19th century
Russo-Turkish War
1877-1878·Bulgarie (Kazanlak, Stara Zagora)
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Jewish communities, held to be favorable to the Ottomans, flee or are driven before the advance of troops, their quarters pillaged
The Russo-Turkish War crossed Bulgaria from north to south, and Jewish communities found themselves caught between the two armies. They were considered sympathetic to the Ottomans, under whom they had lived for centuries: as Russian troops and Bulgarian volunteers advanced, the Jewish quarters of Kazanlak, Stara Zagora, and several towns in Thrace were looted, their inhabitants driven out or fleeing on their own toward Andrinople and Constantinople. Many did not return until after the war, to find their homes occupied. The principality born of the Treaty of Berlin formally granted equality to its Jewish subjects, and the memory of those months long remained, in Bulgaria, that of a community which had been compelled to prove its loyalty to a state it had not chosen.
- Period :
- 19th century
- Type :
- Military repression
- Region :
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Country :
- Bulgarie
Vicki Tamir, *Bulgaria and Her Jews* ; Simon Doubnov, *Histoire des Juifs de Russie et de Pologne* ; *Encyclopaedia Judaica*, article « Bulgaria ».