BACKGROUNDS 1 - THE COUNTRY AND ITS HISTORY
‘It is, or was, a gay peninsula filled with sprightly people who ate peppered foods, drank strong liqueurs, wore flamboyant clothes, loved and murdered easily and had a splendid talent for starting wars.’
C.L. Sulzberger ~ ‘A Long Row of Candles’
GeographyThe People
Politics and Government
Human Rights
Food and Drink
HISTORY
Early History - Thrace, Romans And SlavsThe First Kingdom - The Origins Of Bulgaria
The Second Kingdom - Tsars And Swineherds
The Ottoman Period
The National Revival
Independence
1918 - 1944
The Communist Years
The Changes And Afterwards
Bulgaria is split into two almost equal parts by the bulk of the Balkan mountain range, the Stara Planina, running east from the Serbian border almost to the Black Sea. Sofia, the capital, lies at the western end of the range, nestling in the shelter of mount Vitosha, at 2290 metres one of the country’s highest peaks and a popular ski resort. At the eastern end of the range is the country’s medieval capital Velika Turnovo. The rest of the country can be divided into four distinct geographical areas:-
1) In the north east, the Dobroudzha, the fertile plain of the River Danube, Bulgaria’s northern border with Romania, is a rich agricultural area. The regional capital, Pleven, is the centre of the area’s wine producing industry. Historically, however, the region has been dominated by the two Danube ports of Vidin in the west and Ruse in the east.
2) To the east the Black Sea coast with its warm climate, scenery, abundance of ancient remains and almost 130 kilometres of beaches is the principal tourist area. The two main coastal towns are Varna in the north and Burgas in the south.
3) To the south the Rhodope Mountains, the Rodopi Planina, and two smaller ranges, Rila and Pirin, run along the border with Greece. This relatively unpopulated area contains some of the most spectacular mountain scenery to be found in Bulgaria, including the country’s highest peak, Mousala, 2925 metres, in the Pirin range and two of the most interesting monasteries, Rila and Rozhen.
4) Between the Rodopi Planina and the Stara Planina, stretching south east to the Turkish border, lies the plain of the Maritsa River, the Thracian Plain. The regional centre here is the ancient town of Plovdiv, famous for its wines. The area’s other famous product is the rose oil from the Valley of the Roses, near the town of Kazanlak, north of Plovdiv.
The word `Bulgar` is derived from an old Turkish word meaning `to mix`, coined somewhat derisively by the Turks in the 8th century to describe the hotch-potch of peoples that were then the population of Bulgaria. The original inhabitants of the region were the Thracians, so looked down upon by the Ancient Greeks, but by the 7th century successive invading waves of Celts from northern Europe, Slavs from present day Byelorussia and Proto-Bulgars from the steppes of Russia had thinned the Thracian bloodline, followed later by the Turks themselves. Smaller groups of Greeks, Armenians, Tartars, Circassians, Albanians, Lebanese Druses, Kurds, Macedonians and gipsies also made their imprint upon the racial mix and culture of the country, especially in the area of the Danube ports, the historic arrival point of many groups fleeing war or pestilence. Most Bulgarians (85%) consider themselves to be of Slavic origin, but there is still a substantial Turkish community (8.5%) in the southern Rodope and north-eastern Bulgaria and Roma communities (4.4%) throughout the country. Most Bulgarians are Orthodox Christian, but the Turkish community is mostly Muslim and a small group of Bulgarian origin, the pomaks, are also Muslim. The gypsy community or Roma are actually a set of disparate groups each with their own culture and often markedly different language. The settled groups (Yerlia) divide themselves into Muslim Roma (Xoroxane - resident mainly in Turkish areas and speak Turkish) and Orthodox Christian (Dasikane who speak Romani and/or Bulgarian) and within these further subdivision by the trade their ancestors practiced or, more rarely, they still practice. As an example the blacksmiths (Bakardzhii) are the dominant Dasikane group in northwest Bulgaria. A third group, the Kaldarasha (from the Romanian word for cauldron – caldera – their traditional craft), thought to have originated in Central Europe consider themselves to be the true guardians of Roma culture and a final group – the Rudara or Romanian gypsies speak a mixture of Romanian and Romani. Roma quarters in towns and villages are known as mahala.
Today, over 60% of the population, live in the cities or in sizeable towns, and the majority of those in the ubiquitous apartment blocks built by the Communist regime that dominate most urban areas. Apartments in these blocks are generally small, the communists dictated that 3m2 was sufficient living space for one person and most have no more than two bedrooms. Prior to communism, Bulgaria was a nation of small farmers; almost 1 million families farmed less than 25 acres. The communists changed this dramatically, moving large numbers of people from the countryside to the city and collectivising the land so that by 1989 cooperatives and state farms held 99% of arable land. However one of the first acts of the first democratic government in 1992 was to institute the process of restitution, the return of nationalised land to private ownership. The result of this today is that most villagers are small farmers again, farming a slightly larger farm than they would have done before 1946 by leasing land held by city dwellers. One of the results of this is rural depopulation, as young people move to the cities for better opportunities, and abandoned villages or those with a dwindling and ageing population have become more common in recent years. The crops and livestock grown on farms are sent to market in nearby towns and cities and the family tend to live on the wide variety of vegetables and fruits they grow in their own garden. One of the most charming aspects of Bulgarian villages is the profusion and colour of these village gardens, some of the produce of which is dried or pickled for winter use.
Bulgaria has one elected chamber, the Subranie in Sofia, to which 240 members are elected every five years from whom are drawn government ministers and the Prime Minister. There is also a separate head of state, the President, again elected every five years. Local government is organised around nine provinces, known as oblast, which have a fair degree of regional autonomy. In addition most cities and towns also have a local council and a separately elected Mayor.
