Veda Slovena

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  • Risto the Great
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 15658

    Veda Slovena

    The Veda Slovena is considered by Bulgarians as written in a dialectal version of Bulgarian. What we call Macedonian. It came from the same region that many Macedonian heroes came from. I would like to take another look at this and see if we can shed some new light on this:

    I came across this work that has obvious Macedonian significance, although the Bulgarians appear quite keen to claim it. I was hoping we could discuss this cultural work here and as a preamble I place the following texts from Wikipedia:

    Веда Словена in Modern Bulgarian, originally written as Веда Словенахъ is a collection of folk songs and legends of the Muslim Bulgarians in the Rhodopes and Aegean Macedonia, the first volume of which was printed in 1874 in Belgrade and the second in 1881 in Saint Petersburg under the authorship of Bosnian Serb Stefan Velković. The collection was assembled by Bulgarian teacher Ivan Gologanov for 12 years and is famous for containing numerous elements of ancient Slavic mythology notwithstanding the conversions first to Christianity and then to Islam.

    Veda Slovena has been alleged to have been partly or fully forged by Gologanov ever since its publication, dividing scholar circles into two groups, the one considering the texts to be forged, the other defending their genuineness.

    An internet link via Wikipedia (Bulgarophilic but a starting point): http://www.omda.bg/engl/history/mistificacia.html

    The "Veda Slovena" Mystery

    Two volumes of "Veda Slovena" were published, one in 1874 in Belgrade, and the other in 1881 in St. Petersburg under the name the "Bulgarian folk songs of the pre-historical and pre-Christian age". Compiled by the Bosnian Serb Stephen Verkovich, "Veda Slovena" created a furor among the scholarly world ranging from Russia to France, and went down in history as the biggest folklore mystery, the debates over which are still going on.

    The sensation lies in the fact that these, as well as some other songs published by Verkovich, "written down" in an isolated part of Macedonia, provided evidence which turned the prevailing conceptions about Europe's pre-written history upside down. The "Vedas", whose "Indian" name was picked up by no chance, not only contained legends of how the plough, the sickle, the boat, wheat, wine, writing, etc. came into being, but created a legendary-mythological conceptual framework, in which all - the Indian god Vishnu, the Thracian singer Orpheus, the Macedonian kings Phillip II and Alexander the Great, the Trojan War, etc., were present. Moreover, the famous German epic, the "Song of the Nibelungs" consisted of "only" 9,776 lines, while the two volumes of "Veda Slovena" included as many as 23,809 lines, and Verkovich himself claimed that he had available at least ten times as many.

    In the debates that followed in the field of European Slavonic studies, the "denouncers" exceeded in number the "apologists". "Veda Slovena" succeeded in winning support by not only a great number of recognized foreign scholars, but by quite a few of the Bulgarian scholars from Macedonia itself, who knew the local folklore and dialects in minute detail. The French government, in turn, twice sent its emissaries, who had to establish the authenticity of the epos on the spot of its "discovery" - in the South-Western parts of the Rhodopes, among the so-called Pomaks - a Bulgarian-speaking ethnic group professing Islam. Neither the French, nor, later, the Bulgarian inquiries, however, provided unequivocal and weighty answers to all questions provoked by "Veda Slovena".

    What is known for certain is that the rise of this mystery is due to Ivan Gologanov (1839-1895). He was born in the village of Tarlis, in the neighbourhood of the mentioned Pomak region, nearby the town of Valovishta renamed to Siderokastron in Greece), and spent his whole life as a village teacher in his native place. He was the man who claimed to have found and written down (for a small charge paid by Verkovich) the "Veda Slovena" songs. He did this in the course of 12 years. The Serbian Verkovich published the songs thus collected under his own name.

    Ivan Gologanov's critics, former and present, have rejected the authenticity of "Veda Slovena". Their argument is, most generally, that Gologanov was simple-minded and, therefore, he lied. Such argument, however, is not correct. Gologanov could hardly be considered one of an uneducated crowd.

    The "plain" village teacher actually did not come from just any family - one of his brothers later became an academician, as well as Metropolitan of Skopje, the capital of present day Republic of Macedonia; his other brother became Abbot of the Bachkovo monastery. Ivan Gologanov himself had command of ancient and modern Greek; he knew the Hellenic mythology in detail, and his idol was the immortal epic poet Homer. Gologanov knew Homer's works perfectly well.

