Mavi Boncuk | Ethnographic map of European Turkey from 1877. Author Carl Sax, Austro-Hungarian diplomat in Adrianople.
Source: The Bulgarians in their historical, ethnographical and political frontiers. (Atlas with 40 maps.) Preface by D. Rizoff, Minister of Bulgaria in Berlin. Königliche Hoflithographie, Hof-Buch- und Steindruckerei, Wilchelm Greve, 1917.
This Austrian map is the result of seventeen years of labour. Carl Sax had been a long time Austro-Hungarian Consul in Sarajevo, in Rustchuk (Russe), and in Adrianople (Odrin). He crossed European Turkey from end to end. Knowing the works and maps by Boué, Lejean, von Hahn, Kanitz, Kieper, Syvet and others, he collected field data which he checked against the information received from most Austro-Hungarian Consuls and Vice-Consuls of European Turkey. The results were published in a long series of important studies on the nationalities in the Balkans. Taking into account Sax's authoritative knowledge on the subject his map is of great importance. It was published as a brochure in 1878 by the Imperial and Royal Geographical Society in Vienna, whose competency we assume was of the highest order. Superior cartographic craftsmanship and clarity is supplemented by a superb detailed ethnographic categorization table functioning as a legend for the map.
The translated full title of the published brochure is: Ethnographic map of Turkey and her Dependencies at the time of the beginning of the War of 1877, by Karl Sax, I[mperial] and R[oyal] Austro-Hungarian Consul in Adrianople. Published by the Imperial and Royal Geographical Society, Vienna 1878. The title box of the map reads instead "...in the beginning of the year 1877" without mentioning the war. The following remark found in the brochure gives us an idea of the Society's evaluation of the map:
Besides the map by Consul Sax we also possess the sketch of an ethnographic map designed by Baron Karl von Kraus according to the best sources, in which the nationalities of the inhabitants of Turkey and their religious persuasions are taken into consideration, as Sax has done it also in his map. A close comparison shows the nearly complete agreement between the two maps and convinces us that the map by Consul Sax, a result of seventeen years of work on the actual locations, offers a cartographic picture of the ethnography of Turkey which is nearest to the facts.
In order to understand the full importance and commendable impartiality of this evaluation of Sax's map as a whole, one has to keep in mind that the map was published in 1878 and that at that time the official diplomacy of Austria, being afraid of Russia's expansive policy, fought openly for a separation of Macedonia from the newly created Principality of Bulgaria. But the map is free from any influence in this respect, showing the Bulgarian ethnicity of the population of Macedonia, without even mentioning the Macedonian dialect of the Bulgarian language in the elaborate table/legend. (This of course is not in compliance with the present day political reality).SOURCE
This map of Macedonia is a Bulgarian one. Its author is Vassil (Kanchov) Kantschoff who for a long time was Inspector of the Bulgarian Schools in Macedonia and crossed, in this capacity, the country in all directions. It can be said without exaggeration that there is not a single spot in Macedonia that he has not visited and investigated. He was particularly suited for such studies because he possessed thoroughly the whole ethnological literature of the Balkan Peninsula, and because he was an incredibly objective man, even in national and political questions. Moreover, all Bulgarian teachers in Macedonia were for this purpose at Kantschoffs disposal, and they knew their districts quite well.
