According to topschoolsintheusa, Bulgaria is a south-eastern European state, which occupies the north-eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. Of Turkish descent, the Bulgarians (properly proto-Bulgarians), settled N of the Caucasus, towards the end of the 5th century. they were allies of Byzantium against the Ostrogoths. At the beginning of the 7th century. one of their tribes, under the leadership of Isperich or Asparuch, settled in Bessarabia and then in Dobruja. In 679 the emperor Constantine IV Pogonato was forced to recognize the new political body, which also brought together the Slavs of the lower Danube under Isperich. After a period of settlement and internal struggles, with the khan Krum (803-814), the Bulgaria began to expand at the expense of its neighbors, while the process of rapprochement between Bulgarians and Christian Slavs took hold. Only in the time of Boris I (852-889) could a lasting peace be concluded with Byzantium and the Bulgarians converted to Christianity, welcoming the Byzantine clergy. Simeon (893-927) subdued almost all of the Balkans, giving life to Greater Bulgaria. Byzantium tried to oppose the Russians, Serbs, Croats, Hungarians and Pecenegians.
At the beginning of 1019 the Bulgaria fell under the Byzantine rule by Basil II, known as Bulgaroctono, who divided the reign of Simeon into 4 themes. After several insurrections the Bulgaria regained its independence with King Kalojan (1197-1207). When, from 1350, the Turks appeared on the Balkan scene the Bulgaria was already in disrepair; he disappeared under the blows of Bayazid I between 1391 and 1405. The last tsar was Ivan Šišman (1371-91). The Turkish rule represented a period of oppression and detachment from Europe and we must reach the second half of the century. 19th to find a national revival. The anti-Ottoman insurrection of 1876, thanks to Russian help (Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78), materialized in the creation of an autonomous principality of Bulgaria, a tributary of the Sublime Porta. In 1887 Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was elected prince by the National Assembly, who in 1908 proclaimed the country’s independence, assuming the title of Tsar. Meanwhile, the autonomy demands of the Macedonian region (whose population, mostly Bulgarian, was also made up of Greeks, Serbs and Armenians), also urged by Athens, intensified, increasing the tension with Greece. The birth of the Balkan League (1912) seemed to put an end to the antagonisms, but it did not last long.
Bulgaria therefore participated in the Balkan wars (1912-13) and in the First World War (from 1915) alongside the central empires. In the second half of the Thirties an authoritarian regime was established in the country that paved the way for the intervention of the Bulgaria (1941) in the Second World War alongside the Axis powers. During the war, however, a widespread resistance movement developed in the country, which also made it possible to save many Jews by preventing trains from leaving for Auschwitz. In 1944 the forces gathered around the Patriotic Front (Communists, Social Democrats, Peasant Party, Democrats, Radicals and Zveno) advanced collaborating with the Red Army, to the point of overthrowing the pro-Nazi regime. After the proclamation of the Republic (1946) and the election of a National Assembly, the peace treaty of 1947 (Paris) redefined the borders of the country, recognizing, among the annexations made by Bulgaria during the war, only that of Dobruja southern. The affirmation of communist hegemony led, by 1949, to the progressive suppression of the other parties; in 1947 with a new Constitution inspired by the Soviet model, Bulgaria became a People’s Republic, also aligning itself internationally with the USSR. Dead (1949) the old leader G. Dimitrov (Prime Minister since 1946), the stiffening of the regime in the Stalinist sense reached its peak with his successors V. Kolarov and above all V. Červenkov. The de-Stalinization, started cautiously since 1954 with the advent of T. Živkov at the head of the party, developed between 1956 (dismissal of Červenkov) and 1962. In the following years the Macedonian question negatively influenced relations with Yugoslavia, while the presence of a sizeable Turkish minority became a source of concern for the Sofia authorities, who in 1984 pursued a policy of assimilation. Bulgaria was greatly affected by the crisis experienced by post-Soviet Russia, the conflicts in the Balkan area and the relative “remoteness” of Western Europe into which the country aspired to enter.
The country entered a phase of serious political instability, characterized by the alternation in the government of the socialists of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (PSB), heir to the old Communist Party, accused of wanting to restore the old order, and of the new democratic opposition forces. The failure of the PSB’s attempt to govern the restructuring of the economy led to the clear affirmation (1997) of the opposition forces led by the leader UFD (Union of Democratic Forces) I. Kostov. The new head of the government accelerated the liberalization process, among other things by adopting measures to facilitate foreign investment; government corruption, however, disappointed the electorate. In the 2001 elections, the National Movement prevailed, founded by the former king, Simeon of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, under whose leadership a composite coalition government was formed. In the same 2001 the presidential elections were won by the PSB candidate G. Parvanov (re-elected in 2006). The recovery of support from the Socialist Party was confirmed by the electoral victory of 2005, followed by the formation of a government led by S. Staničev. Joined NATO in 2004, Bulgaria has been part of the European Union since Jan. 2007.
