Aszparuh (1981) Movie Script
JOINT PRODUCTION OF THE STUDIO
FOR FEATURE FILMS
AND THE FILM STUDIO
OF THE PEOPLE'S ARMY
"SREDETS"
CREATIVE TEAM
THE ACTION IN THIS FILM
TAKES PLACE IN THE VII CENTURY,
ONE OF THE FIRST CENTURIES OF
THE GREAT MIGRATION OF PEOPLES,
WHEN THE OLDEST POLITICAL
FORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN
MIDDLE AGES APPEARED -
THE BULGARIAN STATE.
KHAN ASPARUH
The migration
Script
VERA MUTAFCHIEVA
Script editor
MIHAIL KIRKOV
Composer
SIMEON PIRONKOV
Starring:
STOYKO PEEV
ANTONY GENOV
BOGOMIL SIMEONOV
ANYA PENCHEVA
PETAR SLABAKOV
Directed by
LUDMIL STAIKOV
Greetings, Pagane!
Kanasubigi is calling for you!
If it's for foretelling,
it's not for you, daughter!
You're not the same since
you prophesied to the late khan.
My daughter has weakened, foreigner.
And she's like a father to us.
My husband died when
he was still young.
I'm strong, mother!
Don't worry, I won't prophesy!
Yuvigi!
Pagane!
I wish the kanasubigi
a long and happy reign!
What are you doing?
You've weakened!
The road is hard, yuvigi,
for everyone.
I had no right to see you. The
mourning for my father ended today.
Khan Kubrat's soul
has reached Tangra!
What is it?
Tell me, Pagane!
Aren't you glad to see me?
- I'm glad to see you, yuvigi!
I'll send kavhan Avitohol to ask you
from your mother tomorrow!
You're a khan now!
The notables won't accept me.
No one has the right
to break our laws.
Don't ask the same
from them!
The warrior Isbul, your father,
has died in battle!
You're nobler than the daughters
of any living notable!
Now go home!
Tomorrow the Council will
choose you for my wife!
Belisarius!
Tell the first boils
to gather before sunrise!
Yuvigi ordered his first boils to gather
for a Council before sunrise tomorrow!
Yuvigi, I found someone eavesdropping
behind your tent last night.
I followed him.
He entered at the kolober's tent.
Then the other nobles came.
My uncle?
- He as well.
I called you, great boils,
to decide, and you, boils, to hear!
Tangra just told me
what you're calling us for!
You want...
- You know it not from Tangra,
but from the chigot that
was spying on me last night!
So?
We'll only repeat your father's
last will. The law is against
your marriage with Pagane.
That was not my father's will, uncle!
He said the Council should decide!
And we have decided!
- When did you decide?!
The Council has just begun!
You speak!
Or you, uncle!
Which law forbids me from taking
the tribe's most eminent woman?
Her mind and skills will be
of great use for my power!
And for all the people!
- You've said the truth, yuvigi!
Pagane is most eminent!
She is perfect!
Perfection incarnated
in a woman's flesh.
Have you forgotten, yuvigi, what
this means by the oldest Bulgar laws?
If we find someone with perfect skills,
we have no right to hold him
in our imperfect world!
We're obliged to send him to Tangra,
so he may serve Him from nearby!
Otherwise He will punish us!
No woman has ever
went to Tangra by this law!
Until today! So far only perfect
men were born among the Bulgars!
Several talents at once,
that's very rare!
Now the great Tangra awaits Pagane!
- Pagane is my wife!
The khan's word is law!
I've said!
The Council is over!
It's a sin to take a woman, whose
fate belongs to Tangra, yuvigi!
Why are you against Pagane, uncle?
She was born for Tangra!
Everyone knew it,
only you couldn't see!
Don't anger Tangra, yuvigi!
Troubles will fall on our people!
The most eminent woman of the tribe
should be sent to Tangra today!
Such is the law!
Whoever upholds the law,
let it be shown!
And you, yuvigi?
If the khan himself breaks our laws,
he can't expect obedience from the people!
And the Bulgars will learn that yuvigi
has refused Tangra His chosen one!
And then the khan is finished!
Yuvigi, what happened?
- Go away!
How can you prove that
Tangra wants Pagane?!
May God kill my only daughter
before the next spring,
if I'm not doing
His will today!
Blessings to you all!
I'll still be among you,
even when you can't see me!
I'll obtain a new homeland
for you from Tangra!
People!
Tangra thanks you!
- Tangra!
You're stones,
not humans!
You go towards death with jubilance,
like a wedding!
There is no death, Belisarius.
There's a longer
or shorter separation.
But while I'm alive, I won't
be reconciled with this parting!
We rode and we rode.
The land changed its clothes,
the sky changed its colours.
Only one remained the same -
we rode on and on.
People were growing old
from hardships, without rest,
from the misery and the frequent
losses of their loved ones.
Children were born on the road,
growing on the saddle.
We rode through the land
and the seasons.
Not only the world around us
changed, but so did we.
The winds dried up our faces.
Bitter wrinkles formed on them
from staring into the distance.
The distance!
I thought it had gained a magical
power over the khan's thoughts.
Drawing us with its unfound secrets.
We rode to the horizon.
A straight, smooth line in the field.
The closer we got to it,
the further away it went.
Why are you always looking at
your people so carefully, yuvigi?
It might be foolish, but I always try
to remember every Bulgar by face and name.
To figure him out.
- But they're thousands!
And I'll be with them
for thousands of days.
Yuvigi, we have to tell you
some of our decisions!
Belisarius, go back to the rest!
Belisarius won't go anywhere
without my order!
We're glad, yuvigi, since we fulfilled
your will to get you married!
You don't need to tell me who my
wife will be! I'll take her anyway!
Not just anyone, but the best! We chose
our kolober's only daughter for you!
The one who will die
before the next spring,
if her father hasn't
fulfilled Tangra's will?
Since I did fulfill it, my daughter
will live as your happy and fruitful consort!
Are you done?
- There's more!
About Belisarius!
- Well?
We sense a well-known incentive for
our last troubles - the hand of Byzantium!
They've incited the Khazars!
Why do we then need a Roman hostage,
if the basileos has broken his word?
The boils think Belisarius
should be removed!
What have you learned about the ties
of the basileos with the Khazar khagan?
Nothing new, but our
previous experiences...
They say all our troubles are
because of the Christians, is that so?
That allows you not to think,
not to use the chance
the world changes give us!
No! I forbid the Council
to take decisions without me!
Only the khan will decide!
Belisarius is useful to me and
he'll stay alive! I've said!
Yuvigi, I'll always pray to God
to give you all the best!
Long life, strong power, victories!
Is that all the best?
Why are you silent?
Aren't you glad you'll be
the first of the first?
I already told you, father.
You shouldn't have done it,
if you ask me.
I don't ask you!
Every daughter owes
her father obedience!
And they told you already - I haven't
chosen, the Great boils did!
They chose me, because you wanted it.
- Of course I wanted it!
Which father doesn't want to see
his daughter among the first?
