Interlude: From Bulgar State to Bulgaria, 816–893

Abstract

First interlude in the wars, during which the Bulgar state under Presiyan expanded to control much of the Balkans, opened contacts with the west by confronting the East Frank Kingdom and Great Moravia in Pannonia during the reigns of Omurtag and Boris, and forged diplomatic relations with the Roman Papacy. Under Byzantine military pressure, Boris converted his state to Christianity (864), and his astute diplomacy succeeded in ensuring that conversion to the Orthodox version, embraced by Byzantium, did not lead to political subservience to that empire. Boris further cemented his state’s political independence by fostering the spread of a unique Slavic literary language—Glagolitic/Cyrillic—among his subjects. Slavic Christian conversion culturally united his Bulgar and Slav subjects into “Bulgarians” and created a state of “Bulgaria.”

The following works provided the basic informational framework for the text of this first interlude in the hegemonic wars: Bozhilov and Gyuzelev, pt. 2, chap. 7, pt. 3, chaps. 1–3; Zlatarski, IBDSV 1/1, 376–447; id., IBDSV 1/2, 29–279; Mutafchiev, IBN 1, chaps. VI, sect. 2–3, VII–VIII; IB 2, pt. II, chap. 3, sect. 3–5, chap. 4, pt. III, chaps. 1–2; IB 5 VI, 87–88; Tzvetkov, 112–132; Andreev, 37–64; Gyuzelev, The Adoption of Christianity; Sophoulis, chap. 8; Runciman, A History, 74–151; Browning, Byzantium and Bulgaria, 50–60; Fine, Early Medieval Balkans, 106–140; Curta, Southeastern Europe, 156–179; NCMH 2, 236–248; NCMH 3, T. Reuter, ed. (Cambridge, 1999), 567–571; Obolensky, Byzantine Commonwealth, 81–97, 102–106; Bury, ERE, 363–374; Whittow, 279–287; Treadgold, A History, chaps. 13–14; Ostrogorsky, History, chap. III., sect. 7, chap. IV., sect. 1–2; Jenkins, Imperial Centuries, chaps. 11–15.