The Second State
After Byzantium was conquered by the Fourth Crusade at the end of the 12th century and the so-called Latin empire was formed, Bulgaria again stood out as a major power in the south-east of Europe. Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207) routed near Adrianople the troops of the Latin emperor Baldwin of Flanders and took him prisoner. To win the official recognition of the Bulgarian state he concluded a union with the Roman Curia (1204 - 1232). Tsar Ivan Assen II (1218-1241) restored Bulgaria's territory to the extent of its former greatest territorial power with an outlet to the three seas - the Aegean, the Black and the Adriatic. After his great victory over the despot Theodor Comnenus (1230) near the village of Klokotnitsa (in the present-day Haskovo region) he became the most powerful ruler on the Balkans. The Latin crusaders and the guardians of the teenage Baldwin were forced to seek his protection and betrothed Ivan Assen's very young daughter to the teenage emperor. Thus the title of Ivan Assen II - 'King of Bulgarians and Greeks' - reflected to a great extent the power that he exercised. With the blessing of all Eastern patriarchs he restored the Bulgarian Patriarchy which had existed during the reign of Tsar Simeon, thereby restoring the independence of the Bulgarian church (1235).
With its policy and actions, the second Bulgarian state managed to check the attempts of the western colonizers to conquer the entire south - east of Europe. This allowed the Nycean Byzantine state in Asia Minor breathing space, to pick up strength and in 1261 to repulse the Latins and restore Byzantium.
From the 12th to the 14th century Bulgaria also made progress in its socio-economic development. The Bulgarian rulers minted and put in circulation their own coins, the urban population grew, stable trading contacts were established with the western Balkan states and North-Italian city-republics, such as Venice and Genoa. Another characteristic feature of Bulgarian feudal society at this time was also its openness to the surrounding world, to near and faroff countries and cultures.
In the 13th and 14th centuries Bulgaria again became a thriving cultural centre. The flowering of the Turnovo school of art was related to the feudal construction of palaces and churches, to literary activity in the royal court, the patriarchy and the monasteries, and to the development of the handicrafts. Remarkable achievements of this school have been preserved down to this day: the murals of the Boyars' houses in Trapezitsa and the 'Forty Holy Martyrs' church in Veliko Turnovo, the Boyana Church (1259), the rock church near the village of Ivanovo (Razgrad region) - fourteenth century, etc. Book illuminations also developed, particularly during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander (1331-1371) - the Manasses Chronicle, the Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander and the Tomich psalter. Hesychasm also found its way into official literature of the 14th century. This 'heresy' among the highest feudal aristocracy and the religious and writing elite of the time was expounded in the so-called Kilifarevo school by such writers as Theodosius of Turnovo, Patriarch Euthimius of Turnovo, Grigorii Tsamblak and Constantine Kostenechky. The time they worked in was a critical period in Bulgaria's history - the Ottoman invaders were pressing up against the country's borders. The various literary and spiritual works created by the above-mentioned men served as a bridge to the future preservation of the Bulgarian nationality and to fruitful contact with other cultures. Of particularly great importance was the orthographic reform initiated by Patriarch Euthimius of Turnovo, which introduced a new, all-valid, Old Bulgarian spelling. This was later adopted in Serbia, Walachia, Moldavia and Russia.
Secular works - chronicles, novelettes and short stories - appeared side by side with religious works in official Bulgarian Mediaeval culture. The chronicle of the Byzantine writer Constantine Manasses, translated during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, contains additional information about Bulgarian history from the birth of the state to the fourteenth century. Particularly interesting is fhe so-called 'Bdin collection', written during the reign of Tsar Ivan Srazimir and Tsaritsa Anna (1360), which deals solely with women in the Middle Ages. This collection, unique in terms of Slav literature, is kept in the Central Library of the Belgian town of Ghent (published in Belgium and reprinted in Britain in 1980). Translation of works of prose were also widespread in mediaeval Bulgaria. The 'Alexandria', which tells of the life and deeds of Alexander of Macedon, at that time a very popular literary work, was translated into Bulgarian in the 10th and 11th centuries. This book was copied and read in Bulgaria by people from all walks of life until the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Bulgarian apocryphal writings and culture (heretic), rejecting the existing social system, were greatly beneficial to Bulgaria's contacts with the West and the rest of the world in the context of antagonistic relations of Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox religion. The apocrypha spread across Bulgaria as early as the tenth century. Most of the apocryphal writings were translations of Byzantine religious romances - both Old and New Testament. The so-called Bulgarian apocryphal chronicle, which relates the formation of the Bulgarian state and lauds the Bulgarian people as 'God's elect' was compiled in the eleventh century during the years of Byzantine domination. 'The Salonika legend', written in the same period, glorified the cause of the Slav Apostles Cyril and Methodius, while 'The popular life' of Ivan of Rila praised the founder of the Rila Monastery as an exponent of the Bulgarian people.
