From: lb@cs.man.ac.uk (Luben Boyanov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.bulgaria
Subject: Re: Two Quizzes on Macedonia (was:Ioannes Scylitzes on Tsar Samuil)
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:39:13 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.greek
Organization: Dept Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.

In article <92282.042216PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu> PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu writes:

[stuff deleted]

>> most powerful comites of Bulgaria, were spreading unrest
>        \                 \
>       "wealthier"        IN Bulgaria
>       equally or
>       more probable.              (directly from the Greek text)

Well, I had the translation with the text I've typed. After all you can see
that the translation I had wasn't the same as the one you provided.
Furthermore, I've given this text because you provided text mentioning
about "Byzantine comites" and based your conlcusisons on that.

>> through the Bulgarian State ..."
>     \          \
>    among    Bulgarians            (directly from the Greek text)

Is this such difference?

>> comites of the Bulgarians and for this reason named Kometopouli
>            \              \
>       (living/staying) AMONG/CLOSE TO the Bulgarians
>       "para Boulgarois" in the original text

Can't argue because don't know Greek. Sorry. And as I said - from my point
of view the entire 'deep' argument it's absolutely irrelevant. One can
hardly find kindgoms with monarchs of "pure native blood". I really don't
know what the whole fuss is about, despite that it was interesting and
curious. If Samuil was called Macedonian, Armenian, Polish or whatever
King, the matter would have had a completely different dimention. And as I
mentioned historians writing on the Balkans from the end of 19th, start of
20th century, never mentioned anything else but "The Bulgarian Tsar
Samuil". So far all Byzantine quotations from you and (even those slightly
different) from me confirm that. I also can quote Nicephorus Bryennius that
he writes about the 'Bulgarian Tsar Samuil' but it's once again a
translation from Greek and not original. Another source, which you can
check is Dioclea Annales (from Ferdo Sisic, Letopis Popa Dukljanina) which
is also writing about the 'Bulgarian Tsar Samuil' but once again - that's
translation from Latin. Maybe you can provide a more accurate translation.

>I'm afraid there is. My translation is far more accurate and even

I don't argue on the matter. I think that last time I mentioned, that I
quote a translation, and not the original, so you can calm down.

>       How can you apppear so much informed on A.Evans and ig-

Quite easy - I've read his article and who is he in the Encyclopedia.
You can get yourself informed as well. Just find the article and read it.

>Can a quiz on Macedonia be easy?

That's another matter. Furthermore, the 'real' mess comes after 1870 and in
the 20th century, for which time there are far more books and for so many
cases no translation is needed. Few more words on Samuil. I think that
there was a Inscription of Tsar Samuil himself about his family, but I
don't have the book on the subject - "Bulgarian Antiquities in Macedonia",
so I can hardly continue with non-Bulgarian sources :-( (i.e. Byzantium
ones :-( ).

>>  I've read somewhere  that it was the Bulgarian noblemen Sisman
>>  who was the grandfather of Samuil (or sort of  -can't remember
>>  exactly, but do remember the name -  Sisman).
>
>If you open a copy of the  "Bratjata David, Moisej, Aaron i Samu-
>el", Godisnik na Sofijsk.Univ., Jurid.fak.37,14 (1941-42)  or the
>"Teorijata za Zapadno bulgarsko carstvo"  you'll remember the na-
>me at once!   If only historians could nail down a source suppor-
>ting the above !!!

No - it wasn't there. I've collected books from the last century (in
English) so it was amongst them. The sourse for "nailing" will be provided,
if I had the time to find in which book it was written. However all this
seems irrelevant. The 'pure' blood theory is something which you are after
without apparent reason. Is it important that Basil I is called "the
Macedonian" and "the Greek"? Does this make him non-Byzantium Emperor?
Finally if your only goal is to find somebody to blame for something -
that's your wish.

>> No history book I've seen refers to Samuil as anything else but
>> Bulgarian.
>
>Then you haven't read a lot. Samuil became a Tzar of Bulgaria but
>the blood lines and information about his family is highly conte-
>sted.

I have read a lot from history books from the end of the 19th and the start
of the 20th century. I have no intention to read more. If you want - read
the books form that period and see what they write. I can provide you with
a list for that. Whether these historians were right or not, and whether the
"highly" or "lowly" contested blood of Samuil is interesting for you, I can't
care less about. There have been far more writings and proofs that
Macedonians were not Greek, than the few "highly contested" sources of
yours. Even you admited above that (that that is 'contested'). I would not
waste more time to prove something which is not only impossible to be
proved but also irrelevant. As I said above - how many "pure" Kings are
known in history? And what does it matter? 

>(Many Byzantine officials of that era  stationed in Macedonia and
>Thrace and North Epirus were Armenians, even emperor Ioannes Tzi-
>miskes was said to be,  and I'll obviously not argue over emperor
>Leon V Armenios).

That is entirely your problem. But with this you only add that the subject
is with no relevance on the 'Macedonian' problem. Whether an emperor and/or
a Tsar were Armenians (were they 1/2, 1/4, 1/1 ?) or not, this doesn't
create a Macedonian Kingdom with capital Ohrid, does it?

>>>>>  Were the Patriarchic Bulgarophones of the 1890's Greeks or
>>>>>  Bulgarians?
>             <successive arguments deleted>
>>  Finally, it is also well known that in ethnic mixed area like
>>  Macedonia, there WERE Greeks speaking Bulgarian.
>
>In this case I declare the first "quiz" solved, to L.Boyanov.

I don't know what you declare but you must also declare that amongst the
<successive arguments deleted>, you clipped 2 groups - Bulgarians who spoke
Greek, but were Bulgarians (just like there were Greek speaking Bulgarian
but were Greeks) and Bulgarians who even didn't speak Greek, but were
Patriarchists (i.e. counted in the statistics as Greek). That's why I 
recommended you Rev. Tozer and Brailsford, ah - also Victor Berard. In fact
the list of authors can be longer. All books from that time agree on
what I've just said, on the mixture of 'races' (or nationalities, or
whatever you call it) in Macedonia and which were those races
(nationalities). And after all, Sir A. Evans' quotation seemed to me to be
most concise and telling the real story, than the lenghty (with a lot of
nitpicking and avoiding the core of the problem) argument which developed
later on.

>>  Then read Brailsford's book:  "Macedonia its races and their
>>  future". I bet you will find exceptionally interesting events.
>
>No need to bet!  I was the one who recommended the book to you...

I don't know if you've ever (and when) mentioned it, as unlike you I don't
keep your postings and letters, neither would I lose my time to dig up your
remarks on this or that. 

But I am 100 % certain that it wasn't you who mentioned it on the net, when
I went to get it from the library - i.e. you were not the one who can get
the credid that I read that book. For your information - it was Mr. Sasa
Konecni (?sp) who said that in a number of books there was "evidence that
there was a Macedonian naiton" (or sort of) and amonst those titles, the
one by Brailsford looked most 'impressive'. From that time one, I've
extended that list to about 90 - 100 titles from non-Balkan authors. If you
have mentioned that book earlier (I posted few lines when I took the book),
it seems that I haven't read your posting or have ignored it. Do know that it
was Sasa who 'recommended' the book (indirectly) to me.

Now, if you have read Brailsford, I'm sure you have found it very
informative and full with interesting information on Macedonia during the
years 1903-4 (for ex. what do you think about information from pages 192,
202, 204, 207 - from the 1907 edition ? ).


>                                                        A.Romanos


Luben



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"Let us not allow splits and splintering to frighten us. It is, indeed, a
pity, but what can we do, since we are Bulgarians and all suffer from one
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				Gotse Delchev
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