[en] History

[conquestare legionare]

mirco , ewwwww dude just look at how its shaped :eek: :beek: :beek: !!!!! mirco thats disqusting :eek: :eek: :beek: :beek:

[Mircoslavux]

mirco , ewwwww dude just look at how its shaped :eek: :beek: :beek: !!!!! mirco thats disqusting :eek: :eek: :beek: :beek:

:hello:
why? It is part of history too, is not?

[conquestare legionare]

dude look at its shape it looks like a penis :eek: :eek: :eek: filthy cavemen :lol:

[Traveller]

Well, it is a penis! That's what phallus means! People weren't ashamed of their bodies and sexuallity in those times, you know... And the phallus was quite popular almost everywhere - a symbol of fertility, the "birth" of Earth, male sterngth etc.

Nice news, Mirco! Glad to see some life in the thread! :go:

[conquestare legionare]

for god sake dont say that !!!!!!!!!!!!! :eek: :eek: there might be children here , i wanna puke :puke: :puke: dude that dildo they found can be asscociated to many things , maybe a penis cult :eek: ´omg :puke: :puke: :puke: . the cavemen really had open sexullity ,

[Traveller]

Well, people in those times were still being born naked. And although they probably already used clothes, this was rather a normal thing. I guess they hadn't yet created all the dogmas and prejudices we have. And yes, it was a kind of a cult - for fertility, strength, creation etc.

Btw I've found some sites about one of our most recent archeological discoveries: another Thracian tomb. It's very interesting that the buried Thracian ruler was 1,90 m. tall, which is high even for our standarts. F.e. in the early Middle Ages the normal West European was around 1,65 m. They also discovered a golden laurel wreath, which means he might have been a winner in some of the Hellenistic games. The quality of the wreath is said to be extraordinary - only the Romans would achieve this level of gold-crafting, only after 3 centuries. Another interesting thing is that it has been found completely intact - even leather ornaments have survived! Here are some links:
Site 1 (http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/001404.html)
Site 2 (http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?catid=106&newsid=69441&ch=0)
Site 3 (http://www.wiccanweb.ca/topic-57.html)
Site 4 (on Bulgarian, but with two pictures) (http://news.bg/article.php?cid=51&pid=0&aid=161424)
Site 5 (much more pictures, from pic 27 to 34) (http://news.yahoo.com/photos/sm/events/sc/021903anthroarchaeo/p:25;_ylt=AuCNshPpohW6of1QXMrpXbVqWscF;_ylu=X3oDMT A5bGcyMWMzBHNlYwNzc25hdg--?sp=6000)

[Mircoslavux]

Gossip??? :scratch:
According www.20min.ch:
American Scientist Robert Sarmast "confirmed" the existence and finding of legendary ANTLANTIS in 1600 m under see between the isle Cyper and Syria.


interesting. but I do not believe in...

[Elvain]

for god sake dont say that !!!!!!!!!!!!! :eek: :eek: there might be children here , i wanna puke :puke: :puke: dude that dildo they found can be asscociated to many things , maybe a penis cult :eek: ´omg :puke: :puke: :puke: . the cavemen really had open sexullity ,
do you find anything negatively sexual on that picture? if it encourages you to have sex, t doesn't to me.

But there's also more important thing. Back in those times people were living in extraordinary hard conditions. Natality was the most important thing for the "tribes" or rather clans to survive so their cults were orientated rather to fertile women and men + ability to get food. So their main cult symbols were all around Europe so called "Venuses"-women symbol of fertility.
And I must say they were not primitive as many of you can think. They were not always naked semi-apes. They were not hunting mamooths into holes etc. They were small comunities of strong who have survived, on the way most of the time (but there were also strong clans that "settled" in strategical places like places where animals were crossing rivers, passes etc. where they had permanent "food supply". Such comunities much later invented agriculture (in the Middle east)
Though they were not "sexual" hunter societies as you can think. Sexual cults show us that they believed in something ABOVE them, "something" that protected them and gave them ability to be successfull in survival, "something "that was answering their questions. (This "something" later evolved into Gods and religions-what I suppose most of religious people will disagree with)

[Mircoslavux]

Sia,

Are here some people from Hungary?? Some Magayrs?
I need to know the names of Esterghom Archbishops in 13. and 14. century.

