Last Seen Blogs
morai-the-swann-king
Eli Bosnick's Chicken Nugget Dispenser
wuzouzou1992
会飞的兔子
pormispecas
Por mis pecas
jablayslot
Untitled
kai-kat
Pocky's circus
Photo
Januarius Aloysius MacGahan
A martyr to duty and friendship, januarius Aloysius MacGahan, the most brilliant journalist of the XIXth century, visited Bulgaria in July and August of the memorable year of 1876, when he wrote his famous reports on the Bulgarian uprising, reports which were to enter the annals of world journalism as epoch-making documents and classical models. These reports had an unprecedented circulation and influence.
In 1876, after the doyen of the British press « The Times », through fear of the progressive attitude reflected in his articles, refused him a post on the newspaper, MacGahan welcomed the campaign of the London newspaper « Daily News » on behalf of the Bulgarian people and rendered invaluable service to that cause. A year later, after joining the Russian army, he formed a sincere friendship with General Skobelev and General Gurko and took part in all major battles for the liberation of Bulgaria.
His descriptions of the battles of Plevna and Shipka remain outstanding examples of journalism. Despite a broken ankle, he was continuously present at operations on the front throughout the Russo-Turkish ivar. Near Istanbul, exhausted, he contracted typhoid fever ivhilst caring for his companion in arms and died on 9 June 1878 at the age of 34 City Tour Istanbul, thus Unking his destiny with the liberation of the Bulgarian people.
Frank Hill
The reports on the April uprising came as a result of the conflict which sprang up between the British government and the leaders of the liberal « Daily News » (Frank Hill, chief editor). Famous for its well organized foreign service, the « Daily News» published on the 23rd and the 30th of June 1876 a series of letters from Edween Pears, correspondent in Constantinople, referring to the monstrous atrocities in Bulgaria.
These aroused doubts amongst the British public about the government’s policy with regard to the Balkan area. To appease an excited public clamouring for more exhaustive information and to refute the accusations of the government, the editorial board of the « Daily News » decided to conduct an inquiry on its own behalf and sent out a special commissioner to Bulgaria.
0 notes
Photo
The village of Batak
The village of Batak was comparatively rich and prosperous; it had excited the envy and jealousy of its Turkish neighbours, and the opportunities of plunder offered a temptation to the Turks which, combined with their religious fanaticism and the pretext of an insurrection in another part of the country, was more than they could resist. The man Achmet-Agha, who commanded the slaughter, has not been punished, and will not be, but, on the contrary, he has been promoted to the rank of Yuzbashi, and decorated.
We are told that any number of children and young girls had been carried off; that it was known in what Turkish villages they were kept, and that the Turks simply refused to restore them to their parents. Mr. Schuyler afterwards obtained a list, with the names and ages of eighty-seven girls and boys that had been carried off with the name of the village in which each was kept.
As to the present condition of the people who are here, it is simply fearful to think of. The Turkish authorities have built a few wooden sheds in the outskirts of the village in which they sleep, but they have nothing to live upon but what they can beg or borrow from their neighbours.
Turkish authorities
And in addition to this the Turkish authorities, with that cool cynicism and utter disregard of European demands for which they are so distinguished, have ordered these people to pay their regular taxes and war contributions just as though nothing had happened. Ask the Porte about this at Constantinople, and it will be denied, with the most plausible protestations and the most reassuring promises that everything will be done to help the sufferers Private Tours Istanbul.
But everywhere the people of the burnt villages come to Mr. Schuyler with the same story—that unless they pay their taxes and war contributions they are threatened with expulsion from the nooks and corners of the crumbling walls where they have found a temporary shelter. It is simply impossible for them to pay, and what will be the result of these demands it is not easy to foretell. But the Government needs money badly, and must have it. Each village must make up its ordinary quota of taxes, and the living must pay for the dead.
0 notes
Photo
A Foreword by Andrey Pantev Professor of History
In times of significant political changes historical writings shoot up like mushrooms. One of the reasons for this is the rule that they all begin with a revision of the past. They conform to not only because of certain necessities but also because every generation is digging into the past in search of answers to questions that stand before it today. In this particular way are being brought back themes and events which simply have not been that actual before Private Tours Balkan. So, read this book.
It is worth the effort. You will come upon things in it which you thought you already knew. You might not share the opinion of what has been laid out here; you might find the events and their explanation well-known or queer – anyway, it is worth reading it.
However, there is one more thing. It is been for more than a century that the Bulgarians point out their cultural and historical heritage, along with their tradition of state, as a basic argument for their communion to the European world. Their “awakening” itself as a modern national community is caused by the idea of reproduction of their historical prestige. While writing history the ideologists and function-arise of the Bulgarian national liberation movement believed that they were writing the future. Without being an exception in the history of Eastern and Central Europe this cult towards the historical past strengthened but, on the other hand, sometimes it even limited their significance in the European civilization.
It included various dimensions which often seemed contradictory. Our own notion of ourselves coincided quite rarely with the notion that the others had of us. And this lack of correspond-once frequently provoked a justified reaction whose painful sensations lead to groundless exaggerations. In fact, our real value between the two extremes – that of claims and the other, of real merits – laid somewhere in the middle…
0 notes
Photo
King of the Sidonians
I, Tabnith, priest of Ashtaroth, king of the Sidonians, son of Eschmonazar, priest of Ashtaroth, king of the Sidonians, lie here under this covering. 0 thou man, whoever thou be, who shall discover my tumulus, open it not, and disturb me net; for there is neither gold, nor is there silver, nor is there any treasure buried with me ; I alone lie here. Open not, therefore, my tomb, nor do thou violate it in any manner whatsoever ; and if thou dost open my tomb, or violate it in any manner whatsoever, may thou have no seed living under the sun, nor resting-place in Hades.