There's none worthier for the khan
than you, Ernike!
And more beautiful!
And would I be happy,
did you think about that?
He'll never forget Pagane!
Pagane is with Tangra!
Pagane is with Tangra,
because you feared her!
The people listened to Pagane, they
looked for her, and not for you!
Pagane is with Tangra,
because He wanted her!
And I swore in your life that it's so!
- You're cruel!
You can do anything, if it's your will!
Listen, Ernike! Here on earth only
the kana boila kolober can talk with Tangra!
And everyone has to listen to him!
Even the khan!
What do you want from me, father?
To bind him to yourself!
Now the khan is alone!
And men fear loneliness!
He'll get used to you!
We have hopes in you!
May your reign be
long and happy, yuvigi!
News from Great Bulgaria!
The fighting hasn't stopped
for the last four moons.
It's a miracle we held out so long. The khagan
threw great forces against the Taman land!
But khan Bayan had given his word
to hold out as long as he can!
There's no Phanagoria
anymore, people!
There's no Great Bulgaria!
Yuvigi Bayan, with his few remaining
warriors, has submitted to the khagan.
He condemned himself and his tribe
to gain more days for you.
What happened to my sons?
Don't tell me!
Both of them?
It was a fierce fight!
Are you hungry?
Should I prepare something?
Are you all right?
Do you need anything?
You keep silent!
- I'm fine, leave me, father!
You don't come to me anymore.
Every evening we stop,
I'm drawn to your tent.
And I know I shouldn't! You're
newly weds, I'll only be in your way!
I thought one thing,
but another has happened!
I'm glad you got fooled
about me, father!
What are you doing?!
- Leave him!
Such is our custom, foreigner!
The man should share his wife's pains!
Stay with her and a few women! When
the child is born, you'll catch up to us!
No! No! No!
She's delirious! Listen to me!
- She's not delirious!
How many times have those
left behind not returned?
They disappear! Help us
get her on this cart!
I came to see how's your wife.
I pray to Tangra that she'll survive!
We're not entitled for millet!
We're not entitled for millet!
The wife had a still-born!
Foreigner, the yuvigi
calls for you!
Thank you for losing your sleep
because of us!
Greetings, yuvigi!
Leave us, Ernike!
Belisarius, I didn't call you for
so long because I had to be alone.
Silence teaches us to think,
my father used to say.
I haven't dared to
ask you before, yuvigi,
but why do you share your innermost
thoughts exactly with me?
Leave this, go to bed!
A hard road awaits us tomorrow,
you should be careful now!
You're very kind to me, Ernike,
and you shouldn't be!
Khazars, yuvigi! In the back of the column!
Several hundred of them!
Dokum, Chepa and Sondok,
follow me with your men!
Iratais, be prepared,
in case you're needed!
There they are!
Before us are those who ruined
Great Bulgaria! Enslaved our brothers!
Let's show them their power
ends here! After me!
Bury the dead! Cut off the right hand
of the remaining Khazars!
So they won't reach for the sword
again! Then let them go!
Let them tell their khagan that here will be
his border with Asparuh's Bulgars! I've said!
We rode and we rode!
Every single day was tedious,
as usual.
Hopeless.
We couldn't just stop
on any flat field.
We had to reach the river Kuzo
or Dnepro, as the Slavs call it.
The deep waters would
protect us from both sides.
Feed us with fish,
water our horses.
We had diminished.
The old ones left their bones
in the boundless plains.
The women diminished as well. Few could
endure birth and nursing on the road.
Unharness and unsaddle!
We'll stay here till the spring!
We reached the great river
during one of those
horribly monotonous,
hopeless days.
You should've seen how the migrants
reacted to the orders to stop!
Those ruined people, frozen,
closed up in their efforts
to survive!
Men were embracing!
Women were weeping from joy!
God, what a thing is
the simple earthly joy!
Belisarius, does it nibble?
- We'll see!
Belisarius, come by my home
tonight, to have some deer!
Does it hurt?
- It hurts!
Since you're not delirious anymore,
everything's all right!
I know this from my sister, Pagane!
I know you because of her as well!
Thank you for your kindness, Ie!
Why are you laughing?
- You know my name!
It's easy to remember
and it sounds good.
You were lucky!
You were hit above the heart.
I got lucky!
Why do you look at me with the tail
of your eyes? You can look straight.
Yuvigi came last night. He told me
to take care of you till you're better.
Since you have no one...
You're just doing what you're told?
- No!
I have! A mother and sisters,
a bigger and a smaller one.
But they're far away.
- Oh, the poor one!
Neither one's own, nor foreign!
No one's!
Be careful, you're still one-handed!
What are you doing?
- I'm kissing you!
Why?
- Because I like you!
We don't do it like that
when we like each other.
What then?
I think Ernike is dying!
She was healthy till yesterday!
The contractions started this
night, before her term.
Christ, help her!
I heard no screams tonight!
She doesn't scream! She stares
with big and scary eyes!
Yuvigi! Don't enter, yuvigi!
It's not for men there!
She'll die, Belisarius!
She's too weak to feed the life in her.
- She'll survive, I swear!
The world would end if women
would die from giving birth!
They die. During migrations women
die a lot from child-birth.
Your child didn't want
to be born alive, yuvigi!
Go in to say farewell to Ernike!
Bless you for coming
to say goodbye!
I'll feel empty
without you, Ernike!
The winter's leaving!
They day of the green
steppe will come.
And on the road again!
Come on!
What?
Does it still hurt?
We flee from the Khazars, while the
biggest trouble comes from the Slavs!
A horse will disappear!
An arrow will come flying!
The arrow that hit me
was Bulgar, yuvigi!
May the kana boila
kolober come to me!
What made the kanasubigi
call for me?
I want to ask you when will the day of
the green steppe come, so we can go again.
After two big moons, yuvigi.
- Are you sure?
Certainly!
I ask you, because a year ago
you were also quite certain!
Your daughter didn't die from her
own death, oh first among the wise!
Ernike couldn't stand your lack
of love! That killed her!
She was doomed because you
falsely swore in her life!
You knew you were lying! And Pagane
wasn't called for by Tangra!
You killed her!
Come to your senses!
You lost a wife,
I lost my only daughter!
You killed not only both my wives,
but also my two children!
Because... Pagane
was also in labour!
That's a curse! Tangra shows me
you can't create anything!
Neither children, nor state!
Don't you see how graves
appear every night?
When you spread the bones of the Bulgars
from the river Tanais to the end of the world,
you'll remain wandering alone,
a lonely horseman, with no tribe!
No land, no children!
You're brave, because you know
the khan can't judge the first kolober!
But I can always prove you ordered
the assassination of Belisarius!
And I can condemn you as a murderer!
I decree!
If anything happens to Belisarius,
you'll answer before the law!
It would be good, if you
talk with my mother soon.
You found me in a moment
of weakness, daughter!
I give her to you!
I'll never forget the hand
I bent down to kiss!
The hand of a woman who gave birth,
nursed, built and fondled,
buried and fought!
