Anna Ivanova Buxton

From Disunity to Disintegration Anna Ivanova Buxton

This is a book about Bulgarian life and politics in the Middle Ages. In it, Anna Ivanova Buxton looks at the history of the Second Bulgarian kingdom and searches for the reasons of its demise. She discusses weak central control and dominant boyars, resulting in partitioning the kingdom in the 14th century. She evaluates the effect of the factions, created around children of former foreign royal spouses, which would deepen the divisions. The reader will assess the effect of the increased separation of Church from State, which led to the loss of its unique leadership role with the population, at the time of the Ottoman invasion. With notable exceptions, the Church behaved as just an observer, and did not play an active part in the struggle against the Ottoman invaders. The distancing of the population from the traditional church, allowed for the strengthening of the Bogomil heresy among the ordinary people. The hatred and lack of trust, which existed between all Balkan rulers, meant that there were no strong or effective alliances made. In a mountainous region of continuously shifting borders, questions of national identity always require complex answers. As each nation celebrates its heroes, the fact, that these heroes would quickly change allegiance, according to changing circumstances is often ignored. With their folk songs and tales, the Bulgarian nation kept their identity, remembered their history, their heroes, their kings and queens, the battles and the suffering. It was folklore and the development of trade, which led to the preservation of the Bulgarian nationality and eventually helped the re-creation of the new Bulgarian State. The Bulgarian writer Alec Popov says "We live in several versions of history". This book offers a new thoroughly researched insight into a very controversial period of Bulgarian history.