Bulgaria, a principality in the Balkan Peninsula (q.v.), lying between the Danube and the Balkans, was created by the Treaty of Berlin, 13th July 1878. The area of Bulgaria is 24,699 sq. m.; that of Eastern Roumelia, 13,861—together nearly equal to two-thirds of the area of England (without Wales). The north of Bulgaria is fertile plain and hilly country; the south is wooded and mountainous. A fine waterway as her northern boundary and an outlet to the Black Sea, a seaboard, a mild climate, a purely agricultural country capable of great development and of maintaining five times the present population, free institutions and about the most liberal constitution in Europe, a peasantry possessing the solid qualities and persevering industry of northern races—with these elements for her economic development her right to a national existence cannot be disputed.
In 1893 the population of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia together was 3,309,816—76 per cent. Greek-Orthodox, 21 Mohammedan, 0.59 Roman Catholic, and 0.77 Jewish. Since 1850, zealous efforts by American missionaries have forwarded education, but made few converts. The 'Robert College' at Constantinople has educated many Bulgarians in English and American political ideas. Grouped according to language, 67 per cent. were Bulgarians, 26.26 per cent. Turks, 2.44 per cent. Wallachians, 1.87 per cent. Tsigans (Gypsies), and the remainder chiefly Greeks, Jews, and Tartars. Sofia (q.v.) is the capital; the other principal towns being Varna, Shumla, Rustchuk, Widin, Razgrad, Sistova, Tirnova, and Plevna. The populations in the towns have greatly diminished since the Russo-Turkish war, owing to the emigration of the Mussulmans (chiefly to Asia Minor) in order to avoid military service; and the same may be said of Eastern Roumelia. It has been stated that 200,000 Mussulmans have thus emigrated from Bulgaria alone. Farther westwards the emigration has been more pronounced. For example, Widin, which before the war had 30,000 inhabitants, in 1881 had only 13,714. Their departure has been a gain to the native populations, for their lands have been sold at a nominal price to the peasantry, and the commercial traffic (chiefly with Austria) has nearly doubled in value.
EASTERN ROUMELIA—now incorporated with Bulgaria—is, in many respects, in advance of the sister-country; it has much longer been open to European influences, connected as it is with Constantinople and the south by the valley of the Maritza. Eastern Roumelia obtained administrative autonomy by the Treaty of Berlin.
The physical aspects of the country are very varied, the surface in the west being broken up by the offshoots of the Albanian ranges, and in the north and north-east by the Balkans and their spurs. According to the latest statistical returns, 1,663,000 acres of land were under tillage. The principal exports are cereals, and the imports livestock; but there are important woollen manufactures, and the growth of the vine and tobacco receives considerable attention. One of the most thriving branches of native industry is the production of attar of roses; in the sheltered villages south of the Balkans its value in one year may reach £500,000. The silk industry was revived in 1890-95. The census of 1885 gave the total population of the province at 975,030, composed of the following: Christian Bulgarians, 681,734; Turks and Moslem Bulgarians, 200,498; Greeks, 53,028; Gypsies, 27,190; Jews, 6982; Armenians, 1365; foreigners, 3733. These figures show the preponderating numbers of the Bulgarians. Philippopolis (q.v.) is the capital.
In the first two years of the autonomy, the nationalities, as might have been expected, were in constant conflict, but the Bulgarians had no difficulty in obtaining the upper hand. Both parties of the government equally desired the union of the two Bulgarias; but it was the Unionists (Nationalists) who, in the summer of 1884, organised the petition for incorporation with the principality.
The Bulgarians in general are of smaller stature than their neighbours, the Servians; but they are powerfully built, and carry a firm head on their shoulders. The physique is distinctly different from that of pure Slavs; the features show some traces of the original. Without possessing the vivacity of the Roumanian, or the esprit of the Servian, the Bulgarian has no less a share of intelligence. The typical Bulgarian is a peaceful peasant, laborious and sensible, a good husband and a good father, loving the comforts of home, and practising the domestic virtues. Education has been very zealously and steadily promoted. There were only a few private schools in 1878; in 1881 there were 1760 teachers, in 1892 upwards of 5000.
