BULGA'RIA, an autonomous principality, tributary to Turkey, which till 1878 consti tuted the Turkish vilayet of the Danube ('Duna). B. is bounded to the n. by the Danube and the Dobrudscha, now Roumanian; on the e. it has the Black sea; on the s. the Bal kan range; and on the w., Servia and Roumelia. There are altogether between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 of the Bulgarian race; of the 2,000,000 souls who form the population of the hew state of B., the great majority are Bulgarians. The area of B. is about 33,000 sq. miles. The country slopes terrace-like from s. to n., and from the w. to the e., acquir ing a plain-like character before reaching the 131ack sea. The rivers are rapid and tribu tary to the Danube. The soil in some parts is very fertile, producing great abundance of corn; in others, it does not yield sufficient for the consumption. There is excellent pasture-land, and the lower terraces are richly wooded. The exports include horned cattle, sheep, corn, wine, iron, wood, honey, wax; and Otto of roses is an important article. The inhabitants are hard-working, hospitable, and fairly intelligent, but suspi cious and greedy; their faith is that of the Greek church. The prince, freely elected by the people, must be confirmed by the Porte with the assent of the powers. The first choice of the Bulgarians was the prince of Battenberg, a cousin of the grand-duke of Hesse, who in 1879 became Alexander I. of Bulgaria. The government is Christian, and there is a national militia. The Berlin congress decided that the military impor tance of B. should meanwhile be decreased by the demolition of all its fortresses.
The earliest known inhabitants of 13. were the Mcesians, who contended long against the Romans, and allied themselves with Gothic and Slavonic tribes against the Greek empire. Anastasius, the Greek emperor, in 507, built an extensive wall to defend his
territories from Mcesian invaders. In the 7th c., the Bulgarians, a people of Finnish origin, whose original seat was the banks of the conquered the Mcesians, and established the kingdom of Bulgaria; they soon lost their own language and cuqoins, and became assimilated to the other Slavonic inhabitants. After being tributary to the Greek emperors, and contending for some time against Hungary, 13. became subject to the Porte in 1392; but the frightful oppression of despotic and sanguinary pashas has not, even to the present day, robbed the inhabitants of a distinctively national life and love of freedom. In April, 1876, an insurrection broke prematurely out in 13., and was quenched in blood, the bashi-bazouks or Turkish irregulars committing savage excesses. The atrocities in B., taken in connection with the Servian war and the con dition of other Christian provinces of Turkey, led to diplomatic intervention; and in December a conference met at Constantinople, but without result. The war of 1877 78, between Russia and Turkey, followed, The congress of Berlin, which revised the treaty of San Stefano, declined to sanction the erection of a Bulgarian principality extending from the Danube to the tEgean. But it constituted an autonomous, though tributary, Bulgaria n. of the Balkans, and to the mainly Bulgarian province s. of them, that of eastern Roumelia (q.v.), it granted administrative autonomy.
The BULGARIAN LANGUAGE is divided into two dialects-01d Bulgarian and New Bulgarian; the former, the richest of the Slavonic dialects; the latter remarkable for its store of popular songs.