112-770: The Strandzha Commune ( Bulgarian : Странджанска комуна , romanized : Strandzhanska komuna ), also known as the Strandzha Republic ( Bulgarian : Странджанска република , romanized : Strandzhanska republika ), was a short-lived anarchist commune in East Thrace . It was proclaimed during the Preobrazhenie Uprising in 1903 by rebels of the Internal Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO), in
224-568: A socialist order in the Balkans . In 1903, they began laying plans for an uprising against the Ottomans and the anarchist Mihail Gerdzhikov was selected to prepare an insurrection in Thrace. In the mountains of Strandzha , IMARO insurgents began preparations for their uprising and the local Thracian peasantry began spontaneously establishing a libertarian communist system in the region. Once
336-492: A stateless society , without anyone attempting to build a state structure, establish a system of authority or issue unilateral decrees. In order to administer their new society, the villages of Strandzha elected commissions, each answerable to their local militias, who as an armed force were responsible for the protection of the Commune. The rebels opted against using the term "General Staff" due to its militarist connotations,
448-532: A consonant and are feminine, as well as nouns that end in –а/–я (most of which are feminine, too) use –та. Nouns that end in –е/–о use –то. The plural definite article is –те for all nouns except for those whose plural form ends in –а/–я; these get –та instead. When postfixed to adjectives the definite articles are –ят/–я for masculine gender (again, with the longer form being reserved for grammatical subjects), –та for feminine gender, –то for neuter gender, and –те for plural. Both groups agree in gender and number with
560-434: A coordinated attack against Malko Tarnovo, but found them preoccupied with their own fronts. Over the course of the uprising, there were 40 clashes between rebel and Ottoman forces, resulting in the deaths of 314 Ottoman soldiers and 38 rebels. The revolutionaries succeeded in capturing large parts of East Thrace , encompassing 92 Greek and Bulgarian villages that consisted of over 17,000 houses in total. Here they established
672-528: A dialect continuum, and there is no well-defined boundary where one language ends and the other begins. Within the limits of the Republic of North Macedonia a strong separate Macedonian identity has emerged since the Second World War, even though there still are a small number of citizens who identify their language as Bulgarian. Beyond the borders of North Macedonia, the situation is more fluid, and
784-502: A middle ground between the macrodialects. It allows palatalizaton only before central and back vowels and only partial reduction of / a / and / ɔ / . Reduction of / ɛ / , consonant palatalisation before front vowels and depalatalization of palatalized consonants before central and back vowels is strongly discouraged and labelled as provincial. Bulgarian has six vowel phonemes, but at least eight distinct phones can be distinguished when reduced allophones are taken into consideration. There
896-446: A much smaller group of irregular nouns with zero ending which define tangible objects or concepts ( кръв /krɤf/ 'blood', кост /kɔst/ 'bone', вечер /ˈvɛtʃɛr/ 'evening', нощ /nɔʃt/ 'night'). There are also some commonly used words that end in a vowel and yet are masculine: баща 'father', дядо 'grandfather', чичо / вуйчо 'uncle', and others. The plural forms of the nouns do not express their gender as clearly as
1008-490: A number of phraseological units and sayings. The major exception are vocative forms, which are still in use for masculine (with the endings -е, -о and -ю) and feminine nouns (-[ь/й]о and -е) in the singular. In modern Bulgarian, definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun, much like in the Scandinavian languages or Romanian (indefinite: човек , 'person'; definite: човек ът , "
1120-507: A revolutionary funeral at Malko Tarnovo, where villagers dedicated songs to the fallen fighters. On 11 July [ O.S. 28 June] 1903, a congress at Petrova Niva declared that the uprising would begin on 23 July [ O.S. 10 July] 1903. But Gerdzhikov successfully requested its postponement to the following week, as the Adrianpolitan revolutionaries were not yet ready to carry out their own uprising, which
1232-531: A special count form in –а/–я , which stems from the Proto-Slavonic dual : два/три стола ('two/three chairs') versus тези столове ('these chairs'); cf. feminine две/три/тези книги ('two/three/these books') and neuter две/три/тези легла ('two/three/these beds'). However, a recently developed language norm requires that count forms should only be used with masculine nouns that do not denote persons. Thus, двама/трима ученици ('two/three students')
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#17327801289261344-635: Is " Ye lena Yankovich" ( Йелена Янкович ). Until the period immediately following the Second World War , all Bulgarian and the majority of foreign linguists referred to the South Slavic dialect continuum spanning the area of modern Bulgaria, North Macedonia and parts of Northern Greece as a group of Bulgarian dialects. In contrast, Serbian sources tended to label them "south Serbian" dialects. Some local naming conventions included bolgárski , bugárski and so forth. The codifiers of
1456-647: Is also a significant Bulgarian diaspora abroad. One of the main historically established communities are the Bessarabian Bulgarians , whose settlement in the Bessarabia region of nowadays Moldova and Ukraine dates mostly to the early 19th century. There were 134,000 Bulgarian speakers in Ukraine at the 2001 census, 41,800 in Moldova as of the 2014 census (of which 15,300 were habitual users of
1568-838: Is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeast Europe , primarily in Bulgaria . It is the language of the Bulgarians . Along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages ), it is a member of the Balkan sprachbund and South Slavic dialect continuum of the Indo-European language family . The two languages have several characteristics that set them apart from all other Slavic languages , including