The Bulgarians extend far beyond the boundaries of the two Bulgarian states. In a great part of Macedonia they constitute the bulk of the people; in Bessarabia they are numerous; and in the Banat they number some 26,000, all Catholics. The Bulgarian authorities state the total number of Bulgarians at six or even seven millions; most others compute them to amount to about five millions. They are very numerous in Constantinople.
Bulgaria possesses one of the freest and most democratic constitutions in Europe, which, like that of Eastern Roumelia, seems to be modelled on the lines of the Belgian constitution, except that there is no second chamber, and election of the Sobranje or National Assembly is by universal suffrage. The monarchy is 'hereditary,' and under the sovereignty of the Porte. Military service is obligatory. The army of Bulgaria (with Eastern Roumelia) contained in 1894 about 36,000 men on a peace footing, while the war strength is 100,000. The fleet comprises 4 ships of war and 10 armed gun-sloops. The budget of 1894 showed a revenue of a little over £4,000,000, which was considerably exceeded by the expenditure (largely for public works).
History.—The country now known as Bulgaria was originally inhabited by Thracians, and under the Romans formed the province of Mœsia. Wasted by Goths and Huns, it was afterwards overrun and occupied by the Slavonic Slovenians. The Bulgars were originally an Ural-Altaic people. Coming from the banks of the Volga (where Bolgary was their capital), they first crossed the Danube in the 6th century, and occupied the eastern portion of the peninsula. Though probably fewer in number, they rapidly subjected their Slav predecessors, adopted their language and customs, and, at once absorbing and being absorbed, became a great Slav power. In 864 their prince, Boris, was baptised, and the Bulgarians became dependent on the patriarchate of Constantinople. During the 9th and 10th centuries the Bulgarians were victorious in their wars against the Magyars in the north and the Greeks in the south, and had reached the height of their power. Their prince, Simeon, assumed the title of 'Autocrat or Czar of all the Bulgarians and of the Greeks.' They dominated the greater part of the peninsula, including Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus, and Albania. The Bulgarian archbishop was made an independent patriarch, and the Serbs and even the Byzantines paid Simeon tribute. It is interesting to note in reference to the Bulgarian ascendancy that, already in 976, their czar, Shishman, whose power ranged over the whole peninsula, conceived the idea of a state founded on the unity of race, and caused himself to be styled 'Emperor of the Slavs.' In 963 the western part of Bulgaria broke loose from the eastern to form a new kingdom, and so weakened the Bulgarians in their constant rivalry with the Byzantine emperors. The bloody wars continued; in the end of the 10th century part of Eastern Bulgaria was incorporated with the Byzantine empire, and in 1018 the western Bulgarian kingdom became a Byzantine province. A third Bulgarian kingdom was formed in 1186 by a successful rebellion, and maintained itself against the emperors of Constantinople until the arrival of the Osmanli Turks. The Greeks, who feared and hated them, attributed such shameful vices to their persistent enemies, that the name of Bulgarian came in most European tongues to be the most odious of epithets. (For the Bogomili puritanism of the 12th century, see BOGOMILI.) In 1356 Bulgaria and her ally, Servia, pressed to the walls of Constantinople, and only failed in the establishment of a great Slav state by reason of the defectiveness of their administrative organisation. The Servians finally succumbed at the decisive battle of Kosovo in 1389, and Tirnova, the Bulgarian capital, was taken four years later by the son of Bajazet. From that time the Ottoman power commenced to dominate. Bulgaria, under the influence of Byzantium and of Christianity, had attained in the middle ages a degree of civilisation equal to that of western nations; but the invasions, first of the Tartars, and subsequently of the Osmanli, entirely destroyed it, and the ancient warlike character of the race seemed to have been lost for ever, though rebellions took place from time to time. The first national awakening dates from the year 1762, when the monk Paisios, then at Mount Athos, wrote the national chronicles, and revived memories of ancient glory. A new national literature began; the first Bulgarian school was opened in 1835, and was followed by others. A newspaper appeared in
1844. The Crimean war stirred up Slavonic sympathies which Russia has sedulously and naturally cherished. In 1872 the Bulgarian Church and arch-bishop became again independent of the hated supremacy of the Greek patriarch.