The most serious, and perhaps the most widely reported, problems in recent years concerned the Communist campaign to `Bulgaricise` the names of ethnic Turks and pomaks, Bulgarian converts to Islam, between 1984 and 1989. In 1984 Todor Zhivkov, concerned that Muslim birth rates were increasing faster than the rest of the population and with one eye on Muslim unrest in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, decreed that all Turkish names must be changed to their Bulgarian equivalent. This sparked riots in the areas affected, the Southern Rodope and north-west Bulgaria, which were put down with some brutality by the Bulgarian police and military. In 1985 additional decrees were enacted prohibiting worship and assembly of Muslims and the use of the Turkish language, provoking ever-more serious riots and finally in 1989, an exodus of some 300,000 Muslims to Turkey. Amnesty International reported at the time a number of deaths and serious beatings by Bulgarian security forces.
Since the Changes, the democratic government has generally respected the human rights of its citizens, although both Amnesty International and other human rights organisations have reported the use of unwarranted lethal force by the police on a number of occasions, particularly against gypsies. Police harassment of gypsies and some non-Orthodox religious bodies has been a more serious problem and fears have been expressed that, in this context at least, the police and security forces are not sufficiently accountable to parliament. Recent press reports in Europe have highlighted worrying conditions in orphanages and psychiatric institutions; although it would be fair to say that this is probably more a symptom of the general decline in welfare and health provision than deliberate neglect.
Bulgarians spend much of their leisure hours on the streets of towns and cities, especially during the summer, and an evening stroll is an important feature of social life. As important is eating out, whether to linger over a coffee and halva to watch the world go by or to sit down for a full-blown meal and consequently there are many more restaurants and cafes than in the average English town. Service can be quite slow in many restaurants, although this is more a reflection of the Bulgarian penchant for lingering all evening over dinner than anything untoward in the kitchen. Most cafes or restaurants offer a typically Bulgarian menu whose dishes, though not radically different from other Mediterranean or near-Mediterranean countries, are cooked in a distinctively Bulgarian fashion. At home, dinner is usually a communal event, taken late and often lasting all evening, sometimes washed down with copious quantities of rakia, the local grape or plum brandy. There are a few different traditional types of eating places:-
Mehana (Механа) - Usually a traditionally decorated Bulgarian restaurant or tavern offering national dishes.
Bira-Skara (Бира-Скара - Beer-grill) - Popular, cheap cafes that specialise in kebabs, meat balls or grilled sausage.
Zakouskvalya (Закусквалня) - Cheap and cheerful usually self-service snack bars.
There is also a wide range of street cafes and bars most of whom serve food and all serve alcohol and the ubiquitous strong black coffee that is a Bulgarian speciality. Patisseries (Сладкарница - Sladkarnitsa) serve a wide range of delicate and very sweet pastries. Since the changes fast-food outlets serving the standard fare of burger and chips or pizza have appeared on the streets of major towns and speciality national restaurants, Italian, Chinese etc. are common.
Fresh foods are best bought at one of the many open-air markets (pazar), to which many villagers bring their garden produce, and pre-packaged foods in shops (hranitelni stoki, gastronom or magazin) or supermarkets.
The most popular dishes are:
Supa or Chorba (soups)
Skembe Chorba - tripe soup
Tarator - yoghurt and cucumber soup, served cold.
Salata (salad).
Shopska salata - tomato, cucumber, onion, olives and white cheese
Maslinena Salata - olive salad
Salata Kiseli Krastavichki - gherkin salad
Tourshia - pickled peppers, carrots and cauliflower
Osnovno Yastie (Main course)
Kebabche - lamb or pork kebabs
Karnache - long, thin and spicy sausage
Kavarma - pork and vegetable stew
Nadenitsa - a thick, chunky sausage
Moussaka - mince and potatoes layered and topped with egg
Surmi - minced meat and rice wrapped in vine leaves or pickled cabbage leaves
Pulneni Choushki - boiled peppers stuffed with minced meat and rice
Riba na Skara - grilled fish
Gyouvech - lamb or pork stew
Banitsa - a white cheese pastry
Deserts
Bulgaria is justifiably well-known for the quality and variety of its Torta, tarts, of which the most popular are:-
Torta Garash - chocolate tart with chestnuts
Torta Plodova - fruit tart
Other common desserts are sladoled (Ice cream), baklava and halva.
Napitki (drinks)
Sok (fruit juice- plural Sokove) is usually a cordial, often very sweet and Naturelen Sok, fresh fruit juice. Bira (beer), sometimes called by the older name, Pivo, is a lager beer although tumno pivo, dark beer, has become more popular in recent years. Chai(tea - served black) and strong black Kafe (coffee) can be found in any street cafe along with a range of locally made cognacs for which Bulgaria is justifiably famous. The latter is known as rakia or grappa, the plum variety, Slivova and the grape, Grozdova. In addition it is possible to buy a locally produced anise, mastika, which is delicious served cold on a hot day. Another refreshing drink on a summer`s day is Boza, a thick slightly alcoholic drink made from maize which can usually be bought from street sellers.
Wines
Most Bulgarian wines (vino) made for export, those that have become the mainstay of many a supermarket shelf in recent years, are made from non-native varieties of grape, Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Reisling and the like. There are however native strains of grape that are worth looking for, the resinous and mellow Gamza, the deep and fruity Mavrud, Pamid, a light red, the dark Melnik and a dry white, Dimyat. Many small farmers and villagers make their own wine which they will gladly sell you, some of which can also be bought in local cafes or inns.
HISTORY
EARLY HISTORY - THRACE, ROMANS AND SLAVS.
The first evidence of human settlement in Bulgaria belongs to Neolithic peoples of the middle Paleolithic era, between 100,000 and 40,000 BC. Remains of these, the earliest agricultural settlements in Europe belonging to the Neolithic Starievo culture, have been excavated at Devetak Cave near Lovech and Bacho Kiro Cave near Dryanovo Monastery.
By about 3000 BC, an Indo-European group, the Thracians (Traki in Bulgarian) had established themselves as the dominant civilisation and one that lasted, despite invasions from both Europe and Asia, until Roman times. Originally an uneasy alliance of tribes speaking related tongues, the Serdi in the south-west, the Odrysae, Asti and Bessi in the south and the Moesians, Getae and Tribali in the north and north-west, by the beginning of the first millenium BC, they had evolved a loosely united state structure. Comparable in artistic achievement to their neighbours, the Greeks, as can be seen from the architecture and wall-paintings of the Thracian tombs in Kazanlak and Sveshtari and the wonderfully intricate silver and gold metalwork on display at the National History Museum in Sofia, their political disunity left them open to invasion by neighbouring cultures. The first of these invaders, the Greeks, colonised southern Thrace and the Black Sea coast.
