Language: Bulgarian
Currency: Lev (BGN)
Calling code: 359
Bulgaria
(in Bulgarian, България), officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a
sovereign country member of the European Union located southeast of
the European continent. It borders Romania to the north (largely
separated by the Danube), Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to
the west, and with Greece and Turkey to the south. The Black Sea is
located in the east of the country.
With a territory of 110
879 km², Bulgaria is ranked 15th in Europe for its surface, with
several mountainous areas defining the landscape, notably the Stara
Planina (the Balkans) and the Ródope mountains, as well as the Rila
mountains, which include the highest peak in the Balkan region, the
Musala. On the contrary, the Danube plain in the north and the
Thracian high plain in the south, are the lowest and most fertile
regions of Bulgaria. The 354 km of coasts in the Black Sea
constitute the entire eastern limit of the country.The capital and
largest city is Sofia, with a permanent population of 1,270,284
inhabitants.
The appearance of an ethnic group and a unified
Bulgarian state date back to the seventh century. All the Bulgarian
political entities that emerged later conserve the traditions (the
name of the ethnic group, the language and the alphabet) of the
First Bulgarian Empire (681-1018), which came to encompass most of
the Balkans and logically became a cultural center for the Slavs in
the Middle Ages With the fall of the Second Bulgarian Empire
(1185-1396 / 1422), its territory fell under Ottoman rule for almost
five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) led to the
creation of the autonomous Principality of Bulgaria in 1878, which
gained full sovereignty in 1908. In 1945, after the Second World
War, it became a socialist state and was part of the East Block,
until the political changes in Eastern Europe in 1989 and 1990, when
the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections and Bulgaria made
a transition to parliamentary democracy and capitalist free market
economy with mixed results.
Bulgaria functions as a
parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic. In
addition to being a member of the European Union, NATO, the United
Nations and the World Trade Organization, it has a high human
development index of 0.794, the 56th highest in 2016.
Blagoevgrad Province
Burgas Province
Dobrich Province
Gabrovo Province
Haskovo Province
Kardzhali Province
Kyustendil Province
Lovech Province
Montana Province
Pazardzhik Province
Pernik Province
Pleven Province
Plovdiv Province
Razgrad Province
Ruse Province
Shumen Province
Silistra Province
Sliven Province
Smolyan Province
Sofia Province
Stara Zagora Province
Targovishte Province
Varna
Province
Veliko Tarnovo Province
Vidin Province
Vratsa Province
Yambol Province
Smolyan Province
Sofia Province
Stara Zagora Province
Targovishte Province
Varna Province
Veliko Tirnovo Province
Vidin Province
Vratsa Province
Yambol Province
Police 166
Ambulance 150
Fire 160
Road assistance 146
Telephone information: 144
Traffic police: +359 2/ 982 72 823, 866 50 60
The name of the country comes from the name of the
Turkic tribes of the Bulgars, who inhabited the steppes of the Northern
Black Sea region to the Caspian Sea and the North Caucasus from the 4th
century and migrated in the 2nd half of the 7th century partially to the
Danube region, and later to the Middle Volga region and a number of
other regions. Some historians question the identification of the
Bulgars as a Turkic tribe, suggesting a hypothesis about their northern
Iranian origin. The ethnonym "Bulgars" may have originated from the
proto-Turkic word bulģha ("mix", "shake", "stir") and its derivative
bulgak ("uprising", "disorder"). Alternative etymologies deduce the
origin of the ethnonym from the Mongolian bulğarak ("separate") or from
the combination of the Proto-Turkic bel ("five") and gur ("arrow" in the
sense of "tribe"), the alleged division of the Utigurs or Onogurs ("ten
tribes").
An alternative hypothesis of the origin of the name of
the country connects it with the peculiarities of the pronunciation of
the name of the Volga River, on the banks of which these tribes lived,
and gradually transformed: Volga - Volgarii - Volgaria - Bolgaria -
Bulgaria.
The oldest constantly inhabited city in Europe is
the Bulgarian 6-thousand-year-old city of Plovdiv. The most ancient
population of the modern territory of Bulgaria, about which reliable
information is available, were the Thracians, Indo-European tribes
who lived here at least from the 1st millennium BC. By the 1st
century BC. Thracian lands became part of the Roman Empire and
were divided between the provinces of Thrace and Moesia. Several
centuries earlier, Greek colonies appeared on the coast, from which
the Thracians as a result adopted the ancient Greek language. After
the division of the Roman Empire in 395 into the Western and
Eastern, both provinces passed into the Eastern Roman Empire. From
the 7th century, as a result of the Great Migration of Peoples, the
southern Slavs began to settle on the Balkan Peninsula, gradually
assimilating the remains of the Thracians.
The first
Bulgarian state, about which accurate historical information was
preserved, was Great Bulgaria, a state that united the
Proto-Bulgarian tribes and other tribes in the Black Sea and Azov
steppes for several decades. The capital of the state is Fanagoria,
and its founder and ruler was Khan Kubrat.
After the death of Khan Kubrat, the state broke up and
some tribes migrated in different directions: Khan Batbayan blocked
the departure of his brothers; Kotrag Khan at the mouth of the Kama
and Volga (Itil) founded the Volga Bulgaria (66? –1237); Khan
Asparuh went to Lesser Scythia (the mouth of the Danube), and from
here headed to the Balkans, establishing the Bulgarian Khanate.
