Image: MenoraBoris. jpg | The Menorah, presented to Tsar Boris III from the Bulgarian Jewish community ( Tsarska Bistritsa )

The ancient Bulgarian ritual of kukeri ( кукери ), performed by costumed men, seeks to scare away evil spirits and bring good harvest and health to the community.

Until the late 1980s, Zhivkov successfully prevented unrest in the Bulgarian intellectual community.

There is a Russian Orthodox burial ground ( Saint Lazarus chapel, 1894 ) and plots dedicated for the use of various Orthodox churches. Greek Orthodox community buried their dead since 1869, belonging to group 30 A, at Gate 2, behind the arcades, Romanian Orthodox community at the gate 3, Group 38th. The Bulgarian Orthodox Christians are buried in the same group 38. Serbian Orthodox community received their own plot in the group 68 B, 69 C, Tor 3 and group 27A contains the tombs of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Bulgarians in the city threatened with uniat with the Pope and the bishop reopened the Bulgarian school. In 1865 was opened a community center.

In May 1878 on behalf of the Bulgarian community in Nevrokop was signed " Memorandum of the Bulgarian church and school communities in Macedonia ", which wanted to join Macedonia in the newly formed Bulgarian state.

Two revolutionary bands led by Panayot Hitov and Filip Totyu had been inciting the Bulgarian diasporic community in Romania to invade Bulgaria and organise anti-Ottoman resistance.

The name Pomak is pejorative in Bulgarian and is resented by most members of the community, especially by non-practising Muslims.

Apart from the Greeks, it was also inhabited by many Turks and Western Europeans, a very large Jewish community, and a substantial Bulgarian minority.

The only exception was the Jewish community, which initially, following the orders of the Austrian counsellor, gave to the Bulgarian army buildings that they refused to give to the Greek Army.

Baring did not speak Bulgarian ( although he did speak Turkish ) and British policy was officially pro-Turkish, so the Bulgarian community in Istanbul feared he would not report the complete story.

Kuklen is notable for having, despite its low population, not only a majority Bulgarian Orthodox population with several Orthodox churches, but also Muslim residents and a mosque, as well as a Greek Catholic community and a Catholic place of worship, with all three religious communities living on good terms with each other.

The latter was inherited by the Phanariote nobleman known under the name Alexandru Conduratu, who settled it with Bulgarians from around Nikopol and from the Banat ; the newly-created locality was named Popeşti-Conduratu or Pavlicheni, in reference to " Paulicians " ( a tradition designated the Roman Catholic group of the Bulgarian community by the names of their ancestors ).

The Ursari form an important part of the Roma community in Romania, where they are one of the 40 tribal groups, as well as notable segments of the Bulgarian Roma population and of the one in Moldova.

All members of the group belonged to the Slavic Macedonian community of northern Greece, which was regarded as Bulgarian by the Bulgarian authorities.

The Glagolitic alphabet is believed to have been created by Saints Cyril and Methodius, while the Cyrillic alphabet was invented by the Bulgarian scholar Clement of Ohrid, who was their disciple.

* 1018 – Byzantine general Eustathios Daphnomeles blinds and captures Ibatzes of Bulgaria by a ruse, thereby ending Bulgarian resistance against Emperor Basil II's conquest of Bulgaria.

The Emperor's attempts to bolster the empire's defenses by special concessions to Byzantine and Bulgarian notables in the frontier zone backfired, as the latter built up regional autonomy.

Andronikos III's attempt to make up for this setback by annexing Bulgarian Thrace failed in 1332, when he was defeated by the new Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander at Rousokastron.

Since 1990, Bulgaria has an unstable party system, in the past two decades differently dominated by the post-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party or by the right Union of Democratic Forces and recently by the new right-oriented party-Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria.

Their government collapsed in late 1992, and was succeeded by a technocratic team, put forward by the Bulgarian Socialist Party ( BSP ), which served until 1994, when the president dissolved the government and appointed a provisional one to serve until the pre-term elections, appointed for December in the same year.

