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B u l g a r i a ' s H i s t o r i c a l R i g h t st o D o b r u d j a

by

MILAN G. MARKOFFJurist

Professor of Social Science in the Military Academyof Sofia

Paul HauptAkademische Buchhandlung vormals Max DrechselBern 1918

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B u l g a r i a ' s H i s t o r i c a l R i g h t st o D o b r u d j a

byMILAN G. MARKOFF

JuristProfessor of Social Science in the Military Academy

of Sofia

Paul HauptAkademische Buchhandlung vorrnals Max DrechselBern 1918

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Bulgaria's Historical Rightsto Dobrudja.i.

Dobrudja. Cradle of the first Bulgarian Kingdom. Fromthe time of Asparouch to Berlin Congress it has remainedBulgarian. The thesis of Roumanian rule over the Dobrudjagroundless. The place called Onglos" is the northwesterncorner of Dobrudja. Bulgarian toponymy of Dobrudja before Asparouch. The ancient bridge by Issaktcha, whereprobably Asparouch crossed the Danube. The crossing ofthe Danube by Asparuch an extension of the Trans-DanubianBulgaria, already founded by Kubrat.1. Dobrudja is the land within wh ich, at the endof the VIIth century, Asparouch founded the BulgarianCis-Danubian Kingdom.Since then and until the fall of Bulgaria underTurkish rule, Dobrudja has remained a Bulgarian p rovince, the political destiny of which is closely connectedwith that of the Bulgarian nation and the Bulgarianstate.On this point in the history of Dobrudja an issuehas been raised in Roumanian historical literature. TheRoumanian historian Hajdeu maintains that the Dobrudjabefore its fall under Turkish rule has been for thirty years

under the rule of Wallachian voyvodes, that in 1372Vladislav Bessarab had taken it by force of armsfrom the Bulgarian King Shishman, and that subsequently

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4 the Turks conquered it not from the Bulgarians butfrom the Roumanians. (Extension territoriale de Valachiejusqu'en 1400).This historical theory appears to be an invention, andis based on the false titles of some W allachian voy-vodes and on the keen imagination of the Roumanianchauv inistic writers. Thus is explained the fact thatsubsequently the Roumanian historian Yorga, himself anoisy Roumanian patriot, saw himself constrained toreduce som ewhat these historical fictions to a claim ofposs ible rule over Dobrudja by the voyvode Mircho.Speaking on this disputed point and accepting the thesisof Yorga, a third Roumanian historian and geographer captain Jonescu, comes to this conclusion: In spiteof all personal antipathy which a historian might naturally have against the Bulgarians, the documents andsources of the time prove to us that Muntenia (Wal-lachia) under Vladimir and Radu-Negru Bassarab neverruled Dobrudja, and that such a rule took place onlyafter the year 1386 under the voyvode Mircho (seeDobrudja at the Threshold of the XXth century Dobrugea in pragul veacului XX-lea p: 549).In reality, however, even this moderation of Roumanian patriotism is far from the actual truth, becauseincontestable historical documents establish the fact,that after 1386 Dobrudja passed under the pow er ofIvankou, the son of Dobrotitch, who succeeded his fatherto the throne and who conjointly with Shishman wagedwar against the Turks during the years 13891390,when Bulgaria was finally conquered and when Silistraand all Dobrudja were subjected by the Turk s. Aswe shall see below, the chrysobulls (charters) and titlesof Mircho as ruler of Dobrudja, on which titles is

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5 based the so-called Roumanian rule of this province, are,some of them ambiguous, others are explained by a mereparticipation of Mircho as an ally of Sultan Bayazetin the capture of Silistra during the years 13891390.

Of a subsequent rule of Dobrudja by Mircho afterthis date there is no evidence, for according to Roumanian sources, we see that in 1391 Mircho wasbanished to Brassa, as Bayazet's captive, and Wallachiawas enrolled in the registers of the Porte as a vassalof Turkey.

As a Turkish vassal Mircho was set free in 1392,and in 1393 he invaded Turkey through Svishtov, buthe was soon beaten and driven beyond the Danube byBayazet.Then comes the battle of Nicopolis in 1394. On

account of some misunderstanding among the allies ofSigismund among whom Mircho also figured, the latterabandoned the campaign before the beginning of thebattle of Nicopolis and surrendered to Bayazet.In the same year 1394 the Bavarian, Schiltberger, whotook part in the battle of Nicopolis and was takencaptive by Bayazet, calls Dobrudja "the Haird

Bulgaria", and the Roumanian historian Yorga in hiswork "Studii istorice" p. 60 quotes Schiltberger inorder to prove the existence of "a Maritime Bulgariaextending to the Kylia mouth of the Danube".Finally, the Byzantine historian Chalcocondilas,speaking of Mircho and his epoch during the years13961398, says: "The Wallachian country extends

from Transylvania to the Black Sea and is boundedon the right by the Danube as far as the Black Sea,and on the left by Bogdania" (i. e. Moldavia).

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6 Hajdeu himself, commenting on the incorrect interpretation of this quotation by Engel, says: "But whodoes not see that the Byzantine writer speaks exclusively of the northern part of the Istera ? And had thematter concerned Bulgaria, Chalcocondilas would havesa id : "having as a boundary on the right the B alkansand on the left the Danube" (Hajdeu, Historia critica aRomnilor, p. 4). So that independently of the factthat such a rule as is groundlessly ascribed to the

Wallachian voyvode Mircho could not of itself createany historical rights of Roumania to Dobrudja, thealleged rule itself appears to be a fiction purposelyinvented to the detriment of historical truth.Casting this false statement aside from its historyDobrudja appears in its true light a pure Bulgarianland and province throughout the entire long period

from the time of Asparouch down to the BerlinTreaty, because during the Tu rkish rule it was knownand always counted as Bulgarian, and as an inseparablepart of Bulgaria.The Greek writers, especially Theophanus, who describe the coming and settling down of Asparouch inDobrudja, say that this happened in the country called

"Oglos", "Olgos", "Onglos", as the Bulgarians themselves called this country. Shafarik exp lains, as this isplain to everyone who knows the Bulgarian and Qreeklanguages, that this designation is nothing but theGreek expression of the Bulgarian term Ungle or Ugle.The fact that the Greek historians designate thiscountry from the very first moment of the coming of

Asparouch not with a Greek but a Bulgarian name, showsthat this country had, until that time, no other name

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_ 7 and that the toponymy of Dobrudja was Bulgarian,or at least Slavic, before its invasion by Asparouch.This circumstance is fully explained by the theoryof the Scyth and Slav origin of the Bulgarians, whichat the same time explains not only the Slavic toponymyof Scythic and Thracian lands, but also a series ofunsolved and unexplained historical problems bearingon the prehistorical period of the Bulgarian state.If this theory is accepted, Dobrudja will then beregarded as the land of our forefathers from timeimm emorial, becau se in the time of Herodotus it wasthe land of the Geti and the Scythi or Scyths; in thetime of Ovid the Geti and Sarmati, which are oneand the same people ; and later on, up to and afterAsparouch, in the time of the decline of Rome, theweakening of Byzantium, and the regeneration of theScytho-Thracian rule, the Bulgarians appear in theGreek annals to be of the same race as the Huns, Avars,Slavs, and other Scytho-Thracian peoples, which inconcert or separa tely, wage constant wars for the establishment of their rule over the lands which Rome hadconquered and Byzantium inherited.

2. The ancient Dobrudja or "Ungle" bears to this daytraces of Asparouch's achievements and of the historyof his settlement in the Dobrudja. Th e northern partof Dobrudja without the Danube delta has the formof a triangle, the north-w estern and eastern points ofwhich bear the designation of "Boudjak". Th e localpopulation calls also Boudjak the place embraced inthe north-w estern and eastern angles of this triangle,the tops of which coincide to the north-west with theelevation 86 called "Boudjak", to the south with thevillage of Petchenyaga, and to the east with the village

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8Bey-Boudjak. Evidently the designation "Boudjak" hasbeen handed down from the time of the Turkish rule.It has substantially the same meaning as the term"Ugle". This designation is neither arbitrary nor accidental, but definite expression of the geographicalsituation of the country which Asparouch occupied andin which he fortified himself after crossing the Danube.The fact that when Asparouch crossed the Danube theGreek annalists themselves call this country by itsBulgarian name shows that in this land, in spite ofthe Roman rule, the local population and language hadpreserved even during the Roman and Byzantine subjection their full sway.By comparing the historical date which Teophanusgives with the country itself, and with the still preservedancient Bulgarian trenches near the heights of Nicoli-tsel with a southeastern front, it can positively beaffirmed that the angle in which Asparouch originallysettled down is the north-western angle of Dobrudja.The country itself, very hilly and mountainous, formsa natural fortress of -'mountain heights", of whichTheophanus speaks. There is no other country in Do-brudja like this, and the ditch which is about 15 kilometres long, and which encircles on three sides thepasses leading to the interior at the north-western angle,shows that this is the Onglus of Theophanus occupiedby Asparouch.The town of Issaktcha is enclosed within theradius of this country, and at Issaktcha is the mostconvenient place for crossing the Danube. Just therethe troops of Asparouch crossed the Danube and fortified themselves in the angle occupied by him. Thewell-known sociologist, Dr. E. Seliminsky, relates

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9 that in his time, in 1840, there were discovered nearIssaktcha the remains of an ancient bridge, which heconsiders to be the bridge of Darius, built about 600B. C. It is, however, more probable that this bridgewas the one built in the time of Asparouch, and not inthe time of Darius, because it is incredible that a woodenbridge should for 2400 years preserve traces of itsconstruction, and because it is known that the bridgeof Darius was built on pontoons by his Sonian seamen,whereas Seliminsky relates that of the remains of thisbridge in his time a good many wooden beams weretaken out. Such a construction pre supposes not onlya temporary necessity, but also a vehical for constantintercourse with the opposite bank, where the BulgarianKingdom had already been organised by Koubrat.