The pedestal evidently dates from the middle of the fourth century B.C.; for though there is no accurate information as to the period when King Tabnith lived, it does not appear that he was alive after the fourth century B.C.
Contrary to the foregoing inscription, a number of jewels and precious stones were found in the sarcophagus, and are on view in Bronze Eoom, No. 19, 2nd floor, show case Ko. 115. Tabnith’s embalmed corpse, which was also discovered in the sarcophagus, was in a wonderfully good state of preservation, especially the skin on one side of the head and on the back, these being the parts lying in immediate contact with the sandy soil. The intestines were also partly intact, as well as the hair.
In the same hall are twelve more sarcophagi. Some are of black and some of white stone. With the exception of No. 86, which is in Greek style, and bears an E, they have no inscriptions on them.
BOOM NO. 3.—On the right and left: Sarcophagi from Lycia; on each side of the door two steles with painted figures on from Sidon.
THE HITTITE HALL
BOOM NO. 4, OR THE HITTITE HALL.—The Marash lion with a long Hittite inscription on its body ; the statue of a Babylonian King (15th cent. B.C.), and on the wall a huge copy of an Assyrian figure, the original being in Konia.
BOOM NO. 5.—Enormous Boman Sarcophagus from Eregli; some other statues of the Boman period.
BOOM NO. 6, OR HALL OF ARCHITECTURE.—On the left, frieze from the temple of Hecate in Elghineli (Asia Minor); in the middle, objects found in Didyme (A. Minor); and On the right, frieze from the temple in Magnesia of Meander (A. Minor).
BOOM NO. 7.—Three specimens of the earliest Ionian capital.
Staircase.—On each side two lions from the Palace of Bucoleon in Constantinople built by Justinian 567 A.D. On tbe wall ascending: a Medusa head from Constantinople.
0 notes
Photo
Constantinople is healthy on the whole
Climate.—The climate of Constantinople is healthy on the whole; but, being very variable, is not suitable for people suffering from pulmonary affections, or for persons of full habit of body. The best time for visiting Constantinople is in the months of April and May, and September and October, just before, and just after, the hot season.
Population.—The population of Constantinople, in the utter absence of any official figures, cannot be given with any degree of accuracy, but may be set down at about 1,200,000.
Historical Sketch. — Tradition assigns the foundation of Byzantium to a band of settlers from Megara, under a leader named Byzas, in 658 B.c. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi, which they had consulted, foretold that those who set out would be certain to prosper on the Thracian shore, near the Euxine, where there was an abundance of game. The Megarians inferred that the oracle intended to designate a spot near the mouth of the two streams Cydaris and Barbysus (the present ‘ Sweet Waters of Europe’), and therefore proceeded there.
They were sacrificing an ox, when a crow swooped down and carried off a piece of the sacrificial meat, which a shepherd subsequently told them it dropped at Cape Bosporus (now Seraglio Point). The Megarians, taking this act of the bird as a good omen, immediately removed to the promontory, where they settled and built a town called Byzantium, after their leader Byzas. According to another tradition, the oracle enjoined Byzas and his followers to settle opposite the city of the blind,’ in allusion to a former party of emigrants who, overlooking the advantageous site on the promontory, had settled at Chalcedon daily tours istanbul, now Kadi Keui.
Its advantageous situation soon exposed the city to the covetousness of its neighbours and of other nations, and it was in turn attacked by the Thracians, Bithynians, and even the Gauls; while it was repeatedly invested by the Persians, who, during the campaign of Darius against the Scythians, compelled the town to surrender to Otanes, one of Darius’ generals, and subsequently burnt it.
Battle of Plataea
After the- battle of Plataea (479 B.c.) the Lacedaemonians under Pausanias took Byzantium from the Persians, and refounded the colony. Seven years later it was taken from the Lacedaemonians by the Athenians; but in 440 B.c. it revolted and returned to its former allegiance. It was again besieged and taken by Alcibiades in 408 B.C. The city continued in the possession of the Athenians till after the battle of Aegos Potami in 405 B.C., when it was recovered for the Spartans by Lysander. A few years later Xenophon and his Ten Thousand passed through it on their march from Persia. In 390 B.C. it was once more brought under the influence of Athens. Philip of Macedon laid siege to the city in 340 B.C., but was diverted by the succour sent by the Athenians, who had at last been roused to energy by the fiery eloquence and invectives of Demosthenes against the Macedonian conqueror.
During the siege, however, the city was very near being taken by a night assault through subterranean passages or tunnels constructed by Philip’s engineers; the design was only frustrated by the rising of the new moon, which caused the dogs to begin barking; the noise aroused the sleeping garrison, who succeeded in repulsing the Macedonian surprise. Out of gratitude to Luna, whose rays had been the means of saving their city, the Byzantines adopted the crescent as their emblem, marking their coins with it, and the Turks in their turn adopted it from them after the conquest of Constantinople.
0 notes
Photo
The acropolis during the Middle Ages
Considerable reconstruction work was done on the fortress walls of the acropolis during the Middle Ages. The enormous reservoirs were also properly maintained as they were of crucial importance for the defenders of the fortress, especially during the constant wars against Byzantium.
The largest reservoir, rectangular in shape, was on Nebet Tepe and had a capacity of 3000 litres. Now it has been partially restored and is displayed in the park on the hill. There is another large reservoir, cylindrical in shape, in the western corner of the citadel’s fortress walls, again on Nebet Tepe. A round-shaped reservoir of smaller size was discovered inside the southern wall of the acropolis, near the Roman theatre. Its massive stone-work cuts deep into the upper tier of the auditorium. Under the foundations of the National Revival churches on the Three Hills archaeologists, while drilling or digging, found remains of the mediaeval temples of the town, which had been the eparchial centre of the Plovdiv diocese for centuries.
