ABSTRACT
We have already referred to the strategically very awkward situation of the Byzantine state, with enemies or potential enemies on virtually every front and with a constant need to fight wars on more than one front at a time. In the north and west the situation was especially complex as a result of the variety of neighbouring states and political powers. From its establishment in the 680s, the Bulgar Khanate rapidly grew in power, and until its extinction at the hands of the emperor Basil II, known as the ‘Bulgar-slayer’ (976–1025), represented a constant threat to the security of imperial territory in the Balkans. Throughout the 8th and 9th centuries and into the early 10th century, Bulgar power and influence grew, in spite of successful counter-attacks under the emperor Constantine V in the 760s and 770s. The nadir of Byzantine fortunes was probably the year 811, when the Khan Krum defeated and destroyed an imperial army, killing the emperor Nikephoros I. Conversion to Christianity of elements of the ruling elite in the 860s was intended to stabilise the situation in favour of Byzantium; but the gradual Byzantinisation of this elite only contributed to the growth of an imperialistic Bulgar politics which hoped to bring the two states together under a Bulgar dynasty. But Bulgar successes under the Christian Tsar Symeon in the first 15 years of the 10th century were as dangerous; while the reassertion of Bulgar imperial ideology under Tsar Samuel inaugurated a conflict – after a relatively peaceful period in the middle of the 10th century – and led finally to the eradication of Bulgar independence and the recovery of much of the Balkans up to the Danube in the early 11th century. In spite of occasional rebellions, the region remained firmly in Byzantine hands until just before the fourth crusade in 1203–1204. The Latin division of the empire after 1204 resulted in the rapid growth of local Balkan cultural independence and the evolution of new states – the Serbian empire of Stefan Dushan being perhaps the most remarkable. Only the arrival of the Ottomans in the 14th century put an end to this development.
