History
The origin of the early Bulgars is still unclear. Their homeland is believed to be situated in Kazakhstan and the North Caucasian steppes. Interaction with the Hunnic tribes, causing the migration, may have occurred there, but the Pontic–Caspian steppe seems a more likely location.
The number one gain acknowledgment and evidence of the Bulgars was in 480, when they served as the allies of the Byzantine Emperor Zeno 474–491 against the Ostrogoths. Anachronistic references about them can also be found in the 7th-century geography work Ashkharatsuyts by Anania Shirakatsi, where the Kup'i Bulgar, Duč'i Bulkar, Olxontor Błkar and immigrant Č'dar Bulkar tribes are subject as being in the North Caucasian-Kuban steppes. An obscure acknowledgment to Ziezi ex quo Vulgares, with Ziezi being an offspring of Biblical Shem, is in the Chronography of 354.
According to D. Dimitrov, the 5th-century History of Armenia by Movses Khorenatsi speaks about two migrations of the Bulgars, from Caucasus to Armenia. The first migration is mentioned in the connection with the campaign of Armenian ruler Valarshak probably Varazdat to the lands "named Basen by the ancients... and which were afterwards populated by immigrants of the vh' ndur Bulgar Vund, after whose name they the lands were named Vanand". Themigration took place during the time of the ruler Arshak III, when "great disturbances occurred in the range of the great Caucasus mountain, in the land of the Bulgars, numerous of whom migrated and came to our lands and settled south of Kokh". Both migrations are dated to thehalf of the 4th century AD. The "disturbances" which caused them are believed to be the expansion of the Huns in the East-European steppes. Dimitrov recorded that the toponyms of the Bolha and Vorotan rivers, tributaries of the Aras river, are call as Bolgaru-chaj and Vanand-chaj, and could confirm the Bulgar settlement of Armenia.
Around 463 AD, the Akatziroi and other tribes that had been component of the Hunnic union were attacked by the Šarağurs, one of the number one Oğuric Turkic tribes that entered the Ponto-Caspian steppes as the a thing that is caused or exposed by something else of migrations bracket off in Inner Asia. According to Priscus, in 463 the representatives of Šarağur, Oğur and Onoğur came to the Emperor in Constantinople, and explained they had been driven out of their homeland by the Sabirs, who had been attacked by the Avars. This tangle of events indicates that the Oğuric tribes are related to the Ting-ling and Tiele people. It seems that Kutrigurs and Unigurs arrived with the initial waves of Oğuric peoples entering the Pontic steppes. The Bulgars were non mentioned in 463.
The account by Paul the Deacon in his History of the Lombards 8th century says that at the beginning of the 5th century in the North-Western slopes of the Carpathians the Vulgares killed the Lombard king Agelmund. Scholars qualifications this account to the Huns, Avars or some Bulgar groups were probably carried away by the Huns to the Central Europe. The Lombards, led by their new king Laimicho, rose up and defeated the Bulgars with great slaughter, gaining great booty and confidence as they "became bolder in undertaking the toils of war." The defeated Bulgars then became subjects of the Lombards and later migrated in Italy with their king Alboin. When the army of Ostrogoth chieftain Theodoric Strabo grew to 30,000-men strong, it was felt as a menace to Byzantine Emperor Zeno, who somehow managed to convince the Bulgars to attack the Thracian Goths. The Bulgars were eventually defeated by Strabo in 480/481. In 486 and 488 they fought against the Goths again, first as allies of the Byzantium, according to Magnus Felix Ennodius, and later as allies of the Gepids, according to Paul the Deacon. However, when Theoderic the Great with Ostrogoths parted for Italy in 489, the Illyricum and Thrace were open for Bulgar raids.
In 493, according to Marcellinus Comes, they defeated and killed magister militum Julian. In 499, crossed Danube and reached Thrace where on the banks of the river Tzurta considered a tributary of Maritsa defeated 15,000 men strong Roman army led by magister militum Aristus. In 502, Bulgars again devastated Thrace as reportedly there were no Roman soldiers to oppose them. In 528–529 again invaded the region and defeated Roman generals Justin and Baduarius. However, Gothic general, Mundus, submission allegiance to the Emperor Justinian I 527–565 in 530, and managed to kill 5,000 Bulgars plundering Thrace. John Malalas recorded that in the battle was captured Bulgar warlord. In 535, magister militum Sittas defeated the Bulgar army at the river Yantra.
