Before we see who the Master with a capital M is, let me say a few general words. I watch the History of BG broadcasts on BNT, because after all, this is my specialty from the university - history and archaeology. As much as I watch these shows, I usually don't get to watch them.
I don't know how long Bulgarian historians will enjoy remaining locked in these 1300 years of Bulgaria. Okay, let's make it 1400 years – still the same.
The history of our lands is many, many thousand years old. As well as the history of our people. Most professional historians jump at these words. But how – the Bulgarian people are not more than 1300 – 1500 years. In addition, we were also barbarians, pagans, until the 9th century, when we accepted Christianity. Moreover, everything good and civilized came to us from outside, from the great empires that surrounded us or that we were a part of at a certain historical period, etc. in that line of thought.
This speaks to the level of our historians, as professional ones, and also to the level of their intellect. Why? Because now there is a huge amount of literature on the Internet, there is free access to unimaginable volumes of literature in all languages. And we sing the old song from the times of the Cold War, and even before that. Because soon there was also talk about the alphabet and here we listened to clichés, about how the alphabet was created by Cyril and Methodius, and before that by St. Kliment Ohridski, who created the Glagolitic script.
Also Mavro Orbini in the Kingdom of the Slavs, a book published in 1601, says that the Slavs had two alphabets. Cyrillic created by Cyril the Philosopher and Glagolitic created by St. Jerome. Saint Jerome is a “fiery Dalmatian”, i.e. a Croatian, who lived, however, as early as the 4th century. In the 4th century on our lands, in Dobruja, Etikus Ister, a man of noble Scythian origin, created his alphabet. We find signs from the Glagolitic alphabet already in the linear script A and B, as well as from the Cyrillic alphabet, at the end of the second millennium BC. There are written signs on our lands much older than linear writing and attention, many of them are the same as today's “Cyrillic“ letters. However, we sing the old song about how our alphabet was created in the ninth century.
And now for the Master with a capital M. Even in the earliest layers of settlement mounds on our lands, archaeologists have found traces of two-story houses. This means that even in the time of 5-6 thousand years before the new era, there were two-story houses in the settlements of that time. From that time, these same planned built settlements, with one- and two-story houses, with straight streets, sometimes the entire villages were fenced and fortified, i.e. we may call them real urban centers, since we are talking about those distant times. The much later buildings, from the time of the Thracians, fortresses, royal residences, domed tombs and other cult buildings are better known, and the skill of the craftsmen and builders of that time has been proven and recognized.
These same Thracian craftsmen and builders also built the vast majority of the so-called Roman buildings on our lands from the time about two thousand years ago. These are the Roman fortified camps and fortresses, the temples of that time, bridges and cobbled roads, public and private buildings and town squares, residences, suburban villas and much more. The Thracian lands, then divided into provinces, from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, were the center of a numerous and skilled people.
From our lands, the Romans and later the Byzantines took master builders, stonemasons, bricklayers, bricklayers and tilers, for the needs of the constructions both in the Balkans themselves and for the lands of the entire empire. It is the same in Turkish times, from which time there are legends about Master Manol, Master Georgi, etc. But these legends may also be from a much older time. The word master itself is found in Roman inscriptions, in the lands of Mysia, Thrace and Macedonia as “mastrian“, which is something like a rank, a title. The word “master“ comes from the verb “to do“ or “build“, i.e. she is ours.
Even the very influence, the spread of this word in foreign distant lands, shows where the nest is, where the Balkan nest of this concept is, where masters with a capital M were born, studied and created. Even today in the English language the word “ master“ means not so much a master but a master. Strange as it may be, the “Turkish“ word “mouth“, for example usta Gencho or usta Kolyo Ficheto, which means “master“ has the same root. Mouth is actually (m)mouth(r) – master.
But this is not at all strange if we know the truth about the history of our lands. The Turkish word carpenter is also of our origin and comes from the verb “dyalkam“. I.e. “carpenter“ means “carver”, the person who cuts the stones, because this was the main skill of the ancient craftsman, and the stone was then the main means of building and construction. The words mistria (mastery) and master are derived from the word master, and as we said, it is purely our own.
Even the dreaded and mystical word “mason“ is related to master bow. The word “mason“ (mazon) comes from “plasterer”. That is why Masons are called masons or “freemasons” or, to put it bluntly, in a more profane kind of mason-plaster. Because in ancient times all craft groups were strictly organized, including that of master builders. Many professional secrets have also been strictly guarded. Hence the organization of master builders – mazachi was copied by the so-called Freemasons.
And suddenly in History of BG we hear how our contemporary masters and builders looked from here or there, from Europe or from Asia, examples of architecture and how they copied them here on our lands. Someone went and saw two villages in central Turkey that look like the Bulgarian old cities, with the old houses, or went to Albania and saw the cities of Zhirokastro (Zhirokastro) and Berat and decided that the Bulgarian cities were also built according to a foreign model. I can only exclaim as a poet – “ Oh, poor self-loathing and misunderstanding of the Bulgarian genius!“
The Bulgarian craftsman, always smiling, with a hammer in his hand and a wrist hooked behind his ear, often a self-taught genius or should we say a master by birth, is one of the best images in our lands, and again for millennia. His fame has spread far and near, along with the fame of kings and brave warriors, of thinkers and writers, of fortune-telling priestesses, of boisterous bacchanals and fairy princesses. And all of them born on our lands. People of whom we are direct heirs and hopefully we will realize it sooner and write it down in the history books.