Medieval Kingdoms Total War: Second Bulgarian Tsardom

[FrozenmenSS]

Old post of mine in TWC.

Second Video.


My observations on most of the supporters of the East Iranic theory , it seems no one has mentioned the Iranic theory is actually split in two camps - Eastern/Bactrian and Western/Sarmatian), as well as the non-academic autochtonic (i.e. Thracian) theories, also makes me think that their motivations for supporting these theories mostly lie on non-objective reasons. However, - I'd say the main drive is to distance ourselves from the idea of the Bulgars being Turkic as a nation as a hole. Now, the reasons for that are several. The most obvious one is that due to the five centuries of Ottoman yoke, in Bulgaria we generally don't have a particularly positive image of the Turks, which most of us see as our "more recent archenemy" (the older, medieval and now outdated one being, of course, Byzantium). Although I'd say that the view on the Bulgarian Turks and Pomaks (Bulgarian Muslims) in particular is at least mixed at worst (not counting nationalist extremists), as I personally also have an image of the Bulgarian Turks as relatively poor (i.e. on our own level), somewhat conservative and extremely hard-working, honest people. Then again, maybe it's just me...


Anyway, back to the point - besides the general anti-Turkicness most of us have grown up in Bulgaria with, another factor for distancing ourselves from the old Turkic theory is that the latter was artificially enforced as an actual dogma in our historiography during the communist regime. And now when that regime is gone, the dam is broken and all the pent-up "liberty" and ideas are pouring out, as far away from the old postulates as possible. Before an argument for that, I would first have to explain that, at least according to the common view, including of some of our historians, the reason why our communist authorities wanted to stress so much on the supposed Turkic origin of the Bulgars was itself "racist", as someone from the modern West would say. Namely, the idea was to portray the Bulgars as relatively primitive, but highly warlike "bow-legged Mongoloid savages", who conquered, but were then quickly assimilated by the more sophisticated and superior sea of Slavic tribes, thus underlining our Slavic nature and our natural brotherhood with "Mother Russia"*. Respectively, often the same more-nationalist circles which tend to go for those non-Turkic theories, at least according to my observations, have also started to deny the Slavic nature of modern Bulgarians** or even the existence of Slavs as a whole. So I think this comes to show that an even bigger factor for this tendency is simply the liberation from and revulsion of the old communist propaganda. Of course, that's certainly not the only factor in the psychological picture of this drive, just a big one.


[*If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching our 1981 movie trilogy "Khan Asparuh", available with English subs on YouTube (apparently, currently as private videos, so you're left with the much worse short dubbed version of Warner Bros) or torrents (seeder available, even if it shows otherwise), which is both interesting and epic on one hand (50 000 real people from the Bulgarian People's Army "playing" the Byzantine army in the third movie) and is often nowadays blamed for being full of the aforementioned communist historical propaganda (though, to be fair, the Slavs, while mentioned as numerous, weren't really portrayed as all that more advanced or special)]
[**This reminds me, btw, of one extraordinarily ironic "scientific" expedition to Afghanistan from several years ago, called the "Tangra expedition" (i.e. irony №1 - Iranic-theory-expedition under the name of the supposed Bulgar version of the Turkic Sky-God Bir Tengri), and a newspaper's title about it, which went like this: "DNA proved we're not Slavs, we come from Pamir, claims Dr. Slavyan Stoilov" - it makes me chuckle even today.]




Now, as for my personal opinion on the origin of the Bulgars - as I was very recently discussing the same issue with other people in Total war center , my opinion is that we can relatively certainly trace the Bulgar thread as far back as their time and place in the 4th c. Caucasian-Pontic region. Before that, if there were any people who brought their Bulgar name from somewhere else (i.e. if that name wasn't adopted in the Caucasian region in the first place), their traces are too uncertain at this point. As far as I've been reading on this subject, definitely the absolutely messiest and most fiercely debated one in the whole Bulgarian history, I can safely say that every single person, professional historian or not, who's done some research on the matter, has his specific opinion about it, different from all the rest. Respectively, the proposed origins and homelands vary as wildly as the human imagination can allow - from them being Thracian colonists returning home from the East all the way to them being Koreans (ok, that isn't even serious, except for a few people, maybe), and everything in-between. Respectively, this is true not only among the laymen, like me, but also among the historians - some use sources A and claim they're from the Hindu Kush, others use sources B and claim they're from the Dinglins north of China, thirds go on about Oghurs and Huns, fourths about Balkharans, fifths about Tocharians, sixths about Sarmatians and so on and so forth. Too many Bulgars. It's really tiresome.