There is a legend that before his death, Khan Kubrat bequeathed to
his sons to be one, like a bunch of arrows, but the Khazars managed
to include Great Bulgaria in the Khazar Khaganate. The Bulgarians
made many raids in the Balkans in the VI - early VII century, so
they were well acquainted with the Balkans (Marcellin Komit in
491-498, the first raid; Zabergan in 558). On the territory of
Byzantium north of the Balkan Mountains, Slavic tribes were
numerous, but because of their fragmentation, they could not resist
the well-organized Byzantine forces. The Slavs did not have horse
troops, the militia consisted only of infantry, and they needed an
alliance with the horse people. And the Bulgarians had one of the
best cavalry of the time - among the Bulgarians, the “horse riding”
started at the age of 3-4 years old. In the territory of modern
northern Bulgaria there was an alliance of Seven Slavic tribes -
from the Timok River to the west, the Balkan Mountains to the south,
the Black Sea to the east and the Danube to the north - these were
the Slavic tribes with whom the Bulgarian khan Asparuh made an
alliance. This union was mutually beneficial, although until the
baptism of Bulgaria in 863, the Bulgarians constituted the
aristocracy and the supremacy of the army. The official reference
point for the existence of the First Bulgarian Khanate is the
signing of an agreement between the Bulgarians and Byzantium after
the military defeat of the last (680-681 year) at the mouth of the
Danube, according to which Byzantium undertook to pay tribute to the
Bulgarians. The capital of the state was the city of Pliska. The
state included Turkic-speaking Proto-Bulgarians, Slavs and a small
part of the local Thracians. Subsequently, these ethnic groups
formed the Slavic Bulgarian people, who received the name of the
country and spoke the language from which modern Bulgarian
originated. At the beginning of the 9th century, the territory of
the state expanded significantly due to the conquered Avar Haganate.
Until 865, the rulers of Bulgaria wore an unknown title ("khanas
yuvigiy" - the great khan, military leader and priest; "sarakt" -
the state). Under (Prince) Boris I, the country officially adopted
Christianity (at that time the church was not yet divided into
western and eastern branches) and the rulers began to bear the title
of prince and then king. Under Tsar Simeon, the state reached its
geopolitical peak and included the territories of modern Bulgaria,
Romania, Northern Macedonia, Serbia, the eastern part of modern
Hungary, as well as southern Albania, part of continental Greece,
southwestern Ukraine and almost the entire territory of European
Turkey. Preslav became the capital, as opposed to the former pagan
capital. During the time of Boris and Simeon, the Bulgarian state
also experienced an unprecedented cultural heyday, which began with
a change in the then existing writing of the initial letters Cyril
and Methodius for the translation of Christian books, due to a
misunderstanding of some Slavic letters that were abolished and the
introduction of several Greek, later named Cyrillic, was created
huge corps of medieval Bulgarian literature. Bulgarian literature -
the oldest of the Slavic originated in 886, with the advent of the
Preslav book school. And the Old Bulgarian language, also known as
"Church Slavonic", had a powerful influence on the Christianization
of many Slavic countries (especially Kievan Rus) and the development
of Slavic culture.
Very often, the Bulgarian kingdom was forced to
fight with Byzantium. After successful wars and conquests, the
ambitions of the educated Simeon grew so much that he believed that
he should become the emperor of Byzantium, conquering it, and also
sought international recognition of the status of an empire
(kingdom) for his state and independent church. His dreams came true
partly during the reign of his son, but Simeon was mistaken in
appointing his second son, Peter I, as his heir, who believed that
his calling was to be a monk, not a king. At the end of Peter's
reign, the empire of the Bulgarians began to crumble under the blows
of Byzantium and the Hungarians, and the final blow was the campaign
of the Kiev prince Svyatoslav, who with the help of a not very large
army temporarily captured the capital and part of the territory. The
future tsar and commander Samuel managed to regain most of the
empire’s territory, but the capital and Thracian territories, which
made up the “heart of the country”, as well as the northwestern
territories that were left to the Magyars, were lost.
In
1018, after the death of Samuel, Bulgaria was conquered by Byzantium
and ceased to exist for almost two centuries. From 1018 to 1187, the
territory of Bulgaria was a province of Byzantium, although the
autonomy of the Bulgarian church (Archbishop of Ohrid) was
confirmed. The country experienced two unsuccessful revolts during
this time, Peter II Delyan and Konstantin Bodin. In the XI century,
Bulgaria as part of Byzantium was consistently threatened by the
Normans, Pechenegs and Hungarians. In 1185-1187, an uprising led by
the brothers Ivan Asen I and Peter IV led to the liberation of the
country from Byzantine rule and the establishment of the Second
Bulgarian Kingdom.
The Bulgarians
of the Asen clan, who lived in Tarnovo, in 1185 sent an embassy to
the Byzantine emperor Isaac Anel with a request to confirm their
possessions. Arrogant refusal and beating of the embassy became a
signal for rebellion. In a short time, an uprising swept the
territory from the Balkan Mountains to the Danube. Since then, the
union of the Bulgarians with the Polovtsians, known in Bulgaria as
the Cumans, began - the Polovtsians repeatedly fought alongside the
Bulgarians against the Byzantines.
The second Bulgarian
kingdom existed from 1187 to 1396, the city of Tarnovo became the
new capital. In 1197, Asen I was killed by the rebellious boyar
Ivanko, who switched to the side of Byzantium. Peter, the middle of
the brothers, also fell at the hands of the killers. In southern
Bulgaria, there were two independent states - headed by the governor
Dobromir Chrys in the current city of Melnik, and the despot Slav in
the Rhodope Mountains, his fortress Tsepina now does not exist. The
new king Kaloyan, who took the throne in 1197, firmly crushed the
opposition and began the rapid expansion of Bulgaria. The last
stronghold of Byzantium in northern Bulgaria, Odessos (now Varna),
was taken by storm on March 24, 1201, on Easter Sunday. The entire
Byzantine garrison was killed, and buried in the moats of the
fortress. Kaloyan, who during the reign of his brother Asen I was a
hostage in Constaninople, received a good Greek education. However,
he earned the nickname "Romeo Killer." According to the Byzantine
chronicler Georgy Acropolitan, “He avenged the Romans for the evil
that Emperor Vasily I did to the Bulgarians and called himself
Romeo-killer ... Indeed, no one else did the Romans so much grief!”
