Ottoman Turks were stopped by the Serbian

However, at the dawn of the 15th century to the west and north, the Ottoman Turks were stopped by the Serbian princes and the Wallachian chieftains. To the east Constantinople, though surrounded on all sides, still bravely defended its independence until 1453. Through the efforts of Vladislav HI, the young King of Poland and Hungary, in 1444 Europe organized a coalition against the Ottoman aggression. After unsuccessful battles it was defeated. The resistance organised by the pope in 1457 under the form of an anti-Turkish Crusade and headed by George Castriota (1404-1468), more popular as Scanderbeg, barred the invaders’ inroads into Albania till 1468.

DuringOhe next five centuries the Bulgarians attempted on several occasions to throw off the Ottoman yoke. The movement of the haidouks (sort of Bulgarian partisans) acquired some activity in the 16th and 17lh century. In 1598 and in 1686 two uprisings broke out in the former capital of the Second Tours Bulgaria.

A typical sight from Turkish times: the village Kovachevitsa in the moun- Bulgarian Kingdom 1. Some tain Rhodopes.

Bulgarians took part in the wars of other countries against the Ottoman Empire. But it was not until the middle of the 18lh century that began the period known as the National Renaissance…

Ivan II Asen’s Bulgaria

A map of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom in its bloom during the first half of the 13th c.

Last night, shepherd, there passed three columns of chained slaves. In the first column, shepherd, were maidens in chains.

In the second column, shepherd, were young wives in chains.

In the third column, shepherd, were young men in chains.

Under Ottoman Domination: 1396-1878

Enslavement or a mere presence?

After the changes of ’89 two different opinions were shared among Bulgarian historians concerning the period from 1396 to 1878. Was it a yoke, an epoque of enslavement, or can we

just talk about a “Turkish presence” on the Balkans? Well, all that is left for us is to judge by the consequences…

Second Bulgarian Kingdom

At the end of the 14lh century the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, corroded by internal struggles and contradictions, fell under the blows of the Ottoman conquerors. Through bloody massacres and destruction was put to death a civilization which had reached its zenith almost half a century before. At least 600 thousand Bulgarians were slaughtered in the course of the invasion, a considerable part of the Balkan population was enslaved and nearly 1,5 million were compelled to leave the former state. Those who remained were excluded from areas of strategic importance and from the fertile plains, and withdrew to the mountains. Some of them became converted to Islam – the Pomaks – and almost achieved equality with the Ottomans. This was a demographic catastrophe which affected severely the further fate of the Bulgarian people Tours Bulgaria.

The subjugated population tasted the pungent spices of the “Turkish presence”, as the policy of the Supreme Porte was to change its identity through a forcible mass conversion to Islam. All Christians – scornfully called “rayah” – were subjected to serious forms of discrimination.

They were burdened with a heavy load of taxes and moreover compelled to pay a “blood tax” in the form of a levy of Bulgarian boys who, after being converted to the Moslem religion and receiving instruction in special Turkish schools, were recruited into the notorious corps of Janissaries. In fact, the feudal system imposed in the Bulgarian lands was by far more primitive than the one which the Turks found on the Peninsula. Being in the shadow of the Ottoman Empire Bulgaria was torn off from the European culture and finest mosque in Bulgaria: the Tombul Djamiya in the setting in Renaissance… Shumen built by Sherif Pasha in 1745.

The struggle again the Ottoman Turks

As a young and aggressive power the Ottoman Empire expanded in Asia Minor and soon sought to conquer new lands in the Balkans and in Europe. The first settlement of the Turks on the Balkans dates back to 1352. In 1364 the army of Sultan Murad already penetrated deep in Thrace and seized Plovdiv and Stara Zagora. Meanwhile, the Hungarians launched a powerful offensive from the North-West and the Vi din kingdom fell in their hands. The Turks had planned their march in three strategic directions: along the coast of the Aegean Sea towards Macedonia; along the diagonal of the Balkan Peninsula, heading for Central Europe; towards Dobrudja and the lands beyond the Danube. In 1369 they were already in Adrianople, which became their capital city. In 1371 Tours Bulgaria, after the death of King Ivan Alexander, the united armies of the two Macedonian rulers were defeated. Now the path to the north-west, cutting through the Bulgarian lands, was already open…

Gradually the Turks seized Northern Thrace and the Rhodopes region. Then they penetrated into the North-Eastern Bulgaria, crossing the Balkan Range, and now the Ottoman menace was already imminent for Wallachia and Moldavia. Becoming aware of the danger, the Serbian King Lazar built a Christian coalition, w hich was joined, on the Bulgarian side, only by King Ivan Shishman and Ivanko, the new ruler of Dobrudja. In 1387 the Turks suffered their first, yet sole, defeat. But the battle of Kosovo Pole in the summer of 1389 was of key significance for the fortunes of the Balkan states: they collapsed one after another under the pressure of the Turks…

