The Balkans | Page 8

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 812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum
appeared before the capital, where he nearly lost