|
|
|
|
Bulgars
|
| |
|
| |
The Bulgars (also Bolgars or Proto-bulgarians) were a seminomadic people, probably of Turkic descent, originally from Southern Central Asia, who from the 2nd century onwards dwelled in the steppes north of the Caucasus and around the banks of river Volga (then Itil).
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Bulgars' Start a new discussion about 'Bulgars' Answer questions from other users |
Timeline
Encyclopedia
The Bulgars (also Bolgars or Proto-bulgarians) were a seminomadic people, probably of Turkic descent, originally from Southern Central Asia, who from the 2nd century onwards dwelled in the steppes north of the Caucasus and around the banks of river Volga (then Itil). A branch of them gave rise to the First Bulgarian Empire.
Ethnicity and language
Racial type and descendants
Anthropological data collected from medieval Bulgar necropolises from Dobrudja, Crimea and the Ukrainian steppe shows that Bulgars were a high-statured Caucasoid people with a small Mongoloid admixture, and practiced artificial cranial deformation of the round type..
From historical point of view the present-day Chuvash and Bulgarians are believed to originate partly from the Bulgars. According to their DNA data, the genetic backgrounds of both populations are clearly different. The Chuvash have a Central European and some Mediterranean genetic background (probably coming from the Caucasus), while the Bulgarians have a classical eastern Mediterranean (probably coming from the Balkans) composition. It is possible that only a cultural and low genetic Bulgar influence was brought into the two regions, without modifying the genetic background of the local populations.
?rigins
A leading theory about the origins of the Bulgars is that they were Turkic speaking people from Central Asia, and their language was, alongside with Khazar, Hunnic and Chuvash, a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family. It is supported, among other things, by the facts that some Bulgar words contained in the few surviving stone inscriptions and in other documents (mainly military and hierarchical terms such as tarkan, bagatur, and probably kan and kanartikin "prince") appear to be of Turkic origin, that the Bulgars apparently used a 12-year cyclic Bulgar calendar similar to the one adopted by Turkic and Mongolian peoples from the Chinese, with names and numbers that are deciphered as Turkic, and that the Bulgars' supreme god was apparently called Tangra, a deity widely known among the Turkic peoples under names such as Tengri, Tura etc. Some also point out the presence of a small number of Turkic loanwords in the Slavic Old Bulgarian language, and the fact that the Bulgars used an alphabet similar to the Turkic Orkhon script, although this alphabet hasn't been satisfactorily deciphered yet: fortunately, the Bulgar inscriptions were sometimes written in Greek or Cyrillic characters, most commonly in Greek, thus allowing the scholars to identify some of the Bulgar glosses. Supposedly, the name Bulgar is derived from the Turkic verb bulga "to mix, shake, stir" and its derivative bulgak "revolt, disorder", transliterated most commonly as Bulgars the "people of mixed blood".
"Further evidence culturally linking the Danubian Bulgar state to Turkic steppe traditions was the layout of the Bulgars' new capital of Pliska, founded just north of the Balkan Mountains shortly after 681. The large area enclosed by ramparts, with the rulers' habitations and assorted utility structures concentrated in the center, resembled more a steppe winter encampment turned into a permanent settlement than it did a typical Roman Balkan city."
Another alternative view is that Bulgar, far from being affiliated to Chuvash, belonged instead to the same branch as all other surviving Turkic languages and more specifically Kazan Tatar. Bulgarian scholar Ivan Shishmanov speculated in 1900 that this was the case, and the same view is espoused also by modern Bulgarist Kazan Tatar linguist Mirfatyh Zakiev.
Cägfär Taríxi, a Russian language document of disputed authenticity, purports to be a 1680 compilation of ancient Bulgar annals. It was published by a Volga Tatar Bulgarist editor in 1993. Cägfär Taríxi contains a very detailed description of Bulgar history. Among other things, it implies that the Bulgars were formed as a result of consolidation of many Turkic and Turkicized tribes.