From the investigations of our able archeologist,Mr. Carl Shkorpil, there is now no doubt, that thetrenches of Nicolitsel, which the Roumanians call "Trajan's Wall", are Bulgarian, in the first place becausethey have the im press of the Bulgarian trench work ofthose times, with the same characteristic constructionwhich is also seen in the trenches near Aboba-Pliscovo,and secondly, because they have a southern front, i. e.,they are directed against an eventual attack on the partof Byzantine armies.

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O -

I I .Struggles, movements, and attempts of Bulgarians beforeAsparouch to create an independent Kingdom in Dobrudja. Kingdom of Irina in Dobrudja. The revolts of Vitalian,Bulgara, and Dragan in Dobrudja and in Lower Mysia. The wars of the Avars and the peace of Djurula. Scytho-Tracian character of the Eastern Empire in the time of Justinian. Achievements of Asparouch as the result of thesestruggles, and the political regeneration of the native population in the Dobrudja and Mysia. Dobrudja the pantheonof our past.3. Before Asparouch, Attila's son Irnik, founds inthe Dobrudja, in the middle of the fifth century, a Hun-Bulgarian Kingdom semi-independent of the Eastern

Em pire. After the death of his father, the Hun statefell to pieces, and in the place of the united Hun peoplethere arose the separate political and military organisations of Avars, Bulgarians and Slavs.. The name ofSlavs becomes subsequently the racial designation ofall ancient Scytho-Thracian peoples and tribes. Togetherwith the division of these peoples there takes place alsothe division between the three sons of Attila. The youngestof these, Irnik (Ernak or Hernak), whose name we findin the catalogue of Bulgarian Kings, found by Popoff,crosses the Danube as a friend and ally of the Empireand establishes his rule in the Dobrudja. Th is act ofhis is accounted for by his calm and peaceful character,which is attested by the fact, that in 466 he refusesto respond to his brother Denzerik (Dinzio or Dincho,according to the Gothic historian Jordanus) to commencejointly with him hostilities against Byzantium.

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11 Th e subsequen t fate of Irnik's Hun - Bulgarian

Kingdom in Dobrudja is uncertain. But the revolt ofthe Thracian Vitalian in 514, with 60,000 Huns andBulgarians, gathered in the Dobrudja and Lower Mysia,as well as a second revolt of the Bulgarians in thesame country, which broke out in 538 under the leadersh ipof the Bulgarian voyvodes Bulgar and Dragan, showthat even after Irnik, Dobrudja remains the nucleus ofthe rising Bulgarian state on this side of the Danube.The events transpiring after this are but the logicalstages of the same political and social process , whichis connected with the crossing of the Danube byAsparouch and the founding of the first Bulgarian Kingdom in Dobrudja. Such events are the wars of theAvars during the VIth century, the theatre of which isDobrudja, and the first period of which ends with

the peace concluded in 591 in Zurule, probab ly thepresent Djurulca, which place some historians think tobe near Tchorlu in Thrace. As the Huns, so also theAvars, were an allied Scytho-Thracian people, composedof Huns, Bulgarians and Slavs. Their great deeds werebut the deeds of our forefathers from preh istoric times.Th is fact explains the social and historical even tswhich preceded the founding of Asparouch's Kingdom.Of the Slavo-Bulgarian deriva tion of the A varpeople speak the following two facts: 1. During theyear 591 the Byzantine general Priscus crosses theDanube nearSilistra and attacks the Slavs under Ardagast.The Avar king considers this a violation of the Zurulepeace and declares war which was avoided afterPriscus consents to set free the 5000 Slav cap tives,

and to restore half of the booty taken from the Slavs.2. During the year 597 the troops of Priscus begin new

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12military operations against the Avars and come in collision with a detachment of 1000 Bulgarians. "Thesebarb arians", say Theoph anus and Simothaca, "subjectsof the Avar Kingdom, counting on the peace concluded,very quietly go on their way, when suddenly they aretaken aback by the deadly arrow s of the Romans (Byzantines). After an unsuccessful attempt of the Bulgarians to come to terms with the comm ander of the Imperialtroops, they take position and kill the detachment thatattacks them. Later the Avar King asked for explanationsfor this violation of the treaty and received the reply,that the collision was due to a mistake and ignoranceon the part of the commander of the Byzantine troops."4. Momentous for the time and work of Asparouchare also the following phenomena in the Eastern Empireitself during the time of Justinian. From a Roman theEmpire was transformed into a Thracian , Scythian, Hun,"Barbarian Empire". After the success of Vitalian'srevolt, Vitalian, son of Aspar becomes Byzantine generaland consul of the Empire, who as such beco,mes blood-brother of Justinian, then a mere aspirant to the throneof his uncle Justin, who from an ord inary shepherdhad become emperor. Both being of Thracian origin,the ceremony of blood-brotherhood was performed inaccordance with the ancient Scythian custom, bothdrinking of one and the same cup of wine, mixed withtheir own blood.

Behind this blood-brotherhood Justinian concealshis hostile purpose, formed in consequence of his fearlest Vitalian should supplant him as heir to the throne,which he considered imperilled by the fame and greatpolitical influence of Vitalian. After thus getting everysuspicion removed, Justinian hires assassins, who one

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13 evening murder Vitalian, as he was going out of thepalace . After his death Justinian assum es the pos t ofImperial consul, a s well as leader of the so-called"blue party", which was the party of the native population of the Empire, that is, the party of the Thracians,Scythians, Huns, and Slavs. The adherents of this partyat that time never let pass an opportunity to manifesteverywhere and in every way their national aspirationsand peculiarities. They begin to d ress their hair inHun fashion and to let their beards grow long like theScythians. Justinian himself followed their example, andProcopius reproached him for bearing himself like a"barbarian".Thus Rome loses in the East at the time of theThracian dynasties its influence and dominion, and atthe time of Asparuch the Eastern Empire assumes moreand more a Scytho-Thracian physiognomy, which prepared the way for the establishment of a Scytho-Thracian Kingdom in the Balkans. The political traditionsof the state institutions' of the Empire, however, constituted an insurm ountable obstacle to any change in thepolitical order; for the successful carrying out of sucha change an external power was required, a power thatwould do away with everything that the violence andthe tyrannical Roman rule had succeeded to create andestablish in the Balkan Pen insula. Th is pow er whichunites in itself the already awakened national consciousness of the native population, as well as its aspirationsfor po litical independence, makes its appearence in theBulgarians under Asparouch, who after the politicalconsolidation of the Bulgarians beyond the Danube,crosses to the right bank , in order to continue thework of liberating the then oppressed Scytho-Thra-

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_ 14 cian peoples, and to accomplish that political restorationin the Balkan Peninsula which really began in the Da-nubian lands with the flight of Aurelian from Daciain 275.At this juncture events were fast crowding each other.Rome was going, but together with the menacing risingup of all those "Danubian ba rba rian s" over the politicalgrave upon which Rome had grown, Hellenism also rose up.Behind the state traditions of the Empire and the prouddesignation of Romans the Greeks concealed their aspirations to inherit the Roman dominion over the Thracians,the Scythians, and the numerous other nations created bythem, whose names fill this epoch of political ferment.This was the only serious resistance Asparouch had toencounter, and the struggle with this pow er constitutesthe history of our conflicts and wars with Byzantium.The ethnical medium in the Danubian lands and in thewhole Empire, which in its political aspirations hadalmost remained alien both to the Roman and Greekrule, facilitated this task, and in a short time the workof Asparouch is well rounded up in the strong Bulgarian Empire in the Balkans, by which the oppressedScytho-Thracian peoples begin a new and a free political life.The cradle of this life is Dobrudja, and every foot ofground in this country bears traces of our past, of ourregenerating work, of our vitality and our misfortunes.In Dobrudja lies not only the guaranty of our security on the north, but there also is found the pantheonof our past national power, of our former national consciousness, and our political creativeness. There isthe beginning and end of our history, although theRoman, G reek, Turk ish and Roumanian rule have cov-

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15 ered all th is country with ruins and desolation, w hilstBulgarian self-consciousness and mind, oppressed during long centuries, left it in oblivion and silence.5. Dobrudja is full of archeological monuments ofour past history which the Roumanians, pretendingto be the descendants of the Romans, publish as Roumanian, and many of those monuments which cannotbe falsified, they simply minimise their importance orhide away.The monument near Adam-Klisse which bears veryplain and incontestable material marks of a grand workof Scytho-Thracian art, the inventive Roumanian mindof Mr. Tochilescu makes out to be a work of Trajan,erected as "a scare to the ba rba rian s". Th e markeddifference between Roman art and the sculptured workon the bas-reliefs of this monum ent Mr. Toch ilescuexplains with the probability of the memorial havingbeen made by native workmen, as Rome was verydistan t, and it was very difficult to find Roman work-fnen. The rude gigantic figures of the medusae on thismonument he explains by supposing that Trajan's object with them was to scare the native barbarian populatio n; of the Thracian horseman, of the Sarmathianarmour and trophy, adorning the top of the monum ent,he has nothing to say ; the Sarmatian horseman on thebas-reliefs he represents as Roman, and the huge lionsmade of white stone, which adorn the faade of themonument, he passes with the remark that they werelaid there to serve as a sort of water-spout. Mr. Tochi-lescu's inven tiveness, how ever, is best shown in the Latininscription of seven lines. Th is inscription he composes of seven letters collected and arranged by himin nine different pieces, found in various places in the

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16 vicinity, without the possibility of these pieces beingplaced in such a way as to form a united whole, andwithout allowing the form of their hypothetical accordto correspond with the place in the faade of the monument, where he places them as a restored monumentalinscription.Asparouch's ditch near the village of Nicolitsel becomes for the Roumanians a Trajan's wall. "Trajan's wall"they also called the trenches along the line of M edji-dieh-Constantza, when it is known that the northerndouble line of trenches in this locality was built in377 by Valens for the defence of the Empire againstthe incursions of Goths and Huns, and the southernline of trenches was erected by the Bulgarians, and isof the same type as the Nicolitsel trenches or those ofAboba, designed for defence against an attack from thesouth.The ruins on the heights of Yeni-Sala, the Roumanianshastened to call Cetatea Eraclea Heraclean fortress when it is plain that the fortress, the ruins of which*have preserved its characteristic forms, is of hexagonalbastions, showing that it dates, from mediaeval times,i. e., from the time of the Bulgarian ruler D obrotitch,and that consequently this is one of Dobro titch's fortresses.At Karanassouf was found an almost wholly preservedfortress with subterranean passages and an ancientBulgarian Church built of stone; with these findingsthe excavations stop, after allowing some slabs to bebroken and others buried again.Under the very plateau of the present village ofPr islav a lie buried the ruins of the ancient Bulgariancapital Preslava the former Megolopolis of Anna

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17 Comnena which city has been erroneously searched nearHaemus; it was situated near the Danube.From the beginning and down to the wars ofSvetoslav, the history of D obrudja is the history ofBulgaria. Dobrudja is the centre of the latter's political,cultural, and intellectual life. Here lie the monum entsof our material culture, here is the great burying-groundof our forefathers, over which hovers an undying spiritwhich has withstood all cataclysms and has inspired allsubsequent generations in their ceaseless struggle withthe enemies of Bulgaria.

