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The Thracians
Evidence of human habitation in the area of Bulgaria dates from sometime within the Middle Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age; 100,000 to 40,000 bce). Agricultural communities, though, appeared in the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age), and in the Bronze Age the lands were inhabited by Thracian tribes. The Thracians were eventually expelled or absorbed by Greek, Persian, and Roman colonies, but traces of their culture remain in their monuments devoted to horse worship and in the mummer (Bulgarian: kuker) tradition that still survives in southwestern Bulgaria.
In Roman times Bulgaria was divided between the provinces of Moesia (to the north of the Balkan Mountains) and Thrace (to the south of the Balkans) and was crossed by the main land route from the West to the Middle East. The ruins of Roman towns and settlements are numerous, and extensive sites have been excavated at Plovdiv in the southwest, Varna in the northeast, and other locations. Situated on the Black Sea, the ancient city of Nesebŭr, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, was the Thracian settlement of Mesembria for centuries before it became a Greek colony in the 6th century bce.
The beginnings of modern Bulgaria
Slavic invasions
The story of the modern Bulgarian people begins with the Slavic invasions of the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th and 7th centuries ce, a time when Byzantium was absorbed in prolonged conflict with Persia and could not resist the incursions from the north. Ancient sources refer to two Slavic tribes north of the Danube at this time, the Slavenae and the Antae. Evidence suggests that the Slavenae, to the west, were the ancestors of the Serbs and Croats, while the Antae moved into the regions of Bulgaria, Macedonia, and northern Greece. The Slavic tribes tilled the soil or practiced a pastoral way of life and were organized in patriarchal communities.
Arrival of the Bulgars
The name Bulgaria comes from the Bulgars, a people who are still a matter of academic dispute with respect to their origin (Turkic or Indo-European) as well as to their influence on the ethnic mixture and the language of present-day Bulgaria. They are first mentioned under this name in the sources toward the end of the 5th century ce. Living at that time on the steppes to the north of the Black Sea, the Bulgar tribes were composed of skilled, warlike horsemen governed by khans (chiefs) and boyars (nobles).
The Bulgars were subdued by the Avars in the 6th century, but in 635 Khan Kubrat led a successful revolt and organized an independent tribal confederation known as Great Bulgaria. After Kubrat’s death in 642, the Bulgars were attacked by the Khazars and dispersed. According to Byzantine sources, the Bulgars split into five groups, each under one of Kubrat’s sons. One of these sons, Asparukh (or Isperikh), moved into Bessarabia (between the Dniester and Prut rivers) and then crossed to the south of the Danube, where his people conquered or expelled the Slavic tribes living north of the Balkan Mountains. The Byzantine emperor Constantine IV led an army against the Bulgars but was defeated, and in 681 Byzantium recognized by treaty Bulgar control of the region between the Balkans and the Danube. This is considered to be the starting point of the Bulgarian state.
The first Bulgarian empire
Asparukh and his successors established their court, which they built of stone, at Pliska, northeast of modern Shumen, and a religious centre at nearby Madara. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Bulgars kept their settlements distinct from those of the Slavs, from whom they accepted tribute. They maintained a mixed pastoral and agricultural economy, although much of their wealth continued to be acquired through warfare. Asparukh’s successor, Tervel (701–718), helped to restore Emperor Justinian II to the Byzantine throne and was rewarded with the title “caesar.”
On the whole, however, relations with Byzantium were hostile, and the 8th century was marked by a long series of raids and larger campaigns in which the Byzantine forces were usually victorious. Bulgaria recovered under Khan Krum (reigned 803–814), who, after annihilating an imperial army, took the skull of Emperor Nicephorus I, lined it with silver, and made it into a drinking cup. Under Krum’s successors Bulgaria enjoyed an extended period of peace with Byzantium and expanded its control over Macedonia and parts of what are now Serbia and Croatia.
The spread of Christianity
Internally, the 8th and 9th centuries saw the gradual assimilation of the Bulgars by the Slavic majority. There are almost no sources that describe this process, but it was certainly facilitated by the spread of Christianity, which provided a new basis for a common culture. Boris I of Bulgaria (852–889) was baptized a Christian in 864, at a time when the conflict between the Roman church and the Eastern church in Constantinople was becoming more open and intense. Although Boris’s baptism was into the Eastern church, he subsequently wavered between Rome and Constantinople until the latter was persuaded to grant de facto autonomy to Bulgaria in church affairs.
The spread of Christianity was facilitated by the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who had invented an alphabet in which to write the Slavic language (known as Old Church Slavonic or Old Bulgarian) and almost completed the translation of the Bible (most parts of both the Old and the New Testament) into the vernacular of the land. They also developed a Slavonic liturgy in Moravia. When Moravia committed to Rome and expelled the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, many of them resettled in Bulgaria, where they were welcomed by Boris and undertook the translation of church books and the training of priests. St. Clement and St. Naum are credited with preparing more than 3,000 priests at the religious educational centre (in effect the first Slavic university) they established on the shores of Lake Ohrid (Okhrid) in Macedonia.
Bulgaria’s conversion had a political dimension, for it contributed both to the growth of central authority and to the merging of Bulgars and Slavs into a unified Bulgarian people. Boris adopted Byzantine political conceptions, referring to himself as ruler “by the grace of God,” and the new religion provided justification for suppressing those boyars of Bulgar origin who clung to paganism and the political and social order with which it was linked. In 889 Boris, whose faith apparently was deep and genuine, abdicated to enter a monastery. When his eldest son, Vladimir, fell under the influence of the old boyars and attempted to reestablish paganism, Boris led a coup that overthrew him. After Vladimir was deposed and blinded, Boris convened a council that confirmed Christianity as the religion of the state and moved the administrative capital from Pliska to the Slavic town of Preslav (now known as Veliki Preslav). The council conferred the throne on Boris’s third son, Simeon, and Boris retired permanently to monastic life.
Reign of Simeon I
The reign of Simeon I (893–927) marked the high point of the first medieval Bulgarian state. Educated in Constantinople and imbued with great respect for the arts and Greek culture, Simeon encouraged the building of palaces and churches, the spread of monastic communities, and the translation of Greek books into Slavonic. Preslav was made into a magnificent capital that observers described as rivaling Constantinople. The artisans of its commercial quarter specialized in ceramics, stone, glass, wood, and metals, and Bulgarian tile work in the “Preslav style” surpassed its contemporary rivals and was eagerly imported by Byzantium and Kievan Rus.
Simeon was also a gifted military leader. His campaigns extended Bulgaria’s borders, but he ultimately dissipated the country’s strength in an effort to take Constantinople. When he died, he was master of the northern Balkans, including the Serbian lands, and styled himself “Tsar of the Bulgars and Autocrat of the Greeks,” but his country was near exhaustion.
Under Simeon’s successors, Bulgaria was beset by internal dissension provoked by the spread of Bogomilism (a dualist religious sect) and by assaults from Magyars, Pechenegs, the Rus, and Byzantines. The capital city was moved to Ohrid after the fall of Preslav in 971. In the campaign of 1014 the Byzantine emperor Basil II won a decisive victory over Tsar Samuel, after which he blinded as many as 15,000 prisoners taken in the battle and then released them. (For this act he became known as Basil Bulgaroctonus, or “Basil, Slayer of the Bulgars.”) The shock of seeing his blinded army is said to have caused Samuel’s death. Bulgaria lost its independence in 1018 and remained subject to Byzantium for more than a century and a half, until 1185.
