Petko Dobrev
Let the sequel begin as a continuation of the historical knowledge bequeathed to us by Rakovski. This is how we will reach true independence, which was the ultimate goal of the Bulgarian Renaissance.
The geopolitics of modern Europe has its roots in the reign of the last Roman emperor, Justinian the Great. He was the last ruler to restore Roman power in almost the entire former Roman Empire. This great man grew up among the Bulgarians near Ohrid. Therefore, one of his most far-sighted decisions was the creation of Justiniana Prima, which was already known as the Bulgarian Archbishopric in 535.
Later it was known as the Ohrid Archbishopric. Through their independent church, namely Justiniana Prima, the Bulgarians managed to establish influence in almost all of Europe. They baptized the Rus in the East. In the West they reached Occitania through their followers called Cathars and Albigenses.
For centuries, Rome and Constantinople made every effort to eliminate Bulgaria as a European power, and for this they had to necessarily eliminate Justiniana Prima or the Ohrid Archbishopric. Rome and Constantinople were well aware that Bulgarian independence and power lay precisely in Justiniana Prima or the Ohrid Archbishopric.
At the end of the seventh century, Constantinople managed to cause a serious crisis in Justiniana Prima, by bribing and attracting to the Constantinople Patriarchate all the bishops of the Ohrid Archbishopric and thus beheading the Bulgarian church, since there was no possibility of electing a Patriarch.
But the Bulgarian ruler Trivelius, who was the father of Tervel and Moses, managed to attract the Bulgarian from Cappadocia – Cyril the Philosopher, who had the necessary rank and could be elected Patriarch. But on the way to Ohrid he was captured in Thessaloniki. In order to free him, Trivelius waged a three-year war with Constantinople and in 703 managed to free him. After that, he was elected Patriarch.
Thus, independent Bulgaria was saved – independent Justiniana Prima was saved. And Patriarch Cyril managed to introduce an alphabet for use, which the Bulgarians named Cyrillic after him. We still use this alphabet today. Cyril the Philosopher described all of this in his work “A Word from Cyril the Philosopher on How He Baptized the Bulgarians”.
In the middle of the 9th century, the Eastern Roman Empire, known to us as Byzantium, experienced a great upsurge. It began under the reign of Michael III and is known as the First Byzantine Renaissance. The Vasilevs managed to defeat Boris and forced him to impose the Greek church rite, creating a second Bulgarian church in addition to the Ohrid Archbishopric.
The striking diplomats of Byzantium at that time were the two brothers from Thessaloniki – Tserhou and Strahota. They took the spiritual names Constantine and Methodius. Ensuring the alliance of Constantinople and Great Moravia, which was directed against Bulgaria, they made great efforts to deal with the influence of the Ohrid Archbishopric and the Bulgarians in Central Europe.
For this purpose, they also used an old Thracian alphabet that became known as the Glagolitic alphabet. Tsarhu, who was already Constantine, took the name Cyril in the last month of his life and so Constantinople managed to create a duplicate Cyril the Philosopher. Thus, over the next millennium, the Greeks managed to erase the memory of the Bulgarian Patriarch Cyril the Philosopher of Cappadocia, through whom Trivelius managed to save the independent Justiniana Prima.
That is why the Bulgarians declared Trivelius a saint and so he remained known in Bulgarian history as Saint Trivelius. And after the name of Patriarch Cyril, who introduced a new alphabet, the Bulgarians called it Cyrillic. But Byzantium, visible in the past and invisible today, managed to liquidate both Saint Trivelius and Patriarch Cyril the Philosopher of Cappadocia from historiography. And the Greeks managed to liquidate the Ohrid Archbishopric itself in 1767.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the influence of France increased in Europe. In practice, Philip II Augustus in the West and Baldwin in the East ruled most of the former Roman Empire. The biggest problem for both was the Bulgarian influence and power.