Her whole life had left its marks
on the unsightly, almost scary hand!
It seemed to me that such a hand,
from times immemorial,
would've created the Universe!
Ie's mother didn't go with us
to the south with the spring.
She, like many others who
were too weak
to reach our next camp,
would remain here.
A great farewell weighed
over the deserted settlement.
Yuvigi!
This morning this one tried
to steal a sheep from me.
There were three of them, white ones,
but the others ran away.
Let me punish him by our law!
Who are you from?
- I'm Kostur! From the Dobrovichi!
Who's your master?
- I have no master!
What do you mean?
Who owns these lands?
The Dobrovichi!
- Untie him and go!
I want to speak with your people!
All right!
- When will you bring them?
We'll find you.
- Go on your way!
Yuvigi, you didn't punish
a captured thief!
The simplest thing is
to spill blood.
Our ranks have much more
Slavic land to pass through.
If the Slavic sea rises, will our
law against the thieves save us?
Our attitude towards the Slavs
should be different!
We have many enemies,
we're in need of allies!
Your late father
taught us otherwise!
The law is above everyone
and everything!
The law is to help,
not to hinder!
I am Radil, of the Dobrovichi!
Our boy told us
you wanted to speak.
Me and my people are passing
through these lands.
Why do you
treat us with enmity?
You steal from us, yet
we've done you no harm!
It's not true!
You trample on our sown fields!
You kill our game!
You hunt our fish!
We'll be careful with your crops!
The rest is common!
How come?
The land is ours!
If it's yours,
where's your state?
You don't even have a ruler!
- But we have a big land!
And we've heard
that you live by war!
How can we know when
you'll turn against us?
If you consider us enemies,
then come out to fight!
Why should we fight?
Listen!
I can do two things!
Stay here or pass through!
The latter is better for you, isn't it?
It would've been best
if you hadn't came at all!
But now, when you
leave our lands,
you'll go to the lands of
other clans and tribes of ours.
We'll pass through there as well!
The land isn't Slavic till its end!
As it's known, it's all Slavic,
if you go towards the sunset.
Here's what! If we start trading,
will you leave us in peace?
Trading, you say?
All right! We have
millet and wheat.
Cloth. We also have
hemp ropes.
We want tanned hides and
iron arrow-tips!
I don't exchange weapons!
- You see, you think only of war!
And we need it for hunting.
- And for ambushes!
If we're trading and something
of yours goes missing on our land,
great misfortune will fall
on our people.
And all Slavs will
be our friends, is that so?
Not at all! Each of our clans
stands for himself.
You'll have to make arrangements
with each clan separately!
Are you the chief here?
I, kanasubigi Asparuh,
ruler of the Bulgars!
We've heard you
come from the sunrise!
All plagues come from there!
The locusts, the blizzards,
the horse people!
We came to tell you that the river,
the fish and everything here is ours!
The land and the water
belong to everyone!
My people spend the winter
in no one's fields.
No one's? Around us are our
richest fishing grounds!
God himself has chosen
these places for us!
When the spring comes, the river
becomes white from all our boats!
How many are you?
Even if I knew,
I wouldn't tell you!
You're planning to enslave our
children and kill the others!
We're here since early winter.
Whom have we done harm?
The winter stops you and that's
why we came to tell you!
Once the weather gets softer,
make yourselves scarce!
Or you'll suffer for it!
With or without your hospitality,
we're leaving this spring!
Until then, let's trade,
if you wish!
We'll give you hides and everything,
if you bring food!
I was looking for honey.
My daughter was ill.
There was no millet for the nursing
mothers in the camp since months.
The livestock was dying out
from hunger.
People were starving, saving some
piece of dried meat for their children.
Slaughtering
the scraggy horses.
The little one wasn't
getting better!
The shaman treated her with
healing potions in vain.
My daughter was dying!
In those horrible days, my
wife, terribly worried,
started looking at me with
more than blaming eyes.
She was looking at me with hatred!
As if only then, years
after our wedding,
Ie realized she had trusted herself
and her children to an unfit man.
Soft!
Foolish foreigner!
She died, Belisarius.
The child died.
Give her to me!
- No!
Give her to me, Ie!
- No!
I'll take care of her! Give her to me!
- No!
Wait!
- No!
Ie!
- No!
Come to your senses!
- No!
No! No!
- I'll take care of everything!
We have other children!
Give her to me, Ie!
No!
Ie!
Yuvigi.
I'm afraid Ie
has lost her mind.
She's clutched at
the dead child since yesterday,
doesn't eat, doesn't sleep,
doesn't let me bury her.
Ie!
The khan has came to you!
The khan himself wants
to bury our child!
Ie!
Give her to me, Ie!
Yuvigi!
I'll take her where all our
dead from the long road rest.
They're dying!
My people are dying!
I've led them along
a too hard path!
But if we stay here,
it will be the end!
You've told the boils that the people
should prepare to leave, is that so?!
Yes!
There are 40 days till
the day of the green steppe.
Enough time to saddle
and gear up.
I came to tell you
that no one will
follow you this time.
You, too?
Me, too!
Yuvigi, something's happening!
The people are coming here angry!
I know, Belisarius!
You stay!
I'm listening!
Yuvigi!
We can't stand it anymore!
You can't
or you don't want to?
We can't and we don't want to!
It's all for nothing.
If we had stayed to defend Phanagoria,
we would've lost less people.
Let us stop, yuvigi, so we can
protect our still living children!
People, it will be disastrous to
stand on the path of all nations!
The land to the north is too cold and barren,
while the basileos reigns to the south!
So I've ordered onward!
- We have no strength to go!
We'll build a new Phanagoria here!
- If other people come, we'll fight!
We'll fight!
People!
Should I trust my eyes and ears?
515 years has the Dulo clan
ruled over its people!
How many lands have heard
the clatter of our horses?
How many enemies have known
the scream of our arrows?
Can the Bulgars
have forgotten
what they owe to the last
descendant of the great clan?
When my dearest sacrifice was asked,
for our unity and welfare,
I ripped it from my heart!
I gave it to you!
When you fought with hunger, frost,
plague, I fought beside you!
When you were burying your dead,
I digged in the frozen land as well!
Tell me! What have I not done
together with you? For you!
You, who feel love for your
clans, herds and children,
tell me, does yuvigi Asparuh have
his own clan, herds and children?
Enough, yuvigi! The Bulgars know
what they owe to their khan!
Kanasubigi Asparuh led you out
of doom and into salvation!
You're sorry for Phanagoria! Have you
forgotten what happened to it?
Not you! May the bori-tarkan
Sevar speak his mind!
Yuvigi!
Our people have followed you loyally
for long springs, summers and autumns.
They don't shout to you
now because of ease!
As much as it pains me to say it,
we can see there's no no-man's land
left waiting for its masters!
Wherever we stop,
we'll have to fight!
Then why not here?
The boil Sevar is right!
It's not from ease!
Unharness and unsaddle!
I accept, though I do not agree!
I don't recognize our camp as
a capital or our fields as a state!
