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    Bulgaria became a unified state under Khan Asparukh in 681 CE and had its golden age during the reign of Tsar Simeon the Great in the 10th century. Bulgaria fell under Ottoman rule for almost five centuries until gaining independence in 1878. During World War II, Bulgaria was an Axis Power ally, but later joined the Allies and became a communist state until 1991. Notable Bulgarian figures include Vasil Levski, a revolutionary leader, Hristo Botev, a poet and revolutionary, and Dimitar Dimov, a prominent writer.

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    The provinces of Bulgaria

    Bulgaria is divided into 28 provinces, known as "oblasti":

    1. Blagoevgrad
    2. Burgas
    3. Dobrich
    4. Gabrovo
    5. Haskovo
    6. Kardzhali
    7. Kyustendil
    8. Lovech
    9. Montana
    10. Pazardzhik
    11. Pernik
    12. Pleven
    13. Plovdiv
    14. Razgrad
    15. Ruse
    16. Silistra
    17. Sliven
    18. Smolyan
    19. Sofia Province
    20. Sofia City Province
    21. Stara Zagora
    22. Targovishte
    23. Varna
    24. Veliko Tarnovo
    25. Vidin
    26. Vratsa
    27. Yambol
    28. Shumen

    Bulgarian history

    Bulgaria has been home to developed civilizations which were producing pottery and artefacts from as early as the fifth millennium BCE. In the third millennium BCE it was settled by the Thracians, an Indo-European people after whom the region became known as Thrace in ancient times. Thrace lay within the Greek world at the height of Greek civilization, with Hellenic colonies established along the Black Sea coastal region of the country even as the powerful Odrysian Kingdom emerged as a native power here. By the first century BCE the region was being absorbed into the Roman world and the famed gladiator rebel, Spartacus, who led a major slave revolt in the late 70s BCE was a Thracian. Shortly after he led the Third Servile War, Thrace became a client state of the Roman Republic and was later fully incorporated as a province in the first century CE.[1]

    Southeastern Europe Late Ninth Century
    Map showing the extent of the First Bulgarian Empire

    Given its proximity to Constantinople, the newly established capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Thrace and the other parts of modern-day Bulgaria remained a part of the Byzantine Empire through much of the medieval period, though they were not without disturbance. The famed Battle of Adrianople in 378 CE, for instance, in which an army of Goths and Alans defeated the Romans and killed the Emperor Valens, was fought very near the modern-day border between Bulgaria and Turkey. It was a similar incursion of a Turkic people known as the Bulgars in the seventh century which led to the emergence of historic Bulgaria. The Bulgars had arrived from north of the Black Sea owing to pressure from other peoples moving into that region and settled extensively in Thrace and Eastern Rumelia after their leader Asparukh defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Ongal in 680 and began establishing the First Bulgarian Empire. It is from this point that we can refer to the region of ‘Bulgaria’ in its modern sense.

    The First Bulgarian Empire was maintained as an independent state until the eleventh century, ruling over not just modern-day Bulgaria, but also parts of Macedonia and Serbia. The region was briefly re-conquered by the Byzantine during a period of military revival under Emperor Basil II, nicknamed ‘the Bulgar Slayer’.[2] A Second Bulgarian Empire was founded in the twelfth century, but internal divisions in the late fourteenth century weakened it and allowed the emerging Ottoman Empire to conquer the region. Bulgaria would remain a part of the Ottoman Empire for the next half a millennium.

    Modern Bulgaria emerged as a state gradually between the 1870s and the 1900s, first becoming an autonomous part of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878 and then declaring its full independence in 1908.[3] A Tsardom or monarchy was established, one which fought with the Central Powers and then the Axis powers in the First and Second World Wars in a vain attempt to fashion a greater Bulgaria which would include much of the remainder of Thrace, Macedonia and Serbia in an effort to reconstruct the medieval First Bulgarian Empire.[4] During the Cold War Bulgaria became an authoritarian, communist state, but one which did enter a period of pronounced economic growth and industrialization. Its experiences since have been mixed, with a major economic crisis occurring during the 1990s, while entry into the European Union in 2007 has not resulted in rapid economic growth and instead the country’s population is declining owing to emigration and a falling birth rate.[5]

