ИСТИНСКАТА БЪЛГАРСКА ИСТОРИЯ НА АНГЛИЙСКИ ЕЗИК

Преди няколко години г-жа Цвета Кирилова ме помоли да събера екип от родолюбци, с които да създадем учебно помагало по история. Благодарение на съдействието на г-жа Кирилова, г-жа Яна Трендафилова, а също така г-н Антон Кирилов, г-н Асен Великов, г-н Евгени Динев,” Трежър България” е още много прогресивни българи, проектът завърщи с успех. Получи се интересно, а и прекрасно онагледено четиво.Недълго след това, помагалото бе преведено и на английски.

Тъй като докато новият вариант бъде отпечатан ще мине време, с г-жа Крилова решихме, че предварително може да се пусне брошура на английски, като в нея истинската ни история е представена възможно най ясно, а изводите са обосновани на резултатите от генетичните проучвания и ред други важни факти.

Умолявам този, който е съгласен с текста и желае да помогне по някакъв начин, да се свърже с г-жа Яна Трендафилова във “Фейсбук”.   https://www.facebook.com/qna.tr

Да се надяваме, че в скоро време чужденците ще научат за истинската ни история и ще разберат, че българите са потомци на Залмоксис и Орфей, на Спартак и Вологес. Да се надяваме, че скоро всеки, че знае, че искрата на познанието е блеснала най-рано при нас. Да не надяваме, че най-сетне ще получим призанието, което заслужаваме!

THE REAL ORIGIN OF BULGARIANS - THE PEOPLE OF SPARTACUS

About two centuries ago the British novelist Samuel Butler said something very interesting: “God cannot alter the past, though historians can”. Butler was right. We now know that in almost every century, under the pressure of certain rulers, those who wrote chronicles had to become creative and twist or completely change the narrative of some events.

We can find one of the earliest examples of fact alteration in the Egyptian annals from the 13^th ct BC. They concern the battle of Kadesh – a large city and trading centre in Syria. The city was important for both Hittites and Egyptians, which made the conflict inevitable. During the battle the army of Ramses the Great was beaten and forced to withdraw. Nevertheless, the Egyptian chronicles report only of a great victory against the Hittites.

If we only read the Egyptian side of the story, we would undoubtedly believe that the Hittite king Muwatalli was defeated by Ramses the Great. In a similar example from much later in history, during the 1^st ct AD, the legions of the Roman emperor Domitianus were defeated by the army of the Dacian king Decebalus. Nevertheless, according to the historian Suetonius, Domitianus celebrated victory in Rome.

There are many more examples of how certain events have been drastically altered in the recorded chronicles of history. In the same way that the defeated can be presented as winners, local and indigenous people can be described as invaders of their own homelands, by the invaders themselves. Romans managed to conquer southern Thracians in 45 AD. Large part of the lands of the northern Thracians were taken later, in 105 AD, but some of Getae, Costoboci, Mysians etc managed to remain free. In 170 AD Costoboci crossed Danube river, went through whole Thrace and didn’t stopped until they have reached Central Greece. That was a liberation movement, but the Roman citizen Pausanias called the rebellious Thracians barbarian army of bandits.

That is why historical sources, although important, should be used very cautiously. Every report from the past must be corroborated with the available data from the fields of anthropology, linguistics and the archaeological record.

Today we have an additional tool that can help us to determine how history unfolded. Thanks to the science of molecular genetics, it can be shown with great certainty whether a contemporary human population is indigenous to their lands or whether they have come from other geographical regions. The science of molecular genetics has the last word because it is very difficult to twist its results with speculative interpretations.

The first large-scale genetic study in Bulgaria was published in 2011 and it caused great astonishment among historians and the masses. Until that moment it was commonly accepted that Old Bulgarians were a people of Turkic, or Turkic-Iranian origin who settled south of the Danube river in the 7^th ct AD. The truth was apparently quite different all along. According to the genetic research there is no reason to believe that any of the Old Bulgarians had a common origin with Turks, or Iranians. The scientific data is very clear:

The astonishment grew even more when the scientists explained that a large part of contemporary Bulgarians are descendants of people who inhabited the Balkans as early as the Mesolithic Age: “the greatest contribution comes from the range expansion of local Mesolithic foragers triggered by adoption of agriculture introduced by a cadre of Near Eastern farmers.“

Not only did a considerable part of the Bulgarian people appear to be an indigenous population, but they were also surprisingly old. Until this moment historians believed that the oldest autochthonous Balkan population was replaced – driven away, or killed during the Bronze Age. Although this theory was doubted by some in the past, it was very difficult to prove either way. Now we know that it is not true.