This became extremely dangerous for the French after the capture of Baldwin by Kaloyan in 1205. In response to the increased influence of the Bulgarians in Europe, Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against the Cathars and Albigenses in Western Europe. The spearhead of this crusade was Philip II Augustus. Thus, the influence of the Ohrid Archbishopric was eliminated in the West – by physically eliminating the Cathars and Albigenses. But France never forgot that the Bulgarians had killed Baldwin and his brother.
After the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, a large number of Byzantine aristocracy moved to Western Europe, including England. And after Zoya Palaeologina married Ivan III, part of this aristocracy moved to Russia. This Byzantine aristocracy set in motion the forces that led to the Renaissance of Europe. But this hereditary aristocracy managed to impose on the East and West the idea of restoring Byzantium and completely eradicating the Bulgarians.
In Russia, in the mid-17th century, Patriarch Nikon managed to impose the Greek rite in the Russian church and liquidated the influence of the Ohrid Archbishopric, i.e. of the Bulgarian church and culture.
In the 18th century, Western Europe was in a spiritual upsurge known as the Age of Enlightenment. The activists of the Enlightenment had an influence, including in the formation of the foreign policy doctrines of individual monarchies. The most prominent representatives of Enlightenment absolutism are Frederick II, Joseph II and Catherine the Great – the monarchs of Prussia, Austria and Russia.
The Bulgarian Evgeni Bulgaris or also known as Evgenios Voulgaris is one of the prominent figures of the European Enlightenment. He was born in Corfu. He studied at the University of Padua and then in Leipzig. Founder and rector of the Athos Academy /1749-1758/. Rector of the Patriarchal School in Istanbul /1759-1761/. He was in close relations with most prominent figures of the European Enlightenment, including Joseph II and Catherine the Great. Frederick the Great recommended him to Catherine the Great. Thus, he became her chief advisor and initiator of the Greek project, while also becoming the second person in the Russian Church and an influential member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He rests in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, where he is buried. Tsars, patriarchs and the most influential Russian figures are buried there.
The Greek project is an idea of the identity between Ancient Greece and Byzantium. According to him, the Greeks should have dominated culturally and Hellenized the surrounding barbarians. According to him, the successor of Byzantium is Russia. Through the Greek project, it was planned that Russia would solve the Eastern Question.
The initial version envisaged the restoration of the former Byzantium as a Greek kingdom, reaching the Danube. The final version of the Greek project is that the Balkan Mountains should divide Greece and Wallachia, and in the West they should border Serbia. Simply put, Bulgaria should not exist.
The last attempt to implement the Greek project was in Neuilly and only the intervention of the American president saved us as an independent state. It was precisely because of his influence on the figures of the European Enlightenment and on the monarchs that Evgeny Bulgaris managed to get their support for his idea. A categorical proof of this is a letter from Catherine the Great to Joseph II:
“But if, with God’s help, I have the opportunity to liberate Europe from the enemy of the Christian race, Your Imperial Majesty would not refuse me assistance in restoring the old Greek monarchy on the ruins of the fallen barbarian rule, which now still reigns, provided that I take responsibility for keeping the thus restored monarchy independent of mine.
In short, the history of the Great Powers in Europe, as well as their foreign policy doctrines, have a negative attitude towards the Bulgarians. Why then should we be surprised at Berlin and Neuilly? They are a historical regularity. Since through the “Guarantee – France” in 1918 Paris handed over Dobrudja to Romania, and we have forgotten about it today, today we have a new version of this guarantee, but with respect to Northern Macedonia.
The greatest victory of the invisible Byzantium is that of the total manipulation of Bulgarian history. Evgeni Bulgaris exerted pressure at the St. Petersburg Academy, where the ideas that were to be imposed on the history of the Bulgarians were formed.
Here are some of them:
- Persistent neglect of the fact that only Bulgarians preserve historical memory, including accurate dates for the most important biblical events – Creation of the world, Biblical Flood, Tower of Babel, Confusion of languages.
- Historiographical killing of the connection between Thracians and Bulgarians, and defining Bulgarians as Bulgarian Slavs. This had to be done through the historically non-existent proto-Bulgarians of Turkic origin, who were nomads and ruled by khans.