The new Bulgaria should be different!
Thank you for helping me
in such a hard time...
Once, kanasubigi Kubrat
asked me to come with you,
to be your support in black days.
And in your blackest day, you
managed it without my help.
The elder of the house of Dulo
is no longer needed.
You've decided to leave us?
Since the day I learned
I have no sons left,
everything drew me back,
to their graves!
I wanted,
but I didn't dare go back.
I worried for you
and the future of the people!
I hardly lived to see
the Bulgars stop!
We lived to see
swamps instead of the forts
of Great Bulgaria!
But how could I not yield
to the people's suffering?!
You yielded,
but you didn't agree!
That was the word of a khan! That
showed me you've grown enough to rule!
Leave us! We should take
farewell alone!
It's my sin that I didn't
get to know you, uncle!
That I couldn't be your son!
So it is among men!
Power stops men from being close!
I wouldn't talk either, like I
do now, if I didn't sense my end!
Yuvigi, the water broke through
the rampart at the northern gate, too!
Take some men from the bagatur
bagain Stazis to help!
At least this
could have avoided us!
In those terrible
days and nights,
Asparuh changed!
His unwilling standstill
was tormenting him.
He no longer had those bursts
of sorrow or elation,
which he had before.
Sometimes he wouldn't speak
to me for days,
as if he had forgotten me.
I would see him closed up
in himself,
plunged in insistent thoughts.
He knew Great Bulgaria was now
a part of the Bulgars' past!
That something quite new, something
unknown was ahead!
And he was sorry he couldn't see
the people around him prepared for it!
I thought Asparuh's whole life
was a chain of losses.
With the only gain - his rule
grew stronger, taking deeper
and deeper roots!
Yuvigi,
messengers of the Slavs!
What brings you here?
Didn't you give us your word
you'll leave in the spring?
I changed my mind!
We'll stay for awhile!
We see what you're doing!
Who'll put so much effort,
if he plans to stay only a bit?
I haven't said it's a bit!
Only as much as I want to!
I know, now you'll tell me
the land and waters were yours!
Fine, I'll take them
from you by force!
And then I won't let you get near
the river and the islands!
What if we don't let you
settle down here?!
You're free to try!
Think it over!
If you agree with us,
we'll dig out a second round ditch
a day's horseride from here!
That will be our pasture land!
And what about the waters?
- The water is for everyone! I've said!
Your people, Belisarius!
Guarding the border!
What will you say, if we
pay a visit to your homeland?
You're not going anywhere!
You have children here!
They don't stop me from hunting!
Even more, I have to hunt for them!
You're going to your people,
not for hunting!
I won't let you!
Ie!
The khan ordered it.
They're asleep.
And when they ask me tomorrow
where the khan is?
You'll say I'm out hunting!
Isn't it dangerous to go
without guards, yuvigi?
Don't interfere!
Do you keep an eye on the kolober?
- Yes, yuvigi,
but his spirit doesn't
rise against your will.
I keep thinking he incited
the people during the spring,
when I ordered us to go.
Tangra, what land!
I feel like I'm dreaming!
The Slavs!
A 100 years now since they came.
We've done everything to stop them!
To push them back to the north!
This land is too beautiful,
Belisarius!
If you become its lord, prepare
for endless wars to keep it!
Wanderers, don't defile
the water-nymphs' spring!
Don't defile the sacred spring
of the water-nymphs!
Where are you from, strangers?
- From beyond!
No one's came back from beyond!
No, we come from beyond
the Danube! We're not Romans!
Are we allowed to rest here
during midday?
I allow!
What are they doing?
Where are we?
- On a sacred ground!
The Thracians worshipped
the Gods here before we did!
They come again!
Fourth time this summer!
The border.
It seems it separates not only the Empire
from your so-called barbarian lands,
but also two worlds!
Greetings, yuvigi!
What is it?
Rasate is dead, yuvigi!
What?!
The khan! The khan!
May his reign last forever!
Yuvigi, had you taken him
with you, he'd be alive now!
What happened?
Ask the kolober!
We know nothing!
They brought us Rasate slain!
How did the boil Rasate die?
As he deserved!
More precisely?
- As a traitor!
Rasate came to me
at dawn to tell me
you had secretly went
to the Roman land!
And he whispered to me
to lead the boils against you,
because you're preparing
for war with Byzantium!
No Bulgar in his right mind
would believe such a slander!
And you killed him in your just anger?
- Yes!
I was afraid he'll draw more people
to treason, if I give him time!
And Rasate told you
I've crossed the Danube?
Rasate!
Yet,
did you cross it or not?
If you think Rasate might have
told you the truth,
why did you kill him?
Yuvigi,
did you believe him?
If they ask you tomorrow
why Rasate died,
tell them: for treason!
Won't you invite me?
I don't see your oldest son,
Iratais!
Tell him tomorrow he becomes
a bagain, one of my men!
Yuvigi, why did they kill Rasate?
Because he was loyal to me!
Sit down, yuvigi!
May your reign last forever, yuvigi!
Greetings from Bulgaria!
Greetings from khan Kotrag!
Speak!
- Khan Kotrag sends word
that he found a land for our people!
Where the rivers Itil and Kama join,
there is now Bulgaria! We built
it on an empty field!
Our children and herds multiply!
The Bulgar towns grow strong!
Our people are saved!
I'm giving a feast tonight!
Let the whole Ongal celebrate!
And I invite you all to
the khan's hunt tomorrow morning!
We're glad to hear the joyous news
that khan Kotrag found a new land!
A long time now we've asked you
to declare our lands a khanate as well!
No, this swamp is just a camp,
on the path of our migration!
- It's over, the Ongal is our capital!
You accepted yourself
to stop here!
I'll never recognize this Ongal
as Bulgaria's capital! I've said!
What if Tangra himself wants it?!
If the people rise against
their khan's plans again?!
Is that a threat?
- Take it as you will,
if the khan refuses to give
the Bulgars a homeland!
I take it as a threat
against the khan of the Bulgars!
Mistakes happen!
Belisarius stood watch
by my side this night.
He didn't sleep whole night! I saw
him myself how he aimed at a deer,
but accidentaly hit
the esteemed Onegavon.
May Tangra take him
and reward him for his worth!
We'll judge him!
- We'll judge him!
We'll judge him!
- We'll judge him!
We'll judge him here and now!
When someone kills a khan's man,
the law punishes him with death.
But I won't punish Belisarius!
Because he's very useful
for my reign.
And there's a difference between
a planned and accidental murder.
The law makes no difference!
And it should!
The khan has the right
of clemency!
If yuvigi reprieves the murderer,
the murderer becomes innocent!
May the guards take the body
of our esteemed kolober!
We'll bury him with honours!
Ridiculous, but every
accident is a sign!
Since the oldest times, the khan
of the Bulgars was also first kolober.
Yuvigi Kubrat changed this order
in favour of his most trusted man.
It seems Onegavon wasn't
loyal enough to me,
if God sent him such
a ridiculous death!
From now on only I
will speak with Tangra!
