Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE. the bottom of most of its problems, and any scheme for the settlement of them which does not give him space to develop on his own lines is foredoomed to failure. This is the first of the great Balkan hatreds. The second is not far to seek. In the reign of Constantine IV., about 679 A.D., the Bulgars, who for some time had been harrying the frontiers and making raids into the peninsula so destructive that they threatened the safety of Byzantium itself, crossed the Danube in a body, and established themselves in the land still called Bulgaria. Who they were, and what tongue they spoke, is unknown. They came from the wild lands north of the Black Sea, and are believed to have been allied to the Huns and Fins. It is a noteworthy fact that the Albanian still calls the Bulgar ' Shkyar koke etrash6 ' -i.e., thick-headed Scythian. A ferocious race, not divided into tribes, but led by a Khan, whose rule is said to have been despotic, they burst into the land and poured over it, dealing death and destruction. They sacrificed their prisoners to their gods, and were noted even in those very unsqueamish days for their cruelty. Displacing such local chieftains, both Slav and Thracian, as they found in power, they rapidly mastered a large part of the lands already settled by the Slavs. The Timok River, then as now, was their western frontier. The separate histories of Servia and Bulgaria began, and it should be noted that by this time the Roman Empire of the East, in which the Greek element had been coming
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About this Item

Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 21
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001
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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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