History of Bulgaria

If the development of the Bulgarian territory goes back to highest antiquity, true the history of the Bulgaria as country independent dates only from the 7th century with the foundation of the first Bulgarian kingdom by Asparoukh. Located at crossed ethnic, cultural influences and linguistics of the Balkan Peninsula, Bulgaria knew many reversals during its long story. It was with its apogee the arts center of Slavic Europe , then profiting from one access to the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea, before undergoing the Byzantine domination then the Othoman yoke during nearly five centuries. Devastated by the Balkan Wars, Bulgaria took the way of the Communisme to leaving the Second world war. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the country was directed towards a Democratic regime which its adhesion with the European Union in January 2007 confirmed.

Antiquity

In 4600 before the Christian era, a mysterious civilization is installed on banks of lakes close to the Black Sea - very close to the current town of Varna. This culture of Varna , dating from the end of the Chalcolithique, will experience a cultural development and technological without precedent for the time. It is initially admirable Poterie S, Idole S in bone and stone, and tools of Cuivre which reveal the existence of it then a fortuitous discovery, in 1972, if amazing that its advertisement will make the round the world tour. A few kilometres from Varna, is a Nécropole containing the oldest objects of gold never to date discovered, among which massive bracelets exceeding 200 G and of almost 24 Carat S, of the plates, drill plates, diadems… Between 4600 and 4200 years before our era, well before the Mésopotamie or the Egypt of the Pyramid S, goldsmithery began on banks from the Black Sea, in current Bulgaria. The richest tombs contain diadems and Sceptre S out of gold, axes and points of Javelot to strong weight of Cuivre, refined ornaments, Céramique S finely decorated. The study of some 300 burials of the necropolis of Varna shows, with the age of copper, the existence of a strongly hierarchical company.

Among the first occupants of the country one can also quote the Pélasges, people matriarcal which left many sculptures gynomorphes and captions it Amazones. Towards 1800 before our era, of the Indo-Europeans of Iranian language, the Thraces, inaugurate the warlike patriarchate. They are divided into various tribes until the king Térès I {{er}} joins together them around a State, towards 500 before our era. Gradually hellenized starting from the Greek counters of Égée and the Euxine Sea, they enter the sphere of influence of the Persian Empire with the O C, then kingdoms hellenistic at third century BC. The kingdom of Thrace reaches its apogee under the reign of the kings Sitalkès and Cotys (383-359 before J. - C.), of the dynasty of the Odrysses; destroyed and invaded by Macedonia of Philippe, the father of Alexandre Large the, it knows a revival under Seuthès III into 341. They have their own kingdoms, of which most known is that of Odrysses, combined with the Pontique confederation. Hérodote admired already their tombs and the refinement of their funerary art. They left fabulous treasures (museum of Sofia), and in particular strange tumuli, large hillocks of ground which strew per hundreds the central plain with the country. Most famous is the tomb of Kazanluk.

Starting from 29 before our era, the Romains organize the territories in provinces of Mésie and Thrace at the 1st century apr. J. - C., in year 45. They romanisent the populations and leave their print: the ancient theater of Plovdiv, the thermal baths of Varna etc In 188 of our era, Thrace is definitively integrated in Rome which gradually romanize populations in the north of a named line Jirecek

Great invasions and formation of a slavo-Bulgarian State

The Slaves arrive in the Balkan Peninsula towards the end of the O C. Increasingly many, it is them which will form the majority of Bulgarian of today.

Turkish-speaking tribes arrivals of Central Asia, the Bulgares appear historically in the north of the Black Sea at the 5th century. According to recent research of the academician Bojidar Dimitrov, the first Bulgarian empire, controlled by Koubrat the Large one, extended on current the Ukraine. Under the push of another Turkish-speaking confederation, the Khazar S, part of Bulgarian migrate towards north and are installed on the the Volga where they found at the 8th century a kingdom soon Islam ized and, later, absorbed by the Tatars. This kingdom extended on current autonomous République from Tatarstan, in Russia. One of wire of Koubrat, Asparoukh, moves on the contrary towards the west and bases in 681 on bottom the Danube another kingdom Bulgarian occupying current Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Western Hungary, Romania and Moldavie. It finds there of Slavons (which is Slaves installed there as from the 7th century) and of the Thraces.

Here the scientific history and the militant history diverge.

For the scientific history, these Thraces are hellénisés in the south of a line known as Jireček (of the name of the historian which discovered it) and are Latinized in the north of this line. For the militant history on the contrary, Thraces are at most in the process of slavisation (even if Slavons had been there only for approximately 150 years), but absolutely are not hellénisés nor not Latinized in spite of one millenium of hellenistic influence and six centuries of Roman domination. The Turkish-speaking heritage of the first Bulgares of Asparoukh is also denied, whereas there exist still the Bulgarian Turkish-speaking ones going down from Bulgarian from the Gift (empire of Kubrat): the Balkars of the north-Caucasus. The objective of this militant history is to prevent possible territorial and/or cultural claims on behalf of the Greeks, of the Roumanians or the Turks (even if there is no officially).

