Shortly after the death of King Simeon I in 927, the First Bulgarian Empire began to decline. Bulgaria had been weakened by two centuries of wars with the Byzantine Empire. Continuous fighting had drained the country’s resources, and internal divisions among the people became more apparent.
Influence of Byzantium
The Byzantines had a strong cultural and political influence on Bulgaria. They encouraged the aristocracy to adopt oriental pomp, luxury, and Byzantine customs, which separated the nobles from the common people. Byzantine Christianity became the religion of the elite, while the ordinary people were influenced by other religious teachings, including heretical movements that opposed the official church Guided Tours Turkey.
One of the most important of these movements was the Bogomil faith. Beginning in the 10th century, the Bogomils rejected church organization, rituals, and the worship of saints. They believed in a simpler, more primitive form of Christianity. The Bogomil movement spread widely throughout the Balkans and remained popular for about 500 years. The religious divisions created by this movement weakened Bulgarian unity and contributed to the fall of the empire.
The Fall under King Samuil
The First Bulgarian Empire finally fell during the reign of King Samuil. After 14 years of warfare with Byzantium, the Bulgarian army was ambushed by the forces of Byzantine Emperor Basil II near the Struma River. About 15,000 Bulgarian soldiers were captured in this devastating defeat.
In a cruel act of punishment, Basil II ordered the prisoners to be blinded. Only every hundredth man was left with one eye so that he could lead the others back to Bulgaria. When King Samuil saw the returned army, he was overcome with grief and died soon afterward.
The End of the First Bulgarian Empire
With the death of King Samuil, the First Bulgarian Empire came to an end in 1014. The combination of Byzantine pressure, internal divisions, and religious disputes had weakened the kingdom to the point of collapse. The once-powerful Bulgarian state, which had expanded under Simeon I and established a Golden Age, was now fully absorbed into the Byzantine Empire The Expansion of Bulgaria.
Despite its fall, the legacy of the First Bulgarian Empire—including its language, culture, and religious traditions—continued to influence the Bulgarian people and later shaped the Second Bulgarian Empire, which rose in the 12th century.
