Новооткритият надпис за цар Самуил и събитията в 1014 г.
The Newly Discovered Inscription of Tsar Samuel and the Events of the Year 1014

Summary/Abstract: The recent discovery of an inscription containing the name and the title of the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel (976–1014) is the occasion of both reassessment of the catastrophic events in 1014 and reappraisal of not only the corresponding sources which have piled up over the centuries, but also the conclusions they led to. This is the purpose of the article: to discard all the misleading scholarly assumptions, all the unintentional scholarly myths which we routinely tend to take for granted in order to reconstruct the course of events. However meticulous it is, the article conjures up the images of the tragic events of that year most vividly. Once the scales have fallen from our eyes, we can see that the historical reconstruction is even more fascinating, more exciting and indeed more magnificent (despite the terrible sense of impending doom!) than any misleading construct, or invention as it is, in an encyclopaedia or a handbook. The irrefutable conclusion of the author is that this invaluable epigraphic monument was engraved somewhere near the fortification of Strumitsa in the autumn of 1014, soon after the death of the mighty ruler, yet not as a tombstone, but as a plaque to remind of the place where Tsar Samuel fatally encountered his 15.000 warriors shortly after they had been blinded.

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