The militant history connects the name of Bulgarian to the Bible. According to this history, the Bulgarian people find his origins in current Iran, more precisely with the foot of the mountains of Pamir and Hindukush (South-eastern of the Iméon mount). The Bulgarian ones would be one of the most former people having survived until our days with their biblical denomination. According to the Old Testament, after the Flood, the ground was distributed between wire of Noah (Shem, Hamid, Japhet). However, according to the " Chronographer Latin off 354" , the Bulgarian ones would be the direct descendants of Shem (it is also what the Jews and the Arabs traditionalists assert). At the 7th century, Armenian geographers quoted the people Bulkh, abbreviation of the word Bulkhor, still met in certain dialects of the East of Iran and in the Tadjik language. This militant history, rejected by the researchers, connects the first Bulgarian ones to these Bulkh people.

The First Bulgarian State (681-1018)

The Bulgares of Asparoukh found in 681 the First Bulgarian State which is an multi-ethnic State where the slavon is essential gradually like usual, liturgical and official language. The Bulgares slavisent and christianize under Boris I {{er}}. His/her son Siméon takes officially the title of Tsar (“César”). With the wire of the following centuries, the populations of Romance or Greek language (Thraces latinophones or hellénophones) will gradually also slaviseront themselves, giving rise to the current Bulgarian people. The Bulgarian patronyms frequently have a Slavic form finishing in… OV,… ev or sometimes… ski, but the radicals of Hellenic or Romance origin are not rare (Kaloyorgov, Fratski…).

Into 865, the Bulgarian people convert with the Christianisme under the reign of Boris I {{er}} and adopt the slavon like usual, liturgical and official language, at the origin of the current Bulgare. About the year 1000, Cyrille and Méthode, two monks of Salonique, adapt the Greek alphabet to the language slavonne: it is the birth of the alphabet Cyrillique (before, the Bulgarian ones wrote in Alphabet glagolitic). In the following centuries, the Bulgarian ones will remain in majority faithful to the orthodoxe faith in spite of the attempts of the pope Innocent III to convert them with Catholicism and in spite of the Hérésie of the Bogomiles (preached by the pope Bogomil) or Cathares (" purs" in Greek). The Byzantine influence (1018-1185) works the orthodoxe Church while the Bogomile movement is propagated in the Yugoslav countries, the Alps and the south of France.

The kingdom of Bulgaria quickly becomes a dangerous threat for the Byzantine Empire. It reaches its apogee under Siméon I {{er}}, wire of Boris Ier, Charlemagne Bulgarian, recognized Tsar (deformation of César) in 913 by Constantinople and in 926 by Rome. This multi-ethnic kingdom, where cohabit of the Greeks (along the coasts), of the Slavon S (majority), of the Albanians (in the west) and of Thraces Latinized known in the history under the name of “Valaques” (around the principal mountainous solid masses, of the lakes Macedonians and the Danube), extends considerably: Adriatic Sea with the Black Sea, and north of current Romania in Thessalie. The records of the court and the Church contrast with the miserable fate of the peasants under the feudal mode. The many wars, the weight of the taxes and the popular discontent weaken the first Bulgarian kingdom. The Byzantine emperor deprived Bulgaria of all his territories ranging between the the Danube, the chain of the Balkans and the Black Sea. The Bulgarian Western kingdom (969-1018) of Samuel I {{er}}, with Okhrid for capital, did not survive more than one half-century and disappears after the defeat of Samuel vis-a-vis the troops from the Byzantine emperor Basile II, the Bulgaroctone (killer of Bulgares) which annexes Bulgaria in 1014, not without to have made burst the eyes of: 14000 soldiers captive, except for 1 out of 100, only disbudded to be able to lead the others.

The time of the heresies

At the 10th century the first currents of religious dispute in Bulgaria appear, under the name of heresy Bogomile. Its origins go back to the introduction of the heresy manicheist come from Iran as from the 4th century by the disciples of Mani. In same time, the migrations come from Syria had brought on the Bulgarian ground the ideas of the Pauliciens. These dualistic beliefs strongly influenced the bogomiles at their origins. This movement, drawing its name from its creator undoubtedly legendary, the Pope Bogomil was defined like “a crossbred Manicheism of Paulicianisme” by the patriarch of Constantinople Théophylacte (933-956). Asserting a statute of true disciples of the Christ, the bogomiles believed in the dualism according to which Lucifer and Jesus is opposed radically and rejected the worship of the saints and of the Vierge. They also declared against the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the churches and the icons and recognized only the Évangile.

