A constituent assembly is duly convened in Turnovo in 1879.

Partly elected and partly appointed, the assembly of two hundred and thirty splits into conservative and liberal factions similar to those that had existed before independence

The liberals advocate  continuing the alliance of peasants and intelligentsia that had formed the independence movement, to be symbolized in a single parliamentary chamber; the conservatives argue that the Bulgarian peasant class is not ready for political responsibility, and therefore it should be represented in a second chamber with limited powers.

The framework for the Turnovo constitution is a draft submitted by the Russian occupation authorities, based on the constitutions of Serbia and Romania.

As the assembly revises this document, the liberal view prevails; a one-chamber parliament or subranie will be elected by universal male suffrage.

Between the annual fall ses-sions of the subranie, the country will be run jointly by the monarch and a council of ministers responsible to parliament.

The liberals who dominate the assembly incorporate many of their revolutionary ideals into what becomes one of the most liberal constitutions of its time.

The final act of the Turnovo assembly is the election of Alexander of Battenburg, a young German nobleman who had joined the Russians in the war of 1877, to be the first prince of modern Bulgaria.