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Bulgaria - History

Bulgaria - History
Print Bulgaria - History Reading Comprehension


Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 7 to 9
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   10.32

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    bloc, brutality, uprising, revolt, democracy, communism, communist, southeastern, odds, kingdom, origin, particularly, ruler, outbreak, lasted, notable
     content words:    Bulgarian Empire, As Slavs, Tsar Boris I., Orthodox Christianity, Tsar Simeon, Adriatic Sea, Byzantine Empire, Basil II, Two Bulgarian, Turkish Empire

Bulgaria - History
By Ekaterina Zhdanova-Redman 		  
1     The country of Bulgaria has been for hundreds of years a politically and geographically important country. Due to Bulgaria's location in southeastern Europe it has been neighbors with some of the biggest empires in the world. Despite having been ruled for many years by neighboring empires, the people of Bulgaria have maintained a sense of national pride that persists to this day.
 
2     For parts of its early history, the land of Bulgaria belonged to different kingdoms. At first, Bulgaria was part of the Macedonian kingdom. The Romans threw the Macedonians out, and then the Thraco-Illyrians threw the Romans out. Finally, in 679, a group of people called the Bulgars moved in and took over. The Bulgars are believed to be of Indo-Iranian origin. They set up the first Bulgarian Empire and ultimately took over Macedonia in the 9th century. As Slavs moved into Bulgaria, the Bulgars became out numbered. Finally, the Bulgars adopted most of the Slavic ways of life and language.
 
3     Bulgarian religion helped shape the next period of Bulgarian history. In 865, a Byzantine monk painted a picture of what he thought hell looked like on the Bulgarian ruler's palace walls. This really frightened the ruler, Tsar Boris I. In fact, it scared him so much that Boris accepted Orthodox Christianity. The church of Bulgaria in 870 became independent, with its own leader. This leader convinced Tsar Simeon to expand the Bulgarian empire. Simeon tried to expand the empire across neighboring Serbia to the Adriatic Sea. This put Bulgaria at odds with the Byzantine Empire and weakened the Bulgarian Empire.

Paragraphs 4 to 10:
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