Autochthonous theory about the origin of the Bulgarians
{{short description|Fringe theory}}
The autochthonous theory about the origin of the Bulgarians is an alternative to the official Bulgarian historiography, which dates chronologically from the 19th century.Aleksandar Nikolov, The Phenomenon of “Parahistory” in Post-Communist Bulgaria, Old Theories and New Myths on Proto-Bulgarians, in Quest for a Suitable Past, Myths and Memory in Central and Eastern Europe with Claudia Florentina Dobre and Cristian Emilian Ghiţă as ed. Central European University Press, 2018, {{ISBN|9633861365}}, pp. 135–147.
Emergence and development
During the early modern era, some Dalmatian pan-Slavic ideologists as Vinko Pribojević identified the Illyrians with the Early Slavs as the indigenous peoples of the Balkans.{{cite book |last1=Madgearu |first1=Alexandru |title=The Asanids: The Political and Military History of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1280) |date=2016 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9-0043-3319-2 |page=11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9nzDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA11}} Another example was Mavro Orbini who believed the ancient Macedonians were also Early Slavs.Roumen Daskalov, Tchavdar Marinov, Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies, BRILL, 2013, {{ISBN|900425076X}}, pp. 280–287. Inspired by their ideas, the Bulgarian clergyman Spiridon Gabrovski completed in 1792 his "Short history of the Bulgarian Slavic people".[https://www.book.store.bg/p266850/istoria-vo-kratce-o-bolgarskom-narode-slovenskom-spiridon-gabrovski.html История во кратце о болгарском народе словенском от Спиридон Габровски], {{ISBN|9786197444216}}. Under these circumstances, he tried to legitimize the Bulgarians as "Illyrians", through Alexander the Great, presented entirely in a positive light.Дылевский, Н. М. „История во кратце о болгарском народе славенском“ иеросхимонаха Спиридона и ее судьба. – Etudes balkaniques, 1992, 68-85. Alexander defeated the "Illyrian" king Perun, but included the Illyrians in his army and even gave the two sons of Perun the power over Macedonia itself.Александър Николов, СУ "Св. Климент Охридски", Исторически факултет, Параисторични сюжети: От български автохтонизъм към антички"македонизъм".
On the other hand, Georgi Rakovski, one of the first Bulgarian national activists, coined in the 1860s under the nickname "Macedon" the theory, to that the Bulgarians were an autochthonous population on the Balkans, known to the ancient writers as Thracians.Dessislava Lilova, The homeland as terra incognita: geography and Bulgarian national identity, 1830s–1870s in The Balkans as Europe, 1821–1914, Volume 21 of Rochester studies in East and Central Europe with Timothy Snyder and Katherine Younger as ed., Boydell & Brewer, 2018, {{ISBN|1580469159}}, pp. 31–54. This historiographical concept was exposited scientifically for the first time in 1910 in the book "The Origin of the Bulgarians and the beginning of the Bulgarian state and the Bulgarian church" by Gancho Tzenov. A fundamental tenet of the autochthonous theory is that the Bulgars that were actually Bulgarians are not settlers in Europe, but people who have inhabited the Balkans since antiquity. That is, they as a people, although they had different names in different historical epochs, are actually direct descendants of indigenous tribes such as Thracians, Illyrians, Macedones, Getae etc., who lived on the same territory.Maciej Gorny, War on Paper? Physical Anthropology in the Service of States and Nations, p. 163, in Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe's First World War, Volume 3 Europas Osten im 20. Jahrhundert with Jochen Böhler, Wlodzimierz Borodziej and Joachim von Puttkamer as ed. Walter de Gruyter, 2014, {{ISBN|9783486857566}}, pp. 131–168.
This theory, though denied and rejected as a marginal one, has its supporters and theorists in its various variations today as Georgi Rakovski and Gancho Tsenov have been rediscovered. Their theories have been updated as an alternative to the accepted migration theories. One of them establishes a complete continuity between ancient Balkan populations and modern Bulgarians. Thracians are considered simply ancestors of the modern Bulgarians and their continuity is projected to the prehistoric times. Generally, proponents of Thracomania assume that the Thracians and Bulgarians are the same people, and that therefore the descended from the Thracians must be in fact Bulgarians.Ivan Marinov and Nicolas Zorzin, Thracology and Nationalism in Bulgaria. Deconstructing Contemporaneous Historical and Archaeological Representations. EX NOVO. Journal of Archaeology, Volume 2, December 2017, ISSN 2531-8810, pp. 85–110. In another version of these hypotheses it is assumed that the Bulgars, who were Thracians, after a long journey from the Balkans to Azov sea and Crimea, have returned to their native homeland in the early Middle ages to free their Thracian brothers from the eastern Romans. Tchavdar Marinov, "Ancient Thrace in the Modern Imagination: Ideological Aspects of the Construction of Thracian Studies in Southeast Europe (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria)" pp. 80, 111, in Entangled Histories of the Balkans – Volume Three: Shared Pasts, Disputed Legacies, Balkan Studies Library with Roumen Daskalov, Alexander Vezenkov as ed. BRILL, 2015, {{ISBN|9004290362}}, pp. 10–118. Some modern Bulgarian researchers have attempted to prove the deception that the "Ezerovo ring" inscription, written with Greek letters in the Thracian language,Julia Valeva, Emil Nankov and Denver Graninger, Companion to Ancient Thrace, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: Literature and Culture, John Wiley & Sons, 2015, {{ISBN|1444351044}}, p. 245. is in fact in Slavic language, close to modern Bulgarian and that it was not the Greek alphabet, but the original script of the ancient Thracians.Николай Тодоров, доктор по филология, За бог Зевс – бог Живе, Орфей, пръстена от Езерово и античната българска книжнина.
For example, Georgi D. Sotirov wrote on historical topics related to ancient and paleo-Balkan history, supporting views similar to the ancient Macedonian narratives.If the claim is based on ethnicity, it is an issue of a different order. Modern Slavs, both Bulgarians and Macedonians, cannot establish a link with antiquity, as the Slavs entered the Balkans centuries after the demise of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. Only the most radical Slavic factions—mostly émigrés in the United States, Canada, and Australia—even attempt to establish a connection to antiquity. One such group, centered in Canada, believes that Linear B[!] is the ancient Macedonian language, from which Greek and all Slavic languages have derived, and that the ancient Thracians spoke Macedonian. Some of these beliefs find their way into print, e.g., G. Sotiroff, Kinks in the Linear B Script (Regina, Canada, 1969); id., "Homeric Overtones in Contemporary Macedonian Toponomy," Onomastica 41 (1971): 5-18; and id., "A Tentative Glossary of Thracian Words," Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 8 (1963): 97-110. The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Authors: Frances B. Titchener, Richard F. Moorton, University of California Press, 1999, {{ISBN|0520210298}}, pp. 255; 263. In one paper, he argued that the Glagolitic script derived at least in part from Linear B."Glagolitic script and Linear B", Canadian Slavonic Papers 12.3 (1970): 303–331. Such ideas found support among other amateur historians as professor Asen Chilingirov (culturologist), professor Yordan Tabov (mathematician), PhD. Nikolay Todorov (philologist), etc.{{Cite web|url=http://www.otizvora.com/files2016/nt-bogove-i-knigi.pdf|title=За бог Зевс – бог Живе, Орфей, пръстена от Езерово и античната българска книжнина, book of Nikolay Todorov ''Gods and books"|date=2002|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821160604/http://www.otizvora.com/files2016/nt-bogove-i-knigi.pdf|archive-date=August 21, 2018|url-status=}} [https://belokk.wordpress.com/Цели-книгз/ Alt URL]