As a state established by Khan Asparoukh, Bulgaria has been in existence for more than 13 centuries.

Thracians were the first settlers in the Bulgarian lands, and their civilisation is evidenced by numerous archaeological finds, tombs, gold and silver treasures. Evidence of the presence of life in prehistoric times exists in the best preserved Neolithic dwellings discovered world-wide – namely those near the town of Stara Zagora, in the Bacho Kiro cave near the town of Dryanovo, and in the Magurata cave, close to the town of Belogradchik.

The first written reference of the name “Bulgarians” is found in an anonymous Roman chronography of AD 452.

The history of Bulgaria is divided into four major periods:

First Bulgarian kingdom (AD 681 – 1018);

Second Bulgarian kingdom (AD 1185 – 1396);

Third Bulgarian kingdom (1878 – 1945)

and Modern Bulgaria.

First Bulgarian Kingdom AD 681:
The Bulgarian state was established – one of the first ever European states. The first Bulgarian capital was Pliska. Its tzars (khans) Asparoukh, Krum the Dreadful (AD 803 – 814) and Omurtag (AD 852 – 831), turned it into a mighty power in south-eastern Europe.

AD 855 – The Saints Cyril and Methodius, brothers, created the Slavonic alphabet.

AD 865 – Prince St. Boris (AD 852 – 907) did away with paganism, and introduced Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the official religion in Bulgaria. In AD 865 he moved the capital from Pliska to Veliki Preslav (Great Preslav). The Byzantine Empire recognised him as tzar of the Bulgarians.

AD 893 – 927 – Under the reign of Tzar Simeon (the Great), son of Tzar Boris I, the Bulgarian kingdom became the largest in the territory and the most powerful in Europe. The “golden age” of Bulgarian culture set in.

AD 1018 – Emperor Basil II conquered Bulgaria and turned it into a province of the Byzantine empire.

Second Bulgarian Kingdom 1185-1396:
The era of the Second Bulgarian kingdom, which came into being after a successful uprising by the Bulgarian aristocracy. The reign of the Assen dynasty began. They proclaimed the town of Turnovo as capital. John-Assen II (1218 – 1241) was the best known and most powerful ruler of the period of the Second Bulgarian kingdom.

1396 – Bulgaria fell entirely under Ottoman domination.For five centuries Bulgaria was a province of the Ottoman Empire. During the conquest the aristocracy was destroyed, the Bulgarian administration was done away with, the Bulgarian Church was deprived of autocephaly and partriarchical rank, and was placed under the patriarchy of Constantinople.

1652 – The beginning of the Bulgarian National Revival. Monk Paissii of the Hilendar monastery (on Mount Athos) wrote the book Slav-Bulgarian History.

1870 – Start of the organised national liberation movement.

1876 – The April uprising of the enslaved Bulgarian people broke out. It was put down in a sea of blood, but caused a notable international response of indignation at Turkish tyranny.

1877-1878 – The war of Russian-Turkish Liberation, in which Bulgaria gave many lives for the sake of freedom.

Third Bulgarian Kingdom:
The Third Bulgarian state began with the San Stefano peace agreement, signed on 3 March 1878. On the basis of that agreement Bulgaria regained the territories of the three historic and ethnic Bulgarian regions, namely Moesia, Thrace and Macedonia. Bulgaria became the largest Balkan country.
13 July 1878 – The treaty of Berlin was signed, on the basis of which newly liberated Bulgaria was divided into the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, and a large portion of Bulgarian lands was sequestered, to remain under Ottoman domination.

16 April 1879 – The Turnovo Constitution was passed solemnly by the First Grand National Assembly.

26 June 1879 – Alexander Battenberg became prince of Bulgaria, and Sofia the capital of the new Bulgarian state.

6 September 1885 – Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia (the real liberation of Bulgaria).

22 September 1908 – King Ferdinand I proclaimed Bulgaria’s full independence from Turkish rule.

Modern Bulgaria:
After the restoration of national statehood in 1878 Bulgaria was a constitutional monarchy with a democratic government and a rapidly developing economy. The process of successful growth was curtailed as a result of the adventurism of king Ferdinand I, which led to the catastrophes of 1913, when the country had to wage simultaneous wars against Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Turkey, and Romania, and of 1918, during the war against the Entente countries.

1923 and 1934 – Democratically elected governments were toppled by coups d’état that brought authoritarian regimes to power.

