9.6. Information about Avars.

The Avars (in the Chinese sources they are known as Juan-Juan) were routed by the Turks in the period between 551 and 555 AD. The Avars, living in 20 thousand wagons, ran to the west and in 558 reached the Northern Caucasus. They attacked Uturgurs (Utigs), Barsils, and Sabirs, and defeated them. The Avar Khaganate, created by them, existed until the middle of the 7th century.

Source of information. Djafarov Yu.R. Huns and Azerbaijan. Baku,1985.

9.7. Brief conclusions

From the beginning of the 60s of the 4th c. to the middle of the 50s of the 5th c. the Huns dominated the endless steppes from the Lower Volga to the Lower Danube. The Avars came to replace them. Avars had different capabilities and opportunities for domination. From the 20s of the 7th c. the domination in Meotian and Pontic steppes passes to Bulgars. The following were the major milestones in this development.

9.7.1. In 360 the Huns, and peoples closely related to them, under a leadership of Bulьmar (Belemer), crossed the Volga from the east to the west. The “Great Movement Of The Peoples” began.

9.7.2. Descendants of Cimmerians came to the west together with the Huns, namely: Khots (Kuturgurs) from Tobol (Western Siberia) and Utigs (Utugurs, Uturgurs) from the regions of Volga Basin (centred on the banks of the river Kinel). The Greek and Latin historians viewed Utugurs and Kuturgurs as Hun-Bulgarian peoples.

9.7.3. Together with the Huns left for the west Bulgars from Albania (present Azerbaijan), and also from Djurash (present Northern Dagestan).

9.7.4. In the 70s of the 4th c. in the endless steppe from the Lower Volga to the Lower Danube emerged the Hun state. Its founder was Alyp-bi, i.e. Prince of Alps, the senior son of Bulьmar. The Hun state achieved the height of its power in the middle of the 5th century during the rule of Attila.

9.7.5. After the death of Attila (453) most of the Huns left Pannonia (Hungary). The Hungur people, dominating among Huns, settled in the Northern Pontic, Uturgurs - in Northern Meotida, the Kuturgurs - in Eastern Meotida, and Bulgars from Albania and Djurash themselves inhabited the land between the mouth of Buri-Chai (Dnieper) and the mountain part of Djalda (Crimea).

9.7.6. In 455, a Bulgarian princedom, Altynoba, was formed in the Lower Dnieper and the steppe part of the Crimean peninsula. Its founder was the third son of Attila, Bel - Kermek.. He took a title, “Baltavar”- “Lord of Princes”.

9.7.7. The Sabirs arrived in 468 to the regions of Northern Caucusus and Northern Pontic. They were a very ancient people. The Sabirs lived between lakes Balkhash and Issyk-kul. They were expelled by Avars from there. The Avars were one of the last “splinters” of the Hunnic clans who remained some time in Mongolia. The Huns founded a political-military alliance with the Bulgars. Some of them joined the Bulgars of the Altynoba princedom, others joined the Bulgars of Transcaucasian Albania and Djurash (Northern Dagestan).

9.7.8. During the rule of Bel – Kermek’s son Masgut, the territory of the princedom of Altynoba extended to the mouth of the Danube.

9.7.9. During the rule of Bel – Kermek’s great-grandson Boyan-Chelbir, Khazars arrived to the regions of Northern Caucusus, driven by Avars from the territory between lakes Balkhash and Issyk-kul. The Sabirs joined the Bulgars of the Princedom of Altynoba.

9.7.10. Soon, closely following behind the Avars, came the Khazars. The joint forces of Altynoba Bulgars, Sabans and Avars did not let the Khazars to the western bank of Dnieper. The retreating Khazars took a part of Altynoba Bulgars, led by the son of Boyan-Chelbir, Atrak.

9.7.11. The Khazars permitted Atrak’s Bulgars to create a princedom under the name Burdjan in Djurash (Northern Dagestan). In due course the Dagestany Bulgars began to be called by a common nameBurdjans. The Bulgars of the Altynoba Princedom began to be called Kara Bulgars,i.e. Western Bulgars, and Bulgars of the Burdjan Princedom - Ak Bulgars.

