The Blinded State: Historiographic Debates About Samuel Cometopoulos and His State (10th-11th Century) 9004278788, 9789004278783

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Introduction
Samuel’s State in the Contemporary Sources
Samuel’s State in The Byzantine Ideology: Basil II and the Construction of Identity
Basil versus Samuel: Constructing Legends and Traditions in the Medieval Balkans
Samuel’s Multiple Faces: Sympathetic Ruler and God’s Sinner
Rediscovering the Dark Side of Samuel
Absolving Samuel
Resurrecting Samuel
An Antidote for Balkan Nationalisms: Samuel and the Struggle for National Consciousness in Macedonia
Under Samuel’s Shadow: The Blinding Continues
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Blinded State

East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450 General Editors Florin Curta and Dušan Zupka

VOLUME 55

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ecee

The Blinded State Historiographic Debates about Samuel Cometopoulos and His State (10th–11th Century)

By

Mitko B. Panov

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Peter Morozov, Samuel Hails Triumphant Bulgarian Troops, 1916, National Museum of Military History, Bulgaria. Reproduced from Emmanuel Moutafov, The age of King Samuel as treated by Bulgarian artists, Catalogue of the exhibition (Sofia: Institute of art studies, 2014), p. 45 (with kind permission from the National Museum of Military History, Bulgaria). The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2018061033

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1872-8103 ISBN 978-90-04-27878-3 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-39429-2 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from ­copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements vii List of Illustrations ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 Samuel’s State in the Contemporary Sources 28 2 Samuel’s State in The Byzantine Ideology: Basil II and the Construction of Identity 76 3 Basil versus Samuel: Constructing Legends and Traditions in the Medieval Balkans 101 4 Samuel’s Multiple Faces: Sympathetic Ruler and God’s Sinner 147 5 Rediscovering the Dark Side of Samuel 184 6 Absolving Samuel 223 7 Resurrecting Samuel 255 8 An Antidote for Balkan Nationalisms: Samuel and the Struggle for National Consciousness in Macedonia 281 9 Under Samuel’s Shadow: The Blinding Continues 343 Conclusion 391 Bibliography 399 Index 452

Acknowledgements The inception of this book emanated from my discussions with Florin Curta in 2013 during his inspiring lectures at the Ohrid Summer School in Byzantine Studies. Therefore, the foremost gratitude belongs to Florin Curta for the invitation to contribute to this series and for his continuous and invaluable support. I owe special thanks to John Krigbaum, who, together with Florin Curta, generously invited me to give lectures at the University of Florida in 2015. These events co-sponsored by the American Institute of Archaeology, Gainesville chapter, Center for Greek Studies, Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (Yavitz Fund), College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of History, Florida Museum of Natural History, International Center and Smathers Library, provided me with the privilege to present the work on the book and to benefit from insightful comments and discussions. This book would not be a complete without the unstinting support from my colleague and friend Georgi N. Nikolov, who provided me with all the latest publications from Bulgaria and made available his personal photos. I am also grateful to Elizabeta Dimitrova, Angel Nikolov, Mihajlo Popović, Hrvoje Gračanin, Sašo Cvetkovski, Ivan Zarov, Teon Dzingo and to many friends and colleagues whom I consulted during the writing of this book. I would like to thank Marina Gjоrgjijovska for her thorough work in translating the manuscript in English and to Tatjana Panova-Ignjatović for her translation of the footnotes. I am indebted to Andrew Roach and Allison Raper for their generous work and considerable time spent for checking and improving the English translation. Also, I owe special gratitude to Julian Deahl, Marcella Mulder, Elisa Perotti and Ester Lels at Brill for their professionalism, support and guidance at all stages of the publication process. I also want to thank Dušan Zupka, as well as to an anonymous reader for Brill who offered thoughtful comments and suggestions. I am grateful to George Nikolaou and the National Historical Museum, Athens – The Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece for generously providing images from the Museum’s collection. I also owe thanks to the National Museum of Military History, Sofia and the National Museum of Medieval Art, Korca for their kind permission to use the images from their collections. I would especially like to thank my late father Branko Panov, who has introduced me to the fascinating Byzantine World, taught me how to be independent in life and advised me that the acquired knowledge is the only thing that

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cannot be taken away. I am also grateful to my mother Zoja who was always supportive and caring. This book would not be completed without the continuous support, understanding and encouragement of my family during the difficult times that accompanied the writing. I therefore dedicate this book to my wife Maja and my son Branko who always will be my inspiration in life. Skopje, June 2018

Illustrations Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Church of St. Achileios on an island in small lake Prespa 14 Samuel’s fortress in Ohrid 16 Cyrillic inscription discovered in Bitola in the 1950s 75 A modern reproduction of Basil II’s psalter portrait 77 Konstandin Shpataraku, icon of St. John Vladimir with twelve scenes from his life, 1739, from the Monastery of Ardenica 159 Detail from the scene of icon of St. John Vladimir, 1739, depicting the Saint’s victory over Basil II 160 Nikolai Pavlovich “Raina’s fainting”, printed in Vienna in 1874 219 Nikolai Pavlovich, “Grandmother Tula and Samuel”, printed in Vienna in 1874 220 Unknown artist, “Blinded Samuel’s Soldiers”, after the Czech artist Emil Holarek 263 Cyrillic inscription discovered in the 1880s at the village of German, near Prespa, dated 993 283 Udo J. Keppler, “At Present He Works Bulgaria”, 1903 298 Greek poster from the Second Balkan war in 1913 by Sotiros Christidis, presenting the battle between Greece and Bulgaria at Doiran on June 22, 1913 305 Oi Voulgaroktonoi, “The Bulgar-slayers”, Greek poster from the time of the Second Balkan War 1913 by Sotiros Christidis 306 Ο ΒΟΥΛΓΑΡΟΦΑΓΟΣ, “The Bulgar-eater”, Greek poster of the Balkan Wars by Sotiros Christidis 307 Figure entitled “On the cross of the sufferings”, 1914 311 Peter Morozov, “Samuel Hails Triumphant Bulgarian Troops”, 1916 317 Mile Topuz and Dragan Taškovski, “Car Samuil”, 1967 360 Statue of Samuel placed in the center of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia in 2011 380 Statue of Samuel placed in the center of Sofia, the capital of the Republic of Bulgaria in 2015 388

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20 Samuel’s tomb in the Church of St. Achileios on an island in small lake Prespa 398

Map 1 “Reich des Zar Samuel zum 996 Jahre”, map of Vasil N. Zlatarski from 1917 320

Abbreviations BMGS BSI BZ DOP IRAIK MGH PG PL REB VV ZMNP ZRVI

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Byzantinoslavica Byzantinische Zeitschrift Dumbarton Oaks Papers Izvestiia Russkogo arheologicheskogo instituta v Konstantinopole Monumenta Germania Historica Patrologiae Graeca Patrologiae Latina Revue des etudes byzantines Vizantiiskii vremennik Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog instituta

Introduction To many scholars, “Samuel’s State” refers to the polity that emerged in southwestern Macedonia as a result of the military and political mobilization of four brothers, David, Aaron, Moses and Samuel, the “Cometopouloi” – sons of Count (Comes) Nikola. Securing control over the lands around the lakes Prespa and the Ohrid, the Cometopouloi took advantage of the conflict between Byzantium, Kievan Rus and Bulgaria which unfolded in the Balkans between 966 and 971. In this complex military struggle, the Byzantine emperor John Tzimiskes (969–976) was victorious in 971 over the Rus’ prince Sviatoslav I (962–972), and deposed the Bulgarian emperor Boris II (969–971). Because of the scarce information available in the sources, the lack of data for the period 971–976, and the terminological vagueness of contemporary authors there are many questions regarding the Cometopouloi and their polity. Even today, at a chronological distance of over a millennium, scholars still debate the basic issues of the polity’s history, including its date of establishment, origin, character, and identity. The phrase “Samuel’s State” is a modern designation deriving from the name of the only remaining Cometopoulos who became sole ruler after murdering his brother Aaron, since David and Moses had previously died in battle. During the long struggle with the Byzantine emperor Basil  II (976–1025) in the late 10th  century, Samuel expanded his realm over the broader territory of the Western Balkans. The conflict between the two most powerful rulers at that time culminated with the legendary Battle of Kleidion, also known as the Battle of Belasica, that took place on July 29, 1014. The dramatic story that survives in detail in the work of the Byzantine historian John Skylitzes ends with alleged blinding of 15,000 of Samuel’s captured soldiers. On Basil II’s orders, the Byzantines left one eye for one out of each hundred so that the captured soldiers could lead their comrades to their leader. Unable to bear the tragic spectacle of his approaching blinded army, Samuel died of grief in his original capital in Prespa on October 6th.1 The State outlived Samuel for four years, accompanied by dramatic military events that involved the inter-dynastic strife, which resulted in the murder of Samuel’s successor Gabriel Radomir (1014–1015) by his cousin (Aaron’s son) John Vladislav (1015–1018). Only after Vladislav’s death 1  Ioannes Scylitzes, Synopsis historiarum, rec. Ioannes Thurn, CFHB, Series Berolinensis, V (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), 348–349; John Skylitzes, A  Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057, Translation and Notes by John Wortley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 330–331.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004394292_002

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during the siege of Dyrrachion in 1018, and after the leading men switched their allegiance could Basil II proclaim final victory. He gave thanks to God for his victory in Athens, before proceeding to Constantinople in early 1019, where he celebrated his great triumph in the procession led by Vladislav’s wife Maria and Samuel’s daughters.2 After subduing the long-standing enemy, Basil II imposed Byzantine authority over the wider part of the Balkan region. It was the furthermost territorial expansion since Justinian  I (527–565), which turned Byzantium into the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. This traditional narrative of the Samuel’s State and the struggle between Samuel and Basil II over the Balkans follows the interpretation of the Byzantine authors, which was conceptualized, wielded and manipulated depending on the specific political, military and ideological agenda both in the Middle Ages and in modern times. To understand the phrase “Samuel’s State” used in this book and in modern historiography, one should have in mind a fact which is overlooked by the scholars: for the whole period of that polity’s existence, contemporary Byzantine authors did not provide any concrete name for its identification or for its ruler. Instead, Byzantine contemporaries used the classicist terminology for designating the enemies and the state, even masking Samuel’s name and title under the rather vague designation Comet[opoulos]. The same applies to official documents issued by Basil II or addressed to him, and dated before 1018.3 The only contemporary to reveal the name Sāmuel as the eldest of the two brothers Komsajagkʿ (calque from the Greek Κομητόπουλοι) was Stepʿanos of Taron, also known as Asołik. But Stepʿanos of Taron writing in distant Armenia did not really understand who the real protagonists of the war were, concerned as he was with prioritizing his nationalistic perspective in assigning the Armenian descent of the Cometopouloi.4 2  On the possible reasons for Basil II’s visit to Athens, see Anthony Kaldellis, The Christian Partnenon. Classicism and Pilgrimage in Byzantine Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 81–91. 3  Leonis diaconi Caloensis historiae libri decem, ed. Charles B. Hase (Bonn: Weber, 1828), 10. 8–10, pp. 171–176; The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Expansion in the Tenth Century, Introduction, translation, and annotations by Alice-Mary Talbot and Denis  F.  Sullivan, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 41 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2005), 213–215. John Geometres, Poems, ed. John A. Cramer, Anecdota Graeca e Codd. Manuscriptis Bibliothecae regiae Parisiensis, IV (Oxford: Typographeo academico, 1841), 283. Actes de Lavra, première partie des origins à 1204, ed. Paul Lemerle, Andre Guillou, Nicolas Svoronos and Denise Papachryssanthou, Archives de I’Athos V (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1970), 7, p. 117; Leo of Synada, The Correspondence of Leo, Metropolitan of Synada and Syncellus, ed. and transl. M. P. Vinson, Dumbarton Oaks Texts 8, CFHB 23 (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1985), Ep. 54.8–13; 54.45–49 (pp. 87–91). 4  The Universal History of Step῾anos Tarōnec῾i, Introduction, Translation and Commentary Timothy Greenwood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3.24 (pp. 283–284).

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Following the annexation of Samuel’s State, two of three charters (sigillia) issued by Basil  II in ca.  1020 mentioned Samuel (Σαμουήλ) by name. However, apart from regulating the new status of the Samuel’s Church – the Ohrid Archbishopric, and defining its jurisdiction over the territory termed as “Bulgaria,” they did not contain information that indicated that these rulers were fierce enemies.5 Furthermore, the classical terminology contained in Basil II’s epitaph provides no clues that would reveal the identity of the enemies against which the Byzantine emperor had obtained his greatest military achievements in the Balkans.6 The epitaph’s inscription clearly discloses the consistency of using classical terms in designation of Samuel’s State. We have to turn to Byzantine literary texts composed more than half a century after Samuel’s State’s extinction to get more concrete information with whom Basil II was fighting with. Even so, we will argue that the terminological identification in the Byzantine texts from the last decades of the 11th century was a later product of the Byzantine ideological rhetoric and political propaganda. It did not automatically indicate the real meaning these terms had during the polity’s existence. Probably the only contemporary evidence from “inside” could be the Cyrillic inscriptions found in the village German, near Prespa and in Bitola, which scholars traditionally ascribe to Samuel and John Vladislav.7 However, the authenticity of the inscription from German is questionable, because of the circumstances of its discovery. The contents of the German inscription written in Cyrillic provided an evidence of the Slavic character of Samuel and his state, something that Russian scholars were seeking to find during their frequent visits of Macedonia. The same reservation applies to Bitola inscription, bearing in mind that the damaged part significantly problematizes the reading of the text and reduces its contextualization to the sphere of modern imagination. Accordingly, scholars face difficulty in ascertaining how the people within the Samuel’s State viewed themselves and how they identified and represented their polity, especially since there is no reference to identity coming from them as historical subjects. This further advances the necessity of re-reading 5   Heinrich Gelzer, “Ungedruckte and wenig bekannte Bistumerverzeichnisse der orientalischen Kirche,” BZ 2 (1893), 42–44; Iordan Ivanov, Bălgarski starini iz Makedoniia (Sofia: Dărzhavna pechatnitsa, 1931; reprint Sofia: Bălgarska akademiia na naukite, Nauka i i­ zkustsvo, 1970), 550–561. 6  Silvio G. Mercati, “L’epitafio di Basilio Bulgaroctonos secondo it codice Modense Greco 144 ed Ottoboniano Greco 344,” in Collectanea Byzantina, II (Bari: Dedalo libri, 1970), 232–234; Mercati, “Sull’epitafio di Basilio II Bulgaroctonos,” in Collectanea Byzantina, II (Bari: Dedalo libri, 1970), 226–231. 7  Fiodor I. Uspenskii, “Nadpis tsaria Samuila” IRAIK 4/1 (1899), 1–4. Iordan Zaimov and Vasilka Tăpkova-Zaimova, Bitolski nadpis na Ivan Vladislav samodărzhets bălgarski: starobălgarski pametnik ot 1015–1016 godina (Sofia: Bălgarska akademiia na naukite, 1970).

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the sources and revisiting the traditional scholarly interpretation of Samuel and his polity. Thus, this book will examine the noticeable nuances when one compares the Byzantine authors writing during Samuel’s lifetime with those who composed their works from considerable distance when Samuel’s State was no longer existent. The apparent difference in terminological identification was neglected by the modern scholars who followed the traditional interpretation of Samuel’s State and picture it through the glass darkly of the Byzantine and other medieval sources. This book’s title suggests that attention needs to be paid to the neglected issue of the legendary struggle between Basil II and Samuel over the Balkans, which resulted not only in the (equally legendary) physical blinding of the prisoners but also in the imposition of political and ideological “blindness” by the Byzantine and other medieval sources on Samuel’s State. This book is not a narrative of Samuel’s State. It deals with the issue of state formation in the Middle Ages from the perspective of labeling of “others” in the constructed perceptions of the Byzantine World and focuses on the definition, interpretation and representation of Samuel’s State. It aims to offer a fresh look that takes into account both the original sources and the latest scholarship on this subject and it will advance a thorough revision of the traditional narrative and interpretation. Much ink has been spilled on “proving” the ethnic character and the origin of Samuel’s State, but this book takes a different approach. It confronts the traditional interpretation with the most recent research on medieval ethnicity and ethnography as a literary practice in Byzantium. Although the works of Florin Curta,8 Anthony Kaldellis,9 Guy 8   Florin Curta, The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c. 500–700 A.D., Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, 52 (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, ca. 500–1250, Cambridge Medieval Textbooks 39 (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Curta, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, c. 500 to 1050. The Early Middle Ages (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011); Curta, “Still waiting for the barbarians? The making of the Slavs in ‘Dark-Age’ Greece,” in Neglected Barbarians, ed. F. Curta (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 403–478; Curta, “Burial in Early Medieval Greece: on Ethnicity in Byzantine Archaeology,” in Studia in Honorem Professoris Borisi Borisov (Veliko Tărnovo: IVIS, 2016), 419–448. 9   Anthony Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015); Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Kaldellis, Ethnography after Antiquity: Foreign Lands and People in Byzantine Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013); Kaldellis, “The Manufacture of History in the Later Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: Rhetorical Templates and Narrative Ontologies,” in Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine

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Halsall,10 Walter Pohl,11 and Patrick Geary,12 did not specifically tackle the ethnography related to Samuel’s State, this book applies their approach to medieval ethnicity and ethnography in order to enforce certain arguments. This especially concerns the medieval authors’ classicist tendencies as a way of indicating the polarization between the “self” and the “others”. In the case of Samuel’s State, the inclination to demonstrate the Byzantine geographical ownership and to negate the contemporary identity were especially important. This book will follow the latest scholarly view that for the purpose of propaganda Byzantine writers from 11th and 12th century disguised the identity of the contemporary inhabitants in the Balkan region, framing them terminologically within the provincial map of the Early Roman Empire to legitimize the imperial conquest.13 It will go further, and argue for the specificity of the former Samuel’s State’s territory, which was not related in geographical terms to the former Roman provinces. Instead, it obtained the name from the new administrative and ecclesiastical province that was established after the conquest. This book will thus challenge the traditional scholarly identification of Samuel’s polity based on the interpretation of the constructed Byzantine labeling and its projected meaning. Analysis of the sources reveals that the politics behind the terminology was applied to the annexed territory of Samuel’s State to legitimize the Byzantine conquest by creating a notion of continuity of imperial superiority and prestige. This at the end resulted in reinscribing of the identity of the polity and its Studies (Belgrade, 22–27 August 2016): Plenary Papers, ed. Smilja Marjanović-Dušanić (Belgrade: The Serbian National Committee of AIEB 2016), 293–306. 10  Gay Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 11  Walter Pohl, “Conceptions of ethnicity in early medieval studies,” ArchPol 29 (1991), 39–49; Pohl, “Introduction: Strategies of Identification. A Methodological Profile,” in Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 13 (Turnhout: Brepols 2013), 1–64; Pohl, “Ethnicity, Theory, and Tradition: A Response,” in On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Andrew Gillett, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 4 (Turhhout: Brelopis, 2002), 221–239. 12  Patrick Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton/New York: Princeton University Press, 2002). 13   Paul Stephenson, “Byzantine conceptions of otherness after the annexation of Bulgaria in 1018,” in Strangers to Themselves: The Byzantine Outsider, Papers from the Thirty-second Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, March 1998, ed. Dion  C.  Smythe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 245–257; Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier: a political study of the Northern Balkans, 900–1204 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 77–79; Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 17–19; Kaldellis, Ethnography after antiquity, 112–115.

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subjects. In view of that, one of the arguments of this book will assert that that terminology applied to Samuel’s State after its conquest did not have ethnic meaning but was used for demarcation of the geographic possession in administrative and ecclesiastical terms. It served as a rhetorical and institutional instrument to demonstrate Byzantium’s political superiority and continuity of ideological supremacy. Samuel’s State’s ethnic demarcation existed in the eyes of the modern scholars who interpreted the Byzantine terminology as projected identity marker, thus delimitating the imagined ethnic territory by the medieval constructed labeling. Anthony Kaldellis rightly points out that modern historians projected and manipulated the Byzantine ethnic labeling in cases “when a modern nation corresponding to that label still exists and presses its ethnic claims to the past.”14 However, he follows the traditional scholarly perception when he refers to Samuel’s State to support his own arguments that a small number of minority ethnic groups existed within Byzantium. I will not argue that ethnicity did not matter for the Byzantines. However, they rather used the terminology for political and ideological purposes,15 which problematizes the identification of the polity founded by the Cometopouloi. The manipulation came from the use of the terminology to demarcate the imperial possession of the territory based on the ideological matrix that was rhetorically or institutionally applied for demonstration of Byzantine supremacy and prestige. In the case of Samuel’s State, the Byzantines exploited the terminology to project a fictitious notion of continued Byzantine imperial dominance, which was non-existent in reality. Given that the Byzantine authors characterized the political and military mobilization of the Cometopouloi and Samuel’s State’s establishment as an act of apostasy (ἀπστασία) and tyranny (τύρανος) of Samuel, it is reasonable to suppose that the Byzantine elite treated this new polity as illegally emerging from the territory under Byzantium’s rule. This means that in Byzantine eyes, or more precisely from the perspective of the court in Constantinople, the Bulgarian Empire ceased to exist in 971 when the emperor John Tzimiskes dethroned the defeated Bulgarian emperor Boris II, striping off his imperial regalia in a celebratory triumphant procession in the capital city. Furthermore, 14  Kaldellis, “From Rome to New Rome, from Empire to Nation-State: Reopening the Question of Byzantium’s Roman Identity,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 392. 15  Curta, Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 295, observes that the lack of any special names other than administrative or geographical indications suggests that ethnicity in early middle ages was a “measure of the cultural distance between inhabitants of the Empire and barbarians” and that ethnic traits mattered for the “classification of those who were not yet or not at all subject to the emperor”.

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the Byzantines derived their dominance from holding Boris and his castrated brother Romanos as hostages in Constantinople for several years as a guarantor of peace with the Bulgarian emperor Peter (927–969), only to be released after their father’s death in 969 and “sent to Bulgaria to secure the ancestral throne and to restrain the Cometopouloi from further encroachments.”16 Notwithstanding that scholars differently interpreted and used this passage from Skylitzes’s Synopsis, setting a long debate related to the existence of one or two rebellions of the Cometopouloi,17 it clearly reflects how the Byzantine superiority over both the Bulgarian Empire and the Cometopouloi polity was demonstrated. In this regard, the political and military mobilization of Cometopouloi that resulted in establishment of the independent polity on 16  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 255–256; tr. Wortley, 246. 17  Although the majority of the Balkan scholars agree that the rebellion of the Cometopouloi occurred in 969 (Vasil Zlatarski, Istoriia na bălgarskata dărzhava prez srednite vekove: Părvo bălgarsko tsarstvo: Ot slavianizaciiata na dărzhavata do padaneto na Părvoto tsarstvo, 852–1018, vol. 1, part 2 (Sofia: Dărzhavna pechatnitsa, 1927; reprint, Sofia: Zaharii Stoianov, Universitet Sv. Kliment Ohridski, 2007), 590; Stjepan Antoljak, Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. I (Skopje: Misla, 1985), 122–123, 324; Branko Panov, Makedonija niz istorijata. Proučuvanja na makedonskata istorija i kultura (Skopje: Menora, 1999), 75–76, they conceptually disagree on the notion of whether it resulted in establishment of the independent “Western Bulgarian state” or the “Macedonian State”. Srđan Pirivatrić, Samuilova država. Obim i karakter (Beograd: Vizantološki institut Srbske akademije nauka i umetnosti, 1997), 71 accepting the existence of the rebellion in 969, argues that there is no attestation that would clarify what was its final result. Georgi Ostrogorski, Istorija Vizantije (Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga, 1959; reprint, Beograd: Prosveta, 1969), 286–7 is determined that one cannot speak of an uprising of the Cometopouloi prior to 976, the opinion that is maintained by Werner Seibt, “Untersuchungen zur Vor- and Fruhgeschichte der ‘bulgarischen’ Kometopulen,” Handes Amsorya. Zeitschrift fir armenische Philologie 89 (1975), 65–98 and Jadran Ferluga, “Le soultvement des Cometopoules,” ZRVI 9 (1966), 75–84. Catherine Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 976–1025 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 489–490 maintain that it seems “likely, but difficult to prove, that the Cometopouloi had managed to consolidate their authority in western Macedonia” prior to 976. Paul Stephenson, The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-slayer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 13–14, n. 8, allows for the possibility that the Cometopouloi had acted independently after 969, but did not seek to extend their authority until the death of John Tzimiskes in 976. Jonathan Shepard, “Equilibrium to Expansion (886–1025),” in The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, c. 500–1492, ed. Jonathan Shepard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 522, does not exclude the possibility that the Cometopouloi had deserted from serving Byzantium, raising a rebellion immediately after the death of Tzimiskes, “if not even prior to that”. For the period of 971–976 as “interregnum” in Bulgaria, which was accompanied with the actions of the Cometopouloi, see Vasil Giuzelev, “Bălgarskata epopeiia v dvuboi sreschu Vizantiiskata imperia v kraia na X – părvite dve desetletia na XI v.,” in Bălgaria 681–1981, ed. Hristo Hristov (Sofia: Otechestven front, 1981), 107–114; Georgi  N.  Nikolov, Tsar Samuil (Sofia: Zaharii Stoianov, 2016), 32–53.

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the geographical area formerly under the authority of the Bulgarian Empire, was treated as an illegal usurpation of the Byzantine territory and accordingly termed as an apostasy. However, this again does not necessarily suggest that the late 11th  century Byzantine writers reflected the ideas and characterizations of Samuel’s State present during its existence. Furthermore, the silence of the Byzantine sources on Samuel’s State for 971–976 and 1005–1014 does not exclude the possibility that John Tzimiskes and Basil II negotiated some kind of agreements with the Cometopouloi and Samuel, which might have been deliberately hidden. Nevertheless, no evidence allows us to decide whether these possible agreements meant formal recognition of the polity.18 The only information comes from Basil II’s sigillia, where the emperor indirectly recognized Samuel’s realm but only to demonstrate that he was annexing the territory previously ruled by Samuel. Regarding Samuel’s State we are left with many gaps, filled with medieval and modern conceptions, interpretations, and imaginations. Diimitri Obolensky has long proposed to treat Samuel’s State within the framework of the “Byzantine commonwealth,” although he acknowledged that this polity had no commendations for Constantinople’s political and ideological conception.19 Accordingly, the only way how to include Samuel’s State into the “Byzantine commonwealth” model is to describe it in accordance with how the Byzantines conceptualized it themselves. Following this conception, traditional scholarship presents Samuel’s polity either as a direct continuation of the First Bulgarian Empire or as an independent state established in Macedonia that continued the Bulgarian Empire’s state and church traditions.20 John Fine reflects the stereotyped view with his argument that the 18  On the possible signing of ten-year peace agreement between Basil II and Samuel in 1005, by which the Byzantine emperor recognized an independent Samuel’s realm, see Paul Stephenson, “The Byzantine frontier in Macedonia,” Dialogos 7 (2000), 29; Stephenson, Legend of Basil the Bulgar-slayer, 22. 19  Dimitry Obolensky, The Byzantine commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500–1453 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), 130–131. 20  George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, tr. Joan Hussey, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968), 301–302 argues that Samuel was entirely committed to the traditions of Bulgarian Empire, however in “reality his Macedonian kingdom was essentially different from the former kingdom of Bulgaria” representing a “new and distinctive phenomenon”. Pirivatrić, Samuilova država, 202–204 maintains that “Samuel and his heirs acted as restorers of the Bulgarian Empire” and the state created after 976 followed the traditions of the abolished empire. Stephenson, “The Byzantine frontier in Macedonia,” 29, depicts it as independent and predominantly Slavic realm known as Bulgaria, but with its centers of power in Macedonia. Also Stephenson, Legend of Basil the BulgarSlayer, 13–14, who notes that “Samuel claimed to rule Bulgaria, an independent realm in the northern Balkans free of Byzantine suzerainty, as the successor to Simeon and Peter,

Introduction

9

Cometopouloi’s ethnic origins were irrelevant because “Samuel called his state Bulgarian, a fact which shows that he considered it Bulgarian; furthermore, Byzantine sources called it Bulgarian also and treat Samuel simply as a ruler, continuing the former Bulgarian state.”21 However, there is no record that will attest how Samuel called his state, nor that he ever aspired to continue the former Bulgarian state or claim its traditions. Skylitzes himself did not suggest that Cometopouloi continued the traditions of the former Bulgarian empire. On the contrary, he presented them as being independent from the successors of the Bulgarian royal dynasty. Furthermore, we do not find evidence in the works of Byzantine contemporaries that they called Samuel’s polity as “Bulgaria”. Hence, Samuel’s State’s only link with the former Bulgarian Empire remains Basil II’s claim contained in his sigillia of the alleged subsequent movement of the “Bulgarian archbishops” from Dristra to Ohrid. Still, one cannot escape the impression that by this claim Basil II desired to create a sense of unbroken continuity of Byzantine supremacy based on the Emperor’s and Constantinople Patriarch’s direct involvement in the process of recognition, legitimization and subsequent elimination of the Bulgarian Empire and Church in 971.22 Prespa’s exclusion from the alleged movement of the archbishops clearly indicates the constructed content of the sigillia. The construction of the notion of ecclesiastical continuity was essential, since Samuel’s State and Church existed politically and ideologically in emperors of the Bulgarians”. Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 401, depict it as a “new Bulgarian empire of Samuel Kometopoulos in western Macedonia”. Bojana Krsmanović, “O odnosu upravne i crkovne organizacije na području Ohridske arhiepiskopije,” in Vizantijski svet na Balkanu, vol. 1, ed. Bojana Krmanović, Ljubomir Maksimović, Radivoje Radić (Beograd: Vizantološki institut Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti, 2012), 35, maintain that with the rebellion of the Cometopouloi emerged “reestablished/new Bulgarian empire”. Antoljak, Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. I, 122–123, 324 and B. Panov, Makedonija niz istorijata, 75–76, argue that Samuel’s State was independent Macedonian state established with the rebellion of the Cometopouloi in 969 against Bulgarian authority, who from 971 recognized the supreme authority of Byzantium, only to reject it with the new rebellion in 976 by which they restored the state independence. 21  John V. A. Fine, The Early Medieval Balkans. A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1983), 191–192. Accepting this argument, Kaldellis maintains that “Samuel and many of his subjects probably considered themselves Bulgarians, but how exactly they understood that identity is beyond our reach, as is the multiethnic composition of his state”. Anthony Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 82, 115. 22  The Bulgarian church is absent from the official list of ecclesiastical dioceses subject to Constantinople composed in 971–976. See, Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, ed. Jean Darrouzes (Paris: Institut Français d’Études Byzantines, 1961), notitia 9 (p. 295–306).