    Even today the "Veda Slovena" arguments continue challenging the authenticity of the songs. Are they authentic or fake?

    It is certain that neither the scale of "Veda Slovena" and the artisitc qualities of the songs, nor their huge number could be the work of a talent-less grapho-maniac. What is more, as we will see further, the motivation underlying his striking capacity for work, if he was the inventor, did not boil down to just making both ends meet.

    The Bosnian Serb Stephen Verkovich (1827-1893), too, was not someone to ignore. A former Franciscan monk, he settled in Macedonia in 1850, with the purpose of extending, as a paid agent, the propaganda of the Serbian government among the local people. The historical moment was such that Serbia and Greece, which had been liberated at the beginning of the century from a four-hundred-year Turkish domination, crossed their Pan-Serbian and Pan-Hellenic appetites in Macedonia, i.e. in one of Bulgaria's regions, and Bulgaria was still under the rule of the Sultan (its statehood would be revived only in 1878).

    Initially Belgrade, whose aim was to form a Southern-Slavic federation under Serbian control, was still far from the idea of declaring the people to be "Southern Serbs", and yet farther from referring to them as a "separate nation". On the contrary, in those years Belgrade supported the struggle of the people to emancipate themselves from the guardianship of the Greek Patriarchate and to restore their own Church hierarchy. In this sense, what Stephen Verkovich did is an isolated, but telling example of noble effort.

    What is more, when the Serbs changed their policy and started large-scale activities, which were detrimental to the Macedonians, the Franciscan Verkovich remained loyal to the morality of his Order. He did not reject the historical and real life truth, opposed all political falsifications, and persisted in his service in support of the causes he believed to be true and just. During the long years he lived in Macedonia, he proved to be a remarkable scientist in the field of Macedonian folklore, ethnography and geography. In addition, owing to his collector's zeal, Verkovich saved a great number of ancient manuscripts, coins, objects of art, etc.

    The efforts Verkovich made in the study, conservation and popularization of the Macedonian ancient culture, as well as the work of his assistant Ivan Gologanov, had also a practical effect for the people. At that time Moesia, Thrace, and Macedonia were agitated by a feverish struggle on two fronts - against their national oppressors, the Turks and the Ottoman Empire, and against their ecclesiastical oppressors - the Greek Church and clergy. In this sense, the activity of Verkovich and Gologanov was an integral part of people's powerful desire for educational, cultural, religious and economic emancipation.

    No matter how specific, all these processes were linked with the tendencies and changes occurring in the whole of Europe from the late 18th up to the mid-19th century. This was the epoch of the powerful European revolutionary romanticism, seeking reforms and social freedom, and, in the case of the oppressed peoples - national liberation. Disappointed by the existing reality, romanticists looked for a base of its rejection and reformation in the fertile roots of tradition, in the idealized past of their countries. In all the fields of thought and art they abandoned the ancient models and the rationalism of the Enlightenment, seeking inspiration in the history, folk art, folklore, music, and architecture of their peoples. Messianic ideas flooded the sphere of ideology, naturally, glorifying the respective nation. At the same time, no other cultural age produced such huge collections, studies, and works based on folklore material like romanticism. Although with a delay of several decades, this wave overflowed the Balkans too. While Germany had its Grimm brothers, the Miladinov brothers were their Macedonian analogue. Everywhere in Europe romanticists collected, adapted, recast, and authorized folk works. This was the foundation on which the geniuses of Byron and Pushkin, Chopin and Liszt evolved.

    And whenever the facts, or their abilities, were deficient, romanticists did not hesitate to resort to sometimes harmless, but other times not that innocent, falsifications. The founder of this "technique" was the Scotsman James Macpherson, the predecessor of the romantics, who published in 1765 his revised versions of the Celtic sagas and legends as an authentic collection of works of the legendary warrior and bard Ossian. The circle around the linguist Vaclav Hanka produced, in 1817-1818, the then much talked about "ancient" manuscripts, which were presented as original 9th and 13th century works. The aim of this mystification was to prove the ancient character of the Czech culture and to activate the national self-identification of the Czechs, under Austrian power at that time.

