The Origins of Bulgaria: Myths and Facts
What follows is a tale of two, well, tales. More specifically, two tales of the origin of the Bulgarian state.
One tale says that Bulgaria is 1331 years old (having been founded in 681), speaks of an age-old alliance between the prosperous Slavic tribes on the Balkans and a refugee band of Bulgars pushed out of Crimea by overwhelmingly strong adversaries, and is prominent in every history book, in every cocktail party summary of Bulgarian history, in every Bulgaria-themed blog.
The other, well, makes a little bit more sense. Stick with me through 3400 words and I will show you some fascinating examples of manipulation of historical facts, as well as a different logical account of the foundation of the Bulgarian state.
The Myth of the Creation of Bulgaria
According to our first tale, the Bulgars (or Proto-Bulgarians) were thunder-worshipping Turkic nomads, short, dark and bow-legged, who spent their lives on horseback wandering the steppes of Central Asia with their cattle, living in yurts, pillaging their neighbours and never settling down permanently. Despite their primitive craftsmanship and engineering skills, they were described as “more numerous than the grains of sand on the beach” and as fierce warriors, defeating at various times the professional armies of several kingdoms, including the Byzantine empire. Each Bulgar soldier was equipped with scale mail for himself and his horse, composite bow, sword, spear, shield, etc.
In 632 AD, the Bulgar khan (ruler) Kubrat, who had been educated in Constantinople for a time, learned statecraft from the Byzantines, seceded from the Western Turkic Khaganate and established a state on the north shores of the Black Sea with capital Phanagoria. The Bulgars settled down for about 30 years in what historians have called (Old) Great Bulgaria.
However, immediately upon his death in 665, Old Great Bulgaria was destroyed under the blows of the Khazars, and four of the five brothers fled with their own tribes, heading in various directions. His oldest, Batbayan, remained behind. Asparukh, the third among them, with a band of 10 – 20 000 Bulgar refugees (according to a chronicler who lived 5 centuries later), came eventually to the Danube in 680, crossed with a small group of faithful warriors into the fertile plains of Moesia, and declared that that would be the site of Bulgaria forevermore. His band of Bulgars, with cattle, women and children, crossed the Danube then, establishing a wooden outpost at Ongal, where thy defeated the army and navy of Byzantine emperor Constantine IV. Then, united with the seven Slavonic tribes of Moesia, khan Asparukh invaded Thrace, forcing the emperor to sign a peace treaty, officially recognizing the Bulgarian state in 681 and agreeing to pay him tribute.
The 10 – 20 000 original Bulgars formed a permanent alliance with the Slavonic tribes, who recognized Asparukh’s line as rightful rulers and the Bulgars learned from the more advanced Slavs how to live in one place. They quickly interbred with the far more numerous Slavs and the Turkic language of the Bulgars, as well as the Bulgars themselves, were assimilated into what would become a Slavic empire and tongue.
There are a few things that do not recommend the Bulgars in this story, like the fact that the five sons of Kubrat immediately ignored their father’s dying edict and scattered in the four directions of the world, and that the seed of Bulgarian statehood was in a dirty band of wandering leather-clad nomads who stumbled into a fertile land only to be assimilated by the more numerous native inhabitants there.
But we won’t worry about how good the Bulgars look in the story. That’s no reason to twist historical truth, and every people has been a villain more than once. There are, however, a few gaping continuity holes in the tale, as Bulgarian historian Bozhidar Dimitrov has pointed out in his book “12 Myths in Bulgarian History”. Here they are, briefly:
- How does a nomadic, wandering, primitive tribe have the resources (in sheer quantities of steel) to arm itself enough to be the scourge of the century, sowing fear into the hearts of every army that has ever encountered it, including that of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire?
- How slow must Asparukh’s tribe have been in order to have fled the Dnieper basin in 665 and to only arrive at the mouth of the Danube in 680? The distance between the two rivers is some 250 km, giving the nomadic band of refugees an average speed of 40 metres per day – a fifth of the speed of a tortoise.
- How did Asparukh envision establishing a state in Moesia, which had for centuries been a well-defended part of the powerful Byzantine empire if he had at most 20 000 at his disposal?
- How is it possible for a refugee band of 20 000 (which could send forth 6000 warriors at most) to present such a threat to the Byzantine emperor that he would march against them himself, abandoning Constantinople to the real danger of Arabs, Persians, Franks and Seljuks, at the head of 50 000 men?
- Why did Constantine IV include his (extremely expensive and vulnerable to storms) royal fleet in the campaign against the Bulgars if they were only 20 000 people? The Byzantine fleet was typically only used when the heart of the empire was in grave danger. It has only been deployed against Bulgaria four times: against Asparukh, against his son Tervel in 705, in the time of Constantine V in 776 and against Simeon of Bulgaria (during the Golden Age of the Bulgarian Empire) in 917.
- If by some miracle the Bulgaro-Slavonic alliance managed to defeat Constantine’s army once and to settle South of the Danube, why did Constantine not redouble his efforts to expel them the following year? The Danube was considered a vital line of defence (a limes) for the Byzantine empire, and it had been regained at considerable effort and expense every time it had been lost previously.