Using the defeat of Byzantium by the crusaders, he inflicted several
major defeats The Latin Empire, defeating the troops of the IV
Crusade, and extended its influence to most of the Balkan Peninsula.
After the capture of Constantinople by the troops of the fourth
crusade, Kaloyan began correspondence with Pope Innocent, and
received the title “emperor” from him. In 1205, shortly after the
crusaders were defeated, Bulgarian forces crushed the Byzantine
uprising in the city of Plovdiv - the leader of the uprising, Alexei
Aspieta, was hanged head down.
After the death of Kaloyan,
Bulgaria lost a significant part of the territory, but then reached
its highest power under Tsar Ivan Asen II (1218–1241), who
controlled almost the entire Balkan Peninsula. In 1235, the
Bulgarian patriarchy was restored, but Ivan Asen II maintained his
relations with the Catholic countries throughout his reign. In the
last year of his reign, he defeated the Mongols who came from
Hungary.
After the death of Ivan Asen II, the state began
to weaken. The Mongols nevertheless ravaged him in 1242, and
Bulgaria was forced to pay tribute to them. In the XIII century,
Bulgaria again lost most of its territories, which passed to Hungary
and the heirs of Byzantium, and also lost control of Wallachia. The
Asenian Dynasty was interrupted in 1280. Tsar Theodore Svyatoslav
from the next dynasty, Terters, in 1300 signed an agreement with the
Tatars, according to which he received Bessarabia and stopped paying
tribute. In 1322, he also signed an agreement with Byzantium, ending
a long period of wars.
The further history of Bulgaria is a
constant war with Hungary and Serbia. A brief heyday falls on the
beginning of the reign of Tsar John Alexander (1331–1371), when
Bulgaria was able to defeat the Serbs and establish control over the
Rhodopes and the Black Sea coast. At this time also accounted for
the rise of culture, called the "second golden age."
In 1353,
the Turks crossed over to Europe, taking Plovdiv in 1362, Sofia in
1382, and Veliko Tarnovo in 1393, after a three-month siege. After
the death of John-Alexander, Bulgaria split into two states - with
the capitals in Vidin and Veliko Tarnovo - and could not provide the
Ottomans with any resistance. The last city of the Tarnovo kingdom,
Nikopol, was taken by the Turks in 1395, and the Vidin kingdom in
1396. The second Bulgarian kingdom ceased to exist.
The
economy of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom was based on agriculture
(Danube plain and Thrace) and ore mining and smelting of iron. Gold
mining was also developed in Bulgaria.
After the fall of the Tarnovo kingdom in 1395 and the conquest of the Vidin kingdom in 1396, Constantine II Asen, son of Ivan Sratsimir, ascended the throne of Vidin. He ruled both as a vassal of the Turkish Sultan, then as a Hungarian king, and also declared independence for a while, but nevertheless his power extended to at least a part of the former Vidin kingdom. In the period from 1396 to 1422, these remnants of the Vidin kingdom were Bulgaria. The dispute between Tarnovo and Vidin was gone. A number of foreign states recognized Constantine II Asen precisely as the ruler of Bulgaria. In this form, Bulgaria continued to exist until 1422, when, after the death of Constantine II Asen, the Vidin kingdom ceased to be mentioned in the sources (apparently it was finally eliminated by the Turks).
At the end of the 14th century,
Bulgaria was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. At first she was in
vassal dependence, and in 1396, Sultan Bayazid I annexed her after
defeating the crusaders at the Battle of Nikopol. The result of five
hundred Turkish rule was the complete ruin of the country, the
destruction of cities, in particular fortresses, and a decrease in
population. Already in the XV century, all Bulgarian authorities at
a level higher than the communal (villages and cities) were
dissolved. The Bulgarian church lost its independence and was
subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople. The period from 1396
to 1878 in Bulgarian history is known as the period of the Turkish
yoke.
The land formally belonged to the Sultan as the
representative of Allah on earth, but in reality they received it
for use by the Sipahs, who were supposed to put cavalry in wartime
on the orders of the Sultan. The number of troops was proportional
to the size of land ownership. For the Bulgarian peasants, this
system of feudal land tenure was at first easier than the old feudal
Bulgarian, but the Turkish government was deeply hostile to all
Christians. Despite the fact that those peasants who lived on land
owned by Islamic religious institutions - the waqif - possessed some
privileges, all the Bulgarians were in disempowered status of the
so-called "paradise". Literally translated, this word means the same
as the Christian clergy has the word "flock" (as historians have
established, some Muslims also entered the paradise, especially
peasants, artisans and other poor and vulnerable segments of the
medieval population of the empire). The freedom of the Bulgarians
living in the Ottoman Empire was limited, as the Turks attributed
them to "second-class citizens." The rights of the indigenous
Bulgarian population in the occupied lands were considered not equal
to the rights of the Turks, including due to religion. The testimony
of Christians against the Turks was not accepted by the court.
Bulgarians could not carry weapons, ride horses, their houses could
not be higher than the houses of Muslims (including non-Turks), and
also had many other legal restrictions. Most of the Bulgarians
remained Christians, who forcibly converted to Islam Bulgarians -
the so-called. Pomaks, mainly in the Rhodope Mountains, preserved
the Bulgarian language and many traditions.