During the troubles in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1875, excitement in Bulgaria began, but two or three ill-organised local risings in 1876 were swiftly suppressed by Turkish troops. The unconcealed aspirations of the Christians provoked the suspicions and fears of the Moslems, and the Turkish inhabitants of Bulgaria rose against their unarmed Christian neighbours, assisted by the notorious Bashi-Bazouks, or irregular troops. In the provinces of Philippopolis and Tirnova fifty-eight villages had by June 1876 been destroyed, and twelve thousand men, women, and children cruelly slain. The 'Bulgarian atrocities' awakened horror throughout Europe, especially in England; and a conference at Constantinople proposed to the Porte the organisation of two autonomous provinces. The Porte refused to make concessions. Russia, in its assumed capacity as guardian of the Slavic races of Turkey, declared war (1877). By the treaty of San Stefano, the victorious Russians (March 1878) proposed to constitute a Bulgarian state within the limits of the old kingdom, extending from the Danube across Macedonia to the Aegean. But the dissatisfaction of Austria and Britain with the proposed arrangement led to the Berlin Congress; and the Berlin treaty (13th July 1878) constituted an autonomous, though tributary, Bulgaria north of the Balkans, whilst to the mainly Bulgarian province south of them, that of Eastern Roumelia (q.v.), it granted administrative autonomy. The prince of Bulgaria, freely elected by the people, must be confirmed by the Porte with the assent of the Powers. The first choice of the Bulgarians was Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a cousin of the Grand-duke of Hesse, who in 1879 became Alexander I. of Bulgaria. In the autumn of 1885, the outbreak of a revolution in Eastern Roumelia, and Prince Alexander's acceptance of its union to Bulgaria, provoked the jealousy of Servia; and on 14th November King Milan invaded Bulgaria, anticipating an easy march to Sofia. In the fourteen days' war which ensued, the Bulgarians suffered temporary defeat, till, by his gallantry and generalship at Slivnitza, Prince Alexander turned the tide of fortune, and, driving the Servians back through the Dragoman Pass, entered Servian territory at the head of 50,000 men, and captured Pirot. In March 1886 peace was concluded between Servia and Bulgaria; and Prince Alexander was ultimately recognised by the Porte as governor-general of Eastern Roumelia. The prince, originally regarded as too Russian in his sympathies, had become the centre of Bulgarian national aspirations, and the darling of the people. At the same time he fell more and more into disfavour with Russia and the czar. In the summer of 1886 he was kidnapped by Russian partisans and carried into Russia. Returning immediately, he received an enthusiastic reception; but owing to the hostility of Russia, he felt himself compelled to abdicate. A provisional government was formed, and firmly maintained the national cause in defiance of very strong Russian pressure. In the summer of 1887 Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, against the will of the great Powers (especially of Russia), accepted an invitation by the regency to fill the vacant throne.
Language and Literature.—The original Bulgarian was of course an Ural-Altaic or Ugrian language, but it has left only a few traces in the Slavonic speech adopted by the Bulgarians who settled in the Balkan Peninsula. The old Bulgarian Slavonic tongue is closely allied to the great Russian, but some Servian, Greek, Romanic, Albanian, and Turkish elements have found their way into the language. The literature in the old palmy days consisted chiefly of translations from the Greek, and theological works. The modern literature (since 1762) is chiefly educational and popular and political. The poems of Slaviikov, the novels of Karavelov, the historical works of Drinov, deserve mention; there is also a rich lyrical popular poetry. The Cyrillic alphabet is that ordinarily used, as in Russian—namely, that modified out of the Greek by Cyril (q.v.). See Dozov, Chansons Bulgares (1875); Rosen, Bulgarische Volksdichtung (1879); the grammar and dictionary (Bulgarian-English) by Morse and Vasilief (Constant. 1859-60); and for an article on the literature, the Westminster Review for 1878. On Bulgaria, see the history by Jirecek (Prague, 1875; German trans. 1876); the German work of Kanitz (2d ed. 1880); Barkley's Bulgaria before the War (1877); Minchin, Bulgaria since the War (1880); Samuelson, Bulgaria, Past and Present (1888); Dacey, The Peasant State (1894); Huyshe, The Liberation of Bulgaria (1894).