The Historian Week 5 Questions and Discussion...

After tonight, we have one week left in The Historian readalong -- I hope you've enjoyed this as much as we have! Only a couple questions this week...

Paul and Helen have had quite an incredible journey together, and in this short section, they are accompanied by the watchful Ranov as they tour Bulgaria and interact with Stoichev to learn more about the monks who have written about the transport of an incredible treasure, that could be Vlad Tepes' body or his head, and the hope that the two are reunited.  I was also incredibly saddened to hear about the "amnesia" that Professor Rossi also experienced, separating him from Helen's mother forever.

1. We're getting closer to the truth...Last week, the general response was that it seemed to be a much slower point than the other sections.  What do you think of the story's momentum thus far in this week's section?
2. What has jumped out at you that you'd like to discuss with the group?

"I am glad to have the chance to talk with anyone who is interested in our medieval history," Stoichev said to me.  "Perhaps it would be interesting for you and Miss Rossi to see a holiday that celebrates two of our great medieval figures.  Tomorrow is the day of Kiril and Methodii, creators of the great Slaonic alphabet.  In English you would say Cyril and Methodius -- you call it Cyrilic, do you not?  We say kirilitsa, for Kiril, the monk who invented it." (Ch. 57)

Kiril and Methodii, painted by Stanislav Dospavski

"After a moment, he went into one of the other rooms and came back carrying a paper-covered volume, which proved to be an old scholarly journal printed in German. 'I had a friend --" he stopped. 'If only he had lived to see this day!  I told you -- his name was Atanas Angelov -- yes, he was a Bulgarian historian and one of my first teachers.  In 1923 he was doing some researches in the library at Rila, which is one of our great treasure-houses of medieval documents."  (Ch. 58)

"If my first glimpse of Stoichev's house had filled me with sudden hopelessness, my first glimpse of Rila Monastery filled me with awe.  The monastery sat in a dramatically deep valley -- almost filling it, at that point -- and above its walls and domes rose the Rila Mountains, which are very steep and forested with tall spruces."  (Ch. 61)

Rila Monastery, from An American in Bulgaria

"The great wooden doors of the gate were open, and we went through them into a sight I can never forget.  Around us loomed the striped walls of the monastery fortress, with their alternating patterns of black and red on white plaster, hung with long wooden galleries.  Filling a third of the enormous courtyard was a church of exquisite proportions, its porch heavily frescoed, its pale green domes alight in the midday sun.  Beside it stood a muscular, square tower of gray stone, visibly older than everything else in sight.  Stoichev told us that this was Hrelyo's Tower, built by a medieval nobleman as a haven from his political enemies.  It was the only remaining part of the earliest monastery on the site, which had been burned by the Turks and rebuilt centuries later in this striped splendor."  (Ch. 61)

Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery Courtyard, striped walls

Rila Monastery

Hrelyo's Tower, photo by Bojidar Hinkov

The "Chronicle" claims that they traveled only a short distance -- "not much farther" -- from the monastery at Bachkovo, located about thirty-five kilometers south of Asenovgrad on the Chepelarska River.  Clearly, Sveti Georgi was situated somewhere in south central Bulgaria.  This area, which includes much of the Rhodope Mountains, was among the last Bulgarian regions to be conquered by the Ottomans; some particularly rugged terrain inthe area was never brought under full Ottoman domination.  If Sveti Georgi was located in the mountains, this might have accounted in part for its selection as a relatively safe resting place for the remains of Vlad III."  (Ch. 59)

Ruins of Sveti Georgi

"Stefan reports through Zacharias that his friends were "interrogated" in the town of Haskovo before being tortured and killed, which suggests that Ottoman authorities believed they possessed politically sensitive information of some sort.  Haskovo is located in southeast Bulgaria, a region that was securely under Ottoman command by the fifteenth century." (Ch. 59)

Haskovo Ruins

Yours in profoundest grief,
Coffee and a Book Chick
Tedious & Brief