Second Bulgarian State

Some thoughts about the cuman origin.

 

1)Regarding their relligon:
The bulgarian patriarch St. Evtimious, wrote that when Asen/Assen/Asyan was crowned and baptised, he gained the name of Joan a.k.a Joan-Asen I. If this is true, we can presume that he and his brothers are first generation of christians, and we can surely say, that they are not part of the last royal dynasty.

 

2)Regarding their names:
Their names Belgun and Asyan are clearly turkic. There are many cuman leaders wearing
variations of Asen's name in the 11-12 century. The name origins from the turkic Assena/Ashina a.k.a wolf, and we all know what part did the wolf played in the turkic mythology and relligion.
The wlachian rulers north of the Danube have names such as: Vlad, Mircho, Radu - we can't
find such names south of the river. We don't have information about their parents, but there is a document in which we can find some information about their gradfather the "schytian" Boril, we can also find a clear turkic trace in the origin of his name.

We have documents for some clarly barbaric acts of Kalo/Joan. Peter the Monk writes, that he made a drinking cup from the skull an enemy ruler*.
*
can't remember which latin king that was :)

 

'Thus, taking this into account, we have decided since long, through our envoy or our letters, that we should pay a visit to your lordship, so that, realizing your faith to the Roman Church, your Mother, we might then send you, who say that you are a descendent of the Noble kin of the Romans…, As he (God the Father) will help you to be a Roman in this worldly life and for your Eternal Salvation by your own striving, the same as you are by your descent; and he shall help the people of your country which say that they are the Romans, blood and flesh'

 

So why do they in Rome have the impression he is of "Roman blood and flesh"? I'm not denying there may be a Cumanic/Bulgar admixture but to deny the Roman(Vlach) side is silly.

 

One of the quotes states 1167 actually. Need more? Here you go:

 

Archaeological digs throughout Transylvania and Romania have discovered many clay pots dating from the IV, V, VI, and VII centuries. What makes these pots particularly interesting is that they were made using the potter's wheel, an invention which no migratory people had when the came through Romania. The only population which could have produced these pots is one which had sufficient contact with the Roman and Hellenic world to adopt this style of making pots. We know the Slavs did not adopt this style until much later because pots made without the use of the potter's wheel are also found throughout Romania during this time.

 

Vasile Parvan discovered two documents in Transylvania dating from the IV century which mentions a Goth "king" who referred to himself as "jude" over his populace, an administrative title preserved also by the Romanian principalities in the Middle Ages. This king chose the title because it must have had some significance to the people he presided over, otherwise there would have been no point in using it as opposed to some proto-Germanic word like "Herzog." Since this title was only relevant to Romanians, it is clear that this king must have presided over the proto-Romanians

 

The chronicle Oguzname, the oldest Turkish chronicle in existence, mentioning a warlike expedition of the Cumans, affirms the existence of a “Country of the Vlachs” east of the Carpathians in 839, affirming that the region was well organized and with a powerful army

 

The Romanian batran, meaning “old”, is significant as it does not derive from the Latin equivalent “vetus” (in Italian, Vecchio, in French, Vieux etc.); instead it derives from the latin word veteranus, referring to a Roman Legionary after he is released from military duty. The reason for this is because of the procedures of Roman colonization. When a village was Romanized, the veterans of the Roman Legion had an important role; because military service was long (twenty-five years), a large part of these Roman legionaries were married, the wives and children having to live nearby the military camps, named canabae. Since many of the legions and auxillary troops of Rome were to maintain their position permanently in Dacia, it is evident that many of the wives of the soldiers would be indigenous, Dacian. At their release from military service, the legionary was named veteranus, and he would obtain (if he did not have it before) the right to citizenship for himself and his entire family, as well as a piece of land to cultivate. The children of the veterans and the Dacian women were Roman citizens and spoke Latin, but the majority would have known Dacian, their maternal tongue. The children of these children, the grandchildren of the veterans, would be totally Romanized. In two, maximum three generations, the followers of these mixed marriages forgot their indigenous language. Thus the number of veterans in Dacia would have been considerably large, which is why an elder is referred to through exactly this word, batran, derived from veteranus, having been modified through Romanian phonetics. In essence, the system of veteranus would be critical in the Romanization of Dacia, as elderly vetarans, who had now gained rights to property, would have no reason to leave what they had worked for over 25 years to attain. The case here is not about a single wave of veterans under Trajan, but for a continuous series of settlements of veterans which wanted to remain in Dacia