10

Introduction

complete independence from Constantinople and did not receive any blessing from the Byzantine court.23 Basil II sanctioned this precise situation with the sigillia, by preserving Samuel’s Church’s autocephalous status, which continued its independence from Constantinople under his auspice. In this regard, the imposition of Samuel’s Church’s new name “Bulgaria” clearly fit into the creation of illusion of continued Byzantine dominance. So, if we maintain that the definition of Samuel’s State as part of the “Byzantine commonwealth” is an idea constructed by modern scholars, we can also argue that its association with the Bulgarian Empire’s traditions was also the Byzantine political and ecclesiastical elite’s construct. Consequently, this book will follow the latest trend of revisiting the idea of the “Byzantine commonwealth” as an incompatible model for framing the Orthodox medieval entities within the concept of Constantinople’s universal ecumenicity.24 That requires a reconsideration of Samuel’s State from a perspective free of the Byzantine ideology. This book will reassess the modern scholarly interpretation that Samuel’s State was a mere continuation of the Bulgarian Empire, providing arguments that this was an imperial rhetorical notion that was institutionalized and 23  It is interesting that in his first work dedicated to Bogomilism, Obolensky noted that “Samuel’s name is almost entirely absent from Bulgarian Orthodox literature and surrounded by the veil of reserve,” that was not the case with Boris, Simeon and Peter, explaining it with the “position of the Bulgarian Church in Samuel’s Macedonian Empire”. According to Obolensky’s interpretation in the eyes of the Byzantine Church and State, Samuel always remained a rebel because he refused to recognize the abolition of the old Bulgarian patriarchate by John Tzimiskes. See, Dimitri Obolensky, The Bogomils: A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), 148–149. In his later works, Obolensky was determined to follow the traditional view, explaining that whatever role should be ascribed to “local ‘Macedonian’ elements” in the creation of the Samuel’s State, Samuel “deliberately identified himself with the political and religious traditions of the empire of Symeon and Peter” and at the same time restoring the Bulgarian patriarchate (Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth, 130–131). 24  For the scholarly critics of Obolensky’s model, see Christian Raffensperger, “Revisiting the Idea of the Byzantine Commonwealth,” Byzantinische Forschungen 28 (2004), 159–74; Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012); Kaldellis, Ethnography after antiquity; Kaldellis, “Did the Byzantine Empire have “Ecumenical” or “Universal” Aspirations?,” in Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America, ed. Clifford Ando and Seith Richardson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 272–300. J0nathan Shepard, “Byzantium’s Overlapping Circles,” in Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21–26 August 2006. Volume I, Plenary Papers, ed. Elizabeth Jeffreys (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 15–55; Shepard, “The Byzantine Commonwealth, 1000–1550,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, Vol. 5: Eastern Christianity, ed. Michael Angold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 3–52, re-evaluates the concept of Byzantine commonwealth.

Introduction

11

deliberately propagated by Basil II and his associates after 1018. It aimed to create an aura of continuity to legitimize and represent the territory’s incorporation after the emperor’s conquest, making the false impression as it was (re)conquest that re-established order. This impression was also achieved by the use of constructed terminology. It influenced the perception of nonByzantine authors, who used these terms as they tried to understand the complex situation that occurred following the emergence of the polity of Cometopouloi. As a result, they automatically connected the Cometopouloi’s polity with the former Bulgarian Empire, that reflected in inadvertent misrepresentation of the main protagonists. Articulating his own interpretation of the Byzantine ideological propaganda that circulated after Basil II’s death, Arabian author Yahya of Antioch wrongly presented Samuel (instead of Peter), as the former “emperor of the Bulgarians” and father of the two unnamed sons, the younger of which was proclaimed an emperor, whose servant was Cometopoulos.25 This book distances from the stereotypical scholarly interpretation that Samuel sought to link himself and his state with the tradition of the former Bulgarian Empire. This approach requires clarification of his imperial title as used in this book. This actually represents the independent and dominant position that Samuel had obtained with his military victories in the Balkans and his claim for the imperial title, which Yahya explicitly attests. However, we can hardly believe Yahya’s story that Cometopuolos (Samuel) formally recognized Samuel’s (Peter’s) younger son (castrated Romanus) as an emperor, waiting for his death to claim the imperial title. What we have here is Yahya’s own attempt to understand, or rather to conjecture, the relationship between Samuel and the heirs to the throne of the former Bulgarian Empire, which found reflection in his inverted historical contextualization. The mixing up the characters was clearly a consequence of Yahya’s own interpretation of the ideological perspective and imperial propaganda that was transmitted through the Byzantine sources that he used. More detailed contextualization is only possible from Skylitzes’ narrative. He did not mention Samuel’s formal title, while presenting him as the sole ruler after murdering his brother Aaron.26 For Skylitzes, Romanos’ destiny did not have any importance for Samuel’s formal position. In his rendition the only connection between Samuel’s and Peter’s sons was the rebellion of Cometopouloi that occurred after Tzimiskes’s death in 976. 25   Histoire de Yahya Ibn-Sa’id d’Antioche, continuateur de Sa’id-Ibn-Bitriq, fasc. 2, ed. and tr. Ignace Kratchkovsky and Alexander Vasiliev, Patrologia Orientalis 23/2 (Paris: FirminDidot, 1932), 418–419. 26  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 329–330; tr. Wortley, 312.

12

Introduction

According to Skylitzes, while escaping Constantinople, Boris was accidentally killed, and Samuel later appointed Romanos as the governor of Skopje.27 Samuel’s contemporary, Step῾anos of Taron, did not represent him with a formal title, stating that the Cometopouloi switched sides and rebelled against Basil II. From his perspective, the Cometopouloi used the situation when the Byzantine emperor captured the “king of Bulgars, the castrated eunuch” to gain control over the territory and resisted him in hard-fought engagements.28 Taken together, it is impossible to reconcile these combined texts, since only Skylitzes revealed the real protagonists, while Step῾anos of Taron and Yayhya discussed them in relation to the former Bulgarian Empire. All were using Byzantine texts that transmitted the literary politics and constructed terminology. What becomes certain from Constantinople’s perspective is that the Byzantines refrained from mentioning Samuel’s title since that would mean recognizing that the imperial superiority was discontinued during his rule. Avoiding that and filling the vacuum during the period of ataxia, Basil II constructed the allusion of the alleged ecclesiastical continuity that Samuel and his Church had maintained with the abolished Bulgarian patriarchate. This allowed the Byzantine emperor to demonstrate that the imperial preeminence and prestige were not affected during Samuel’s rule, having in mind the Byzantium’s immediate role in recognition, legitimation and subsequent abolition of the Bulgarian Empire and Patriarchate in 971. This explains why Samuel’s title was deliberately concealed in Basil II’s sigillia where the invented ecclesiastical continuity was institutionalized, which was not the case with Peter who was designated as emperor. Furthermore, the question remains why the sigillia omitted Boris II or Samuel’s successors. The answer could only reinforce the argument that the Byzantines treated Samuel as the founder of an independent polity and a church, although they intentionally did not record his formal title as it would disrupt the continuity of Byzantium’s ideological superiority. The Roman Papacy, responding to request of the Vlacho-Bulgarian state, later used and manipulated the issue to demonstrate its own involvement in Samuel’s crowning, filling the gap left by the Byzantines. We are left without firm evidence that would show when and how Samuel claimed the imperial title and from where he obtained the legitimacy, if he ever aspired to acquire it. The open question remains whether Samuel was content with his independent position and was simply defying Byzantium, by “proclaiming himself as emperor”. This was exactly what Yahya stated, however he misinterpreted the 27  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 328–329, 346; tr. Wortley, 312, 328. 28   The Universal History of Step῾anos Tarōnec῾i, 245.22, tr. Greenwood, 285.

Introduction

13

real characters since he treated Samuel’s State as a continuation of the former Bulgarian Empire, which was his apprehension of the Byzantine ideological propaganda. After Basil’s death and the appointment of the Byzantines to the leading positions in the Ohrid Archbishopric, these continuously reshaped and adapted the Archbishopric’s traditions in accordance with the current political and ideological situation. Leo (1037–1056), the first Byzantine appointee on the seat of the Ohrid Archbishopric, who replaced John of Debar, rebuild and modified St. Sofia Cathedral and implemented the decoration program in accordance with the Byzantine imperial agenda for the province’s acculturation.29 From the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century, the Ohrid Archbishops went beyond Samuel’s Church and State traditions, stretching back even to Justinian I’s time to propagate the Byzantine ideological dominance. This became especially relevant since the leaders of the Balkan rebellions claimed Samuel’s State’s legacy and traditions in the 1040s and 1070s. However, what we have preserved in source material is only how Byzantines transmitted these traditions using the conventional terminology of the time, not how the rebellions’ leaders represented themselves, aspiring to reconstitute Samuel’s empire by claiming their descent from Samuel or John Vladislav. In the beginning of the 13th century, the leaders of the Vlach-Bulgarian State adapted the Byzantine constructed notion of the continuity between Samuel and his Church with the abolished Bulgarian Patriarchate. Using this Byzantine construct, they invented their own continuity with 10th  century state traditions. Acknowledging this fabricated claim, the Papacy sought to provide legitimization of its own involvement in the Balkans. What is common for all these constructed conceptions was the interest in inventing the different forms of political and ideological continuity to represent their immediate involvement in Samuel’s State’s political and ecclesiastical traditions, which likely never existed. What we can assume, based on the reconstruction of Samuel’s paramount political and ecclesiastical agenda, is that he associated the State’s traditions with the Prespa and Ohrid areas in southwestern Macedonia. The accounts of Leo the Deacon, John Geometres and Step῾anos of Taron attest that Samuel’s primary agenda initially included Macedonia.30 In addition, Samuel was “importing” Christian cults from conquered territories in 29  Anabel J. Wharton, Art of empire: painting and architecture of the Byzantine periphery: a comparative study of four provinces (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988), 105–106. 30  Leo the Deacon, History, 10.8, ed. Hase, 171; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 213; John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 282; Step῾anos of Taron, Universal History, 3.22, tr. Greenwood, 283–284.

14

Figure 1

Introduction

Church of St. Achileios on an island in small lake Prespa Photo: Georgi Nikolov

the far south (St. Achilleios of Larissa) and far West (St. Tryphon of Kotor). This certainly enabled him to further legitimize his position and to institutionalize his ideological program. Nothing suggests that Samuel ever aspired to import the political or religious elements from the capitals of the former Bulgarian Empire. In the east we can only find the church complex of St.  Leontios at Vodoča (near Strumica), that could be ascribed to Samuel’s ktetorian initiative, which complemented his defense border-line in the last decade of the war with Basil II.31 It remains unclear if Samuel wanted to mark the borders with his church building program. However, Ohrid clearly held importance since it was associated with the famous St.  Clement and St.  Naum. The immense cathedral Samuel had built in Prespa and the large basilica built or refurbished in Ohrid indicate where we should look for the political and ecclesiastical core of his state, which constituted the foundation of his ruling and ideological program. This book will explore how Samuel’s political ideology and established state and church traditions were interpreted by the Byzantines and

31  Elizabeta Dimitrova, “Ars inimitabilis: the Church Complex of St. Leontius at Vodoča,” in Niš i Vizantija, četrnaesti međunarodni naučni skup, Niš, 3–5. jun 2015, Zbornik radova 14, ed. Miša Rakočija (Niš: Grad Niš, Univerzitet u Nišu, Niški kulturni centar, 2016), 343–356.

Introduction

15

manipulated through the Ohrid Archbishopric and how medieval authors, Balkan medieval elites, and modern scholars reused and appropriated these traditions. To be more precise, Samuel’s polity did not lack any elements required by the modern theories of the “state.” Regardless of the absence of a unified scholarly definition of pre-modern states, many accounts in the Byzantine sources attest that this polity had an independent ruler(s), political and church elite and hierarchy, capital(s), a controlled territory and borders, a unified army, a system for tax collection, and other components that qualify it as a “state.”32 However, the scarcity of available evidence makes it difficult to reconstruct the way that state was governed, apart from the basic understanding that Samuel and his successors relied on loyal representatives in the cities and on a solid network of fortresses. These representatives’ shifted allegiances towards Basil II in exchange for Byzantine titles and prestige, not the offensive campaigns, in the end proved crucial in the final conquest of Samuel’s State in 1018. In the light of the latest scholarly debate initiated by Kaldellis for framing Byzantium within the modern theories of the “state” and revisiting the traditional notion in favour of its identification as the Roman Republic and the nation-state of the Romans,33 the reconstruction of Samuel’s State and its placement in relation and within the Real Byzantium/Romania requires re-evaluation as well. The specificity of Samuel’s State lies in in the fact that researchers have to rely on the Byzantine conception in order to classify it as a “state.” This again leads us to the Byzantine court’s complex imperial rhetoric and ideological propaganda, which presented it as an unlawful polity. On the other hand, if we personalize the Samuel’s State with one of its leaders, as this book does, it does not imply that by this we are not able to classify it as an independent empire with its own original traditions. This simply provides another argument for its specificity and the complexity faced in reconstructing the Samuel’s State and framing it within Byzantine and modern conceptions. 32  For the complexity of framing Byzantium within the modern theories of the “state,” see Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic, 32–88. For other opinions on the definition of the premodern state, see also, John F. Haldon, The State and the Tributary Mode of Production (London: Verso, 1993); Haldon, “Comparative state formation: Rome and neighboring worlds”, in The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, ed. Scott F. Johnson (Oxford-New York 2012), 1111–1147. 33  Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic. For the critical approach to Kaldellis’ arguments, see Jannis Stouraitis, “Roman Identity in Byzantium: A Critical Approach,” BZ 107 (2014), 175–220; Stouraitis, “Reinventing Roman Ethnicity in High and Late Medieval Byzantium,” Medieval Worlds 5 (2017) 70–94. See also, J0hn Haldon, “Res publica Byzantina? State formation and issues of identity in medieval east Rome,” BMGS 40/1 (2016), 4–16.

16

Figure 2

Introduction

Samuel’s fortress in Ohrid Photo: Mitko B. Panov

Introduction

17

The metaphor “Blinded state …” refers correspondingly to the scholars from the post-medieval and modern period, who had exploited the Samuel’s State in order to contextualize it within their own nationalistic and wider regional agendas. Paul Stephenson has clearly demonstrated that the legend of Basil II the “Bulgar-Slayer” was created and used by Byzantine authors in the late 12th century, only to be recycled by modern Greek scholars and Philhellenes in the 19th and the early 20th centuries in relation to the so-called “Macedonian Question” that emerged with the Ottoman Empire’s decline as a component of the broader “Eastern Question”. However, his study was restricted to analyzing Greek and western Philhellene scholars’ works with a special focus on Basil II’s portrait as a historical symbol and myth for the newly established Greek nation, which integrated the two poles of Hellenism and validated the territorial aspirations towards the Balkans.34 Apart from a few mentions in general surveys, scholars have never explicitly tackled the issue of how Samuel’s State was perceived and interpreted in the Balkan historiography.35

34  Stephenson, Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer. 35  Ljubiša Doklestić, “Samoilovata makedonska država vo srpsko-hrvatskata gragjanska istoriografija i publicistika vo XIX vek i vo prvata polovina na XX vek (do 1941),” in 1000 godini od vostanieto na komitopulite i sozdavanjeto na Samoilovata država. Zbornik na materijali od naučnata sredba održana vo Prespa od 10 do 15 oktomvri 1969 godina, ed. Mihailo Apostolski, Stjepan Antoljak, Branko Panov (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija, 1971), 121–148, with an overview of the Serbian and Croatian historiography in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Branko Panov, “Za razvojot na makedonskata srednovekovistika,” in Makedonskata istoriska nauka – dostignuvanja i problemi. Prilozi od naučniot sobir održan vo Skopje na 17–19 noemvri 1998, ed. Krste Bitovski et al. (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija, 2000), 11–18. Pirivatrić, Samuilova država, 26–29, with a short overview on the research on Samuel’s State. Stephenson, Legend of Basil the BulgarSlayer, ch. 7 and ch. 8, for Greek and Philhellene views on the subject. Georgi N. Nikolov, Tsentralizăm i regionalizăm v rannosrednovekovna Bălgariia, kraia na VII-nachaloto na XI v. (Sofia: Akademichno izdatelstvo “Marin Drinov,” 2005), 35–50 for an overview of the main works. Vasil Giuzelev, Apologiia na srednovekovieto (Sofia: Klasika i Stil, 2004) for the development of the Bulgarian medieval historiography in general. Vasilka Tăpkova-Zaimova, “Bălgari rodom …” Komitopulite v letopisnata i istoriografskata traditsiia (Veliko Tărnovo: Universitetsko izdadetelstvo Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii, 2009; 2nd ed., Sofia: Akademsko izdadelstvo Marin Drinov, 2014), covering the original works from Byzantine authors until the end of the 18th  century, that wrote on the subject of Samuel’s State. See also the overview on the works on Samuel’s State by the Bulgarian lawyer, who is not a professional historian, Anton Săbotinov, Bălgariia pri tsar Samuil i negovite naslednitsi, 976–1018 g. (Sofia: Artgraf, 2008); Săbotinov, “Komitopulite i tsar Samuil v chuzhdestranata istoriopis,” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i kultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsiia Sofia, 6–8 Oktomvri, 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi N. Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 308–320.

18

Introduction

Despite the fact that Samuel’s State has been an issue of a heated debate among Balkan scholars since the 1870s as their newly founded states began to exploit it in the constructed national histories, thus far only a few books have been dedicated to this topic. Foremost among them is a book of a Serbian scholar, Srđan Pirivatrić. This book is the only comprehensive narrative of Samuel’s State published after the collapse of the Communist regime and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, with a pretension to distance from the Yugoslav historiographical consensus regarding the identity of this medieval polity. Furthermore, it is indicative that only most recently several books specially dedicated to Samuel’s State were published by Bulgarian scholars, Plamen Pavlov, Petar Petrov, Georgi N. Nikolov, representing the latest account from the perspective of the Bulgarian historiography.36 Hitherto, none of these books have been written or translated into English. Various issues related to Samuel’s State have recently been addressed by several prominent scholars writing in English, such as Jonathan Shepard, Paul Stephenson, Florin Curta, Catherine Holmes, Anthony Kaldellis, each correlated to some aspect or problem of the history of Byzantine-Balkan relations.37 Recently, Paul Meinrad Strässle in his book has specifically addressed the military aspects of the war between Basil II and Samuel.38 Hence, the only monograph on Samuel’s State in English was written by Croatian professor Stjepan Antoljak, published more than three decades ago when consensus within the Yugoslav historiographers concerning the common medieval past has been created and consolidated.39 36  Plamen Pavlov, Vekăt na tsar Samuil (Sofia: Iztok-Zapad, 2014). Petăr Petrov, Samuil tsariat voin (Sofia: Makedonski nauchen institut, 2014). Georgi N. Nikolov, Bălgarskiiat tsar Samuil (Sofia: Bălgarsko sdruzhenie na rodovete ot Makedoniia, 2014); G. Nikolov, Tsar Samuil. 37  Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier; Stephenson, Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer; 1–48; 58–79; Jonathan Shepard, “Byzantium expanding, 944–1025,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, III, ed. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 586–604; Shepard, “Equilibrium to expansion (886–1025),” in The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, c. 500–1492, ed. Jonathan Shepard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 493–536; Shepard, “Communications across the Bulgarian lands: Samuel’s poisoned chalice for Basil II and his successors?,” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i kultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsia Sofia, 6–8 Oktomvri, 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi N. Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 217–235; Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire; Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 237–247; Curta, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks; Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood, 65–152. 38  Paul Meinrad Strässle, Krieg und Kriegführung in Byzanz. Die Kriege Kaiser Basileios’ II. gegen die Bulgaren (976–1019) (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2006). 39  Stjepan Antoljak, Samuel and his State, transl. Eran Frankel and Zoran Ančevski (Skopje: Macedonian Review Editions, 1985).

Introduction

19

Accordingly, the second part of the book focuses on the approach to Samuel’s State taken by Balkan scholars in early modern and modern period, with emphasis on Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian historians. They will be compared to the viewpoints of the Western and Russian historiography, while examining their influences in relation to the different representations and contextualization of Samuel’s State in Balkan narratives. This book will illustrate the complexity of the historiographical problem related to the contested interpretation of Samuel’s State, presenting a more thorough and broader picture in order to understand the different perspectives of the Balkan historiography on the medieval and Byzantine period in general, and to offer a clearer picture of how the medieval past was used/abused in modern Balkan politics. It will also explore how the image of the Samuel’s State was shaped and adapted in accordance with the political, military and ideological settings of the 19th and 20th century Balkans, that also comprises the first decade and a half of the 21st century. We will argue that the Balkan elites’ appropriation of Samuel’s State directly related to their territorial aspirations to Macedonia as the core of the former medieval state, transforming the medieval history into an issue of contemporary identity. This book demonstrates that it was actually Russia that initiated the process of rediscovering Samuel in mid-19th century, which complemented its redefined policy in the Balkans. Russia sent many of its intellectuals to Macedonia during the 19th century to find Slavic written or material evidence dating from the Middle Ages to support its contemporary Pan-Slavic agenda in the region. The Archimandrite Antonin – Kapustin (1817–1894), rector of the Russian embassy Church in Constantinople in the period 1860–1865, provides an illustrative example. Antonin’s impressions from his visit of Macedonia in 1865, displays his open frustration for not uncovering any written or material evidence from Ohrid and Prespa that would indicate the Slavic origin of Samuel’s State. Antonin recorded his failed endeavour through intellectual dialogue with the teacher Ohrid and prominent Macedonian revivalist Grigor Prličev (1830–1893) to reveal the identity of the medieval ruler who once resided at Ohrid’s ruined fortress. Antonin’s account strongly resembles the ambivalent answer that British journalist Henry Noel Brailsford (1873–1958) acquired from questioning the illiterate boys from the mountain village near Ohrid at the beginning of 20th century. Although from completely different political settings, intellectual background and chronological remoteness, these rare dialogues illustrate the unsuccessful attempts to obtain concrete answers from the local inhabitants to the question of the identity of the medieval ruler who once ruled his vast realm from the capital in Ohrid. However, these reports cannot be interpreted

20

Introduction

as a proof that Ohrid’s inhabitants and the surrounding villagers were ignorant of the stories related to the medieval ruler from the distant past. Instead, this shows that Antonin and Brailsford expected to obtain evidence for ascribing Samuel’s identity from the contemporary subjective perspective they both shared, something that their interrogees refrained from answering. Related to this impression, this book focuses on the Balkan intellectuals’ approach to interpret the medieval past, elucidated through the way they imagined, constructed, and shaped the legendary struggle between Samuel and Basil  II. Consequently, it will define the specific phases and reveal the crucial factors that predisposed the evolutionary historical emotions and imaginations that these medieval rulers incited among the Balkan nationalists, with emphasis on Samuel. This book will not engage in debate about the modern theories of nationalism and identity. Considering the wide chronological scope covered, that would require a separate study. Samuel’s State is difficult to frame within a theoretical model, whether it is the modernist understanding of the nation as an imagined community and product of modern industrial society,40 or ethnicist model according to which the nation was formed around the pre-modern ethne. As this book focuses on the Balkan intellectuals who traced the origins of their nations in pre-modern ethnic groups, Anthony Smith’s ethno-symbolic approach to nationalism more appropriately describes the Balkan nations’ emergence and their shared tendencies for the appropriation of Samuel’s State.41 To un-

40  Ernest Gelner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), for nation as a product of modernity. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1991) for the nation as imagined community. Eric  J.  Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Program, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) and Eric  J.  Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), for the invention of tradition. For latest critics on the modernist paradigm, see Caspi Hirschi, The Origins of Nationalism. An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Azar Gat, Alexander Yakobson, Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013). 41  Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986); Smith, “National identity: modern and medieval?,” In Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. Simon Forde, Lesley Johnson, and Alan V. Murray (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1995), 21–46; Smith, Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism (London and New York: Routledge, 1998); Smith, The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000); Smith, Ethno-Symbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach (London and New York: Routledge, 2009).

Introduction

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derstand the divergent visions that Samuel’s State incited among the Balkan intellectuals requires to combine theoretical and historical approaches. Given the nature of the evidence, Samuel’s State’s specificity does not only derive from the impossibility of studying the people that lived within this medieval polity using modern ethnographic methodologies.42 It is also reflected in the ways the Balkan intellectuals and politicians grasped, interpreted and appropriated Samuel’s State, which they did not do with any other medieval polity. Its uniqueness stemmed not from tendency of the Balkan intellectuals since the 1870s to associate their pre-modern ethne with Samuel’s State, but rather from the equation of his state with the territory of contemporary Macedonia. From the divergent and complex Balkan perspectives related to Samuel’s State we can define as a common feature the tendency of the intellectuals and politicians to project the modern geography into the past, while transferring the ancient and medieval ethnographical labels into modernity. As a result, the book will demonstrate that Samuel’s State’s inclusion in the Balkan national narratives was not just a question of constructing the past and tracing the common tradition and descent for members of a specific ethnic group. Samuel and his state began to be appropriated and exploited when the need arose for imposing a national consciousness on the contemporary inhabitants in Ottoman Macedonia living in the former medieval polity’s demarcated heartland. From the Balkan nationalists’ perspective, demarcating the imagined national territory through the geographical symbolism, which equated Samuel’s State with Macedonia ensured the projected continuity of the contemporary inhabitants’ ethnic identity. As soon as the right to ownership of Ottoman Macedonia became a contested issue in religious and political context, the formerly neglected Samuel’s State turned into an object of appropriation by Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian nationalists. They were determined to position this medieval polity within their own imagined national territory. The Greek nationalists had the same motive but from the opposite historical perspective, reviving Basil II’s memory. Even Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876–1909) reacted by “forbidding the term Macedonia, which is used as local name”, fearing the province’s separation.43 It was the struggle over the territory of Macedonia that incited the process of historically adopting Samuel’s State, not its initial imagination as the historical homeland, becoming an issue of 42  Kaldellis, Ethnography after antiquity, VII. 43  Vančo Gjorgjiev, “Zabranetoto ime,” in 70 godini Institut za istorija, 70 godini makedonska istoriografija, Zbornik na trudovi od megjunarodnata konferencija odžana na 13 i 14 dekemvri 2016 vo Skopje (Skopje: UKIM, Filozofski fakultet, 2017), 39–56.