1680-496: Is based on a general consensus reached by all major Bulgarian linguists in the 1930s and 1940s. In turn, the 39-consonant model was launched in the beginning of the 1950s under the influence of the ideas of Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy . Despite frequent objections, the support of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has ensured Trubetzkoy's model virtual monopoly in state-issued phonologies and grammars since
1792-433: Is common in all modern Slavic languages (e.g. Czech medv ě d /ˈmɛdvjɛt/ "bear", Polish p ię ć /pʲɛ̃tɕ/ "five", Serbo-Croatian je len /jělen/ "deer", Ukrainian нема є /nemájɛ/ "there is not ...", Macedonian пишува ње /piʃuvaɲʲɛ/ "writing", etc.), as well as some Western Bulgarian dialectal forms – e.g. ора̀н’е /oˈraɲʲɛ/ (standard Bulgarian: оране /oˈranɛ/ , "ploughing"), however it
1904-405: Is currently no consensus on the number of Bulgarian consonants, with one school of thought advocating for the existence of only 22 consonant phonemes and another one claiming that there are not fewer than 39 consonant phonemes. The main bone of contention is how to treat palatalized consonants : as separate phonemes or as allophones of their respective plain counterparts. The 22-consonant model
2016-817: Is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Proto-Slavic yat vowel (Ѣ). This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgaria's: The literary language norm, which is generally based on the Eastern dialects, also has the Eastern alternating reflex of yat . However, it has not incorporated the general Eastern umlaut of all synchronic or even historic "ya" sounds into "e" before front vowels – e.g. поляна ( polyana ) vs. полени ( poleni ) "meadow – meadows" or even жаба ( zhaba ) vs. жеби ( zhebi ) "frog – frogs", even though it co-occurs with
2128-479: Is not represented in standard Bulgarian speech or writing. Even where /jɛ/ occurs in other Slavic words, in Standard Bulgarian it is usually transcribed and pronounced as pure /ɛ/ – e.g. Boris Yeltsin is "Eltsin" ( Борис Елцин ), Yekaterinburg is "Ekaterinburg" ( Екатеринбург ) and Sarajevo is "Saraevo" ( Сараево ), although – because of the stress and the beginning of the word – Jelena Janković
2240-478: Is one more to describe a general category of unwitnessed events – the inferential (преизказно /prɛˈiskɐzno/ ) mood. However, most contemporary Bulgarian linguists usually exclude the subjunctive mood and the inferential mood from the list of Bulgarian moods (thus placing the number of Bulgarian moods at a total of 3: indicative, imperative and conditional) and do not consider them to be moods but view them as verbial morphosyntactic constructs or separate gramemes of
2352-401: Is perceived as more correct than двама/трима ученика , while the distinction is retained in cases such as два/три молива ('two/three pencils') versus тези моливи ('these pencils'). Cases exist only in the personal and some other pronouns (as they do in many other modern Indo-European languages ), with nominative , accusative , dative and vocative forms. Vestiges are present in
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#17327801289262464-577: Is still time, because when we set off from here there is no going back! We are not fighting for ourselves but for our wives and children, for the generations to come!" On 19 August [ O.S. 6 August] 1903, the Adrianopolitan revolutionaries ignited the Preobrazhenie Uprising. At 01:30, Gerdzhikov's militia marched on Vasiliko, where they surrounded the government offices and Turkish quarter, positioned themselves on
2576-418: Is that mutable parts of speech vary grammatically, whereas the immutable ones do not change, regardless of their use. The five classes of mutables are: nouns , adjectives , numerals , pronouns and verbs . Syntactically, the first four of these form the group of the noun or the nominal group. The immutables are: adverbs , prepositions , conjunctions , particles and interjections . Verbs and adverbs form
2688-652: Is the Service of Saint Cyril from Skopje (Скопски миней), a 13th-century Middle Bulgarian manuscript from northern Macedonia according to which St. Cyril preached with "Bulgarian" books among the Moravian Slavs. The first mention of the language as the "Bulgarian language" instead of the "Slavonic language" comes in the work of the Greek clergy of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in the 11th century, for example in
2800-399: Is used, and the choice between them is partly determined by their ending in singular and partly influenced by gender; in addition, irregular declension and alternative plural forms are common. Words ending in –а/–я (which are usually feminine) generally have the plural ending –и , upon dropping of the singular ending. Of nouns ending in a consonant, the feminine ones also use –и , whereas
2912-788: The Adrianople revolutionary district . In early 1903, throughout the mountains of Strandzha , people began preparing for the coming uprising. Led by the anarchist Mihail Gerdzhikov , revolutionaries started procuring weapons, manufacturing bombs and sabotaging Ottoman lines. Gerdzhikov also tended to the establishment of "death squads", which were to form the nucleus of the Thracian revolutionary army. The villagers of Strandzha also spontaneously established libertarian communism . Thracian villages reorganized into communes , bringing land, livestock and agricultural produce under common ownership . While men formed local militias and began training for
3024-587: The Adrianople vilayet of the Ottoman Empire . The independence of the Principality of Bulgaria and subsequent separation of Thrace and Macedonia from its territory had ignited a irredentist movement , organised around the IMARO. The organisation, which counted Bulgarian anarchists among its membership, planned for the liberation of Thrace and Macedonia from Ottoman rule and the establishment of
3136-488: The Balkan language area (mostly grammatically) and later also by Turkish , which was the official language of the Ottoman Empire , in the form of the Ottoman Turkish language , mostly lexically. The damaskin texts mark the transition from Middle Bulgarian to New Bulgarian, which was standardized in the 19th century. As a national revival occurred toward the end of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during