The Bulgarians resisted and raised numerous
uprisings against the Ottoman Empire, the most famous of which were
the uprising of Konstantin and Fruzhin (1408-1413), the First
Turnovskoy uprising (1598), the Second Turnovskoy uprising (1686),
the Karposz uprising (1689). They were all crushed.
In the
XVII century, the Sultan power, and with it the institutions
established by the Ottomans, including land tenure, began to weaken,
and in the XVIII century went into crisis. This led to the
strengthening of local authorities, sometimes establishing very
strict laws on their lands. At the end of the 18th and the beginning
of the 19th centuries Bulgaria actually fell into anarchy. This
period is known in the history of the country as Kurdjalism
according to the gangs of Kurdzhali who terrorized the country. Many
peasants fled from rural areas to cities, some emigrated, including
to the south of Russia.
At the same time, the 18th century
was marked by the beginning of the Bulgarian Renaissance, associated
primarily with the names of Paisius Hilendarsky, who wrote Bulgarian
history in 1762, and Sophronius Vrachansky and with the national
liberation revolution. This period continued until Bulgaria gained
independence in 1878.
The Bulgarians were recognized as a
separate national religious group in the Ottoman Empire (before
that, they were administratively considered as members of the
millet-i-room, uniting all the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan under
the supervision of the Ecumenical Patriarch) due to the Sultan
firman under the vizier Aali-Pasha, proclaimed on February 28, 1870
which established the autonomous Bulgarian exarchate.
Part of Bulgaria received administrative
autonomy rights as part of the Ottoman Empire after the defeat of
Turkey in the war with Russia in 1877-1878 (See the articles San
Stefano Peace and Berlin Congress). The origins of modern Bulgarian
statehood were the Russian administration, which ruled Bulgaria. The
borders of the new state were determined by the Berlin Congress of
1878, greatly curtailed liberated Bulgaria in favor of the Ottoman
Empire and other neighboring states. In 1879, a fairly liberal
constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly in the medieval
Bulgarian capital Tarnovo, which established a constitutional
monarchy in the young state with the new capital, the city of Sofia.
The state became a principality led by Prince Alexander
Battenberg (prinz Alexander Joseph von Battenberg). After the
abdication of Prince Alexander Battenberg in 1886 and the regency
period in 1887, Ferdinand I entered the throne (the prince from July
7, 1887 to September 22, 1908, when the Principality of Bulgaria was
declared independent of the Ottoman Empire - the king from September
22, 1908 to October 3 1918). The annexation of September 6, 1885 by
the Principality of Bulgaria autonomous as part of the Ottoman
Empire, the region of Eastern Rumelia caused the start of the
Serbian-Bulgarian War of 1885 on November 14, which ended with the
victory of the Principality of Bulgaria. The Bucharest Peace Treaty
of February 19, 1886 recognized the international recognition of the
act of reunification of the Principality with Eastern Rumelia.
During the next weakening of the
Ottoman Empire and the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by
Austria-Hungary, the Bulgarian prince Ferdinand I, taking advantage
of the moment and by prior secret agreement with Vienna, proclaimed
on September 22, 1908 the independence of the principality and its
transformation into a kingdom. The adoption of the title of king
expressed the actual status of full legal independence and complete
sovereignty over Eastern Rumelia. The necessary constitutional
amendments were introduced by the V Grand National Assembly in 1911.
In 1912-1913 she participated in the Balkan wars, as a result of
which she gained territorial acquisitions in Macedonia and Thrace at
the expense of the Ottoman Empire and access to the Aegean Sea.
During the first world war
At the beginning of the war, Bulgaria declared neutrality, but soon the Bulgarian government decided to take the side of the Central Bloc powers. Bulgaria entered the First World War on October 14, 1915, declaring war on Serbia. Bulgarian troops participated in operations against Serbia and Romania, fought on the Thessaloniki front. During the war, Bulgarian troops occupied a significant part of the territory of Serbia, Romania and Greece. In September 1918, the Allied forces managed to break through the front of the Bulgarian army, and on September 29, 1918 Bulgaria was forced to sign a truce with the countries of the Entente. In 1919, the Neuilly Treaty was concluded, according to which Bulgaria, as a losing side in the war, lost a significant part of its territory and access to the Aegean Sea. On October 2, 1918, Tsar Boris III ascended the throne after the abdication of his father, Tsar Ferdinand. After 1920, Bulgaria became one of the largest centers of Russian white emigration. Until 1944, the 3rd Division of the Russian All-Military Union operated in Bulgaria. In the periods between the wars, Tsar Boris III successfully repelled the attacks of various governments that tried to take power from the monarch and make the monarchy purely formal.
By the beginning of
World War II, Tsar Boris III sought to ensure the neutrality of
Bulgaria. The government of Bogdan Filov (1940-1943) refused to
accept the proposal of the USSR to conclude a Soviet-Bulgarian
agreement on friendship and mutual assistance.
In August
1940, Bulgaria filed territorial claims of Romania, demanding the
return of the southern part of the Dobrudja Highlands, lost as a
result of the defeat in the Second Balkan War in 1913. On September
7, 1940, the Craiova Agreement was signed, according to which
Bulgaria received back the required territories.
In January
1941, the first units of German troops entered the territory of
Bulgaria (German security teams in the uniform of military personnel
of the Bulgarian army). On February 2, 1941, Bulgaria and Germany
signed a protocol on the deployment of German troops in Bulgaria.
On March 1, 1941, an agreement was signed in Vienna on the
accession of Bulgaria to the Berlin Pact;
On April 6, 1941,
the German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece began. Bulgaria
provided its territory for the deployment of German troops and
aircraft, but the Bulgarian armed forces did not take part in the
hostilities. On April 19–20, 1941, in accordance with the agreement
between Germany, Italy and the Bulgarian government, parts of the
Bulgarian army crossed the borders with Yugoslavia and Greece
without declaring war and occupied territories in Macedonia and
Northern Greece.
