The Balkans | Page 8

Salonika in 609 and Constantinople in 626.
During the last quarter of the sixth and the first of the seventh century the various
branches of the Bulgar nation, stretching from the Volga to the Danube, were
consolidated and kept in control by their prince Kubrat, who eventually fought on behalf
of the Greeks against the Avars, and was actually baptized in Constantinople. The power
of the Bulgars grew as that of the Avars declined, but at the death of Kubrat, in 638, his
realm was divided amongst his sons. One of these established himself in Pannonia, where
he joined forces with what was left of the Avars, and there the Bulgars maintained
themselves till they were obliterated by the irruption of the Magyars in 893. Another son,
Asparukh, or Isperikh, settled in Bessarabia, between the rivers Prut and Dniester, in 640,
and some years later passed southwards. After desultory warfare with Constantinople,
from 660 onwards, his successor finally overcame the Greeks, who were at that time at
war with the Arabs, captured Varna, and definitely established himself between the
Danube and the Balkan range in the year 679. From that year the Danube ceased to be the
frontier of the eastern empire.
The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not known, but what
happened to them is notorious. The well-known process, by which the Franks in Gaul
were absorbed by the far more numerous indigenous population which they had
conquered, was repeated, and the Bulgars became fused with the Slavs. So complete was
the fusion, and so preponderating the influence of the subject nationality, that beyond a
few personal names no traces of the language of the Bulgars have survived. Modern
Bulgarian, except for the Turkish words introduced into it later during the Ottoman rule,
is purely Slavonic. Not so the Bulgarian nationality; as is so often the case with mongrel
products, this race, compared with the Serbs, who are purely Slav, has shown
considerably greater virility, cohesion, and driving-power, though it must be conceded
that its problems have been infinitely simpler.

5
_The Early Years of Bulgaria and the Introduction of Christianity_, 700-893
From the time of their establishment in the country to which they have given their name
the Bulgars became a thorn in the side of the Greeks, and ever since both peoples have
looked on one another as natural and hereditary enemies. The Bulgars, like all the
barbarians who had preceded them, were fascinated by the honey-pot of Constantinople,
and, though they never succeeded in taking it, they never grew tired of making the
attempt.
For two hundred years after the death of Asparukh, in 661, the Bulgars were perpetually
fighting either against the Greeks or else amongst themselves. At times a diversion was
caused by the Bulgars taking the part of the Greeks, as in 718, when they 'delivered'
Constantinople, at the invocation of the Emperor Leo, from the Arabs, who were
besieging it. From about this time the Bulgarian monarchy, which had been hereditary,
became elective, and the anarchy of the many, which the Bulgars found when they
arrived, and which their first few autocratic rulers had been able to control, was replaced
by an anarchy of the few. Prince succeeded prince, war followed war, at the will of the
feudal nobles. This internal strife was naturally profitable to the Greeks, who lavishly

subsidized the rival factions.
At the end of the eighth century the Bulgars south of the Danube joined forces with those
to the north in the efforts of the latter against the Avars, who, beaten by Charlemagne,
were again pressing south-eastwards towards the Danube. In this the Bulgars were
completely successful under the leadership of one Krum, whom, in the elation of victory,
they promptly elected to the throne. Krum was a far more capable ruler than they had
bargained for, and he not only united all the Bulgars north and south of the Danube into
one dominion, but also forcibly repressed the whims of the nobles and re-established the
autocracy and the hereditary monarchy. Having finished with his enemies in the north, he
turned his attention to the Greeks, with no less success. In 809 he captured from them the
important city of Sofia (the Roman Sardica, known to the Slavs as Sredets), which is
to-day the capital of Bulgaria. The loss of this city was a blow to the Greeks, because it
was a great centre of commerce and also the point at which the commercial and strategic
highways of the peninsula met and crossed. The Emperor Nikiphóros, who wished to take
his revenge and recover his lost property, was totally defeated by the Bulgars and lost his
life in the Balkan passes in 811. After further victories, at Mesembria (the modern
Misivria) in