In 1393 the Turkish military commander Chelebi laid a three-month siege of Tumovo. Finally the city surrendered. The Turks had decided to wipe out the whole population and Patriarch Evtimiy hardly managed to persuade them that for the purpose of imposing their authority it would be sufficient to kill only 111 representatives of the nobility…

Urged on by Austro Hungary

Urged on by Austro-Hungary, King Milan of Serbia declared war on Bulgaria, on the pretext that the political equilibrium of the Balkan Peninsula had been upset. The authorities in Athens also feared that it would be easier for Bulgaria, in its extended and powerful version, to have its claims on Macedonia – contested by all three states – honored. In November 1885 the Serbian troops violated the Bulgarian western border. But a quick and unexpected turn in the war followed and provided King Milan with a total defeat. As the Bulgarian forces put to flight the Serbian army and headed north-west on Serbian territory Vienna sent its message: either the Bulgarians should stop and go back or they would be at war with Austro-Hungary as well. So in February 1886 the Treaty of Bucharest recognized the unification of the two Bulgarian states.

But Emperor Alexander III refused to support the Unification. To Battenberg he was the worst enemy of Bulgaria. Those who shared the Prince’s sentiments – and came to be known as “Russophobes”- advised that the Bulgarian foreign policy should be orientated towards the Western states. The others, unconditional friends of the liberator Russia, with whom Bulgaria had a common religion Tours Bulgaria, formed the powerful and multitudinous trend of the “Russophiles”.

Strong political tension

The struggle between the two extreme trends quickly created a strong political tension. In the night of August 8lh and in the small hours of August 9lh 1886 a group of pro-Russian officers staged another coup d’etat, dethroned the Prince and sent him to Russia under escort. The reaction of the Russian emperor was swift and in a few days Alexander I was back on the throne but at the end of August he was compelled to abdicate. A three-member Council of Regents was elected, and Stambolov, as the leading figure, did his best so that the Grand National Assembly to reject the new Russian candidate for the Bulgarian throne, Prince Mingreli of Georgia. That put an end to the Russian influence and soon a Bulgarian delegation set off for the European capital cities in search of a new Prince…

Urged on by Austro Hungary

Urged on by Austro-Hungary, King Milan of Serbia declared war on Bulgaria, on the pretext that the political equilibrium of the Balkan Peninsula had been upset. The authorities in Athens also feared that it would be easier for Bulgaria, in its extended and powerful version, to have its claims on Macedonia – contested by all three states – honored. In November 1885 the Serbian troops violated the Bulgarian western border. But a quick and unexpected turn in the war followed and provided King Milan with a total defeat. As the Bulgarian forces put to flight the Serbian army and headed north-west on Serbian territory Vienna sent its message: either the Bulgarians should stop and go back or they would be at war with Austro-Hungary as well. So in February 1886 the Treaty of Bucharest recognized the unification of the two Bulgarian states.

But Emperor Alexander III refused to support the Unification. To Battenberg he was the worst enemy of Bulgaria. Those who shared the Prince’s sentiments – and came to be known as “Russophobes”- advised that the Bulgarian foreign policy should be orientated towards the Western states. The others, unconditional friends of the liberator Russia, with whom Bulgaria had a common religion Tours Bulgaria, formed the powerful and multitudinous trend of the “Russophiles”.

Strong political tension

The struggle between the two extreme trends quickly created a strong political tension. In the night of August 8lh and in the small hours of August 9lh 1886 a group of pro-Russian officers staged another coup d’etat, dethroned the Prince and sent him to Russia under escort. The reaction of the Russian emperor was swift and in a few days Alexander I was back on the throne but at the end of August he was compelled to abdicate. A three-member Council of Regents was elected, and Stambolov, as the leading figure, did his best so that the Grand National Assembly to reject the new Russian candidate for the Bulgarian throne, Prince Mingreli of Georgia. That put an end to the Russian influence and soon a Bulgarian delegation set off for the European capital cities in search of a new Prince…

After Ivailo was dethroned

The decline

After Ivailo was dethroned and met his death the boyars put on the throne Georgi Terter (1280— 1293) – the first of the Terterid dynasty which ruled until 1323. Those were decades of territorial fragmentation and hegemony of Tatar agents in the government of the state. The Byzantine Empire gradually grew weaker and became economically dependent on the Italian republics Venice and Genoa.

