Area Handbook For Bulgaria Part 2

By the end of the tenth century A.D., however, the First Bulgarian Kingdom was beginning to decline. Internally, the local population was weary from continual warring and from the oppression of feudalism. The boyars continued to struggle against the king and his council for their own autonomy. Because of the internal weakness of the country, Bulgaria's neighbors began to encroach on her borders. The Magyars (Hungarians) attacked from the northwest, seizing territory north of the Danube River. The Byzantines in 967 formed an alliance with the prince of Kiev in Russia and, because of this alliance, succeeded in invading Bulgaria repeatedly.

In the late tenth century there was a brief revival of Bulgarian power under Samuel, when the Bulgarians succeeded in liberating the northeastern sector of the country from Byzantine control and captured southern Macedonia. But the revival was short lived. The Byzantine emperor, Basil II, was determined to regain his lost land and once again recaptured the northeastern sector. In 1014 Basil again invaded Bulgaria; defeated Samuel's army; and, in an act of matchless cruelty, blinded 14,000 Bulgarian soldiers. From 1018 until 1185 all of Bulgaria was under Byzantine rule.

The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed a period of extreme hardship for the country. Byzantine domination was harsh and punitive.

Monetary taxes, which added to the already heavy burdens of the peasantry, were levied in 1040. Bulgarian feudalism was replaced by Byzantine feudalism. The Byzantine church itself was a vehicle of oppression as it was later to become under Turkish rule; the church owned entire estates and villages and the people who inhabited them.

There were a series of revolts during the eleventh century, but none were successful in overthrowing Byzantine tyranny. During this period the first and second crusades made their way through the Balkan Peninsula, wreaking havoc among the local populations.

The Second Bulgarian Kingdom was established in 1186 and lasted until 1396, when--like the First Bulgarian Kingdom--it was conquered by a powerful enemy and neighbor. Ironically, history came full circle to spell defeat for the Bulgarians. In the twelfth century, when the Byzantine Empire was declining because of internal weakness, the Bulgarians were able to free themselves from domination. In the fourteenth century, when Bulgaria itself was weakened by domestic strife, it was conquered by an enemy whose oppression was greater than that of the Byzantine Empire: the Ottoman Turks.

At the close of the twelfth century the internal situation in Bulgaria was deteriorating. Taxes had been increased, and the burden borne by the peasants became still heavier. The feudal lords openly began to proclaim their independence from Byzantium, whose empire was by now steadily declining. Bulgaria was surrounded by its enemies: the Ottoman Turks, the Magyars, and the Normans. In 1183 the Magyars invaded, penetrating as far as Sofia. Realizing the vulnerability of the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarians rebelled under the leadership of two brothers, Asen and Peter. The brothers first liberated northeastern Bulgaria and then proceeded into Thrace, where they were opposed by Isaac Angel, then emperor of Byzantium. In 1187 a peace treaty was concluded in which Byzantium conceded autonomy to Bulgaria.

Despite the peace treaty, however, the Bulgarians continued to wage war against the empire, hoping to regain northern Bulgaria and Macedonia--a contested territory and bitterly disputed issue throughout Bulgarian history. In 1201 the empire again concluded a peace treaty with the Bulgarians, ceding all of northern Bulgaria and a large part of Macedonia. Eventually, in 1207 Constantinople recognized the complete independence of Bulgaria, and Bulgarian freedom was firmly established.

This new-found independence, however, did not extend to the Bulgarian church, which was still under the aegis of the empire. For that reason Kaloyan, the Bulgarian ruler, negotiated with the Roman pope, Innocent III, in order to ally the Bulgarian church with the church of Rome. The motives of Rome and those of Kaloyan were similar: to isolate the influence of Byzantium from Bulgaria. In 1204 Kaloyan was crowned king by the papal nuncio in Turnovo. Although this union lasted only briefly, it served the purpose for which it was designed, and Bulgaria was effectively cut off from Byzantium.