In the late Middle Ages (15th – 17rh c.), during the Ottoman domination, numerous religious and public buildings were erected in Plovdiv. Monuments of Muslim architecture that have survived until our times are not many and only a few are within the area of the Three Hills or its precincts holidays bulgaria. One of these is the celebrated Jumaya Mosque – built in the 14th – 15th centuries and the remarkable Imaret Mosque of 1445 on the right bank of the Maritsa River. Another noteworthy building is Chifte Hamam built in 1582 – a public bath with two separate sections for men and women.
PHILIPPQPOLIS ARCHITECTURAL ENSEMBLE at the Hisar Gate
This unique architectural-historical ensemble, one of the symbols of Plovdiv, took shape in the course of centuries around the Hisar fortress gate, which has stood here since the remotest past. Under the cobbled street there are foundations dating from Roman times, from probably the 2nd century. The present-day appearance of the gate is a result of a reconstruction carried out in the 12th – 14th centuries.
Above the arch on the outer side of the vault there is a characteristic pattern produced by the construction techniques of the Second Bulgarian State. It consists of stones surrounded by pieces of red brick bonded together with white mortar. During the Revival Period and at the be-ginning of the 20th c. the gate was again reconstructed and fortified. North of the fortress gate you can see the foundations of the old wall which in the 12th – 14th centuries was also built higher. The stonework of the wall was used as a foundation of the large Kuyumjioghlu Revival house, whose majestic body and bay windows dominate Hisar Gate.
0 notes
Photo
Kleptouza and Velyuva Banya
Hotel-restaurant Zdravets, 2 stars, accommodating 200, tel. 26-82, large restaurant. There are two camp sites near the town — Kleptouza and Velyuva Banya.
Further along E-80, is Pazardjik (pop. 73,400), the centre of a rich and fertile region. Situated on both banks of River Maritsa. it was founded in 1485. The first inhabitants were Tartars who guarded the Big Market which was held here. Bulgarians settled here in the second half of the 16th century. There are mineral baths with water from the Rhodopes.
Sights:
Cathedral of the Virgin Mary is Pazardjik’s most important building. It was built in i 837 and is a magnificent example of National Revival architecture. It is made of pink stone and is known mostly for its walnut iconostasis by Debur wood carvers private tour istanbul. The oldest icon dates from 1814.
St Constantine and Elena Churcht Benkovski St. is the second largest church with icons painted by local artists.
Stanislav Dospevski Museum. 50, G.Dimitrov Blvd. is combined with the district art gallery. It was built in 1864 by Bratsigovo masters. Some of the walls are decorated with paintings by Stanislav Dospevski himself.
Kourshoum (Bullet) Mosque – BratyaMiladinovi St. built 1667, Pazardjik’s oldest building.
The Synagogue, Assen Zlatarov St. built 1850.1 he ceiling represents a carved sun, surrounded by round rosettes and interlacing geometrical figures.
Nikolaki Hristovich’s House, 8 Otets Paissi St. built 1850. Its architecture is similar to that of the baroque house in Plovdiv.
Kouzmov House, 5 Benkovski St., early 19th century, has very finely executed eaves. It is a two-storey building with bay windows.
Pozharov Home near the St Constantine and Elena Church in Benkovski St. also resembles the baroque house in Plovdiv.
Sakaliev House, 15 Trakiiska St. with carved ceilings.
Hadji Stoyanov house and the house of Konstantin Ve- lichkov, now a branch of the District History Museum, are also worth visiting.
Metodi Shatarov Monument-Ossuary is situated on an island in the River Maritsa in memory of Metodi Shatarov and other partisans who perished in 1941-1944.
Old Post Office with its Gothic tower.
The District History Museum, 5 Assen Zlatarov St., tel. 2-55-45.
The District Art Gallery ‘Stanislav Dospevski’, 1 lb 9 September St., tel. 2-5546.
The Drama Theatre, K. Veliehkov Blvd., tel. 2-75-35.
The Amateur Operetta Theatre — the Trade Union House of Culture.
Symphony Orchestra
Hotel Trakiya, 2 stars, 4-storey, in Red Square, accommodates 228, restaurant, coffee shop, night club, national restaurant and an exchange bureau. Tel. 2-60-06.
A small detour to the south of Pazardjik goes through several towns and villages active in the April 1876 uprising. After 20 km we reach the town of Peshtera (pop. 18 000), situated on both banks of Stara Reka river. It is well-known as a mountain resort but has rapidly developed recently as an industrial centre. In the town centre is an old poplar tree, whose circumference measures 10 m, 7 km east is the small village of Bratsigovo (pop. 6,000). Though small, its name is engraved in Bulgarian history. It was founded in the 16th century when Rhodope inhabitants, seeking refuge from forced convertion to Mohammedanism, settled in the small valley nestling in the folds of the mountain. The village developed quickly. Its inhabitants took an active part in the April 1876 Uprising, and from April 30 to May 5 they waged a fierce battle with the Bashibazouk and regular Turkish army.
0 notes
Photo
Boyansko Hanche
Bulgarian restaurants: Boyansko Hanche, Boyana District—telephone 56-30-16; Goroublyansko Hanche, Goroublyane District — telephone 78-12-60; Shoumako, Simeonovo District; Vodenicharski Mehani, Dragalevtsi District — telephone 66-50-88; Zlatna Ribka — 26 kilometres from Sofia on the road leading to Borovets winter resort; Chemata Kotka — 13 kilometres south-east of Sofia on the E-80 road.