http://www.kroraina.com/bulgar/rashev.html


Rasho Rashev, arguably our best and most qualified archaeologist on the early Bulgar subject. Rashev actually doesn't support the East Iranic/Bactrian theory, but the West Iranic/Sarmatian one. I myself, very much agree with Rashev's opinion, which is very basically this - the Bulgars in their Caucasian period (Kubrat's Old Great Bulgaria in particular) were a tribal confederation of various tribes of different ethnic stock, most notably led by a Turkic/Hunnic aristocracy, while the majority of the other tribes were of a Sarmatian stock and possibly a few were Ugric. The arguments in favour of a Sarmatian origin of the majority of the Bulgars at this stage (and of the Danubian Bulgars later on) are indeed many, in my opinion, but I'll just mention that it was incorrect in listing Asparukh(the Father of Khan Tervel who leads the Danube Bulgaria in the Second siege of Contantinopol in 717-8) as a clearly Turkic name, when even in the times of the aforementioned communist Turkic dogma, Ivan Beshevliev (naturally a supporter of the Turkic theory http://www.kroraina.com/fadlan/besh.html ) in his 1967 study "Iranic elements in the Proto-Bulgarians" (sorry, available in Bulgarian only) clearly demonstrates that it, along with the majority of the names of the other Bulgarian rulers, are Iranic in origin, with a part of the rest being clearly Turkic, a few potentially Ugric and a part - uncertain, either Iranic or Turkic (in the same article he also argues, btw, that the Bulgar runes are "indivisible" from the Sarmatian ones).


And if you're interested, in this site:
http://www.kroraina.com/index.php?a=sr&fr=ct&id=2011


you can find a few studies in English on the matter, showing several of the many theories for the origin of the Bulgars. A quick short guide - Petar Dobrev is the founder and leader of the East Iranic/Bactrian theory (although others have admittedly improved upon him, as Dobrev's arguments are mainly "linguistic", which is not really his specialty, i.e. economic history), while Gancho Cenov (alternatively, Gantscho Tzenoff, as he was known in Germany) was an early 20th century historian, founder and, thankfully, at least no longer leader of the autochtonist movement, whose claims and argumentation are exceptionally weak even by autochtonist standards (which says quite a bit; also, he whines a lot about how our more serious historians, like Zlatarski, have shunned him away).


Ethnological traits of the ancient Iranian culture in modern-day Bulgarian culture
http://samoistina.com/2/similarities.htm


Scholars Claim Bulgarians Descended from Iran
http://www.novinite.com/articles/117...nded+from+Iran


On the origin of the Proto-Bulgarians
http://www.kroraina.com/bulgar/rashev.html


The Origins of Bulgaria: Myths and Facts
https://blazingbulgaria.wordpress.co...s_of_bulgaria/


Where did the Bulgarians came from, explains Bulgarian scientist's expedition to the lands of Bactria
http://samoistina.com/2/wheredidwecamefrom.htm


Bulgarian Expedition Travels to Iran in Search of Roots
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=117192


The Origins of the Bulgars
https://www.csc.kth.se/~dilian/bulgars.pdf


Bulgarians Are Purely Indo-European, Not Turkic - Gene Study
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=131894


Y-Chromosome Diversity in Modern Bulgarians: New Clues about Their Ancestry
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0056779


Inscriptions and Alphabet of the Proto-Bulgarians, by Peter Dobrev
http://groznijat.tripod.com/pb_lang/

Another site for more info
http://protobulgarians.com/English%2...%20version.htm

[FrozenmenSS]

Here is one of the Old Movies For the Second Bulgarian Tsardom fighting with the Latin Empire for inspiration when making the Faction Fully flesh out. It Got also English subtitles.






