| Demosthenes |
The following message is a continuation of the "Hello friend" string in the political section. I was told to post it here, you can go to the political section if you have not seen the rest. We came to the conclusion that history is based on physical evidence and that it is a study of objectivity. History should not only be subjective but all historical claims should also have physical evidence to support them.
ok,
Depending on how far you want to back. I will once again refer you only to pictures of physical evidence (from the same link).
www.macedonian-heritage.gr/HellenicMacedonia/en/gallery.html
check Inscriptions number 8 of 9. shows a tombstone from Thessaloniki 5th century A.D. with inscriptions in Byzantine Greek. From what I can read, it says that "he gave everything in his life and his was a servant of God." This language would be the same that was used by Saint Cyrill even though he invented Cyrillic to differentiate between the Greeks and the Slavs. He was very wise to forsee all of this.
- Coins photo 15 of 22, is a coin from ancient Macedonia 187 - 168 B.C. that says "Thessalonike" in Greek (Not Solun)
I can't be bothered looking up all these things for you. Look through all of the images.
- Manuscripts photo 4 of 70, Byzantine scholar Georgios Gemistos Plethon, 15th Century, all in Greek.
- Documents 4 of 12, a Greek Macedonian from Veroia (1572 - 1657)
- Paintings 1 of 22 , Pavlos Melas in the costume of a 'Makedonomachos' (Macedonian freedom fighter), from a painting by G. Iakovidis, 1904-1908.
- Pub. Buildings 8 of 34, The building of the Society for Macedonian Studies, 1939-1994, Thessaloniki.
- Documents 3 of 12, Propaganda poster circulated in Canada by Skopje, in which Greek Macedonia is shown as unredeemed territory of the 'Socialist Republic of Macedonia', 1960-1989. This one shows all the Bulgarians as one.
- Manuscripts 19 of 70 - Basil II Bulgaroktonos
Miniature of Basil II Bulgaroktonos (the Bulgar Slayer) wearing military uniform and crown and holding a sword, from an early 11th century Psalter, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice.
- Documents 9 0f 12, Timetable for the Thessaloniki-Skopje-Zipevce line (near Vrania on the Ottoman-Austrian border), 1888-1912, Thessaloniki.
- Coins 12 of 22 - Gold stater of Philip II showing a chariot on the reverse and bearing the legend "Philippou" (of Philip), 345-336 BC, Athens, Numismatic Museum."
- Photographs 87 of 133, The armed band of Georgios Galanopoulos
Black-and-white photograph of the armed band of Georgios Galanopoulos, which was active in the area of Mount Athos, 1907-1908, Athens, National Historical Museum.
- Photographs 89 of 133 Black-and-white photograph of Captain Vangelis Natsis of Strebeno, a Slav-speaking patriarchist who organized the first armed band of Greeks in western Macedonia, 1901-1904, Athens, National Historical Museum
That was just at random. Have a good look, show me some of your own physical evidence. |
| bugarinot |
Excerpts from the Greek site above. Interesting brief review of the Balkan history during Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages:
Late Antiquity (324-565)
Barbarian incursions
Between the 3rd and 5th centuries hordes, chiefly of German descent but also of other races, moved from the northern and eastern parts of Europe towards territories of the Roman Empire. Following the natural routes alongside the rivers Evros, Strymon, and Axios or the military routes across the mountains, hordes of Huns repeatedly pillaged Thrace and Macedonia. In the 5th century Ostrogoths swept across Macedonia (where they laid siege to Thessalonike) and, like the Huns, reached as far south as Thermopylae.
To oppose these barbarian incursions the Byzantine Empire employed administrative ruses as well as their military forces. Typical of the former was the conclusion of a particular kind of agreement ('foedus') which provided for an alliance with barbarian bands in exchange for economic grants and the right of settlement in imperial lands.
The dark ages (565-867)
Towards the end of the 6th century the Byzantine state was exposed to destructive raids by Slavs, who made their first appearance at this time, and Avars. Apart from the settlement of Slavic tribes in Macedonia during the 7th century in the wake of their penetration as far as southern Greece, these incursions caused the abandonment of towns and economic decline, common occurrences throughout the Empire in the first years of the Middle Byzantine period.
