History

Bulgaria have very rich history full of wars, drama and great people. The Republic of Bulgaria is situated in the middle of the Balkan Peninsula on a busy crossroad of different cultures. According to statistics our country is among the first in the world for the number of its archaeological monuments. Today’s land of the Bulgarians is one of the ancient springs of civilization in Europe.

In 632, the Bulgars formed under the leadership of Khan Kubrat an independent state called Great Bulgaria, situated between the lower course of the Danube to the west, the Black Sea and the Azov Sea to the south, the Kuban River to the east, and the Donets River to the north. Pressure from the Khazars led to the subjugation of Great Bulgaria in the second half of the 7th century. Some of the Bulgars from that territory later migrated to the northeast to form a new state called Volga Bulgaria, which lasted until the 13th century.

Kubrat's successor - Khan Asparuh is credited with the the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire at 681 year at the crossroad between Europe, Asia and Africa. Pliska became the first capital. Due to the ethnic tolerance Bulgaria attracted the neighbouring Slavs and they gradually accepted Bulgarian way of life and traditions.

  

Khan Tervel (700-721) was at the head of the powerful Danubian Bulgaria and stopped the Arabian invasion thus saving Byzantium and the whole of Europe from the invasion of the Arab Halifat in 718 when the Islamic troops were on their way to conquer the “world capital” of Christianity – Constantinople. Thanks to Bulgarian support to the Emperor Justinian II in 705 Khan Tervel was conferred on the highest ranking Byzantine title of kessar, after the name of the great Gay Julius Cesar. This act was unique in the history of Byzantium and Medieval Europe.

     

The influence and territorial expansion of Bulgaria increased further during the rule of Khan Krum who introduced a new type of legislation and strengthened the image of Bulgaria as well-organized and modern state for that time. Byzantium attacked the Bulgarian State in 811 and burned down the capital Pliska. The Bulgarians immediately counterattacked - the warriors of Khan Krum defeated the Byzantine army in a pass in the Balkan Mountain. Emperor Nicephorus I was killed in the battle. Since the reign of Emperor Valent (378) there was no emperor to die in a battle.

Khan Persian (836-852) expanded further the Bulgarian territories and the borders almost reached the Aegean Sea and Albania. Bulgaria became the third Great Power in Medieval Europe along with the Byzantine and the Franks’ Empires.

In 864 year, under the rule of Khan Boris, Bulgaria accepted Eastern Orthodox Christianity. He accepted the name Mihail and was the first to built Bulgarian churches and monasteries. The Bulgarian Church canonized him and in history he remained as St. Tsar Boris-Mihail. The creation and the establishment of the Bulgarian-Slavic writing by the brothers St. St. Cyril and Methodius is especially important in both cultural and historical terms. The Vatican acknowledged them patrons of Christian Europe. The alphabet created by them was adopted by other nations through the Orthodox religion.

Tsar Simeon the Great (893-927) extended the work of his father Khan Boris-Mihail. He moved the capital to Veliki Preslav and expanded almost twice the territory of Bulgaria. The country bordered three seas - the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea. A connoisseur of the antique Greek and Byzantine culture, he transformed the Bulgarian State into a mighty power with a great impact on the then existing world. The period of his reign is known as The Golden Age.

        

The reign of Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207) and that of Tsar Ivan Assen II (John Asen) (1218-1241), who were great army leaders and exceptionally good diplomats, was a very fruitful and favorable period for the Bulgarian nation. They made a multitude of brilliant steps, striking war actions, and tactful peace treaties, which expanded the boundaries of Bulgaria and brought stable peace and welfare to the Bulgarians. In 1204 Tsar Kaloyan became the first ruler in Eastern Europe to defeat the knights’ cavalry up to then considered invincible. Tsar Ivan Assen II gained new territories for Bulgaria and the state expanded as it was during the reign of Tsar Simeon the Great. During the next decades the Bulgarian Kingdom suffered the hegemony of the Tatars (Mongolians) as well as political crises  but withstood the hardships.

     

The reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander (1331-1371) was called the Golden Sunset of Medieval Bulgaria. Bulgarian arts and culture from that period developed rapidly and were akin to the pre-Renaissance in Western Europe. However, the days of the free Bulgarian Kingdom were numbered because of the advancement of the Muslim-Turkish wave from the south-east.

