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Bulgaria has a population of 8 million people and is located in
the Southeast corner of Europe, sharing boarders with Romania,
Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Serbia and Montenegro.
85% of the population are Bulgarians, speaking Bulgarian which
is similar to Russian or Serbo Croat, and are Orthodox Christian.
About 13% are Muslim, and around 500,000 are Gypsies or Roma.
The country was founded in the 7th and 8th Centuries by the Bulgars,
nomadic peoples from Asia. They established the first Bulgarian
Kingdom and made the religion Christian Orthodox. This collapsed
when the country was taken over by the Byzantine Empire in the
11th Century. The local aristocracy broke free from this and established
the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. The area was seized by Ottoman powers
in the 14th Century. This was followed by a 500-year-long ‘Tursko
Robstro’ (‘Turkish Bondage’) which attempted to destroy the achievements
of the Medieval era. However, in the 19th Century, there was a
National Revival of Bulgarian art and culture , this lead to a
revolutionary movement. The Liberation of Bulgaria occurred in
1878. In the 20th Century, Bulgaria went to war three times: in
the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and the 1st and 2nd World Wars. After
1945, Bulgaria was under communism – though this later collapsed.
Even though today Bulgaria is still in transition.
Bulgaria expect to join the European Union in 2007.
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