Fall Asleep While Learning About Bulgaria

In this episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast, fall asleep while learning about Bulgaria. We explore the history, culture, and geography of this fascinating European country. Located in southeastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula, Bulgaria is one of the oldest countries in Europe, with a rich heritage that includes Thracian, Roman, and Ottoman influences.

From the picturesque mountains and Black Sea coast to the unique traditions and folk music, Bulgaria’s story offers a calming yet intriguing look into its past and present. So, sit back, relax, and drift off as you immerse yourself in facts about Bulgaria. Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,

Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Boster.

Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,

Bulgaria.

Bulgaria,

Officially the Republic of Bulgaria,

Is a country in Southeast Europe.

It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans,

Directly south of the Danube River and west of the Black Sea.

Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey to the south,

Serbia and North Macedonia to the west,

And Romania to the north.

It covers a territory of 110,

994 square kilometers and is the 16th largest country in Europe.

Sofia is the nation's capital and largest city.

Other major cities include Bulgas,

Blavdiv,

And Varna.

One of the earliest societies in the lands of modern-day Bulgaria,

Was the Karanova culture,

6500 BC.

In the 6th to 3rd century BC,

The region was a battleground for ancient Thracians,

Persians,

Celts,

And Macedonians.

Stability came when the Roman Empire conquered the region in AD 45.

After the Roman state splintered,

Tribal invasions in the region resumed.

Around the 6th century,

These territories were settled by the early Slavs.

The Bulgars,

Led by Asparu,

Attacked from the lands of Old Great Bulgaria and permanently invaded the Balkans in the late 7th century.

They established the First Bulgarian Empire,

Victoriously recognized by treaty in 681 AD by the Byzantine Empire.

It dominated most of the Balkans and significantly influenced Slavic cultures by developing the Cyrillic script.

The First Bulgarian Empire lasted until the early 11th century,

When Byzantine Emperor Basil II conquered and dismantled it.

A successful Bulgarian revolt in 1185 established a Second Bulgarian Empire,

Which reached its apex under Ivan Asen II,

1218-1241.

After numerous exhausting wars and feudal strife,

The empire disintegrated and in 1396 fell under Ottoman rule for nearly five centuries.

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 resulted in the formation of the third and current Bulgarian state,

Which declared independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1908.

Many ethnic Bulgarians were left outside the new nation's borders,

Which stoked irredentist sentiments that led to several conflicts with its neighbors and alliances with Germany and both sides.

In 1946,

Bulgaria came under the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc and became a socialist state.

The ruling Communist Party gave up its monopoly on power after the revolutions of 1989 and allowed multi-party elections.

Bulgaria then transitioned into a democracy and a market-based economy.

Since adopting a democratic constitution in 1991,

Bulgaria has been a unitary parliamentary republic composed of 28 provinces with a high degree of political,

Administrative,

And economic centralization.

Bulgaria has a high-income economy.

Its market-based economy is based on agriculture,

And is largely based on services,

Followed by industry,

Especially machine building and mining,

And agriculture.

The country faces a demographic crisis.

Its population peaked at 9 million in 1989 and has since decreased to under 7 million.

The country faces a demographic crisis.

Its population peaked at 9 million in 1989 and has since decreased to under 6.

4 million as of 2024.

Bulgaria is a member of the European Union,

The Schengen Area,

NATO,

And the Council of Europe.

It is also a founding member of the OSCE and has taken a seat on the United Nations Security Council three times.

The name Bulgaria is derived from the Bulgars,

A tribe of Turkic origin that founded the first Bulgarian Empire.

Their name is not completely understood and is difficult to trace it back earlier than the 4th century AD,

But it is possibly derived from the Proto-Turkic word bulga,

To mix,

Shake,

Stir,

And its derivative bulgak,

Revolt,

Disorder.

The meaning may be further extended to rebel,

Incite,

Or produce a state of disorder,

And so in the derivative,

The disturbers.

Tribal groups in Inner Asia with phonologically close names were frequently described in similar terms as the Bulogi,

A component of the five barbarian groups,

Which during the 4th century were portrayed as both a mixed race and troublemakers.

Neanderthal remains dating to around 150,

000 years ago,

Or the Middle Paleolithic,

Are some of the earliest traces of human activity in the lands of modern Bulgaria.

Remains from Homo sapiens found there are dated circa 47,

000 years BP.

This result represents the earliest arrival of modern humans in Europe.

The Karanova culture arose circa 6500 BC and was one of several Neolithic societies in the region that thrived on agriculture.

The Copper Age Varna culture,

5th millennium BC,

Is credited with inventing gold metallurgy.

