Thrace

For the Roman province, see Thracia (Roman province).
The modern boundaries of Thrace in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.
The physical-geographical boundaries of Thrace: the Balkan Mountains, the Rhodope Mountains and the Bosphorus. The Rhodope mountain range is highlighted.
The Roman province of Thrace
The Byzantine thema of Thrace.
Map of Ancient Thrace made by Abraham Ortelius,at 1585

Thrace (Bulgarian: Тракия, Trakiya, Greek: Θράκη, Thráki, Turkish: Trakya) is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east. The areas it comprises are southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace), and the European part of Turkey (Eastern Thrace). The biggest part of Thrace is part of present-day Bulgaria. In Bulgaria and Turkey, it is also called Rumelia. The name comes from the Thracians, an ancient Indo-European people inhabiting Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

Contents

Geography

Borders

The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied. Noteworthy is the fact that, at an early date, the ancient Greeks employed the term "Thrace" to refer to all of the territory which lay north of Greece (of Thessaly) inhabited by the Thracians[1], a region which "had no definite boundaries" and to which other regions (like Macedonia and even Scythia) were added.[2] In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided into "Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia"[3]. As the knowledge of world geography of the Greeks broadened, the term came to be more restricted in its application: Thrace designated the lands bordered by the Danube on the north, by the Euxine Sea (Black Sea) on the east, by northern Macedonia in the south and by the Illyrian lands (i.e. Illyria) to the west.[4] This largely coincided with the Thracian Odrysian kingdom, whose borders varied in time. During this time, specifically after the Macedonian conquest, the region's old border with Macedonia was shifted from the Struma River to the Mesta River.[5][6] This usage lasted until the Roman conquest. Henceforth, (classical) Thrace referred only to the tract of land largely covering the same extent of space as the modern geographical region. In its early period, the Roman province of Thrace was of this extent, but after the administrative reforms of the late 3rd century, Thracia's much reduced territory became of the six small provinces which constituted the Diocese of Thrace. The medieval Byzantine theme of Thrace contained only what today is Eastern Thrace.

Cities of Thrace

The largest cities of Thrace are: Istanbul (European side), Plovdiv, Burgas, Edirne.

Demographics and Religion

Main articles: Demographics of Bulgaria, Demographics of Greece, and Demographics of Turkey

Most of the Bulgarian and Greek population are Christians, while most of the Turkish inhabitants of Thrace are Muslims.

Thrace in ancient Greek mythology

Ancient Greek mythology provides them with a mythical ancestor, named Thrax, son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homer's Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas and Peiros. Later in the Iliad, another Thracian king makes an appearance, named Rhesus. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is also given as a Thracian king. Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined, and stretched from the River Axios in the west to the Hellespont and Black Sea in the east. The Catalogue of Ships mentions three separate contingents from Thrace: Thracians led by Acamas and Peiros, from Aenus; Cicones led by Euphemus, from southern Thrace, near Ismaros; and from the city of Sestus, on the Thracian (northern) side of the Hellespont, which formed part of the contingent led by Asius. Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus). In addition to the tribe that Homer calls Thracians, ancient Thrace was home to numerous other tribes, such as the Edones, Bisaltae, Cicones, and Bistones.

History

Ancient history

Main article: Thracians
Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak 

The indigenous population of Thrace was a people called the Thracians, divided into numerous tribal groups. Thracian troops were known to accompany neighboring ruler Alexander the Great when he crossed the Hellespont which abuts Thrace, and took on the Persian Empire of the day.

The Thracians did not describe themselves as such and Thrace and Thracians are simply the names given them by the Greeks.[7]

Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians did not manage to form a lasting political organization until the Odrysian state was founded in the 4th century BC. Like Illyrians, Thracian tribes of the mountainous regions fostered a locally ruled warrior tradition, while the tribes based in the plains were purportedly more peaceable. Recent funeral mounds in Bulgaria suggest that Thracian kings did rule regions of Thrace with distinct Thracian national identity.

During this period, a subculture of celibate ascetics called the Ctistae lived in Thrace, where they served as philosophers, priests and prophets.

Medieval history

By the mid 5th century, as the Roman Empire began to crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall of Rome, Thracia turned into a battleground territory for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The eastern successor of the Roman Empire in the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire, retained control over Thrace until the beginning of the 9th century when most of the region was incorporated into Bulgaria. Byzantium regained Thrace in 972 only to lose it again to the Bulgarians at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, the region oscillated between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire. In 1265 the area suffered a Mongol raid from the Golden Horde, led by Nogai Khan. In 1352, the Ottoman Turks conducted their first incursion into the region subduing it completely within a matter of two decades and occupying it for five centuries.

Modern history

Proposal to cede Eastern Thrace to Greece during World War I. This photocopy came from a larger, color map.

With the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Northern Thrace was incorporated into the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia, which united with Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of Thrace was divided between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century, following the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greco-Turkish War. Today Thracian is a strong regional identity in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and other neighbouring countries.

Famous Thracians and people from Thrace

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Thomas Swinburne Carr, The history and geography of Greece, p.56 [1]
  2. ↑ Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, London, 1857, p. 1176 [2]
  3. ↑ Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, London, 1857, p. 1176 [3]
  4. ↑ Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography, London, 1857, p. 1176 [4]
  5. ↑ Johann Joachim Eschenburg, Nathan Welby Fiske, Manual of classical literature, p. 20. [5]
  6. ↑ Alexander Adam, A summary of geography and history, both ancient and modern, p.344 (full view)
  7. ↑ The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, and N. G. L. Hammond ,ISBN 0521227178,1992,page 597: "We have no way of knowing what the Thracians called themselves and if indeed they had a common name...Thus the name of Thracians and that of their country were given by the Greeks to a group of tribes occupying the territory..."

References

External links