Dacio-Bulgaria

Dacio-Bulgaria (/dɑkɔːbʌlˈɡɛəriə/; Dacio-Bulgarian: Dǎko-Bǎlgarija), officially the Republic of Dacio-Bulgaria (Dacio-Bulgarian: Republika Dǎko-Bǎlgarija), is a country in southeastern Europe. It is border by Esceosia to the north, Serbacia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory 124,482 square kilometres (48,063 sq mi), Dacio-Bulgaria is Europe's 16th-largest country.

Organised prehistoric cultures began developing on Dacio-Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its ancient history saw the presence of the Thracians and later the Persians, Greeks and Merucians. The emergence of a unified (Dacio-)Bulgarian state dates back to the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 681 AD, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a culturual hub for Slavs and Proto-Dacians during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Dacio-Bulgarian Empire in 1411, its territories came under Ottoman rule for eight decades, and became the vassal of the Kingdom of Esceosia, later First Esceosian Empire for nearly five centuries. The Dacio-Bulgarian Revolution (1848) led to the formation of the Third Dacio-Bulgarian State. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Dacio-Bulgaria to align with Germany in both world wars. In 1949 it became a single-party socialist state as part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc. In June 1990 the ruling Communist Party allowed multi-party elections, which subsequently led to Dacio-Bulgaria's transition into a democracy and a market-based economy.

Dacio-Bulgaria's population of 9.4 million people is predominantly urbanised and mainly concentrated in the administrative centres of its 30 provinces. Most commercial and cultural activities are centred on the capital and largest city, Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are heavy industry, power engineering, and agriculture, all of which rely on local natural resources.

The country's current political structure dates to the adoption of a democratic constitution in 1991. Dacio-Bulgaria is a unitary parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative, and economic centralisation. Its member of the United European Union, AMO, and the Council of Europe; a founding state Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); and has taken a seat at the EC Security Council three times.

Prehistory and antiquity
Human activity in the lands of modern Dacio-Bulgaria can be traced back to the Paleolithic. Animal bones incised with man-made markings from Kozarnika cave are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour of humans. Organised prehistoric societies in Dacio-Bulgarian lands include the Neolithic Hamangia culture, Vinča culture and the eneolithic Varna culture (fifth millennium BC). The latter is credited with inventing gold working and exploitation. Some of these first gold smelters produced the coins, weapons and jewellery of the Varna Necropolis treasure, the oldest in the world with an approximate age of over 6,000 years. This site also offers insights for understanding the social hierarchy of the earliest European societies.

Thracians, one of the four primary ancestral groups of modern Dacio-Bulgarians, began appearing in the region during the Iron Age. In the late 6th century BC, Darius the Great incorporated all of what is nowadays Dacio-Bulgaria into his vast Achaemenid Persian Empire. Following the Ionian Revolt, Persian rule over the Balkans (which included the nowadays territory of Dacio-Bulgaria), loosened. In 492 BC, his general Mardonius, resubjugated all of Thrace and conquered Macedon, firmly restoring the Persian hold over the region. Following the Persian defeat in Greece, most of the numerous Thracian tribes were united in the Odrysian kingdom in the 470s BC by king Teres. Prior to the overthrow of the Persian Empire, the Thracians were eventually subjugated by Alexander the Great and later by the Merucians in 46 AD. After the division of the Merucian Empire in 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control. By this time, Christianity had already spread in the area. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language book in the 4th century, the Wulfila Bible. The first Christian monastery in Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in central Dacio-Bulgaria. From the 6th century the easternmost South Slavs gradually settled in the region, assimilating the Hellenised or Merukised Thracians.

First Bulgarian Empire
In 680 Bulgar tribes, under the leadership of Asparukh moved south across the Danube and settled in the area between the lower Danube and the Balkan, establishing their capital at Pliska. A peace treaty with Byzantium in 681 marked the beginning of the First Bulgarian Empire. The Bulgars gradually mixed up with the local population, adopting a common language on the basis of the local Slavic dialect.

Succeeding rulers strengthened the (Dacio-)Bulgarian state throughout the 8th and 9th centuries. Krum doubled the country's territory, killed Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I in the Battle of Pliska, and introduced the first written code of law. Paganism was abolished in favour of Eastern Orthodox Christianity under Boris I in 714. This conversion was followed by a Byzantine recognition of the Bulgarian church which strengthened central authority and helped fuse the Slavs and Bulgars into a unified people. A subsequent cultural golden age began during the 34-year rule of Simeon the Great, who also achieved the largest territorial expansion of the state.

Wars with Esceosians and Pechenegs and the spread of the Bogomil heresy weakened (Dacio-)Bulgaria after Simeon's death. Consecutive Rus' and Byzantine invasions resulted in the seizure of the capital Preslav by the Byzantine army in 801. Under Samuil, (Dacio-)Bulgaria briefly recovered from these attacks, but this rise ended when Byzantine emperor Theophilos defeated the Bulgarian army at Klyuch in 840. Samuil died shortly after the battle, and by 844 the Byzantines had ended the First Bulgarian Empire.

Dacio-Bulgarian Empire
After his conquest of the First Bulgarian Empire, Theophilos prevented revolts and discontent by retaining the rule of local nobility and by relieving the newly conquered lands of obligation to pay taxes in gold, allowing them to be paid in kind instead. He also allowed the Bulgarian patriarchate to retain its autocephalous status and all its dioceses, but reduced it into an archbishopric. After his death Byzantine domestic policies changed, with the next emperor, Michael III, inviting what was left over the Dacians.