2

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18

III.The Bulgarians the first Slav people who after the disintegration of Rome organise the old Scytho-Thracian peop lesinto a perm anent state system, based on the principles ofcontemporary statecraft. The w ars of Svetoslav in Do-brudja as a manifestation of Scythian and Slav separatism,and as a counter-check in the historical march of the political

prepo nderan ce of the Slav peop les. Dobrudja, pro sperousland. Preslava the centre of the Slav lands. The siteof the ancient capital Preslava in Dobrudja.6. The Bulgarians make their appearance as thefirst Scytho-Thracian people, who after the desintigrationof the Roman dominion succeed to create a permanen tstate system on the principles of national sovereignty,

and to begin an independent political life. This accountsfor the great extent of the Bulgarian state in the Scytho-Thracian lands on both banks of the Danube in thefirst years of its founding, as well as for the culturalinfluence of this state on all other Slav peoples andstates, who later on follow the example of the Bulgarians.The Scytho-Thracian character of the new Bulgarianstate and of the Bulgarian people, though often disputed,is none the less evident and undoubted . "Dirty Scythianpeople", Nicephorus calls the B ulgarians, the ex traordinary envoys, whom Tsar Peter had sent him duringthe X th century, in order to collect the tribute due toBulgaria. Besides, even Herodorus speaks of theculture of the Scythians, and in describing their vices,he also makes mention of their good qualities andvirtues, their manners, customs, morals, their religion,and their dress, in which description one cannot but

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19 see a strik ing similarity, very often a full identity , withthose of our people and with the Slav peoples ingeneral.While Dobrudja was under Roman and Byzantinerule the incursions into the country from without nevercease. Th ere comes even a time when it becomescompletely torn away from the Empire, in spite of itsstrong fortresses along the Dan ube. With the foundingin it of Asparouch's state, however, these incursionscease, in order to follow those of the Bu lgarians to theSouth into the Em pire. Th is circumstance sho ws thatthe wa ve and movem ent of the Scytho-Thracian peop lesstrugg ling and waging war for their political restorationcoincide with the work and penetration of Asparouchin the Balkan Pen insula. Th is work stops with thew ars of Svetoslav. These wars come as an unexpectedblow against the general Slav impetus into the BalkanPeninsula , so fortunately facilitated by the Bu lgariansin the first period of their development and so fatallyarrested by Svetoslav. Th e spirit of political separatismand of tribal egoism, going hand in hand with political credulity, shortsightedness, and pettiness, characterising the history of the Scythian peoples, find theirmanifestation in the recent and more modern Slavstates.Svetoslav's fleet surprised the Bulgarians at themouth of the Dan ube where they suspected no dang er.To this fact is due the rapid success of Svetoslav and thecrush ing defeat of the Bu lgarians. Bulgaria becom es thevictim of a treachery cunningly prepared by Nicephorus,who powerless to undertake a war against the Bulgariansto whom he paid tribute, sends Kalokyrus to Svetoslav,to induce him to consent to his perfidious plan, by

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20 striking in the rear the Bulgarian troops which weredirected to the south.The theatre of Svetoslav's war is again Dobrudja,and the first blow is dealt on the town of Preslava.The hastily collected troops for the occasion do notsucceed to repel the unexpected attack. Tsar Peterdefeated retreats and shuts himself in Silistra, wherehe shortly dies, and Svestoslav becomes master of allDobrudja, where according to Nestor, "he capturesPreslava and 80 other towns".Since then , from the time of Igor - father of Svetoslav -the Dobrudja has been known as a rich and fertileland, and the above quotation from Nestor attests herthick population . All this, together with the rich bribeof 1500 pounds of gold, helps to draw Svetoslav into theintrigues of Nicephorus and Kalokyrus, and becomes thecause of this fatal war for Bulgaria. Beaten and hum iliated by the Russians, Bulgaria accepts the assistanceof her natural enemy in the south, who drives the Russians back, but along with this, he subjects Bulgaria also.Thus Svetoslav, owing to the inherent political shortsightedness of the Slavs, becomes the cause of chang ingthe political order of things in the Balkan Peninsula,of putting Bulgaria in chains, and of weakening hisown state, which during his wars in Dobrudja, wasattacked and overrun by the Petchenegs, who later onpenetrate even into the Danube lands and into the Dobrudja itself. In vain his mother and his boyars exhortSvetoslav to remain in Kiev and not to leave his ownland. He an sw er s: "I do not like to stay in Kiev, Iwish to go to Preslava on the Danube, because thereis the heart of my country, and because there aregathered all good things: from Greece gold, silk,

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21 wines, and fruits; from Bohemia and Hungary, silverand horses ; from Russia, furs, wax, honey and slaves."The misfortunes of nations have often had as theircause such petty motives of material character and greedfor personal enrichment. For these things Svetoslav,despite the exho rtations of his mother and his boyars,leaves Kiev for Preslava for the second time. Zimiscet,however, about this time threatens Bulgaria, in consequence of which Svetoslav leaves his general Sfenkeliain Preslava, and goes and fortifies himself in Silistra,where he shares Tsar Peter's fate, and whence humiliated he flies to his sh ips. Thus the Eastern Empirealready hellenized and powerless as regards Bulgariadestroys both the Bulgarian tsardom and Svetoslav.7. From the o riginal writers who have describedthese events it is evident that the capital of Bulgariaat this time (967969) is Preslava on the Danube,near the ruins of which is situated the village of Pri-slava. From the investigations made in this very placewe learn that this village was built about 850. TheRoumanian imm igrants call itPris lava, and the BulgariansPreslava. So it was called from the beg inning , for thevery locality bore that name from the name of theruined city under it.

Tcherrkoff in his work on the wars of Svetoslav,in which he gives quotations from Nestor, Kedrinus,and Leo Diaconus, bearing on this subject, in his explanatory note No. 60, page 189, s ays: "From the workof Anna Comnena it appears that there were two citiescalled P res lava: The Great and the Little Preslava.The first was situated near the Danube and was themost beautiful city in that country. The Greeks calledit Megalopolis ; the second, or Little Preslava, is known

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22 in our annals under the name of Pereyaslavets, maybe in distinction from the Great Preslava. Our Pereyaslavets was situated near the Haemus moun* ins, farfrom the Danube."Anna Comnena herself sa ys: "The celebrated cityof Preslava is situated near the Danube. Formerly thiscity had no barbarian but a Greek name and was calledM egalopolis. But from the time when the BulgarianTsar Mokr and his descendants, especially Samuel, likeJewish Saduccees, had commenced to attack the dom inions of the Empire, this city began to be called GreatPreslava."Notwithstanding all this, the prevailing view is thatour ancient capital was on the site of Preslav nearShoumen. Th is view, after having the negative resultsobtained from the archeological excavations made onthat site, can no longer be maintained. The valuablefindings at Aboba do not support it, for they discoveredthe ancient town of Pliscovo , which w as situated nearLittle Preslava, a fortress at the foot of the Haemusmountains.The reason for the above erroneous view is to befound in the fact that in Tcherrkoff's book and in thequotations from Nestor, when Preslava on the Danubeis spoken of, the expression "Pereyaslavets on the Danube"is used. And as Tcherrkoff himself sa ys: "LittlePreslava known in our annals under the name ofPereslavets, may be in distinction from Great Preslava".Tcherrkoff's "may be" has been taken for the factitself, and Great Preslava becomes Little Preslava, andthe Little, Great Pres lava. Tcherrkoff himself, however,in the explanatory note quoted above, tells us that thePreslava on the Danube is Great Preslava, and that

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23near the Balkan mountains is Little Preslava, and onthe other hand, in the text of his book he himselfuses ind iscriminately the name of Pereslavets both forLittle and G reat Preslava, whence it follows that thisexpression is due to the pecu liar softness of the Russianlanguage the disposition to express in a diminutiveform the designation of that which is to be presentedas dear and beautiful.Our ancient capital, therefore, was situated at oneof the most northern points of Dobrudja, near themouth of the Danube, and has for ages been waitingthe restoration of the Bulgarian rule, in order to resus citate from its ruins the spirit and aspirations of ourforefathers.

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24 IV.

The extent of the Bulgarian rule at the time of the firstand second Bulgarian Kingdom and the falsity of the historical claims of the Roumanian aspirations towards Bulgaria. Pages from the history of the Wallachian voyvodeships andtheir Bulgarian characte r down to 1700. T he Slav originof the terms Vlach (Wallach) and Vlachia (W allachia), and thedistinction to be made between the notions of these termsand the terms Roumanian and Roumania, The enslaved condition of the Roumanians in Wallachia down to the XVHIthcentury, their origin and their political lack of personalitydown to 1882.