During the thirteenth century the Holy Roman Empire replaced the Byzantine Empire on the borders of Bulgaria, and Byzantine aggression was replaced by that of the Holy Roman Empire. When Rome declared war on Bulgaria, the Bulgarians invaded Thrace, defeating the crusaders at Adrianople in 1205. The reestablishment of the Bulgarian patriarchate in 1235 represented the end of the short-lived alliance between the Bulgarian church and Rome.

Under the reign of Ivan Asen II in the mid-thirteenth century peace was again restored, and the country once more extended its territories. The Bulgarians succeeded in capturing eastern Thrace, the Aegean coast, Albania, and Macedonia. Bulgarian territory at this time was as great as under the reign of Tsar Simeon; with these conquests Bulgaria became the largest state in the Balkans. The country was now surrounded by three seas--the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, and the Adriatic Sea--opening the country's doors to foreign trade and culture.

Again, as in the time of Simeon, the arts and cultural life of the country flourished. Monasteries, churches, and fortresses were constructed. Religious literature and art achieved a high level of excellence, and secular works became popular. The first chronicle of Bulgarian history was written, and an interest in history grew among the people. The first Bulgarian coins were minted at this time. Trade, particularly with Italy, increased greatly because of Bulgaria's free access to the sea. Merchants and amba.s.sadors came to Bulgaria from abroad, lending their influence to Bulgaria's economic and cultural life.

By the second half of the thirteenth century, however, internal conditions in the country had deteriorated. The feudal system, which had been further consolidated during the thirteenth century, had exacerbated the tensions of the peasants, and hostilities among the boyars increased. The throne was contested between 1257 and 1277 and was eventually taken forcibly by Ivailo, known as the swineherd tsar because of his leadership of a peasant uprising in 1277.

Meanwhile, Bulgaria's neighbors again sensed an opportune time to attack because of the internal divisions in the country. The Byzantines conquered several parts of Macedonia and Thrace, and the Hungarians and Tatars invaded on another front. At one point the Hungarian king declared himself king of Bulgaria. In 1242 there was a large-scale Mongol invasion. Tatar raids went on continually between 1241 and 1300.

The country was totally fragmented; each separate area attempted to ally itself with its former enemies, whether Russian, Hungarian, or Tatar, in order to prevent widespread damage.

By the fourteenth century the Turks began to envision the conquest of Bulgaria. Internally the boyars continued to fight among themselves, and externally the country was threatened alternately by Byzantium and by Serbia. By the mid-fourteenth century all of Macedonia was under Serbian control, and the Serbian tsar--much like the Hungarian king before him--called himself the tsar of the Bulgars. The area of the country retained by the Bulgars by this time was divided into three parts: the last Bulgarian tsar maintained his capital at Turnovo in the central highlands; the so-called Vidin Kingdom, ruled by the tsar's brother, existed in the far northwest; and a princ.i.p.ality of Dobrudzha was established in the northeast.

At the same time the Ottoman Turks were beginning to advance. Having seized areas of Asia Minor, they proceeded to raid the Balkans from 1326 to 1352. Under their leader, Murad I, they began to attack Thrace, Macedonia, and parts of Bulgaria. By 1371 they were attacking territories in northeastern Thrace. At this point they marched against Sofia and, despite active resistance, succeeded in capturing it. Despite an alliance with the Serbs, the Bulgarians were too weak to resist further; in 1388 the Turks easily won a battle against the Serbs. The fall of Turnovo was followed by the fall of Vidin and Dobrudzha. By 1396 all of Bulgaria was under Turkish domination.

TURKISH RULE

The Second Bulgarian Kingdom, like the first, had ended in total defeat, and the darkest period in Bulgarian history began with the Turkish conquest. Only the priests of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church--despite its takeover by the Greeks--were able to preserve Bulgarian national literature and culture to some degree. The Bulgarians once again were subjected to foreign domination, only this time foreign rule lasted for five centuries. Historians agree that Turkish rule was a death blow to the creative forces that had been responsible for the development of the country to that time. With Turkish domination the normal economic, political, and social life of Bulgaria ground to a halt.

