Bulgaria Info

Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country on the Balkan Peninsula, in Southern Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the east, Greece and Turkey to the south, Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Romania to the north, mostly along the Danube. Bulgaria also shares a sea border with Turkey, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia. The capital is Sofia.

Geography of Bulgaria Info:
Geographically and climatically, Bulgaria is noted for its diversity, with the landscape ranging from the Alpine snow-capped peaks in Rila, Pirin and the Balkan Mountains to the mild and sunny weather of the Black Sea coast, from the typically continental Danubian Plain (ancient Moesia) in the north to the strong Mediterranean influence in the valleys of Macedonia and the lowlands in the southernmost parts of Thrace. Bulgaria comprises portions of the classical regions of Thrace, Moesia, and Macedonia. The southwest of the country is mountainous with two alpine ranges - Rila and Pirin and further east are the lower but more extensive Rhodope Mountains. Rila mountain includes the highest peak of the Balkan Peninsula, peak Musala at 2,925 meters (9,596 ft); the long range of the Balkan mountains runs west-east through the middle of the country, north of the famous Rose Valley. Hilly country and plains are found in the southeast, along the Black Sea coast in the east, and along Bulgaria's main river, the Danube in the north. Other major rivers include the Struma and the Maritsa river in the south. The Bulgarian climate is temperate, with cold, damp winters and hot, dry summers, and Mediterranean along the Black Sea coast The Balkan peninsula derives its name from the Balkan or Stara Planina mountain range which runs through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia. The largest cities in the country are Sofia (1,246,791), Plovdiv (376,918), Varna (345,522), Burgas (259,985), Rousse (177,538), Stara Zagora (163,193), Pleven (121,700), Dobrich (115,861), Sliven (100,300). Bulgaria has a scientific base on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica........

