Deconstruction of the term Bulgar/B'lgar/Bugar/Voulgar!

[Soldier of Macedon]

Not sure if these have been posted yet:

THE BYZANTINE COMMONWEALTH, DIMITRI OBOLENSKY, PAGE 219. Cited by George Acropolites, Historia, 44, ed. A Heisenberg, i Leipzig, 1903, pages 76-7.

According to a Byzantine writer, the words of a Bulgarian nobleman from Phillipopolis; “The emperor, he said, has long had the authority over us, since our land belongs to the Byzantine** Empire……And all of us, natives of Phillipopolis, are pure Byzantines by race. The Byzantine Emperor, however, would still truly have the right to rule over us even if we were Bulgarians.

**In the original work it would have been written as 'Roman' instead of 'Byzantine'.


THE BALKANS, MARK MAZOWER. Odysseus – Sir Charles Eliot, Turkey in Europe, London, 1900, Pg 347.

It was scarcely clear what it meant to call oneself Bulgarian. “Even forty years ago”, wrote an observer in 1900, “the name Bulgarian was almost unknown and every educated person coming from that country called himself Greek as a matter of course”.

Petar Dragasevic, Makedonski Sloveni, 1890, Belgrade.

Even the term “Bulgarian” became a synonym for “Slav” in the Greek language. Serbian academic Petar Dragasevic visited Greece towards the end of the 19th century where he was referred to by the Greeks as “Bulgarian”, even though he had explained to them that he was a Serb from Serbia, thus he concluded that the Greeks call all the Slavonic peoples as “Bulgarians”.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 19/06/1881.

Twelve years ago the Bulgarians were the most unknown people in Western Europe…….In a word, the Bulgarians were then as little known as the Albanian Ghegs or the Kutzo-Wallachs at the present day…….Educated Bulgarians habitually spoke Greek, or at least inserted Greek phrases in their conversation, carried on their private and commercial correspondence in the Greek language, or at least in Greek characters, habitually called themselves Greeks, often put a Greek termination to their family names and considered it an insult to be called Bulgarian………

Brooklyn Daily Eagel, 08/07/87.

Bulgaria has an area of 24,360 English square miles, with a population, according to the census taken in January, 1881, of over 2,000,000, the males predominating. According to the language returns 67 per cent. are of the Bulgarian race, 26 per cent. are Turks and the remainder Wallachians, Gypsies, Greeks, Jews and Tartars, numerically strong in the order given. About 70 per cent. of the people adhere nominally to the Greek Church, the Mohammedan faith claiming the rest……………

[Carlin]

Nice finds...

1. Obolensky.

Good point. It is a virtual certainty that the original passage had "Romans by race", and not "Byzantines by race". "Byzantines" themselves used the terms Roman empire, Romans, Romanian lands, etc. This was probably changed by Obolensky himself, or some other author long after the work in question.

2. Mazower: "...every educated person coming from that country called himself Greek as a matter of course". Mazower's edition and interpretation (or previous author's edition), similar to how Obolensky edited "Romans" in 1.

Educated Orthodox Christians regarded themselves as 'Romioi' and spoke 'Romaika' (Greek). Western, Russian, and other foreign authors "translated" Romioi/Romans to Greeks.

[TrueMacedonian]

[The LION will ROAR]

Here's another Bulgar with a few different names. The original name he was born with is what relates to SoM's post here - http://wapedia.mobi/en/Georgi_Rakovski

Contested & Confused Identities in the Balkans -

BULGARIA'S NATIONAL HERO GEORGI RAKOVSKI - thought he was a Greek at one stage adopting the name of Sava Stephanidis . His birth name was the Serbian sounding Sava Popovich but he eventually settled on his "Bulgarianess." There is also mention of him being possibly Vlach (Aromanian) as well.

Quote from VESSELIN TRAIKOV - "RAKOVSKI - A Short Biography,"
SOFIA PRESS, 1977

http://archive.org/stream/GeorgiRakovskiShortBiography/bulgaria_rakovski_djvu.txt

"Rakovski's youngest Uncle Minko took part in the battles in Wallachia (region in Romania pronounced Valakia) in 1821 on the side of the Romanian national hero Tudor Vladimirescu.