The Ottoman Turks were at a far lower stage of social development than either the Byzantine Empire, which preceded them in their occupation of the Balkans, or the Balkan states themselves. The Turks lived an almost nomadic life in primitive communal systems that were headed by tribal chiefs. When the Turks occupied Bulgaria, they replaced the established feudal system with their own more rudimentary and conservative feudalism. Many boyars were executed or rendered powerless if they failed to convert to Islam. The peasants were more completely under the feudal yoke than they had ever been under Byzantine rule. The Turks imposed heavy taxes and hard labor on the people of the conquered country, whom they considered cattle. Young boys were taken from their homes, proclaimed Muslims, and conscripted into the army.

The Turks ruled Bulgaria by means of a sharply delineated administrative system. Bulgaria as an ent.i.ty did not exist for the Turks; the entire Balkan Peninsula was known as Rumili (Rumelia) and was ruled for the sultan by a _beylerbey_ (governor general) whose headquarters was located in Sofia. Rumili was divided into _vilayetlar_ (sing., _vilayet_), which were further subdivided into _sanjaklar_ (sing., _sanjak_), each in turn ruled by lesser officials. Bulgaria itself was divided into five _sanjaklar_: Kyustendil, Nikopol, Silistra, Sofia, and Vidin. Although all land was considered to be the property of the sultan, on the local level the land was distributed to feudal lords and was tilled by non-Muslim serfs.

A second vehicle for both administration and oppression that the Turks employed--in addition to the land administrators--was the Greek Orthodox Church. By 1394, before the final conquest, the See of Turnovo had been subordinated to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, where it remained until 1870. Greek bishops replaced Bulgarians, as Greek liturgy replaced the Slavic. The patriarchate, in turn, was totally subordinate to the sultan. The Greek clergy destroyed Bulgarian books and banned Slavic liturgy. The Bulgarian language and all Slavic literature were forbidden. Greek became the language in all schools.

The h.e.l.lenization of the Bulgarian church was used by the Turks as a means to negate the nationalism of the people and thus dominate them.

The Turks attempted to some extent to convert the Bulgarians to Islam in order to a.s.similate them more fully. Although many Bulgarians fled to the mountains with the coming of the Turks, others stayed on and accepted the Muslim faith, often for purely opportunistic purposes.

Those who did were generally placed in strategically significant positions; frequently, as a reward for their conversion, they paid no taxes to the state. The Bulgarian converts to Islam were called Pomaks (see ch. 4).

The plight of the peasants grew worse. Agricultural production dropped as their exploitation continued. Although landowners were not persecuted to the same degree as the peasantry, they were frequently displaced from the land. Turkish cattle breeders entered the country to settle on their lands. Lands were also taken to reward army commanders, provincial governors, and knights in the service of the sultan. Still other lands were given to immigrant Turkish peasants. The only food that was not subject to requisition by the conquerors was pork, which was not allowed in the Muslim diet.

As the life of the Bulgarian countryside declined, so too did urban life. Bulgarians were expelled from most urban centers and replaced by Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Turks. By the end of the sixteenth century two-thirds of Sofia's population was Turkish. Trade was virtually halted for a time, and, when resumed, it also was dominated by Greeks, Armenians, and Jews rather than Bulgarians. The towns themselves were in a state of deterioration. The crafts had declined, economic life was stagnant, and the Black Sea was closed to all foreign ships.

As life within Bulgaria declined, the Turks began to perceive the country as a springboard for further aggression against other territories. Although Bulgarian hopes rose briefly when it appeared that the Turks might be destroyed by their enemies, such hopes eventually were dashed when the Turks emerged victorious throughout a period of two centuries of conquest and aggression.

In the early years of Turkish domination, the Turks waged continuous war with Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia, and what remained of the Byzantine Empire. Bulgarian hopes of liberation were fueled by the Turkish defeat at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, when the Turkish army was defeated by the Tatars. Resistance was eventually crushed, however, and the Turks began to renew their conquests after capturing Salonica in 1430. In the Battle of Varna the Turks succeeded in capturing Constantinople itself.

