dy lost their indigenous identity and had dwindled in number following frequent invasions. Early Middle Ages The Slavs emerged from their original homeland (which scholars most commonly locate in Eastern Europe) in the early 6th century, and spread to most of the eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, thus forming three main branches — the West Slavs, the East Slavs and the South Slavs. The eastern South Slavs became part of the ancestors of the modern Bulgarians. They assimilated what remained of the Thracians. Modern Bulgarians derive much of their culture, language and self-determination from these early immigrants. Old Great Bulgaria In 632, the Bulgars, a semi-nomadic Turkic people, originally from Central Asia, formed under the leadership of Khan Kubrat an independent state called Great Bulgaria, situated between the lower course of the Danube[citation needed] 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 seventh 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 and Kama Rivers), which lasted until the thirteenth century. First Bulgarian Empire Main article: First Bulgarian Empire The Battle of Anchialos, in which the Bulgarians defeated the Byzantines: one of the bloodiest battles of the Middle Ages.[7] The wedding of the daughter of Tsar Samuil Kubrat’s successor, Khan Asparuh, migrated with some of the Bulgar tribes to 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 his new khanate further into the Balkan Peninsula.[8] A peace treaty with Byzantium in 681 and the establishment of the Bulgar capital of Pliska south of the Danube mark the beginning of the First Bulgarian Empire. At the same time one of Asparuh's brothers, Kuber, settled with another Bulgar group in present-day Macedonia. In 718, the Bulgars raised the Arab siege of Constantinople, killing some 40,000 to 60,000 Arab soldiers.[9] The influence and territorial expansion of Bulgaria increased further during the rule of Khan Krum,[10] who in 811 won a decisive victory against the Byzantine army led by Nicephorus I in the Battle of Pliska.[11] The ktitors of the Boyana Church sevastokrator Kaloyan and his wife Desislava. In 864, Bulgaria accepted Eastern Orthodox Christianity.[12] Bulgaria became a major European power in the ninth and the tenth centuries, while fighting with the Byzantine Empire for the control of the Balkans. This happened under the rule (852–889) of Boris I. During his reign, the Cyrillic alphabet originated in Preslav and Ohrid,[13] adapted from the Glagolitic alphabet invented by the monks Saints Cyril and Methodius.[14] The Cyrillic alphabet became the basis for further cultural development. Centuries later, this alphabet, along with the Old Bulgarian language, fostered the intellectual written language (lingua franca) for Eastern Europe, known as Church Slavonic. The greatest territorial extension of the Bulgarian Empire — covering most of the Balkans — occurred under Simeon I, the first Bulgarian Tsar (Emperor), son of Boris I.[15] However, Simeon's greatest achievement consisted of Bulgaria developing a rich, unique Christian Slavonic culture, which became an example for the other Slavonic peoples in Eastern Europe and ensured the continued existence of the Bulgarian nation regardless of the centrifugal forces that threatened to tear it into pieces throughout its long and war-ridden history. The Bulgarian Empire c. 927 Following a decline in the mid-tenth century (worn out by wars with Croatia, by frequent Serbian rebellions sponsored by Byzantine gold, and by disastrous Magyar and Pecheneg invasions,[16]) Bulgaria collapsed in the face of an assault of the Rus' in 969-971.[17] The Byzantines then began campaigns to conquer Bulgaria. In 971, they seized the capital Preslav and captured Emperor Boris II.[18] Resistance continued under Tsar Samuil in the western Bulgarian lands for nearly half a century. The country managed to recover and defeated the Byzantines in several major battles taking the control of the most of the Balkans and in 991 invaded the Serbian state.[19] However, the Byzantines led by Basil II (Basil the Bulgar-Slayer) destroyed the Bulgarian state in 1018 after their victory at Kleidion.[20] Byzantine Bulgaria Bulgarians nominate Peter II Delyan as King of Bulgaria. John Skylitzes, Chronicle In the first decade after the establishment of Byzantine rule, no evidence remains of any major attempt at resistance or any uprising of the Bulgarian population or nobility. Given the existence of such irreconcilable opponents to Byzantium as Krakra, Nikulitsa, Dragash and others, such apparent passivity seems difficult to explain. Some historians[21] explain this fact by concessions that Basil II granted the Bulgarian nobility in order to gain their obedience. In the first place, Basil II guaranteed the indivisibility of Bulgaria in its former geographic borders and did not abolish officially the local rule of the Bulgarian nobility that now became part of Byzantine aristocracy as archons or strategs. Second, special charters (royal decrees) of Basil II recognised the autocephaly of the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid and set up its boundaries, dioceses, property and other privileges. The people of Bulgaria challenged Byzantine rule several times in the 11th and then again later in the early 12th century. The biggest uprising occurred under the leadership of Peter II Delyan, (proclaimed Emperor of Bulgaria in Belgrade in 1040). In the mid to late 11th century, the Normans, fresh from their recent conquests in southern Italy and Sicily, landed in the Balkans and began advancing against the Byzantine Empire. It took the Byzantines until 1185 before the Normans were driven out but until then they posed a constant threat to Byzantine Bulgaria. In 1091 another invasion came in the form of the Pechenegs. However, these too were crushed at Levounion and again in c. 1120 by the Byzantine Empire. After that, the Hungarians made an attempt to increase their influence beyond the Danube river; John Comnenus' campaigns along the Danube eventually drove back the Hungarians