    By its scope and scale "Veda Slovena" surpassed the phenomena mentioned above. Let us assume that this work is a fake.

    If Verkovich himself had unconsciously been involved in its creation, Gologanov was far from doing it by chance. As evidenced by one of his sons, the main motive of his father was patriotic. In fact, because of his activity in this field, Gologanov was persecuted and imprisoned by the Turkish authorities, very much like other "romanticists". Therefore, not all of his contemporaries felt inclined to blame him. The most remarkable statesman of modern Bulgaria, Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov (1887-1894) offered to move Gologanov to Sofia, promising him a pension of considerable amount. Stambolov's response to some criticisms that he wanted to reward an impostor, was the following: "All European academies have shown interest in the songs of the Rhodope region, so that no matter whether he has heard them from somebody else's tongue, or has invented them himself, for us it is one and the same..."

    The assumption that "Veda Slovena" is a fabrication, means to recognize Ivan Gologanov as a poetic genius, who deserves a place of his own in the history of world literature. To assume that these texts are authentic folklore implies the necessity of reconsidering the cultural development of Europe as a whole. This dilemma has waited its turn for more than a century.
    Risto the Great
    MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
    "Holding my breath for the revolution."

    Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com
  • Risto the Great
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 15658

    #2
    These "muslim Bulgarians" are referred to nowadays as "Pomaks".
    My cousin was in hospital in Solun and had a Pomak sharing his hospital room. After speaking Greek most of the time, their respective parents came to visit and spoke in their REAL languages. They both looked in disbelief at each other because they understood each other's Macedonian language perfectly.

    Strange place Greece.
    Risto the Great
    MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
    "Holding my breath for the revolution."

    Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

    Comment

    • osiris
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2008
      • 1969

      #3
      These "muslim Bulgarians" are referred to nowadays as "Pomaks".
      My cousin was in hospital in Solun and had a Pomak sharing his hospital room. After speaking Greek most of the time, their respective parents came to visit and spoke in their REAL languages. They both looked in disbelief at each other because they understood each other's Macedonian language perfectly.

      Strange place Greece.
      __________________
      rtg its a strange and ultimately evil pace, where lies are considered truths and murder is considered liberation. i wonder if slovak knows something about the above as he has a passion for both slovene and india which he claims are inextricably linked.

      Comment

      • Risto the Great
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2008
        • 15658

        #4
        Originally posted by osiris View Post
        rtg its a strange and ultimately evil pace, where lies are considered truths and murder is considered liberation. i wonder if slovak knows something about the above as he has a passion for both slovene and india which he claims are inextricably linked.
        Yes Osiris, a very weird place that has its own citizens confused.

        I am sincerely of the belief that the Macedonians are one of the few who do not have skeletons in their closet. And, as a consequence, are being punished for not trying to impose any elaborate lies on its people.

        Slovak/Anomaly/Tomas etc. is always welcome here. (I made up a few names btw)
        Risto the Great
        MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
        "Holding my breath for the revolution."

        Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

        Comment

        • Delodephius
          Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 736

          #5
          Ape li kute?
          अयं निज: परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।
          उदारमनसानां तु वसुधैव कुटुंबकम्॥
          This is mine or (somebody) else’s (is the way) narrow minded people count.
          But for broad minded people, (whole) earth is (like their) family.

          Comment

          • Daskalot
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 4345

            #6
            Originally posted by Slovak/Anomaly/Tomas View Post
            Ape li kute?
            Slovak you are very welcome to our forum, GOLEM POZDRAV!
            Macedonian Truth Organisation

            Comment

            • Delodephius
              Member
              • Sep 2008
              • 736

              #7
              Pozdrav!
              अयं निज: परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।
              उदारमनसानां तु वसुधैव कुटुंबकम्॥
              This is mine or (somebody) else’s (is the way) narrow minded people count.
              But for broad minded people, (whole) earth is (like their) family.

              Comment

              • Risto the Great
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2008
                • 15658

                #8
                Originally posted by Slovak/Anomaly/Tomas View Post
                Pozdrav!
                Nice to have you here. I did make up other names, then deleted them before I posted them because I would not want to offend you. Nice name choice
                Risto the Great
                MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
                "Holding my breath for the revolution."

                Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

                Comment

                • thessalo-niki
                  Banned
                  • Jun 2010
                  • 191

                  #9
                  Pomaks

                  Originally posted by Risto the Great View Post
                  These "muslim Bulgarians" are referred to nowadays as "Pomaks".
                  My cousin was in hospital in Solun and had a Pomak sharing his hospital room. After speaking Greek most of the time, their respective parents came to visit and spoke in their REAL languages. They both looked in disbelief at each other because they understood each other's Macedonian language perfectly.
                  Strange place Greece.
                  What is so strange, since Pomaks are supposed to speak a Bulgarian dialect? Moreover, you shouldn't place them solely in Thrace. As you can see in the map in dark brown colour they were living (some of them) (a) in Western Greek Macedonia (about North of Veria in today's Pella district), (b) close to your present-day North Eastern borders with Bulgaria (they seem to be mostly in Bulgaria, but I can't easily say) and (c) their main population is in Kavala and Drama districts, throughout Thrace and all the way north in Bulgaria and in Eastern (Turkish) Thrace. I believe that as far as Greece is concerned group A was moved and joined group C.
                  Now what is strange in Greece is that according to Lausanne Treaty (1923), both Pomaks and some Muslim Roma are considered Muslims of Thrace, so we are obliged to give them Turkish education; thus during the last 90 years Pomaks have been largely "Turkified".

                  By the way, you have my congratulation for this thread. Veda Slovena is a very interesting story of forgery (that is clear today) that I had never heard of. Yet, same as with Clifford Irving, maybe the forger Ivan Gologanov should be acknowledged as a great author.


                  ________________________________
                  Odysseas Elytis - Our name is our soul

                  Comment

                  • Soldier of Macedon
                    Senior Member
                    • Sep 2008
                    • 13670

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Thessaloniki
                    Veda Slovena is a very interesting story of forgery (that is clear today) that I had never heard of. Yet, same as with Clifford Irving, maybe the forger Ivan Gologanov should be acknowledged as a great author.
                    Why is it considered a forgery? What exactly in the text has led you to this conclusion?
                    In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                    Comment

                    • Onur
                      Senior Member
                      • Apr 2010
                      • 2389

                      #11
                      Originally posted by thessalo-niki View Post
                      Now what is strange in Greece is that according to Lausanne Treaty (1923), both Pomaks and some Muslim Roma are considered Muslims of Thrace, so we are obliged to give them Turkish education; thus during the last 90 years Pomaks have been largely "Turkified".

                      While the Pomaks in Turkey are fully aware of their identity today, how come the ones in Greece has been "Turkified"? Just because of Turkish education in primary schools? You don't expect them to go to Greek orthodox schools, aren't you? since Greece is not a secular state and we know that all the elements of Greek education system are under control of Greek patriarchy.


                      Write "Pomak" on google, select "Turkish web sites only" and hit the search button. You will see lots of forums and blogs of Pomak people in Turkey. Both in their own language and Turkish as well.

                      As far as i know, Pomaks ethnicity is a dilemma like the people in Gora-Kosovo. Some says that they are Bulgars or medieval Cuman Turks or Macedonians. But today, the most common consensus among Pomaks in Turkey is that they have connections with all 3 society. They cant consider themselves as a part of only one ethnic community.
                      Last edited by Onur; 08-19-2010, 05:08 AM.

                      Comment

                      • Soldier of Macedon
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2008
                        • 13670

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Onur View Post
                        While the Pomaks in Turkey fully aware of their identity today, how come the ones in Greece has been "Turkified"? Just because of Turkish education in primary schools?

                        Write "Pomak" on google, select "Turkish web sites only" and hit the search button. You will see lots of forums and blogs of Pomak people in Turkey. Both in their own language and Turkish as well.

                        As far as i know, Pomaks ethnicity is a dilemma like the people in Gora-Kosovo. Some says that they are Bulgars or medieval Cuman Turks or Macedonians. But today, the most common consensus among Pomaks in Turkey, they are mix of all. They cant consider themselves as a part of only one ethnicity.
                        Were you aware that some Greeks have tried to propose that the Pomaks are the descendants of the Agrianes, the Paeonian warriors that fought in the Macedonian army of Alexander? It seems that every single group in Greece can be afforded a lineage to antiquity, while the rest of us dropped out of the sky.
                        In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                        Comment

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