….. не дека го тврдам тоа само јас. Тоа истото го тврди и професор Димитар Овчаров. Интервјуто со него превземео од Радио Бугарија го објави Порталот за странсво и народите на светот…. (ЗА НЕПИСМЕНИ БУГАРИ, КЛИК НА БОЛДИРАНИОТ ТЕКС ЗА ОРГИНАЛНИОТ ТЕКСТ). Интегралниот превод од руски е направен на англиски со Google Translate па не е веродостоен во детали, но доволно веродостоен за да се разбере поентата на темата ….
We offer you the text of Radio Bulgaria on this topic, you can also listen to the original recording of this program and Bulgarian music that accompanies it, in this audio file in the top left corner of this page.
Proto – between historical facts and myths
The illustration site of the Russian program Radio Bulgaria: Sword Kubrat Khan – one of the most famous protobolgarskih Khans in what is now Bulgaria.
“Knowledge of the past, of course, is the basis of the identity of a nation. Therefore, the eternal question “Who are we?” Makes for generations of Bulgarians to seek answers in the distant and often obscure the roots of the Bulgarian state and the nation. At first glance, the facts are clear – in the year 681 a group of nomadic people of Bulgaria, called proto today, going to the west as part of the Great Migration, defeated the Byzantine army at the battle and settled along the lower reaches of the Danube, which, together with established there Slavs and the local population , gave rise to the Bulgarian statehood and nationality.
Unfortunately, however, there is hardly any other topic in our history, which would have been the object of so many different interpretations and incompetent invasion. In search of scientific opinion about where they came from and who were the proto, we turned to Professor Dimitar Ovcharov, a prominent archaeologist, who for many years engaged in precisely the theme of the proto and the origins of Bulgarian Culture:
“Indeed, the desire of Bulgarians to return to his past to find its identity in recent times is deepened. And it is quite natural, it is observed not only among Bulgarians, but also among other nations. Special for us is that the Bulgarian history in different directions. Most people start with a starting point, we continued and reached their peaks. And our history is conceived with many flows – Slavic, protobolgarskih, the local Roman-Byzantine. So, in Bulgarian culture have a lot of layers. Over the Bulgarian historiography, however, has always gravitated any political pressure. Years ago, stating that the Bulgarian people is a Slavic nation, and this – of course, but also that as though there is no room for proto that was a mistake. Before the Second World War there was another position: that the Bulgarians – the creators state that they have created everything, and the Slavs were a mass. These extremes wrong and has already lived. In the last 15-20 years we have come to the conclusion that the Bulgarian culture – multi-ethnic and multi-layer, and this distinguishes it from other cultures unidirectional.
When talking about the proto often this image is associated with certain stereotypes. On the one hand, this is a nomad who lives in a tent and is very low cultural level and on the other hand, in recent lansiruetsya image proto almost like civilize the different countries of Eurasia.
“The second area is absolutely wrong – continues to prof. Ovcharov. – Bulgarians are not starting anything that might put them in the framework of the historical process. We are simply a part of this process and, therefore, when there are books that say that the Bulgarians civilize the world, that they ethnos, which, standing somewhere up by the state, it is not serious. Now there is much being written – write scientists, historians, archaeologists, ethnographers. Write well and amateurs, but it’s not very good, as people listen to interesting, but usually these writers or hacks, it is very amusing. But there is something more important. Need to debunk the myth that the nomads – left behind a form of human society. This myth has been refuted in the nineteenth century. Russian scholar Nicodemus Kondakov say: the myth that the nomads stragglers – a pest. The nomads are moving the community that touches all cultures. And the question is that whether this particular nomadic society to accept some of these crops. And we could, and so the Bulgarians, who went from Central Asia, touched the Chinese culture, then to the north-Indian, an Iranian, and finally arrived here on the Balkan Peninsula, in the Byzantine culture. And what I was trying to prove, and I think in many ways proved due to the fact that they have absorbed it all. Incorporated it into their value system and as a result formed really amazing culture.
But as said, prof. Ovcharov to the question of what culture proto traces visible today:
“About 10 years ago published a great article a Canadian historian of Chinese origin, which, on the basis of linguistic data in the Chinese language, he argues that in the early centuries of the last millennium in China, there were ethnic groups that can clearly be identified as Bulgarian . I schedule in my studies of four phases of their movement to the west: one – the Central Asian and the other – in today’s Kazakhstan, the third – today’s Southern Russia and Ukraine – this time, the Bulgarian Khan Kubrat (VII cent.), And the fourth – here in the Balkans – Danubian Bulgaria, founded Asparuh, one of the sons of Khan Kubrat. In places, the route taken by proto, left their footprints and archaeological today we find them. Characteristic is the way of building settlements, burial of the dead along with his horse, etc. That, however, survived until now? Tatarstan has descendants of the Volga Bulgarians, those Bulgarians who, together with another of his sons Kubrat created Volga Bulgaria. Should be retained and the other republics, such as in Kabardino-Balkaria, which has maintained and Bulgarian name – Balkaria. There remained, and even canned orders, which we know from archaeological sites. So, the traces of the Bulgarian ethnic group has to stretch all the way from the Far East to the Balkans. “
What was the origin of proto? This is a topic that never ceases to provoke debate in science?
“In fact the Bulgarians have common ethnic origins, they have included many ethnic components. Most debated, whether the Bulgarians Turks are or have Indo-Iranian origin. My observations, but also most of the scientists who are inclined to believe that basically they were Indo-Europeans. Later, however, the proto entered into a very close contacts with Turkic communities were included in the Turkic, Hunsky and Hazar kaganats, which gradually underwent Turkization.