- From whom did the roving Bulgars learn engineering and construction in order to build their first capital, Pliska, in the Moesian plains? Pliska was a huge city, built of rectangular stone blocks, distinct both from the Byzantine style of construction (which used bricks and mortar) and of the Slavonic style (which was confined to dugouts and wooden huts)?
- Why did the Slavonic tribes accept the Bulgars as their rulers if they outnumbered them so much and could have easily slaughtered them to the last man?
Dimitrov posits a different tale, which seems somewhat more plausible. The quest for historical truth is hard, especially when so few written records remain of the time, so I will separate well-sourced facts in bold. Everything else may be open to interpretation and conjecture.
The First Bulgarian Empire
Because of this treaty, Tervel came to the aid of Byzantium during the Arab siege of the town in 717, crucial to averting the fall of Constantinople. Tervel’s attack surprised the Arab forces, and many of them were slaughtered (some count 100,000). After Tervel’s death the remainder of the eighth century was a time of internal strife, until the rule of Khan Kardam (777–802).
Kardam inflicted a number of severe defeats on the Byzantine army and in 796 forced Constantinople to renew its annual tribute to Bulgaria. It was Kardam’s successor Khan Krum (803–814) who achieved one of the greatest expanses of the First Bulgarian Empire.
Krum is believed to have spent his youth establishing his authority over large swaths of modern-day Hungary and Transylvania. When he became khan, Krum added these territories to Bulgaria. Thus his realm stretched from Thrace to the northern Carpathians and from the lower Sava River to the Dniester, and bordered the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne along the river Tisza. Krum’s expansionist policy brought him into conflict with Byzantium.
In 809 he sacked the newly fortified town of Serdica (present-day Sofia) and surged into the territory of Macedonia. The imperial army destroyed the Bulgarian capital at Pliska. Krum, however, besieged the Byzantine troops in a mountain pass, where most of them were massacred. Emperor Nikephoros I lost his life, and Krum ordered that Nikephoros’s skull be encrusted in silver and used it as a drinking cup.
After his military success Krum unleashed a total war against Byzantium, laying waste to most of its territory outside the protected walls of Constantinople. He died unexpectedly in 814 in the midst of preparations for an attack on the metropolis.
The emphasis on Krum’s military prowess often neglects his prescience as state-builder. He was the first Bulgarian ruler that began centralizing his empire by providing a common administrative and legal framework. His son Khan Omurtag (r. 814–831) followed his father in further consolidating the state. Omurtag’s main achievement was to improve the legal system developed by Krum. He was also an avid builder of fortresses.
However, the Bulgars and especially their boyars (the aristocracy) remained zealously pagan. Krum and, in particular, Omurtag became notorious for their persecution of Christians. A new era in the history of the First Bulgarian Empire was inaugurated with the accession of Khan Boris (r. 852–888).
Boris confronted the social tensions within his state as a result of the distinct religious beliefs of the population. In 864 he accepted Christianity for himself and his country. With this act, Boris increased the cohesion of his people. Internationally he also ensured the recognition of his empire, as all the powers of the day were Christian.
In 888 Boris abdicated and retired to a monastery. The throne passed to his eldest son, Vladimir (r. 889–893), who immediately abandoned Christianity and reverted to paganism, forcing Boris to come out of his retirement in 893. He removed and blinded Vladimir and installed his second son, Simeon, to the throne.
The reign of Simeon the Great (893–927) is known as a golden age. Simeon extended the boundaries of the Bulgarian Empire west to the Adriatic, south to the Aegean, and northwest to incorporate most of present-day Serbia and Montenegro.
He besieged Constantinople twice, and Byzantium had to recognize him as basileus (czar, or emperor); the only other ruler to whom Constantinople extended such recognition was the Holy Roman Emperor. In order to indicate the break with the pagan past, Simeon moved the Bulgarian capital from Pliska to nearby Preslav. In Preslav, Bulgarian art and literature flourished with unprecedented brilliance.
Despite these exceptional developments, Simeon’s reign was followed by a period of political and social decay. His son Petar (927–970) was involved in almost constant warfare; the nobility was engaged in factionalist strife, and the church fell to corruption. The general corrosion of the state was reflected by the spread of heresies among the Bulgarians.
By the end of the 10th century the Bulgarian Empire was in rapid decline. In 971 the capital, Preslav, and much of eastern Bulgaria was conquered by Byzantium. Under the leadership of Czar Samuil (997–1014), Bulgaria had a momentary resurgence, with the capital moving to Ohrid. Under Samuil the country expanded into present-day Albania, Montenegro, and parts of Thrace.
However, in 1014 Emperor Basil II “Bulgaroktonus” (the Bulgarian-slayer) captured 15,000 Bulgarian troops and blinded 99 out of every 100; the remainder were left with one eye to guide their comrades back to their czar. When Samuil saw his blinded soldiers he immediately died. By 1018 the last remnants of Bulgarian resistance were quashed and the First Bulgarian Empire came to an end.
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