The Balkan Peninsula

who has been always the victim and not the oppressor of the Christian peoples by whose side he lives, and whose territories he invaded with the best of motives and with the minimum of sla

was in the fourth century that the first Saracens came to the Balkan Peninsula as allies of the Greek Empire against the Goths. They were thus called in by a Christian Power in the first instance. It was not until the fourteenth century that the Turks made a serious attempt to occupy the Balkan Peninsula. They were helped in their campaign considerably by the Christian Crusader

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is now thought that the design of its famous architect, Anthemius of Tralles, was n

opolis and Eski Zagora, two important centres of Bulgaria. It was not a violence to their conscience for some of the Bulgarian men after this to join the Turkish a

f an invader who was alien in blood and in religion. In 1366 the Bulgarians became the vassals of the Turks, and the Serbians were defeated at Kossovo. The fall of the Greek Empire and the subjugation of Roumania followed in due course, and by the seventeenth century the Turks had penetrated to the very walls of Vienna. At one time it seemed as if all Europe would fall under the sway o

lav tongue, and their sense of separate nationality. The Greeks, who had come to some kind of terms with the Turkish invaders, assisted to bring the Bulgarian people under subjection. The Greek church and the Greek tongue rather than the Turkish were sought to be imposed upon the Bulgarians. The subject people accepted the situation with occasional revolts, but more tamely than some other Balkan nations. It was not a general meek acquiescence, though it was-possibly by chance, possibly because of the fact that a racial relationship existed between conqueror and conquered-not so fierce in protest as that of the Serbians. In writing that, I do not follow exactly the Bulga

ccording to our present notions, political domination does not infringe upon personal liberty, which is sacred for the conqueror. This is not the case with Turkish rule. The Bulgarians, like the other Christians of the Balkan Peninsula, were, both collectively and individually, slaves. The life, possessions, and honour of private individuals were in constant peril. The bulk of the people, after several generations, calmed down to

he Bulgarians, and this was fortunate for our nationality. Contented with their political supremacy and pleased to feel themselves masters, the Turks did not trouble about the spiritual life of the rayas, except to try to trample out all desires for independence. All these circumstances contributed to allow the Bulgarian people, crushed and ground down by the Turkish yoke, to concentrate and preserve its own inner spiritual life. They formed religious communities attached to the churches. These had a certain amount of a

the religious associations served as cen

ry came to Bulgaria they found the peasants far more comfortable than were the Russian peasants of the day. The atrocities in Bulgaria which shocked Europe in 1875 were not the continuance of a settled policy of cruelty and rapine. They were the ferocious reprisals chiefly of Turkish Bashi-Bazouks (irregulars) following upon a Bulgarian rising. The Turks felt that they had been making an

their first capital in Europe, defeating heavily a combined Serbian and Greek army. Later the Serbian forces were again defeated by the great Turkish sultan Amurath I., and the Serbian king was killed on the battle-field. King Lazar, who succeeded to the Serbian throne, made so

rescue of the Serbs, and Amurath II. was driven back. An alliance between Serbs and Hungarians kept the Turk at bay for a time, and in 1444 Serbia could claim to be free once again. But the respite was a brief one. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks, and the full tide of their strengthened and now undivided power was turned upon Serbia. A siege of Belgrade in 1457 was repulsed, but in 1

t times the Hungarians from the other side of the Danube came to the aid of the revolters, but never in such strength as to shake seriously the Turkish power. Very many of the Serbs left

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eat massacre of Serbs by Turks in 1804, which, like the Turkish massacre of Bulgarians in 1875, really declared the doom of the Turkish power in the country. Following this massacre George Petrovic, "Black George," or "Kara George," as the Serbians knew him, raised the standard of revolt among his countrymen. He was a

century both kingdoms had great rulers. Wallachia was ruled by Vlad the Impaler, an able but cruel man, who seems to have earned the infamy of inventing a form of torture still practised in the Balkans as a matter of religious proselytising, that of sitting the victim on a sharp stake, and leaving him to die slowly as the stake penetrated his body. Moldavia had as king Stephen the Great, who has no such ghastly reputation of cruelty. But able princes could effect little with communities weakened by the luxury of the nobles and the helpless poverty of the serfs. Still, the Roumanians had intervals of victory. In

iate Greek to be satisfied. From 1711 until the final liberation of Roumania, Roumanian sympathies were generally with the Russians in the frequent wars waged by them against Turkey. In 1770 the Russians occupied Roumania and freed it for a time from the Turk, but in 1774 the Roumanians went back to the Turkish suzerainty. During the Napoleonic wars Russia gave Roumania some reason to doubt the disinterestedness of her friendship by annexing the rich province of Bessarabia, a part of the natural territory of the Roumanian people. The year 1821 saw the outbreak of the Greek war of independence, in which Roumania took no part, having as little love for the Greek as for the Turk.

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ack Mountain" held out, and there gathered within its little area of rocky hill fastnesses the free remnants of the Serbian race. The story of that little nation is quite the most wonderful in all the world. It transcends Sparta, and makes the fighting record of the Swiss seem tame. At the height of its p

phew (not a son-as a bishop of the Greek Communion he would be celibate) to succeed him. The Montenegrin dynasty was founded in 1696 by King Danilo I., an

s of the Balkan Peninsula, anxious for freedom and for revenge on the Turk. Sometimes the tide of battle went sorely against the mountaineers, and almost all their country was put under the heel of the Moslem. But always one eyrie was kept for the free eagles, and from it they swooped down with renewed strength to send the invader once again across their borders. Repeatedly the Turk levied great armies for the conquest of Montenegro (once the Turkish force reached to the number of 80,000). Repeatedly great European Powers which had proffered help or had been begged for help failed little Montenegro at a crisis. But never were the stout hearts of the Black Mountain quelled. In 1484, when Za

EGRIN

and Inspect

negrin book printed in the Cyrillic character. During the next century this printing press was kept busy with the issue of the Gospels and psalters under the rule of the brave Bishop Baby

sh yoke Montenegro was not reluctant to join in the movement for libe

up to the stage at which the final and successful effort was made with the help of Russia to drive