This new form of historical inquiry through population genetics made it clear that a large part of the modern Bulgarian population is descended from a local people, who were called Thracians by the Romans and the Greek in Antiquity.

In 2012 the results of another genetic study were released. This time the researchers could say with more certainty that Thracians had not disappeared in Late Antiquity and that a substantial percentage of Bulgarians are descendants of the people to whom belonged the gladiator Spartacus and the musician Orpheus:

“Thus, while the Mediterranean legacy could be attributed to the Thracians, indigenous people that firstly inhabited the Balkans, the Eastern contribution is likely due to the Proto-Bulgarians originating from the Middle East and to the Slavs migrating from northeast Europe.”

Later on it became clear that the so-called “Eastern contribution”, R1a-M17, could not have come completely from people who settled permanently south of the Danube river in the 7^th ct AD, because of its much older age in the Balkans: “…it is worth mentioning that, as previously suggested  haplogroup R1a-M17 could be a signal of various events ranging from early post-LGM expansions to more recent Slavic demography.“

At least 42% of the “Eastern contributors”, carriers of R1a-M17, are bearers of the variant R-M458, whose age in the Balkans varies between 12,400 and 4100 years old, so it is impossible to connect the bearers of R-M458 with relatively recent events from 1300 years ago. The distance in time is simply too great to permit such an explanation. The old age of the R-M458 in Bulgaria is a clear indication that this haplogroup was present among the ancient Balkan population. That explains why some of the Cretan people are bearers of R1a-M17. Thracians were some of the builders of Minoan society as we know from the research of Prof. B. Hrozny – the scientist, who managed to decipher Hittite language and studied Minoan and Mycenaean culture.

It is quite possible that the other 48% of R1a-M17 belong to other Thracian groups, who inhabited lands north of the Black Sea. Those regions were inhabited by Costobocae, Getae, Tyragetae and Mysians - all of whom are branches of the Thracians. Since we do not have any historical reports about the complete genocide or disappearance of these people, we can safely accept that the so called “new variant” of R1a-M17 belongs to the northern Thracians.

If we carefully examine the peculiarities of every large haplogroup of the Bulgarian population, we will conclude that at least 80% of it belongs to indigenous Balkan populations:

(i) R-L23* is present in Eastern Bulgaria since the post glacial period;

(ii) haplogroup E-V13 has a Mesolithic age in Bulgaria from where it expanded after the arrival of farming;

(iii) haplogroup J-M241 probably reflects the Neolithic westward expansion of farmers from the earliest sites along the Black Sea;

(iv) haplogroup I-M423 is the genetic record of Balkan Mesolithic foragers and their expansion after the adoption of agriculture;

(v) considerable part of bearers of R1a belong to R-M458 – people inhabiting the Balkans between 12,400 and 4100 years, while the other variant of R1a is not proven to  be identical with R1a of Indian, or Iranian populations, so it most likely belongs to a groups inhabiting the Black Sea steppe in Antiquity;

An additional haplogroup can be added to the list – G2, which, although represented by only 2% of the Bulgarian population, is very ancient, and belongs to the oldest European hunter-gatherers, who were apparently assimilated by the Thracians in the Neolithic Age – approximately 9000 years ago.

These are the ratios of the haplogroups typical of the Bulgarian people:

I-M423 -20.2%    -Age aprox. 12 000 years;

E-V13   -18.1%.   -Age aprox. 10 000 years;

R-L23* - 5.2%     -Age aprox.  13 000 years

J            - 19%      -Age aprox.  10 000 years;

R-M17 -17%        -Age aprox.  12 400-4100-1300 (?) years;

G2        -2%          -Age aprox.  12 000 years;

The data from the scientific research is clear. There is no doubt that approximately 80% of the Bulgarian people have Thracian ancestors. This changes the history of the Balkans completely. Apparently the historians made a few major mistakes:

1)      Thracians were regarded as a negligibly small group of people in the 7^th ct AD when Danubian Bulgaria was created.  This appears to be wrong. It is very improbable for a conquered minority to replace its conquerors and to become a major ethnic element in the country.

