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 13th
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 1st 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 7th 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 7th 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 7th 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 6th and 7th
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 19th and 20th ct to
write Bulgarian history and see how trustworthy they are. According to some
Byzantine sources, Bulgaria was founded at the end of the 7th 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 19th and 20th 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 19th and 20th
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 14th 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 6th 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.


