During the first three centuries after the annihilation of the Bulgarian state, the Bulgarians were simply crushed by the growing might of the Ottomans, but in spite of everything they never stopped fighting for their national consciousness and liberation. Thousands of courageous patriots like the goldsmith Georgi from Sofia, who was burned at the stake in 1515, preferred the death of a martyr to adopting art alien religion. Avengers of the people – the fearless haidouks (rebels)'- were roaming the forests, sowing terror among the local Ottoman rulers. The people have preserved in their memory and folk songs the names of the valient haidouk leaders – voevodes (rebel captains) – Manoush, Strahil, Chavdar, Sirma, Boika. The haidouk detachments had their camps in the most out-of-the-way mountain glades and had their green banners with em-broidered lions on them – the emblem of the mediaeval Bulgarian state.
Besides this incessant and spontaneous resistance, the Bulgarians also rose in several desperate uprisings – the uprising of Konstantin and Frouzhin in 1403, the two up-risings in Turnovo in 1598 and 1686, and particularly the one in Chiprovtsi and the Karposhev Uprising in 1688 and 1689, which were suppressed with unprecedented brutality and which forced tens of thousands of Bulgarians to leave their native lands and to settle in Banat. The three uprisings, dating from the late 17th century, were connected with the crisis which had begun in the Ottoman Empire and the frequent wars between Austria and Turkey, which gave rise among the Bulgarians to hopes of liberation with the help of Austria. The uprisings had their positive aspects in spite of the suffering they brought in their wake.
They kept alive the militant spirit of the Bulgarian people but proved to them that all hopes for liberation with the help of Austria were futile. It became obvious that the Austrian Empire, which itself was oppressing Slav peoples, was pursuing its own selfish goals in the Balkans which had nothing in common with the interests of the enslaved Balkan peoples. The number of Bulgarians turning with hope to the north, to Russia, which was a powerful Slav Eastern Orthodox state, was growing all the time. Russia was irresistibly aspiring for the south, the Black Sea, and was raising ever higher aloft its banner, proclaiming the defence of the Christians in the Turkish Empire as its noble militant task. The Bulgarian people lovingly called Russia 'Grandfather Ivan' and pinned on her all their hopes for liberation.
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