These unprecedented conditions accelerated prolonged internal conflicts that were brought to an end by the introduction of the military-cum-administrative institution of 'themata' (themes). Thus, territorial shrinkage (the setting up of the first Bulgarian state in 681, the Arab expansion in the second half of the 7th century, and the crisis brought on by the Iconoclast controversy) led eventually to a greater uniformity of language, dogma, and culture among the population of Byzantium.
The emergence of a new state under Charlemagne in 800 curtailed Byzantine influence in the old territories of the western Roman world. But in the 9th century the Empire was able to undertake the conversion to Christianity of neighbouring peoples and to exert a cultural influence over them, and so to draw them into both its sphere of political influence and its cultural community, the "Byzantine commonwealth".
Avars
The Avars were a nomadic pagan people of Mongolian origin who created a mighty state in central Europe (mid-6th to late 8th century) that threatened the European possessions of the Byzantine empire. After subjugating Hun and Bulgar tribes (5th century) they were repulsed by Turkoman tribes and reached the steppe north of Caucasus.
In 558 their emissary requested that they become 'foederati' (allies) of Byzantium; instead Justinian offered them 'pacta' (alliance money) to fight the Slavs and Huns that harassed the northern frontiers of the Empire.
In return for their victory Justinian granted the Avars the right to live as 'foederati' in eastern Pannonia, among the powerful Germanic tribes of the Lombards and the Gepidae, but they refused.
After their unsuccessful attack on the Franks, the Avars captured the land of the Gepidae, forcing the Lombards to migrate towards northern Italy. In the late 6th century, in full control of eastern Pannonia, the Avars demanded an increase in their 'pacta' and occupied the strategic city of Sirmium, which they made capital of their khagan.
Through raiding and plundering the Illyricum and Thrace (inciting also the weaker Slavs of the region) they increased their 'pacta', posing a major threat to the European territories of Byzantium. The emperor Maurice succeeded in containing them above the Danube. However, in the early 7th century, despite Byzantine victories over the Slavs, the Avars allied with them and the Bulgars and invaded Dalmatia, penetrating as far as the Peloponnese.
In 626, in connivance with the Persians, whom the emperor Herakleios was fighting, they laid siege to Constantinople from land and sea. They failed to take it and never attacked the Byzantine empire again.
Charlemagne's campaigns in 795 and 796 brought the downfall of the Avars who, weakened, became subjects of the Bulgars, the Slavs and other powerful peoples of the region in the 9th century.
Slavic tribes
The Slavs were an Indo-European tribal people whose homeland was the area between the rivers Vistula and Dnieper. The Slavic tribes, with a common ethnic and linguistic tradition, began moving into eastern Europe in the era of the Great Migrations (5th to 6th century).
In the first half of the 5th century Slav pastoralists were subjugated and exploited by the Huns who pushed beyond the Dnieper as far as the Black Sea. They were accepted as 'foederati' (allies) by Byzantium in the territories above the Danube, forming the mass of the Southern Slavs.
In the mid-6th century, during the Avar thrust beyond the Danube, the Slavs, who were subject to them, were forced further south and launched parallel attacks on Byzantium.
In contrast to the Avars, the Slavs succeeded in capturing the regions laid waste by the incursions into the northernmost Balkans, and small groups of them reached as far as the Peloponnese and Crete.
They established permanent mixed farming settlements mainly in mountainous regions, the 'sklaveniai' of the sources, which initially impeded the exercise of imperial administration. Gradually, however, some of them were assimilated with the indigenous population, while the rest were subjugated or forcefully expelled after coordinated imperial efforts (Constas II, Nikephoros I).
Moreover, on the request of Herakleios, the Slavic tribes of the Serbs and Croats crossed the Carpathian Mountains in the 7th century and settled in the western Balkans as subjects of Byzantium.
