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During the sixth century the Slavic tribes started to penetrate into the region and, despite the efforts of the Byzantine Empire to prevent them, by the beginning of the seventh century the region had become settled with a new Slavic population, which quickly merged with and assimilated what remained of the original Thracian inhabitants. The Slavs were then followed by new invaders, the Bulgars, a Turkic people from Central Asia who by 681 had pushed south of the Danube and established the First Bulgarian Kingdom (681–1018) under the leadership of Khan Asparuh (681–700).

Bulgaria’s golden age

A couple of centuries later, during the reign of Tsar Boris I (852–899), Christianity was officially adopted as the state religion, and a new Slavonic alphabet was created, enabling Bulgaria to become the leading centre of Slavonic literature and culture. This period of development reached its zenith in the reign of Tsar Simeon I (893–927), the so-called ‘golden age’ of both Bulgarian culture and territorial expansion.