" After the fall of the Bulgarian Empire at the end

of the fourteenth century, the Bulgars were completely

forgotten in Europe. Even kindred Eussia knew next to
nothing about them. . . . They were forgotten to such
an extent, that at the end of the eighteenth century
and in the beginning of the nineteenth even the most
well-informed and conscientious scholars had no clear
knowledge of them. Thus, in 1771, Schlotzer hazarded
the opinion that a study of the neo-Bulgarian language
might throw light upon the nature of the Old Bulgars.
Dobrovski, the patriarch of modern Slavistic, believed the^
Bulgarian language, of which he was entirely ignorant,
to be a dialect of Serbian. All that was known to
Kopitar in 1815 was that in Bulgarian the article is
placed after the noun. The earliest data concerning
the Bulgarian language were furnished by the Serb
Vuk. S. Karadzic in 1822 in his ' Dodatak Petrograd-
skim Uporednim Recnicima ' (' Supplement to the
Petrograd Parallel Dictionaries')- AH that Safarik knew
in 1826 was that the Bulgars live between the Danube
and the Balkan Mountains and that there are 600,000
of them ! ". . . In these very words two distinguished
Russian scholars express their total knowledge of the
Bulgars at the beginning of the nineteenth century. ^

Even the Bulgars themselves knew nothing about

themselves. As the Bulgarian historian Drinov says,
they had ceased to exist. Their one-time culture had not
only disappeared, but was forgotten even by themselves.
Educated Bulgarians — who could be counted on the
fingers of one's hands — could not write their own
language. The most notable Bulgarians were merchants,
many of them were in business relations with Germany,
Russia, and Africa ; but not one of them knew a single
letter of Bulgarian. They not only " carried on their
correspondence in the neo-Greek or Roumanian
languages, but they spoke only Greek and were proud
of their Hellenism. The man who occasionally for his
own convenience desired to make a note in Bulgarian
as well, would write Bulgarian with Greek characters. =

Even towards 1830 the "intellectual " class contained

' A. N. Pipin and V. D. Spasovic, " Istorija Slavjanskih Literatur,

1879 " (" History of Slav Literature "), p. 104 (in Eussian).
- I. Veneliu, " Zaradi Voarazdenije Novobolgarskoj Slovesnosti "
("Concerning the Renascence of Neo-Lulgarian Slavdom"), prevel
(edited by) M. Kifilov, Bucharest, 1842, pp. 11, 34, 35, .50 (in Bul-
garian) ; S. Milarov, V. E. Aprilov, Odessa, 1885, p. 5 (in Bulgarian).
"not a single Bulgar who would confess to being a
Biilgar, or one who spoke Bulgarian or attended divine
service in the Slav language. And after the fashion
of all renegades they hated and despised all that was
Bulgarian more than did the real Greeks." ^

All Bulgarian attempts to emerge from this ignomin-

ious condition proved unavailing. The efforts of the
Bulgarian monk Pajsije, who in 1762 tried to vindicate
his nation by his "History of the Bulgarian Nation,"
remained unnoticed among the Bulgars themselves.
His passionate reproaches to the Bulgars, because they
read and write in Greek ; because they forgot their
nationality ; because they yielded to Greek customs ;
because they insulted their native tongue ; because they
were ashamed of calling themselves Bulgars, clearly
show how low the Bulgars had sunk. All attempts
made at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the
Bulgarian emigrants in Russia likewise remained un-
successful. There were many Bulgarian emigrants in
Russia, especially in the southern towns. Many of
these were merchants of considerable wealth. Although
every one of them had received a Greek education, yet
there were some among them who contemplated a
resurrection of their defunct nationality. But all in
vain. The Bulgars were not able to raise themselves
from their grave.

