ЗА БРАКОВЕТЕ В СЕМЕЙСТВОТО НА ЦАР САМУИЛ – ДИПЛОМАЦИЯ ИЛИ ЛЮБОВ
ON THE MARRIAGES IN TZAR SAMUIL’S FAMILY – DIPLOMACY OR LOVE

Summary/Abstract: Marriage diplomacy, understood as the conclusion of marriages between prominent representatives of the ruling circles to achieve foreign policy goals, is a particularly popular means in the diplomatic activity of medieval rulers. It it based on the unwritten laws of trust and loyalty, typical of family ties, such as those created by kinship. Although in our conceptions of Samuil as a tireless warrior and skilled commander there seems to be no place for diplomacy, especially marriage diplomacy, it is a fact that more than half of the marriage unions of representatives of power, concluded during the First Bulgarian Kingdom, for which we have information, are connected precise-ly with Samuil‘s family. The present work is an attempt to systematize and analyze the information from the historical sources about them, to outline the position they have in Bulgarian and foreign historiography. Tracing them in chronological order, when their approximate dating is possible at all, the circumstances and reasons for the conclusion of marriage alliances and their consequences will be sought, as well as an answer to the question of whether Tsar Samuil relied on marriage diplomacy in his policy and how successful it was.

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