The Slavic peoples are a linguistic and ethnic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in Europe. Since emerging from their original homeland (most commonly thought to be in Eastern Europe) in the early 6th century, they have inhabited most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Many have later settled in Northern Asia or emigrated to other parts of the world.
Slavic settlers mixed with existing local populations and later invaders, thus modern Slavic peoples share few genetic traits. Yet they are connected by speaking often closely related Slavic languages, and also by a sense of common identity and history, which is present to different extents among different individuals and different Slavic peoples.
Slavic peoples are traditionally divided along linguistic lines into West Slavic (including Czechs, Poles and Slovaks), East Slavic (including Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians), and South Slavic (including Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenians). For a more comprehensive list, see Ethno-cultural subdivisions.
Continue reading Who are the Slavic peoples
Khan Malamir was the youngest son of Omurtag and ruled between 831 and 836. He maintained the peace with Byzantine and continued the persecution of Christians. Khan Presiyan succeeded his uncle Malamir to the throne, his right-hand man was the old Kav-Khan Isbul who had been the indispensable aide of his grandfather Omurtag. Perssian put an end to the peace with the Roman empire. The Slavic tribes within the empire were rebelling and their chiefs were looking north to Bulgaria where they could find protection together with other Slavs. Now that tells you how successful the policy of the Bulgar ruling elite was and how good relations were between the Slavs and Bulgars, even Slavs outside Bulgaria rebelled just to get to join Bulgaria!
As soon an he ascended the throne in 837, Presiyan sent his army under the command of Kav-Khan Isbul to the Aegean coast of Macedonia. There, they aided the Smolyans, whose revolt had shaken Byzantine rule in the Western Rhodopes and Aegean Thrace. When the emperor sent an army against the rebels, his forces were met by the Kav-Khan-led Bulgarian army. Inscriptions on stone plates tell of fierce battles at Philippi and Siar, the elation of the victories reflected in the engraved words: “Presiyan, through the will of God ruler of many Bulgarians…
Continue reading Khan Presiyan the successor of Khan Malamir
The Roman figurine confirms the hypothesis that this was the ancient singer’s sanctuary i have talked you about in my previous post ( Tatul - the possible tomb of Orpheus ). A unique Roman bronze statuette of Orpheus was discovered during archaeological excavations near the village of Tatul, Momchilgrad region. The figurine dates back to the end of 1-2 century AD. “We are talking about a wonderful figurine of a man with a specific hairdo and excellent proportions of the body. His left hand rests on a lyre and he holds a plectrum in his right hand,” explained for Standart daily Prof. Nikolay Ovcharov from the Museum of Archaeology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) who heads the team of experts working near Tatul.
Continue reading Bronze Statuette of Orpheus Discovered in Bulgaria
A bulgarian expedition of archaeologists, lead by
Nikolai Ovcharov, is studying a unique tomb that belongs to the ancient people of
Thrace (what is today Greece and southern Bulgaria). But could the tomb belong to the well known musician
Orpheus.
Continue reading Tatul - the possible tomb of Orpheus
According to the best-known tradition, Orpheus was the son of Oeagrus, king of Thrace, which in pre-historic period seems to describe a wider region from Olymbos to the Hellespontos Straits, as the Orphic texts (Argonautica) point out that Orpheus was born in Mount Elikon at Livithra (Piplan, Pieria), and that his mother was Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry. In other traditions, Calliope and Apollo were his parents. Orpheus learned music from Linus, or from Apollo, who gave him his own lyre (made by Hermes out of a turtle shell) as a gift.
Despite Orpheus’s Thracian origin, he joined the expedition of the Argonauts. Centaur Chiron had warned Argonaut leader Jason that only with the aid of Orpheus would they be able to navigate past the Sirens unscathed. The Sirens lived on three small, rocky islands called Sirenum scopuli and played irresistibly beautiful songs that enticed sailors and their ships to the islands’ craggy shoals. Once shipwrecked on the rocks, the sailors became supper for the Sirens. However, when Orpheus heard the Sirens, he drew his lyre and played music more beautifully than that of the Sirens, thus drowning out their alluring but deadly song.
Continue reading Orpheus life according to legends
In Greek legend, Orpheus was the chief representative of the arts of song and the lyre, and of great importance in the religious history of Greece. The mythical figure of Orpheus was borrowed by the Greeks from their Thracian neighbors; the Thracian “Orphic Mysteries”, rituals of unknown content, were named after him.
The name Orpheus itself belongs to the oldest level of Greek names: those ending in -eus (for example, Atreus). Such names are pre-Homeric, thus Orpheus does not occur in Homer or Hesiod, but he was known in the time of Ibycus (c. 530 BC). Pindar (522—442 BC) speaks of him as “the father of songs”.
From the 6th century BC onwards, Orpheus was considered one of the chief poets and musicians of antiquity, and the inventor or perfector of the lyre. By dint of his music and singing, he could charm the wild beasts, coax the trees and rocks into dance, even arrest the course of rivers. As one of the pioneers of civilization, he is said to have taught mankind the arts of medicine, writing and agriculture. Closely connected with religious life, Orpheus was an augur and seer; practiced magical arts, especially astrology; founded or rendered accessible many important cults, such as those of Apollo and the Thracian god Dionysus; instituted mystic rites both public and private; and prescribed initiatory and purificatory rituals.
Continue reading Orpheus The Poet of Rhodope Mountains
