Culture of Bulgaria

BULGARIAN's CULTURE

Tracian - According to literary evidence, during the BronzePreview Age our lands were inhabited by the Thracian tribes. Their culture flourished greatly during the Early Iron Age (XII-VI century B.C.). It was during that period the Megalithic culture flourished in the Strandza-Sakar mountain region. Among its monuments the so-called dolmens are worth-mentioning.These are burial monuments, built of big, roughly worked stone slabs and blocks, arranged vertically and horizontally, so that they form one, two or three chambers. The archaeological material discovered in them is of a wide chronological range (XII-IV century B.C.), which means that for more that eight centuries they had acted as a place where the cult of the ancestors found its expression. It is important to mention a Thracian dolmen, located in the village of Zabernovo, that had been turned into a Christian chapel in the more recent times - probably a result of the undying Thracian tradition. At the end of the 7 th century B.C. the Western Black Sea coast became the stage of a new historical phenomenon - the ancient Greek colonization. On the place of the old Thracian settlements on the Atia and Sozopol peninsula Greek colonies were founded by Greek settlers coming from the town of Milet in Asia Minor . The colony on the Sozopol peninsula was named Apollonia after the name of a main god of the town Apollo. During the first ages of its existence it flourished greatly. It was not only due to the transit trade, organized by its citizens, but also to the rich ore deposits in the neighbouring “Meden Previewrid” (Copper hill) - a coastal spur of the Strandza mountain range. The economic devolopment of the colony benefited its cultural life. Apollonia is famous for its great achievements in the field of arts. At the beginning of the 5 th century B.C. a temple of Apollo - God of Sun - was built by the famous ancient Greek sculptor Kalamys - a representative of the so-called “restraint-style”. The bronze statue, weighing more than 13 tons, was taken to Rome in 72 A.D. and placed on the Capitolian hill. It remained there till the 5 th century A.D., since when its traces were lost. The tomb-stone obelisk with a figure of a seated woman, as well as the small marble head with its magnificent hair-dress, following the Egyptian fashion tradition, can also be attributed to the period of the early plastics. Further-on imported Attic ceramics are to be seen. Most vessels have black- and red-figured decoration. The beautiful vases originate from a commercialPreview settlement, that existed on the place of the present-day town of Bourgas . One of them is decorated with a Dyonisian scene. Following are lachrymals made of alabaster, glass and clay, amphora stamps and a variety of terracotta figures used for domestic, religious and building purposes.
Slavic - The Slavic culture is the collective name given to several nomadic tribes of Poland, Ukraine and Moldavia between the 6th and 11th centuries AD. The Slavs had a distinctive cultural identity, expressed as a suite of artifact types and styles, which make them of great interest to archaeologists. The earliest expression of what archaeologists firmly recognize as Slavic to date are the Korchak and Pen'kovka cultures of the 6th century AD.
The Bulgars (also Bolgars or proto-Bulgarians) are a people of Central AsianPreview origin, probably originally Turkic , Iranian, or Ugrian .They spoke a Turkic language during their early history, though some of them were subsequently Slavicized .The Turkic etymology most often given for their name is Bulgha, meaning sable , and is apparently of totemistic origin. United under Kubrat (Kurt) (Known by Arabs as Shahriar ) of the Dulo clan , the Bulgars joined forces with the Onogur Avars and broke loose from the Turkic khanate in the 630s . They formed an independent state, often called by Byzantine sources ‘the Old Great Bulgaria ’, between the lower course of the Danube to the west, the Black and the Azov Seas to the south, the Kuban River to the east, and the Donets River to the north. The capital of the state was Phanagoria , on the Taman peninsula.

Slavic Alphabet
In the 9th centure the brothers Cyril and Methodious, recognised as the patrons of Europe, upset the trilingual dogma and created the alphabet of the Slav peoples. During the 14th centure John Koukouzel - The Angel-voices carried out a reform in Eastern Orthodox church music. Unknown painters created masterpieces which have become part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage.