THE LEGEND OF BASIL THE BULGAR-SLAYER (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Paul Stephenson, Department of History, University of Wisconsin - Madison / Dumbarton Oaks

Finalist for the Longman / History Today "Book of the Year" Award
Finalist for the Criticos Prize of the London Hellenic Society

This project, recently published as a short monograph by Cambridge University Press , explores the reputation of a Byzantine emperor through the thousand years since his death. Basil II (976-1025) was the longest serving Byzantine emperor, whose greatest achievement is held to be his conquest of medieval Bulgaria. For that reason, it is generally believed, Basil is called Voulgaroktonos, the Bulgar-slayer. However, Basil was not called Bulgar-slayer in his own day. Rather, his reputation was constructed in the twelfth century. Moreover, since Basil's campaigns were directed principally against a region which today comprises the Republic of Macedonia, he has featured in modern disputes over that region since the late nineteenth century, and remains a figure of significant interest in the Balkans today.

The study begins with an analysis of Basil's achievement in the Balkans. It re-evaluates Basil's wars, suggests that he was as much peacemaker as warmonger, and that it was never his intention to eliminate the independent medieval realm of Bulgaria (not Macedonia). Particular attention is paid to the story of Basil's brutal blinding of 15,000 Bulgarian captives in 1014, and to his victory celebrations in 1019. Several extant works of art which have been associated with these celebrations are shown to have quite different origins. Basil's legacy was neglected by his successors: the large standing army Basil bequeathed was no longer necessary as the empire enjoyed peace and increasing prosperity, and the emperor as military autocrat was an inappropriate model for rulers of an enlightened, "civil" society. However, the emergence of new threats to the empire's frontiers at the end of the eleventh century brought a new military dynasty to power. The Komnenoi, who traced the origins of their dynastic fortunes to Basil's reign, promoted the image of the warrior emperor. The apogee of Basil's reputation came with a rebellion of 1185, which led to the foundation of the so-called "Second Bulgarian Empire." At this time, as the Byzantines once again fought Bulgarians, Basil's memory and example were invoked, his achievements reinterpreted, his name linked forever with the epithet Voulgaroktonos, the Bulgar-slayer. Henceforth, the Bulgar-slayer was frequently invoked as an example for emperors faced with threats from the West after 1204, and the Ottoman Turks to 1453.

Little attention was paid to Basil the Bulgar-slayer between 1453 and c. 1800. An awareness of a common Greek past certainly existed in the first centuries of Turkish rule. However, the Byzantine centuries were not regarded then as a golden age, and historical stories were not used to construct a sense of community among Greek speakers under Ottoman rule. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in contrast, the legend of Basil the Bulgar-slayer played a vital role in mobilizing, unifying and directing the energies of the Greek people to meet the challenges of nation formation. Basil's particular association with Athens (where he alone of Byzantine emperors celebrated a triumph), as well as Constantinople, made him the ideal figure to join the two poles of hellenism. Moreover, the facts that Basil's best known struggles were against the Bulgarians, and that they took place in Macedonia, made him a compelling figure to Greeks who were engaged in the modern struggle against the Bulgarians for control of Macedonia. Enduring works written during the Macedonian Struggle (1904-8) and Balkan Wars (1912-13) include Kostis Palamas' epic poem The King's Flute, and Penelope Delta's two children's books, For the Fatherland and In the Time of the Bulgar-slayer. All three are concerned with Basil II. However, it was not only Greeks who raised Basil's profile, but also eminent western European scholars. Both Byzantine scholarship and the establishment of the Greek nation state were international enterprises, and so, therefore, was the creation of Basil's reputation.

The legend of the Bulgar-slayer remains a subject of contemporary interest. There are copious works of history available in Greece today, which present Byzantium as the national past of Greeks alone, and the Bulgar-slayer as the champion of Greek (Aegean) Macedonia. Slavic Macedonians are willing to embrace this vision, and their ancestors' historical opposition to the man they view as an "evil Greek king." A sense of the popular understanding of Basil today can be gained by a WWW search on "bulgarslayer," which turns up dozens of documents devoted to establishing the "true national history" of Slavic Macedonia. However, alternative visions of Byzantium and Basil have been presented by writers in Greece seeking to articulate a common identity for all the peoples of the southern Balkans. For example, in the novels of Maro Douka, the Byzantine empire is presented as a multi-ethnic state where peoples of distinct race and language lived harmoniously. Between nationalists and liberals in Greece and the fragile Republic of Macedonia, we have not yet heard the last of Basil the Bulgar-slayer.

This earlier chapters of this monograph (see contents below) develop ideas published in my Byzantium's Balkan Frontier. A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900-1204 (Cambridge, 2000). New literary and art-historical material has been incorporated, and my initial hypotheses published as "The Legend of Basil the Bulgar slayer," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 24 (2000) 102-32, and "Images of the Bulgar slayer: three art historical notes," ibid. 25 (2001), 44-66.
 

Contents
1. Basil the Bulgar-slayer: an introduction
2. Basil and Samuel
3. Basil annexes Bulgaria
4. Victory and its Representations
5. Basil the younger, porphyrogennetos
6. The origins of a Legend
7. Basile après Byzance
8. Basil and the "Macedonian Question"
9. Conclusions