December 13, 1941 Bulgaria declared war on
Great Britain and the USA.
At the beginning of 1943, the
Nazis demanded the deportation of 48 thousand Bulgarian Jews, but
the government did not comply with this requirement because of
protests from the public and the church, Tsar Boris III in 1943 also
condemned the German deportation requirement.
At the same
time, Bulgaria extradited Nazi Germany to 11,343 Jews who lived in
the territories occupied by Bulgaria that did not belong to it until
1941.
In 1943, after the defeats of the Germans at El Alamein
(October 23 - November 4, 1942) and Stalingrad (November 19, 1942 -
February 2, 1943), Tsar Boris began to seek contact with
Anglo-American circles. This aroused Hitler's suspicions. Boris was
called to Hitler’s headquarters for explanation and died on August
28, 1943, while returning to Sofia.
On May 18, 1944, the
government of the USSR demanded that the government of Bulgaria stop
providing assistance to the German army.
On August 12, 1944,
the government of the USSR repeatedly demanded that the government
of Bulgaria stop providing assistance to the German army.
On
August 26, 1944, the Bagryanov government announced the complete
neutrality of Bulgaria and demanded the withdrawal of German troops
from the country.
In early September 1944, Bulgaria broke off
relations with Germany (the new government of Muravyov), preparing
to declare war of the latter by September 7-8.
On September
5, the USSR government regarded the activities of the Bulgarian
government as a continuation of cooperation with Germany (as of
September 5, 1944, there were 30,000 German troops in Bulgaria) and
announced that it was at war with Bulgaria.
On September 8,
1944, Red Army troops entered Bulgaria, and in the evening of the
same day the Communist opposition carried out a coup against the
government, establishing the government of the Patriotic Front. On
October 28, 1944, representatives of the USSR, Great Britain and the
USA signed an armistice agreement with Bulgaria in Moscow. In
accordance with it, parts of the Bulgarian army together with the
Red Army participated in operations to liberate the territory of
Yugoslavia, Hungary and Austria from the German troops. In battles
against the German bloc, 33,000 Bulgarian soldiers died.
After the king’s death, his
six-year-old son Simeon II entered the throne. In fact, the state
was governed by its regents. The reign of the young king was
short-lived - he had to flee with his family to Egypt, and then to
Spain, since the People’s Republic of Bulgaria was proclaimed after
the referendum of September 15, 1946.
February 10, 1947
Bulgaria signed the Paris Peace Treaty.
The republic
developed along the socialist path until the end of 1989, when the
country emerged from the influence of the USSR.
On November 10, 1989, profound
economic and political reforms began in Bulgaria. Since November 15,
1990, the country has been called the Republic of Bulgaria. On April 2,
2004, Bulgaria joined NATO, and on January 1, 2007, it joined the
European Union.
The post-socialist presidents of Bulgaria were
Pyotr Mladenov, Zhelyu Zhelev, Pyotr Stoyanov, Georgy Parvanov, Rosen
Plevneliev.
In the mid-1990s, the Socialists were in power. In
2001-2005, the former Tsar Simeon II, who headed his own party, the
National Movement Simeon II, was the Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
In the parliamentary elections on June 25, 2005, the Coalition for
Bulgaria, which is based on the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), won 82
out of 240 deputy mandates and received the right to form a new
government. However, although the socialists became the largest faction
in parliament, they could not approve the government on their own, since
for this they needed the support of at least 40 more deputies. The
government was formed with the help of the so-called "broad coalition"
with the participation of the Turkish minority party DPS and the Simeon
II National Movement. The government was headed by Sergei Stanishev
(BSP) and was in power from August 2005 to July 2009.
The next
parliamentary elections in Bulgaria on July 5, 2009 were won by the
centre-right opposition party GERB, led by the charismatic mayor of
Sofia, Boyko Borissov. His party inflicted a crushing defeat on the
socialists, winning 117 out of 240 seats in the country's parliament.
The Coalition for Bulgaria (BSP) received 40 mandates, DPS - 38, Attack
- 21, Blue Coalition - 15, Order, Law and Justice - 10. The government,
formed on July 27, 2009, was headed by Boyko Borisov. The GERB party,
although it is quite populist in its rhetoric, but, in fact, its
ideology is radical liberalism, it advocates a European choice for
Bulgaria and its further participation in Euro-Atlantic cooperation.
On February 15, 2013, mass protests began in connection with an
increase in electricity bills, the current prime minister tried to save
the situation by dismissing the Minister of Economy, but on February 19,
2013 B. Borisov resigned. On February 21, the Bulgarian Parliament
accepted the resignation of Boyko Borisov's cabinet. In the
parliamentary elections that followed, the BSP, DPS and Ataka united and
formed a coalition government.
In March 2022, amendments to the
law on citizenship were adopted in the last reading, abolishing the
“golden passports” for those who invest at least 1 million leva or $568
thousand in the country's economy. The amendments will come into force
in six months.
The territory of Bulgaria is 110,550 km², slightly larger than Iceland. The country is located on the western coast of the Black Sea, in the north it borders with Romania, in the south with Greece and Turkey, in the west with Serbia and North Macedonia. Despite its relatively small size, Bulgaria's landscape is very diverse. The length of the borders of Bulgaria is 2264 km. The river border in this case totals 680 km, and the Black Sea coast - 400 km; the southern and western borders are defined mainly by mountain ranges.
