Basil 2: Blinding Bulgaroo

>George Maniakes
was based

>Basil II
>listening to the whinings of eastern aristocrats

>b*lgarians capable of anything besides sucking turkish cock for 700 years.

>The strategic and political situation in the Middle East did not change at all for five hundred years!

Should have been the next emperor desu.

>Did they even stand a chance against him?
No because Bulgaria didnt exist back then

>in present days Bulgaria is a small weak country
>that means it was the same one thousand years ago
I like the Veeky Forums intellectuals.

It took Basil II more than 20 years of pretty much non-stop campaigns to conquer Bulgaria. And that was with the Rus' and the previous emperor already weakening it.

TRI

Interesting how Samuil's Bulgaria occupies roughly the same area as Dusan's Serbia three hundred years later. Did anyone ever look at that from a geographic determinism perspective?

PIZDETA

What are you implying?

That states in that location have geographically determined expansion vectors? Hence >geographic determinism

that's because Bulgaria was in that position as well, Bulgaria was raided by the Rus' from the north and then by the Byzantines from the south, and the Tsar was taken prisoner

Samuel pretty much brought Bulgaria back to life and reconquered most lost territories before Basil II went at him

It's just the western half of Bulgaria.
Samuil's center of power was in the Ohrid region so it's logical his campaigns would aim for Thessaly and Epirus and not towards Constantinople or Hungary. It's expected that the same would happen with Stefan Dusan.

I suppose you are not familiar with the history of the Bulgarian state during the medieval age, and I mean nothing offensive by that. It's just that the borders you see in OP's pic is what Samuil supposedly had right before 1000 AD. In 970-971 John I Tzimiskes conquered what is nowadays Eastern Bulgaria, leaving the western part (what you see in OP's pic but without the lands of current Northern Bulgaria) free. Hence why the heart of Samuil's state and later the theme Bulgaria is the same as Dusan's state.

that's a pretty Macedonian state you have there, mate

Somebody please post the WE WUZ image of the first B*ulgarian "Empire" in which they own todays Serbia, Hungary,Romania, Greece,Macedonia,Moldova and east Ukraine even though the bulgarian population of that time was probably less than 500.000 people.

>real history is now "we wuz"
which butthurt non country neighboring Bulgaria are you?

>the bulgarian population of that time was probably less than 500.000 people

Prove to me they were more than 500.000 turkic horsefuckers.

Literally every country except Moldova is better than Bulgaria.

>people ITT treating byzantines and bulgarians as different people
At the time it happened, this was practically a civil war. Stop thinking in terms of nationalism, you underaged pseuds.

In the late 10th century the Bulgarian state had been part of the christian world for a century and a half. You people disgust me with your non-existent knowledge, your hereditary nationalism and your strong desire to argue about things you know nothing about. This board is a mistake.

>Prove to me they were more than 500.000 turkic horsefuckers.
Let me just take that x year (you didn't specify the period) official nationality census they did.

there was a difference - bulgarians used slavic while byzantines used greek as state language

>150 years of christianity
>somehow it washed away the turkic blood and the horsefucking.

ALSO, it shows that conquering a place isn't as easy as just beating them in a battle
>tfw later emperor's reversed Basil's taxes making them revolt
>tfw Basil II is a different dynasty to Basil I because LITERAL cuckoldry

>This board is a mistake.
Meh, it's certainly better than /int/. The number of nationalistic brainwashed autists is lower. But yeah, the lack of flags allows them to spread they retardedness as if it's not obvious when they're asshurt neightbors of whatever country is discussed.

And when king Simeon of Bulgaria was waging wars with the ERE, he kept getting letters from the emperor that this is a christian on christian war, brother against brother, our people live, and trade, and worship together, etc etc.
He clearly thought of them as one people and was mad that his brother, as he called him, was setting the christian world on fire for greed.

Bulgarians did use greek as the language of politics and administration, except under king Simeon, who specifically waged war against all things greek.

It was pretty clear that I was talking about the years if the first bulgarshit empire and how hard it was for a bunch of horsefuckers to manage a kingdom that is 33 % of todays Europe.And yet you retards keep shilling for your failed empire and nation.

