peaceful population children, women and old people — were killed. The “blood tax” took away the boys in order to turn them into Enichars killers of their own kind. Tens of thousands of Bulgarians were moved to Asia and assimilated there. Kidnapping and enslaving was supplemented by the forceful Islamization and turning Turk. In addition, the plundering and theft led to the collapse of the economic condition of the people.
The genocide against the Bulgarians was especially cruel because it was religiously grounded. Also, its length affected many generations. The “non-believers”, called “gyaurs”, were considered “second rate” people or “raya” (herd). They were subjected to deliberate extermination in the name of the “right faith” Islam.
This barbaric process began at the end of the j 14th century. The Young Turks ended it in [the summer of 1913 with the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Thrace whose martyrs were thousands of Bulgarians and a quarter of a million refugees. The Armenians suffered a similar miserable fate in 1915 when a million and a half innocent people were deliberately killed.
Human loss was enormous and that no doubt explains some researchers` theories of a “demographic catastrophe” or a “demographic collapse” of the Bulgarian nation. Other scholars reject such definitions, claiming that the data regarding Bulgarian losses are exaggerated. But facts disprove this claim.
Kingdom of England
For example, in the second half of the 11th century, according to a palinode Mo graphic research, the Kingdom of England had a population of about 1.5 million people. At that time, the number of the Bulgarians was quite similar — 1.5 1.8 million. Eight centuries later, in 1878, the population of newly independent Bulgaria was 5.5 million while the United Kingdom had 28 million inhabitants. The difference of 23 million lives may then be regarded as the price, which the Bulgarians paid, thus ensuring a more tranquil development of the peoples to the west. Prof. Sante Graciotti writes:
“The historical merit of Bulgaria lies in the fact that it creates a barrier in front of the Turks in Europe. It pays a “blood tax” for this, pays with its faith, with its freedom and with the decline of its brilliant culture of that time. ”
Yet, despite the different evaluations, the nightmare of the 14th and 15th centuries haunted many generations of Bulgarians until the beginning of the Revival Epoch.
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