Restaurants: Roubin, Lenin Square; Kristal — 119 Rakov- ski Street; Krim — 2 Dobroudja Street, telephone 87-01-31; Botevgradska Sreshta — 1 Pozitano Street, telephone 87-05-14;
Gambrinous — 80 Tsar Simeon Street, telephone 83-5 L74; Bu- dapeshta — 145 Rakovski Street, telephone 87-27-50; Ropota- mo — 73 Lenin Blvd, telephone 72-25-16; Havana — Vitosha Blvd.
Coffee houses
Coffee houses: Brazilia — 24 Vitosha Blvd.; telephone 88-28-39; Bulgaria — 2 Rousski Blvd., telephone 87-19-77; Co-lombia — 4 Levski Street, telephone 8743-03; Havana — 151 Rakovski Street, telephone 87-48-94; Roza — 4 Sofiiska Ko- mouna Street, telephone 88-40-87; Praga — 145 Rakovski Street, telephone 87-52-76; Opera — 113 Rakovski Street, telephone 87-40-89; Havana — Vitosha Blvd.
Souvenir shops: Sredets Souvenir Centre opposite Rila Hotel; Prizma — 2 Rousski Blvd., telephone 88-15-67; Sofia — 16 Georgi Dimitrov Blvd., telephone 83-29-58; Union of Bulgarian Artists souvenir shop, 6 Rousski Blvd., telephone 88-39-37; Mineralsouvenir — 10 Rousski Blvd.
Photographic materials: 3 Alexander StamboliiskiBlvd., telephone 87-72-74; Central Department Store, fourth floor, telephone 87-96-21.
Optician’s: 14, Vitosha Blvd., telephone 87-18-11; 7 Graf Ignatiev Street daily sofia tour, telephone 87-29-43.
Florist’s: 8 Pozitano Street, telephone 87-01-26; 11 Vito- sha Blvd., telephone 88-20-46,
Bookshops: the Victor Hugo bookshop for foreign and Bulgarian books, 6 Rousski Blvd., telephone 88-43-08.
The Corecom Foreign Trade Enterprise has shops selling goods manufactured abroad . These can be bought with convertible currency: 8 Tsar Kaloyan St. tel. 88-19-75;Novotel Evro- pa 131 Georgi Dimitrov Blvd., tel. 3-12-61; 166 Rakovski St. tel. 88-06-73; 27 Tolbukhin Blvd., tel. 88-44-50; Grand Hotel Sofia, Narodno Sobranie Square, tel. 23-01-02; Hotel Vitosha New Otani, 100 Anton Ivanov Blvd,, tel. 6241-51; Hotel Shtastlivetsa in Mount Vitosha, tel. 66-50-24,
0 notes
Photo
THE BULGARIAN MIDDLE AGES
In the 6th and 7th centuries A. D. changes of tremendous historical impartance took place in the Balkan Peninsula. The endless unrest of the slaves, the peasantry and the city poor, together with the invasions of other peoples from the north severely shook the foundations of the slave-owning Roman Empire. Its western half was done away with in 476. Only the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium still remained in existence as the mainstay of the disappearing slave- owning society. However, its state and military organization was so badly shaken owing to the existing and ever-growing social and economic crises, that when the mass invasions of Slavs and Avars in the 6th century, and later of the proto-Bulgarians from the Danube, began, it proved powerless to stop them. A certain consolidation of the Byzantine state power under Justinian (527-565) delayed the process of decay. Justinian undertook construction on a large scale in the Balkan lands. Procopius, the Byzantine historian, who was a contemporary of Justinian, has left us a long list of towns and villages, which were affected by the Emperor’s building activities.
Certain parts
There is hardly a town whose fortified walls were not at that time either repaired or rebuilt from their foundations. Certain parts of the ruins of the walls, which surrounded the ancient towns and camps, most certainly belong to this period, as is the case with the fortresses of Serdica (Sofia), Pautalia (Kyustendil), perhaps of Hissarya (near Levskigrad), and other places. The settlement Golemanovo Kale (fort) near Sadovets (25 km. south-west of Pleven), was built at about that time guided istanbul tours; it is a most interesting site in which town-planning in late antiquity may be studied. Despite everything, the successive waves of Slav invasions swept over the peninsula. In the 7th century, the major part of the peninsula was in their hands, and they had settled in it for ever. Its ethnical aspect had changed entirely.
The Slavs made their appearance in the peninsula when their primitive communal relations were in a process of complete disintegration. Social stratification had already made its appearance among them. The conquest of the Byzantine provinces in the Balkan Peninsula, where the Slavs clashed with the much higher material culture of the antique world, and where far more advanced social and economic relations existed, accelerated the process of further development in their production forces and of the further social stratification among them. By the first half of the 7th century, two new fundamentally antagonistic classes had already been formed among the Slavs, who had settled in the eastern and southern lands of the peninsula — that of the tribal aristocracy, who had accumulated vast estates, and of the farmers with small holdings. This inevitably led to the creation of a state organization, as an instrument of the ruling class in oppressing and exploiting the masses.
0 notes
Photo
WHICH SEASON TO CHOOSE
Naturally, if you have come for the sea, you have to choose the months of July and August, which are the hottest of the year. But this does not mean that a holiday on the seaside is not pleasant in June and September. This period is also the best for a holiday in the mountains, and if you want to see the famous Valley of Roses, you’d be advised to go there between the beginning of May and the middle of June. The autumn days of September and early October are vibrant with colour; the sun is more gentle and fruit is abundant. For the lovers of winter sports during the months from November to April there are ski runs in the best-known mountain resorts: Borovets, Pamprovo, Malyovitsa and Aleko. So come in any season of the year!
