Talk:Principality of Bulgaria

Why was the pretence of Ottoman suzerainty kept up and why was it so common?
Whilst I recognise, of course, that the Principality of Bulgaria was to all intents and purposes independent, nonetheless it still recognised Ottoman suzerainy and paid tribute. I've noticed his was quite a widespread phenomenom with the territories agitating for freedom from Ottoman Domination: with Serbia and Romania having tributary status until 1878, Bulgaria until 1908, and Egypt and Sudan were technically parts of the Ottoman Empire until 1914, and Cyprus and Bosnia were de jure Ottoman Provinces until 1914 and 1908 respectively, despite their de facto control by Britain and Austria, respectively, not to mention places like the Cretan State and the Principality of Samos.

What I'm wondering is, why was this done, and why was it so widespread? Why was de facto control of these places preferred to de jure annexation, which would have happened in most other situations. Why was there so much trouble taken to not only accomodate the Ottoman Sultan, but to seemingly not offend him?JWULTRABLIZZARD (talk) 20:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Client State of Russia???
I understand that there were times when the Russian Empire had tremendous influence in the principality (like in the first five years or so). But once Ferdinand came to power relations between Bulgaria and Russia turned sour and Ferdinand brought Bulgaria closer to Austria. Towards the end he was playing see-saw between the two powers (source: Foxy Ferdinand, 1861-1948, Tsar of Bulgaria; By Stephen Constant (Published in 1979). That all being said, I don't think we should refer to the Principality of Bulgaria as a client state of Russia. Kndimov (talk) 23:29, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Official languages
Dear Jingiby,

First of all, have a look at the references I provide. The 1879 Bulgarian Constitution does not provide for any official language. teh Constitution was made in lgarian and Russian when the new state was under the Russian provisional administration. In the Bulgarian army the Russian administration extended until 1885, when Russian was replace with Bulgarian as the language of command. De facto Russian continued for longer in the army, as only in 1905 Bulgarian translations of the military regulations were published.

Because Bulgaria remained an autonomous polity within the Ottoman Empire, any official Business that Sofia wanted to do with teh Sultan / OPttoman government de facto had to be conducted in Osmanlica.

Until the Balkan Wars, the Bulgarian (Christian) administrations left the Muslim millet and Greek ethnically municipalities to thei own devices, which translated into the de facto use of Osmanlica and Greek.

In Eastern Rumelia, the Organic Statute done in Bulgarian, Greek and Osmanlica explicitly announced these languages as official. When Rumelia was illegally annexed, the Great Powers (including the Ottomans) did not recognize this annexation until 1908. Also the Organic Statute remained in place as teh basis for aministration and legislation in this region until then.

The change to Bulgarian monolingualism in administration took place only after the Balkan Wars and WWI. However, locally-led municipalities and villages (mahallas) tended to use the predominant ethnic/ethnoconfessional language, be it Osmanlica among the Turks and Greek among the Greeks.

Hyrdlak (talk) 14:06, 30 January 2021 (UTC)Hyrdlak


 * Hi, please make a difference between official language and linguistic community languages. No official or administrative documents were issued in Bulgaria for internal use in a language different then Bulgarian after 1885. Jingiby (talk) 14:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hyrdlak in my opinion, you do not distinguish at all between minority, official and service language. Please add academic secondary sources that confirm the added by you information clearly and accurately. Your interpretations are quite controversial. Jingiby (talk) 15:39, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jingiby. I see you removed the information on the use of Russian as the official language of the Bulgarian Army up to 1885. You also propose that Osmanlica and Greek as official languages of pre-1908 Bulgaria were mere languages of the country's minorities, irrespective of the fact that the Constitution of Eastern Rumelia (not nullified before 1908) specified these, while B ulgaria remained an autonomous polity within the Ottoman Empire until 1908. Official language is one specified by the law (in this case: Ottoman, Bulgarian and Rumelian), though at times not (or rarely) employed in actual administrative use. For instance, the Constitution of Ireland designates Irish as the country's official and national language, and accords the status of an auxliary language to English. De facto English plays this role of the country's almost sole official language, not unlike Bulgarian in the Principality of Bulgaria. However, I am not going to go into an editorial spat with you. If you wish to turn a blind eye to historical and legal facts (including the official use of Russian in Bulgaria) in te interest of Bulgarian nationalism, it is your choice (and readers' loss). PS. As far as I know no legsilation was passed in the Principality on minority language use, or let alone distinction between 'official language' and 'service language' (I assume your own term for the official langauge / language of command in the Bulgarian Army).Hyrdlak (talk) 16:14, 6 February 2021 (UTC)Hyrdlak