Kol Kore

(RUSSIA).

1877

Hebrew in square scribal letters, black ink on paper

A Call to Arms: The Russo-Turkish War (1877-78). An appeal to Russian Jews purportedly issued by "the Slavic Peoples" to enlist in the Tsar's army in order to come to the rescue of those Slavs butchered by the Turks in the Balkan regions of Serbia, Bulgaria and Herzegovina. Russian imperialism, specifically Russia's appetite for an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea and the allure of the Balkan Peninsula, triggered war against Turkey in 1877. Concomitantly, the Russians delivered the Bulgarians and Serbs - fellow Slavs - from centuries of Ottoman rule, however the atrocities committed against the civilian Slav population during the war resounded throughout Christian Europe. In turn, the newly independent nation of Bulgaria rid itself of its non-Slav Muslim population and it is estimated a quarter of a million Bulgarian Muslims were killed, while another half million were forced to flee. Provenance: 1. The municipal Archives of Makov, Russia and presented in 1919 to the Zionist Office, Makov. 2. Leyzer Ran, Vilna-Havana-New York