The First Bulgarian Empire

The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval state centred on the lower Danube and the Balkans. Its history is conventionally dated from 681, when the Byzantine Empire recognised the new polity, to 1018, when Byzantine forces ended its independence. Its territory changed repeatedly: at different times it included lands around the Danube, in Thrace and Macedonia, and farther west into the Balkans. Its borders did not correspond to those of modern Bulgaria.

The state began with the arrival of a Bulgar group led by Asparuh, but its population and institutions developed through interaction among Bulgars, Slavic-speaking communities and other local inhabitants. Over time, Christian rule and a Slavic literary culture gave this diverse polity shared institutions. Its rulers alternated between war and diplomacy with Byzantium, while expansion and defeat repeatedly shifted the political centre of the state.

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Establishment on the lower Danube

Asparuh’s followers came to the lower Danube after the breakup of Old Great Bulgaria, a political union formed under Kubrat north of the Black Sea. The migration followed pressure from the Khazars. By the 670s, Asparuh’s group had settled north of the Danube and in the Danube Delta. In 680, Byzantine Emperor Constantine IV led an expedition against them and was defeated at Ongal. A treaty in 681 recognised Bulgaria and required Byzantium to pay tribute. The new state’s early centre was Pliska, in the northeast.

Bulgars supplied the new polity’s ruling and military leadership, while Slavic groups already living in the region formed an important part of its population. The precise relationship between the groups at the state’s foundation remains uncertain. The Slavic communities retained local chiefs and customs, but also owed obligations to the rulers, including tribute and military service. As the state expanded, it incorporated further populations and local leaders. The name Bulgarian thus came to refer to a broader community than Asparuh’s original group, while the population increasingly used a Slavic language.

Early relations with Byzantium included both conflict and negotiation. In 705, Khan Tervel helped the deposed emperor Justinian II regain his throne and received the territory of Zagore in northern Thrace, as well as the Byzantine title Caesar. When Arab forces besieged Constantinople in 717–718, Tervel sent troops to assist the city. In the later eighth century, however, Byzantine campaigns and internal struggles over Bulgaria’s leadership brought the state close to political crisis. Its rulers changed rapidly, and the Byzantine emperor Constantine V led repeated expeditions against it. A victory over the Byzantines at Marcellae in 792 under Khan Kardam helped restore stability.

Expansion and the work of rule

Under Khan Krum, who ruled from 803 to 814, Bulgaria expanded north and west after the weakening of the Avar Khaganate, and south into Byzantine territory. Bulgarian forces took Serdica, modern Sofia, in 809. In 811, Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I captured and burned Pliska, but his army was defeated on its return through the Varbitsa Pass, where the emperor was killed. Krum’s successor Omurtag made a thirty-year peace with Byzantium. The pause in warfare allowed both sides to recover, while Omurtag rebuilt parts of Pliska and strengthened the state’s authority in the northwest.

Later rulers extended Bulgarian control into much of Macedonia and other western Balkan lands. Expansion made administration more demanding. Slavic groups initially retained a degree of local autonomy, but from the early ninth century rulers increasingly appointed their own officials to govern regions and oversee military responsibilities. The monarchy remained the central authority, although the ruler’s power depended on the support of leading families. A gathering of nobles and armed men could challenge that authority: in 766, such a council rejected Khan Sabin after he sought peace with Byzantium.

Farming supplied food and goods to villages, armies and the court. Trade also mattered: a dispute arose in 894 after the Byzantine government moved the Bulgarian merchants’ market from Constantinople to Thessaloniki. Simeon I went to war, and a settlement in 896 restored favourable terms. Commercial access was thus important enough to become a matter of relations between rulers.

Pliska remained the capital until 893, when the court moved to Preslav. This shift accompanied changes in religious and political life as well as the growth of a new royal centre. Later, during the wars that broke Bulgarian power in the east, rulers and military leaders operated from western centres, including Ohrid. The changing location of the court reflected the empire’s shifting territory and fortunes.

