Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1915. THE BULGARIANS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XL, Issue 11405, 23 October 1915, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1915. THE BULGARIANS.

THE people of Bulgaria have had a 'turbulent history. The first historical mention of the people of Bulgaria was when they came under the rule of Phillip of Macedou. As to their origin or race at that time we are wholly ignorant. In the year 26 A.D. the country came under the rule of the Romans. By the 4th century the land had been overrun by barbarians, come from no one knows whither, and they were living in amitj’ with the previous inhabitants. There were afterwards invasions by the Goths, Huns and other barbarous peoples, before the Slavs arrived in the 7th century, and obtained domination. Later in the same century, the Bulgarians, evidently an Asiatic people, became masters of the land. After

about two hundred years of freedom

from conquest the different peoples had again amalgamated, with the

Serb or Slav language predominant. The Bulgarians became a groat Power between 893 and 1018, ruling over the greater! part of the present Servia, all Albania, and part of Roumania, Even the Greek Emperor at Constantinople had to pay tribute to it. It was during this period, In the year 907, that the Russians first appeared in the country, 10,000 of them, not as friends but as enemies, to assist the Greeks. In the 11th century the Patzinakitai and the Kumani, the latter speaking a language similar to the Turkish, overran Bulgaria, but were soon routed. In 1393, on the conquest of the country by the Turks, the conquerors slaughtered most of tne nobles and took their lands. In the 18th century a horde of Tartars from the Crimea, and about half a million Circassians, were imported, which were the last mixtures added to make the Bulgarian people what they are to-day. As regards the Balkan States, each has had its so-called periods of glory during the past 1500 years, when its territory included much of what one or the other holds at present, and the desire on the part of the rulers of each to emulate the -teats of war of the heroic figures of the past are as strong now as in the middle ages.

The adoption of a Slav language and the creation of an intense national sentiment amongst a people so mired as the Bulgarians, founded as they both are on historical' associations with which most of their forefathers had no relation, is a striking proof that those conditions, we describe under the term environment, are the dominant factors in the production of what are usually called “racial characteristics.” The assumed racial differences, at any rate amongst European peoples, that incite them to act differently under the same circumstances is almost a myth. Their conduct is determined not by differences in race, but by education, as is perhaps most clearly mdx-

cated by the unity of the Jews in this wgr, with the peoples with which they have their . homes and associations. There is absolutely no reason to believe the people of that race are not wholly patriotic, whether fighting on our side or against us. There are certainly racial differences in Europe but they are very much less and affect conduct very much less than it is generally Believed, and if this fact were better known throughout Europe as it will be, by more international intercourse, the unity of the human race would be more clearly realised and war soon cease.