Authors

Discussion

This paper examines the humanitarian activities of various actors in the Ottoman Balkans during the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–78 and its aftermath, focusing on efforts to rescue and assist women and children. While the role of British organisations in this humanitarian mission has been well documented, this research broadens the perspective by integrating other, often overlooked, participants – such as the two commissions created after the Berlin Congress, French and American missionaries, and other international agents. It analyses how these actors, separately or in coordination, sought to respond to the urgent needs of displaced and vulnerable populations, and how gendered perceptions of suffering shaped both their representations and their practices of relief.

As part of my ongoing PhD research, this study draws on documents from the European Commissions for the Rhodopes and Eastern Rumelia, alongside the correspondence of French missionaries from the Œuvres Pontificales Missionnaires and those from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. These sources, crossed with others, shed light on the humanitarian responses developed in a time of intense crisis, when thousands of refugees from diverse religious and ethnic communities were fleeing violence, displacement, cold and famine. They also reveal how women were not only recipients of aid but sometimes active participants in its organisation — through local charitable initiatives, missionary schools, or networks of care that emerged spontaneously within refugee communities. Such cases highlight both the gendered hierarchies embedded in humanitarian discourse and the agency of women in moments of upheaval.

By situating these relief initiatives within the broader geopolitical context of Russian military occupation and the complex realities of a multi-ethnic Ottoman borderland, this paper offers a new perspective on the emergence of transnational humanitarianism in the late nineteenth century. It explores the tensions and overlaps between missionary work, religious philanthropy, and evolving concepts of international humanitarian aid. More broadly, it seeks to contribute to historical discussions of how religious organisations have negotiated and challenged the boundaries between faith-based compassion and secular humanitarian principles in the aftermath of war and displacement.