Bandits or Insurgents? Muslim Armed Resistance in Eastern Bulgaria (1878–1880)

‘The Great Eastern Crisis’ (1875–1878) ended with significant territorial losses for the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, as a result of which numerous Muslim communities found themselves beyond the sultan’s rule and outside the sultan’s authority. Researchers have most often focused on the Muslim emigration caused by these events, whereas Islamic resistance to the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin has received much less attention. This is also true of the armed resistance of the Turkish population in the eastern Bulgarian lands. The small groups resembling the hajduk movement effectively paralysed the establishment of the new administration in these areas until they were pacified by the Bulgarian and Russian forces in the spring of 1880. This article reflects on the character of that resistance, which has often been described in both primary sources and the scholarly literature as banditry or marauding. Based on the classical method of criticism of historical sources, as well as in reference to the categories related to the qualification of rebellions proposed by Theda Skocpol and Charles Tilly, the movement could be described as a rebellion—it appears to represent a fragmented form of political resistance that also contained criminal, defensive, and communal elements.