The History of Bulgaria Explained

Respect to Bulgaria from Albania

You got the wrong map of Serbia. Kosovo is an independent state recognized by majority of western world. Fix that asap

Cantankerous catholic crusaders conquered Constantinople. 👌

This was like a day by day review of last year's weather. What a messy chaos. Well done.😊

We think of zhivkov as a bad guy. Reason is that he was a dictator, communist.

Very well put together! Thanks! Long Live Bulgaria!

What a nonsense? Bulgarians never been Turks. Who are you and since when other nations knows the other nation history better, than the nation itself? Why Do you bend the history? Thera was a huge dna research, showing that in the modern Bulgarians runs the same blood as in the people, lives there 10 000 years ago. Why do you bend the history? Who haves you the rights to do it?

Very dumb, bad,badder,baddest, the worst guy.Zhivkov. may the eternal fires of HELL be his least punishment.

Just a note. Todor Zhivkov was assassinated, he didn't step down. Great video all together though!

Are you using After effects for your animations?

big gaps but still good job , The Bulgarians never rebelled against the Avars because they were not under their influence , almost no one today denies that the Bulgarians are remnants of the tribes brought with the Huns as part of the Huns , the most famous Huns Bleda and Attila came from a dynasty known as the Duo , Duo is the most famous dynasty to this day in Bulgaria, whoever you ask what Duo means, everyone will tell you that the greatest kings of Bulgaria are from this dynasty , there is no linguist on the planet who does not say that this is a fact, the Proto-Bulgarian language is a Hunnic Chuvash language , in fact the only debate is which language came first Bulgarian or Hunnic , but I'm an amateur and I don't understand much about these things, but thanks for your point of view and your work

Exactly! The south slavs appeared in the 7th cent ad.
Which clearly confirms that the people of today's North monkeydonia are MACEDONIAN NOTHING!
Since they NEVER met the tribe of the ancient Hellenic Macedonians.

As a Serb…. Oh someone stabbed me 🔪🔪🔪😂😂😂

Many wrong knowledge. First they are called Volgarians within themselves V became B much later after Slav raid.

My brother Bulgarians, it’s petty not many of you sad thank you to Russia , for rescue Bulgarians and save your country. ( Battle of Shipka 1877 - 78) с уважением Борис.

Jivkov was one of the worst leaders you could possibly have. During his reign, there were 3 economic collapses of the national currency. He fucked up so much infact, he sold most of Bulgaria's gold reserves, because debt to the Soviet Union was growing vast

Big Respect from Albania l like it Bulgaria ❤❤

Greetings Bulgarian/Orthodox brothers. Please tell FYROM they are Bulgarians as well.

Bulgari is just a bully to the greeks and Romans

I see so many positive comments ❤ Thank you all: Romania, Greece, Armenia, Serbia, all of the Balkans, Macedonia, Turkey, Russia. Positivity means everything 🙏

Здравейте нашите братя от вашият съсед Турция. Отдавна търся българската история. Поздрави 🇹🇷❤️🇧🇬

Can you explain why is Bulgaria so poor?

I genuinely laughed out loud at Alexander dying from too much winning! 😂🤣

The Bulgarian Khan Kubrat or Kurt and Kanas o Bogi Omurtag were certainly Christians, for Omurtag this is proven by his Medallion, where he is depicted with a cross in his hand, and Kubrat is a Patrician, there is no way he could be a patrician without being a Christian!

Bulgarians were not Turks, even less with Mongoloid faces, Bulgarians have Alanic or Scythian origins (Indo-Europeans) - they were in alliance with Huns and Avars, but they are not Mongoloids and there is no KHan, there is KanAS as the title of their rulers and they are not they were nomads as soon as they had a country and cities!

(Bulgarian here) Amazing video, loved all the effort you put into it!!!! And to answer your question on our opinion of Todor Zhivkov - he was very dumb and just a perfect puppet to be manipulated by the communist party. The only people who would tell you otherwise are older ones who used to be of the upper class during communism, who are just used to getting all sorts of benefits just because of connections and such so yeah. Absolutely idiotic, but you couldn't even tell a joke about him because he is the dictator and it was communism, you know.