3248-714: The Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet which was devised by the Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 850s. The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script , developed around the Preslav Literary School , Bulgaria in the late 9th century. Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the beginning and the middle of
3360-575: The Greek hagiography of Clement of Ohrid by Theophylact of Ohrid (late 11th century). During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system , but preserving the rich verb system (while the development was exactly the opposite in other Slavic languages) and developing a definite article. It was influenced by its non-Slavic neighbors in
3472-616: The Makhnovshchina in Ukraine. East Thrace was first brought under the control of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century, during which it crushed the Bulgarian Empire and subjugated it to Ottoman rule . The reaction against the occupation of Bulgaria culminated in the 19th century with the Bulgarian National Awakening , as Bulgarians increasingly rose up against Ottoman rule. Bulgarian anarchists of
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3584-803: The accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union , following the Latin and Greek scripts . Bulgarian possesses a phonology similar to that of the rest of the South Slavic languages, notably lacking Serbo-Croatian's phonemic vowel length and tones and alveo-palatal affricates. There is a general dichotomy between Eastern and Western dialects, with Eastern ones featuring consonant palatalization before front vowels ( / ɛ / and / i / ) and substantial vowel reduction of
3696-445: The person") or to the first nominal constituent of definite noun phrases (indefinite: добър човек , 'a good person'; definite: добри ят човек , " the good person"). There are four singular definite articles. Again, the choice between them is largely determined by the noun's ending in the singular. Nouns that end in a consonant and are masculine use –ът/–ят, when they are grammatical subjects , and –а/–я elsewhere. Nouns that end in
3808-649: The " Big Excursion " of 1989. The language is also represented among the diaspora in Western Europe and North America, which has been steadily growing since the 1990s. Countries with significant numbers of speakers include Germany , Spain , Italy , the United Kingdom (38,500 speakers in England and Wales as of 2011), France , the United States , and Canada (19,100 in 2011). The language
3920-625: The 1960s. However, its reception abroad has been lukewarm, with a number of authors either calling the model into question or outright rejecting it. Thus, the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association only lists 22 consonants in Bulgarian's consonant inventory . The parts of speech in Bulgarian are divided in ten types, which are categorized in two broad classes: mutable and immutable. The difference
4032-464: The 19th century during the efforts on the codification of Modern Bulgarian until an alphabet with 32 letters, proposed by Marin Drinov , gained prominence in the 1870s. The alphabet of Marin Drinov was used until the orthographic reform of 1945, when the letters yat (uppercase Ѣ, lowercase ѣ) and yus (uppercase Ѫ, lowercase ѫ) were removed from its alphabet, reducing the number of letters to 30. With
4144-461: The 19th century), a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged that drew heavily on Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian (and to some extent on literary Russian , which had preserved many lexical items from Church Slavonic) and later reduced the number of Turkish and other Balkan loans. Today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in
4256-469: The Adrianopolitan revolutionary leadership – Stamat Ikonomov , Lazar Madzharov and Hristo Silyanov – in the village of Golyamo Kokorafi. They agreed to initiate their uprising on the following week, with each commander having the autonomy to carry out decentralized and independent action against the Ottoman forces. Each tasked with targeting military outposts and infrastructure, Gerdzhikov chose to attack
4368-407: The Bulgarian peasantry, many of whom were untrained. The revolutionaries also attempted to appeal to other ethnic groups, with the revolutionary command declaring that they were only fighting against the tyranny of the Ottomans, rather than for any ethnic nationalist motivations, and thus expressing solidarity with ordinary Turks that were also ruled by the empire. Coordination of the beginning of
4480-593: The Greeks electing a provisional government, itself answerable to the revolutionary command. Gerdzhikov's militia then left the town and went on to other villages, being welcomed as a liberator by the village of Balgari . That same night, local militias in Peneka [ tr ; bg ] cut the region's telegraph lines, drove the police out of the village and attacked the nearby army garrison. Ikonomov's militias also set out from Veliko [ bg ] and attacked
4592-466: The IMARO; the independent anarchists Nikola Dechev , Varban Kilifarski and Konstantin Nunkov [ bg ] also supported organisational autonomy; but their commander-in-chief Mihail Gerdzhikov warned against engaging in small-scale partisan activity and advocated full participation within the IMARO, in order to coordinate their revolutionary activities at scale. Although led by anarchists,
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4704-557: The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, the Balkan Wars resulted in the cession of territory to the nascent Kingdom of Bulgaria . But Adrianople itself remained under Ottoman control, forcing most of the remaining Bulgarian population to flee to Bulgaria, while those that remained behind were subjected to Turkification . Despite the efforts of the IMARO, the region of East Thrace would remain under Turkish rule up until
4816-594: The Ottoman army. In total, the Strandzha Commune lasted barely a month. On 7 September [ O.S. 25 August] 1903, 40,000 Ottoman troops conducted a counter-offensive against the Strandzha commune, methodically encircling rebel territories before attacking and often strategically withdrawing to avoid pitched battles with the rebels. Gerdzhikov's forces attempted to attack the Ottoman army as much as possible, in order to provide time and space for
