History

Prehistory and Antiquity

The Thracians, the earliest known identifiable people to inhabit the present-day territory of Bulgaria, have left traceable marks among all the Balkan region despite its tumultuous history of many conquests. The Panagyuriste treasure ranks as one of the most splendid achievements of the Thracian culture.

The Thracians lived divided into numerous separate tribes until King Teres united most of them around 500 BC in the Odrysian kingdom, which peaked under the kings Sitalces and Cotys I (383-359 BC). In 188 BC the Romans invaded Thrace, and warfare continued until 45 AD when Rome finally conquered the region. The conquerors quickly Romanised the population. By the time the Slavs arrived, the Thracians had already lost their indigenous identity and had dwindled in number following frequent invasions.

The Slavs and Old Great Bulgaria

The Slavs emerged from their original homeland (location not definitively established: see Slavic peoples) in the early 6th century and spread to most of the eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, forming in the process 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.

In 632, the Bulgars, an ancient civilisation/nation that formed numerous kingdoms throughout Eurasia and stemmed from a largely enigmatic socio-cultural lineage (theorised as of either Aryan or Turkic descent), 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 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.

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 13th century.

First Bulgarian Empire

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. 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.

During the siege of Constantinople in 717-718 the Bulgars honoured their treaty with the Byzantines by sending troops to help the populace of the imperial city. In the decisive battle the Bulgarians killed 30,000 to 60,000 Arabs. Contemporaries across the continent called the Bulgarian Emperor Tervel the Saviour of Europe.

The influence and territorial expansion of Bulgaria increased further during the rule of Khan Krum, who in 811 won a decisive victory against the Byzantine army led by Nicephorus I in the Battle of Pliska.
In 864, Bulgaria accepted Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

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, adapted from the Glagolitic alphabet invented by the monks Saints Cyril and Methodius...

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