In the 4th century BC Phillip II of Macedonia, from whom the original name of Plovdiv, Phillipopolis, comes, invaded Thrace and incorporated it into the Macedonian Empire. Neither Phillip nor his successor son, Alexander, undermined Thracian domination of the area, nor did an influx of Celts from northern Europe in the 3rd century, but an invasion of Romans later in the century spelt the end of Thrace as an independent civilisation. The Romans did not finally subdue the country, particularly Moesia between the Danube and the Stara Planina, until 45 AD but thereafter Thrace became part of the Roman Empire.
From AD 200 onwards invasions of Goths, Huns and others began to weaken the Empire, and in the 4th century when the Empire split between Rome and Constantinople, present-day Bulgaria became part of the eastern Byzantine Empire. Colonisation by Slavs in the 5th and 6th centuries dissipated the last remnants of Thracian influence. A race of clans or tribes who owned land in common, and who governed by elected assembly, the powerfully cohesive nature of Slav society enabled them to colonise and subjugate quickly and by the beginning of the seventh century they had established themselves securely in the Bulgarian lands.
THE FIRST KINGDOM - THE ORIGINS OF BULGARIA
The day that Khan Asparuh and his 250,000 followers arrived on the north bank of the Danube in the middle of the 7th century and looked over the river to the flat, rich plain beyond, marks the beginnings of the country and culture that was soon to become Bulgaria. Under pressure from an invasion by the Khazar people, the Khan (chieftain) and his people, the Proto-Bulgars, had trekked south and west from their steppe homeland between the Volga and the Urals to form the last and most important of the migrations from the east that shaped Bulgaria. The Proto-Bulgars were a nomadic people with the reputation of being exceptional soldiers and horsemen, and by 630 AD had formed a loose federation of tribes in eastern Bulgaria. In 681 Khan Asparuh, known to modern Bulgarians as the `father` of Bulgaria, forced the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V to recognise the first Bulgarian state with the town of Pliska, near present-day Shoumen, as its capital. The state combined a Byzantine political structure with Slavic linguistic and cultural institutions.
Asparuh and his immediate successors expanded the boundaries of their lands until in the reign of Khan Krum (803-814) their influence stretched from the Rodope Mountains in the south to the Tisza River in present-day Hungary. This disturbed the Byzantine Emperor, Nicephorus, who unwisely decided to cut the new state back to size and for his pains became the first emperor for 500 years to lose his head, subsequently made into a drinking goblet by Khan Krum, on the battlefield. Khan Krum also established a system of law, built upon by his successor, Khan Omurtag (known as `the Law-giver`), who further stabilised the state by signing a peace treaty with the Byzantine Empire. If the Proto-Bulgars reigned supreme militarily, they were still a minority to the Slav majority and by the 9th century the Slav language had become the lingua franca of the country. In 864 Khan Boris brought cultural unity a step closer by agreeing to the mass conversion of his followers to the religion of the Russian Slavs, Christianity, and the adoption of the Slavonic alphabet, Cyrillic, devised by two Bulgarian monks, Saints Cyril and Methodius, finalised the process. Upon this bedrock Tsar Simeon the Great (893-927) was able to extend the borders of Bulgaria to the Aegean and the Adriatic and preside over a flowering of literature and the arts, the `Golden Age` of Bulgarian culture. Over the next century, however, the depredations of the Tsars and successive wars bred discontent, manifesting itself in a series of disputes between the Tsar and the nobility, the boyars. Additionally, a heretic sect with roots in Armenia, the Bogomils, who regarded both church and state as the henchmen of Satan, began to gain significant influence in Bulgaria. Known as the Cathari or Albigensians they also extended their influence into central Europe.
The Bogomils, led by a priest of that name, were ruthlessly persecuted, but not without considerable internal dispute. In this weakened state, Bulgaria was in no condition to repulse an incursion by the Magyar Prince of Kiev and the state was reduced to what became known as the Western Kingdom in present-day Macedonia. Tsar Samuil managed to regain some of the old Kingdom but an invasion by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II finally destroyed the reign of the Tsars and Bulgaria was re-absorbed into the Byzantine Empire in 1018. The decisive battle of this campaign was fought in 1014 on Mt. Belasitsa, in present-day Serbia close to the Bulgarian border. Basil, subsequently known with justification as Basil the Bulgar Slayer, defeated the Bulgarians and took 15,000 prisoners, of whom he blinded ninety-nine out of every hundred, leaving the hundredth with one good eye to lead the rest home. Byzantine ruled Bulgaria harshly for the next 170 years, a burden made heavier by the passing of the first and second crusades both of which devastated the land as they traversed the country.
THE SECOND KINGDOM - TSARS AND SWINEHERDS
However Byzantium may have dominated the Bulgarian state after 1018, a sense of cultural identity remained and when political conditions allowed two brothers, the boyars Petur and Assen, led a successful rebellion against Byzantium and established the Second Bulgarian Kingdom in 1185. Assen became the first Tsar of the new kingdom, proclaiming its capital in Veliko Turnovo, succeeded by one of the greatest of the Second Kingdom Tsars, Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207) who recaptured Varna and parts of Thrace and Macedonia. Under Tsar Ivan Assen II (1218-41), who further expanded the kingdom`s borders from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and the Aegean, Bulgaria entered a period of relative peace and prosperity. After his death, feuding among the boyars and excessive taxation caused a peasants` revolt which culminated in the crowning of Ivailo the Swineherd in 1277. Ivailo is one of the more enduring characters of Bulgarian history, a commoner brought to power by a peasant rebellion who spent much of his short three year reign warding off the depredations of encroaching Tartars. Ivailo was unseated by the first of the Terterid Dynasty of Tsars, followed by the Shishmanid Dynasty, of whom Tsar Ivan Aleksandr (1331-71) was perhaps the most important. Under Aleksandr, whose reign is known as the Silver Age, a distinctive school of Slavic literature, art and sculpture flourished. Internal strife, religious divisions, marauding Crusaders and tension with the neighbouring Serbian empire all threatened the stability of the Second Kingdom at some point during its 200-year existence, but the fatal blow came in 1385 when the Ottoman Turks captured Edirne, Plovdiv and Sofia. The final remnants of Christian resistance ended when the Turks defeated the Serbs in Kosovo in 1389 and Turnovo was captured in 1393. The last of the Bulgarian Tsars, Ivan Shishman, was strangled by the Turkish Sultan Bazajet in Nicopol in 1396 and Bulgaria as a nation disappeared under the Turkish yoke for 500 years.