 

Ernst Gamillschag has attested that the Romanians have preserved the Thracian word for the Danube, “Donaris/Donare” which means “The big river” even though the Albanians and Aromanians use the Turkish word “Duna.” He writes “The old name for the river would have disappeared from the Daco-Roman vocabulary had they only returned to their old homeland centuries after they left. The name “Donaris” was borrowed by the Romans who mixed with the Dacians, and this word has been well preserved.”

 

Romanization could not have been possible South of the Jirecek Line, which runs through Bulgaria, Serbia, and the upper part of Albania, as that region was historically Hellenized, whereas only regions to the North of this line were Romanized (this due to the strong standing of Hellenic culture South of this line). The formation of the Romanian people South of this line (in modern Albania) is nigh impossible.

 

The survival of the Romanians North of the Danube is not surprising especially when we consider another example of such survival, in Wales. When the Romans left Britain, a certain portion of the Roman population was resettled at Brittany in France, but some remained. These people became known as the Welsh, which is a Germanic word for Latin-speakers, and is also the root-word for the term “Vlach”. When we consider the current geographical region of Wales, we find them behind the only mountains in Roman-occupied Britain, where Roman culture was still preserved (though with extremely strong Celtic influences). These mountains acted as an effective shield against the Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Picts, Angles, and other barbarians which ravaged the country. When we consider the topographical realities of Transylvania, it is impossible to assume that no trace of Roman civilization could have survived there while it did in Britain. The Carpathians at Transylvania dwarf the Welsh mountains, and Transylvania also has the advantage of having dense forests, and a very hilly topography. Some historians (both in antiquity and modern times) have described it as looking like a natural fortress. Nomadic barbarians preferred to move through flat plains, where they could benefit from the agility of their horses, which is proven in the way that the Huns, Avars, and Gepids, all choosing to go around the Carpathians into the Pannonian plain through Slovakia, where the mountains are lower, and then possibly swinging around into Transylvania (though their penetration in this region can not be attested as significant).

 

Nicetas Choniates tells us that as Andronic Comnenos was heading towards the Cneazate of Hailici in 1164, but was captured by Vlachs along the way. It’s important to note that at the time the Byzantine Empire controlled all the territory up to the Danube Delta (as the Empire of Vlachs and Bulgars was only founded in 1185), including Dobruja, and the state of Hailici controlled most of the Medieval state of Moldova. This leaves only Southern Moldova and Eastern Wallachia as the location of this kidnapping.

 

The Byzantine historian I. Kynnamos writes that Leon Vatatzes, in preparing for an attack on the Magyars, mobilized many Romanians from the coastline of the Pontus Euxinus. He then also writes of Romanians from the north of Danube taking part, alongside the Imperial commander Leon Vatatzes, in the campaign, in the year of 1167, adding his remark about the Vlachs (Romanians): "it is said they are colonists arrived a long time ago from Italy."

 

Antonius Bonfinius wrote: “Because the Romanians are descendants of the Romans, a fact that even today is attested by their language, a language that, even though they are surrounded by diverse barbarian peoples, could not be destroyed.... even if all kinds of barbarian attacks flooded over the province of Dacia and the Roman people, we can see that the Roman colonies and legions that had been established there could not be annihilated”

 

A biographer of the Roman Emperor Aurelian, in reference to the withdrawal from Dacia, writes: “The whole population which lived near military camps, the families of military men, veterans who had retired in the region, and merchants followed the army to the right side of the Danube. However, a large number of settlers who had lived there for a long time and maintained good relations with the Goths did not have a single reason to evacuate the province. In this sense, a complete withdrawal of Dacia could not be possible without a new war, as the Goths would not have allowed these settlers to leave.”

