The Dulo Dynasty: Founders of Bulgaria

The Bulgars were originally a Turkic peoples of the Central Asian steppe. However, they did not have a polity of their own, but rather lived as distinct tribes who were aligned with other Turkish or Central Asian polities.

A Bulgar leader named Kubrat put an end to this. In A.D. 632, he unified the Bulgars and created a single Bulgar polity, which we now call Great Bulgaria. This was not where modern Bulgaria is; rather, it was in the Crimean peninsula and the areas just north and east of it. Kubrat was a member of the Dulo Clan, which had previously been just one of many ruling clans among the Bulgars. After him, the House of Dulo would rule over other Bulgars for centuries.

After Kubrat's death, Great Bulgaria disintegrated. There were two reasons. First, the Khazars invaded. Second, Kubrat had five sons, some of whom wanted to take their followers and establish their own polity.

One such son was Asparukh. Asparukh left the Bulgar homeland and invaded the Byzantine Empire. At the Battle of Ongal, Asparukh defeated the Byzantines and carved out a new Bulgar homeland in the Balkans. This is the area that 21st century maps simply call "Bulgaria"; historians sometimes call it "Danubian Bulgaria" to distinguish it from Great Bulgaria, or from other Bulgar polities that different sons of Kubrat founded elsewhere. This polity is also called the First Bulgarian Empire, because it was the first empire to exist in Bulgaria.


Asparukh's successor was Tervel. Tervel obtained Byzantine recognition of Bulgaria. Indeed, when the Arabs besieged Constantinople during the reign of Leo the Isaurian in A.D. 717, it was Tervel who sent a Bulgar force that helped defeat the Arabs.

The next notable Dulo ruler of Bulgaria was Krum. Krum is primarily notable for winning the 811 Battle of Pliska against the Byzantines. Pliska was one of the greatest victories the Bulgarians ever won against the Byzantine empire. The Byzantine emperor Nikephoros I (who had seized power from Empress Irene of Iconoclasm controversy fame) was slain in the battle. According to legend, Krum made a drinking cup from Nikephoros's skull. Nikephoros's son and successor, Staurakios, was wounded and paralyzed during the battle. This led to a period of instability in Byzantium, as a paralyzed emperor was seen as weak.

According to Andrew Yaphe, Krum was the greatest Bulgar to ever live. But I disagree with this claim; see below.

The next notable Dulo ruler of Bulgaria was Simeon the Great. Simeon, the only Bulgar ruler to be called The Great, is my pick for greatest Bulgar to ever live.

Simeon is notable for his cultural achievements; as an educated ruler, he promoted literature and religious scholarship. Simeon also made the Bulgarian Orthodox Church autocephalous, making it independent of the control of any other Orthodox Church. But Simeon is also notable for presiding over Bulgaria during the height of its military power.

Simeon was so powerful that the Byzantines allied with Hungary against him. This forced Simeon to fight a two-front war against his southern and northern neighbors. But Simeon not only defended Bulgaria from this double threat, he also invaded both of his rivals and captured the Byzantine city of Adrianople and the Hungarian city of Pest.

Simeon also extended Bulgar control to modern-day Serbia, Croatia, and even Albania.

So extensive were Simeon the Great's conquests that Bulgarians refer to his rule as the "Era of the Three Seas", because Bulgaria gained coastlines along the Adriatic, Agean, and Black seas. His reign is also known as the Golden Age of Bulgaria. Indeed, when I was in Bulgaria, I purchased a t-shirt with Simeon's portrait on it and "GOLDEN AGE" written above it in large letters.

Simeon's successor was Peter I. Peter I is notable because it was during his reign that the Bogomil Heresy emerged in Bulgaria. Bogomilism, named for its founder, a priest named Bogomil, was a dualistic and somewhat mystical heresy influenced by the earlier Anatolian heresy of Paulicianism. Bogomilism is perhaps most notable today for the fact that it influenced Catharism (a.k.a. Albigenisanism), a much more famous heresy in southern France.

When Peter I died, his succession was neither stable nor orderly. He left two sons, but real power was in the hands of a group of four brothers known as the Comitopuli. This is a Greek name for them; their actual family name is unknown.

Eventually, one of the Comitopuli became emperor, ending the Dulo dynasty and starting the short-lived Comitopuli dynasty. This ruler was Samuel I or Samueli I. He is most notable for losing a war to the Byzantine Emperor Basil II.

Basil II defeated Samueli's army at the Battle of Kleidion in 1014. Famously, Basil blinded 99 out of every 100 Bulgarian captives, then left the remaining captives with one eye and ordered them to march their blinded colleagues back to Bulgaria and inform every man, woman, and child in Bulgaria that Basil was now their master. According to legend, upon hearing the news of Kleidion, Samueli died of a heart attack. This is not true, but by the end of the decade the Comitopuli dynasty was over and Bulgaria was a Byzantine province. For this, Basil II earned his famous nickname, Basil the Bulgar-Slayer.