The Turks seized their new possessions with an iron grip, and in an effort to destroy both the spirit and the reality of the Second Kingdom, massacred or enslaved almost half the population. Muslims colonised the most fertile lands and prosperous towns, the power of the boyars was crushed and the Bulgarian church, which had been a separate patriarchate since 1235, was incorporated as a diocese of the Byzantine Patriarchate in Constantinople.
The Ottomans ruled with a centralised system much different to the scattered local powers of the Second Kingdom, concentrating resources into the single goal of extending Ottoman power westwards to Vienna and across north Africa. With economic power came also cultural and religious assimilation. The Ottomans forcibly converted the most promising Christian youths to Islam and trained them for high service throughout the Empire and some Bulgarians, also chose to convert to Islam as a means of retaining lands or privileges. Such converts, whether forced or voluntary, were known as pomaks. The majority of the remaining population, the rayah or `herd`, became serfs to Turkish landlords.
The Ottoman authorities took care to scatter the potentially troublesome Bulgarian educated classes away from centres of power, forcibly resettling them in remote villages. In these villages and the monasteries, mostly ignored by the centralised Turkish administrative system, Bulgarian folk culture, language, religion and social institutions survived between the 14th and 17th centuries. There were a number of unsuccessful rebellions, usually in conjunction with some external crisis of Empire, which the Turks stamped out with characteristic ruthlessness but, on the whole, until the 17th century, the Empire had brought stability and prosperity to Bulgaria, the `Turkish peace`. For most Bulgarians by 1600, the peak of Ottoman power and territorial control, the Ottoman yoke was far from intolerable and a wealthy middle class of Bulgarian merchants and farmers, the chorbadzi, had established itself. However as the century progressed, the Empire began to collapse, brought down by corruption and a weakened central control. Local corruption and despotism increasingly alienated many and the Western political ideas that flowed down the Danube trade routes began to find fertile ground. The resistance that most stirred the Bulgarian popular imagination, as a form of Balkan Robin Hood, were the outlaw groups known as haiduks (haiduti in Bulgarian). The haiduks were in origin brigand gangs who robbed and harried the Turks, but some became a violent outlet for nationalist passions and a focus for dissent against Ottoman power. Ignored by the pomaks, and actively persecuted by the Turks and the chorbadzhi, they drew their support from the common people who celebrated their exploits in song and story still popular today. However much the haiduks annoyed the Turks they presented no serious threat to the power of the Ottoman Empire, but by middle of the 18th century the example of Russia, who had begun to expel the Turks from Caucasia and re-establish the Orthodox church, was to provide the impetus for a more substantial revival of nationalist aspirations.
In 1762, Paissi of Hilendar, a Bulgarian monk at the largest spiritual centre in the Balkans, the monastery on Mount Athos (in present day Greece), wrote a book he called `A Slavonic Bulgarian History`. Readable by the vast majority of his countrymen because it was written in the vernacular rather than the more formal Church Slavonic, its intention was to remind Bulgarians of their glorious mediaeval past and the beauty of their national tongue. Circulated clandestinely in hand-written copies during the closing years of the century, its effect was to shape the aspirations of a putative nationalist movement that had begun to move from subservience to an Asian empire to intellectual and political modernisation and closer cultural ties with Western Europe. The first outward signs of activity took the form of protests against corrupt Greek clergy in the Bulgarian church, but by the early 1800`s wealthy Bulgarians were beginning to fund the foundation of Bulgarian schools, newspapers and journals and pressure was mounting to re-establish a separate Bulgarian exarchate. That this activity was allowed to happen was indicative of the weakened state of the Ottoman Empire, known universally by 1800 as `the Sick Man of Europe` and because of internal corruption perilously near total collapse. The last decades of the 18th century and the early 19th were a period of anarchy in Bulgaria, known as the kurdzhalistvo, during which many Bulgarians fled to Romania and Southern Russia. There they absorbed the intellectual preoccupations of Western Europe, in particular the ideals of the French Revolution, and the first stirrings of Russian revolutionary thought, influences that inevitably also began to flow back into Bulgaria. Russia took advantage of the kurdzhalistvo to temporarily over-run parts of Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish wars of 1810-11 and 1828-29, two campaigns which mark the beginning of a long history of Russian military support for Bulgaria. The Turks began to reform their administrative systems in 1826, bringing a degree of stability, but the damage was done, Bulgarians were aware that reform was possible and the intellectual basis of revolution was established.
Perhaps because of the devastating years of the kurdzhalistvo, it was to be sixty years though before any serious political campaigning for an independent Bulgaria took place. By 1850 the emerging Bulgarian nationalist movement had split into two factions, moderates based in Constantinople who favoured negotiation with the Ottomans and small groups of more radical exiles in Belgrade and Bucharest intent on fomenting rebellion by armed struggle. The latter group under the leadership of Georgi Rakovski unsuccessfully sent the first group or `cheta` of insurgents back into the country in 1862. They found little support for their actions, and their unpopularity convinced the exiles that the local population had to be prepared and educated by committed `Apostles`, the first of whom started operating in the late 1860s. Rakovski died in 1867 and his mantle was taken by two others, Liuben Karavelov, and perhaps the greatest of the Apostles, Vasil Levski.