The Bulgarian renascence came from abroad. It was

reserved for the youth Gjorgje Venelin, a Ruthenian,
(1802-1839), a native of Lemberg, to re-create the
Bulgarian nation. After studying Slavistic at the
University of Lemberg, he proceeded to Kussia. At
KiSinjev he came across some Bulgarian emigrants who
fired him with enthusiasm for the Bulgarian cause,
and in 1829 he wrote a book in Kussian entitled " Old
and New Bulgars." Containing as it did something
so far unknown, the book met with a favourable
reception, and Venelin devoted himself with increased
ardour to the cause of the Bulgars. In 1830 the
Russian Academy commissioned him to explore Bulgaria.
Thus he was afforded the opportunity of seeing the
nation to which he had so lovingly devoted himself.
Although he had considerable trouble with the objects
of his affection, who threatened and blackmailed him — he
was even robbed by a Bulgar of the " Carostavnik," a
MS. of the Serbian Kings and Cars — and placed the
most vexatious obstacles in his way, Venelin succeeded
in collecting several old MSS., national ballads, and a
certain amount of philological material. All this
material was utilized by Venelin in his subsequent works
on the Bulgars (description of his travels, the national
ballads, Bulgarian literature, history and language).
Although Venelin in his books furnished many details
and created many assumptions regarding the Bulgars,
his work does not possess great scientific value. Venelin
was a great idealist, with a lively imagination. In his
day the scientific material available on the subject of
the Bulgars was both poor and scanty, and where his
material failed him he supplied the deficiency from his
exuberant imagination, " which in a few lines created
pictures, so that he mistook for scientific results the
ardent wish of his soul and the dream of his spirit."
He himself admits that when he found his material
deficient he supplemented it out of his own head. For
his reason "his books are full of mistakes, sometimes
grave mistakes," and for this reason also '' they very
soon became obsolete." But if his vi^orks are of no
scientific value, they are nevertheless of immense signifi-
cance for the Bulgarian nation. " His great merit
consists in the fact that he by himself created and re-
suscitated the Bulgarian nation, that he w&s responsible
for the birth of the completely defunct Bulgarian
nationality." ^

The romantically fantastic Venelin appealed to the

immature imagination of the Young Bulgars. He was
hailed with love and enthusiasm, as a Messiah come
to rescue a lost nation. All his observations, all his
praises, all his suggestions were accepted like com-
mands from heaven. He urged the wealthy Bulgars
of Russia and Eoumania to subscribe donations for
the support of the Bulgarian cause, for the opening
of Bulgarian schools, for the printing of school books.

Two Bulgarian merchants of Odessa, V. E. Aprilov

and N. Palauzov, who had been completely Hellenized
in their youth,^ by reading Venelin became Bulgars
and the first apostles of the Bulgarian awakening.
Aprilov began to write books in Bulgarian, in which
he speaks of his nation with fantastic enthusiasm.
Palauzov conducted his propaganda by word of mouth
and collected contributions. Both gave money for the
opening of the school in Gabrovac, in 1835, the first
of the Bulgarian schools. This work also influenced
other Bulgars. The sum of donations contributed not
only by pjulgars, but also by Russians and Roumanians
constantly assumed greater proportions. Schools were
opened, books published, young men sent to study in
European schools and universities. Thus was in-
augurated the first appearance of the Bulgars as a
nation and the foundation of the idea of their deliver-
ance from the Turks.

