Janarius Aloysius McGahan
Дженюариъс Алойшиъс Макгахан
Януариус Макгахан (Януарий А. Макгахан)
(1844—1878)
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Janarius Aloysius McGahanДженюариъс Алойшиъс Макгахан (1844—1878) |
About the book "American Witness" - a publication of Januarius MacGahan’s coverage of the crushing of the April Uprising of the Bulgarians by the Ottoman Empire in 1876.
During his short life of only 34 years, US journalist MacGahan turned into one of the most prominent military correspondents of the 19th century. He covered Russia’s penetration into Central Asia, the search for Franklin’s lost expedition in Antarctica, the French Prussian and the Russo-Turkish wars. As it is known, the Russo-Turkish war partly a result of the Turkish atrocities in the crushing of the April Uprising in Bulgaria. MacGahan’s dispatches spread the truth about the inhuman cruelty of the Turks all over the world. Archibald Forbes, the great English writer and correspondent, who rode by his side, in an article on MacGahan pays this tribute to his great services:
"MacGahan's work in the exposures of the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, which he carried out so thoroughly and effectively in 1876, produced very remarkable results. Regarded simply on its literary merits, there is nothing I know of to excel it in vividness, in pathos, in a burning earnestness, in a glow of conviction that fires from the heart to the heart. His letters stirred Mr. Gladstone into a convulsive paroxysm of burning revolt against the barbarities they described. They moved England to its very depths, and men travelling in railway carriages were to be noticed with flushed faces and moistened eyes as they read them. Lord Beaconsfield tried to whistle down the wind the awful significance of the disclosures made in those wonderful letters. The master of jeers jibed at as 'coffee-house babble,' the revelations that were making the nations to throb with indignant passion."
Januarius MacGahan’s notes caused an outcry and were published in all big newspapers in the United Kingdom, France and the US, and later on in Russia as well.
After the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, which resulted in Bulgaria’s liberation, this country’s big statesman Stefan Stambolov translated them into Bulgarian and published them in 1880.
In 1997, Bulgarian historian Teodor Dimitrov, who lives in Geneva, published the second edition of the notes, adding biographical data about MacGahan. So "American Witness" is the notes’ third edition in this country. Macgahan’s dispatches for British "Daily News" won the Bulgarians the support of personalities like Oscar Wilde and Charles Darwin, Victor Hugo and Dostoyevski. Said Luko Zahariev from "Strelets" publishing house:
"Obviously MacGahan was an exceptionally brave man to oppose two big empires simultaneously, the Ottoman and the British. The first defended the murderers and the second did not want to have the status quo in the Balkans changed. This is how MacGahan happened to challenge directly Britain’s Prime Minister at that time, Disraeli. Here is what he wrote about him: "In Mr. Disraeli’s view, the big crime is not in the murdering of thousands and thousands of innocent people, but in the fact that the newspapers wrote that 30,000 were killed, when the real number was "only" 25,000. The insulting mistake consisted not in the fact that thousands of young children have been slaughtered, but in writing that their number was 1,000 when actually they were 999!" MacGahan indeed used devastating irony to defend justice and truth. In my opinion, he is one of the great spirits of the 19th century, Luko Zahariev contends. It is not incidentally then, that in 1976, when commemorating the 100th anniversary of the April Uprising, the citizens of Batak placed his statue in the centre of their town," Luko Zahariev said in conclusion.
During the Russo-Turkish war, MacGahan visited Bulgaria again and everywhere he was hailed as a liberator and deliverer; the grateful people ran after him as he rode through the streets of the towns and villages of this country, kissing his boots, saddle, bridle, and even the little pet horse that he rode. Archibald Forbes, MacGahan’s companion in his travels says the grateful and affectionate demonstrations of the people of Bulgaria towards MacGahan, surpassed anything of the kind he ever saw or imagined.
Shortly after the Russo-Turkish war, MacGahan died of typhus in Istanbul. Later his body was taken to the cemetery of Maplewood in New Lexington, Ohio. The inscription on his tombstone reads: "MacGahan, Liberator of Bulgaria".
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