They encouraged with insubordination to the lords and with the laws, denounced the social inequality and the wars, criticized the luxury and manners of the Boyard S and the dignitaries of the church. Bogomiles formed a community equipped with a strong organization hierarchical and directed by the “perfect ones”; it is in their row that the combatants recruited themselves who shook the bases of the Church and the Bulgarian State. They were pursued: following a Council of the Bulgarian Church with Tarnovo in 1211, the Tsar Boril (1207-1218) called with the Croisade against the Moslems, but also against the heretics bogomiles.

The doctrines of Bogomiles spread in the Byzantine Empire, the Russia, the Italy of north and the south of the France with the Albigensian and the Cathares which are called also guys because their cradle is in Bulgaria written Etienne de Bourbon in 1217.

The return to independence with the second Bulgarian kingdom (1187-1396)

In 1180 the Valaques of the Balkan S revolt under the control of the Deleanu families, Asen and Kaloian, and are émancipent in 1186 of the domination of Byzance to create a " Regnum Valachorum" (recognized under this name by the Innocent pope III and the chancelleries of the time). This multiethnic kingdom is for the Roumanians the " first Valachie " and for Bulgarian the " Second Tzarat" or " Second Empire". Its capital is Tarnova (Veliko Trnovo). The principal dynasty is that of the Asen ides. Arts and the culture were considerable successes there. From this time the frescos date from the monastery of Boïana close to Sofia, of many churches, as well as the palate of Trnovo on the hill of Tzarevetz. One century before the Italy, the spirit and the art of the Renaissance appeared there already. The reign of Ioan Asen II (1217-1241) mark its apogee since at that time the kingdom has access to three seas: the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea. Ioan Asen II beats and made captive Baudouin VI of Hainaut which had seized Constantinople. But the kingdom, weakened considerably by the invasion of the Tatares in 1225, disaggregates as from 1250 and will be replaced, in the north of the the Danube by vassal Rumanian Banat S of the Hungary, and in the south of the Danube by slavo-Bulgarian Tzarats of Ohrid, of Vidin, Tarnovo and Dobritch (Dobroudja), which will fall one after the other under the cut from the Ottoman Empire. Part of Bulgarian (the Pomaque S) will pass to Islam: according to the Top dog Midhat Pasha, governor of the provinces of the Danube, and one of the fathers of the Turkish constitution of 1876: “… among the Bulgarian ones, there is more than one million Moslems who did not come from Asia to be established in Bulgaria, as it commonly is believed; they are the descendants of these Bulgarian converts to Islam at the time of the conquest and in the years which followed. They are the children of the same country, of the same race, come from the same stock… ”.

Under the Othoman yoke

As in the remainder of the Balkans, Bulgaria undergoes long and douleureuse period of occupation during which freedoms were generally ridiculed whereas the populations last underwent the yoke of the occupant. For the Bulgarian ones, this period is certainly darkest of their history.

Incompetents to resist the Ottoman Empire, the 5 Tzarats slavo-Bulgarian fall the ones after the others to the hands from the Turks. The last to fall, Trnovo is conquered in 1393, Vidin in 1396 and Dobrogée (into Bulgarian Dobroudja) in 1421. The geographical position of Bulgaria, the relative importance of its population as well as the little of interest which the western powers carried to him of made a province of the Ottoman Empire during nearly five centuries, of 1396 to 1878. Bulgaria, annexed to the Ottoman Empire, is not whereas a province managed by the sultans of Istanbul under the religious supervision of the orthodoxe Patriarcat. The country loses its independence but also its name and its capital: the Turks employ only the word " Roumélie" (in Turkish Rum-ili who means " country of Romains" , i.e. taken to the Byzantines). A Feudal system stict was established there, in order to control closely this area close to Istanbul and thus strategically essential. Mosque S and Minaret S multiplies with the wire of Turkish colonization and the Islamization of Slavons (Pomaques). On the coasts, the Greek survive Nessebar, Obzor and Varna. Churches are shaven and it is around the Christian religion, in the mountains, that resistance was organized, generally thanks to the Monastère S which lived folded up on them-even to avoid the reprisals, but which maintained the worship the Bulgarian nation. The Othoman period gave also access to the independence of the Bulgarian Church. Escaping the supervision from the oecumenical Patriarchate from Constantinople, dominated by the Greeks, the Bulgarian orthodoxe monks founded the Exarchat Bulgare in 1870 with the assent of the Sublime Door. The seat of the exerchat remained with Istanbul until 1913.

For certain historians, the Othoman period was less negative than the majority of the historians " militants" do not present it, because it allowed a cultural development and economic country within the framework of a vast multinational unit where the relationship between people and religions was generally characterized by a rather great tolerance.

the Country that the Bulgarian ones live would be a delicious garden if the blind and stupid oppression of the Turkish administration let them cultivate with a little more safety: they have the passion of the ground | Lamartine Voyage in the East (written with Plovdiv)

Bulgarian rebirth

Towards second half of the 18th century, with the development of the economy and the trade and the decline of the military force turco-Othoman, a new generation of Bulgarian emerges. Most eminent characters of this true late Rebirth " with the bulgare" are the Païssii monk, Petar Beron, Kolio Ficheto (more the great architect of the time), Gueorgui Rakovski, the poet Hristo Botev (killed in 1876), Gueorgui Benkovski, Liuben Karavelov and Stefan Stambolov. Isolated in their mountains, the monasteries become truths hearths of resistance against the Othomans. Many nationalists will find refuge there. Among them, most famous of the revolutionary heroes, Vassil Levski, will be hung in Sofia.

