| Title | Trans-Danubian Bulgaria: Reality and Fiction |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 1998 |
| Authors | Mladjov I |
| Journal | Byzantine Studies/Etudes Byzantines |
| Pagination | 85–128 |
| Keywords | Bulgaria, Edirne |
| Abstract | Throughout its existence, medieval Bulgaria controlled sizable territories north of the river Danube. Partly because of the notoriously scant surviving documentation and partly because of highly developed nationalistic feelings, this fact has often been underplayed, ignored, or altogether denied by some contemporary Balkan historians. Recent Bulgarian scholarship, in particular historians like Ivan Božilov and Petăr Koledarov, has claimed that the First Bulgarian empire (681-1018) until its very end ruled a considerable amount of land in the territories of modem Hungary, Romania, Moldavia, and the Ukraine. This conclusion stands in complete contrast to the assumptions still widely accepted in western historiography that whatever lands Bulgaria did possess north of the Danube these were lost during the Magyar migration in 896. |