"Rakovski went first to school in his native town and then in Karlovo where Raino Popovich, the well-known Bulgarian Hellenist of that time, was his teacher. In 1837 Rakovski's father took him to Istanbul where he enrolled as student in the famous Greek highschool at Kuru chershme. The school was one of the best organized Greek educational institutions at that time. Eminent Greek scholars had graduated from that school and many young Bulgarians of good families were studying there.

"Rakovski's name then was Sava Stephanidis and that is how he signed the letters to his old teacher Raino Popovich, to whom he wrote about many of his schooltime experiences. He wrote in Greek. He could express himself well in that language, but it is obvious that he was still not satisfied with his achievements along this line. The course of studies was very serious; the curriculum included the following subjects: mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, philosophy, rhetoric, theology, poetics. The Greek classics Demosthenes, Xenophanes, Thucydides, Herodotus were also studied."

[Soldier of Macedon]

Interesting find TLWR. There are many similar examples to this.

[George S.]

there wasn't any the real bulgarians dissapeared a long time ago.They were replaced by tartartars and mongols.Have a closer look at the people calling themselves bulgarian and you will see slanted eyes of mongols and mongolic features.Also features of the tartars .That is why the king decided to ask the kyril and methodius to write an alphabet similar to the macedonian one.

[Soldier of Macedon]

there wasn't any the real bulgarians dissapeared a long time ago.They were replaced by tartartars and mongols.Have a closer look at the people calling themselves bulgarian and you will see slanted eyes of mongols and mongolic features.Also features of the tartars .That is why the king decided to ask the kyril and methodius to write an alphabet similar to the macedonian one.

George, much of your statement is not only misleading but also makes little sense. Take some more time to think through what you're trying to get across before you post.

[Nikolaj]

George, much of your statement is not only misleading but also makes little sense. Take some more time to think through what you're trying to get across before you post.

He did have a point about the Bulgar-Mongols, there's plenty of maps that support that claim , but people are discussing the same thing but in different time periods which is where the misunderstanding is coming from.

Anyways, I want to see what's in there, deeper!

[Soldier of Macedon]

I have moved the previous three posts to this thread from the one about the archaeological find at Amphipolis.

He did have a point about the Bulgar-Mongols, there's plenty of maps that support that claim.......

What point did he have about the 'Bulgar-Mongols'?

[George S.]

Som have you seen the photos of bulgars that look like mongols and you know the tartars whenever they came on the scene .There are plenty of information on other threads.So you think that the real bulgars exist today??Please explain.
Lets agree to disagree.I base my theory from the different accounts that say the real race of people bulgarians ceased to exist if any survived.They were replaced by TARTARS who were kind of turkcic.Also SOM the incursion of mongoloids into the so called bulgars as well this well documented.I'm not making this up .You look at some references which say the bulgars simply vanished the real bulgars.I was a sceptic but its the obvious.Don't think i'm just making it up.There is no such thing as a pure bulgarian after whats happened to them in history. They are knocking us that we are bulgarian because they think we speak their idiom.WE don't the language and alphabet is the cyrillic which is MACEDONIAN.
I do stand by my claim that the real race of bulgarians died out dissappeared a long time ag0 look at what replaced them.Sounds all too logical.

[Nikolaj]

I have moved the previous three posts to this thread from the one about the archaeological find at Amphipolis.

What point did he have about the 'Bulgar-Mongols'?

He said the 'real' Bulgars disappeared a long time ago and that now they are just Mongols. This is the point I was talking about, but I don't agree with it completely.

I agree only to a point because I believe they did have Mongols there but the Mongols assimilated with the Bulgars. I know a Bulgarian girl who even agreed that she has Mongol features, especially her brother... Considering the Mongol Empire did in fact stop very close to upper Bulgaria it wouldn't seem too odd considering they have the features to support it. Now obviously, it doesn't mean all Bulgarians are ethnic Mongols for the same reason the people from Russia and the middle east aren't Mongol either

Edit:



Here's a map where they actually stop just before Bulgaria but I have seen maps where they go through however it's not that important..

[Philosopher]

A genetic study out of Sofia confirmed the Mongol mixture.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12542743

[George S.]

