First Bulgarian Empire
In the 7th century, Bulgar tribes (likely of central Asian Turkic origin), migrated
to the lower courses of the rivers Danube, Dniester and Dniepr under the leadership of Asparukh.
After 670 he moved into the Balkan Peninsula with a horde of 50,000 Bulgars
across the Danube and in 680 severed
Scythia Minor from the
Byzantine
Empire. A peace treaty
with Byzantium in 681 and the establishment of a permanent capital at Pliska south of the Danube marked the
beginning of the First Bulgarian Empire. The Bulgars
gradually mixed up with the local population, adopting a common language on the
basis of Slavonic.
Succeeding khans
strengthened the Bulgarian state throughout the 8th and 9th centuries—Tervel
established Bulgaria as a major military power by defeating a 26,000-strong Arab army during the Second Arab Siege of
Constantinople. Krum doubled the country's territory, killed
Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I in the Battle of Pliska, and introduced the
first written code of law. In 864 Boris I abolished paganism in favour of Eastern
Orthodox Christianity. Simeon the
Great's 34-year rule began in 893 and saw the largest territorial expansion
of Bulgaria, along with a golden age of Bulgarian culture.
Wars with Croatians, Magyars, Pechenegs and Serbs and the spread of the
Bogomil heresy weakened Bulgaria
after Simeon's death. Two consecutive Rus' and Byzantine invasions
resulted in the seizure of the capital Preslav by the Byzantine army in 971. Under Samuil, Bulgaria
somewhat recovered from these attacks and managed to conquer Serbia and
Albania, but this rise
ended when Byzantine emperor Basil
II defeated the Bulgarian army at Klyuch in 1014. Samuil died shortly after
the battle, and by 1018 the
Byzantines had ended the First Bulgarian Empire.
Second Bulgarian Empire
After his conquest of
Bulgaria, Basil II prevented
revolts and discontent by retaining the rule of the local nobility and
recognising the autocephaly of
the Archbishopric of Ohrid. After his death
Byzantine domestic policies changed and a series of unsuccessful rebellions
broke out, the
largest being led by Peter
Delyan. In 1185 Asen
dynasty nobles Ivan Asen I and Peter IV organised a major
uprising which resulted in the re-establishment of the Bulgarian state. Ivan
Asen and Peter laid the foundations of the Second Bulgarian Empire with Tarnovo as a capital.
Kaloyan, the third of the Asen monarchs,
extended his dominion to Belgrade
and Ohrid. He acknowledged the spiritual
supremacy of the
Pope and received a royal crown from a papal legate. The empire
reached its zenith under Ivan Asen II (1218–1241), when commerce and
culture flourished. The strong
economic and religious influence of Tarnovo made it a "Third Rome", unlike the already declining
Constantinople.
The country's military
and economic might declined after the Asen dynasty ended in 1257, facing
internal conflicts, constant Byzantine and Hungarian attacks and Mongol
domination. By the end of the
14th century, factional divisions between the feudal landlords and the spread of Bogomilism had
caused the Second Bulgarian Empire to split into three tsardoms—Vidin, Tarnovo
and Karvuna—and several semi-independent
principalities that fought each other, along with Byzantines, Hungarians, Serbs,
Venetians and Genoese. By the late
14th century the Ottoman
Turks had started their conquest of Bulgaria and had taken most towns and
fortresses south of the Balkan mountains.
Ottoman rule
Ottoman Bulgaria
Tarnovo was captured
by the Ottomans after a three-month siege in 1393. After the Battle of
Nicopolis in 1396 brought about the fall of the Vidin Tsardom, the Ottomans
conquered all Bulgarian lands south of the Danube. The nobility was eliminated
and the peasantry was enserfed to
Ottoman masters, with
much of the educated clergy fleeing to other countries. Under
the Ottoman system, Christians were considered an inferior class of people. Thus, Bulgarians, like other
Christians, were subjected to heavy taxes and a small portion of the Bulgarian
populace experienced partial or complete Islamisation, and their culture
was suppressed. Ottoman authorities established the Rum Millet, a religious administrative
community which governed all Orthodox Christians regardless of their
ethnicity. Most of the local
population gradually lost its distinct national consciousness, identifying as
Christians. However, the
clergy remaining in some isolated monasteries kept it alive, and that helped it
to survive as in some rural, remote areas, as well as in the
militant Catholic community in the
northwestern part of the country.
