Bulgaria historical timeline

History

Bulgaria's history is one of the longest continuous national stories in Europe and one of the most interrupted. What a visitor sees -- Thracian gold, Roman theatres, the medieval churches of Nesebar and Boyana, the revival monasteries, the socialist monuments -- is the record of a people who kept a name and a language through five centuries of someone else's rule.

Chronology

6500 BC The Karanovo culture farms the Thracian plain; the Varna culture of 5000 BC leaves the world's oldest worked gold in a necropolis dated to 4600–4200 BC.
4th century BC Thracian kingdoms build the painted tomb at Kazanlak and the tombs of Sveshtari; the Romans conquer the region in AD 45 and found the province of Thracia in 46, with Serdica -- Sofia -- and Philippopolis -- Plovdiv -- among its cities.
681 The Bulgars under Asparuh, settled among the Slavs south of the Danube, force Byzantium to recognise the First Bulgarian Empire by treaty; the Madara Rider is carved for Khan Tervel around 710.
864 Boris I adopts Orthodox Christianity; the Cyrillic alphabet is developed at the capital Preslav, and in 927 the Bulgarian church becomes the first national church to win autocephaly; the golden age of Simeon I precedes Byzantine conquest, complete by 1018.
1185 A revolt founds the Second Bulgarian Empire, with its capital at Tarnovo, reaching its height under Ivan Asen II between 1218 and 1241; Boyana's frescoes are painted in 1259.
1396 The Ottomans complete the conquest of the Bulgarian lands, which they hold for nearly five centuries; Rila Monastery, founded in the 10th century, keeps Bulgarian letters alive and is rebuilt between 1834 and 1862 after the fire of 1833.
1876 The April Uprising is crushed with up to 30,000 dead; the Russo-Turkish war that follows ends with the treaty of San Stefano on 3 March 1878 and an autonomous principality; full independence is declared on 5 October 1908.
1912 The First Balkan War breaks out in October 1912 after the Ottoman Empire refuses reforms in the disputed areas; in June 1913 Serbia and Greece form a new alliance against Bulgaria and the Second follows. The two wars left 58,000 dead and over 100,000 wounded and stopped the country's steady economic growth -- the point at which Bulgaria, militarised enough to be called the Prussia of the Balkans, began losing wars instead of winning them.
1915 Bulgaria sits out the first year of the First World War recuperating, then signs an alliance with Germany and Austria in September 1915 and declares war on Serbia in October. Bulgarian opinion had turned against Russia and the Western powers after the Balkan Wars, by whom Bulgarians felt betrayed. Defeat cost the country its Aegean coast, which is why a Black Sea holiday is the only sea a Bulgarian domestic holiday can reach.
1941 Bulgaria abandons neutrality on 1 March 1941 and allies with the Axis until 8 September 1944. As an ally of Nazi Germany it participated in the Holocaust, contributing to the deaths of 11,343 Jews from the occupied territories in Greece and Yugoslavia, while its own 48,000 Jews -- subjected to discrimination but not deported from the core provinces -- survived the war. Both halves of that sentence are load-bearing, and the second is the one Bulgarian memorials tend to carry alone.
1944 The Soviet Union declares war on Bulgaria on 5 September, the Red Army enters three days later, and on the eve of 9 September a coup overthrows the government -- demonstrations, strikes and revolts had already given local power to the Fatherland Front on 6 and 7 September. It is the beginning of radical reform towards Soviet-style socialism, and the monarchy is abolished on 15 September 1946.
1989 A campaign to rename the Turkish minority drives some 300,000 people to Turkey; on 10 November the Communist Party gives up its monopoly; a democratic constitution follows in 1991.
2007 NATO on 29 March 2004, the European Union on 1 January 2007, Schengen on 1 January 2025, and the euro on 1 January 2026, the lev retired after a month of dual circulation.

What survived, and how

The alphabet survived because the church kept it and the monasteries copied it; Rila's library is the proof. The Thracian gold survived because it was buried. The medieval churches of Nesebar survived because the town was a Byzantine and then an Ottoman port with no reason to knock them down. Plovdiv's Roman theatre, odeon, stadium and aqueduct survived under the later city.

What did not survive is the Turkish names of the people who were made to change them in the 1980s, or the 300,000 who left.

Verified against Wikipedia, September 2026.

