The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centuries. They became known as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, but some researchers trace Bulgar ethnic roots to Central Asia.
During their westward migration across the Eurasian Steppe, the Bulgar tribes absorbed other tribal groups and cultural influences in a process of ethnogenesis, including Iranic, Uralic, and Hunnic tribes. The Bulgars spoke a Turkic language, the Bulgar language of the Oghuric branch. They preserved the military titles, organization, and customs of Eurasian steppes as well as pagan shamanism and belief in the sky deity Tangra.
The Bulgars became semi-sedentary during the 7th century in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, establishing the polity of Old Great Bulgaria c. 630–635, which was defeated by the Khazar Khaganate in 668 AD. 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. They merged subsequently with established Byzantine populations, as well as with previously settled Slavic tribes, and were eventually Slavicized, thus becoming one of the ancestors of modern Bulgarians.
Most of the remaining Pontic Bulgars migrated in the 7th century to the Volga River, where they assimilated the people of the Imenkovo culture and founded Volga Bulgaria; they preserved their identity well into the 13th century. The modern Volga Tatars, Bashkirs and Chuvash people claim to have originated from the Volga Bulgars.
Etymology and origin The etymology of the ethnonym Bulgar is not completely understood and difficult to trace back earlier than the 4th century AD. Since the work of Tomaschek (1873), it is generally said to be derived from Proto-Turkic root *bulga-"bulga-", in: Starostin et al. "Turkic Etymology", in: Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2003. ("to stir, to mix; to become mixed"), which with the consonant suffix -r implies a noun meaning "mixed". Other scholars have added that bulğa might also imply "to stir, disturb, confuse" and Talat Tekin interpreted Bulgar as the active present participle "mixing" (i.e. rather than the passive perfect participle "mixed"). Both Gyula Németh and Peter Benjamin Golden initially advocated the "mixed race" theory, but later, like Paul Pelliot, considered that "to incite, rebel", or "to produce a state of disorder", i.e. the "disturbers", was a more likely etymology for migrating nomads.
According to Osman Karatay, the "mixed" etymology cannot rely on the westward migration of the Oğurs and their supposed meeting and merging with the Huns, north of the Black Sea, as the Oghurs were documented in Europe only since 463, while the Bulgars were first mentioned in 482 – an overly short time period for any such ethnogenesis to occur. However, the "mixing" in question may have occurred before the Bulgars migrated from further east, and scholars such as Sanping Chen have noted analogous groups in Inner Asia, with phonologically similar names, who were frequently described in similar terms: during the 4th century, the Buluoji (Middle Chinese b'uo-lak-kiei), a component of the "Five Barbarian" groups in Ancient China, were portrayed as both a "mixed race" and "troublemakers". Peter A. Boodberg noted that the Buluoji in the Chinese sources were recorded as remnants of the Xiongnu confederation, and had strong Caucasian elements.
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. The Pugu were mentioned in Chinese sources from 103 BC up to the 8th century AD, and later were situated among the eastern Tiele tribes, as one of the highest-ranking tribes after the Uyghurs.
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).
Among many other theories regarding the etymology of Bulgar, the following have also had limited support.
an Eastern Germanic root meaning "combative" (i.e. cognate with the Latin pugnax), according to D. Detschev; the Latin burgaroi – a Roman term mercenaries stationed in burgi ("forts") on the limes (G. A. Keramopulos); a reconstructed but unattested early Turkic term meaning "five oğhur", such as *bel-gur or *bil-gur (Zeki Velidi Togan).
Association with other ethnonyms
The names Onoğur and Bulgar were linked by later Byzantine sources for reasons that are unclear. Tekin derived -gur from the Altaic suffix -gir.Talat Tekin: Tuna Bulgarları ve Dilleri (1987). Türk Dil Kurumu, p. 66. Generally, modern scholars consider the terms oğuz or oğur, as generic terms for Turkic tribal confederations, to be derived from Turkic *og/uq, meaning "kinship or being akin to". The terms initially were not the same, as oq/ogsiz meant "arrow", while oğul meant "offspring, child, son", oğuš/uğuš was "tribe, clan", and the verb oğša-/oqša meant "to be like, resemble".
There also appears to be an etymological association between the Bulgars and the preceding Kutrigur (Kuturgur > Quturğur > *Toqur(o)ğur < toqur; "nine" in Proto-Bulgar; toquz in Common Turkic) and Utigur (Uturgur > Uturğur < utur/otur; "thirty" in Proto-Bulgar; otuz in Common Turkic) – as 'Oğur (Oghur) tribes, with the ethnonym Bulgar as a "spreading" adjective. Golden considered the origin of the Kutrigurs and Utigurs to be obscure and their relationship to the Onogurs and Bulgars – who lived in similar areas at the same time – as unclear.
He noted, however, an implication that the Kutrigurs and Utigurs were related to the Šarağurs (šara oğur, shara oghur; "white oğhurs"), and that according to Procopius these were Hunnish tribal unions, of partly Cimmerian descent. Karatay considered the Kutrigurs and Utigurs to be two related, ancestral people, and prominent tribes in the later Bulgar union, but different from the Bulgars.
History Turkic migration
The original homeland 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. Some scholars propose that the Bulgars may have been a branch or offshoot of the Huns or at least Huns seem to have been absorbed by the Onogur-Bulgars after Dengizich's death. Hyun Jin Kim however, argues that the Huns continued under Ernak, becoming the Kutrigur and Utigur Hunno-Bulgars. These conclusions remain a topic of ongoing debate and controversy among scholars.
The first clear mention 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, Duch'i Bulkar, Olkhontor Błkar and immigrant Ch'dar Bulkar tribes are mentioned as being in the North Caucasian-Kuban steppes. An obscure reference to Ziezi ex quo Vulgares, with Ziezi being an offspring of Biblical Shem, is in the Chronography of 354.
The Armenian history of Movses Khorenatsi (5th century or later) speaks about two migrations of the Bulgars from the Caucasus to Armenia. The first migration is mentioned in association with the campaign of Armenian ruler Valarshak to the lands "named Basen by the ancients... and which were afterwards populated by immigrants of the Vlendur Bulgar Vund, after whose name they (the lands) were named Vanand". In fact, the name Vanand is attested prior to the appearance of the Bulgars. 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'.
The second migration took place during the time of the ruler Arshak, when "great disturbances occurred in the range of the great Caucasus mountain, in the land of the Bulgars, many of whom migrated and came to our lands and settled south of Kokh". While Khorenatsi discusses these migrations in the context of the 2nd century BC, it has been suggested that Khorenatsi confused events from the second half of the 4th century AD with earlier occurrences; thus, the migration may have occurred during the reign of King Arshak III of Armenia. 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 known 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 part of the Hunnic union were attacked by the Šarağurs, one of the first Oğuric Turkic tribes that entered the Ponto-Caspian steppes as the result of migrations set 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 not 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 attribute this account to the Huns, Avars or some Bulgar groups who 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,Hist. gentis Lang., Ch. XVII. gaining great booty and confidence as they "became bolder in undertaking the toils of war."PD, XVII.
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 Byzantium, according to Magnus Felix Ennodius, and later as allies of the Gepids, according to Paul the Deacon. However, when Theoderic the Great with his Ostrogoths departed for Italy in 489, the Illyricum and Thrace were open for Bulgar raids.