4928-416: The Ottoman barracks at the port town of Vasiliko , while Ikonomov was dispatched to attack the garrison at Uzunköy and Madzharov to the garrison at Derinköy. Ikonomov had initially proposed that they begin by attacking Malko Tarnovo, but his plan was opposed by the others due to lack of information on the local garrison's numbers. It would later be discovered that the town's garrison was insignificant, and that
5040-533: The Ottomans and outside of the new Bulgarian state. Bulgarian refugees subsequently fled Adrianople to Bulgaria, where in 1893 they ignited a movement for Bulgarian irredentism , organizing themselves into the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO). They established a network of chetas , revolutionary cells which were to prepare for a popular uprising against the Ottomans in
5152-478: The Strandzha Commune, a society designed according to the principles of libertarian communism . The Commune has been referred to alternatively as a " republic " or a " mini-state ", itself founded on a communitarian system which upheld freedom , equality and solidarity . Ethnic conflicts between Greeks and Bulgarians receded, as they arrived at decisions through mutual agreement , and the old Ottoman tax books were burned. During this time, Strandzha existed as
5264-631: The area of Kladar , to declare the start of the uprising: "The hour has finally come [...] the hour we have been waiting for for five hundred years, which we have been working for day and night, buying up rifles, roaming the Balkans, populating the dungeons... This evening all our brothers in blood and suffering, wherever they may be, shall pit their strength against our enemies. Wherever there are Turkish forces we shall smash them. Tonight terrible deeds must be done. Blood shall flow, heads shall roll, villages and towns shall burn. As of tonight we are no longer
5376-559: The civilian population to flee. They evacuated whole villages towards Bulgaria, where they hoped that they would find military assistance from the Bulgarian state, but such an intervention never took place. During the Ottoman advance, 2,565 people were killed, 12,880 were left homeless and 20,000 became refugees. The number of victims in East Thrace was comparatively higher than Macedonia, as the autocratic Sultan Abdul Hamid II did not want to tolerate an uprising so close to Istanbul . In
5488-412: The coming uprising, women, children and the elderly worked cooperatively in the fields. Although the system wasn't welcomed by everyone, with some rich landowners protesting, it was established without coercion or significant resistance. In the rebel strongholds of Malko Tarnovo , Lozengrad and Bunarhisar , the uprising grew into a mass movement, with people of all ages and genders helping to prepare
5600-412: The completion of the action of the verb and form past perfective (aorist) forms; imperfective ones are neutral with regard to it and form past imperfective forms. Most Bulgarian verbs can be grouped in perfective-imperfective pairs (imperfective/perfective: идвам/дойда "come", пристигам/пристигна "arrive"). Perfective verbs can be usually formed from imperfective ones by suffixation or prefixation, but
5712-544: The date of the uprising approached, events began to unfold that the rebels had not anticipated: on 16 August [ O.S. 3 August] 1903, revolutionaries in Risovo arrested and executed a tax collector, civil guards and a Greek spy; and on 17 August [ O.S. 4 August] 1903, rebels surrounded Madzhur and attacked a detachment of 30 soldiers that were evicting the local population, killing 20. This prompted Gerdzhikov, who had gathered with 120 militiamen in
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#17327801289265824-672: The diplomat's motivations were for supporting Macedonia. He later discovered following the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War that Japan aimed to bog down Russia by re-igniting conflict in the Balkans. They then went on to Italy, where they were mocked by the Italian socialist press for staying in expensive hotels, to which Gerdzhikov found himself agreeing. This irreparably damaged relations between Gerdzhikov and Sarafov, with Gerdzhikov ultimately deciding to withdraw back to Bulgaria, having not raised any money at all. A decade after
5936-564: The eastern dialects prevailed, and in 1899 the Bulgarian Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography. Bulgarian is the official language of Bulgaria , where it is used in all spheres of public life. As of 2011, it is spoken as a first language by about 6 million people in the country, or about four out of every five Bulgarian citizens. There
6048-439: The elimination of case declension , the development of a suffixed definite article , and the lack of a verb infinitive . They retain and have further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system (albeit analytically). One such major development is the innovation of evidential verb forms to encode for the source of information: witnessed, inferred, or reported. It is the official language of Bulgaria , and since 2007 has been among
6160-514: The end, the poorly-armed, poorly-trained and numerically inferior rebel forces were unable to withstand the Ottoman assault. Within two months, the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising had been suppressed, leaving thousands of victims throughout Macedonia and Thrace. The ensuing repression encouraged the Bulgarian national liberation movement to divert funds towards aiding refugees fleeing the two regions, while holding mass demonstrations throughout Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government itself officially condemned
6272-529: The events in Macedonia, with relatively little scholarly attention paid to the uprising in Thrace. But the Strandzha commune would leave a lasting legacy within the Bulgarian anarchist movement , as the first attempt in the world to establish a libertarian communist society. In many ways, the Strandzha Commune preceded the structure of the Makhnovshchina , which saw its army as a temporary necessity and left