As a sop to the moderate faction the Turks had recognised the formation of a separate Bulgarian Church in 1870, but this singularly failed to impress the chetas whose activities continued apace. Levski travelled the length and breadth of Bulgaria in the early 1870s preaching the cause of national consciousness to great effect and establishing a nationalist underground movement until he was betrayed to the Turkish authorities and hanged in Sofia in 1873. Levski`s successor, Georgi Benkovski, when he believed the Empire was weak enough, attempted to launch an uprising in September 1875 which the Turks easily, if violently, quelled. The harshness of the Turkish suppression of the uprising, however, was widely reported in European newspapers and drew the attention of Western Europe.
Another uprising, the April Uprising, was launched in April 1876. Badly organised, and lacking in popular support, the rebellion failed. The Turkish response, a massacre by Muslim irregulars, the feared bashibazouks, of over 15,000 Christians in southern Bulgaria, was of such awful magnitude that a storm of popular revulsion swept through a Europe already sensitive to the fate of Bulgaria. In Britain, Gladstone called for Turkish withdrawal from Bulgaria in a pamphlet (dismissed caustically by the then Prime Minister, Disraeli as `of all the Bulgarian atrocities, perhaps the greatest`) that sold 200,000 copies in a month. Forced to the Constantinople Conference the Turks rejected any outside interference in Bulgaria, and in 1877 the Russian Tsar sent his armies to the Balkans and the Caucasus. Bulgarian and Romanian volunteers fought alongside the Russians in the War of Liberation of 1877-78 which was finally decided by the seige of Pleven and the battle of Shipka Pass. The defeated Turks were dragged once more to the conference table, this time at San Stefano in March 1878 and forced to grant independence to a Bulgarian state that included much of Macedonia and Thrace. However Disraeli and other Western leaders, wary of giving Russia undue influence over the Balkans, objected so strenuously to the San Stefano Treaty that another conference was called in Berlin in July of that year. The Treaty of Berlin finally confirmed Bulgarian independence but reduced the country to the Sofia region and the Stara Planina, meanwhile returning Macedonia, Thrace and Eastern Roumelia (the land to the south of the Stara Planina) to Turkey. This and the fact that the treaty also designated the new Prince of Bulgaria as technically a vassal of the Turkish Sultan left the Bulgarians resentful and determined to regain control of the lost lands
The first act of the new state was the ratification of a new constitution in Turnovo in 1879 by a partly elected constituent assembly, which also elected Alexander of Battenberg, an Austrian aristocrat who had joined the Russians during the war of 1877, as the first Prince of the new Bulgaria. Under the Turnovo constitution, a liberal one for its time, the country would be run jointly by the monarch and a council of ministers responsible to a one chamber parliament, the Subranie, elected by universal male suffrage. Russia took a proprietary interest in the new state (as it continued to do into the twentieth century), much to the irritation of Bulgarian Liberals. Wrangling between pro and anti-Russian factions prevented the enaction of the constitution until 1883, at which point nationalist ambitions re-asserted themselves. In 1885 the Bulgarians of Eastern Roumelia rebelled against the Turks and re-united with Bulgaria. Alexander moved his tiny, inexperienced army to the Turkish border to repulse possible Turkish retaliation. The Sultan however did not invade but the Serbs did in an attempt to thwart unification. Alexander marched his troops from one end of the country to the other and, in one of the most remarkable battles of Bulgarian history, defeated a much bigger Serb force at Slivinitsa.
Much as this victory did to bolster Alexander`s domestic popularity, it failed singularly to impress the Russians whose relationship with Alexander had deteriorated considerably and who, in 1886, backed a military coup which unseated him. Alexander’s successor as Prince, Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a Habsburg, did not take power until 1887, against the will of the Russians who would have preferred their own candidate. Ferdinand was saved by his tough young Prime Minister, Stefan Stambolov, thus earning himself the enmity of the pro-Russian faction who assassinated him in Sofia in 1894. Ferdinand, whose cunning had earned him the nickname Foxy, was finally able to make his peace with Russia in 1896 on the conversion of his son, Boris, to the Orthodox Church.
The period between independence and the turn of the century was, despite initial political instability, relatively prosperous. The Treaty of Berlin had opened up trade links with Western Europe and many factory owners and merchants grew wealthy on the proceeds. Living conditions, though, for the majority of the population, particularly in rural areas, continued to be harsh and as a result two new political movements gained enough support at the turn of the century to become legitimate political forces. A rural protest movement became in 1899 the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (subsequently the Agrarian Party) which in the years before 1914, under its dominant figure, Alexander Stamboliiski, considerably improved the living conditions of the Bulgarian peasantry. In 1891 the Social Democratic Party was formed at a clandestine conference in Buzludzha, a mountain peak of the Stara Planina, and later divided in 1903 into two factions, the Marxist `Narrows` who became the Communist party in 1919 and the more liberal `Broads`.
The instability of the Ottoman Empire during the Young Turk revolt of 1908, gave Bulgaria the chance to finally declare full independence from Turkey and Ferdinand became King. Four years later it joined with Serbia, Greece and Romania in the Balkan League and in September of 1912 all four drove the Turks back to the gates of Constantinople. This, the First Balkan War, finally destroyed over 500 years of Turkish domination in the Balkans.
Bulgarian foreign policy since the time of Stambolov had been shaped by its desire for the return of territory lost by the Berlin Treaty, in particular Macedonia, an obsession which was to influence its position in all the major conflicts of the 20th century. By the turn of the century both Greece and Serbia had also laid claim and a powerful group claiming autonomy had emerged in Macedonia, the feared Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO). Bulgaria however had put considerable effort into extending its influence into Macedonia and in 1903 had sponsored an unsuccessful revolt, the St Elijah`s Day or Ilinden uprising. The end of the first Balkan War gave it another opportunity and it claimed Macedonia for its own against Serb and Greek resistance, thus sparking off the Second Balkan War in 1913 in which it was defeated by the combined forces of Greece, Romania, Serbia and Turkey, in the process losing a considerable amount of the land it had gained.