Other theories
A newer theory claims that the Bulgar language was an Indo-European, specifically an Iranian language, and so, according to this theory, the Bulgar people would be classified as an Iranian people, although some of its proponents concede that the language was later influenced by Turkic due to Hunnic military domination. This notion became popular in Bulgaria in the 1990s, with the works of Petar Dobrev, a specialist in economic history. Dobrev and other authors (who, like him, are not linguists) attempt to prove the Iranian origin of a number of words and sometimes even grammatical features in Bulgar and modern Bulgarian. For example, Dobrev dismisses the general view that the Bulgar titles and names of animals in the cyclic year were Turkic and instead maintains that these terms were borrowed by Turkic and Mongol tribes from the Bulgars, as the Bulgars possessed, in his view, a more ancient and sophisticated civilization with roots in Sumerian and Akkadian culture.
Several other Bulgarian historians (Georgi Bakalov, Bozhidar Dimitrov) support Dobrev's view. Dimitrov also makes the point that "... the Bulgars are not a primitive nomadic people, they are not Mongoloids with lower lifestyle and culture", and that "the striving for a statehood of one's own is genetically inherent in Bulgar(ian)s". Dimitrov also quotes Ukrainian Turkologist Omeljan Pritsak as having stated: "We have to admit that the Bulgars were not a Turkic people. A century-old erroneous and highly harmful unscientific view has been overcome."
In the 19th century, even theories of a Slavic or Finno-Ugric affiliation were proposed on the basis of little or no evidence. These have practically no adherents among today's scholars.
Contemporaneous sources like Procopius, Agathias and Menander called the Kutrigur and Utigur Bulgars "Huns" while others, like the Byzantine Patriarch Michael II of Antioch, called them "Scythians" or "Sarmatians". But this latter identification is clearly due to the Byzantine tradition of naming peoples geographically; for example, centuries later the obviously Turkic Petchenegs and Cumans were still addressed with the respective terms.
Culture and society
Archaeological finds from the Ukrainian steppe suggest that the early Bulgars had the typical culture of the nomadic equestrians of Central Asia. They were primarily nomadic herdsmen who migrated seasonally in pursuit of pastures but also planted crops such as wheat and barley. The Bulgars were skilled blacksmiths, stone masons and carpenters. From the 7th century onwards they rapidly began to settle down.
Social structure
The Bulgars had a well-developed clan system and were governed by hereditary rulers. The members of the military aristocracy bore the title boil (boyar). There also were bagains - lesser military commanders. The nobility were further divided onto Small and Great Boyars. The latter formed the Council of the Great Boyars and gathered to take decisions on important state matters presided by the khan (king). Their numbers varied between six and twelve. These probably included the ichirgu boil and the kavkhan (vice khan), the two most powerful people after the khan. These titles were administrative and non-inheritable. The boyars could also be internal and external, probably distinguished by their place of residence — inside or outside the capital . The heir of the throne was called kanartikin. Other non-kingly titles used by the Bulgarian noble class include boila tarkan (possibly the second son of the khan), kana boila kolobur (chief priest), boritarkan (city mayor).
The title khan for early Bulgar ruler is an assumed one as only the form kanasubigi is attested in stone inscriptions. Historians presume that it includes the word khan in its archaic form kana and there is a supporting evidence suggesting that the latter title was indeed used in Bulgaria, e.g. the name of one of the Bulgarian rulers Pagan occurs in Patriarch Nicephorus's so-called Breviarium as (Kampaganos), likely an erroneous rendition of the phrase "Kan Pagan". Among the proposed translations for the phrase kanasubigi as a whole are lord of the army, from the reconstructed Turkic phrase *sü begi, paralleling the attested Old Turkic sü baši, and, more recently, (ruler) from God, from the Indo-European *su- and baga-, i.e. *su-baga (a counterpart of the Greek phrase , ho ek Theou archon, which is common in Bulgar inscriptions). This titulature presumably persisted until the Bulgars adopted Christianity. Some Bulgar inscriptions written in Greek and later in Slavonic refer to the Bulgarian ruler respectively with the Greek title archon or the Slavic title knyaz..