8. The limits of the first Bulgarian Kingdom embraced almost all the Scytho-Thracian lands on bothbanks of the Danube. In it were included, not only thetwo Wallachian voyvodeships, now constituting the Kingdom of Roumania, but also Transylvania, Banat and thewhole of Panonia, lands which before the Roman ruleformed Dacia and Panonian Sarmatia.The western boundaries of Bulgaria beyond theDanube touched those of Charlemagne's Empire andlater on those of Hungary. The centre of political life,however, after the founding of the Cis-Danubian Kingdom in the traces of the dying Roman dominion, istransferred here, while the government of the Trans-

Danubian possessions is left in the hands of vassalvoyvodes and princes, for, apart from the wars of theBulgarian ruler Krum with the Avars which probablyhad the character of an internal war for the hegemonyover the Scytho-Thracian groups there, formerly composing the Avar Kingdom history does not, duringthis epoch, record an event showing that the newBulgarian state was threatented by any serious externalperil.

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25 With the fall of the Cis-Danubian Eastern and Western

Kingdoms and with the destruction of the ruling dynasties, the political life of the Bulgarian state is arrested,without, however, the subjection under foreign rule ofthe Trans-Danubian possessions.There was wanting an enterprising voyvode, who,with an well o rgan ised military force from the northernBulgarian possess ions, should attempt to drive awaythe enemy, and restore Bulgarian rule on this side ofthe Danube.T his task is undertaken by the two brothers of she pherd origin, Assen and Peter, who tow ards the year1185, after a successful revolt, and with the o rganisation of a military force brought from the Wallachianvoyvodeships, restore the Bulgarian Kingdom withinits former limits. Assen was crowned Tsar in Tirno-vo and founded the dynasty of the Assenides whoassume the title of "Tsar of Bulgaria and Wallachia",which in the letters of Innocent IV. to the BulgarianTsar Kaloyan, is translated Rex Bulgarorum et Blacorum.This title, transmitted in a distorted form and witha reverse meaning, offered an opportunity to the Roumanian historians to call the second Bulgarian KingdomRoumano-Bulgarian Empire", and to maintain that ithad a Roumanian character, inflaming thus the imagination of the new Roum anian generation with claims toBulgarian territories. These perversions of history weredissem inated into foreign literature for the purpose ofcreating public opinion in support of their moribundaspirations.The title itself, however, as well as the incontestable historical data, prove just the reverse of what theRoum anians maintain and proclaim. This proves that

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26 W allachia formed a part of the first as well as thesecond Bulgarian Kingdom, and that the Bulgariancharacter of the Wallachian voyvodeships was preserveduntil the middle of the XVIIth century, a fact explicitlyadmitted by the Roumanian historian Xenopol, one ofthe staunchest Roumanian nationalists.In his "History of the Roumanians" (French text),after striving to prove the Roum anian character of thesecond Bulgarian Kingdom by various sophisms, play onword s, and distorted judgm ents, he asks the question :"How is it then, that the Wallachians disappear fromthe subsequent history of the Wallacho-Bulgarian empire, and that this Empire is in time transformed intoa purely Bulgarian Em pire, a fact, which cannot bedenied?"To this question he rep lies : "Every one will easilyunterstand, that after a certain time the Wallachiansceased to form the predominating element, but subjectto the Bulgarians, they were numbered among the peoplescomposing their state".Xenopol q uotes also the following text from Theiner :"The letters of Kaloyan, the ruler of the Bulgariansand Wallachians, sent to Pope Innocent, were translated from Bulgarian into Greek and from Greek intoLatin". In view of this text and the above perplexityof Xenopol in regard to the disappearance of the W allachians and his own theory on the subject, that Wallachians, in the sense of Roumanians, dit not then exist,it will be seen that no one having regard for historicaltruth would dare to maintain Xenopol's thesis.9. Nearer the truth is his colleague, D. A. Teodoru,who in "La Grande Encyclopdie", though he maintainsthe same view in regard to the Roumanian character of

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27 Assen's state, ends with the following statement onthe question."The successors of Assen and Peter bore the titlesof tsar s (emperors) of the Bu lgarians and Roum anians,or of Bulgaria and Wallachia." The same title borealso the patriarch of Tirnovo, "Patriarch of all Bulgariaand W allachia". The analysis of the contemporarydocuments of this epoch shows that this Wallachia ofthe Assenides cannot be looked for south of the Danube,where the lands bearing this name did not belong tothe Assenides. This W allachia was bounded by Hungary,and is evidently the Wallachia north of the Danube.Of this Wallachia speaks Ivanitsa (Kaloyan) in hiscorrespondence concerning his frontier disputes withHungary. This Wallachia, therefore, is the so-calledGreat Wallachia by foreigners to this day. The contemporaries of the time referred to called it BlackRoum ania, and later, Black W allachia , Kara-Ulaghi, andon account of the Bulgarian rule in the country Burgaria,preserving the designation Bulgaria only for the landssouth of the Danube."In this Wallachia was also organised a banshipwhich the Tartars found in 1241 and of which Hungarian documents speak in 1247. This Roum ania is theonly principality subject to the Assenides. In the correspondance of Kaloyan with the Pope mention is m adeof som e p rinces subject to his empire. One of them isin the south, the other two in the north of the Danube.We have spoken of the first. The second is Bassarabeof Oltenia, whom the chronicle of Rashid of 1241 callsBassarab-ban or Bassaraba, while this same Rashidcalls Kara-Ulaghi the people inhabiting great Wallachia.This banship has existed from the time of the first

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28 Bulgarian Kingdom, and we see it now subject to theAssenides, in exact accord with the tradition of theBulgarians. This tradition we are bound to accept astrue, in order to give any sense to the Roum anian tradition, according to which the Oltenian Bassarabs werevoluntarily subject to Negru-Voda a mythical personto whom is ascribed not the founding of the firstRoumanian dynasty, as w as generally believed untilrecently, but of the Roumanian state. This Negru-Vodais said to have come from a foreign land and not fromTransylvania, as the W allachian chronicles lately interpreted the tradition; and he represented the suzerainBulgaro- Wallachian authority of Wallachia overOltenia.""So that before the incursion of the Tartars the Roumanian element is organised into voyvodesh ips : inTransylvania under the Hungarians ; in Wallachia andOltenia, under the Bulgarians; while in Moldavia areformed communities w ithout any connections . . . Thetwo Wallachias (Wallachia and Oltenia) form an inseparable part of the Roumano-Bulgarian Empire."The same author says:"The destruction of the Avar Kingdom by Charlemagne in 796 strenghtened the Bulgarian rule in theprovince of The iss . Under the sovereignty of the Bulgarians the Bassarabs organised in Oltenia the firstRoumanian state, and the church of these prov inces ofwhich we treat, acknow ledged the suprem acy of thePatriarchate of Ochrida."From all these data, taken and quoted from Roumaniansources , it is ev ident that the title of the Assenides"Imperator et Dom inus Bulgarorum etBlaccorum", means''T sa r and ruler of Bulgaria and W allachia, and not

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29Roumano-Bulgarian Emperor", as the Roumanian historians distortedly give it, and that in the time of the second,as well as during the first Bulgarian Kingdom, theboundaries of Bulgaria embraced as well the lands ofmodern Bulgaria and Dobrudja, as also those of modernRoumania, w hich ex isted then as a Bulgarian provinceunder the well-known at the time Slavic designationof Vlachia or Wallachia, which does not mean Roumania,and which is far from giving an idea of the ethnicalcharacter of the people inhabiting it.10. In order to see plainly the artificiality and falsityof the Roumanian historical theories in regard to theRoumanian character of the second Bulgarian Kingdomand the hypothetical Roumanian claims to the Dobrudja, we must also have in view the following explanation :"Vlach" and "Vlachia", in the time of which we write,do not mean "Roumanian" and "Roumania". This theRoumanian historians know well. In spite of it, how ever, by means of these designations they identifythe history of Wallachia and of the Bulgarian population inhabiting it with that of Roumania and thepresent Roumanian people, who should be rememberd,belong to an altogether new political and ethnical formation. The terms "Vlach" and "Vlachia" are Slavic,they have as their root the terms "volok" and"voloki", "fur" and "furs". Etymologically these termsmean "fur wearers", "land of the fur-wearers", buttheir ordinary meaning is "shep herd", "shepherd settlement", "pastu re land ". This is explained by the fact,that the names of Vlachia (Wallachia) and Vlachs(Wallachs) are also applied to certain provinces inCis-Danubian Bulgaria, to which an allusion is madein the quotation of Theodoru. These de signations did

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30 not then bear the force of an ethnical denomination ofthe Roumanian people and of the lands they inhabited.These designations were applied to the Trans-DanubianBulgarian voyvodeships, for the reason that Transylvania and Panonia presented extensive pasture lands,whence the designations Vlachia, Black Vlachia, WhiteVlachia, Great and Little Vlachia, have been transferredto the newly formed Danubian voyv odesh ips, when theBulgarians founded the Cis-Danubian Kingdom.It is true, however, that among these shep herdsthere was a large num ber of Roman colons, rom anisedRoman Slavs, who were included in the general designation of "Vlachs", and it is possible that this designationwas also applied to the Roman slaves in whom wereincluded the romanised Scythians; but it is no lesstrue that all these Rom an remnants in W allachia, indistinction from the free Bulgarian native population,were called by a special designation Of Roum anians",who not only did not constitute the ruling element inWallachia, but on the contrary, their ethnical namebecame in that country synonymous with the word"slave". "Slavery in Wallachia", says Xenopol himself, "has ever been designated with the term Roumania"(Rumunya), and the slave with the term "Roumanian".It is a strange fact that the ethnical nam e of apeople should serve as a designation of the most degraded class." (Xenopol, vol. I., p. 205.) And when thefree Bulgarian peasants were compelled to sell themselves to the landowners, they stipulated in the contracts,"they sell themselves and their childern as Roum anianswith all their land". (Ibid p. 225).

