The heartland of the First Bulgarian Empire is divided into three parts, but Bulgarian is still spoken in each, Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov said on Saturday.
He was commenting on the return of Tsar Samuel’s remains to present-day Bulgaria in a statement circulated by the party’s press office.
“St Achillios Island is a little piece of paradise tucked away in the heart of Prespa, in the middle of Small Prespa Lake. Prespa is now divided among three countries (Macedonia, Greece and Albania), but 1,000 years ago this was the heart of Bulgaria,” Kostadinov added. He said reburying Samuel’s remains in Sofia was the best option given the uncertainties of the present day, but added that “strictly speaking, he has never left his home”. He said there was no difference between Sofia and the village of St Achillios, describing both as settlements inhabited by Bulgarians on ancestral Bulgarian land.
Kostadinov denied that the religious artefacts returned to Greece had been stolen by Bulgarian troops from Greek monasteries in 1917. He said the monasteries had been founded and inhabited by Bulgarians and liberated by Bulgarian troops in 1912 following the end of Ottoman rule. In his account, Greece occupied them in 1913, but Bulgaria liberated them in 1916, with the process repeated in 1918, 1941 and 1944. He added that the Bulgarian authorities had evacuated the artefacts to protect them from the fighting and had succeeded in preserving them.
Kostadinov also called on the state to erect a fitting memorial at the site. He said there was currently only a modest inscription in Greek and English noting that the Basilica of St Achillios had been built by Bulgarian Tsar Samuel, with no mention that the legendary Bulgarian ruler had been buried there alongside his son Gavrail Radomir, his nephew Ivan Vladislav and his son-in-law Ivan Vladimir.
Tsar Samuel had never left his homeland, Vazrazhdane’s Angel Georgiev told journalists after the Bulgaria Welcomes Tsar Samuel ceremony. He said the party rejected descriptions of Samuel as returning, arguing that he had never left, even though historical upheavals had placed ancestral Bulgarian lands outside Bulgaria’s present-day borders. Georgiev said Vazrazhdane would launch an initiative to install a memorial plaque in the village of St Achillios. He added that Bulgarians still inhabited those lands and spoke Bulgarian, and that the Bulgarian minority in the Aegean region should not be forgotten and should receive support.
Asked about the foreign policy implications of transferring and burying Samuel’s remains in Bulgaria, Kostadinov said it made sense for them to be in Bulgaria, which was the safest place for them under current circumstances. He added that the whole world knew Samuel was a Bulgarian tsar and one of Bulgaria’s great rulers. Whatever various pseudohistorians claimed, there was only one truth, which could not be rewritten for political or other purposes, he said.
Vazrazhdane Leader Kostadinov Says Tsar Samuel Never Left His Homeland 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-10-03 15:18:32
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