Revenge for this defeat governed Bulgaria’s conduct in the First World War. At first King Ferdinand and his Prime Minister Radoslavov opted for neutrality, but in 1915, when Germany seemed to be gaining the upper hand and offered control of Macedonia in the event of victory, the temptation proved too great and Ferdinand joined the war on the side of Germany. The gamble failed. The war was not popular domestically, it brought about shortages of most basic commodities and Ferdinand was forced to gaol the leaders of a vociferous anti-war movement, including the Agrarian Party leader Stamboliiski. The demoralised army was finally brought to its knees by an Allied offensive from Salonika in September 1918 and, just before the armistice, Ferdinand was forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Boris III, by an army mutiny at Radomir and, to avert revolution, the cabinet released Stamboliiski from prison to form a coalition government.
One of Stamboliiski`s first duties was to implement the peace treaty agreed with the Allies at Neuilly-sur-Seine in November 1919, the terms of which dictated the loss of all lands gained during the war and financial reparations which were to wreak considerable damage on the Bulgarian economy throughout the twenties and thirties, a factor that was to strengthen the relationship between Bulgaria and Germany throughout the inter-war years. The Communists had refused to take part in Stamboliiski`s government and in 1919 tried to bring it down by organising a 55-day general strike. This tactic failed, but only after tough government action and Stamboliiski in 1920 held a general election. The Agrarian Party won a convincing majority in the Bulgarian parliament, the Subranie, and Stamboliiski proceeded on a programme of agrarian reform designed to improve the lot of the peasantry, a move which proved unpopular with the bourgoisie. More seriously, pursuing his goal of creating a multi-ethnic Balkan peasant federation through reconciliation with the newly-formed Yugoslavia, he also renounced Bulgarian claims to Macedonia, thus enraging both nationalists and IMRO. They mounted a bloody coup d`etat in June 1923 and murdered Stamboliiski and most of the the Agrarian Party leadership.
The new government, the People`s Alliance led by Alexander Tsankov was a government of the Right and the period of their rule until 1926 was marked by great violence. The Communists, who had taken no part in the 1923 coup, attempted to regain the political high ground and staged a shambolic uprising in September, resulting in the banning of the party. They tried again in 1925 and in an attempt to murder King Boris set off a bomb in the roof of Sveta Nedelia Cathedral in Sofia. Boris escaped unharmed but 120 of the congregation did not and the government exacted a terrible revenge. During the `white terror` thousands of Communists and their sympathisers were arrested, tortured and executed (some were said to have been fed in to the central heating furnaces at Sofia police headquarters). In 1926, Tsankov was replaced by the less autocratic Andrei Liapchev who, with a large majority in the Subranie and the confidence of Boris could afford to be more tolerant of political opposition. Under Liapchev the late 20`s were a time of political stability, the press was relatively free and both the judiciary and the education system functioned independently of government. The world-wide economic crisis of 1929, however, devastated a Bulgarian economy already under strain because of wartime reparation payments (amounting to almost 20% of the national budget in 1928). 200,000 workers lost their jobs and per capita income fell by 50% between 1929 and 1933. As a consequence, Liapchev`s government was defeated in 1931 in what was to prove to be the last open general election until 1992.
Between 1931 and 1934 two parties, the Agrarians and the Democrats governed as the left-wing People`s Bloc but achieved little beyond internal squabbling. Corruption and partisanstvo, the trafficking of public office, alienated large sections of its electorate and brought about a general disillusion with political parties. The only party during this period that increased its support was the Bulgarian Workers' Party, in effect the communist party, despite attempts to supress it. Meanwhile the National Socialist Movement, a group sympathetic to the Nazis, was becoming popular and in 1934 invited Hermann Goering to a rally of 50,000 in Sofia. The conjunction of a largely discredited political class and a resurgent pro-Nazi movement proved too much for some in the army, and two colonels, Damian Velchev and Kimon Georgiev, led a well-executed coup d'etat in May 1934. The Velchev government dissolved all political parties, closed their newspapers and took control of the trade unions. Boris III was initially supportive of Velchev but, as they moved to limit some of his powers, manoeuvered to replace them with his hand-picked candidates. In 1935 both Georgiev and Velchev were deposed.
Boris then assumed power and reigned effectively from 1935-43 in what became known as his 'personal regime' or what the Communists later called the 'royal dictatorship'. He tried hard not to become involved in the Second World War but Germany had been careful to foster a degree of Bulgarian economic reliance and although at first Boris declared neutrality, he was forced, despite popular protests, to accept the Vienna Pact of 1941, by which Bulgaria declared war on Britain and the United States and in return moved, with German help, to annex Macedonia. Boris resisted all attempts to send Bulgarian Jews to the death camps and refused to declare war on the Soviet Union but allowed German troops on Bulgarian soil.
The German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 was the spark that ignited the Bulgarian resistance movement, and, in 1942, the Fatherland Front was founded, a coalition of Communists, Agrarians, and some bourgeois parties unsympathetic to the war. Boris continued to refuse to declare war on the Soviet Union, a fact that was to prove an increasingly acrimonious factor in his relationship with Hitler, with whom he had a number of angry scenes. Boris died in 1943, aged only 49, not long after a particularly stormy meeting in Berlin in circumstances that have given rise to speculation that he was poisoned by the Fuhrer. He was succeeded by his son Simeon II, then only three years old.
In the winter of 1943 Allied air raids on Sofia and basic shortages made the war unpopular domestically and in 1944, as the tide of war went the Allies` way, Bulgaria made frantic attempts to conclude a peace treaty with the Western allies, in the process declaring war on Germany and thus becoming the only country to be simultaneously at war with Germany, the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain. The Soviet Union, however, pre-empted Bulgarian efforts and on the 5th September 1944 the Red Army crossed the Danube and on the 9th September, Liberation Day, the monarchy was overthrown and the Fatherland Front seized power in Sofia.
The Communists gradually established a dominant position in the Fatherland Front, despite opposition from the Agrarian Party, and quickly increased their membership from 15,000 to 250,000. Georgi Dimitrov, the Communist leader, instigated a purge of anti-communist elements in the civil service, the police and the army and in 1946 staged a referendum on the now unpopular monarchy.