1197ad Tsar Kaloyan ascended the throne in difficult times for Bulgaria. The country was under Byzantine rule. He is forced to lead a flexible Foreign policy to strengthen the fragile position. Pope Innocent III recognized him as a king, but a little later the Fourth Crusade(The Latin Empire) in 1204-5ad, led by Emperor Baldwin passes through the country and set a new conflict ...
The movie end with the Battle of Adrianople

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle...ianople_(1205)

[ESmod]

And for your information Bulgaria is the oldest country name in Europe,everything changes but Bulgaria as a name stays, theres a book that i red few years back that stated (writer got his info from professors who red the chinese chronicles that were translated at that time, im not sure but the info was from chinese chronicles) that Bulgarians as a name when there was even Hunor empire(Hounor don't know how to translate it)

[LinusLinothorax]

Cant you guys just post a Medieval manuscript or such which clearly says "Bulgaria", "Kingdom of the Bulgarians" etc.? Would help me out more than whining about us incompetent "westerners".

[FrozenmenSS]

Cant you guys just post a Medieval manuscript or such which clearly says "Bulgaria", "Kingdom of the Bulgarians" etc.? Would help me out more than whining about us incompetent "westerners".

Ah another guy who wants to be shown a PDF file uploaded in the web,with long text about it to Belive it.Not everything is uploaded to the all important internet.some things in Eastern Europe havent been translated to the All important english and that is still in the old Documents of the historians from 40+ years ago....Deal with it. Go to Bulgaria or Bulgarian related sites and read stuff and Find it.Question: how many German Historical works by scientists,facts and stuff are translated into english that have been written in the last 10-15 years?As you probably knoww there is some lag when something is written in german and after 3-4 or 10 years passes before is translated to english or uploaded by the Scientists to the WWW[something].com. Im not obligated by anybody to find what you needed. just find the rest for yourself.I dont have the time for more.

And dont go into the same mode with 30 related only post like "I want Historical text blablabla about the main slavic groups like the Antes,Venedi and the Scklavini for the Vannila Attila in 395ad to be added as DLC into the game'' in the main Attila TWC forum. Its boring.And you arent the the guy for whom others have to bring you buckets of water from the end of the earth because you are special for some reason.So Good night random guy.

