ESSENTIAL HISTORY OF BULGARIA
IN SEVEN
PAGES
Dr.
Lyubomir Ivanov
Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences
XLVI BC -
I AD
Thracians inhabited what is now Bulgaria in antiquity. They were divided in
numerous tribes until, following
a few decades of Persian domination under
Darius I
the Great and Xerxes I of Persia, King Teres united most of them around
480 BC in the Odrysian Kingdom, which flourished under Sitalkes and Cotys I.
Thrace was
conquered by Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great,
but
regained independence under
Seuthes III. A Celtic
kingdom with capital Tylis
(present Tulovo near Kazanlak in central Bulgaria) existed on Thracian soil in
the
3rd century BC. The Romans invaded
ensuing
wars continued until 46 AD when Thrace became a Roman
province.
Dionysus,
the god of wine worshiped by the Greeks and the Romans; Orpheus,
the
great poet and musician of antiquity; and Spartacus, a distinguished Roman
military
leader and folk hero – they are all among the mythical or historical
Thracian
personalities.
While the Thracians left
no written records,
their legacy survives in numerous
tombs and treasures to reveal the amazing
civilization of people rather more
sophisticated
than the “savage, blood-thirsty warriors” described by Herodotus.
There are
some 60,000 Thracian tumuli in the country, known to contain 2,000
undeveloped
archeological sites. Most
significant among the Thracian
monuments
are the Tombs of Sveshtari and Kazanlak, the Starosel Mausoleum,
the
capital town of Seuthopolis, and the Tatul and Perperikon Shrines. More
than
80 Thracian treasures have been unearthed in Bulgaria too, including the
famous
Panagyurishte, Rogozen, and Valchitran treasures. Most of the gold is
dated
to 5th-4th centuries BC, although the Valchitran treasure
is eight centuries
older
than that, while the pre-Thracian Varna gold is dated more than 4,500
years
BC – the oldest gold in the world.
A number of artifacts including the
golden
mask of King Teres were found in the Rose Valley in central Bulgaria,
branded
‘Valley of the Thracian Kings’ for that. The Thracian gold is gaining
stunning
popularity worldwide.
VII BC -
VII AD
During the early medieval Great
Migration of peoples the Balkan Peninsula was
invaded
by a number of Germanic, Bulgar, Hunnic and Slavic tribes, with some
of
them staying for longer periods of time or remaining permanently to blend
into
the local populace. In particular,
in the mid-4th century a group of Goths
settled
in the region of Nikopolis ad Istrum
(present Nikyup near Veliko
Tarnovo
in northern Bulgaria), where their leader Bishop Wulfila
(Ulfilas)
invented
the Gothic alphabet and translated the Holy Bible into Gothic to
produce
the first book written in Germanic language.
The
ancient Bulgars are believed to have been of mixed
stock themselves,
originally
Eastern Iranian (and thus ‘cousins’ to present Afghanistan and
Iranian
people),
with later Ugric and Turkic influence.
They came to Europe from their
old
homeland, the Kingdom of Balhara situated in Mount Imeon area (present
Hindu Kush in northern Afghanistan), and built their cities of
stone in Northern
Caucasus. According to the 7th century
chronicle ‘Name List of Bulgarian
Khans’,
the early European state of the Bulgars was
established by Khan Avitohol
in
165 AD. However, even shortly BC
some Bulgars migrated across the Caucasus
to
establish the Principality of Vanand in Armenia,
leaving a few centuries of
recorded
presence in Armenian history.
During the 4th-7th centuries the Bulgars
raided
Central and Eastern Europe, and were known as fearsome warriors
respectful
of law and justice. In the 7th
century they settled in
Pannonia
(present Hungary), Macedonia, and Volga Bulgaria (present Chuvashia,
Tatarstan,
Samara, and adjacent territories in Russia). Bulgar golden treasures
were
found at Nagyszentmiklós (Hungary), Vrap
(Albania), and Mala
Pereshchepina
(Ukraine), the latter being Khan Kubrat’s burial hoard.
