Old Great Bulgaria or
Great Bulgaria (Παλαιά Μεγάλη Βουλγαρία in
ByzantineByzantium was an ancient Greek city, which was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas or Byzantas . The name "Byzantium" is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
chronicles) was а term used by Byzantine historians to refer to Onoguria during the reign of the
BulgarThe Bulgars were originally semi-nomadic people, probably of Turkic descent, originating in Central Asia, who from the 2nd century onwards conquered different parts of Europe...
ruler
KubratKubrat or Kurt was a Bulgar ruler credited with establishing the confederation of Old Great Bulgaria in 632. He is said to have achieved this by defeating the Avars and uniting all the Bulgar tribes under one rule....
in the 7th century north of the
Caucasus mountainsThe Caucasus Mountains is a mountain system in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region.The Caucasus Mountains are made up of two separate mountain systems:* the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range and...
in the
steppeIn physical geography, a steppe is a biome region characterised by grassland plain without trees . The prairie can be considered a steppe. It may be semi-desert, or covered with grass or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude...
between the
DniesterThe Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe.-Geography:The Dniester rises in Ukraine, near the city of Drohobych, close to the border with Poland, and flows toward the Black Sea. Its course marks part of the border of Ukraine and Moldova, after which it flows through Moldova for , separating the...
and Lower Volga.
Kubrat
Kubrat (also Kurt or Houvrat) was of the kingly
Dulo clanThe Dulo Clan or the House of Dulo was the name of the ruling dynasty of the early Bulgars.This was the clan of Kubrat who founded Old Great Bulgaria, and his sons Batbayan, Kuber and Asparuh, the latter of which founded Danube Bulgaria....
and the rightful heir of the Bulgar throne. He spent his adolescence in the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
, where he was educated and baptised, while his maternal uncle
OrganaOrgana was Kubrat's maternal uncle of the Ermy clan. According to John of Nikiu, he was regent over the tribe of the Onogur Bulgars from 617 to 630 in place of his nephew, Kubrat, for the time Kubrat was growing up as a hostage in the Byzantine Empire and there is information that Organa...
was a regent over his tribe.
Around 628 Kubrat returned to his fatherland, took the leadership over his people most probably with the approval of the Avar
khaganKhagan or Great Khan Khagan or Great Khan Khagan or Great Khan ((Old Turkic ; ; ; alternatively spelled Chagan, Khaghan, Kagan, Kağan, Qagan, Qaghan), is a title of imperial rank in the Turkic and Mongolian languages equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a Khaganate (empire, greater...
. He soon managed to overthrow Avar domination and also to secede from the
Western Turkic KhaganateThe Western Turkic Khaganate was formed as a result of the internecine wars in the beginning of the 7th century after the Göktürk Khaganate had splintered into two polities – Eastern and Western.The Western Turks sought friendly relations with the Byzantine Empire...
(which was entangled in dynastic wars).
Establishment
Between 630 and 635
KhanKhan is an originally Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, first used by medieval Altaic-speaking nomadic tribes living to the north of China and the center of Rumelia Kailar yoruks are mentioned as yorukkhans in Ottoman arvhives...
KubratKubrat or Kurt was a Bulgar ruler credited with establishing the confederation of Old Great Bulgaria in 632. He is said to have achieved this by defeating the Avars and uniting all the Bulgar tribes under one rule....
managed to unite the two main Bulgar tribes of Kutrigur and
UtigurUtigur is the name used only by Procopius Caesariensis and his continuators Agathias and Menander to refer to the Bulgar-Huns of Onoguria on the Eurasian steppes north-east of the Black Sea and east the Don river in the 5th and 6th centuries....
under a single rule, creating a powerful confederation which is referred to by the medieval authors as
The Old Great Bulgaria and also known as
OnogundurThe Onogurs were a horde of equestrian nomads that wandered the Eurasian plains in the 5th–8th centuries. They were ethnically closely related and allied to the Bulgar tribes and used to live in the North Caucasian steppe east of the Don River ....
-Bulgar Empire (or in western version:
Onoghuria). Some scholars assume that it also included among its subjects the defeated
AvarsThe Eurasian Avars, sometimes referred to as the European Avars, or Ancient Avars, were a highly organized and powerful confederation of a mixed ethnic background, thought to be closely related to the Mongols, Bulgars, Khazars and other Oghur Turkic peoples of the time...
and stretched as far west as the
Pannonian plainThe Pannonian Plain is a large plain in Central Europe that remained when the Pliocene Pannonian Sea dried out. It is a geomorphological subsystem of the Alps-Himalaya system.The river Danube divides the plain roughly in half...
