Bulgars
The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari,[1] Proto-Bulgarians[2]) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th[3] and 7th centuries.
In 681, Khan Asparukh conquered Scythia Minor, opening access to Moesia, and established the Danubian Bulgaria – the First Bulgarian Empire, where the Bulgars became a political and military elite.
[21] Both Gyula Németh and Peter Benjamin Golden initially advocated the "mixed race" theory, but later, like Paul Pelliot,[28] considered that "to incite", "rebel", or "to produce a state of disorder", i.e. the "disturbers",[29][30][3][26] was a more likely etymology for migrating nomads.
[3][26] According to Osman Karatay, if the "mixed" etymology relied on the westward migration of the Oğurs, meeting and merging with the Huns, north of the Black Sea, it was a faulty theory, since the Oghurs were documented in Europe as early as 463, while the Bulgars were not mentioned until 482 – an overly short time period for any such ethnogenesis to occur.
[34] Another theory linking the Bulgars to a Turkic people of Inner Asia has been put forward by Boris Simeonov, who identified them with the Pugu (僕骨; buk/buok kwət; Buqut), a Tiele and/or Toquz Oguz tribe.
[35] According to the Chronicle by Michael the Syrian, which comprises several historical events of different age into one story, three mythical Scythian brothers set out on a journey from the mountain Imaon (Tian Shan) in Asia and reached the river Tanais (Don), the country of the Alans called Barsalia, which would be later inhabited by the Bulgars and the Pugurs (Puguraje).
[42][43] He noted, however, an implication that the Kutrigurs and Utigurs were related to the Šarağurs (šara oğur, shara oghur; "white oğhurs"),[44] and that according to Procopius these were Hunnish tribal unions, of partly Cimmerian descent.
[49] Grigor Khalatians and Josef Markwart connected the name Vlendur with the Olkhontor mentioned in the Ashkharatsuyts, while Stepan Malkhasiants considered it a form of the Mongolian word baghatur 'hero'.
[60] 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.
[62] In 499, they crossed the Danube and reached Thrace where on the banks of the river Tzurta (considered a tributary of Maritsa[63]) defeated a 15,000-strong Roman army led by magister militum Aristus.
And the Alans – they have five towns... Avnagur (Aunagur, considered Onoğurs) are people, who live in tentsThen 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 (Saragurs), dyrmr (unknown), b'grsyq (Bagrasir, i.e. Barsil), kwls (unknown), bdl (probably Abdali), and ftlyt (Hephthalite) ...
This association was previously mirrored in Armenian sources, such as the Ashkharatsuyts, which refers to the Olxontor Błkar, and the 5th century History by Movses Khorenatsi, which includes an additional comment from a 9th-century writer about the colony of the Vłĕndur Bułkar.
[86][82] 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.
[94] 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.
[97] The Onglos where Bulgars settled is considered northern Dobruja, secured to the West and North by Danube and its Delta, and bounded to the East by the Black Sea.
[102][98][13] According to Nikephoros I and Theophanes, an unnamed fourth brother, believed to be Kuber, "having crossed the river Ister, resides in Pannonia, which is now under the sway of the Avars, having made an alliance with the local peoples".
[109] When the Bulgars arrived in the Balkans their first generations probably still lived a nomadic life in yurts, but they quickly adopted the sunken-featured building of rectangular plan and sedentary or seasonal lifestyle of the Slavs and autochthonous population.
Bury considered ubige or uvege to be related to the Cuman-Turkic öweghü (high, glorious);[114][123] "bright, luminous, heavenly";[127][129] and more recently "(ruler) from God",[127] from the Indo-European *su- and baga-, i.e.
[138][141] The Bulgarian military commander who was defeated by the Croats in the Battle of the Bosnian Highlands (926) was called Alogobotur,[138] which is actually a title comprised by alo (considered Turkic alp, alyp; chief) and bagatur.
[146] Ravil Bukharaev believed that such an autocratic and monotheistic religion—henotheism,[159] as seen in the report by Ahmad ibn Fadlan (10th century) about the Oghuz Turks, kindred to the Bulgars,[160] made the acceptance of Islam more natural and easier in Volga Bulgaria:[160][161] If someone trouble befalls any of them or there happens any unlucky incident, they look out into the sky and summon: "Ber Tengre!".
[163] Nevertheless, the Chuvash religion today is markedly different from Tengrism and can be described as a local form of polytheism, due to pagan beliefs of the Volga Finns, forest dwellers of Finno-Ugric origin who lived in their vicinity, with some elements borrowed from Islam.
[155][4] The Bulgars were bi-ritual,[170] either cremating or burying their dead,[171][172] and often interred them with personal objects (pottery, rarely weapons or dress[172]), food, and sacred animals.
Kuznetsov, who considered the resemblance between the layout of the Zoroastrian temples of fire and the Kuban Bulgar centre, Humarin citadel, situated 11 km to the north of the town Karachayevsk, where the pottery belonged to the Saltovo-Mayaki culture.
[175] The view of the Parthian and Sasanian influence, which Franz Altheim also argued, is considered debatable, showing the cultural impact of the Iranian world on communities in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
More recent theories view the nomadic confederacies, such as the Bulgars, as the formation of several different cultural, political and linguistic entities that could dissolve as quickly as they formed, entailing a process of ethnogenesis.
Slavs and Bulgars succeeded because their form of organization proved as stable and as flexible as necessary, while the Pannonian Avars failed in the end because their model could not respond to new conditions.
Pohl wrote that members of society's lower strata did not feel themselves to be part of any large-scale ethnic group; the only distinct classes were within the armies and the ruling elite.
[181] According to a paleo-DNA study from 2019 which examined Medieval burials in the Carpathian Basin a closest connection was found between the Y-DNA of these nomadic people and the modern Volga Tatars.
[221] In all sites can be traced the anthropological type found in the Zlivka necropolis near the village of Ilichevki, the district of Donetsk, of brachiocranic Caucasoid with small East Asian admixtures but with Bulgar males being more Mongoloid than females.
[227][221][226] Modern genetic research on Central Asian Turkic peoples and ethnic groups related to the Bulgars points to an affiliation with Western Eurasian populations.