22

Introduction

medieval and modern identity. From the scholarly discovery in the first half the 19th century who Samuel was, the question evolved into whose he was and whose he is. Correspondingly, it concerns the ethnicity of the people who inhabited and inhabit the heartland of the former medieval state in Macedonia. Offering a revision of the traditional narrative, this book presents original arguments based on critical analysis of the sources aimed at dissociating the Byzantine and medieval authors’ intention from the modern scholars who have perpetuated their view. It will demonstrate that the traditional scholarly view regarding the Samuel’s State coming from Byzantine sources is in great deal a distortion caused by the imperial rhetoric and ideological propaganda, just like the epithet “Bulgar-Slayer” that was created and attached to Basil II long after his death aimed at solidifying the Byzantine territorial possessions in the Balkans. Thus, the memory of the legendary struggle between Basil II and Samuel was created, maintained and exploited by Byzantine authors and the Balkan elites as long as the historical legitimation over the territory of the former heartland of Samuel’s State required it. Such tendencies have found reflection in conflicting claims to Samuel’s State’s traditions and its legacy in the Balkans that began after its annihilation in 1018 and they continue to the present day. Chapter 1 critically analyzes the Byzantine authors’ works from the mid10th century to 1018. It offers a different approach to the various scholarly debates on Samuel’s State’s establishment and its relationship with Byzantium and Bulgaria. Contextual analysis of the Byzantine authors who were Samuel’s contemporaries reveals that they categorized the enemy embodied in his State with the classical terms “Scythians”, “Mysians” or “barbarians.” It also shows that they did not use the toponym “Bulgaria” and the ethnonym “Bulgarians” as terminological designations for Samuel’s State, but for the Bulgarian Empire annihilated in 971. For further clarification of the terminological complexity regarding Samuel’s State, this chapter will also examine non-Byzantine authors, whose perception reflected their own understanding, ideology and audience, which was in great deal an interpretation of Byzantine’s ideological propaganda and, in certain aspects, a response to it. Following this main argument, Chapter 2 shows that the terminological designation for Samuel’s State as “Bulgaria” was a construction on the part of Basil II’s political and ideological propaganda following the 1018 conquest. The terminological distortion caused by Basil’s administrative and ecclesiastical rearrangement of the annexed territory of the Samuel’s State, during the second half of the 11th century became a conventional appellation for the contemporary people that lived in the former polity’s heartland. This terminology even

Introduction

23

turned into a projected reference for Samuel’s State and his Church, serving as a tool for demonstrating the continuity of the Byzantine political and ideological superiority in the Balkans. This became especially relevant following the anti-Byzantine rebellions during the 11th century concentrated in Macedonia aimed at reconstituting the former empire by claiming its traditions. This chapter essentially seeks to find a place for Samuel’s State in Byzantium’s ideological conceptions, rhetorical expressions and political contexts. Chapter 3 advances the thesis that Byzantium maintained the constructed and adapted traditions regarding Samuel’s State. It kept them alive through its adapted version of Basil II’s struggle with Samuel that acquired legendary status. This chapter will explore how the leaders of the new Vlacho-Bulgarian state in the early 13th century appropriated the Byzantine fictitious continuity between the Samuel’s Church and the Bulgarian Patriarchate, to construct their own traditions. The Roman Papacy responded by recognizing the Vlacho-Bulgarian state’s invented traditions in order to demonstrate its (equally invented) continued influence in the Balkans as opposed to Byzantium. Consequently, the regional powers in the Balkans brought Samuel’s State’s traditions into their struggle for power to justify geographical possessions or to legitimize their territorial aspirations towards Macedonia and Ohrid Archbishopric. Chapter 4 explores how the literary texts after the Byzantine Empire’s fall neglected Samuel and his struggle with Basil II, only to be revived after the rediscovery of Byzantium and its narratives. Encompassing the period from the late 16th to 18th centuries, this part of the book reveals the divergent perceptions and imaginations regarding Samuel and his struggle with Basil II. It will show that the memory of Samuel and his campaigns in the Balkans was maintained by local legends and cults in the former core of his Empire around Ohrid and Prespa. One of the legends, that of St. Vladimir, reiterated Samuel in the literary production from the beginning of 17th century. This legend’s transmission through the Dalmatian humanists’ Pan-Slavic perspective and through the Ohrid Archbishopric instigated the process of rediscovering the ruler who once fought one of the most famous Byzantine emperors. This perspective strongly influenced the way Balkan intellectuals of the Enlightenment age reimagined Samuel at the end of the 18th century. Additionally, this chapter will compare how the Western scholars from the 17th and 18th centuries reflected Samuel in their general works. The Pan-Slavic and Enlightenment ideas and the shared negative attitude towards Byzantium largely shaped the imagination of the medieval past. These predisposed the general trend of ignorance and neglect of Samuel and Basil II in the Balkan narratives.

24

Introduction

Chapter 5 covers the period from the early 1800s to the 1860s, which can be characterized as a continuation of the protracted rediscovery of the neglected Samuel and Basil II in the Balkan narratives. A common feature during this period was the Balkan Enlightenment thinkers’ continued ignorance of Samuel and Basil II, resulting from the negative imagination these medieval rulers incited towards predominant Christian moral views of their time. The mid-1850s first signaled a renewed interest in Samuel and Basil, which was a direct result of Russia’s involvement in the Balkans. The negative outcome of the Crimean war with the Ottomans (1853–1856) which endangered Russia’s position among the Orthodox subjects in the Ottoman Empire, predisposed the Russian intellectuals and politicians’ efforts to exploit the Balkans’ medieval history. These endeavors aimed to demonstrate the shared old Slavic origins and substantiate Russia’s Pan-Slavic agenda in the region. At first, Russian intellectuals presented Samuel as a ruler who failed to unite Slavs into a federation, reflecting the projected contemporary ambition set by Russia to protect its Orthodox Slavic “brothers”. Samuel’s portrayal as the murderer of his own family, reinforced the negative image among the Balkan intellectuals. As a result, during this phase of rediscovery, Samuel and Basil II were not included among other rulers in the imagined glorious national past and therefore, they were left out of the Balkan myth-making process. Chapter 6 outlines the major shift that occurred in 1870s regarding the Balkan intellectuals and politicians’ interpretation of Samuel’s State. During the mid-1860s, Russia abandoned the policy of maintaining dominance of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate among the Orthodox communities in Ottoman Balkans in favor of supporting the Bulgarian movement for an independent church. Accordingly, the Russian Pan-Slav policy in managing the orthodox balance in Ottoman Empire evolved into the support of the Bulgarian Exarchate formed after the Edict of the Sultan in 1870 without the Constantinople Patriarchate’s consent. The establishment of the independent Bulgarian church formed an integral part of Russia’s political project of Greater Bulgaria that challenged the Greek Megali Idea. Considering that these nationalistic projects intersected in Ottoman Macedonia, they provided strong impetus for popularizing the legendary struggle between Samuel and Basil II. Consequently, Samuel and Basil II in 1870s became exploited within the projected Slav-Greek political and religious rivalry in the Balkans since they provided historical justification for the territorial aspirations towards Ottoman Macedonia and the Ohrid Archbishopric. This chapter also addresses the PanSlavic contexts of the Czech scholars and the Croatian ideas of Yugoslavism that fostered the re-imagination of Samuel and his wars with Basil II across the Slavic world. Although these ideas produced divergent interpretations, the

Introduction

25

scholars began to perceive Samuel as a ruler who had aspired to unite the Slavs in his struggle with the Byzantines. This turned him into a model ruler who symbolized the Slavic solidarity against the Greeks. On the Greek side, the intellectuals also began to include Basil II in the Greek national narrative, an idea which gained the support of Western Philhellene scholars. Increased interest in Samuel and Basil II’s reigns in the 1870s, directly related to the territorial aspirations toward Macedonia, shifted the historiographical view in favor of these medieval rulers, depending on one’s perspective. Chapter 7 examines how the Bulgarian principality’s emergence in 1878 as a direct result of the Russian victory in the war with the Ottoman Empire, stirred the Balkan nationalists’ interest in Samuel’s State, resulting in its inclusion in the national narratives. The Treaty of San Stefano’s revision at the Congress of Berlin in the summer of 1878, on the insistence of the European powers, annihilated the Russian project for Greater Bulgaria and marked the beginning of the Balkan nationalists’ fierce competition over Ottoman Macedonia, which was turned into the subject of their projected historical visions and territorial divisions. These developments instigated conflicting claims over Samuel’s State’s legacy, which became an object of historical appropriation by Balkan nationalists. The territorial ambition towards Macedonia was the main reason for Samuel’s resurrection and inclusion in the national canon. The same applies to Basil II, whose war with Samuel complemented the Greek Megali Idea of restoring the Byzantine Empire’s territories, including Macedonia. This chapter demonstrates how Samuel and Basil II served as historical synonyms for Macedonia and how they were used in the devised propagandas among the local population. As a result, Samuel and Basil II became tools for imposing “national consciousness” onto the contemporary inhabitants in Ottoman Macedonia. This issue will be further discussed in Chapter 8, which shows how propagandists used Samuel and Basil II in the military fight for Macedonia. This turned history into a question of contemporary identity. From the onset of the revolutionary struggle for Macedonia’s liberation in the early 20th  century, Macedonian intellectuals and revolutionaries resurrected the “Macedonian” Samuel to counter the other Balkan nationalisms. The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 brought Samuel’s struggle with Basil II into the military conflict when Ottoman Macedonia was partitioned among Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece. Samuel’s State turned into a key historical argument for legitimizing Bulgaria’s territorial gains in Macedonia during the First World War. The core of the territory of former Samuel’s State went to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes with the Paris Treaty of 1919. The new phase of historiographical competition sought to prove to whom contemporary Macedonia and its inhabitants

26

Introduction

belonged. This became especially relevant since the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate in 1920 renounced its rights over the dioceses in Macedonia in favour of the Serbian Orthodox Church, for considerable financial compensation. Consequently, Samuel became one of the main historical figures invoked to justify the Bulgarian military occupation of Macedonia during the Second World War. On the other hand, the Macedonian nationalists continued to exploit Samuel for justifying their own movement for Macedonia’s liberation. Initially, they used Samuel to oppose the Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes (Yugoslavia after 1930) and during the Second World War under the occupation by the Axis powers. As a result, Samuel was elevated at the forefront of the People’s Republic of Macedonia statehood, created in 1944 as part of the Yugoslav Federation. Finally, Chapter 9 addresses the Balkan historians’ and politicians’ changing treatment of Samuel’s State during the Communist and post-Communist eras. This section of the book demonstrates that the Yugoslav historiographical consensus since 1945 resulted in incorporating Samuel’s State as part of the People’s Republic of Macedonia’s (the Socialist Republic of Macedonia after 1963) historical heritage. Analysis of the narratives and political documents from the Communist period reveals the Bulgarian politicians’ adaptable position regarding the historical “belonging” of Samuel’s State. The historiographical approach towards the interpretation of the medieval past directly depended on Bulgaria’s relationship with Yugoslavia and Soviet Union. The Bulgarian leadership’s initial political decision of self-renouncing Samuel in the late 1940s in favor of Macedonia changed during the 1960s following worsening of relations with Yugoslavia coupled with the strained Yugoslav-Soviet relations. As a consequence, Samuel’s state turned into an issue of high-level political negotiations and historiographical bargains between Yugoslav and Bulgarian authorities, reflecting the political momentum and the course of relations with the Soviet Union. This enflamed the historical quarrel between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia both claiming their inheritance of Samuel’s State. This struggle manifested itself in divergent interpretations in the Macedonian and Bulgarian historiographical production. New major shifts occurred with the fall of the Communism and after Yugoslavia’s dissolution in the 1990s. This marked a revision of the established Yugoslav historiographical consensus on Samuel’s State. Samuel’s State’s ethnic identity was drawn into the context of the new political constellation in the Balkans and once again used as an instrument for questioning the contemporary Macedonian identity. The chapter concludes with commemoration of the 1000th anniversary of Samuel’s death in 2014, demonstrating that the Balkans still lays in Samuel’s shadow, continuously raised in a projected struggle against an imaginary enemy.

Introduction

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The Conclusion focuses on the Byzantine official distorted representation of Samuel’s State and on the modern Balkan historiographical perpetuation of that perception in order to meet the nationalist agenda. The imaginary struggle is still present in the Balkan political and historiographical context. Therefore, its deconstruction that should shed light onto the “blindness” imposed on Samuel’s State is the main aim of this book.

Chapter 1

Samuel’s State in the Contemporary Sources A Comet (Κομίτης) set fire to the sky While below a comes (κομήτης) was lighting the west A symbol is that star of the present darkness He faded with the radiance of the morning star and he appeared with the sunset of Nikephoros This terrible typhon among the malefactors, All is burning: and where are the roars of your power, Leader of the invincible Rome, By nature you, our King, by deeds triumphant, Rise from the grave, roar, O Lion, teach the foxes to live in caves.1

∵ This poem entitled On the Comet[opoulos] (Εỉς τòν κομιτ πλ) composed by John Geometres, a Byzantine military officer and poet of the second half of the 10th century, best illustrates the challenges that modern scholars face in the study of the legendary struggle between Basil II and Samuel. The complexity is not only due to the lack of original accounts coming from Samuel’s state itself, which would provide a glimpse from the inside. Nor is it due to the dominant tendency focused on proving the ethnic origin of Samuel and accordingly the character of his state – something that still encumbers Balkan historiographers. The situation is much more complex. Samuel was not mentioned by name at all by the Byzantine authors who were his contemporaries, while his identity and his title were either ignored or masked with the convenient term “Comet[opulos]”. A further complication arises from the terminological identification of the state itself, which was reduced to the stereotypical classicism 1  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 283. English translation in Documents on the Struggle of the Macedonian People for Independence and a Nation-State, vol. 1, ed. Hristo AndonovPoljanski, Velimir Brezovski, Ivan Katardžiev, Branko Panov, Aleksandar Hristov (Skopje: University of Cyril and Methodius, 1985), 94.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004394292_003

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of the contemporary Byzantine authors from the second half of the 10th century. More comprehensive narratives of Samuel’s State can be found only in Byzantine authors writing almost half a century after its annihilation. The necessity of distinguishing between the representations of the authors that were Samuel’s contemporaries and the ones written when both he and the state had ceased to exist becomes more than evident. This situation has created space for differing interpretations and contextualizations of the Byzantine accounts and their projection onto modern context. The use of the term Samuel’s State by modern historiographers to identify the medieval polity, which was not designated as such by the Byzantine contemporaries, largely speaks for itself. This fact calls for reviewing a number of issues in the interpretation and reconstruction of the history of the Samuel’s State that requires decoding the notion of contemporary authors. What was the Byzantine perception of Samuel and his state? Did the portrayal of Samuel and of Samuel’s State in the works of Byzantine authors reflect the actual views of the period? Was this medieval polity terminologically identified differently by its contemporaries compared to the Byzantine authors of a later date after its abolition, and why? Did the Byzantine perception and representation differ from that of non-Byzantine authors who composed their works from geographical distance? Only a careful and comprehensive analysis of the perception and representation extant among Byzantine authors in comparison with other medieval sources can provide the answers to these complex questions. The meticulous analysis also necessitates deconstructing the Byzantine ideology reflected in different ethnographical models within which the Samuel’s State was framed. Its transmission to non-Byzantine authors largely influenced their perception and interpretation. Hence, the starting point will be to determine the contextual meaning of the terminological identification of the Samuel’s State by the contemporaries that reflected the actual moment of the rise of the Comet[opoulos]. Byzantine author Leo the Deacon, as an immediate witness to the events and a direct participant in the military campaign of Basil II against Samuel in 986, would be expected to use terminology which reflects the real state of the time – the very end of the 10th century when he composed his History.2 Leo the Deacon originally came from Kaloe in Asia Minor and was educated 2  For 995 as a post quem date of composition of Leo the Deacon’s History, see Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 36–37; Holmes, “Political Elites in the Reign of Basil II,” in Byzantium in the Year 1000, ed. Paul Magdalino (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2002), 38 and n. 8. See also The History of Leo the Deacon, tr. Talbot and D. Sullivan, 10. A different date, i.e. the year 989 as terminus post quem, is proposed by Mikhail I. Siuziumov, “Lev Diakon і iego vremia,” in Lev Diakon, Istoriia, transl. Moisei M. Kopilenko, ed. Genadii G. Litavrin (Moskva:

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in Constantinople where he was ordained a deacon, becoming a member of the palatine clergy soon after 976. In his work there is a noticeable classicising tendency which is reflected in designating Samuel’s enemy army as “Mysians” that inflicted humiliating defeat to Basil’s army in the battle at the Trajan Gate in 986: …  The emperor Basil mustered his troops and marched against the Mysians. For those arrogant and cruel people, who breathed murder, were harassing Roman territory and mercilessly plundering the lands of the Macedonians, killing everyone from youth upwards. Therefore he was roused to greater anger than was proper or provident, and hastened to destroy them at the first assault, but he was deceived in his hopes through the intervention of fortune. For after he traversed the narrow and steep tracks and reached the vicinity of Serdica, which the Scythians are accustomed to call Tralitza, he set up camp here for the army and settled down and kept watch over [the city] for twenty days … The Mysians ambushed them first, when they left the camp for forage and fodder, and killed many of them, and carried off a large number of their pack animals and horses … The next day, then, the army was traversing a wooded defile, which was full of caves, and as soon as they passed through it they came to steep terrain, filled with gullies. Here the Mysians attacked the Romans, killing huge numbers of men and seizing the imperial headquarters and riches, and plundering all the army’s baggage … The remains of the army, going through [nearly] impassable mountains, barely escaped the Mysian attack, losing almost all their horses and the baggage they were carrying, and returned to Roman territory.3 Leo the Deacon was consistent in identifying the Samuel’s army with the ethnonym “Mysians”, which is attested in his narration of their military encounter in conquering the city of Veroia, which coincided with the capture of Crimean Cherson by the leader of the Kievian Rus’ prince Vladimir (980–1015) in late 980’s.4 Leo also used the generic name “Scythian” by which he rhetorically Nauka, 1988), 223 n. 73; Siuziumov, “Ob istochnikah Lăva Diakona i Skilitsi,” Vizantiiskoe obozrenie (1916), 106–66. 3  Leo the Deacon, History, 10. 8–10, ed. Hase, 171–176; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 213–215. 4  Leo the Deacon, History 10. 10, ed. Hase, 175–176; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 217: “Still other calamities were portended by the rising of the star that appeared and again by the fiery pillars that were manifested in the north in the middle of the night and terrified those who saw them; for these portended the capture of Cherson by the Tauroscythians and the occupation of Veroia by the Mysians”. Most scholars accept the date 989 for the conquest of Veroia.

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expressed the imminent danger of falling himself “victim to a Scythian sword” after the retreat of the defeated Byzantine army from the battle at Trajan Gate.5 To elucidate the meaning of the terms “Mysians” and the “Scythian” contained in Leo’s short passages concerning the military challenge coming from Samuel’s state in the 980’s, we should consider other episodes where Leo exploited identical terminology in narrating the Byzantine wars with Bulgarians and Rus’ for the period 966–971. Leo relates the complex power game that occurred following the end of the peace treaty between Byzantium and Bulgaria in 966 that led into an open warfare. The Byzantine emperor Nikephoros  II Phokas (963–969) instigated prince Sviatoslav, the ruler of the Kievian Rus’ in 967 to attack the Bulgarians on the pretext of their reluctance of preventing the Magyar raid into Byzantine lands. The incursion of the powerful Rus’ enemy in the late summer of 968 and the death of the Bulgarian emperor Peter in January 969, completely turned the situation around. Boris, who was held in captivity in Constantinople together with his castrated brother Romanos, was allowed to take the Bulgarian throne of his father. However, Boris II was not able to impede the new incursion of the Rus’ in Bulgaria that took place in 969, resulting in Sviatoslav’s conquest of the Bulgarian capital in Preslav. This allowed the Rus’ to establish hegemony in the northern and eastern areas of Bulgaria. Boris II, who remained a titular ruler in Preslav, was forced to accept Rus’ sovereignty, which provoked a strong military response from Byzantium. It was Nikephoros’ successor, the Byzantine emperor John Tzimiskes, who finally managed to drive the Rus’ out of the Balkans and to annihilate the Bulgarian Empire in 971.6 This summarized overview of the Balkan hostilities comes from the reading of the work of Leo the Deacon and from the later narrative of John Skylitzes. As a contemporary to the events, Leo mainly focused on presenting the triumphant image of Tzimiskes. He did not disclose anything about developments related with the military actions of Samuel and the Cometopouloi. His first reference of Samuel’s State is related to the military campaign of Basil II that culminated with the battle at the Trajan Gate in 986. The comparison of the classical terminology used in Leo’s account in narrating the wars of Nikephoros and Tzimiskes against Bulgarians until the year 971, with the identical ones that he applied in describing the military challenges However, Dimitri Obolensky, “Cherson and the Conversion of Rus’: An Anti-Revisionist View,” BMGS 13 (1989), 250, n. 25 is reserved on the concrete chronological framing of this event. 5  Leo the Deacon, History 10. 8, ed. Hase, 171–173; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 214–215. He also used the term Scythian in referring to the different linguistic designation for the city of Serdica as “Tralitsa”. 6  Leo the Deacon, History 9. 1–12, ed. Hase, 142–159; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 187–201.

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coming from Samuel’s army in 980’s, raises several conceptual questions. The most important is whether the use of the specific name “Mysians” had the same meaning for Leo as the ethnonym “Bulgarians”. If that was the case, which is the traditional scholarly interpretation, that would mean that we should apply the same ethnonym “Bulgarians” to Samuel’s soldiers. However, Leo did not identify them as such.7 We will argue for the revision of the scholarly stereotyped interpretation, given that the equivalent classical ethnonyms used by Leo cannot be taken as a proof that he treated the enemies coming from Samuel’s army that Basil II faced, as identical with the ones that were subjugated by Tzimiskes. The only certainty we have is that Leo used the ethnonym “Mysians” to indicate the distinctness of the enemies from the Byzantines, not to define their concrete ethnicity. In addition to the evident fact that Leo did not use the ethnonym “Bulgarians” to designate the enemy coming from the Samuel’s state, there are noticeable conceptual differences in his portrayal of the enemies. Careful reading of Leo’s account of Basil II’s confrontation with Samuel’s army in 980’s, compared with the description of the Tzimiskes’ wars against Bulgarians and Rus’, reveals the differential characterization and representation of the enemies. Furthermore, as Anthony Kaldellis persuasively showed, Leo was using an anonymous source in which Tzimiskes’s triumph against Bulgarians in 971 was panegyrically glorified. This implies that the use of identical classical terminology, cannot be taken as an evidence that Leo equated the enemies subjugated in 971, with the ones that he personally faced.8 The passage in which Leo the Deacon made an introductory note related to the civil war of Basil II with Bardas Skleros that preceded the confrontation with Samuel’s army in 986, can be taken as the starting point for our analysis. Leo noted the appearance of a comet that foretold “bitter revolts, and invasions of foreign peoples, and civil wars, and migrations from cities and the countryside, famines and plagues and terrible earthquakes, indeed almost the total destruction of the Roman empire, all of which I witnessed as the events unfolded”.9 From this introductory context, we get the impression that the 7  Kaldellis, Ethnography after Antiquity, 106–117, esp. 112, regardless of his critical approach of the source material, follows the traditional interpretation that “Mysians” was a specific name for Bulgarians in the “one-to one correspondence between ancient and new peoples”. Kaldellis decisively concludes that there is no confusion regarding the use of ancient names “reserved for one modern people” like the Bulgarians as “Mysoi,” taking no notice that Leo the Deacon actually used different context and meaning of the name “Mysians” while characterizing the enemies of the Byzantines prior and after 971. 8  Kaldellis, “The Original Source for Tzimiskes’ Balkan Campaign (971) and the Emperor’s Classicizing Propaganda,” BMGS 37 (2013), 1–18. 9  Leo the Deacon, History, 6. 6, ed. Hase, 168–169; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 210–211.

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“foreign people” Leo alluded to were those who defeated Basil II, which he personally witnessed. Furthermore, Leo characterized them as “Mysians” (κατά των Μυσών) who were “arrogant and cruel people” who committed murders and plundered the “land of the Macedonians” (τα των Μακεδόνων). The negative characterization of these “Mysians” is different from Leo’s description of the enemies coming from the Bulgarian Empire who were defeated and forced into submission in 971. The description of the enemies associated with Samuel’s State, with the ethnonym “Mysians”, as being arrogant, cruel and murderers, is very similar to Leo’s description of the Rus’ and the Arabs from Crete. In order to demonstrate the barbaric “Scythian” origins of the Rus’, Leo used Arian’s episode with “Scythian” Achilles, the son of Peleus, who was “banished by the Scythians because of his harsh, cruel, and arrogant temperament”.10 Moreover, the leader of the Rus’ Sviatoslav was characterised as being “inhuman”, someone with “innate cruelty” who “reduced the Mysians to terror” during his campaigns in Bulgaria in late 960’s.11 The same negative connotation is present in Leo’s reference to the Arabs from Crete against whom the Byzantines were campaigning in the 960’s, who he characterized as being a “murderous people” and “arrogant and harbouring murderous intentions towards the Romans”.12 The similarity between the negative model of representation in the context of the Rus’ and Arabs from Crete, compared with the description of the “Mysians” associated with Samuel’s state as “arrogant and cruel people, who breathed murder”, is evident.13 This was not the case with the Bulgarians who were subjugated by John Tzimiskes in 971, which points to the different characterization of the peoples who Leo associated with the ethnonym “Mysians”. Leo did use the negative representation of the “Scythian model” in describing the Byzantine wars with the Bulgarians, however he did not apply it to the people in general, but personally to their leaders, Simeon (893–927) and his son and successor to the throne Peter (927–969). The Scythian model was used only when there was a need for exemplifying the Byzantine imperial superiority. In both cases, though, Leo referred to the Scythian characteristics not as being an innate to the Bulgarian rulers, but rather figuratively, to point out their irrational behaviour when they turned against Byzantium. For instance, in the episode concerning Simeon’s request for his recognition as an emperor by Byzantium, Leo accused the Bulgarian ruler of being “puffed up with the customary Scythian madness”, who demonstrated an “open 10  Leo the Deacon, History, 9. 6, ed. Hase, 149–150; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 193–194. 11  Leo the Deacon, History, 6. 10, ed. Hase, 105–107; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 155–157. 12  Leo the Deacon, History, 1. 2, 1. 6, ed. Hase, 6–7, 12–13; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 58–60, 65–66. 13  Leo the Deacon, History, 6. 8, ed. Hase, 171–173; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 213–215.

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arrogance and disrespect”.14 In other words, from Leo’s perspective, Simeon became a “Scythian” the moment he disregarded the principles of Byzantine political ideology. The same applies to the episode in 966 when the emperor Nikephoros II Phokas was humiliated and insulted by the request of the Bulgarian ruler Peter for the renewal of the payment of tribute that led to open warfare. Leo in this case also applied the Scythian characteristics in figurative way, with the aim of reinforcing the imperial superiority of the Byzantine emperor with respect to Peter, who was characterized by the Byzantine emperor as a “leather- gnawing ruler clad in a leather jerkin”.15 However, these rhetorical tropes did not negate Leo’s general positive characterization of the Bulgarian rulers.16 Accordingly, Leo presented Simeon as being “a daring man, bold in warfare”, Peter as being “a pious and respected man”, and Boris II as the one received “with honours” by Emperor John Tzimiskes himself.17 This was not the case with the Rus’ and their leader who were consistently depicted with inherent Scythian c­ haracteristics.18 The same particularly applies to the enemies coming from Samuel’s State who were depicted in a highly negative light and presented without any leader. The elaboration of the episode of Boris II being captured by emperor John Tzimiskes after the Byzantine victory in 971 is an illustrative example of the ideological dimension behind the different meaning of the terms “Mysians” and “Scythians”: And it is said that then Boris, the king of the Mysians, whose face was thickly covered with reddish [hair], was captured with his wife and two infant children, and brought before the emperor. The latter received him 14  Leo the Deacon, History, 7. 7, ed. Hase, 123–124; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 170–171. 15  Leo the Deacon, History, 4. 5, ed. Hase, 61–63; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 109–110. 16  Leo the Deacon, History, 5. 3, ed. Hase, 79–81; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 130–131. 17  Leo the Deacon, History, 8. 6, ed. Hase, 136; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 182. In his letters to the Bulgarian leader Simeon and the archbishop of Bulgaria, patriarch Nicholas emphasized that Romans and Bulgarians were both “the one people of Christ,” alluding that they were united in Christ through Byzantium. What Nicholas was trying to demonstrate was that the Romans were ideologically superior to the Bulgarians, not that they were the same people or equal. See, Kaldellis, Ethnography after Antiquity, 127–129. 18  Sviatoslav as the “leader of the Rus’,” (Leo the Deacon, History, 6.8, 8.5, ed. Hase, 103, 134– 135; tr. Talbot, Salivan, 153, 180–181). Simeon as the “ruler of the Mysians,” (Leo the Deacon, History, 7.7, ed. Hase, 123–124; tr. Talbot, Salivan, 170–171). Peter as a “Mysian ruller,” (Leo the Deacon, History, 5.2, ed. Hase, 78; tr. Talbot, Salivan, 129). Boris II as the “king of the Mysians,” (Leo the Deacon, History, 8. 6, 9.12; ed. Hase, 136, 158; tr. Talbot, Salivan, 182, 201). Boris II was called by the Byzantine Emperor John Tzimiskes as “ruler of the Bulgarians,” Leo the Deacon, History, 8. 6, ed. Hase, 136; tr. Talbot, Salivan, 182.