>ALSO, it shows that conquering a place isn't as easy as just beating them in a battle
That happens sometimes, but especially in the middle ages people assume it's always like that. The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans also took like a century but people imagine it as if the Turks waltzed in and conquered everything in a week.

Stop making fun of mu children,wh*toids
t.KARA BOGA

t. commie
just because there were lots of workers on both sides doesn't mean they were a homogenous people
The bulgarians were descendants of the bulgars, a turkic people, the bulgarian empire included vlachs, croats and other slavs
the byzantine empire had a variety of greeks, armenians and georgians
Sure there would be small amounts of bulgars and greeks in each other empires, but this would be on the loose borders or a few nobles who sought refuge in each other courts

I depends on the battle and the overall state of the two sides, I suppose. Let's take for example the case with Nikephoros I, when he lost his army and his life in 811, which allowed the Bulgarian ruler Krum to do as he pleases in all of Thrace, even start organizing a siege of Constantinople. Although this is not the same as conquering half a peninsula in 20 years, still.

>a kingdom that is 33 % of todays Europe
I see numbers are not your strong thing.

1. We only know of early bulgarians based on what the romans wrote. They only acknowledged that the northern part of their empire isn't under their control when it became impossible to deny it, but that probably happened much earlier.
2. When the bulgarians entered the Balkans, the locals rallied under them. Considering how unruly they had been before, and how they greeted the huns or germanic invasions, we can assume that the bulgarians were known and liked from an earlier time.
3. Immediately upon settling the bulgarians started producing stone structures, pottery and metalworks that were different to what the locals produced. This means they had been producing similar symbols of settled life from an earlier time, and thus likely weren't a nomadic horde, rather a nation chased out by a nomadic horde (the khazars are often cited).
4. When Isperih, who led the bulgarians, was fighting the ERE for his claim of land, he is reported to have used a golden roman eagle, meaning he had fought, and decisively defeated, a roman army before. This is despite the claims from the ERE that the bulgarians were invaders that only just now got to the area.
5. Bulgarian rulers were hereditary, where hordes often vote on who is their leader. All the tribal leaders (khans in popular culture) gather to elect a great khan among themselves to lead them. Often they will elect the son of the last khan, because it was believed that virtue passes from father to son with the blood like other observable traits (eye color, height, etc), but the voting always happened regardless. Famously Europe was spared by the mongols because their khans kept dying from alcoholism, and the whole army had to march back home to elect a new one.

This is off the top of my head, and I am no specialist.

Or when it is a quick annexation it's because most of the elites died in a big battle

I prefer not to refer to the Bulgarian state as a Bulgarian empire, as it makes no sense in the context of Early Medieval Europe. Also, there were no Vlachs in the Early Medieval Age. However, I don't understand what you want to say with your post.

>I prefer not to refer to the Bulgarian state as a Bulgarian empire
The fuck is this shit? They called themselves that and the Byzantines and the Pope called them that.

We know that Bulgaria had a system with a king who rules the capital and the capital district, and boyars who rule their own cities and districts. They all ruled domestically in their area, and the king ruled all foreign politics.
Basically a generic feudal system.

Would you say that a feudal kingdom can be an empire? I wouldn't. Not for the english, or the french, or the petty german kingdoms.
An empire and an emperor means things more than size. Bulgaria was like a federation of city states, that had the biggest of them decide all foreign policy, while they all ruled each other domestically. This isn't empire. Its not centralized enough.

the slavs were assimilated into the bulgarian ethnos, the bulgarian identity lived on long after the bulgarian empire, brainlet

They called themselves 'tsars', and that's about the size of it. Do you honestly think the pope and the emperor of the byzantine empire would recognize another ruler as the third emperor in Europe?

Insisting that "emperor" means whoever rules the christian state and thus the new roman empire, and that "empire" means exactly that christian state and a new roman empire, is silly.
The word has other meaning today, and has had another meaning for the longest time. You are being autistic.

>We know that Bulgaria had a system with a king who rules the capital and the capital district, and boyars who rule their own cities and districts. They all ruled domestically in their area, and the king ruled all foreign politics.
>Basically a generic feudal system.