After the defeat of Constantinople the Turks overran Serbia, Wallachia, Bosnia, and Albania. Their conquests expanded to include Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa. In the sixteenth century Turkish conquests continued under Suleiman the Magnificent, who succeeded in capturing Serbia and Hungary in 1526. This triumphant expansion of the Turkish state caused Bulgarian dreams to be destroyed, although sporadic struggling within the country continued intermittently.

THE RISE OF NATIONALISM

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the first seeds of real resistance to Turkish rule were planted in Bulgaria. On the foreign front the Turks were constantly besieged by the Austrians and the Russians. By 1683 the Austrian army succeeded in liberating Hungary and Transylvania; they also were able to penetrate areas of Bulgaria and Macedonia. These victories over the Turks again sparked Bulgarian hopes.

During the same period the internal situation in Bulgaria continued to signal the eventual decline of Turkish power and the rise of a Bulgarian national spirit. Because of the increase in corruption and oppression by the Turks, the Bulgarians began to rebel openly. In the 1590s, the 1680s, and the 1730s significant local uprisings took place. Although these rebellions were not successful, they gave rise to the _haiduk_ (forest outlaw) movement, which continued to carry out acts of rebellion against the Turkish overlords. The people praised their acts of daring and wrote folk songs detailing their adventures and exploits. In addition to the revolutionaries the _chorbadzhi_ (squires), who were on the whole a progressive force, were able to gain some concessions from the Turks.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this latent nationalism grew swiftly under the influence of outside forces penetrating the country.

The French Revolution--with its democratic ideals--had a widespread and vital impact on Bulgarian national sentiment. Western concepts and standards penetrated the country mainly by means of trade, an activity that Bulgarian traders realized could only be expanded when Turkish rule was terminated. In addition Bulgarian students studying in foreign universities as well as Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries brought back tales of Western life and ideals. At the same time, currents of Russian revolutionary thought, as well as contact with Polish refugees from the revolution of 1848, were sweeping Bulgaria. All these factors coalesced and spurred the rising tide of nationalism within the country.

During this period of the so-called Bulgarian National Revival, a cultural rebirth--which also stirred Bulgarian national sentiment--took place on the national scene. In 1762 Father Paisi, a Macedonian monk, wrote a treatise called _The Slav-Bulgarian History_ that appealed to Bulgarians to recognize their national culture and to fight for their own land and beliefs. Although the book was not published until after his death, Father Paisi spread his credo by preaching his ideas in small villages and towns. His message carried weight with many Bulgarians, and his idealism promoted many to become politically active against their Turkish oppressors.

The Turks, during this period of growing Bulgarian nationalism, attempted to recoup their losses by effecting some moderate reforms.

Although most of these acts came too late, they did succeed in enacting administrative, social, and financial legislation that improved the lot of the Bulgarians. Native leaders were consulted by their Turkish overseers, and in one case a Bulgarian governor was appointed.

Provincial a.s.semblies began to meet on a regular basis, and by 1876 it was determined by the Turks that some degree of self-rule should be granted the Bulgarians.

The Turks were by this period in an inevitable decline. Although Turkish rule extended over parts of three continents, the Turks continued to expand their conquests. Military expenses became a staggering burden.

The Turkish economy was in an unfavorable position, and the Turks were beginning to lose battles to increasingly well trained European armies.

The original Spartan life-style of the sultans and army officers was becoming one of luxury and indulgence. All the signals for the fall of the Turks were in evidence.

As the movement toward national revolution grew up in the mid-nineteenth century in Bulgaria, an ideological schism separated the movement into two schools. The "moderates," led by a Bulgarian group in Constantinople, favored negotiations with the Turks. The "radicals" felt that such an approach would lead to inevitable failure. Although the radicals turned to the West--France, Great Britain, Italy, and Switzerland--for models of revolution and to Russia for practical a.s.sistance in freeing Bulgaria from the Turks, in fact they hoped to free the country from all foreign domination. Ironically, in light of Bulgaria's later history, one radical leader wrote, "If Russia comes to liberate, she will be met with great sympathy, but if she comes to rule, she will find many enemies."

The leaders of the radicals were Georgi Rakovsky and Vasil Levski.

