withdrew from this decision. According to its view, Tsar Samuel had to be portrayed in one way in North Macedonia's textbooks, and in another during joint commemorations. In August 2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia published official recommendations of the Joint Historical Commission operating between the two countries. There, the governments in Sofia and Skopje are offered a joint commemoration of Samuel, who, according to the commission, was the ruler of a large medieval state, which the majority of modern historical scholarship considers to be the Bulgarian empire itself, centered in the territory of today's North Macedonia. In this way the Macedonian members of the Commission not only agreed to identify Samuel's state as Bulgarian, but they also recognized the existence of the Bulgarian ethnicity during the Middle Ages. See also Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars Bulgarian-Hungarian Wars Croatian-Bulgarian Wars Medieval Bulgarian Army Cometopuli dynasty Bitola inscription Samuil's Inscription Armenians in Bulgaria Footnotes 1. Bulgarian ъ can be transliterated a, u, or sometimes â, as in български, balgarski (as below) or bulgarski. 2. The work of Vasil Zlatarski, History of the Bulgarian state in the Middle Ages has three editions. The first edition is from 1927 published in Sofia; the second edition is from 1971 and can be found here in Bulgarian; the third edition is from 1994 published in Sofia, References Sources Lang, David Marshal, The Bulgarians: from pagan times to the Ottoman conquest. Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1976. Ostrogorsky, George, History of the Byzantine State. tr. (from the German) by Joan Hussey, rev. ed., Rutgers Univ. Press, 1969. Pavlov P., Samuil and the Bulgarian epopee (in Bulgarian), SofiaVeliko Tarnovo, 2002 Excerpt from the Bulgarian translation. External links Летопис попа Дуклянина Яхъя Антиохийский, Летопись 1–6, 7–17 Отрывок из Иоанна Скилицы о битве у горы Беласица Detailed list of Bulgarian rulers (PDF) John Skylitzes, Synopsis Historion: The Battle of Kleidion Catherine Holmes, Basil II (A.D. 976–1025) Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja Map of Europe in 1000. Naum Kaychev:On Unifying Around Our Common History – Tsar Samuil Erga Omnes, respublica.edu.mk, 7. april 2021 1014 deaths Rulers in medieval Macedonia Ohrid Bulgarian Christians Eastern Orthodox monarchs Bulgarian people of Armenian descent 10th-century Bulgarian emperors 11th-century Bulgarian emperors Cometopuli dynasty Bulgarian people of the Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars Burials at the Church of St Achillios (Lake Prespa)