Revolts at the 19th century and the Russo-Turkish war of liberation of 1877-1878

The great revolt will burst in April 1876. Likely to fail in spite of more than 30.000 dead, it caused a very sharp reaction in all Europe and until the the United States. In 1877-1878, the Russia and the Romania conclude a new war against the Turks which will end in the release of Bulgaria. The Traité of San Stefano in 1878 creates Large Bulgaria of the the Danube to the Aegean Sea and ensures Russia the seizure on the straits of the the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.

One massacres people. Where? In Europe. This fact does it have witnesses? Only a witness, the whole world. Do the governments see it? Not! Will it have an end, the martyrdom of these heroic people? It is high time that civilization prohibits it | Victor Hugo in front of the French Parliament in August 1876

The principality of Bulgaria (1878-1908)

The creation of this great Slavic State in the Balkan S and the reinforcement of the Russian influence in the area cause the upheaval of the politico-strategic interests of the Great powers. Also, in front of their protests, the tsar Alexandre II accepts the meeting of the Congrès of Berlin in 1878. This last is enclosed by the Traité of Berlin which removes ethnic of the treaty of San Stefano and divided Bulgaria into two the Bulgarian news Principauté.

Complete autonomy is thus granted only to small septentrional Bulgaria, extending from the the Danube until the Mont Balkan; while the southern half of the country, the Eastern Roumélie, is placed under the Turkish political authority and soldier. As for the Macedonia, it is finally restored with the Ottoman Empire. These new borders refuse with Bulgarian, the claimed national unit. The starting point is then given to several regional conflicts.

In 1879, Bulgaria obtains the “constitution of Tarnovo” founding a moderate parliamentary monarchy where the capacity is shared between the prince and the National Assembly. The same day the German prince Alexandre de Battenberg is elected chief of the principality by the constituent Assembly. But the prince enters quickly in conflict with the liberal then to the capacity and arrives thanks to a Coup d'etat, in 1881, to suspend the constitution and to grant the full powerss. In 1883, the prince restored the constitutional mode. In September 1885, a rising in Roumélie allows the reunification of both Bulgaries. One month later, the Serbia vainly tries to invade Bulgaria.

In 1886, the relations between the Russian and Bulgarian governments are execrable. The elements pro-Russian hold for person in charge the prince Alexandre de Battenberg and cause a Putsch then obliging it to abdicate. A regency is then installation with Stefan Stambolof as president. The following year, an assembly largely russophobe elects Ferdinand of Saxony-Cobourg-Goth as prince.

If Bulgaria enters a certain era of prosperity, paradoxically the mode of the Prime Minister Stambolof becomes, progressively of time, increasingly repressive. Prince Ferdinand manages to seize the power in 1894 and joins again, as from this period, of good relationships with Russia.

Ferdinand must then face another problem of size: the claims Macedonians. The latter, ethniquement Bulgarian, assert the right to attach their territory to Bulgaria, which is worth to them to be persecuted by the Othomans; terrorist organizations Macedonians develop then. Moreover, all the diplomatic actions undertaken by the Bulgarian governments for fastening, show failures.

From 1903, Ferdinand inaugurates a personal mode. Continuing to be modernized, Bulgaria becomes even a power in the area of Balkans. Nevertheless, it is only in 1908 that the prince declares the independence of Bulgaria, hitherto vassal of the Ottoman Empire, and grants the title of Tsar.

The Kingdom of Bulgaria (1908-1946)

In 1912 Bulgaria is combined with the Greeks, the Serb ones and the Montenegrins to take again Macedonia in Turkey: it is the 1st Guerre of Balkans. Bulgaria carries hardest of the war against the Turks and gains several victories but during this time the Serb ones seize Macedonia bulgarophone mainly. Serbia making the deaf person ear with the Bulgarian claims, Bulgaria tries to take again Macedonia by the force to him: it is the 2nd war of Balkans. Romania and Greece fly to the help of Serbia and Bulgaria is overcome. For the Bulgarian opinion, it is about a treason which thereafter will lead Bulgaria to be combined to the enemies the Serb ones, Roumanians and Greeks. It is as in this drama as enracine " the history militante" sometimes delirious which tests by all the means of separating the Bulgarian past from that of the neighbors, whereas it is mainly about a common history. The peace of Bucharest (8/10/1913) division Macedonia between Serbia and Greece and gives the totality of the Dobroudja to Romania; Bulgaria keeps only one outlet on the Aegean Sea. This is why, in the First World War Bulgaria was combined with Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, occupying Macedonia, the north of Greece and Dobroudja. But in 1918 it was found in the camps of overcome: the Traité of Neuilly signed in 1919 makes him lose even the access to the Aegean Sea and the right removes to him to have an aviation.