The associated Varna Necropolis treasure contains the oldest golden jewelry in the world,

With an approximate age of over 6,

000 years.

The treasure has been valuable for understanding social hierarchy and stratification in the earliest European societies.

The Thracians,

One of the three primary ancestral groups of modern Bulgarians,

Appeared on the Balkan peninsula sometime before the 12th century BC.

The Thracians excelled in metallurgy and gave the Greeks the Orphean and Dionysian gold.

But remained tribal and stateless.

The Persian Achaemenid Empire conquered parts of present-day Bulgaria,

In particular eastern Bulgaria,

In the 6th century BC,

And retained control over the region until 479 BC.

The invasion became a catalyst for Thracian unity,

And the bulk of their tribes united under King Tires to form the Adrysian Kingdom.

The Adrysian Kingdom was weakened and vassalized by Philip II of Macedon in 341 BC,

Attacked by the Celts in the 3rd century,

And finally became a province of the Roman Empire in AD 45.

By the end of the 1st century AD,

Roman governance was established over the entire Balkan peninsula,

And Christianity began spreading in the region around the 4th century.

The Gothic Bible,

The first Germanic language book,

Was created by Gothic Bishop Ophilus in what is today northern Bulgaria around 381.

The region came under Byzantine control after the fall of Rome in 476.

The Byzantines were engaged in prolonged warfare against Persia,

And could not defend their Balkan territories from barbarian incursions.

This enabled the Slavs to enter the Balkan peninsula as marauders,

Primarily through an area between the Danube River and the Balkan Mountains,

Known as Mesia.

Gradually,

In the interior of the peninsula became a country of the South Slavs,

Who lived under a democracy.

The Slavs assimilated the partially Hellenized,

Romanized,

And Gothicized Thracians in the rural areas.

Not long after the Slavic incursion,

Mesia was once again invaded,

This time by the Bulgars under Khan Asparuk.

Their horde was a remnant of Old Great Bulgaria,

An extinct tribal confederacy situated north of the Black Sea,

In what is now Ukraine and southern Russia.

Asparuk attacked Byzantine territories in Mesia and conquered the Slavic tribes there in 680.

A peace treaty with the Byzantine Empire was signed in 681,

Marking the foundation of the First Bulgarian Empire.

The minority Bulgars formed a close-knit ruling caste.

Succeeding rulers strengthened the Bulgarian state throughout the 8th and 9th centuries.

Krum introduced a written code of law and checked a major Byzantine incursion at the Battle of Pliska,

In which Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I was killed.

Boris I abolished paganism in favor of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in 864.

The conversion was followed by a Byzantine recognition of the Bulgarian Church and the adoption of the Cyrillic alphabet developed in the capital,

Preslav.

The common language,

Religion,

And script strengthened central authority and gradually fused the Slavs and the Bulgars into a unified people speaking a single Slavic language.

A golden age began during the 34-year rule of Simeon the Great,

Who oversaw the largest territorial expansion of the state.

After Simeon's death,

Bulgaria was weakened by wars with Madyars and Pechenegs and the spread of Bogomil heresy.

Preslav was seized by the Byzantine army in 971,

After consecutive Rus' and Byzantine invasions.

The empire briefly recovered from the attacks under Samuel,

But this ended when Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated the Bulgarian army at Klyuch in 1014.

Samuel died shortly after the battle,

And by 1018 the Byzantines had conquered the first Bulgarian city of Klyuch.

After the conquest,

Basil II prevented revolts by retaining the rule of local nobility,

Integrating them in Byzantine bureaucracy and aristocracy,

And relieving their lands of the obligation to pay taxes and gold,

Allowing tax in kind instead.

The Bulgarian Patriarchate was established in 1017,

And the first Bulgarian Empire was established in 1080.

The Bulgarian Patriarchate was reduced to an archbishop,

But retained its autocephalous status in its diocese.

Byzantine domestic policies changed after Basil's death,

And a series of unsuccessful rebellions broke out,

The largest being led by Peter Delian.

The empire's authority declined after a catastrophic military defeat at Manzikert against Seljuk invaders,

And was further disturbed by the Crusades.

This prevented Byzantine attempts at Hellenization and created fertile ground for further revolt.

In 1185,

Asen dynasty nobles Ivan Asen I and Peter IV organized a major uprising and succeeded in re-establishing the Bulgarian state.

Ivan Asen and Peter I laid the foundations of the Second Bulgarian Empire with its capital at Tarnovo.

Kaloyan III of the Asen monarchs extended his domain to Belgrade and Orod.

He acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of the Pope and received a royal crown from a papal legate.