I tried to look for them on the net, but withou succes.

You can give me some interesting links, if you want.

Jo estet kivanok

[Mircoslavux]

Another question:
Did somebody from this nice forum check his own family three?

Untill when have you proceeded ?

Have you find something interesting there ?

How have you done it?


thanks

[Traveller]

Honestly, I haven't traced my family tree. I don't know where can I do that and most of all - how much will it cost me. I know only the "recent history" - to my great-grandfathers. One of them (by my mother's line) was born in 1913 (around a year after Titanic sunk) and died in 1998. From what I've spoken with him I remember mostly of the time when he was a soldier in WWII. Mainly when he fought the Germans in Hungary (that's after the Soviets occupied us, until then we had almost no fighting part in the war). My other great-grandfather (by my fathre's side) was from the Pirin Macedonia region. My grandmother (his daughter) says I've inherited his love of history. Afaik, he fought too in WWII. Again against the Germans, but in Yugoslavia. Maybe I'll have to do some background check on my own. In a TV show a month ago there was one woman that had traced more than 500 of her relatives, I think back to 2 or 3 centuries. So I might have some luck, too...

[Xuca]

I also don't know my family tree. I know my great grandfather was adopted by a rich man who couldn't have kids. During WWII he was neutral, being nice to both Chetniks and Partizans. But he left his fortune to his daughter in law, my grandfather's sister in law, who took care of him after her housband died. My other great grandfather wasn't interesting either, didn't participate in the war.

[Mircoslavux]

we have traced it together woth my far americal relatives till 17. century.

but there are many not researched branches.
And mostly our family name was changed during different periond so I mean the writing of the name accoridng spelling.
:cheers:

[Traveller]

I have the strange feeling that I've already translated this, but I didn't found it when I checked back in the thread, so I translated it anyway. It's something like a chronology of Bulgar actions in Europe until the creation of Danube Bulgaria:


