The McGahan Monument - Elena

Overview

Januarius Aloysius McGahan is a 19th century American journalist. Known in Bulgaria as a special military correspondent for the London newspaper "Daily News" after the April Uprising (1876) and during the Russo-Turkish War (1877 - 1878). A strong advocate of the Bulgarian national cause. Jan McGahan was born on June 12, 1844, on Pigeon Ridge Farm near New Lexington, Ohio. In 1868, McGahan arrived in Europe and settled in Brussels. After the suppression of the April Uprising (1876) he carried out invaluable work in defense of the Bulgarian people. As a correspondent for the Daily News, Januarius McGahan, together with the Secretary of the US Delegation and Consul General in Constantinople, Eugene Skyler, visited the insurgent Bulgarian settlements. Establishes the exact number of killed Bulgarians, as well as the burned villages, churches and monasteries. He published the results of this study in articles and reports on the atrocities of the Turks. A year later, during the Russo-Turkish War, he was a special military correspondent for the Daily News at the headquarters of the active Russian army in the Balkans. He spent the whole war with the army. Near Constantinople, helping a friend, he contracted typhus and died on June 9, 1878, three days before his 34th birthday.