Summary: Towards the end of 1866, amid an emerging new Eastern crisis, the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, N. P. Ignatiev asked his subordinate con¬suls to collect and send information about the implementation of the Hatihumayun (Ottoman reform edict of 1856). This information was required in order to formulate the official Russian policy on the Balkans in the light of a raging rebellion on the island of Crete and the need to improve the status of Christian subjects in the Ottoman Empire. Although the Russian vice-consul in Plovdiv, Nayden Gerov, received the circular and probably wrote the requested response, this response is not available in his extensive archives today. Based on a variety of primary sources from the Nayden Gerov Archival Fund at the Bulgarian Historical Archives, “St. St. Cyril and Methodius” National Library, as well as on published documents, in the present article the author “reconstructs” the unknown response of Gerov to Ignatiev’s instruction of November, 1866.
Keywords: Ottoman Empire, Tanzimat, 19th century, reforms, Nayden Gerov
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