The Bulgarians in the Greek textbooks of history of the second half of the 19th century

Abstract

In the present paper the author studies the way the Greek textbooks of
history published in the second half of the 19th century dealt with the
Bulgarians. The conclusions he drew are the following:
1) The references to the Bulgarians appeared in the textbooks after the
year 1853 and became more frequent and detailed during the last two decades
of the 19th century. This change was the result of the new history curricula
which were introduced into the Greek school under the influence of the Greek
national historiography.
2) The Bulgarians were not studied by the Greek authors of the textbooks
as a people in their own right, but they were directly related to the history of
the Byzantine Empire.
3) The Greek authors, dealing with the conflicts between the Byzantine
Empire and the Bulgarian medieval state, tried to describe the historical
events as “they really happened” and without bias.
4) The Greek textbooks of history published till the end of the 19th
century, in exempt of some isolated cases, contain no negative stereotypes
concerning the Bulgarians. This fact is very interesting, because a series of
historical and geographical essays published in Greece during the same period
of time dealt with the Bulgarians in a negative way because of the Greek-
Bulgarian conflict for Macedonia.