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and treated him honourably, calling him ruler of the Bulgarians, and saying that he came to avenge the Mysians, who had suffered terribly at the hands of the Scythians.19 This was actually the first time that Leo mentioned the royal title and only in reference to Boris II. That was not the case with Simeon or Peter. Boris II was named as “King” and rhetorically referred as “ruler of the Bulgarians” by the Byzantine emperor himself, but only at a time when he was put in a subordinate position with respect to Byzantine imperial authority. In this particular case, by stating the title, Leo bolstered the imperial superiority of the Byzantine emperor with respect to the Bulgarian ruler. The royal title of Boris II was again mentioned by Leo in the context of Boris’ dethronement in 971, when he wanted to demonstrate that it was taken away from him by the emperor with the support of God himself. The ideological context is illustrated by Leo’s reference to diplomatic negotiations with Sviatoslav, initiated by Nikephoros II Phokas in 967, in which the Rus’ leader was bribed to attack the “Mysians” and to relinquish the territory that used to belong to Byzantium: As for Sphendosthlavos, the leader of the Rus’ army, he decided to negotiate with him; and he sent ambassadors to tell him that he should take the pay promised by the emperor Nikephoros for attacking the Mysians, and should return to his own territory and the Cimmerian Bosporos, abandoning Mysia, since it belonged to the Romans and was a part of Macedonia from of old. For it is said that the Mysians, who were colonists of the Hyperborean Kotragoi, Khazars, and Khounaboi, migrated from their own territory, wandered into Europe, and occupied and settled this land, when Constantine, with the sobriquet Pogonatos, was emperor of the Romans; they called the land Bulgaria after the name of their chieftain, Boulgaros. Another tale is told about these people, approximately as follows: when the Roman emperor Justinian, who had his nose slit by Leontios and was exiled to Cherson, managed to escape from there in a wily manner, he came to Maeotis and made an agreement with the Mysian people, that if they restored his empire to him they would receive great rewards. And so they followed him, and received from him, once he again obtained imperial rule, the land that the Istros borders within Macedonia … The Mysians are said to have been defeated only by Constantine Kopronymos and again by his grandson Constantine the son 19  Leo the Deacon, History, 8. 6, ed. Hase, 136; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 182.

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of the augusta Eirene, and now by the emperor John, who subdued the cities of the Mysians by force.20 This passage demonstrates that the historical context related to the origins of the Bulgarians stemmed directly from Byzantine imperial ideological representation. From there the triumphalism manifested through the glorified victories over both the Bulgarians and Rus’ was also drawn. The digression of Leo, or rather of the anonymous source he was using, in evoking Roman imperial historical memory and its adapting to the contemporary context demonstrated the Byzantine claims to and possession of the territory in question.21 Therefore, it is no coincidence that stories about the origins of the Bulgarians were placed in the context of the Rus’ occupation of Bulgaria. By doing so, Leo accentuated the Byzantine territorial possession, creating the image that Tzimiskes in fact brought Mysia back to the Romans after the victory over both the Rus’ and Bulgarians. The emphasis on the historical rights to the territory, is symbolically represented returning of the icon of the Virgin Mary which was “brought from Mysia” by Tzimiskes. After being carried in a triumphal parade through Constantinople, it was placed above Boris II’s stripped royal regalia. This procession marked the definitive annihilation of the Bulgarian Empire and Church, when according to Leo, “Mysia became a Roman subject”. Ideological symbolism was provided by highlighting the fundamental mission of Tzimiskes against the “Mysians” and “Scythians” to “return Mysia to the Romans”, justified by the old historical rights of Byzantium. This territory, according to Leo, belonged legitimately to the “Romans” since it was a “part of Macedonia from of old” and was only temporarily ceded by Justinian II (685–695, 705–711).

20  Leo the Deacon, History, 6.8–9, ed. Hase, 103–104; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 153–155. The ceding of land by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II to the Bulgar khan Tervel, was mentioned only in the sources written after 864, see, Pananos Sophoulis, Byzantium and Bulgaria (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012), 229, n. 68. 21  For the adaptation of the original accounts by Leo the Deacon for the purposes of Tzimiskes’s propaganda, see Boris Todorov, “Byzantine Myths of Origins and Their Functions,” Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana 4/2 (2008), 67–68. Florin Curta, “Emperor Heraclius and the Conversion of the Croats and the Serbs,” in Medieval Christianitas. Different Regions, ‘Faces,’ Approaches, ed. Tsvetelin Stepanov and Georgi Kazakov (Sofia: Voenno izdatelstvo, 2010), 133–135, making a comparison between the account of Leo the Deacon and the testimony of Constantine VII regarding the settlement of the Croats, concludes that in both cases it was imperial propaganda that was implemented serving to justify imperial claims and counterclaims that the specific territories rightfully belong to the Romans.

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The above-mentioned episode opens yet another dimension. In the second half of the 10th century the terms “Macedonia” and “Macedonians” exceeded the usual geographical–administrative context and turned into a political– ideological designation indicating both the imperial authority and the territory that belonged to Byzantium. This concept complemented the political ideology created by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–959), where the terms “Macedonia” and “Macedonians” became identifying designations for the imperial dynasty and terminological markers of Byzantine territorial possession.22 By emphasizing that the Bulgarians acquired from emperor Justinian II the “land that the Istros borders within Macedonia” Leo clearly intended to project the historical legitimacy of Byzantine geographical ownership.23 This concept was complementary with the classical ethnonyms “Mysians” and “Scythians”, or with the classification “barbarians” that the Byzantines used for describing and identifying “the others” and thus differentiating themselves.24 Paul Stephenson and Anthony Kaldellis demonstrated rather credibly, through examples from the 11th and 12th century, that in the context of identifying the Balkan people, the Byzantines actually “projected an ideology of geographical ownership” by using classical terms, and thus related them to the former provinces and conquests of the Roman Empire.25 Leo is a typical example that in the 10th century the classical terminology was also applied to demonstrate the geographical ownership and imperial superiority of Byzantium.26 However, in the case of emergence of the Samuel’s State, Leo was demonstrating the Byzantine ownership by stating that the “land of the Macedonians” was endangered by the new enemies “Mysians”. This had a different context from the one that Leo was presenting when describing the 22  Mitko B. Panov, “Makedonija vo kniževnite dela na Lav VI I Konstantin VII: Istorija i legenda,” Filološki studii 1 (2009), 150–160; M. Panov, “Vizantiska Makedonija,” in Makedonija: Mileniumski kulturno-istoriski fakti, II, ed. Pasko Kuzman, Jovan Donev, Elizabeta Dimitrova (Skopje: MPM, Univerzitet Evro-Balkan, 2013), 1195–1202. 23  The claim on the territory is demonstrated by the harsh rhetoric between John Tzimiskes and Sviatoslav, whereby the Byzantine emperor urged the Rus’ leader “to depart immediately, without any delay or hesitation, from the land that does not belong to you in any way,” (Leo the Deacon, History, 6. 10, ed. Hase, 105–107; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 155–157). 24  For the Roman stereotype on “Barbarians,” as a product of the projected dialogue between “us” and “they,” intended for demonstrating the differential self-representation in relation to the “others,” see Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 45–57. For the tendency of labelling the “others” within the stereotypical civilizational concept as an intention to classify and dominate, see Curta, “Still waiting for the barbarians?,” 403–478; Curta, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 276–297. 25  Kaldellis, Ethnography after Antiquity, 116–117. 26  Curta, “Emperor Heraclius and the Conversion of the Croats and the Serbs,” 134–135.

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subjugation of Bulgaria in 971, when he stated that “Mysia” and “Mysians” were returned to the Empire. We are not able to determine what the learned Leo the Deacon wanted to demonstrate and achieve with his narrative. However, one thing is clear; the ethnonym “Mysians” cannot be interpreted as ethnographical label for Samuel’s State, only because Leo applied the equivalent classical term in describing other enemies of the empire. Regardless what Leo actually wanted to present with the use of the classical terminology, it is certain that he did not ascribe any ethnicity to Samuel’s army. Evidently, he differently perceived and characterized the enemy that he personally faced, treating them as foreign people to him and to the Byzantines. Furthermore, he did not disclose any leader of the enemy army, although he accompanied Basil II in the battle and personally experienced the consequences of a bitter defeat. Hence, with the name “Mysians” as a designation for Samuel’s army that defeated Basil II, Leo implied that they were a new kind of enemy, a foreign people with “Scythian” characteristics, who mercilessly devastated the “lands of the Macedonians”, i.e. the territory of Byzantium and the imperial authority marked by the name “Macedonia”. From the perspective of the Byzantine political ideology, as reflected in the mentioned narratives, 971 was marked as triumphant year – the year when the Bulgarians were definitively subjugated and integrated into the Empire, and the Rus’ expelled from the Balkans. Thus, it was no coincidence that Leo the Deacon dedicated so much space to portray the imperial triumphs of John Tzimiskes. With the support of God, Tzimiskes took back the Bulgarian crown bestowed by the Byzantine imperial and church authorities and brought back the icon of the Virgin Mary to Constantinople. It has recently been suggested that the imperial silk tapestry showing emperor on horseback receiving tokens of victory, known as the Bamberger Gunthertuch, represents John Tzimiskes’ victory over the Bulgarians and Rus’ in 971.27 To put it from Leo’s ideological 27  Paul Stephenson, “Images of the Bulgar-Slayer: three art historical notes,” BMGS 25 (2001), 57–63; Stephenson, Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, 62–65. Jonathan Shepard, “Adventus, Arrivistes and Rites of Rulership in Byzantium and France in the Tenth and Eleventh Century,” in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. Alexander Beihammer, Stavroula Constantinou and Maria Parani (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2013), 370. Georgi N. Nikolov, “Bălgarskiiat tsar Samuil i negovoto vreme,” in Tsar Samuil († 1014) v bitka za Bălgariia, ed. Liudmil Vagalinski (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2014), 10, interprets the image as the two adolescent girls who hand two Bulgarian royal crowns to Emperor John Tzimiskes; Nikolov, Tsar Samuil, 48–50. The view that the silk from Bamburg represent the triumph of Basil II is maintained by André Grabar, “La soie byzantine de l’évěqué Günther à la cathédrale de Bamberg,” in L’art de la fin de l’antiquité au moyen âge (Paris: Collège de France, 1968),

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perspective, Tzimiskes triumphantly reintegrated Bulgaria, restoring the political and ecclesiastical order, since this territory was Roman from old. For Anthony the Studite too, 971 was the year when by the grace of God Byzantium triumphed against the enemies by expelling the Rus’ and putting an end to the Bulgarian Empire: Look at how many Barbarians rose trying to defeat not only us but our homeland and our faith as well, and in doing so revealed their vile heart. They even turned against the Emperor, after doing everything in their power to undermine his God-given authority, but they perished … The haughty race of the Latins, with your support, hitherto has been worn down by war by our Emperor, and the vile Scythian people was also shattered and destroyed. And the conceited Bulgarian people, who had rejected the reins of Roman rule, lowered its head yet again under the Roman yoke and learned to serve rather than to rule.28 The perception of Anthony, who was Patriarch of Constantinople from 974 to 979, clearly corresponds to that of Leo the Deacon. Anthony’s ideological conception is clear, represented by destroying the vile Scythian people – Kievian Rus’, and bringing back the conceited Bulgarian people under the Roman yoke. Everything that happened after 971 was viewed by Byzantium as an illegitimate encroachment on its territorial possession, since Bulgaria was no more. A similar conceptual representation can also be found in John Geometres (935/40–ca. 1000), Samuel’s other contemporary, who is considered to be one of the leading rhetoricians in the second half of the 10th century. His intellectual brilliance and aristocratic background made it possible for Geometres to distinguish himself with his rhetorical skill from an early age, and to rise in the court hierarchy. Geometres’ poetic expression pervaded by a noticeably dominant glorification of Emperor Nikephoros ΙΙ Phokas, indicates that he was the court poet laureatе in the period from 963 to 969. The emphasis on his own military achievements and his great personal sacrifices for the empire, which 213–2. Titos Papamastorakis, “The Bamberg Hanging Reconsidered,” Deltion tis christianikis archaiologikis etaireias 24 (2003), 375–92, argues that the triumphant emperor depicted on the silk, was the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas. 28  Anthony the Studite, Logos, ed. Leo Sternbach, Analecta Avarica, Rozprawy Akademii Umijętności. Wydzial Filologiczny, 2nd series, vol. 15, Ogólnego zbioru tom XXX (Cracow: Sumptibus Academiae litterarum, 1900), 340–341. Jonathan Shepard, “Marriages towards Millenium,” in Byzantium in the Year 1000, ed. Paul Magdalino (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2003), 10–14, believes that such Byzantine victories were reported to foreign courts by spoken and written word.

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permeates most of his poems, implies that Geometres’ profession was military. It is clear that he occupied a high military position from the late 950s, probably acquiring the honourable title of protospatharios conferred on him by the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas.29 In 985, or immediately after, Geometres was relieved of his active service by Basil  II, possibly due to his inclinations towards the regency of Basil the Nothos who was parakoimomenos in command of the imperial court from 976 onwards.30 In 985/6, Geometres retired to the monastery Kyros dedicated to the Holy Virgin, where he remained until the end of his life.31 The date of his death cannot be determined with certainty, although the consensus among scholars is that Geometres’ life ended around the year 1000.32 His literary works were published either at the very end of his life or posthumously.33 The very character of Geometres, who undoubtedly had a powerful intellect that was equally manifested in his military service and his poetic activities, can shed light on the historical context in his complex rhetorical expression. Marc  D.  Lauxtеrmann, who studied exhaustively Geometres’ biography and his poetic opus, states that the poems on Nikephoros II Phokas, John Tzimiskes 29  For the life of Geometres, see Marc D. Lauxtermann, “John Geometres – Poet and Soldier,” Byzantion 68 (1998), 356–380; Jean Géomètre, poèmes en hexamètres et en distiques élégiaques, edition, commentaire, traduction Emilie Marlène van Opstall, The Medieval Mediterranean 75 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2008), 3–14. 30  Lauxtermann, “John Geometres – Poet and Soldier,” 364–371; Lauxtermann, “Byzantine Poetry and the Paradox of Basil II’s Reign,” in Byzantium in the Year 1000, ed. Paul Magdalino (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2003), 207–208, 213–214. 31  Jan Sajdak “Que signifie Κυριώτης Γεωμέτρης?,” Byzantion 6 (1931), 343–352; Lauxtermann, “John Geometres – Poet and Soldier,” 371–373. 32  Lauxtermann, “John Geometres – Poet and Soldier,” 373 defines 997 as terminus post quem for the compilation of Geometres’ collection, on the basis of the chronological context of the poem “On the Bulgarians” which he ascribes to be complementary to the year of the coronation of Samuel. The same opinion is maintained by Van Opstall, Jean Géomètre, 14. However, the proposed chronology of the poem is rather insecure since it is based solely on its contextual association with the supposed coronation of Samuel in 997. In addition, both authors made a technical omission identifying the Bulgarian Emperor Simeon as being crowned, not Samuel. This omission is corrected in Marc  D.  Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres: Texts and Contexts, vol. 1 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003), 289, n. 10. For 980’s–990’s as a date of composition of the poems, see Jadran Ferluga in Vizantijski izvori za istoriju naroda Jugoslavije, III, ed. George Ostrogorski, Franjo Barišić (Beograd: Srpska Akademija nauka, 1966), 24–25; Holmes, Basil  II and the Governance of Empire, 60–61. That Geometres wrote his poems during the period 970’s–980’s, suggests Andrzej Poppe, “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Rus’ Relations between 986–89,” DOP 30 (1976), 213; Shepard, ‘Marriages Towards the Millennium’, 13–14. 33  Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres, 289.

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and Basil the Nothos do not contain “even the slightest hint at imperial disfavour” and that “on the contrary, Geometres continues to celebrate the reigning rulers as the poet laureate of his time”. He even defines Geometres as a man who flattered the emperors in order to keep his position, pointing out the example with Basil the Nothos in particular.34 This contention stems from the predominant view present among scholars that the critical rhetorical expression in the poems coincides with the period after 985, when Geometres was relieved of his duties by Basil II. However, this perspective is subject to modern interpretation of Geometres’ poems and their framing in the specific historical context. Moreover, scholars are divided regarding the dating of these poems. The historical context remains uncertain, irrespective of the fact that Geometres provided a number of specific clues that indicate the time they had been composed. All that is certain is that Geometres’ rhetorical expression regarding Basil II differs significantly from the one used in the context of the preferred and favoured Nikephoros II Phokas, or even John Tzimiskes and Basil the Nothos. Concerning Basil II, the negative connotation is understandably predominant, regardless of the fact that Geometres skilfully avoided naming the Emperor in his poems. Nonetheless, it is debatable whether Geometres, secretly hoping to regain his former position after 985, went so far as to ventilate the anger on his opponents at the court in bitter words, alluding that his own suffering was a result of the “envy of others”.35 The issue that would bring additional clarification with respect to the character of these poems is whether Geometres went to live in a monastery of his own accord or whether, just possibly he was coerced into it. At any rate, for a warrior of Geometres’ type, it is more realistic to postulate that the softened poetic expression was due to his new role and his dedication to God, through the prism of which he presented contemporary events as well as those that took place in the past. Geometres’ anger stemmed from his personal inability to help the Empire despite his “clever strength” and “shed blood”. This expression in a number of his poems is undoubtedly a manifestation of the disappointment of a man who was once a great warrior and a resolute patriot who, instead of getting the deserved acknowledgement from the Emperor, i.e. from Constantinople, for the great sacrifices he had made and for fighting at the forefront, was removed because of the “envy of others”. The rhetorical expression “wasn’t the Emperor or the city praised enough? For which I often spilled

34  Lauxtermann, “John Geometres – Poet and Soldier,” 373–378; Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres, 36–41. 35  Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres, 158–159.

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blood as if it were water …”, contained in one of his poems,36 is more of an allusion that emphasises the fulfilment of his patriotic duties towards the Emperor and the throne, than an attempt to flatter the competent authorities after he was dismissed. It is in a way a cry of a warrior and patriot who symbolically depicts his sacrifice for the Empire with the shedding of his own blood, much like Christ himself did, which corresponds fully to the spiritual period of Geometres monastic life after 985/6. Seen as a whole, Geometres did not soften his rhetorical expression concerning his opponents in Constantinople in the hopes that it would take him back to his former position. The abovementioned poems composed after 985/6 are more of an inner dialogue in the silence of the monastery through which Geometres expressed his personal embitterment as regards the wrong steps taken by the court in Constantinople, which significantly aggravated his situation as well as the general state of affairs within the Empire. Notwithstanding the chronological imprecision and the difficulties in decoding the historical context, Geometres’ poems are an exceptionally important source regarding Samuel’s State. This is particularly true in view of the fact that Samuel’s State is presented through the worldview of a high-ranking officer and court poet who reflected the contemporary perception of the political and religious elites in Constantinople. A comparative analysis of the poems shows that by identifying Samuel’s State with the classical terms “Mysians” or “Scythians”, Geometres perceived it as a major threat in the West. Thereby, he used the conventional Byzantine representation in the second half of the 10th century, which was shared by Leo the Deacon also. This perspective is present in the lengthy poem On the Rebellion (Εỉς τὴν ἀπόστασιν), where Geometres, among other, states: Are there words that would explain what happened in the West!? The Scythian army weaves through and crosses over it as if it was their own fatherland. The earth that gives birth to noble offshoots, men of steel and fearless men, they slash its roots and the sword separates the feeble offspring: one child remains with its mother and the other is taken by force by the enemy. Once powerful cities – are now but fine dust. Looking at the horse stables where people’s settlements used to be, alas, how could I restrain the tears. That is how countries and settlements fall into fire, and you city – empress, the centre of Byzantium, tell me what doom befell you. City, you that holds the first position in misfortune, how proud 36  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 331. French translation, Van Opstall, Jean Géomètre, 8, n. 13.

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you used to feel with your prosperity … But sweetest word, look upon me with a merciful eye, end the mutually devastating slaughters, the dragging into captivity, the rebellions, escapes, persecutions, violence, death sentences, trials …37 Intending to present the deteriorated general state of Byzantium whilst under the rule of Basil II, in the poem Geometres denotes the “Scythians”, i.e. Samuel’s army, as being the main enemy by emphasising the horrific devastations, killings, taking into captivity and the destruction of settlements. The depiction is much like the portrayal of Samuel’s soldiers found in Leo the Deacon’s accounts. The same representation is contained in the fictitious epitaph of Emperor Nikephoros  II Phokas written by John of Melitene, where the “Scythians” are depicted as merciless murderers and cruel devastators of Byzantine territory.38 Furthermore, in this poem we can notice Geometres’ demonstration of the empire’s claims to the territory subjected to the devastating enemy incursions, presenting them through the prism of the Byzantine imperial concept. It is Samuel’s army that weaves through the territory as if through “their fatherland”, slaying the Byzantine population. The symbolism of the earth that bears offshoots quite clearly suggests the danger of losing the territory, which in eyes of Geometres naturally and rightfully belonged to Byzantium. In this context, the criticism directed towards Constantinople, which Geometres expresses in a figurative sense by directing his disapproval towards the politics of the Byzantine establishment in the capital city, is evident. That way, he actually tried to illustrate the powerlessness of Basil II as a representative of supreme authority to prevent the devastating incursions in the West that caused enormous damage to the Empire. Hence, it is understandable why, towards the very end of the poem, Geometres does not call for the Emperor but for Christ himself to come to the aid of Constantinople which, as its capital, symbolises the Empire itself: Such are the words sent to you by your city, the city that is yours. You, who sees all, do not look away from the profound evils. How much longer are we to suffer?”39 For Geometres, only Christ himself could put an end to the desperate situation in which the Empire found itself as a result of the inappropriate 37  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 271–273. The Serbo-Croatian translation in Vizantijski izvori za istorija naroda Jugoslavije, III, 27–28; Bulgarian translation in Fontes Graeci Historiae Bulgaricae, V, ed. Genoveva Tsankova Petkova, Ivan Duichev, Liubomir Ionchev, Vasilka Tăpkova-Zaimova (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 1966), 317–319. 38  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 282; tr. Wortley, 270. 39  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 273.

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governance of Basil II and his military commanders. Hence, the poem most likely reflects the historical context of the civil war between Basil II and Bardas Phokas in 987–989 in which the Rus’ also took part on the side of the Byzantine emperor.40 Seen from the perspective of Samuel’s State, by using Basil II’s focus on the civil war and after the triumphant victory at the Gate of Trajan in 986, Samuel was able to accomplish his military agenda unhindered. As a result the “Scythian army” weaved through the land “as if through their own fatherland”. This chronological time frame is consistent with Geometres’ rhetorical expression where, by appealing to Christ to come to their aid, he criticized the authorities in Constantinople, which corresponds with his personal situation after 985/6, being in the spiritual monastic environment. The allusion to the specific offensive incursions by Samuel, containing the same tendency to demonstrate the imperial territorial possession, can also be found in Geometres’ poem On the Plundering Iberians (Εỉς τὰς ỉβήρων ἀρπαγάς): It is not the Scythian fire but the Iberian violence that now thrusts the West against the East. It [was announced by] earthquakes, and the Macedonian land showed the glow of newly risen star. Why do you uselessly reproach the Scythians when you can see that your friends and allies carry out the same things.41 A more precise chronological defining of the historical context contained in this poem is possible due to the contained pointers indicating the occurrence of natural phenomena. The powerful earthquake that shook the capital, as well as the “glow of the newly risen star” – the appearance of Halley’s Comet – were recorded in 989.42 This chronology coincides with the civil war initiated by Bardas Phokas which also involved the Iberian (Georgian) troops. The context of the poem is evidently aimed on the hostile army of Samuel, referred to as the “Scythians”, whose offensive incursions subjected the “Macedonian land” to “Scythian fire”. At the same time, John Geometres’ differentiation of 40  For the involvement of Rus’ prince Vladimir (980–1015) in the Balkan affairs and the diplomatic arrangement with Basil II, that led to his marriage with the Emperor’s sister Anna and his baptism, see Poppe, “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’,” 195–244; Simon Franklin, Jonathan Shepard, Emergence of Rus’ 750–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 162–163; Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 460–461, 510–511; Walter  K.  Hanak, The Nature and the Image of Princely Power in Kievan Rus’, 980–1054: A Study of Sources (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2013), 27–34, 74–105. 41  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 282. 42  Venance Grumel, Traité d’ Études Byzantines, I: La Chronologie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), 472.

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the “Macedonian land” from the enemy “Scythian” army is noticeable. The “friends” in the poem would be an allusion to the Byzantines, i.e. the imperial establishment in Constantinople. If we accept this historical context, then it becomes clear that Geometres figuratively implies once again that the emperor Basil II is incapable of dealing with the serious challenges posed by the incursions of Samuel’s army in Macedonia, as well as with the ravaging civil war in the East. Seen from this perspective, Geometres’ critical tone and figurative language directed towards the “Scythians” become clear. Geometres’ contextualization illustrates the tendency to expose the desperate situation in which the “West” found itself as a result of the military incompetence of Basil II and his military commanders whose responsibility was to protect the “Macedonian land”. In other words, it was the inhabitants of the “Macedonian land” who uselessly accused Samuel’s army – the “Scythians”, when in reality the culprit were the “friends” – the Byzantine army, or more accurately the military generals and the Emperor Basil II himself. That this reconstruction corresponds to John Geometres’ thought and context, can also be demonstrated by comparing it with his other poems that contain a subtle critical rhetoric directed towards Basil II which chronologically coincide with him being relieved of his military position in 985/6. Actually, the historical context contained in contemporary authentic accounts confirms the defensive position taken by Basil  II causing him to focus on the civil war in the East in which the “allies” – the Iberian troops – also participated. Hence with this poem, John Geometres comes out with a criticism towards the Byzantine military and political establishment responsible for the exceptionally negative situation in Macedonia caused by the expansion of Samuel’s State, making a complete loss of those territories a genuine threat. The message is clear – instead of blaming Samuel’s army for the deteriorated situation, the “Macedonian land”, the Byzantines, should address its criticism to their own “friends” as the ones responsible for its safety. If they were true generals they should have dealt with the enemy themselves, as Geometres himself would have done if he were in the position to do so. Thus, the poem is in a way a manifestation of the embitterment felt by a man who, not so long ago, was a warrior and an undisputed patriot, but now became a man unable to make his own military contribution. Geometres replaced his direct personal participation in dealing with the military challenges by poetic verse, thus figuratively putting himself in a direct dialogue with the “Macedonian land”, just as he would have done if he had held a position in the army. There is an even sharper critical tone employed by John Geometres to describe Byzantium’s failure to deal with Samuel’s State in the poem entitled On the Defeat of Romans at the Bulgarian Gorge (Εỉς τὸ pάθος Ρομαίων τὸ ἐν τῆι Βολγαρικῆι κλείσει), probably written towards the end of the 980s:

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I would never think, even if the sun was to move, that Mysian arrows would be stronger than Ausonian spears. Trees, sinister mountains – perish. Gloomy mountains – perish! Perish inaccessible caves, where a lion trembles from meeting the roe deer! Sun, hide the shiny golden coach under the ground and tell the great soul of the caesar: Istros has snatched the wreath of Rome. Make haste to take up weapons, because Mysian arrows are stronger than Ausonian spears.43 It is apparent that this paragraph is an allusion to the offensive military campaigns of Samuel’s army which resulted in a humiliating defeat of Basil  II in the battle at the Gate of Trajan in 986. Contextually, Geometres points to Basil II and his commanders as the principal culprits for the disastrous defeat, though he again carefully avoids naming the emperor. He alleges that as a consequence of losing the battle, the Byzantine imperial superiority and prestige symbolized by the lion – the emperor – were replaced with the emperor trembling in the face of the enemy – the roe deer. In this case, the loss of the regalia as Basil II fled from the battlefield, which Geometres’ contemporary Leo the Deacon wrote about, is symbolically represented by the snatching of the “wreath of Rome”, which demonstrated the shameful defeat of the Byzantine emperor. Having this context in mind, it logically follows to call upon the invincible emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas, to reach for his weapon and defeat Samuel because the current emperor is incapable of doing so since he is overpowered by “Mysian arrows” and is dreading a new direct confrontation. The poem contains another moment that can exemplify Geometres’ context. What is noticeable is Geometres’ tendency to provide a specific geographical location for the battle itself, something that is contained in the very title of the poem. Such a tendency would be expected from someone with military experience like Geometres who was no doubt acquainted with military strategy and its attendant awareness of geography. The sinister and gloomy mountains are the very gorges that led through Byzantine territory towards the city of Serdica, which was under the control of enemy troops. The context corresponds to Leo the Deacon’s description that presents the disaster by the “Scythian sword” 43  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 296; French translation by Van Opstall, Jean Géomètre, 307; Serbo-Croatian translation in Vizantijski izvori za istorija naroda Jugoslavije,  III, 26; Bulgarian translation in Fontes Graeci Historiae Bulgaricae, V, 320. Van Opstall, Jean Géomètre, 306–315, argues that the text was mistakenly integrated by the editors into one poem, which originally were two separate poems, both composed in the end of 980’s.