- Complete erasure of the history of Justiniana Prima, also known as the Bulgarian Archbishopric, and later as the Ohrid Archbishopric. For this purpose, its history had to be and has been presented to this day as the history of the Bogomils, who were heretics.
- Destruction of the figures of St. Trivelius /father of Tervel and Moses/ – the savior of Justiniana Prima as a Bulgarian Archbishopric, of Cyril the Philosopher of Cappadocia – Patriarch of Justinian Prima and author of the Cyrillic alphabet, as well as of Asen the Great – ancestor of the Bulgarian kings in the Balkans.
- Destruction of the Old Bulgarian language, defining it as Church Slavonic.
Considering the academic edition of History of Bulgaria, as the most representative work of our academic historiography, it can certainly be said that the idea of the Greek project for erasing Bulgarian history is a sacred cause for our academic historiography. As proof of this, I will examine the attitude of our academic historians towards Krum.
According to academics, professors and associate professors, Krum aimed with his legislation to Slavize the state and accelerate the processes leading to the placement of the impoverished and landless peasants and the means of production under the protection and power of the rising large landowners.
According to the conclusions in the academic publication, the victorious wars in the northwest, the expansion to Sredets and the southwestern lands of the peninsula, the victory in 811 and the subsequent military actions in Thrace led to the enrichment of the ruler and his first assistants.
At the same time, according to the academic publication, the wars waged by Krum almost throughout his reign aggravated the situation of the peasantry – in one way or another, they lost their right to property over their land, were forced to obey the large landowners and cultivate their land as a population already attached to it.
Paid Bulgarian historians, i.e. academics, professors and associate professors, in order to erase the memory of the severed head of Nicephorus, direct us to the Varbish Pass, where there was never a battle. And they define Pliska as Krum’s capital, although there is no historical source that supports both claims.
According to our Renaissance historians and medieval authors, however, Krum created and ruled from Tarnovo. He united the Bulgarians from Pannonia and those in the Balkans. With his legislation, he created the best-organized social state in Europe to this day.
It is no coincidence that in Kekavmen’s Strategikon it is noted:
“In everything they stand up for the needy. And truly the rich are a god to the poor, because they benefit them. That is why the Bulgarians call the wealthy – rich, which means godlike”.
Here is the explanation for the origin of the common word “rich”,
Paisy defines Krum as “chosen, generous and prosperous in war, who made peace with Charlemagne”, and Nicephorus defeated near Slavomir – today Slomer. In copies of his history, Krum is “the 12th Tsar of Bulgaria, who was a great and witty hero. In the first six years of his reign, he was concerned only with the internal regulations of his kingdom. He helped the Pannonian Bulgarians to free themselves from the Franks and Avars, with whom they had constant battles”. Rakovski defines Krum as “a great and wise man”.
Our Renaissance historians point to Peter and Asen as representatives of the Krum dynasty, as heirs of Samuel’s son Gabriel, whom the Bulgarians exiled to Wallachia. And should we be surprised then that Peter and Belgun declared Bulgarian independence in the city of Krum – Tarnovo, not far from Slavomir.
And Belgun took the name Assen after the name of the first Bulgarian king Assen – the successor of Saint Trivelius. No, we should not be surprised. But we should be surprised at the ingenuity of our paid historians – academicians, professors and associate professors.
In order to liquidate the Krum dynasty historiographically, they united the two sons of Samoil – Gavril and Radomir, and created one – Gavril Radomir, who they accordingly killed.
I took the liberty of writing this on the day when we celebrate our independence, with one goal – it is time to continue the Bulgarian Revival, which began with the story of Paisius. Let the continuation begin as a continuation of the historical knowledge bequeathed to us by Rakovski.
Thus we will reach true independence, which was the ultimate goal of the Bulgarian Revival. I know that what I have written will offend our paid Bulgarian historians, who consciously or not, serve the Greek project of Evgeny Bulgaris. But who are they, after all, compared to Paisii and Rakovski?