During the interval wars and by taking example on Germany, the tsar Boris III circumvents with clauses of the Treaty of Neuilly, in an indirect way first of all, then openly as from the years 1930. Thus he manages to again found an Air force since 1935. In same time, it subjects Bulgaria to an authoritarian regime.

Careful however, Bulgaria signed the agreement of Salonique with the countries of the Ligue of Balkans, aiming at limiting the armaments of each implied State, and benefitted from it to be modernized and reconstitute its railway and road routes transportation, mainly financed by a loan near French banking institutions.

Bulgaria will continue nevertheless to reinforce its army at the end of the years 1930. Thus, it got a great quantity of weaponry de at Italy, France and especially of the Nazi Germany which, anxious to find at least an ally in Balkans, will sell in quantity and at broken prices part of the armament taken by the Wehrmacht in Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939. The German assistance was reinforced during the Second world war, in particular by new sales of weaponry, but also by a drive of the Bulgarian Army by German instructors (in Bulgaria even, in Germany, but also in occupied France). September 7th, 1940, Germany helps Bulgaria to recover the south of the Dobroudja at the expense of Romania (treated of Craiova).

This German help had like drank certain to see Bulgaria lining up side of the countries of the Axis, which was made on March 1st, 1941 when the tsar Boris III signed the tripartite Pacte. Bulgaria entered in war to the sides of Germany against Yugoslavia and Greece (Opération Marita), which enabled him to also recover Macedonia and the outlet on the Aegean Sea. Careful always, the tsar Boris III however refused to declare the war in Great Britain and abstained from any provocation with regard to the Westerners (so much so that he asked the repatriation of the Bulgarian pilots trained on Stuka by the Germans when he learned that the unit of drive was likely to be committed against the British sea traffic in the Mediterranean). In the same way, at the time of an interview with Adolf Hitler, the Tsar refused to him any participation in the war against Russia by indicating that Bulgarian, very the largely Russophile ones, could not take the weapons against those which had released them from the Othoman domination.

Following several torpedoings of Bulgarian boats in the Mediterranean, Boris III ends nevertheless up declaring the war in Great Britain and the United States of America on December 13rd, 1941, while continuing to preserve his neutrality towards the USSR. Bulgaria started to undergo the first allied attacks during the end 1942, in the form of air raids. The Allies crossed Bulgaria to the return of the bombardments on the Rumanian oil-bearing fields of Ploesti, while releasing some bombs not-released in Romania there. Not being able to face the Western modern bombers with their exceeded apparatuses, the Bulgarian ones accepted from Germany the delivery of captured French hunters (Dewoitine D.520) then, finally, of apparatuses very last thing of German origin.

Following the death of the tsar Boris III on August 28th, 1943, and political period of questioning in the country around the minority of the new tsar, Siméon II, the allies tried to make pressure on the play of Bulgarian alliances by bombarding Bulgaria directly. Aerial combats between the allied bombers and their escorts, and the Bulgarian air forces will cease only on August 26th, 1944. It is estimated that these bombardments on the Bulgarian ground made 1828 dead and 2370 wounded.

In spite of a position of neutrality preserved during all the war with respect to the Soviet Union, the Red Army approaches the Bulgarian border then declares the war in Bulgaria on September 5th, 1944. It is the " war of a jour" , because the following day, an insurrection carried out by the coalition of the Face of the Fatherland (Bulgarian Communists and Zveno) shift the government and founds a mode favorable to the USSR. The war is then declared in Germany while a violent purification made 16 000 victims considered carried out without lawsuit, and close to 2 500 following lawsuits with debatable equity. Bulgaria will then send its army and especially its air forces to fight at the sides of the Soviet and Rumanian forces, although its military potential is seriously affected by the purgings. These last combat on the allied side will make approximately 30 000 victims in the Bulgarian rows.

The mode pro-Russian hardens in the last year of the war and in the immediate future post-war period, being caught some more and more with the symbols of monarchy. In September 1946, it organized a referendum with the results discussed leading to abolition of monarchy. The royal family flees the country then.

But the coalition with the capacity fissured during the year 1946 when Zveno left the government in sign of protest against the extreme intrigues of the Communists. Drawn aside monarchy and Zveno, plus nothing did not prevent the Bulgarian Communist party from founding a " democracy populaire" , true communist dictatorship choking the country until 1990.

