The First Bulgarian Empire

Abstract

Byzantine-Bulgarian relations dominated Balkan affairs between the ninth and early eleventh centuries. Asparuh’s small Bulgar state was transformed into a large and powerful Slavic Bulgarian empire controlling the central and eastern Balkans. By officially embracing Orthodox Christianity and creating a Slavic literary language and culture, Bulgaria became both the primary Balkan political rival of the Byzantine Empire and Byzantium’s chief competitor for the mantle of leadership in the Orthodox world. But the late ninth- and early tenth-century “Golden Age” of Bulgaria proved ephemeral. The Bulgarian decline that set in soon after preserved Byzantine political and cultural hegemony in the Balkans and opened the door to the political development of other Balkan peoples, particularly the Croats and Serbs.