De-Ottomanisation of land : Muslim migrations and ownership in the Bulgarian countryside after 1878

The turn of the 19th and 20th c. brought about deep changes in the Bulgarian ownership structure: what the Russians labeled the Agrarian Revolution, related to all processes of land changing hands from Muslim to Bulgarian ones. The basis for most activities related to seizures of Muslim estates were migrations and the abandonment of property during the war in 1877-1878. During the period of the Provisional Russian Administration in Bulgaria (March 1878-June 1879) the Agrarian Revolution was one of the most important tasks that the Tsar's representatives addressed in Bulgaria. Bulgarian control over land was to be the foundation of Christian domination in the state, which the Russians also saw as a guarantee of their continued influence in the Eastern Balkans. This involved both dispossessions and lotting out chiftliks among the agrarian workers who cultivated the land, as well as taking control over properties abandoned by war refugees (so-called muhajirs). The article is focused on the Muslim medium and small peasants, the cases of owners of chiftliks will not be considered, according to a large range of the topic.