2-5. – Historical English Maps of Bulgaria.

Mr. E. A. Freeman (1823-1892), Professor of History at Oxford University, published, in the year 1880, his well-known book "The Political Geography of Europe", with an atlas. After his death this work of his reappeared in a 3rd edition, edited by Mr. E. B. Bury, a professor at Cambridge University and an equally renowned historian, again with an atlas entitled: "Atlas to the historical geography of Europa by Edw. A. Freeman. Third edition, edited by J. B. Bury London 1903". It contains a large number of well-worked-out maps which make the study of geography extraordinarily easy. From this atlas the maps XXXXIV, XXXV, XXXVIII, and XXXIX of Southeast-Europe are reproduced in order to give a clear conception of the development of Bulgaria during four succeeding epochs: the period of Czar Simeon (910), the period of Czar Samuel (1000), the end of the Byzantine domination (1180) and after the death of Czar Kalojan (1210).

Regarding the fact that the West-Bulgarian Empire of Samuel had a greater extent and a longer existence than the Servian under Duschan, and that under the rule of Boris, Simeon, Peter, Kalojan, Iwan Assen II and others, Bulgaria not only extended herself over the Servian dominion of Duschan's time, but also over the eastern-part of the Balkan Peninsula, it is easy to imagine how much the Servians exaggerate the occurrences of their modest history of the Mlddle Ages.

It must be specially established, that even at the time when the Bulgarian State, from the Adriatic Sea to the mouth of the Danube, was subject to Byzantium (1018-1184), the country went by the name of Bulgaria, as clearly to be seen out of map XXXVIII.

These four maps are here reproduced in fac-simile, on the scale of the original ones.