The Bulgarian Migrations and the End of Ottoman Rule in Bulgaria (1878–1900)

Sa？etak The paper presents the problem of the migrations of Bulgarians from Macedonia, Thrace, Russia, the Habsburg Monarchy, and Romania in 1878–1900. The biggest wave arrived in Bulgaria after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 – people were escaping from the repressions in the Ottoman Empire after its defeat. Later, many of the settlers were determined by economic motives – they hoped that the living standards would be better in the new Bulgarian state. The scale of the migrations led to introduction of two laws on that problem: in 1881 and 1890. The phenomenon had not only a crucial impact on the demographical structures of the Bulgarian state but also on its political, social and cultural shape, among others, on the transformation of the ethnic structure of the cities