FRONTIER CHECK POINTS
They are open day and night at all points of entry – on land, by sea and air, connecting the country with the rest of the world. On the Bulgaro-Yugoslav border you have the points of Kalotina – on the Belgrade-Sofia-Plovdiv-Istanbul highway; Dragoman – on the Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul railway line; Gyueshevo – on the highway Skopje-Kyustendil-Sofia; Stanke Lissichkovo – on the road Stip-Delchevo-Blagoevgrad; Zlatarevo – on the highway Stroumitsa-Petrich-Sofia; Vrushka Chouka – on the highway Belgrade-Zaichar-Koula.
On the Bulgaro-Greek border: Koulata – on the E-20 highway Salonica-Sofia-Rousse-Bucharest-Moscow.
On the Bulgaro-Turkish border: Kapitan A ndreyevo – on the E-5 highway Calcutta-Istanbul-Sofia-Belgrade-Paris-London; Svilengrad – on the railway line Istanbul – Sofia – Belgrade – Frankfurt on Main; Malko Turnovo – on the E-95 highway Istanbul-Vama-Constanta tour bulgaria.
On the Bulgaro-Romanian border: Rousse – on the Moscow-Kiev-Bucharest-Rousse-Sofia railway line and the E-97 highway Rousse-Stara Zagora-Komotini; Kardam — on the Constanta-Tolbukhin -Varna highway; Dourankoulak ~ on the E-95highway Constanta-Mangalia-Balchik-Varna; Silistra – on the Danube.
VISA-FREE is the stay in Bulgaria of citizens of countries with which the People’s Republic of Bulgaria has signed agreements: AUSTRIA, CUBA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DENMARK, MAURITANIA, MONGOLIA, NORWAY, POLAND, ROMANIA, the SOVIET UNION, SWEDEN, TUNISIA and YUGOSLAVIA.
VISA-FREE is the entry into Bulgaria of all tourists, citizens of different countries in the world, who own vouchers for tourist services in Bulgaria.
Vouchers for tourist services can be bought right here, at the frontier point of entry.
0 notes
Photo
Bulgaria is the second country
Bulgaria is the second country in the world which, after the USSR, has radically resolved the agrarian problem. More than 99.5 per cent of the arable land belongs to the socialist sector.
By 1959 3,290 cooperative farms had been set up. When the agro-industrial complexes were set up in 1970, their number became 170 with between 20,000 and 40,000 ha of land each. They have at their disposal 93,500 tractors (expressed as 15 h.p. units), more than 17,000 combine harvesters and many other machines.
Unlike the past, when Bulgaria sold nothing but agricultural produce on the international markets, and in limited quantities at that, Bulgaria today exports machinery and equipment, chemicals and medicines, ships, complete plants and factories and products of the food and beverage industry. The number of the countries with which our state trades today is over 100.
In the cultural field Bulgaria has traditions going back 1,300 years. The Bulgarians knew how to read and write when many nations did not yet have an organized state of their own. And notwithstanding their being twice under foreign domination, the Bulgarian people have accumulated a considerable cultural treasurestore. The ruins of the old Bulgarian capitals of Pliska, Preslav and Veliko Turnovo testify to a tremendous construction drive, an original architecture and arts and crafts daily ephesus tours. As early as King Simeon’s rule (9th-10th century), several schools existed in old Bulgaria and a number of writers of great talent for those days. The murals in the Boyana Church were precursors of the European Renaissance, and individual art developed through the ages.
Primary education
In the People’s Republic of Bulgaria medical care and education are free. Primary education is compulsory, and secondary education is due to become compulsory shortly, toe For the proportionate number of university students Bulgaria holds one of the foremost places in the world, and a great percentage of the university students receive state grants. Establishments of higher learning in various special fields of science have been opened not only in Sofia, but in a number of provincial towns, too: Plovdiv, Varna, Rousse, Bourgas, Shoumen, Gabrovo, Blagoevgrad, Turnovo and Svishtov. Side by side with the Bulgarian students, young people from many other countries and continents are receiving their training there.
In the country there is one academy of science with scores of institutes; fiction, scientific and technical books by Bulgarian and foreign authors are published in thousands of copies; there are 4,000 public libraries, many library clubs and houses of culture. Thirty-five theatres and six opera houses cater for thousands of spectators every day. Bulgarian singers, instrumentalists and ballet dancers reap successes on the world stages, the works of the Bulgarian film industry bring awards from leading festivals, Bulgaria’s architects have won many competitions abroad. The people’s amateur art activities are enjoying an unprecedented upswing. At the present time there are more than 15,000 folklore, song and dance and drama ensembles. Noteworthy are also the successes of Bulgarian sportsmen, especially in wrestling, modem gymnastics, weightlifting, shooting and football.
0 notes
Photo
Water by a commercial company
Water, like the roadway, is a public not a private concern. Neither water, air, nor soil are manufactures like bread, clothes, and gas. A man should be no more charged personally for water by a commercial company than he should be charged a toll for walking over London Bridge, or taking the air in Hyde Park. It concerns the health of us all that no family should be stinted in their water supply, or even should stint themselves. Roadways, streets, bridges, parks, embankments, the free use of air and earth, ought to be secured 11s by public bodies, under public control, making no private profit, and having no private interest, and supported by common rates and taxes, and so ought the free use of water to be.
Water we want unstinted and under absolute public control for cooking, cleaning, and washing in our homes, for cleansing the streets, for fire defence, for wash-houses and public baths, for adornment and recreation. And on every one of these grounds, for the same reason that it would be criminal to make Hyde Park a private company and let them charge a toll at the gates — on all these grounds we require Water to be a public and not a private interest, a common advantage of a civilised community, and not a commodity for shareholders to speculate with and to sell to the needy.