Such was the civil and political condition of theRoumanians in Wallachia, which is equally explained

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31 by the fact, that w ith his w ithdraw al fromD acia, Aurllianmust have taken with himself all Roman citizens, leaving only the Roman shepherds and colons, deprived ofcitizenship, as by the fact, that the Roman helots thusabandoned fall under the power of the native Dacianand Slav population.

The above circumstances are established from Latinchronicles which record the withdraw al of Aurelianfrom Dacia, from the chronicle of the Magyar anonymistBalae, and that of Keza, in which it is said that "theRoman citizens of Panonia also withdrew to Apulea,but their shepherds and colons remained in Panonia".(Xenopol, vol. I., p. 151.)This condition of the Roumanians continued untilthe XVIIIth century, and Xenopol, in answer to the Magyars, who reproach the Roumanians with being slavesand guests in their own land, strives to prove thatslavery in Roum ania is the resu lt of subsequent socialand economic causes.It becomes, however, evident from the quotationswhich we give in the next chapter that the Roumaniansleft in Dacia get in former Dacia last in the great massof Slav peoples, and instead of their own history, whichin fact they do not possess, Xenopol appropriates thatof the Bulgarians in the Wallachian voyvodeships, whichuntil the time of Mattey Bassarab and Vasil Lupu (1650),more than 300 years after our subjection by the Tu rks , pre serve their purely Bulgarian character, only to fall in theirturn under Hellenism, from which they get emancipatedin the beg inning of the XIX th century, with a neo-Latin

tendency assumed under the influence of the Transyl-vanian Roumanians who had just then begun to manifest

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33

V.Pages from Roumanian history. Until the epoch of MatteyBassarab and Vassil Lupu, 16341654, and ten centuries before this, the voyvodeships of Wallachia and ancien t Daciawholly Bulgarian. The five Bulgarian voyvodeships in present Roumania, Dacia and Panonia before the creation of theWallachian voyvodeships. The Bulgarian language predominating in all these lands and voyvodeships from the timeof the d isintegration of the Avar Kingdom down to 1650,when the W allachian voyvodeships fall under the Turk s. The beginning of the Roumanian national consciousness inthe nineteenth century.11. The incontestable Bulgarian character of theWallachian voyvodeships until the end of the XVIIth century is of great importance in view of the claims ofthe Roumanians that the Wallachian voyvode Mircho is

supposed, as a Roumanian prince, to have ruled Do-brudja, whence they get the ground for their allegedrights to Dobrudja, by which they also vindicated theirviolent Roumanising rgime in that province.The voyvode Mircho, however, as well as all otherWallachian voyvodes, down to the XVII th century, wereall Bulgarian voyvod es, and his rule in Dobrudja cannotcreate for Roumania any historical rights over thatterritory.True it is that the Wallachian voyvodeships beginan autonomous life: Wallachia in the time of Alexander Bassarab in 1325, and Moldavia under Bogdanin 1365, but long after this, their purely Bulgariancharacter is preserved, as will be seen from the quotations given below from the Roum anian history ofXenopol (French text). In some of these quotations,however, in order to avoid any misunderstanding and

3

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34 error, one should not confound the term "Roumanians"with the term "W allach ians", for Xenopol in his thesisspeculates with these designations in such a manner,as to attribute to the Roumanians what the originalsources write for the Wallachians, i. e., for the population of Wallachia."The Wallachian voyvodes", he says, "until the creation of the principalities were subject first to Bulgaria,later to the M agyars" (v. I., p . 220).Until the creation of the principalities, that means,until the above quoted initial dates 1325 and 1365,it is evident from the very quotations, that before thesedates these principalities had no independent politicalexistence, as the author strives to prove in many placesof his book."It is natural, that as long the Wallachians livedin the mountains, the noble, ruling Roumanian classcould make no appearance ; this happened in the timeof the Bulgarian rule in Dacia, where Roumanians andSlavs began to descend in the plains " (vol. I., p. 229)."Towards 650 the Bulgarian king Koubrat shakesoff the Avar yoke and extends h is rule over the landsof the ancient Trajan Dacia. His son Asparouch crossesthe Danube and establishes the seat of the Bulgarianpow er in Mysia. Notwithstanding this, however, itgoes without saying, that the Bulgarians still retainedtheir power in the provinces north of the Danube whichthey ruled in the time when they inhabited the Onglos.Thus the Daco-Roumanian population which was alreadyunder Slav influence was subjected anew to this influence under the Bulgarian rule."

"The Bulgaro-Slav influence was begun and exertedthrough religion. It continues for nearly eight cen-

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35 turies until the reign of M attey Bassarab in Wallachia(1633-1654) and Vassil Lupu in Moldavia (1634-1653)"."The indtroduction of the Slavic church serviceamong the W allachians is easily explained as a resultof the Bulgarian rule in the ancient Trajan Dacia"(v. I, pp. 133 and 133).

"The geographer of Ravenna who wrote in thebeginning of VIIIth century speaks of the provinceswhich the Bulgarians occupied then along the lowerDanube and gives a list of the tow ns . . (here follow thenames of about 25 towns). All these town s are includedwithin the limits of Dacia. Although he erroneouslyincludes these tow ns in Lower Mysia, retaining thename of Dacia only for the province embraced in thepresent Banat, still he gives Dacia as the dwellingplace of the Bu lgarians, and does not forget to saythat this part of Lower Mysia is north of the Danube.

"Another geographer, from Bavaria, who wrote inthe end of the IX th century, enumerates among the peopleswho live on the northern bank of the Da nu be : theTchechs, M oravians, and Bulgarians, who had becomeneighbors of the Kingdom of the Franks."The fact of this neighborhord is also confirmedby Suidas, who testifies that the Bulgarian king Kroumsubjected the Avars who were then threatened by theFrank s in 797. Enhard, Heriman, the annalist Saxo,the annals of Fulda, record facts, which make the Bulgarians neighbours of the Franks, up to the river Theiss their eastern frontier."In the Life of St. Gerard it is exp lained that towards 1007 the Bulgarian gospodar of Transylvania,Atyum, had usurped the right to impose transit custom-

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36 duties on the salt which was carried from Muresh toTheiss."That is why the Hungarian chronicles quote severalBulgarian voyvodeships in Tran sylvan ia, and that is why,too, for a long time Transylvania and especially Wal-lachia was called Bulgaria, land of the Bu lgarians,among others, by the Persian annalist Fazil UllahRashid, who in 1303 wrote a history of the Tartar incursion in Dacia in 1240, based on authentic documents taken from the archives of the Mongol Khan inPersia by order of Mahmoud Gazan Khan.

"We will also give a document of 1231 whichrecalls the former rule of the Bulgarians in Transylvania,and speaks of one of the quarters of the town of Brashov(Cronstadt), the one that is now inhabited by Roumanians,and which to this day bears the name of Bolgarzeg(vol. I., pp. 131134).

The eastern Slavic church service was introductedby Cyril and Methodius. The Bulgarian Tsa r Simeonorganised the Bulgarian Church and created a patriarchin Preslava. The Bulgarian patriarchate in the timeof Tsar Samuel in 1010 was transferred to Ochrida."We possess no data in regard to the time of theintroduction of the Bulgarian church service among theW allachians. The following three facts are, however,well established:1. "A general spreading of this church service inthe time of the first Bulgarian Kingdom."2. "The existence of this service among the Wallachians from the very first days in which they maketheir appearance in history."

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373. "The spreading of the Bulgarian rule north ofthe Danube in the lands inhabited by the Wallachians,in the first days of the first Bulgarian Kingdom .""It is quite natural to take the second of these factsas a result of the other two.""The Wallachians had accepted not only the Slavicalphabet, but the Slavic language also.""T he dependence of the W allachian Church on theBulgarian is seen also later on. Thus one of the patriarchs of Constantinople in a letter addressed in 1390to Mircho I. calls the patriarch of Ochrida "Yourpatriarch", and the Moldavian voyvode, Stephen theGreat, asks of the Ochrida patriarch the investiturefor one of his metropolitan bishops.From the disintegration of the Avar and the riseof the Bulgarian Kingdom until the coming of theHungarians, during more than 200 years, the Wallachians were able to lead a peaceful life with the Slavsand to settle down in the plains south of the Carpathians."T his renewal of their political life w as effectedunder the auspices of the Bulgarian rule, which, togetherwith the social and political order, gave them also the

new religion in the Slavic language."T hat is why most elementary notions of state lifeare expressed by the W allachians in terms of Slavo-Bulgarian characters."T he chief of the state is called "voyvode", andthe men of the high ruling class "boyers", from theBulgarian "bo lya rs". Th is order existed before the

coming of the Hungarians. They also borrowed inthe beginning the term "voyvode".

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38 Thus we see that not for eight but ten centuries havethe Bulgarian influence and the Bulgarian character dominated over the W allachian lands, the history of which,according to Xenopol himself, commences with the disintegration of the Avar Kingdom and the beginning ofBulgarian history.12. "T he oldest Magyar chronicle that of theanonym ous Bela - enum erates three voyvodeships foundin Trajan Dacia : the Manomir (Menoumorut), Glad, and

Galu voyvodesh ips, to which later documents add afourth the Kean voyvodeship."The first voyvodeship, that of Manomir, lay northof the Tem esvar bansh ip. This W allachian (Rumanianaccording to Xenopol) principality was, however, underthe Bulgarian dynasty, for the anonymous Magyar annalist says that when Arpad demanded of Manomirto cede this territory, he replied "in a true Bulgarianspirit", that he has no intention of doing anything ofthe kind.The second or G lad's voyvodeship embraced theTem esvar banship. Glad was also a Bulgarian, bornin Vidin, and his army was composed of Bulgarians,W allachians and Koum ans. The voyvode Atyum, ofwhom mention is made in the Life of St. Gerard, w ashis successor, and was baptised in Vidin."The thrid or Gelu's voyvodeship, in northern Transylvania, was inhabited by Wallachians and Slavs.The anonymous author of this chronicle calls the Wallachians "Roman shepherds", explaining that after thedeath of Attila the Romans called Panonia "pastureland", for there their flocks grazed.