The Origins of the Bulgars
Dilian Gurov
1. Introduction
In AC 680 a chieftain by the name of Asparukh crossed the Danube with his people and
founded a new state south of the river. The state was - and still is - called Bulgaria. Who
were the people (or peoples) he lead, and what were their origins? This document is an
attempt by a non-historian to address the issue in an economic yet systematic fashion.

Motivation The main problem in addressing the above question derives from the scarcity
of the available information. As a result, a multitude of theories have been proposed and
fiercely defended by various writers, sometimes driven or influenced by other motives
than purely scientific ones. To make things worse, many authors have not cleanly
separated in their texts the indisputable facts from what are interpretations of these facts.
This makes it rather difficult for the historically interested reader to form an objective
opinion on the matter.

At present, the main theories about the origins of the Bulgars are: (1) Turkic origins, (2)
Sarmatian origins, and (3) mixed, Turkic-Sarmatian origins. Many other theories have
been put forward in the past, but have subsequently been shown unsupportable.

Challenges When attempting to address the posed problem, the main challenge stems
from the usual difficulties in dealing with the history of the so-called Pax Nomadica, the
world of nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes. Typical for these peoples is the
constant flux of languages, gene pool, material culture, religious practices, etc., as the
result of migration and trade with other (usually more advanced, sedentary) civilizations,
but also as the result of change of the leading clan. Furthermore, historians have to face
an extreme scarcity of artifacts and virtually non-existing own documents of these
peoples due to their nomadic lifestyle, and often also due to a lack of writing.

Another challenge comes from the difficulty to relate names from narrative sources
written in different languages; for example, in some written languages only the
consonants were written.

Characteristics To address the question of the origins of a people, one has first to decide
on what characteristics define a people in general. Candidate characteristics are:
 Ethnonym: the name by which a people is referred to and refers to itself,
distinguishing itself from other peoples.
 Anthropological type: such as mongoloid, europeid, etc.
 Language and writing: such as Turkic and Iranian languages, runic scripts etc.
 Way of life: often classified as nomadic, semi-nomadic and sedentary.  Material culture: the way of production; artifacts like pottery, jewelry and
weapons.
 Society: the political and military organization of the people.
 Religion: religious beliefs and practices, burial practices.

Sources To analyze these characteristics, the historian has to rely on data obtained from
various sources. These can be classified as:
 Narrative sources: documentary evidence such as histories, geographies, letters.
 Archaeological sources: material remains from settlements and burial sites.
 Legacy sources: present-day remnants, for example in language, gene pool, or
(religious) traditions.

The main task of the historian investigating the origins of a people is to relate these kinds
of evidence, in particular the events and the names of individuals, peoples and
geographical names from the narrative sources to the available archaeological data.
Another task is to trace (backwards in time) the various characteristics that are found
typical of that people and its society.
2. Geographical and Historical Context

[George S.]

i rest my case .I don't think they were slavic.Sources say that they MOSTLY came from central asia.People tarred them with the same brush because they supposedly spoke a SLAVIC language.
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The Original indegenous people dissappeared a long time ago.There is no way that todays' bulgarians are entertain the idea that they are NOT what they seem.

[DraganOfStip]

He said the 'real' Bulgars disappeared a long time ago and that now they are just Mongols. This is the point I was talking about, but I don't agree with it completely.

I agree only to a point because I believe they did have Mongols there but the Mongols assimilated with the Bulgars. I know a Bulgarian girl who even agreed that she has Mongol features, especially her brother... Considering the Mongol Empire did in fact stop very close to upper Bulgaria it wouldn't seem too odd considering they have the features to support it. Now obviously, it doesn't mean all Bulgarians are ethnic Mongols for the same reason the people from Russia and the middle east aren't Mongol either

Edit:



Here's a map where they actually stop just before Bulgaria but I have seen maps where they go through however it's not that important..

Nikolaj,you can find more on the origins of Bulgarians in a thread called "Questions for Razer the Bulgarian" from page 24 onward.
Or to spare you some time,Bulgars were a Turko-Mongoloid people that are first mentioned in the 2nd century B.C. as a part of the peoples that formed the federal empire of the Huns in northwest China.