Writing the history of the Macedonian-Adrianople Volunteer Corps, Petar Darvingov – a Bulgarian officer and voivode of the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee said: “[…] times fade irresistibly into the abyss of eternity, the traces of deeds are erased, memory begins to betray, and yesterday’s fact slowly turns into legend, coloured by the hues of the new times, the new language, the new sentiments, and the new moral needs.”
One hundred and twenty years after the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising – the largest all-Bulgarian uprising for the freedom of the Bulgarians in Macedonia and Thrace, we gather fragments of history in an attempt to dispel the fog of contemporary Balkan political passions and divisions of history and memory, and to take a look at that heroic striving of the Bulgarians for freedom and independence. A striving that gained strength immediately after the Congress of Berlin, which in an attempt to reorder the interests of the Great Powers after the Treaty of San Stefano, created a chimera. The unfulfilled dream of the Bulgarian national revolution for freedom and unification of Bulgarians under one state roof has been transformed into a true Chimera, whose monstrous power swept away borders, scorched lands, and shattered destinies.
In several decades, the Bulgarians in Macedonia, Thrace, Dobrudzha, and the Western Outlands, left outside the borders of Bulgaria and those who were fortunate to live in freedom, organized actions, launched uprisings, and waged wars in the name of living politically united in the Bulgarian land. And as the Commander-in-Chief of the Active Army during the First World War, Lieutenant General Nikola Zhekov, declared, under the victorious flags “stands united, unanimous, and strong the entire Bulgarian nation.”
The image of this united nation – monumental, heroic, tragic, and romantic is unthinkable without the Bulgarian flags – insurgent or battle, under which those who chose the bullet over the nonfreedom – their own and their brothers’, wrote with their own blood that they were Bulgarians.
To them we dedicate this edition.
For the first time, it brings together in one place part of the flags from the rich collection of the National Museum of Military History, flags related to the fights for the freedom of Macedonia and the Adrianople region, as well as battle flags of Bulgarian Army regiments that fought for their liberation during the Balkan Wars and the First World War, driven by the strategic goals of Bulgaria. Flags – authentic, preserved by people and institutions, not imaginary.
They are the embodiment of the common impulse toward a united fatherland, but also a unique reading of Bulgarian unity through the common symbols they bear – the colours of the Bulgarian tricolour, the crowned lion rampant in left profile, the Orthodox cross or the cross of the Military Order “For Bravery.” The mottos present on most of the flags are also symbolic – “Freedom or Death” permeates the entire epoch of the Bulgarian National Revival with its unconditionality; the verses of Hristo Botev, “He who falls in battle for freedom he shall not die […]” are a credo for generations of fighters; “Unity Makes Strength” stands proudly carved on the building of the Bulgarian Parliament.
The images of the two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the alphabet, though depicted with a naïve technique by known and unknown Bulgarian women who embroidered the revolutionary and regimental flags with love and devotion, present in Bulgaria’s highest state award, created on the occasion of the recognition of Bulgarian independence – the Order of “Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equals to the Apostles.”
Before these flags we bow our heads, in reverence to those who offered themselves as a sacrifice on the altar of the ideal for a free, united, and independent Bulgaria; in respect to all who contributed to this cause in whatever way they could; and in memory of the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes and loved ones.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sonya Penkova
Director of the National Museum of Military History