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The main and most authoritative part of the Slavonic studies worldwide advocates, over nearly a century, unbiased view of Bulgarian ethnic character of Cyril and Methodius language and its international importance for Slavic and East European cultural space.
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The text examines the evidence in Xenophon’s Anabasis 7, 2, 32-34 on the historical figure of Maisades in Southeastern Thrace during the transitional period between the 5th and 4th century BC. Its brief presentation through the retrospective narrative of his son Seuthes II raises a number of questions about who he was, when is his activity to be dated, what the scope of his lands was and generally his role in the region. Careful reading of the source shows that the answer to some of these questions is not so unambiguous and without problems as it appears at first glance. The analysis of the summarised source data and the opinions in historiography are systemised to the following several observations: 1. Apart from the fact that Maisades was the father of Seuthes II, he can also be assumed to have been a representative of the Odrysian ruling elite in Southeastern Thrace, however without presupposing that he belonged to the family of Teres. 2. The parallel mentioning of Maisades and Teres from the Delta area in Xen. Anab. 7, 5, 1, identified with Teres І, the founder of the big Odrysian kingdom, makes it possible to seek the presence of Maisades in the time between the last years of Teres’ rule and the beginning of the rule of Seuthes I. 3. In spite of the generally accepted opinion in the literature about Maisades as an emblematic illustration of the “paradynasts” reconstructed from Thucydides’ text 2, 97, 3, Xenophon’s text does not indicate anywhere his role in the Odrysian administration in the region. On the other hand, the word “paradynasts” that has gained prominence in contemporary historiography is highly debatable. Its use by the ancient authors is extremely rare, predominantly during the Roman Imperial Age, and the brief survey of the attested cases indicates that it was categorically not used as a title in any political reality. In this sense, although the word is convenient and clearly reflects the aspirations to find a suitable expression of the hierarchic governance structure of the Odrysian kingdom, suggested by the sources, maybe its use needs to be revised or at least it should be used conditionally. 4. The territorial scope of the lands over which Maisades ruled within the lands of the Thynoi, Melanditai and Tranipsai is successively placed in the perimeter of 7 days’ journey, i.e., the maximum distance of the military campaign planned by Seuthes II and Xenophon, reported in Anab. 7, 3, 12. The comparison with the other more concrete special information in Anab. 7, 3, 16 on the location of King Medokos at 12 days’ journey would mean that the lands ruled by Maisades covered at least half of the Odrysian kingdom. The lack of standardisation in the ancient world, pointed out in the literature, as well as the concrete observations on Xenophon’s text, suggest that different criteria for travel were implied with the two distances reported. This allows to seek Medokos about 360 km inwards into the country, whereas the lands of Maisades must have spread to a maximum distance of ca. 105 km from the sea. The analysis, visualisation, and comments on the different variants of the territorial extent of Maisades lands could be performed by an appropriate GIS analysis, which on the other hand builds the next investigation stage of the topic.
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Srebrenica was first mentioned in the written sources on 16 August 1352. It was in the wider area of Osat, the region that was first mentioned in the written sources in 1283. Precisely, from the first mention it is clear that the area shares the characteristics with other parts of Bosnian spiritual aegis. Thus, the Bosnian church was a dominant religious institution that in the Srebrenica area had a significant economic role via inns that were provided to merchants within the Bosnian Church's houses. However, through the economic strength more significant role in Srebrenica started to obtain foreigners people from Dubrovnika and the saxons – who erected the Church of St. Mary with a convict for their own needs – and around which the religious life of those settlers was built. With the establishment of Despot Stefan Lazarević's administration Orthodox spiritual interests also penetrated. Although metropolitan and the clergy occasionally resided in the town, there were no institutional penetration of the faith and the construction of its objects until the Ottoman conquest. Thus, the Ottomans deserve the credit for the spread of both Islam and Orthodoxy (through migration of Vlachs) in the Srebrenica area, and the rest of Bosnia. At the same time Srebrenica became a significant economic and spiritual center from which Bosnian spiritual influence spreads over the area of east Podrinje.
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The article attempts to present how at the turn of the 20th century the attitude of the inhabitants of Warsaw towards wild birds living in the city was being shaped. The author focuses on objects used to allocate such birds their space within the city, on practices related to birds and discourse concerning this subject. She points to changes that were initiated then, mainly by members of Warsaw Society for the Protection of Animals and journalists publishing in its magazine, „Przyjaciel Zwierząt” (Friend of Animals).
