From: Vassil Karloukovski
Message: 24543
Date: 2003-07-15
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
...
> *****GK: I doubt the Proto-Bulgars were as numerous as
> the Hungarian complex. With respect to the latter, I
> have argued that the Magyars (including other 'Khazar
> Ugric' tribes under that label) constituted
> approximately 35% of the total.
while speculations with numbers may have been unavoidable previously,
nowadays there have accumulated enough archaeological evidence to say
something about the relative share of various population. I will
quote R. Rashev in his 1992 paper "On the origin of the proto-
Bulgarians":
***
.... The question about the numbers of the Proto-Bulgarians has been
studied too generally, relying mainly on one's intuition rather than
more definite data. This way, they were estimated from 30,000 (by V.
Zlatarski, in the first quarter of the 20th c.) to some 300,000 by
some modern scholars.
The only objective criterion are the data from the necropolises. They
indeed offer a momentous but objective, nevertheless, picture, which
will vary quantitatively in the future. As for now, the inhumations,
which are the most reliable sign of Proto-Bulgarian ethnic
affiliation, constitute 29% of all graves in the pagan necropolises
of north-eastern Bulgaria. The figure will increase by 2-3% if we add
the inhumations from the necropolises yet to be published and it will
come to represent a third of all graves. This is not a negligible
share.
***
And one must add that, apart from the common, Slavic type of
cremations in NE Bulgaria, there is another, peculiar type of
cremations which if associated with the Bulgar group, would increase
the share even further.
There were two more questions from you elsewhere in the list, which I
cannot find at the moment. One, about how does the 'Iranian' theory
deal with the Turkic name of the Onogurs, and a second, on the light
side, along the lines of the distinctiveness of Bulgars vis-a-vis
Slavs and how non-Slavic the Balkanic Bulgars have been. On the
second one, you could not have been more wrong. The Slavic names of
even the first Bulgar capitals - Pliska (Pl&skova, assuming it is
Slavic) and Preslav, as well as of their pre-680 AD Danubian
territory - Ong&l, speak for itself. There have been significant
contacts with Slavs even before coming on the Balkans. Furthermore,
again citing Rashev's paper, there are finds of Pastirsk-type pottery
in many VIII-IX c. sites and necropolises on the Lower Danube, and
the original Pastirsk type in Ukraine is interpreted, as you probably
know better than me, as belonging to a Slavicised Iranian/Iranised
Slavic VI-VII c. population on the left side of Dniepr (the much
beloved in Ukraine, no doubt, Antes).
As to how to deal with the Onogurs ('the ten arrows') that dwelt
around Azov, the easiest would be to leave to question to the
students of the Hungarian history. The Asparukh Bulgars come from
another tribe of "Old Bulgaria" of Kubrat, the easternmost
branch/group in the Caucasus, known as Unogundurs to the Greeks, Vh(l)
ndr Blkar to the Armenians, v-n-t-t-r to the Jewish Khazars.
There were substantial
> numbers of 'Turks' (incl. Khazar tribes who had joined
> the Magyars after rebelling== the story is in
> Constantine Porphyrogenitus: these were the so-called
> Kabars), and a very important 'West Ugric' component
> (nearly 50% of the lot) which had settled on the
> steppes of right bank Ukraine in the 7th c., and were,
> until the late 9th c., political associates of the
> Danubian Bulgars (they are called "concives" of the
> latter by a contemporary German Chronicle). And of
> course there were the other elements that you
> mentioned (Alanic and Slavic). === As to the
> proto-Bulgars, the fact that they settled fairly
> compactly in the NE (around Pliska)
not quite true. They, different groups settled on both sides of the
Lower Danube (eastern Moesia/Wallachia), but you will have to look
under the label of 'Dridu' for the sites in present Romania. If
interested, I could pull out a reference to a recent PhD thesis of a
German guy on the subject. Additionally, a few years ago in R of
Macedonia appeared a monograph of Mikulchik' about the early medieval
archaeology of Macedonia. He finds, to some surprise, no significant
traces of Slavic settlements, but the remains of several auls, Bulgar-
type settlements beneath the modern towns in Western Macedonia, with
the distinctive bronze applications (a human head + horse), etc.
rather than
> dispersing throughout the expanding Bulgar state,
> helped to preserve their ethnic identity amongst the
> Slavic masses they dominated via their military
> aristocracy. Perhaps they would have survived even
> longer had they not imploded in a couple of
> devastating civil wars
???
connected with the problem of
> Christianity. Boris (Bogoris) was actually the
> gravedigger of the proto-Bulgar ethnos. They were no
> longer a significant presence or power (esp. because
> of their continued opposition to Christianity)
???
> by the time the Cyrillomethodians arrived in Bulgaria
> (886 AD). Cyrillomethodianism (esp. in its early phase)
> was extraordinarily open to liturgical multilingualism.
> A substantial residue of proto-Bulgar speaking people
> would have been a fine incentive to produce religious
> literature for them in that language. But it never
> happened.******
yeah, instead, they (the upper Bulgar strata) opted to contribute to
the establishment and the spread of the Slavic Orthodoxy... There
should be no doubt that the above enterprise was government-sponsored
and supported throughout, from Boris I through Simeon to Peter.
The picture of church-building in the IX-X cc. (using one study of D.
Mitova-Dzhonova from 1981) and the accompanying spread of Slavic
literature in northern Bulgaria is very indicative: almost all
churches, basilicas and older monumental architecture (in a specific,
non-Byzantine style) are concentrated in NE Bulgaria, in the former
Bulgar centres of Pliska, Preslav, Dr&st&r, Madara, etc. In the west,
a much 'purer' Slavic territory, in contrast: "... From this period
only one church have been found in the west - in the Slavic
settlement above the ruins of the Roman town of Escus, ..., but it
was used mainly for fighting the Bogomilism ... as evident by the
inscription on the wall - an anathema against the Bogomil heresy.
Centuries after the establishment of Christianity must had passed
before we observe the building of churches in the west.". And another
quote: " ... during their settlement in the Balkans the Slavs did not
carry building traditions and after their Christianisation they did
not feel initially a strong need for temples".
Generally, for someone with a considerable interest (and erudition
obviously) in archaeological matters, your treatment of the Bulgarian
matters leaves me in surprise. It is so outdated, as if from the
first half of the last century when there was much theoretising and
little was known in the field.
Regards,
Vassil