> --- fortuna11111 <fortuna11111@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > GK: Has there been any attempt to inform the
> > > international scholarly community of this esp. via
> > > conferences? What has been the reaction? Are all
> > > Bulgarian scholars convinced by the new knowledge?
> > Are
> > > there serious non-Bulgarian scholars who are? It's
> > > been ten years you say. Any progress?
> >
> > The problem is, as you may imagine, the fact that my
> > country or
> > language are not particularly popular.
>
> *****GK: Old Bulgarian (Slavic) is quite popular among
> students of the spread of Slavic Christianity. There's
> a lot of literature on this.*****
George, Old Bulgarian is not common Bulgarian, it was the
language stadardized by Boris I in the ninth century, yet even
today it deviates from the language we speak. Grammatically, it
is MORE SLAVIC (as funny as it may sound) than modern
Bulgarian and even more so in comparison to the Bulgarian
spoken by the Old Bulgarians. Based on the special features of
Bulgarian, unique in comparison with all Slavic languages, I am
only assuming there could be influences of common Bulgarian
on Old Bulgarian. Those influences, or the lacking account on
them may have gotten in the way of Slavists when trying to
explain the development of Slavic languages historically (e.g.
they end up needing to explain transformations they do not need
to explain through Slavic). This is, for now ONLY a logical
assumption, not confirmed by serious studies (which I intend to
do in the future).
> *****GK: The thesis that the Proto-Bulgars were a
> Turkic ethnos long antedates the advent of Communism
> to Bulgaria. There are plenty of books on our
> University library shelves about this which have
> nothing to do with the Commies.*****
This was just one of all theories, thought to be most convincing,
since many words in Bulgarian (and Old Bulgarian) showed
Turkic parallels. A huge number of others were left inexplained
with the assumption Bulgarians spoke some mysterious Turkic
language we don't know of. The theory was developed before
the inscriptions were discovered in the 40's and until then
seemed to be the best explanation we have. Many scientists,
genuinely interested in the history and culture of the
Protobulgarians, like the Hungarian scholar Gesa Fecher (I may
be spelling it worngly), who dedicated a lifetime to it and left his
ashes in my country, kept believing from the depths of their
hearts that Bulgarians were Turkic. This does not lessen the
importance of all their findings for our historiography.
Subsequently, the theory was taken up by the Communists in the
1940, before the split between Yugoslavia and USSR.
Bulgarians were supposed to form a Southern Slavic federation
with the Serbs, so out of ideological consideration, our
historians had to "concentrate" on our being Slavic. I can
translate some texts to people interested in the subject (this is
already history) and people who want to be amused by some
weird communist logic. I read it again yesterday and laughed my
head off. So, as a result, any attempts to look for a translation of
the inscriptions therough other languages was written off as
Great Bulgarian schauvinism and "Gesa-fecher-ovism" (bulg.
gesafecherovshtina). And that all under the wakeful eye of the
security services (nationaly security agents were members of
expert commissions, for example).
>
> ******GK: Come now, don't be disingenuous. The notion
> that the Proto-Bulgars were Iranian and not Turkic
> would instantly interest many conference organizers
> (esp.in the West), and money would be found to finance
> appearances by knowledgeable Bulgarian scholars. If
> this isn't happening there must be other reasons, and
> you'll forgive me for not mentioning them out of
> politeness.*****
I am not being disingenuous. Believe me, many problems are
simply problems of communication, so that's why I am making
noise. I know what "other reasons" you mean and I always
consider the possibility of the existance of such. Yet I sincerely
do not believe everything that Dobrev says is wrong. It is just too
primitively written. And I want to study it further and see if I get
finally convinced. I am also studying other authors, desperately
trying to sort out the facts from the romantic passages on our
glorious past. If our science is lacking anything to give it
credibility in the west, it is a scietific approach. Our older
generation scholars have so many simply technical problems
with, say, quotations (under communism there was just one
truth, so the need to quote and prove credibility was totally
absent, leaving a lot of space for pathetic speeches and
romantic ideological interpretations of our common, say, Slavic
heritage). Yet the ancient historians also did this and still there
is truth to what they re saying. It looks very simple to me: it is
either that I see Dobrev is principally right, although technically
wrong, or that I find out he has just thought up everything. I am
looking forward to finding out which one is true. On the way, I
appreciate all constructive and sobering comments. I try to be
aware of my biases.