The origin of the Bulgarians from before the 460s AD is a problem that still provokes discussions among the Historians and Scientists even to the present day. The Bulgarians were mentioned for the First time and entered the European History by the name Bulgarians in the Chronography of 354 AD, writen by an anonymous Latin Chronographer, created for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus. The Supposed proto-Bulgarian ethnicity was formed somewhere in Central Asia (East Kazakhstan) between the Caspian Sea and the mountain Imeon (Pamirs, Tian Shan and Hindu Kush). Other possible areas proposed by the Modern Historians are the mountain Altai or Western Siberia, the Tarim basin, western Mongolia, southern Siberia and upper reaches of the river Irtysh. There were multiple migrations from Central Asia into the steppes just north of the Caucasus mountain probably as early from the 3rd,4th,5th, till the late 6th century AD by the Bulgarian Kutigurs, Utigurs, Onogondurians and other minor tribes.Since the late 16th century there have been offered various hypotheses, some of which attract with their whimsicality and stubbornness in defending them. Most authorities reject the concepts of aboriginal (or Thracian), Slavic, Tatar and Finno-Ugric origin of the Bulgarians. More popular, but also challenged are the Hunnic and the Oguric options of the Turanian hypothesis. Some scientific papers and amateur research in the late 20th century revived another hypothesis according to which the Bulgars were mixed Hunic-Iranian speaking Scytian population.The various theories about the origin of the Bulgarians can generally be assigned to two directions - first to the Altaic ethnogenesis and, secondly the Arian/Baktrian ethnogenesis. Third thesis advocates their mixed formation as a nation. Each of the first two theories does not exclude participation as influences, assimilation, etc. population determined to be dominant than the other direction. Actually, the difference between them is not only whether the dispute are Arians or Proto-Turkic-Mongols,but what is the primary source. In this sense, the most accurate to speak of is the mixed origin theory - who first formulated by some serious scientists as a distinct third theory, that dont denies or contradicts the other two mutually challenging theories. It focuses not on how started the process and the result of it - The ancient proto-Bulgarians.The term Bulgars is a term coined in the 19th century by the historical science at that time (just like the Term Byzantine empire) to distinguish the people founded and ruled the First Bulgarian Empire – from 681 AD onwards and before they merged with the Slavs and the,the remains of the ancient Thracians and Gothic population and the formation of the Modern Bulgarian nation. Today its often replaced by the term Proto–Bulgarians, old Bulgarians and even just Bulgarians.It was Documented by the Armenian Chronologists Mouses Khorentsi, Vardan the Great, Michael the Syrian and others that after the Fall of the Parthian Empire(198ad) in the third Century that the Bulgarians "Onoghontor-Blgar" led by a ''Burdjan Shah'' (Bulgarian king) migrated From the Gorges of Baktria/Balhara/Pamir,Hundu-Kush,Tien Shan Mountains into the Pontic Steppes just north of the Caucasus Mountains in Sarmatia Asiatica by passing the land of the Armenians peacefully and some even settled on the shores on the lake Van in Armenia.The Armenians by being neignbours of the Bulgars and the Alans just south of the Caucasus Mountains reported that the Bulgars formed their own States,had highly developed civilisation with walled cities made of stone (same said for the Alans as well,this statement is quite unique for nations that were mentioned as nomads in that epoch) Some of them were settled and others were migrating with their herlds. That the Bulgars were also allies with the Armenians when going to war.The Bulgarians helped the rebelled Armenians for its defense of the Christian faith against the Zoroastrian Persia. After the Great battle of Avarayr in 451 AD between Armenia and Sassanid Persia the fallen Bulgarians,who were on the Side of Armenians were canonized by the Armenian Church as declaring them as Great Marturs. That in the 370s AD with the arrival of the Huns in Eastern Europe, the Bulgarians were one of the first who joined the Hunnic Confederation ,with or without their own will is not known yet, but by the looking into the past - the Bulgarians then did the right choice and survived from the Hunnic wrath by being one of their most loyal allies till the Death of Attila in 453. That in the Bulgars 380s AD attacked the Crimean Goths by crossing the Kerch straith and also the Armenians in 395-8 AD with the Huns.Until the death of Attila the Bulgars were united,but after he died they formed 3 groups - the Onogondurians (the Inner Bulgars)the biggest mass of the bulgars and was the most peacefull but the most developed and forming a state living near the Caucasus Mountains ,the Utigurs (the outer Bulgars) living east of the Don river, and the Kutigurs(the few bulgars) the most warlike ones who were the most proud of the legacy of the European Huns living west of the Don river. The Bulgarians that Followed the Hunic Confederation since the 370s AD westwards migrating, went back to the eastern steppes near the northern Caucasus to their Relatives.The third son of Attila – Ernak after 454 AD as part of the disintegrating Hunnic Empire, unlike his brother Dengizich,he managed to come to peace terms with the Byzantine Empire and his domaign was known as Patria Onogunduria .Ernak is considered to have succeeded his brother Dengizich as king of from what was left of the Hunnic Empire in the Pontic Steppes. According to the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans from the 8th century, where he is called Irnik, he lived the legendary 150 years ,while his father Avitohol - 300 years (153-453 AD),who is though to have been Attila Himself. In 479 AD the Roman Emperor Zeno paid the Bulgarian Kutigurs to attack Theoderic the Great, who was leading the Ostrogoths in the Balkans and by doing so he was forced to invade the Kingdom of Odoacker in Italy due to the Romans and their Roman Allies.After that from 493AD onwards the Kutigurian Bulgarians started raiding the Eastern Roman Empire across the Balkans each year for the next 50 years.The Kutigurs even started to settle in the Balkans as Foederati to the Romans and even helped the rebelious roman general Vitalian in Moesia.This process stopped only temporeraly when Justilian the Great started on one hand the civil wars between the Kutigurs and the Utigurs and the arival of the Avars from Central Asia from Another.

Here is my text written long ago for my mod.So this Time Read it and shut up.