6384-615: The first anarchist newspapers in Bulgaria, giving rise to a specific Bulgarian anarchist movement. Gerdzhikov himself went on to co-found the Bulgarian Anarchist Communist Federation (FAKB), which made anarchism a major force in the country. Gerdzhikov died in 1947, following the establishment of the People's Republic of Bulgaria . Most written histories of the Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising focus on
6496-465: The garrison at Vizitsa , preventing the local Ottoman forces from intervening against the uprising, even after the rebels withdrew back to Veliko. In Tsiknikhor [ tr ; bg ] , the militia led by Stoyan Kamilski [ bg ] attacked the Ottoman garrison, taking the barracks and shooting its commanding officer, before burning down two houses that Ottoman soldiers had barricaded themselves inside. In Gramatikovo , 120 rebels attacked
6608-544: The group of the verb or the verbal group. Nouns and adjectives have the categories grammatical gender , number , case (only vocative ) and definiteness in Bulgarian. Adjectives and adjectival pronouns agree with nouns in number and gender. Pronouns have gender and number and retain (as in nearly all Indo-European languages ) a more significant part of the case system. There are three grammatical genders in Bulgarian: masculine , feminine and neuter . The gender of
6720-436: The harbour and chief of police. Gerdzhikov explained their motivations for the attack and offered the officials to either be freed immediately or escorted to safety in Bulgaria, with the officials choosing the latter. Later that morning, the town's Greek population greeted Gerdzhikov with gifts and asked how they were to organise their new administration. He responded by advising that they self-organize however they saw fit, with
6832-489: The historical yat vowel or at least root vowels displaying the ya – e alternation. The letter was used in each occurrence of such a root, regardless of the actual pronunciation of the vowel: thus, both ml ya ko and ml e kar were spelled with (Ѣ). Among other things, this was seen as a way to "reconcile" the Western and the Eastern dialects and maintain language unity at a time when much of Bulgaria's Western dialect area
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#17327801289266944-417: The insurrection. Women harvested crops for the movement's food supply, stashed weapons for fighters and acted as liaisons for the militias, even designing and manufacturing flags for the uprising. On 2 April [ O.S. 20 March] 1903, Ottoman forces surrounded Pano Angelov 's militia at Brashlyan and killed them in battle, leaving their bodies behind unburied. Rebels brought their bodies back to
7056-725: The language), and presumably a significant proportion of the 13,200 ethnic Bulgarians residing in neighbouring Transnistria in 2016. Another community abroad are the Banat Bulgarians , who migrated in the 17th century to the Banat region now split between Romania, Serbia and Hungary. They speak the Banat Bulgarian dialect , which has had its own written standard and a historically important literary tradition. There are Bulgarian speakers in neighbouring countries as well. The regional dialects of Bulgarian and Macedonian form
7168-576: The language, but its pronunciation is in many respects a compromise between East and West Bulgarian (see especially the phonetic sections below). Following the efforts of some figures of the National awakening of Bulgaria (most notably Neofit Rilski and Ivan Bogorov ), there had been many attempts to codify a standard Bulgarian language; however, there was much argument surrounding the choice of norms. Between 1835 and 1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and "linguistic chaos" ensued. Eventually
7280-443: The latter of whom criticised the timing of the uprising as premature; the right-wing was led by Boris Sarafov , who desired to go abroad and solicit financial and diplomatic aid for Macedonia and Thrace. Gerdzhikov eventually agreed to go abroad with Sarafov, on the condition that any decision must be made by agreement of both. The two went to Belgrade and then to Vienna , where Gerdzhikov caught Sarafov holding secret meetings with
7392-409: The latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот (turnover, rev), непонятен (incomprehensible), ядро (nucleus) and others. Many other loans from French, English and the classical languages have subsequently entered the language as well. Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of
7504-410: The leadership of the Commune was called the "Leading Combat Body", established to temporarily act as the executive power and coordinate military operations until the end of the conflict. There were also disagreements within the anarchist leadership over organisational questions: the " Boatmen ", such as Slavi Merdzhanov , Petar Mandzhukov and Petar Sokolov , wished to remain operationally separate from
7616-481: The literary norm regarding the yat vowel, many people living in Western Bulgaria, including the capital Sofia , will fail to observe its rules. While the norm requires the realizations vidyal vs. videli (he has seen; they have seen), some natives of Western Bulgaria will preserve their local dialect pronunciation with "e" for all instances of "yat" (e.g. videl , videli ). Others, attempting to adhere to
7728-467: The local Ottoman garrison and forced its 300 soldiers to flee, before heading on to attack Ottoman posts at Poturnak and Vizitsa, while the local militia destroyed Gramatikovo's telegraph posts and the bridge over the Veleka . In Stoilovo , 250 rebels attacked and destroyed the local Ottoman garrison, briefly being forced to withdraw after reinforcements arrived by Malko Tarnovo, before the Ottomans abandoned
7840-399: The local garrison, taking the town and cutting its telegraph lines. Part of his forces then prematurely attacked Kadiyevo [ tk ; bg ] , forcing Madzharov to order them to withdraw. The following day, Ottoman reinforcements arrived from Lozengrad and the 1,000 rebels in the region decided to regroup at their camp, but as they were poorly armed, they were forced to withdraw from
7952-475: The low vowels / ɛ / , / ɔ / and / a / in unstressed position, sometimes leading to neutralisation between / ɛ / and / i / , / ɔ / and / u / , and / a / and / ɤ / . Both patterns have partial parallels in Russian, leading to partially similar sounds. In turn, the Western dialects generally do not have any allophonic palatalization and exhibit minor, if any, vowel reduction. Standard Bulgarian keeps
