BULGARIA

There are few places in the world whose names haven't changed since the time they were established. Syria, Cyprus, India, Arabia, Africa, Libya, etc. Bulgaria is also one of them. The Turkic originated word 'Bulgar' arrived as tribesmen (headed by a Khan) to the steppe region between the Urals and Volga in the 7th century AD. It was the year 681 AD when Khan Asparuh established a new state with a capital first at Pliska and later at Preslav, both near present-day Shumen. This, in the loose terminology, was the First Bulgarian Empire. But the original Bulgars weren't restricted to just the Danube river valley as it is today. There were Bulgarian migration to parts of today's Hungary, North Macedonia, Croatia and Italy and also as far as Russia near the Volga-Kama river basin. In fact, the original Bulgars were spread out from the Caucasus to eastern Ukraine and Crimea. But amongst all, only the Bulgars under Khan Asparuh near the Danube river valley would establish the empire that gave birth to today's Bulgarian roots in the river valley. The empire changed its boundaries but the location of the Bulgarian state was set. Now after setting the empire, Bulgaria had to establish itself as a nation-state and counter the majestic Byzantine Empire, which itself was an offshoot of the former Roman Empire, who would later recognize Bulgarians as an identity. 

The Bulgarian Empire reached its massive peak in the 9th century when its boundaries covered today's Romania, Serbia (or Servia), Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova and parts of Greece. It expanded further in the next century covering half of Greece, Albania, Bosnia and parts of European Turkey under the Krum Dynasty that lasted for nearly two centuries. This would also be the time when Bulgaria formally accepted Orthodox Christianity and also developed the Cyrillic alphabets that is currently the script of several languages. This was followed by the Kometopuli Dynasty that shifted Bulgaria more towards the west making it occupy lands what today is Albania and Macedonia (and parts of Greece). This was major because of the combined raids and attacks of the Magyars (or Hungarians) and Byzantines that shrunk the massive empire into a much smaller principality. The destruction of the Bulgarian state was preceded by a much unfortunate period of ethnic cleansing that was brought by the Ottomans, lasting for almost half a millennium. 

By 1385 Edirne, Philippopolis and Sofia had fallen to the Ottomans and the defeat of Serbians in 1389 ended any Christian resistance in the Balkan plains. Moreover, the plunder of the Bulgarian capital Tûrnovo in 1393 disappeared the Bulgarian independence for the next millennium. The rise of Islam in Bulgaria led to many conversions and the disappearance of feudal nobility and intelligentsia retreated from cities. But inspite of this, there were rare cases of forced conversions and people converted only to retain their lands and privileges and to avoid taxations. 

Although the earliest nationalistic movement started only in the 19th century, there were sporadic uprisings against the Ottomans in the late middle ages. The Tarnovo (or Tûrnovo) uprisings in both 1598 and 1686 were suppressed by the Ottomans and it would not be before the end of the 18th century which would see internal convulsions weakening Ottoman politics. By the 1820s, the loudest and prominent complaints by the Bulgarians were against the corrupt Greek bishops, highlighting the fact that it was a cultural movement that triggered in the beginning rather than a nationalistic one. By the 1870s, there was content among the religious members of the Orthodox Churches as the Ottomans had by now set up a secular religious school (1835, Gabrovo) and a separate Bulgarian church (1870) which was independent of the Greek patriarchate. It was the hanging of the Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski in 1873 that sparked a nationalist movement among the Bulgarians and demand for a separate nation would now start gathering momentum. 

In 1876 a revolt broke out between the Serbians and Turks in which Bosnians took part as well. This also gave a great opportunity for the Bulgarians that lead to the massacre of thousands of Christian Bulgarians. Bulgaria was now an international issue and the Turkish dominance was now being challenged and criticized by the British and Russians. With Turkey refusing to allow international supervision, Russia declared war and a peace treaty was later signed between the defeated Turks at San Stefano (in Istanbul) and Berlin. Bulgaria was split up in half, the lower territory now to be known as Eastern Rumelia (a temporary Russian occupied) and Turkey lost its major areas of control in the Balkan region. The treaty was a declaration of independent sovereign principalities (de facto) of  Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and an autonomous Bulgaria under the Ottomans that would be formally independent in 1908. Eastern Rumelia, which was renamed South Bulgaria in 1886, would now also annex Bulgaria. 

The new Tsardom of Bulgaria would expand once again during the First Balkan War between 1912 to 1913 when its boundaries stretched to today's North Macedonia, parts of Serbia and the Dobrudja region (coast of Romania and northeast Bulgaria), soon to be lost again in 1918. This was the time of the First World War triggered in Sarajevo which was very close to the Serbian borders. This was followed by the reign of King Boris who bought Bulgaria closer to Italy by marrying the daughter of Italy's King. This was also the time when fascism was slowly emerging in central Europe and Bulgaria inclined towards Germany and Italy - the prominent central European fascist powers. With the incoming of late 1930s, the Soviet Union also tried bringing in communism in Bulgaria but was strongly objected to by Germany. The Tripartite Pact signed between Germany, Italy and Japan was the beginning of the Second World War, which was joined by other countries such as Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Although Bulgaria remained neutral and was actually forced by Germany to sign the pact, it became a military base for Germany. Reluctantly although Bulgaria later joined the war, the aftermath of which would be the heavy bombing of Sofia by Allied forces. By the end of the war in 1944, the Red Army of the Soviet Union intervened and Bulgaria surrendered. But this surrender and interference of Soviet politics would bring in communism in Bulgaria. 

Since 1947, heavy Sovietization of Bulgaria started wherein elections were held exactly the Soviet way. And not just elections but press, administration, culture, education, the social and economic structure of Bulgaria was largely the same as that of the Soviets. Millions of books were translated from Russian to Bulgarian, the industries were nationalized, the agriculture of Bulgaria was dependent on USSR, the law structure was Sovietized etc. 

It was the 1980s when communism started weakening in Bulgaria (and in the Soviet Union) and with the fall of the USSR in 1991, the People's Republic of Bulgaria was now changed to simply the Republic of Bulgaria. 

The map here is Bulgaria of 1706, the era when it was still under Ottoman rule and chaos was nowhere around, yet. The neighbouring territories to the north were Wallachia (part of today's Romania), Moldova (part of Moldova and Romania), Bessarabia (part of Romania), to the west were Serbia and Albania (part of Serbia and extension) while the south was Macedonia and 'Romania'. This 'Romania' is not to be confused with the sovereign state of Romania. Although the Byzantine Empire had ended in the 15th century itself, the local residents of the territory around today's Istanbul referred to the region as 'Romania' as in Latin, this area was known as 'Imperium Romanum'. But interestingly, the word 'Romania' has been used by various geographers and cartographers to denote this region even after 3 centuries. The nation of Romania is located to the north of Bulgaria.