I've said!
Translation: NikeBG
FOR FEATURE FILMS
AND THE FILM STUDIO
OF THE PEOPLE'S ARMY
"SREDETS"
CREATIVE TEAM
THE ACTION IN THIS FILM
TAKES PLACE IN THE VII CENTURY,
ONE OF THE FIRST CENTURIES OF
THE GREAT MIGRATION OF PEOPLES,
WHEN THE OLDEST POLITICAL
FORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN
MIDDLE AGES APPEARED -
THE BULGARIAN STATE.
KHAN ASPARUH
The migration
Script
VERA MUTAFCHIEVA
Script editor
MIHAIL KIRKOV
Composer
SIMEON PIRONKOV
Starring:
STOYKO PEEV
ANTONY GENOV
BOGOMIL SIMEONOV
ANYA PENCHEVA
PETAR SLABAKOV
Directed by
LUDMIL STAIKOV
Greetings, Pagane!
Kanasubigi is calling for you!
If it's for foretelling,
it's not for you, daughter!
You're not the same since
you prophesied to the late khan.
My daughter has weakened, foreigner.
And she's like a father to us.
My husband died when
he was still young.
I'm strong, mother!
Don't worry, I won't prophesy!
Yuvigi!
Pagane!
I wish the kanasubigi
a long and happy reign!
What are you doing?
You've weakened!
The road is hard, yuvigi,
for everyone.
I had no right to see you. The
mourning for my father ended today.
Khan Kubrat's soul
has reached Tangra!
What is it?
Tell me, Pagane!
Aren't you glad to see me?
- I'm glad to see you, yuvigi!
I'll send kavhan Avitohol to ask you
from your mother tomorrow!
You're a khan now!
The notables won't accept me.
No one has the right
to break our laws.
Don't ask the same
from them!
The warrior Isbul, your father,
has died in battle!
You're nobler than the daughters
of any living notable!
Now go home!
Tomorrow the Council will
choose you for my wife!
Belisarius!
Tell the first boils
to gather before sunrise!
Yuvigi ordered his first boils to gather
for a Council before sunrise tomorrow!
Yuvigi, I found someone eavesdropping
behind your tent last night.
I followed him.
He entered at the kolober's tent.
Then the other nobles came.
My uncle?
- He as well.
I called you, great boils,
to decide, and you, boils, to hear!
Tangra just told me
what you're calling us for!
You want...
- You know it not from Tangra,
but from the chigot that
was spying on me last night!
So?
We'll only repeat your father's
last will. The law is against
your marriage with Pagane.
That was not my father's will, uncle!
He said the Council should decide!
And we have decided!
- When did you decide?!
The Council has just begun!
You speak!
Or you, uncle!
Which law forbids me from taking
the tribe's most eminent woman?
Her mind and skills will be
of great use for my power!
And for all the people!
- You've said the truth, yuvigi!
Pagane is most eminent!
She is perfect!
Perfection incarnated
in a woman's flesh.
Have you forgotten, yuvigi, what
this means by the oldest Bulgar laws?
If we find someone with perfect skills,
we have no right to hold him
in our imperfect world!
We're obliged to send him to Tangra,
so he may serve Him from nearby!
Otherwise He will punish us!
No woman has ever
went to Tangra by this law!
Until today! So far only perfect
men were born among the Bulgars!
Several talents at once,
that's very rare!
Now the great Tangra awaits Pagane!
- Pagane is my wife!
The khan's word is law!
I've said!
The Council is over!
It's a sin to take a woman, whose
fate belongs to Tangra, yuvigi!
Why are you against Pagane, uncle?
She was born for Tangra!
Everyone knew it,
only you couldn't see!
Don't anger Tangra, yuvigi!
Troubles will fall on our people!
The most eminent woman of the tribe
should be sent to Tangra today!
Such is the law!
Whoever upholds the law,
let it be shown!
And you, yuvigi?
If the khan himself breaks our laws,
he can't expect obedience from the people!
And the Bulgars will learn that yuvigi
has refused Tangra His chosen one!
And then the khan is finished!
Yuvigi, what happened?
- Go away!
How can you prove that
Tangra wants Pagane?!
May God kill my only daughter
before the next spring,
if I'm not doing
His will today!
Blessings to you all!
I'll still be among you,
even when you can't see me!
I'll obtain a new homeland
for you from Tangra!
People!
Tangra thanks you!
- Tangra!
You're stones,
not humans!
You go towards death with jubilance,
like a wedding!
There is no death, Belisarius.
There's a longer
or shorter separation.
But while I'm alive, I won't
be reconciled with this parting!
We rode and we rode.
The land changed its clothes,
the sky changed its colours.
Only one remained the same -
we rode on and on.
People were growing old
from hardships, without rest,
from the misery and the frequent
losses of their loved ones.
Children were born on the road,
growing on the saddle.
We rode through the land
and the seasons.
Not only the world around us
changed, but so did we.
The winds dried up our faces.
Bitter wrinkles formed on them
from staring into the distance.
The distance!
I thought it had gained a magical
power over the khan's thoughts.
Drawing us with its unfound secrets.
We rode to the horizon.
A straight, smooth line in the field.
The closer we got to it,
the further away it went.
Why are you always looking at
your people so carefully, yuvigi?
It might be foolish, but I always try
to remember every Bulgar by face and name.
To figure him out.
- But they're thousands!
And I'll be with them
for thousands of days.
Yuvigi, we have to tell you
some of our decisions!
Belisarius, go back to the rest!
Belisarius won't go anywhere
without my order!
We're glad, yuvigi, since we fulfilled
your will to get you married!
You don't need to tell me who my
wife will be! I'll take her anyway!
Not just anyone, but the best! We chose
our kolober's only daughter for you!
The one who will die
before the next spring,
if her father hasn't
fulfilled Tangra's will?
Since I did fulfill it, my daughter
will live as your happy and fruitful consort!
Are you done?
- There's more!
About Belisarius!
- Well?
We sense a well-known incentive for
our last troubles - the hand of Byzantium!
They've incited the Khazars!
Why do we then need a Roman hostage,
if the basileos has broken his word?
The boils think Belisarius
should be removed!
What have you learned about the ties
of the basileos with the Khazar khagan?
Nothing new, but our
previous experiences...
They say all our troubles are
because of the Christians, is that so?
That allows you not to think,
not to use the chance
the world changes give us!
No! I forbid the Council
to take decisions without me!
Only the khan will decide!
Belisarius is useful to me and
he'll stay alive! I've said!
Yuvigi, I'll always pray to God
to give you all the best!
Long life, strong power, victories!
Is that all the best?
Why are you silent?
Aren't you glad you'll be
the first of the first?
I already told you, father.
You shouldn't have done it,
if you ask me.
I don't ask you!
Every daughter owes
her father obedience!
And they told you already - I haven't
chosen, the Great boils did!
They chose me, because you wanted it.
- Of course I wanted it!
Which father doesn't want to see
his daughter among the first?
There's none worthier for the khan
than you, Ernike!
