Liberation and exile: The fate of civilians during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 in Bulgarian and Turkish historiography

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 is traditionally called as the “Liberation War” by the Bulgarians. The conflict led to gaining freedom from the “Turkish Yoke” and started creation process of the modern Bulgarian state. The Turkish perspective on these events is significantly different. The War of 1877–1878 is remembered through the lens of the tragic experience of refugees (muhajirs) and the suffering of the Muslim civilians linked to the pogroms, emigration and exile. The paper will focus on the depiction of the fate of civilians during the conflict in contemporary Bulgarian and Turkish historiography, in which the topic is marked not only by the reliability of historical research, but also by the presence of stereotypes (as is the whole history of the 19th-century Christian-Muslim relations in Bulgaria).