The relief of Bulgaria is heterogeneous. In a relatively
small area of the country there are lowlands, plains, hills, low and
high mountains, a large number of valleys and deep gorges. The main
feature of Bulgaria's topography is the alternation of high and low
landscape stripes that run from east to west across the country. These
bands (called geomorphological regions) from north to south are named:
Lower Danube Lowland, Stara Planina, Upper Thracian Lowland and
Rila-Rhodope Mountains. There are 3 mountain systems in Bulgaria: Pirin,
Rila and Rhodopes. The easternmost regions near the Black Sea are hilly,
they gradually gain height towards the west, and the extreme western
part of the country is high-mountainous. More than two thirds of the
country are plains, plateaus or hilly lands with a height of less than
600 m. Plains (below 200 m) make up 31% of the territory, plateaus and
hills (200-600 m) - 41%, low mountains (600-1000 m) 10% , medium
mountains (1000-1500 m) 10%, and high mountains (more than 1500 m) 3%.
The average height of Bulgaria is 470 m.
The Stara Planina
(Balkan Mountains) begins in the Timoshko Valley in Serbia and continues
south to the Sofia Basin in central-western Bulgaria. From there, the
mountains go east to the Black Sea. Stara Planina is about 600 km long
and 30-50 km wide. Their highest stretch is in central Bulgaria, where
Mount Botev is located, the highest point of the Balkan Mountains with a
height of 2376 m. The Balkan Mountains gradually decrease to the cliffs
of the Black Sea coast. The southern slopes of Stara Planina and Sredna
Gora pass into the Upper Thracian Lowland and the Sofia Basin.
Triangular in shape, the Upper Thracian Plain begins at a point east of
the mountains near Sofia and expands eastward towards the Black Sea. On
it are the valley of the Maritsa River and the lowlands, which are
located between the river and the Black Sea. Like the Lower Danubian
Plain, most of the Upper Thracian Plain is hilly and is not a plain in
the usual sense. Most of the territory is suitable for agriculture.
Relatively high mountains occupy the area between the Upper Thracian
Plain and the Sophia Basin and the border with Greece in the south.
There are three ranges in the west of the country: Vitosha south of
Sofia, Rila further south and Pirin in the southwestern part of the
country. They are the highest topographic region in Bulgaria and the
entire Balkan Peninsula. The Rila range includes Mount Musala with a
height of 2925 m, the highest mountain in the Balkan countries. About a
dozen other mountains in the Rila system are over 2600 m high. The
highest mountains are characterized by sparse bare rocks and occasional
lakes above the tree line. The lower peaks are covered with alpine
meadows. The Pirin Range is characterized by rocky peaks and stone
slopes. Its highest peak is Vihren with a height of 2915 m, the second
highest peak in Bulgaria. Further to the east are the Rhodopes.
Stara Planina divides Bulgaria into two almost
equal river systems. A large system provides a catchment area for the
northern part of Bulgaria, its flow goes to the Black Sea, mainly along
the Danube River. This system covers the entire Lower Danube Plain and
extends 48-80 km inland from its coastline. The second system collects
the flow of water from the Upper Thracian lowland and most of the
highlands of the countries of the south and southwest into the Aegean
Sea. Of all the rivers, only the Danube is navigable, but many other
rivers and tributaries in Bulgaria have a high potential for
hydroelectric power generation and as a source of irrigation water.
The area of Bulgaria is small, but its climate is quite diverse.
The country is located in the continental and Mediterranean climatic
zones. The Bulgarian mountains and valleys are natural barriers or
channels for air masses, which creates a sharp contrast in the weather
over relatively short distances. The continental climate zone is
somewhat larger, since continental air masses easily fall on the Danube
lowland. The impact of the continental climate is stronger in winter
when heavy snowfalls occur; The influence of the Mediterranean climate
is stronger during the summer when the weather is hot and dry. The
barrier effect of the Balkan Mountains is felt throughout the country:
on average, northern Bulgaria is one degree colder and receives 192 mm
more rain than southern Bulgaria. Since the Black Sea is not large
enough to be the main factor influencing the weather in the country, it
has a predominant effect only on its coast.
The average rainfall
in Bulgaria is about 730 mm per year. Dobruja in the northeast, the
Black Sea coast, and parts of the Upper Thracian Plain usually receive
less than 500 mm of precipitation and there are often droughts,
especially in late August and early September. The rest of the territory
of the Upper Thracian Lowland and the Danube Upland receives slightly
less than the national average; The Upper Thracian lowland often
experiences a summer drought. In the higher areas, which receive the
most rainfall in the country, the average rainfall can be over 2540 mm,
in the mountains there is a huge amount of snow and sometimes frosts
down to -30°C. Snow cover from late September to early June.
Bulgarian literature - the oldest of the
Slavic ones - arose as early as 886, with the emergence of the Preslav
book school.
Old Bulgarian literature originated in connection
with the state's desire to convert to Christianity the pagan
Proto-Bulgarians and Slavs (since these two elements of the Bulgarian
Khanate still existed separately), as well as the remnants of the entire
pre-Slavic and pre-Bulgarian population. The southern half of Bulgaria
was subjected to a greater degree of Greek (Byzantine) influence, so
Christianity penetrated there gradually and earlier. The outstanding
literary monuments of the ancient period of Bulgarian literature, ending
in 1393, and the middle period, which lasted until the appearance of the
book of Paisius, are: the Zografsky and Mariinsky gospels, Savvin's book
and the Suprasl collection. From St. Clement survived: the lives of Sts.
Cyril and Methodius, "The Sinai breviary" and "Eulogy to St. Cyril";
from John the Exarch: "Heaven", "Shestodnev"; from Chernorizets the
Brave: “On the Letters”, from Prezviter Kozma: “A Conversation against
the Bogomils”; from unknown authors - the lives of various saints and
many apocrypha. From the Middle Bulgarian period there remained:
"Synodik Borila", "Dobromir Gospel", "Apostle of Ohrid", "Aesop's Tales"
and numerous lives of saints and written by Patriarch Evfimy Tyrnovskiy:
"The Life of St. etc. The production of translated literature increased
so much that Bulgaria began to supply other Slavic countries with this
literature.