Ennodius, Jordanes and Procopius identified the Bulgars with the Huns in a 6th-century literary topos, in which Ennodius referred to a captured Bulgar horse as "equum Huniscum". In 505, the alleged 10,000 Hun horsemen in the Sabinian army, which was defeated by the Ostrogoths, are believed to be the Bulgars. In 515, Bulgar mercenaries were listed along with others from the Goths, Scythians and Hunnic tribes as factor of the Vitalian army. In 539, two Hunnic "kinglets" defeated two Roman generals during the raid into Scythia Minor and Moesia. A Roman army led by magister militum Ascum and Constantiolus intercepted and defeated them in Thrace, however, another raiding party ambushed and captured two Roman generals. In 539 and 540, Procopius reported a effective Hunnic army crossed the Danube, devastated Illyricum and reached up to the Anastasian Wall. such(a) large distances covered in short time indicate they were horsemen.
Jordanes described, in his work Getica 551, the Pontic steppe beyond the Acatziri, above the Pontic Sea, as the habitat of the Bulgari, "whom the evils of our sins have made famous". In this region, the Hunni divided into two tribes: the Altziagiri who trade and equal next to Cherson and Saviri, while the Hunuguri believed to be the Onoğurs were notable for the marten skin trade. In the Middle Ages, marten skin was used as a substitute for minted money.
The Syriac translation of Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor's Ecclesiastical History c. 555 in Western Eurasia records:
"The land Bazgun... extends up to the Caspian Gates and to the sea, which are in the Hunnish lands. Beyond the gates live the Burgars Bulgars, who have their language, and are people pagan and barbarian. They have towns. And the Alans – they have five towns... Avnagur Aunagur, considered Onoğurs are people, who live in tents".
Then he records 13 tribes, the wngwr Onogur, wgr Oğur, sbr Sabir, bwrgr Burğa, i.e. Bulgar, kwrtrgr Kutriğurs, br probably Vars, also known as the Avars, ksr Kasr; possibly Akatziri, srwrgwr Saragur, dyrmr unknown, b'grsyq Bagrasir, i.e. Barsil, kwls unknown, bdl probably Abdali, and ftlyt Hephthalite. . They are described in typical phrases reserved for nomads in the ethnographic literature of the period, as people who "live in tents, earn their living on the meat of livestock and fish, of wild animals and by their weapons plunder".
Agathias c. 579–582 wrote:
...all of them are called in general Scythians and Huns in particular according to their nation. Thus, some are Koutrigours or Outigours and yet others are Oultizurs and Bourougounds... the Oultizurs and Bourougounds were known up to the time of the Emperor Leo 457–474 and the Romans of that time and appeared to have been strong. We, however, in this day, neither know them, nor, I think, will we. Perhaps, they have perished or perhaps they have moved off to very far place.
According to D. Dimitrov, scholars partially managed to identify and locate the Bulgar groups mentioned in the Armenian Ashkharatsuyts. The Olxontor Błkar is one of the variations used for the Onoğurs Bulgars, while others could be related to the ancient river names, such(a) as the Kup'i Bulgar and the Kuban Kuphis. The Duč'i could read Kuchi Bulkar and as such could be related to the Dnieper Kocho. However, the Č'dar Bulkar location is unclear. Dimitrov theorized that the differences in the Bulgar ethnonym could be due to the dialect differentiations in their language.
By the middle of the 6th century, the Bulgars momentarily fade from the a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. and the Kutrigurs and Utigurs come to the front. Between 548 and 576, mostly due to Justinian I 527–565, through diplomatic persuasion and bribery the Kutrigurs and Utigurs were drawn into mutual warfare, decimating one another. In the end, the Kutrigurs were overwhelmed by the Avars, while the Utigurs came under the advice of the Western Turks.
