The population of Bulgaria, including that of Eastern Eurnelia, was 3.310,713 at the of 1593, and 3.733,159 at the census of 1900. Ra cially the population was divided in 1593 into 2.505.320 569,728 Turks, 62,628 Ru manians, 55.518 Greeks, 52.132 gypsies. 27.531 Spanish Jews, 16,290 Tatars, and 15.560 con sisting mostly of foreigners from European coun tries. The t (institution of Bulgaria guarantee, religious freedom; but the Greid; Orthodox is recognized as the National Church. and numbers among its adherents by far the largest p:1 rt of the population, including the Prince's family. The elerg• of both the national and theotherchurehes are paid by the State. Next to the Greek Ortho dox Church. with 75.7 per cent. of the population, the Mohammedan has the largest number of ad per cent.
IlisTonr. Modern Bulgaria includes the greater part of the Roman Province of Mtesia.
awl a portion of Thrace. At the time of the great migration of nations which the Roman Empire of the West. the Slays pressed forward into this region, pushing aside the Ger manic invaders who had preeeded them. About the close of the Fifth Century A.D. the Bulgars, a people of Finnic stock, probably akin to the Huns. whose early home appears to have been the steppes of southeastern Russia. begin to make their appearance in the region of the Lower Danube. and in the reign of Justinian (527-ti5) they figure the enemies of the Byzantine Empire. Toward the close of the Seventh Cen tury thee pushed across the Danube and occupied Lower Mcesia, where they erected a strong and warlike State. \Nil ich narrowed the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire. and for a time eventhreat ened its existence. About 862 their khan was converted to Christianity. Not being numeri cally powerful enough to attack the Slavic and other elements in the region which they had occupied, the Bulgarians gradually beeame merged in the subjected population, and a Slav Bulgarian people were evolved out of the ad mixture. The Bulgarians borrowed much from their Greek neighbors. The Bulgarian realm at tained a high pitch of power at the beginning of the Tenth Century under Symeon, who as sumed the title of Czar, and whose dominions extended to the Adriatic. Soon after a disruption of the realm into two parts took place. The eastern half was conquered by the Byzantine Emperor, John Zimisees. and the western suc cumbed in 1018 to the arms of the Emperor Basil H. In 11811 the Bulgarians, under the lead of John Asen, revolted against I Ile Byzan tine rule. and established a new realm, the capital of which was Tirnova. This soon rose. to he a powerful State: but after a time it was outstripped by Servia, which in the middle of tlw Fourteenth Century was the great Slavic. power of the Smith. In 1351 th,..s, Ottoman Turks first obtained a foothold in Europe, and their conquest of Adrianople in 1361 brought them (dose to the frontiers of Bulgaria. In 1388-03. under Ainurath I. and Bajazet 1., they overran and conquered the country. The prostrate nation ceased to have a history of its own until the latter half of the Ninetee»th Century. In 187» slight revolt broke out among (lie Bulgarians against the intolerable oppression and misrule of the Ottoman) Government. its immediate eashal was the settlement among the peaceful peasantry of Cireassians, who made the native population the victims of brutal barbarity. The Bashi-Bazuks, all irregular police enrolled by the Turkish commander to put down the revolt. were largely composed of these alien colonists. and the suppression of the rebellion was aecompanied by the most horrible outrages. The 'Bulgarian atrocities' shocked the civilized world, and gave Russia the exense she had been seeking for declaring war on Turkey. Bulgaria was the principal theatre of the war of 1877 78. (See RuNso-T•itinsn wAR.) Russia hoped to bring all of the Slav peoples of the Balkans under her hegemony; and, by the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria was made an principality tributary to Turkey, with bound a•ies wider than those of the ancient kingdom and a coast-line on the _Egean. The Powers, at the Congress of Berlin (1878). refused to allow such a great curtailment of the Turkish terri tory, hut made Bulgaria north of the Balkans an autonomous principality, tributary to Turkey, with a prince to he elected by the people, sub ject to the confirmation of the Porte with the assent of tile Powers. The Province of Eastern
