CC BY
38УДК 371
doi: 10.24411/9999-021A-2019-10034
Alexander Popov, Bulgarian Academy of Science, Sofia, Bulgaria
KING OF HUNZA AND DESCENDANTS OF THE HUNS
The search for roots has become a distinctive cultural trend in Bulgaria in the last decade. The report explores that phenomenon with an emphasis on the "myth of the beginning" and its various representations. The author introduces, in short, the most popular theories about the origins of the Proto-Bulgarians and how these projections work in the modern-day realities.
Kaywords: Bulgaria, Proto-Bulgarians, Hunza, Huns, Indo-European, Macedonia, Turanism
Александр Васильевич Попов, Болгарская академия наук, София, Болгария
КОРОЛЬ ХУНЗЫ И ПОТОМКИ ГУННОВ
Поиск корней стал отличительной культурной тенденцией в Болгарии в последнее десятилетие. В докладе изучается это явление с акцентом на "миф о начале " и его различные представления. Автор вводит самые популярные теории об истоках прото-болгар и о том, как эти прогнозы работают в современных реалиях.
Ключевые слова: Болгария, прото-болгары, хунза, хунна, индо-европейская, Македония, туранство
In the not-too-distant year 2008, a strange delegation was greeted with solemn state honors at the Alexander the Great International Airport in Skopje. The delegation was headed by the Huns prince, Gazanfar Ali Khan, who bears the title of Mir, his wife, Princess Rani Attica, and others. The Hunza people inhabit several hard-to-reach valleys in northern Pakistan, at the foot of the Himalayas. The prince and his men are considered descendants of the soldiers of the legendary Alexander the Great, who reached these places 23 centuries ago. The highlight of the visit is the culmination of a process that began as early as 2005 as part of efforts by the former Yugoslav Republic to assert its national identity, building on the heritage of ancient Macedonians, which is claimed by neighboring Greece as well. However, here we will not explore the nature of this absurd dispute, but rather focus on mythology, and in particular on the "myths of the beginning" and its speculative uses in the present.
The King of the Hunza, dressed in a traditional costume wearing an exotic feather hat, has made it clear to the media that he is incredibly proud to be in the land of his ancestors. Journalists are delighted. Newspapers are rife with headlines of "Macedonians Return to Macedonia." The king and his entourage were received at the highest level. The government plans to give them a vast area where a residence and cultural center will be built. Organizers of the event point out that this will give a serious impetus to the tourism industry.
The news of this unusual visit and its accompanying euphoria, of course, is not taken unequivocally. Even in Macedonia, it has become a source for numerous ironic comments. In Bulgaria, where everything related to the neighbors is considered very seriously, this news also aroused mostly ridicule, but also certain jealousy. The following comments could also be read here on the Internet:
We BULGARIANS are heirs of the Huns !!! The root of the word Hunza comes from Huns, and that's us !!! *** they don't have a gram of blood connection with the Huns, to our great happiness !!!
Excuse me, but I also want to build a Royal Palace in the Holy Land of my great-great-great-grandparents, who are also Hunu-Proto-Bulgarians. I want to correct you that the Great Attila-Khan of the Hunuro-Bulgarians of the Great Proto-Bulgarian house DULO created his Hunuro-Bulgarian State in the 4th century...
And so on.
The origin and ancestry of the Bulgarians has always been a theme that excited our society since the dawn of the National Revival until today. Who are we, and where do we come from? The issue still raises heated debate and feeds all sorts of historical speculation, often tainted by ideological biases and, more recently, by business interests.