as well by c.1140. It would be another 45 years before Bulgaria would attain independence. Until that time, Bulgarian nobles ruled the province in the name of the Byzantine Empire until a rebellion by Ivan Asen I and Peter IV of Bulgaria led to the establishment of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Second Bulgarian Empire Main article: Second Bulgarian Empire From 1185, the Second Bulgarian Empire once again established Bulgaria as an important power in the Balkans for two more centuries. With its capital based in Veliko Turnovo and under the Asen dynasty, this empire fought for dominance in the region against the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire and Hungary, reaching its zenith under Ivan Asen II (1218–1241). As a result of the Tatar invasions (beginning in the later 13th century), of internal conflicts and of the constant attacks from the Byzantines and the Hungarians, the power of the country declined until the end of the 13th century. From 1300, under Emperor Theodore Svetoslav Bulgaria regained its strength, but by the end of the fourteenth century the country had disintegrated into several feudal principalities, which the Ottoman Empire eventually conquered. 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. During the 13th and 14th centuries, Bulgarian culture flourished. The architecture of the Tarnovo Artistic School and the painting of the Tarnovo Artistic School produced some splendid achievements. Emperor Ivan Alexander won a reputation as a great maecenas and patron of culture. Ottoman rule In the mid 13th century, the Second Bulgarian Empire dominated the Balkan Peninsula. By the end of the following century factional divisions between Bulgarian feudal landlords (boyars) had gravely weakened the cohesion of the Empire which therefore collapsed before the invading Ottoman armies in the 1390s. The Bulgarians, most of whom lived in the quadrilateral contained by the lower Danube, the Aegean coast of Thrace, the Black Sea and the valley of the Vardar in the west, now entered upon five hundred years of Ottoman domination. During the second half of the 14th century Bulgaria became an Ottoman vassalage. Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I annexed Bulgaria following his victory against a crusade at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396.[22][23][24] According to some historians the five centuries of Ottoman rule featured violence and oppression. The Ottomans decimated the Bulgarian population, which lost most of its cultural relics. Turkish authorities destroyed most of the medieval Bulgarian fortresses in order to prevent rebellions. Large towns and the areas where Ottoman power predominated remained severely depopulated until the nineteenth century.[25] The new authorities dismantled Bulgarian institutions at anything above the village or communal level, and merged the separate Bulgarian Church into the Orthodox Patriarchate in Constantinople (Istanbul), although a small, semi-independent Bulgarian Church did survive until 1767. The conquerors also assumed virtual ownership of the land, though they vested legal ownership in Allah’s representative on earth, the Sultan. The new system of land-tenure imposed by the Turks functioned to provide the Ottoman army with cavalry troops: the sipahi or landlord had to provide a number of men proportionate to the amount of land he held, while maintained economically by his tenants, or rayahs. For the Bulgarian peasant the new system offered greater security than the old Bulgarian Empire had provided and exceptional privileges accrued to peasants living on vakif land — land with its income permanently entailed for the upkeep of a religious or charitable institution.[26][27] All tenants, Christian or Muslim, who lived on vakif land had the right to such privileges, but in general the Christian subjects of the Sultan had to endure a number of disabilities; they usually paid more taxes than Moslems, they lacked legal equality with Moslems, they could not carry arms, their clothes could not rival those of Moslems in color, nor could their churches tower as high as mosques. The new rulers made few attempts to enforce conversion to Islam and relatively few Bulgarians felt attracted to the new ruling faith by the legal privileges its adherents enjoyed. Those who did convert, the Pomaks, retained their native language, dress and customs, and lived primarily in the Rhodope mountains.[28][29] The Ottoman system at its height did much to protect the rayah, but by the 17th century the system had started to decline, and at the end of the 18th had all but collapsed. Central government weakened over the decades, and this had allowed a number of local adventurers and freebooters to establish personal ascendancy over separate regions. These local ayans employed armed retainers and having established their authority frequently imposed new and far more arduous tenancies on the peasantry under their control. During the last two decades of the 18th and first decades of the 19th centuries the Balkan Peninsula dissolved into virtual anarchy, a period known in Bulgarian as the kurdjaliistvo after the armed bands or kurdjalii who plagued the area at this time. In many regions thousands of peasants fled from the countryside either to local towns or more probably to the hills or forests; some even fled beyond the Danube to Moldova, Wallachia or Southern Russia.