In 632 AD Khan Kubrat united
most Bulgar lands – by that time part of a wider
Avaro-Bulgar
federation stretching to the Alps in the west – in the independent
state of Great Bulgaria
(‘Old Great Bulgaria’ in Roman chronicles), situated
north
of Black Sea and bounded
by the Carpathian Mountains, the Caucasus,
and Volga River. The
historians) recognized the new state in 635
AD. Kubrat’s successor Khan
Asparuh expanded Great Bulgaria on the Balkan
Peninsula, conquering the
Byzantine
territories of Moesia
and Scythia Minor (present Miziya and
Dobrudzha
– the lands between the Balkan Mountains, the Danube, and Black
Sea). A 681 peace treaty with
capital Pliska south of the Danube River
is considered the
beginning of the First
Bulgarian Empire.
VII AD -
XI AD
In the early
8th century
the Arabs tried to invade Europe via the Balkans, but
were
defeated by the
allied forces of Khan
Tervel of Bulgaria and Byzantine
Emperor Leo III in 717-18
AD. That victory was a milestone in European
history
that
turned back the tide of Muslim incursions from the east for more than 600
years,
until the 14th century Ottoman invasion.
Khan Krum
the Horrible conquered Serdica (present Sofia) and the Struma
Valley in
809 AD, enabling the Bulgarian state in Macedonia established by
Khan
Kuber in 685 AD to merge with the First Bulgarian
Empire. In
Central
Europe,
Khan Krum’s Bulgaria bordered the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne.
That
territorial consolidation of Bulgaria as one of the principal European states
of
the Middle Ages went in parallel with a process in which the Bulgars
amalgamated
with the local Slavs, and Slavicized, Hellenized, and Romanized
Thracians
and other indigenous people. The Bulgars contributed their
statesmen
culture, while the common language of the country evolved from
Slavonic. (Slavonic had the unique lingua franca
advantage of being familiar to
the
native speakers of other major languages in the now dominant Balkan part
of
the country – notably the Bulgars, who used to cohabitate with Slavs in
Great
Bulgaria before, and the Romanized and Hellenized indigenous
people.) The
formation
of the newBulgarian nation was completed by the Christianization of
Bulgaria
in 865 AD, which provided a common state religion.
By
creating Great Bulgaria and the First Bulgarian
Empire, the Bulgars
introduced
a new model of nation-state building in Eastern Europe. Until then,
the
multiethnic Byzantine Empire claimed universality as a unique Earthly
projection
of the Celestial Kingdom. Following
their long tradition of statehood
however,
the Bulgars denied that claim to establish a state of
their own that
successfully
survived all the ups and downs of history to follow.
Besides
breaking the ‘political monopoly’ of Byzantium in Eastern Europe,
Bulgaria
broke also the monopoly of Latin, Greek and Hebrew as the exclusive
‘holy languages’ of Christendom. Along with introducing Christianity as a
common
religion shared with Byzantium and Rome, Knyaz Boris I the Baptist
ensured
the approval by both the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople that
the
Church language in Bulgaria would be the spoken language of the country.
In Western
Europe the holy books became accessible to the common people
much
later, with Martin Luther’s 1534 Bible in German, and the 1611 King
James
Version of the Bible in English.
Boris
commissioned the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet, together with setting
up
schools of higher education in Preslav and Ohrid run by St. Naum and
St. Kliment respectively, where church books were rendered in
Bulgarian, and
clergymen
were educated for the country’s 20,000 churches. Thus in the
9th-10th
centuries, and especially during the so called ‘Golden Age of Bulgarian
culture’
under Boris and his son Tsar Simeon I the Great, Bulgaria became the
cradle
of Cyrillic alphabet and Bulgarian Slavonic culture that in the next
centuries
spread to Byzantium, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Transylvania, Walachia
and
Moldavia, as well as to Kievan Rus and the Principality of Moscow
(predecessors of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus).
XI AD - XV AD
Following a
period of Byzantine domination in 1018-1165,
independence
and role of major regional power in rivalry with the Kingdom of
Hungary
and the Byzantine Empire, the latter in turn overtaken by the Crusader
Latin
Empire of Constantinople in 1204-61.
Aegean
Sea, Adriatic Sea, Bosnia, Hungary, and the Carpathian Mountains.