The whole of this movement took place within the

limits of Bulgarian territory ; of Macedonia the Bulgars
had not even begun to dream. The movement was
very popular, especially in Kussia, who considered
herself the protectress of the conquered Slavs, and in
Serbia, who regarded the Bulgars as the broken nation
of a brother-country. But the Bulgars were not con-
tent with this. In Venelin's books they found the
stimulus towards a state of things which they had so
far not even contemplated. Before visiting the Balkan
Peninsula, Venelin wrote that the Bulgars were to
be found not only in Bulgaria, but in Rumelia,
Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, South Morea, and Asia
Minor as well ; ^ that the Russians received Christianity
from the Bulgars ; that it was the Bulgars who
brought them the use of the alphabet ; that up to
the time of Lomonosov, divine service had been cele-
brated in Russia in Bulgarian, which had also been
the literary language, and that in ancient times not
one of the other Slav nations had been so rich in
MSS: and so forth. ^ The Bulgars were not slow in
adopting even the most preposterous of Venelin's
statements and magnifying them out of all sense and
proportion. For whereas Venelin was a good man
with the soul of a poet, an idealist whose infatuation
for the Bulgars carried him to absurd lengths — as he
himself often admitted — the Bulgars grew restive under
all criticism and went recklessly far beyond the limits
which Venelin in his infatuation had assigned to the
Bulgarian nation.
One of Venelin's first followers, the man who laid
the foundation of the Bulgarian idea of expansion and
of the role of the Bulgarian nation in the world, was
the Bulgar Gjorgje S. Rakovski (1818-1868). In
Venelin's fantastic ideas Rakovski found the inspira-
tion for evolving a practical propaganda for the idea
of the prehistoric claims of the Bulgars not only in
the Balkan Peninsula, but far beyond it. Poet, his-
torian, ethnographer, archaeologist, publicist, social and
ecclesiastical agitator, Rakovski wrote much on the
subject of his nation. But his violent patriotism
extinguished every glimmer of common sense and
critical faculty in his writings. A few samples will
suffice to show what Rakovski is. In his efforts to
raise the Bulgarian nation, "high in the eyes of its
own sons, and afterwards in those of the world," ^ he
has recourse to the realm of fairy tales, which is not
the way of intelligent persons. He denies the ancient
Greek sources, and places the Bulgars as precursors
of the European nations ; the Bulgarian language does not
differ from the Sanscrit ; Bulgarian national mythology
is Indian,^ even before the advent of Christianity
the Bulgars could read and write and possessed a
literature ; Bulgaria was " at one time the chief of
the Slav nations, the mightiest and most extensive
' Sofia paper Mir, February 3, 1917. " Pipin and Spasovic.
Empire in Europe in olden times;" "moral truth
appeared among the Bulgars first of all the Slavs, "^
"the most ancient relics of the old Slav customs
and language have been preserved in various parts
of Bulgaria and among the Bulgars of to-day."
The Bulgars lived in the Balkan Peninsula before
the Greek immigration ; Demosthenes was a Bulgar ;
so was Marko Botsaris, a hero of the Greek insurrec-
tion ; I all European languages and all European
culture originated with the Bulgars. The ancient
Peons and the Kelto-Kimbers were Bulgars ; Clovis
and Merovaeus were Bulgars; the first Christian
Church in Europe was founded among the Bulgars ;
they helped to establish the other churches, and they
were the founders of Christian missionary activity ; the
Bulgars received Christianity earlier than the Greeks,
" because they believed in one God, in the immortality
of the soul, and in recompense after death " ; the Greeks
were converted later, because they were polytheists.
Even the Olympic Zeus could not exist without the
Bulgars. He was nursed and reared by the Bul-
garian Mountain Villa (fay) Neda.^