Some day, I trust, we shall take in hand our rivers. We have already done much. There is a vast deal more to do. There is no positive reason why the Thames as it flows by Westminster Palace should not be as bright as when it reflects Hampton Court on its surface. Factories, works, drainage, refuse, will no longer, in secret and in defiance of Parliament, pollute its stream; the southern shores will be embanked like the northern; and the surface drainage of this metropolitan area and its whole sewage will not be discharged pell-mell into a tidal river private guide turkey. Some day, I believe, our two or three millions of chimneys will no longer pour out their endless pall of sulphur and soot. No poisonous gas will ever enter a house; for mechanical contrivances will suck down the products of refuse, instead of, as they now do, force them up into our homes.
Great problem of health which death presents to us
Nor need we doubt that we shall one day face the great problem of health which death presents to us, in the only way in which these vast modern cities can face it — by the system of cremation. All who have studied the facts of cremation well know how idle are the objections on the score of propriety, decency, solemnity, or the concealment of crime. They know that cremation alone affords the absolutely safe means of bestowing the 80,000 corpses which each year casts upon our sorrowing hands.
The ordinary objections which we hear are but melancholy remnants of childish superstition. There are objections of weight which I recognise to the full; all that repugnance which springs out of the hallowed memory of the buried remains, the local sanctity of the grave, and all its religious and beautiful associations. No one can respect these more than I do; no one can more heartily wish to preserve them. But those who feel them have never made real to their minds all the noble associations and resources of urn burial—-one of the most ancient, beautiful, and religious of all modes of disposing of the dead.
Cremation, in its present form, absolutely pure, effective, simple, and dignified as it is, destroys the remotest germs of deleterious power in the loved remains; but it does not annihilate the remains altogether. The solid ashes remain far more pure and perfectly than in any ancient cremation the residuum of the body, purified seven times in the fire. These ashes are appropriately closed in an urn. They can be buried, if it so be thought best, in the grave, and then the grave will contain the body, not indeed putrescent in horrible decay, but in a little harmless dust in a case. Cremation need not at all affect the practice of interment. The grave may remain undisturbed; the sacred earth may be there as now; flowers, as now, will rise up and bloom over the ashes.
0 notes
Photo
The Roman Empire at Constantinople
Here we reach the last, as I venture to think, the main element of strength in the Empire of New Rome — its alliance with, or rather its possession of, the Orthodox Church. The Roman Empire at Constantinople was really, if not in style, a Holy Roman Empire. The Patriarch was one of its officials. The venerable Church of the Holy Wisdom was almost the private chapel of the Emperor; the Emperor’s palace may almost be described as the Vatican of Byzantium.
The relations between the Emperor and the Patriarch were wholly different from the relations between the Emperor at Aachen and the Pope. Instead of being separated by a thousand miles and many tribes and peoples, the Emperor of the Bosphorus resided in the same group of buildings, worshipped, and was adored in the same metropolitan temple, and sat in the same council- hall with his Patriarch, who was practically one of his great officers of State. All students of the Carolingian or of the Holy Roman Empire know how immensely Pipin, Charles, the Henries, and the Ottos were strengthened by the sup-port of the Popes from Zacharias to Victor II. But the Papacy was a very intermittent, uncertain, and exacting bulwark of the Empire, and after the advent of Hildebrand, in the eleventh century, it was usually the open or secret enemy of the Empire guided turkey tours. The Catholic Church was always the co-equal, usually the jealous rival, often the irreconcilable foe of the Emperor. It never was a State Church, and rarely, until the fourteenth century, was an official and obsequious minister of any emperor or king.
State Church
But the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, from first to last, was a State Church, part of the State, servant of the State. There were, of course, rebel patriarchs, ambitious, independent, factious, and deeply spiritual patriarchs. There were whole reigns and dynasties when Emperor and Patriarch represented opposite opinions. But all this was trifling compared with the independent and hostile attitude of the Papacy to the Temporal Power. The Catholic Church represented a Spiritual Power independent of any sovereign, with a range of influence not conterminous with that of any sovereign. That was its strength, its glory, its menace to the Temporal Power.
The Orthodox Church represented a spiritual authority, the minister of the sovereign, directing the conscience of the subjects of the sovereign, and in theory of no others. The Orthodox Church was the ideal State Church, and for a thousand years it deeply affected the history of the Byzantine Empire for evil and for good. It more than realised Dante’s dream in the De Monarchia, a dream which the essence of Catholicism and the traditions of the Papacy made impossible in the West. It constituted a real and not a titular Holy Roman Empire in the East.
Ruinous to religion, morality, and freedom as was this dependence of Church on the sovereign, it gave the sovereign an immense and permanent strength. We can see to-day what overwhelming force is given to the rulers of the two great empires of Eastern Europe, who are both absolute heads of the religious organisation of their respective dominions. Now the Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire was a more powerful spiritual authority than the Russian Church, if not quite so abject a servant of the Roman Emperor as the Russian Church is of the Czar.
And it was no doubt much more completely under the control of the Emperor than the imdms and softas of Stamboul are under the control of the Padishah. The Roman Emperor, in spite of his vices, origin, or character, even in the midst of the Iconoclast struggle, was invested in the eyes of his Orthodox subjects with that sacred halo which still surrounds Czar and Sultan, and which is the main source of their autocratic power. It was this sacred character, a character which the de facto Emperor possessed from the hour of his coronation in St. Sophia until the day when he died, was deposed, or blinded, which held together an empire of such strangely heterogeneous elements, permeated with such forces of anarchy and confusion. Christians in the West contemn, and perhaps with justice, the servility, idolatry, and formalism of the Greek priesthood. They may be right when they tell us that the essence of Greek ritualism is only a debased kind of paganism. But the Orthodox Church is still a great political force; and in the Byzantine Empire it was a political force perhaps greater than any other of which we have extant examples.
