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History of Bulgaria
Odrysian kingdom 460 BC – 46 AD Roman times 46–681 Dark Ages c. 6th–7th cent. Old Great Bulgaria 7th cent., 632–668 First Bulgarian Empire 681–1018 Christianization Golden Age 896–927 Cometopuli dynasty 968–1018 Byzantine Bulgaria 1018–1185 Second Bulgarian Empire 1185–1396 Second Golden Age 1230–1241 Mongol invasion 1274–1300 Darman and Kudelin 1273–1291 Recovery and expansion 1300–1371 Fragmentation and fall 1371–1396 Vidin Dobruja Lovech Ottoman Bulgaria 1396–1878 Resistance after 1413 National Revival 1762–1878 Early Late Establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate 1870 April Uprising 1876 Liberation War 1877–1878 Third Bulgarian State 1878–present Serbo-Bulgarian War 1885 Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising 1903 Balkan Wars 1912–1913 World War I 1915–1918 World War II 1941–1945 Communist era 1946–1990 Transition era since 1990
List of monarchs Military history Struggle for Macedonia 1893–1944
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During the time of the late Roman Empire, the lands of medieval Bulgaria had been organised in several provinces - Scythia (Scythia Minor), Moesia (Upper and Lower), Thrace, Macedonia (First and Second), Dacia (Coastal and Inner, both situated south of Danube), Dardania, Rhodope and Hemimont, and had a mixed population of Thracians, Greeks and Dacians, most of whom spoke either Greek or a Latin-derived language known as Romance. It had been overrun by the Slavs after the final decades of 6th century. In 681, the Bulgars founded a khanate on the Danube after defeating an army of the Byzantine Empire under Emperor Constantine IV in a battle south of the Danube's delta. Following their defeat, an agreement was made between the Bulgar ruler Asparukh and the Byzantine Emperor, giving the Bulgars the territory between the Carpathians and the Balkans range and yearly tribute from the Byzantine.

Under the warrior Khan Krum (802-814), also known as Crummus and Keanus Magnus, Bulgaria expanded northwest and southwards, occupying the lands between middle Danube and Moldova, the whole territory of present-day Romania, Sofia in 809 and Adrianople (modern Edirne) in 813, and threatening Constantinople itself. According to some late sources khan Krum implemented law reform intending to reduce the poverty and to strengthen the social ties in his vastly enlarged state. During the reign of Khan Omurtag (814-831), the northwestern boundaries with the Frankish Empire were firmly settled along the middle Danube and magnificent palace, pagan temples, ruler’s residence, fortress, citadel, water-main and bath were built in Bulgarian capital Pliska, mainly of stone and brick. Under Boris I the Bulgarians became Christians, and the Ecumenical Patriarch agreed to allow an autonomous Bulgarian Archbishop at Pliska.

The Bulgars were greatly outnumbered by the Slav population among whom they had settled. Between the 7th and the 10th centuries, the Bulgars were gradually absorbed by the Slavs, adopting a South Slav language and converting to Christianity (of the Byzantine rite) under Boris I in 864. By 1000, the mixture of Bulgars, Slavs and, according to some researchers, elements of the old Thracian population had melted together to form a new people, the Bulgarians. They were classified as a Southern Slavic people related to the Serbs, rather than as a Turanian one. With the adoption of christianity the title khan changed to kniaz (Slavonic for prince). Later on Simeon I (the son of Boris) adopted the title Czar of Bulgaria, and ruler of the Bulgarian Empire (called by some historians the West Bulgarian Empire to distinguish it from the lands of the Turanian Bulgars who still lived in the Volga valley).

Missionaries from Constantinople, Cyril and Methodius, devised the Glagolitic alphabet, which was adopted in the Bulgarian Empire around 886. The alphabet and the Old Bulgarian language gave rise to a rich literary and cultural activity centered around the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools, established by order of Boris I in 886. In the beginning of 10th century AD, a new alphabet - the Cyrillic alphabet - was developed on the basis of Greek and Glagolitic cursive at the Preslav Literary School. According to an alternative theory, the alphabet was devised at the Ohrid Literary School by Saint Climent of Ohrid, a Bulgarian scholar and disciple of Cyril and Methodius. A pious monk and hermit St Ivan of Rila (Ivan Rilski, 876-946), became the patron saint of Bulgaria. After 893 Preslav became truly new and in many aspects authentic Bulgarian capital.

By the late 9th and the begining of the 10th century Bulgaria extended to Epirus and Thessally in the south, Bosnia in the west and controlled the whole of present-day Romania and eastern Hungary to the north. A Serbian state came into existence as a dependency of the Bulgarian Empire. Under Czar Simeon I (Simeon the Great), who was educated in Constantinople, Bulgaria became again a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire. Simeon hoped to take Constantinople and make himself Emperor of both Bulgars and Greeks, and fought a series of wars with the Byzantines through his long reign (893-927). The war boundary towards the end of his rule reached Peloponnese in the south. Simeon proclaimed himself "Tsar (Caesar) of the Bulgarians and the Greeks," a title which was recognised by the Pope, but not of course by the Byzantine Emperor.

After Simeon's death, however, Bulgarian power declined. Under Peter I and Boris II the country was divided by the egalitarian religious heresy of the Bogomils, and distracted by wars with the Hungarians to the north and the breakaway state of Serbia to the west. In 972 Emperor John Tsimisces was able to make eastern Bulgaria a Byzantine protectorate. The Bulgarians maintained an independent state for a time in the western part of the country, but in 1014 Emperor Basil II defeated the armies of Czar Samuil at the Balasita and massacred thousands, acquiring the title "Bulgar-slayer" (Voulgaroktonos). He ordered 14,000 Bulgarian prisoners blinded and sent back to their country. At the sight of his returning armies Samuil suffered a heart attack and died. By 1018 the country had been mostly subjugated by the Byzantines.