354 AD – The Bulgar name is mentioned in an anonymous Latin chronograph, based on an older Greek original and preserved only in two copies. The events in one of the transcripts go back to 234 AD and in it the Bulgar name is missing. The copy, dated by Momzen, A. Kunik, V. Rozen to 334 AD, includes in the number of the Semitic people and their forefathers also the Bulgars. “Ziezi ex quo Vulgares” – Ziezi, from who are the Bulgars.
422 AD – In 409 AD the Huns conquered the Alans, the Bastarnae, and also the Germanic tribes of Gepids, Vandals, Goths, Langobards and others, and settle in Panonia. In the beginning of the Vth century the Bulgars defeat the Langobard king Agelmund and capture his daughter. The event happened in the northern slopes of the Carpathians and is recorded by Paul Deacon and Fredegarius. V. Beshevliev puts it in 422 AD and as a prime source points out the epos “Hervararsaga”. This synchronicity with the Hunnish invasion in Europe gives reasons for the conclusion that the Bulgars, which fought with Agelmund, are a part of the non-Hunnish tribes, carried away in the Hunnish invasion. It’s curious that during the “Hunnish period” the Bulgars no longer appear with their tribal name in the source material for Central, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. When, after the death of Attila, his sons tried to divide between themselves their allied people “as slaves”, the non-Hunnish tribes rebelled under the leadership of the former counselor of Attila – the Gepid king Ardarikh and in 454 AD inflicted a crushing defeat over the Huns near the river Nedao. From all the Germanic tribes, which dispersed in Central and Eastern Europe, the Bulgars had the closest relations with the Gepids. The fact that the Bulgars took part in the defeat of the Hunnish empire, did not withdraw with the Huns to the east and did not take part in the attempts of Dengizikh to restore the Hunnish state are some of the serious reasons to affirm that the Bulgars are not a Hunnish tribe. After the disintegration of the Hunnish state, the Gepids created their own from the river Tissa to Transylvania and to the south to the Danube River. In the next decades the Bulgars were frequent “guests” in Illyric. The Bulgarian chronicler has marked these events in a marginal note in the translation of the Manassius chronicle with the opinion that at that time the Bulgars started to conquer their own land. In confederative relations with the Gepids or as an independent state form, but in all the cases with their own ruler, they settled on the other side of the Danube south of the Gepids.
480 AD – The Byzantine emperor Zeno (474-491) appeals to the Bulgars for help against the Goths. The hostility between the Ost-Gothic chieftains Teodorikh the Amalean and Teodorikh, the son of Triarii, had ended in 479 AD. In the same year was dated the revolt of Markian. In an attempt to fulfill the request of emperor Zeno, the Bulgars are repulsed by Teodorikh, the son of Triarii. He died in 481 AD, which places this event in 480 AD. John of Antioch testifies about this. The northern border of the empire is open, which makes the emperor to appoint in 483 AD Teodorikh the Amalean as magister militum prezentalis in Lower Moesia with center the city of Nove.
488 AD – Teodorikh sets off to Italy via the Roman Danubian road. The Gepids, supported by Bulgar detachments, try to stop and divert the Ost-Goths in a clash near the river Ulka. The Bulgar chieftain Buzan dies (P. Deacon). The Bulgar presence on the Balkans is already nearly permanent.
493 AD – The same chronicler reports that while Teodorikh fought in Italy against Odoakar, the Bulgars overran Thrace.
498 AD – According to Anastasius Librarian, the Bulgars roamed between Illyric and Thrace “before they were found out”.
499 AD – A decisive Bulgar victory near the river Zurta over the commander-in-chief of the military forces of the empire in Illyric – Aristes. From the Byzantine side 15 000 soldiers and 520 carts take part in the battle. Over 4000 Byzantines find their death on the battlefield and also four commanders – Nikostrat, Inokentius, Tank, Akvilin (Komes Marcelin). The Vardar-Morava road is once and for all “unsealed” for barbaric raids in the empire, which could never again gain an efficient control over it. The preserved toponymic material confirms that this is the region of the first lasting Bulgar presence from this side of the Danube
502 AD – Komes Marcelin, Teophan, Kedrin, Zonara, Landolfus testify that the Bulgars had the habit to cross Thrace and Illyric unhindered.
504 AD – Teodorikh wars with the Gepid king Trazarikh for Sirmium. The Bulgar intervention nearly brought a downfall to the Gothic campaign.
513 AD – Hunnish federates and Bulgars take part in the revolt of Vitalian the Thracian for the defense of Orthodoxy.
519 AD – The Bulgars inflict another catastrophic defeat over the Byzantine forces in Illyric. The later enthroned Justinian I (527-565) searches for a decision of the “Illyric problem” by appointing as a strategus Mundo, who had separated himself from Teodorikh.
530 AD – Mundo succeeds in dispersing a group of Bulgars, which had invaded Thrace. He sends the captives for an arrangement of triumph in Constantinople. After the triumph they are enlisted in the Byzantine army in Armenia and Lazika.
535 AD – The Bulgars are again mentioned as participants in the battle near river Iatrus.
538 AD – Anastasius Librarian writes for another Bulgar incursion from this side of the Danube under the leadership of Bulger and Drong.
539 AD – Prokopius Kessarian relates the appearance of an omen-comet with a strong Bulgar invasion in the empire. The range is monstrous – from Constantinople to the Ionian gulf in the Adriatic. 32 fortresses are taken with an assault, without a siege. Over 120 000 captives are taken away.
546 AD – Byzantium uses often the Bulgar services in their wars with the Goths. In the above mentioned year even the command of the garrison in Perusia (Italy) was given to the Bulgar Odolgan.
548 AD – From the Byzantine side in the region of Kampania (Italy), the military actions against the Goths, with Bulgar help, are led by the strategus John. He loses the trust of the Bulgars and they join the side of the Gothic king Totila.
548 AD – Kozma Indikoplevs in his work “Christian topography” (book III) lists from east to west the Christianized tribes and nations. The Bulgars are also mentioned after the Irkans (Hirkans), Heruls, and before the Helladians, Illyrians, Dalmatians, Goths etc.