The same is said in the memoirs of the priestRicardo who wrote in 1237, and who says that Hungary

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39formerly, before it w as peopled by the Hung arians, w ascalled "Roman pasture land".Archdeacon Thomas in 1266 also writes that Hungary was formerly called "Roman pasture land", andin Keza's chronicle it is sa id : "In the time of Attilathe Roman citizens of Panonia w ithdrew to Apulea,and the W allachians who were shep herds and colonsof the Romans voluntarily remained in Panonia."T he fourth voy vodeship, equally subject to theBu lgarians, is Kean 's voyvod eship, south of Transylvania.Conquered by St. Stephen, this latter replaces theBulgarian voyvode by his uncle Zoltan."Finally a fifth or Salan's Bulgarian voyvodeshipis recorded by the anonym ous author, who places it inPanonia."The Wallachians who had not abandoned theircountry created for themselves states under Bulgarianrule, which in Dacia replaced that of the Avars. Thestudy of Hungarian sources makes us acquinted withthese states.""The Wallachian people had preserved their autonomous order under their national chiefs, and especiallyunder their nobles, called "voyvodes", and under theirvillage boyars called "kn yaz es" (Princes). Th us twokinds of chiefs are found in the oldest documents downto the middle of the XVIIth century, when they beginto disapp ear. Th ese chiefs njoy a certain indepedenceand we see them very often in rebellion against theM agyars. Th us three princes (knyazi) Kosta, Stanchu,and Pope (priest) Vulkou, whom we know as Roumaniansby their names (sic), after their revolt against theMagyar authorities, flee to Moldavia, after destroyingtheir principalities in 1345.

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40 "This organisation of the Wallachians under theleadership of voyvodes and princes Slavo-Bulgariantitles arose in the time of the Bulgarian dominiation etc., etc. (vol. I., p . 118)."Until M attey Bassarab and Vassil Lupu , theSlavic language was the form and medium by whichthe autorities expressed themselves.""In the Slavic language were written, above all,all Church books, and then all official documents issued

by the princely chancelleries, also sale contracts, andall other contracts made between private persons, andthe more we go back in the past history of the R oumanianpeople, the more we meet with the Slavic language asthe language in general use; and that not only in Wal-lachia and M oldavia from the time of their organisation,but among the Roum anians of Transylvania as well,as also in those little voyvodeships which preceded theorganisation of the first two principalities".All this is set forth in Xenopol's Roumanian History.Xenopol in his efforts to present the political life ofthe Trans-D anubian B ulgarian voyvodeships as historyof the Roumanians falls into a very strange and comicalposition.Notwithstanding all this, the academician and professor Xenopol passes for an authoritative writer, knownas such in continental Europe, and his Histoire des Roumains was issued under the patronage of, and with aflattering preface by, the French historian Rambaud.Nevertheless, we see from the data of the historycarefully collected therein that this author zealouslystrives to Roumanise the W allachian population. Th eRoumanian population in the Wallachian voyvodeships,down to the time of Mattey Bassarab and Vassil Lupu,

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41 remains in object slavery, without any political orcultural vitality, while the history which Xenopol attributes to this population is the history of the Bu lgariansand their voyvodes in the Wallachian lands.Until that time the Roumanian population in Wallachiais altogether lost in the Bulgarian ethnical mass, andsince then under the oppression of Hellenism (thePhanariote Greeks) it beg ins its national emoncipation,accomplished about 1821, when the first signs ofRoumanian national culture and consciousness are conspicuously seen. Their political emancipation the Roumanians win in 1856, when the Roumanian chauvinismalso begins. Th is chauvinism with the cession ofDobrudja to Roumania degenerated into a rapid Bulgaro-phobia and a morbid greed for Bulgarian land s. Assoon as D obrudja became part of Roumania, the Roumanian Government introduced an exclusive regime init, with a view to a speedy assimilation and Rou-manisation of the population in which the Bulgar element predominated.

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42 VI.

Dobrudja in the time of the second Bulgarian Kingdom. The division of Bulgaria; Dobrudja a separate state. Thefour rulers of Dobrudja: Ivan Assen, Balik, Dobrotitch,and Ivankou. The truth in regard to the Turkish settlementin Dobrudja under Sari-Saltuk. Balik and his epoch. The epoch of Dobrotitch and Ivankou. The fall of Dobrudja under the Turks. The death of Ivankou.13. During the second Bulgarian Kingdom, Tirnovo

instead of Preslava, becomes the capital of Bulgaria.The historical destiny of Dobrudja, however, continuesto be that of Cis-Danubian Bulgaria, even after thedivision of the Kingdom by Ivan Alexander (13301373).Under the influence of his second wife, Sara Deodora,he divides Bulgaria among h is three sons : Ivan Stra-shimir, Ivan Shishman, and Ivan Assen ; and Dobrudjafalls under the rule of Ivan Assen. According to MavroOrbini (II regno dei Slav i, p. 472), Dobrudja ceded toIvan Assen consisted of Preslava with the Thraciancountry belonging to it, and from this time untilthe Turk ish conquest, D obrudja led an independentpolitical life under her own rulers, but in full accordwith the Kingdom of Tirnovo. Of the life and activityof Ivan Assen as a separate ruler of Dobrudja littleis known. The Russian historian Sirku, however, tellsus : "The assertion of Mavro Orbini is taken from Bulgarian sources and its truthfulness is not be questioned,but as Ivan Assen was killed in a battle against theTu rks and the Byzantines during his father's life-time,his possessions must have fallen to Shishman."This supposition of Sirku's is refuted by the factthat after Assen in 1346, we sea Dobrudja under therule of a voyvode (archont) Balik, probably one of

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43 Assen's generals who succeded him after his deathas an independent ruler of Dobrudja, and as such,according to the memoirs of John Cantacuzenus, sentto Byzantium in 1346 armies from Dobrudja, underthe command of his brothers Dobrotitch and Todor,to help Anna of Savoy in her war against Cantacuzenus.After Balik, the throne of Dobrudja was occupied byhis brother Dobrotitch Ivankou, in whose time Dobrudjashares the same fate as Bulgaria, that is, w as subjectedby the Turks in 1389 or 1390, when Ivankou was killedin the battle of Silistra.14. The version, that Balik was a Turk and heirto a Turkish dynasty, founded in Dobrudja in 1263 bySari-Sultuk, is devoid of any foundation.Mr. Balastcheff who for the first time set forth thesefictions in our history (see Nos. 33 36 of VoennyIsvestia, 1917) errs, because of his lack of criticalacumen, his weakness to appear original in history,and his Turcm ania. The very data w hich serve as abasis for the thesis fo Mr. Balastcheff show that Sali-Saltik's colony from Asia Minor was nothing but atemporary peaceful settlement of some Turcom an families,and that their leader and prophet Saltuk was neithera sultan, nor a general, nor a ruler designing to founda state or a dynasty in Dobrudja.Prior to Balatstcheff the history of this Seljuk colonyin Dobrudja was described in detail by Hammer asfollows:"In 622 of the Hegira (1263), after Michael Paleologushad found refuge in the court of the Seljuks, and afterhe had returned and occupied Constatinople, he deposed Lascaris anew and ordered his eyes to be putout. Lascaris w as the legitimate heir to the Byzantine

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44 ih ro ne ; about this time a colony of 1012,000 Turcomans came under the leadership of Saltuk-dede andsettled down on the wes tern ban ks of the Black Sea,in the country called Dobrudja. Not long after thisthe colony emigrated to the Crimea". (Hammer vol. I.,p. 165)."With the coming of Michael Paleologus in Constantinople the relations between Byzantium and Bulgariawere broken off. Constantine Tich on his accessionto the Bulgarian throne had contracted intimate tieswith Lascaris and had married his daughter.""Through the intercession of Alladin, the Sultan ofIconium, the Kiptchak and Crimean Tartars, under thecommand of Berke-Khan, come to help ConstantineTich, and favoured by a severe winter, cross the Danubeon the ice, reach the walls of Constantinople, wherethey seized the Byzantine throne. Azedin on his way to theCrimea, takes with him the Turkish colony of 10-12,000people, who under Saltuk-dede had settled in Dobrudja."(Hammer vol. I., pp. 46 and 164).According to the Turkish historian Evliya, Saltuk-dede was esteemed a saint, who enjoined on his disciples, that after his death, they should bury his remainsin seven different ghiaour towns, so that his successorsshould not know where he is interred, and the Turkishpilgrims, looking in these different places for the tomband not finding it, should induce the Turk's to seizethese provinces in which Saltuk is supposed to havebeen buried. In accordance with the wish of the saintcertain of his remains w ere bu ried in Babadag. (Hammer vol. XVI., p. 247).

Later on, in 1538, Sultan Suleyman passes throughDobrudja and Babadag on his way to Moldavia and

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45 pays a visit to the tomb of Saltuk . (1. bid vol. V., p.290). Tradition, however, says that when Suleymanasked to see the tomb of Saltuk, the burial place ofthe sa int w as unknow n, and he applied for informationto an aged shepherd, "K uyum -Baba", who pasturedhis sheep on the outsk irts of the town. The shepherdreplies that he does not know of such a grave, but thathe know s a place which his sheep carefully avoided toapproach, and in getting to it, drew back, went aroundit, and after pass ing it, rejoined the flock. Suleymanverified "Kuyum-Baba's" words, and finding them trustworthy, came to the conclusion that in that placewas concealed the tomb of Saltuk. So he ordered amonument to be built on that spot, and near it a mosque,which was to serve as tek (M. B. Jonescu, D o b r o g e ain p r a g u l v e a c u l u i X X iea , D o b r u d j a a t t h eC o m m e n c e m e n t of t he T w e n t i e t h C e n t u r y ) .This tradition appears trustworthy, because "Kuyum-Baba", becomes a greater saint than Saltuk himself.One of the summ its of the Babadag Mountain bears hisname, and there is supposed to be his grave whichthe Turks used to visit until recently during the Byramfestival. An aged gagaouz of Babadag, Mitsika Atanas-soff, who is not, however, one of Balastcheffs OgousTurks, but an immigrant from Messemvria, related tous with a sarcastic smile that near this grave therewas another which the Cristians used to visit on St.Sophia's feast-day and at Easter, and often quarrelledwith the Turks in regard to the ownership of the gravewhich is now destroyed by fortune-diggers.