Bulgaria voted overwhelmingly to establish a republic and on the 15th September the People`s Republic was proclaimed and King Simeon was exiled to Spain. Dimitrov now turned his attention to neutralising opposition to the Communists, principally the Agrarian Party who still retained considerable popular support. Nikolai Petrov, the Agrarian Party leader, was arrested in the Subranie and after a grotesque show trial for treason, was executed in September 1947. Subsequently the Agrarian Party agreed a common programme with the Communists and Bulgaria adopted the Dimitrov constitution, modelled on that of the USSR.
Having rid itself of effective opposition, the Party now turned to purifying itself. Tito of Yugoslavia had suggested a South-Slav Federation, a concept embraced by some Bulgarians unhappy with the terms of Bulgaro-Soviet trade, but, predictably, Moscow disapproved and isolated Yugoslavia. Taking its cue from Moscow, the Bulgarian party in 1949 purged itself of `Titoists`, the most prominent of whom were shot. 90,000 party members were either dismissed or incarcerated in Katorgi or labour camps. Like the Soviet gulags, conditions in the katorgi, which continued to operate until the sixties, were harsh and many inmates disappeared. Dimitrov died in the same year and the next party leader, Vulko Chernenkov, known as `Little Stalin`, effectively Sovietised Bulgaria. In line with Stalin`s changes, agriculture was collectivised and all public services centralised, a process that was as painful in Bulgaria as it had been in the Soviet Union. Agricultural production remained at pre-war levels however and shortages of basic foodstuffs and commodities were endemic.
Stalin`s death in 1953 removed Moscow`s support for the hardliner Chernenkov and he lost Prime Ministership to one of the longest reigning Communist heads of state, Todor Zhivkov (1956-89). Zhivkov`s longevity owed much to his skill at neutralising potential opponents and an assiduous courting of Moscow that resulted in a close relationship with the Soviet Union, so much so that Bulgaria was often seen in the West as no more than a Soviet satellite. This relationship however, cloaked the fact that, while supporting the Soviets on macro-issues such as East-West relations, Bulgaria was allowed to maintain a surprisingly independent line on other less prominent issues.
For the Soviet Union, Bulgaria`s position adjacent to the Bosphorus and between two NATO states, Greece and Turkey, had important strategic considerations and it was important that it should remain committed to the socialist alliance. Thus, while remaining a single party state, the Agrarian Party was allowed a much larger public profile and role in state affairs than opposition parties in the other Warsaw Pact countries and the National Party Conferences were used as a medium of discussion rather than automatic ratification of policy. On the Macedonian question also, Sofia tried to use its favoured position to its own advantage, much to Moscow`s irritation at times.
Bulgaria’s economic progress under Zhivkov was cautious, eschewing the disastrous grand designs of Ceausescu in Romania and Kadar in Hungary in favour of a gradual build-up of collectivised agriculture, heavy industry and hi-tech electronic industries. Zhivkov also developed comprehensive health and education systems and, with continuing urbanisation of the population, instigated a housing programme evident today in the rings of tower blocks around most sizeable Bulgarian towns. Bulgarian socialism had always been tinged with an element of nationalism and this became more apparent in the seventies and eighties under the influence of Zhivkov`s daughter and Minister of Culture, Ludmilla Zhivkova whose attempts to define a `Bulgarian socialism` gained enthusiastic support from Bulgarian intellectuals. Nationalism raised its head in other ways as well, most noticeably for the West in 1985 when the Zhivkov regime began a campaign of forced assimilation of ethnic Turks (10% of the population), compelling them to accept Slavic names and banning them from practising Islamic ceremonies. The government denied using coercion, despite an Amnesty International report accusing them of forced resettlement and imprisonment of Turks. The campaign continued until May 1989 when the Bulgarian militia forcibly put down a demonstration by 30,000 Turks in eastern Bulgaria protesting against assimilation, and in June expelled 80,000 Turks across the Turkish border. Turkey opened its border to Turkish refugees and by mid-August an estimated 310,000 had crossed into Turkey.
By the late eighties Bulgaria`s relations with the Soviet Union had cooled and glasnost was beginning to percolate into Bulgaria. In response to a growing political opposition, local elections in March 1988 permitted nomination of non-Communist candidates for the first time, but implementation of wider reforms were resisted by the Subranie and in July several proponents of reform were dismissed. However the opposition had begun to scent the winds of change, and a number of demonstrations demanding political reform were held in 1988-89. Zhivkov was unexpectedly replaced as President of the State Council by the Foreign Minister, Petur Mladenov, in November 1989 thus ending a rule of almost forty years. He was subsequently expelled from the Communist Party and tried on charges of abuse of power, embezzlement and inciting racial hatred. In November 1992 he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, subsequently commuted to house arrest.
After Zhivkov`s removal the clamour for democratic reform and free elections grew, 100,000 people demonstrated later that month in Sofia (an act unthinkable two or three years previously) and the process that Bulgarians now call The Changes was underway.
In December 1989 the Agrarian Party reformed itself as an independent opposition party and the Communists proposed an amendment to the constitution allowing free and democratic elections to be held in mid 1990. Talks between the Communists, the Agrarian Party and the other main opposition group, the United Democratic Front (CDC), on economic and political reform were initiated in January 1990. Meanwhile the Communist Party renamed itself the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and committed itself to a multi-party system and the separation of party and state. Following an election campaign marred by violence and intimidation, elections were held in June 1990 in which the BSP led by Andrei Lukanov, which still retained strong support in the rural areas, won an absolute majority. The CDC took second place and the Agrarian Party a poor fourth place after the Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF) representing the country’s Muslim minority. In July, following student-led strikes and protests including the establishment of a symbolic tent city, Freedom City, next to the Subranie, Mladenov resigned as President and Zhelyu Zhelev, chairman of the CDC and a former leading dissident, was elected to replace him. Anti-government demonstrations continued in late 1990 prompted by shortages of food and fuel and, following a four-day general strike in November, Lukanov resigned. An interim coalition government was formed, led by an independent, Dimitur Popov, which agreed a new Constitution in July 1991 guaranteeing free elections to the Subranie every four years and a Presidential election every five years. The Subranie elects a Council of Ministers, the chairman of which is effectively the country`s Prime Minister. The Constitution also stipulates a five year residency qualification for presidential candidates, thus effectively disqualifying King Boris`s son, Simeon II who lived in Spain.
