Bulgarian Declaration of Independence

The de jure independence of Bulgaria (Независимост на България, Nezavisimost na Bǎlgariya) from the Ottoman Empire was proclaimed on in the old capital of Tarnovo by Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who afterwards took the title "Tsar". Bulgaria had been a widely autonomous principality since , when it was liberated from Ottoman rule in the wake of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78). Although it was still technically under the suzerainty of the Sublime Porte, this was a legal fiction that Bulgaria only acknowledged in a formal way. It acted largely as a de facto independent state with its own constitution, flag, anthem and currency, and conducted a separate foreign policy. On , it had unified with the Bulgarian-majority Ottoman autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia. After the liberation, Bulgaria's main external goal was the unification of all Bulgarian-inhabited areas under foreign rule into a single Bulgarian state: the main targets of Bulgarian irredentism were Macedonia and southern Thrace, which continued to be part of the Ottoman realm. In order to join an anti-Ottoman alliance and claim those territories by war, however, Bulgaria had to proclaim its independence first. Normally, this would have constituted a violation of the Treaty of Berlin's terms, and would have been unlikely to be approved by the Great Powers. However, the chaos that ensued in the Ottoman Empire following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 provided suitable conditions for the Bulgarian proclamation of independence. Many of the Great Powers had also abandoned their support for the Ottomans, looking for territorial gains instead: Austria-Hungary was hoping to annex the Bosnia Vilayet, the United Kingdom was looking to seize the empire's Arab territories in the east, and the Russian Empire's main target was control over the Turkish Straits. In September 1908 at a meeting in Buchlov (Buchlau, contemporary Czech Republic), envoys of Austria-Hungary and Russia supported each other's plans and agreed not to hinder Bulgaria's proclamation of independence which was likely to take place.