Bulgaria has a long and rich history. The Thracians were the first people to settle the land, and archeologists today are still discovering traces of that ancient civilization. The first Bulgarian state was formed in AD 681, uniting the Bulgars with the local Slavic people. The Bulgarian Empire rivaled the Byzantines for control of the Balkan region during the 9th and 10th centuries. Christianity was adopted as Bulgaria's state religion in 864. In the late 9th century, two Bulgarian brothers, Cyril and Methodius, created what is now known as the Cyrillic alphabet. The Byzantine Empire overtook the Bulgarian state by the early 11 th century. In 1185, the second Bulgarian Empire was formed and remained in power until the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the late 14th century. Following a Russian victory in a war with the Ottoman Empire, part of Bulgaria was declared as an autonomous principality in 1878. A year later, Bulgaria adopted a democratic constitution, with a prince as head of state. Bulgaria became a fully independent nation in 1908.
In the early 20th century, Bulgaria became involved in the Balkan Wars, aligning with Greece and Serbia to win freedom for Thrace and Macedonia. Bulgaria later entered into World War I as a German ally. Bulgaria's great losses in the war lead to political and economic instability. Bulgaria had yet to recover from previous losses before entering World War II, allied with the Axis Powers. However, Bulgaria remarkably managed to protect its Jewish population of about 50,000 from the Holocaust by refusing to deport the country's Jewish citizens to concentration camps.
In the aftermath of World War II, Bulgaria was placed under Soviet control. Bulgaria's royal family was exiled, ending the Bulgarian monarchy, and the country was declared a people's republic in 1946. When Allied military forces withdrew from Bulgaria the next year, communism took control of the state. Under the influence of the communist party, opposition leaders were jailed, the economy was controlled by the government, and Bulgaria remained a strong ally of the Soviet Union. By the late 1980s opposition to the communist rule was growing. After a transition period, Bulgaria adopted a new constitution and held its first democratic Parliamentary elections in 1991. Bulgaria suffered inflation and economic instability during the mid 1990s, but since then has achieved economic and political stabilization. In 2004, Bulgaria joined NATO, and is currently in talks to join the European Union in 2007.
Bulgaria's head of state is President Georgi Parvanov, and Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev chairs the executive branch of government. Bulgaria has strong diplomatic ties to the United States, and stands out as a stable nation in an unstable region.
To learn more about Bulgarian History, explore the following sites:
About Bulgaria : Information from the government of Bulgaria.
Bulgarian History & Culture : From the Official Tourism Site
History of Bulgaria : From Bulgaria.com