Nie Imame mnogu oveke od vas zatoa mit lubomorite i odma odvrakete prokleti lopovi tatarski

♥♥♥

Overall good summation. I have one comment about "the Bulgars and the Slavs got along swell". This is what the communist propaganda was perpetuating, but the reality may have been quite different. There were some 200k Slavs who asked for land to settle in the Frankish Empire, their request was granted and they left. There was also one record I came across a while back stating that Bulgars were oppressing and killing Slavs in the Balkans. I don't think the alleged Bulgar / Slav alliance was particularly peaceful as it had been presented throughout Bulgarian history, again, during communism.

Some other notes that you'd really have to do some thorough research on, this is not really information that is that easily available.

- The alleged Turkic origin of the Bulgars was again largely perpetuated during communism, possibly to stir up anti-Turk sentiment as a result of Ottoman rule and thus fostering more pro-Slavic sentiment to better align Bulgaria and Russia as best buds under Stalin. One other theory, one which seems more feasible is that the Bulgars were of Irannic origin. And yet another theory is that the Bulgars were an entirely independent group of peoples, which may have been the case considering the success of Old Great Bulgaria, First Bulgarian Empire, and in parallel Volga Bulgaria who were the first to defeat the Mongols in battle as far as I remember. It is also quite likely that the Bulgars themselves were composed of different linguistic groups, possibly amalgamating Turkic, Irannic, and even Slavic tribes (the Antes). There are some theories that Kubrat's Bulgars may have even already been speaking some form of Slavic before Asparuh expanded the borders south of the Danube.
- Another communist misinterpretation is that Asparuh created a new state in 680 / 681 AD, however, that is not accurate. Asparuh didn't form a new state, but rather he expanded the borders of Old Great Bulgaria. This sort of historical continuity was not and probably still is not something that Russia wanted, or wants, since Bulgaria technically can have territorial claims on Russian land. The remnants of Volga Bulgaria today primarily reside in two Russian provinces, Tatarstan and Chuvashia. As far as I remember up until the late 1800's or the very early 1900's, Tatarstan was a actually called Bulgaristan.
- Another note is that Atilla's Huns were a confederation of many different tribes. The two tribes that formed the main striking forces of Attilla the Hun were the Kutrigurs and Utigurs, both Bulgar tribes that were united under Kubrat of Old Great Bulgaria.
- The alleged number of Asparuh's Bulgars is claimed to have been somewhere between 15000 and 30000, and the claim is that the Bulgars blended into the the numerous Balkan Slavs. Regardless of their military skill, the military achievements of Asparuh's Bulgars speak to a much more numerous amount. Especially considering that sometime in the 700's AD you have around 200k Slavs asking the Franks to flee to their empire meanwhile waging continued wars with the East Roman Empire and other tribes and countries that were largely a success for several centuries.
- Bulgarians today are the result of an amalgamation of people, you can see dark features and light features. I guess that's what happens when you have had a couple of multi ethnic empires. BUT, it should be noted that the Slavic spoken in Bulgaria (as well as in North Macedonia) is structurally different from all other Slavic languages whereby the grammar is apparently more similar to Romanian, Greek, and Albanian.

Regarding Todor Jivkov, I was still a kid near the end of his reign. Generally speaking many people were happy with many things claiming that crime rates were low, education was better, streets were clean, and things like that. BUT, as a communist he was NOT good for Bulgaria in my opinion. The communists had a goal of splitting the Bulgarian identity into three different identities, those being Macedonian, Moesian, and Thracian. We can see that their efforts were successful in forming a Macedonian identity, however, they failed with the other two. So to me, the communists as a whole, were and still are traitors to their country.

