The Rhodope Uprising

The Rhodope Revolt, also known as the Rhodope Uprising or Sinclair's Revolt, was an armed movement of Turks and Pomaks against the Provisional Russian Administration in part of the Rhodope Mountains after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. It began in February 1878, involving remnants of Süleyman Pasha's army, which the Russians had defeated at the Battle of Plovdiv only a month earlier, and Turkish refugees. Among the insurgent commanders was Stanislas Sinclair, a former British consul in Varna and Ottoman army officer. Its initial centres lay in the Aegean region, the Kardzhali area and the district of Ahachelebi. The unrest gradually spread into the western Rhodope Mountains.

With British support, Ottoman diplomacy used the revolt as an argument for revising the Thracian borders imposed by the Treaty of San Stefano. By October, Russian troops had suppressed it with assistance from Bulgarian detachments led by Petko Kiryakov. Under the Treaty of Berlin, the Kardzhali district was assigned to autonomous Eastern Rumelia, while Ahachelebi remained in the Ottoman Empire, as also stipulated by the Treaty of San Stefano. Twenty Muslim Bulgarian villages around Tamrash refused to recognise Eastern Rumelian authority and were formally reincorporated into the empire in 1886.