 

Persian Gardizi (end of 11th century) speaks about a Christian Latinate people situated between Russians, Bulgarians and Hungarians: "They are all Christians… they are more numerous than the Hungarians"

 

 

 

Nestor's Chronicle, (1097-1110), relating events from 862 to 1110, mentions Wallachians attacking and subduing the Slavs north of Danube and settling among them

 

The Byzantine Emperor Constantine the 7th Porphyrogenetes (912 - 959) writes at the middle of 10th century "De cerimoniis", "De thematibus" and "De administrando imperio". Dealing briefly with the settlement of the Slavs in Balkans and with the events triggered by this, Constantine the 7th speaks in his last work about the Romanian population, calling them Romans (!): "They are called Romans and they have preserved this name to the present times";

 

 

Among the many Islamic documents about the oriental and south-eastern Europe there is this Persian geographer Gardizi's treatise entitled "The Jewel of Histories", written during 1049-1053 (according to A. Decei) or in 1094 (according to V. Minorsky). Gardizi, describing the ethnical and political reality of Eastern Europe, mentions "a nation from the Roman Empire (az Rum); and they are all Christians (...) and they are more in number than the Magyars..." (see V. Minorsky, "Hudud al Alam", London, 1938, Gibb Memorial Series).

 

One century after Kekaumenos, another chronicler, Kynnamos, depicts Romanians from the north of Danube taking part, alongside the Imperial commander Leon Vatatzes, in a campaign against the Magyars, in the year of 1167, adding his remark about the Vlachs (Romanians): "it is said they are colonists arrived a long time ago from Italy" (in original: "qui Italorum coloni quondam fuisse perhibentur"). See also Ioannes Cinnamus, "Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum", VI, ed. Bonn, p. 260.

 

Pomponio Leto in the 15th century wrote „Dacia is a province which extendes in both directions over the Danube, which today is called Volochia and is ihabited by Volohs. It is an Italian land, ever since the Dacians speak Italian.”

 

Laonikos Chalkokondyles, a Byzantine writer, came to the conclusion in the 15th century came to the conclusion, after interacting with Vlachs from the Pindus mountains, that the Dacians spoke „a broken Italian.” This is of course the wrong conclusion, but it shows educated men generally regarded the Vlachs as Romanized Dacians

 

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The coins clearly showed a population that saw themselves under the sphere of the Romans and made coins to match the Emperors in power.

 

Roman and Byzantine are the same thing. The term Byzantine didn't come into use after the Roman Empire lost Constantinople.

When did the Bulgarians rule Romania? Even if the 2nd Vlach-Bulgarian empire was purely Bulgarian they only would have "Wallachia" which is roughly at most 1/3rd of all of Romania.

 

Magyars ruled Transilvania and in minority. The Romanians had always been the majority and the Magyars always took populations outside their boarders and absorbed them via Magyarization.

 

When did the Tatars ever rule Romania? This is just silly.

 

You can't see how a group of people can preserve their Roman blood? Well it seems none of those people in the past had such a problem. Perhaps opinions change now a days do to political issues no?

 

Heard? Now we are playing semantics?

 

So i showed you how.

 

Tatars are still today in northern dobrogea but weren't ever a majority.

 

I didn't say they were ethnically pure. No people can claim that. You probably have Romanian relatives somewhere in your blood line and me Bulgarian, and both of us Greek etc.

 

But your notion that nobody considered us Romans and we never considered ourselves Romans until the 18th century is silly. Why would we ever stop? What did we consider ourselves in the "inbetween phase"?

 

I read the letter of the pope in latin and i'm not seeing a "heard". Nothing similar to aud (audio) or anything like that. Maybe it's late and I am missing it. In any case why disregard the pope's words which is no worse of a source then anything else. He's never claimed a Cumanic origin has he? Personally I think his blood line is part of the Cumanic ruling class, but was mostly Romanian with Bulgarian mixture.