8064-399: The masculine ones usually have –и for polysyllables and –ове for monosyllables (however, exceptions are especially common in this group). Nouns ending in –о/–е (most of which are neuter) mostly use the suffixes –а, –я (both of which require the dropping of the singular endings) and –та . With cardinal numbers and related words such as няколко ('several'), masculine nouns use
8176-464: The modern day. At the time of the uprising, Mihail Gerdzhikov considered it necessary for anarchists to participate in the Bulgarian national liberation movement, in order to advance libertarian communism. But after the suppression of the uprising, he came to see further participation in the national movement as a waste of time, committing himself fully to anarchist activities. Together with Varban Kilifarski and Paraskev Stoyanov , he published some of
8288-477: The most significant exception from the above are the relatively numerous nouns that end in a consonant and yet are feminine: these comprise, firstly, a large group of nouns with zero ending expressing quality, degree or an abstraction, including all nouns ending on –ост/–ест -{ost/est} ( мъдрост /ˈmɤdrost/ 'wisdom', низост /ˈnizost/ 'vileness', прелест /ˈprɛlɛst/ 'loveliness', болест /ˈbɔlɛst/ 'sickness', любов /ljuˈbɔf/ 'love'), and secondly,
8400-476: The national liberation struggles in Macedonia and Thrace, but were ultimately unsuccessful. East Thrace remained under the control of the Ottoman Empire and is today still controlled by Turkey . The Strandzha Commune left a lasting legacy as the first distinctively modern attempt to establish libertarian communism, inspiring the consolidation of the Bulgarian anarchist movement and preceding the uprising of
8512-520: The newspaper Makedoniya : "Such an artificial assembly of written language is something impossible, unattainable and never heard of." After 1944 the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia into the connecting link for the establishment of a new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating here a development of distinct Macedonian consciousness. With
8624-511: The nobility and accused him of being an agent of the Bulgarian prince. They then went on to Paris and London , where Gerdzhikov became increasingly frustrated by their fundraising activities. One evening he met with a Japanese diplomat, who expressed sympathy for the Macedonian people and pledged his support in terms of financial aid and the supply of arms. Gerdzhikov initially refused, as he had to consult with Sarafov first, but wondered what
8736-447: The norm, will actually use the "ya" sound even in cases where the standard language has "e" (e.g. vidyal , vidyali ). The latter hypercorrection is called свръхякане ( svrah-yakane ≈"over- ya -ing"). Bulgarian is the only Slavic language whose literary standard does not naturally contain the iotated e /jɛ/ (or its variant, e after a palatalized consonant /ʲɛ/ , except in non-Slavic foreign-loaned words). This sound combination
8848-659: The noun can largely be inferred from its ending: nouns ending in a consonant ("zero ending") are generally masculine (for example, град /ɡrat/ 'city', син /sin/ 'son', мъж /mɤʃ/ 'man'; those ending in –а/–я (-a/-ya) ( жена /ʒɛˈna/ 'woman', дъщеря /dɐʃtɛrˈja/ 'daughter', улица /ˈulitsɐ/ 'street') are normally feminine; and nouns ending in –е, –о are almost always neuter ( дете /dɛˈtɛ/ 'child', езеро /ˈɛzɛro/ 'lake'), as are those rare words (usually loanwords) that end in –и, –у, and –ю ( цунами /tsuˈnami/ ' tsunami ', табу /tɐˈbu/ 'taboo', меню /mɛˈnju/ 'menu'). Perhaps
8960-994: The noun they are appended to. They may also take the definite article as explained above. Pronouns may vary in gender, number, and definiteness, and are the only parts of speech that have retained case inflections. Three cases are exhibited by some groups of pronouns – nominative, accusative and dative. The distinguishable types of pronouns include the following: personal, relative, reflexive, interrogative, negative, indefinitive, summative and possessive. A Bulgarian verb has many distinct forms, as it varies in person, number, voice, aspect, mood, tense and in some cases gender. Finite verbal forms are simple or compound and agree with subjects in person (first, second and third) and number (singular, plural). In addition to that, past compound forms using participles vary in gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and voice (active and passive) as well as aspect (perfective/aorist and imperfective). Bulgarian verbs express lexical aspect : perfective verbs signify
9072-563: The occupied territories. In 1898, the Bulgarian anarchists of the Macedonian Secret Revolutionary Committee (MTRK), including Mihail Gerdzhikov , joined the IMARO and began participating in its revolutionary activities. In January 1903, the leadership of the IMARO initiated their plans for a mass insurrection in Bitola and Adrianople, with an underground congress of the IMARO electing Gerdzhikov to lead
9184-473: The official languages of the European Union . It is also spoken by the Bulgarian historical communities in North Macedonia , Ukraine , Moldova , Serbia , Romania , Hungary , Albania and Greece . One can divide the development of the Bulgarian language into several periods. Bulgarian was the first Slavic language attested in writing. As Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity,
9296-470: The oldest manuscripts initially referred to this language as ѧзꙑкъ словѣньскъ, "the Slavic language". In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was gradually replaced by the name ѧзꙑкъ блъгарьскъ, the "Bulgarian language". In some cases, this name was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. A most notable example of anachronism
9408-646: The oppressed infidel subjects. We do not respect the Muslim laws, the viziers, the army, we shall pay no taxes and duties. Now it is us who shall set the laws, elect the judges and control the army in these lands! Every Turk shall be greeted not with the customary Muslim greeting but with knife and bullet until our land is purged of the enemy, or until they submit to our way and begin to live a new life, no longer as overlords and oppressors, but as peace-loving Thracians with equal rights and responsibilities. Those of you here who feel fear in your hearts should leave now while there
