zed its independence traced the frontier of the emancipated
country in a jealous and niggardly spirit. Prince Otto of Bavaria
was designated the first King and reigned for thirty years. He was
succeeded in 1863 by King George who lived to see the northern
boundary of his kingdom advanced to Saloniki, where, like a faithful
sentinel at his post, he fell, on March 18, 1913, by the hand of an
assassin just as he had attained the glorious fruition of a reign of
fifty years.

BULGARIAN INDEPENDENCE

There had been a literary revival preceding the dawn of independence
in Greece. In Bulgaria, which was the last of the Balkan states to
become independent, the national regeneration was also fostered by a
literary and educational movement, of which the founding of the
first Bulgarian school--that of Gabrovo--in 1835 was undoubtedly the
most important event. In the next five years more than fifty
Bulgarian schools were established and five Bulgarian
printing-presses set up. The Bulgarians were beginning to
re-discover their own nationality. Bulgarian schools and books
produced a reaction against Greek culture and the Greek clergy who
maintained it. Not much longer would Greek remain the language of
the upper classes in Bulgarian cities; not much longer would
ignorant peasants, who spoke only Bulgarian, call themselves Greek.
The days of the spiritual domination of the Greek patriarchate were
numbered. The ecclesiastical ascendency of the Greeks had crushed
Bulgarian nationality more completely than even the civil power of
the Turks. The abolition of the spiritual rule of foreigners and the
restoration of the independent Bulgarian church became the leading
object of the literary reformers, educators, and patriots. It was a
long and arduous campaign--a campaign of education and awakening at
home and of appeal and discussion in Constantinople. Finally the
Sultan intervened and in 1870 issued a firman establishing the
Bulgarian exarchate, conferring on it immediate jurisdiction over
fifteen dioceses, and providing for the addition of other dioceses
on a vote of two-thirds of their Christian population. The new
Bulgarian exarch was immediately excommunicated by the Greek
patriarch. But the first and most important official step had been
taken in the development of Bulgarian nationality.

The revolt against the Turks followed in 1876. It was suppressed by
acts of cruelty and horror unparalleled even in the Balkans. Many
thousands