0 notes
Photo
Lilliput and Blefuscu
These so-called Greek states, celebrated in the immortal pages of Thucydides, were but petty cock-pits wherein, like game birds, these historic republics crowed, strutted, and fought each other. Greek war, from the point of view of modern armies, was but the playing at soldiers like the people of Lilliput and Blefuscu. An army which could not defend such a country as Attica from invaders, or the army which having got beneath the Long-walls could not take Athens, can hardly be classed amongst soldiers at all. Scipio or Julius Caesar with one legion would have settled the Peloponnesian war in a few months.
As we behold it from a near height, we see that Athens always was, and always must be, an artificial city, resting entirely on its control of the’ sea and territory beyond sea. There is nothing behind Athens to support a population, and there never can be anything. Indeed in continental Greece itself, with its interminable barren rocks, there is no room for anything but a few herds, and sundry patches of olives, vines, currants, fruits, and tobacco. Continental Greece is in truth a mere mountain rising out of the sea, with a total population less than that of the city of Berlin.
Greece was therefore destined to be a sea power only, and, in recounting its achievements on land, her historians are liable to mislead us altogether. The Spartans no doubt remained for many centuries individually, like Soudanese, ‘first-class fighting men walking tours ephesus.’ But they knew nothing of scientific war, and seem throughout their history to have been commanded by mere drill-sergeants. They were, as a Frenchman irreverently remarked of another brave army, ‘lions led by asses.’ Their stupidity, slowness, incapacity to develop the art of war, their slavish adherence to routine and tradition, prevented them for ever being really effective; and, though they were a race of mere soldiers, they never became a really war-like race. The Athenians, however good at sea, were on land untrustworthy, excitable, undisciplined crowds of civilians.
They had hours of heroism
They had hours of heroism, as at Marathon; but, after all, Marathon was rather a moral victory, won by genius, dan, and a sort of spasmodic patriotism which astonished the victors as much as the defeated. It was hardly a great battle fought out on a regular plan. And, after Marathon, the Athenians did nothing very great on land. Their campaigns were unworthy of notice, and their conduct in the field has that character of unsteadiness which belongs to citizen levies. The Macedonians under Alexander were trained and excellent troops, equal perhaps to anything in ancient war; but the Macedonians were not Greeks. It is melancholy to think how largely the attention of academies and schools is absorbed in these trumpery scuffles which have no scientific interest of their own, and which, from the historical point of view, could have no serious result.
It is the wonderful literary and poetic genius of Greece which has given a halo to these petty manoeuvres. And to the same cause may be traced the singular phenomenon of the revival of Hellenism in the present century, by a people who, as a whole, have but a tincture of Hellenic blood. The process of reviving ancient Greece is still proceeding with immense rapidity, and in curious modes.
0 notes
Photo
No tendency to crowd into cities
The well- to-do and the well educated show no tendency to crowd into cities: but very much the reverse. Hence we have the singular phenomenon that whilst the rich townsmen are hurrying to pass their lives in the country, the poor countrymen are hurrying into the cities. It may well be that, however great the drawbacks and discomforts of modern cities, and however poor the social life they afford, the modern country village may offer even less entertainment and fewer opportunities of social life.
If that is so, it is a thing that can be remedied indirectly by legislation, and mainly by a higher sense of social obligation on the part of all who live in the country. If great landowners had taken up the lead which in feudal times they possessed and had proved themselves lords of the manor in any but a pecuniary sense, the draining off of the country population into the towns could never have become the prominent fact of the nineteenth century.
A city ought to provide for its citizens air, water, light — absolutely pure, unlimited in quantity and gratuitous to all. There is no good reason why water should be sold (at any rate in public places) more than air, or light, or highways. Air, light, highways, water, are the primary conditions of civilisation. It is the interest of all that every citizen should have as much of these as he wants. There is no better reason to compel an individual citizen to buy water for sanitary uses than to compel him separately to pay for a walk in Hyde Park or a passage across London Bridge adventure balkan tours.
A high civilisation
In feudal times there were tolls upon everything. A high civilisation abolishes tolls and furnishes the necessaries of life to all equally. Now air, light, roads, and water stand on a different footing from food and clothes. Food and clothing are produced in separate pieces, are infinitely varied, and are adapted to an infinite variety of personal wants and tastes. A loaf of bread, a beef-steak, a jug of beer, are individually produced and individually consumed. They remain ear-marked, identifiable, transferable, and the subject of property, and of commerce. Air, light, water, passage (in their public and collective use), have not this character: and their public use should be free to all citizens.
We need the Roman system of water supply. Abundant and pure rivers from the mountains should be carried into the city, with fountains, baths, wash-houses free in every ward without stint. The Roman aqueducts are one of the few features of material civilisation which have never been revived by any later age. We are still suffering under the mediaeval horror of washing.
When we had again adequate aqueducts we might hope to see the rivers and brooks that pass through our cities bright and clear like a trout stream, and ‘silver Thames’ cease to be a term of reproach. Every chimney would consume its own smoke; every sewer would be wholesome, for all noxious gases would be pumped up into safe spaces; all refuse would be straightway disinfected and consumed. To use a stream as a drain, to discharge refuse into any public place or course, to emit noisome odours or danger-ous gases into any public thing, to do or to suffer anything that could spread infection, would be high treason against humanity visited with the extreme rigour of the law.