The Second
Bulgarian Empire prospered under Tsar Kaloyan and his successors
Ivan Asen II and Svetoslav Terter, to enjoy
under Ivan Alexander a period of
cultural
renaissance known as ‘the Second Golden Age of Bulgarian
culture’.
The
capital Tarnovo became a political, economic,
cultural and religious center
seen
as ‘the Third Rome’ in contrast to Constantinople’s decline
after the
Byzantine
heartland in Asia Minor was lost to the Turks during the late
11th
century. A number of monasteries
and churches were built or renovated,
literary
activities flourished, and Bulgarian artists started to create realistic
images
– as those of Boyana Church in Sofia – already in the mid-13th
century,
well
before Giotto and the early Italian Renaissance.
The Balkan
history took a new turn with the Ottoman conquest, which was
facilitated
by a feudal fragmentation plaguing the region in the late
14th
century. In particular, Bulgaria
split into the Tsardoms of Tarnovo and
Vidin,
the Principality of Dobrudzha, the vassal Principalities of Walachia and
Moldavia
(which remained autonomous under the Ottomans), and several
smaller
feudal possessions in Macedonia.
The last Bulgarian state to fall was the
Vidin
Tsardom in 1422.
XV AD - XIX AD
During more than four
centuries of Ottoman domination the Bulgarians fought
back
as guerilla fighters (‘haydut’, pl. ‘hayduti’) and
rebels. The liberation
attempts
included the Tarnovo Uprisings in 1598, 1686 and 1835; Chirpovtsi
Uprising
in 1688; Karposh Uprising in 1689; Nish Uprisings in 1737 and 1835-
41;
Znepole Uprising in 1830; Vidin Uprising in 1850 etc.
The
Bulgarians were treated as second-class citizens under the Ottoman system,
and
forced to pay higher taxes than the Muslims. Nevertheless, despite the
oppression,
and the Bulgarian aspirations for liberation, the ethnic Bulgarians
and
the Bulgarian Turks developed a strong tradition of mutual ethnic and
religious
tolerance that survived occasional deviations (most recently the
coercive
renaming campaign carried out by the communist regime in the 1980s).
As the
national hero and leader of the liberation movement
Vasil Levski
preached,
his struggle was for “a pure and sacred republic” in which
“Bulgarians,
Turks, Jews and others will enjoy equal rights in every aspect”.
In the 18th-19th
centuries the Bulgarian lands experienced a period of economic
and
cultural boom known as ‘the Bulgarian Revival’. The Bulgarians were
enterprising
and industrious, selling their handicraft and industrial products
throughout
the Empire, and buying land to sustain the family owned farming
that
formed the nation’s backbone.
An autonomous Bulgarian education system
was
developed too, first with church-sponsored ‘cellar schools’
providing basic
literacy,
later with more advanced community-owned secular schools, along
with
the uniquely Bulgarian community cultural centers (‘chitalishte’,
pl.
‘chitalishta’).
On the
geopolitical side, the Bulgarians faced some disadvantages vis-à-vis
other
Balkan
nations seeking to overthrow the Ottoman rule. Occupying the central
area
of the Peninsula, with their southeast extremity so close to the Imperial
capital
Istanbul (former Constantinople), the Bulgarian lands were naturally the
last
ones the Ottomans would be prepared to lose. Furthermore, the 19th-20th
century
territorial appetites of certain major European countries had negative
repercussions
on the Bulgarian interests.
annexed
the Dodecanese Islands; Austria-Hungary possessed Transylvania and
annexed
Bosnia; Russia annexed eastern Moldavia (Bessarabia and Budzhak) to
deprive
Romania of her access to Black Sea north of the Danube, offering a sea
outlet
in Bulgarian Dobrudzha instead.
Thus
motivated
to seek expansion in predominantly Bulgarian ethnic territories. In
addition,
Britain and other West European powers disfavored the restoration of
a
large Bulgarian state, fearing (quite wrongly, as the subsequent Bulgarian-
Russian
relations would prove) that it may serve Russia’s ambition of taking over
the
strategic Black Sea Straits.