Slavic settlements
The mid-6th century saw the first appearance on Byzantine territory of hordes of Slav nomads, who followed in the footsteps of the Avars. By the end of the century the Slavs had reached Macedonia; having failed to capture Thessalonike, they went raiding throughout Greek-speaking lands.
Commencing in the mid-7th century, hordes of Slavs settled in Macedonia, Thrace and the Peloponnese forming isolated groups of autonomous alien and foreign-speaking communities, referred to as 'sklaveniai', which initially obstructed the exercise of Byzantine administration.
In the course of the second half of the 7th century, the inhabitants of these 'sklaveniai' revolted against the Byzantine state. In Macedonia the uprisings were countered with Byzantine military operations (aimed chiefly at securing the Constantinople-Thessalonike road network), during which many Slavs were captured, while others were compelled to re-settle in Asia Minor.
The Slavs who stayed behind were gradually assimilated into the Byzantine state and so were absorbed into the more powerful indigenous Greek population.
'Sklaveniai'
'Sklaveniai' was the name given to the Slavic settlements in Byzantine lands. The term denoted the geographical area (e.g. 'sklaveniai' of Strymon) or the tribe ('sklaveniai' of Drugovitans), as well as the type of social and administrative organization of the incomers.
The 'sklaveniai' were formed by clans, made up of groups of related families with common ancestors. Initially they were organized by the chiefs of various Slavic tribes, but later, after agreement with Byzantium, they were under the leadership of nobles, usually of Slavic origin.
The singularity of the 'sklaveniai' lies in the fact that they were autonomous geographical and administrative units obliged to pay 'pacton', that is they were subject to the Byzantine authorities, but their leaders were directly accountable to the Emperor, by-passing the local provincial administration.
After the forced resettlement of some Slavs from Macedonia in Asia Minor and as time passed, the inhabitants of the 'sklaveniai' were assimilated by the Greek population. They were converted to Christianity, became farmers and stock-raisers, and collaborated with the Byzantine administration (they were entrusted with guarding defiles and passes) in confronting the Bulgar menace. In the end most of them were assimilated by the indigenous Greek element.
Bulgars
The Bulgars were originally a nomadic tribe. Their name, of Palaeoturkish derivation, comes from the word 'bulga-', meaning mixture or alloy, because the Protobulgars were a medley of tribes of diverse origin (Alans, Sarmatians, Mongols, Turkish tribes).
These tribes came from the Caucasus and began invading the Danubian territories of Byzantium in the 7th century. They subjugated the Slavs who lived there, settled in the region and were gradually united with their subjects. Thus a new, strong national group, the Bulgars, emerged. In 680 Byzantium acknowledged their installation on the south bank of the Danube.
The first Bulgarian state, founded in 681, extended from the river Dnieper to the Haimos mountain range and its capital was Pliska. The khagan and the boyars ruled over the Slavs of the region too, by whom they were assimilated linguistically by the 9th century.
The request for help from the deposed Byzantine emperor Justinian II marked the beginning of Bulgar ambitions in the rest of the Empire's territories, even Constantinople. The twenty-year conflict (756-775) with the emperor Constantine V in no way curbed the might of the Bulgars.
After the Avars had been neutralized by the Franks, the khagan Krum set about extending his kingdom from northern Thrace to the northern Carpathians and from the River Sava to the Dnieper. Nikephoros I's efforts to defend the Empire against Krum were to no avail. Leo V's unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Krum prompted new Bulgar raids on Thrace. Krum's sudden death in 814 ushered in a new period in the relations between the two states, with the signing of the thirty-year peace treaty (815/16) and the return of the borders to their original position.
In the 9th century Byzantine foreign policy towards the Bulgars was based on their conversion to Christianity (Clement and Naum) and their induction into the Byzantine sphere of cultural influence. The use of the Cyrillic alphabet imposed Slavonic as the official language of the Bulgarian state in 893, the year in which Preslav became capital of the new, now Christian, kingdom.