And Again Im sorry for the Derailing of the Thread.Some guys just likes to be in the spotlites for 15 min and feed their ego....

[LinusLinothorax]

There is not much reliable information about medieval Bulgarian state. Here I mentioned some evidence that Bulgaria was called in such way before the coming of the Ottoman turks. This post contain manuscrips only for the First Bulgarian Tsarsdom.
Unknown latin author at 334 AC for first time mention a tribe called Vulgares.
In late IV-V century latin book mentioned „Ziezi ex quo Vulgares“. It means “ Ziezi from whom are the bulgarians”. The text describe the grandsons of bible Noah and it says that the bulgars came from one of the Noah’s grandsons.
Bulgarian state in nowadays Ukraine was called by the byzantines Old Great Bulgaria. It last for couple of decades before it was overrun by the Khazars.
Another mention of the name is in The Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans it contains information about the early Bulgarian rulers, their clans, the year of their ascending to the throne according to the cyclic Bulgarian calendar and the length of their rule, including the times of joint rule and civil war. It is written in Old Church Slavonic, but contains a large number of bulgarian names and date terms.
Tchatalar manuscript (Чаталарски надпис) which mention the bulgariancalendar was made at the time of Omurtag (814-831)
Manuscript from town of Filipi tells that ”Presian, by God, archont of many Bulgarians” and ”Who seeks the truth God sees, and who lies God sees too. Bulgarians make a lot of good deed to the Christians but they forgot about them, but God sees”.
Script from 907 says that Bulgarian knyaz called Boris died. Later he was called by the byzantines: Βορισου βασιλεως Βουλγαρων. His son Simeon title himself Βορισου βασιλεως Βουλγαρων- basileus of all Bulgarians and greeks”
Bitola manuscrits says that this fortress( Bitola, Monastir) was made for the ”salvation of bulgarians”. After Byzantine empire conquer Bulgaria they organize western part of it in theme Bulgaria.

Ah great, this was the stuff i was asking for. So it were indeed the people who got called Bulgars and not the country which was renamed during Ottoman rule because of some cereals.
+Rep for summary

And Again Im sorry for the Derailing of the Thread.Some guys just likes to be in the spotlites for 15 min and feed their ego....

What a sweet irony that it is you who types these words, Frozenmen.

[Alejandro Sanchez]

Cant you guys just post a Medieval manuscript or such which clearly says "Bulgaria", "Kingdom of the Bulgarians" etc.? Would help me out more than whining about us incompetent "westerners".

Take it. Laurentian Codex, folio 10 (1377)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Marked in red:

"Во мнозехъ же времянехъ сели суть словени по Дунаеви, где есть ныне Угорьска земля и Болгарьска" - "After a long time the Slavs settled along the Danube, which is now the Hungarian land and Bulgarian"

It's one of many examples.

[NikeBG]

Take it. Laurentian Codex, folio 10 (1377)
Marked in red:

It's one of many examples.

Good one. Though perhaps the oldest mention of the name "Bulgaria" (i.e. exactly "Bulgaria", as a state, not simply "Bulgarians", as people) is from Constantine of Apamea during the Council of Constantinople in 681 (the middle of the sixth row of the Greek text, "Voulgarias"). Similarly, a couple of other, later Byzantine authors (namely Theophanes and Patriarch Nikephoros) also use the name Bulgaria to refer to some even older times - the so-called (by these two authors themselves, btw) Old Great Bulgaria (palaia megali Voulgaria) in the Ukrainian steppes. So it's pretty clear that this was the name of the state since its very foundation and it has nothing to do with the much later Ottomans.
As for the etymology of the Bulgarian ethnonym, I have a book on this matter, in which the author has managed to collect over 180 (IIRC) suggested etymologies and explanations of the Bulgar(ian) name from the Middle Ages till the modern times. Needless to say, the "bulghur" cereal connection was nowhere near any of the more serious proposals.

Btw can you remove "Slavic" from the name of the unitsSlavic javilenmen and slavic auxiliary spearmen ? Because as far as i know ,after the First Bulgarian Empire fell to the Eastern Roman Empire ,and it's subsequent renewal under Asen and Petar ,people in our region weren't called slavs anymore (Correct me if i am wrong).