9.7.12. The ruler of Altynoba princedom Boyan-Chelbir died in 605. He left an expansive princedom to his son Bu-Yurgan (in the Byzantian sources- Organ): the border in the north passed on the line of the modern cities of Kharkov and Kiev, in the south - by northern slope of the Tausus mountains (Crimean peninsula), in the east - by the western bank of the Don, in the west- by the mouth of the Danube.

This was the situation on the eve of the emergence of the Great Bulgarian state. 13 - 14 years remained until its formation.

Translated by Norm KISAMOV.

THE BULGARIANS

Historically, three different groups of Bulgarians have influenced Russian history; the Kuban Bulgarians, the Volga Bulgarians and the Balkan Bulgarians. The first references to a people known as Bulgars or Bulgarians are from the 5th c., and these sources indicate that the first Bulgarians (the Great Bulgarians), were a Turkic people (also called Onogurs) inhabiting the steppes between the Kuban river and the Sea of Azov (Great Bulgaria). In the mid-7th c., the Great Bulgarians broke up into smaller groups, as mentioned above. The Kuban Bulgarians remained in this steppe region, and were assimilated by Magyars and other groups by the 11th c. Another group headed north, settled south of the confluence of the Kama and Volga rivers, and became known as the Volga Bulgarians. These Bulgars adopted Islam and established the first Muslim state on the territory of present-day CIS (in the early 10th c).  From the Mongol invasion to the destruction of the Kazan Khanate in the 1550s, the Volga Bulgarians were slowly assimilated into other groups, and thus played a role in the ethnogenesis of Tatars, Bashkirs and Chuvash. The third group is the one which came to settle in present-day Bulgaria, and is known as the Balkan (or Slavic) Bulgarians. This group stayed in the Black Sea region until the 7th c., when Great Bulgaria broke up. They moved west and south under Khan Asparuch, and later carved out a powerful state in the former Roman/Byzantine provinces of Moesia and Thrace. They brought Slavic settlers in the region under their sway, and gradually they assimilated. By the 10th c., the old Turkic Bulgarian language had been replaced by the new Slavonic Bulgarian.  Official Christianization began in the last half of the 9th c., under Khan Boris. He chose the Byzantine Orthodoxy, and received Slavonic liturgy and literary language from the exiled Byzantine Moravian mission of Cyril and Methodius. The Christianized first Bulgarian empire flourished in competition with the Byzantian empire until it was absorbed by the latter in the 11th c. It reemerged as an empire in the 13th c. (the second Bulgarian empire), but fell to the Turks in the late 14th c.  There were extensive contacts between Bulgaria and Kievan Rus', much thanks to the common religion and literary language (church Slavonic). Many Bulgarians came to Russia in the wake of wars or as churchmen or translators. After the fall of the second Bulgarian empire, significant numbers of Bulgarians migrated to Russia and contributed to a monastic and literary revival, known as "the second South Slav influence".  During the period of Ottoman rule, from the 14th through the 19th c., Bulgarian emigration to Russia continued. Religious and lingustic ties were an important background factor behind this migration. Other important factors were the growth of a Balkan merchant class (Greeks, Bulgarians and other Balkan peoples) and the Russo-Turkish wars of the 18th and 19th c. Many joined voluntary military units in support of the Russians. After Turkish successes, many of them fled to Russia together with regular refugees of war.  The Russo-Turkish war of 1876-78 brought autonomy to most of the territory of today's Bulgaria, which eventually achieved its full independence in 1908. Close ties between Bulgaria and Russia continued, and the Bulgarian national awakening in the 19th c. was in fact partly fostered by Bulgarians in Russia and by Russian Slavophiles. And as Russia received important cultural impulses from Bulgaria in earlier times, so the emerging Bulgarian state looked to Russia for ecclesiastical and educational support. This was how many Bulgarian students came to Russia from the 1850s onwards, where many of them became influenced by radical Russian intelligentsia, especially populism and Marxism.  Russia and Bulgaria were enemies in World War I, with Bulgaria on the loser's side and Russia pulling out of the war because of the Revolution in 1917. The 1917 events inspired a revolutionary movement in Bulgaria as well, where an attempted revolution failed in 1923. Thousands of Bulgarian communists were exiled as a consequence, and many ended up in present-day Ukraine, and some in Russia.

Translated by Norm KISAMOV http://www.turkicworld.org

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