The History of Bulgaria. The Golden Age and the end of the First Empire. Lesson four.

The might of the first Bulgarian state

This period is called the golden age of the Bulgarian state and of Bulgarian culture. The enlighteners expelled from Great Moravia, followers of Cyril and Methodius, tirelessly educated the Bulgarian people. At the same time the nation was consolidating — the descendants of the Thracians, the Proto-Bulgarians and the Slavs merged into a single Bulgarian people. Simeon received the title of

Bulgarian tsar and emperor of the Bulgarians and the Greeks of Danubian Bulgaria.

A brilliantly educated man, Tsar Simeon continued his father’s work and supported the education of the nation. He also achieved considerable military successes, thanks to which Bulgaria posed an ever greater threat to Byzantium.

In 917, at the battle near the river Acheloos, the Bulgarian forces managed to rout a strong Byzantine army and send its remnants into panicked flight. Annexing ever more territory, Bulgaria became a mighty and influential power.

The beginning of the decline

Some historians believe that the numerous wars waged by Simeon the First exhausted the state. By the time Tsar Peter the First came to the throne, the decline of the state had begun. The new ruler signed a peace treaty with Byzantium, but once it expired the war resumed.

A deeply religious man, Peter devoted much attention to the development of the church in Bulgaria. The flourishing of the official religion was accompanied by the growth of an alternative movement, a heresy known as “Bogomilism”, which preached disobedience to the church and the tsar. Naturally, this did nothing to strengthen the state.

In 977 Tsar Samuil ascended the throne, and the capital was moved to Ohrid (in present-day Macedonia). Under Tsar Samuil the war with Byzantium continued. Bulgaria managed more or less successfully to repel the enemy’s attacks, but the battle near the village of Klyuch proved fatal. In a bloody battle the Byzantine emperor killed thousands of Bulgarians and ordered 14,000 prisoners (according to some sources 15,000) to be blinded. Only every hundredth soldier was left one eye, so that the blinded soldiers could find their way back to their ruler. Afterwards the Byzantine emperor was given the nickname the Bulgar-Slayer for this. Legend says that Tsar Samuil died of a heart attack when he saw his maimed soldiers.

Four years later, in 1018, during the reign of Ivan Vladislav, Samuil’s nephew, the Byzantines captured the last Bulgarian fortresses and killed the tsar, and the First Bulgarian State disappeared from the map of Europe.

Veliki Preslav — the second capital of Bulgaria

The Ustra fortress

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