0 notes
Photo
A civil cause portended ruin
To all but the rich and the privileged, a civil cause portended ruin, a criminal accusation was a risk of torture and death.
The public finances were in even more dreadful confusion than public justice. The revenue was farmed to companies and to persons who drew from it enormous gains, in some cases, it is said, cent, per cent. The deficit grew during the reign of Louis xv. at the rate of four or five millions sterling each year; and by the end of the reign of Louis xvi. the deficit had grown to eight or ten millions a year. But as to the exact deficit for each year, or as to the total debt of the nation, no man could speak.
Louis xv. in one year personally consumed eight millions sterling, and one of his mistresses alone received during her reign a sum of more than two millions. Just before the Revolution the total taxation of all kinds amounted to some sixty millions sterling. Of this not more than half was spent in the public service. The rest was the plunder of the privileged, in various degrees, from king to the mistress’s lackey. This enormous taxation was paid mainly by the non-privileged, who were less than twenty-six millions. The nobles, the clergy, were exempt from property- tax, though they held between them more than half of the entire land of France. The State could only raise loans at a rate of twenty per cent customized tours istanbul.
An army of less than 140,000
With an army of less than 140,000 men, there were officers, in active service or on half-pay, all of them exclusively drawn from the privileged class. Twelve thou-sand prelates and dignified clergy had a revenue of more than two millions sterling. Four millions more was divided amongst some 60,000 minor priests. Altogether the privileged orders, having hereditary rank or ecclesiastical office, numbered more than 200,000 persons. Besides these, some families were entitled to hereditary office of a judicial sort, who formed the nobility of the robe.’ The trades and merchants were organised in privileged gilds, and every industry was bound by a network of corporate and local restrictions.
Membership of a gild was a matter of purchase. Not only was each gild a privileged corporation, but each province was fiscally a separate state, with its local dues, local customs’ tariff, and special frontiers. In the south of France alone there were some 4000 miles of internal customs’ frontier. An infinite series of dues were imposed in confusion over districts selected by hazard or tradition. An article would sell in one province for ten times the price it would have in another province. The dues chargeable on the navigation of a single river amounted, we are told, to thirty per cent, of the value of the goods carried.
But these abuses were trifling or at least endurable when set beside the abuses which crushed the cultivation of the soil. About a fifth of the soil of France was in mortmain, the inalienable property of the Church. Nearly half the soil was held in big estates, and was tilled on the mttayer system. About one-third of it was the property of the peasant. But though the property of the peasant, it was bound, as he was bound, by an endless list of restrictions. In the Middle Ages each fief had been a kingdom of itself; each lord a petty king; the government, the taxation, the regulation of each fief, was practically the national government, the public taxation, and the social institutions.
0 notes
Photo
West Saxon’s indignation
‘ But no decent historian ever does intend to state what he knows to be an error,’ said Phil, somewhat surprised at the warmth of the West Saxon’s indignation.
‘ I should think not indeed,’ said Wessex; ‘ no one but a thief intends to take what is not his own, and no one but a liar means to state what he knows to be untrue. But the historian of all men is bound by the sanctities of his office to what we call in Roman law summa diligentia. And to be thinking of his “pictures,” of the scheme of his colours and other literary effects, forms a most dangerous temptation to adopt the picturesque form of a story in place of the recorded truth. Unfortunately, as we know to our sorrow, the materials of the historian are of almost every sort — good, doubtful, and worthless; the so-called histories go on copying one another, adding something to heighten the lights out of quite second-rate authority; a wrong reference, a false date, a hearsay anecdote gets into accepted histories, and it costs years of labour to get the truth at last. If you ever hope to be a historian, you must treat historical falsehood as you would a mad dog, and never admit a phrase or a name which suggests an untruth private sofia tours.’
‘ Has not this purism been a little overdone? ’ said the innocent freshman. ‘I remember that Freeman once told us he could not bear to speak of the Battle of Hastings, lest some one should imagine that it began on the seashore.’
Replied the Bede
‘A fine example of scrupulous love of truth,’ replied the Bede, ‘and I wish that all histories of England had been written in a similar spirit. Can anything be more unscholarly than a readiness to accept a statement which we have not probed to the core, simply because it works up into a telling picture, or will point an effective paragraph? It is positively dishonest! And some of them will quote you a passage which you discover, on collating it with the original, has a blunder in every sentence, and a mistranslation in every page. If you write a romance, you may go to your imagination for your facts. If you write history, you should scrupulously extract the best contemporary record, and throw everything else into the fire. I sometimes wish that histories were not published at all in the current English of literature, but were plain and disconnected propositions of fact, like the cuneiform inscriptions of Daryavush at Behistun.’
‘Surely,’ cried Phil, with a laugh, ‘that would be a little dull! It would be a mere lexicon. No one could get up Facciolati or Littrd as we get up Herodotus. Besides, the enormous number of propositions, each of which might fairly be called “ truth,” would make history impossible even for the most prodigious memory.’
‘You forget,’ said the tutor, ‘that we treat history in “periods” of short or, at any rate, of manageable length. Nobody has any business out of his own “period,” and if he trespasses on to another man’s “period,” he is pretty certain to be caught. The “ periods ” in our schools are far, far too long, and encourage superficial and flashy habits of reading. I remember dear old Bodley, late Professor of Palaeography, who was before your time, saying that ten years in the fourteenth century was about as much as any man should try to master. He died, poor old boy, before his great book was ever got into shape at all; and perhaps ten years is rather short for a distinct period. But it takes a good man to know as much as a century, as it ought to be known. And one of our greatest living masters in history, with enormous industry and perseverance, just manages to write the events of one year in the seventeenth century within each twelve-months of his own laborious life.’
0 notes