Russia. At the command of the Czar theological works and translations from the Greek were composed. Surrounded by scholars, he found time himself for literary activity; to him is ascribed the translation of a whole collection of homilies of John Chrysostom, to which he gave the title of "Zlato struj(a) (stream of gold). We need not be surprised that contemporaries were accustomed to compare him with King Ptolemaios of Egypt. In the year 912 Symeon's peaceful work was interrupted. The emperor Leo had died, and his successor Alexander (p. 85) went out of his way to insult the messengers of the Czar Symeon when they requested a renewal of the peace. Alexander did not feel the weight of Symeon's revenge, which was reserved for his successor, Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos; notwithstanding the help of the Magyars, Servians, and Arabs, the battle of Mesembria ended with the defeat of the Byzantines on August 20, 917. With the exception of Constantinople and some parts of the seaboard, almost the whole peninsula fell into the hands of the Bulgarians. About the same time the Serbs also came under Symeon's supremacy; with the support of Michael Wysevyč (912-926), the prince of the Southern Serbs, or Zachlumians (p. 281), he imprisoned and executed their high Župan Peter, whose policy favoured the Byzantines, and set up Paul, a relative of the murdered man, as his successor (917). In 919 the Byzantine emperor, who was distinguished rather for scholarship than for political capacity, appointed his fieldmarshal Romanus Lakapenos as co-regent against Symeon's will (p. 86). In 923 Symeon appeared before the gates of the capital and began negotiations for the necessary naval assistance with the Fatemid Fadlūn of Kairuan (Quairuvān) and captured Adrianople. It was only anxiety with regard to the Petshenegs and Magyars in the North that induced him to conclude peace at the personal request of the Roman on September 9, 924 (according to Max Büdinger, as late as November 9, 926). While Symeon was occupied with Byzantium, the Servian Župan, Paul, whom he had set up, was aiming at independence. Symeon sent an army to Servia, deposed Paul, and handed over the principality to a certain Zacharias in 923; he, however, also entered into relations with the Byzantines, and was therefore forced to flee from Symeon to Croatia. Symeon was unable to realize his plan of bringing Croatia under his supremacy, owing to the defeat in 927 of his fieldmarshal Alp bagatur (Alobogotur). He died on May 27, 927, the greatest Czar of the Bulgarians, at once a general, a scholar, and the first pioneer of European culture. (d) The Decline and Fall of the Old Bulgarian State under Peter and Boris II; the Bogumiles. Symeon's carefully constructed state fell to ruins under his son Peter (927-969). Under his government the decline of the newly formed state of Old Bulgaria was accelerated by foes within and without. Symeon had left four Michael, the son of his first marriage, had been confined in a monastery to secure the throne to Peter; the latter had two other brothers, John and Boyan, who was popularly supposed to be a magician. The Byzantines, Magyars, Servians, and Avars were only awaiting an opportunity to humiliate the youthful Czar. Hard pressed on every side, Peter contracted a marriage on September 8, 927, with Maria, the granddaughter of the emperor Romanus (cf. p. 49), in order to secure the peace of his kingdom with the help of the Greeks. This step, however, was destined to be fatal to Bulgaria. With the entry of the first Byzantine Czarina, East Roman influence began to take hold of Bulgarian politics, an influence destined to produce unlimited disaster in the following centuries. Greek tendencies now made themselves felt both in Church and state. The older strain of the Bulgarian people, the comrades in arms of the Czar Symeon, were dissatisfied with the new state of affairs and joined the younger brother John. However, the revolt was soon suppressed with the help of Byzantine troops; John was taken to Constantinople, was overwhelmed with presents by the emperor Romanus, and was married to a noble Armenian woman. After a short time the monk Michael, Symeon's eldest son, also revolted, and placed himself at the head of the malcontents in 929. However, he died before he was able to drive the Byzantine courtiers out of the country. The continual opposition to Byzantine misgovernment, which was smouldering at the court of the Czar, broke out into flame in 963, when the Boljar (noble) Šišman revolted against the weak government, and after a short struggle secured the western provinces of Macedonia and Albania (cf. below, p. 336). The Serbs also broke away from Bulgaria, and constant plundering raids upon the country were made by the Magyars and the Turkish nomad people of the Petshenegs.1 Meanwhile, however, Peter carried on a luxuriou 3 life amid his Greek relations and courtiers. Under the government of this good-natured and cultured Czar the intellectual life of the Bulgarians was exposed to severe attacks. A few years after the introduction of Christianity into Bulgaria, a special form of opposition made itself felt among the people to the teaching of the State Church, which began to decay under the influence of the pedantry and preciosity of Byzantine literature; while this opposition was based upon old religious traditions, it was specially drawn to the teaching of a new sect. The not inconsiderable survivals of the heathen Ugrian popular mythology and cosmogony, faded remnants of which still exist in those districts, formed the basis for the development in Bulgaria of the sect of the Bogumiles, whose dualist doctrine was at the outset in harmony with the spirit of the nation. Bogumilism began its career on the Balkan Peninsula with the settlement of the Armenian Paulicians (p. 69); in 746 Constantine V. Koprony mos had transported a large number of them from Syria to Thrace, to act as frontier guards, and a persecution initiated by Basil about 870 can only have increased their numbers. In the first half of Peter's reign the Pope Bogumil appeared in Bulgaria; he was also known as Jeremias, and came forward as the reformer of the Paulician doctrine. His teaching was merely a new stage in the steady development of a doctrine formed by the mixture of Syrian, Persian, and Greek theories. with fragments of Christianity; it was marked by a gradual conformation to Christianity, though at the same time the remnants of the old heathen cosmogony, derived from the Ugrian religion, were not cast away. According to the traditions of the Ugrians, God created the world with the help of Satan, who eventually desires to secure the chief power for himself. From this division proceed the 1 Cf. p. 343, and Konst. Jireček in the Eighty-ninth Annual of the Sitzungsberichte der königlich böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. |