Batak massacre

Batak massacre 1876

Batak massacre refers to the massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman troops in 1876, at the beginning of the April Uprising. The number of victims varies from 3,000 to 5,000 in different sources.

The Massacre

Batak played an important role during the April Uprising. Few weeks after the beginning of the uprising, the city proclaims freedom, and for 9 days, the city was independent, under the authority of Revolutionary committee. The rebellious city was reported to the Turkish authorities. On 30 April 1876, 8,000 Turkish soldiers, mainly Bashi-bazouk, led by Ahmet Aga Barun surrounded the city. After a first battle, the men from Batak decided to negotiate with Ahmet Aga. He promised them the withdrawal of his troops, under the condition of their disarmament. After the rebels had laid down their weapons, the Bashi-bazouk attacked the defenseless population. The majority of the victims were beheaded.

It's somewhat interesting to see the reports by British journalists from these times, although it cannot be a reliable source for the numbers of victims, but maybe gives us a correct order of magnitude. According to Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, 5,000 persons were massacred in Batak alone. The number of victims in the district of Philippopolis (Plovdiv) reached 15,000. According to Eugene Schuyler's report, published in Daily News, at least 15,000 persons were killed during the April Uprising, and 36 villages in three districts were buried.

Here is how Mr. Shuyler described some of the things he saw:

"...On every side were human bones, skulls, ribs, and even complete skeletons,heads of girls still adorned with braids of long hair, bones of children, skeletons still encased in clothing. Here was a house the floor of which was white with the ashes and charred bones of thirty persons burned alive there. Here was the spot where the village notable Trandafil was spitted on a pike and then roasted, and where he is now buried; there was a foul hole full of decomposing bodies; here a mill dam filled with swollen corpses; here the school house, where 200 women and children had taken refuge there were burned alive, and here the church and churchyard, where fully a thousand half-decayed forms were still to be seen, filling the enclosure in a heap several feet high, arms, feet, and heads protruding from the stones which had vainly been thrown there to hide them, and poisoning all the air.

"Since my visit, by orders of the Mutessarif, the Kaimakam of Tatar Bazardjik was sent to Batak, with some lime to aid in the decomposition of the bodies, and to preveent a pestilence.

"Ahmed Aga, who commanded at the massare, has been decorated and promoted to the rank of Yuz-bashi..."

Another witness to the results of the Massacre is American journalist Januarius MacGahan who describes what he saw as follows:

"...We looked into the church which had been blackened by the burning of the woodwork, but not destroyed, nor even much injured. It was a low building with a low roof, supported by heavy irregular arches, that as we looked in seemed scarcely high enough for a tall man to stand under. What we saw there was too frightful for more than a hasty glance. An immense number of bodies had been partially burnt there and the charred and blackened remains seemed to fill it half way up to the low dark arches and make them lower and darker still, were lying in a state of putrefaction too frightful to look upon. It had never imagined anything so horrible. We all turned awaysick and faint, and staggered out of the fearful pest house glad to get into the street again. We waled about the place and saw the same thing repeated over and over a hundred times. Skeletons of men with the clothing and flesh still hanging to and rotting together; skulls of women, with thehair dragging in the dust. bones of children and infants everywhere. Here they show us a house where twenty people were burned alive; there another where a dozen girls had taken refuge, and been slaughtered to the last one, as their bones amply testified. Everywhere horrors upon horrors..."

The British commissioner, Mr. Baring, in his report, describes the event "as perhaps the most heinous crime that has stained the history of the present century". In October Mr. Baring had to report again on the proceedings of the Turkish commission. Six weeks had elapsed since it left Constantinople, at "it was a surprising fact that it had no yet decided whether the Batak Massacre was a crime or not.".

Accusations of revisionism

Main article: Batak massacre media controversy in 2007

In May 2007, a public conference was scheduled in Bulgaria, aiming to present research, held by Martina Baleva and Ulf Brunnbauer, on the formation of national memory for the Batak massacre. Bulgarian medias reported that the authors are denying the massacre, which was the rising of a substantial media controversy.

See also

• Ottoman empire

• Баташкото клане не е мит а реалност.