History of Bulgaria - Wikipedia. The history of Bulgaria can be traced from the first settlements on the lands of modern Bulgaria to its formation as a nation- state and includes the history of the Bulgarian people and their origin. The earliest evidence of human occupation discovered on what is today Bulgaria date from at least 1. After 3. 00. 0 BC, the Thracians appeared on the Balkan peninsula.
In the late 6th century BC, most of what is nowadays Bulgaria came under the Persian Empire. This mixture of ancient peoples was assimilated by the Slavs, who permanently settled on the peninsula after 5. AD. Meanwhile, in 6. Bulgars formed an independent state north of the Black sea that became known as Great Bulgaria under the leadership of Kubrat. Pressure from the Khazars led to the disintegration of Great Bulgaria in the second half of the 7th century.
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One of the Kubrat's successors, Asparukh, migrated with some of the Bulgar tribes to the area around the Danube delta, and subsequently conquered Scythia Minor and Moesia Inferior from the Byzantine Empire, expanding his new kingdom further into the Balkan Peninsula. The new state brought together Thracian remnants and Slavs under Bulgar rule, and a slow process of mutual assimilation began. In the following centuries Bulgaria established itself as a powerful empire, dominating the Balkans through its aggressive military traditions, which led to development of distinct ethnic identity. Then, a major uprising led by two brothers - Asen and Peter of the Asen dynasty, restored the Bulgarian state to form the Second Bulgarian Empire. After reaching its apogee in the 1. Bulgaria started to decline due to a number of factors, most notably its geographic position which rendered it vulnerable to simultaneous attacks and invasions from many sides. A peasant rebellion, one of the few successful such in history, established the swineherd Ivaylo as a Tsar.
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- Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria. It is also the biggest city in the country with about 1.4 million citizens. Today, Sofia is a dynamic Eastern European capital, distinguished by its unique combination of European and.
His short reign was essential in recovering - at least partially - the integrity of the Bulgarian state. A relatively thriving period followed after 1. Bulgaria to split into three small Tsardoms. By 1. 39. 6, they were subjugated by the Ottoman Empire.
Following the elimination of the Bulgarian nobility and clergy by the Turks, Bulgaria entered an age of oppression, intellectual stagnation and misgovernment that would leave its culture shattered and isolated from Europe for the next 5. Some of its cultural heritage found its way to Russia, where it was adopted and developed. With the decline of the Ottoman Empire after 1. The Bulgarian nobility had vanished, leaving an egalitarian peasant society with a small but growing urban middle class. By the 1. 9th century, the Bulgarian National Revival became a key component of the struggle for independence, which would culminate in the failed April uprising in 1. Russo- Turkish War of 1. The initial Treaty of San Stefano was rejected by the Western Great Powers, and the following Treaty of Berlin limited Bulgaria's territories to Moesia and the region of Sofia.
This left many ethnic Bulgarians out of the borders of the new state, which defined Bulgaria's militaristic approach to regional affairs and its allegiance to Germany in both World Wars. After World War II, Bulgaria became a Communist state, dominated by Todor Zhivkov for a period of 3. Bulgaria's economic advancement during the era came to an end in the 1. Communist system in Eastern Europe marked a turning point for the country's development.
A series of crises in the 1. Bulgaria's industry and agriculture in shambles, although a period of relative stabilization began with the election of Simeon Saxe- Coburg- Gotha as prime minister in 2. Bulgaria joined NATO in 2. European Union in 2. Prehistory and antiquity. This cave probably keeps the earliest evidence of human symbolic behaviour ever found.
Human remains found in Bacho Kiro cave that are 4. Homo Sapiens or Neanderthals. The centerpiece of this culture is the Varna Necropolis, discovered in the early 1. It serves as a tool in understanding how the earliest European societies functioned. The golden rings, bracelets and ceremonial weapons discovered in one of the graves were created between 4,6. BC, which makes them the oldest gold artifacts yet discovered anywhere in the world. In 5. 13 - after immense preparations - a huge Achaemenid army invaded the Balkans and tried to defeat the European Scythians roaming to the north of the Danube river.
Several Thracian treasures dating from the Persian rule in Bulgaria have been found. It remained as the last Persian stronghold in Europe. Their origin remains obscure. It is generally proposed that a proto- Thracian people developed from a mixture of indigenous peoples and Indo- Europeans from the time of Proto- Indo- European expansion in the Early Bronze Age. They never achieved any form of unity beyond short, dynastic rules at the height of the Greek classical period. Similar to the Gauls and other Celtic tribes, most Thracians are thought to have lived simply in small fortified villages, usually on hilltops. Although the concept of an urban center wasn't developed until the Roman period, various larger fortifications which also served as regional market centers were numerous.