552 AD – The new commander-in-chief of the Byzantine forces in Italy – Narses, regains the trust of the Bulgars in the alliance with Byzantium and with their help inflicts near Galorum a crushing victory over the Gothic king Totila.
560 AD – Victor Tanunian reports for a Bulgar incursion in Thrace, which reaches all the way to the suburbs of Constantinople.
567 AD – The Avars, in an alliance with the Langobards, inflict a decisive defeat over Gepids and Bulgars in Panonia and there they establish the centre of their own country. The Panonian Bulgars become Avar subjects.
573 г. – Justinian II concludes a peace treaty with the Avar khagan. As a warrant for the peace he wants the children of the khagan, but the captain Tiberius, obviously well knowing the real internal configuration of the power in the khaganate, asked that the hostages should be from the children of “the Skythian commanders’ – undoubtedly children of Bulgar chieftains. The Bulgar presence was already so tangible that they started to exert influence on the gear, tactics and strategy for leading battles of the Byzantine army. In the “Strategikon” of Pseudomauricius from the end of the VIth century the horsemen from the Byzantine army were forbidden to wear Bulgar mantles.
In their campaigns on the Balkans the Bulgars act as subjects of the Avar khagan, but they obviously had a rather large autonomy and were nearly equal to the Avars as state-creating nation. The success of the commander-in-chief of the Byzantine army Prisk near Singidunum is reported as expelling the Bulgars from the city.
595 AD – The vanguard of the Byzantine army, commanded by Peter – the emperor’s brother, stumbles upon a squad of 1000 Bulgars, which were moving without precautionary measures due to the peace treaty between the empire and the Avar khagan. The Bulgars stated that they stick to the treaty and don’t want bloodshed. Despite of this Peter ordered his vanguard to attack the Bulgars with their spears and after that to finish them with their swords. The Bulgars formed up shoulder by shoulder in their usual battle formation and put the Byzantines to flight, after which they peacefully withdrew, keeping an eye on the enemy’s behavior. The Byzantine emperor was forced to present his apologies to the khagan for the violation of the peace treaty. The information is from Teophilact Simokata.
631/32 AD – A turning point in the fate of the khaganat is the unsuccessful campaign from 626 AD against Constantinople. Five years later the civil war among the ruling top in the khaganat distinguished two pretenders for the throne – an Avar and a Bulgar. The Avars got the upper hand and 9000 Bulgars sought refuge at the Frankish king Dagobert. Benevolent in the beginning, later the king ordered the new-comers to be killed. A small group, under the leadership of Alzek, broke free from the execution and fled to Pentapolis in the Ravena region (Fredegarius). Alzek was given the title “doux”. In 663 AD the Bulgars seek a peaceful refuge at the Langobard king Grimoald (662-671). The reasons for this act could’ve been “the failure of Konstans II to clean Italy from the Langobards” and the will for unification with the Bulgar ethnical element in Benevent, naturalized at the time of Alboin. The Alzek Bulgars were sent to Romuald – the king’s son. In Benevent the Bulgar’s chieftain received the title “gastaldius”. For the bilingualism of these Bulgars until the end of the VIIIth century testifies Paul Deacon.
From the written sources for the Bulgars, preserved in the Latin and Greek historiography, the following conclusions could be made. The unencumbered from prints and typical archaisms Latin historiography marks the Bulgar’s national name in the middle of the IVth century. From the beginning of the Vth century the Bulgars were an active participant in the ethno-cultural processes in Central Europe, the Apennines and the Balkans. This first Bulgar migration wave couldn’t have been small. It stretches from the Black Sea to the Upper Danube and from the Carpathians to Illyric and Benevent. More compact groups of Bulgars settle in the present day South Bavaria, Benevent, Pentapolis, Illyric and especially in South Panonia. Although during the age of the great migration of peoples Panonia became into some kind of a distribution centre for the immigrants from the east, in different parts of Europe, independently or in confederative relations with other tribes and nations (Gepids, Huns, Avars etc.) the Bulgars resisted and stayed there without losing their ethno-cultural appearance until the arrival of the second Bulgar emigrational wave. This wave is a result of the Khazar pressure over Kubrat’s Bulgaria. In the beginning of the 60s of the VIIth century two groups of Bulgars arrive to the north of the Danube, led by Kuber and Asparoukh. Via the roads of the first emigrational wave Kuber set off to Panonia, accepted the supremacy of the Avar khagan and settled in the Srem region. He ruled a “mixed people”, in which, except the Bulgar core from the two emigrational waves, also descendants of mixed marriages between captives and refugees from the numerous barbaric raids in Illyric have been added. From the “Miracles of St. Dimitar of Solun” we learn that these captives were longing for their “father’s lands”.
674/75 AD – Kuber leads his people to the south to Macedonia. He inflicts six defeats over the Avar khagan, who pursued him, and settles in the Keramissian field. At that time Byzantium hardly holds the Arabs to the east and treats benevolently the request of the Kuber Bulgars for a peaceful settling. In the next years Kuber tries to take Solun and to create his own country. A central role in this undertaking plays Kuber’s most trusted man – Mavar, an intelligent, diplomatic man, knowing equally well Bulgarian, Slavic, Latin and Greek. The attempt is unsuccessful.
The penetration of Asparoukh’s Bulgars from the north-east, their crossing to the south of the Danube and the establishment of Danube Bulgaria was presented many times and in detail in our historiography. After the deciphering of the inscriptions from the Madara Horseman the historians are almost unanimous that there was a co-ordination in the actions between Asparoukh and Kuber in the seizure of the lands to the south of the Danube and in their attempts to move here the centre of the Bulgarian state life.