The
political emancipation of the Bulgarians within the Ottoman Empire started
by
ridding the Bulgarian Church of its dependence to a Greek-dominated
Patriarchate
of Constantinople. Namely, a Bulgarian Exarchate was
decreed by
the
Sultan in 1870 to include all the Bulgarian majority bishoprics in the
Empire; in
particular, the bishoprics of Skopie and Ohrid joined after plebiscites
won
with over 90% of the popular vote.
The Exarchate played an important role
in
fostering Bulgarian interest, national awareness and education.
XIX AD -
XX AD
A decisive
step towards
Uprising’
of 1876, which provoked the 1876 Constantinople Conference of the
then
Great Powers of Europe: Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy,
and
Russia. The conference determined
that, as of the late 19th century, the
Bulgarian
ethnic territory extended to Tulcha (present Tulcea in Romania) and
the
Danube delta in the northeast, Ohrid and Kostur (present Kastoria in
Greece) in
the southwest, Lozengrad and Odrin (present Kirklareli and Edirne in
Turkey) in
the southeast, and Leskovets and Nish (now in Serbia) in the
northwest. Furthermore, the Great Powers elaborated
in detail the form of
government
for that territory, which was to be incorporated in two autonomous
Bulgarian
provinces of the Ottoman Empire: Eastern, with capital Tarnovo, and
Western,
with capital Sofia.
The
Ottoman Government refused to implement the decisions of the
Constantinople
Conference, triggering the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War that
ended
disastrously for Turkey. As a
result, the preliminary Peace Treaty of San
Stefano
signed on 3 March 1878 stipulated the restoration of Bulgaria’s
statehood
(because of which 3 March is the country’s National Day). The
subsequent
Berlin Congress however amended the San Stefano provisions to
postpone
a comprehensive settlement, thus creating a Pandora box of future
conflicts. In particular, the Bulgarian populace
was split in five: present
northern
Bulgaria, and the region of Sofia formed an all but independent
Principality
of Bulgaria; northern Thrace became the autonomous Ottoman
province
of Eastern Rumelia with capital Plovdiv; the Bulgarian lands in
Macedonia
and southern Thrace remained under direct Turkish rule; the valley
of
Bulgarian (or South) Morava River went to Serbia; and Northern Dobrudzha
went
to Romania.
The
struggle for reunification of Bulgarian people remained the core of
Bulgaria’s
national doctrine until the mid-20th century, involving diplomacy,
organized
resistance, one major uprising, and no less than five wars in sixty
years. That struggle would prove successful,
albeit partly, and at a high price.
Bulgaria
lost 140,000 troops killed in the 1912-13 Balkan Wars and WWI alone.
A great
many ethnic Bulgarian refugees fled their home places to settle in free
Bulgaria,
especially after the 1903 Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising in Turkish-
held
Macedonia and Thrace (120,000 refugees), after the 1912-13 Balkan Wars
and
WWI (350,000), and in 1940 (67,000 from Northern Dobrudzha). In the
opposite
direction, ethnic Turks and Greeks emigrated to Turkey and Greece
respectively.
After the unification with Eastern Rumelia and
a victorious war with Serbia in
1885, the Principality of
Bulgaria was
proclaimed a fully independent Kingdom
in 1908, during the reign of Tsar
Ferdinand I of
Bulgaria. The
unified country
became
a leading military power on the Balkans in a series of three wars to
follow.
The First
Balkan War took place in 1912-13, followed immediately by the 1913
Second
Balkan (or Inter-Ally) War. In the
former,
Montenegro
defeated Turkey. In the latter,
Montenegro,
Turkey, and Romania. As a result, the Turkish territories of Pirin
Macedonia,
the Rhodopes Mountains, and the Mediterranean coast
of Thrace
between
Mesta River and Maritsa River were ceded to Bulgaria,
which in turn
ceded
Southern Dobrudzha to Romania.
During
was
enormous; having a population of 4.5 million people, Bulgaria fielded a
885,000
army. However,
despite the generally superior performance of the
Bulgarian
forces against those of Britain, France, Russia, Romania, Serbia and
Greece,
the country could hardly succeed with her allies Germany and Austria-
Hungary
lessening their effort on the Balkan Front in 1918. The defeat led to the
loss
of Tsaribrod, Bosilegrad, and Strumitsa districts to Serbia, and the
Bulgarian
Mediterranean coast to Greece. Those boundary changes were
followed
in 1940 by the negotiated recuperation of Southern Dobrudzha from
Romania,
which completed the formation of Bulgaria’s modern territory.
