Towards the end of the seventh century the Finnish tribe of the _Bulgars_ conquered the Slav tribes north and south of the Balkan range and incidentally adopted the Slav language as their own. They merely retained their original name, and their distinctive, coldly methodical genius for organization—a racial characteristic which is totally absent in the other Southern Slavs. In a short time the Bulgars also conquered the Slav tribes in Macedonia, Epirus and Thessaly, and subjugated the whole country as far as the Morava. In the ninth century the Bulgarian Empire reached from the Carpathians in Hungary to the Pannonian Valley, and, as a matter of fact, Budapest, the capital of Hungary, was founded by the Bulgars. The Bulgarian Tsar Boris was baptized by the apostles Cyril and Method, who also introduced the Slav liturgy in Bulgaria. The Slav dialect spoken between Constantinople and Salonika was adopted as the literary language, and the _Glagolitza_ (Glagolithic alphabet) and eventually the _Cyrillitza_ (Cyrillic alphabet) were introduced. This fact is of world-wide importance, for on this foundation rests the whole subsequent intellectual development of Russia and the Balkan Peninsula—in fact, of Eastern Europe. Under Simeon the Great (893-927) Slav literature reached its zenith—its golden age. The Moravian monks, who were driven out by Svatopluk, found a hospitable welcome in the monasteries around the Lake of Ochrida, and developed great literary activity. The Southern Slav monasteries sent monks and books to Russia, and thus they became the first instructors of their mighty brothers in the North. Still later, the Macedonian Empire was founded and the Emperor Samoilo resided in Ochrida. He, however, was soon overthrown by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II. in the Battle of Belassitza (1018). But the Bulgarian Empire recovered again under Tsar Ivan Asen II. (1218-1271) and had reached the zenith of its power when it was shattered for centuries by the invading Turks (1391).