L’Ancien Art Bulgare
Ancient Bulgarian Arts

Author(s): Bogdan Filow
Subject(s): Regional Geography, Historical Geography, History of Art
Published by: CEEOL Collections / Digital Reproductions
Summary/Abstract: The scholars who have studied the past of the Bulgarian people have all confined themselves almost exclusively to the domain of its political destinies. The founding of the Bulgarian Empire, its incessant struggles against Byzantium during the Middle Ages, the national movement during modern times, these are the most important questions to the clarification of which native and foreign Bulgarian historiography has in the first place consecrated. On the other hand, the intimate life of the nation and its conquests in the intellectual spheres have been examined more superficially. One easily recognizes in the ancient Bulgarians political aptitudes and warlike virtues, by the fact that they succeeded in grouping the Slavic populations of the Balkan peninsula into a vigorous and viable state and that they were able to maintain themselves in this way despite the numerical predominance of Byzantium, but we do not do enough justice to their intellectual talents. It is wrongly taken for granted that the Bulgarians received all their material and moral civilization from the Byzantines from whom they were inspired. Now, the first of the Slavic peoples, they created for themselves a script which they passed on to the other Slavs, which should suffice to prove that they also sought in the intellectual field to maintain their independence and independence in an absolute way. their national characteristics with regard to the Byzantines. Still the first among the Slavs, they established a completely autonomous national church.

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