site.btaBulgaria Celebrates 140th Anniversary of Unification of Bulgarian Principality and Eastern Rumelia

Bulgaria celebrates on September 6 the 140th anniversary of the Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in 1885. It is a public holiday, with observances held countrywide.

Eastern Rumelia was established on May 19, 1879 by the Treaty of Berlin as an Ottoman autonomous province (vilayet) on 35,208 sq km of Bulgarian lands south of the Balkan Range, with Plovdiv as its administrative centre. In a bloodless military coup, local irredentists, organized in a Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee, ousted the provincial government and reunited the territory with the Bulgarian Principality on September 6, 1885 in defiance of the Great Powers' settlement of the Eastern Question. The de facto annexation of Eastern Rumelia by Bulgaria  was eventually recognized by Turkey, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia by the April 5, 1886 Convention of Tophane. The Governor-Generalship of Eastern Rumelia was entrusted to the Prince of Bulgaria to preserve the nominal Ottoman suzerainty required by the Berlin Treaty. The integration process was completed by the September 22, 1908 declaration of Bulgaria's independence, repudiating the country's vassalage status.

Commemorative events are scheduled across the country.