Meanwhile, Serbia marked the highest point in its medieval development and under the reign of Stefan Doushan many Bulgarian and Byzantine lands fell in its confines. Of all Terterids only Todor Svetoslav (1300-1321) was able for a time to put an end to the intestine struggles and achieve a settlement with the Tatar Khans. But the splitting among the boyars, in one hand, and among the Balkan peoples, in another, continued…

Dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom

The third dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom, the Shishmanids, ruled from 1323 to 1393. Its founder, King Michail Shishman (1323- 1330), waged wars against Serbia and Byzantium with the aim to recover Macedonia and Thrace – but lost the battle of Velbuzhd against the Serbs in 1330 and died of his wounds. The next year Ivan Alexander (1331-1371) came to the throne and succeeded to achieve a relative stability both of the state and of its foreign relations Tours Bulgaria. Nevertheless, the processes of feudal separation were irreversible and different independent estates gradually took shape in the region of Dobmdja under the rule of the brothers Balik, Todor and Dobrotitsa, in the Rhodopes and the Aegean, in Macedonia…

In 1355 king Ivan Alexander chose the Vidin region as his kingdom and entrusted its government to his first son, Ivan Sratsimir. The Turnovo region was given the same statute and was entrusted to the second son, Ivan Shishman (1371-1396). During the Shishmanid dynasty Bulgaria saw a renewal of the splendid traditions of Byzantine culture, and literature, painting and sculpture flourished. But, already dismembered, the kingdom could not long withstand the rising Ottoman Empire…

The peasant King

Along with the religious movements the second half of the 13,h century saw the progressive weakening of the Bulgarian Kingdom, tom by the continual conflicts between the boyars. Ground down by taxation, the peasants also rebelled. An additional aggravating circumstance was the incursions of the Tatars from the “Golden Horde”…

In this situation broke out the uprising, led by the swineherd Ivailo. He gathered a small peasant detachment somewhere in Dobrudja, and, addressing his soldiers, Ivailo maintained that by the divine providence he had to save the state… In 1277 the rural commander routed the troops of the last Assenid, King Constantine Assen Tich, then slayed him and headed for the capital. In Turnovo waited the boyars and Queen Maria – who was willing to retain the throne for her son. Of course, the Byzantine Emperor had to intervene in the internal politieal life of Bulgaria, since he did not want any peasant indignation to penetrate the Empire as well. For which he concentrated a big army in Eastern Thrace.

When the peasant leader was forced to fight at two fronts – that of the Tumovo boyars and that of the Byzantines Tours Bulgaria – he had to compromise: in 1278 he married the Queen. Now the gates of the capital city were opened before him and Ivailo (1277-1280) was crowned as “the good King”…

Balkan Range passes

As part of Ivailo’s army had to defend the Balkan Range passes from the Byzantine troops and the “peasant king” himself had to head north to drive back the Tatar hordes, which had again penetrated into Bulgaria, the Queen and the boyars let in Tumovo the Byzantines. Unable to seize the capital city again the peasant leader was compelled to watch how his army slowly thinned down and sought help from the Tatars but their chief ordered his assassination. However, Ivailo’s uprising might be compared to that of Wat Tyler (1381) in England, who was cheated by Richard II, or to the Jacquerie (1385) in France, crashed by Charles II of Navarre.

Byzantine army near Klokotnitsa

In March 1230 the Bulgarians gained a brilliant victory over the Byzantine army near Klokotnitsa after which got hold of Macedonia, Albania, the Rhodopes and the Aegean. Once again Bulgaria stretched its borders to the shores of three seas…

Dynasty of the Assenids

The indisputable Bulgarian hegemony of South-Eastern Europe made the Pope in Rome get concerned with the future of the Latin Empire. His emissaries instigated the Hungarians to attack Bulgaria from the north but soon this new threat was eliminated by the Bulgarian sword. The consid-erable territorial expansion of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom was followed by peaceful years that led to economic growth. For the first time the Bulgarian king Ivan II Assen initiated the minting of coins…

The Bogomils and other religious movements in Medieval Bulgaria Undoubtedly, the dynasty of the Assenids (1186-1280) prompted the power and the prestige of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom in the European Medieval world. But, of course, its history also knew periods of social and political crises. The incessant growth of private property and the deeper stratifi-cation of the population in the rural commune contributed to the sharpening of the relations between the ranks of the people and the upper strata of the Bulgarian society Tours Bulgaria. In such periods emerged and developed certain social and religious movements. The Bogomil movement distinguished not only by the dualistic religious beliefs – a conception of the two principles: good and evil – but also by political nationalism and resentment of Byzantine culture. Observing the mismatch between words and deeds of the clergy, people started gradually losing faith in the Christian religion. The Bogomils renounced the official church, its symbols and rites, as well as the need for its ministers. They preached rejection of luxury, riches and bodily pleasures; repudiated marriage; renounced violence, war and cruelty.

