Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/738

* BULGARIA. 656 BULGARIA. and a portion of Thrace. At 'the time of the great mijrration of nations which ovcrwhehned the Roman Empire i)f the West, the Slav.s pressed forward into this region, jjushinj; aside the Ger- manic invaders who had preceded them. About the close of the Fifth Century ..d. the Bulgars, a people of Finnic stock, probably akin to the Huns, whose early home a])pears to have been the steppes of southeastern Russia, begin to make their a])pea]-ance in the repon of the Lower Danul)e, and in the rcipi of .Justinian (.527-li,T) chey liffure anions; tlic enemies of the Byzantine Empire. Toward the close of the Seventh Cen- tury they pushed across the Danube and occupied Lower Jloesia, where they erected a strong and ^arlike State, which narrowed the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire, and for a time even threat- ened its existence, .bout 82 their khan was converted to Christianity. Not being numeri- cally powerful enough to attack the Slavic and other elements in the ro^^ion which they had occupied, the Bulgarians gradually became merged in the subjected population, and a Slav Bulgarian ))eople were evolved out of the ad- mixture. The Bulgarians borrowed nuich from their tJreek neighbors. The Bilgarian realm at- tained a high pitch of power at the beginning of the Tenth Century under Symeon. who as- sumed the title of Czar, and whose dominions extended to the Adriatic. Soon after a disruption of the realm into two parts took [ilace. The eastern half was con(|uercd by the Byzantine Emjieror, .John Zimisces, and the western suc- cumbed in 101 S to the arms of the Emperor Basil II. In 1186 the Bulgarians, under the lead of John Asen. rc'voltcd against the Byzan- tine rule, and established a new realm, the capital of which was Tirnova. This soon rose- to be a powerful State; but after a time it was outstripped by Servia, which in the middle of the Fourteenth Century was the great Slavic power of the South. In }3ni the Ottoman Turks first obtained a foothold in Eurojie, and their conquest of Adrianople in 1301 brought them close to the frontiers of Bulgaria. In 1388-9.S. under Amurath I. and Bajazet I'., they overran and conquered the country. The prostrate nation ceased to have a history of its own until the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. In 187(! a slight revolt broke out among the Bulgarians against the intolerable oppression and misrule of the Ottoman Ciovernment. Its immediate oc- casion was the settlement among the peaceful peasantry of Circassians, who made the native population the victims of brutal barbarity. The Bashi-Bazuks, an irregtdar police enrolled by the Turkish commander to put down the revolt, were largely comjiosed of these alien colonists, and the sujqiression of the rebelliim was accompanied by the most horrible outrages. The 'Bulgarian atrocities' shocked the civilized world, and gave Russia the excuse she had been seeking for declaring Avar on Turkey. Bulgaria was the principal theatre of the war of 1877- 78. (See Russo-TfBKisii War.) Russia hoped to bring all of the Slav peoples of the Balkan?, under her hegemony; and, by the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria was made an autonomous principality tributary to Turkey, with bound- aries wider than those of the ancient kingdom and a coastline on the .Egean. The Bowers, at the Congress of Berlin (1878), refused to allow such a great curtailment of the Turkish terri- tory, but made Bulgaria north of the Balkans an autonomous principality, tributary to Turkey, with a prince to be elected by the people, suli- ject to the confirmation of the Porte with the assent of the Powers. The Province of Eastern Rumelia, to be administered by a Christian Gov- ernor, was erected south of the Balkans, out of part of the territory which the treat.v of $an Stefano had included in Bulgaria. (For terms of the treaty of San Stefano. see Berlin, Con'Gukss OF.) Alexander of Battcnberg (q.v.) was the first Prince of Bulgaria under this settlement. An outburst of Bulgarian national spirit brought about in 188.5 a revolution, by hich Eastern Rumelia united itself to Bulgaria. The pro- test of the Porte received no encouragement from the Powers. Russia alone opposed the union, because of what it regarded as the un- grateful spirit of independence shown by the Bulgarian people, who had taken up the "prob- lems of their newly recovered national life with an unexpected sj)irit and vigor. The bitter struggle between the Russian Party and the Nationalists has since complicated the political life of the i)rincipality. Another opponent of the aggrandizement of Bulgaria was found in her neighbor and ancient rival, Servia, which put an army into the field to oppose the union by force. In a short and .sharp campaign in the closing montlis of 1885, Prince Alexander and the Bul- garian troops defeated the larger Servian army, and were only restrained from invading Servia by the intervention of Austria-Hungary. Prince Alexander, after a shameful conspiracy against him excited bj' Russian intrigues, abdicated the crown in September, 1886, in the hope that it would lead to a more friendly attitude on the I>art of Russia, and Prince Ferdinand of Coburg was chosen to succeed him in July, 1887. Rus- sia, which had opposed the election of Prince Ferdinand, withheld its recognition of his title to the throne, as did the other great Powers. Nevertheless, Ferdinand maintained himself in his position, owing mainly to the ability of his Prentier, Stambulotf. The fall and subsequent assassination of StambulofF (July, 1805) paved the way for a better understanding with Russia; and when 1'>rdinand consented to have his son, Boris, received into the Greek Church ( FebruaTy 14. 180fi), Czar Nicholas II. formally acknowi- edged Ferdinand as Prince of Bulgaria. This step was followed by the recognition of Ferdi- nand on the part of the other European Powers. Ferdinand's son has been confirmed by the Sobranje, or National Assembly, as heir to the title. Bulgaria's hereditary hostility toward Greece, enhanced by their common desire for the possession of Macedonia, and the jealousy between Bulgaria and Servia, stand in the way of that Balkan unity which has been so much "dis- cussed. Bulgaria is known as the "Peasant State,' and is not wealthy; but it has, in the years of its practical inde|)endence, develolied politically, eco- nomically, and intellectually, in a way that has surprised both its friends and its enemies. See Political Parties, paragraph lialkan Htatcs. Bnti.loCRAPiiY. For a general description, con- sult: Kanitz, DonauhuUiuricn und dcr Itiilkun (Ix'ipzig, 1882) ; Tum.a', Dir usllichr lUilhaii Imlbinscl, militiir-geograpkisch, statiKtisch jiiid kricgshistorisch darficstelll (^'ienna, 1880) ; Sam- uelson, liithiuriu, Past and Present (London, 1888) — perhaps the best comprehensive account