Most local historians and archaeologists agree there was no such thing as feudalism in this part of Europe, or at least not the one you see in Western Europe at the time. The Byzantine empire was never a feudal state. Feudalism is a sum of particular relationships between people.

Simeon was recognized as Caesar by the Byzantines with the justification that he was the spiritual son of the Caesar of Constantinople

I clearly refer to the king-lord relation, and not the lord-peasant relation.
Bulgaria was not centralized. You don't talk about the tsar's army, you talk about what soldiers the tsar's boyars brought for the campaign.
They all ruled their little area from their fortress in their district city. They often rebelled. They sometimes fought each other. The tsar was first among equals, he ruled his little area from his castle in his city, and had the special privilege of deciding on foreign policy. He wasn't an absolute ruler like an emperor would be.

In that case Boris I Mihail would have been an emperor, not a knyaz.

All christian rulers (in the east) are spiritual sons of the Byzantine emperor.

autism/10

Better bring back the retarded Maceodnian/Greek and his butthurt than this.

>Simeon was recognized as Caesar by the Byzantines

Yeah, for like 2 weeks, while his army was storming the walls. As soon as he had to go north with the soldiers, this was revoked.

>In that case Boris I Mihail would have been an emperor, not a knyaz.

No, in that case there was no emperor at the time.
For there to be an emperor, there has to be a christian state. There was no christian state, christians weren't united.
At the time there was a muslim state, and a muslim emperor - the caliph. Thats an empire and an emperor.
The last time there was a christian empire and a christian emperor would be the height of the roman empire, or Stalin's Warsaw Pact if you count only orthadox as true christianity.

Where did you get this from? I'm certain there aren't enough sources for the first Bulgarian state to reconstruct the state of affairs in the country and the general organization. Also, there are no castles in Bulgaria, they are an element of a foreign system.

yeah well, too late, kek

but whatever it's just a fancy title, for example Hungary became the dominant power of the region for a while and they were still just titled Kings, it was a catholic thing, the pope was just giving out crowns to powerful tribal leaders, while constantinople would autisticly want to force everyone to submit to them

also, it's interesting to note that greeks call all their monarchs "basileus", there is not king/emperor distinction

>The last time there was a christian empire and a christian emperor would be [...] Stalin's Warsaw Pact

Having many kings is acceptable, having many emperors is not. By definition there is one emperor at most in any given moment.

>Stalin's Warsaw Pact

if slavs had assimilated, then why did they convert to Christianity to unite his empire

>orthadox chrisitians united under a single state (in practice)
>he was the leader

Literally emperor of the christians.

they assimilated after conversion im guessing

what are you even trying to say my man, what is your damn point?

Not him, but
>I'm certain there aren't enough sources for the first Bulgarian state to reconstruct the state of affairs in the country and the general organization.
This is true.
>Also, there are no castles in Bulgaria, they are an element of a foreign system.
They weren't the same as the stereotypical Norman-style castle, but there were fortifications and walls and towers and all that beautiful stuff where the aristocracy lived.
Everything was left to crumble and was used for other building projects during the Ottoman period because castles were not useful anymore.

>muslim emperors
>titles that have one meaning throughout the whole history of mankind
>fucking Stalin

We are talking about Early Medieval Europe, and in this context there can be only two emperors according to Byzantine doctrine, and the Bulgarian ruler was not amongst them.

Do not forget about the context, please.

Firstly, the bulgarians weren't some religious sect of Tengri. Animism isn't even a religion, its not unified, everyone believed whatever.
Secondly, the first bulgarian king, and his dad, and his dad, all had studied in Constantinople. It is very likely the Dulo dynasty were all christians.
Thirdly, the conversion was part of a peace treaty, because the western slavs and the ERE invaded Bulgaria at the same time, and there was a horde invading from the north in an unrelated offense. Boris made peace, and he had to convert the state as part of it. You can say it was forced.

>there can be only two emperors according to Byzantine doctrine

Wrong, there can be only ONE emperor, the other guy was a heretic. But their definition is self contradictory, it would also allow for the muslims to have their emperor in their state.

