Българският проект: кръстопътна утопия или пропусната магистрала?
The Bulgarian Project: a Crossroad Utopia or a Missed Highway?

Summary/Abstract: The paper seeks an answer to the question “What happened with Catherine the Great’s “Greek project”? The author compares, from a specific perspective, some documents and facts to put forward the hypothesis that this famous plan for solving the Eastern question had remained a part of Russian foreign policy for a long time. Passing through a “Greek-Bulgarian” phase (registered in a so called “8 points” scheme for settlement of the Bulgarian Church question) it finally turned into a “Bulgarian project”. Its truest trace could be found in Midhat Pasha’s statement from the time of one of the major junctures of world history – the Eastern crisis of 1875–1878. Hinting at General Ignatiev, the Russian ambassador to Constantinople and father of first Turkish constitution said: “our passionate General wants not only reforms, which we recognize ourselves as necessary for our Christian provinces, but as if he dreams to refashion his beloved Bulgaria into a New Byzantium – and to put the Paleolgue crown on his own head”. The text ends with a question which the author finds important for all those interested in the history of Russian foreign policy: “Speaking in a counterfactual metaphor, was General Ignatiev’s dream a crossroad mirage – or was it about a missed route, which would have been better than the road history has taken since 1878?”

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