Bogomil movement

Between the 9th and the 12th century the Bogomil movement penetrated into Byzantium, Serbia, Wallachia, Kievan Russia, and in the centuries that followed it spread to Italy and France. In the Western world the followers of the Bogomil teaching were called Cathars and Albigenses. Later, in the 14th cen-tury also appeared the teaching of the Adamites who claimed that social inequality was not of a divine origin, so they called on people not to wear clothes: like Adam, the first man in Eden. Again in the 14th century under the influence of Byzantium among the Bulgarian monks penetrated Hesychasm [from the Greek hesychazo, e. g. “being silent”] – an ascetic and meditative teaching. Also from Byzantium came the philosophical and religious doctrine of Varlaam and Akindin called Varlaamism which contained many rational elements combined with criticism of the sumptuous and costly church rituals. And, on the eve of Bulgaria’s fall under Turkish subjugation, the heresy of the Jews was quite widespread as well.

King Ivan II Assen

During a siege of Thessaloniki the third brother also fell victim to another boyar plot: in the autumn of 1207 he was killed in his tent. One of the plotters – and nephew to Kaloyan – King Boril (1207-1218) ascended to the throne. A political crisis broke up. As the usurper Boril initiated a persecution of all Kaloyan’s relatives his two nephews, sons of the old king Assen, Ivan Assen and Alexander, lied to Russia. For some time, however, the conflicts along the borders of the country were suspended due to the treaties with the Lati n Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom but the resentment within sharpened Tours Bulgaria.

A factor that additionally jeopardized the crown became the movement of the Bogomils. So in 1211 Boril held the Council of Tumovo which condemned the new heresy. Uprisings broke up. Taking advantage of the confusion and assisted by a Russian military unit Ivan Assen II laid a continuous siege to the capital Tumovo, dethroned Boril and blinded him. Thus the successor of the Dynasty of the Assenids. King Ivan II Assen (1218-1241) came to the throne.

Ivan II Assen inaugurated a period of prosperity during which Bulgaria regained the frontiers it had achieved under Tsar Simeon the Great.

Diplomacy consolidated

An economic and cultural upsurge marked his rule. The new king’s diplomacy consolidated the state and strengthened the relations with the Latin Empire and Hungary. A peace treaty was signed with the ruler of the Epirus region Theodore Comnenus.

Ivan II Assen even engaged his daughter Elena to the Byzantine Emperor Baldwin II, still under age by the time.

But Theodore Comnenus violated the peace treaty and led a large army north- The Church of the Virgin of Petrich in Ivan II Assens Fortress.

Bulgarians initiated several military actions

After the Bulgarians initiated several military actions against the Byzantine garrisons in Moesia and to the north of the Danube once again the Byzantine Emperor led a large army to the north of the Balkan Mountains. But the Bulgarian rulers used the knights of the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who participated in the Third Crusade, to regain new Bulgarian territories from the Empire. Meanwhile Petar ceded the throne to his brother Assen (1190-1196), realizing that he was a better statesman and military commander Visit Bulgaria. In the following years the new Bulgarian kingdom added many Balkan regions to its territory. Finally King Assen I was assassinated by his cousin Ivanko who headed a conspiracy of boyars faithful to Constantinople, so Petar ascended the throne to rule for one more year, but he also became a victim of the treacherous plot…

On the throne came the third brother, Kaloyan (1197-1207), and showed himself as a wise statesman, a remarkable commander and skilled diplomat. The borders of Bulgaria already stretched far to the west. In 1202 the Byzantine Emperor and Kaloyan concluded a peace treaty – which actually verified the territorial acquisitions of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom – and the Tsar was pronounced as “Emperor of Bulgaria and Wallachia”. In 1204 the Crusaders captured Constantinople. The Byzantines rebelled against Baldwin I of Flanders, imposed on them as the first Emperor of the East.

They called Kaloyan to help them. Baldwin 1 laid claim to the former Byzantine territories which had fallen into Kaloyan’s hands, his Latin troops raided Thrace and seized a number of Bulgarian fortresses. After a quick preparation the decisive battle took place on 14lh April 1205 near the town of Adrianople. The Latins were defeated, their Emperor was taken prisoner to the fortress of Tumovo and executed after some time in what later became known as the Baldwin’s Tower. Now Kaloyan became the real master of the Balkans and, like Basil II who called himself “Killer of Bulgarians”, Kaloyan called himself “Killer of Byzantines”. Two years later another Latin army led by Boniface of Montferrat was routed and its leader died in action. Simeon’s dream of conquering the entire Byzantine Empire and of a triumphant Bulgarian parade in Constantinople was revived once again…