In the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula is the Republic of Bulgaria, which has gone through a long and difficult path in its development, during which the stages of political and cultural upsurge were replaced by periods of decline. The formation of the Bulgarian kingdom and its subsequent history became the subject of this article.
Creation of the first state in the Balkans
The main stages of the history of the Bulgarian kingdom can be divided into three independent periods. The first people who settled a significant part of the Balkan Peninsula in 681 AD. e., became the Proto-Bulgarians, consisting of representatives of the Turkic tribes, from the 4th century inhabiting the Black Sea steppes up to the foothills of the North Caucasus. Separate Slavic and Thracian tribes also joined them. The state formed by them went down in history as the First Bulgarian Kingdom and existed until 1018, when it fell under the onslaught of Byzantium.
The period of its heyday is considered to be the reign of Tsar Simeon I the Great, which lasted from 893 to 927. Under him, the capital of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, until 893, was located in the city of Pliska, and then transferred to Preslav,was not only a major trade and political center, but also played the role of a link that united many Slavic peoples.
The heyday of the First Bulgarian Kingdom
During the reign of Simeon I, the borders of his state covered most of the Balkan Peninsula, providing access to three seas - the Black, Aegean and Adriatic. According to the largest modern Byzantine scholar, the French scientist of Greek origin Eleni Arveler, this was the first state created by the barbarians on the territory that belonged to Byzantium in those years.
The first Bulgarian kingdom earned the gratitude of its descendants for the fact that it largely contributed to the enlightenment of the pagan Slavic tribes with the light of Orthodoxy. It was here that during the reign of the pious Tsar Boris I (852-889), later glorified as a saint, the first Slavic alphabet appeared, and from here the spread of literacy in the countries of Eastern Europe began.
The fall of the state under the onslaught of Byzantium
Throughout the history of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, political tension persisted between its rulers and the emperors of Byzantium, part of whose territory was captured by the Proto-Bulgarians in 681. Often it escalated into armed clashes, and sometimes into full-scale wars. After a series of such open aggressions committed by the Byzantine emperors Nikephoros Phocas, John Tzimiskes and Basil III, the First Bulgarian Kingdom fell, unable to withstand the invasion of a more numerous and strongerneighbor.
Remarkable architectural monuments of that period have survived to this day, preserved mainly in the two capitals of the ancient state - Pliska and Preslav. The first of them was famous for its citadel - a fortress that remained impregnable for several centuries. Even today you can see the remains of the stone walls surrounding it, the thickness of which reached two and a half meters, and the five-sided towers towering above them.
Revival of the Bulgarian kingdom
Historians have a very definite opinion about how and when the Second Bulgarian Kingdom arose. Byzantine rule in the Balkans was ended by an uprising that broke out in 1185 under the leadership of Theodore-Peter and his brothers Aseniya and Kaloyan. As a result, independent statehood was restored, and the leaders of the rebels went down in history under the names of kings Peter IV and his co-ruler Ivan Asen I. The Second Bulgarian Kingdom created by them lasted until 1422 and, like the First, after a long resistance, fell under the onslaught of the invaders. This time, the Ottoman Empire ended his independence.
A country in crisis
The history of the Bulgarian kingdom of this period is marked by a historical cataclysm that befell many peoples of that era - the invasion of nomadic Mongolian tribes. This misfortune befell the country when, after the death of King Peter IV and his brother, it was at the mercy of weak and mediocre rulers, which caused the loss of influence on the Balkan Peninsula. ATAs a result, for a long time Bulgaria was forced to pay tribute to the Horde.
Neighbors took advantage of her plight and obvious weakness, seizing part of the territories that previously belonged to the Bulgarian kingdom. So, Macedonia and Northern Thrace again went to Byzantium, and Belgrade was recaptured by the Hungarians. Gradually, Wallachia was also lost. The state lost its former power to such an extent that at one time the son of the Tatar Khan Nagoya was its king.
The end of independence and the beginning of the Turkish yoke
However, the culprits of the final fall of the once powerful state were the Ottoman Turks, who began to make devastating raids on the Balkan Peninsula in the XIV century, during one of which they plundered the capital of the Bulgarian kingdom of that period - the city of Tyrnov, which completely came under the control of the conquerors in 1393.
One of the reasons for the defeat of the Bulgarian kingdom was an unsuccessful attempt to conclude an alliance with neighboring states, which were also under the threat of capture. The actions of the Turks became especially active after the death of the Bulgarian king Ivan Alexander IV in 1371, who managed to maintain peaceful relations with them.
The result was sad: a whole series of defeats, which began in 1371 with the defeat in the battle on the Maritsa River and ended with the victorious march across the Balkan Peninsula of Sultan Bayezid I, led to the loss of political independence by the Bulgarian state for a long fivecenturies that went down in history as the period of the Turkish yoke.
Creation of the last Bulgarian monarchy
The third Bulgarian kingdom was formed in 1908 as a result of the declaration of independence of the state from the extremely weakened by that time Ottoman Empire. Taking advantage of the crisis, the Bulgarians managed to throw off the centuries-old yoke and create an independent constitutional monarchy, headed by King Ferdinand I. One of his first political actions was the seizure and annexation of Eastern Romania to the Bulgarian kingdom, which was until then an autonomous Turkish province.
The territory of Bulgaria has undergone significant changes during the two Balkan wars that followed one after the other in the period from 1912 to 1913. As a result of the first of them, Ferdinand I managed to return and annex to the state the vast territory of Thrace, as well as secure access to the Aegean Sea. In the second, military luck betrayed the Bulgarians, and part of the previously captured lands got out of their control.
During the First World War, Bulgaria was one of the Entente countries and thus stained itself with a betrayal of the interests of the Slavic world. The reason for this was the desire of Ferdinand I, using an alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and his recent adversary - Turkey, to annex to the state the lands of Macedonia that he so desired. However, this adventure ended in the military defeat of Bulgaria and his forced abdication.
The participation of the country in the Second World War and the endMonarchies
World War II Bulgaria began with the voluntary provision of its territory for the deployment of German troops. This was followed by its accession to the military alliance of Germany, Italy and Japan. As a result of joint military operations with these states, Bulgaria took possession of a significant coast of the Aegean Sea, which included part of Western Thrace and the territory of Vardar Macedonia.
In the history of the Second World War, a shameful page was the terror, equated to genocide, launched by the Bulgarian occupation forces in the Greek city of Drama, the majority of whose population was Turkish repatriates. At the same time, since 1941, popular resistance units were actively operating on the territory of Bulgaria, fighting against the Nazis. Their organizers and leaders were members of the then underground Bulgarian Communist Party. By their actions, they made a significant contribution to the weakening of the forces of the Third Reich.
The Bulgarian government refrained from officially declaring war on the Soviet Union and did not take military action. Even when Stalin declared war on them in September 1944, this did not cause active resistance from the Bulgarian army, which by that time numbered up to half a million people. The anti-fascist uprising, organized by the Fatherland Front, broke out in early September, put an end to the rule of the pro-German government, as a result of which the new authorities announced the accession of Bulgaria to the anti-Hitlercoalition.
The monarchical system in Bulgaria ceased to exist on September 8, 1946. He quietly and painlessly gave way to the republic, for which the majority of the country's inhabitants voted during the referendum.