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and the retreat from the “Mysian” attack over the “impassable mountains” on Roman territory.44 In that respect, the use of the term “Bulgarian” in the very title of the poem undoubtedly reflects Geometres’ spatial thought in locating the battle depicted at that specific moment. Geometres actually associated the territory of the eliminated Bulgarian Empire with the “Bulgarian gorges”, over which Byzantium had control. At the same time he clearly differentiates it from the territory under the control of Samuel’s State. The mention of “Istros”, that is to say the river Danube, is much like Leo the Deacon’s geographical context as regards the territorial range of the Roman claims to the area where “Istros borders within Macedonia”. If one takes into consideration Ammianus Marcellinus’ account regarding the strategic importance of the Gate of Trajan, that is to say the ancient pass Succi (Ihtiman Pass), the context of Danube being mentioned by John Geometres and Leo the Deacon becomes even more clear: The closely united summits of the lofty mountain ranges Haemus and Rhodope, of which the one rises immediately from the banks of the Danube and the other, from those of the Axius, on our side, end with swelling hills in a narrow pass, and separate Illyricum and Thrace. On the one side they are near to the midlands of Dacia and to Serdica, on the other they look down upon Thrace and Philippopolis, great and famous cities; and as if nature had fore-knowledge that the surrounding nations must come under the sway of Rome, the pass was purposely so fashioned that in former times it opened obscurely between hills lying close together, but afterwards, when our power rose to greatness and splendour, it was opened even for the passage of carts …45 By evoking Roman memories of the Succi pass as a symbol of fore-knowledge that the surrounding nations must come under the sway of Rome, Geometres in fact demonstrated the geographical ownership of the “Bulgarian gorges”. The reference to “Istros” could represent a classical rhetorical style used as an allusion to the civilizational border with the barbarians which Byzantium 44  Leo the Deacon, History 10. 8, ed. Hase, 173; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 215. 45  Ammianus Marcellinus, History, 21. 10.3–4, ed. and transl. John C. Rolfe, vol. II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956), 135. For Succi pass as a key strongpoint in securing the central Balkan route, see Jan Bouzek, Denver Graninger, “Geography,” in A Companion to Ancient Thrace, ed. Julia Valeva, Emil Nakov, Denver Graninger (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 18–19. For the importance of the communications for the strategy and policy of Samuel, see Shepard, “Communications across the Bulgarian lands – Samuel’s poisoned chalice,” 217–235.

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recovered with its triumphant victory in 971. In fact, what Geometres described was that after the battle at the Trajan Gate, the Danube border was put at risk which directly affected the imperial “wreath”, that is to say the imperial seat in Constantinople. The symbolic projection of Roman memory demonstrated the Byzantine imperial claims to the territory that was seriously threatened by the “Mysians” who were now in the position to reach Byzantium and its capital Constantinople with their arrows. This notion is consistent with that of a warrior, such as Geometres, who shared the ideological matrix of Constantinople. This historical context is revealed, having in mind that only after 986 did Samuel’s army direct its offensive incursions towards the lands of the former Bulgarian Empire around the Danube that were previously under the control of Byzantium and triumphantly conquered by John Tzimiskes. Regardless of the significance given to Geometres’ context, it is quite clear that in this poem the adjective “Bulgarian” does not imply an ethnic classification, but a geographical description of the battle between Basil II and Samuel. It was applied for emphasizing the imperial geographical possessions that derived from the annihilation of the Bulgarian Empire, which was endangered by the catastrophic defeat of the Byzantine emperor. John Geometres’ classicist ethnographical framework, which was shared by his contemporaries, is clearly reflected in this poem with his use of the term “Mysians” to label the adversary Samuel’s State. In the works of Geometres, the ethnonym “Bulgarians” can only be found in the poem About the Bulgarians (Εỉς τοὺς Βουλγάρος): Before, Thracians, you wished to win allies against the Scythians, but now you wish to win the Scythians as allies against your friends. Dance for joy and clap your hands, Bulgarian tribes, take and hold sceptres and the stemma and the purple, the scarlet …[one line missing]… he will strip off your clothes and will hold your necks and feet in long planks and pillories, and for many of you will crush your backs and mangle your stomachs. And so, cease to make among yourselves, and have the courage to bear yourselves as men and to be proud.46 The complexity of the poem’s content, to which the lacuna present in the text additionally contributes, where the name of the Byzantine emperor was 46  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 282–283. English translation by Michael Jeffreys in accordance with the suppositions of Felix Scheidweiler, “Studien zu Johannes Geometres,” BZ 45 (1952), 300–19, in Poppe, “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’,” 214–215. Serbo-Croatian translation in Vizantijski izvori za istorija naroda Jugoslavije, III, 28–29; Bulgarian translation in Fontes Graeci Historiae Bulgaricae, V, 320.

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probably contained, produces different views among scholars concerning Geometres’ historical context. One group of scholars, correlating the poem with the rule of Basil  II, consider that John Geometres was referring to the period 988–989 when the Byzantine emperor, facing a serious danger from the armies of the usurper Bardas Phokas, made an alliance with the Rus’ prince Vladimir thus saving Constantinople.47 Other researchers, on the other hand, equate the Thracians with the Bulgarians, and place the poem in the context of those events that took place in the year 970.48 Realizing the illogicality of a “Bulgarian tribe” to display the imperial regalia in the 980’s, some researchers opt for the year 996/7 as the date of the composition of the poem, thus placing it in direct connection with the supposed proclamation of Samuel as Emperor at the same date.49 At any rate, depending on the contextual use and date of the poem, the “Thracians” become either Byzantines or Bulgarians, while the “Scythians” are equated with the “Rus’”. A careful analysis of the poem, however, points to several inconsistencies in the modern interpretation which puts forward the key aspect – the different identification of the “Thracians” that Geometres actually addresses to directly. Scholars who link the poem to the historical events of 988/9, explain the equivalence “Thracians” – “Byzantines” – “Constantinople” with the fact that in this period, after the conquests of Samuel’s army in the west and the offensive incursions of Bardas Phokas in the east, Byzantine imperial control was 47  Poppe, “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’,” 215; Tăpkova Zaimova, Bălgari rodom, 2nd ed., 46. 48  Petr Karishkovskii, “K istorii balkanskih voin Sviatoslava,” VV 7 (1953), 224–243, considers that in this poem Geometres actually presents the Byzantine view on the rule of Boris II which was perceived in Constantinople as an “usurpation”. The same opinion is maintained by Božidar Ferjančić in his commentary in Vizantijski izvori za istoriju naroda jugoslavije, III, 28–29. Pirivatrić, Samuilova država, 166–167, though associating the ethnonym “Thracians” with the “Bulgarians,” notices the illogicality on the allusion of Geometres regarding the usurpation of royal regalia, since Boris II was recognized by Byzantium as an Emperor in 969. Rejecting the possibility that it could be the eventual Samuel coronation as an emperor in ca. 997, Pirivatrić argues that Geometres in this poem actually expressed his own regret of losing the Basil’s II imperial insignia, which were taken as a military triumph by Samuel’s army at the battle of Gate of Trajan in 986. In addition, Pirivatrić does not exclude the possibility that Samuel used this opportunity to crown himself with the actual Byzantine crown seized among other imperial insignia (Pirivatrić, Samuilova država, 207–208). This suggestion was actually firstly introduced by Božidar Prokić, “Postanak jedne slovenske carevine u Maćedoniji u X veku,” Glas Srpske kraljevske akademije 76 (1908), 281. 49  Lauxtermann, “John Geometres – Poet and Soldier,” 372–373, dates the poem in 996–997, upon the presumption that with the outcry for audacity of Bulgarians demonstrated with the wearing of royal regalia, Goemetres was referring to the royal title of Samuel. The identical opinion is maintained by Van Opstall, Jean Géomètre, 14.

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territorially reduced to the area of Thrace alone. However, the available authentic accounts show that military activities at the time of the civil war between Basil II and Bardas Phokas did not affect the geographical area of Thrace at all, as they focused on the area of Asia Minor and the island of Abydos. Hence, the question arises as to why Geometres would address the “Thracians” unless he had in mind the geographical area of Thrace itself. Especially, as his other historical poems reveals the consistency in placing the events in a concrete geographical area, based on his own professional military experience. Having in mind this tendency, the historical context of the poem better fits the circumstances of 970 when the area of Thrace became the main stage for the military operations where Rus’, Bulgarians and Patzinaks were all participating as the enemy of Byzantium. In such a complex military situation one cannot exclude the possibility that parts of the thematic army of Thrace joined the Rus’. This would explain the context of hostile armies moving rapidly across the territory of Thrace all the way to the walls of Arkadiopolis.50 From the account of Leo the Deacon, it becomes clear that in this period the Rus’ had threatened the “Macedonians”,51 which signified the Theme of Macedonia located in Eastern Thrace. Considering that the same is contained in Skylitzes’ account,52 it further confirms Geometres’ geographical context. Moreover, Leo implies that parts of the thematic units sided with Bardas Phokas in the civil war after being dragged in by his father Leo the kouropalates who was exiled to Abydos for his support for the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas.53 Let us now to return to the key problem – who did Geometres actually have in mind when he addressed the “Thracians”? The reconstruction of the entire historical context relies on deciphering this segment of the poem. A comparative analysis shows that Geometres did not attempt to address the enemy “Bulgarians”, having in mind that in all his poems he consistently addressed his fellow “Byzantines”, including the emperors and the court elites 50  For the narration of the events, see Leo the Deacon, 6. 8–13, ed. Hase, 103–112; tr. Talbot, Sullivan, 153–161. Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 288–291; tr. Wortley, 275–279. Franklin and Shepard, Emergence of Rus, 145–147. For the interpretation, see Alexandru Madgearu, Byzantine Military Organization on the Danube, 10th–12th Centuries (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013), 30–31. 51  Leo the Deacon, History 7. 9, ed. Hase, 126–127; tr. Talbot, Sullivan, 173–174: The Scythians “began to harass the Romans terribly; they made sudden incursions, plundering and ravaging Macedonia unsparingly”. 52  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 288–291; tr. Wortley, 275–278. 53  Leo the Deacon, History 7. 1, ed. Hase, 114; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 163, mentions that “the father of Bardas, Leo the kouropalates, through the bishop of Abydos, promised money and honors to the Macedonians, urging them to receive him when he left the island, and to join and cooperate with him in the removal of the emperor John from the palace”.

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in Constantinople even in cases where he subtly criticised them. It could be hardly expected from a warrior such as Geometres to reduce his poetic expression to a direct address to his enemies. Excluding the possibility that John Geometres had addressed the “Bulgarians” in this particular case, adds to the complexity of decoding the poem in accordance with the existing interpretations by modern scholars. If for Geometres the “Thracians” were Byzantines, which they undoubtedly were, how could they have allied against the “friends”? This leads us to the dilemma of who these “friends”, alluded to by Geometres, in fact were. A. Poppe is the only researcher who noticed this contradiction and tried to clarify it with the explanation that “friends” (φίλοι) corresponds precisely to the insurgent peoples, namely the Greeks, Armenians, and Iberians. He interpreted it as “a situation that Russes are called upon to fight against the kith and kin of the Thracians, that would please only the Bulgarians, who could reach out without fear for the imperial regalia”.54 If Geometres wished to allude to the civil wars in which the “friends” were confronted, as A. Poppe believes, then the question arises why he had chosen to use the term “Thracians”, and not the city of Constantinople itself, since it would seem to be a more appropriate reflection of the immediate threat to the capital which he had already referred to in some of his other poems. If we add to this Geometres’ persistent tendency for a specific geographical definition of events, it becomes clear that by using the term “Thracians” he also pointed to the geographical situation of the confrontations, just as he normally did in his other poems dealing with military issues. Geometres, who held a high military position at that time, certainly had a detailed knowledge of the military situation, and hence the emphasis on the geographical localisation on the area of Thrace. In that respect, it is far more suitable for Geometres to use “Thracians” to denote the Byzantine thematic armies in Thrace. This interpretation would also facilitate the decoding of the rest of the poem where Geometres points to the impudence of the “Bulgarian tribe” for wearing the imperial regalia. It is evident that in this case Geometres wanted to emphasise the defiance of Byzantium by the “Bulgarian tribe”. But, defiance does not in itself mean usurpation, which is the traditional scholarly view and stems from the misinterpretation of part of the poem in which Geometres allegedly alludes to Samuel’s demonstration of power by the use of the imperial title. In fact, the text does not contain any reference to usurpation, only Geometres’ rhetorical expression of revolt in the context of the possible display of imperial regalia by the “Bulgarian tribe”. In accordance with Byzantine ideological concept, of which Geometres was a staunch advocate, the recognition of the 54  Poppe, “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’,” 214–215.

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imperial title could only come from Constantinople. Geometres could be referring here to the supposed recognition of Boris II’s imperial title by Sviatoslav. Hence, it is much more plausible for the defiance of the “Bulgarian tribe”, so vividly demonstrated by Geometres, to refer to the events of 970 when, after the Rus’ domination was established and the Bulgarian capital conquered, the Rus’ permitted Boris II to use his title. This, in fact, is emphasised by Leo the Deacon and the later Byzantine historian John Skylitzes who both clearly point to the fact that parts of the Bulgarian aristocratic circles supported Sviatoslav’s military agenda by participating with their own troops in the offensive incursions against Byzantium, which took place in Thrace.55 Byzantium certainly found the demonstration of imperial regalia by the “Bulgarian tribe”, occurring as a result of a possible recognition by Sviatoslav, an illegitimate act which directly affected not only the ideological concept of Byzantium but its imperial prestige. Hence Geometre’s emphasis on the defiance by the “Bulgarian tribe”, which was evidently directed against Byzantium, is understandable. Further confirmation of this version of events is the different interpretations among scholars regarding the very dating of the above poem, which is the result of the difficulty to determining the different context related to Samuel’s assumption of the title of Emperor. Taking as a whole, the scholars who reconstructed Geometres’ historical context did not tackle the key issue. Namely, why Geometres who, irrespective of his subtle rhetorical expression, does not refrain from criticising Basil II and his associates, in this particular case does completely the opposite – he glorifies the upcoming imperial triumphalism. Having in mind the character of the rest of his poems as well as Geometres’ personal antagonism to Basil II, this particular poem cannot possibly allude to this emperor, much less to his enemies Boris II or the Rus’ prince Vladimir, as some scholars think possible.56 The fact that the blank space in the poem could not have contained 55  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 288; tr. Wortley, 275, emphasized that the sons of Peter, Boris and Romanos were actually “prisoners of war,” but that the Rus’ and Sviatoslav made “common cause with the Bulgars whom they had already made their subjects”. 56  Poppe, “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’,” 215, leaves this question open, mentioning the possibility that Geometres referred to either the Bulgarian ruler who threatened Thrace, the Rus’ ruler Vladimir who would change from ally to enemy, or Basil himself whose policy could lead the Byzantines into slavery. Mihail Raev, “Belezhki kăm proizvedenieto na Ioan Geometăr Eis tous Boulgarous,” in Prof. D.I.N. Totiu Totev i stolitsata Veliki Preslav (Sofia: Bălgarski pisatel: 2006), 180–187, hypothesizes that the person in the missing line is Basil  II, arguing that Geometres actually encourages Bulgarians for the wearing of royal regalia captured after the Byzantine defeat at the Trajan Gate in 986. He even claims that Geometres exhorts the Byzantines to stop their division and to make an alliance with the Bulgarians to fight against the rule of Basil II.

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a reference to Basil  II takes us back to the chronological time frame, when the poem was composed which is before Geometres was relieved of his duties, that is to say the events of 970. At the same time, it follows logically that the play on words and the lack of criticism towards the emperor might be due to Geometres hiding his own responsibility, having in mind that at that time he held a high position in the Byzantine army. Careful analysis, however, reveals something else. A clarification is made possible with the translation of the last part of the poem by M. Jeffreys quoted in A. Poppe and based on the emendations of Scheidweiler: “cease to make among yourselves, and have the courage to bear yourselves as men and to be proud”.57 With the alternative translation, the poem acquires its logical ending – Geometres does not address the “Bulgarians” but his fellow Thracians, and appeals to them to stop the divisions amongst themselves. Viewed from this perspective, the poem has the classical character of Geometres directly addressing his soldiers with a noticeable tendency to raise the army’s morale, which was in serious decline. Did Geometres, perhaps, compose the poem at the very battlefield, addressing directly his Byzantine soldiers from the Theme of Thrace, discouraged by the momentous surge of the great army of Rus’, Bulgarians and Patzinaks? Contemporary accounts suggest that this was indeed the case, bearing in mind that, after the victory at Philippopolis, the Rus’ led by Sviatoslav had no difficulty in penetrating all the way to Arkadiopolis. The Byzantine army was certainly not immune to deserting before an approaching enemy superior in numbers,58 leading to serious internal divisions. This would clarify the context of the poem and Geometres’ reproachful tone, which was actually directed towards some of the “Thracian” soldiers who, by turning towards the Rus’ and Bulgarians, in fact turned against their own “friends”, i.e. colleagues from the army, at the same time betraying the Empire itself. Thus, it becomes clear why Geometres, towards the end of the poem, appeals for an end to the divisions within the army and asks them to demonstrate “courage to bear yourselves as men and to be proud”. At the same time, the poem also reflects the imperial allusion to geographical ownership, threatened by the enemies usurping Byzantine territory. Even according to the traditional translation, without Scheidweiler’s interpolation, Geometres the warrior would not want to address the “Bulgarians” directly. In that case, the end of the poem where Geometres emphasises that 57  Poppe, “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’,” 214. 58  Leo the Deacon, History 6. 12, ed. Hase, 109; tr. Talbot, Sullivan, 159. Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 288–291; transl. Wortley, 275–276, noted the superiority of the enemy army in comparison to the Byzantine’s.

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the emperor will execute punishments for “abandoning one’s position” would again be a call to those Byzantine soldiers, who had deserted and were not worthy to wear the imperial symbols. This evident ambiguity in the text was certainly understood by the Byzantine soldiers and officers to whom these final words were addressed. No one else could have presented the complex events of 970 better in such a short text. The intelligent Geometres undoubtedly intended to capture a complex situation by integrating a number of enemies in just a few verses. Its conciseness was certainly imposed by the specific purpose of the poem and by the very moment in which it was composed. That is confirmed by the military character of Geometres’ direct address and by its composition at the battlefield. The poem is a classic rallying cry of a military commander to his men in which, deserters are reproached and declining morale bolstered. Geometres in fact calls upon his fellow soldiers from Thrace to end their disagreements and defend the empire, because the emperor would soon crush all enemies whether they be from within or from without. It is a warrior’s appeal to soldiers in Thrace to “bear yourselves as men and to be proud”, the purpose of which was evidently to encourage heroism and patriotism in defending the empire. The message is clear – only a united army could defeat the enemy, which would be followed by triumph and the definitive subjugation of the Bulgarians.59 Hence, Geometres’ address to the “Bulgarian tribe”, which in fact had a figurative rhetorical meaning, taking into account that it was a form of an immediate address to his own Byzantine army of “Thracians”, also becomes clear. With this poem Geometres, in his role of a high-ranking officer, intended to encourage bravery amongst his soldiers by figuratively sending a message to the “Bulgarian tribe” that soon the Byzantine emperor “will strip off your clothes and will hold your necks and feet in long planks and pillories, and for many of you will crush your backs and mangle your stomachs”. It is a classic military address with a motivating message directed to the Byzantine army, and not to the “Bulgarian tribe”. The final goal of the “Thracians”, i.e. the Byzantine army, would be the definitive and triumphant subjugation of Bulgaria, which at the same time makes the title of the poem meaningful. Retold in the decoded words of Geometres, “he”, or rather Emperor Tzimiskes, will overwhelmingly defeat the “Bulgarian tribe” and remove their imperial clothes and regalia. Hence, it becomes clear 59  Tzimiskes’ strategic concept implemented in 971, described by Leo the Deacon, to “capture at the first assault the city of Preslav itself, where the Mysians have their royal palace; and setting forth from there, we will very easily subdue the insolent Rus’,” complements with the priority military agenda of Geometres based on subjugation of Bulgaria after repulsing the attack of the allied Rus’, Bulgarian and Patzinaks army (Leo the Deacon, History 8. 2, ed. Hase, 131; tr. Talbot, Sullivan, 178).

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both why Geometres does not criticise the emperor in his poem, and why he heralds his forthcoming imperial triumph. This could have only been done by someone who was still in military service and who had direct responsibility for the situation in 970, manifesting his revolt because of the defiance of the “Bulgarian tribe” that dared to display the imperial regalia without Byzantium’s permission and even more against it. If the lacuna in the text had contained a reference to Basil II, then Geometres would certainly have applied a completely different rhetoric. Also the fact that Samuel’s title and his very name were ignored by contemporary Byzantine authors, additionally confirms that in his poem Geometres did not make an allusion to the imperial title being usurped by Samuel, but to the defiance of the Bulgarian emperor Boris II. The glorification of a forthcoming imperial triumph hardly belongs to the rhetorical expression of Geometres after 985/6. In this spiritual period of his life, his poetic expression, as regards specific historical events, is in the context of criticising the imperial establishment, and his address is reduced to recalling the events figuratively in a projected dialogue with himself. Such a connotation is not contained in this poem in which Geometres emerges categorically in the capacity of a high-ranking officer, putting himself in the role of one who is directly involved in military affairs. Later on, while composing his poems in the silence of the monastery, he would, as a patriot, constantly recall these feats. For instance, the year 970 when he had shed his own blood for the salvation of the Empire by joining in the first defensive lines, together with his army. The short poem entitled Somebody Died in Bulgaria, irrespective of its exceptionally scant and generalised character, confirms to a certain extent Geometres’ thoughts and frame of mind. In the poem Geometres expresses his regret probably regarding a Byzantine soldier who unexpectedly died in “Bulgaria”, comparing him to a young tall tree fallen “from the winds of Thrace”. It is difficult to conjecture which military battle Geometres alludes to here,60 particularly because two geographical determinants for the same event were used – “Bulgaria” and “Thrace”. The character of Geometres rules out a classical rhetorical image of an invented individual. Geometres puts himself in the role of an immediate witness to the event. Hence, it is not excluded that in saying “winds of Thrace” Geometres had in mind some sort of accidental death of a handsome soldier, caused by friendly fire from Byzantine soldiers from the Theme of Thrace. The emphasis on the “purity” of the soldier in the poem, which would suggest his unmerited death, also speaks in support of this interpretation. If it is accepted that this event did in fact take place, 60  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 326. French translation by Van Opstall, Jean Géomètre, 388–390.

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then it must have happened before Geometres was relieved of his military duties, which would exclude the possibility of this unwarranted and accidental death occurring at the time of Basil II’s military offensive in 986.61 An assumption that Geometres personally knew the soldier to whom he dedicated this poem, would put the composition of the poem during the military confrontations between Byzantium and Rus’ over the territory of Bulgaria in the period between 969 and 971. In the poem On the Comet[opoulos] cited at the beginning of this chapter, its title and contents evidently alludes to Samuel. The appearance and the rise of Samuel’s State, followed by the decline of Byzantium’s military prestige, is quite clearly indicated.62 In an attempt to decode Geometres’ thoughts contained in this poem, scholars usually dated the composition of the poem contemporaneously with the events it describes. The existence of two chronological determinants in the poem, one related to the appearance of the comet and the other to the death of Nikephoros II Phokas, results in different interpretations of the events. Those who take Geometres’ statement regarding the appearance of the Cometopoulos at the time of the “sunset”, i.e. death, of Nikephoros  II Phokas, place the poem in the context of the uprising of the Cometopouloi in 969 or 976.63 An account by John Skylitzes, written more than a century later, in which he points to the rebellion of the Cometopouloi after the death of emperor Peter in January  969, provides further indication that Geometres was referring to the gloomy period for Byzantium that started with the rise of a new enemy in 969.64 The mention of the comet, on the other hand, was explained as the specific time when the poem was created – the year 989 or the beginning of 990. Some scholars, however, disregard Geometres’ association of the appearance of the Cometopoulos with the death of Nikephoros II 61  Van Opstall, Jean Géomètre, 390, despite being reserved about placing this poem in specific historical context, does not exclude the possibility that the soldier was killed in 986, thus associating it with the Geometres’ poem describing the battle of the Gate of Trajan. 62  John Geometres, Poems, ed. Cramer, 283. The Macedonian translation in Dokumenti za borbata na makedonskiot narod za samostojnost i za nacionalna država, vol. 1, ed. Hristo Andonov-Poljanski, Velimir Brezovski, Ivan Katardžiev, Branko Panov, Aleksandar Hristov (Skopje: Univerzitet Sv. Kiril i Metodij, 1981), 88; The Serbo-Croatian translation, in Vizantijski izvori za istorija naroda Jugoslavije, III, 24–25; Bulgarian translation in Fontes Graeci Historiae Bulgaricae, V, 32o. 63  The issue on when the rebellion of the Cometopouloi had occurred, and whether there were one or two rebellions, provoked a long debate among the Balkan scholars ever since the end of the 19th century. On this issue, which transferred into a nationalist discourse related to the aspiration or denial of the contemporary identity in the Balkans, see further in Ch. 6 and Ch. 7. 64  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 255–256; tr. Wortley, 246.

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Phokas. Pointing out the unreliability of this rhetorical expression, they suggest the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 989 as a more reliable chronological determinant, connecting it to the period when Samuel emerged as a serious threat to Byzantium.65 If one takes into account Geometres’ personality and character, then it becomes clear that in this poem too he emphasised his own military experience. In this particular poem, he projects his previous military experience onto the chronological determinant – the “sunset”, i.e. the death of the victorious Nikephoros  II Phokas, presenting it as an introduction to gloomy period of military failures caused by the appearance and rise of the Comet[opoulos]. In this poem there is no mention of Tzimiskes’ triumph over Bulgaria. However, Geometres’ admiration of Nikephoros Phokas can hardly be considered to be the reason for the deliberate exclusion of this Byzantine victory.66 Rather, this would disclose that Geometres did not consider Cometopoulous to be in any relations with the leaders of the eliminated Bulgarian Empire. That would provide an explanation why he did not establish any connection between Samuel and the historical events of 971. Having in mind the entire context, one should consider that at the time of the appearance of the Cometopouloi in 969, Geometres was actively involved in the military service. Hence, Geometres focused his poetic thought on the historical parallel between the rule of Nikephoros II Phokas and Basil II, thus exempting himself from any military responsibility. Consequently, Geometres accurately connected the appearance of the new enemy – the Comet[opoulos] – with the death of Nikephoros II Phokas, while associating Samuel’s rise and his display of military power with the comet that appeared at the time of Basil II. There is also another aspect neglected by scholars. Namely, after the initial mention of the comet, which evidently reflects the time when the poem 65  For 989 as the date of composition of the poem, see Kostis Argoe, “John Kyriotes Geomerresa tenth century Byzantine writer,” Ph.D. thesis (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1938), 140–41. Lauxtermann, Byzantine poetry from Pisides to Geometres, 235–236, noting that Samuel became a threat to the empire after the death of Tzimiskes and that his real power occurred after 986 after the victory at the Gate of Trajan, argues that the poem cannot have been written before 976 and it may even be as late as 989. Stephenson, Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, 17, n. 19, refers to the use of singular construction “Κάτω κομήτες” to suggest that the context of the poem refers to the events after the death of Samuel’s brother Aaron in 986. Pirivatrić, Samuilova država, 47–48, maintains that the poem was written in 989 or at the beginning of 990. Tăpkova – Zaimova, Bălgarin rodom, 46, argues that Geometres alluded to the comet that occurred in 989 which announced the defeat of the Byzantines by Samuel. 66  Vasilii G. Vasilevskii, “K istorii 976–986 godov (Iz Al-Makina i Ioanna Geometra),” ZMNP 184 (1876), 116.

