Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria
Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria | |
---|---|
Part of the Balkan Peninsula | |
Result |
Byzantine victory
|
Territorial changes |
Byzantium re-establishes control over Bulgaria and much of the Balkan Peninsula , Pechenegs settle in Wallachia. |
Kievan Rus' (970–971)
Pechenegs
Roman
Gavril Radomir
Ivan Vladislav †
Jovan Vladimir
Krakra
Ivats
Basil II
Nikephoros Ouranos
Theophylact Botaneiates †
Nikephoros Xiphias
Constantine Diogenes. David Arianites
From c. 970 until 1018, a series of conflicts between the
As the Byzantine-Bulgarian relations deteriorated by the end of the 960s, the Eastern Roman Empire paid the Kievan prince
Samuel proved to be a successful general inflicting a major defeat on the Byzantine army, commanded by Basil II at the Gates of Trajan and retaking north-eastern Bulgaria. His successful campaigns expanded the Bulgarian borders into Thessaly and Epirus and in 998, he conquered the principality of Duklja. In 997, Samuel was proclaimed Emperor of Bulgaria after the death of the legitimate ruler, Roman.
By the end of the millennium, the fortunes of war turned into Byzantine favour. The Byzantines under Basil II, a successful general and experienced soldier, slowly gained the upper hand and from 1001, started to seize a number of important areas and towns. The Bulgarians were unable to stop the annual Byzantine campaigns which devastated the country. In 1014, the Byzantines won the decisive Battle of Kleidion and Samuel died a few weeks later. Tsar Samuel's reign was followed by the short reigns of his son Gavril Radomir and his nephew Ivan Vladislav. In 1018, Ivan Vladislav's widow, Maria, negotiated very favorable terms of surrender to the Byzantine emperor. All local lords who surrendered were transferred either to Constantinople or to Anatolia and most of them were later assimilated into the Byzantine society.[4] Bulgaria lost its independence and remained subject to Byzantium for more than a century and a half, until 1185.[5] Its western part was transformed into one of the many Byzantine provinces, which was ruled by a governor appointed by the Emperor.[6] With the collapse of the first Bulgarian state, the Bulgarian church fell under the domination of Greek ecclesiastics who took control of the see of Ohrid and attempted to replace the Bulgarian Slavic liturgy with a Greek liturgy.[7]
Background
During the reign of the Bulgarian emperor
In that situation Nikephoros II Phokas turned to the usual means of Byzantine diplomacy and decided to pay the Kievan prince
For John Tzimiskes that was a great triumph. The three-century old Byzantine dream to eliminate the Bulgarian state and restore the imperial borders along the Danube seemed to have come true. The annexation of Bulgaria was officially proclaimed, the political heart of the country in north-eastern Bulgaria along with Preslav, the old capital Pliska and the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate Drastar (Silistra) were occupied.
Rise of the Cometopuli brothers
While the eastern parts of the empire were conquered and turned into a Byzantine province
Basil II
In 986, after securing his own position in Byzantium, emperor Basil II gathered a 30,000-man army, marched on the Bulgarian city of Sofia and laid siege to it. Basil began to worry about the wavering loyalty of his nobility and marched his army back towards Byzantine Thrace but was ambushed and defeated at the Battle of the Gates of Trajan. Basil learned from his mistake and his next invasion of Bulgaria would be conducted in a very different manner.
By 1000, Basil had fought off his own nobility and defeated the Islamic threat from the east, and so led another invasion of Bulgaria. This time instead of marching into the middle of the country, he annexed it bit by bit. Eventually, after denying Bulgaria of about a third of its land, the Bulgarians risked everything in one battle in 1014. The Battle of Kleidion was a disaster for the Bulgarians: the Byzantine army captured 15,000 prisoners. Roman histories go on to claim that for every 100 captured Bulgarians, 99 were fully blinded, the odd one out only blinded in one eye in order to guide the rest back to their homes. The Bulgarians continued to resist until 1018, when they finally submitted to Basil II's rule.
Once opposition had ceased Basil showed considerable statesmanship in his dealings with the Bulgarians. He wisely accepted Bulgarian taxes in kind rather than in coinage, as a full monetary economy was not established in Bulgaria. Many of the Bulgarian elite were integrated into Byzantine society, being given military or civil positions within the Byzantine state. This integration is illustrated by the last Bulgarian tsar Ivan Vladislav being an ancestor of the Byzantine emperor John II Komnenos.
Notes
- ISBN 0-521-77017-3, pp. 58–66.
- ISBN 1442601043, p. 143.
- ISBN 1444359975, p. 322.
- ISBN 0521815398, pp. 246–247.
- ISBN 0295972904, p. 364.
- ISBN 0299809250, p. 320.
- ^ Britannica: The first Bulgarian empire.
- ^ a b Andreev, p. 110
- ^ Threadgold, pp. 499–501
- ^ a b c Andreev, p. 111
- ^ Andreev, p. 112
- ^ Andreev, pp. 116–117
- ^ Andreev, p. 117
- ^ Andreev, p. 119
- ^ Stoimenov, pp. 40, 46–47, 49–53
- ^ Zlatarski, p. 603
- ^ Andreev, p. 121
- Otto I; see Delev and collective, History and civilization for 11th grade, Chapter 12 Decline of the First Bulgarian Empire
Sources
- Andreev, Jordan; Milcho Lalkov (1996). The Bulgarian Khans and Tsars (in Bulgarian). Abagar. ISBN 954-427-216-X.
- Curta, Florin (2006), Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-81539-0
- ISBN 0-472-08149-7.
- Holmes, Catherine (2005), Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976–1025), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-927968-5
- ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
- ISBN 90-04-12097-1
- ISBN 978-0351176449.
- OCLC 832687
- Stephenson, Paul (2000), Byzantium's Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-77017-3
- Stoimenov, D., Temporary Byzantine Military Administration in the Bulgarian Lands 971–987/989, Yearbook of the Sofia University
- Strässle, Paul Meinrad (2006), Krieg und Kriegführung in Byzanz: die Kriege Kaiser Basileios' II. gegen die Bulgaren (976–1019) (in German), Böhlau Verlag, ISBN 978-3-412-17405-7
- ISBN 0-8047-2630-2.
- Whittow, Mark (1996), The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-20496-4
- Zlatarski, Vasil (1971) [1927]. История на българската държава през средните векове. Том I. История на Първото българско царство, Част II. От славянизацията на държавата до падането на Първото царство (852–1018) [History of Bulgaria in the Middle Ages. Vol. 1. History of the First Bulgarian Empire, Part 2.From the Slavicization of the state to the fall of the First Empire (852–1018)]. Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo. OCLC 67080314.
Further reading
- Stoyanov, Aleksandr (July 2019). "The Size of Bulgaria's Medieval Field Armies: A Case Study of Military Mobilization Capacity in the Middle Ages". Journal of Military History. 83 (3): 719–746.