Christianisation and a Bulgarian church

Before the mid-ninth century, the state’s communities followed different religious traditions. Christianity was already present, particularly among people from territories previously under Byzantine rule, but the ruling elite remained pagan. Khan Boris I adopted Christianity in 864 and took the Christian name Michael. His decision served both religious and political purposes: a shared religion could help bind the population together, while conversion brought Bulgaria into the Christian diplomatic world. It also raised a question of influence, since both Rome and Constantinople sought authority over newly Christian peoples.

Boris first explored relations with the East Frankish kingdom and Rome, but ultimately accepted Christianity through a Byzantine mission. He then sought to limit Constantinople’s influence over the Bulgarian church. In 866, he sent Pope Nicholas I a list of questions about Christian practice and church organisation. The competition between Rome and Constantinople gave Boris room to negotiate. In 870, a church council recognised a Bulgarian archbishopric with substantial internal self-government, though it remained within Constantinople’s ecclesiastical orbit.

Conversion met resistance among leading pagan families. Boris suppressed a revolt and punished its leaders; his later questions to the pope disclose the killing of leading rebels and their children. After Boris retired, his son Vladimir attempted to restore pagan worship. Boris returned, deposed and blinded him, and arranged for Simeon to succeed in 893. Preslav became the new royal centre, while patronage of Slavic books and clergy strengthened the Christian state.

Literary centres and the rule of Simeon I

The establishment of a church using a Slavic language required clergy and books that people could understand. The brothers Cyril and Methodius had created the Glagolitic alphabet for a mission to Great Moravia. After that mission failed, several of their disciples, including Clement, Naum and Angelarius, found refuge in Bulgaria in 886 under Boris’s patronage. Clement taught in the southwestern region of Kutmichevitsa, with Ohrid as an important centre. Naum and other scholars worked in the capital and its literary community. Their schools trained clergy and supported the translation and composition of religious texts.

At Preslav, scholars developed the Cyrillic script, which used Greek letters alongside additional signs for Slavic sounds. The language of this literary work is known as Old Bulgarian and is also called Old Church Slavonic in modern scholarship. Under Simeon I, who ruled from 893 to 927, the royal court supported writers and translators who produced sermons, theological works and other texts. This literary culture spread beyond Bulgaria, carrying religious books and the Slavic written language into other parts of eastern and southeastern Europe.

Simeon sought imperial standing alongside Byzantium. He claimed the title tsar, meaning emperor, during the conflicts beginning in 913, and his army won a major victory at Achelous in 917. Repeated campaigns brought Bulgarian forces to Constantinople’s walls, but he lacked the naval power needed to close the city’s seaward approaches. Negotiation with Emperor Romanos I in 923 or 924 failed to deliver control of the capital. Peter I, his successor, made peace in 927, securing recognition of his imperial title and the Bulgarian patriarchate.

Byzantine conquest in 1018

In the late tenth century, Bulgaria faced renewed attacks and a struggle for control of the Balkans. Kievan Rus’ forces invaded in 968, and Byzantium took advantage of the disruption. After defeating the Rus’ ruler Sviatoslav, the Byzantines occupied Preslav in 971 and brought the eastern parts of Bulgaria under their control. Bulgarian resistance continued in the west under the Cometopuli brothers. Samuel eventually became the leading ruler and was proclaimed emperor in 997.

Byzantine Emperor Basil II then pursued a long campaign to conquer the remaining Bulgarian territories. His forces defeated the Bulgarians at Kleidion in 1014. Byzantine accounts describe large numbers of captured Bulgarian soldiers being blinded; Samuel died soon afterwards. His successors continued to resist, but the last strongholds surrendered by 1018, ending the First Bulgarian Empire.

Byzantium incorporated Bulgarian lands into its empire, but institutions of the Bulgarian church continued in altered form. The patriarchate was reduced to an archbishopric based at Ohrid, which retained considerable privileges. Bulgaria remained under Byzantine rule until 1185, when a later Bulgarian state emerged. That subsequent state belongs to a different period in the history of the medieval Bulgarian polities.