The apocrypha also greatly influenced the thematic range and style of folk art. The apocryphal writings crossed Bulgaria's borders to other countries too. It has been established, for instance, that in writing his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighiery used the apocryphal concept of the structure of the 'nether world' and the 'life' therein as described in the Bulgarian New Testament apocrypha 'The Descent of the Virgin into Hell' and 'The presentation of the Apostle Paul' (in the Divine Comedy Dante explicitly quotes the latter).
One of the greatest composers of the 14th century, Joan Koukouzel, was of Bulgarian origin. He created a new musical style based on folklore with Bulgarian song motifs penetrating the church singing of other orthodox countries as well.
The Heretic Traditions, whose roots in the Balkans go back to the times before the migration of the Slavs and the proto-Bulgarians to the Peninsula, continued in Mediaeval Bulgaria. The Byzantine emperors were also instrumental in maintaining this tradition by resettling the population of Asia Minor as a border population of the Empire. Among the most widespread heretic teachings of the tenth to fourteenth centuries was the Bogomil movement. This teaching comprised elements of the Christian religion and the Anatolian religious dualism, which sprangfromManicheanism in the early Christian era. The Bogomil teaching held that man must strive for the consummate spiritual world of virtues, i.e. strive for what is God's creation and disclaim the material, the carnal, including the official institutions, which were regarded as the infernal creation of Satan. The Bogomil movement reflected 'the spirit of democracy,the desire for equality and justice inherent in early Christianity, and the religious humanism typical of the gospels which was theoretically shared by the representatives of the church. However, in the conditions of feudal reality it was relegated to the background' (Academician D. Angelov).
The Bogomil teaching became a mass phenomenon among the Bulgarians in the years of Byzantine domination. The Bogomils were actively involved in some of the Bulgarian uprisings of the time. Their leader in the 12th century, Vasilii, after a debate held in Constantinople, was condemned to be burnt at the stake.
Throughout the Middle Ages the Bogomil teaching held sway in many countries: it infiltrated Byzantium, particularly Byzantium's provinces in Asia Minor, Italy, France, Serbia, Bosnia and Russia. The teachings of the Cathars and the Albigoians in Western Europe, which appeared in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were connected with the Bulgarian Bogomils from the organizational and ideological point of view. Typically Bogomil dualistic writings such as John's Gospel (the Secret Book) probably compiled in the 11th century, the Cathar Prayer Book (a ritual book dating from the first half of the 13th century which has not come down to us and which the dualist Cathars in France borrowed from the Bulgarian Bogomils and translated it into Latin).
In times of extraordinary oppression and crises, the peasants rose also in armed revolts against exploitation both by domestic and by foreign masters. Noteworthy here is the uprising of 1277, which in actual fact was the first mediaeval peasant war and whose leader, the swineherd Ivailo, ascended the throne, albeit for a limited period.
During the years of Ivailo's rebellion and afterwards Bulgaria suffered at the hands of the Tartars of 'the Golden Horde', who for a number of years interfered in the domestic affairs of the country. The Bulgarian state survived the crisis, beat off the Tartars, and strengthened and consolidated its resources to make new progress in its development at a time when all the Eastern Slavs were conquered by the Tartars.
