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The Occupation Fund Documents: A Diplomatic Forgery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2017
Extract
In the summer of 1892 the Bulgarian newspaper Svoboda (Freedom) published a large number of highly incriminating documents purporting to expose Russian policy in the Balkans, especially in Bulgaria, in the crucial decade of the eighteen-eighties. Subsequently, these and additional documents appeared in book form in the Russian language under the title Okkupacionnyj Fond (The Occupation Fund). In 1893 the collection was republished in Berlin in French translation by R. Leonoff and entitled, Documents secrets de la politique russe en orient, 1881–1890. The documents dealt primarily with the conspiratorial tactics employed by Russian representatives in the Balkans to carry through Russian foreign policy aims. Many episodes were covered, as, for example, the Russian role in the Bosnia-Hercegovina revolt of 1881–1882; the efforts to overthrow Alexander of Battenberg in 1884–1885; General Kaul'bar's mission of 1886, which sought to prevent the election of a successor to Alexander of Battenberg; the Russian plans for the occupation of Bulgarian ports in 1887; and the Novikov plot of 1887–1888, which aimed at the overthrow of Ferdinand of Coburg.
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- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1953
References
1 After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 Bulgaria was required to pay Russia the expenses incurred by the latter power in the occupation and administration of the liberated lands. Subsequently, the Bulgarians claimed that the money paid to Russia remained in Bulgaria and was used by Russian representatives to carry on intrigues and plots against the Bulgarian State. Hence, with intentional irony the Bulgars labeled the documents Okkupacionnyj Fond.
2 Sumner, B. H., Russia and the Balkans, 1870–1880 (Oxford, 1937), p. 570 Google Scholar, n. 1, cites a German edition of the documents entitled Geheime Dokumente der russischen Orient-Politik, 1881–1880, Leonow, R., ed. (Berlin, 1893).Google Scholar
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10 No attempt has been made in this paper to mention all the writers who have made use of the documents.
11 Accounts of the Panica episode are found in Ivan Panaëtov, Russia, velikite silt i Bulgarskijat vupros sled izbora na Knjaz’ Ferdinanda, 1888–1896 (Sofia, 1941), pp. 147, 148; Hans Roger Madol, Ferdinand of Coburg (London, 1933), p. 55; Hulme Beaman, A., M. Stamboloff (London, 1895), p. 159.Google Scholar
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15 Great Britain, Public Record Office, Political Despatches, O'Conor to Salisbury, F.O. 7/4301, No. 17 (Sofia, February 22, 1890). Hereafter cited as F.O.
16 Marinov, op. cit., pp. 665–66; Lowther to Salisbury, F.O. 78/4444, No. 122, secret (Sofia, August 17, 1892), plus enclosure A. G. Brophy to E. C. Blech, No. 18, secret (Varna, August 11, 1892); O'Conor to Salisbury, F.O. 78/4377, No. 36, secret (Sofia, April 13, 1891).
17 A. Q. Brophy to E. C. Blech, No. 18, secret (Varna, August 11, 1892), enclosed in Lowther to Salisbury, F.O. 78/4444. No. 122, secret (Sofia, August 17, 1892).
18 Lowther to Salisbury, F.O. 78/4444, No. 121, confidential (Sofia, August 16, 1892).
19 Ibid., No. 124 (Sofia, August 25, 1892).
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21 Morier to Salisbury, F.O. 181/709(2), No. 173 (St. Petersburg, August 3, 1892).
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24 S.Skazkin, Konec avstro-russko-germanskogo sojuza (Moscow, 1938), I.
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29 In December, 1892, the Bulgarian national assembly granted Bulgarian citizenship to Jakobson, Lowther to Rosebery, F.O. 78/4444, No. 179 (Sofia, December 13, 1892).
30 Leonoff, , op. cit., p. vi.Google Scholar