Rakovsky continued for twenty-five years to organize armed detachments along the borders of neighboring countries. Levski, for his part, realized that a social revolution as well as a national revolution was imperative for the true liberation of the Bulgarian people. He worked sub rosa in Bulgarian villages and organized a network of committees for the revolution, known as the Internal Secret Revolutionary Organization.

In 1873 he was captured by the Turks and hanged.

By the early 1870s the seeds of revolution were sown as Bulgarians won some political victories over their conquerors. In 1870, primarily because of the activity of the Bulgarian priests, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was reestablished. Although the Bulgarian clergy was in large part responsible for this action, it was probably tolerated by the Turks because of their anger with the Greeks, who were then embroiled in a revolt in Crete. In 1872 the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee was formed in Bucharest; by 1875 this group became active in the uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, uprisings that were not easily quelled by the Turks.

As Bulgarian revolutionary sentiments grew, the Bulgarians turned to Russia to help win freedom from the Turks. Although the motives of the Russians and the Bulgarians were not identical, both wanted to rid the Balkans of Turkish oppression. The Russians perceived the Ottoman Empire as a very dangerous rival that they hoped to annihilate, thus gaining control of Western European trade. The Bulgarians, although their motives were also pragmatic, felt a deep sense of kinship with the Russian people. The Russians, like the Bulgarians, were Slavs. Their religion was identical. Even their language was similar. Thus, they sensed a commonality not only of interests but also of cultures.

The precursor to the liberation in 1878 was an unsuccessful uprising in 1876. The Bulgarians, at this point, were ill prepared for war, politically and strategically. Thousands of Bulgarians were killed in April of that year. Soon thereafter Turkish reprisals followed. Fifteen thousand Bulgarians were ma.s.sacred in Plovdiv alone. The savagery of these reprisals was so brutal that Western public leaders spoke out in protest. The governments of the West, however, fearing an increased Russian penetration in the area, refused to act against the Turks.

Although the revolution of 1876 had met with failure, it had succeeded in loosening the Turkish grip on the country and in increasing the feeling of the Russians that the time to attack was imminent. Finally, after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, the Russians invaded Bulgaria, liquidating the Turkish army by March 1878. In these battles for Bulgarian liberation, the Russians lost over 200,000 lives, a sacrifice the Bulgarians never failed to recognize.

The results of 1878 were mixed, and the outcome of the original peace treaty was reversed within five months of its signing. Bulgaria became an autonomous tributary of the Turkish sultan; complete independence was not established until 1908. The original peace treaty, the Treaty of San Stefano, signed on March 3, 1878, granted Bulgaria additional territories, including Thrace and the much-valued Macedonia. This treaty was reversed, primarily because of Western fear of Russian encroachment, by the Congress of Berlin; the Treaty of Berlin, signed on July 13, 1878, unlike the Treaty of San Stefano, delimited Bulgarian territories.

The Bulgarians were forced to give Thrace and Macedonia back to the Turks. Bulgaria itself was carved into two separate ent.i.ties: the princ.i.p.ality of Bulgaria, including northern Bulgaria and Sofia, and eastern Rumelia, or southern Bulgaria.

LIBERATION AND ITS AFTERMATH

Although the 1877-78 war freed Bulgaria from Turkish rule, the outcome of the Congress of Berlin once again denied to Bulgaria the land that it perceived to be rightfully Bulgarian, thus setting the tone for an irredentist foreign policy that lasted through World War II. Because the West, particularly Great Britain, played a significant role in carving up the Balkans, and Bulgaria in particular, in hopes of curbing Russian power, many historians speculate that Bulgaria's alliances with Germany in both World War I and World War II were products of irredentist sentiment that grew out of the Treaty of Berlin.

Bulgaria moved to recapture its lost territory only seven years after the Treaty of Berlin. In 1885 it annexed eastern Rumelia--or southern Bulgaria--by means of a military coup. The British were in favor of the annexation as it represented an obstacle to Russian ambitions in the Balkans; the Russians quite naturally were disturbed by the act. This was the first in a series of Bulgarian moves designed to reestablish earlier boundaries.