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| 766 |
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| Umor, who was deposed by Toktu. Toktu was captured and killed by the Greeks. | 1 |
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| 773–77? |
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| Telerig, whose family is unknown. The Greeks renewed their attacks, which were on the whole successful. | 2 |
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| 777–802 |
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| Kardam, whose reign marked the turning of the tide. He took advantage of the confusion in the empire to defeat the Greeks at Marcellae (792) and to rebuild the foundations of the state. | 3 |
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| 803–14 |
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| Krum, one of the greatest Bulgarian rulers. He appears to have been of the Dulo tribe's Panonian branch. He rose to power as a result of his victories over the Avars. For four years (809–13) he carried on war with the Byzantine Empire. The Greeks sacked Pliska (809, 811), but Krum defeated and killed the emperor in a battle in the mountains (811). In 812 he took the important fortress of Mesembria, and in 813 won another victory at Versinicia. In the same year he appeared at Constantinople. The city was too strong for him, and he retired, devastating Thrace and taking Adrianople. | 4 |
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| 814–31 |
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| Omurtag, the son of Krum. After a defeat by the Greeks (814), he concluded a 30-year peace with them, returning Mesembria and Adrianople. Construction of palaces in Pliska; founding of the city of Preslav. Omurtag left many stone inscriptions, written mostly in Greek. During the peace in the east, the Bulgars began systematic raids into Croatia and Pannonia (827–29). | 5 |
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| 831–52 |
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| Malamir, the son of Omortag. Gradual expansion into upper Macedonia and Serbia (839). | 6 |
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| 852–89 |
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| Boris I. He continued the campaigns in the west, but suffered severe defeats by the Serbs (860). | 7 |
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| 865 |
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| Boris's reign was important chiefly for his conversion to Christianity. Boris was induced to take the step under pressure from Constantinople, where the government was eager to frustrate a possible German-Roman advance. Boris had all his subjects baptized, which constituted a drastic change of their whole way of life. The Bulgars were forced, among other things, to reshape entirely their family relationships. The high-ranking state officials had to abandon polygamy and were thenceforth entitled to no more than three divorces. Traditional objects of worship were now proclaimed evil. The traditional tribal structures, kept together by a network of marital links between the chieftains' children and the children of the king, were to be replaced with a system of government along the Byzantine model. As a consequence, Christianization led to a revolt and the execution of 52 leaders, together with their families. At the same time, Boris spared no efforts to put the Church under his control and hesitated between Constantinople and Rome. Apparently intending to replace the Greek and Latin clergy with a clergy personally devoted to him, he encouraged the introduction of the Slavonic liturgy among the Slavs of Bulgaria by the disciples of Cyril and Methodius. To that effect, Kliment of Okhrid may have invented the Cyrillic alphabet, based on Greek characters and Bulgarian runes. In 889 Boris voluntarily retired to a monastery. | 8 |
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| 889–93 |
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| Rasate (known also as Vladimir), the son of Boris, who was soon exposed to a violent heathen reaction. | 9 |
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| 893 |
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| Boris reemerged from retirement, put down the revolt, deposed and blinded his son, and made the Slavonic liturgy general in its application. The capital was moved to Preslav. Boris then returned to his monastery, where he died (907). | 10 |
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| 893–927 |
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| Symeon I, another son of Boris, the first Bulgarian ruler to assume the title tsar. Symeon had been educated at Constantinople, as a monk. He was deeply imbued with Greek culture, but under his reign Slavic definitively replaced Greek as the official and Church language. Its impact on Bulgarian was as strong as that of Latin and French on English. Many books were translated from Greek into Slavic and would be later used by the Serbs and the Eastern Slavs, who thus adopted the Cyrillic alphabet. Bulgaria played a crucial role in the spread of Eastern Orthodoxy from Byzantium to a number of eastern European peoples. | 11 |
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| 894–96 |
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| Symeon's reign was filled with wars against the Byzantine Empire, which originally grew out of disputes regarding trade rights and ultimately developed into a contest for possession of the imperial throne. The war began in 894, with the defeat of a Greek army. The emperor thereupon induced the Magyars, located on the Pruth River, to attack the Bulgarians in Bessarabia (895). By trickery, Symeon induced the Greeks to withdraw and then defeated the Magyars, after which he returned and fell on the Greeks at Bulgarophygon. Peace was made in 896, the emperor paying tribute. | 12 |
| In the meantime the Magyars, driven westward by the Patzinaks (Pechenegs), advanced into Transylvania and Pannonia, which were lost to the Bulgars. | 13 |
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