History of Bulgaria :
Bulgaria is a country with an ancient history dating back to prehistoric times, the Thracian, Greek and Roman worlds of antiquity, and the powerful medieval Old Great Bulgaria founded in 632 AD and Bulgarian Empire founded in 681 AD. Thracians inhabited what is now Bulgaria in antiquity. They were divided in numerous tribes until King Teres united most of them around 500 BC in the Odrysian kingdom, which peaked under the kings Sitalkes and Cotys I (383-359 BC). In 341 BC, it was destroyed by the Macedonian state but rose from its ashes at the end of the fourth century BC under Seuthes III. In 188 BC, the Romans invaded Thrace and the wars with them continued to 45 CE, when Thrace became a Roman province. The Thracians did not have writing and now their legacy survives mainly in the numerous treasures and tombs they left. It is believed that the oldest golden treasure, the Varna treasure which is 6,500 years old, is Thracian-made. One of the most talented ancient commanders, Spartacus, was a Thracian born in the middle Struma region. In 632, the Bulgars led by Khan Kubrat formed an independent state called Great Bulgaria, bounded by the Danube delta to the west, the Black Sea to the south, the Caucasus to the southeast, and Volga River to the east. Byzantium recognized the new state by treaty in 635. Pressure by the Khazars led to the loss of the eastern part of Great Bulgaria in the second half of the seventh century. Some of the Bulgars from that territory later migrated to the northeast to form a new state called Volga Bulgaria around the confluence of the Volga River and Kama River. The Battle of Anchialos, in which the Bulgarians defeated the Byzantines, was one of the bloodiest battles of the Middle Ages. Kubrat’s successor, Khan Asparuh kept the Bulgar territories in the lower courses of the rivers Danube, Dniester and Dniepr (known as Ongal), and conquered Moesia and Scythia Minor (Dobrudzha) from the Byzantine Empire, expanding Great Bulgaria on the Balkan Peninsula. The peace treaty with Byzantium in 681 and the establishment of the new capital of Pliska south of the Danube is considered the beginning of the First Bulgarian Empire. At the same time one of his brothers, Kuber, settled with another Bulgar group in what is now Macedonia. In 717, the Bulgarians helped relieve the Arab siege of Constantinople, killing some 40,000-60,000 soldiers. Their Khan, Tervel, was called "The Saviour of Europe" by his contemporaries. In 864, Bulgaria accepted the Orthodox Faith and became a major European power in the ninth and the tenth century, while fighting with the Byzantine Empire for the control of the Balkans. The greatest territorial extension was reached under Simeon I the first Tsar, covering most of the Balkans. Following a decline in the mid tenth century, worn out by the wars with Croatia and frequent Serbian rebellions sponsored by Byzantine gold, Bulgaria was crushed by an assault of the Rus' in 969. The Byzantines then began campaigns to conquer Bulgaria. In 971, they seized the capital Preslav and captured Emperor Boris II. Resistance continued under Tsar Samuil in the western Bulgarian lands for nearly half a century until the state was completely destroyed by the Byzantines led by Basil II in 1018. In 1185, the Bulgarian Empire was reestablished under the Asenevtsi Dynasty and was an important power in Europe for two more centuries, while fighting for dominance in the region against the Byzantine Empire, the Crusader states and Hungary, reaching its zenith under Ivan Asen II (1218-1241). A medieval fresco depicting St. Nicholas.Following the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 and the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878, an autonomous Bulgarian principality was proclaimed. The treaty was immediately rejected by the Great Powers for fear that a large Slavic country on the Balkans would serve Russian interests. This led to the Treaty of Berlin (1878) which provided for an autonomous Bulgarian principality comprising Moesia and the region of Sofia. The first Bulgarian prince was Alexander von Battenberg. Most of Thrace was included in the autonomous region of Eastern Rumelia, whereas the rest of Thrace and all of Macedonia was returned under the sovereignty of the Ottomans. After the Serbo-Bulgarian War and unification with Eastern Rumelia in 1885, the principality was proclaimed a fully independent kingdom on October 5 (September 22 O.S.), 1908, during the reign of Ferdinand I of Bulgaria. Ferdinand, a prince from the ducal family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, became the Bulgarian prince after Alexander von Battenberg abdicated in 1886 following a coup d'etat staged by pro-Russian army officers. (Although the counter coup d'etat coordinated by Stefan Stambolov was successful, Battenberg could not remain Bulgarian prince without the approval of Alexander III of Russia.) The struggle for liberation of the Bulgarians in the Adrianople, Vilayet and Macedonia continued throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries culminating with the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising organised by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization in 1903. Tarnovo, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1393).In 1912 and 1913, Bulgaria became involved in the Balkan Wars, entering into conflict with Greece and Serbia against the Ottoman Empire and then against its former Balkan allies in a desperate effort to achieve national unity. After being defeated in the Second Balkan War, Bulgaria lost most of the territory conquered in the first war, as well as Southern Dobruja. During World War I, Bulgaria found itself fighting on the losing side after its alliance with the Central Powers. The defeat led to new territorial losses (the Western Outlands to Serbia, Western Thrace to Greece and the reconquered Southern Dobruja to Romania. The Balkan Wars and World War I led to the influx of over 250,000 Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia, Eastern and Western Thrace and Southern Dobruja. These numbers increased in the 1930s following Serbian state-sponsored aggression against its native Bulgarian population. After regaining control over Southern Dobruja in 1940, Bulgaria allied with the Axis Powers in World War II, although no Bulgarian soldiers participated in the war against the USSR. During World War II, Nazi Germany allowed Bulgaria to occupy parts of Greece and Yugoslavia, including territories long coveted by the Bulgarians. Bulgaria was one of three countries (with Finland and Denmark) that saved its entire Jewish population (around 50,000) from the Nazi camps by refusing to comply with a 31 August 1943 resolution. But Jews in territories newly acquired from Greece and Yugoslavia were sent to death camps by the Bulgarian authorities on German request. In September 1944, the Soviet army entered Bulgaria which later enabled the Bulgarian Communists to seize power and establish a Communist dictatorship. In 1944, Bulgaria's forces were turned against its former German ally (a 450,000 strong army in 1944, reduced to 130,000 in 1945). More than 30,000 Bulgarian soldiers and officers were killed in the war. Euxinograd, once a summer palace of the Bulgarian tsars.After World War II, Bulgaria fell within the Soviet sphere of influence, became a People's Republic in 1946 and one of the USSR's staunchest allies. In the late 1970s, it began normalizing relations with Greece, and in the 1990s with Turkey. The People's Republic ended in 1989 as many Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, as well as the Soviet Union itself, began to collapse. The Bulgarian Communist leader Todor Zhivkov was removed from power on 10 November 1989.



Culture of Bulgaria :
A country often described to lie at the crossroads linking the East and West, Bulgaria was the centre of Slavic Europe during much of the Middle Ages, exerting considerable literary and cultural influence over the Eastern Orthodox Slavic world by means of the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools. Bulgaria is also the birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet, the second most widely used alphabet in the world, which was developed in these two schools in the tenth century. Bulgaria is well-known for its rich folklore, distinctive traditional music, rituals and tales, but the country's contribution to humanity also continued in the nineteenth and twentieth century, when individuals such as John Atanasoff - born in USA with Bulgarian origin, regarded as the father of the digital computer, a number of noted opera singers (Nicolai Ghiaurov, Boris Christoff, Raina Kabaivanska, Ghena Dimitrova) and successful artists (Christo Javacheff, Pascin, Vladimir Dimitrov) popularized the culture of Bulgaria abroad. A number of ancient civilizations, most notably the Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Slavs and Bulgars, have left their mark on the culture, history and heritage of Bulgaria. The country has nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Of these, two are Thracian tombs (one in Sveshtari and one in Kazanlak), three are monuments of medieval Bulgarian culture (the Boyana Church, the Rila Monastery and the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo), while the Pirin National Park and the Srebarna Nature Reserve represent the country's natural beauty, and the ancient city of Nesebar is a unique combination of European cultural interaction, as well as, historically, one of the most important centres of naval trade in the Black Sea. In addition, the Varna Necropolis, a 3200-3000 BC burial site, contains what are believed to be the oldest examples of worked gold in the world.

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