The history of Saltuk's grave in Babadag, however,seems to be a purposely invented legend, designed to

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_ 46 raise the courage of the Tu rks in Dobrudja in theirfrequent wars against the Russians. And history records that in 1709, the grand vizier Habil Pasha,after the defeat of his predecessor, Ali Pasha, callsthe dervish Kalvety in his camp near Babadag inorder to excite the fanaticism of his troops by meansof this legend, namely, that one of the seven gravesof Saltuk is in Babadag (Hammer vol. XVI., p. 247).This character of the legend is seen also in thenumber of these graves, some of which are said tohave been found in Asia Minor, and in what is saidof them by Evliya, and in the tradition in regardto the manner in which Sultan Suleyman is reputedto have found Saituk's grave in Babadag.The whole history of the settlement of Saltuk inDobrudja, according to Hammer, begins in 1263 andends in 1265.Does this fact give a sufficient ground to maintainthat Saltuk founded in Dobrudja "a powerful Oghuzstate", that he created a dynasty in which we are tolook for the descent of Balik and Ivankou?From 1265 till the appearence of Balik in 1365, thereelapse eighty years, during which time many eventstranspired, which eliminate any Oghuz or Turkish character from the political life of Dobrudja. After ConstantineTich, Ivailo, Ivan Assen III, Terter and Michael, therecomes Ivan Alexander, then follows the division of Bulgaria into three state s, the third of which D obrudja,passes in the possession of Alexander's son Assen.Only after him does Balik appear as ruler of Dobrudja.W here is the connection between the rule of Balik,Izedin and Saru-Saltuk? Evidently, in view of theabove circumstances, it is altogether absurd to look for

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47 such a connection in a haphazard intimation that thename of Balik recalled a similar Turkish word "baluk",meaning fish.Mr. Balastcheff himself says : "One brother of Balikbears the purely Christian name Todor or Theodore,and the other, the purely Bulgarian name Dobrotitsa,or Dobro tisha, and with these facts, it seem s, everyerror in regard to the Turkish origin of Balik and ofthe Turkish character of his state, has been altogethereliminated".Not from the phonetics of names do we get toknow the nationality of rulers bearing them, and stillless the national character of the state and peoplethey have ruled ; especially is this true when thesenames are transmitted to us by foreign historians andin a foreign language. In the history of the Moldavianvoyvodeship we meet the name of Balk and Balsh,the former a Bulgaro-M oldavian voyvode (in 1349), ofthe province of Kuchnya, given him by Louis the Great,and the other, a M oldavian kamakam , a Levantine,temporarily appointed by the Porte as governor in 1856.These names are allied with the name Balik, as wellas with the family name alluded to by Mr. Balastcheff.Does it follow thence that all these names are Turkish?Besides, let it not be forgotten that we have the purelyBulgarian name of Bancho, which, in all probability,was the real name of Balik, from which is derivedthe name of Baltchik, given by Balik to the ancienttown of Kavarna or Karbona.The Bulgarian origin of Balik and the Bulgariancharacter of Dobrudja realm may be attested by the factthat Balik appears in history as the successor of IvanAssen , son of Ivan Alexander and ruler of a purely

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48 Bulgarian country for centu ries; that he is a brotherof Dobrotitch, the most illustrious and powerful Bulgarian ruler of Dobrudja and uncle of Ivankou, the lastDobrudjan ruler, who falls in defence of Bulgaria in thewars against Turkey, in which wars he supported theBulgarian Tsar Shishman.

15. In what manner Ivankou met his death isnot known. Th e commercial treaty of 1387 concludedbetween him and the Genoese Podest of Constantinopleregarding the free navigation in Dobrudja sea, and theright to trade in his lands, shows that his country at thattime was far from being exposed to any foreign per il.

The Russian historian Sirku, however, says : "Thegrand vizir Ali Pasha captured Aytos one night andsent Yakshish beg to attack Provat (Provadia) andcapture Shoum en, together with all the fortified tow ns.Ivankou at this time attempted to take Varna, but didnot succeed from which it follows that about thistime Varna was already in the hands of the Turks.

This occurs in the first period of the decissive warsof Tsar Shishman, when Tirnovo falls under the Turksand Shishman is forced to conclude peace with Murad atNicopo lis. As soon as Murad withdrew, Shishman refusedto surrender Silistra in accordance with the treaty stipulations, which shows that Shishman must have negotiatedalso on behalf of Ivankou. Ali Pash a then advances fromShoumen and takes Silistra by storm, and lays siege asecond time to Nicopolis, where he takes Shishmancaptive and orders him to be banished to Tuzla. Afterthe battle and fall of Silistra Ivanku disappears, whichshow s that he must have perished in the aforem entionedwars. All this occurs in 1390 (see Zinkeisen, Hammer,Iretchek, and Zlatarsky).

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49 16. Dobrudja falls under the Turks as a Bulgarian

land, in the reign of its last ruler Ivanku whodefends his Kingdom to the end, conducting militaryoperations in full accord with Tsar Shishman of Tirnovo.However, not all the separate Bulgarian princesbans, and voyvodes, acted as nobly as Ivanku. Bulgariawas then divided among various boyars, and this factwas probably the chief cause of the fall of Bulgaria

under the Turks.In the w ars of Shishman and Ivanku against theTurks Strashimir seems to have taken no part, andbefore the time of Ivan Alexander, the situation ofBulgaria was as follows: his son Michael ruled inTirnovo from 1322to 1330; Eltimir, and afterhim Svetoslav,along the river Tunja; Voissil, ruler of four townson the D an ub e; Smilcho in Ihtiman and T. Pazarjik;the voyvode Momtchil in the Rhodope mountains; Krali-Marco in M acedonia ; Ivanku and Alexander Bassarabin Wallachia.The Tu rks at this time had traversed the wholeof Thrace and South Bulgaria. The population havinglost all hope for national security, abandoned townsand villages, fled to the monasteries, and founded new

ones which assumed the form of small autonomouspolitical organisations.Th e sp irit of separatism and the rival claim s ofthe princes and boyars were the cause of the generalweakness, which encouraged and emboldened the enemywho was supported and well received in the southernregions, and was thus enabled to work his way north

ward, a ssisted directly and indirectly by the Bulgarianboyars. Just at this time the connecting links with the4

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50Wallachian voyvodeships get slackened and in 1325Alexander Ban Bassarab initiates the history of W allachiaas a separate autonomous voyvodeship. He was a brother-in-law of Tsar Ivan Alexander by his first wife, anda son of Ivanku-ban Bassarab who ruled Little Wallachia,present Oltenia, then a Bulgarian province, with thetown of Kralevo, the present Krayova, as its capital(13101325).

Ivan Bassarab gives his daughter in marriage toIvan Alexander wh ile the latter w as yet heir to thethrone. At the second marriage of Ivan Alexander,however, with the division of Cis-Danubian Bulgariaand the secession of Strashimir, nephew of AlexanderBassarab, the connection between Wallachia and theTirnovo Kingdom ceases, and the family ties withStrashim ir are only preserved and confirmed by themarriage of the latter with Anne, the daughter ofAlexander Bassarab, and by reason of the common warswaged by Strashimir and Alexander's son V ladislavwith the Hungarian King Carl Robert in 1365.

Thus more and more isolated the Tirnovo Kingdomwas marching to its doom, and with it all other minorBulgarian political organisation s. A certain connectionwas preserved only with the Dobrudja, which at thistime appears as the only strong Bulgarian state, forwhich reason during Turkish rule it remainedthe strongest Bulgarian centre, as we shall see later.

In 1351 the Tirnovo Kingdom put an end to itswars with Byzantium and Tsar Ivan Alexander, and in viewof the Turkish peril, hastens to accept the proposalfor peace which Cantacuzenus offers him. Dobrotitch,how ever, continues to interfere in the internal strugglesof Byzantium and begins to play a decisive part in

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51 its destiny. He enlarges his pos sessions in the southas far as Messemvria and Media, and in the northtakes possession of Kilia and the castle of Licostomion(Vulcovo), on the left bank of the Kilian mouth, becomesmaster of the Black Sea, and threatens Trapezund withhis fleet. He changes the succession to the throne ofAndronicus Comnenus in favour of Michael Paleologus,his son-in-law, and dictates the commercial treatieswith the Genoese Republic in the Crimea."It is eviden t", says Sirku, "that Dobrotitch w asone of the m ost powerful and illustrious rulers ofBulgaria. His name w as given to Dobrudja."All this, however, does not change the historicalcourse of things in that province or prevent the weaknesscaused by the separation and the break ing up of theBulgarian political organisations.

The Bulgarian Kingdoms succumbed one by oneunder the power of the Turks.The joint efforts of Tsar Shishman and the son ofDobrotitch, Ivanku, at the close of the Turkish warswith the Bulgarians in 13891390, were all in vain;not so much, perhaps, on account of the Turkish might,as on account of the perfidy of the Wallachian voyvode the Bulgarian Mircho, who does not wage war againstthe Turks, as Roumanian historians relate, but in commonwith the Turks, against Tsar Shishman, and who appears in the rear of the Bulgarian armies near Silistra.