And more beautiful!
And would I be happy,
did you think about that?
He'll never forget Pagane!
Pagane is with Tangra!
Pagane is with Tangra,
because you feared her!
The people listened to Pagane, they
looked for her, and not for you!
Pagane is with Tangra,
because He wanted her!
And I swore in your life that it's so!
- You're cruel!
You can do anything, if it's your will!
Listen, Ernike! Here on earth only
the kana boila kolober can talk with Tangra!
And everyone has to listen to him!
Even the khan!
What do you want from me, father?
To bind him to yourself!
Now the khan is alone!
And men fear loneliness!
He'll get used to you!
We have hopes in you!
May your reign be
long and happy, yuvigi!
News from Great Bulgaria!
The fighting hasn't stopped
for the last four moons.
It's a miracle we held out so long. The khagan
threw great forces against the Taman land!
But khan Bayan had given his word
to hold out as long as he can!
There's no Phanagoria
anymore, people!
There's no Great Bulgaria!
Yuvigi Bayan, with his few remaining
warriors, has submitted to the khagan.
He condemned himself and his tribe
to gain more days for you.
What happened to my sons?
Don't tell me!
Both of them?
It was a fierce fight!
Are you hungry?
Should I prepare something?
Are you all right?
Do you need anything?
You keep silent!
- I'm fine, leave me, father!
You don't come to me anymore.
Every evening we stop,
I'm drawn to your tent.
And I know I shouldn't! You're
newly weds, I'll only be in your way!
I thought one thing,
but another has happened!
I'm glad you got fooled
about me, father!
What are you doing?!
- Leave him!
Such is our custom, foreigner!
The man should share his wife's pains!
Stay with her and a few women! When
the child is born, you'll catch up to us!
No! No! No!
She's delirious! Listen to me!
- She's not delirious!
How many times have those
left behind not returned?
They disappear! Help us
get her on this cart!
I came to see how's your wife.
I pray to Tangra that she'll survive!
We're not entitled for millet!
We're not entitled for millet!
The wife had a still-born!
Foreigner, the yuvigi
calls for you!
Thank you for losing your sleep
because of us!
Greetings, yuvigi!
Leave us, Ernike!
Belisarius, I didn't call you for
so long because I had to be alone.
Silence teaches us to think,
my father used to say.
I haven't dared to
ask you before, yuvigi,
but why do you share your innermost
thoughts exactly with me?
Leave this, go to bed!
A hard road awaits us tomorrow,
you should be careful now!
You're very kind to me, Ernike,
and you shouldn't be!
Khazars, yuvigi! In the back of the column!
Several hundred of them!
Dokum, Chepa and Sondok,
follow me with your men!
Iratais, be prepared,
in case you're needed!
There they are!
Before us are those who ruined
Great Bulgaria! Enslaved our brothers!
Let's show them their power
ends here! After me!
Bury the dead! Cut off the right hand
of the remaining Khazars!
So they won't reach for the sword
again! Then let them go!
Let them tell their khagan that here will be
his border with Asparuh's Bulgars! I've said!
We rode and we rode!
Every single day was tedious,
as usual.
Hopeless.
We couldn't just stop
on any flat field.
We had to reach the river Kuzo
or Dnepro, as the Slavs call it.
The deep waters would
protect us from both sides.
Feed us with fish,
water our horses.
We had diminished.
The old ones left their bones
in the boundless plains.
The women diminished as well. Few could
endure birth and nursing on the road.
Unharness and unsaddle!
We'll stay here till the spring!
We reached the great river
during one of those
horribly monotonous,
hopeless days.
You should've seen how the migrants
reacted to the orders to stop!
Those ruined people, frozen,
closed up in their efforts
to survive!
Men were embracing!
Women were weeping from joy!
God, what a thing is
the simple earthly joy!
Belisarius, does it nibble?
- We'll see!
Belisarius, come by my home
tonight, to have some deer!
Does it hurt?
- It hurts!
Since you're not delirious anymore,
everything's all right!
I know this from my sister, Pagane!
I know you because of her as well!
Thank you for your kindness, Ie!
Why are you laughing?
- You know my name!
It's easy to remember
and it sounds good.
You were lucky!
You were hit above the heart.
I got lucky!
Why do you look at me with the tail
of your eyes? You can look straight.
Yuvigi came last night. He told me
to take care of you till you're better.
Since you have no one...
You're just doing what you're told?
- No!
I have! A mother and sisters,
a bigger and a smaller one.
But they're far away.
- Oh, the poor one!
Neither one's own, nor foreign!
No one's!
Be careful, you're still one-handed!
What are you doing?
- I'm kissing you!
Why?
- Because I like you!
We don't do it like that
when we like each other.
What then?
I think Ernike is dying!
She was healthy till yesterday!
The contractions started this
night, before her term.
Christ, help her!
I heard no screams tonight!
She doesn't scream! She stares
with big and scary eyes!
Yuvigi! Don't enter, yuvigi!
It's not for men there!
She'll die, Belisarius!
She's too weak to feed the life in her.
- She'll survive, I swear!
The world would end if women
would die from giving birth!
They die. During migrations women
die a lot from child-birth.
Your child didn't want
to be born alive, yuvigi!
Go in to say farewell to Ernike!
Bless you for coming
to say goodbye!
I'll feel empty
without you, Ernike!
The winter's leaving!
They day of the green
steppe will come.
And on the road again!
Come on!
What?
Does it still hurt?
We flee from the Khazars, while the
biggest trouble comes from the Slavs!
A horse will disappear!
An arrow will come flying!
The arrow that hit me
was Bulgar, yuvigi!
May the kana boila
kolober come to me!
What made the kanasubigi
call for me?
I want to ask you when will the day of
the green steppe come, so we can go again.
After two big moons, yuvigi.
- Are you sure?
Certainly!
I ask you, because a year ago
you were also quite certain!
Your daughter didn't die from her
own death, oh first among the wise!
Ernike couldn't stand your lack
of love! That killed her!
She was doomed because you
falsely swore in her life!
You knew you were lying! And Pagane
wasn't called for by Tangra!
You killed her!
Come to your senses!
You lost a wife,
I lost my only daughter!
You killed not only both my wives,
but also my two children!
Because... Pagane
was also in labour!
That's a curse! Tangra shows me
you can't create anything!
Neither children, nor state!
Don't you see how graves
appear every night?
When you spread the bones of the Bulgars
from the river Tanais to the end of the world,
you'll remain wandering alone,
a lonely horseman, with no tribe!
No land, no children!
You're brave, because you know
the khan can't judge the first kolober!
But I can always prove you ordered
the assassination of Belisarius!
And I can condemn you as a murderer!
I decree!
If anything happens to Belisarius,
you'll answer before the law!
It would be good, if you
talk with my mother soon.
You found me in a moment
of weakness, daughter!
I give her to you!
I'll never forget the hand
I bent down to kiss!
The hand of a woman who gave birth,
nursed, built and fondled,
buried and fought!
Her whole life had left its marks
on the unsightly, almost scary hand!
