April Uprising of 1876 in the context of "History of early Ottoman Bulgaria"

The Herzegovina uprising (Serbian: Херцеговачки устанак, romanized: Hercegovački ustanak) was an uprising led by the Christian Serb population against the Ottoman Empire, firstly and predominantly in Herzegovina (hence its name), from where it spread into Bosnia and Raška. It broke out in the summer of 1875, and lasted in some regions up to the beginning of 1878. It was followed by the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876, and coincided with Serbian-Turkish wars (1876–1878), all of those events being part of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1878).

The uprising was precipitated by the harsh treatment under the beys and aghas of the Ottoman province (vilayet) of Bosnia—the reforms announced by the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I, involving new rights for Christian subjects, a new basis for army conscription and an end to the much-hated system of tax-farming were either resisted or ignored by the powerful Bosnian landowners. They frequently resorted to more repressive measures against their Christian subjects. The tax burden on Christian peasants constantly increased.

Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev (Russian: Никола́й Па́влович Игна́тьев; 29 January [O.S. 17 January] 1832 – 3 July [O.S. 20 June] 1908) was a Russian statesman and diplomat who is best known for his policy of aggressive expansionism as the Russian ambassador to China and the Ottoman Empire. He was also the minister of the interior from 1881 to 1882, where he promoted ultraconservative and Slavic-nationalist policies.

In dealing with China, he secured a large slice of Chinese territory by the multi-lateral Treaty of Peking in 1860. As the Russian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1864 to 1877, he worked to stir up pan-Slavic feeling and nationalism against the Ottomans, and had some responsibility for the Bulgarian rebellion of April 1876. He encouraged his government to declare war on Turkey in 1877, and after the decisive Russian victory, he negotiated the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878. It heralded greatly strengthened Russian influence in the Balkans. However, Britain and Austria-Hungary intervened and forced the retraction of the treaty.