Independence for Bulgaria

On the one hand, I was assured that the Boers were sordid in their habits, ignorant and untruthful, corrupt and unprincipled, and altogether unfit for independence. On the other hand, I was told that the Boers were a homely, simple-minded, law-abiding, and hard-working people, honest in their dealings, anxious to keep their word, though keen-witted about their own affairs, and perfectly competent to govern themselves. My personal observation soon led me to the conclusion that the

Boers were neither as good nor as bad as they were described respectively by friendly and unfriendly critics; but that, on the whole, the favourable version came nearer to the truth than the unfavorable one. I suspect, myself, a similar investigation would lead to a similar conclusion as to the two contradictory estimates of the Bulgar character you hear constantly from foreign residents, whose experience gives them some right to express an opinion on the subject. I was frequently told that the Bulgars were a bad lot; that they were greedy, grasping, and ungrateful; that they had no self-respect, no sense of honour. I have no doubt there is an element of truth in the above description.

Bulgars liberty

The Bulgars have only just regained their liberty after a servitude of centuries. I have already expressed my opinion that Turkish rule in Bulgaria was by no means so cruel or so oppressive as it is represented to have been by ardent partisans of Sclav proclivities. Still, after making every possible allowance, the rule of Turkey in Bulgaria was an autocratic despotism exercised by masters alien from their subjects in race, language, and religion. Slavery is slavery all the world over; and till within recent years the Bulgars were slaves, who only enjoyed a modicum of freedom, thanks to the remoteness of their country, the absence of individual wealth, and the contemptuous indifference of their Moslem lords and masters.

The marvel is, given these conditions, that they have retained so much of the virtues of freemen, not that they should have imbibed a few of the vices of slavery. Servility, dishonesty, dissimulation, disregard of truth, and absence of self-respect are failings necessarily generated by slavery. I am quite prepared to admit that the present generation of Bulgarians have not lost all the characteristics inherited from their forefathers.