1941 – Bulgaria entered World War II on the side of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis. Bulgaria was the only ally of Hitler's Germany which did not allow the killing of its Jewish citizens. It was thanks to King Boris III and the Bulgarian government that no hostilities were waged on its territory.

1944 – After Word War II, as a result of the Yalta agreement between the Great Powers, Bulgaria fell under the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union.

1953-1989 – Years of the communist rule of Todor Zhivkov who headed both the party and the state.

10 November 1989 – Under the pressure of domestic and international circumstances Todor Zhivkov was forced to resign. Bulgaria once again embarked on the road to democratic development.

7 December 1989 – The Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) was formed as a unification of 13 opposition organisations.

10-17 June 1990 – First free parliamentary elections.

12 July 1991 – A new democratic Constitution was passed.

13 October 1991 – First free local authority elections.

January 1992 – First free presidential elections. Zhelyu Zhelev was elected as head of state.

3 November 1996 – Petar Stoyanov, proposed by the UDF, was elected with a landslide majority as President of the Republic of Bulgaria.

19 April 1997 – The Parliamentary elections were won by the Democratic Forces United (DFU). A government was formed, headed by Ivan Kostov as Prime Minister. Bulgaria started on the road to genuine democratic reforms.

Parliament is currently headed by Prime Minister Saxe-Coburg who is the only monarch in the world that has been chosen by his people to take on a post that was not given to him by right of succession. Having become King at the age of 6 he was then exiled at the age of nine only to return to Bulgaria some 55 years later to be elected Prime Minister.

The geographical situation at crossroads, the favourable climate and the variety of relief are prerequisites for the interweaving of fates and routes of many tribes and peoples on the Bulgarian lands. The territory of Bulgaria was inhabited since the earliest historical ages - the Stone Age and the Stone-Copper Age. Archaeological findings of that time were excavated near Karanovo, in the region of Nova Zagora, near Varna, Veliko Turnovo, Vidin, Sofia, Teteven, Troyan, in the Rhodopes. In the Bronze Age Thracians settled here. They dealt in field farming and stock breeding and left evidence of a rich culture (the treasure of Vulchitrun, the Sofia golden vessel and others). In the 11th-6th centuries B.C. there appeared Thracian state units the efflorescence of which took place between the 6th and 2nd centuries B.C. In the 1st C. B.C. their lands were conquered by Rome and in the 5th C. were included in Byzantium. In the 5th-6th centuries the Slavs settled on the Balkan Peninsula, soon to be followed by the Proto-Bulgarians. The constant threat in the face of Byzantium was the cause for these settlers to unite. Thus, in 681 the Bulgarian state was established with Khan Asparouh at the head. Pliska became the capital city. In the years to follow the state underwent periods of greatness and decline.

Under the reign of Khan Tervel (700-718) Bulgaria expanded in territory and rose to a higher political standing. Under Khan Kroum (803-814) Bulgaria bordered on the west with the empire of Charlemagne and on the east the Bulgarian troops reached the walls of Constantinople.

In 864 under Knyaz Boris I Mihail (852-889) the Bulgarian people adopted Christianity as official religion.

At the end of the 9th C. the students of Constantin-Cyril the Philosopher and his brother Methodius - founders of the Slavonic alphabet, came to Bulgaria. Here they enjoyed favourable working conditions and soon undertook large-scale educational and literary activities. Ohrid and Pliska, and later the new capital Veliki Preslav became centres of the Bulgarian and, generally speaking, the Slavonic culture. The reigh of Tsar Simeon (893-917) was the "golden age of Bulgarian culture", when the state expanded to reach the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea.

Under the successors of Simeon the state weakened by reason of internal turmoil; there spread the heretical teaching of the Bogomils that exerted influence over the heresy of the Cathars and the Albigenses in Western Europe.

In 1018, after long-lasting wars, Bulgaria was conquered by Byzantium. As early as the first years of Byzantine rule the Bulgarians began to struggle for liberation. In 1186 the uprising led by the brother boyars Asen and Petur overthrew the power of Byzantium. As a result the Second Bulgarian Kingdom was established, with Turnovo as a capital city. Up to 1197 the state was under the rule first of Asen and next of Petur.