The empire reached its zenith under Ivan Asen II when its borders expanded as far as the coast of Albania,

Serbia,

And Elpyrus,

While commerce and culture flourished.

Ivan Asen's rule was also marked by a shift away from Rome in religious matters.

The Asen dynasty became extinct in 1257.

Internal conflicts and incessant battles led to the fall of the Asen dynasty.

The Asen dynasty became extinct in 1257.

Internal conflicts and incessant Byzantine and Hungarian attacks followed,

Enabling the Mongols to establish suzerainty over the weakened Bulgarian state.

In 1277,

Swineherd Ivaylo led a great peasant revolt that expelled the Mongols from Bulgaria and briefly made him emperor.

He was overthrown in 1280 by the feudal landlords,

Whose factional conflicts caused the Second Bulgarian Empire to disintegrate into small feudal dominions by the 14th century.

These fragmented rump states,

Tutsardoms at Vidin and Tarnovo,

And the Despotate of Dabrudze,

Became easy prey for a new threat arriving from the southeast,

The Ottoman Turks.

The Ottomans were employed as mercenaries by the Byzantines in the 1340s,

But later became invaders in their own right.

Sultan Murad I took Adrianople from the Byzantines in 1362.

Sophia fell in 1382,

Followed by Shuman in 1388.

The Ottomans completed their conquest of Bulgarian lands in 1393,

When Tarnovo was sacked after a three-month siege,

And the Battle of Nicopolis which brought about the fall of Vidin Tsardom in 1396.

Sozopol was the last Bulgarian settlement to fall in 1453.

The Bulgarian nobility was subsequently eliminated,

And the peasantry was enserved to Ottoman masters,

While much of the educated clergy fled to other countries.

Ottoman authorities established a religious administrative community called the Rum Millet,

Which governed all Orthodox Christians regardless of their ethnicity.

Most of the local population then gradually lost its distinct national consciousness,

Identifying only by its faith.

The clergy remaining in some isolated monasteries kept their ethnic identity alive,

Enabling its survival in remote rural areas and in the militant Catholic community in the northwest of the country.

As Ottoman power began to wane,

Habsburg Austria and Russia saw Bulgarian Christians as potential allies.

The Austrians first backed an uprising in Tarnovo in 1598,

Then a second one in 1686,

A cheap-prophecy uprising in 1688,

And finally Karpash's rebellion in 1689.

The Russian Empire also asserted itself as a protector of the Christians in Ottoman lands,

With the Treaty of Kuchuk-Karnazha in 1774.

The Western Europe Enlightenment in the 18th century influenced the initiation of a national awakening of Bulgaria.

It restored national consciousness,

And provided an ideological basis for the liberation struggle,

Resulting in the April Uprising of 1876.

The Treaty of San Stefano was signed on the 3rd of March 1878 by Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

It was to set up an autonomous state of the Republic of Bulgaria,

And this day is now a public holiday called National Liberation Day.

The other great powers immediately rejected the Treaty out of fear that such a large country in the Balkans might threaten their interests.

It was superseded by the Treaty of Berlin,

Signed on the 13th of July.

It provided for a much smaller state,

The Principality of Bulgaria,

Only comprising Mesia and the region of Sofia,

And leaving large populations of ethnic Bulgarians outside the new country.

This significantly contributed to Bulgaria's militaristic foreign affairs approach during the first half of the 20th century.

The Bulgarian Principality won a war against Serbia and incorporated the semi-autonomous Ottoman Territory of Eastern Rumelia in 1885,

Proclaiming itself an independent state on the 5th of October 1908.

In the years following independence,

Bulgaria increasingly militarized and was often referred to as the Balkan Prussia.

It became involved in three consecutive conflicts between 1912 and 1918,

Two Balkan Wars,

And World War I.

After a disastrous defeat in the Second Balkan War,

Bulgaria again found itself fighting on the losing side as a result of its alliance with the Central Powers in World War I.

Despite fielding more than a quarter of its population in a 1.

2 million strong army,

And achieving several decisive victories at Doiran and Monastir,

The country capitulated in 1918.

Between 19 October 1925 and 29 October 1925,

The incident at Petrich,

Nicknamed the War of the Stray Dog,

Occurred,

Which was a minor armed conflict.

Greece invaded Bulgaria after the killing of a Greek captain and sentry by Bulgarian soldiers.

The conflict was settled by the League of Nations and resulted in a Bulgarian diplomatic victory.

The League ordered a ceasefire,

Greek troops to withdraw from Bulgaria,

And Greece to pay 45,

000 pounds to Bulgaria.

Bulgaria is a middle-sized country situated in southeastern Europe,

In the east of the Balkans.

