Bulgar language (also spelled Bolgar, Bulghar) is an extinct language spoken by the Bulgars.
The name is derived from the Bulgars, a semi-nomadic people in Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. A tribal union of Bulgar tribes established the Bulgar state, known as Old Great Bulgaria in the mid-7th century, eventually giving rise to the Danube Bulgaria by the 680s and Volga Bulgaria. The language is extinct in both Danube Bulgaria (10th century) and Volga Bulgaria (16th century)[1].
One of the earliest written sources which mentioned Bulgars is the Chronography of 354 AD. Bulgars came to Europe together with the Huns[2] and both groups of people didn't have written languages. Apparently Bulgars played an important role in the Hunnic union - we are told that Bulgar tribes were active in the North-Western Carpathians at the beginning of 5th century against the Germanic Lombards. There were two battles and the Bulgars were victorious. In the first battle the Lombard king Agelmund was killed. His son Laimicho attempted to revenge his father but was defeated and forced to run away.[3] After the battle of Nedao (455 AD.) in which Attila's sons were defeated, the Huns and Bulgars, as we learn from Jordanes, retreated into their "inner" territory on the river Dnieper (Ukraine) where they reorganized on a smaller scale.[4]
Affiliation of the Bulgar language
Hunno-bulgarian written in Greek alphabet
Inscription on stone from Dluzho, north-eastern
Bulgaria, 8th century
The Huns and Bulgars spoke closely related languages different from others “barbarian” languages. The relations between the language of Bulgars and Huns were studied by Harvard professor Pritsak in his notable work "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan" (1982).[5] He termed the language of Bulgars as Hunno-Bulgarian. Pritsak analyzed the 33 survived Hunnic personal names and concluded that the language of the Bulgars was Hunnic language:
1. Danube-Bulgarian was a Hunnic language (page 444)
2. Danube-Bulgarian had the suffix /mA/, with the same meaning as the Middle Turkic suffix /mAt/ 'the greatest among' (page 433)
3. In the Hunno-Bulgarian languages /r/ within a consonantic cluster tends to disappear (page 435)
4. In Hunno-Bulgarian there was also a tendency toward the develop ment of di > ti > ći (page 436)
5. In the Hunno-Bulgarian there was vocalic metathesis bli- < *bil (page 443)
6. There was initially a g- in the Hunno-Bulgarian languages (page 449)
7. One of the typical features of the Hunno-Bulgarian linguistic group is a cluster in the word initial position. (page 460)
8. Hunnic (language) shared rhotacism with Mongolian, Old Bulgarian, and Chuvash. (page 470)
According to Pritsak the Hunnic language was between Turkic and Mongolian, probably closer to Turkic.
According to Antoaneta Granberg (University of Gothenburg) the Hunno-Bulgarian language was formed on the North-Western borders of China in the 3rd-5th c. BC. Analyzing the loan-words in Slavonic, she concluded that Bulgar language was directly influenced by various languages: Turkic, Mongolian, Chinese and Iranian. In the 6th century when Turkic tribes reached the borders of the China, the Huns and Bulgars were not there.[6] Turkic languages contain Hunno-Bulgarian loans but they were taken via Chinese mediator. For example Hunnic ch’eng-li (sky, heaven) was borrowed from Chinese as tängri in Turkic.[7] The Hunno-Bulgarian language has non-Turkic and non-Altaic features. Granberg observes that "Altaic has no initial consonant clusters, while Hunno-Bulgarian does. Unlike Turkic and Mongolian, Hunno-Bulgarian language has no initial dental or velar spirants. Unlike Turkic, it has initial voiced b-: bagatur (a title), boyla (a title). Unlike Turkic, Hunno-Bulgarian has initial n-, which is also encountered in Mongolian: Negun, Nebul (proper names)." In sum, Antoaneta Granberg concludes that "Hunno-Bulgarian language has no consistent set of features that unite it with either Turkic or Mongolian. Neither can it be related to Sino-Tibetian languages, because it obviously has no monosyllabic word structure." Often Hunno-Bulgarian language is termed Turkic which is not correct, Altaic is more to the point.[8]
