Bulgarians | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Descendants of the medieval Bulgars and Slavs, Bulgarians form the ethnic majority in Bulgaria. The Slavs settled in the Balkans in the sixth to seventh century CE, absorbing the indigenous Hellenized Thracians. They lived in tribes and farming communes ruled by a knyaz (lord), who presided over the tribal council attended by all men of military age. The Slavs venerated the thunder god Perun, the goddess of love Lada, and other deified forces of nature.

The Bulgars were Turkic nomads originating on the Central Asian steppes. Their society was a military hierarchy headed by a khan (chieftain) from the noble clans. The Bulgars worshiped Tangra, creator of the sky and the earth, and venerated the wolf, dog, horse, and other animals.

In the early seventh century, khan Kubrat (d. 650?) united the Bulgars between the Black and Caspian Seas in a tribal confederation known as Great Bulgaria. It was overrun by the Khazars shortly after his death. Afterward, Bulgar tribes led by Kubrat's son khan Asparukh migrated to the Danube delta. They formed an alliance with the Slav tribal confederation of the southern Danubian plains and defeated the army of Constantine IV Pogonatus. In 681, the Byzantine emperor ceded to the Bulgars the lands between the Danube and the Balkan mountains. The first Bulgarian kingdom, founded in that year, was ruled as a khanate until the middle of the ninth century.

In 864, Boris I (852–889) converted to Orthodox Christianity and made it the state religion, also adopting the Byzantine model of government. The new faith augmented the integration of Bulgars and Slavs into one polity. In 866, Boris I adopted the Cyrillic (Slavic) alphabet, created by the Byzantine monks Cyril and Methodius. Slavic Bulgarian became the official language of liturgy and state administration and the basis of Bulgarian national identity.

This sense of identity survived the fall of the state under Byzantine rule in 1018. An uprising in 1185 led to the establishment of the second Bulgarian kingdom, but Tatar incursions from 1273 on, and feudal rivalries, contributed to its decline and culminated in the Ottoman conquest of 1396.

During the early centuries of Ottoman rule, Bulgarian culture was centered in the monasteries; the native aristocracy disappeared, replaced by Ottoman military landholders, and the higher church hierarchy was in the hands of Greek clergy, since all Christian subjects of the sultan were considered a single millet, or religious group. A Bulgarian national revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was spearheaded by merchants and craftsmen guilds, and the quest for political independence led to a Bulgarian uprising in 1876, which was crushed. The subsequent Russo-Turkish war ended in 1878 with a treaty stipulating an independent Bulgarian state, but European fears of Russian dominance over the area forced the creation of the independent principality of Bulgaria and the autonomous East Roumelia in the Ottoman empire. The prince, elected from one of the minor European dynasties, was to be approved by the great powers. Most potential candidates were from the numerous German principalities. The unification of Roumelia and the principality in 1885 through a militia coup provoked a Serbian offensive against Bulgaria, which was successfully repelled.

Territorial disputes among the successor states of the Ottoman empire led to two Balkan wars (1912–1914) and played a part in Bulgaria's joining the Central Powers in World War I. After the war popular discontent led to political dissension, uprisings, and government retaliation. In 1941, Bulgaria allowed German troops on its territory, becoming a member of the Axis alliance.

In September 1944, with the Soviet Army at the borders and partisans marching into the cities, the Fatherland Front, an alliance of leftist parties, took power and declared war on Germany. The monarchy was abolished in a 1946 referendum and a people's republic proclaimed. The following year a Soviet-type constitution entrenched the Communist Party's sole right to govern and paved the way for the nationalization of industry and cooperation of farmland.

As in most of Eastern Europe, the Communist regime fell in 1989 amid mass demonstrations. Presently, the country is a parliamentary democracy with a National Assembly of 240 members elected by proportional representation. The president, elected by direct vote for not more than two five-year mandates, appoints the prime minister from the majority party.

Crampton, Richard J. (1997) A Concise History of Bulgaria. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Pundeff, Marin V. (1994) Bulgaria in American Perspective: Political and Cultural Issues. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs.

Tzvetkov, Plamen. (1993) A History of the Balkans: A Regional Overview from a Bulgarian Perspective. 2 vols. San Francisco: Edwin Mellen Press.

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