Balkan Mountains

The Europeanization of the Bulgarians was

proceeding faster than in other countries because the Bulgarians were “a

reading people, more than any other in Eastern Europe.” Mutchmore described how

the Bulgarian people under the Ottoman rule taxed themselves to support their

independent schools. The “pride of every village was the school-house.” This

national preoccupation with culture “will bring forth an intellectual

regeneration, and if the church does its duty they will go together and will

yet make Bulgaria the Star of the East.”

Another American clergyman who travelled to

Bulgaria also noted some contradictions in Bulgarian life. While in Bulgaria,

Daniel March made “long journeys” in a phaeton drawn by four horses which was

“as good as any in America.” However, in the same country he “crossed the

Shipka pass of the Balkan Mountains drawn by four oxen at a pace so

slow that a moderate walk would leave it far behind.”

He saw similar contradictions everywhere he

turned. “The galloping horses,” he wrote, “on the dusty plain and the laboring

oxen on the rugged mountain made no greater contrast that the palace of the

prince in the city and the hovel of the peasant in the villages of the same

country.”

Poutney Bigelow was a journalist who used a

canoe for a trip down the Danube in the 1890’s to report on the Balkan scenery

and politics. In his Paddles and Politics down the Danube, he described what he

saw and heard along the banks of the great river. Bigelow, like many other

travelers, was introduced to Bulgaria by stopping at Yidin. As the current bore

him nearer to the city, he saw that “through the medium of smoke there arose a

city of transcendent beauty, of palaces, and castles, minarets and towers;

strange battlements and oriental cupolas”.

Turkish allegiance

The city seemed “at every angle brilliant

with color and precious stones.” However, he was soon disappointed when he

landed in the city. He saw dirt on the streets and “wretched huts.” Vidin

remained still an Oriental city even though Bulgaria “struggles bravely to cast

off Turkish

allegiance and enter the family of European nations.” He was

frustrated also because he could not find some good Bulgarian-made product for

a gift, most of the things being “cheap stuff of French or German manufacture.”

Watching the people on the streets, Bigelow

said that the peasant and townspeople adhere “to the dress of their ancestors

while the military had adopted Russian fashions.” The Bulgarian peasants were

not only “highly picturesque but of fine figure as well.” The Bulgarian

officers “had more swagger about them than those of Germany or France.”