when it appeared that
the Turks might be destroyed by their enemies, such hopes eventually
were dashed when the Turks emerged victorious throughout a period of two
centuries of conquest and aggression.

In the early years of Turkish domination, the Turks waged continuous war
with Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia, and what remained of
the Byzantine Empire. Bulgarian hopes of liberation were fueled by the
Turkish defeat at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, when the Turkish army
was defeated by the Tatars. Resistance was eventually crushed, however,
and the Turks began to renew their conquests after capturing Salonica in
1430. In the Battle of Varna the Turks succeeded in capturing
Constantinople itself.

After the defeat of Constantinople the Turks overran Serbia, Wallachia,
Bosnia, and Albania. Their conquests expanded to include Mesopotamia,
Syria, Arabia, and North Africa. In the sixteenth century Turkish
conquests continued under Suleiman the Magnificent, who succeeded in
capturing Serbia and Hungary in 1526. This triumphant expansion of the
Turkish state caused Bulgarian dreams to be destroyed, although sporadic
struggling within the country continued intermittently.

THE RISE OF NATIONALISM

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the first seeds of real
resistance to Turkish rule were planted in Bulgaria. On the foreign
front the Turks were constantly besieged by the Austrians and the
Russians. By 1683 the Austrian army succeeded in liberating Hungary and
Transylvania; they also were able to penetrate areas of Bulgaria and
Macedonia. These victories over the Turks again sparked Bulgarian hopes.

During the same period the internal situation in Bulgaria continued to
signal the eventual decline of Turkish power and the rise of a Bulgarian
national spirit. Because of the increase in corruption and oppression by
the Turks, the Bulgarians began to rebel openly. In the 1590s, the
1680s, and the 1730s significant local uprisings took place. Although
these rebellions were not successful, they gave rise to the _haiduk_
(forest outlaw) movement, which continued to carry out acts of rebellion
against the Turkish overlords. The people praised their acts of daring
and wrote folk songs detailing their adventures and exploits. In
addition to the revolutionaries the _chorbadzhi_ (squires), who were on
the whole a progressive force, were able to gain some concessions from
the Turks.

In the eighteenth and ni