Communist Bulgaria (1946-1989)

Yalta or the division of the world

Allotted by Yalta in the Soviet sphere of influence, Bulgaria enters the communist era on one level since 1947. If one excludes the episode where, in 1948, Bulgaria seemed tried by a bringing together with the dissenting Yugoslavia of Tito, quickly stopped by Stalin, the new mode quickly becomes the “good pupil of Communism”. Moscow has such a confidence in the mode of Sofia which it maintains no troop on the ground Bulgaria, while delivering its Pétrole to him to preferential rates in exchange of agricultural produce and light industry. The stalinisation of the company is total, with the formation of Combinats industrial giants and the Collectivisation of the grounds. The Gulag S also develop, to reach the number of forty-five (camps of Belene, of Skravena, Bogdanovdol, Lovetch…).

After ten years of terror, Todor Jivkov becomes first secretary of the Bulgarian Communist party in 1954, then president in 1962. Open then an era of more than thirty-five years of domination of only one man who will be driven out only in 1989, at the 78 years age. The attempts at revolts of the Poland, the Czechoslovakia and the Hungary had only one echo limited in Bulgaria so much the framing of the company by the totalitarian mode, and political police, the DS, was strict there.

In order to divert the dissatisfaction born with the first economic difficulties, the Communist regime in 1984-1985 tried to play the chart of the Nationalisme while launching a campaign of “bulgarisation” of the names of the Moslems. Applied primarily by administrative way, it was accompanied by many exactions like the destruction of Mosquée S, prohibition to use the Turkish in public, etc It caused often violent protest demonstrations inside, drawing the attention of the Western countries and the defense organizations of the Human rights.

Feeling the threats to specify itself, the mode of Todor Jivkov took again its countryside in spring 1989, before authorizing the departure of 300000 Turks and Pomak S towards the Turkey. Badly accommodated in this country, the majority of them returned to Bulgaria whereas Ankara closed its borders. The problem found its final payment with the fall of the Communist regime and the foundation, at the beginning of 1990, of a Turkish party called Mouvement for the rights and the freedoms , directed by Ahmed Dogan. The relations with the Turks were standardized since, and the new Bulgarian authorities showed the way by categorically refusing any attempt at segregation of the Muslim populations.

The fall of the Communist regime

The first handing-over in question of the socialist economy in Bulgaria and its alignment on the Soviet Union appeared well before the Perestroïka: the decision of Russians in 1984 to apply the international tariffs to their oil, combined with a strong dryness which had as a result cause a drop in the level of the river feeding the hydroelectric stoppings, caused a strong dissatisfaction. The come to power in Moscow of Gorbatchev and his will not to more support the Communist leaders of the Eastern European countries obliged Jivkov to try, initially, to adapt to the new course of the things. As of January 1988, the private economy is rehabilitated in Bulgaria, but without the parallel liberalization of the mode desired by the opinion. But it is the ecological situation disastrous country which started the first open protests and the formation of dissenting groups like the club for the support of the perestroika and the glasnost then, in 1989, Podkrepa and Ekoglasnost . The protest movements involved the fall of Jivkov on November 10th, 1989 as well as the unification of all the dissenting and liberal groups within the SDS (Union of the democratic forces) whereas a great enthusiasm seized the country.

Chronology of Communism in Bulgaria

February 24th 1946: Arrest of the democratic leader Pastuhov.
March 31st, 1946: Cabinet reshuffle with seizure of the Communists on the capacity.
September 8th, 1946: The Bulgarian ones choose by referendum a republican mode (92,7% of the votes). The young king Siméon share in exile.
September 15th, 1946: the Parliament elects, as President of the Republic, on a purely provisional basis, the Communist Vassil Kolarov.
October 27th, 1946: New elections, the Face of the fatherland obtains 70% of the voices. The government, mainly communist, is directed by the Communist Georgi Mikhailov Dimitrov who establishes a new constitution inspired of the Soviet model.
February 10th 1947: Peace is restored between Bulgaria and the Allies with the treated of Paris.
June 5th, 1947: Nikola Petkov, leader of the opposition, is stopped, condemned to died on August 16th, and hung on September 23rd.
December 4th, 1947: A new constitution, on the Stalinist model, is promulgated, and all the capacity returns between the hands of the “ Bulgarian working Parti ” which will become officially “ Communist party ” in December 1948.
December 15th, 1947: The Red Army , evacuates Bulgaria.
March 18th 1948: Bulgaria, signs a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union.
June 28th, 1948: By condemning the Yugoslavia, Bulgaria lines up in the Soviet camp.
December 1948: First five-year plan.
January 24th 1949: Creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (CMEA or the Comecon).
July 2nd, 1949: Died of Georgi Mikhailov Dimitrov, which is replaced by Vassil Kolarov which dies in its turn in January 1950 and Valko Tchervenkov seizes the power into perfect “Stalinist”.
December 1949: the Deputy Prime Minister Trajco Kostov is accused of “Titoism”, it is carried out after a summary lawsuit of Stalinist type.
January 1954: Tchervenkov becomes chief of the government and Todor Jivkov becomes chief of the Party.
May 14th 1955: Warsaw Pact.
December 14th, 1955: Bulgaria belongs to UNO.
1956: Beginning of the destalinization with Tchervenkov; Kostov is rehabilitated, the censure becomes lighter and the international relations improve gradually.
1959: Failure of the five-year plan.
5 November 14th 1962: VIIIe Congrès of the Party draws aside Tchervenkov and Jugov. Todor Jivkov becomes “the strong man” of the country which arranges Bulgaria in satellite country of the Soviet “Big brother”.
May 16th 1971: A news Constitution, which marks the entry of Bulgaria in the phase of “advanced socialism”, is adopted by referendum (99,6% of the votes), with Jivkov as Head of State and the direction of the government is entrusted to Stanko Todorov.
September 1978: assassination in London, of the writer Georgi Markov
November 10th 1982: died of Leonid Brejnev.
1985 : died of Youri Andropov and Konstantin Tchernenko.
In March 1985, the access to the capacity of Mikhaïl Gorbatchev which involves the phenomena of the Perestroika and of the Glasnost mark the beginning of the fall of Communism in Bulgaria.
February 1989: creation of the free trade union Podkrepa (КонфедерациянатрудаПодкрепа; Confederation of work " Podkrepa").
November 10th, 1989: Jivkov is dislocated of its functions and is replaced by Petre Mladenov. Bulgaria then follows the way of the “people's democracies” close towards the way to Freedom.