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The image of the soviet town takes form through the veterans` testimonies and through a collective memory of those from Brad and the surrounding areas. The historical research approach is based on the usage of qualitative methods and through such a mean, especially,being activated the autobiographic memory. The veterans have seen the soviet town as an enemy between the 22nd of June 1941 and the 23rd of August 1944, and then as an ally until 9th or 12th of May 1945. Distinct of the war rigors, the soviet enemy (mainly the Russians and not the Kazaks) was having a human dimension, presenting a somewhat clemency towards the defeated Romanian soldier. The inter-human relationships were being dominated by suspicion during the alliance, the Romanians cutting off the interactions with them, thus it did not exclude moments of communication and support. The veterans` testimonies help shaping the image of the soviet town and, through the light of the report with the rest of the population, the pieces of information given by them,here, being filled by those of the locals who were children or young women during the war. Witnesses talk about Russians storming in their houses, usually their behavior being abusive, frequently drunk, raping women, committing crimes and forcefully taking control over food and other goods. The image at this point is mostly negative, but even here the distinction between the Russians and the others, more exactly the Kazaks, is made, to the disadvantage of the last. Despite these happening 60-70 years ago, the stories were told with great detail, especially due to the dramatic experiences occurred due to the war.
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The essay is the result of an oral history research and aims to present the town Reghin and its nearby villages by illustrating some life stories, lived by ordinary people who realize today that their memories are part of the history. The Second World War meant for Reghin and its neighboring villages: Hungarian administration, German troops, Russian troops, damages, evictions,population displacements, refuge and emigration. Population movements were caused by the war and had been an immediate result of the events which took place in the entire area of the today’s Mureş county. Most of the Romanian population living here fled to refuge in woodland and isolated places; a lot of Hungarians fled to Hungary; the Jews were evacuated and stationed in Nazi concentration camps; most of the Saxons went, willingly or imposed, with the German troops in 1944; the so called „poor people of the plains” occupied the abandoned homes of Saxons; a lot of Saxons returned after a while in their native villages – all this facts are mutations which took place during the 1940's in this geographic area.
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The events of the second half of the twelfth century was a watershed in the relationship between Poland and Silesia. In general, this period of Polish history is considered to be the beginning of the fragmentation of the Piast patrimony into politically separate principalities. Disagreements between individual Piast dynasts led to a series of civil wars which were sett-led by a further division of the Piast realm as apanages to younger members of the dynasty. Opportunistic Imperial interventions in the turbulent internal politics of the Piast monarchy further complicated matters, specifically the thorny issue of overlordship of Silesia became the key aspect of the relationship between Poland and the Empire. For these reasons the later part of the twelfth century is considered the era in which the origins of the separation of Silesia from the Piast monarchy was first placed.
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Grodno as a city in the Republic of Belarus, with its rich and diverse culture, is almost 1000 years old. It arose as one of the political and administrative centers of ancient Rus. In the middle of the thirteenth century it stood at the beginning of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which formed in the Neman region. The Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas received the city from his father Kęstutis and from that moment on Grodno became the residence of the great dukes of Lithuania, and later Polish kings. At the end of the eighteenth century, after the partition of Poland, Grodno was seized by the Russian authorities. As a provincial town of the Russian empire it suffered a violent Russification, which was continued in the times of the Soviet Union. On receiving independence in 1991, the Republic of Belarus began an independent political life. However, the election in 1994 of A. Lukashenko for President shattered the independent Belorussian state development trend and started a restoration of Soviet institutions of power and traditions. Instead of Belorussian national symbols in public life, Soviet symbols reappeared, which blurred the traces of the rich and varied history of the country. Grodno is perhaps the most interesting city of Belarus because of its multiculturalism.
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The review of: - Rosamond McKitterick (ed.): The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume II, c. 700 - c. 900.; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, XXXII, 1081 pp. - M. M. Postán, Edward Miller (eds.): Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages (The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Volume II, 2nd edition); Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, XTV, 999 pp.
