CHAPTER 7 Resurrecting Samuel With its army approaching Constantinople, the victorious Russia in the war against Ottomans stood in a position to dictate the armistice’s conditions. The peace agreement signed at the suburbs of Constantinople in San Stefano (today Yeshilkoy) on March 3rd 1878 stipulated the creation of a Great Bulgarian state with territory stretching from the Black Sea to Aegean, encompassing Bulgaria, part of Thrace and almost all Macedonia (Thessalonica excluded). This was not what the Great Powers had expected since the agreement’s formalization opened the prospects for Russia’s significant influence in the Balkans with Bulgaria as its satellite. Germany’s interference, together with Britain, Austria- Hungary, France, and Italy, resulted in the San Stefano treaty’s revision at the Congress of Berlin (June 14–July 14, 1878). With the Berlin Treaty, Bulgaria became an autonomous principality with significantly reduced territory. The treaty stripped Bulgaria from its southern territory that became a semiautono- mous province called Eastern Rumelia, while Macedonia remained under the Sultan’s direct control. Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Serbia, Montenegro and Romania received independence. Together with Russia and Bulgaria’s frustrations, this political revision of the Balkans only further stirred the competition over Macedonia and Thrace, the provinces that remained under the Ottoman rule. In Freeman’s commentary to his study on the Southern Slavs in 1879, he stated that he was right to warn that Samuel and Basil II’s spirits would be called upon, however not for Orthodox reconciliation, but to fuel the Balkan confrontation over Macedonia. According to him, this warning remained a topical subject after “the arms of Russia gave practical freedom to the whole Bulgarian nation” and the diplomacy “of those who claim to represent England has ruled that that freedom should be taken away again from the greater part of the Bulgarian nation.” Criticizing the political constellation the Treaty of Berlin had created, Freeman again cautioned that “this unnatural division of the Bulgarian nation is in its own nature temporary” and that “the only result of the interference of those who profess to speak for England is the creation of an immediate wrong, with a likelihood of future bloodshed.”1 Writing from a different perspective, Margaritis Dimitsas came to a similar conclusion in his Epitome of History (1879). He declared that the natural beauty 1 Freeman, “The Southern Slaves,” 426–427. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004394292_009 256 CHAPTER 7 of Macedonia “must have incurred the envy of some malignant demon, who breathed a spirit of discord into many of the Bulgarian-speaking inhabitants of north-west Macedonia, so that they made of it an arena of foreign trickery and machinations”. Dimitsas advocated that Greece would emerge as a win- ner in this arena only through knowledge of history.2 The need to historically legitimize the territorial conquests sanctioned by the San Stefano Treaty and revised at the Berlin Congress, incited the Bulgarian nationalists’ appeal to the now-absolved Samuel to resurrect his great medieval state in Macedonia. An appropriate reaction by the Greek, Serbian and Macedonian nationalists was inevitable. As Dimitsas expected, however, the historiographers, crossing pens instead of swords in fierce debates for historical legitimization of the politi- cal projects, first faced the “demons.” The foundation for creating Samuel and Basil’s legends was finally prepared. This followed the previously established directions for the inevitable Balkan confrontation over Macedonia, which had an immediate impact on the historiographical discourse. The process of incor- porating Samuel and Basil II in the Balkan national histories began. Drinov and Jireček’s high positions in the Principality of Bulgaria, indicate that they were entrusted with the political agenda of constructing Bulgarian national history. From 1878 to 1879, Drinov served as Deputy Governor of Sofia and Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Spiritual Affairs. Jireček worked as Secretary and from 1881–1882, as Minister in the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Spiritual Affairs. Notably, the Bulgarian Principality in fact imported Drinov and Jireček’s historiographical constructs, which were then institutionalized through their political engagement. Acting on Drinov’s suggestion and Jireček’s support, Prince Alexander Dondukov-Korsakov (1820–1893), the Russian Imperial Commissioner super- vising Bulgaria’s transition to self-government, picked Sofia to be the Bulgarian Principality’s capital city. According to Drinov’s idea, Sofia symbolized the center of the Bulgarian lands that would include the future incorporation of Macedonia and Thrace that were lost with the Treaty of Berlin in 1878.3 In this political concept of the imaginary national territory, the direct association of Samuel’s Empire with Macedonia created the key motive for embracing Samuel in the newly constructed Bulgarian national history. Through Drinov’s initia- tive, Samuel became an integral part of the history curriculum in elementary 2 Margaritis G. Dimitsas, Epitomos istoria tis Makedonias (Athens: Palamidis, 1879), 43, cited by Gounaris, “Greek views of Macedonia,” 148–149. 3 Petăr Dinekov, “Kak Sofia be izbrana za stolitsa na Bălgaria,” Serdika 3/4 (1939), 3–4. The sup- port came from Jireček as well, which was not surprising, since he was one of the first to argue that Sofia was the seat of the Emperor Shishman. See, Jireček, Istoriia Bolgar, 246..