Two foundational moments in the making of modern Bulgaria fall on August 12: a secret vote in Bucharest that set an uprising in motion, and a flag raised over the country’s first warships. Together they mark a turning point in Bulgaria’s history toward independence and statehood.
August 12, 1875 — Plotting the Stara Zagora Uprising
Meeting in Bucharest, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, prompted by Hristo Botev and Stefan Stambolov, voted to launch an armed uprising against Ottoman rule and divided the Bulgarian lands into revolutionary districts. Stambolov was assigned the Stara Zagora district, where the rising would erupt the following month.
Though the uprising was quickly crushed and its failure triggered a crisis within the committee, it served as a direct rehearsal for the far larger April Uprising that followed seven months later.
August 12, 1879 — The Bulgarian Navy Is Born
In Ruse, the Bulgarian flag was raised for the first time over a small flotilla of vessels gifted by Russia — four steamships, a schooner, seven steam launches, a barge, and several rowing boats — to the sound of the march “Shumi Maritsa.”
The ceremony marked the founding of the Danube Flotilla, the seed from which the modern Bulgarian Navy grew, with a sister Port Captaincy established the same day in Varna.
You can step back to August 11 or forward to August 13 in the series. Elsewhere on the site, see Bulgaria from a new perspective in our Bulgaria From Above collection.