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The site Slava Rusă, identified with the Roman settlement Ibida, is with more than 24 hectare one of the most important fortified Roman settlements in the Romanian Dobruja (Moesia Inferior), providing especially finds from Late Antiquity. The joint research project envisages an exhaustive geophysical survey of the site and its surroundings. In a first stage the German-Romanian team focussed on certain areas extra muros and on a larger plot inside the fortification. While the results from the surveys north and south-west of the ancient city limits had been rather disappointing, the prospection inside the city walls delivered very interesting results of the architecture during late antiquity. Several larger building complexes (“insulae”) and roads could be identified, a fact that encourages the team to intensify the collaboration in the near future.
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The present discussion has emerged as a response to a book review – written and published by A. A. Rusu – which refers to a monograph in which its authors (Lia Bătrîna and Adrian Bătrîna) showcase the results of the archaeological research conducted in Rădăuţi, at the church of Saint Nicholas (Sfântul Nicolae), a necropolis of the first Moldavian princes. By virtue of the principle “audiatur et altera pars”, we intend to respond to Mr. Rusu’s criticism and observations, since we find them to be – almost exclusively – unfounded.
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The Thracians were actively involved in the Roman civil wars during the forties of the first century BC, which reached their double culmination in the battles at Pharsalus and Philippi in 48 and 42 BC respectively. This explains the preservation of some information on ancient Thrace in the surviving historical evidence on this decade of turmoil. Although that information has been subjected to numerous comments in modern historiography, it contains many controversial and debatable points. The paper offers a new reading of a key passage in Cassius Dio (47, 25, 1) in which, instead of the usual restoration of the name of the Astaean king Sadalas II, it is suggested to read the name of the last Pergamene king Attalus III. This ostensibly small change leads to serious implications for the reconstruction of Thracian history during that complicated period, marked by the rivalry between the last two big dynasties in Southern Thrace: the royal houses of the Astae and the Sapaeans.
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In order to illustrate the importance of the Dava from Radovanu-Gorgana a Doua as a production centre, evidence is presented for the existence of some metallurgical workshops. Massive items made of iron were not produced inside the settlement. They must have been created in the civilian settlement on the terrace behind the Dava, on that spot there were adornments made of bronze and silver. In this sense, a metal-working workshop with two open hearths could be mentioned. Near the fire installation the inventory of a jeweller has been found, comprising a bronze stamp with a relief at one end, rendering, as a positive, the image of the goddess Athena Parthenos, a dorn, a chisel with a crescent-shaped blade in its cross-section, another chisel with a rectangular active edge, both being used for modelling and decorating metal objects. Besides these fine tools for metal work, some other artefacts have been discovered: crucibles for metal casting, a valve of a stone mould, a silver coin-shaped tablet with slight impressions, a bronze bracelet with overlapping ends, small pieces of bronze, a sheet made of the same metal and two oval clay stands. In two neighbouring pits, Nos. 33 and 34, a lot of ashes and slag has been found, as well as broken crucibles, which, due to their intense use, had been strongly burnt, up to their deformation, a clay mould with two forms for casting bars, burnt until they became vitrified, and another one with a single form, but also bronze debris consisting of small lumps and bronze sheets remaining after the metal processing.
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The specificity and the principal characteristics of agriculture in Thrace during the first millennium BC are reconstructed based on analysis of the ancient written sources, summing up of the archaeological evidence (mostly farming tools), iconographic information, archaeo-zoological, archaeo-botanical and palynological data, as well as on observations on the periodic climate changes during that period. They testify to the existence of developed agriculture in many regions of Ancient Thrace, which was characterised by good knowledge in agronomy, a visible agricultural calendar and gradual introduction of new economic strategies, which were among the factors responsible for the socio-economic changes in Thrace. Agriculture and stockbreeding were integrated and that can be seen from the grain remains found (including seed grain) together with bones of domestic animals in the same sites. Agriculture secured food above all by growing a wide variety of cereal and leguminous crops, vineyards, fruits and vegetables, bees and domestic animals. Parallel with that they produced raw materials for making clothing and textiles (wool, furs and leather, and industrial crops like hemp and flax). Draught animals and horses for the Thracian cavalry were also raised. During the second half of the first millennium BC, agricultural production became an important element in the foreign trade of the Thracian states.