It seemed to me that such a hand,
from times immemorial,
would've created the Universe!
Ie's mother didn't go with us
to the south with the spring.
She, like many others who
were too weak
to reach our next camp,
would remain here.
A great farewell weighed
over the deserted settlement.
Yuvigi!
This morning this one tried
to steal a sheep from me.
There were three of them, white ones,
but the others ran away.
Let me punish him by our law!
Who are you from?
- I'm Kostur! From the Dobrovichi!
Who's your master?
- I have no master!
What do you mean?
Who owns these lands?
The Dobrovichi!
- Untie him and go!
I want to speak with your people!
All right!
- When will you bring them?
We'll find you.
- Go on your way!
Yuvigi, you didn't punish
a captured thief!
The simplest thing is
to spill blood.
Our ranks have much more
Slavic land to pass through.
If the Slavic sea rises, will our
law against the thieves save us?
Our attitude towards the Slavs
should be different!
We have many enemies,
we're in need of allies!
Your late father
taught us otherwise!
The law is above everyone
and everything!
The law is to help,
not to hinder!
I am Radil, of the Dobrovichi!
Our boy told us
you wanted to speak.
Me and my people are passing
through these lands.
Why do you
treat us with enmity?
You steal from us, yet
we've done you no harm!
It's not true!
You trample on our sown fields!
You kill our game!
You hunt our fish!
We'll be careful with your crops!
The rest is common!
How come?
The land is ours!
If it's yours,
where's your state?
You don't even have a ruler!
- But we have a big land!
And we've heard
that you live by war!
How can we know when
you'll turn against us?
If you consider us enemies,
then come out to fight!
Why should we fight?
Listen!
I can do two things!
Stay here or pass through!
The latter is better for you, isn't it?
It would've been best
if you hadn't came at all!
But now, when you
leave our lands,
you'll go to the lands of
other clans and tribes of ours.
We'll pass through there as well!
The land isn't Slavic till its end!
As it's known, it's all Slavic,
if you go towards the sunset.
Here's what! If we start trading,
will you leave us in peace?
Trading, you say?
All right! We have
millet and wheat.
Cloth. We also have
hemp ropes.
We want tanned hides and
iron arrow-tips!
I don't exchange weapons!
- You see, you think only of war!
And we need it for hunting.
- And for ambushes!
If we're trading and something
of yours goes missing on our land,
great misfortune will fall
on our people.
And all Slavs will
be our friends, is that so?
Not at all! Each of our clans
stands for himself.
You'll have to make arrangements
with each clan separately!
Are you the chief here?
I, kanasubigi Asparuh,
ruler of the Bulgars!
We've heard you
come from the sunrise!
All plagues come from there!
The locusts, the blizzards,
the horse people!
We came to tell you that the river,
the fish and everything here is ours!
The land and the water
belong to everyone!
My people spend the winter
in no one's fields.
No one's? Around us are our
richest fishing grounds!
God himself has chosen
these places for us!
When the spring comes, the river
becomes white from all our boats!
How many are you?
Even if I knew,
I wouldn't tell you!
You're planning to enslave our
children and kill the others!
We're here since early winter.
Whom have we done harm?
The winter stops you and that's
why we came to tell you!
Once the weather gets softer,
make yourselves scarce!
Or you'll suffer for it!
With or without your hospitality,
we're leaving this spring!
Until then, let's trade,
if you wish!
We'll give you hides and everything,
if you bring food!
I was looking for honey.
My daughter was ill.
There was no millet for the nursing
mothers in the camp since months.
The livestock was dying out
from hunger.
People were starving, saving some
piece of dried meat for their children.
Slaughtering
the scraggy horses.
The little one wasn't
getting better!
The shaman treated her with
healing potions in vain.
My daughter was dying!
In those horrible days, my
wife, terribly worried,
started looking at me with
more than blaming eyes.
She was looking at me with hatred!
As if only then, years
after our wedding,
Ie realized she had trusted herself
and her children to an unfit man.
Soft!
Foolish foreigner!
She died, Belisarius.
The child died.
Give her to me!
- No!
Give her to me, Ie!
- No!
I'll take care of her! Give her to me!
- No!
Wait!
- No!
Ie!
- No!
Come to your senses!
- No!
No! No!
- I'll take care of everything!
We have other children!
Give her to me, Ie!
No!
Ie!
Yuvigi.
I'm afraid Ie
has lost her mind.
She's clutched at
the dead child since yesterday,
doesn't eat, doesn't sleep,
doesn't let me bury her.
Ie!
The khan has came to you!
The khan himself wants
to bury our child!
Ie!
Give her to me, Ie!
Yuvigi!
I'll take her where all our
dead from the long road rest.
They're dying!
My people are dying!
I've led them along
a too hard path!
But if we stay here,
it will be the end!
You've told the boils that the people
should prepare to leave, is that so?!
Yes!
There are 40 days till
the day of the green steppe.
Enough time to saddle
and gear up.
I came to tell you
that no one will
follow you this time.
You, too?
Me, too!
Yuvigi, something's happening!
The people are coming here angry!
I know, Belisarius!
You stay!
I'm listening!
Yuvigi!
We can't stand it anymore!
You can't
or you don't want to?
We can't and we don't want to!
It's all for nothing.
If we had stayed to defend Phanagoria,
we would've lost less people.
Let us stop, yuvigi, so we can
protect our still living children!
People, it will be disastrous to
stand on the path of all nations!
The land to the north is too cold and barren,
while the basileos reigns to the south!
So I've ordered onward!
- We have no strength to go!
We'll build a new Phanagoria here!
- If other people come, we'll fight!
We'll fight!
People!
Should I trust my eyes and ears?
515 years has the Dulo clan
ruled over its people!
How many lands have heard
the clatter of our horses?
How many enemies have known
the scream of our arrows?
Can the Bulgars
have forgotten
what they owe to the last
descendant of the great clan?
When my dearest sacrifice was asked,
for our unity and welfare,
I ripped it from my heart!
I gave it to you!
When you fought with hunger, frost,
plague, I fought beside you!
When you were burying your dead,
I digged in the frozen land as well!
Tell me! What have I not done
together with you? For you!
You, who feel love for your
clans, herds and children,
tell me, does yuvigi Asparuh have
his own clan, herds and children?
Enough, yuvigi! The Bulgars know
what they owe to their khan!
Kanasubigi Asparuh led you out
of doom and into salvation!
You're sorry for Phanagoria! Have you
forgotten what happened to it?
Not you! May the bori-tarkan
Sevar speak his mind!
Yuvigi!
Our people have followed you loyally
for long springs, summers and autumns.
They don't shout to you
now because of ease!
As much as it pains me to say it,
we can see there's no no-man's land
left waiting for its masters!
Wherever we stop,
we'll have to fight!
Then why not here?
The boil Sevar is right!
It's not from ease!
Unharness and unsaddle!
I accept, though I do not agree!
I don't recognize our camp as
a capital or our fields as a state!
The new Bulgaria should be different!
