Meanwhile, Bulgaria's neighbors again sensed an opportune time to attack because of the internal divisions in the country. The Byzantines conquered several parts of Macedonia and Thrace, and the Hungarians and Tatars invaded on another front. At one point the Hungarian king declared himself king of Bulgaria. In 1242 there was a large-scale Mongol invasion. Tatar raids went on continually between 1241 and 1300. The country was totally fragmented; each separate area attempted to ally itself with its former enemies, whether Russian, Hungarian, or Tatar, in order to prevent widespread damage.

By the fourteenth century the Turks began to envision the conquest of Bulgaria. Internally the boyars continued to fight among themselves, and externally the country was threatened alternately by Byzantium and by Serbia. By the mid-fourteenth century all of Macedonia was under Serbian control, and the Serbian tsar—much like the Hungarian king before him—called himself the tsar of the Bulgars. The area of the country retained by the Bulgars by this time was divided into three parts: the last Bulgarian tsar maintained his capital at Turnovo in the central highlands; the so-called Vidin Kingdom, ruled by the tsar's brother, existed in the far northwest; and a principality of Dobrudzha was established in the northeast.

At the same time the Ottoman Turks were beginning to advance. Having seized areas of Asia Minor, they proceeded to raid the Balkans from 1326 to 1352. Under their leader, Murad I, they began to attack Thrace, Macedonia, and parts of Bulgaria. By 1371 they were attacking territories in northeastern Thrace. At this point they marched against Sofia and, despite active resistance, succeeded in capturing it. Despite an alliance with the Serbs, the Bulgarians were too weak to resist further; in 1388 the Turks easily won a battle against the Serbs. The fall of Turnovo was followed by the fall of Vidin and Dobrudzha. By 1396 all of Bulgaria was under Turkish domination.

TURKISH RULE

The Second Bulgarian Kingdom, like the first, had ended in total defeat, and the darkest period in Bulgarian history began with the Turkish conquest. Only the priests of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church—despite its takeover by the Greeks—were able to preserve Bulgarian national literature and culture to some degree. The Bulgarians once again were subjected to foreign domination, only this time foreign rule lasted for five centuries. Historians agree that Turkish rule was a death blow to the creative forces that had been responsible for the development of the country to that time. With Turkish domination the normal economic, political, and social life of Bulgaria ground to a halt.

The Ottoman Turks were at a far lower stage of social development than either the Byzantine Empire, which preceded them in their occupation of the Balkans, or the Balkan states themselves. The Turks lived an almost nomadic life in primitive communal systems that were headed by tribal chiefs. When the Turks occupied Bulgaria, they replaced the established feudal system with their own more rudimentary and conservative feudalism. Many boyars were executed or rendered powerless if they failed to convert to Islam. The peasants were more completely under the feudal yoke than they had ever been under Byzantine rule. The Turks imposed heavy taxes and hard labor on the people of the conquered country, whom they considered cattle. Young boys were taken from their homes, proclaimed Muslims, and conscripted into the army.

The Turks ruled Bulgaria by means of a sharply delineated administrative system. Bulgaria as an entity did not exist for the Turks; the entire Balkan Peninsula was known as Rumili (Rumelia) and was ruled for the sultan by a beylerbey (governor general) whose headquarters was located in Sofia. Rumili was divided into vilayetlar (sing., vilayet), which were further subdivided into sanjaklar (sing., sanjak), each in turn ruled by lesser officials. Bulgaria itself was divided into five sanjaklar: Kyustendil, Nikopol, Silistra, Sofia, and Vidin. Although all land was considered to be the property of the sultan, on the local level the land was distributed to feudal lords and was tilled by non-Muslim serfs.

A second vehicle for both administration and oppression that the Turks employed—in addition to the land administrators—was the Greek Orthodox Church. By 1394, before the final conquest, the See of Turnovo had been subordinated to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, where it remained until 1870. Greek bishops replaced Bulgarians, as Greek liturgy replaced the Slavic. The patriarchate, in turn, was totally subordinate to the sultan. The Greek clergy destroyed Bulgarian books and banned Slavic liturgy. The Bulgarian language and all Slavic literature were forbidden. Greek became the language in all schools.

The hellenization of the Bulgarian church was used by the Turks as a means to negate the nationalism of the people and thus dominate them. The Turks attempted to some extent to convert the Bulgarians to Islam in order to assimilate them more fully. Although many Bulgarians fled to the mountains with the coming of the Turks, others stayed on and accepted the Muslim faith, often for purely opportunistic purposes. Those who did were generally placed in strategically significant positions; frequently, as a reward for their conversion, they paid no taxes to the state. The Bulgarian converts to Islam were called Pomaks (see ch. 4).

The plight of the peasants grew worse. Agricultural production dropped as their exploitation continued. Although landowners were not persecuted to the same degree as the peasantry, they were frequently displaced from the land. Turkish cattle breeders entered the country to settle on their lands. Lands were also taken to reward army commanders, provincial governors, and knights in the service of the sultan. Still other lands were given to immigrant Turkish peasants. The only food that was not subject to requisition by the conquerors was pork, which was not allowed in the Muslim diet.