2)      Old Bulgarians were defined as a people of Turkic, or Turkic-Iranian origin. This is also wrong. There is no evidence that the Old Bulgarians had a common origin with Turks and Iranians. Also, nonе of the toponyms (names of places) in Early Medieval Bulgaria can be classified as Turkic, or Iranian. This was admitted by historians and linguists, who realized that the lack of evidence for Turkic language in the Old Bulgarians is a problem. Nevertheless both historians and linguists kept supporting the official theories.

3)      Danube Slavs were defined as Northern newcomers. They were also regarded as the major ethnic element of Danubian Bulgaria. There is no doubt that the Bulgarian language belongs to the Slavic group, but it is impossible to regard the Danube Slavs as a population, who settled the Balkans in the 6^th and 7^th ct AD. Approximately 42% of the bearers of R1a in Bulgaria are descendants of people, who inhabited the Bulgarian territory between 12,400 and 4100 years ago – either in the Postglacial Age or in the Bronze Age. The other 48% of the bearers of the haplogroup R1a, if newcomers at all, represent only about 8% of the whole Bulgarian population. It would be impossible for such a minority to influence a population more than ten times its size.

Obviously the historians who wrote the official Bulgarian history were wrong. Actually, they were completely wrong.

As already mentioned, it is not too difficult to hide the truth. Historians can write false reports against their will when forced to do so by unscrupulous rulers, or willingly when they are themselves consumed by inherited hatreds of their neighbors.

Old Bulgarian literary archives were almost completely annihilated during a combined total of 7 centuries of war and oppression by Byzantine and Ottoman invaders. This means that the majority of chronicles concerning Bulgarian history that are used by modern historians, come from the enemies and oppressors of the Bulgarian people, showing only their point of view.

Let’s have a look at the sources used by the historians of the 19^th and 20^th ct to write Bulgarian history and see how trustworthy they are. According to some Byzantine sources, Bulgaria was founded at the end of  the 7^th ct AD (approximately 680 AD) by the numerous Slavic tribes, who made a pact with the Bulgarians, led by their prince named Asparuch. This is the narrative of Theophanos the Confessor and Patriarch Nicephorus. These authors describe the pitched battles lost by the Byzantine army, followed by the humiliating obligation of emperor Constantine IV to pay tribute to the Bulgarians. Constantine of Apamea also wrote about the battle of 681 AD.

However, there are other stories written by Byzantine writers and the inconsistencies of the old testimonies are remarkable. According to Byzantine writer Manasias, Bulgarians came from the west during the reign of emperor Anastasius (491-518 AD). On the other hand, Leo Deacon connects Bulgarians with emperor Justinian II, who needed their help in 705 AD to get back on the throne and expressed his thankfulness by giving them land to settle.

We find three major inconsistencies:

1)      Between the time of the Bulgarian arrival described by Manasias and the time described by Leo the Deacon is a difference of approximately 200 years. If the difference was 10-20 years it would be acceptable, but two centuries is too long a period of time, so somebody must have lied.

2)      There is a discrepancy regarding the direction from which Bulgarians entered the lands south of the Danube. According to Manasias it was from the west, but according to Leo Deacon it was from the east. Again, the differences are not reconcilable and that is an indication for a false report.

3)      The conditions surrounding their arrival are also inconsistently described. According to Theophanus and Nicehorus, Bulgarians and their Slavic allies defeated the army of emperor Constantine IV in a pitched battle, but according to Leo Deacon, emperor Justinian II gave land to Bulgarians as gratitude for helping him to reconquer his throne. Somebody’s narrative is far from the truth.

It is obvious that we cannot trust the stories of the Byzantines – the enemies of the Bulgarian people. Why the historians of the 19^th and 20^th ct chose to believe their incoherent historical reports is difficult to determine. Perhaps the deeply rooted sympathy by all of Europe towards ancient Greek culture played an important role, or perhaps it was something else.

There are many other historical testimonies, according to which Old Bulgarians were descendants of the Thracian Mysians. About 1100 years Bulgaria was called Mysia, and Bulgarians were identified as Mysians by different authors as Niketas Choniates, Michael Attaliates, Demetrius Chomatianus etc.

Of great importance is the fact that Old Bulgarian names Asparuch, Krobat, Terbel, Korsis, Prusianos, Boris have counterparts in Thracian onomastics: Aspios, Krobyzi, Terbelius, Karsis, Prusias, Boriskos. Unfortunately this important information was neglected by the Bulgarian historians of the 19^th and 20^th ct while Western historians were not informed about this critical information at all.