They were, of course, although it's true that around Simeon's times in the FBE the trend to use the Slavic name was much stronger. Still, I agree - naming a unit "Slavic X" implies there's an equivalent non-Slavic counterpart to it. Thus, "Slavic X" is useful mostly if it's a unit used by several Slavic factions. Otherwise, it's kinda strange.

In any case, the preview looks generally quite fine to me. I'd personally note that one of the more popular helmets used, like the one here, is actually supposed to be Volga Bulgar (and this one in particular is Russian), which is a separate and very different country from Danubian Bulgaria. From this type, the Yasenovo helm is a bit more fitting, especially for the early period. Also, if you need, you could include a slinger unit as light skirmishers, mostly for the early period, as slingers were occasionally reported in the Balkans (Byzantium, Bulgaria, I think also Serbia; as well as other parts of Southern Europe, like Spain f.e.) in those times - f.e. the relatively famous account of Tsar Kaloyan's troops in the siege of Thessaloniki in 1207 include them as well ("spearmen, archers, helm-bearers*, shield-bearers, slingers, skirmishers/javelinmen and all other kinds of soldiers"; *btw, thanks to my good friend Koultouras, it turned out that the "helm-bearers"/koruniphoroi are actually something more like macemen or staff-bearers, IIRC, while the "helm" thing is an error by the medieval Bulgarian translator). Though it's true that with the increasing professionalization of the armies of Europe, including on the Balkans, and respectively their heavier armaments, the slingers were quickly becoming quite obsolete and are not really a must-have unit for this timeframe. That 1207 instance could even potentially be their last mention for all I know (at least I can't remember any later ones, for the time being)...

You are completely right, and i think i've seen those models in a book about First Bulgarian Tsardom

Now that you mention it, indeed, the Slavic auxiliary spearmen seem to be based on this guy from the early times of the FBE (i.e. 7th-8th c.), at least in regards to some of the rectangular shields.


P.S.@jan_boruta, I love your work for Civ5! Many thanks both for it there and now for it here!

[Alejandro Sanchez]

Good one. Though perhaps the oldest mention of the name "Bulgaria" (i.e. exactly "Bulgaria", as a state, not simply "Bulgarians", as people) is from Constantine of Apamea during the Council of Constantinople in 681 (the middle of the sixth row of the Greek text, "Voulgarias"). Similarly, a couple of other, later Byzantine authors (namely Theophanes and Patriarch Nikephoros) also use the name Bulgaria to refer to some even older times - the so-called (by these two authors themselves, btw) Old Great Bulgaria (palaia megali Voulgaria) in the Ukrainian steppes. So it's pretty clear that this was the name of the state since its very foundation and it has nothing to do with the much later Ottomans.

I want to add that in the medieval Russian tradition the names of the countries always comes from the ethnonym.

And some more images.

Menologion of Basil II (979-989)
Marked words are related to the ethnonym Bulgarians. Anyone can find the Latin translation here.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hereford Mappa Mundi (1285)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356)
Marked words:

Царица и Самодръжица въсемь блъгаром и гръком - Queen and Autocrata of all Bulgarians and Greeks

and

Царь и Самодрьжецъ въсемь блъгаром и кръком - Tzar' and Autocrat of all Bulgarians and Greeks

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[nicolapv]