The first Bulgarian state
In 681 Byzantium was forced to recognise the existence of a Bulgarian state, under the khan Asparuch, on the soil of the Empire. Acknowledgement of this state, which had been created out of the land lying between the Danube and the Haimos mountain range, with its capital at Pliska, was conditional upon the Bulgarians accepting certain obligations as allies, obligations which however they did not observe. Repeated attacks mounted in the 8th century by Bulgarian chieftains (particularly during the reign of Krum) caused disturbances in the northern provinces of the Byzantine Empire.
After their conversion to Christianity in the 9th century, the Bulgarians became subject to the political and cultural influence of Byzantium, but at the same time they began to entertain ideas of expanding their state or even of replacing the Byzantine Empire with a great Bulgarian Empire.
Middle Byzantine period (867-1204)
The age of military power and of the cultural renaissance of the Byzantine Empire opens with the reign of Basil I. The smooth functioning of institutions, peace within the Church, and competent emperors of the Macedonian dynasty contributed to an effective defence of the Empire against the Bulgarian threat.
After the death of Basil II the Empire entered upon a period of peace, but also of gradual disintegration. At the same time, Byzantine civilisation of that period was being shaped by a flowering of intellectual life, the conversion of neighbouring peoples to Christianity, and monastic organisation, as well as by the development of internal economic structures.
The ravaging of the Byzantine Empire by the Franks (1204) was preceded by barbarian incursions beginning in the 11th century, revolts by Byzantine office-holders, Bulgarian revolutions and the founding of the second Bulgarian state at the end of the 12th century, and the Norman wars (1081-1185) -- all coincident with ineffectual emperors and the gradual collapse of the economy and administration.
Conversion of the Bulgars to Christianity
The Bulgars were converted to Christianity in the context of the great missionary programme among the peoples of central and eastern Europe, conceived by patriarch Photios and the emperor Michael III in the mid-9th century.
The wholesale embrace of the Christian religion by the Bulgars, despite the objections of khagan Omurtag and his boyars, was effected quickly. The baptism of the tsar Boris-Michael in 864/5 by the emperor Michael III and the subjection of the newly-founded Church of Bulgaria to the Patriarchate of Constantinople marked the culmination of the whole endeavour.
The consolidation of the Christian faith and Byzantine cultural influence (Greek methods of education, well-organized and well-educated Slav-speaking clergy), achieved thanks to the coordinated efforts of Clement and his colleagues, played a seminal role in the development of the Bulgars, who had until then comprised two separate, closed societies with different languages, the Bulgar conquerors and the far more numerous vassal Slavs.
The use of the Cyrillic alphabet, promoted by the "schools" of Ochrid and Preslav, imposed Slavonic as official language of the Bulgarian state already from 893; thus Clement translated the Church scriptures in Slavonic and wrote the first literary works in the same language.
Byzantine-Bulgarian confrontation
The golden age of Bulgaria opened with the accession of Symeon (893-927) to the throne of the now Christian state. The expansion of the Bulgarian state southwards as a result of continual incursions into imperial territory, as well as the assumption by Symeon of the title of "king and emperor of the Bulgars and Romans" were the chief causes of confrontation with the Byzantine Empire.
After a short-lived peace (tsars Peter and Boris II), an enfeebled Bulgaria was attacked by the Russ and converted into a Byzantine province (971). However, the revolt in 976 of the Kometopouloi (David, Samuel, Moses and Aaron) and the formation of a new state comprising the first Bulgarian state and parts of the territory of western Macedonia incited long-drawn-out bloody conflicts. These ended, after the battle at Kleidion in 1014, with the transformation of Bulgaria into a Byzantine theme (1018) by Basil II, Bulgaroktonos.
[img]http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/HellenicMacedonia/media/original/a233a.jpg[/img]
Bulgar defeat at Spercheios river
Miniature from the Chronicle of Ioannis Skylitzis,
mid-12th to mid-13th century
Byzantium found it difficult to deal with the Bulgarian uprisings of Peter Deljan and Voitach in the mid-11th century, while in 1185 two brothers, Peter and Asen, established the second Bulgarian state. By the time of tsar John "the Roman Slayer" (1197-1207) this state comprised both Macedonia and Thrace.
