The national insurrection for the Independence of April 1876 lasted nearly one month during which the Bulgarians held, on all fronts, furiously against the Ottomans and their back-up troops. The ratio of force, unequal to the possible, on the level of the armament (the Bulgarian artillery, if the term is acceptable, for example, was manufactured starting from trunks of cherry trees of orchards of the population of the countryside and ringed with iron) will often have been compensated by immense courage and the spirit of sacrifice of the Bulgarians. The engagements will have cost 30000 Bulgarian lives (men, women, children and old men because it was about the rising of a whole people) and a particularly atrocious repression on behalf of the occupant.

The authorized sacrifices were not it in vain, whole Europe was alarmed at the fate of this courageous people with, among others, Garibaldi in Italy and Victor Hugo, in France, within the framework of a memorable intervention at the Parliament. The extremely grave situation in the Balkans had the greatest echo in Russia which sent the following year its armies to come to assistance to the Bulgarian People, accompanied by a Rumanian units. At the time of the decisive battle at the Shipka Pass, in spite of the immense losses undergone during the uprising of the previous year, the Bulgarian forces were present and had a determining role in the outcome of the engagements.

It was only justice that the Treaty of San Stefano grants the autonomy to Bulgaria in 1878 and creates a Bulgarian State covering all the territories populated of Bulgarians. However, the Western powers are manoeuvring and with the Treaty of Berlin (July 1878) the country is divided:
- the Principality of Bulgaria (Bulgaria of the North and the area of Sofia);
- Eastern Roumelia, south of the Balkans, becomes an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire;
- Macedonia, Aegean Thrace and the zone of Andrinople, are left to Turkey;
- the area of Pirot and Nish, is allotted to Serbia;
- part of Dobroudja returns to the Roumanians.

The capital of the "refounded" Bulgaria is Sofia and Prince Alexandre Battenberg (1879-1886) becomes Prince of Bulgaria.

The decisions of Berlin are disputed by the very whole of the nation which imposes the reunification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia in 1885. The Serb kingdom declares war to Bulgaria at once, but is overcome by the army of the young Bulgarian State.

In 1908, Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha (1887-1918) denounces the bonds of vassalage with the Sublime Door, proclaims the independence of Bulgaria and takes the title of Tsar. The Balkan War of 1912 allows the liberation of Macedonia and the Ottoman Empire loses the essence of its European territories. But in 1913, Bulgaria must concede much territories at the end of a new Balkan war. It is also on the side of the losers the end of the First World War.

The treaty of Neuilly (1920) imposes on Bulgaria enormous war reparations which plunges the country in a serious crisis. The national economy is rebuild again in the decade and shows a dynamism envied by many country of Europe of then.

Bulgaria adheres in 1941 to the tripartite pact by another choice having been "imposed" on the country. In spite of the very strong pressure of the Nazi Germany, the Bulgarian government and the King Boris III maintain the non-participation of the Bulgarian forces to the invasion of the USSR and succeed in avoiding to nearly 50000 Jews the death camps! In a world, during particularly disturbed times, the personal engagement of the Danish sovereign of the time will be the only one to equalize that of Boris III.

In September 1944, the Red Army enters Bulgaria.