It should specially be pointed out that Kakovski is

not a " vulgar Bulgarian enthusiast." He is one of the
most distinguished Bulgars of the nineteenth century.
No one else looms so large in neo-Bulgarian political
and literary history. The Sofia paper Mir of
February 3, 1917, while calling upon the Bulgars to
celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Rakovski's death,
says that " the first half of the modern period of
Bulgarian history is Rakovski's epoch," and proceeds to
add that the question of the celebration "has already
been taken up by the Bulgarian Academy of Science."
But Rakovski is by no means the only example we
could quote. All Bulgarian patriots of the nineteenth
century resembled him. There is one name, however,
that we must mention, a name especially connected
with Macedonia. It is that of Stephan I. Verkovic
(1827-1893). As a schoolmaster in Macedonia, he
is one of the most responsible, especially in Russia,
for having paved the way for the mistaken idea that
Macedonia is a Bulgarian country. He collected in
Macedonia the local "Bulgarian" national ballads and
wrote monographs upon them. Verkovic, too, can best
be judged by quoting his work. Among other amazing
troves he discovered in Macedonia the "Veda Sloven-
ska," i.e. national poems of pre-historic antiquity! He
collected hymns to Orpheus, the Thracian singer, and
to the ancient Slav gods in Macedonia ! He discovered
ballads of Alexander the Great and the settlement of
the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula ! He discovered
what other less privileged mortals had overlooked, viz.
that the "Bulgars " of Macedonia have preserved cer-
tain national songs or poems "referring to the primitive
development of the human race," and the " mythology
expressed in these traditions has a remarkable affinity
with the Rig Veda," so that it occurred to him that
"these poems must be, not only twin-sisters which
grew from the same spring and source, but — what is
more — that these poems of ours, judging by their sim-
plicity and extreme antiquity, must be the model of
the Big Veda, having developed independently ever
since the first separation, one version developing in
one direction and the other in another." ^
Before printing these hymns or songs, Verkovic sent
them — like samples — to different quarters. To the
Ethnographical Exhibition in Moscow in 1867 he sent
an "Ancient Bulgarian Orphic Hymn" of which he
declared that he had taken it down from an old man
of one hundred and five. The hymn, of course, sounded
merely like "a fairy tale," as Verkovic himself admits,
but this did not prevent him from printing and publish-
ing it together with others, or even from maintaining
in the preface "that the contents of these songs are
based on historic truth and on facts which have really
taken place," and to point out "that there is more
truth in them than in any other similar products
of the past, whether European or Asiatic." ^ Even
though all Verkovic's forgeries were exposed at once
and without difficulty, this did not in the least deter
him from pubHshing the second volume of his " Veda "3
seven /years later.

Verkovic is not really remarkable in himself. But he,

too, is an important figure in Bulgarian history. He was
for a long time the chief and only authority in Russia on
matters Macedonian. In fact, one of his works is an
" Ethnography of Macedonia " written in Russian. To-
day the Bulgars refer copiously to him over the Mace-
donian question — to his songs, his treatises, and reports.
For them he is " well-known in the Slav world as an
ethnographer and archaeologist ; he is especially
esteeraed for his perfect knowledge of Macedonia." ^

These ideas were held by all Bulgars of the nineteenth

century. They were shared also by the Bulgarian
historian Gavril Krstovic, one of the chief agitators in
the Bulgarian Church Question. His " History of the
Bulgarian Nation" is full of fables and wild exaggera-
tions concerning the Bulgars and their past. Even
Mr. Drinov, the best of the Bulgarian historians, is not
entirely free from these ideas.

By such ideas was the Bulgarian awakening accom-

panied. They permeated the whole of the nation,
all its new history, its science, its policy, and all its
social and political programme, the rising generation of
Bulgaria is brought up on these ideas ; all school and
instruction are imbued with them.^
Armed with ideas of this kind, then, the Bulgars began
their propagandist activity in Macedonia and their

' A. Ischirkov, " Les confins occidentaux des Terres Bulgares,"

Lausanne, 1915, p. 231. Mr. lechirkov is Professor of Geography at
the University of Sofia and Member of the Bulgarian Academy of
Science.

' In Bulgarian school-books we find it is stated that Alexander the

Great was a Bulgar, because he was born in Macedonia, and that
Aristotle was a Bulgar for the same reason. It is true that he wrote
in Greek, but he did so only in order to educate the southern bar'
barians. He Wrote also in Bulgarian, but the Greeks destroyed'
the MSS. (see Morning Fast of Febrnary 8, 1916). AcccJrding to
Bulgarian school-books Cdnstantine the Great Was also a Bulgar, as
he was bom in Nil, which is — according to them — a Bulgarian town.
According to the same authority Cyril and Method are Bulgars,
because they were born in Salonica ; Aleksa Nenadovic and Hajduk
Veljko, those heroes of the Serbian liberation, are likewise Bulgars,
and also the heroes of the Greek insurrection Botsaris, Karaiskis,
Kanaris, Miaulis, and others. {Cf. " Dr^ave i narodi Balkans-
kog Poluostrva," translated from the Bussian, Belgrade, 1891,
pp. 100-101.)