. It is presumed that his capital was the ancient city of
PhanagoriaPhanagoria was the largest Greek colony on the Taman peninsula, spreading on two plateaux along the Asian shore of the Cimmerian Bosporus, 25 kilometers northeast of Hermonassa...
on the
Taman peninsulaThe Taman Peninsula is a peninsula in the present-day Krasnodar Krai of Russia. It is bounded on the north by the Sea of Azov, on the west by the Strait of Kerch and on the south by the Black Sea...
. Kubrat's grave was discovered in 1912 at Pereshchepina,
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
.
Disintegration and successor states
The events that unfolded following Kubrat's death are described by the Byzantine Patriarch Nicephorus I . In the times of Emperor
Constantine IVConstantine IV , ; sometimes incorrectly called Pogonatos, "the Bearded", by confusion with his father; was Byzantine emperor from 668 to 685. He had been named a co-emperor with his father Constans II in 654, and became senior emperor when Constans was assassinated in 668...
, he narrates, Kubrat died and Batbayan, the eldest of his five sons, was left in charge of the state. Under strong Khazar pressure, Kubrat's other sons disregarded their father's advice to stay together in order to resist the enemies and soon departed, taking their own tribes.
Volga Bulgars
KotragKhan Kotrag was the founder of Idil Bolgar. He was the son of Kubrat who left Great Bulgaria after the death of his father. His successors reached the lands of modern Tatarstan and established a state during 7-9 centuries and recognised Islam as the official religion in 922 AD during the visit of...
, the leader of the Kutrigurs (or Kotrags), left for Middle Volga, where he later established
Volga BulgariaVolga Bulgaria or Volga-Kama Bolghar, is a historic Bulgar state that existed between the seventh and thirteenth centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers in what is now Russia. Today, both the Republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia are considered to be descendants of Volga...
at the Volga-
KamaKama is a major river in Russia, the longest left tributary of the Volga and the largest one in discharge; in fact, it is larger than the Volga before junction....
confluence, a state which was to become very prosperous. The Volga Bulgars or the Silver Bulgars as they were called at the time, converted voluntarily to
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
in the 9th century and managed to preserve their national identity well into the 13th century, by repelling the first Mongol attacks in 1223. However, they were eventually subdued, their main city
BolgharBolghar was the capital of Volga Bulgaria from the 8th to the 15th centuries. It was situated on the bank of the Volga River, about 30 km downstream from its confluence with the Kama River and some 130 km from modern Kazan...
became a capital of the
Golden HordeThe Ulus of Jochi or the Golden Horde is an East Slavic designation for the Mongol—later Turkicized—Muslim khanate established in the western part of the Mongol Empire after the Mongol invasion of Rus' in the 1240s: present-day Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and the Caucasus...
Khanate and the Bulgars mixed with the
TatarsTatars , sometimes spelled Tartars, are a Turkic ethnic group mainly inhabiting Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. They numbered 10 million in the late 20th Century, which includes all subgroups of Tatar people, such as...
. The citizens of the modern Russian republics of
TatarstanRepublic of Tatarstan is a federal subject of the Russian Federation . Its size is 68,000 km² with a population of 3,800,000. Its capital is Kazan...
and
ChuvashiaChuvash Republic — Chuvashia , or Chuvashia is a federal subject of Russia located in central Russia. It is the homeland of Chuvash people.-Geography:...
are considered to be descendants of those Bulgars.
Bulgars in Vojvodina and Macedonia
KuberKhan Kuber was a Bulgar leader, probably brother of Khan Asparukh and member of the Dulo clan, who according to the Miracles of St Demetrius, in the 670s was the leader of a mixed Christian population of Bulgars, ‘Romans’, Slavs and Germanic people that had been transferred to the Srem region in...
ruled in
SirmiumSirmium was an ancient city in Roman Pannonia. Sirmium originally was a Celtic town founded in the 3rd century BC and conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC. It was a very important town in the later Roman Empire, being the economic capital of Roman Pannonia and one of the four capital...
over a mixed group of peoples (Bulgars, 'Romans', Slavs, Germanics) as a vassal of the Avar khagan. After a revolt he led his people to
MacedoniaMacedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but the region is nowadays held to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia...
