Liberation Day in Bulgaria

Date of signing the San Stefano Peace Treaty and liberation from the five-century Ottoman yoke.

Treaty of San Stefano, (March 3, 1878), peace settlement imposed on the Ottoman government by Russia at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. It provided for a new disposition of the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire that would have ended any effective Turkish control over the Balkans if its provisions had not later been modified.

The treaty’s most important provision established an independent Bulgarian principality, which included most of Macedonia and extended to the Danube and from the Aegean to the Black Sea. The independence of Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania was recognized. The boundaries of Serbia and Montenegro were extended so as to be contiguous, while Romania was compelled to cede southern Bessarabia to Russia, receiving the Dobruja from Turkey in exchange. Bosnia-Herzegovina was to be autonomous. Parts of Asiatic Turkey were ceded to Russia, and the Ottoman sultan gave guarantees for the security of his Christian subjects.