At the same time, when our Macedonian brothers welcome Mir Gazanfar Ali Khan, an eastward expedition from Bulgaria trails along the footsteps of alleged Bulgarian migrations: Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan. As a result of this trip, the television series "Bulgarians - Motherland," aired on the national channel BTV, was filmed. It claims that the birthplace of the Bulgarians was the ancient Bactria, also called Balkhara, covering territories in northeast Afghanistan and Pakistan. Among other "traces," there is also a rock relief, reminiscent of the famous stone horseman from the town of Madara in Northern Bulgaria. What is more, it turns out that the find in northern Afghanistan is also called "madara" or "modar". The similarities do not stop there: the scientists claim to have discovered localities that bear the names Shumen and Varna as the present-day Bulgarian towns in Bulgaria, to have written down a legend for the hero Hoxha Bolgar, and to have identified more than 800 words of similar sound and meaning between the local Farsi and the Bulgarian language. Even today, in the region, beautiful girls were said to be "beautiful as Bulgarian women."
Just two years ago, the same channel broadcast the documentary series of Plamen Petkov, "The Bulgarians", a large-scale television project in 10 series. The film's crew traveled over 30,000 kilometers: from Bulgaria to Siberia, Chuvashia, Tatarstan, Altai, Tianshan and Pamir, all the way to the borders with Mongolia and China, in search of scattered traces of the great ancient people. The series was met with enthusiasm from the audience and subsequently transformed in a bestselling book. In the meantime, dozens of titles with similar content appear on the book market, and perhaps hundreds of websites and blogs related to this topic. What provokes this interest and what psychological mechanism is behind it? Is it an entirely new phenomenon or a something that has already taken place, albeit in a different form?
In Bulgarian historiography, several theories exist about the origins of our ancient ancestors, who, because of the lack of sufficient categorical evidence and, in particular, because of the time distance of the period under consideration, are condemned to be coexisting. Attempts to answer this fundamental question ate back to the 18th century and scholars from a wide variety of fields have tried to solve it. "As a result, a number of hypotheses have been created, some of which amaze with their quirkiness and perseverance in defending them," ironically noted on this occasion prof. Vasil Guzelev, one of the leading Bulgarian historians.
We can list in general the following basic theories about the origin of the Bulgarians.
The first appeared in the 18th century - the so-called Turan theory, which remains the most popular in the scientific community to this day. According to her, the Proto-Bulgarians are an independent ancient Turkic Ogur-tongue nation, formed in the middle of the second century in Central Asia by mixing prototypes, remains of the Eastern Hun ethnic group and Sarmatian tribes. It is supported by a number of respected historians such as Geza Feher, V. Beshevliev, I. Shishmanov, S. Mladenov, V. Guzelev, V. Tomashek, V.F. Gening, A. Khalikov, and others. One of the most striking visual symbols of this theory is the restoration of the skull of Ichurguboil Mostich, whose features leave no doubt as to his Turanian origin.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Hun theory gained popularity in Bulgarian historiography, supported by authorities such as V. Zlatarski, P. Mutafchiev, S. Ransiman, and C. Gerard. According to it, Bulgarians belong to the group of Hun tribes that appeared on the Ural River in the first half of the 2nd century. D. Sasselov insists that they are related to the Hunnu people who created in the 2nd century BC. its state union north of China. Particularly flattering for national self-esteem is the hypothesis that the Chinese built the Great Wall of China to protect themselves from the raids of the ancient Bulgarians.
Since 1989, the so-called Iranian or Indo-European theory has become popular among some scientific circles. To a certain extent, it reflects the inferiority complex of the alleged Asian origins of the Proto-Bulgarians, which originated in Bulgarian culture at the end of the 19th century as a result of nationalist propaganda in the Balkans. Expeditions to Afghanistan and North Pakistan, aimed at proving the Indo-European root of the nation, are an example of this. The thesis is supported by scholars such as G. Bakalov, P. Dobrev and etc. In their writings, the Proto-Bulgarians are no longer the small nomad horde lost among the Slavic sea, but a highly developed Aryan civilization that dominates numerically and culturally over the occupied population.