. There he had settled in the region of Keremisia and made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of
ThessalonikiThessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is honorarily called the Συμπρωτεύουσα Symprotevousa of Greece, as it was once called the συμβασιλεύουσα symvasilevousa of the Byzantine Empire...
. After this, he disappears from history and his people merged with the Slavic tribes of Macedonia.
Bulgars in Southern Italy
Other Bulgars, circa 662, led by their "Duke Alzeco" (Altsek) sought refuge from the Avars with the
LombardsThe Lombards were a Germanic people originally from Northern Europe who settled in the valley of the Danube and from there invaded Byzantine Italy in 568 under the leadership of Alboin. They established a Kingdom of Italy which lasted until 774, when it was conquered by the Franks...
and requested
land from the Lombard King
Grimoald I of BeneventoGrimoald I was duke of Benevento and king of the Lombards .Born probably before 610 to Duke Gisulf II of Friuli and the Bavarian princess Ramhilde, daughter of Duke Garibald I of Bavaria, he succeeded his brother Radoald as duke of Benevento...
in exchange for military service "for an uncertain reason", initially staying near
RavennaRavenna is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The city is inland, but is connected to the Adriatic Sea by a canal. Ravenna was the capital of the Western Roman Empire till 476. It was later the capital ofKingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Exarchate of Ravenna till 751...
and later moving further south. Grimoald sent Altzek and his followers to his son
RomualdRomuald I , duke of Benevento , was the son of Grimoald, king of the Lombards. He received Benevento when his father usurped the throne in 662. Grimoald sent the deposed king Perctarit's wife Rodelinde and son Cunincpert to the court of his son in Benevento.Romuald betrothed his sister Gisa to...
in Benevento and they were then granted by Romuald land northeast of
NaplesNaples in Italy, is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old...
in the "spacious but up till that time deserted" towns of
SepinoSepino is a comune in the Province of Campobasso in the Italian region Molise, located about 20 km south of Campobasso. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,127 and an area of 62.6 km²....
, Bovianum (Boiano), and
IserniaIsernia Isernia Isernia (Latin: Aesernia or, in Pliny and later writers, Eserninus, or in the Antonine Itinerary, Serni is a town and comune in the central Italian region of Molise, and the capital of Isernia province.- Geography :...
, in the present-day region of
MoliseMolise is a region of Southern Italy, the second smallest of the regions. It was formerly part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise and now a separate entity...
in the Apennines. Instead of the title "Duke" Altzek was granted the Lombard title of "
GastaldA gastald was a Lombard official in charge of some portion of the royal demesne with civil, martial, and judicial powers. By the Edictum Rothari of 643, the gastalds were given the civil authority in the cities and the reeves the like authority in the countryside...
".
Paul the DeaconPaul the Deacon , also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred and Cassinensis, , was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.-Life:...
in his
History of the Lombard PeopleThe Historia gentis Langobardorum is the chief work by Paul the Deacon, written in the late 8th century.This incomplete history in six books was written after 787 and at any rate no later than 796, maybe at Montecassino...
writing after the year 787 says that in his time Bulgars still inhabited the area, and that even though they speak "Latin", "they have not forsaken the use of their own tongue".
Excavations in the necropolis of Vicenne-
CampochiaroCampochiaro is a comune in the Province of Campobasso in the Italian region Molise, located about 20 km southwest of Campobasso...
near Boiano which dates from the 7th century, found among 130 burials that there were 13 human burials alongside horses along with artifacts of Germanic and
AvarThe Eurasian Avars, sometimes referred to as the European Avars, or Ancient Avars, were a highly organized and powerful confederation of a mixed ethnic background, thought to be closely related to the Mongols, Bulgars, Khazars and other Oghur Turkic peoples of the time...
origin. Horse burials are characteristic of Central Asian horse-nomads, and therefore these burials are clearly those of the Bulgar settlers of Molise and
CampaniaCampania is a region of southern Italy in Europe. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,595 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
.
Caucasian Bulgars / Balkars
BatBayan's people, the so-called Black Bulgars, remained in their homeland and were soon subdued by the
KhazarsThe Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who dominated the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus from the 7th to the 10th century CE. The name 'Khazar' seems to be tied to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering"....
. Some believe that the present-day
BalkarsThe Balkars are a Turkic people of the Caucasus region, the titular population of Kabardino-Balkaria. Their Karachay-Balkar language is of the Ponto-Caspian subgroup of the Northwestern group of Turkic languages. Related to Crimean Tatar and Kumyk...
are the descendants of the BatBayan horde even though they call themselves Malkars (after the river Malka) and speak a Turkic language of the Kipchak type.
