As financial panic descends on the world, the BRCC works to overcome its setbacks and internal divisions as the Ottoman police work tirelessly to uncover and destroy them. Meanwhile, the Great Powers are forming new alliances which will help determine the fate of Bulgaria and the Balkans.

Major Characters in this Episode

Antim I

Atanas Uzonov

Lyuben Karavelov

Stavri Primo

Mircho Popov

Stoyan Zaimov

Kolyu Ficheto

Iliya Bluzkov

Hristo Botev

Kiriak Tsankov

Olimpi Panov

Todor Peev

Timeline for this Episode

• 2nd February 1873, a student society was formed in Svishtov

• 1st March 1873, BRCC held an assembly in Bucharest led by Lyuben Karavelov. They discussed the state of affairs in Bulgaria and decided to call a general assembly.

• 18th March 1873, The Tarnovo committee of the BRCC called an assembly of their members to come up with a concrete plan for the organization’s future.

• March and April 1873, Panayot Hitov did a tour of Wallachia, Bessarabia, and southern Russia with the aim of spreading the word of the BRCC’s activities to Bulgarian emigres.

• 4th April 1873, Petko Slaveikov published a humorous magazine in Constantinople.

• 12-16 April 1873, a teacher’s assembly was held in Shumen on the insistence of the Varna-Preslav Metropolitan Simeon.

• 29th April 1873, Atanas Uzonov arrived in Haskovo. A local BRCC assembly was held and decided that the Haskovo citizen Stavri Primo, known as a Grecophile and suspected as a traitor, should be murdered.

• 4th May 1873, Atanas Uzonov was captured trying to murder Stavri Primo

• 5th May 1873, the Ottoman authorities in Haskovo began interrogating Atanas Uzonov, who did not give up any information. Other Haskovo residents were interrogated including several BRCC members.

• 10th May 1873, Ottoman authorities confirm the participation of BRCC members in the Haskovo murder.

• 11-12 May 1873, The BRCC assembly in Bucharest occurred.

• 3nd June 1873, During another interrogation of Atanas Uzonov, the Ottoman authorities confirmed his identity and got him to confess to his participation in the BRCC.

• 10-28 June 1873, Acting on information from the interrogation, the Ottoman authorities in Haskovo began new arrests. The captured BRCC members were sent to Plovdiv where an investigating committee held further interrogations, lineups, and evidence gathering.

• 11 June 1873, During another interrogation in Plovdiv, the Haskovo teacher Mircho Popov betrayed the BRCC’s plan to revolt. He and his wife had hosted the Haskovo assembly back in April.

• 30th June 1873, the investigators in Plovdiv wrote their final report on the Haskovo conspiracy.

• July 1873, Rail line reaches Septemvri from Constantinople

• 30th August 1873, the municipal court in Adrianople accepted the ruling on the Haskovo conspiracy and suggested the Porte exile those arrested.

• 17 November 1873, Budapest was formed

• 18th December 1873, the high court in Constantinople gave a final sentence to the Haskovo conspirators. Atanas Uzonov got 15 years in a kind of labor camp while the other 21 were exiled to southeastern Anatolia near Syria.

• 1873, The architect Kolio Ficheto completed the St. St. Constantine and Elena church in Tarnovo where he would eventually be buried. My wife referred to him as “the Hristo Botev of bridges”

• 1873, Iliya Bluzkov published the first book in the Hiter Petar series in Ruse.

• 1873, Global economic crisis harms the Sultans authority and the stability of the Ottoman Empire

• 1873, formation of the Three Emperors League between Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary.

• 4th January 1874, some of the Haskovo conspirators were put on a ship to embark on their exile.

• 21st April 1874, Kliment Branitski (Vasil Drumev) was sworn in as a bishop and was later sent to Tulcha to take over the governing of the church in Dobrudja.

• 3rd May 1874, the Synod of the Bulgarian Exarchate sent a letter to all municipal centers to demand they help the Bulgarian population which is still not educated by gathering funds

• 9th May 1874, the Struma valley experienced a late frost which devastated crops.

• 20-21 August 1874, A common assembly of BRCC was held in Bucharest.

• 1st October 1874, an enormous fire in Pomorie burned 550 houses and other structures to the ground.

• 25th November/7th December 1874, Stoyan Zaimov (one of the Haskovo exiles) escaped his exile.

• 8th December 1874, Hristo Botev began publishing the newspaper “Zname” in Bucharest.

• 26th December 1874, A common assembly of BRCC was held in Bucharest..

• 1874, Lyuben Karavelov finished his novella “Momma’s Boy”

• 1874, “the Christian population of the bishoprics of Skopje and Ohrid voted in 1874 overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Exarchate