6 SEPTEMBER – UNIFICATION DAY – IS ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DATES IN NEW BULGARIAN HISTORY

By virtue of the Berlin Treaty of 1878 the Bulgarian ethnic community was fragmented and areas with predominantly Bulgarian population were left beyond the borders of the country. Southern Bulgaria which was named Eastern Rumelia by request of English diplomats was separated from the revived Bulgarian state (then called the Principality of Bulgaria) and was included once more in the Ottoman Empire as an autonomous area.
The first people to take up the struggle for the historical unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia were the revolutionaries from the age of the Bulgarian National Revival and the April Uprising. Stefan Stambolov, Ivan Drasov, Zahari Stoyanov, Nikola Obretenov, Hristo Karaminkov, the brothers Nikola Jivkov and Georgi Jivkov and others founded committees in Tarnovo, Plovdiv, Ruse, Kyustendil, Lovech, Sofia, Razgrad, Gabrovo with the aim to attract members to work for achieving unification and to promote the idea through publications in the press and public demonstrations. Their activities were supported by consecutive Bulgarian governments which lobbied among European countries. The signal for the uprising was issued on 2 September 1885 in the "capital" of the April Uprising – the town of Panagyurishte. On the day when the Unification was announced the last ruler of Eastern Rumelia Gavril Krastevich said, "I'm Bulgarian too. I can't help but feel some satisfaction right now".

On 8 September kniaz Alexander Batenberg issued a manifest to the Bulgarian nation. He informed the people about the announced Unification and about his decision to accept it as a nation-wide matter. On the next day he was met with festivities in Plovdiv and from there he sent a telegram to the governments of the European "Great Powers": "The old Eastern Rumelia is no more and the people proclaimed me their kniaz". On 5 April 1886 the Unification was recognized by delegates of the Great Powers (Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, Great Britain, France, Russia) and Eastern Rumelia was officially annexed to the Principality of Bulgaria with an agreement signed between Bulgaria and Turkey. The act of unification was the first step Bulgaria took on the road to uniting the nation.