Samuel of Bulgaria - Nomenclature

Nomenclature

Samuel's empire had its heartlands around Ohrid, west and southwest of this earlier cultural center of the First Bulgarian Empire. Thus Yugoslav historian George Ostrogorsky distinguished Samuel's Empire from the earlier Bulgarian Empire, referring to it as a "Macedonian Empire", although he claims that it was politically and ecclesiastically a direct descendant of the empire of Symeon and Peter, and was regarded by Samuel and the Byzantines as being the Bulgarian Empire. Some historians of his school, such as the Serbian scholar Anastasijević, claimed even that Samuel ruled a separate Slavic Empire founded as an anti-Bulgarian rebellion. This Yugoslav theory is now rejected by the modern Serbian historians. It is still held only in the Republic of Macedonia, where the official state doctrine refers to a "Macedonian Slavic", or even only "Macedonian" Empire. This controversy is ahistorical, as it projects modern ethnic distinctions onto the past.