Expedition in search of the land of origin of the Bulgarians

published on 6/15/10 12:03 PM

The origin of the Bulgarians is hazed by the mist of time despite the various scientific hypotheses and theories regarding the issue. But one thing is certain – the ancient predecessors of the contemporary Bulgarian people inhabited the lands of ancient Asia. The question is rather which part of Asia they came from. There has been a growing number of scholars embracing the hypothesis about the Iranian-Persian ancestry of the Bulgarians in recent years. A Bulgarian scientific expedition set off for Iran in search of evidence of the remote origins of the Bulgarian people.

Scholars are unanimous – the Bulgarians have inherited a ‘cocktail of genes’, mixed by various tribes and peoples that have been crossing the ancient lands of the Bulgarians for millennia on end. That is why Bulgarians differ from one another so much! Blonde or with dark hair, with blue or hazel eyes, short and sturdy or tall and slender – there is no such thing as the typical Bulgarian appearance. The Slavs, the Thracians and the Proto Bulgarians have left the deepest traces in the genetic profile of the Bulgarians, and the latter managed to find their own state in that part of the Balkan peninsula, where present-day Bulgaria stands as early as in the 7th century A.D. The participants in the large-scale scientific expedition believe that the blood streaming in the veins of the Bulgarians has come mainly from the Proto Bulgarians and that the ancestors came not from the remote Siberia as it was believed for many years, but from the lands of present-day Iran and Mount Pamir.

If the scientists manage to prove their hypothesis they will disprove the widespread belief that the Bulgarians have a predominantly Slavonic identity. “During socialist times, we were ‘brothers’ with the Russians, and therefore the Slavic gene had to be stronger. But the truth is that the majority of the Bulgarians have no Slavic traits, and when they went to Russia people asked them from which one of the former Soviet Asian republics they came,” argues Assistant Professor Alexander Iliev, member of the expedition and director of the documentary trilogy on the origin of the Bulgarians aired on the Bulgarian National Television, who has been studying the issue for several years now.

Alexander Iliev maintains there was undisputable evidence of the Iranian-Persian roots of the Bulgarians. For example, the rock bas-relief of the horseman “Ragh e modar” discovered in Northern Afghanistan, was in fact a prototype of the famous Bulgarian Madara horseman near Shumen dating from the early 8th century. It is believed that the Bulgarian name “Madara” originates from “modar” and is related to the cult of god Mithra, which is of ancient Iranian origin. Bas-reliefs similar to the Bulgarian Madara horseman have been discovered on the territory of present-day Iran, as well. Linguists have found out that Farsi has more than 800 words in common with the Bulgarian language, which have entered our language via Turkish or Arabic. There are also points in common regarding the customs, religious beliefs and the cultural traditions.

“There are curious finds from the field of genetics,” Assistant Professor Alexander Iliev argues. “We managed to take probes from 58 DNA samples from Pamir, which proved the great similarity between our peoples. The studies on the contemporary anthropological profile of the Bulgarians revealed more than 40% resemblance with the people of Pamir and Afghanistan. This means that in all likelihood we are part of the large Iranian-Persian civilization!”

The members of the expedition will spend almost a month buried in manuscripts and archives in libraries across Iran, and will have meetings with local historians and Iranian studies scholars in an attempt to collect enough evidence in support of their hypothesis of the Iranian-Persian origins of the Bulgarians. In fact, this is far from being the first such expedition to that end.

“Our evidence that agrees with the evidence of a great number of ancient chroniclers tells us that some time around 150 A.D. the people in Northern Afghanistan and southern Tadjikistan began a process of migration caused by the incursions of the so-called white Huns. After heavy battles with other peoples the Bulgarians withdrew from those lands and settled in the Caucasus. From there on we are familiar with the history of the Bulgarian people. They inhabited the lands in the Caucasian region and built their own cities and family clans. Khan Kubrat set up the Old Great Bulgaria, while his son Asparukh settled on the territory of present-day Bulgaria and founded the First Bulgarian Kingdom.”

English version by Radostin Zhelev

По публикацията работи: Veneta Nikolova

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Expedition in search of the land of origin of the Bulgarians

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