Bulgaria had a beneficial influence on the initial development of the Russian state. Bulgaria sent missionaries to Russia when Russia adopted Christianity in 988, and Old Bulgarian became the official state and religious language of Russia in the eleventh century. However, the life-giving juices which flowed to the Eastern Slavs from the South during the fourteenth century, after a break of two centuries, were even more significant. In the history of Russian culture this period of Old Bulgarian influence is known as the 'Second South Slavic Influence'. Its main agents were the monks and priests: Russian monks visited the schools and monasteries in Bulgaria or settled to live in the monasteries on Mount Athos, which were inhabited by Bulgarian monks and were supported by the Bulgarian rulers.
The Old Bulgarian literary language became the official state and religious language in the Walachian lands in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. After 1352, when the Ottomans began to penetrate the Balkans, many Bulgarian men of letters and monks left the country with literary masterpieces and travelled to monasteries and bishoprics in Walachia and Russia. By the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, literary activities in Serbia flourished under the influence of Old Bulgarian culture through such pan-Slavic writers as Constantine Kostenechky, Grigorii Tsamblak, Vladislav the Grammarian and Dimiter Kratovski.
Bulgaria and her neighbours frequently found themselves in conflict during the Middle Ages. Rivalry between East and West after 1054 ran very high, particularly after the break of relations between the two main centres of the Christian religion, Rome and Constantinople. Despite various peculiarities, differences and nuances, it can be said that a standard cycle prevailed in the socio-economic development of the various nationalities and regions on the continent during the Middle Ages. The situation on the Balkans and in part of Central Europe changed radically when they became provinces of the Ottoman Empire. They entered the orbit of a backward, but sturdy and stable military feudal system. The Bulgarian lands fell under ottoman domination.
20th Century
In the early part of the 20th century, in an effort to liberateMacedonian and other bulgarian territories, occupied by neighbouring states, Bulgaria engaged in two Balkan wars and became allied with Germany during World War I. It suffered disastrous losses as a result. The interwar period was dominated by economic and political instability and by terrorism as political factions, including monarchists and communists, struggled for influence. In World War II, Bulgaria ultimately allied again with Nazi Germany but protected its Jewish population of some 50,000 from the Holocaust. When Tsar Boris III died in 1943, political uncertainty heightened. The Fatherland Front, an umbrella coalition led by the Communist Party, was established. This coalition backed neutrality and withdrawal from occupied territories. Bulgaria tried to avoid open conflict with the Soviet Union during the war, but the U.S.S.R. invaded in 1944 and placed the Fatherland Front in control of government.
After Bulgaria's surrender to the Allies, the Communist Party purged opposition figures in the Fatherland Front, exiled young Tsar Simeon II, and rigged elections to consolidate power. In 1946, a referendum was passed overwhelmingly, ending the monarchy and declaring Bulgaria a people's republic. In a questionable election the next year, the Fatherland Front won 70% of the vote and Communist Party leader Georgi Dimitrov became Prime Minister. In 1947, the Allied military left Bulgaria, and the government declared the country a communist state. Forty-two years of heavy-handed totalitarian rule followed. All democratic opposition was crushed, agriculture and industry were nationalized, and Bulgaria became the closest of the Soviet Union's allies. Unlike other countries of the Warsaw Pact, however, Bulgaria did not have Soviet troops stationed on its territory.
Dimitrov died in 1949. Todor Zhivkov became Communist Party Chief in 1956 and Prime Minister in 1962. Zhivkov held power until November 10, 1989, when he was deposed by members of his own party (the Bulgarian Communist Party) was renamed the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) by hitherto Prime Minister Petre Mladenov.
Bulgaria Today
Bulgaria has been a parliamentary democracy since 1990. In contrast to violent civil conflicts and ethic cleansing which characterized the departure of totalitarian communism in the Western Balkans (former Yugoslavia), Bulgaria was a successful example of a peaceful transition from communist rule to democracy. Although its economic reforms progressed slower than in Hungary, Poland and the Czech republic, it managed to overcome difficult periods of economic distress and havoc and settled in a civilized European manner its inter-ethnic and minority issues. Bulgaria is expected to become a NATO member in May 2004 and join the EU in 2007.
See also