XX AD - XXI AD
much
to do with telling the ‘lesser evil’ between Stalin and Hitler as
with
pursuing
territorial ambitions. The country
sent no troops to the Russian Front
but
facilitated the German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, and was entrusted
the
administration of territories with an area of 42,466 sq. km (16,396 sq. mi)
and
1.9 million inhabitants comprising the Mediterranean coast between
Struma
River and Enos Gulf; Vardar Macedonia (present Republic of
Macedonia),
excepting the Albanian-populated western districts given to Italy;
and
part of Morava Valley in Serbia.
Bulgarian authorities functioned in those
territories
in 1941-44, with citizenship granted to all ethnic Bulgarians (2/3 of
the
population), and to others who wished so.
Nowadays, that WWII status is
being
used by tens of thousands of people from the Republic of Macedonia to
obtain
Bulgarian citizenship.
The Jews
were excluded though, being subject to German extermination
policies:
11,363 of them were deported.
Moreover, Hitler put strong pressure on
Tsar Boris
III of Bulgaria to send to Germany the 50,000 Jews of Bulgaria
proper. Tsar Boris refused, supported by the
Parliament (Deputy Speaker
Dimitar
Peshev played a leading role), the Orthodox Church,
and the general
public. The Bulgarian Jews remained safe, and
after the war were permitted to
emigrate
to Israel, which most of them did.
territory
under direct German control, thus relieving German troops for the
front
line. In December 1941 the country
declared war on
(but not Russia).
The hostilities were confined to air combat, with 168
Bulgarian
settlements bombed, 2,434 buildings destroyed, 1,290 Bulgarians
killed,
and 117 Allied planes shot down.
Near the end of WWII Bulgaria
changed
sides to fight the German army all the way to Austria, losing 30,000
troops
killed.
The Soviet
troops entered
change
that placed the country under Russian domination endorsed by a
Churchill-Stalin
agreement on the division of the Balkans. Within few years the
country
was transformed from monarchy into ‘people’s republic’, the
industry
was
nationalized, and the political power privatized by the Communist Party. In
1954 the
party’s (and thus country’s) leadership was assumed by Todor
Zhivkov,
who
stayed in power until the end of the communist project in 1989.
Despite
some initial progress in economy, health care and education, already by
the
late 1970s the communist system had hit the limits of its sustainability,
within
a decade went bankrupt, and collapsed in Bulgaria as it did throughout
Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union.
The last
decade of the 20th century was the time of transition back to
democracy
and
free market, which took place in the framework of Atlantic and European
integration. Together with
2007.
NATO, the USA
and the European Union provided guidance, support and
incentives
for Bulgaria’s political and economic reforms; more than that, they
helped
put the regional relations in an entirely new perspective. For the first
time
in modern history the Balkan nations came to share common goals and
common
vision. Traditionally negative
attitudes among the Balkan people are
diminishing,
and the Balkan identity is becoming a source of pride.
Nowadays
low
unemployment. Having lost some
800,000 people in emigration since 1989,
today
the country is increasingly attracting immigrants from Western Europe
and
North America, the Balkans, ex-Soviet, Asian and African states.
APPENDIX
Great Battles of
c.
440 AD The
Bulgars defeat and kill King Agelmund
of
Langobards in Silesia (present southwestern Poland).
499
AD The
Bulgars defeat four armies of Emperor Anastasius
of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) in Illyricum
(western Balkans).
680
AD Khan
Asparuh of
IV
of Byzantium at the Danube delta.
718
AD Khan
Tervel of
Umar II led by Gen. Maslama,
relieving the Arab siege of
Constantinople.
792
AD Khan
Kardam defeats Emperor Constantine VI of
Byzantium
at Markeli (near present Karnobat
in
southeastern Bulgaria).
811
AD Khan
Krum the Horrible defeats and kills Emperor
Nikephoros I Genikos of Byzantium
at Varbitsa Pass (in
eastern Bulgaria).