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The paper is one in a series of publications of mine on the royal cities Kabyle and Seuthopolis. It examines the official and private cults of deities attested in Seuthopolis through inscriptions, architecture, coins and other archaeological artefacts. The interpretation is based on the belief that in Thrace, being a contact zone, only a polytheistic religion could be formed, which was different from the monotheistic solar-chthonian faith, according to the working hypothesis on Thracian Orphism. The existence of a coherent mythological conscience is also rejected. At least during the time of the Greek colonisation and after it, religion in Thrace played the role of a contact language that facilitated contacts between Thracians and Greeks, and the interpretatio Thraco-hellenica is to be the approach to the semantics of the cults attested in Thrace. Cults in Seuthopolis are interpreted in the context of those in the Odrysian kingdom and in the Early Hellenistic Mediterranean. The latter were strongly politicised and linked to the cult of the ruler. Criticism is presented of the assertion that the tumular tombs around Seuthopolis preceded the city and that they had been originally used as temples of the Thracian Orphic Sabazios, which marked a sacred territory similar to that around Hieron Oros under Kotys I. Most official cults in Seuthopolis indicate borrowing from the Macedonian and Greek political pantheons, successfully integrated with the traditional chthonian polyvalent “Hestia”. Parallel with the mass use of the written Greek language and with the worshipping of Greek cults in a family and domestic environment, they were the result and the manifestation of the cultural and religious globalisation of the Early Hellenistic world, which spread to the lands ruled by Seuthes III as well.
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Subject of this paper is Ancient Thrace and its inhabitants, the Thracians. However, the goal is not to present the region and its characteristics through the actual findings discovered in the area occupied by the Thracian tribes in Antiquity, rather to see it through the ancient Greek eyes and in particular to picture the Athenian view. Therefore the geographic boundaries of ancient Thrace or the particular tribes who inhabited it are not examined, since the interest is to take a glimpse at what the Athenians thought and had in their minds when they referred to Thrace and Thracians. The material that is used in order to present and understand the Athenian perspective on ancient Thrace are the literary sources, poetry, myths and the visual arts. As regards the latter, it is the vase painting of the Athenian Kerameikos that provides a great number and variety of representations related to Thrace. The appearance of Thracian topics in Athenian vase painting corresponds with the periods known from the ancient authors that Athens was in various types of relations and contacts with the area. That is in particular the 6th and 5th centuries BC, meaning the Archaic and Classical times. Therefore, this is the timeframe in order to see how the Greeks, and in particular the Athenians, used to see Thrace and Thracians with the Attic vases to be the primary tool.
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Light, lightning effects and fiery dramaturgy during rites and while creating a sacral space are among the least studied phenomena in Thracian culture. The paper analyses three examples of creating a sacral landscape through light – real and imaginary space according to: the text of Arist. Mir. Ausc. 842a 122 about the fiery oracle of Dionysos in Krestoria; according to the archaeoastronomical explorations of a subtumular construction in the Golyama Arsenalka tumulus in the Kazanlak Valley; escharae found in a burial context. In the first example the light of the fire models the imaginary sacred landscape and the divine epiphany in a round space without a roof. In the second example, in the architecturally modelled sacred space, the blending of light and darkness creates the landscape for the creation during the winter solstice, of divine power in the days of the summer solstice and of the start of the journey to the World Beyond. The third example is the materialised blending of the cosmic fire symbolised by the solar ornamentation of the escharae, and the terrestrial fire symbolised by the file lit in the hearth made of clay. The technology for building escharae requires the use of water. All ritual acts are performed in the open. The magic act (building, libations and offering of gifts) could be interpreted as the blending of the buried individual with the four elements: fire, water, air and earth. Certain individuals had the privilege of being sent in this way to the World Beyond, while in the case with the two escharae in the tumular embankment of the tomb built near the village of Buzovgrad, which is isolated for the time being, the deceased was of exceptional importance to the socium. The tomb is in the region in which the megalithic solar door is located, towards which the entrance to the heroon of Seuthes III in the Golyama Kosmatka tumulus is very accurately directed. For the time being, we can only guess whether the actual landscape suggests a link between the heroon of Seuthes III and the tomb near Buzovgrad. The three examples examined give grounds to assume that the Thracians, owing to their faith in the solar deity and its projection on earth – the sacred fire, deliberately used light to model a real or imaginary space in various rites.
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