Дизраели, имперската политика и българският аспект на кризата на източния въпрос, 1875-1878 г.
DISRAELI, IMPERIAL POLICY AND THE BULGARIAN ASPECT OF THE EASTERN QUESTION CRISIS, 1875-1878

Summary/Abstract: The handling of the British foreign policy during the Eastern Question crisis of 1875–78 and the impressive action at the Congress of Berlin became crowning moment in the career of Benjamin Disraeli, and put him in the frontline of empire builders. The same made him, however, a hate figure in the eyes of Bulgarian public. His alleged role during the crisis fuelled certain Anglophobia and anti- Semitism. Disraeli was credited by his contemporaries as the politician, who as head of the Conservative government of 1874–80, not only pursued a „forward“ imperial policy but „invented“ very imperialism. It is true that all aspects of his foreign policy were motivated and determined by imperial consideration. That was also true of his line during the Eastern crisis, but it did not, in fact, differ from the traditional British policy of maintaining the status quo after the Crimean War, and backing up the integrity of the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against the Russian expansion towards the „warm seas“, threatening the lines of communication and global position of the British Empire. At the same time Disraeli was inclined at certain points of unfurling of the crisis to contemplate an alternative course, namely, interpreting „liberally“ the principle of status quo in the Balkan provinces of the sultan, giving them autonomous status. In that respect, his proposal for practical solution of that crisis was not diametrically opposite to the one put forward by his great opponent, William Gladstone, who in spite of his fiery anti-Ottoman rhetoric and denouncing Disraeli’s arrogant and immoral policies, had proposed a similar solution.

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