Religion
Very little is known about the religion of the Bulgars. It is supposed that it was monotheistic. Greek language inscriptions from pagan Danube Bulgaria generally use the Greek word ?e?? ("god") in the singular rather than a personal name. In these texts, Bulgar monarchs describe themselves as "ruler from God" and appeal to the deity's omniscience and justice. Presian's inscription from Filipi (837) states, famously:
It is generally assumed that the God in question was the Turkic sky god Tengri. In fact, there are few occurrences of the name in documents related to Bulgaria. One is in a late Turkish manuscript listing the names of the supreme god in different languages, which has "Tangra" for Bulgarian. The other is in a severely damaged Greek language inscription found on a presumed altar stone near Madara, tentatively deciphered by Bulgarian historian Veselin Beshevliev as "(Kanasubig)i Omu(rtag), ruler (from God), was ... and sacri(ficed to go)d Tangra ...(some Bulgar titles follow)." In addition, Beshevliev has conjectured that the frequent Danube Bulgar runic sign iYi stands for "Tangra", as it seems to disappear after the conversion to Christianity.
Another piece of evidence suggesting that the Bulgars worshipped Tengri/Tangra is the fact that the name of the supreme deity of the traditional religion of the Chuvash, who are regarded as descendants of the Volga branch of the Bulgars, is Tura. This is generally considered to correspond to Turkic Tengri. Nevertheless, the Chuvash religion today is markedly different from Tengriism and can be described as a local form of polytheism with some elements borrowed from Islam.
In addition, the population of the town of Varachan in Northern Dagestan, which is mostly known as "Kingdom of the Huns" but is considered by Russian historian M.I.Artamonov to have had an ethnic Bulgar character, worshipped Tangri-khan (called Aspandiat by the Persians). The cult involved sacrifice of horses and veneration of sacred trees.
Some evidence suggests that the Bulgars also adopted elements of Iranian religious beliefs. According to historian D. Dimitrov, some elements of the cult at Varachan showed Iranian influences, and Bulgar sanctuaries resembled the layout of the Zoroastrian temples of the fire. He argues that pagan religious buildings of this type — two squares of ashlars inserted one into another, oriented towards the summer sunrise - are found in Pliska, Preslav, and Madara. The religious function is confirmed in one case by the subsequent transformation of the building into a Christian church.
Bulgar paganism was displaced after the adoption of Christianity in the Danubian Bulgaria by Tsar Boris I in 865 (and, presumably, with the adoption of Islam in Volga Bulgaria in the 10th century).
History
Migration to Europe
In the early 2nd century, some groups of Bulgars migrated from Central Asia to the European continent and settled on the plains between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. The Bulgars appear (under the ethnonym of ‘Bulensii’) in certain Latin versions of Ptolemy’s second century AD mapping, shown as occupying the territory along the northwest coast of Black Sea east of Axiacus River (Southern Bug).
Between 351 and 389, some of the Bulgars crossed the Caucasus to settle in Armenia. Toponymic data testify to the fact that they remained there and were eventually assimilated by the Armenians.
Swept by the Hunnish wave at the beginning of the 4th century, other Bulgar tribes broke loose from their settlements in Central Asia to migrate to the fertile lands along the lower valleys of the Donets and the Don rivers and the Azov seashore, assimilating what was left of the Sarmatians. Some of these remained for centuries in their new settlements, whereas others moved on with the Huns towards Central Europe, settling in Pannonia.
Those Bulgars took part in the Hun raids on Central and Western Europe between 377 and 453. After the death of Attila in 453, and the subsequent disintegration of the Hunnish empire, the Bulgar tribes dispersed mostly to the eastern and southeastern parts of Europe.
At the end of the 5th century (probably in the years 480, 486, and 488) they fought against the Ostrogoths as allies of the Byzantine emperor Zeno. From 493 they carried out frequent attacks on the western territories of the Byzantine Empire. Later raids were carried out at the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th century.
In the middle of the 6th century, war broke out between the two main Bulgar tribes, the Kutrigur and Utigur. To the west, The Kutrigurs fell under Avar dominion and became influential within the Khaganate. The eastern Utigurs fell under the western Gokturk empire in 568.