Thank you for helping me
in such a hard time...
Once, kanasubigi Kubrat
asked me to come with you,
to be your support in black days.
And in your blackest day, you
managed it without my help.
The elder of the house of Dulo
is no longer needed.
You've decided to leave us?
Since the day I learned
I have no sons left,
everything drew me back,
to their graves!
I wanted,
but I didn't dare go back.
I worried for you
and the future of the people!
I hardly lived to see
the Bulgars stop!
We lived to see
swamps instead of the forts
of Great Bulgaria!
But how could I not yield
to the people's suffering?!
You yielded,
but you didn't agree!
That was the word of a khan! That
showed me you've grown enough to rule!
Leave us! We should take
farewell alone!
It's my sin that I didn't
get to know you, uncle!
That I couldn't be your son!
So it is among men!
Power stops men from being close!
I wouldn't talk either, like I
do now, if I didn't sense my end!
Yuvigi, the water broke through
the rampart at the northern gate, too!
Take some men from the bagatur
bagain Stazis to help!
At least this
could have avoided us!
In those terrible
days and nights,
Asparuh changed!
His unwilling standstill
was tormenting him.
He no longer had those bursts
of sorrow or elation,
which he had before.
Sometimes he wouldn't speak
to me for days,
as if he had forgotten me.
I would see him closed up
in himself,
plunged in insistent thoughts.
He knew Great Bulgaria was now
a part of the Bulgars' past!
That something quite new, something
unknown was ahead!
And he was sorry he couldn't see
the people around him prepared for it!
I thought Asparuh's whole life
was a chain of losses.
With the only gain - his rule
grew stronger, taking deeper
and deeper roots!
Yuvigi,
messengers of the Slavs!
What brings you here?
Didn't you give us your word
you'll leave in the spring?
I changed my mind!
We'll stay for awhile!
We see what you're doing!
Who'll put so much effort,
if he plans to stay only a bit?
I haven't said it's a bit!
Only as much as I want to!
I know, now you'll tell me
the land and waters were yours!
Fine, I'll take them
from you by force!
And then I won't let you get near
the river and the islands!
What if we don't let you
settle down here?!
You're free to try!
Think it over!
If you agree with us,
we'll dig out a second round ditch
a day's horseride from here!
That will be our pasture land!
And what about the waters?
- The water is for everyone! I've said!
Your people, Belisarius!
Guarding the border!
What will you say, if we
pay a visit to your homeland?
You're not going anywhere!
You have children here!
They don't stop me from hunting!
Even more, I have to hunt for them!
You're going to your people,
not for hunting!
I won't let you!
Ie!
The khan ordered it.
They're asleep.
And when they ask me tomorrow
where the khan is?
You'll say I'm out hunting!
Isn't it dangerous to go
without guards, yuvigi?
Don't interfere!
Do you keep an eye on the kolober?
- Yes, yuvigi,
but his spirit doesn't
rise against your will.
I keep thinking he incited
the people during the spring,
when I ordered us to go.
Tangra, what land!
I feel like I'm dreaming!
The Slavs!
A 100 years now since they came.
We've done everything to stop them!
To push them back to the north!
This land is too beautiful,
Belisarius!
If you become its lord, prepare
for endless wars to keep it!
Wanderers, don't defile
the water-nymphs' spring!
Don't defile the sacred spring
of the water-nymphs!
Where are you from, strangers?
- From beyond!
No one's came back from beyond!
No, we come from beyond
the Danube! We're not Romans!
Are we allowed to rest here
during midday?
I allow!
What are they doing?
Where are we?
- On a sacred ground!
The Thracians worshipped
the Gods here before we did!
They come again!
Fourth time this summer!
The border.
It seems it separates not only the Empire
from your so-called barbarian lands,
but also two worlds!
Greetings, yuvigi!
What is it?
Rasate is dead, yuvigi!
What?!
The khan! The khan!
May his reign last forever!
Yuvigi, had you taken him
with you, he'd be alive now!
What happened?
Ask the kolober!
We know nothing!
They brought us Rasate slain!
How did the boil Rasate die?
As he deserved!
More precisely?
- As a traitor!
Rasate came to me
at dawn to tell me
you had secretly went
to the Roman land!
And he whispered to me
to lead the boils against you,
because you're preparing
for war with Byzantium!
No Bulgar in his right mind
would believe such a slander!
And you killed him in your just anger?
- Yes!
I was afraid he'll draw more people
to treason, if I give him time!
And Rasate told you
I've crossed the Danube?
Rasate!
Yet,
did you cross it or not?
If you think Rasate might have
told you the truth,
why did you kill him?
Yuvigi,
did you believe him?
If they ask you tomorrow
why Rasate died,
tell them: for treason!
Won't you invite me?
I don't see your oldest son,
Iratais!
Tell him tomorrow he becomes
a bagain, one of my men!
Yuvigi, why did they kill Rasate?
Because he was loyal to me!
Sit down, yuvigi!
May your reign last forever, yuvigi!
Greetings from Bulgaria!
Greetings from khan Kotrag!
Speak!
- Khan Kotrag sends word
that he found a land for our people!
Where the rivers Itil and Kama join,
there is now Bulgaria! We built
it on an empty field!
Our children and herds multiply!
The Bulgar towns grow strong!
Our people are saved!
I'm giving a feast tonight!
Let the whole Ongal celebrate!
And I invite you all to
the khan's hunt tomorrow morning!
We're glad to hear the joyous news
that khan Kotrag found a new land!
A long time now we've asked you
to declare our lands a khanate as well!
No, this swamp is just a camp,
on the path of our migration!
- It's over, the Ongal is our capital!
You accepted yourself
to stop here!
I'll never recognize this Ongal
as Bulgaria's capital! I've said!
What if Tangra himself wants it?!
If the people rise against
their khan's plans again?!
Is that a threat?
- Take it as you will,
if the khan refuses to give
the Bulgars a homeland!
I take it as a threat
against the khan of the Bulgars!
Mistakes happen!
Belisarius stood watch
by my side this night.
He didn't sleep whole night! I saw
him myself how he aimed at a deer,
but accidentaly hit
the esteemed Onegavon.
May Tangra take him
and reward him for his worth!
We'll judge him!
- We'll judge him!
We'll judge him!
- We'll judge him!
We'll judge him here and now!
When someone kills a khan's man,
the law punishes him with death.
But I won't punish Belisarius!
Because he's very useful
for my reign.
And there's a difference between
a planned and accidental murder.
The law makes no difference!
And it should!
The khan has the right
of clemency!
If yuvigi reprieves the murderer,
the murderer becomes innocent!
May the guards take the body
of our esteemed kolober!
We'll bury him with honours!
Ridiculous, but every
accident is a sign!
Since the oldest times, the khan
of the Bulgars was also first kolober.
Yuvigi Kubrat changed this order
in favour of his most trusted man.
It seems Onegavon wasn't
loyal enough to me,
if God sent him such
a ridiculous death!
From now on only I
will speak with Tangra!
I've said!
Translation: NikeBG