Historians and archeologists (with the exception of St. Mihailov) also ignored the fact that the sacred Bulgarian symbol IYI, used in the Bulgarian heraldic tradition at least until the 14^th ct, has its origins in the Balkans. The symbol IYI is found engraved in pottery from the Vinca Culture of 5000-4500 BC. The same is true of Old Bulgarian black polished pottery. Its development happened in the Balkans and the earliest examples are from 5000 BC.

Ethnologists such as E. Teodorov, I. Georgieva, N. Kolev discovered that the most important Bulgarian ethnic festivals are an echo of the ancient cults of the Thracian Horseman, Dionyssos, Sabazius, goddess Bendis and the deified Zalmoxis. The cults of Semele, Hermes and Thracian Zeus are preserved too, under a later Christian disguise.

And while Bulgarians do not have any names inspired by Turkic, or Iranian gods (Tengri, Ahura Mazda, Anahita), many Bulgarian personal names are inspired by names of Thracian gods and goddesses: Balis, Bistryo, Bogoi, Denyo, Koto, Magut, Menda, Sura, Tita, Tote, Turman, Venda, Vityo, Vodyo and others, correspond to the Thracian god names: Balis, Bistyras, Bagaios, Den, Kotys, Magutis, Mendis, Sura, Tita, Totoes, Turma (Rescu Turma), Vendis, Vithys, Vedy.

Ethologists also discovered that the costumes worn by Bulgarian commoners show a great resemblance to the clothing of the Thracians from Antiquity. It was also established that most of the agricultural tools of the Bulgarian peasants have Thracian origins. All of this information has been ignored by most of the Bulgarian historians, while most Western historians are not even aware of it.

Other important facts were ignored by Bulgarian historians. In the Byzantine Medieval documents there are many depictions of Old Bulgarians. It can be observed that the represented Old Bulgarians were people with lighter complexion than the Greeks, with brown, ruddy hair – obvious European features. Nevertheless, this visual testimony was ignored and the historians kept their old view that Old Bulgarians must have been of Turkic, or Turko-Iranian origin.

It is unfortunate that even the results of the largest anthropological studies in Bulgaria, which were published in 1938 and in 1959, whose data showed that modern Bulgarians are not related to Turks, Iranians or other Asian groups, were stubbornly ignored.

The attitude of the Bulgarian historians towards the Danube Slavs was the same. There are many testimonies that Danube Slavs (only they, not all the Slavic people) are descendants of the Getae – neighbors and brethren of the Mysians. Egyptian writer Simocates explained this quite clearly in three of his books, but Bulgarian historians chose not to use the information.

Pseudo-Maurice wrote about the strange burial rites of the Danube Slavs that involved the voluntary self-sacrifice of the wives of deceased men. Exactly the same ritual was described about 1000 years earlier by Herodotus in his narrative about the Thracian people.

Pseudo-Maurice gave another very important piece of information concerning the fighting methods of the Danube Slavs, who used two javelins in battle. This same style, by the way, was the distinguishing mark of the Thracian warriors. That was the reason why the Thracian goddess Bendis was called dilonchon – having two spears.

Traditionally historians describe Old Slavs as foot soldiers, but if we carefully examine the old sources we will discover that the Danube Slavs were also horsemen. Slavic cavalry was described by historians like Simocates, Procopius, and Comes Marcellinus, who used the name Getae for the Slavic horsemen attacking Romans (Byzantines) in Epirus (Western Balkans) in 517 AD. John of Ephesus spoke about the large numbers of horses possessed by the Danube Slavs. Thanks to Thucydides we know that most of the Getae were mounted archers, and we see that Simocates was right to call the Danube Slavs Getae.

Looking at the situation in the Balkans around 680 AD, if we accept that the Danube Slavs, Old Bulgarians and the Thracians under Roman rule had common origins, then all the riddles are solved. It is not a mystery anymore why 80% of the Bulgarians today are bearers of the genes of the most ancient Balkan population.

If Danube Slavs are descendants of the Getae and the Old Bulgarians are actually Mysians, that means that both groups spoke the same language that was also spoken by the Thracians under Byzantine rule. That explains why there is no Turkic or Iranian toponyms in Early Medieval Bulgaria and why there is no foreign substrate in the Bulgarian language.

