those between Russia and Bulgaria. Russia naturally enough expected
Bulgaria to be grateful for the really large amount of blood and treasure
which its liberation had cost Russia, and, moreover, expected its
gratitude to take the form of docility and a general acquiescence in all
the suggestions and wishes expressed by its liberator. Bulgaria was no
doubt deeply grateful, but never had the slightest intention of expressing
its gratitude in the desired way; on the contrary, like most people who
have regained a long-lost and unaccustomed freedom of action or been put
under an obligation, it appeared touchy and jealous of its right to an
independent judgement. It is often assumed by Russophobe writers that
Russia wished and intended to make a Russian province of Bulgaria, but
this is very unlikely; the geographical configuration of the Balkan
peninsula would not lend itself to its incorporation in the Russian
Empire, the existence between the two of the compact and vigorous national
block of Rumania, a Latin race and then already an independent state, was
an insurmountable obstacle, and, finally, it is quite possible for Russia
to obtain possession or control of Constantinople without owning all the
intervening littoral.

That Russia should wish to have a controlling voice in the destinies of
Bulgaria and in those of the whole peninsula was natural, and it was just
as natural that Bulgaria should resent its pretensions. The eventual
result of this, however, was that Bulgaria inevitably entered the sphere
of Austrian and ultimately of German influence or rather calculation, a
contingency probably not foreseen by its statesmen at the time, and whose
full meaning, even if it had, would not have been grasped by them.

The Bulgarians, whatever the origin and the ingredients of their
nationality, are by language a purely Slavonic people; their ancestors
were the pioneers of Slavonic civilization as expressed in its monuments