Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-31
BULGAR DREAM OF A GREAT EMPIRE
Is Partly Memory of Glorious Past-Fok Traits Which Set
the People Apart From the Slavs-A Characteristic Ma
tional ProVerb.

BULGARIA, the world expects to hear,
ID will Join before long in the great war,
but 1t Is quite certain that her actions will
be neither pro-Teuton nor pro-Ally, but
solely in furtherance of her dream of
pire. When the European war broke out
Bulgaria was keeping steadily In mind the
words spoken to the army by the Car Fer
dnand after the peace of Bucharest, Eek
hausted, but not vanquished, we have had
to furl our glorious standards In order to
walt for better days" She had accomplished
marvels in army reorganization and new
strategic railroads were we'll under way. The
war came too soon for Bulgaria, but now
that 1t has come she has to make the most
of 1t. 1t is not yet Bulgarias day, but If
that day ever comes the nation will strike
savagely for the fulhlment of her ambitious
dream.
AS Italy has it's Italia Irredenta and
Greece its Unredeemed Hellas, so Bulgaria
looks for a great national revival which shall
extend beyond the present national bound
aries. Like Italy and Greece, moreover, Bull
garia remembers q great empire of the past.
Out of Triple Slavery
In a most interesting and timely article
in the Century Magazine T. Lothrop Stod-
dard, a writer of exceptional familiarity with
international politics, treats of modern Bull
garia as zone of the most extraordinary
phenomena of human history" Less than
forty years ago. as Mr.. Stoddard says, the
Bulgarians were wretched serfs exploited to
the limit of human endurance and triply en-
slaved-slaves OF Turkish militarism, Greek
eccesiasticism and Russian Pan Slavism. In
Bulgaria proper each of these obstacles to
national progress has been eliminated The
removal of the third of these obstacles, the
idea of Russian Pan Slavism, is perhaps the
most significant at the present time. Mr..
Stoddard writes:
mo one should minimize that generous
enthusiasm of the Russian people for the
liberation of the Little Brothers of the
South which fred the Russian armies with
crusading fervor in the Russo-Turldsh war
The Russian Government, however, looked
at things from far less idealistic point of
view. Not dreaming that these downtrodden
could, after five centuries of COM
bined Turkish and Hellenic domination, pos
sess an intense national conciousness, Of
fcial Russia saw in the Bulgarlans only an
amorphous Slav mass easily moldable into
'neo- Russians faithful marchmen of the
empire, much the Cossacks had once
been.
1.-THE Bulgarians soon showed the world
the fallacy of the neo-Russian idea, based
as this was upon utter ignorance OF DOth |
their historic past and their ethnIc compo-
sltlon During the Middle Ages the Bull |
garians had cut a prominent figure on the |
Balkan stage. building up powerful empire |
that threatened even Greek Constantlnople.
OF course, this was long ago. and 1t is not |
that a world which had almost
forgotten the Byzantine Empire should have
,ntrsly forgotten the Bulgarian one. Never
,heess, in the retentive minds of the Bull
garian peasants the memories of their old
Cars lived fresh and green, and when the
lour of liberation struck the glories of the
medieval Bulgarian Empire were trumpeted
'orth over the land, rousing the folk like
,larion call to a great destiny.
The Ox-eart and the Hare
This was much, but there was more be-
lind. The Bulgadans are normally classed
Is slavs. So they are-partly. Yet the
world too often forgets that the primitive
sulgarians were not slavs at all but an
static people of Turanian stock. who In the
eYenth century burst upon the primitive
lavs recently migrated south OF the Danube
nd settled down as masters. Less numer-
us than their subjects the eonquerors were
oon absorbed losing their speech ana pc
uliar identity Nevertheless, the blood was
potent one. for these Turanian Bulgars left
ehind far more than their name; they
tamped upon the new folk traits which set
distinctly apart in the category OF the
Law peoples.
"A moments analysis will clearly prove