The battle at Kleidion (1014)
Basil II, having devised since 1001 a comprehensive plan of counter-attack on the Bulgarian threat, launched the offensive on three fronts. With the ultimate aim of trapping and killing Samuel, he invaded the area around Sofia, Macedonia and Thessaly, capturing the fortified cities (Beroia, Vodena) and proceeding North.
In the summer of 1014, despite the spirited resistance of the Bulgarians in the almost inaccessible mountain passes of Kleidion (close to the Strymon valley), the Byzantine forces under the general Nikephoros Xiphias, thanks to a brilliantly organized military manoeuvre, trapped virtually all of Samuel's troops that were at Prilep. The battle was a bloody one, with many casualties, and was decisive for the Bulgarian state.
The sentence of blinding was imposed on the 14,000 Bulgarian captives, a punishment reserved for those subjects of the Byzantine empire who participated in insurrections against imperial authority (Samuel was the son of a Byzantine functionary who rebelled and claimed the throne), but not inflicted on non-Byzantine raiders.
The thousands of blinded Bulgarians wandered and scattered throughout the Haimos Peninsula directly causing Samuel's death (he suffered an apoplectic stroke at the sight of his blinded soldiers). In addition, the incapacitation of such a large part of the male population weakened Bulgaria, which came under Byzantine rule and, after the fall of Dyrrachion in 1018, was transformed into the theme of Bulgaria.
Second Bulgarian state
The affluence of the Bulgarian ruling class, combined with the consciousness of the continuity of the "national" state and the violent reaction of Byzantium to the economic demands of the Bulgarian brothers Peter and Asen, led to the founding of the second Bulgarian state in 1185.
Peter and Asen, invoking the tradition of Symeon and Samuel, were addressed as princes of "Bulgarians and Greeks" and demanded not only their autonomy but also the destruction of the Byzantine empire. At its zenith under the tsar Ioannitzes (or Kalojan) (1197-1207) the Bulgarian kingdom included Macedonia and Thrace.
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) acknowledged the Bulgarian state and the autonomy of the Church of Bulgaria (which in 1235 was recognized as a patriarchate by the Orthodox Churches). The Bulgarians, bolstered by their economic prosperity and exploiting historical circumstances, tried to take over the Latin empire of Constantinople.
The decline of the Bulgarian kingdom was rapid however, and Bulgarian rulers were obliged to contract dynastic marriages and be dependent on the Hungarians or clash with other Balkan peoples.
Thus in the 14th century the politically and economically weakened Bulgaria (Tartar raids, foreign interventions, internal conflicts, religious disputes) split up into vulnerable, semi-autonomous or fully dependent small states which, after acknowledging the sovereignty of Louis I of Hungary, were annexed to the Ottoman empire (late 14th century).
Serbs
The Serbs were a south-Slavic tribe originally settled west of present-day Serbia. Having converted to Christianity in the 9th century, they formed an enclave surrounded by Croats, Hungarians and Bulgars, and were initially dependent on Byzantium.
Although the Serb aristocracy's increasing demands for autonomy were opposed by the Byzantine emperors, the economic affluence and keen national consciousness of the Serbian ruling class, as well as the creation of "national" states in Western Europe, reinforced moves for Serb self-rule.
The independent kingdom of Serbia was founded by Stefan Nemanya (1166/7-1196) in the 12th century; in 1219 the Church of Serbia became autonomous, with first archbishop Nemanya's son, the monk Savvas who was consecrated by the Patriarch of Constantinople. The kingdom of Serbia enjoyed its floruit in the 14th century, when Stefan VIII Uros IV Dusan expanded his realm by annexing Macedonia, Epirus and part of Thessaly.
After Dusan's death in 1355 Serbia splintered into personal principalities embroiled in internecine disputes. From 1389 the Serbs were subjects of the Ottoman empire, maintaining a nominal independence, which was finally lost in 1459.
Despite the Serb rulers' aggressive policy towards Byzantium, relations with the Empire were always close. Dynastic marriages were largely instrumental in promoting Byzantine culture in Serbia on many levels, e.g. in ecclesiastical organization, legislation and court ceremonial, but primarily in the formation of art and early Serb literature. |