AHC/WI: Byzantine-Bulgarian Empire (with a twist)

Y'all overestimating the Greeks. Slavic toponyms stretch into the Peloponnese, and Greeks lived only in the coastal places (literally). With Byzantium gone, the inland Slavics would simply be appointed as the new elite. You could say that this place was proto-nationalistic from the start. I mean we annexed a bunch of Greek lands and the only greek things to enter the culture were 2 or 3 loanwords tier
Wikipedia says that Greek is the close second contributor of loanwords after latin and 25% of the vocabulary was loaned, so it's not that little.

Also I'm very doubtful that Greeks lived only in the coastal areas, Bulgaria south of the Balkan mountains were controlled by Byzantium up to Bulgarian conquest and such conquest lasted just 2 centuries before being reannexed, chances are this region was at least plurality Greek durign the first Bulgarian Empire if the locals haven't been literally genocided.
 
Y'all overestimating the Greeks. Slavic toponyms stretch into the Peloponnese, and Greeks lived only in the coastal places (literally). With Byzantium gone, the inland Slavics would simply be appointed as the new elite. You could say that this place was proto-nationalistic from the start. I mean we annexed a bunch of Greek lands and the only greek things to enter the culture were 2 or 3 loanwords tier

I have no doubt that Bulgarians or Slavic could come in and replace the Greeks, the problem is OP requires that the Greeks and Bulgarians exist side by side in the Balkans, not Slavs simply replacing the Greeks wholesale.
 
Did Bulgarians work in the Byzantine army or state?

I wonder if the Byzantines would accept to help the Bulgarians rather than invade them on their own, something they wished to do and used multiple groups against the Bulgarians for that reason.

Maybe we can have it be an internal conflict which pushes the Bulgarians toward a more Greek-friendly approach while the Byzantines are distracted East, formalizing the border around the modern Turkish Thrace, at least for a century

According the Osprey “Byzantine Armies 886-1118”, the Bulgarians worked alongside many other foreign troops as mercenaries for the Byzantines, so yeah I think you could plausibly have a Bulgarian working in the Byzantine Army. Your suggestion sounds like it could work, having both powers distracted elsewhere will at least normalize the border for a bit.
 
Y'all overestimating the Greeks. Slavic toponyms stretch into the Peloponnese, and Greeks lived only in the coastal places (literally). With Byzantium gone, the inland Slavics would simply be appointed as the new elite. You could say that this place was proto-nationalistic from the start. I mean we annexed a bunch of Greek lands and the only greek things to enter the culture were 2 or 3 loanwords tier

It depends on when Byzantium gets overrun. If it happens during the Macedonians like I suggested it’ll be at Constantinople’s medieval height of a few hundred thousand, for instance—I don’t see the Bulgarians assimilating that.
 
According the Osprey “Byzantine Armies 886-1118”, the Bulgarians worked alongside many other foreign troops as mercenaries for the Byzantines, so yeah I think you could plausibly have a Bulgarian working in the Byzantine Army. Your suggestion sounds like it could work, having both powers distracted elsewhere will at least normalize the border for a bit.
To me it seems a lot of the foreign policy of both Bulgaria and Byzantium were depended on the character of the people involved, so possibly even without having a Bulgarian born Byzantine Emperor you could have a string of emperors that delays warfare, the problem is how do we reach the situation of the post Simeon Bulgarian empire without creating a situation where the Byzantine is put in a subservient tributary position, which to me would seem to make it a compelling objective to get rid of it. Maybe we can have a war post Simeon in which the Byzantine lose Athens and Thessaloniki but manage to get a solid border in Thrace(annexing Adrianople)?
 
To me it seems a lot of the foreign policy of both Bulgaria and Byzantium were depended on the character of the people involved, so possibly even without having a Bulgarian born Byzantine Emperor you could have a string of emperors that delays warfare, the problem is how do we reach the situation of the post Simeon Bulgarian empire without creating a situation where the Byzantine is put in a subservient tributary position, which to me would seem to make it a compelling objective to get rid of it. Maybe we can have a war post Simeon in which the Byzantine lose Athens and Thessaloniki but manage to get a solid border in Thrace(annexing Adrianople)?

That’s not a satisfied Bulgaria, that’s a Bulgaria just waiting for its chance to snap up Tsargrad. Seriously, if they took all of Greece and the “Co-Capital” theyd see themselves as naturally on the rise!
 
That’s not a satisfied Bulgaria, that’s a Bulgaria just waiting for its chance to snap up Tsargrad. Seriously, if they took all of Greece and the “Co-Capital” theyd see themselves as naturally on the rise!
But what if they lose all of Bulgaria over the Danube to the Magyars? They territories North-West aren't secure either, I think that if instead of declining and being conquered from Byzantium in the late 10th century like IOTL they instead simply retract and consolidate their ambitions over Constantinople would be twarted, especially if the Arabs lose their naval dominance(Crete, Cyprus and maybe Sicily if that matters)
 
But what if they lose all of Bulgaria over the Danube to the Magyars? They territories North-West aren't secure either, I think that if instead of declining and being conquered from Byzantium in the late 10th century like IOTL they instead simply retract and consolidate their ambitions over Constantinople would be twarted, especially if the Arabs lose their naval dominance(Crete, Cyprus and maybe Sicily if that matters)

They lost all of Bulgaria over the Danube IOTL and still had Constantinoplitan ambitions. Gaining all of Greece will just make their claim that much more legitimate.
 
Ah. Still, even then Greece is far wealthier than those regions at that time to the degree that I’d argue that they’d have a net gain ITTL
Interestingly enough I don't think Athens or Thessaloniki were bigger than the Bulgarian capital of Preslav, I wonder though why didn't the Bulgarians annex either of those, was it a naval problem? If yes can it be overcome without a navy anyway?

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Also another question, how would the Bulgarians position themselves in the West-East religious divide? IOTL they tried to reduce Greek influence by contacting Rome and Frankish churches.
 
Once the Bulgars capture Saloniki the leader proclaims himself King of Bulgars and Emperor of the Romans. All Roman institutions adopted. Inside two generations the whole ruling class speaks Greek. From the crib ...
This will not be nearly enough. Thessaloniki was on the edge of Slavic settlement, with Slavic apparently being spoken widely there (at least in the 9th century). Far more likely is it's transformation into a Bulgarian city like many of the other cities captured by the Bulgars.

This is why I prefer the wholesale thing where the Bulgarian Emperor becomes the Byzantine one completely—I’d use the Yuan Dynasty as a comparison, where they end up assimilating due to the wealth and prestige of the totality of the Roman Empire.
The population disparity is not nearly enough. The Slavs likely outnumbered the Greeks on the Balkans.

As for sturdiness against enemies, maybe the Bulgarian dynasty can do away with the Romans’ eternal civil wars and solidify primogeniture somehow. That would be a terrific help, but I don’t know how plausible that is.
Bulgaria did not have as much problems with wars about succession, up until the last century at least. For a significant example, Samuil who ruled Bulgaria de-facto since 976, refused to declare himself Tsar until the last monarch of the previous dynasty died, even though he had been imprisoned for years in Constantinople.

But the challenge is to not have them take Anatolia or Constantinople.
Without them, Bulgarians would inevitably dominate over the remaining Greeks by sheer numbers.

I don't think the territory south of the Balkan mountains, Attica and the Aegean Coast were Slavic majority, wouldn't controlling all continental Balkan territory be enough?
What do you consider the Balkan Mountains? If it's this, the answer is that they certainly dominated far to the south of the mountains.

I have no idea. Equal status?
Not workable in an Orthodox country. Perhaps it could remain an archbishopric, which is what happened to the Bulgarian church after the Byzantine conquest.

Wikipedia says that Greek is the close second contributor of loanwords after latin and 25% of the vocabulary was loaned, so it's not that little.
This includes much of the scientific terminology which is borrowed from ancient Greek. And outside of terms connected with Christianity and subjects which were not familiar to the Slavs earlier borrowings are not that significant

Also I'm very doubtful that Greeks lived only in the coastal areas, Bulgaria south of the Balkan mountains were controlled by Byzantium up to Bulgarian conquest and such conquest lasted just 2 centuries before being reannexed, chances are this region was at least plurality Greek durign the first Bulgarian Empire if the locals haven't been literally genocided.
The Slavs had settled virtually the entire Balkan peninsula, this included most of Thrace as well. And if it didn't become mostly Bulgarian at this point, there would have been little opportunity to become such later.
 
This will not be nearly enough. Thessaloniki was on the edge of Slavic settlement, with Slavic apparently being spoken widely there (at least in the 9th century). Far more likely is it's transformation into a Bulgarian city like many of the other cities captured by the Bulgars.
Sources for that? Thessaloniki was never annexed by any Slavic state up that point, it was sieged though and I find hard to believe that many Slavs would be among their midst, especially considering trade was mostly conducted in Constantinople.


The population disparity is not nearly enough. The Slavs likely outnumbered the Greeks on the Balkans.
I'm highly skeptical of that. At least for the first half of the 9th century.

Without them, Bulgarians would inevitably dominate over the remaining Greeks by sheer numbers.
Maybe have the Northern Bulgarian territories be annexed by Magyars or Pechenegs and make them sack Preslav and other settlement in the region, the core are would shift south in Greek territory. Mind that they would also own Athens and Pelopponese.

What do you consider the Balkan Mountains? If it's this, the answer is that they certainly dominated far to the south of the mountains.
No they definitely didn't the Bulgarian took the bulk of this territory in the 9th century and the Byzantine didn't lose control of it during the Slavic migration in the region, but magically the local Greek disappeared the second the Bulgarians conquered it.

Not workable in an Orthodox country. Perhaps it could remain an archbishopric, which is what happened to the Bulgarian church after the Byzantine conquest.
How is that not workable? For the first decades Greek was liturgical language, it could remain so alongside Bulgarian, especially if the region under its control has multiple linguistic communities.

This includes much of the scientific terminology which is borrowed from ancient Greek. And outside of terms connected with Christianity and subjects which were not familiar to the Slavs earlier borrowings are not that significant
Still borrowings, plus I'm not sure we can take modern languages which have been "purified" during the 19th century, Romanian removed so much slavic influence and both it and Bulgarian(on a much smaller scale though) have so many loanwords from French and other modern European languages that substituted Turkic and influences from other languages.

The Slavs had settled virtually the entire Balkan peninsula, this included most of Thrace as well. And if it didn't become mostly Bulgarian at this point, there would have been little opportunity to become such later.
I mean it had a century and a half of time(and more for some other territories) and then there was the Second Bulgarian empire, which also existed for a century and a half or so.

The thing the territory around the Maritsa and Plovdiv remained under Byzantine control throughout the Slavic migration period, so either Slavs are magical creatures that replace everyone in their way and aren't affected by being under the effective control of such a big empire or probably the slavicization of Bulgarian Thrace didn't happen overnight.
 
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