In the first centuries of the Turkish yoke, the
literary life of Bulgaria moved to Kyiv and Moscow, as well as to
Romania and other neighboring regions. In Bulgaria itself, regarding the
development of literature, there were no signs of life: a fact that says
a lot about the nature of the Turkish yoke, from the first footnote to
this, all the information for change was taken from volumes 1, 2, 3, 5
of the Encyclopedia of Bulgaria series, Publishing house of the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences about the low political level of the
masses, about their backwardness. At the beginning of the 18th century,
in connection with the national awakening of the Bulgarians, literary
life grew stronger. The new Bulgarian literature is connected with the
period of political renaissance in Bulgaria. The epoch of national
renaissance, national revolutionary, liberation struggle has its own
literature. It begins with a book by Paisiy Hilendarsky, a monk from the
Svyatogorsk monastery, “The Slavic-Bulgarian History of the Peoples and
Kings of Bulgaria” (1762). This book has played a huge cultural role in
the life of the Bulgarian nation. The nature of this literature in its
further development was Ch. arr. propaganda and journalistic.
The need to build
temples for worship marked the beginning of Bulgarian architecture
proper. The most famous monuments of Bulgarian architecture of that time
are the Rila Monastery and Boyana Church.
Byzantine traditions
contributed to the development of fine arts. Evidence of the originality
of the Bulgarian school of icon painting are the icons using not boards
but ceramics as a basis. At the same time, the existence of fairly
strict canons in icon painting somewhat limited the development of their
own traditions. The frescoes of the cave churches in Ivanovo bear both
the imprint of national traditions and the features of the “Paleologian
revival”. Also known are the murals of the Boyana Church (especially
frescoes dating back to 1259 depicting the founders of the monastery
(ktitors) - Kaloyan and Desislava), the Rotunda of St. George and the
Rila Monastery. At the same time, Eastern Bulgaria experienced Byzantine
cultural influence to a greater extent, and very little of the ancient
settlements of the Thracians was preserved in it, while in Southwestern
Bulgaria (modern North Macedonia) national traditions were better
preserved than Byzantine ones.
After the liberation of Bulgaria
from Ottoman rule in 1878, its art and architecture were gradually
integrated into the European artistic process.
Bulgarian
music is part of Bulgarian, Balkan, European and world culture.
Bulgarian music sounds specific, original and original.
Church
singing in the Old Bulgarian language originates from the establishment
of Christianity, but during the Byzantine domination (1018-1187), the
penetration of canonized Byzantine singing into the Bulgarian church
delayed the development of Bulgarian national religious chants connected
with the folk basis. After the liberation from the rule of Byzantium and
the formation of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom (1187-1396), Bulgarian
culture began to flourish. In the 13th-14th centuries, under the
influence of folk musical art, the Bulgarian chant was formed, samples
of which were preserved in the liturgical singing of the Russian
Orthodox Church of the 17th-18th centuries. Since that time, the
“Zograph Trefology” (XIII century) and the “Synodikon on Tsar Boril”
(XIV century) have been preserved - the only written monuments with
musical notation that have come down to us. Many Byzantine choristers
are of Bulgarian origin. The most famous of them is the singer and
composer John Kukuzel, nicknamed the "Angelic" (he lived in a monastery
in Byzantium). He created the neo-Byzantine neumental notation ("cukuzel
neumes"), which is used in modern church music to this day.
During the Ottoman rule there were no musical institutions and musical
pedagogy in Bulgaria. The first musicians were foreigners, as well as
Bulgarians who received musical education abroad. Representatives of the
“first generation of Bulgarian composers” came from this milieu: Emanuil
Manolov, Angel Bucureshliev, Dobri Hristov, Panayot Pipkov, Georgi
Atanasov, Nikola Atanasov and others. These composers published
collections of Bulgarian folklore and created their own adaptations of
folk music. Emanuil Manolov wrote the first Bulgarian opera - "The
Beggar". Just like Emanuil Manolov, conductor Dimitar Manolov, being a
graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, made a significant contribution to
the development of the Bulgarian musical and performing arts. Georgy
Atanasov created the operas "Altsek", "Kosara", "Launchy Vodnitsa".
Panayot Pipkov created the first Bulgarian children's operettas
"Children and Birds" and "Schuretz and Mravki". His most famous work is
the Hymn of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Nikola Atanasoff wrote the first
Bulgarian symphony. The greatest theorist of Bulgarian church and folk
music at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was Dobri Hristov, a
graduate of the Prague Conservatory and student of Antonin Dvorak.
Events such as the creation in 1921 of the National Academy of Music
"Professor Pancho Vladigerov", the emergence of the first symphony
orchestras, music schools, marked the beginning of the development of
professional classical music in Bulgaria.
The first amateur dance troupes in Bulgaria appeared in Sofia in 1900.
Theater in Bulgaria began to develop in the middle of the XIX
century. A significant role in the development of the director's theater
was played by N. O. Massalitinov. After World War II, socialist realism
was actively planted in the Bulgarian theater.
The first feature
film in Bulgaria, The Gallant Bulgarian, was staged in 1915 by theater
actor Vasil Gendov. In 1933, the first sound film, Slave Revolt, was
filmed. The films "Escape from captivity" (in the original "Kalin
Orel"), "Alarm", "Heroes of September", "Under the Yoke", "Song of a
Man", "Stars" (together with the GDR, directed by Konrad Wolf) filmed in
1950 years won prizes at international film festivals. In the 1960s, the
films “How Young We Were”, “Marriage Permit”, “Chronicle of Feelings”,
“The Peach Thief”, “The Smell of Almonds”, “The Longest Night” appeared.
