This land is my land

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Turks had lost control of most of the Balkans. If you read old history books, or talk to some of the people who live here today, it was the just and noble triumph of brave Christian soldiers over their evil Moslem overlords. Sort of like Balkan Manifest Destiny. By 1912 the only one of today's Balkan states still controlled by the Turks was Macedonia. (Russia tried to give part of Macedonia to Bulgaria in 1877, but the Great Powers got mad and gave it back to the Turks.) In the First Balkan War Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece got together and won control of Macedonia. A year later, in a fit of colossal fuck-uppery, they fought the Second Balkan War over what to do with it. Macedonia had been divided up on paper before the first war had even been fought, but then that division didn't coincide with who felt like they won what in the actual fighting. Plus, the Great Powers had decided that Albania should be independent, which made Serbia mad and also made it feel entitled to part of western Macedonia also claimed by Bulgaria. And Bulgaria and Greece were mad at each other about Saloniki and other parts of eastern Macedonia. The big loser of the second war was Bulgaria. If you take both Balkan wars together, Bulgaria did gain some land and people, but nowhere near as much as they thought they deserved.

So, to oversimplify a lot, Bulgaria's borders have changed several times, and it was once bigger than it is now, and there's been some intervention by the international community. The nice thing about Bulgaria compared to, ahem, some other Balkan places I've visited, is that that history doesn't seem to have warped into scary nationalism. That, and grilled meat.