Throughout the postwar period, economic progress also was assisted substantially by a level of internal and external political stability unseen in other East European countries during the same period, that was also a change in Bulgarian political scene was a lot of turbulence preceded the ascent to power of the BCP.

Unlike the communist parties in most other East European states, the BCP ( changing its name to Bulgarian Socialist Party ) retained majority power after the transition in Bulgaria by winning the first free national elections in June 1990.

The fiscal discipline set by Finance Minister Djankov proved successful and together with reduced budget spending it placed Bulgarian economy on the stage of steadily though slowly growing in the mids of world crisis.

No territorial changes were made to either country, but the Bulgarian unification was recognized by the Great Powers.

The initial Bulgarian attack by First and Third Army defeated the Turkish forces, numbering some 130, 000, and reached the Sea of Marmara.

New Turkish forces landed at Bulair and Şarköy but after heavy fighting they were crushed and overthrown by the newly formed 4th Bulgarian army under the command of General Stiliyan Kovachev.

One year later, during the third battle of Doiran, the United Kingdom, supported by Greece, once again suffered a humiliating defeat, losing 3, 155 men against just about 500 for the Bulgarian side.

The 261 Frenchmen who survived were captured by Bulgarian soldiers.

Bulgaria was determined to observe it until the end of the war ; but it hoped for bloodless territorial gains, especially in the lands with a significant Bulgarian population occupied by neighbouring countries after the Second Balkan War and World War I.

The Bulgarian government declared a token war on the United Kingdom and the United States near the end of 1941, an act which resulted in the bombing of Sofia and other Bulgarian cities by Allied aircraft.

Some communist activists managed to activate a guerrilla movement headed by the underground Bulgarian Communist Party.

One year after Boris's accession, Aleksandar Stamboliyski ( or Stambolijski ) of the Bulgarian People's Agrarian Union was elected prime minister.

* Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Bulgarian tsar before the Communist government, also prime minister from 2001 – 2005

Furious, Ratcliffe leaves Madeleine's house, only to be accosted and ridiculed by his arch-enemy Baron Jacobi, the Bulgarian minister.

In his reminiscences, Vladimir Kostov, a Bulgarian secret agent who defected to France in 1978, recalls how the powerful minister of internal affairs would suffer nervous episodes before meeting Zhivkov lest his predanost should fail to come across sufficiently expressively.

( For more information see F. B. Chary, The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution ) In June 1944, at which time the Axis war effort was rapidly deteriorating, Bozhilov resigned as prime minister and returned to the Bulgarian National Bank, once again becoming its governor.

He entered the Bulgarian service in 1879, and in 1881 became minister of education at Sofia.

Shortly after becoming deputy prime minister, Bulgarian leader Georgi Dimitrov died and Bulgaria temporarily adopted a model of collective leadership, with Chervenkov becoming general secretary of the party and Vasil Kolarov becoming prime minister.

He kept close ties with the government of Bulgarian Agrarian National Union ( BANU ), especially with minister Aleksandar Dimitrov and some other prominent Agrarian leaders, thus incurring IMRO leaders ' hatred upon himself.

Third was the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, mainly supported by ethnic Turks and Roma with around 13 %, fourth were the far-right nationalists National Union Attack with around 8 %, fifth were the previously governing centre-right United Democratic Forces also with around 8 %, sixth was a party that broke away party from the United Democratic Forces-Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, led by the prime minister between 1997 and 2001 Ivan Kostov and seventh and the last that entered the parliament was the Bulgarian People's Union, which represents а coalition of two parties that broke away from the United Democratic Forces and one nationalist party.

After the victory, the French minister of war Alexandre Millerand stated that the Bulgarian Army was the best in Europe and that he would prefer 100, 000 Bulgarians for allies than any other European army.

The new British prime minister, William Ewart Gladstone ( who had strongly supported the Bulgarian cause in the past ) made Bulgarian politicians hope that the British policy on the Eastern Question was about to change, and that it will support and look favourably upon an eventual Union.