813
AD Khan
Krum defeats Emperor Michael I Rangabe of
Byzantium
at Versinikia (near Adrianople,
present
Edirne in
Turkey).
896
AD Tsar
Simeon I the Great defeats the Byzantine army at
Bulgarophygon (present Babaeski in Turkey).
917
AD Tsar
Simeon I defeats the Byzantine army led by
Gen.
Leo Phocas at
Pomorie in
southeastern Bulgaria).
986
AD Tsar Samuil of
Bulgaria defeats Emperor Basil
II of
Byzantium at Trayan Gates (in central
Bulgaria).
1014 Tsar Samuil of
Bulgaria defeated by Byzantine Emperor
Basil II at Klyuch (in southwestern Bulgaria).
1205 Tsar
Kaloyan of
Baldwin
of the Latin Empire (formerly of Flanders) at
Adrianople
(present Edirne in Turkey).
1223 King
Gabdulla Chelbir of
Mongol
army of Ghengis Khan at Samara Bend (in
present Russia).
1230 Tsar
Ivan Asen II of
Byzantine
Emperor Contender Theodore Komnenos of
Epirus
at Klokotnitsa (near Haskovo in
southeastern
Bulgaria).
1279 Tsar
Ivaylo of
Emperor
Michael VIII Palaiologos at Devnya
(in
northeastern Bulgaria).
1304 Tsar
Svetoslav Terter of
army of Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos at Sozopol
(in southeastern Bulgaria).
1332 Tsar
Ivan Alexander of
Andronikos III Palaiologos of
Byzantium at Rusokastro
(in southeastern Bulgaria).
1396 Joint
European forces under Duke Jean de Nevers
defeated by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid
I at Nicopolis
(present Nikopol in northern
Bulgaria).
1444 Joint
European forces under King Władysław III of
Poland
and King Janos Hunyadi of
Hungary defeated by
the Ottoman Sultan Murad II at Varna (in northeastern
Bulgaria).
1878 Bulgarian
volunteer units and Russian troops under
Gen.
Stoletov defeat the Turkish army under Suleiman
Pasha
at Shipka Pass (central Bulgaria) in one of the
crucial battles of the Russo-Turkish War.
1885 Prince
Alexander I Battenberg of Bulgaria defeats King
Milan
I of Serbia at Slivnitsa (in western Bulgaria)
during the Serbo-Bulgarian War.
1912 Gen.
Ivan Fichev and Gen. Radko Dimitriev defeat the
Turkish
army at Lozengrad, Lyuleburgas
and Bunarhisar
(present Kirklareli, Lüleburgaz and Pinarhisar in
Turkey)
during the First Balkan War.
1913 Gen.
Georgi Vazov defeats the
Turkish garrison under
Shukri Pasha to capture the reputedly impenetrable
German-built
fortress of Odrin (present Edirne
in
Turkey) during the First Balkan War.
1913 Gen.
Vicho Dikov defeats the
Serbian and Montenegrin
army at Kalimantsi (in present
Republic of Macedonia)
during the Second Balkan War.
1913 The
Bulgarian army under Gen. Radko Dimitriev
surrounds Greece’s 120,000-strong main army group
north of Kresna Gorge (in western
Bulgaria) during the
Second Balkan War.
1916 Gen.
Panteley Kiselov defeats
the Romanian garrison
under Gen. Constantin Teodorescu
to capture the fortress
of Tutrakan (in northeastern Bulgaria)
during WWI;
Bulgaria
occupies Bucharest.
1916 Gen.
Ivan Kolev defeats the Russian 7 Cavalry (Cossack)
Division
under Gen. Evgeniy Leontovich,
and captures
the 25th Orenburg
Battalion flag in Dobrudzha during
WWI.
1918 Gen.
Vladimir Vazov defeats the British army under
Gen.
George Milne at Doiran (on the border between
Greece
and present Republic of Macedonia) during
WWI.
1945 Gen.
Kiril Stanchev defeats and
captures the flag of the
German
‘Prinz Eugen’
SS Division at Nish (in Serbia)
during WWII.
Text
published under
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Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.