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was composed, in the verse that follows, Geometres actually points to a new chronological indicator: “that star, the omen of today’s darkness, was overpowered by the light from the morning star, and he [the Cometopoulos] was ignited with the sunset of Nikephoros”. This could be a reference to an eclipse of the sun that occurred on the 22nd December 968. Leo the Deacon gives a detailed description: “On the 22nd of December, at the fourth hour of the day, in calm, clear weather, darkness covered the earth, and all the brighter stars were visible. One could see the disk of the sun dark and unlighted, and a dim and faint gleam, like a delicate headband, illuminating the edge of the disk all the way around. Gradually the sun passed by the moon (for the latter could be seen screening off the former in a direct line), and sent out its own rays, which again filled the earth with light. People were terrified at the novel and unaccustomed sight, and propitiated the divinity with supplications, as was fitting.”67 Although the similarity between the brief poetic description and the solar phenomenon cannot be taken as certain confirmation that Geometres had in mind this specific event, it chronologically corresponds to his thought and its broader context. At any rate, Geometres’ figurative direct dialogue in composing the poem is again present, this time with the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas. The mention of the comet and the stars, which predetermine events, accompanied by calling upon the soul of Nikephoros  II Phokas, suggests Geometres’ time as a monk and his spiritual connection with his favourite patron. This particular interpretation of Geometres’ thought does not question the composition of the poem after 985/6, but sees it as contemporaneous with the events it describes, which ranged from the year 969. In fact, Geometres presented an extensive chronological period, and related the appearance and rise of the Cometopoulos, something that he himself was an immediate witness to. Analysis of Geometres’ poems in general demonstrates that in describing Samuel’s State, he consistently used the terms “Scythians” or “Mysians”, irrespective of the period in which they were composed. Geometres’ vocabulary reveals the same model of representation contained in other contemporary Byzantine literary texts. In all of them Samuel’s title and his name were masked by the use of classical terms, or by the convenient association Comet[opoulos]. The absence of Samuel’s title, which is noticeable even among the Byzantine authors of a later period, undoubtedly was a reflection of the Byzantine ideological concept and political propaganda.

67  Leo the Deacon, History 4. 11, ed. Hase, 72; tr. Talbot and Sullivan, 122–123. This natural phenomena is mentioned also by John Skylitzes, who notes that “the stars could be seen” (Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 280; tr. Wortley, 268).

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A corresponding representation of Samuel’s State is also present in the fictitious epitaph to Nikephoros II Phokas in the interpolated text in Skylitzes, attributed to the poet John of Melitene: … A bitter sight; good ruler, rouse yourself! Take footmen, horsemen, archers to the fight, The regiments and units of your host – For Rus’, fully armed, assail our ports, The Scyths are anxious to be slaughtering While every people does your city harm Who once was frightened by your graven face Before the gates of your Byzantium. Do not ignore these things; cast off the stone Which now detains you here and stone the beasts, Repel the gentiles; give us, built in stone, A firm foundation, solid and secure. Or if you would not leave your tomb a while, At least cry out from earth against the foe – For that alone might scatter them in fight. If not make room for us there in your tomb For death, as you well know, is safety and Salvation for th’entire Christian folk, Nikephoros, who vanquished all but Eve.68 Marc D. Lauxtermann credibly shows that this epitaph to Nikephoros II Phokas was fictitious and not composed by John Geometres, but by John of Melitene two decades after the death of the emperor in 988–989. The only thing known about John of Melitene is that he was a poet and considering the content of his poems, was a great admirer of Nikephoros II Phokas, just as John Geometres was. John of Melitene was also a harsh critic of Basil II’s politics and therefore could not have been a court poet at the time of his reign. Hence, the fictitious epitaph by John of Melitene was probably propaganda directed against Basil II.69 The dating of the epitaph to the reign of Basil II would clarify the historical context and relate it to the events following 985/6. John of Melitene, like Geometres, called upon Nikephoros II Phokas to rise from the grave and defeat contemporary enemies. In this particular case, John of Melitene did 68  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 282; tr. Wortley, 270. 69  Lauxtermann, “John Geometres-Poet and Soldier,” 356–80; Lauxtermann, Byzantine poetry from Pisides to Geometres, 235–236, 305–316.

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not use the classical term “Tavroscythians” or “Scythians”, but instead used the modern ethnonym “Rus’”. The enemies embodied in Samuel’s State, however, were identified as “Scythians” which confirms the consistency in using classical terms by the contemporary Byzantine authors, a classification that was shared by Leo the Deacon and John Geometres. We find the term “Bulgarians” in the scant information contained in the grant to the Lavra Monastery issued by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nicholas II Chrysoberges (980–992), in 989. In this document, the Patriarch had ordered that the monastery Theotokos at Gomatou in the vicinity of the small town of Hierissos near Mount Athos, be merged with the Great Lavra because of the “damage inflicted by the attacks of the Bulgarians who lived in the neighbourhood, utterly devastated as a result of the negligence by those who were to manage it”.70 Scholars traditionally link the contents of this document to the threat of attacks from Samuel’s army. However, it is evident that the devastation of this monastery is mainly attributed to its inappropriate and dysfunctional internal organisation, which was sanctioned by the document. Furthermore, the contents of the document, which had a local geographical context, points to an undefined time frame that preceded the deterioration of the monastery’s life. The imperial decree of Emperor Romanos II (959–963) issued toward the beginning of his reign, shows that the monastery of Kolobos located nearby was given 40 dependent peasants as compensation for the land taken by “Σκλάβων Βουλγάρων” who had settled in the vicinity of Hierissos.71

70   Actes de Lavra, I, 8, pp. 115–118. On the precise date of Nicholas II’s patriarchate, see Jean Darrouzès, “Sur la chronologie du patriarche Antoine III Stoudite,” REB 46 (1988), 55–60. 71   Actes de Lavra, I, 7, pp. 112–114. Franz Dölger, Ein Fall slavischer Einsiedlung im Hinterland von Thessalonike im 10. Jahrhundert (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1952), 7, 12; George Soulis, “On the Slavic settlement in Hierissos in the tenth century,” Byzantion 23 (1953), 67–72; Stephenson, Legend of Basil the BulgarSlayer, 16; Bojana Krsmanović, The Byzantine Province in Change: on the Threshold between the 10th and the 11th Century (Belgrade, Athens: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, The National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2008), 150–152; Curta, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 173–174. Phaidon Malingoudis, “Hoi Boulgaroi Slaboi tis Ierissou,” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i kultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsiia Sofia, 6–8 Oktomvri, 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi  N.  Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 676–684, argues that the “Σκλάβων Βουλγάρων” mentioned in this document were actually settled from the state of the Bulgarian emperor Peter (927–969) and their presence was “legalized” by the Byzantine authorities. His allusion that the document issued from the Monastery Iviron from 982, where one inhabitant put his signature in Glagolitic, could be an indication that those “Σκλάβων Βουλγάρων” actually came from Ohrid, is just an interpretation which is impossible to prove. On the phenomena of widespread Greek and Slav bilingualism in

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Noticeably, the documents issued by Chrysoberges and by Romanos  II point to territories, which were already settled by certain group which had the status of neighbours and was identified as “Bulgarians” or “Bulgarian Slavs” (Σκλάβων Βουλγάρων). Both documents had clearly local character, regulating the property threatened by the settled groups that lived nearby. For the “Bulgarian Slavs” we have a chronological determinant that they were already settled at the beginning of 960’s. The similar context of the Chrysoberges’ grant can imply to situation surrounding the Byzantine–Bulgarian confrontations in the mid-960’s, when this region was also affected. If, on the other hand, the grant of Chyrsoberges alluded to the threat from the nearby settled “Σκλάβων Βουλγάρων”, then that in itself would not imply that it contains a reference to Samuel’s soldiers. In any case, the contents of the grant issued by Chrysoberges, which indicates that the monastery Theotokos at Gomatou was threatened by neighbouring settlers, cannot be taken as an argument that the ethnonym “Bulgarians” used in the document actually denoted Samuel’s enemy army. The same context can also refer to the preserved document from the monastery Iviron dated to 996. The document was issued by protospatharios Nicholas, acting as the judge (krites) of Thessalonika, Strymon, and Drougoubiteia, who was ordered by the emperor to form a tribunal to resolve a dispute between the monastery of Polygyros and a certain Basil “tourmarches of the Bulgarians”.72 The dispute referred to the property of Paul from Thessalonika, which had been seized by the emperor and allotted to the tourmarches Basil. The document mentions that in the course of settling the dispute a few of the peasants who happened to be on the monastery’s estate of Polygyros were interrogated, because their villages had been “reduced to rubble by the Bulgarians”. They continued to pay the taxes in their old villages, while cultivating the land of the monastery in agreement with the monks and in exchange for fees. The questioning of the peasants showed that they did not claim rights to the contested land, since they retained the rights to their own property in the abandoned villages, where they continued to pay taxes and intended to return.73 The ­ethnonym Early Medieval Greece, that encompassed the wider Thessalonika region, see Curta, The Edinburgh history of Greeks, 174–175, 276–295. 72   Actes d’ Iviron I: Des origines au milieu du XI e siècle, ed. Jaque Lefort, Nicolas Oikonomides and Denise Papachryssanthou, Archives de l’Athos XIV (Paris: P.  Lethielleux, 1985), 10, pp. 169–172. 73  Actes d’ Iviron I Iviron, I, 10, 170–172. See Rosmarry Morris, “The Athonites and their neighbors in Macedonia in the tenth and eleventh centuries,” in Byzantine Macedonia: Identity, Image, and History. Papers from the Melbourne Conference, July 1995, ed. John Burke and Roger Scott (Melbourne: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2000), 157–67; Leonora Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950–110 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 62.

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“Bulgarians” applied in the document, which in this particular case denotes two opposing sides, introduces additional complexity in interpretation. What is absolutely clear is that in this case the document was concerned with the local geographical context of the property of the monastery Polygyros. The fact that this was a property dispute indicates that the document deals with a wider chronological span due to the necessity of proving rights over the said land. So, who were the “Bulgarians” who attacked the villages nearby forcing the villagers to find shelter on the property of the monastery Polygyros? What does the ethnonym “Bulgarians”, which was used in direct connection with the name of Basil who held the high Byzantine military title of tourmarches, actually imply? The answer to these questions can hardly be given with any degree of certainty, despite the attempts of some scholars to establish the historical context of the document.74 In fact, with this kind of documents we are not dealing with historical narrations. Accordingly, the statements taken from the questioned peasants cannot be used to determine concrete date when they had escaped from their properties to the estates of the monastery Polygyros. The displacement could have taken place at any given time before the dispute was officialised, which additionally points to the unreliability of the chronology.75 We can conclude with some certainty that the peasants expected to return to their villages, in light of the fact that they continued to pay taxes for their properties. We cannot exclude that this situation also brought them economic benefits, since they could afford to pay for keeping their rights to the properties 74  Ivan Bozhilov, “Bălgarskia apokalips,” in Istoriia na srednovekovna Bălgariia VII–XIV vek, I, ed. I. Bozhilov, V. Giuzelev (Sofia: Anubis, 1999), 321, argues that the tourmarches was composed by Bulgarians, or Romeians from Bulgarian origin, which from previous times inhabited this part of the peninsula. Their military unit created solely on an “ethnic principle” was mobilized by Byzantium and “thrown into bloody battle against their compatriots”. Cyril Pavlikiianov, “Bulgarian presence inside and north of Mount Athos during the late 10th and the early 11th century – the evidence of the Slavic toponyms,” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i ultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsiia Sofia, 6–8 Oktomvri, 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi N. Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 673, interprets this document as an evidence that for the local Greek population and Byzantine administrative officers, the “Bulgarians of Czar Samuel were very different from the Bulgarian-speaking Slavs” settled around Month Athos and in the Chalcidice Peninsula. On social aspect of this document, see Curta, The Edinburgh history of the Greeks, 243. 75  Holmes, Basil II and the governance of Empire, 108–109, demonstrates that these estates had been the subject of dispute between several parties for some time, something which could date the context related to the Paul treachery to well before 996. Marc C. Bartusis, Land and Privilege in Byzantium: The Institution of Pronoia (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 123 thinks that the land to Basil tourmarches, was given not long before 996.

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in their villages and at the same time work the land elsewhere. In other words, they simply did not feel the need to return to their abandoned villages at that moment, which does not necessarily mean that their properties were in any way threatened at that time. At any rate, regulating the local issues, and not the accurate elaboration of the historical context, was the priority issue for the authors of these documents. Whether the villages were abandoned because of the Bulgarian attacks during the military confrontations with Byzantium in the mid-960’s, or whether it was because of the actions from the nearby settled “Σκλάβων Βουλγάρων” mentioned in the document from Mount Athos, remains an open question. This again does not imply that they were threatened by Samuel’s army. Additional suspicion is caused by the title tourmarches of the Bulgarians noted in the document. Significantly, in the imperial decree issued by Emperor Basil II himself in 978, the enemies who had caused “great turmoil” and had threatened the Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, were termed as “barbarians” (βαρβαρικαῖς).76 The contents of this imperial decree naturally differ from the above-mentioned documents issued by the Patriarch Chrysoberges and by Nicholas, the judge of Thessalonika. Basil II’s decree undoubtedly treats a wider geographical context, which was in accordance with the imperial character of the document. Hence, it is understandable why in his decree Basil II denoted the enemies, most probably associated with Samuel’s State, as being “barbarians”, which was the conventional terminological classification in the second half of the 10th century. Moreover, the imperial documents from Mount Athos, in addition to their practical application in regulating the organisation of monastic life, unambiguously reflected the Byzantine ideological concept. On the other hand, the very character of the documents intended for a specific and limited audience implies the absence of a tendency to apply accurate chronology, as opposed to the classical historiographical narratives. Viewed as a whole, apart from Basil II’s decree, the documents from the archives of Iviron and Athos cannot be used as evidence that the authors were pointing to concrete attacks by Samuel’s army that affected these areas. For further clarification of the use of terminology in the works of Byzantine authors and their meaning in denoting Samuel’s State, it is interesting to analyse the text by the anonymous author of the Life of St. Phantinos, probably written in the second half of the 10th century.77 The uncertainty regarding the chronology of the episodes contained in the Life of St. Phantinos, has given rise to 76  Actes de Lavra, I, 7, p. 113. 77   La vita di san Fantino il Giovane, introduzione, testo greco, traduzione, commentario e indici Enrica Follieri (Bruxelles: Societe des Bollandistes, 1993), 130–131.

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various scholarly views. Nevertheless, there is general consensus that the story of Phantinos’ prophecy, made public during his visit to Larissa in 965, concerns the impending seizure of the city and refers to the conquest of Samuel’s army that occurred in 986.78 In the description of this prophecy, Samuel’s army is not designated by a specific ethnonym, but rather with the undefined term “enemies”.79 The fulfilment of the prophecy concerning the seizure of Larissa, attested by the anonymous author himself, implies that he was also conveying his own interpretation that the prophecy referred to the expansion of Samuel’s State. In this case, the anonymous author did not use any ethnonym to identify the “enemies”, although he witnessed the events described. This terminological context differs from the two episodes in the Life of St.  Phantinos where the anonymous author noted that the surroundings of Thessalonika were threatened by the “Bulgarian tribe”.80 In the first episode, it is stated that during the stay of St. Phantinos in Thessalonika in 965–966/7 the “tribe of Bulgarians wanted again to horribly desolate” the lands in the immediate vicinity of the city. The text further reads that Pediasimos, the dux of Thessalonika, due to not having enough military power to oppose the enemy, thought about setting nearby places on fire, including the monastery just outside Thessalonika. However, St. Phantinos predicted that “they shall, not by any kind of military power but from above, be sprawled like corpses on the ground”, which duly happened when “not a small number of the Bulgarian people were soon killed”. This account pertains to the context of renewed military confrontations between Byzantium and Bulgaria in 965/66, when the city of Thessalonika and its surroundings were also threatened.81 In the Life of St.  Phantinos, the term “Bulgarian tribe” can also be found in the context of St.  Phantinos’ posthumous miracle related to the enemies 78   La Vita di san Fantino, § 36, 442–444. Panteleimon Tsorbarzoglou, “The ‘Megalopolis of Thessaloniki’ and its world according to the hagiographical texts of the middle Byzantine period,” in Byzantine Macedonia: Art, Architecture, Music, and Hagiography. Papers from the Melbourne Conference July 1995, ed. John Burke and Rorger Scott (Melbourne: National Centre for Hellenic Studies and Research/La Trobe University, 2001), 127–40. Panayotis A. Yannopoulos, “La Grèce dans la Vie de S. Fantin,” Byzantion 65/2 (1995), 491– 484 and Vasil Giuzelev, “Svedeniia za Bălgarite v Zhitieto na Sveti Fantino mladi ot X v.,” Paleobulgarica 36/2 (2012), 31–34, argue that this part of the Life of St. Phantinos actually allude to two conquest of Larissa, one during the time of the Bulgarian Emperor Simeon, while the other conquest, which was witnessed by the anonymous author, occurred in 986. 79   La Vita di san Fantino, § 36, 442–444. 80   La Vita di san Fantino, § 49, 436; § 61, 468–470. 81  Yannopoulos, “La Grèce dans la Vie de S. Fantin,” 491; Giuzelev, “Svedeniia za Bălgarite v Zhitieto na Sveti Fantino mladi ot X v.,” 34–36.

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who captured a slave from Thessalonika and took him to the fortress Kolidros located south of the Lake of Dojran. It was only with the help of the Saint that he was freed and via the coastal fortress Kitros taken back to Thessalonika by ship. This episode clearly reflects the hagiographical tendency of the author, to popularise the cult of the saint in Thessalonika, by using the story, which could have occurred anytime in the past. Despite scholars’ differing attempts to date the incident,82 these two episodes could well correspond chronologically with the Byzantine–Bulgarian confrontations during Nikephoros II Phokas’s reign. If we accept that the anonymous author witnessed Phantino’s stay in Thessalonika in 965–966/7, this would additionally confirm that in these episodes, the enemies were viewed and represented differently from the ones who took Larissa in 986. That the anonymous author in these cases most probably used stories attributed to the wars of Nikephoros II Phokas with the Bulgarians, is indicated by the mention of a threat to the immediate vicinity of the city of Thessalonika, as well as the lack of military capacity to respond to the attacks. This uncertainty and unpreparedness illustrated in these two episodes of the Life corresponds with other accounts of the time. Italian bishop Liudprand of Cremona traveling to Constantinople in 968, recorded that at some point after Nikephoros’ rise to power in 963, three hundred Magyars had taken captive five hundred imperial subjects living near Thessalonika and took them to Pannonia.83 The very threat to Thessalonika was probably the reason for the anonymous author to create the miracle about freeing a slave from Thessalonika shortly after Phantinos’ death with the aim of popularizing his cult among the citizens. This situation could also found reflection in the documents from Mount Athos, when some of the monasteries were affected by both external and internal factors. The same chronology could apply to the anonymous author of the Byzantine military manual, known as the Taktikon Vári, which contains 82  Scholars usually connect this episode with the period of expansion of Samuel’s state in 980’s or 990’s. Yannopoulos, “La Grèce dans la Vie de S. Fantin,” 489–493, argue for the period 989–991. Giuzelev, “Svedeniia za Bălgarite v Zhitieto na Sveti Fantino mladi ot X v.,” 36–37, assumes that the anonymous author refers to the events that happened soon after 986. However, the historical context allows that this episode ensued immediately after the death of St. Phantinos, during the time of Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas. Curta, The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 175, notices the uncertainty regarding the specific chronology of this episode, associating it with the “Bulgarian penetrations restored as part of the new Byzantine-Bulgarian war initiated by Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas during the second half of X century.” 83  Paolo Squatriti, The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 266. On these events, see Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 237.

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tactical recommendations to the emperor for the fight against Bulgarians, Patzinaks and Rus’. In this manual, the anonymous author recommended that the Byzantine army should avoid taking a crowd of useless people or transporting the tents of the high-ranking officers in hostile territory such as “the land of the Bulgarians”, where there are “rugged, wooden mountain passes with very narrow roads” which are “difficult to traverse”. Additionally, it is recommended, that the Byzantines should provide the logistics for obtaining food and other necessities, especially barley, of which there was “a total lack in the country of Bulgarians”.84 Taktikon Vári is customarily dated by the scholars to the later tenth century, however it could well have been composed during the reign of the emperor Nikephoros Phokas, or at the beginning of the reign of John Tzimiskes, by the experienced general Nikephoros Ouranos.85 The proposed chronology of the events narrated in all the above-mentioned Byzantine texts, again leads to the conclusion that the Byzantine authors – contemporaries of Samuel used only classical terms for identifying the new enemies embodied in Samuel’s State. Through the classification of the enemies from Samuel’s State as “Mysians”, “Scythians”, “barbarians” or simply as “enemies”, they transmitted Byzantine ideological concept of the time. This model of representation is also present in the Encomium to Photios of Thessaly, who was founder of the Akapniou Monastery in Thessalonika and a cleric who accompanied Basil II in campaigns against Samuel’s State. The anonymous author, writing the Encomium sometime in the 11th century, designated the enemies from Samuel’s State as “Mysians” and “barbarians”, thus differentiating them from cities under the control of Byzantium, which he designated as “Macedonian”.86 The anonymous author of the Life of St Athanasius 84  George T. Dennis, Three Byzantine Military Treaties, CFHB 25, Dumbarton Oaks Texts 9 (Wash1ngton, D.C: Dumbarton Oaks, 1985), 287–289, 290–291, 304–305. 85  In the preface of his edition of this manual, Rezsö Vári argues that the author of the text was most probably Nikephoros Ouranos who addressed the recommendations to the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, see Incerti scriptoris Byzantini saeculi X, Liber de militari, ed. Rezsö Vári (Lipsiae: B.G. Teubneri, 1901), XXI. This supposition was accepted by Genoveva Tsankova Petrova in her commentary of the text in Fontes Graeci Historiae Bulgaricae, V, ed. Genoveva Tsankova Petrova, Ivan Duichev, Liubomir Ionchev, Vasilka Tăpkova-Zaimova (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 1966), 277. For an alternative view, that the manual was composed in the time of Basil II, see Iulian Kulakovskii, “Novoizdannii vizantiiskii traktat po voennomu delu,” VV 7 (1900), 646–660; Kulakovskii, “Vizantiiskii lager kontsa X veka,” VV 10 (1903), 63–91. The same view is maintained by Dennis, Three Byzantine Military Treaties, 241–244. Holmes, Basil II and the governance of Empire, 55, 277, notes that the scholars customarily date the manual to the later tenth century. 86   Encomium of St. Photius is published by Vasilii G. Vasilevskii, “Odin iz grecheskih sbornikov Moskovskoi Sinodalănoi biblioteki,” ZMNP 248 (1886), 100–101. For the rather later date of

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the Athonite, probably written in the first decades of the 11th century, used the same ideological concept in marking Byzantium’s geographical possession as “Macedonia”, as opposed to the “barbarians” by which he denoted the enemies coming from the Samuel’s State. This is clearly reflected in the account of the Life related to Basil II who “gathered troops in Macedonia, preparing for war against the barbarians”.87 Comprehensive analysis of the works of contemporary Byzantine authors, despite difficulties in determining the concrete chronology, reveals that the toponym “Bulgaria” and the ethnonym “Bulgarians” were not used as terminological designations for the enemy coming from the Cometopouloi and Samuel’s State. Those terms, were instead used for describing events in relation with the Bulgarian Empire that was annihilated in 971. This assertion is further confirmed by the letter of Leo, the metropolitan of Synada addressed to the Emperor Basil II in the early 996: The emperor was the greatest of these, the emperor who was returning from a brilliant and incomparable victory; who was missed and longed for because of the long time he labored in adversity in order to secure the complete victory; who, because of his achievement, was brilliant and celebrated and did not disdain the appellations ‘Scythicus’ (Σκυθικòς)… Along with you, farewell to that portion of the bureaucracy that renders you satisfactory and efficient service and everyone whom you yourself, perceptive judge of character that you are, deem worthy of the greeting. Don’t, however, spare a single Scyth (Σκύθην), ‘not even the little boy his mother carries in her womb,’ but annihilate and destroy them all together …88 The contents of this official correspondence reinforce our argument that Samuel’s contemporaries were referring to the enemies coming from Samuel’s State, using classical terminology. In this case, this is clearly expressed by the appellation “Scythicus” ascribed by Leo of Synada to Basil II for his military the composition of the Life which was recently ascribed to Eustathios of Thessalonika, see Symeon A. Paschalidis, “The Hagiography of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography: Volume I: Periods and Places, ed. Stephanos Efthymiadis (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), 157–158. 87   Vitae duae antiquae sancti Athanasii Athonitae, ed. Jacques Noret, Corpus Christianorum series graeca 9 (Turhout: Brepols, 1982), Vita A, chap. 249–251, pp. 120–121. 88   The Correspondence of Leo, Metropolitan of Synada and Syncellus, ed. and transl. Martha P. Vinson, CFHB 23, Dumbarton Oaks Texts 8 (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1985), Epistle 54.8–13; 54.45–49, pp. 87–91.

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victory against the “Scyths”.89 Since Leo of Synada was addressing his letter directly to Basil II, it is notable that the applied Scythian terminology for designating the Samuel’s State as it had been used in official communication in the late 10th century. As we have seen, this was also reflected in the official documents issued by Basil II who denoted the enemies that he was confronting as “barbarians”. For further clarification of the terminological complexity in regard to Samuel’s State, the perception of the non-Byzantine contemporary authors who were writing from a geographical distance needs to be addressed as well. They undoubtedly used a terminology that reflected their own understanding, ideology and audience, which was mainly a response to the Byzantine ideological propaganda. Since, the Byzantines were their main source of information for the Balkans, they actually conjectured the events related to Basil’s war with Samuel’s through the Byzantine conception. The Armenian author Step‘anos of Taron known as Asołik, a contemporary of Samuel, composed his Universal History from the distant Armenia, covering the period up to the year 1004. He was the only contemporary to mention Samuel’s name (Samuēl), while attributed Armenian origins to him: There were two brothers who were called Komsajagk‘. The name of the eldest was Samuēl, of Armenian descent, from the district of Derȷˇan; king Basil had conveyed him and his contingents of sałark‘ to Macedonia, to fight against the Bulgars. At an opportune time, they rebelled against the king of the Greeks and went to the king of the Bulgars, who was a eunuch, and were honoured in his eyes in reward for their valour.90 According to Step‘anos of Taron’s own understanding of the events, Samuel and his brother, whom he called “Komsajagk’s”, were enlisted in the Byzantine army by Basil II and sent to “Macedonia to fight against Bulgarians”. A “large” number of Armenians had already been sent there by Basil II to fight against “Bulgarians” with а mission to settle in the country.91 But soon after, the two Cometopouloi sided with the “Bulgarian Emperor who was a eunuch” and rebelled against Basil II. Since the scholarly consensus is that the name “Kurt” in Armenian applies to eunuch, that would mean that Step‘anos of Taron was 89  It is indicative that Martha P. Vinson translated the Greek term “Σκύθην” with “Bulgarian” (Leo of Synada, Epistle 54.48, pp. 88–89), which is not the terminology that Leo of Synada and his contemporaries were using for the identification of Samuel’s state. 90  Step‘anos of Taron, Universal History, 3.22; tr. Greenwood, 284–285. 91  Step‘anos of Taron, Universal History, 3.20; tr. Greenwood, 251–252.

