Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
garian churchmen thus won freedom from both Rome and Constantinople, with the liturgy
in their own emerging Slavic language, not Greek or Latin.
Following Byzantine imperial practice, Boris retired to a monastery in 889 for his final
years. However, when his son Vladimir tried to restore paganism, Boris deposed and
blinded him. Younger brother Simeon (r 893-927) stretched Bulgaria's borders from the
Adriatic to the Aegean, and the Dnieper River in the north. Ruling from a new capital,
Preslav, Tsar Petâr (r 927-968) oversaw a cultural golden age of church building, fine arts
and manuscript production. However, Preslav was badly damaged during 960s wars with
the Kievan Rus and Byzantium and never recovered.
Dislocation & Decline
After Preslav's destruction, Tsar Samuel (r 978-1014) moved the capital to Ohrid (in
modern-day Macedonia (his castle still towers above Ohrid's massive lake). However, he
lost the 1014 Battle of Kleidion/Belasitsa to the Byzantines; according to a spurious le-
gend, Emperor Basil II (r 976-1025) had 15,000 captured Bulgarian soldiers blinded and
returned to Samuel, who died of shock. While Samuel actually died months later, the de-
feat was impressive - Basil was nicknamed Voulgaroktonos ('Bulgar-Slayer' in Greek). In
1018, Ohrid fell, and Bulgaria was annexed.
Byzantium's later decline led Bulgarians ar-
istocratic brothers Asen and Petâr to rebel;
their Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396)
had Veliko Târnovo as capital. Bulgaria now
cast a wary eye westward. In the perfidious
Fourth Crusade of 1204, Western knights in-
vaded Constantinople, destroying the Byzanti-
ne state. In 1205, self-declared 'emperor'
Baldwin of Flanders foolishly invaded Bul-
garia: he was captured and terminally imprisoned in the tower at Tsarevets Fortress in Ve-
liko Târnovo.
Asen's diplomatically savvy son, Tsar Ivan Asen II (r 1218-41), became southeastern
Europe's most powerful ruler, and Veliko Târnovo became an important cultural centre. In
1230 he defeated Byzantine successor armies at the Battle of Klokotnitsa. After his death,
however, Bulgaria disintegrated between Tatar and Arab invasions and internal fighting.
Bogomilism was a medieval Bulgarian heresy
based on dualism - the existence of two deities, one
evil, the other good. In 1118, sect leader Basil the
Bogomil was burned at the stake in Constantinople
- an extremely rare punishment meant to intimidate
his followers.