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    Bulgarian geography

    St George Rotunda Sofia
    The fourth-century Church of St George in Sofia

    Bulgaria has a diverse geography, with a continental, low-lying climate and landscape in the east of the country along the shores of the Black Sea. This gives way to a large plain in parts of northern Bulgaria and south-eastern Bulgaria, but the central plateau of the country and most of western Bulgaria are dominated by mountainous terrain, particularly the Rhodope Mountains.[6] Somewhat unusually, despite being little more than a sizeable town at the time, Sofia in the mountainous west was chosen as the country’s new capital when it achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire over the more affluent port towns of the Black Sea coastal region. This was on the recommendation of the Bulgarian historian, Marin Drinov, on the basis of Sofia’s defensive qualities and historic role as a center of Bulgar settlement.[7] Today it has emerged as the largest city in Bulgaria by some considerable margin, with over 1.1 million people living here in a country that had experienced the highest levels of depopulation anywhere in the European Union in recent years as number have fallen from nearly nine million at their peak in the mid-1980s to under seven today. The next largest cities are Plovdiv and Varna with between 350,000 and 300,000 inhabitants each.[8]

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    Researching family history in Bulgaria

    Partial censuses were undertaken in Bulgaria during the latter stages of Ottoman rule, the first being in 1881, with another in 1885. This came just after Bulgaria had become an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, but was still nominally under the suzerainty of Istanbul. These were only partial enumerations of the population, with the 1885 census, for example, only covering the region of Eastern Rumelia. The first post-independence census covering the whole country was undertaken in 1910, with a census carried out, on average, every ten years since.[9] There are some earlier partial demographic records which were produced as early as the 1830s by the Ottoman state, but these were for military and economic purposes and tended to only provide the name of the head of households, rather than all individuals living within it. These earlier records are typically to be found in the Oriental Department of the national library of Bulgaria, the SS Cyril and Methodius National Library, with other sections housed in Ottoman archives outside of Bulgaria in Istanbul.[10] Extensive demographic and genealogical records relating to Bulgaria are also to be found in the Central State Archive of Bulgaria.[11]

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    Bulgarian ethnicity

    Traditional elements of Bulgarian folklore
    Traditional elements of Bulgarian folklore

    Bulgaria is a diverse country with a population of around 7 million people. The largest ethnic group is Bulgarian, with Turkish and Roma populations making up the largest minority groups. Other minority groups include Armenians, Greeks, Russians, and Jews.

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    Bulgarian surnames

    Nesebar, Bulgaria
    Nesebar, Bulgaria

    Surnames in Bulgaria can provide valuable clues for tracing family history, such as regional origins and family relationships. Bulgarian surnames often follow a patronymic system, with the father's given name forming the base of the surname, and a suffix indicating gender and marital status. For example, the suffix "-ova" indicates a married woman, while "-ov" or "-ev" is used for men. Additionally, surnames may reflect occupation, ethnicity, or personal characteristics. For instance, the surname "Ivanov" means "son of Ivan," and "Petrova" means "daughter of Petar". However, spelling variations and changes in the naming system over time can complicate the search for ancestors.

    Examples of different Bulgarian surnames:

    See also:

    References

    1. ↑ https://www.livius.org/articles/people/thracians/roman-thrace/
    2. ↑ https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bulgarian_Empire
    3. ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17202996
    4. ↑ https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bulgaria
    5. ↑ https://jacobin.com/2021/12/bulgarian-communism-modern-political-history-kristen-ghodsee-interview
    6. ↑ https://www.countryreports.org/country/Bulgaria/geography.htm
    7. ↑ https://bnr.bg/en/post/100148034/133-years-after-sofia-became-the-capital-city-of-bulgaria
    8. ↑ https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cities/bulgaria
    9. ↑ https://guides.loc.gov/bulgarian-statistics/censuses
    10. ↑ https://www.nationallibrary.bg/www/
    11. ↑ https://www.archives.government.bg/index.php?lang=en&page=11
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