> *****GK: I am doing no such thing. There's plenty of
> unbiased linguists outside of Bulgaria who have no axe
> to grind on this issue. But coming back to one of my
> unanswered questions: are you saying that the Iranic
> theory is now held by ALL Bulgarian linguists and
> historians?******
No, please, read in another message the answer to this
question.
> *****GK: Don't worry about it. Just produce the
> evidence. Formalistic obiter chat won't cut the
> mustard.******
The potential evidence are the inscriptions in question. I do not
have the erudition to say anything more on them. For now we
have just one theory, so I have referred to it.
>
>
> ******GK: You mentioned in another post that there is
> an Iranic understanding of the term "Bulgar/s". What
> is it? Also, the original Bulgars of Kubrat were known
> as the Onogundur. What's the Iranic explanation of
> this label?
I have not read anything on the subject. Maybe Vassil knows
more, but he said he will be back online in a while.
I don't want to pick up on everything you
> state in other posts, but just one more thing.
Feel free, questions are the way towards truth.
Today's
> Bulgarians are descended from a great many historical
> ethna.
Right, I also feel it so.
You attach huge significance to the
> Proto-Bulgar connection.
Because it was attached less importance before. It is simply
compensatory. Our culture shows many features which are, to
my mind, non-European and, I also think, non-Turkic from what I
know about Turkic culture. This is a very typical phenomenon on
the Balkans - we always tend to be able to differentiate that
which is Greek from that which is Bulgarian from that which is
Turk, ahtough it all looks so similar to an outsider.
My roommate (a Pole) recorded something from the radio in
Greece which she said was Greek music. I giggled and said
this is a tasteless mixture of c´alga and other Balkan elements,
which is to be heard everywhere and is not respected particularly
as a style of music (since the texts are also often vulgar).
Everyone in the Balkans recognizes this... hodge-podge. She
did not get it so we ended up there with the explanations. Later
she played a Greek song to me (that I now want to learn to play)
that brought me to scream: "Oh, that's genuinely Greek!" I was
asked to explain how I can tell. The answer is, I don't know, but I
know. I may try to rationalize on it to get an actual logical
answer, but I have not tried for now. It turned out my roommate
had this tape from her Greek teacher at the university (she
studies Greek philology)
It was, of course,
> politically significant for a time. But after all the
> Bulgarians are primarily a Slavic people are they not?
I want to avoid saying "primarily" in any of the two directions. I
love both of those sides in my people. I have no problem with
them and don't feel the need to measure them against each
other. Yet a false theory on any one of them will stop any further
scientific efforts in whatever area of research. And, after all, a
false theory is also not the truth.
> And the Vlach as well as Pecheneg contributions (to
> mention but some) might also be noted in passing.
Yes. That's why I want to dig into this history. I think it is a history =
of living with others, which makes all theories on genetic
heritage simply ridiculous. Armenian sources also record a
peaceful coexistence between partly christianized Bulgars and
Jews in the area of the Van lake. There is no information on
forceful assimilation. I find such a history is worth reading.
That which united Bulgarians, in my opinion, has been their
common culture (including of governance and ethnic and
religious tolerance), a common spirit, if you wish. Okay, you will
tell me I am being romantic. I hope I am excused. But we do
feel very strongly as Bulgarians without feeling the need to feel
better than the others. The thought that we are not alone is very
deeply embedded in our culture. Just look at this funnily
romantic attitude of Bulgarians towards Russians, which has
marked our history in the last few centuries and is hard to get for
almost anyone in the west. We are constantly looking for
"brothers" somewhere.
I know I am generalizing on this, so don't bite me. Yet a person
knowing Bulgaria and a lot of Bulgarians would know what I
mean.
Is
> all this sudden fixation on Iranism an indicator of
> contemporary anti-Turkism in Bulgaria?
No. As you know, the Volga Bulgars adopted Islam and mixed
up with Turkic peoples after that. I think multireligiousness
belogs to our culture. If there are such anti-moods, they are of
people who should visit the doctor.
It's as if
> someone in France suddenly decided that the "Franks"
> were not really Germanic but , say, Celtic or
> whatever, because the idea of "les boches" having
> anything to do with "la belle France" is simply
> intolerable.(:=)))*****
No, it is not anything of the kind. People do get emotional about
history in Bulgaria, but this is just a feature of our temperament.
It is not a sign of any anti-Turkism. Ant-isms have little root in
Bulgaria in general. I don't know, for example, if you are aware of
the saving of the Bulgarian Jews in WW2 when Bulgaria was
actually allied with Germany. Not much is known about this is
the west.
And anyway, this was far from linguistics, but I hope I am spared.
I would gladly go on offlist.
Eva