Its territory covers an area of 110,

994 square kilometers,

While land borders with its five neighboring countries run a total length of 1,

808 kilometers,

And its coastline is 354 kilometers.

Bulgaria's geographic coordinates are 43 degrees north,

25 degrees east.

The most notable topographical features of the country are the Danubian Plain,

The Balkan Mountains,

The Thracian Plain,

And the Rila Mountains.

The most notable topographical features of the country are the Danubian Plain,

The Balkan Mountains,

The Thracian Plain,

And the Rila-Rhodopia Massif.

The southern edge of the Danubian Plain slopes upward into the foothills of the Balkans,

While the Danube defines the border with Romania.

The Thracian Plain is roughly triangular,

Beginning southeast of Sofia and broadening as it reaches the Black Sea coast.

The Balkan Mountains run laterally through the middle of the country,

From west to east.

The mountain southwest has two distinct alpine-type ranges,

Rila and Pirin,

Which border the lower but more extensive Rhodopia Mountains to the east,

And various medium-altitude mountains to west,

Northwest,

And south.

Like Vitosha,

Osogovo,

And Belasitsa.

Osala,

At 2,

925 meters,

Is the highest point in both Bulgaria and the Balkans.

The Black Sea coast is the country's lowest point.

Plains occupy about one-third of the territory,

While plateau and hills occupy 41%.

Most rivers are short and with low water levels.

The longest river located solely in Bulgarian territory,

The Iskar,

Was a length of 368 kilometers.

The Struma and the Maritsa are two major rivers in the south.

Bulgaria has a varied and changeable climate,

Which results from being positioned at the meeting point of the Mediterranean,

Oceanic,

And continental air masses,

Combined with the barrier effect of its mountains.

Northern Bulgaria averages one degree Celsius cooler and registers 200 millimeters more precipitation than the regions south of the Balkan Mountains.

Temperature amplitudes vary significantly in different areas.

The lowest recorded temperature is negative 38.

3 degrees Celsius,

While the highest is 45.

2 degrees Celsius.

Precipitation averages about 630 millimeters per year and varies from 500 millimeters in Dobruja to more than 2,

500 millimeters in the mountains.

Continental air masses bring significant amounts of snowfall during winter.

Considering its relatively small area,

Bulgaria has variable and complex climate.

The country occupies the southernmost part of the continental climate zone,

With small areas in the south falling within the Mediterranean climate zone.

The continental zone is predominant because continental air masses flow easily into the unobstructed Danubian Plain.

The continental influence,

Stronger during the winter,

Produces abundant snowfall.

The Mediterranean influence increases during the second half of the summer and produces hot and dry weather.

Bulgaria's climate is also affected by weather.

Bulgaria is subdivided into five climate zones.

Continental Zone,

Transitional Zone,

Continental Mediterranean Zone,

Black Sea Zone along the coastline with an average length of 30 to 40 kilometers inland,

And Alpine Zone in the mountains above 1,

000 meters altitude.

The interaction of climatic,

Hydrological,

Geological,

And topographical conditions has produced a relatively wide variety of plant and animal species.

Bulgaria's biodiversity,

One of the richest in Europe,

Is conserved in three national parks,

11 nature parks,

10 biosphere reserves,

And 565 protected areas.

93 of the 233 mammal species of Europe are found in Bulgaria,

Along with 49% of butterfly and 30% of vascular plant species.

Overall,

41,

493 plant and animal species are present.

Larger mammals with sizable populations include deer,

Wild boar,

Golden jackal,

And red fox.

Partridges number some 328,

000 individuals,

Making them the most widespread game bird.

A third of all nesting birds in Bulgaria can be found in Rila National Park,

Which also hosts arctic and alpine species at high altitudes.

Flora includes more than 3,

000 species of birds,

Flora includes more than 3,

800 vascular plant species,

Of which 170 are endemic,

And 150 are considered endangered.

A checklist of larger fungi in Bulgaria by the Institute of Bodny identifies more than 1,

500 species.

More than 35% of the land area is covered by forests.

In 1998,

The Bulgarian government adopted the National Biological Diversity Conservation Strategy,

A comprehensive program seeking the preservation of local ecosystems,

Protection of endangered species,

And conservation of genetic resources.

Bulgaria has some of the largest Natura 2000 areas in Europe,

Covering 33.

8% of its territory.

It also achieved its Kyoto Protocol objective of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from 1990 to 2009.

Thank you for listening to the I Can't Sleep podcast.

This completes the episode on Bulgaria.

For more information,

See wikipedia.

Org.

Reviews

That was actually interesting! Unfortunately not interesting enough to keep me awake. 😂😂😂