The Bulgars in the Emperor Zeno’s diplomacy
The Bulgars in the Emperor Zeno’s diplomacy

Summary/Abstract: The article briefly presents the complex combinations made by the emperor Zeno in the struggle with the contenders for the Byzantine crown, a special place being devoted to the relations with the Gothic kings Theodoric Strabo and Theodoric the Amal.The fact that the Bulgars were used to fight precisely against the Ostrogoths has been known for a long time, but without paying in-depth attention to the entire political situation in the empire from the overthrow of the Ardaburii family to the assassination of Odoacer in Italy in 493. In the course of the work, we clarify a number of Bulgarian-Byzantine contacts during the reign of Zeno, and refute the popular thesis of early statehood of the Bulgars in Pannonia or in their main habitats near the Caucasus.

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