9520-789: The organization of civil society to popularly elected free soviets . In 1982, General Kiril Kosev [ bg ] of the Bulgarian People's Army gave a report on the military history of the Balkans, in which he declared that the uprising of the Strandzha Commune represented one of the most "glorious pages in our 13-centuries-old history". 42°10′15″N 27°51′05″E / 42.17083°N 27.85139°E / 42.17083; 27.85139 Bulgarian language Rup Moesian Bulgarian ( / b ʌ l ˈ ɡ ɛər i ə n / , / b ʊ l ˈ -/ bu(u)l- GAIR -ee-ən ; български език , bŭlgarski ezik , pronounced [ˈbɤɫɡɐrski] )
9632-429: The past pluperfect subjunctive. Perfect constructions use a single auxiliary "be". The traditional interpretation is that in addition to the four moods (наклонения /nəkloˈnɛnijɐ/ ) shared by most other European languages – indicative (изявително, /izʲəˈvitɛɫno/ ) imperative (повелително /poveˈlitelno/ ), subjunctive ( подчинително /pottʃiˈnitɛɫno/ ) and conditional (условно, /oˈsɫɔvno/ ) – in Bulgarian there
9744-412: The period believed that the national liberation struggle against the Ottomans could be the means through which to achieve libertarian communism . The anarchist Hristo Botev even participated in the failed April Uprising of 1876 against the Ottomans, losing his life in the process. In total, 60 Bulgarian anarchists lost their lives during the national liberation struggle against the Ottomans. Following
9856-604: The pockets of speakers of the related regional dialects in Albania and in Greece variously identify their language as Macedonian or as Bulgarian. In Serbia , there were 13,300 speakers as of 2011, mainly concentrated in the so-called Western Outlands along the border with Bulgaria. Bulgarian is also spoken in Turkey: natively by Pomaks , and as a second language by many Bulgarian Turks who emigrated from Bulgaria, mostly during
9968-454: The poor residents of the region, who had little to lose from the new system and whose lot improved once they were no longer subject to the whims of their landlords. Participants in the uprising often noted a specific example of communism in action: when 200,000 kg of salt was discovered in a state-owned cellar in Ahtopol, Gerdzhikov and Petar Angelov dissolved the state company and distributed
10080-645: The proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as part of the Yugoslav federation, the new authorities also started measures that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language was codified. After 1958, when the pressure from Moscow decreased, Sofia reverted to the view that the Macedonian language did not exist as a separate language. Nowadays, Bulgarian and Greek linguists, as well as some linguists from other countries, still consider
10192-410: The re-establishment of a Bulgarian empire, but only for human rights ; we explained to them that as Greeks they too would benefit from this and it would be good if they would support us morally and materially..." The region's libertarian communist system lasted until 3 September [ O.S. 21 August] 1903, with some parts of the region holding out for another week, before being broken up by
10304-521: The reach of anarchist propaganda was limited and the new society was constructed largely spontaneously. The villagers of Strandzha, who had already established a communal economy in four villages while preparing for the uprising, were quick to adopt communism and abolish private property , bringing land and livestock under common ownership . Once food was harvested, it was collected into a common storehouse and appropriate shares portioned out to villagers and fighters. Communism proved particularly enticing to
10416-507: The rebels. By 23 August [ O.S. 10 August] 1903, the entire region was under rebel control. All of the immediate tasks of the uprising were largely fulfilled, hampering the transfer of Ottoman troops to Macedonia, disrupting their communications network and besieging the district's last garrison holding out in Malko Tarnovo. After initial operations went well, Gerdzhikov contacted his fellow commanders in order to attempt
10528-436: The region entirely. In Paspalovo [ tk ; bg ] , rebels led by Georgi Kondolov [ bg ] launched an attack against the reinforced local garrison, during which Kondolov himself was gravely wounded. He requested his soldiers kill him and he was buried in the local cemetery, where the district's residents paid their respects to the fallen commander. On 21 August [ O.S. 8 August] 1903,
10640-535: The repression, but did little else to intervene, fearing further conflict. The great powers of Europe were similarly passive, allowing the Ottomans to continue the repression unabated. In October 1903, the Leading Combat Body of the commune regrouped in Sofia in order to survey the outcome of the uprising. The leadership emerged divided: the left-wing was led by Mihail Gerdzhikov and Yane Sandanski ,
10752-466: The resultant verb often deviates in meaning from the original. In the pair examples above, aspect is stem-specific and therefore there is no difference in meaning. In Bulgarian, there is also grammatical aspect . Three grammatical aspects are distinguishable: neutral, perfect and pluperfect. The neutral aspect comprises the three simple tenses and the future tense. The pluperfect is manifest in tenses that use double or triple auxiliary "be" participles like
10864-407: The roads through town and cut its telegraph lines. Gerdzhkiov led a detachment of 40 rebels, only 15 of whom were trained militiamen, in attacking the Ottoman garrisons, which together contained 800 troops. Most of the soldiers and Turkish civilians fled the town by boat, but Hristo Silyanov managed to capture the town's highest-ranking officials, including the naval officer, postmaster general, head of
10976-516: The salt throughout the villages of Strandzha, giving four measures of salt to each family and a dozen cart-loads for each village. Hristo Silyanov wrote of the uprising that "I have seen areas in Macedonia much better prepared for uprising than here in the Malko Turnovo area, but here for the first time I have seen the Commune..." Gerdzhikov himself wrote of the experience: "We somehow began setting up our own institutions... The population