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not aware of the real name of the Emperor. This raises reservations about his knowledge of the real identity of the protagonists. Anyway, he narrated that Basil II captured the Bulgarian Emperor, after which “Komsajagk’s conquered the entire Bulgarian land, resisting the king of Greeks in hard-fought engagements”.92 Following Step‘anos of Taron, it would mean that in fact a large number of Armenian troops led by Samuel and his brother, defected Basil II and from Macedonia as their initial centre of operation, managed to take over the “land of the Bulgarians”. Further in the text Step‘anos of Taron states that in 986 Basil ΙΙ gathered his own army which he commanded in person and “entered against the land of the Bulgarians”. This passage can be contextualized as direct confrontation of Basil II with Samuel over the territory of the former Bulgarian empire, despite the fact that Step‘anos of Taron choose not to mention the leader of the enemy that the emperor confronted. Step‘anos of Taron was evidently using information from the Byzantines that circulated in his time for his narration of the Basil’s wars in the Balkans. Hence his interpretation was mainly based on conjecturing the Byzantine conception from his own perspective and intended audience. Presenting Samuel as rebel against Basil II, can be taken as a clear reflection of this tendency. On the other hand, Step‘anos of Taron was more preoccupied with presenting the Armenian ethnic origin of his protagonists in the Basil’s wars, selectively choosing the events and the persons involved that had the connection with Armenia. Following this nationalist perspective, Step‘anos of Taron was consistent in his tendency to create the impression that aristocracy of Armenian origin was accountable for the Byzantine victories. His inconsistency, however, is revealed from the representation of Komsajagk’s as rebels against Byzantium, which resulted in complete exclusion of Samuel’s name from further narration of Basil II’s wars after 986. Instead, Step‘anos of Taron focused his narrative on the Armenian aristocracy fighting on the side of Basil II against Samuel, such as the family of Taronites. The same inconsistency also applies to the terminology that he was using in designating the land that was initially occupied by “Komsajagk’s” which he related with the territory of Macedonia, while the areas affected by the war he termed as the “land of the Bulgarians”. This was clearly a result of Asołik’s tendency for conjecturing the events with the former Bulgarian Empire, which resulted in projecting the terminology onto the territory ruled by Samuel. Step‘anos of Taron biased nationalistic approach and terminological inconsistency, makes it quite difficult to use his work as an indication for the identity of Cometopouloi and of Samuel’s State, as some scholars did. 92  Step‘anos of Taron, Universal History, 3.22; tr. Greenwood, 284–285.

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Generally, Step‘anos of Taron is the only contemporary eastern author who tackled the events related to Samuel’s State and provides only a glimpse into Basil’s Balkan wars. What is more, there is almost complete silence regarding the period between the years of 1004 and 1014 in both the Byzantine and Eastern sources, which corresponds with the final period of Samuel’s reign.93 Western authors who wrote while Samuel was still alive, like John the Deacon and Thietmar, provide rather short and scant information. Consequently, these accounts cannot be used for the concrete reconstruction of events, much less for determining the perception and representation of Samuel’s State, that include the context in which it was established. The Venetian Chronicler John the Deacon provided only a short note on Basil ΙΙ’s preparations for a campaign into the Bulgarorum finibus in ca. 1004, in the context of his description of the visit by the Venetian doge Peter II Orseolo’s son John in Constantinople, and his marriage to the niece of the Byzantine co-emperors, Maria Argyrina.94 What was the exact meaning of this short passage is difficult to say, since there is no other reference to confirm it. The same would apply to the terminology, which can also be interpreted as a conjecture of the author meaning the territory of the former Bulgarian empire. The Bishop of Mersesburg, Thietmar, writing his “Chronicle” around 1018 registered the presence of delegates from the “Greeks, Beneventani, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Danes and Slavs, together with all the notables from the entire kingdom” at the court of the German Emperor Otto I in Quedlinburg in 973.95 Although modern scholars draw far reaching conclusions from this information, which has been corroborated by other later German sources as well,96 the assumption that two of the Cometopouloi were 93  Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 50–51. 94  John the Deacon, “La Cronaca Veneziana del Giovanni Diacono,” in Chronache Veneziane antichissime, ed. Giovanni Monticolo (Rome: Forzani E C. Tipographi del Senato, 1890), 168. 95   Thietmar of Merseburg: Thietmar Meresburgensis Episcopi Chronicon, ed. R. Holtzmann, MGH SrG Nova Series 9 (Berlin: Wiedmann, 1935), 76.25–32: “Dehinc ivit ad Quidilingeburg proximum pascha divinis laudibus humanisque peragens gaudiis. Huc confluebant imperatoris edictu Miseco atque Bolizlavo duces et legati Grecorum, Beneventorum, Ungariorum, Bulgarirorum, Danorum et Sclavorum cum omnibus regni totius primariis”. 96  The same passage was used by later German chronicles: Lamberti Hersfeldensis Annales, MGH SS, III, ed. Georgius H. Pertz (Hanover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1839), 63. 24–31: “Illusque venerunt legati plurimarum gentium, id est Romanorum, Graecorum, Beneventorum, Italorum, Ungariorum, Danorum, Bulgariorum, atque Ruscorum, cum magnis muneribus”; Annales Hildesheimenses, MGH, SS III, ed. Georgius  H.  Pertz (Hanover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1839), 62.29–36: “Illuc venerunt ad eos legati Grecorum, Beneventanorum, Ungariorum, Bulgariorum, Danorum, Sclavorum, cum regiis muneribus”; Annalles Altahensis Maiores, MGH, SS XX, ed. Wilhelm Giesebrecht and Edmund L. B. AB Oefle (Hanover: Impensis Bibliopolii Avlici Hahniani, 1868), 787.32–41:

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present as representatives of the “Bulgarians”, one of whom was Samuel, simply cannot be ascertained from this short passage.97 The anonymous author of the Legend of St.  Tryphon, composed in Latin probably in the beginning of 11th century, which is preserved in Italian manuscript from 1446 and published in Venice in 1561, mentioned Samuel’s wars with Basil that affected Dalmatia and city of Kotor. The Legend reads that “certain Samuel (Scemuel) was long-time in a state of rebellion against the Roman emperor Basil” and during “this tyrannical rebellion he devastated and depopulated the borders of the Bulgarians and Macedonia and some cities in Dalmatia, and brought the army into the vicinity of Kotor”.98 Since the text is a “Illuc venere legati Graecorum, Beneventorum cum muneribus, 12 primates Ungarorum, Bulgariorum duo; etiam legati ducis Haroldi, quem putabant resistere imperatori, omnia sua deditioni Otonis subiiciunt cum statuto vectigali. Boneszlawo (dux Sclavienus) regiis eum inumerabiliter donans illuc venit muneribus. Miszego etiam dux Sclavienus, terrore compulsus, filium mittit obsidem”. 97  Pirivatrić, Samuilova država, 69–70, is cautious to draw extensive conclusions from the scarce information from this source, since the legati Bulgarorurm could come from any territory including the area north of the Lower Danube. He remains the possibility that the local structures from the unconquered territory of the former Bulgarian state, tried to achieve certain diplomatic goals in the court of Otto I. Recently, Vasil Giuzelev, “Bălgarskite pratenichestva pri germanskiia imperator Oton I vo Magdeburg (965 g.) i Kvedlinburg (973 g.),” in CIVITAS DIVINO-HUMANA v chest na profesor Georgi Bakalov, ed. Tsvetelin Stepanov, Veselina Vachkova (Sofia: Tangra, 2004), 390–391, argues that it was the two Bulgarian boyars that arrived at Quedlinburg as legates of the western part of the Bulgarian Empire ruled by the Cometopouloi in the period of interregnum. Other scholars argue that the Cometopouloi were allowed to send their legates by the Byzantine Emperor Tzimiskes, since they recognized his supreme authority. Thus they obtained international recognition. See, Antoljak, Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. I, 334–342; B.  Panov, Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. III, 46; B. Panov, “Vostanieto vo 976 godina protiv bugarskata vlast i sozdavanjeto na makedonskata država,” in Istorija na makedonskiot narod, I: Makedonija od praistoriskoto vreme do potpaganjeto pod turska vlast (1371 godina), ed. Branko Panov (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija, 2000), 357–361; B. Panov, Makedonija niz istorijata, 76. Daniel Ziemann, “Samuel and the West,” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i kultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsiia Sofia, 6–8  Oktomvri, 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi  N.  Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 91–92, though inclined to assume that the Cometopouloi launched this initiative independently, he is cautious “not to overinterpret the sources”. Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 241, does not exclude the possibility that an anti – Byzantine alliance was concluded between the Cometopouloi and Otto I in Quedlinburg and after John Tzimiskes’ death they rebelled against Byzantium. 98   “Estratto dalla Lezenda de miser San Tryphon martire confalon et protector della Cittade de Catharo,” in Storia documentata della Marinerezza Bocchesse, ed. Giuseppe Gelcich (Ragusa: A spese dell’autore, 1889), 81–86: “Uno certo Scemuel lungo tempo stette in ribellione dal romano imperatore Basilio. In tale ribellione tirannicamente i confini de Vulgari et de Macedonia, et alcune cittade de Dalmazia depopulò et guastò venendo l’esercito

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translation from the 15th century of the original Latin manuscript, we are not in a position to verify whether the passage relating to Samuel was originally included or, which is more probable, it was a later interpolation. The Byzantine administrative reorganization undertaken in the period 971– 975, contained in the Escorial Taktikon (or Taktikon Oikonomides), can shed further light on the terminological complexity concerning Samuel’s State. It shows that the administrative change was arranged immediately after the annihilation of the Bulgarian Empire in 971, when Byzantium was engaged in fortifying its defences in the areas between Haimos and the Lower Danube, in Thrace, in southern and south-eastern Macedonia, as well as on the Adriatic coastline. With respect to the geographical region of Macedonia, the military–administrative reorganisation of Byzantium covered the strategic belt between the rivers Strymon and Nestos, where the Theme of New Strymon was established by separating it from the Theme of Strymon. The areas north-west of Thessalonika were included within the administrative frame of the newly established themes of Drougoubiteia, Veroia and Vodena (Edessa).99 Concentration of the military organisation of Byzantium, especially in the north-western areas around Thessalonika, was no doubt related to safeguarding more efficiently the land routes that linked these territories with the heartland of the new political entity led by the Cometopouloi, which was concentrated around Prespa and Ohrid.100 Placement of the highest provincial military commanders in the area of Thessalonica, Adrianople and the Lower Danube region, and probably in the area of Ras, shed additional light on Tzimiskes’ military strategy in reoccupying parts of the Balkans.101 The seals discovered in today’s Eastern Bulgaria from this period, indicate the presence of the Byzantine administration in the suo a Catharo”. The first author who turned attention to this source was Stjepan Atoljak, Samuilovata država (Skopje: Institut za nacionalna istorija, 1969), 38, 143, n. 372, noting that the original text was compiled far before the 15th century. Pirivatrić, Samuilova država, 107, n. 109, maintain that the original Legend was probably written in ca. 1020. For the composition of the original text in ca. 1000, Tăpkova-Zaimova, Bălgari rodom, 146. 99  Nikolaos Oikonomides, Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècle (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972), 266–267 (strategos of Draguviteia); 266–267 (strategos of Veroia); 268–269 (strategos of New Strymon); 264–265 (strategos of Strymon). Oikonomides’ view that the Theme of Edessa (Vodena) also existed in this period has been accepted by Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 396–398. 100  Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire, 398, although pointing to this statement, does not connect it to the already established control by the Cometopouloi over the Macedonian areas around Prespa and Ohrid, which she believes occurred later on, after 976. 101  On the administrative reorganization of the Balkans during the reign of John Tzimiskes, see Krsmanović, Byzantine Province, 128–145; 185–190.

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northeastern areas of the former Bulgarian empire, although fluid in terms of the absence of the civilian functionaries.102 The absence of a single seal of Tzimiskes or Basil II from the heartland of Samuel’s State in Macedonia is a clear indication that it was not covered by the Byzantine administrative organization. This was not the case with the territory of eastern Bulgaria where the seals are found in Preslav, Pliska and Dristra dated in the period 1000–1025.103 This further reveals the difficulty of identification of Samuel’s State, which was differentiated and separated by the Byzantines also in administrative terms and in the ideological context. The way in which the administrative reorganization was implemented by Tzimiskes, raises the possibility that in 971 a political agreement was negotiated between the Byzantine Emperor and the Cometopouloi. This assumption could explain Tzimiskes’ military reorganization which was based on the fortification of the frontier belt surrounding the heartland of the Cometopouloi’s polity in Southwestern Macedonia, as well as the chronological gap in the Byzantine sources for the period 971–976.104 This reorganization and the 102  Nikolaos Oikonomides, “A propos de la première occupation byzantine de la Bulgarie (971–ca 986),” in Eupsychia, Melanges offerts a Helene Ahrweiler, II (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 1998), 588; Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier, 55–8; Holmes, Basil II and the governance of Empire, 396–400; Krsmanović, Byzantine Province, 185–190; Ljubomir Maksimović and Bojana Krsmanović, “The Byzantine administration in the northern Balkans and Tsar Samuil,” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i kultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsiia Sofia, 6–8 Oktomvri, 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi N. Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 193–194. 103  On the sigillographical material and its use for reconstruction of the Byzantine administration in the Balkans, see Ivan Iordanov, Pechatite ot strategiiata v Preslav, 971–1088 (Sofia: Voenno izdatelstvo “Sv. Georgi Pobedonosets, Universitetsko izdatelstvo “Sv. Kliment Ohridski, 1993); Iordanov, “Vizantiiski imperatorski pechati, namereni v Bălgariia ot vremeto na tsar Samuil (976–1014),” in Tsar Samuil († 1014) v bitka za Bălgariia, ed. Liudmil Vagalinski (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2014), 77–90; Iordanov, “Pechati na vizantiiski voenachalnici, uchastvovali v bălgaro-vizantiiskata voina (976–1018),” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i kultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsiia, Sofia, 6–8 Oktomvri 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi N. Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 366–383. 104  More on the assumption of the possible peace agreement concluded between Tzimiskes and the Cometopouloi, see M.  Panov, “Vizantiska Makedonija,” 1176–1181. Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier, 66–77; Stephenson, “The Byzantine frontier in Macedonia,” in Dialogos 7, ed. David Ricks and Michael Trapp (London, Portland: Frank Cass, 20o1), 23–40; Stephenson, Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, 21–22, puts forward the opinion that Basil II pursued a peaceful policy that resulted in signing of a ten year peace treaty with Samuel in 1005. If we accept this hypothesis, it would mean that Basil II was in some way following the policy of his predecessor. Holmes, Basil II and the governance of empire 498–501, raise skepticism on the possibility of the existence of political agreement between Basil II and Samuel.

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eventual agreement with the Cometopouloi, from the strategic point of view, would have enabled Tzimiskes to focus on the reintegration of the territories of the former Bulgarian Empire. Whether the supposed agreement was deliberately silenced in the sources, since it would have affected the triumphant image of Tzimiskes following the great victory in 971, remains an open question. However, the administrative rearrangements that left out of Byzantium the territory that corresponded with the core of the Cometopouloi’s polity advance this possibility. The character and contents of narratives written by authors who were contemporaries of Samuel, irrespective of their provenance, makes it difficult to reconstruct events related to Samuel’s State and the struggle between Samuel and Basil ΙΙ. Cyrillic inscriptions found in the village of German, near Prespa and in Bitola, that are ascribed by the scholars to Samuel and John Vladislav could shed some light on Samuel’s State, if their authenticity, readings and interpretations were not questionable.105 The circumstances of the discovery of the German inscription in the end of 19th century, when the propaganda in Macedonia was in its full swing, raise scepticism regarding its authenticity. The same applies to the fragmentary character of the damaged Bitola inscription, where among other only the name of John is visible as the son of Aaron, designated as “Bulgarian Autokrator” and “Bulgarian by birth”, which reduces its reading to modern imagination. It is written in past tense, which in addition to the unusual exemplification of the ethnic origin for the beginning of 11th century, advance further reservations that the inscription was erected by John Vladislav. It is more probable that the text occurred later and was inscribed by another person who wanted to exemplify and impose the Bulgarian origin of the former ruler.106 Nevertheless, the contextualization of these inscriptions is only possible by using the accounts of those authors who wrote from a chronological distance, and who reflected a different time, policy and ideology than the one from the time when Samuel was alive and when his polity existed. To sum up, the new kind of enemy embodied in Samuel’s State was politically and militarily classified by the Byzantine authors, who were Samuel’s contemporaries, with classical terms as “Scythians”, “Mysians” or “barbarians”. Even the actual name of Samuel was concealed by his Byzantine contemporaries and masked with the rigid term Comet[opoulos]. Furthermore, in the preserved official documents issued by Basil II or addressed to him, the enemies from the Samuel’s State were designated as “Scythians” or “barbarians”. 105  On the scholarly debate on this issue see bellow, ch. 6 and ch. 7. 106  The contextualization of the Cyrillic inscription and its use for the nationalistic agendas in the Balkans is further elaborated in other chapters.

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Cyrillic inscription discovered in Bitola in the 1950s, Historical Museum, Bitola Photo: Historical Museum of Bitola

However, it was Basil II who after subduing the Samuel’s State following his final victory in 1018, introduced the new naming for the annexed territory of the Samuel’s State, with the purpose of creating an illusion of geographical ownership and continuity of Byzantine ideological superiority and prestige. The Byzantine authors who were contemporaries of Samuel did not share such a terminology, but designated Samuel’s State through the classicistic filter, differentiating it as a new kind of enemy – the foreign people.

chapter 2

Samuel’s State in The Byzantine Ideology: Basil II and the Construction of Identity The emperors of old allotted to themselves different burial-sites: some here, others there; but I, Basil the purple-born, erect my tomb in the region of Hebdomon. Here I rest, on the seventh day, from the numerous toils I bore and endured on the battlefield, for from the day that the King of Heaven called upon me to become the emperor, the great overlord of the world, no one saw my spear lie idle. I stayed alert throughout my life and protected the children of the New Rome, valiantly campaigning both in the West, and at the outposts of the East, erecting myriads of trophies in all parts of the world. And witnesses of this are the Persians and the Scyths, together with the Abkhaz, the Ismaelite, the Arab and the Iberian. O man, seeing now my tomb here, reward me for my campaigns with your prayers.1 Basil II’s verse epitaph

∵ The death of Samuel on 6th October 1014 left his State without an exceptional leader who had symbolized its unity for decades. Internecine conflicts in the imperial dynasty which had led to the murder of the heir to the throne, Gabriel Radomir (1014–1015) by his cousin John Vladislav (1015–1018), went in favor of 1  Silvio G. Mercati, “L’epitafio di Basilio Bulgaroctonos secondo it codice Modense Greco 144 ed Ottoboniano Greco 344,” 232–234; Mercati, “Sull’epitafio di Basilio II Bulgaroctonos,” 226–231. English translation by Lauxtermann, Byzantine poetry from Pisides to Geometres, 237.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004394292_004

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A modern reproduction of Basil II’s psalter portrait National Historical Museum, Athens

Basil  II for the final conquest of Samuel’s State. However, it took him three years to gain control over the main cities and forts in the heartland including Ohrid and Prespa. Basil benefited from the death of John Vladislav during the siege of Dyrrachium in 1018 and the shifting allegiance of the leading men in exchange for obtaining the titles and prestige from Byzantium. In such circumstances Vladislav’s widow Maria offered the terms of surrender that were

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mediated by David, archbishop of Ohrid. Their acceptance by Basil II marked the end of Samuel’s State. Following the conquest, Basil II triumphantly celebrated his victory in Constantinople. The works of the Byzantine historians of the late 11th century, complemented by discoveries of lead seals, provide a glimpse of how Basil II organized the annexed lands of Samuel’s State.2 The former core of Samuel’s State in Southwestern Macedonia, that encompassed also the central region of the Balkans, was administratively reorganized within the newly founded Byzantine theme “Bulgaria” with the seat of the doux based in Skopje. Michael of Devol noted that first strategos autokrator was David Areianites, whom he describes as “katepano of Bulgaria”, with supreme authority over the subordinated strategoi based in Ohrid, Kastoria, Diabolis (Devol) and other small strategides.3 The naming of the theme as “Bulgaria” was a new designation for the territory of the former Samuel’s State that was incorporated into the Byzantine military and administrative system. The theme of Bulgaria did not encompass the old Bulgarian lands between the Haimos mountains and Danube river, that included the former capitals Pliska and Preslav. This territory was administred independently and was considered as autonomous military unit, designated as Dristra, Paristrion or Paradunavon, meaning the “lands beside the Danube”. Sirmium also became a center of the military command, however, it is difficult to reconstruct the territory which it controlled.4 To answer the key question why Byzantium undertook such an administrative reorganization which demarcated the heartland of the former Samuel’s State with the newly introduced meaning of the name “Bulgaria” and distinguished it from the old Bulgarian lands, we should turn to ecclesiastical reorganization, which became central to Basil  II’s political and ideological agenda in the Balkans. 2  For the sigillographic evidence, see Iordanov, Pechatite ot strategiiata v Preslav, 143–144; Iordanov,”The Katepanikion of Paradunavon according to the sphragistic data,” Studies in Byzantine Sigilography 8 (2003), 63–74. See also, Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier, 62– 79; Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 241–244; 297–298; Krsmanović, Byzantine Province, 194–195; Madgearu, Byzantine Military Organization on the Danube, 59–100. 3  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 358. On the organization of the theme Bulgaria, see Krsmanović, Byzantine Province, 192–203. 4  On the complexity of the military and administrative reorganization in the Balkans, see Krsmanović, Byzantine Province, 192–203; Krsmanović, “O odnosu upravne i crkvene organizacije na području Ohridske arhiepiskopije,” in Vizantijski svet na Balkanu, vol. 1, ed. Bojana Krmanović, Ljubomir Maksimović, Radivoje Radić (Beograd: Vizantološki institut Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti, 2012), 25–26; 31–32; Ivan Bozhilov, “L’administration byzantine en Bulgarie (1018–1186): le cas de Paristrion – Para-dounavon (Paradounavis),” in Byzantio kai Boulgaroi, 1018–1185, ed. Katarina Nikolaou, Kostas Tsiknakis (Athens: Institouto Vyzantinon Ereunon, 2008), 91–97; Madgearu, Byzantine Military Organization on the Danube, 59–100.

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This requires contextual analysis of the three privilege documents or imperial sigillia to the archbishopric of Ohrid which were consecutively issued by Basil II in ca. 1020.5 With the first sigillia Basil II demonstrated that he was incorporating the Ohrid Archbishopric within the Byzantine Empire by the Grace of God, allowing it to retain its autonomous status, under his direct auspice as emperor: Many and great are the favors which man-loving God has at different times conferred upon our Empire and which surpass all number; the greatest of them is that the Byzantine State has expanded and that the State of the Bulgarians has passed under one yoke. Therefore, on account of this we confirm the most pious monk Ioan to be Archbishop of Bulgaria and to direct affairs related to the Archbishopric …6 The first sigillia in fact reaffirmed the status of the Ohrid Archbishopric, demarcating its jurisdiction over the territories that were formerly included within Samuel’s State. Besides most of the bishopric located within the heartland of Samuel’s State in Macedonia, such as Ohrid, Kastoria, Glavinica, Moglena, Bitola/Pelagonia, Strumica, Morobisdos, Skopje, the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ohrid also encompassed, Niš, Belgrade, Braničevo, Sirmium, Prizren, Lipljan and Servia. Triaditsa/Serdica and Velbužd were the only listed bishoprics from the old Bulgarian lands which had important strategic and defensive positions for Samuel’s State in the war against Basil II.7 Samuel was mentioned at the end of the first sigillia in the context of the economic privileges that were retained for the clergy:

5  The authenticity of the sigillia, has been questioned by Stjepan Antoljak, “Ohridskata Arhiepiskopija vo vreme na vladeenjeto na carevite Samuil i Vasilij II,” Istorija  6, 1 (1970), 35–49; Antoljak, “Dali se avtentični onie tri ispravi na carot Vasilij II izdadeni vo korist na Ohridskata Arhiepiskopija,” in Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. I, 698–708. See more recently, Evanthia Konstantinou Stergiadou, “Die Echtheit der Sigilla von Basilius II fur das Erzbistum Achrida,” Byzantiaka 17 (1997), 265–284; Konstantinou Stergiadou, “Die Sigilla von Basileios II. fur das Erzbistum von Achrida und ihre Beziehung mit den Bistumern von Berroia und Servia,” Orthodoxes Forum 12 (1998), 5–20. Vasilka Tăpkova Zaimova, “The Du Cange Cataloque,” in State and Church: Studies in Medieval Bulgaria and Byzantium, ed. Vasil Giuzelev and Kiril Petkov (Sofia: American Research Center, 2011), 219 remarks that the sigillia should be treated with caution. See also, Tăpkova-Zaimova, “Entre Ochrid et Tirnovo: problemes d’Eglise apres 971,” in Byzantio kai Boulgaroi, 1018–1185, ed. Katarina Nikolaou, Kostas Tsiknakis (Athens: Institouto Vyzantinon Ereunon, 2008), 33–34. 6  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 42–44; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini iz Makedoniia, 550–555. 7  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 42; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini iz Makedoniia, 550.

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All these clergy will be free from the oikomodion and other taxes, as were freed by Samuel. For this reason and as a reference to the emperors who will rule after us, we have compiled this sigillion and we gave it to the most holy Archbishop, as we have stamped it with our imperial lead seal.8 This would be the earliest attestation of the name of Samuel in Byzantine documents. Noticeably, it was not complemented with any reference to Samuel’s formal title and position. Nevertheless, from the contents of the first sigillia one gets impression that Basil II in fact recognized that the Archibshopric was established by Samuel, since he was confirming its privileges and defining the new status and jurisdiction within the empire. The very fact that Samuel was noted in this document instead of John Vladislav who was the last ruler of the state, shows that he was directly associated with the Ohrid Archbishopric and its traditions, being considered by Basil II as its founder. The content of the first sigillia reveals that the priority for Basil II was providing the legal basis for integrating the Samuel’s Church – Archbishopric of Ohrid, named “Bulgaria”, into the Byzantine ecclesiastical system and to frame it within the ideological concept.9 However, to achieve this it was necessary to create a notion that during the existence of the Samuel’s Church – Ohrid Archbishopric, the continuity of the Byzantine ideological superiority was not disrupted. Starting from this objective, Basil’s second sigillion actually extended the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ohrid to include other territories that were formerly under Samuel’s realm. Basil specified that the main reason for issuing the second sigillion was the request by the Ohrid Archbishop “concerning his other bishoprics not listed in the first sigillium and the other bishoprics subordinate to him, because the neighbouring metropolitans had seized them from the Bulgarian region and had misappropriated them”. Although Basil presented 8  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 44; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini iz Makedoniia, 555. 9  Günter Prinzing, “The authocephalous Byzantine ecclesiastical province of Bulgaria/Ohrid,” 366–367 observes that from Basil II’s sigillia (especially the first of them) and the emperor’s further measures “it becomes clear that ecclesiastical ‘Bulgaria’ in the shape of the Byzantine Archbishopric of Ohrid goes back essentially to the core region of Samuel’s tsardom”. He further noted that “in the Byzantines’ scheme of things, the newly constituted Archbishopric of Ohrid was intended to ensure that the West Balkan ecclesiastical center of Ohrid (together with its network of suffragans) created by Samuel should retain its independence for the most part: therefore, its role was probably, in the emperor’s (and his successors’) design, to have the effect of stabilizing imperial rule over the long term, and doing so more effectively by means of an ecclesiastical policy with cultural finesse than would have been possible through control by a metropolitan directed by the Pariarchate of Constantinople”. However, Prinzing followed the Byzantine ideological construct adding that Ohrid Archbishopric “continued the patriarchate’s tradition in Samuel’s Bulgarian Empire”.

