There were quite a few great feudal lords who looked at the crown with envy and who thought their rights over it were no less than those of the brothers. The two elder brothers were murdered by plotting boyars. The throne was taken by Kaloyan, who dealt with any resistance mercilessly. He was also helped by chance.

The reconstructed head of Tsar Kaloyan
In the fall of 1972 a medieval burial of an aristocrat was discovered during excavations in Veliko Tarnovo. One could not but be impressed by the enormous height of the man - nearly two metres - something quite unusual for that age. There was a heavy gold ring inscribed Ring of Kaloyan on his hand. The deceased was dressed in robes of purple, the colour of royalty in the middle ages, embroidered with pearls. The head was covered with a cap also decorated with gold, and there were red boots on his feet. The age of the deceased was presumed to be between 35 and 40.

Continue reading The Rise of Bulgaria from the middle of the 12th century part II

The situation was aggravated additionally around the middle of the 12th century. On several occasions Byzantium was badly shaken by attacks from the east and from the west. The march of the Normans from South Italy, who were trying to establish a foothold on the Peninsula and who left a broad belt of plunder in their wake, was catastrophic for the southewestern Bulgarian territories.

As if that was not enough, the incumbent Emperor Isaac II Angelos decided to marry, and as if to ensure the joyous participation of the populace in his matrimonial plans he could not think of anything better but to impose an additional tax. He might have got away with these plans if they had not coincided with a small incident. Two Bulgarian boyars, Peter and Assen, who held the small but strategically important fort of Tarnovo in northern Bulgaria, and were probably a distant offshoot of the ruling dynasty in Preslav, visited the emperor to request additional landholdings. He sent them away with ridicule and even “regally” ordered them beaten up a bit. It turned out that his visitors were not the type to forgive easily and they raised the banner of revolt over their fort in 1185.

Continue reading The Rise of Bulgaria from the middle of the 12th century part I

Any neighbour of the dazzling empire found its wealth an attraction difficult to resist. King Simeon was no exception. Around the end of the 9th century he engaged in endless wars with Byzantium. He was led by the misguided ambition not only to annex the maximum of Byzantine territory but also, if possible, to sit on the throne of the emperors in Constantinople. The Bulgarian ruler’s military and diplomatic genius could not be doubted. They allowed him to turn the power of his extensive realm into a fist of iron and to make the very existence of the empire questionable on several occasions. From the walls of the imperial city the officials of Byzantium could repeatedly enjoy the picture of nimble Bulgarian companies engaged in plunder. Simeon was also helped by the international situation. The Arabs persistently attacked from the east, compelling the empire to fight on two fronts. Cornered as they were, the Byzantines were forced to make an extreme sacrifice: Simeon was recognised as Tsar, i.e. almost equal to the emperor, the head of the Bulgarian Church - as Patriarch, while Byzantium committed itself to pay the Bulgarians annual due. In those days that was equal to being declared a Great Power. (Some historians, by the way, question the official character of this recognition and insist that it was his son Peter who became Tsar.)

Tsar Simeon in battle with the Byzantines - 14th century miniature.
Continue reading The Rise of the First Bulgarian Kingdom part IV

The elder brother, Methodius, returned to Great Moravia only to encounter the growing hostility of the German clergy. He and his disciples were vilified, persecuted, and imprisoned. After his death some of the disciples were sold as slaves in Italian markets. Others, who were luckier, sailed down the Danube and found refuge in one of the Bulgarian ports on the river. From there they went to the capital Pliska, where Prince Boris welcomed them as dear guests and created all the necessary conditions for their work. Schools for future priests and administrators were opened, establishments that were to give their disciples the invaluable advantage of being able to read and write in their mother tongue. In this case the language was based on the Slavonic, albeit with many borrowings from the Bulgarian. The state, however, was vast and one literary centre did not suffice. That was why one of Cyril’s most able disciples, Clement, was consecrated bishop of Koutmichevitsa, a region in present-daySouthwest Macedonia with Ochrid as a centre. This was where the second literary centre was established in which more than 3,500 students were trained over a period of twenty years.

Continue reading The Rise of the First Bulgarian Kingdom part III

As it turned out, Byzantium had little reason to rejoice. In the next few decades the Bulgarians conquered a large part of the empire’s Balkan territories step by step and by engaging in open warfare. By the middle of the 9th century Bulgaria already included all of Macedonia, most of the territories of present-day Albania, and had gained a firm foothold on the Adriatic coast. Slavs of the Bulgarian language group inhabited most of these territories. The state had become one of the largest in Europe. Bulgaria’s sovereign Tsar Boris I (852 - 889) was full of self-esteem but suffered from the fact that Byzantium did not regard him as an equal. The empire saw his state as an unstable barbarian alliance. At that, being heathen, it did not meet one of the fundamental requirements to be accepted in the family of peoples headed by the basileus.

The fact that there were two basic religions in the country was also an obstacle in the way of Bulgarians and Slavs blending into one.
Continue reading The Rise of the First Bulgarian Kingdom part II

The victory of the Bulgarians over the Avars also marked the triumph of the ideas of sobriety. According to the chronicles, Krum, filled with apprehension, asked the defeated what they thought was the reason for their downfall. Their answer was that their state had declined because of lies, theft, and drunkenness. Krum introduced severe laws in order to avoid this very end. Legislation provided terrible punishment for criminals, and vineyards were uprooted so their fruit could not be made into enticing juice. judging by subsequent information, as with later reformations of this type, the restrictions were met only with the insatiable thirst for wine and fell through soon after.While the emperor inspected his farthest eastern borders, Krum took the chance, invaded the empire, and took the city of Serdica in 809. Centuries later it was to become the capital of the state under the name of Sofia. The conquest was accompanied with the then customary plunder and atrocities, which did not surprise anyone. The valley of the river Strouma also became part of the Bulgarian state.
Continue reading The Rise of the First Bulgarian Kingdom part I