Establishment of Great Bulgaria
United under Kubrat or Kurt of the Dulo clan (supposedly identical to the ruler mentioned by Arabic chronicler At-Tabari under the name of Shahriar), they joined forces of the Utigur and Kutrigur Bulgars and probably the non-Bulgar Onogurs, and broke loose from the Turkic khanate in the 630s. They formed an independent state, the Onogundur-Bulgar (Oghondor-blkar or Olhontor-blkar) Empire, often called by Byzantine sources ‘the Old Great Bulgaria’. The empire was situated between the lower course of the Danube to the west, the Black Sea and the Azov Sea to the south, the Kuban River to the east, and the Donets River to the north. It is assumed that the state capital was Phanagoria, an ancient city on the Taman peninsula (see Tmutarakan). However, the archaeological evidence shows that the city became predominantly Bulgarian only after Kubrat's death and the consequent disintegration of his state.
Subsequent migrations
The legend tells that on his death-bed, Khan Kubrat had his sons gather sticks and bring them to him, which he then bundled together and told his eldest son Bayan to break the bundle. Bayan failed under the strength of the combined sticks, and, after the rest of the sons failed this test as well, Kubrat took the sticks back, separated each one, and broke them all one-by-one even in his weakened state. Then he told his sons the words "Unity makes strength", which has become a very popular Bulgarian slogan and now appears on the modern Bulgarian coat of arms.
The Byzantine Patriarch Nicephorus I tells that Kubrat's sons, however, did not heed these very specific words, and thus soon after the death of Kubrat around 665, the Khazar expansion eventually led to the dissolution of Great Bulgaria.
The khan’s eldest son, Batbayan (also Bayan or Boyan), remained the ruler of the land north of the Black and the Azov Seas, which was, however, soon subdued by the Khazars. Those Bulgars converted to Judaism in the 9th century, along with the Khazars, and were eventually assimilated into the main-stream of the European ashkenazi Jews. Furthermore the Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria may be also the descendants of this Bulgar branch.
Another Bulgar tribe, led by Kubrat’s second son Kotrag, migrated to the confluence of the Volga and Kama Rivers in what is now Russia (see Volga Bulgaria). The present-day republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia are considered to be the descendants of Volga Bulgaria in terms of territory and people, but only Chuvash is thought to be similar to the old Bulgar language.
A third Bulgar tribe, led by the youngest son Asparukh, moved westward, occupying today’s southern Bessarabia. After a successful war with Byzantium in 680, Asparukh's khanate setteled in Dobrudja and conquered later Moesia Superior So it was recognized as an independent state under the subsequent treaty signed with the Byzantine Empire and emperor Constantine IV Pogonatus in 681. The same year is usually regarded as the year of the establishment of modern Bulgaria (see History of Bulgaria).
A fourth group of Bulgars, ruled by Kuber, existed in Pannonia. After breaking off Avar overlordship, they moved on to Macedonia. Bulgarian scholar Vasil Zlatarski posits that Kuber was also a son of Kubrat. He believes that Kuber's Bulgars formed a khanate in Macedonia, which joined Slavs to attack the Byzantine Empire, although the majority of historians do not see any evidence for the existence of a Bulgar khanate in Macedonia before 850 AD. In addition this group from around 70, 000 people, included also descendents of Roman captives of various ethnicities that had been re-settled in Pannonia by the Avars..
The fifth and smallest group, of Alcek (also transliterated as 'Altsek' and 'Altcek' or 'Ducca Alzeco'), after many wanderings, ended up led by Emnetzur and settled mainly in Italy, near Naples in the Benevento and Salerno.
List of Bulgar tribes
Tribes thought to have been Bulgar in origin include:
- Utigurs
- Kupi-bulgar
- Duchi-bulkar
- Chdar-bulkar
- Kutrigurs (Kotrags)
After the dissolution of Great Bulgaria these tribes formed:
See also
External links
|
| |
|
|