[30][31] Shipka memorial (located near Kazanlak) — built in honor of the Battle of Shipka Pass one of the important symbols of Bulgarian liberation In the 18th and especially during the 19th century, conditions improved in certain areas. Some towns such as Gabrovo, Tryavna, Karlovo, Lovech, Skopie prospered. The Bulgarian peasants actually possessed their land, although it officially belonged to the sultan. The nineteenth century also brought improved communications, transportation and trade. The first factory in the Bulgarian lands opened in Sliven in 1834, and the first railway system started running (between Ruse and Varna) in 1865. Throughout the five Ottoman 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 Organisation 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. This rebellion, however, did not receive the expected support from the Bulgarian masses. The Kingdom of Bulgaria Bulgaria according to the Treaty of San Stefano Following the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878 (when Russian soldiers together with a Romanian expeditionary force and volunteer Bulgarian troops defeated the Ottoman armies), the Treaty of San Stefano (3 March 1878), set up an autonomous Bulgarian principality. The Western Great Powers immediately rejected the treaty: they became aware that a large Slavic country in the Balkans might 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. Alexander von Battenberg took the position of Bulgaria's first Prince. 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'état staged by pro-Russian army-officers. (Although the counter-coup coordinated by Stefan Stambolov succeeded, Prince Alexander decided not to remain the Bulgarian ruler 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 nineteenth and early twentieth centuries culminating with the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising organised by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in 1903. The Balkan Wars and World War I Bulgarians overrun a Turkish position at bayonet-point during the First Balkan War In 1912 and 1913, Bulgaria became involved in the Balkan Wars, first entering into conflict alongside Greece, Serbia and Montenegro against the Ottoman Empire. The First Balkan War (1912-1913) proved a success for the Bulgarian army, but a conflict over the division of Macedonia arose amongst the victorious allies. The Second Balkan War (1913) pitted Bulgaria against Greece and Serbia, joined by Romania and Turkey. After its defeat in the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria lost considerable territory conquered in the first war, as well as Southern Dobrudzha and parts of the region of Macedonia. During World War I, Bulgaria found itself fighting on the losing side as a result of its alliance with the Central Powers. Defeat in 1918 led to new territorial losses (the Western Outlands to Serbia, Western Thrace to Greece and the re-conquered Southern Dobrudzha 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 Dobrudzha. Kingdom of Bulgaria 1915, physical The interwar years Prince Ferdinand proclaimed himself Tsar of Bulgaria in 1908. However, internationally his title equated to "King", not to "Emperor" (as the title Tsar suggests) In September 1918, Tsar Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his son Boris III in order to head off revolutionary tendencies. Under the Treaty of Neuilly (November 1919), Bulgaria ceded its Aegean coastline to Greece, recognized the existence of Yugoslavia, ceded nearly all of its Macedonian territory to that new state, and had to give Dobrudzha back to the Romanians. The country had to reduce its army to 20,000 men, and to pay reparations exceeding $400 million. Bulgarians generally refer to the results of the treaty as the "Second National Catastrophe". Elections in March 1920 gave the Agrarians a large majority, and Aleksandar Stamboliyski formed Bulgaria's first peasant government. He faced huge social problems, but succeeded in carrying out many reforms, although opposition from the middle and upper classes, the landlords and the officers of the army remained powerful. In March 1923 Stamboliyski signed an agreement with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia recognising the new border and agreeing to suppress Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), which favoured a war to regain Macedonia from Bulgaria. This triggered a nationalist reaction, and the Bulgarian coup d'état of June 9, 1923 eventually resulted in Stamboliykski's assassination. A right-wing government under Aleksandar Tsankov took power, backed by the army and the VMRO, which waged a White terror against the Agrarians and the Communists. In 1926 the Tsar persuaded Tsankov to resign, a more moderate government under Andrey Lyapchev took office and an amnesty was proclaimed, although the Communists remained banned. A popular alliance including the re-organised Agrarians won elections in 1931 under the name Popular Bloc. In May 1934 another coup took place, removing the Popular Bloc from power and establishing an authoritarian military régime headed by Kimon Georgiev. A year later Tsar Boris managed to remove the military régime from power, restoring a form of parliamentary rule (without the re-establishment of the political parties) and under his own strict control. The Tsar's regime proclaimed neutrality, but gradually Bulgaria gravitated into alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. World War II After regaining control over Southern Dobrudzha in 1940, Bulgaria became allied with the Axis Powers, although no Bulgarian soldiers participated in the war against the USSR. During World War II Nazi Germany allowed Bulgaria to occupy parts of Greece and of Yugoslavia. Bulgaria became one of only three countries (along with Finland and Denmark) that saved its entire Jewish population (around 50,000 people) from the Nazi camps by refusing to comply with a 31 August 1943 resolution. The Bulgarian authorities did however send Jews in territories newly-acquired (from Greece and Yugoslavia) to death-camps in response to a direct request from Germany. In September 1944, the Soviet army entered Bulgaria, enabling the Bulgarian Communists (the Bulgarian Workers Party) to seize power and establish a communist state. In 1944, Bulgaria's forces turned against the country's former ally, Germany. The 450,000-man army in 1944 dwindled to 130,000 by 1945. The People's Republic of Bulgaria Main article: History of Communist Bulgaria After World War II, Bulgaria fell within the Soviet sphere of influence. It 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[citation needed]. The People's Republic ended in 1989 as many Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, as w