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Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — One of the earliest societies in the lands of modern-day Bulgaria was the Karanovo culture (6,500 BC) ... stability came when the Roman Empire conquered the…, The Bulgars, led by Asparuh ... established the First Bulgarian Empire, recognised by treaty in 681 AD by the Byzantine Empire, Boris I abolished Bulgar paganism in favour of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in 864. The conversion was followed by ... the adoption of the Cyrillic…, by 1018 the Byzantines had conquered the First Bulgarian Empire, A successful Bulgarian revolt in 1185 established a Second Bulgarian Empire, which reached its apex under Ivan Asen II (1218–1241) ... in 1396 fell under…, the April Uprising of 1876. Up to 30,000 Bulgarians were killed, The Treaty of San Stefano was signed on 3 March 1878, declared independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1908, It became involved in three consecutive conflicts between 1912 and 1918—two Balkan Wars and World War I, In 1946, Bulgaria came under the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, These policies resulted in the emigration of some 300,000 ethnic Turks to Turkey. The Communist Party was forced to give up its political monopoly on 10…, Since adopting a democratic constitution in 1991, Bulgaria has been a parliamentary republic composed of 28 provinces, It became a member of NATO in 2004 ... joined the European Union and the single market in 2007, Bulgaria adopted the euro as currency, becoming a part of the euro area on 1 January 2026. The lev and euro were in dual circulation until 31 January 2026, Approximately two-thirds of Bulgarians identify as Eastern Orthodox Christians ... the first national church to gain autocephalous status in 927 AD, Bulgaria joined NATO on 29 March 2004, and subsequently the European Union on 1 January 2007. Following this, the country joined the Schengen Area on 1…, The Eneolithic Varna culture (5000 BC) represents the first civilization with a sophisticated social hierarchy in Europe, In 46 AD, the Romans established the province of Thracia, In 1877, Russian general Iosif Gurko liberated Veliko Tarnovo, ending the 480-year rule of the Ottoman Empire., The euro replaced the lev on 1 January 2026; during the cash changeover period (1–31 January 2026), the lev and the euro circulated in parallel for cash…, Known as Serdica in antiquity, Sofia has been an area of human habitation since at least 7000 BC., located 144 km (93 miles) southeast of the capital Sofia. It is considered the oldest European continually inhabited city, having been inhabited since c.…, The oldest gold treasure in the world, belonging to the Varna culture, was discovered in the Varna Necropolis and dated to 4600–4200 BC., named after its founder, the hermit Saint Ivan of Rila (876–946 AD), and houses approximately 60 monks, Founded in the 10th century, destroyed by fire in 1833 and then reconstructed between 1834 and 1862, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, In 2008 alone it attracted 900,000 visitors., UNESCO came to include Nesebar in its list of World Heritage Sites in 1983. As of December 2019, the town has a population of 13,600, In 1979, the building was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, the famous second layer of murals from 1259, dated to the very late 7th or more often the very early 8th century, during the reign of the Bulgar Khan Tervel. In 1979, the monument was listed as a…, dates back to the fourth century BC and has been on the UNESCO protected World Heritage Site list since 1979, the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, On Tsarevets are the palaces of the Bulgarian emperors and the Patriarchate, Bulgaria attracted over 13 million foreign tourists in 2024, according to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute. Tourists from five…, The First Balkan War broke out in October 1912 after the Ottoman Empire refused to implement reforms in the disputed areas; in June 1913 Serbia and Greece formed a new alliance against Bulgaria, and the two wars left 58,000 dead and over 100,000 wounded and stopped Bulgaria's steady economic growth, Bulgaria sat out the first year of the First World War, then signed an alliance with Germany and Austria in September 1915 and declared war on Serbia in October 1915, Bulgarian opinion having turned against Russia and the Western powers after the Balkan Wars, Bulgaria was neutral until 1 March 1941, allied with the Axis powers until 8 September 1944, and then aligned with the Allies in the final year of the war, As an ally of Nazi Germany, Bulgaria participated in the Holocaust, contributing to the deaths of 11,343 Jews from the occupied territories in Greece and Yugoslavia, while its own 48,000 Jews survived the war though subjected to discrimination, Bulgaria not having deported Jews from its core provinces, The Soviet Union declared war on the Kingdom of Bulgaria four days before the coup and Red Army units entered the country, demonstrations, strikes and revolts broke out on 6 and 7 September with local power taken by the Fatherland Front, and a coup overthrew the government on the eve of 9 September 1944, beginning radical reforms towards Soviet-style socialism (September 2026).