 

Archaeological digs throughout Transylvania and Romania have discovered many clay pots dating from the IV, V, VI, and VII centuries. What makes these pots particularly interesting is that they were made using the potter's wheel, an invention which no migratory people had when the came through Romania. The only population which could have produced these pots is one which had sufficient contact with the Roman and Hellenic world to adopt this style of making pots. We know the Slavs did not adopt this style until much later because pots made without the use of the potter's wheel are also found throughout Romania during this time.

That's another preconception. Some manufacturers produced both wheeled and unwheeled pots at the same time. There's no such thing as Slavic pottery (there were some theories about typologies like Prague type but they were already dismissed as methodologically unsound).

 

Vasile Parvan discovered two documents in Transylvania dating from the IV century which mentions a Goth "king" who referred to himself as "jude" over his populace, an administrative title preserved also by the Romanian principalities in the Middle Ages. This king chose the title because it must have had some significance to the people he presided over, otherwise there would have been no point in using it as opposed to some proto-Germanic word like "Herzog." Since this title was only relevant to Romanians, it is clear that this king must have presided over the proto-Romanians

Actually, the term was "iudex", a Latin term. No need to Romanianize the terms.

And it was no Transylvanian document, but Roman writers. This Goth iudex was Athanaric:

Auxentius of Durostorum: iudice Gothorum

Ammianus Marcellinus: iudicem potentissimum, Athanaricus Thervingorum iudex

 

 

Ernst Gamillschag has attested that the Romanians have preserved the Thracian word for the Danube, “Donaris/Donare” which means “The big river” even though the Albanians and Aromanians use the Turkish word “Duna.” He writes “The old name for the river would have disappeared from the Daco-Roman vocabulary had they only returned to their old homeland centuries after they left. The name “Donaris” was borrowed by the Romans who mixed with the Dacians, and this word has been well preserved.”

That's a conjecture. The name *Donaris is not attested (it was reconstructed after river names like Naparis)

 

Nicetas Choniates, The Reign of Isaakios Angelos, book I (I quote from Magoulias edition, p. 204):

 

"... provoking other barbarians who lived in the vicinity of Mount Haimos, formerly called Mysians now called Vlachs, to declare war against him [i.e. Isaakios] and the Romans. [...] The instigators of this evil who incited the entire nation were a certain Peter and Asan, brothers sprung from the same parents. "

 

Ansbert in Historia Peregrinorum presents the two brothers as (Chroust edition, p. 33):

"Kalopetrus Flachus ac frater eius Assanius"

 

 

I can't find even a hint in his words pointing at the vlachian origin of the brothers.

It follows from the text that instigators are part of the nation, which is that of barbarians, of Mysians now called Vlachs.

Besides, Ansbert's account says clearly they are Vlachs.

 

Georgius Acropolita in his "De Asani inserructione et de Bulgarorum victoria a Isaacio II Angelo lata" speaks only for bulgarians and schytians. He doesn't mention any vlachs, so i can concure, based on that sigle document(which is silly), that the brothers are from bulgarian origin.

Acropolites makes no suggestion on the ethnicity on the Asenids. Are you going to deny there were Vlachs in 12-13th centuries Bulgaria?

Besides, Nicetas Choniates and Ansbert were contemporary with the events. Acropolites wasn't.

 

 

Nowhere in the text Choniates states that the brothers are part of the same barbarians/mysians/vlachs, nowhere.  As for denying the existance of the vlachs, i have no such intentions. I just wanted to point out, how silly it is, to make such bold conclusions over one document, in your case Choniates.

But tell me this, the names of the brothers, how come they have tukic names - Belgun and Asyan? How come there are evidence that they are both first generation christians? If they were vlach or bulgarian( coz Choniates text could also stand for their bulgarian origin) isn't it logical that they( they are noblemen no doubt) are going to be baptised on birth?