Batak massacre

Coordinates: 41°56′33″N 24°13′8″E / 41.9425°N 24.21889°E / 41.9425; 24.21889

Batak massacre 1876

Batak massacre refers to the massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman irregular troops in 1876 at the beginning of the April Uprising. The number of victims ranges from 3,000 to 5,000, depending on the source.

The Massacre

Batak played an important role during the April Uprising. A few weeks after the uprising the town proclaimed independence. This lasted for nine days under the authority of Revolutionary committee. The rebel town was reported to the Turkish authorities and on April 30, 1876, 8,000 Bashi-bazouk, mainly Pomaks, led by Ahmet Aga from Barutin surrounded the town.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]} At that time the Pomaks were a part of the Ottoman Muslim Millet. 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 that Batak disarmed. After the rebels had laid down their weapons, the Bashi-bazouk attacked the defenseless population. The majority of the victims were beheaded^[8]

According to the most sources, around 5,000 people were massacred in Batak alone.^[9] The total number of victims in the April uprising according to most estimates around 15,000^[10][11], which is supported by Eugene Schuyler's report, published in Daily News, according to which at least 15,000 persons were killed during the April Uprising in addition to 36 villages in three districts being buried^[12]. According to Donald Quataert around 1,000 Muslims were killed by Christian Bulgarians and consequently 3,700 Christians were killed by Muslims.^[13][14] A contemporary British report mentioned that only 46 Muslim men and no women and children were killed. ^[15] In his work "The Bulgarian Massacres Reconsidered.”, which has been described as pro-Turkish,^[16], the American historian Richard Milliman states that Eugene Schuyler visited personally only 11 of the villages he reported on. Millman also claims that the accepted reality of the massacres is largely a myth.^[17]

Schuyler described 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 prevent a pestilence. "Ahmed Aga, who commanded at the massacre, has been decorated and promoted to the rank of Yuz-bashi..." ^[18]

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

"There was not a roof left, not a whole wall standing; all was a mass of ruins... We looked again at the heap of skulls and skeletons before us, and we observed that they were all small and that the articles of clothing intermingled with them and lying about were all women's apparel. These, then, were all women and girls. From my saddle I counted about a hundred skulls, not including those that were hidden beneath the others in the ghastly heap nor those that were scattered far and wide through the fields. The skulls were nearly all separated from the rest of the bones - the skeletons were nearly all headless. These women had all been beheaded...and the procedure seems to have been, as follows: They would seize a woman, strip her carefully to her chemise, laying aside articles of clothing that wore valuable, with any ornaments and jewels she might have about her. Then as many of them as cared would violate her, and the last man would kill her or not as the humour took him....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. I had never imagined anything so horrible. We all turned away sick and faint, and staggered out of the fearful pest house glad to get into the street again. We walked 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..." ^[19]

The British commissioner, Mr. Baring describes the event "as perhaps the most heinous crime that has stained the history of the present century".^[20] In October Mr. Baring had to report again on the proceedings of the Turkish commission. After six weeks from the closing of the committee it had not been decided whether or not the Batak Massacre was a crime^[21].

Accusations of revisionism

Main article: Batak massacre media controversy in 2007

In May 2007, a public conference was scheduled in Bulgaria by Martina Baleva and Ulf Brunnbauer aiming to present research in an effort to form the official report of the events of the Batak Massacre. Bulgarian media reported that the authors were denying the massacre, which gave rise to a substantial media controversy.

On 3 April 2011, Batak massacre victims were canonized as saints, something that had not happened for more than a century. ^[22]

References

1. ^ At that time the massacre on Christians in Batak took place, when Bulgarian speaking Muslims from Barutin murdered Christians. Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe, Klaus Roth, Ulf Brunnbauer, LIT Verlag Münster, 2010, ISBN 3825813878, p. 186.
2. ^ The slaughter at Batak by the Pomak Bashi-Bazouks under the command of Ahmed Aga Barutin has been variously estimated to be between 2000 and 5000 persons of both sexes. "Accounts and papers of the House of Commons", Great Britain. Parliament. Ordered to be printed, 1877, p. 50.
3. ^ Прочутото Баташко клане е извършено от среднородопските помаци под водачеството на Ахмед ага Барутанлията. "Време за разхвърляне на камъни" Николай Хайтов, Издателство "Хр. Ботев", 1994, стр. 64.
4. ^ Ахмед ага Барутанлията – палачът на Батак, изклал там 8000 българи, също помак. Че въпросните палачи на българите са помаци, сиреч българи мохамедани, споменавам чак сега... Български хроники. 1878-1943, Том 3, Стефан Цанев, TRUD Publishers, 2008, ISBN 9545288612, стр. 30.
5. ^ „През време на Перущенското и Баташкото клане никое друго село в Рупчоската околия не беше изложено на същата опасност освен с. Широка лъка. Това село като най-събудено и богато башибозукът от околните помашки села, които бяха заели участие в Перущица и Батак, дошли в с. Широка лъка...Исторически преглед, Том 28, Българско историческо дружество, Институт за история (Българска академия на науките), 1972, стр. 106.
6. ^ Some Pomaks aided in the suppression by the Turks, perhaps participating in a massacre of Bulgarians in the mountain village of Batak. Encyclopedia of European peoples, Catherine Mason, Carl Waldman, Infobase Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0816049645, p. 607.
7. ^ ... and the Pomak Ahmet Aga Barutanlijata was at any event responsible for the mascare of Batak... "The Turks of Bulgaria: the history, culture and political fate of a minority, Kemal H. Karpat, Isis Press, 1990, ISBN 9754280177, p. 192.
8. ^ Stoyanov, Z. Memoirs of the Bulgarian Uprisings
9. ^ Bulgaria, R. J. Crampton, Oxford University Press, 2007, p.92
10. ^ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: Bulgaria, History
11. ^ Genocide and gross human rights violations: in comparative perspective, Kurt Jonassohn, 1999, p.210
12. ^ Schuyler's Preliminary Report on the Moslem Atrocities, published with the letters by Januarius MacGahan, London, 1876.
13. ^ Quataert, Donald. "The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 ", Cambridge University Press 2005, pp.69
14. ^ Millman, Richard. “The Bulgarian Massacres Reconsidered.” pp.218-231
15. ^ The Eastern question: from the treaty of Paris, 1856, to the treaty of Berlin, 1878, and to the second Afghan war; George Douglas Campbell Argyll; 2005, p.229
16. ^ The English historical review: Volume 96, 1981, p.170
17. ^ Millman, Richard. “The Bulgarian Massacres Reconsidered.” pp.227-228
18. ^ Mr. Schuyler's Report pg. 93
19. ^ from the account of his visit to Batak in the London Daily News. MacGahan, Turkish Atrocities in Bulgaria. pg. 29-30. http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/related/macgahan.php
20. ^ The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans - Page 84 by Robert William Seton-Watson
21. ^ The Eastern Question from the Treaty of Paris 1856 to the Treaty of Berlin 1878 and to the Second... By George Douglas Campbell Argyll
22. ^ http://today.actualno.com/news_341548.html

See also

• Ottoman empire
• List of massacres in Bulgaria
• The Turkish Atrocities In Bulgaria, The Bronx Times
• Баташкото клане не е мит, а реалност.