The mighty power of Bulgaria was restored under their youngest brother Kaloyan (1197-1207), and under Tsar Ivan Asen II (1218-1241) the Second Bulgarian Kingdom reached its highest efflorescence establishing political hegemony in South-East Europe, expanding its borders, pushing forward economical and cultural development. After 1300 the cultural life in Bulgaria marked a new uplift. The literary and artistic school of Turnovo carried on the traditions in the Bulgarian culture - evidenced in the mural paintings in the Boyana Church, the churches in Turnovo, the Zemen Monastery, the rock churches near Ivanovo, the miniatures in the London Gospel, the Chronicle of Manasses.

Separatist tendencies, though, on the part of the boyars led to the splitting of the state in two kingdoms - the Vidin Kingdom and the Turnovo Kingdom. This weakening of the state made it an easy prey for invaders and in 1396 it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. In the course of almost 5 centuries Bulgaria was under Ottoman rule. The initial years were characterized by unrest and attempts for liberation, later on the haidouts (rebels) appeared who took revenge on the Turks for their wrong doings and this finally led to the establishment of a well-organized national liberation movement.

The beginning of the 18th C. saw the first stages in the formation of the Bulgarian nation - the Bulgarian enlightenment set in. It was initiated by the work of the monk Paisiy Hilendarski "Slav-Bulgarian History", written in 1762. This writing urged the Bulgarian people to become conscious of and appreciate its own nationality. The ideas of national liberation were conceived and led to the establishment of national church, education and culture.

The organized revolutionary activities are associated with the life-work of Georgi Stoikov Rakovski (1821-1867) - writer and publicist, founder and ideologist of the national-liberation revolutionary movement; Vasil Levski (1837-1873) - strategist and ideologist of the movement, captured by the Turks and put to death near Sofia, a national hero; Lyuben Karavelov (1834-1879) - writer and publicist, leader and ideologist of the movement; Hristo Botev (1847-1876) - poet and publicist, revolutionary democrat, who got killed as voivode (chieftain) of a volunteer detachment fighting the Turkish army, a national hero, and many others.

1876 saw the outbreak of the April Uprising, ruthlessly crushed and drowned in blood, but of major political significance, as it drew the attention of the European states to the Bulgarian national issue.

In 1878, as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation (1877-1878), the Bulgarian state was restored, but national integration was not attained. The Principality of Bulgaria was proclaimed with an elective knyaz (prince) (Alexander of Battenberg), Eastern Rumelia with a governor of Christian faith to be appointed by the sultan, while Thrace and Macedonia remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

The opposition to this unfair decision of the Congress of Berlin (1878) let to the Kresna-Razlog Uprising (1878-1879), to the unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia (1885), to the break up of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising (1903). Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a prince since 1887, proclaimed the independence of Turkey and in 1908 became tsar (king) of the Bulgarian people, Bulgaria waged the Balkan War (1912) together with Serbia and Greece for the liberation of Thrace and Macedonia. Bulgaria won that war, but in the Inter-Allies War that followed (1913) was defeated by Romania, Turkey and its former allies that tore off territories populated by Bulgarians.

The intervention of Bulgaria in World War I on the side of the Central Powers ended up in a national catastrophe. In 1918 Tsar Ferdinand abdicated to the advantage of his son Boris III. The Peace Treaty of Neuilly imposed harsh clauses on Bulgaria.

Towards the beginning of the 40ies Bulgaria swerved towards Germany and the Axis powers, but later on the participation of Bulgarian troops on the Eastern Front was prevented, Jews living in the country were rescued from deportment.

In August 1943 Tsar Boris III died and a regency was proclaimed that governed the state in lieu of the young Tsar Simeon II. On 5 September 1944 the Soviet army invaded Bulgaria and on 9 September a government of the Fatherland Front was instated headed by Kimon Georgiev. In 1946 Bulgaria was proclaimed a republic. The Bulgarian Communist party came into power. The political parties were suppressed, the economy and the banks were nationalized, the arable land was joined in co-operatives. At the head of the state and the communist party there stood in succession Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Kolarov, Vulko Chervenkov, Anton Yugov, Todor Zhivkov.

10 November 1989 saw the democratic changes in Bulgaria. A new constitution was adopted, the political parties were re-established, the property, taken away in 1947, was reinstated, as was the land, privatization started.

From 1990 to 1996 Zhelyu Zhelev was a Bulgarian president. In 1996 Petur Stoyanov became president of the country. Since then prime ministers have been: Andrei Loukanov, Dimitur Popov, Filip Dimitrov, Lyuben Berov, Reneta Indzhova, Zhan Videnov, Stefan Sofiyanski, Ivan Kostov.