Democratic Bulgaria (1989-)

The Turkish question

In 1925, Bulgaria signed with the young Turkish Republic, a treaty of friendship, supporting the freedom of emigration between the two countries, and reaffirming the rights of the minorities such as they had been establish by the Traité of Neuilly in 1919.

In 1940, when Bulgaria recovers Dobroudja Southerner, the Turkish minority increases by 30%, because the majority of the inhabitants of this area are Turkish. After the Second world war, Bulgaria entered the sphere of influence of the the USSR and became itself a communist country in 1946, which brought, with the introduction of the totalitarian dictatorship, of the restrictions of circulation, except for the Jews, starting from 1949, towards the new State of Israel, and for 150.000 Turkish towards the Turkey in 1950. In 1968, a new quota of 100.000 Turkish was authorized to settle in Turkey. The Bulgarian PC, reinforced in its opinion by the Turkish intervention with Cyprus in 1974, showed Turkish of Bulgaria to be “permeable with the propaganda of Turkey ” and to constitute “ a fifth column in social fabric of the country”.

In the Years 1980, Bulgaria undertook a vast campaign of bulgarisation with excess of the Turkish-speaking populations which were with the number of 900 000 on a population of almost 9 million. These populations were considered themselves, like authentically Turkish, of Turkish culture and Islamic religion. 300 000 other people, known as Pomaks were regarded as bulgaro-Moslem women.

The capacity gave them in fact to choose between a forced assimilation and the departure. This policy began towards the end of the year 1984 on the principle: “The Bulgarian State-nation does not include/understand other people that the Bulgarian ones”, but makes some it had begun as of the end from the war. A series of reforms were undertaken: bulgarisation of the names Turkish, prohibition to speak Turkish, prohibition of the circumcision, prohibition of the marriages according to the Turkish tradition, introduction of Friday like single day of opening of the mosques, easing of the rules of obtaining the passport. More 250 000 people benefitted from the opening of the borders to emigrate towards Turkey.

Protest demonstrations were hard repressed and made more than 100 dead in the worldwide. The communist domination was completed in 1990, when the first multi-party elections took place.

Chronological synthesis

4600 av. J.C : The culture of Varna invents the Orfèvrerie
2000 av. J. - C : The Thraces are established on the littoral of the Black Sea (Pont Euxin)
700 av. J. - C : The Greeks establish counters with Messembria (Nessebar), Appolonia (Sozopol), Anhialo (Pomorie), Odessos (Varna)
359-336 av. J. - C : Philippe II of Macedonia appendix the Thrace. Foundation of Philippolis (Plovdiv)
110 av. J. - C : Thrace is subject to the double Roman and hellenistic influence
98-117 : The emperor Trajan combat the Goths and the Daces, founds Tirnovo and installs garrisons along the the Danube - Durostorum (Silistra), Novae (Svichtov). The river becomes an important shopping street and an important road connecting the Black Sea to the the Rhine passes by Sevica (Sofia)
681 : First Bulgarian kingdom, with Pliska like capital
855 : The brothers Cyrille and Méthode create the Cyrillic alphabet
865 : The prince Boris Ier (852-907) introduced Christendom in Bulgaria, and is recognized by the Byzantines like the Tsar of Bulgarian the
893 to 927 : Old of gold of the Bulgarian culture, under the reign of the tsar Simeon Large the, wire of Boris I {{er}}. Bulgaria is then the largest kingdom of Europe

