Bulgaria 1860s

Bulgaria's map has changed drastically throughout history and the name 'Bulgar' is probably one of the oldest names in the world that has retained since the medieval era. Historically, for the most of its time, Bulgaria remained as one of the largest vilayets of the Ottoman Empire for five centuries between 1422 to 1908 but political boundaries kept changing even after that. As an independent monarchy, Bulgaria's boundaries changed massively from its largest extension as the First Bulgarian Empire whose borders expanded till the outer stretch of Romania, to a tiny coast of Albania and the northern boundary of Istanbul. In the 10th century AD, the ruling Krum's dynasty expanded it even further into the heartland of Greece, thus making it one of the largest medieval European kingdoms. 

As the dynasties change, the rising Byzantines and Mongol invasions raided the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 12th century that went on till the arrival of the 1300s. By the 1300s, the Byzantine Empire or the Latin Empire had shrunk down to the borders of today's Istanbul and northern Türkiye while the next major imperial giant neighbouring Bulgaria was the Empire of Hungary, stretching between toda's Hungary to Romania and major parts of Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia. And thus, in the 1360s, the settlement of Vidin (or Widin) was occupied by the Hungarians, thus marking the first trace of the Magyars on the Bulgarian borders. By the late 1300s, the Ottomans had expanded and engulfed the warring Bulgarian states that continued till the 20th century, marking the largest political turbulence in the country for centuries. 

But Bulgaria wasn't a single entity in the Ottoman Empire. For a brief period between 1864 to 1878, what today Bulgaria is, was divided into the vilayets of Danube (Dunavska Oblast / Vilayet-i Tuna), Edirne or Adrianople (Vilayet-i Edirne) and Salonica (Vilayet-i Selanik) and parts of Romania. Post 1878, these provinces were reorganised to form the vilayets of Ottoman Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia. By this time, the following were the different vilayets of the Ottoman Empire as listed here:

• Bosnia
• Montenegro
• Roumelia
• Janina
• Morea
• Livadia
• Thessaly or Trikhala
• Selanik
• Edirne
• Danube or Bulgaria
• Wallachia
• Moldavia

Region-wise, the entire Balkans was divided into five broad historic regions - Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Roumelia and Romania (or Roumania). What is interesting is that the boundaries of Bulgaria extended from Widdin (Vidin, in today's Bulgaria) and Lescovatz (Leskovac, in today's Serbia) in the west to the Balkan Mountains in the south and stretching the Dobrudaha (Dobrudja, divided into Romania and Bulgaria's coast) region and the towns of Toutcha (Tulcea, in today's Romania) and Matchin (in today's Mǎcin) in far northeast. The Danube River marked the northern boundary. Such waas the geography of Bulgaria that was about to change in the next century. 

The capital of Bulgaria today is Sofia, or how it was used traditionally as Serdica or Sredets. The Ottomans favoured the name Sofya and it has always been integral to Bulgarian culture and history. But an 1873 map by J. David Williams marks a territory called 'Turkish Servia (Serbia)' which isn't really a province, but the region extends from Nish or Nissa (Niš, in Serbia) in the north to Koja Balkan Mountains and the town of Ikhtiman (Ihtiman, in Bulgaria) in the east, to the city of Pristina in the west and Kurbetska Mountains in the south and the territory is highlighted majorly as it consists the city of Sofia, spelled as Sophia. But what could have been the reason that the cartographer marked something as 'Turkish Serbia' and placed Sofia in it? Because historically, there never existed a territory such as 'Turkish Serbia' that had a Serbian occupation on Sofia. 

The answer to this question is the entity of Niš eyalet, a primary level administrative entity before the introduction of the vilayets under the Ottoman Empire that in the above map is mentioned as 'Turkish Servia'. It is thus, Sofia was made part of the 'Turkish Servia (or Serbia)', an entity that was divided into four sanjaks (districts) : Niš, Sofia, Samokov and Kyustendil. In fact, the whole of Bulgaria was part of the larger Rumelia eyalet, and the cities of Edirne, Sofia and Monastir (Bitola, in North Macedonia) held capitals for various times between 1362 to 1867.  

It was only in the 1880s that a singular entity of Bulgaria whose borders are similar to what it is today, was formed as the Principality of Bulgaria along with the Principality of Rumelia. The independent Tsardom of Bulgaria was established in 1908, thus freeing itself permanently from the Turkish shadows and while the borders still kept changing, in the coming decades many Bulgarian cities got rid of its Turkish legacies as well. Kirca Ali became Kardhazli, Şumnu became Shumen, Ortaköy became Ivailovgrad, Eski Cuma changed to Targovishte, Rusčuk is now Rousse, Kazanlik changed to Kotel, Karnabad became Karnobat etc. Bulgaria's map once again expanded to the coastline of Greece (Western Thrace), the whole lot of Macedonia region and the coast of Romania. This was the Balkan Wars that the joint force of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece ate up the whole European portion of the Ottoman Empire, thus defeating it and pushing out of Europe for good (although Bulgaria lost in the Second Balkan War). In 1919, by the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Bulgaria cedes Western Thrace to Greece, Dobruja to Romania, Bosilegrad, Tsaribrod (Dimitrovgrad) and Strumitsa (Strumica) to Serbia (later, Yugoslavia). In 1940, during the Second World War, the Axis Bulgaria regained Southern Dobruja from Romania and the occupied territories of Greece, Macedonia and Serbia which were taken away again by the Allied (Soviet) powers between 1944 to 1947. And in between this, on 15th September 1946, the People's Republic of Bulgaria (Narodna Republika Bãlgarija) was born with its current borders and capital reinstated at Sofia.