Bulgaria is an independent nation in Eastern Europe. With the capital city of Sofia, Bulgaria 2020 population is estimated at 6,948,456 according to countryaah. A Turkish rider, the Bulgarians, immigrated to Thrace in the 600s from the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Bulgarians adopted Orthodox Christianity and established the Kingdom, but were occupied by the Ottoman Turks in 1386. The occupation lasted for 500 years until Russia expelled the Turks in 1878. Bulgaria was able to proclaim independence in 1908. In World War I, Bulgaria was in alliance with Germany and Austria. Bulgaria also participated in Germany during the Second World War, but in 1944 a resistance movement took power, the Germans were expelled and Soviet troops took over the country.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Comprehensive guide to and popular abbreviations of Bulgaria, covering history, economy, and social conditions.
The first known population in the area was the Thracians, an Indo-European people who inhabited parts of the Balkans (see also Culture). Their kingdom reached its peak in the 6th century BC. In the 300s BC, Thrace was conquered by Macedonian Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. The Romans took over a few years after the birth of Christ. When the Roman Empire was divided in 395, Thrace came to obey the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium.
In the 600s, a Turkish rider, the Bulgarians, immigrated from the steppes north of the Black Sea. Within a couple of centuries, the Bulgarians had joined the Slavic population that had invaded the area in the 500s. For Bulgaria political system, please check computerminus.
Bulgarian empires
The first Bulgarian kingdom (681-1018) was at times a threat to Bysans. In the 8th century, Orthodox Christianity was adopted as the official religion of Boris I. Under his son, Tsar Simeon I (893–927), the kingdom was the most powerful. After Simeon’s rule, Bulgaria was weakened by constant wars. 1014 the kingdom suffered a severe defeat in the battles against Bysans. Byzantine ruler Basileios II became known as Bulgaroktonos (the Bulgarian killer) after he ordered his soldiers to look out at 14,000 Bulgarian prisoners of war. Four years later, all of Bulgaria was under Byzantine control and Byzantine ruled the area for nearly 200 years.
The Bulgarians carried out a successful uprising in 1185 and formed a new kingdom based in Tarnovo. But the many wars continued: against Byzantines, Mongols, Serbs, Hungarians and Christian crusaders. Internal fighting and peasant uprising also weakened the kingdom.
The Ottoman Empire entered the kingdom in 1396. It became the beginning of a fierce occupation that lasted for half a millennium. Even today, the Bulgarians call the period “the Turkish yoke”.
During the 19th century, a nationalist revival grew strong. A Bulgarian uprising in 1876 was answered by the Turks with extensive massacres. The outside world reacted with disgust at what was called “the Bulgarian ghastly”.
Autonomy
Russia entered Bulgaria in 1878 and expelled the Turks, weakened by constant wars. At the peace in San Stefano the same year, Russia decided that a Greater Bulgaria should be established under Russian protection. Other major powers, which feared too strong a Russian influence in the Balkans, were against the peace agreement. At the Berlin Congress in 1878, Bulgaria was divided between five countries. The Bulgarians were given autonomy over an area, albeit formally under Turkish supremacy.
At the end of the 19th century, the first political parties in Bulgaria were formed. In 1891 the Social Democratic Party was founded, from which the Bulgarian Communist Party emerged. As a result of dissatisfaction among rural residents, eight years later the Agrarian Party was formed.
When a coup was conducted in Turkey in 1908, King Ferdinand proclaimed Bulgaria’s independence. In the first Balkan war in 1912, the country gained great success, but in the second Balkan war the following year, Bulgaria lost new land.
In the hope of recapturing Macedonia, Bulgaria became involved in World War I with Germany and Austria. When it became clear that the war would be lost, King Ferdinand abdicated in favor of his son, Boris III.
Agrarian Party leader Aleksandar Stambolijski became prime minister in 1919. During his authoritarian rule, land reform was implemented and a progressive income tax was introduced. In connection with a coup in 1923, Stambolijski was murdered by a right-wing group. A communist coup attempt was canceled the following year.
WWII
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the country was ruled alternately by coalition governments and military regimes. Agrarians and Communists were forced into exile. In 1934, an authoritarian regime came to power through a military-backed coup. King Boris took advantage of the dissatisfaction with the regime and took power in 1935.
During World War II, German troops were allowed to use Bulgaria as a base for attacks against Yugoslavia and Greece. In the spring of 1941, the Bulgarians occupied the Yugoslav part of Macedonia. The same year, Bulgaria actively entered the war on the side of the Axis powers (Germany and Italy), but refused to participate in the war against the Soviet Union.
King Boris died in 1943 and was succeeded by his six-year-old son Simeon II. German influence was strengthened despite strong popular resistance. The front of the country, a leftist resistance movement formed in 1942, took up arms against the Germans. After the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the Nazi war fortunes returned, and Soviet troops approached Bulgaria.
In 1944, the Soviet Red Army marched into the country. The front, which was now dominated by the Communist Party and supported by the Soviet Union, added a new government.
2020
January
Russians are charged with attempted murder
January 23
Bulgarian prosecutors are prosecuting three Russians who are accused of trying to kill three Bulgarians in 2015. Emilyan Grebev, owner of a weapons factory, Grebev’s son and the head of the factory were subjected to some form of substance that poisoned them. The case has been linked to the nerve poison attack that took place against a former Russian double agent and his daughter in the UK in 2018, although no nerve poison was used against the Bulgarians. The substances found in the Bulgarian case included pesticides. According to one theory, the deed may have been motivated by the fact that Grebev’s business operations threatened powerful Russian interests in the country. The names of the three Russians are not mentioned when the prosecution is presented.
