The themata of the Byzantine Empire, at the death of Basil II in 1025.
The Theme of Bulgaria (
Preslav. This territory was administred independently and was considered as autonomous military unit, designated as Dristra, Paristrion or Paradunavon, meaning the “lands beside the Danube”.[2]
The local inhabitants were called Bulgarians,
Tsar of the Bulgarians.[6] Other researcher maintain that the development of Old Church Slavonic literacy during the 10th century had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the Eastern South Slavs into the Byzantine culture, which promoted then the formation of a distinct Bulgarian identity which was strong enough to preserve the concept of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians as a distinct entities.[7][8][9] Thus, the Bulgarians kept their identity, which reached particular strength after the Second Bulgarian Empire was formed in the 12th century.[10] The period ended with the Uprising of Asen and Peter.[11]
The conquest of the
Archbishopric of Ohrid
, that retained an autocephalous status. The Bulgarian aristocracy also retained its position. Troops were recruited mainly from the Bulgarian population. However, only ten years later after the death of Basil II, the Byzantine tax system was introduced. Slavic literacy, liturgy and traditions of the Archbishopric were in some places subjected to persecution. Some of the Bulgarian aristocracy had slowly but consistently been removed from its position. Many were sent on assignments in other realms of the Empire remote from the Balkans. This situation gave rise to discontent among the local population.
Rebellions aimed at restoration of the Bulgarian state broke out. The
Komnenian Dynasty, the Bulgarian uprisings subsided, due to the integration of the old Bulgarian aristocracy in the rule of the empire, as seen in the writings of Anna Komnene about her grandmother Maria of Bulgaria in "Alexiad".[13]
At the end of the 11th century the Byzantine domains in the Balkans became an arena of fierce hostilities. The
rebellion of the brothers Peter and Asen, and Bulgaria sought again to dominate the Balkans. The disintegration of Byzantium was complete when in 1204 the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople. The Latins established their own Latin Empire
in the place of the Byzantine Empire and set up their own feudal states in the southern Balkans.
B. Panov, Mitko (2019). The Blinded State: Historiographic Debates about Samuel Cometopoulos and His State (10th-11th Century); Volume 55 of East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450. Leiden/Boston: BRILL.
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