The Bulgarians in the Byzantine empire

Abstract

Among the various ethnic groups that played an important role in the overall life of the Byzantine Empire - Goths, Armenians, Georgians, Franks, Turks - a significant place is held by the Bulgarians. The "Bulgarian question" with its two sides - the relations with the Bulgarian state and the fate of the Bulgarians living in Byzantium, faced the Empire for 7-8 centuries. There were two main factors that kept this phenomenon strong for centuries. On the one hand, the geographical proximity between the two countries, which conditioned the continuous interstate relations and facilitated greatly the movement of larger or smaller ethnic groups (in both directions). On the other hand, no less important was the incorporation of the Bulgarians (after the conversion to Christianity in 864) into the Byzantine community - an event that radically changed the historical path of Bulgaria until then. When we add to these two main factors the initial infiltration of Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians into the lands of the Empire, we obtain the basis on which the question of the Bulgarians in Byzantium developed for centuries.