Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria

The Voden inscription comes among the most mysterious, complex
and contradictory epigraphic pieces associated with the reign of the
Bulgarian Tsar Samuel (976/997 – 1014). The marble slab was discovered
in the early 1990ies in the Assumption Church in the Macedonian town
of Voden, today’s Edessa in Greece. The following 9-line Cyrillic text has
been engraved on it:
In the autocratic town of Voden, I Samuel, faithful to Christ,
Tsar of the Bulgarians and Romaioi, God-sent Emperor
of all lands from Lower Raška to Macedonia, Thessaly
and Hellas, grandson of Shishman the old Kabkhan of Tarnovo,
built this prayer home to exist forever. The foundation were laid in the
days of Jeremiah, who was the first Christian
in Melnik. It is built for the sins and saving of the Bulgarians
from the damned Satan, who comes from Constantinople. This temple
was finished
during the 14th year of my rule with the help of monk Gabriel, the
shepherd and friar
from Maglen. Written in the year 6497 from the foundation of the
world (AD 988/9), 5th Indiction
To a certain extent the content helps explain why the inscription has
been instantly declared a forgery. However, unlike researchers as B.
Dimitrov, N. Ovcharov and K. Popkonstantinov, some of the linguists as
Iv. Dobrev accept the inscription is authentic. The study here presented
is an attempt to come to some better grounded conclusions regarding its
authenticity, its approximate date, the cultural and historical milieu it has
appeared within, its function and the meaning embedded in the text so
controversial in terms of modern science. It can be done by analyzing the
historical data the text records and also its paleographic and linguistic
features as well as the context of its discovery with parallels of inscriptions
well known so far from the Samuel’s time and from broader chronological
and geographical range. Concerning the text language there are incontestable
parallels with the Bitola inscription of Tsar Ivan Vladislav from
1015/6. The involvement of the title of Kabkhan provokes attention sure
denominating the second man after the Bulgarian sovereign during the
9th – 11th c., as well as the reference to the Bulgarian Patriarch Gabriel,
temporarily resident in Maglen. Nevertheless, the paleographic features
of the inscription are characteristic of the 13th – 14th c. when the ligature
script was at its peak. The contradictory information of Shishman as a
predecessor of Tsar Samuel is also attested as early as the 13th c. Essentially
it is a Medieval legend from the time of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom
rather than an argument in favour of making the inscription by local
Bulgarians in the 19th c. With the time after 10th – 11th c. we have to associate
also the transformation of Tarnovo into an important power center of
urban form. Especially interesting come to be the apocryphal apocalyptic
elements of the text which put the inscription in line with sources like
the Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle. On the grounds of the mentioned
observations we can assume the Voden inscription does not seem to be
a forgery but rather represents an epigraphic piece extraordinary in its
multiple layers dating from the 13th or more likely 14th c. Although it is not
an authentic record from Samuel’s time, it possibly copies or transcribes
an earlier original donor’s inscription and combines and compiles it with
some apocryphal, mythological and apocalyptic motives cumulated in the
course of the 11th – 12th c. In the 14th c. during the turbulent age after the
disintegration of Dušan’s Serbia, the Church of Assumption was raised
in Voden. In the same region the large feudal estate of the Serbian ruler
Radoslav Hlapen was established in 1356 – 1359 and the complicated cultural
and historical background can explain also the Serbian influence on
the language and paleography of the Voden inscription. In any case, the
challenges before the study of the text are great and it seems quite early
to formulate its final worth.

This article examines in detail the topography and fortification in the Valley of Strumeshnica. The observations and conclusions are based on historical sources, detailed topographic maps in different scales, satellite pictures, archeological sketches, geographical and geological maps and close-range pictures made on the terrain. The main focus is at the whole fortification system in the Valley of Strumeshnica.
What were the motives for the construction of the defense system at that exact place, the structure and the elements ofthe fortification and what is the review ofthe defense system on the basis ofterrain and local topography. At the end of the article the roles of the topography and Bulgarian fortification in the outcome of the Battle of Kleidion is examined.

The paper argues that the Varosh inscription has not been written in 996, but rather in 1006, ten years later. This depends on how the last element in the first row is being read - as a letter or as a pure ornament.
Also, the paper shows that the inscription has been discovered twice independently, with an unnamed drawing in Polevoj 1883 not being recognized before as depicting this same inscription.