Tarnovo Constitution
Constitution of Bulgaria from 1879 to 1947
The Tarnovo Constitution (Bulgarian: Търновска конституция) was the first constitution of Bulgaria.
It was adopted on 28 April [O.S. 16 April] 1879 by the Constituent National Assembly held in Veliko Tarnovo as part of the establishment of the Principality of Bulgaria. It remained the fundamental law of Bulgaria after the country was elevated to a kingdom in 1908.
Based on the Belgian charter of 1831, the Constitution was liberal in character and was considered advanced for its time. It defined the function and competence of the central organs of state authority according to the principle of separation of powers among an executive, a legislative, and a judiciary branch. It provided for ministerial responsibility, immunity of the deputies, and inviolability of private property. The constitution included a clause that formally established the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as the official religion of the nation, although people of other religions were considered equal to those who followed the official faith.
With amendments in 1893 and 1911 that strengthened royal power, the Tarnovo Constitution remained in use until 4 December 1947, when it was replaced by the Dimitrov Constitution.
Form of government and head of state
According to the constitution of 1879, Bulgaria was declared to be a constitutional, hereditary monarchy with a parliament whose members were elected by the people. The monarch bore the title of Prince and not tsar, as it was during the First and the Second Bulgarian Empire, since the treaty of Berlin from 1878 restricted Bulgaria's independence to a certain degree and made it a de facto vassal state of Turkey.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tarnovo Constitution” is constitution of Bulgaria from 1879 to 1947. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tarnovo, Constitution and Bulgaria, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2034138. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1908, 1831 and 1893.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tarnovo Constitution” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.