There is not much reliable information about medieval Bulgarian state. Here I mentioned some evidence that Bulgaria was called in such way before the coming of the Ottoman turks. This post contain manuscrips only for the First Bulgarian Tsarsdom.
Unknown latin author at 334 AC for first time mention a tribe called Vulgares.
In late IV-V century latin book mentioned „Ziezi ex quo Vulgares“. It means “ Ziezi from whom are the bulgarians”. The text describe the grandsons of bible Noah and it says that the bulgars came from one of the Noah’s grandsons.
Bulgarian state in nowadays Ukraine was called by the byzantines Old Great Bulgaria. It last for couple of decades before it was overrun by the Khazars.
Another mention of the name is in The Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans it contains information about the early Bulgarian rulers, their clans, the year of their ascending to the throne according to the cyclic Bulgarian calendar and the length of their rule, including the times of joint rule and civil war. It is written in Old Church Slavonic, but contains a large number of bulgarian names and date terms.
Tchatalar manuscript (Чаталарски надпис) which mention the bulgariancalendar was made at the time of Omurtag (814-831)
Manuscript from town of Filipi tells that ”Presian, by God, archont of many Bulgarians” and ”Who seeks the truth God sees, and who lies God sees too. Bulgarians make a lot of good deed to the Christians but they forgot about them, but God sees”.
Script from 907 says that Bulgarian knyaz called Boris died. Later he was called by the byzantines: Βορισου βασιλεως Βουλγαρων. His son Simeon title himself Βορισου βασιλεως Βουλγαρων- basileus of all Bulgarians and greeks”
Bitola manuscrits says that this fortress( Bitola, Monastir) was made for the ”salvation of bulgarians”. After Byzantine empire conquer Bulgaria they organize western part of it in theme Bulgaria.

[finix]

Guys hold on properly, there is no need to offend people. These people are not guilty that our history is replaced with centuries.
And that into their schools taught incorrect information

[Slytacular]

And the battle of Bulgarian historical research and interpretation continues... This.. Is Forums: Total War!

[Alannon]

Think what you will guys, but I'll consider Bulgarians a brotherly people to Russians. My girlfriend is Bulgarian. :p And as for Turkic origins, I want to believe them false. May be Bulgaria originated from the same stock of peoples as the Russians and just like us have Scythian roots. There are theories that the huns themselves consisted of many peoples, with mongoloids being far from majority. More than that in relation to statements about the 'Mongols', on many Russian mediaeval artworks oddly enough, Mongols are depicted as fair haired lot, clad in fairly Russian armaments, with a minority of figures among them having Asian features and carrying cheap and light armours. Modern history is a mess.

[Slepeca]

Coat of arms of Bulgaria and it's noble families:


House of Shishman/Shishman dynasty.







Ivan Asen II's coat of arms.





House of Terter.(GG for the coat of arms)

Second Bulgarian Tsardom/Empire/Kingdom's coat of arms










Theoritical coat of arms of Bulgaria under Tsar/Kaloyan .(13th century)






Theoritical flag of Bulgaria under Tsar/Kaloyan .(13th century)



House of Sratsimir.


Hope these pictures help the guys working on the mod !

[Slepeca]

Medieval Bulgarian army.



Foot archer and a cavalryman.



Infantryman. (Note-Both of these pictures were taken from one of the threads about the Tsardom Mod ,i think.)



Wikipedia Info about the army in the 1212 AD period-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Bulgarian_army (To lazy to write done something myself.)
Read only the parts from the Asen Dynasty to Foreign and mercenary soldiers.

[sleepera]

The Bulgars were definetly mixed,picking up different groups of peoples along their long journey.One thing for sure is that they have never been described as Asiatic or Mongolic,which makes me think that the Asian part of their population was less than the later groups that joined them.Also the Bulgarian Medieval Army was very simillar to the Byzantene one,with few crucial differences,for which you can learn at the Wikipedia page about them.

[Slepeca]

If the guys working on the mod want more and better info ,ask some of the old bulgarian users here like Nikebg,gogo t and 2shy ,if they're still active.

[finix]

Thank you for the information, but the Bulgarian roster is almost ready, lacking only a one unit and minor cosmetic changes

Unless have information about units that are not on the list and can supplement the the roster. But they will have a description and if possible example of how it should look

[Slepeca]

Thank you for the information, but the Bulgarian roster is almost ready, lacking only a one unit and minor cosmetic changes

Unless have information about units that are not on the list and can supplement the the roster. But they will have a description and if possible example of how it should look

Well on that note i don't have anymore to say ,and if i had it wouldn't help ,like i said ask the old guys for sources like royal charters,scripts and text from medieval times ,i could give some of them ,but i am to lazy .(Btw Що си говорим винаги на английски ? )

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(Btw Що си говорим винаги на английски ? )

Because is international forum, is not only bulgarian thread