But in most Turkic languages the sound "b" became "m".
First Bulgarian Empire
Asparuh, the successor to
KubratKubrat or Kurt was a Bulgar ruler credited with establishing the confederation of Old Great Bulgaria in 632. He is said to have achieved this by defeating the Avars and uniting all the Bulgar tribes under one rule....
, subsequently conquered
MoesiaMoesia was an ancient region and Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River...
and Dobrudja from the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
in 680 and formed the
First Bulgarian EmpireThe First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in AD 632 in the lands near the Danube Delta and disintegrated in AD 1018 after its annexation to the Byzantine Empire. At the height of its power it spread between Budapest and the Black Sea and from the Dnieper river in modern...
.
Etymology of Onoghuria
Variations of the name include:
Onoghuria, Onoguri, Onoghuri, Onghur, Ongur, Onghuri, Onguri, Onghuria, Onguria, Onogundur, Unogundur, Unokundur, etc.
There are numerous speculations about the origin of the Onogur name:
- In modern language of the Caucasian Avars
Avars or Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan, in which they are the predominant group. The Caucasian Avar language belongs to the Northeast Caucasian language family ....
Onoghuria could mean "Everlasting", from uno - ever and guro - lasting.
- Some derive it from the Turkic
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken by some...
words On (ten) and Ghur (arrow) which in combination may mean "Ten Arrows", i.e. "A federation of ten tribes".
- Another explanation states that because in Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken by some...
the sound "z" turns to "r" when you go westwards and therefore the ethnonym of the Oguz/OghuzThe Oghuz were a group of Turkic peoples. In the ninth century the Oghuz Turks from the Aral steppes drove the Pecheneg Turks of the Emba region and the River Ural toward the west...
Turks would sound as Ogur/Oghur in the west. Then Onogur would mean "ten clans of Oguz/Oghuz (Turks)". In support to this view is fact that the Bulgars are listed among the ten sons of TogarmahTogarmah third son of Gomer, and grandson of Japheth, brother of Ashkenaz and Riphat...
(the mythic ancestor of the Turks) in the Khazar CorrespondenceThe Khazar Correspondence was an exchange of letters in the 950s or 960s between Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to the Caliph of Cordoba, and Joseph, Khagan of the Khazars. It is one of the few documents known to have been authored by a Khazar, and one of the very few primary sources on...
.
- Others relate Onoghur to Unok-vndur, a Bulgar people mentioned in the early Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n sources.
Other uses
According to some sources, seven
Finno-UgricFinno-Ugric can refer to:* Finno-Ugric languages* Finno-Ugric peoples...
speaking tribes, including the Magyars, joined three
Khazar-Turkic speakingKhazar was the language spoken by the medieval Khazar tribe, a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia. It is also referred to as Khazarian, Khazaric, or Khazari...
KabarThe Kabars or Kavars were a Turkic tribal confederation who lived in the vicinity of Poltava in the 9th century. They consisted of three Magyar tribes who rebelled against the Khazar Khaganate some time in the ninth century; the rebellion was notable enough to be included in Constantine...
clans to form a confederation also known as "Ten Arrows" or Onoghur. The word "
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
" probably derives from this name. . The
RomanianRomanian or Daco-Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia...
name for Magyar sounds even more similar to Onoghur - Ungur as is the Bulgarian name - Ungar(tzi)
See also
- Bulgars
The Bulgars were originally semi-nomadic people, probably of Turkic descent, originating in Central Asia, who from the 2nd century onwards conquered different parts of Europe...
- Mount Imeon
Mount Imeon is an ancient name for the Central Asian complex of mountain ranges comprising the present Hindu Kush, Pamir and Tian Shan, extending from the Zagros Mountains in the southwest to the Altay Mountains in the northeast, and linked to the Kunlun, Karakoram and Himalayas to the southeast...
- Kingdom of Balhara
Kingdom of Balhara was a state situated in the upper course of Oxus River , and the foothills and valleys of Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains . Established ca. seventh century BC....
- First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in AD 632 in the lands near the Danube Delta and disintegrated in AD 1018 after its annexation to the Byzantine Empire. At the height of its power it spread between Budapest and the Black Sea and from the Dnieper river in modern...
- List of Ukrainian rulers
External links