From the Bulgarian Professor Drinov, who appears to have made the Balkan peninsula his especial study, we learn that before the arrival of the Bulgarian tribes into European Turkey, the southern side of the Danube had been invaded by the Slavs, who during four centuries poured into the country and, steadily spreading, drove out the previous inhabitants, who directed their steps towards the sea-coasts and settled in the towns there. In the beginning of the sixth century the Slavonic element had become so powerful in its newly-acquired dominions, and its depredatory incursions into the Byzantine Empire so extensive, that the Emperor Anastasius found himself forced to build a wall from Selymbria on the Sea of Marmora to Derkon on the Black Sea in order to repel their attacks. Procopius, commenting on this, relates that while Justinian was winning useless victories over the Persians, part of his empire lay exposed to the ravages of the Slavs, and that not less than 200,000 Byzantines were annually killed or carried away into slavery.
The hostile spirit, however, between these two nations was broken by short intervals of peace and friendly relations, during which the Slav race supplied some emperors and many distinguished men to the Byzantines. Many Slavs resorted to Constantinople in order to receive the education and training their newly-founded kingdom did not afford them. The migration of the Slavs into Thrace ceased towards the middle of the seventh century, when they settled down to a more sedentary life, and, under the civilizing influence of their Byzantine neighbors, betook themselves to agricultural and pastoral pursuits. According to historical accounts the Slavs did not long enjoy their acquisitions in peace, for about the year 679 A.D. a horde of Hunnish warriors, calling themselves Bulgars (a name derived from their former home on the Volga), crossed the Danube under the leadership of their Khan, Asparuch, and after some desperate fighting with the Slavs, finally settled on the land now known as Bulgaria and founded a kingdom which in its turn lasted about seven hundred years.
From the little that is known of the original Bulgarians, we learn that polygamy was practised among them, that the men shaved their heads and wore a kind of turban, and the women veiled their faces. These points of similarity connect the primitive Bulgarians with the Avars, with whom they came into close contact, as well as with the Tatars, during their long sojourn between the Volga and Tanais, as witness the marked Tatar features some of the Bulgarians bear to the present day. The primitive Bulgarians are said to have subsisted chiefly on the flesh of animals killed in the chase; and it is further related of them that they burnt their dead, and when a chieftain died his wives and servants were also burnt and their ashes buried with those of their master. Schafarik, whose learned and trustworthy researches on the origin of the Bulgarians can scarcely be called in question, remarks that the warlike hordes from the Volga regions, though not numerous, were very brave and well skilled in war. They attacked with great ferocity the patient plodding Slavs, who were engaged in cultivating the land and rearing cattle, quickly obtained the governing power, and after tasting the comforts of a settled life, gradually adopted to a great extent the manners, customs, and even the language of the people they had conquered. This amalgamation appears to have been a slow process, occupying, according to historical evidence, full two hundred and fifty years. It is during this period that the Bulgarian language must have gradually been effaced, and the vanquishing race, like the Normans in England, absorbed by the vanquished.
This fresh mixture with the Slav element constituted the Bulgarians a separate race, with no original title to belong to the Slavonic family beyond that derived from the fusion of blood that followed the long intercourse of centuries, by which the primitive Bulgarians became blended with the former inhabitants of the country. It is evident that they were superior to the Slavs in military science and power, but inferior as regards civilization, and thus naturally yielded to the influence of the more advanced and better organized people. By this influence they created a distinct nation, gave their name to the country, and consolidated their power by laws and institutions.
The Bulgarian kingdom, from its very foundation in 679 until its final overthrow by the Turks in 1396, presents a wearisome tale of battles with short intervals of peace, in the struggle for supremacy between the Emperors of Byzantium and the rulers of Bulgaria. The balance of power alternately inclined from one party to the other; the wars were inhuman on both sides; on the one hand, we read of hundreds of thousands of Byzantines yearly sacrificed by the Slavs; on the other, we have equally horrible spectacles presented to us, like that enacted during the reign of Basil, surnamed Βουλγαροκτόνος (The Bulgarian-killer), on account of the great number of Bulgarians killed by his order. This savage, having on one occasion captured a large number of Bulgarians, separated 15,000 into companies of 100 each, and ordered ninety-nine out of each of these companies to be blinded, allowing the remaining hundredth to retain his sight in order to become the leader of his blind brethren.
In the midst of such scenes, and at the cost of torrents of blood, successive kingdoms were constituted in this unhappy land of perpetual warfare. Raised into momentary eminence by the force of arms, they were again hurled to the ground by the same merciless instrument. Supreme power has been alternately wielded by the savage, the Moslem, and the Christian; each of whom to the present day continues the work of destruction.
The condition of Bulgarians did not improve under the Ottoman rule. Their empire soon disappeared, leaving to posterity nothing but a few ruined castles and fortresses, and some annals and popular songs illustrating its past glory. The Turkish conquest was more deeply felt by the Bulgarians than by their brethren in adversity, the Byzantines and the neighboring Slav nations. These, owing to the more favorable geographical position of their countries and other advantages, were able to save some privileges out of the general wreck, and to retain a shadow of their national rights. The Byzantines were protected by a certain amount of influence left in the hands of the clergy, while the Slav nations were enabled to make certain conditions with their conqueror before their complete surrender, and were successful in enlisting the sympathies and protection of friendly powers in their behalf, and in obtaining through their instrumentality at intervals reforms never vouchsafed to the Bulgarians. This nation, isolated, ignored, and shut out from the civilized world, crouched under the despotic rule of the Ottomans, and submitted to a life of perpetual toil and hardship, uncheered by any of the pleasures of life, unsupported by the least gleam of hope for a better future.
This sad condition has lasted for centuries; and by force of misery the people became grouped into two classes: the poor, who were constant to their faith and national feeling, and the wealthy and prosperous, who adopted Islam in order to escape persecution and save their property. To this latter class may be added the Pomaks, a predatory tribe inhabiting a mountainous district between the provinces of Philippopolis and Serres. They live apart, and pass for Mussulmans because they have some mosques; but they have no knowledge of the Koran nor follow its laws very closely. Most of them to this day bear Christian names and speak the Slav language. The men are a fine race, but utterly ignorant and barbarous.
Upon the poor and therefore Christian class fell all the weight of the Ottoman yoke, which made itself felt in their moral and material condition, and reached even to the dress, which was enforced as a mark of servility. They were forbidden to build churches, and beyond the ordinary annual poll-tax imposed by Moslems on infidel subjects, they had to submit to the many illegal extortions of rapacious governors and cruel landlords; besides the terrible blood-tax collected every five years to recruit the ranks of the Janissaries from the finest children of the province. Nor were the Bulgarian maidens spared: if a girl struck the fancy of a Mohammedan neighbor or a government official, he always found means to possess himself of her person without using much ceremony or fearing much commotion.
The depressing and demoralizing effect of such a system upon the Bulgarians may be imagined; it was sufficient to brutalize a people far more advanced than they were at the time of the conquest. It cowed them, destroyed their brave and venturous spirit, taught them to cringe, and weakened their ideas of right and wrong. It is not strange that a people thus demoralized should, under the pressure of recent troubles, be said in some instances to have acted treacherously both towards their late rulers and present protectors; but the vices of rapacity, treachery, cruelty, and dishonesty could not have been the natural characteristics of this unhappy people until misery taught them the lesson.