In elections in October of that year, the CDC obtained the largest share of the votes, and, with Philip Dimitrov as leader, formed the first non-communist Bulgarian government for almost 50 years. Zhelev won a second election in 1992. The CDC was formed from a number of different dissident and liberal groups, and in government this uneasy coalition proved disastrously ineffective. In late 1992, Zhelev fiercely criticised the Dimitrov government’s failure to implement a substantial reform programme, sparking of a crisis of confidence. Elected on a wave of optimism and expectation, by late 1992 the only substantial piece of legislation the CDC had enacted was a land reform bill, returning nationalised land to its previous owners, that has since proved to be disastrously flawed. The crisis was resolved by the appointment of a `government of experts` led by Liuben Berov, a former adviser to Zhelev, which held office until 1994. Berov`s government agreed a programme of privatisation of nationalised industries and economic reform with the International Monetary Fund, but UN sanctions against the former Yugoslavia in the wake of the civil war seriously exacerbated Bulgaria’s economic problems. Public dissatisfaction manifested itself in the general election of December 1994 which was won by a BSP dominated coalition with Ecoglasnost, a key opposition movement of the communist era, and the Agrarian party. The youthful, Moscow-trained leader of the BSP, Zhan Videnov assumed the Prime Ministership.
Videnov`s government proved to be perhaps the most ineffective and corrupt of all the post-communist administrations. Following a line of a closer relationship with Russia, Videnov immediately started to backpedal on the economic and industrial reforms initiated by Berov, causing serious strains in the country’s relationship with the IMF, and limited ties with the European Union and NATO. The effect on the economy was catastrophic. By 1996 the lev had fallen from 81 to the dollar in 1994 to almost 1000, and the average wage had fallen to around $30 per month, 50% of 1989 levels. Matters reached a head in late 1996 with the collapse of the banking system. Corruption and mismanagement brought about the bankruptcy of an increasing number of inadequately regulated private banks, causing many ordinary depositors to lose their life savings. In the run-up to the November Presidential elections, Zhelu Zhelev, widely seen as an ineffective counter to the excesses of the BSP, lost the CDC candidacy to a young Sofia lawyer, Petur Stoyanov, who won a landslide victory in the election. Blamed by both his party and the general population as the architect of country’s economic crisis, Videnov himself resigned in November 1996.
During January and February 1997 mass protests sparked off by grain shortages and a further deterioration of the economic situation took place in Sofia and some provincial towns, forcing the resignation of the BSP government. A caretaker government under the leadership of the Sofia mayor, Stefan Sofianski, was appointed until a general election could be organised in April. The CDC under the leadership of Ivan Kostov won a decisive victory in this election. Among Kostov`s first actions was agreement on a programme of reform with the IMF, including the setting up of a Currency Board to stabilise the Lev, and renegotiation of Bulgaria’s massive external debt. The Kostov government moved quickly to institute a series of popular and much-needed reforms, to the banking system, to the privatisation process and to the welfare system among others and committed his government to many more far-reaching policies. He also re-affirmed Bulgaria's commitment to joining the European Union and NATO.
Despite this, when the former king Simeon returned to domestic politics in 1999 and formed his own party, CDC lost the 2001 election to the Movement Simeon II (NDSV). Simeon had been a management consultant in Spain during the communist years and brought his former profession's techniques to politics, promising that in 800 days the Bulgarian people enjoy significantly higher standards of living. His government paved the way for Bulgaria's accession to NATO in 2004 and began negotiations to join the the European Union. Economic and political conditions visibly improved, although economic growth was not as high as expected. Unemployment also increased and, in consequence, emigration remained problematically high.
The rate of emigration of young, qualified Bulgarians to Europe or the United States has been a consistent political problem since the mid-1990's (despite a number of government initiatives to encourage young people to stay in the country, Bulgaria's population has dropped from 9 million in 1989 to around 6.9 million in 2019). In the general election of 2005, no party gained a working majority and the BSP, NDSV and the MRF formed a coalition led by a young British-educated BSP leader, Sergei Stanishev. The coalition's over-riding goal, accession to the EU, masked deep political and ideological divides. Bulgaria did join the EU in 2007, but differences between the coalition partners limited the coalition's ability to govern. Public disaffection with corruption and ineffective administration prompted public demonstrations against the government in 2007 and 2008 and, as a result, in the 2009 election, the BSP lost half its seats in parliament and NDSV lost all.
That election was won by a new conservative,
party called GERB, a clever acronym for the Bulgarian word for the national coat
of arms. GERB, or Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria, was led by Boyko
Borisov, a charismatic, populist politician who had risen from being one of Todor
Zhivkov's bodyguards to become Mayor of Sofia in 2005. Borisov's government inherited a
country hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis and the austerity measures it implemented
provoked mass demonstrations from 2011 onwards. The government resigned in 2013, months
before the end of its term. In the subsequent election, GERB won the largest
number of seats pf all the parties standing, the first time a ruling party had
done so since 1989, but not enough to form a government with out forming a coalition.
Unable to do so, they handed the mandate to the next largest party, the BSP who chose
a non-party former finance minister, Plamen Oresharski, as Prime Minister. However,
the controversial appointment of a media mogul, Deyan Peevski, as the head of the
National Security Agency provoked wide-spread public protests at such a blatant
resurrection of the age-old Bulgarian tradition of partisanstvoand the
government resigned in 2014. A caretaker government led by a former foreign minister,
Georgi Bliznashki, was appointed until elections were held in October 2014 which GERB
convincingly won.GERB also won the 2019 elections and Borisov became Bulgaria's
longest-serving Prime Minister.
One of the enduring characteristics of post-communist Bulgarian politics is that no
government, neither of the left nor right, has ever challenged the role of the state in Bulgarian life.
The end of Communist Party rule in 1989 did not entail the wholesale dismantling of its governing structures,
rather adapting them for democratic governance.