The Bulgarians in the Easternmost Part of the Balkan Peninsula - Eastern Thrace

... Upon leaving Eastern Thrace in the autumn of 1913,1 was around six-teen-seventeen years - an age when people are able to remember some things. Through the years I have rationalised my own reminiscences, comparing them with the stories told by my parents, grandparents and other witnesses. Rivers of Bulgarian blood have been shed in Eastern Thrace through the ages. In the official Bulgarian history however, there are only single records about the Bulgarians in Eastern Thrace, which appear sporadically, and as a rule, from foreign sources - in most cases, our opponents.
I would not have written this book if anybody else had done it before me. It is a pity, however, that those who knew more than me one by one left this world without leaving memoirs or simply having written reminiscences of the homeland. I consider writing this book my duty because I am convinced I am one of the last Bulgarians bom in Eastern Thrace who personally knew prominent figures in the movement for national liberation and who wrote down their memories.
Now, as I have entered the sunset of my life, I am going to try to tell for the generations to come that what I have heard, written down and personally experienced. Also, I do hope to fill some gaps in the history of Eastern Thrace and - why not - in the Bulgarian history as a whole.
Let it be known that there are none of us and none of our heirs left in Turkey nowadays.
Their story! The story of the Bulgarians in Eastern Thrace I would like to tell in this book...

Dimitar Voinikov