The first feature film in Bulgaria, The Gallant
Bulgarian, was staged in 1915 by theater actor Vasil Gendov. In 1933,
the first sound film, Slave Revolt, was filmed. The films "Escape from
captivity" (in the original "Kalin Orel"), "Alarm", "Heroes of
September", "Under the Yoke", "Song of a Man", "Stars" (together with
the GDR, directed by Konrad Wolf) filmed in 1950 years won prizes at
international film festivals. In the 1960s, the films “How Young We
Were”, “Marriage Permit”, “Chronicle of Feelings”, “The Peach Thief”,
“The Smell of Almonds”, “The Longest Night” appeared.
Bulgarian
cuisine is the national cuisine of Bulgaria and other countries of
Southeast Europe. Bulgarian cuisine is similar to Turkish and Greek.
This is due to the similar geographical position of the countries and
the commonality of the original products, long-term historical ties.
Bulgarian cuisine is based on the extensive use of vegetables, herbs
and fruits. The cuisine is rich in recipes for salads, hot and cold
soups. A feature of cooking is the heat treatment of products on low
heat for an hour, the products are mainly cooked simultaneously as part
of one dish. Another feature is the massive use of fresh and canned
herbs added in the preparation of meat dishes. More often, in comparison
with other cuisines, onions, garlic, red, black and allspice, bay
leaves, parsley, savory, mint are used in dishes. Bulgarian cuisine is
very greasy and mushy. This is especially true for hot dishes.
As
in any national cuisine, in Bulgarian there are dishes that are prepared
for certain folk, religious or public holidays. For example, lean sarmi
and chushki (peppers) on Christmas Eve, kapama (a stew of several types
of meat and sausage with sauerkraut) and other dishes with sauerkraut on
New Year's Day, fish on St. Nicholas (December 6), kozunak on Velik Den
(Easter), lamb on the Day of Courage (St. George's Day).
Sports in Bulgaria developed after the participation
of the country in the 1st Modern Olympic Games in 1896, where Bulgaria
was one of 14 countries that sent their athletes to them. Nowadays the
most popular sport in Bulgaria is football. The Bulgarian national
football team at the 1994 World Cup in the United States took 4th place.
Bulgaria has traditionally high achievements in weightlifting and
athletics, wrestling, boxing, volleyball, artistic and rhythmic
gymnastics, shooting and rowing.
In 2013 Bulgaria hosted the
European Biathlon Championship.
Tourism in Bulgaria makes up a significant share of
the country's GDP. Most tourists visit the resort either in summer or in
winter according to the season. The prospect of tourism development in
Bulgaria is bright, the country has both cultural and natural
attractions. In 2015, the Daily Mail newspaper named Bulgaria's resorts
the most inexpensive in Europe. The grocery basket at the key Bulgarian
resorts is much cheaper than the similar one at the resorts of Italy,
Spain and Turkey[64]. In addition, there are only two non-tourist months
in Bulgaria - October and November. The Black Sea March is already a
confident spring with flowering trees, in June they bathe in the Black
Sea with might and main - until September. The ski season starts in
December and lasts until February.
The Black Sea coast of
Bulgaria is a popular beach tourism destination. Bulgaria was one of the
most important resorts for the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.
The industry experienced a downturn in the 1990s, but is now on the
rise. The bulk of tourists come from Western and Eastern Europe,
Scandinavia, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and the UK.
The most
popular Black Sea resorts are: Albena, Golden Sands, Riviera, St.
Constantine and Elena, Obzor, Sunny Beach, Sozopol, Elenite, St. Vlas.
Balneo (SPA) resorts: Velingrad, Sandanski, Hisar, Pavel Banya,
Narechenski Bani, Varshets
Ski resorts: Bansko, Borovets,
Pamporovo, Vitosha. At the ski resorts, as well as at the Black Sea, the
hotel base and mountain infrastructure are being actively updated. New
tracks are being built, modern lifts are being installed (for example,
Doppelmayer). The resorts have a small total length of slopes, slopes of
medium and low complexity prevail, which makes Bulgaria inferior to
popular alpine destinations. In March 2008, the European downhill
tournament for men took place in Bansko.
January 1 - New Year in Bulgaria, St. Basil, national
holiday.
January 6 - Epiphany (Jordan Day).
January 7 - Epiphany
(Midsummer Day).
February 14 - Tryphon Zarezan, St. Trifo (holiday of
winegrowers).
March 1 - Grandmother Marta - Martenitsy (the arrival
of spring, an ancient pre-Christian holiday).
March 3 - Day of the
liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman yoke (approved in memory of the
victory of the Russian army and the Bulgarian militia over the Turkish
troops on March 3, 1878), a national holiday.
May 1 - Labor Day (the
day of international solidarity of workers), a national holiday.
May
6 - Day of Courage and the Bulgarian Army (St. George's Day), a national
holiday.
May 11 - Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius.
May 24 is the
Day of Bulgarian Enlightenment, Culture and Slavic Literature.
June 2
- Day of Hristo Botev and those who died for the freedom of Bulgaria, a
national holiday.
September 6 is the Day of the Unification of
Bulgaria, a national holiday.
September 22 - Independence Day of
Bulgaria (the day of the proclamation of the sovereign Bulgarian
kingdom).
November 1 - Day of People's Awakeners.
December 8 -
Student's Day in Bulgaria.
December 24 - Christmas Eve, a national
holiday (the eve of the holiday of the Nativity of Christ).
December
25 - Christmas (Christian holiday, celebrated according to the modern
New Julian calendar), a national holiday.