Tsar Simeon – The Golden Age Of Bulgaria

Simeon I the Great was born in 864/5 and was the third son of knyaz Boris I of the Krum dynasty. Boris I is the ruler who accepted officially the Christianity in 865. Simeon was a Christian his entire life. Since the eldest son of Boris, Vladimir was expected to be his successor, Boris wanted Simeon to become a man of God, may be even Bulgarian Archbishop. This was the reason to send Simeon to study in the University of Constantinople in order to receive theological education. In a monastery in Constantinople as a novice he took the Hebrew name Simeon.

The next decade Simeon spent in the capital of Byzantine receiving excellent education and studying the rhetoric of Demosthenes and Aristotle. He knew Greek so well that in Greek chronicles was called "Half-Greek". In 888 Simeon returns to Bulgaria and together with Naum Preslavski translates religious literature from Greek into Old Bulgarian. Meanwhile his father Boris retired to a cloister. His eldest son Vladimir Rassate became the new ruler of Bulgaria. He tries to restore the old religion which makes his father Boris to get out of the monastery. As a punishment he blinded and dethroned him. For some unknown reason Boris did not set his second son Gavril on the throne.

So in 893 Simeon, the third son of Boris, became the ruler of Bulgaria. He moved the capital from Pliska to Preslav. After his coronation he fought his first war with Byzantine since the emperor Leo VI The Philosopher ("The Wise") moved the main market place from Constantinople to Thessaloniki. That was in 894. The Byzantine army could not stop the Bulgarians. But Simeon was not ready to fight a long war and returned to Bulgaria. In 896 the Byzantine army once again was defeated and the market place was returned to Constantinople. In 917 near the river of Acheloos Byzantine army was completely defeated. After the battle of Anchialus were to pay tribute to Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria. As his father Boris, Simeon patronizes literature. During Simeon's reign Bulgaria reached its cultural apogee. In the Preslav Literary school and Ohrid Literary School there were writers and scholars as Clement of Ohrid, Naum, Constantine of Preslav (Alphabetical Prayer; Proclamation of the Holy Gospels), John Exarch (Six Days - Shestodnev) etc. who translated religious literature, chronicles etc. In May 927 Simeon I died of heart attack in his palace in the capital Preslav. Simeon married twice. We don't know much about his first wife but with her he had a son called Michael. Later the boy was sent to a monastery by his father. With his second wife Mariam, the daughter of the influential noble George Sursuvul, he had three sons: Peter who became an emperor of Bulgaria after his father death in 927, Peter who later tried to dethrone his brother Peter and Benjamine. The reign of Simeon I was a period of unseen cultural prosperity and later was called the Golden Age of Bulgaria.

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