The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer

The reign of Basil!! (976-1025), the longest of any Byzantine emperor, has long been considered as a 'golden age' in which Basil's greatest achievement was the annexation of Bulgaria. This, we have been told, was achieved through a long and bloody war of attrition which won Basil the grisly epithet Voulgartoktonos, "the Bulgar-slayer."

In this new study Paul Stephenson argues that neither of these beliefs is true. Instead, Basil fought far more sporadically in the Balkans and, like his predecessors, considered this area less prestigious than the East. Moreover, his reputation as "Bulgar-slayer" emerged only a century and a half later, the creation of a martial regime immersed in bellicose panegyric. Thereafter the " Bulgar- slayer" was periodically to play a galvanizing role for the Byzantines. Fading from view during the period of Ottoman rule, Basil returned to center-stage as Greeks struggled to establish a modern nation state. As Byzantium was embraced as the Greek past by scholars and politicians, the "Bulgar-slayer" became an icon in the struggle for Macedonia (1904-8) and the Balkan Wars (1912-13).