In the period 1365-1370 the Ottomans conquered most of the Bulgarian towns and fortresses south of the Balkan Mountains. In 1393 the Ottoman Turks captured Tarnovo, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, after a three-month siege. With the fall of the Vidin Tsardom following the defeat of a Christian crusade at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, the Ottomans finally subjugated and occupied Bulgaria. During those hard times for the Bulgarian people, the Ottoman Empire conducted a policy of discrimination of the Christian population, especially as regards Bulgarians, as well as made attempts for assimilation and annihilation. The Bulgarians was forced to reject the Christianity and to accept the Islam. As a result of the Ottoman invasion many religious documents and Christian sanctuaries were destroyed or turned into Muslim shrines. Bulgarian Revival began in the middle of the 18th century.
Throughout the five Ottoman slavery centuries Bulgarian people organized many attempts to re-establish their own state. The National awakening of Bulgaria became one of the key factors in the struggle for liberation. In the 19th century there came into existence the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee and the Internal Revolutionary Organization led by liberal revolutionaries such as Vasil Levski, Hristo Botev, Lyuben Karavelov and many others. In 1876, the April uprising broke out: the largest and best-organized Bulgarian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. Though crushed by the Ottoman authorities, the uprising prompted the Great Powers to convene the 1876 Conference of Constantinople, which delimited the ethnic Bulgarian territories as of the late 19th century, and elaborated the legal and political arrangements for establishing two autonomous Bulgarian provinces. The Ottoman Government declined to comply with the Great Powers’ decisions, making it possible for Russia to seek a solution by force without risking military confrontation with other Great Powers.
The Russian Emperor Alexander II declared war on Turkey in 1877. Finns, Polish volunteers, Romanians and numerous Bulgarian volunteers took part in it together with the Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. After heavy and epical battles fought for about a year, the most memorable if which took place in Shipka Pass and around Pleven, Turkey was forced to declare capitulation and sign the San Stefano Peace Treaty in front of the walls of Istanbul. That was how Bulgaria gained back its independence on 3rd March 1878.

                 

During the World War I Bulgaria, with view to the not effected national liberation, had no chance and suffered a catastrophe together with Germany and the other defeated countries out of the so-called Central Powers. During the reign of Tsar Boris III (1918-1943) the country was with reduced territories and hostile neighbours, and experienced deep social cataclysms and fierce interior political struggle. The non-precedent salvation of the Bulgarian Jews from being sent to German concentration camps during World War II is associated with the name of Tsar Boris III. Thanks to the pressure of the democratic forces, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and prominent intellectuals 50,000 Jews did not leave the country in the echelons of death. To our regret, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1947 the historic and ethnic rights of Bulgaria were once again not observed and Macedonia was included in the territories of Yugoslavia of Tito. This part of Bulgaria became a test field for an experiment a Macedonian nation and language to be created on an anti-Bulgarian basis. However, being a state of centuries-old historical experience marked of severe and unsurpassed suffering, Bulgaria was the first to acknowledge today’s Republic of Macedonia (1991) and to continue rendering it assistance in the complex reality on the Balkans in the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. In World War II Bulgaria had again allied itself with Germany following the promise of the return of Macedonia. On September 8, 1944 the USSR declared war on Bulgaria and crossed the Danube. Bulgarian army officers and partisan brigades joined forces with the Soviets and Sofia fell. On the next day the invading forces took the rest of Bulgaria. (9 September became known as "Liberation Day".) The Fatherland Front took over the government and the Communist party increased its membership from 15,000 to 250,000 during the following six months. After 9th September 1944 the democratic trends in Bulgaria were revived. However, the Soviet intervention put forward the Communist Party.

February 1990, the Communist Party voluntarily gave up its monopoly on power, and in June 1990 free elections took place, won by the Communist Party (renamed the Bulgarian Socialist Party - BSP). In July 1991, the country adopted a new constitution which provided for a relatively weak elected President and for a Prime Minister accountable to the legislature.

On 17 June 2001, Simeon II, the son of Tsar Boris III and the former Head of state (as Tsar of Bulgaria from 1943 to 1946), won a narrow victory in democratic elections. The king's party - National Movement Simeon II - won 120 out of 240 seats in Parliament and overturned the two pre-existing political parties. Simeon's popularity declined during his four-year rule as Prime Minister, and the BSP won the elections in 2005. Since 1989, Bulgaria has held multi-party elections and privatized its economy, but economic difficulties and enormous corruption have led over 800,000 Bulgarians, including many qualified professionals, to emigrate. The reform package introduced in 1997 restored positive economic growth, but led to rising social inequality. Bulgaria became a member of NATO in 2004 and of the European Union in 2007.

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