It "continues" with different things about the period before the arrival in Europe (the one in the Caucasus) and some other things. I'll see if I could translate the more interesting parts some time later...

[Traveller]

I give up in translating the other part! But I've scanned some maps of Bulgaria through different time periods and I'll upload them. I hope you'd be interested!

Bulgaria at the time of Khan Asparuh (681-700) (http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap1asparuhen3py.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Khan Omurtag (814-831) (http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap2omurtagen9kb.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Simeon the Great (893-927) (http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap3simeonen3jo.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Samuil (997-1014) (http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap4samuilen6nd.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Assen I (1187-1196) (http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap5assenen9fs.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Kaloian (1197-1207) (http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap6kaloianen8zl.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Ivan Assen II (1218-1241) (http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap7ivanasseniien2wq.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Todor Svetoslav (1300-1321) (http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap8todorsvetoslaven2a.jpg)
Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Ivan Aleksandar (1331-1371) (http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap9ivanaleksandaren2o.jpg)
Bulgaria according to the San Stefano and Berlin Treaties (1878) (http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap10sanstefanoberlint.jpg)
Present-day Bulgaria (http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bulgariamap11presentdayen8ch.jpg)

P.S. Sorry, that the maps are on Cyrillic, but it takes too much time to "translate" all those inscriptions to Latin!

[Traveller]

I've stumbled upon an interesting, but rather confusing "racial classification" of the Bulgarians here (http://p083.ezboard.com/fbalkansfrm57.showMessage?topicID=204.topic). I'll copy the final conclusions:

Racial Classification partly based on Coons book.

Bulgaria = 60% East Mediterranean ( mainly hellenistic Thracians ), 15% Alpine ( UP, Celtic impact? ) , 15% Dinaric , 5% Turanid ( NW Bulgaria, remains of semioriental Turkic Bulgars ), 5% Nordish ( Germanic invasion impact ) = 60% Med. / 15% Dinarik / 15% UP / 5% T / 5% N

Note 1: I believe that Coon's classification for Bulgaria would be something like the numbers bellow;
- East Mediterranean 60% (Thracians)
- Neodanubian 20% (Slavs)
- Dinaric 10% (Illyrians)
- Nordic 5% (Scandinavians)
- Turanid 5% (Turkic Bulgars)

Note 2: Considering there is a Alpine presence in Bulgaria and that some antropologists group them in the same category (both brahicephals of similar stature and similar facial configuration) I would say that Slavic Neodanubians cannt be more then 10% if even that much.