The Thracian language is considered to be extinct by most linguists, but actually there isn’t any reason to assume this to be true. It is certain that the Thracians - the most ancient and numerous population of the Balkans, survived all the tragic events from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The haplogroups typical of the modern Bulgarian population’s genetic composition are undeniable proof of this fact.

It is also certain that the Thracian language was spoken until at least the 6^th ct AD in Thrace and also in the Holy Lands where Thracian monks had established monasteries. In the description of the life of St.Theodosius Cenobiarch, the language of the Thracian monks is called Slavonic. So we also see that from the linguistic point of view Simocates was right to call Danube Slavs Getae.

In modern times Bulgarian linguist Cyril Vlahov concluded that the languages of the Danube Slavs and the autochthonous Balkan population (Thracians) were very close, or even identical.

That is why the most ancient Thracian hydronyms Peneus, Skamandros, Strauos, Strymon, Timachus can be  explained with Bulgarian words pena-foam, kamen-stone, struya-stream, strymlenie-current, creek, tima-darkness.

The science of molecular genetics shows that modern Bulgarians are descendents of the Thracians, linguistic analyses clearly show the Bulgarian character of the most ancient Thracian river names, and the conclusion of linguists such as Vlahov, Sotiroff and others that the Bulgarian language is in fact a developed form of Thracian, all goes to show that the language spoken by Spartacus is alive.

Yes, the Bulgarian language is related to Polish, Czechian, Russian, but this only means that the Thracian language was very similar of that of the languages spoken by their northern neighbors – the Veneti, who are the ancestors of the Polish, Czechian and Russian people. That is it, no more, no less.

Lots of confusion arose in the past because most historians thought that the name Slav belonged, from the beginning, to all the ancestors of the modern Slavic people. This is not true. In the matter of fact, initially only the Getae were called Slavs - the people who inhabited the Balkans, along the Danube river in Late Antiquity. (There was the first mentioning of the tribal name Slav, there Byzantians fought with the “invading” Slavs, there was the first documented geographical region called Slavinia, later replaced by Bulgaria. Due to the popularity of the name Slavs among Byzantines, with time it was applied to many other people speaking similar languages.

In the same way appeared the name Germani (Germans) as we know from Cornelius Tacitus. According to this author, initially the name Germani was applied only to Tungri, but later it was adopted by all the people, who shared same language.

Because of the many lies of the Byzantine writers and due to the behavior of the Bulgarian historians of the past, today the truth sounds almost like science fiction, but let’s not forget the words of Napoleon Bonaparte: “History is a set of agreed upon lies.” He was obviously right. We must follow only that which is certain and undeniable. In our case that is the data of the genetic research.

It is difficult to change a concept in history. Let’s not forget the wise words of John Kennedy: “The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth - persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

Yes, it is indeed very difficult to let go of wrong views, but justice obliges us to do it. How could we live in a free world, if we allow lies to destroy the truth? We must not allow the lies of the Byzantine writers and the attitude of the Bulgarian historians in the past to cloud our judgment.

Not only the Greeks, but also Thracians, the ancestors of the Bulgarian people, have made contributions to Old European culture. Prof. Carl Müller wrote in the 19th ct: “The Thracians, who settled in Pieria at the foot of mount Olympus, and from thence came down to mount Helicon, as being the originators of the worship of Dionysus and the Muses, and the fathers of Grecian poetry, are a nation of the highest importance in the history of civilization.”

It was not without reason that John Anthony Cramer regarded “Thracians Orpheus and Linus as fathers of Grecian poetry”.

Quoting Hypolytus, Prof. Stuart Piggot revealed that the Celtic druids were instructed personally by the Thracian Zalmoxis. Regarding Zalmoxis there is something more to be said. According to Plato, Thracian healers had a deep knowledge of human nature and the causes of the different illnesses, and they transferred this knowledge to Greek healers.

We must not forget Spartacus – the brave gladiator who managed to organize the great uprising of the Roman slaves. For three long years Spartacus fought with the Romans hoping to bring his people to freedom north of the Alps, or using the ships of the Cilician pirates to carry away everyone, whose chains were broken. Although at the end he was defeated by the legions of Marcus Crassus, Spartacus became a symbol of hope for the oppressed and inspired people in every age until the modern era.

To acknowledge the truth about Bulgarian people is to pay tribute to the brave gladiator in whose veins flowed the same blood as in the veins of Bulgarians today.