e troubles of
the Balkans, the Bogomil heresy appeared, dividing further the strength
of the Bulgarian nation. The Bogomils were the first of a long series of
Slavonic fanatics, ancestors in spirit of the Doukhobors, the Stundists,
and the Tolstoyans of our days, preaching the hermit life as the only
truly holy one, forbidding marriage as well as war and the eating of
meat. It was with such dissensions among the Christian states of the
Balkans that the way was prepared for the coming of the Turk to the
Peninsula.

In 969 Boris II. followed Peter on the Bulgarian throne. He was faced by
a new Russian invasion and by an attack from Czar David of Western
Bulgaria. This latter attack he beat off, but was overwhelmed before the
tide of Russian invasion and himself captured in battle. The Russians
passed over Bulgaria to attack Constantinople, and that brought the
Greeks into line with the Bulgarians to resist the invader. The Emperor
John Zemissius made bold war upon the Russians, and captured from them
their Bulgarian prisoner, the Czar Boris II. The Greek Emperor made no
magnanimous use of his victory. He deposed the Bulgarian Czar and the
Bulgarian Patriarch, emasculated the Czar's brother, and turned Bulgaria
into a Greek province. Only in the rebel province of West Bulgaria did
Bulgarian independence at this time survive, and from that province
there arose in time a deliverer, the Czar Samuel, who was the fourth son
of that boyar Shishman who founded the Western Bulgarian kingdom. At the
beginning of his reign, in 976, Samuel had control only over the
territory which is now known as Macedonia, but soon he united to it all
the old Empire of Bulgaria, and stretched the sway of his race over much
of the land which is now comprised in Albania, Greece, and Servia. He
began, then, a stern war with the Greek Emperor, Basil II., known to
history as "the Bulgar-slayer," against whom is alleged a cruelty
horrible even for the Balkans.

Capturing a Bulgarian army of over 10,000 men, Basil II. had all the
soldiers blinded, leaving to each of their centurions, however, one eye,
so that the mutilated men might be led back to their own country. A
realistically horrible picture in the Sofia National Gallery
commemorates this classic horror.

The war between the Czar Samuel and the Emperor Basil II. was marked by
fluctuating fortunes. At first the Bulgarians were altogether
successful, and in 981 Basil was so completely defeated that