It is also worth noting the Autochthonous theory, which holds that the Proto-Bulgarians have nothing to do with any aliens from Asia, but are an old local people, closely related in origin to the ancient Balkan Thracian, proto-Thracian and Middle Eastern populations. One of the most exotic ones, no doubt, is the Cimmerian theory, which connects the origin of the Bulgarians with the ancient Cimmerian people who inhabited the Northern Black Sea, where the Proto-Bulgarians were first named by the ethnonym "Bulgarians."
The purpose of this brief is not to analyze the theories listed above, but rather to recreate the feeling of existential insecurity in the face of so many different hypotheses. But the roots of this uncertainty are not
really in the past, but in the present. Proto-Bulgarian studies are experiencing one of their most active periods in the interval between the two world wars. For Bulgaria, this is a time of trials marked by national catastrophe, humiliation, acute social clashes, political crises, and the shadow of the rising totalitarian regimes in Europe. Against this gloomy background, the glorious past radiates a particularly alluring splendor. Ancient greatness seems to compensate for today's tribulations and promise future victories. The return to the ancestral values, to the covenant of blood and tribe, is seen as a cure for nihilism and ideological turmoil that has led to today's decline. This situation is not unique to Bulgarian society only. Similar were the sentiments in other parts of Europe, which also experience the brutal effects of war. The social, cultural, and ideological divisions that span nations make them especially susceptible to mythology related to the roots, race, and heroics of prehistory. The ideology of Nazism ultimately derives from this emotional base.
It has been more than eight decades since then, and today we are again facing a similar phenomenon. It is unlikely to meet an educated person in Bulgaria who does not have his own opinion on the question of origin and ancestry shaped by his personal ideological preferences. And as you may have noticed, the choice is plentiful. While waiting for food to be brought at a Chinese restaurant, I am involuntarily involved as a listener in the conversation at a nearby table. Two companies are arguing: one is in favor of the Hun thesis, the other - of the Aryan. They argue with fervor, throwing at each other's facts and arguments drawn from popular literature. And on the shore of the Bay of Varna there is a proud replica of a Proto-Bulgarian settlement, with yurts and a wooden fence called Phanagoria, named after the supposed capital of Old Greater Bulgaria. Just 30 kilometers north, the foundations of a huge Historical Park are laid, a sort of historic Disneyland, where both Autochthonous and Turanian and Iranian theory seem to coexist peacefully. Authentic descendants of the Dulo ruling house are still being sought, though candidates are not missing.
Where are the roots of our current insecurity? What makes us seek solace and support in our eternally escaping antiquity? Unlike the Republic of Macedonia, which is undergoing a painstaking process of seeking and asserting its identity in the face of a complex international environment and internal crisis, the situation in Bulgaria seems fundamentally different. For more than a decade, our country has been a member of one of the wealthiest economic communities in the world, a member of a powerful military alliance, at first glance, spared ethnic crises, and avoided the most acute forms of political confrontation. Nevertheless, we do not stop searching back in time. Who are we? Where we come from? As if the simple fact that we are here and now is not enough for us. Maybe it has something to do with the feeling that we are once again deceived by history? That we are poorer than we expected, and above all, that there are others, much richer than we are. With the feeling of disappearing of borders and dissolving in the global world. With the fear of loneliness in this impersonal consumer environment. Yes, the world today is different than it was in the 1930s. However, the symptoms of anxiety are similar.
And that should probably bother us.
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УДК 377.5
doi: 10.24411/9999-02^-2019-10035
Лидия Петровна Сагалакова, Тувинский государственный университет,
г. Кызыл, Россия
ЭТНОКУЛЬТУРНАЯ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТЬ БУДУЩЕГО ПЕДАГОГА В ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЙ СРЕДЕ КОЛЛЕДЖА
В статье раскрывается методы и формы необходимые по формированию этнокультурной компетентности у студента. Будущего педагога, мы можем назвать компетентным в области этнокультурного образования и воспитания, если: он обладает наличием глубоких знаний по этнопедагогике, этнопсихологии, возрастной психологии, педагогике межнационального общения;