I'll have to check some more about that, because it simply goes out of any official history limits. Basically, what this site (note that this isn't a Bulgarian site) is saying is that we're 60% Thracians, which overthrows any other historical theory about out background that we've accepted. Ok, I would agree that the Slavic part in us isn't very big. But Thracians? Hey, if they could prove it - I won't have anything against! This'll make us the oldest European civilization and one of the oldest in the world, who would reject that?! :wink: But I can't fully trust it... Ah, if Finellach was here, maybe he could've shed some light...

[Traveller]

Ok, I've translated one part of the book "History of the Bulgarian nation" by Petar Mutafchiev (one of the most renowned Byzantinists) and his daughter Vera Mutafchieva (Ottomanist). This particular part is written by V. Mutafchieva and is about the preconditions of the Ottoman expansion on the Balkans and the declines and rises of the European East and West, respectively:

The Dawn of the Ottoman Expansion


In our country the interdependence between Byzantium and Bulgaria in the Middle Ages is often underestimated. There is a traditional concept that we have established ourselves in an opposition with this mighty neighbour. If we accept categorically that this is true, then the worse for us; we have missed our chance already in the Middle Ages. But it’s good that it’s only partially true: while we were tenaciously waging war against Byzantium in order to preserve our government, we were also an inseparable component in the Byzantine cultural sphere. Therefore, the decline of Byzantium, which started in 1204 with the capturing of Constantinople from the Fourth Crusaders and continued till the middle of the XV century, seemed beneficial for our country in the beginning, but in the end brought its destruction.
It’s far from any argues that Bulgaria’s existence was a shield for Byzantium and its Northern borders. This shield parried the mobile barbarity, which travelled for long centuries via the Path of the peoples. As a result of the victory of Basil II “The Bulgar-slayer” over Samuil, the lands of the Peninsula became spoils for the invasions of Pechenegs, Uzis, Kumans, and also of Normans, of Crusaders; Byzantium was forced to fight against all of them due to the lack of a Bulgarian state with a Bulgarian army, which would defend the right Danube coast from the non-stopping barbaric waves.
In the mentioned traditional concept, about whom we protected and to whom we ensured prosperity, the opposite element is lacking: who protected us from the South. Because to the European South-East, closely connected with the Levant and Asia Minor, even with the Eastern Mediterranean, dangers were coming not only through the Path of the peoples, but also – again with a dispatch area Asia – from Southern direction. With one word, when we point out our tragic fate, which put us in the end of the XIV century to half a millennium of Muslim rule, let us remember that such a fate could’ve met us much earlier if it wasn’t for Byzantium. Her capital – the most populous and richest city on the continent even until the XVIII century, has attracted since a long time the hungry for plunder barbarians, as well as the non-barbarians. Thus, while Avars and Bulgars were pushing towards Constantinople from the North, a main danger for Byzantium were the Arabs, which had embarked in a victorious expansion, conquered Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria. Emphasizing on the historical ill fortunes, we should also mention some beneficial circumstances, which came quite by surprise: entwined in a battle of life and death against the Arab aggression, Byzantium was forced to allow the creation of our state over its naturally defended realms – from this side of the Danube. Which means that we owe our gratitude to the Arabs, as well as to Byzantium, whose successful resistance against them gave an opposite direction of their invasion; after the unsuccessful sieges of Constantinople the Muslims headed towards North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Otherwise, if they had conquered the key to Europe, Constantinople, then the South-East would’ve fallen in their power not in the XIV, but in the VII century.
Once again the Muslim expansion from Southern direction could not damage the Balkan Peninsula, being stopped by Byzantium: the Seljuk one, during the XI century. After their great defeat at Manzikert (1071) the Byzantines dedicated decades to limit the Seljuk expansion in Asia Minor. By the way, if the Muslims had taken the coast of Asia Minor, and why not also Constantinople, the Balkan lands would’ve become accessible to them. But this, which the faithful followers of Mohammad could not achieve in their “holy” wars, was achieved by the Crusaders, our co-religionists; they crushed Byzantium to three weak and small kingdoms. In its reborn form she was a pale memory of her previous might. The long-lasting internal wars from the XIV century contributed further to this. Thus the Southern approach of the Balkans became open. And although the invasion of the Tartars (Ed. note: Balkan and Russian name of the Mongols – coming from the Greek “tartarus” – hell, thus “Tartars” = “people from Hell”) was stopped by us through military or political actions, the real danger for the South-East was at hand: a durable settling of Turkic-Muslims in Anatolia and Front Asia.
In order to make clear the combination of preconditions, which brought and helped for the Ottoman conquests, we should first examine the proportion of the powers in one large area – from West Asia to the Iberian Peninsula – even before the Ottoman’s expansion. Characteristic for this proportion is its “mobility”, which predicts the great changes, which happened in Europe in the next centuries and brought the Renaissance, the Humanism, the Reformation.
If we start from West to east, then we’ll notice that around the end of the XIII century the Spanish Reconquista – the repulsion of the Arabs out of Spain - is nearly over and the unification of the Spaniards is coming. Only in around a century later Columbus would reach America and put the beginning of the Age of Colonialism, which set the patterns for the rapid economical and spiritual development of Western Europe.
England, France and Germany, main powers in the realization of the Crusades, from XI till the XIII centuries were in an unstable position, typical for the blossoming of the feudalism: contradictions and conflicts between the different formations, which led to frequent local wars. With one new element: growth and stabilization of the cities and the urban production. This element found good soil at first in Italy, which also derived the greatest benefit from the Mediterranean trade as a result of the Crusader’s presence in the Levant. The positions of the Venetian Republic in the Fourth Crusade gave to this Adriatic city-state a special authority, increasing its political and economical value for the Eastern Mediterranean, where another Italian centre of sea trade, Genoa, was trying to compete.
The groundless feudal fiction, proudly called Kingdom of Jerusalem, established in 1099 in the Holy Lands, didn’t kept them for long due to the pressure of the Seljuks, but until its destruction during the XIII century it managed to ensure the profitable for Western Europe trade bridge between its Mediterranean ports and the Levant. Markedly flexible with its republican structure, Venice was on the way to create an original sea empire, taking regions from Dalmatia, Peloponnesus, almost all of the Ionian and Aegean islands, including Evbea, Crete and Cyprus, also 1/3 of Constantinople under Latin power. After the restoration of Byzantium in 1261 Venice, and later also Genoa, received considerable concessions in the capital, which turned them into co-rulers of this city. Separate Latin aristocrats kept their lands in South and Central Greece until the XV century.
As we see, in the XIII century the European states headed towards the Eastern Mediterranean with its respective areas, famous with their traditional agriculture, stock and cattle breeding, with intensive trade. Already the early awakening of the urban life in Europe, accompanied with worldly knowledge, testified for the active pursuits of the rulers of these places to acquire – through military expeditions or through profitable treaties – the economical potential of the Balkans and the Levant. The military decline, and later the internal conflicts in Byzantium only encouraged their appetite.
The Bulgarians, which during the rule of the Assen dynasty successfully coped with the Crusade pest, whether in victorious wars or manoeuvring between the disintegrated Byzantine and Latin formations, after the end of this dynasty also became a victim of feudal separatism. The not-long rise of Serbia in the XIV century soon passed to a similar state – she became also in a field for actions of centrifugal forces. And if, after the withdrawal of the Tartars in the end of the XIII century, a foreign power did not intervened in order to take control of whole South-East, this is in a large scale due to the fact that there was no such power nearby. The closest one – Magyarsko (Ed. note: Hungary) – was whirled in lasting internal conflicts, which hindered it to fulfil its old intentions for South-Eastern expansion.