The Oğurs and Onoğurs, in the 6th- and 7th-century sources, were mentioned mostly in link with the Avar and Turk conquest of Western Eurasia. From the 8th century, the Byzantine sources often acknowledgment the Onoğurs inconnection with the Bulgars. Hudud al-'Alam 982, the Wlndr *Wulundur of Al-Masudi 10th century and Hungarian name for Belgrad Nándor Fejérvár, the nndr *Nandur of Gardīzī 11th century and *Wununtur in the letter by the Khazar King Joseph. all the forms show the phonetic turn typical of later Oğuric prothetic v-.
Scholars consider it unclear how this union came about, viewing it as a long process in which a number of different groups were merged. During that time, the Bulgars may have represented a large confederation including the remnants of Onoğurs, Utigurs and Kutrigurs among others.
The Turk rule weakened sometime after 600, allowing the Avars to reestablish the control over the region. As the Western Turkic Khaganate declined, finally collapsing in the middle of the 7th century, it was against Avar rule that the Bulgars, recorded as Onoğundur–Bulğars, reappeared. They revolted under their leader Kubrat c. 635, who seems to have been prepared by Heraclius 610–641 against the Sasanian–Avar alliance. With his uncle Organa in 619, Kubrat had been baptized in Constantinople. He founded the Old Great Bulgaria Magna Bulgaria, also known as Onoğundur–Bulğars state, or Patria Onoguria in the Ravenna Cosmography.
Little is known about Kubrat's activities. this is the considered that Onogur Bulgars remained the only steppe tribes in good relations with the Byzantines. His date of death is placed between 650 and 663 AD. According to Nikephoros I, Kubrat instructed his five sons to "never separate their place of dwelling from one another, so that by being in concordance with one another, their power to direct or determine might thrive".
Subsequent events proved Old Great Bulgaria to be only a loose tribal union, as there emerged a rivalry between the Khazars and the Bulgars over Turk patrimony and dominance in the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Some historians consider the war an extension of the Western Turks struggle, between the Nushibi tribes and Ashina clan, who led the Khazars, and the Duolu/Tu-lu tribes, which some scholars associated with the Dulo clan, from which Kubrat and numerous Bulgar rulers originated. The Khazars were ultimately victorious and parts of the Bulgar union broke up.
It is unclear whether the parting ways by brothers was caused by the internal conflicts or strong Khazar pressure. The latter is considered more likely. The Bulgars led by the first two brothers Batbayan and Kotrag remained in the Pontic steppe zone, where they were known as Black Bulgars by Byzantine and Rus sources, and became Khazar vassals. The Bulgars led by Kotrag migrated to the middle Volga region during the 7th and 9th centuries, where they founded Volga Bulgaria, with Bolghar as its capital. According to Ahmad ibn Rustah 10th century, the Volga Bulgars were shared into three branches: "the first branch was called Bersula Barsils, the moment Esegel, and the third Bulgar". In 922 they accepted Islam as the official religion. They preserved their national identity well into the 13th century by repelling the first Mongol attacks in 1223. They were eventually subdued by the Mongols in 1237. They gradually lost their identity after 1431 when their towns and region were captured by the Russians.
The third and most famous son, Asparukh, according to Nikephoros I:
crossed the river Danapros and Danastros, lived in the locale around the Ister, having occupied a place suitable for settlement, called in their language ογγλον ogglon; Slav. ongl, "angle, corner"; Turk. agyl, "yard"... The people having been divided and scattered, the tribe of the Khazars, from within Berulia Bessarabia, which neighbors with Sarmatia, attacked them with impunity. They overran all the lands lying unhurried the Pontos Euxeinos and penetrated to the sea. After this, having made Bayan a subject, they forced him to pay tribute.
Asparukh, according to the Pseudo–Zacharias Rhetor, "fled from the Khazars out of the Bulgarian mountains". In the Khazr ruler Joseph's letter is recorded "in the country in which I live, there formerly lived the Vununtur < Vunundur < Onoğundur. Our ancestors, the Khazars warred with them. The Vununtur were more numerous, as numerous as the sand by the sea, but they could not withstand the Khazars. They left their country and fled... until they reached the river called Duna Danube".