Comment by adrian_b

While the Russian army was the main force in the war against the Turkish empire, in the beginning it was close to losing the war, so it had to request help from the Romanian Principates.

Only the combined Russian-Romanian forces have succeeded to defeat the Turkish army, so Russia does not have alone the merit for making Bulgaria independent.

Moreover, Bulgaria was very lucky that Romania was interposed between it and Russia.

Otherwise, after the Russian victory Bulgaria would not have stayed independent but it would have been incorporated in the Russian Empire, with bad consequences for them. The Russian Empire already had a long series of wars with the Turkish Empire, during which various territories had been transferred from the Turkish Empire to the Russian Empire. Russia did not start any of those wars to make independent countries, but only to grab land from the Turkish Empire.

Before the war, Russia actually secretly hoped to also incorporate Romania in the Russian Empire, but this could not be accomplished because of their initial defeats by the Turkish army, so after they were forced to request Romanian help they had to treat them as allies, so they could not fulfill their initial plans. Thus after the war both Romania and Bulgaria became independent of both neighboring empires.

In comparison with the Russian Empire, the Turkish Empire can be considered, as you say, more "civilized and enlightened", so this is not successful sarcasm.

The Turkish Empire imposed heavy tributes, i.e. heavy taxes in the dependent territories, but otherwise there was little discrimination between citizens based on nationality and little interference with local customs, culture or religion. This was very different from the Russification policies applied in the Tsarist Empire and then in its successor, the Soviet Union. People of many nationalities have maintained their identity for centuries under Turkish occupation, while others have lost theirs after a few decades of Russian occupation.