Bulgaria · 150 years of the Constitution of Tarnowo

The constitution emerged during the political reorganization of Bulgaria following the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877/78. The Treaty of Berlin of 1878 provided for the establishment of an autonomous Bulgarian principality under Ottoman suzerainty. A political and legal framework therefore had to be created for the new state. This task was undertaken by the Constituent National Assembly meeting in Tarnowo.

The delegates adopted a comparatively liberal constitution. It established a hereditary princely office and a representative assembly and regulated the responsibilities of the state organs. It also contained provisions on the fundamental rights of citizens, equality before the law, and the organization of administration and the judiciary. The right to vote was initially restricted to male citizens. The constitution thus combined monarchical elements with parliamentary and rule-of-law principles.

Tarnowo was not chosen as the venue by chance. The city was the center of the medieval Bulgarian Empire and its capital until its conquest by the Ottomans. Its selection created a link between the newly established statehood and Bulgaria’s medieval history. The name of the constitution therefore refers both to its place of origin and to a historical tradition to which the young state laid claim.

In the following decades, the constitution was amended several times and temporarily suspended. It nevertheless remained a point of reference in Bulgaria’s political development and was reinstated after political upheavals. Only after the end of the monarchical state order and the establishment of the communist system did it finally lose its validity.

The coin thus commemorates not only the adoption of a single legal text. Its occasion represents the beginning of the modern Bulgarian constitutional order and the establishment of state institutions following the regaining of political autonomy. The choice of the 150th anniversary refers to this early phase of Bulgarian state formation.