11088-525: The singular ones, but may also provide some clues to it: the ending –и (-i) is more likely to be used with a masculine or feminine noun ( факти /ˈfakti/ 'facts', болести /ˈbɔlɛsti/ 'sicknesses'), while one in –а/–я belongs more often to a neuter noun ( езера /ɛzɛˈra/ 'lakes'). Also, the plural ending –ове /ovɛ/ occurs only in masculine nouns. Two numbers are distinguished in Bulgarian– singular and plural . A variety of plural suffixes
11200-428: The standard Bulgarian language, however, did not wish to make any allowances for a pluricentric "Bulgaro-Macedonian" compromise. In 1870 Marin Drinov , who played a decisive role in the standardization of the Bulgarian language, rejected the proposal of Parteniy Zografski and Kuzman Shapkarev for a mixed eastern and western Bulgarian/Macedonian foundation of the standard Bulgarian language, stating in his article in
11312-413: The start of the uprising was officially signalled when rebels blew up the lighthouse in İğneada , upon which 80 Ottoman soldiers immediately fled Kosti , while the rebels captured Ahtopol and oversaw the election of a provisional government there. The following night, rebels attacked the garrison at Kalevo [ bg ] , forcing the soldiers to flee to Malko Tarnovo, leaving their storehouses to
11424-528: The town could feasibly have been taken per Ikonomov's proposals. The revolutionary army consisted of about 2,000 poorly-equipped men, only 200 of whom were armed with quality Mannlicher rifles , while the rest had to make do with old rifles that had last been used half a century earlier in the Crimean War . The rebels were also vastly outnumbered by Ottoman forces, themselves equipped with modern Mauser rifles . The rebels also drew their base of support from
11536-524: The uprising was initially hindered by Konstantin Antonov , who was supposed to carry out acts of sabotage along with the anarchist demolitions expert Konstantin Nunkov [ bg ] , but continually failed to achieve his objectives. The revolutionary leadership demanded he abdicate command to Nunkov, but he didn't answer, and by the time that the uprising started, increased Ottoman security provisions left him unable to carry out any further actions. As
11648-400: The uprising was initiated and insurgents captured much of the region, the Strandzha Commune was proclaimed, definitively establishing communism in the areas liberated from Ottoman control. The Commune would last about a month before its suppression by the Ottoman Empire, during which thousands were killed or became refugees. Gerdzhikov and the IMARO attempted to elicit international support for
11760-484: The various Macedonian dialects as part of the broader Bulgarian pluricentric dialectal continuum . Outside Bulgaria and Greece, Macedonian is generally considered an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum. Sociolinguists agree that the question whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, because dialect continua do not allow for either/or judgements. In 886 AD,
11872-535: The verb class. The possible existence of a few other moods has been discussed in the literature. Most Bulgarian school grammars teach the traditional view of 4 Bulgarian moods (as described above, but excluding the subjunctive and including the inferential). There are three grammatically distinctive positions in time – present, past and future – which combine with aspect and mood to produce a number of formations. Normally, in grammar books these formations are viewed as separate tenses – i. e. "past imperfect" would mean that
11984-583: The victory of the Russian Empire over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 , the Treaty of San Stefano secured the establishment of the independent Principality of Bulgaria , although the revised Treaty of Berlin left it without many of its promised territories. The region of Adrianople , of which a third of the population was Bulgarian , remained under the control of
12096-447: The village and the rebels captured it. In Zvezdets , the Ottoman barracks were set on fire and its soldiers fled, with reinforcements from Malko Tarnovo later being surrounded by the entrenched rebels, forcing them to flee back where they came. The rebels then captured Surmashik and Konak, burning down the barracks and border posts in the area. In Derekovo , Lazar Madzharov led 300 rebels, armed mostly with axes and clubs, in an attack on
12208-461: The yat alternation in almost all Eastern dialects that have it (except a few dialects along the yat border, e.g. in the Pleven region). More examples of the yat umlaut in the literary language are: Until 1945, Bulgarian orthography did not reveal this alternation and used the original Old Slavic Cyrillic letter yat (Ѣ), which was commonly called двойно е ( dvoyno e ) at the time, to express
12320-430: Was controlled by Serbia and Greece , but there were still hopes and occasional attempts to recover it. With the 1945 orthographic reform, this letter was abolished and the present spelling was introduced, reflecting the alternation in pronunciation. This had implications for some grammatical constructions: Sometimes, with the changes, words began to be spelled as other words with different meanings, e.g.: In spite of
12432-760: Was planned to hinder the transfer of the Ottoman Army to Macedonia. On 2 August [ O.S. 20 July] 1903, the Ilinden Uprising finally broke out in Macedonia , where the revolutionaries established the Kruševo Republic . The uprising caught Gerdzhikov in Bulgaria, where he had sent Mikhail Daev [ bg ] to recruit more militiamen from Varna . Gerdzhikov quickly returned to Ottoman Thrace and, on 10 August [ O.S. 28 July] 1903, rendezvoued with other members of
12544-444: Was rejoicing, in the villages people danced and held feasts. There was no more " This is mine and that is yours " – in the hills and forests before and after the congress we had set up storehouses: the whole harvest was deposited there as flour and grain in common stores. The livestock also became common property... We issued an appeal to the ethnic Greek population in Greek explaining that in taking over territory we weren't fighting for
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