forward Hellenic movement during the
years 1896-97 stands in sharp relief with the fortunes of the
Bulgarians. To the rise of this youngest, and not the least promising,
of European States, we must devote a whole chapter; for during a decade
the future of the Balkan Peninsula and the policy of the Great Powers
turned very largely on the emancipation of this interesting race from
the effective control of the Sultan and the Czar.

The rise of this enigmatical people affords a striking example of the
power of national feeling to uplift the downtrodden. Until the year
1876, the very name Bulgarian was scarcely known except as a
geographical term. Kinglake, in his charming work, _Eothen_, does not
mention the Bulgarians, though he travelled on horseback from Belgrade
to Sofia and thence to Adrianople. And yet in 1828, the conquering march
of the Russians to Adrianople had awakened that people to a passing
thrill of national consciousness. Other travellers,--for instance,
Cyprien Robert in the "thirties,"--noted their sturdy patience in toil,
their slowness to act, but their great perseverance and will-power, when
the resolve was formed.

These qualities may perhaps be ascribed to their Tatar (Tartar) origin.
Ethnically, they are closely akin to the Magyars and Turks, but, having
been long settled on the banks of the Volga (hence their name, Bulgarian
= Volgarian), they adopted the speech and religion of the Slavs. They
have lived this new life for about a thousand years[184]; and in this
time have been completely changed. Though their flat lips and noses
bespeak an Asiatic origin, they are practically Slavs, save that their
temperament is less nervous, and their persistence greater than that of
their co-religionists[185]. Their determined adhesion to Slav ideals and
rejection of Turkish ways should serve as a reminder to anthropologists
that peoples are not mainly to be judged and divided off by
craniological peculiarities. Measurement of skulls may tell us something
concerning the basal characteristics of tribes: it leaves untouched the
boundless fund of beliefs, thoughts, aspirations, and customs which
mould the lives of nations. The peoples of to-day are what their creeds,
customs, and hopes have made them; as regards their political life, they
have little more likeness to their tribal forefathers than the average
man has to the chimpanzee.

[Footnote 184: _The Peasant State: Bulgaria in 1894_, by E. Dicey, C.B.
(1904)