Yet, in general, despite Greek colonization in such areas as Byzantium, Apollonia and other cities, the Thracians avoided urban life. The first Greek colonies in Thrace were founded in the 8th century BC.
At the commencement of the Peloponnesian war Sitalces entered into alliance with the Athenians, and in 4. BC he invaded Macedon (then ruled by Perdiccas II) with a vast army that included 1. Thracian tribes. Cotys I on the other hand, went to war with the Athenians for the possession of the Thracian Chersonese. Thereafter the Macedonian Empire incorporated the Odrysian kingdom. The Macedonians won the battle, but this did not stop the Celtic advancement.
Many Thracian communities, weakened by the Macedonian occupation, fell under Celtic dominance. Comontorius established the kingdom of Tylis in what is now eastern Bulgaria. Cultural interactions between Thracians and Celts are evidenced by several items containing elements of both cultures, such as the chariot of Mezek and almost certainly the Gundestrup cauldron.
One such tribe were the serdi, from which Serdica - the ancient name of Sofia - originates. In 4. 6 AD, the Romans established the province of Thracia. By the 4th century, the Thracians had a composite indigenous identity, as Christian . Thraco- Romans became a dominant group in the region, and eventually yielded several military commanders and emperors such as Galerius and Constantine I the Great. Urban centers became well- developed, especially the territories of what is today Sofia due to the abundance of mineral springs. The influx of immigrants from around the empire enriched the local cultural landscape; temples of Osiris and Isis have been discovered near the Black Sea coast. Later in the 4th century, a group of Goths arrived in northern Bulgaria and settled in and around Nicopolis ad Istrum.
There the Gothic bishop Ulfilas translated the Bible from Greek to Gothic, creating the Gothic alphabet in the process. This was the first book written in a Germanic language, and for this reason at least one historian refers to Ulfilas as . In the 5th century, Attila's Huns attacked the territories of today's Bulgaria and pillaged many Roman settlements. By the end of the 6th century, Avars organized regular incursions into northern Bulgaria, which were a prelude to the en masse arrival of the Slavs.
During the 6th century, the traditional Greco- Roman culture was still influential, but Christian philosophy and culture were dominant and began to replace it. The easternmost South Slavs settled on the territory of modern Bulgaria during the 6th century. Most of the Thracians were eventually Hellenized or Romanized, with the last remnants surviving in remote areas until the 5th century. A branch of them gave rise to the First Bulgarian Empire. The Bulgars were governed by hereditary khans. There were several aristocratic families whose members, bearing military titles, formed a governing class. Bulgars were polytheistic, but chiefly worshiped the supreme deity Tangra.
Old Great Bulgaria. AD. In 6. 32, Khan.
Kubrat united the three largest Bulgar tribes: the Kutrigur, the Utugur and the Onogonduri, thus forming the country that now historians call Great Bulgaria (also known as Onoguria). This country was situated between the lower course of the Danube river 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. The capital was Phanagoria, on the Azov. In 6. 35, Kubrat signed a peace treaty with emperor Heraclius of the Byzantine Empire, expanding the Bulgar kingdom further into the Balkans. Later, Kubrat was crowned with the title Patrician by Heraclius. The kingdom never survived Kubrat's death. After several wars with the Khazars, the Bulgars were finally defeated and they migrated to the south, to the north, and mainly to the west into the Balkans, where most of the other Bulgar tribes were living, in a state vassal to the Byzantine Empire since the 5th century.
One of the successors of Khan Kubrat, Kotrag led nine Bulgar tribes to the north along the banks of the river Volga in what is today Russia, creating the Kingdom of the Volga Bulgars in the late 7th century. This kingdom later became the trade and cultural center of the north, because it stood on a very strategic position creating a monopoly over the trade among the Arabs, the Norse and the Avars. The Volga Bulgars were the first to ever defeat the Mongolic horde and protected Europe for decades, but after countless Mongol invasions the Kingdom of the Volga Bulgars was destroyed and most of its citizens slaughtered or sold as slaves in Asia.
Another successor of Khan Kubrat, Asparuh (Kotrag's brother) moved west, occupying today's southern Bessarabia. After a successful war with Byzantium in 6.