Several Bulgarian
revolts erupted throughout the nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule, most
notably the Habsburg-backed Tarnovo uprisings
in
1598 and in 1686, the Chiprovtsi
Uprising in 1688 and Karposh's Rebellion in 1689. In
the 18th century, the Enlightenment in Western Europe provided
influence for the initiation of a movement known as the National awakening of
Bulgaria. It
restored national consciousness and became a key factor in the liberation
struggle, resulting in the 1876 April Uprising. Up to 30,000 Bulgarians were
killed as Ottoman authorities put down the rebellion. The massacres prompted the
Great Powers to take action. They convened the Constantinople Conference in 1876,
but their decisions were rejected by the Ottomans. This allowed the Russian Empire to seek a
solution by force without risking military confrontation with other Great
Powers, as had happened in the Crimean War. In 1877 Russia declared war on the
Ottoman empire and defeated its forces with the help of Bulgarian volunteers.
Third Bulgarian state
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The Treaty of San
Stefano was signed on 3 March 1878 by Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and
included a provision to set up an autonomous Bulgarian principality roughly on
the territories of the Second Bulgarian Empire. It never went into
effect, as the Great Powers immediately rejected the
treaty out of fear that such a large country in the Balkans might threaten their
interests. It was superseded by the subsequent Treaty of
Berlin, signed on 13 July, provided for a much smaller state comprising Moesia and the region of Sofia, leaving large populations of Bulgarians outside
the new country. This
played a significant role in forming Bulgaria's militaristic approach to foreign
affairs during the first half of the 20th century.
The Bulgarian
principality won a war against Serbia and incorporated the
semi-autonomous Ottoman territory of Eastern Rumelia in 1885, proclaiming itself an
independent state on 5 October 1908. In the years
following independence, Bulgaria increasingly militarised and was often referred
to as "the Balkan Prussia". Between 1912 and
1918, Bulgaria became involved in three consecutive conflicts—two Balkan Wars and World War I. After a disastrous
defeat in the Second
Balkan War, Bulgaria again found itself fighting on the losing side as a
result of its alliance with the Central Powers in World War I. Despite fielding
more than a quarter of its population in a 1,200,000-strong army and achieving
several decisive victories at Doiran and Dobrich, the country capitulated in 1918. The
war resulted in significant territorial losses, and a total of 87,500 soldiers
killed. More than 253,000
refugees emigrated to Bulgaria from 1912-1929 due to the effects of these
wars, placing additional strain on the already ruined national economy.
The political unrest
resulting from these losses led to the establishment of a royal authoritarian
dictatorship by tsar Boris III (1918–1943). Bulgaria entered
World War II in 1941 as a member of the Axis but declined to participate in Operation
Barbarossa and saved its Jewish population from deportation to concentration camps. The sudden death of Boris III in the summer of 1943 pushed the country into
political turmoil as the war turned against Germany and the Communist guerrilla
movement gained momentum. The government of Bogdan Filov subsequently failed to achieve peace
with the Allies. Bulgaria did not comply with Soviet demands to expel German
forces from its territory, resulting in a declaration of war and an invasion by
the USSR in September 1944. The Communist-dominated Fatherland Front took power, ended
participation in the Axis and joined the Allied side until the war ended.
The left-wing uprising of 9
September 1944 led to the abolition of monarchic rule, but it was not until 1946
that a single-party people's republic
was established. It became a part
of the Soviet sphere of influence under the leadership of Georgi Dimitrov
(1946–1949), who laid the foundations for a rapidly industrialising stalinist state. By the mid-1950s
standards of living rose significantly, while political repressions were lessened. By the 1980s both national and per capita GDP quadrupled, but the economy
remained prone to debt spikes, the most severe taking place in 1960, 1977 and
1980. The Soviet-style
planned economy saw
some market-oriented policies emerging on an experimental level under Todor Zhivkov
(1954–1989).
His daughter Lyudmila bolstered national pride by
promoting Bulgarian heritage, culture and arts worldwide. In an attempt to erase the identity of the ethnic Turk minority, an assimilation
campaign was launched in 1984. This resulted in the emigration of some 300,000
of them to Turkey.
Under the influence of
the collapsing
Eastern Bloc, on 10 November 1989 the Communist Party gave up its political
monopoly, Zhivkov resigned, and Bulgaria embarked on a transition to a
parliamentary democracy. The first free elections in June 1990 were won by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP, the
freshly renamed Communist Party). A new
constitution that provided for a relatively weak elected President and for a
Prime Minister accountable to the legislature was adopted in July 1991. The new
system initially failed to improve living standards or create economic
growth—the average quality of life and economic performance remained lower than
under Communism well into the early 2000s. A 1997 reform
package restored economic growth, but living standards continued to suffer. After 2001
economic, political and geopolitical conditions improved greatly, and Bulgaria achieved high Human Development status. It became a member
of NATO in 2004 and of the European Union in 2007.