Rumelia, to be administered by a Christian Gov ernor, was erected south of the Balkans, out of part of the territory which the treaty of Can Stefano had included in Bulgaria. (For terms of the treaty of San Stefano, see BERLIN. CONCR•SS o•.) Alexander of Battenberg (q.v.) was the first Prince of Bulgaria under this settlement. An outburst of Bulgarian national spirit brought about in 1335 a revolution, by which Eastern 1I,unielia united itself to Bulgaria. 'rlie pro test of the Porte received no encouragement front the Powers. Russia alone opposed the union, because of what it regarded as the un grateful spirit of independence shown by the Bulgarian people, who had taken up the prob lems of their newly recovered national life with an unexiiceted spirit and vigor. The bitter struggle between the Russian Party and the Nationalists has since complkated the political life of the principality. -knottier opponent of the aggrandizement of Bulgaria was found in her neighbor and ancient rival, Servia, which put an army into the field to oppose the union by force. In a short and sharp campaign in the closing months of 1885, Prince Alexander and the Bul garian troops defeated the larger Servian army, and were only restrained from invading Servia by the intervention of Austria-Hungary. Prince Alexander, after a shameful conspiracy against him excited by Russian intrigues, abdicated the crown in September, 188», in the hope that it would lead to a more friendly attitude on the part of Russia. and Prince Ferdinand of Coburg was chosen to succeed him in July, ISS7. Rus sia, which had opposed the election of Prince Ferdinand. withheld its recognition of his title to the throne. as did the faller great Powers. \evertheless, Ferdinand maintained himself in his position. owing mainly to the ability of his Premier, Stambnhdr. The fail and subsequent assassination of St:11111)111.)ff (July, 1895) paved the tray for a better understanding with Russia; and when Ferdinand consented to have his son. Boris. received into the Greek Church (Februi••y 14, 189(;), Czar Nicholas It. formally acknowl edged Ferdinand as Prince of Bulgaria. This step was followed by the recognition of Ferdi nand on the part of tile other European Powers. Ferdinand's son has heel confirmed by the Sobranje, or National Assembly, as heir to the title. Bulgaria's hereditary hostility toward Greece, enhanced by their common desire for the possession of Macedonia, and the jealousy between Bulgaria and Servia, stand in the way of that Balkan unity which has been so much dis cussed. Bulgaria is known as the 'Peasant State,' and is not wealthy; but it has, in the years of its practical independent..., developed politically. eeo monically, and intellectually, in a way that has surmised both its friends its enemies. See PoLiveal, Pmams, paragraph Ita/kan 8tufez.
BiumooliAmi Y. FM' a general description, elln• snit: Kanitz, hwumbulgarien (1( r Balloth (Leipzig, 18s2) ; Tama. Die ostlieh• Balkan halbinsel, militar-geographisch, statistiseh kriegshistorisch dargestellt (Vienna, 'SSG) ; Sam nelson, Hu/guria, rust and Present (London, 1888)—perhaps the best comprehensive account to that date in English; .lireZ:ek, Das Fiirsten tuin Bulgarien (Vienna, 1591). For the most authoritative history of Bulgaria for the period up to 1876. consult: Jir4ek, ticsehiehte der Bul E•en ( Prague, 1576). For the later history: The Struggle of the Bulgarians for Na tional independence Under Prince Alexander, translation (London, 1886) ; id.. The Kidnapping of Prince Alexander of Battcnberg, translation ( London, Issi) ; Nooh. Prince Alcxande• of Batt(-nbteg (London, 1887). Consult also: Bat tenberg, Lie rolkswirtsehaftliehe Ent wieklung Bulgariens con 1S74) Lis zur Gegen•art (Leipzig, ISO]) ; Drandar, Les en'neinents politiques en Bulgarie depuis 1876 jusqu'd nos fours (Brus sels, 1896) ; Beaman, Twenty in the East (London, 1898) ; Strauss, Dic Bulyaren (Leipzig, ISOS) ; Falkenegg, Bulgariens Vergungenheit and Gegenwart (Berlin, 1900); Dicey. The Peasant Stale (London, 1894) ; The Balkans—Rumania, Bulgaria, Sercia, and llontenegro (New York, 1896) ; and Travels and Polities in the Sear East (1599) ;Maeaalian, The Turkish. Atrociths in Bulgaria (London, 1S76) ; Gladstone, The Bulgarian Horrors and the Eastern Question (London, 1876).