In the immediate post-Liberation years, attempts to build a stable democracy in the principality were hampered by continuing Great Power interest in Balkan affairs. The Russians still regarded Bulgaria as a potential instrument of Tsarist policy, provoking tension between pro- and anti-Russian elements within the country itself.

Russian advisers were responsible for drafting an autocratic constitution for the fledgling state, but this was rejected by the Constituent Assembly which met at Târnovo in 1879. Dominated by the Liberal Party (in which many leading lights of the liberation struggle were gathered), the Assembly drew up the so-called Târnovo Constitution , which envisaged a single chamber parliament elected by universal male suffrage. This went down badly with Bulgaria's newly chosen prince, the autocratically minded Alexander Battenberg (Aleksandâr Batenberg to the Bulgarians) - a German aristocrat who had served with the Russian army during the War of Liberation. The prince suspended the constitution and convened a special assembly in the Danubian town of Svishtov - which he blackmailed into voting him emergency powers by threatening to abdicate if they refused. To the new Russian Tsar, Alexander III (Alexander II had been murdered in March 1881), however, the German-speaking prince was a living reminder of Russia's humiliation at the Congress of Berlin. Eager to forge alliances with those in Bulgaria who were suspicious of Russian influence, Aleksandâr accepted a partial return to democratic government in 1883.