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52

VII.The work of the Wallachian Voyvode Mircho. Mirchofratricide and ally of the Tu rks. Despite his titles as rulerof Dobrudja, he never ruled that country. His partin the battle of Silistra against the Bulgarians, during theye ars 13891390. The p iteou s historical pa rt played by Mirchoin the fortunes of Bulgaria and W allachia. A fratricide

and four perfidious acts ending with the enslaving of Wallachiaand Mircho's v assalag e. Mircho banished to Brussa and afugitive in Hungaria. The falsity of Rumanian history .17. Mircho is the son of Radu, second son ofAlexander Bassarab. After the death of Alexander, h isfirst son Vladislav succeeded him (13651372). Hebecomes voyvode of the two Wallachias, with Tirgovishteas capital. After Vladislav there comes his brother Radu(13721385), and after the death of Radu, comes Radu'sson Dano (13851386); Mircho, however, murdershis brother Dano and takes his place (Xenopol, vol. I,p. 211).Thus does Mircho become Wallachian voyvode. Himthe Rumanians of to-day call Mircho the Great, thoughin his acts there is nothing great, eccept his vainglorioustitles, the meaning of which, as compared with hisactions, is given below.In some of the Wallachian chrysobulls (decrees)issued by Mircho, and written in Bulgarian, he giveshimself the following titles :In the charter given to the monastery of Strugalin 1399, Mircho calls himself: ". . . and of both banks

of the Danube as far as the great sea and ruler (Samo-drjets autocrat) of the city of Drustr" (Silistra).

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53 ' In the charter to Pope (priest) Nicodem us of

Tismana in 1406 is found the same title: " . . . andruler (autocrat) of the city of Drustr" (Silistra).In the treaty concluded with King Vladislav II. ofPoland in 1390: "TerrarumDobrodiciietTristridominus."All these titles serve to-day as a ground for theRoumanian claims and historical rights to Dobrudja.How ever, the Roumanian historians who describe in

great detail the life and acts of Mircho, point outno historical data and events to justify such titles.The fact is that these titles differ, and cannot therefore,form a well established proprietary claim. And were it notfor the event set forth below and found in a Turkish source,we would not hesitate to declare these titles utterly false,as the Roumanians often make use of false documents, asin the case of the Campelungchrysobulls (decrees), manipulated in a manner to show a title-deed to a disputedpossession.

In the history of Ahmed Djeved Pa sha, vol. 3, pp .282283 it is said:"At the time when the battle w as raging betweenthe Turkish and Bulgarian troops, the former led by

the serdar Gazi Ahmed Pasha , and the latter by theBulgarian King Shishman, the Wallachian voy vode Mirchocame to the help of the Turks as their ally with fivethousand Wallachian pandoors"."He fell upon the Bulgarians from the Wallachianside and succeeded in cap turing the Bulgarian towns ofSilsitra, Svishtov, and Dobrudja (probably Dobritch).

This success of Mircho was due chiefly to the fact ofthe Bulgarian King Shishman having been completelybeaten by the victorious army of Gazi Ahmed Pasha."

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54 The event is disgraceful, and it is easily exp lained

why the Roumanian h istorians avoid relating it and confinethemselves to emphasising the big titles of Mircho.Since that time there was introduced in the Turkisharmy a special kind of Christian troops called "pandoors",as our translator and collector of Turkish historicalmaterials from T urkish archives and literature - Ichtchieff,very well explains:"The organisation of the pandoors", he says, "hadits origin, according to the historical annals of DjevdedPasha Tarich-i-Djevdet as well as othersources, in the time of Murad I. and his son Bayazet Ilderim (13611402), when the latter with the help of

theRoumanian voyvode Mircho who had 5000 pan doo rssoldiers gathered from Wallachia and Kara-Walla.chia,completely crushed the Bulgarian T sar Shishman (Zitsman)near the fortress of Nicopolis, where the latter wastaken captive with his family and embraced the Mohammedan faith, so that the pandoors got their originin the Tu rkish em pire, in which, agreeably tothe wish of Sultan Bayazet, battalions of Christianpeople called "pandoors were formed." Ichtchieff:"Rights and Privileges, etc." pp. 108 and 109).

18. After the above event, Mircho betrays the Turksalso, in consequence of which, Bayazet crosses theDanube and chastises him who gets beaten, takencaptive, and banished to Broussa. Very soon, however,he is set free by the Turks who obliged him to paytribute as a vassal. "T hat is why W allachia", says theRoumanian historian Xenopol, "was put down as a vassalprovince in the reg isters of the Porte in the beginn ingof 1391." (Xenopol, vol. II, p. 255, Seadedin p . 165).

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55After this (according to Djevded Pasha and Ichtchieff),

in the month of May 1393 (495 of the Hegira),Mircho invades again w ith his army the Tu rkish frontier possessions, and from the town of Svishtov hepenetrates into the interior of the Turk ish empire ; buthe was soon encountered by Gazi Ahmed Pasha , wascompleteiy beaten, and forced to flee and return to hisvoyvodeship.Tow ard s the beginn ing of this event also belongsa letter of Mircho to the king of Poland, datedAugust 1 (the year is not given), in which he a dd s tohis other titles that of "gospodar... of many Turkishtow ns". Thence it follows, that Mircho, himself vassaland captive, had the great foible of assuming titles asconqueror and possessor of lands he did not possess."During this time", continues the same historian,"the voyvode Mircho, though he was, like the Transyl-vanian voyvode Svetoslav, a vassal of the HungarianKing, did not enjoy the confidence of the latter ruler,and therefore Mircho 's advice for joint action aga instthe Turks w as neglected or unheeded. Offended bythe treatment of his suzerain, Mircho was constrainedto apply for help to the Turkish Sultan Bayazet llderimand to send special envoys to Nicopolis, at the headquarters (ordughiahina) of the Sultan, to beg for mercyand pardon . Sultan Bayazet received these envoys andcomplied with their request, agreeing that in future theW allachian voyvodesh ip should be treated as vassal ofthe Turkish em pire. As a proof of the most augustfavour of the Sultan, a firman wa s issued , the mostimportant p assages of w hich read as follows :

"In virtue of state necessity', imposed by circumstances, for the weal and prosperity of our great and

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56 glorious empire we, sultan and monarch of the dinislamstate, have consented and deigned to conclude peaceand a lasting treaty with the voyvode of Wallachia Mircho, who had opened a bloody war, but whomwith the help of Almighty God and with the force ofarms, we were enabled to bring to reason, so thathe repented of his crimes and begged for mercy andcompassion"."T he sam e Mircho shall be politically vassal of theillustrious Ottoman em pire, and shall pay to us eachyear a definite tribute of vassa llage. Therefore, we, bythe grace of God, appoint and destine the said Mirchoas lawful and real voyvode of the Wallachianprovince subject to us, allow ing him to exercise justice,to punish those who refuse to carry out his lawfulorders, and who would not be subject to him ; to pardonand amnesty criminals, when they repent of their crimes."He shall not prosecute, menace, and attack thoseMussulmans who were formerly Christians and haveconsented to profess the holy orthodox Moham medanfaith; such Mussulmans shall not be constrained byforce to retractfrom the Mohammedan faith and be convertedto the Christian religion. The voyvodes after Mirchoshall always be persons professing the Christian religion.They shall be elected with a majority vote by the metropolitan bish ops and boyars of the country. In exchangefor this my august imperial favour which I dispenseto the people residing within the limits of the Wallachianprovince, the Wallachian voyvodeship is bound to paythrough the voyvode to the imperial state treasury everyyeart three thousand kazil grosh, as a tribute of vassa lage,according to the present value of the said coins currentin the Wallachian land and in the Wallachian

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57 voyvodeship." The kazil grosh was equal to 500 levasof our money."The inhabitants of the Wallachian province whichis considered my lawful vassal country are writtendown in my imperial state registers as rayas of myem pire, as is required by my established state regulations, and as is heretofore done w ith all other peoplesand provinces subject to my empire, and who areconsidered obedient rayas of my dinislam kingdom ".

"My present imperial firman is issued in my military camp, in the fortress of N icopolis, this day, inthe beg inning of the month of Rebiyul-evel, 795 of theHegira (13931394)."19. Then came the famous battle of Nicopolis inwhich Sigismund and his Christian allies fought againstBayazet, and which some historians place in 1396,but which, according to Schiltberger, direct witness andparticipant in this battle, took place in 1394, that is,the same year and immediately after the capitulationof Mircho to Bayazet. It is generally admitted thatMircho took part with his troops at the beginning ofthis battle, in concert with the allied Christian armies,but later, in consequence of a misunderstanding withthe allies in regard to the manner and order of theattack, he withdrew and abandoned the battlefield beforethe serious fighting began."T he duke of Burgundy, despite the order ofSigismund, attacked the enemy first, with his cavalry,but was repulsed and taken prisoner", says Schiltberger(Travels ofJohann Schiltberger,Translation of Bruno, p. 4)."Mircho, having seen that it is impossible to continuethe war, in consequence of the morally crushing effectof the defeat of the French army, ab an do ns the battle-

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58field and returns to Wallachia" adds Xenopol (vol.I, p. 258).Although there is a doubt as to whether the Wal-lachian voyvode who played such inglorious part in thebattle was Mircho, or some other Wallachian vassalvoyvode whom Sch iltberger calls "Voyvode W erter", andPenzel "Voyvode Martin", still, the substantial agreementas regards the above circumstances of Xenopol andSchiltberger with Djevded Pa sha w ho describes thesame events as preceding the capitulation of Mircho,leads to the conclusion that this capitulation of 1394(795 of the Hegira) must have taken place at the timeof the battle of Nicopolis, in the camp of Bayazet,and under these conditions it was prob able , that itwas imposed on Bayazet as a state necessity, as is said inthe firman itself. Thu s Mircho, after his perfidiousact towards Tsar Shishman and Ivanku near Silistra,performs a third perfidious act tow ards Sigismund andhis allied Christian armies . Properlyspeaking, this pe