1018 : The emperor Basile II Bulgaroctone conquers Bulgaria which becomes a province of the Byzantine Empire
1185 to 1396 : Second kingdom of Bulgaria, under the domination of the dynasty of the Assen. Establishment of the capital with Veliko Tarnovo
1396 : Beginning of the movement of national rebirth bugare, under the control of the monk Paissii of the monastery of Hilendar (with the Mont Athos) which writes famous slavo-Bulgarian Histoire
1870 : Beginning of the organized movement of national release. The Bulgarian orthodoxe Église becomes autocéphale
1876 : The revolt of April for the release of Bulgarian is severely repressed by the Turkish authorities, but for the first time the international opinion is indignant at the practices of the Othoman invader
1877-1878 : Russo-Turkish war for the release of Bulgaria, in which take part and die a big number of Bulgarian
March 3rd, 1878 : peace agreements of San Stefano. Bulgaria reappears on the basis of area of Mésie, Thrace and Macedonia, becoming the greatest State ic Balkan
July 13rd, 1878 : The signature of the treated of Berlin involves the division of the new Bulgarian Contracting State in two, the Principauté of Bulgaria and the Eastern Roumélie. In parallel, an important part of the grounds of the south of the country are placed under dominations Othoman
April 16th, 1879 : The constitution of Turnovo is adopted by the national General meeting
June 26th, 1879 : Alexandre de Battenberg becomes prince de Bulgarie and fact of Sofia the capital of the new Bulgarian State
Sept. 6, 1885 : unification of the principality of Bulgaria and the Eastern Roumélie, which accelerates the process of release of Bulgaria
22 sep. 1908 : The king Ferdinand I {{er}} proclaims the total independence of Bulgaria and the end of the Othoman supervision
Oct. 1912 : First Balkan war. Bulgaria, the Serbia and the Greece are drawn up against the Turkey
1913 : Second Balkan war against the old allies: the Serbia, the Montenegro, the Greece, the Turkey and the Romania (that is to say all Neighboring states) at the same time. The hostilities will continue with the First World War
1918 : The peace treaties of the end of the First World War, which saw Bulgaria being combined with the Germany and the Austria-Hungary, santionnent these alliances
1923 to 1924 : On several occasions, of the democratically elected governments its reversed by coups d'etat which place at the capacity of the authoritarian regimes
1941 : Bulgaria enters the Second world war to the sides of the forces of the Axis, the Germany, the Italy and the Japan. However, Sofia was the only ally of Hitler to refuse to deliver the citizens Juif S to the Concentration camps, and no confrontation took place on the Bulgarian territory, then controlled by Boris III
1944 : After the conferences of Conference of Yalta and Potsdam which marks the end of the war, Bulgaria is placed in the Soviet sphere of influence
1946 : After a Referendum, the popular republic is proclaimed. The Front of the Fatherland which directs the country is purged two years later by the Communist party as of its “middle-class” elements and completely aligns on the Soviet Union (dictatorship of the Communist party, five-year plans, collectivization, adhesion with the “socialist camp”)
1953 - 1989 : Years placed under the domination of the Communist party, and a man Todor Jivkov at the same time Head of the State and Communist party during 36 years
10 nov.1989 : Under the pressure of the local and international events, Todor Jivkov is thorough with the resignation. Bulgaria takes the route then of the Démocratie
Dec. 7, 1989 : The Union of the democratic forces is made up on the basis of the thirteen parties of the opposition
10 June 17th, 1990 : first free elections of the Parliament
12 juil. 1991 : adoption of the democratic news Constitution
Oct. 13, 1991 : first free local elections
Janv. 1992 : first free presidential elections. Election of Jéliou Jelev
Nov. 3, 1996 : Petar Stoyanov, representing the Union of the democratic forces is elected president of the Republic of Bulgaria
April 19th, 1997 : the Union of the democratic forces gains the legislative elections. A new government is made up under the direction of Ivan Kostov, Prime Minister. Beginning of deep democratic reforms
1999 : Bulgaria is candidate with adhesion with the European Union and NATO
Feb. 15, 2000 : grand opening with Brussels of the negotiations of adhesion to the European Union
June 17th, 2001 : The National movement Siméon II gains the legislative elections with a vast majority
Nov. 18, 2001 : Gueorgui Parvanov gains the presidential election
2004 : accession of Bulgaria to NATO
June 25th, 2005 : the Coalition for Bulgaria, formed around the Bulgarian Socialist party of Serguei Stanichev arrived at the head of the votes at the legislative elections in front of the National movement Siméon II of the Prime Minister Siméon of Saxony-Cobourg-Gotha,
1 janv. 2007 : accession of Bulgaria to the European Union

See too

Internal bonds

List of the kings de Thrace
List of the sovereigns of Bulgaria
Islam in Bulgaria
Great Idea

External bonds

ICOMOS International counsel of the monuments and the sites
History of Bulgaria a blog devoted to the history of Bulgaria

References

Random links: