The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

able from the Serbian, is to be found in the Bulgarian provinces on the Black Sea, where the predominance of the Mongolian blood in the population is clearly attested by the larger lower jaws, broader skulls, jet black hair and dark complexion. Also the Slav language, as spoken in these districts, being more strongly influenced by alien elements, is hardly understood by the inhabitants of Western Bulgaria of to-day. Going from the Black Sea towards the West, the Mongolian infusion becomes thinner and thinner, so that on the river Isker it is altogether lost and the Slavonic type appears in all its purity.

The same may be said in regard to Macedonia. The Bulgarians reigned only 125 years in all in Macedonia during the ninth and tenth centuries, and disappeared without leaving any historical monument or tradition. The Serbians, on the contrary, subsequently ruled over Macedonia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries for 140 years. All historical monuments in Macedoniachurches and castles, also the national songs and traditions—belong without a single exception to that later, Serbian, period.

In spite of all these influences and changes the process of differentiation between Serbs and Bulgars has not advanced very far, so that even to-day the difference between them—at least in language—is less than the difference between Bavarians and Prussians or between the Great

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