Thanks a lot for doing my country. And according to old Bulgarian tradition ,alive and well,

Amazingly well made. bravo

The very interesting (and so, so significative) switch between the Congres of San Stefano (humilliation of the loser : the Ottoman Empire), whose date keeps being the national day of Bulgaria, to the infamous Congres of Berlin (Bulgaria went back under Ottoman control) was not explained, not even mentioned.
Would it be because this transition was a British initiative ?!
I guess so.

Many people that dont know history will praise Todor Zhivkov (mainly brainwashed old people by communism or uneducated pseudo patriots that cant form their own opinion so they listen to the very vocal pro russian party), thankfully most of them arent intelligent enough to know english so you will probably not see many in the comments, but in reality a lot of educated young people denounce him (sadly not a lot of young people want to be educated but i think this is a global problem + its a different topic). Actually what you said about economic growth in the video wasnt really true but there is a lot of propaganda so its fine. Actually Bulgaria went bankrupt THREE times while under communism and i think two of them were during Zhivkov's rule. During one of the bankrupcies we had to empty our WHOLE national gold reserve (yk, the thing that is there only for emergencies) and it hasnt recovered since. Im not sure how much kg of gold it was but it was a whole lot. Anyway Todor Zhivkov is a piece of shit and if you ask me.

as a Turk i always wondered about our neighbors history. Much respect and love to them ♥️🇧🇬🇹🇷

I like that this video includes Thrace. But it probably should be made clear that the ethnogenesis of Slavic Bulgarians is tricky.

Jesus, that country sounds like a hot mess!

Bulgaria aka Thracia aka Wallachia.

One of my mother's favorite vacations led her to Bulgaria in the 1970s. As an East German, Hungary was denied to her because yadda-yadda job + relatives. So, Kadarka is a sweet drop to taste – cheers, if you like red wine!

To answer your questions at the end. I do not remember much of Todor Jivkov's regime. I remember my childhood was very calm and safe and things were very predictable. People had paid vacations and could afford things. The government day care/kindergarden was free or cheap and on very good quality level; we had home cooked meals and real beds to sleep in the afternoons. We had electricity stops on certain nights. My grandfather said it was done in order to power up the red star in the center of Sofia. In school, things were very formal, not like today, and students and parents had a lot of respect to the teachers. We wore uniforms and I remember planting trees every year as a class project. All that fell apart in 1989, when I was second grade, and I lived the rest of my childhood and teenage years through the chaos of "democracy", e.g. the color revolution. I am interested in Jivkov's daughter - Lyudmila, she was doing a lot of things for the kids. So, overall, I do not know much about the bad sides of communism or Jivkov, but living before 1989 was better for me and my family than after. My favorite place is Nessebar (Ancient Messambria) and I have a lot of favorite foods and drinks - banitsa, boza, sarmi, shopska salata, lentil soup, bob chorba, real bread Dobrudja, ayrian, Mavrud wine (real from the wineries), and many other.

First time I heard Bulgaria 🇧🇬 was Euro 2004 tournament. I could be wrong, but I liked their name, I was clueless kid😂. By the way I am from Somalia 🇸🇴…

Istanbulgaria Turkish property.

It’s almost comical how lands were wiped out and created by many different races and religions. the argument looks real dumb when you go to war over who had rightful claim 100+ yrs ago.

Bulgʻorlar Slavyanlashgan Turklardir sizga Oʻzbekiston yani Turistondan salom

Losers.🤪

Hello! I am from Bulgaria and wanted to share a fact that is interesting to me and it is closely related with the history of the region. This territory is the most war dense place i history, thus providing the people in it with the genes to back that up, short and muscular bodes. The same genes help you with weight lifting 🏋️‍♀️, Bulgaria is the third in gold medals in weightlifting in olympics despite only having 7 million people . I don’t know why but it’s just fascinating to me. If you want to visit something cool just go the Rodopi mountain, or the peak “Shipka” monument, there is some crazy history.

There are some inaccuracies, but overall this video represents our history sufficiently well to a foreigner.

Thrace has been Hellenic for thousands of years. The people from the "north" are mongol bloods from the steppes of mongolia, who stole Hellenic land.