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his second sigillion as fulfilling Archbishopric’s wish, its content reveals the emperor’s intention to mark the territory of all the bishopric that were formerly under Samuel’s authority. Accordingly, Basil stated that he will not allow any of the neighbouring metropolitans “to make even one step into the boundaries of the Bulgarian area” under the jurisdiction of Ohrid Archbishopric that he was defining. The list of bishopric added to Ohrid Archbishopric’s jurisdiction included Dristra, Vidin, Ras, Horaia, Chernik, Chimara, Drinopolis, ?, Butrint, Ioannina, Kozile, Petron/Petra? and Rigoi.10 In compliance with his ideological objective, Basil engaged himself in regulating ecclesiastical relations between the former Samuel’s Church, now Archbishopric of Ohrid, and the former Bulgarian patriarchate in Dristra. The Bulgarian church in Dristra had been raised to Patriarchal status at the time of the Bulgarian emperor Peter with the political decision of the Byzantine emperor Romanos  I Lekapenos (920–944), sanctioned by the Senate. When Tzimiskes had conquered Bulgaria in 971 he abolished the Bulgarian patriarchate and replaced it by the metropolitan in Dristra subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople.11 Hence, it is understandable why in this sigillion Basil II stated that …  the present most holy Archbishop shall possess and govern all the Bulgarian bishoprics, as well as all other towns, which were under the rule of Emperor Peter and Samuel and were also held by the archbishops of that time.12 10  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 44–46; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini iz Makedoniia, 557–561. 11  Gelzer, Der Patriarchat von Achrida. Geschichte und Urkunden, Abhandlungen der philol.histor. Classe der Kœnigl. Sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissensch 20/5 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1902), 38–39. Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier, 57–58; Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 240. 12  Scholars differ on the destiny of the Bulgarian patriarchate after Tzimiskes’ conquest of Bulgaria in 971. The dominant opinion among scholars is that the traditions of the Bulgarian church were preserved on the basis of the unprecedented consecutive movement of the expelled Bulgarian patriarchs from Dristra that finally settled in Ohrid. On this view see recently Ivan Bozhilov, Bălgarskata arhiepiskopiia XI–XII vek. Spisăkăt na Bălgarskite arhiepiskopi (Sofia: Gutenberg, 2011), 50–57, who assert that the Bulgarian church maintained its independence after 971. Pirivatric, Samuilova država, 148–160 argue that after 971 the Bulgarian Patriarch in Samuel’s state simply took the tradition of the Bulgarian patriarchate of Preslav and Dristra. Pirivatric’s view was accepted by Günter Prinzing, “The autocephalous Byzantine ecclesiastical province of Bulgaria/Ohrid. How independent were its archbishops?,” Bulgaria Medievalis 3 (2002), 358–359 who argues that “if Samuel elevated the first hierarch of the church in his empire to patriarch, without having obtained the consent of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, then the reference to tradition probably lay in the fact that he, as tsar, had followed Romanos’ I procedure in doing so”. See also, Krsmanović, “O odnosu upravne i crkvene organizacije na području

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We can understand the context of this passage only if we treat it as Basil’s ideological construct aimed at artificially integrating the territories of the former Samuel’s Church and the former Bulgarian patriarchate within the Ohrid archbishopric. Their formal placement under the common Byzantine ideological concept, according to Basil’s sigillia, was done “not without blood, efforts and sweat”. As a result, “that country was granted in subordination to us by God, whose goodness clearly helped us, blending into one the divided parts and putting under one yoke the boundaries, without in any way infringing the rules well established by those reigning before us”.13 What Basil II aspired to demonstrate, is that by inclusion of additional territories under the jurisdiction of Ohrid Archbishopric, he was integrating the divided parts of the former empires under one Byzantine yoke. This ideological concept, as well as different character of the first and the second sigillion, indicate that Basil II actually considered Samuel’s Empire to have been different from the former Bulgarian Empire. His duty as God’s representative was to unite the conquered territory by integrating the ecclesiastical boundaries under his direct authority and at the same time maintaining the rules from his predecessors. This interpretation Ohridske arhiepiskopije,” 33–35. For the alternative view that the church organization created within Samuel’s State based in Prespa and Ohrid was completely independent from the Bulgarian church traditions and was recognized as such by the Roman Papacy, see Antoljak, “Ohridskata arhiepiskopija vo vreme na vladeenjeto na carevite Samuil i Vasilij II,” 35–49; Antoljak, Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. I, 507–517. The same opinion is maintained by B. Panov, Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. III, 726; B. Panov, Makedonija niz istorijata, 79. See also, Jovan Belčovski, Ohridskata arhiepiskopija od osnovanjeto do pagjanjeto na Makedonija pod turska vlast (Skopje: Kultura, 1997), 77–89. Most recently Angeliki Delikari, “Die Situation im Nord-West Makedonien während der Regierung des Basileos II., die sogennante Kirche des Zaren Samuel und die Gründung des Erzbistums von Ohrid,” in Evropeiskiiat Iugoistok prez vtorata polovina na X – nachaloto na XI vek: Istoriia i kultura, Mezhdunarodna konferentsiia Sofia, 6–8 Oktomvri, 2014, ed. Vasil Giuzelev, Georgi N. Nikolov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 2015), 236–243, observes that Samuel maintained the existing church organization in Macedonia, which was during his reign most probably under the jurisdiction of the Roman church. She argues that the Archbishopric of Ohrid was established by Basil II in 1018 while the title Archbishop of Bulgaria, actually “corresponded to the name of the Byzantine theme of Bulgaria and had no connection with the Bulgarian church itself”. Hence, her conclusion that Ohrid Archbishopric was neither a continuator of the Bulgarian church, nor it continued the Church of the ephemeral Samuel’s state (A.  Delikari, H Arhiepiskopi Ahridon kata ton Mesaiona (Thessaloniki: University studio press, 2014), 75–103. What can be deduced from the sources with certainty is that Tzimiskes officially abolished the Bulgarian patriarchate in 971 and that the subsequent accounts of the Byzantine authors refer only to the Church within Samuel’s state having a status of an Archbishopric. The supposed consecutive transfer of the Bulgarian Patriarchs into the unconquered territory was actually the Byzantine ideological construct that was propagated after the subjugation of Samuel’s state. 13  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 44; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini iz Makedoniia, 555–556.

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provides further insight into the reason why Basil presented himself as granting the “Archbishop of Bulgaria” a diocese as large as “that under Emperor Peter”, by which he would “possess and govern all the bishoprics of Bulgaria”. Hence, the new name “Bulgaria” given to Samuel’s Church – Ohrid Archbishopric only served Basil’s ideological propaganda. The designation “Bulgaria” for the territory under the jurisdiction of the Ohrid Archbishopric gained by war against Samuel’s State, complemented Basil’s ideological construct aimed at creating a notion of continuity of Byzantine superiority. Significantly, the second sigillium refers to Peter by the title of Emperor, which is not the case with Samuel. That this omission was deliberate is attested by the first sigillia where Samuel was mentioned only by name without the formal title. Evidently, noting Peter’s formal title emanated from the legitimacy obtained from the Byzantine emperors, who had also the right to abolish it, as Tzimiskes triumphantly did in 971. On the other hand, Samuel was treated differently, as he was mentioned without any title. He and his state were evidently perceived as illegitimate and incompatible with the ideological concept of the “hierarchy of the states” where the Byzantine emperor ruled as God’s representative.14 In other words, the Byzantine political and ecclesiastical establishment, as far as we know, did not have any role in the official legitimization of Samuel’s title. It is easy to detect the reasons, since Samuel did not ask for the legitimization of his title, nor was offered to him. This conclusion is supported by Skylitzes’ description of Basil’s celebration in Constantinople after the subjugation of Samuel’s State. It was completely different from Tzimiskes’ triumphal celebration of the victory over the Bulgarians in 971. Skylitzes presented an image of Basil “entering through the great doors of the Golden Gate and crowned with a crested golden diadem celebrated triumph preceded by Maria, wife of Vladislav, and the daughters of Samuel … Thus he came, joyful and triumphant, and entered the Great Church where he sang hymns of thanksgiving to God then went his way to the palace”.15 There is no mention of any military spoils or imperial regalia regained since they were not granted by the Byzantine emperor to Samuel and thus were considered as illegitimate. Skylitzes also did not mention the presence of Ohrid Archbishop in the procession, whom Michael of Devol latter included in his additions to the text. Only Basil’s golden imperial crown was highlighted, symbolizing imperial superiority and prestige. The military spoils were symbolically left in Samuel’s 14  For the imperial concept of the Emperor of Byzantium as uncontested ruler in the hierarchy of states, see Ostrogorsky, “The Byzantine emperor and the hierarchical world order,” 1–14. Stephenson, Byzantium ‘s Balkan frontier, 34–38, further elaborates this ideological concept with the mission of the Byzantine emperor to extend the order taxis to nonByzantine world where ataxia ruled. 15  Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, 344; tr. Wortley, 344–345.

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heartland, with his Ohrid fortress razed and left in ruins as a reminder of Basil’s victory.16 Basil II, however, did recognize Samuel’s leading position in regards to the Ohrid Archbishopric, whom he mentioned to reaffirm the previous privileges of his Church. This would imply that the Byzantine emperor actually followed the practice established by Samuel of appointing archbishops, from where he also drew the autocephalous status of the Ohrid Archbishopric in relation to the Constantinopolitan Patriarch. This further supports our argument that Basil did not in fact reduce the status of Samuel’s Church from a patriarchate to an archbishopric, as scholars traditionally believe. Rather, it was Basil who created this false impression with his sigillia. What he actually did with the first sigillium was regulating the status of the Ohrid Archbishopric, which was established and organized by Samuel, at the same time reaffirming its independence from Constantinople under his auspice. With the second sigillium he expanded the Archbishopric’s jurisdiction that included the old Bulgarian lands. To use Basil’s rhetoric, he was ideologically blending the divided territories into one yoke, bringing order and continuity of imperial superiority, which was affected by the independent existence of Samuel’s polity and Church. In order to complete the constructed continuity of the Byzantine political and ideological dominance with respect to the Samuel’s Church, Basil II with the second sigillium created a fictitious notion that “archbishops had moved from one place to another” following the death of Emperor Peter. The allusion of artificial continuity of Byzantine ideological superiority was achieved by presenting the alleged consecutive transfers of the archbishops from Dristra to Triaditsa (Serdica), Vodena, Moglena, after which Basil stated that he “found the present Archbishop in Ohrid”.17 To reinforce this impression Basil accentuated the ascendancy of the Archbishopric of Ohrid over the bishopric in Dristra, decreeing that “Ohrid itself shall have an archbishop, while another bishop shall be consecrated for Dristra”. The fact that Prespa, as the first capital of Samuel’s State and the seat of Samuel’s Church, did not appear among the cities to which the archbishops were allegedly transferred, further demonstrates the consistency of the Byzantine ideological construct contained in the sigillium. Basil’s objective to mark the Byzantine territory under the jurisdiction of Ohrid Archbishopric, designated as “Bulgaria”, was expressed in his further statement that the archbishop shall 16  Continuator of Skylitzes noted that the fortifications at Ohrid were still in ruins in 1072, Ioann Scylitzes Continuatus, He Synecheia tes Chronographias tou Ioannou Skylitze, ed. Eudoxos T. Tsolakes (Thessaloniki: Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon, 1968), 164. 17  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 43–44; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini, 560–561.

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… possess not only those bishoprics mentioned by name but, if there be others situated in Bulgarian lands and not mentioned through oversight, we decree that he shall possess and govern them as well. Whatever other towns were omitted in the charters of our Majesty, these shall be possessed by the same Archbishop and he shall collect kanonikon from them all as well as from the Vlachs throughout Bulgaria and from the Turks around the Vardar river insofar as they are within the Bulgarian boundaries.18 The third sigillium, by which Basil II decreed the bishops from Servia, Stagoi and Veroia (Berrhoea) to be included in the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, with the explanation that “they, too, lie within the Bulgarian boundaries”,19 was the logical completion of the territorial demarcation of the ideological dominance by the constructed meaning of the name “Bulgaria” given to Ohrid Archbishopric. The terminology was predetermined by Byzantium’s tendency to create an illusion of continuity of the ideological superiority, that derived from the dethronement of the Bulgarian Emperor Boris II and the Bulgarian patriarch in 971. This can further clarify why it was important for Byzantium to construct the continuity with Samuel’s State by inventing the alleged consecutive transfers of the dethroned Bulgarian patriarch from Dristra to Ohrid, at the same time projecting the territorial jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Ohrid to include “that under Tsar Peter”. What is more, for the purpose of creating the fictive continuity, Basil  II entitled the Bulgarian patriarchate as archbishopric, emphasising that during the reign of Peter it “glowed with archbishopric dignity”. He used the territorial principle to demarcate ecclesiastical jurisdiction, giving an impression of continuity of traditions and thus of Byzantine ideological supremacy, by using the terminology. Basil’s aim was to demonstrate that in restoring Byzantine political and ecclesiastical authority, he was actually re-establishing order and continuity of the ideological supremacy from his predecessors. Order was achieved through the conquest of Samuel’s State, which had illegally emerged from the “apostasy” against the Byzantine emperors when Samuel’s Church was established and existed without the blessing of Byzantium. Hence, with Basil’s sigillia the status of Ohrid archbishopric was not only described, but it was also acquired and presented as belonging to Byzantium. The constructed notion contained in Basil’s siglillia, turned into an issue of imposed identity and invention of the traditions as regards to Samuel’s State 18  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 46; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini, 561–562. 19  Gelzer, “Ungedruckte,” 46; Ivanov, Bălgarski starini, 561–562.

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and the Church, since the ecclesiastical name “Bulgaria” proved to be more durable than the administrative organization and even than Byzantium itself. The evident tendency of denying the contemporary identity of the inhabitants of the former political entities in the restored Balkan territories, by marking the Byzantine geographical ownership, was also manifested with the application of the classical terms that provided advantages for imperial propaganda.20 As we have seen, this was already the practice of Byzantine contemporaries during Samuel’s lifetime. However, after 1018 the classical terms “Mysia” or “Mysians” were exploited to designate the old Bulgarian lands around Pliska, Preslav and the Danube basin, mirroring the former Roman province of the same name. This same practice was applied to the restored territory of medieval Duklja, which was generally identified with the terms “Dalmatia” and “Dalmatians” that used to denote the Roman province of Dalmatia.21 Paul Stephenson remarked that following Basil’s reconquests in the Balkans, Byzantine authors usually called Bulgarians by the name of an ancient subject people by which “they were not merely described, they were acquired”. Hence his conclusion that “the polity which dominated the northern Balkans for three centuries preceding Basil II’s reconquest was denied a contemporary identity; its distinct origins and development were masked by a rigid framework of representation”.22 Although trying to deconstruct the Byzantine terminological distortion, Stephenson failed to notice that the classical terminology used by Byzantine contemporaries to identify Samuel’s State was replaced after 1018 with the administrative and ecclesiastical names “Bulgaria” and “Bulgarians”. Furthermore, with these new designations the territory of former Samuel’s State was distinguished from the old Bulgarian lands. Since Byzantium denied a contemporary identity of the inhabitants of the former polities with the use of terminology, that would mean that the same was applied to Samuel’s State with the designation “Bulgaria”. The name of former Roman province “Macedonia” was not applicable since it was already used to 20  Stephenson, “Byzantine conceptions of otherness,” 255–257. Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 17–18, argues that for all Byzantine authors, from Procopius to Niketas Choniates, the degree for one to be considered a barbarian was proportionate to one’s nature, i.e. being born outside the Empire, which led them to use ancient names in the authentic accounts for identifying the contemporary peoples. Kaldellis, Ethnography after antiquity, 112–115 argue that the terms that the Byzantine used for Balkan groups, especially in the twelfth century “projected an ideology not so much of moral and political classification as of geographical ownership, that is, in relation to the former provinces and conquests of the Roman empire”. 21  Stephenson, “Byzantine conceptions of otherness,” 255–257. 22  Stephenson, “Byzantine conceptions of otherness,” 255–256. See also, Kaldellis, Ethnography after antiquity, 112–115.

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designate the Byzantine theme and the imperial dynasty itself. Such distorted terminological usage evidently corresponded with Byzantine ideological propaganda in the Balkans implemented by Basil II through the Archbishopric of Ohrid. Evidently, the names “Bulgaria” and Bulgarians” introduced after 1018 as designations for the territory encompassing the Byzantine theme and Ohrid Archbishopric, did not have an ethnic meaning. Although some scholars acknowledge this, they follow the traditional notion that this designation actually derived from the name of Samuel’s State, treating it stereotypically as a continuation of the Bulgarian Empire.23 The analysis of the sources however shows that after 1018 the terms “Bulgaria” and “Bulgarians” began to be used for demarcating the Byzantine’s administrative and ecclesiastical authority over the territory of the former Samuel’s State, complementing the ideological propaganda. The naming of the Ohrid Archbishopric and the Byzantine theme as “Bulgaria” was deliberately used to construct the perception of uninterrupted Byzantine ideological dominance during the existence of Samuel’s 23  Margarett Mullet, Theophylact of Ochrid. Reading the Letters of a Byzantine Archbishop, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 2 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 54 notes that Byzantine writers after 1018 used the term Bulgarian in different senses, meaning the area of Samuel’s Empire, Archbishopric of Ohrid, the theme of Bulgaria, or simply the vast area inhabited by Bulgars. However, she remarks that Bulgaria described by Theophylaktos, was a different entity related to the “area of Macedonia in its widest sense with the addition of Albania” with its heartland encompassing the mountain lakes of Ohrid and Prespa, which corresponded with the core of Samuel’s Empire (Mullet, Theophylact of Ochrid, 55–56). Stephenson, Byzantium’s Balkan frontier, 77–79, argues that after 1018, the usual Byzantine application of the term “Bulgaria,” was to the “lands around Ohrid, Prespa and Skopje, recreated as an administrative and military district, and not to those around Preslav and Pliska, nor yet Dristra and Presthlavitza”. He further clarifies that what is certain is that the use of the ethnonym “Bulgarian” and the toponym “Bulgaria” in the medieval sources does not correspond with the modern usage. That the ethnonym “Bulgaria” had a political and not ethnic meaning is maintained by Alexandru Madgearu, “Centrifugal movements in the Balkans in the 11th  century,” Études Byzantines et PostByzantines 5 (2006), 217. Predrag Komatina, “Pojam Bugarske u XI i XII veku i teritorija Ohridske arhiepiskopije,” in Vizantijski svet na Balkanu, ed. Bojana Krsmanović, Ljubomir Maksimović, Radivoje Radić (Beograd: Vizantološki institut Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti, 2012), 41–56, argues that the term Bulgaria corresponded with the land and the people under the jurisdiction of Archbishopric of Bulgaria, which preserved the name and tradition of Samuel’s State and the First Bulgarian Empire. According to Komatina, this Bulgaria was inhabited by Slavs and should be treated as a “separate geographical and historical entity,” which was later divided between Serbia and the new Bulgarian empire of Tarnovo. B. Panov, Srednovekovna Makedonija, vol. III, 7–30; B. Panov, Srednovekovna Makedonija, III, 82, argues that the term “Bulgarians” was a designation for all the subjects of the former Bulgarian Empire, regardless of their ethnicity, which was automatically applied by Byzantine writers as a reference to Samuel’s State and its inhabitants.

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State. These terms by the end of 11th century turned into projected identity labels for Samuel’s State itself, which misled subsequent Byzantine and medieval authors, as well as modern scholars. Through the terminology that was established with the Basil’s administrative and ecclesiastical reorganization in the Balkans, the Byzantines from the late 11th century started to imagine a continuity of Samuel’s State with the former Bulgarian Empire. There is no attestation whatsoever that this state and ecclesiastical continuity existed in reality, nor that Samuel ever referred to this tradition in legitimizing his position as emperor, as scholars traditionally believe. This imaginary continuity only existed in the plans of the people around Basil II, who were aspiring to bring Samuel’s State into the Byzantine ideological concept by inventing the traditions. If this ideological construct is excluded, the impression remains that Samuel created his own state and church traditions. The state core established in Prespa and Ohrid areas provided the basis of Samuel’s political and ideological program, by which he demonstrated the independence both from Byzantium and from the former Bulgarian Empire. Additional insight provides the content of Basil’s epitaph, cited at the beginning of this chapter, where the enemies coming from the Samuel’s Empire were designated as “Scythians”. Basil II’s epitaph contained the eternal message and reference to the achievements for which the emperor was to be remembered. The fact that Basil II himself chose the Hebdomon Palace outside of the walls of Constantinople to be the site for his tomb instead of the traditional Mausoleum of Constantine the Great at the Church of Holy Apostles, illustrates his intention to present himself as a tireless general and an eternal protector of Constantinople and the Empire. In addition, the inscription contains an ideological message about the mission given to him by Christ himself which he had successfully accomplished.24 Thus, the term “Scythians” in Basil’s epitaph as a designation of his victories against Samuel’s army, provides additional argument that the term “Bulgaria” was a well-designed construct used for ideological propaganda, which in time became a projected name for the Samuel’s State itself. This ideological conception is also reflected in Basil II’s edict issued towards the end of his reign, stating that “among the many and great benefits which God has lavished upon Our Majesty … the one preferred above all else is that there should be addition to the Roman empire”.25 That was 24  Paul Stephenson, “The tomb of Basil II,” in Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie. Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, Mainzer Veröffentlichungen zur Byzantinistik 7, ed. Lars M. Hoffmann (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 227–238. 25  Joannes Zepos and Panagiotis Zepos, Jus graecoromanum, vol. 1 (Athens: Fexis, 1931), 272; Stephenson, “Byzantine conceptions of otherness,” 255.

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exactly what Basil aspired to present with his sigillia, demonstrating that with the incorporation of the Samuel’s State he brought order and continuity of the Byzantine ideological superiority and imperial prestige. This impression further substantiates the argument that the name “Bulgaria” and “Bulgarians” introduced with Basil II’s administrative and ecclesiastical reorganization in ca. 1020 had the purpose of constructing the fictive continuity of Byzantine supremacy over territory which was once the core of Samuel’s State. Basil’s epitaph clearly reveals that the emperor wanted to be remembered as victor over the “Scythians”, not over the “Bulgarians”, nor the “Mysians”. This additionally shows that Samuel’s State was not designated as “Bulgaria” during its existence, which applies also to its subjects. It was only named as such by Byzantium as a result of the administrative and ecclesiastical rearrangement after 1018. The fact that Byzantine authors and contemporaries of Samuel consistently applied classical terms to describe Samuel’s State further advances this conclusion. The ideological concept developed for the Ohrid Archbishopric and the politics behind its naming, so skilfully elaborated by the elite in Constantinople, influenced future generations of Byzantine authors in their usage of the constructed meaning of the names “Bulgaria” and “Bulgarians” when recalling the memory of Basil’s war with Samuel’s Empire. This also applies to the Eastern and Western authors, who were compiling their works after the annihilation of Samuel’s State, conjecturing in great deal the Byzantine ideological conception. Yahya of Antioch, in his History that covers the years 937–1034, presented his own conjectures of the Byzantine ideology that was propagated after the subjugation of Samuel’s Empire. This can explain the rather confused Yayha’s narrative who mistakenly identified Samuel with the Bulgarian Emperor Peter, differentiating him from the real Samuel whom he named “Cometopoulos” and described as Samuel’s “servant” (ghoulam).26 Following Byzantine ideological propaganda circulated after the annexation of Samuel’s State, Yahya presented “Cometopoulos servant of Samuel” as illegitimate emperor. He also wrongly presented Aaron as murderer of Cometopoulos and even justified this act as legitimate. The comparison with Step῾anos of Taron’s narration where Cometopouloi were presented as rebels against Basil II, reveals that both eastern authors were conjecturing the persons and events through the ideological perspective of their Byzantine sources. The further narration on Basil’s subjugation of Samuel’s Empire substantiates this impression. Presenting it as the “way the kingdom of Bulgaria was annexed to the empire of rūm”, Yahya emphasized that Basil II “married Roman sons to Bulgarian daughters and 26   Histoire de Yahya Ibn-Sa’id d’Antioche, fasc. 2, 418–419.

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Bulgarian sons to Roman daughters; in uniting one with the other he brought to an end the ancient animosity which had existed between them”.27 This account undoubtedly reflects the ideological propaganda, which was circulated by Byzantium after 1018, that included the constructed terminology. Yahya, being in Antioch then conveyed it in accordance with his own perception, understanding and audience. The same applies to the French Chronicler, Ademar of Chabannes (d. 1034), who was the first western author to mention Samuel by name. Ademar referred to Basil’s victory over the “kings of the Bulgarians Samuel and Aaron”, ascribing their simultaneous death to “Greek cunning (astucia)” and not to open military confrontation.28 He felt it necessary to add that Basil II wore monastic clothes under his secular garments, which was in line with emperor’s vows given before God in return for his victory. These details imply that Ademar most probably used a source of Byzantine provenance. However, his inaccurate account of the alleged continuous co-rule of Samuel and Aaron until the very end of the state shows that the original account was distorted while transmitting from Byzantium to the West. Ademar’s desire to minimise Basil’s victory by attributing it to the famous “Greek cunning” and not as a military triumph, also reveals his intention to reinterpret the events from his own perspective.29 This can explain why Ademar made sure to describe the brutal measures taken by Basil ΙΙ after the annihilation of Samuel’s Empire which, besides “taking most of the Bulgarian people into captivity”, also included devastation of the strongest cities and fortresses. For a monk like Ademar, mentioning the seemingly insignificant detail that Basil II abstained from intercourse and meat, at the same time concealing his monastic clothes underneath the secular garments, was in fact an expression of criticism for the hypocrisy of the Byzantine emperor who thus concealed that it was actually God who should have been credited with the victory.30 This was Ademar’s response to the Byzantine propaganda behind the spreading Basil’s triumphant image in the West.

27   Histoire de Yahya Ibn-Sa’id d’Antioche, fasc. 3, ed. Ignace Kratchkovsky, tr. Françoise Micheau and Gérard Tropeau, Patrologia Orientalis 47/4, 212 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), 406–7. English translation by Stephenson, Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, 36. 28   Ademari Cabannensis opera omnia, I, ed. Pascale Bourgain, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 129 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 154–5. Bulgarian translation by Strashimir Lishev, in Fontes Latini Historiae Bulgaricae, II, ed. Ivan Duichev, Mihail Voinov, Strashimir Lishev, Borislav Primov (Sofia: Bălgarska Akademiia na naukite, 1960), 353–354. See also, Tăpkova-Zaimova, Bălgari rodom, 143. 29  Ademar, Opera omnia, 154–5. 30  Ademar, Opera omnia, 154–5.

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Turning again to Byzantium, it took a period of more than half a century for Samuel to be again mentioned in the context of the Basil’s wars. This time the motive came as a result of the rebellions against Byzantium that took place in the 1040’s and 1070’s. The territory of Macedonia, as the heartland of the former Samuel’s State, became centre of the military operations aimed at re-­ establishing the former polity. The tendency of the leaders and the rebels to evoke traditions from Samuel’s State, inevitably incited Byzantine response with recalling the Basil’s victory over Samuel. Symbolically, the first Byzantine author who narrated these events was Michael Psellos, who was born in Constantinople the same year as Basil II conquered Samuel’s State. He obtained high positions at the imperial court in the 1040’s and later became a monk, representing Byzantine political and ideological views of the time. In the first chapter of his Chronographia devoted to the reign of Basil II, probably written in the beginning of 1060’s, Psellos did not mention specifically Samuel, but used the general terms “Scythians” and “barbarians” to refer to Basil’s great victories against the enemies. He presented Basil II as exterminating the “barbarians and subjugating them completely”,31 filling up the imperial treasury with everything that was stored in the treasures of the “Iberians and Arabians, as well as the Celts and everything which was found in the lands of the Scythians; and to say in short the riches of the surrounding barbarians”.32 Psellos once more referred to Basil’s wars in the chapter devoted to the emperor Michael IV (1034–1041), as an introduction to anti-Byzantine rebellion of the “barbarians” in 1040/41, led by Peter Deljan. However, Psellos clearly avoided designating the identity of Basil’s enemies: The people (genos), after many vicissitudes of fortune and after frequent battles in the past, had become part of the territory (epikrateia) ruled by Romans. That prince of emperors, the famous Basil, had deliberately attacked their country and destroyed their power. For some time they, being completely exhausted after pitting their strength against the might of the Romans, resigned themselves to defeat, but later they reverted to their old arrogance …33 31  Michaelis Pselli Chronographia, ed. Diether Roderich Reinsch, vol. 1, Millennium-Studien 51/1–2 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2014), 1.30 (pp. 18–19). 32  Psellos, Chronographia, 1.31, ed. Reinsch, 19–20. 33  Psellos, Chronographia, 4.39, ed. Reinsch, 70–71. It is interesting that the critical editions made by Konstantinos Sathas in his edition Michael Psellou, Hekatontaeteris Vyzantines historias (976‒1077), Mesaionike Bibliotheke, IV (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1874) and in Constantine Sathas, The History of Psellus, edited with critical notes and indices (London: Methuen & co., 1899), contains interpolations of the names “Bulgarians” and

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Psellos’ first reference to Samuel was not related to Basil’s wars, but to the tendency of the leaders of the rebellion, Deljan and Alusian, to present themselves as descendants of the “famous Samuel and his brother Aaron” in legitimizing their agenda for re-establishing Samuel’s State. This time again Psellos took a cautious approach, avoiding ethnically characterizing the traditions evoked by Deljan or Alusian, noting vaguely that Samuel and Aaron “recently reigned and ruled over the people”.34 Psellos further referenced Aaron as emperor “to the same people”,35 therefore consistently refraining from revealing the identity of the people that were once subjects to Samuel’s State. From Psellos’ legalist perspective, it is understandable why he opted to use classical designation for Basil’s enemies coming from Samuel’s State, at the same time making a distinction from the terminology that was established in his own time. The term “Scythian” was also applied by Psellos in the extant epitaph of Eirene Pegonitissa, the wife of the caesar John Doukas, the brother of the emperor Constantine  X Doukas (1059–1067). In the epitaph he mentioned the war of “Basil the Macedonian” with the “leader of the Scythians, Aaron”.36 The complex term “Scythian autonomy” was used by Psellos in the oration to the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–1055), and that could also apply to the territory of the former Samuel’s State.37 Following the same ideological concept, Psellos in his Enkomion for Ioannes [Mauropous] the Metropolitan of Euchaita, highlighted that bishop Leon was then sent out, to “those formerly nomadic Scythians, later called Bulgarians … and he turned that entire ethnos

“Mysians”: “τὸ γὰρ δὴ γένος