The History of Bulgaria (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations)

243 Pages·2011·1.71 MB·English

by  Frederick B. Chary

THE
HISTORY OF
BULGARIA
ADVISORY BOARD
JohnT.Alexander
Professorof Historyand Russianand EuropeanStudies,
UniversityofKansas
RobertA.Divine
George W.LittlefieldProfessor in AmericanHistoryEmeritus,
UniversityofTexas at Austin
JohnV.Lombardi
Professorof History,
UniversityofFlorida
THE
HISTORY OF
BULGARIA
Frederick B. Chary
TheGreenwoodHistoriesoftheModernNations
FrankW.ThackerayandJohnE.Findling,SeriesEditors
Copyright2011byABC-CLIO,LLC
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrieval
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Chary,FrederickB.
ThehistoryofBulgaria/FrederickB.Chary.
p.cm.—(TheGreenwoodhistoriesofthemodernnations)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978–0–313–38446–2(hardcopy:alk.paper)—ISBN978–0–313–38447–9(ebook)
1. Bulgaria—History. I.Title.
DR67.C46 2011
949.9—dc22 2010048660
ISBN:978–0–313–38446–2
EISBN:978–0–313–38447–9
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Contents
SeriesForeword ix
Preface xiii
TimelineofHistoricalEvents xv
Introduction xix
1 TheFirstBulgarianEmpire(10,000BCE–1018) 1
2 TheSecondBulgarianEmpire(1018–1393) 15
3 BulgarianRevival(1393–1878) 23
4 ModernBulgariauntiltheBalkanWars(1878–1911) 35
5 WarsandthePeasantState(1911–1923) 47
6 TwoCoupsd’Etat(1923–1935) 67
7 RoyalDictatorshipandWorldWarII(1935–1944) 85
8 TheCommunistEra(1944–1953) 121
viii Contents
9 TheZhivkovYears(1953–1990) 137
10 Post–CommunistBulgaria(1990–2010) 159
NotablePeopleintheHistoryofBulgaria 177
Glossary 187
BibliographicEssay 193
Index 199
Series Foreword
The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations series is intended to
provide students and interested laypeople with up-to-date, concise,
and analytical histories of many of the nations of the contemporary
world. Not since the 1960s has there been a systematic attempt to
publishaseriesofnationalhistories,andasseriesadvisors,webelieve
that this series will prove to bea valuable contribution to our under-
standingofothercountriesinourincreasinglyinterdependentworld.
Some 40 years ago, at the end of the 1960s, the Cold War was an
accepted reality of global politics.The process of decolonization was
still in progress, the idea of a unified Europe with a single currency
was unheard of, the United States was mired in a war in Vietnam,
and the economic boom in Asia was still years in thefuture. Richard
NixonwaspresidentoftheUnitedStates,MaoTse-tung(notyetMao
Zedong)ruledChina,Leonid BrezhnevguidedtheSovietUnion,and
Harold Wilson was prime ministerof the United Kingdom. Authori-
tariandictatorsstillcontrolledmostofLatinAmerica,theMiddleEast
was reeling in the wake of the Six-Day War, and Shah Mohammad
RezaPahlaviwasattheheightofhispowerinIran.
Sincethen,theColdWarhasended,theSovietUnionhasvanished,
leaving 16 independent republics in its wake, the advent of the