Bulgarian History

Early History

Thracians inhabited what is now Bulgaria in antiquity. They were divided in numerous tribes until King Teres united most of them around 500 BC in the Odrysian kingdom, which peaked under the kings Sitalkes and Cotys I (383-359 BC). In 341 BC it was destroyed by the Macedonian state but rose from its ashes at the end of the 4th century BC under Seuthes III. In 188 BC the Romans invaded Thrace and the wars with them continued to 45 CE, when Thrace became a Roman province.

The Thracians did not have writing and now their legacy survives mainly in the numerous treasures and tombs they left. It is believed that the oldest golden treasure, the Varna treasure which is 6,500 years old, is Thracian-made. One of the most talented ancient commanders, Spartacus, was a Thracian born in the middle Struma region.

Forming Bulgaria

In 632, the Bulgars led by Khan Kubrat formed an independent state called Great Bulgaria, bounded by the Danube delta to the west, the Black Sea to the south, the Caucasus to the southeast, and Volga River to the east. Byzantium recognized the new state by treaty in 635.

Pressure by the Khazars led to the loss of the eastern part 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 around the confluence of the Volga River and Kama River.

Kubrat's successor, Khan Asparuh kept the Bulgar territories in the lower courses of the rivers Danube, Dniester and Dniepr (known as Ongal), and conquered Moesia and Scythia Minor (Dobrudzha) from the Byzantine Empire, expanding Great Bulgaria on the Balkan Peninsula. The 681 peace treaty with Byzantium, and the establishment of the new capital of Pliska south of the Danube is considered the beginning of the First Bulgarian Empire.

In 717, the Bulgarians helped relieve the Arab siege of Constantinople, killing some 40,000-60,000 soldiers. Their khan Tervel was called by his contemporaries The Saviour of Europe.

In 864, Bulgaria accepted the Orthodox Faith and became a major European power in the 9th and the 10th century, while fighting with the Byzantine Empire for the control of the Balkans. The greatest territorial extension was reached under Simeon I, the first Tsar, covering most of the Balkans.

The Dark Ages

Following a decline in the mid 10th century, worn out by the wars with Croatia and frequent Serbian rebellions sponsored by Byzantine gold, Bulgaria was crushed by an assault of the Rus' in 969. The Byzantines then began campaigns to conquer Bulgaria. In 971, they seized the capital Preslav and captured Emperor Boris II. Resistance continued in the western Bulgarian lands for nearly half a century until the state was completely destroyed by the Byzantines led by Basil II in 1018.

In 1185, the Bulgarian Empire was reestablished under the Asenevtsi Dynasty and was an important power in Europe for two more centuries, while fighting for dominance in the region against the Byzantine Empire, the Crusader states and Hungary, reaching its zenith under Ivan Asen II (1218-1241).

By the end of the 14th century, the country had disintegrated into several feudal principalities and was eventually conquered by the Ottoman Empire. A Polish-Hungarian crusade under the rule of Wladyslaw III of Poland to free the Balkans was crushed in 1444 in the battle of Varna. The five centuries of Ottoman rule were characterized by great violence and oppression. The Bulgarian population was decimated and most of its cultural relics were lost. Large towns and the areas where Ottoman power was strong were severely depopulated until the 19th century.

Following the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 and the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878, an autonomous Bulgarian principality was proclaimed. The treaty was immediately rejected by the Great Powers for fear that a large Slavic country on the Balkans would serve Russian interests. This led to the Treaty of Berlin (1878) which provided for an autonomous Bulgarian principality comprising Moesia and the region of Sofia. The first Bulgarian prince was Alexander von Battenberg. Most of Thrace was included in the autonomous region of Eastern Rumelia, whereas the rest of Thrace and all of Macedonia was returned under the sovereignty of the Ottomans. After the Serbo-Bulgarian War and unification with Eastern Rumelia in 1885, the principality was proclaimed a fully independent kingdom on October 5 (September 22 O.S.), 1908, during the reign of Ferdinand I of Bulgaria.

Ferdinand, a prince from the ducal family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, became the Bulgarian prince after Alexander von Battenberg abdicated in 1886 following a coup d'etat staged by pro-Russian army officers. (Although the counter coup d'etat coordinated by Stefan Stambolov was successful, Battenberg could not remain Bulgarian prince without the approval of Alexander III of Russia.) The struggle for liberation of the Bulgarians in the Adrianople, Vilayet and Macedonia continued throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries culminating with the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising organised by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in 1903.

20th Century Bulgaria

In 1912 and 1913, Bulgaria became involved in the Balkan Wars, entering into conflict with Greece and Serbia against the Ottoman Empire and then against its former Balkan allies in a desperate effort to achieve national unity. After being defeated in the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria lost most of the territory conquered in the first war, as well as Southern Dobruja. During World War I, Bulgaria found itself fighting on the losing side after its alliance with the Central Powers. The defeat led to new territorial losses (the Western Outlands to Serbia, Western Thrace to Greece and the reconquered Southern Dobruja to Romania. The Balkan Wars and World War I led to the influx of over 250,000 Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia, Eastern and Western Thrace and Southern Dobruja. These numbers increased in the 1930s following Serbian state-sponsored aggression against its native Bulgarian population.

After regaining control over Southern Dobruja in 1940, Bulgaria allied with the Axis Powers in World War II, although no Bulgarian soldiers participated in the war against the USSR. During this time the country occupied parts of Greece and Yugoslavia inhabited mostly by Bulgarians. Bulgaria was one of two countries (with Finland) that saved its entire Jewish population (around 50,000) from the Nazi camps by refusing to comply with a 31 August 1943 resolution. But Jews in territories newly acquired from Greece and Yugoslavia were sent to death camps by the Bulgarian authorities on German request. In September 1944, the Soviet army entered Bulgaria which later enabled the Bulgarian Communists to seize power and establish a Communist dictatorship. In 1944, Bulgaria's forces were turned against its former German ally (a 450,000 strong army in 1944, reduced to 130,000 in 1945). More than 30,000 Bulgarian soldiers and officers were killed in the war.

After World War II, Bulgaria fell within the Soviet sphere of influence, became a People's Republic in 1946 and one of the USSR's staunchest allies. In the late 1970s, it began normalizing relations with Greece, and in the 1990s with Turkey. The People's Republic ended in 1989 as many Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, as well as the Soviet Union itself, began to collapse. The Bulgarian Communist leader Todor Zhivkov was removed from power on 10 November 1989.

Bulgaria has held multiparty elections and privatized its economy, but economic difficulties and a tide of corruption led over 800,000 Bulgarians, most of them qualified professionals, to emigrate. Bulgaria joined NATO on 29 March 2004 and the European Union on 1 January 2007 after signing the Treaty of Accession on 25 April 2005.

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