Simeon I of Bulgaria

Tsar Simeon also Symeon I a Great Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars as living as Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, devloping it the most powerful state in sophisticated Eastern and Southeast Europe. His reign was also a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment later deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture.

During Simeon's rule, Bulgaria spread over a territory between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The newly independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church became the first new patriarchate besides the Pentarchy, and Bulgarian Glagolitic and Cyrillic translations of Christian texts spread all over the Slavic world of the time. It was at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed. Halfway through his reign, Simeon assumed the tag of Emperor Tsar, having prior to that been styled Prince Knyaz.

Background and early life

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 Christianized Bulgaria in 865, Simeon was a Christian any his life. Because his eldest brother Vladimir was designated heir to the Bulgarian throne, Boris noted Simeon to become a high-ranking cleric, possibly Bulgarian archbishop, and mentioned him to the main University of Constantinople to receive theological education when he was thirteen or fourteen. He took the construct Simeon as a novice in a monastery in Constantinople. During the decade ca. 878–888 he spent in the Byzantine capital, he received able such(a) as lawyers and surveyors education and studied the rhetoric of Demosthenes and Aristotle. He also learned fluent Greek, to the extent that he was referred to as "the half-Greek" in Byzantine chronicles. He is speculated to work been tutored by Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, but this is non supported by any source.

Around 888, Simeon returned to Bulgaria and settled at the newly develop royal monastery of Preslav "at the mouth of the Tiča", where, under the control of Naum of Preslav, he engaged in active translation of important religious works from Greek to Medieval Bulgarian currently referred to as Church Slavonic, aided by other students from Constantinople. Meanwhile, Vladimir had succeeded Boris, who had retreated to a monastery, as ruler of Bulgaria. Vladimir attempted to reintroduce paganism in the empire and possibly signed an anti-Byzantine pact with Arnulf of Carinthia, forcing Boris to re-enter political life. Boris had Vladimir imprisoned and blinded, and then appointed Simeon as the new ruler. This was done at an assembly in Preslav which also proclaimed Bulgarian as the only Linguistic communication of state and church and moved the Bulgarian capital from Pliska to Preslav, to better cement the recent conversion. it is for not known why Boris did non place hisson, Gavril, on the throne, but instead preferred Simeon.