During the past 131 years Bulgaria has celebrated its liberation from Turkish rule on March 3.

The date, however, has been accepted by some as a threshold of passing from one oppressive rule to another. The main question leaving many Bulgarians unsettled as to was the country truly liberated was summed up by a reader of Dnevnik daily. His comment posted on the newspaper's website read: "...a long time passed and we still have not learnt one important history lesson: empires do not liberate!"

March 3 1878 was the date when the preliminary treaty between the Ottoman and Russian empires was signed in San Stefano, in the outskirts of Istanbul, putting the Russo-Turkish (1877/78) war to an end. Several months later, a new treaty was signed in Berlin, whose provisions divided Bulgaria, an event still lamented in the country's historiography.

What emerged on the map of the Balkans was Principality Bulgaria, a self-governed Christian unit, which was allowed to form an army. At the same time, the Ottomans pulled out their military units, while the Russian military occupation was to continue for the next two years.

The newly-drawn borders restored the state with a territory locked between Danube river up north and including the Balkan mountain range, Sofia and nearly all Macedonia. Later, when the clauses of the treaty would be revised by the Berlin Congress in 1878 and Bulgaria would be split in two, the San Stefano treaty would become a symbol of national unity and a national ideal for years to come.

There is no need to meddle with the complicated schemes of the Russian politics, or the fear of the Great Powers that its expansion on the Balkans is quite unfavourable. Throughout the years, Bulgarians have come to realise that whatever the price they ended up paying in the years after the Liberation, one fact remained undisputed: drawn by the idea of pan-Slavism and brotherhood of all Slavic souls, many Russians fought and died for the "cleansing" of Bulgaria from the Turkish rule. The countless monuments of the Unknown Soldier commemorating all fallen for the country's freedom are a great testimony of gratitude.

Then why Bulgarians have such mixed feelings when it comes to March 3 1878?

"Every year on that date our politicians, conformed to all that is Russian and Soviet by instinct, use March 3 to desecrate our national dignity, showing political spinelessness towards Russia. This annoys many Bulgarians," said Plamen Tsvetkov, a history professor at the New Bulgarian University in an interview with website frognews.bg on March 2 2009.

According to Tsvetkov, no self-respecting nation would celebrate a national day of liberation on a date such as March 3, when not a single Bulgarian had been involved. Bulgarians took part in the war but no one was invited for the signing of the San Stefano treaty, Tsvetkov said.

The professor claimed that the mastermind behind the treaty was Count Nikolai Ignatiev, who even in his memoirs later said that Russia's historic mission was to unite all Slavs under its rule, building a new empire over the ruins of Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans.

"One needs to have a vivid imagination to assume that what the Count had in mind was Bulgaria's liberation. Yet one of the major streets in Sofia bears his name even today."

Tsvetkov said that the biggest myth related to the country's liberation was actually the San Stefano treaty, which it turned out to be "one of the greatest manipulations, playing with the historical memory of Bulgarians." The treaty did not specify when would the Russian army withdraw, once the two-year occupation was through, he said.

The real treaty was the one signed in Berlin in 1878, which cut the occupation from two years to nine months, putting the occupational administration under international surveillance. That, Tsvetkov said, forced Russia to help with the establishment of new state institutions.

The professor said that the San Stefano treaty authorised Turkish military units to pass through Bulgaria's territory when needed, so sooner or later Bulgaria would feel threatened and "beg" Russians to stay for protection. "Then, what kind of liberation we are talking about?" Tsvetkov said.

To discard March 3 as a national holiday because no Bulgarian signed the San Stefano treaty would mean to undervalue the efforts of all Bulgarians who prior to that worked and died for the liberation of Bulgaria, Andrei Pantev, a history professor at Sofia University said in an interview for news portal vsekiden.com on March 2 2009.

"We celebrate the creation of the Bulgarian state within Europe, we celebrate the new entity that appeared on Europe's political map and that's the main fact," Pantev said.

It is not possible one holiday with a political and historic significance to unite all, especially if people took its meaning quite literally, he said. The historian gave an example with Americans celebrating their independence from England every July 4, asking should this event sever relations between the two countries or offend all Americans with English decent?

Following the tradition, President Georgi Purvanov, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and Georgi Pirinski, the speaker of Parliament, laid wreaths on the Unknown Soldier monument in Sofia signifying gratitude to all fallen for the liberation of Bulgaria.

In relation to the celebrations, from 1pm until 8pm no traffic would be allowed on Tsar Osvoboditel boulevard between Vassil Levski and G. S. Rakovski boulevards; on 15 noemvri street between Tsar Osvoboditel and Alexander Nevski square and on Aksakov street between Vassil Levski boulevard and Tsar Ivan Shishman street.