In the meantime our continent entered a century, which started to prepare him for the New Time – the fourteenth one, on Italian Trechento (because the Italians count the centuries according to the second number, not according to the first two). During the century in question the two halves of Europe would finally pass each other in the means of value and way of life. Its eastern part, leading in the European development since the disintegration of the Roman Empire until the beginning of the XIII century would sharply step back, giving a way to the West, which had catch up on her and would only now leave her behind. During the Trechento events would happen, in which the South-East would act more as a territory of routs and defeats. The Orthodox Balkan culture, marking its last great achievements, would be forced to carry them elsewhere, to engraft them in a foreign soil. Ahead was the fateful change in the proportion East-West, in which the latter had to thank to the late barbaric – Mongol and Turkic – invasions in the European lands. The geographic facts were often decisive for the fate of the pre-industrial societies.
Let us mention here the factor geography, which determined in a large scale the historical backwardness of the South-East. It’s like if we avoid accepting the unconditional fact that this part of our continent serves as the door to Asia – not only the largest, but also the mightiest in any kind of potential continent. Because all of its southern territory – from China through Indonesia, India, Iran etc. – was not frozen during an ice age, there existed an unviolated demographical continuity, there humanity multiplied without cataclysms. That’s why in separate Asian areas, more favourable in climate and vegetation, in water resources, from time to time things reached overpopulation, and from its side it caused mass migrations. In western direction, of course, because South-East Asia was always too densely populated.
Whether they travelled to the west via the Northern Road through the Russian Steppes and near the left Danube coast, or via the Southern Road – from Middle Asia through Northern Iran and Mesopotamia to Asia Minor, the result was similar: the emigrants reached the narrow place between Asia and Europe. And woe to these nations, which have created here centuries ago their countries. Because the invaders, which have crossed unfriendly realms, were finally on a cultivated and fertile soil; they came down on this land with purely barbaric greed with the clear ambition to take and settle it.
Everyone, who has paid attention to the past of Asia Minor and the Balkans, would notice that here, war was a yearly constraint for the local people. It’s not about for these, the feudal conflicts between the White and the Red rose, between the Anjou and Luxemburg dynasties et cetera collisions of hired troops from a couple of hundred of men, but for campaigns, in which the whole male population took part. The call-up in the case wasn’t the king’s orders, but it was dictated by the necessity to save kids and stocks from another wild invasion.
Of course, we can’t fully say this for every period of the history of Asia Minor and the Balkans – in the times of feudal fragmentariness, the feudal lords here have also rushed to numerous local wars with the help of mercenaries, but this counts mainly for the years of new barbaric aggression. This scourge did not allow the Balkans to develop a monumental religious and public building as in the West, where the construction of a cathedral or a rathaus easily took two-three, even five centuries. But – on peace! The magnificent constructions were unthinkable at our place, because every other year, or maximum decades, the barbarism erased whatever it could find. Impossible was also the accumulation of great funds when the crops were often burned, the stock and cattle – stolen, and girls and boys sold into slavery.
In the just reproaches to history, which put us to five centuries of Muslim rule, which provoked the underdevelopment of the South-East from the common European process, let us not forget that even before the Ottomans we were not in step with this process, that the last barbarians on the European soil were preceded by many and many barbaric waves. That in the face of the fatal danger the South-East lied helpless, almost defenceless. For the happiness not only to the Ottoman invaders, but also to the Western Christianity, which saw in the face of Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia eventual competitors for its economical expansion this way.

[Traveller]

And here's an interesting (and funny) map of Europe by Sebastian Munster, 1526 AD (http://photobucket.com/albums/b4/NikeBG/?action=view&current=Pic50.jpg)...

[Mircoslavux]

nice map, :hello:


do you know something about "Amber Trade Road" (jantarova cesta), ..exist some map about it (exactle from where to where lead it, through which cities?)...

nice day
:go:

[Traveller]

Amber trade road? Never heard of it (only the "silk road", but that's much different). Do you have more information?

Btw I've scanned this map from one history book. I have some nearly 100 other scanned pics + one whole book (not very big, ~70 pages; the maps of Bulgaria above are from there) and I'll post some here later...