Fortresses do exist, but castles are entirely different things.

Look up Бългapcкият зaмък - peaлeн или въздyшeн, by Chavdar Kirilov, or Die bulgarische Adelsburg - Tatsache oder eine Fiktion? for the German speakers. It's on Academia.edu for free.

Nigga a watch tower with a wooden fence around it is a castle. You should stop using Disney definition of historical terms.

Castle - fortification that the local administrator lives in. Thats it. Any fortification that is also the house of the "mayor" is a castle.

>Secondly, the first bulgarian king, and his dad, and his dad, all had studied in Constantinople. It is very likely the Dulo dynasty were all christians.

I just want to point out this is not accepted by Bulgarian scholars.

i think castles, like knights, are a catholic phenomenon, orthodox countries did have fortresses obviously

im not sure what the difference is though

You know what a province is don't you?

youtube.com/watch?v=720_r72gA1U

>Castle - fortification that the local administrator lives in.

You oversimplify things. Castles are an entirely Western phenomenon as they are part of the feudalistic relationships between the nobility. And castles were not the place where an administrator lives, but where the lord and his family lived.

Administrators were characteristic for the Byzantine empire, where the emperor could replace them whenever he pleased. Delve deeper into the problems.

I agree, but not because there were Catholics, but because of the way the Medieval state functioned in the Western part of Europe at the time.

I dare each and every one of you faggots to come to Bulgaria and talk shit about Bulgaria. See how long you last, little fucking faggot soyboys. You'll get your bones broken.

>knights, are a catholic phenomenon
Knights are just heavy cavalry aristocrats. Is that so uniquely Catholic? I don't think so.

why does art like this never get made now

I think you are lying, and hoping the language barrier will protect you.

For some reason I can't upload images right now, but if you go to Google Translate, and from english translate to bulgarian "khan kubrat in constantinople", and then search for that translation, there are many results. You can use Google Translate on those too, and they acknowledge the person who is considered a father figure to Bulgaria to have studied in Constantinople as part of a hostage exchange program between a prior Bulgarian state around Crimea, and the ERE.

The lord was the administrator, you sperg.

Oh no, the bulgars have invaded. Quick, retreat to the cas- to the fortification!

for a turkish colony, you are one angry backstabbing shithole inhabitant

I speak Bulgarian, by the way. And I can assure you, nobody seriously believes Dulo were Christian. Kubrat could have been baptized, but that's it.

Administrators are appointed by the state. The lord received land from the king to collect resources in order to back up the king with a certain number of soldiers.

The administrators in cities in the West were the bishops, if I'm not mistaken. And the Church is an entirely different thing.

>backstabbing

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatoslav's_invasion_of_Bulgaria

Why hello there neighbor. I see you are fighting for your life, thats nice. How about I, oh yeah, put it in your ass real quick. Thats it. You keep busy there, I'll just do my thing.

>backstabbing
Oh, it's some serbshit and his buzzword.

Pro-tip: your school nationalistic propaganda is not very close to the historical truth, peasant.

There we go again with the backstabbing bullshit. Jesus fucking Christ you are all a bunch of children.

shut the fuck up before we massacre 40% of your male population like old times, little faggot serblet

>little faggot serblet

We nearly had a serious discussion in this thread.

all these angry turkgarians lmfao

>you are all a bunch of children.
It's the middle of the afternoon on a Monday in the Balkans, what do you expect? Most posters here are angry retarded teenagers or NEETs.

>tfw an old fag, got a day off work and decided to browse Veeky Forums

jesus

Next time somebody posts a "Why the Balkans be in the state they be right now?" I'll link this thread.

turkgarians are angry because they live in a shithole that is the backstabbing turkish republic of turkgaristan

>We nearly had a serious discussion in this thread.
lel you will never EVER have a serious discussion about the Balkans. There will ALWAYS be a bunch of retards who think the bullshit propaganda they were taught at school is 100% truth and everyone around them are traitors, backstabbers, mutts, rapebabies, opressors, etc. and they're the cool good guys in history.

lolololo