The Bulgarians. From pagan times to the Ottoman conquest
David Marshall Lang
The Bulgarians. From pagan times to the Ottoman conquest
David Marshall Lang
Thames and Hudson, London 1976
Ancient Peoples and Places, General Editor Professor Glyn Daniel
For David, Andrew, Caroline and Elizabeth
The Bulgarians are the inheritors of a rich and varied cultural tradition, deriving as they do from a fusion of ancient Balkan peoples, notably the Thracians, with later immigrants including Roman colonists, Slav farmers and proto-Bulgar nomads, not to mention Greeks and Ottoman Turks. Professor Lang concentrates on the formative period in Bulgarian history between the seventh and fourteenth centuries AD. This began when the Turkic Bulgar horde under Khan Asparukh settled south of the river Danube. Thereafter, in association with the more numerous Slavs, the Bulgars rapidly became one of the most powerful nations in Europe, able to set up and topple Byzantine emperors.
In the ninth century, the Bulgarians adopted Orthodox Christianity, as numerous extant ancient Slavonic inscriptions and manuscripts from Bulgaria and Macedonia, then united with the Bulgar realm, testify; Professor Lang traces the politically stormy but culturally fruitful relations of Bulgaria with Byzantium. Though the Greek emperors were never reconciled to Bulgaria’s independent existence, her Christian literature, art and architecture none the less form an integral element in the civilization of the ‘Byzantine Commonwealth’.
After discussing the social and philosophical implications of the Bulgarian Bogomil heresy, which had a decisive influence on the Albigensians and Cathars of Western Europe, Professor Lang devotes his last two chapters to the Bulgarians’ cultural and artistic achievements, the quality and variety of which are brought out by a series of striking photographs, many never before reproduced in any Western publication. He ends his survey with the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Bulgaria in 1393-96.
With 62 photographs, 36 line drawings and 5 maps.
£8.50 net in UK only
THE BULGARIANS
FROM PAGAN TIMES TO THE OTTOMAN CONQUEST
David Marshall Lang
62 PHOTOGRAPHS 36 LINE DRAWINGS 2 TABLES 5 MAPS
THAMES AND HUDSON
THIS IS VOLUME EIGHTY-FOUR IN THE SERIES
Ancient Peoples and Places
GENERAL EDITOR: PROFESSOR GLYN DANIEL
Any copy of this hook issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.
First published 1976
© Thames and Hudson Ltd 1976
Filmset by Keyspools Limited, Golborne, Lancashire, and printed in Great Britain by Camelot Press, Southampton.
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 6
FOREWORD 8
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 10
I. THE ENVIRONMENT: LAND AND PEOPLE 14
II. BULGARIAN ORIGINS: EARLY SETTLERS AND INVADERS 21
III. FROM KHANATE TO IMPERIUM: THE FIRST BULGARIAN EMPIRE 42
IV. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE 71
V. SOCIAL PROTEST: THE BOGOMIL HERESY 93
VI. LITERATURE AND LEARNING 102
VII. ARCHITECTURE AND THE ARTS 120
BIBLIOGRAPHY 147
SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS 160
THE PLATES 161
NOTES ON THE PLATES 193
INDEX