The First Bulgarian Empire (681–1018)

The founding

In 681 Byzantium was forced to recognise the new state of Khan Asparuh between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains. The Proto-Bulgars – horsemen who had come from the steppes – allied with the Slavs already living there. The result was a state that would last more than three centuries and change the Balkans.

The great khans

• Tervel (700–721) – helped Byzantium stop the Arabs at the siege of Constantinople in 717–718 and received the title “caesar”. The Byzantines adored him, right up until they started fighting him again.
• Krum (803–814) – Krum the Fearsome. He crushed Emperor Nikephoros I in 811 and, according to the chronicles, had a drinking cup made from his skull. It sounds brutal, but who are you to judge medieval protocol?
• Omurtag (814–831) – a builder and lawmaker, he concluded a 30-year peace with Byzantium.

Christianisation and the Golden Age

Prince Boris I adopted Christianity in 864 and made the state Christian. His son, Tsar Simeon the Great (893–927), educated in Constantinople, stretched Bulgaria from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and presided over the Golden Age of Bulgarian literature. The capital moved to Preslav.

Decline

After Simeon came weaker rulers, invasions by the Magyars and the Pechenegs, and wars with Kiev. The last great attempt to save the state was made by Tsar Samuil, but in 1014 his armies were crushed at the Battle of Belasitsa. The Byzantine emperor Basil II blinded 15,000 prisoners and sent them home. Samuil died of a heart attack when he saw them. In 1018 the First Empire fell.