Preslav > Veliki Preslav Bulgaria

Boris establishes the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools.

The disciples of Cyril and Methodius are credited with preparing more than three thousand priests.

With the active assistance and material support of Boris, they establish centers of Slavic learning at Pliska, …

Simeon was born in 864 or 865, as the third son of Knyaz Boris I of Krum's dynasty.

As Boris was the ruler who had Christianized Bulgaria in 865, Simeon has been a Christian all his life.

Because his eldest brother Vladimir had always designated heir to the Bulgarian throne, Boris had intended Simeon to become a high-ranking cleric, possibly Bulgarian archbishop, and had sent him to the University of Constantinople to receive theological education when he was thirteen or fourteen.

He had taken the name Simeon as a novice in a monastery there.

During the decade (from about 878 to 888) he spent in the imperial capital, he had received an excellent education and studied the rhetoric of Demosthenes and Aristotle.

He had also learned fluent Greek, to the extent that he is referred to as "the half-Greek" in Byzantine chronicles.

He is speculated to have been tutored by Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, but this is not supported by any source.

Around 888, Simeon had returned to Bulgaria and settled at the newly established royal monastery of Preslav, where, under the guidance of Naum of Preslav, he has engaged in active translation of important religious works from Greek to Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian), aided by other students from Constantinople.

Meanwhile, Vladimir had succeeded Boris, who had retreated to a monastery, as ruler of Bulgaria.

Vladimir has attempted to reintroduce paganism in the empire and possibly signed an anti-Constantinople pact with Arnulf of Carinthia, forcing Boris to reenter political life.

With the aid of loyal boyars and the army, Boris drives his dissolute son from the throne and has him blinded, unfitting him for rule.

He then convenes a council that confirms Christianity as the religion of the state and moves the administrative capital from Pliska to the Slavic town of Preslav to better cement the recent conversion.

The assembly also proclaims Bulgarian as the only language of state and church.

It is not known why Boris did not place his second son, Gavril, on the throne, but instead preferred Simeon.

Boris now retires permanently to monastic life, making generous grants to the Bulgarian Church and patronizing Slav scholarship.

The Magyars, after pillaging much of Bulgaria and reaching Preslav, return to their lands, but not before Simeon has concluded an armistice with Constantinople towards the summer of 895.

A complete peace is delayed, as Leo VI requires the release of the imperial captives from the Trade War.

Simeon, having dealt with the pressure from the Magyars and the Greeks, is free to plan a campaign against the Magyars looking for retribution.

He negotiates a joint force with the Magyars' eastern neighbors, the Pechenegs, and imprisons the imperial envoy Leo Choirosphaktes in order to delay the release of the captives until after the campaign against the Magyars.

This will allow him to renegotiate the peace conditions in his favor.

In an exchange of letters with the envoy, Simeon refuses to release the captives and ridicules Leo VI's astrological abilities.

The Bulgarian khan has conquered most of Serbia by the close of his five-year campaign against the Greeks, advanced to the walls of Constantinople four times, compelled Constantinople to pay him tribute, and driven the Empire’s Magyar allies into the Theiss Plain, later to be known as the Plain of Hungary.

Under the peace ending the Bulgarian-Byzantine War of 889-97, the Empire agrees to pay an annual tribute to Simeon.

The size of the Bulgarian army under Simeon I is unknown.

Although they had ruined the negotiations, the Bulgarians are still afraid that the old allies of the Empire, the Pechenegs and the Hungarians, will attack them from the north, so two small armies are sent to protect the northern borders of the vast Bulgarian empire that spreads from Bosnia in the west to the Dnieper River in the east.

In addition, Bulgarian forces under Marmais are deployed near the western borders with the Serb principalities to prevent possible unrest.

Simeon is a gifted military leader whose campaigns have greatly extended Bulgaria's borders, but he has ultimately dissipated the country's strength in his efforts to take Constantinople.

Desperate to conquer the imperial capital, he plans a large campaign in 924.

He sends envoys to the Fatimid caliph Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi Billah, who possesses the powerful navy that Simeon needs.

The caliph agrees and sends his own representatives back with the Bulgarians to arrange the alliance.

However, the envoys are captured by imperial agents at Calabria.

Romanos offers peace to the Arabs, supplementing this offer with generous gifts, and ruins their union with Bulgaria.

Simeon has styled himself “Tsar of the Bulgars and Autocrat of the Greeks” from 925, and the pope recognizes him as such the following year, but his country is near exhaustion.

The Bulgarian kingdom has reached its greatest size under Simeon, who has presided over a golden age of artistic and commercial expansion.

He has encouraged the building of palaces and churches, the spread of monastic communities, and the translation of Greek books into Slavonic.

Preslav has been made into a magnificent capital that observers describe as rivaling Constantinople.

The artisans of its commercial quarter specialize in ceramics, stone, glass, wood, and metals, and Bulgarian tile work in the “Preslav style” surpasses its contemporary rivals and is eagerly imported by Constantinople and Kievan Rus.

Most likely after (or possibly at the time of) Patriarch Nicholas' death in 925, Simeon had raised the status of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to a patriarchate.

This may be linked to Simeon's diplomatic relations with the Papacy between 924 and 926, during which he has demanded and received Pope John X's recognition of his title as "Emperor of the Romans", truly equal to the emperor in Constantinople, and possibly the confirmation of a patriarchal dignity for the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

Bulgaria has reached its cultural apogee during Simeon's reign, becoming the literary and spiritual center of Slavic Europe.

In this respect, Simeon has continued his father Boris' policy of establishing and spreading Slavic culture and attracting noted scholars and writers within Bulgaria's borders.

It is in the Preslav Literary School and Ohrid Literary School, founded under Boris, that the main literary work in Bulgaria has been concentrated during the reign of Simeon.

By the close of Simeon’s five-year campaign against the Empire, the Bulgarian khan has conquered most of Serbia, advanced to the walls of Constantinople four times, compelled Constantinople to pay him tribute, and driven the Empire’s Magyar allies into the Plain of Hungary.

In the last months of his life, Simeon prepares for another siege of Constantinople despite Romanos' desperate pleas for peace.

He dies of heart failure in his palace in Preslav on May 27, 927.

Byzantine chroniclers tie his death to a legend, according to which Romanos decapitated a statue which was Simeon's inanimate double, and he died at that very hour.

Twice married, Simeon leaves four sons, of whom the second, Peter, succeeds him, with George Sursuvul, the new emperor's maternal uncle, initially acting as a regent.

The long Bulgarian-Byzantine War ends with Simeon's death.

As part of the peace treaty signed in October 927 and reinforced by Peter's marriage to Maria (Eirene), Romanos' granddaughter, and with it an annual tribute.

The existing borders are confirmed, as are the Bulgarian ruler's imperial dignity and the head of the Bulgarian Church's patriarchal status.

This agreement will usher in a period of forty years of peaceful relations between the two powers, a time of stability and prosperity for Bulgaria.