Some scholars claim that Bulgars were specific Turkic tribes, the so called Oghurs, and that they spoke Oghur Turkic. However this hypothesis cannot explain the genetic tests. Also such people as Oghurs are not documented in any of the Chinese, Iranian, Indian or Armenian sources. Actually we know nothing of the languages of the nomadic people who entered Europe before the 7th century AD. The theories for existence of specific Turkic group (the so called Oghurs), to which Bulgars supposedly belonged, are nothing more than a hypothesis.[2]
2. Khazaria in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Boris Zhivkov, page 37: "It is generally accepted that the Bulgars came to Europe either slightly earlier or during the Hunnic invasion"
3. Pauli Historia Langobardorum, MGH, Scr. rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI—IX, I
Образуване на българската народност, Димитър Ангелов, p. 123
The Xiongnu were nomadic peoples who lived north and north-west of China during the Qin (221-205 BC) and Han (205 BCE-220 CE) dynasties. At the end of the 3rd century BC they formed a tribal confederation and were able to dominate central Asian steppe for more than 500 years. They ruled over the steppes north of China, an area known later as Mongolia. The Xiongnu were a constant threat to China’s northern frontier and their repeated invasions prompted the erection of the Great Wall of China to defend China from the cavalry raids of the Xiongnu. Relations between the Han Chinese and the Xiongnu were complicated but eventually the Han and the Xiongnu achieved a peace agreement which included trade and marriage treaties and regular gifts to the Xiongnu in exchange for the recognition of the Great Wall as a mutual border. However the Great Wall of China slowed but did not stopped Xiongnu from raiding North China periodically. Eventually the Han emperor Wudi (140-86 BC) waged wars against nomadic Xiongnu and expeditions were sent to central Asia and Manchuria to outflank them.
defeating their previous overlord, the Yuezhi, the Xiongnu became a dominant power on the
Origin and early history of Xiongnu
Ordos Loop
The earliest mention of the Xiongnu in Chinese sources dates to 318 BCE, it is a passage in the Basic Annals of Qin (Shiji 5: 207). The ethnic origin of the core Xiongnu tribes has been a subject of varied hypotheses. Xiongnu were driven north of Ordos across the Yellow River in 214 BCE in the time of the First Emperor of Qin. They were akin to people known earlier as Rong or Di who lived as sedentary inhabitants of the upland regions of Shaanxi and Shanxi between the Wei and Fen valleys and the steppe and their conversion to pastoral nomadism was a consequence of the spread of this new military technique across the Eurasian steppes from west to east from around 800 BCE onward. The actual linguistic affinities of the Xiongnu are difficult to determine. Their language may have been unrelated to any known language or it may have belonged to the isolated Yeniseian family of languages, of which Ket is now the sole survivor, as first suggested by Louis Ligeti (1950) and explored further in Pulleyblank (1962). Although the hypothesis of Pulleyblank seems to be well-founded it is by no means certain that all of the tribal groups of the confederation belonged to the same linguistic group. In 2000, Alexander Vovin reanalyzed Pulleyblank's argument and found further support for it by utilizing the most recent reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology by Starostin and Baxter, and a single Chinese transcription of a sentence in the language of the Jie (a member tribe of the Xiongnu confederacy). Previous Turkic interpretations of that sentence do not match the Chinese translation as precisely as the interpretation using Yeniseian grammar.
Ordos region
According to an ancient and probably legendary Chinese records they were of the same origin as the Chinese and descended from China's first dynasty, the Xia Dynasty. Others believed that they were Siberian branch of the Mongol race, but also it has been debated Turkic, Yeniseian, Tocharian, Iranian and Uralic origin or some mixture. According to Pulleyblank although there were probably already Mongolian speakers in Mongolia when the Chinese first reached the steppe frontier, namely the people known as (Eastern) Hu , the Xiongnu were quite distinct from them. The Xiongnu first appear as nomads at the Ordos Desert.
According to the Chinese historian Sima Qian Xiongnu originated in the Ordos region in what is now Inner Mongolia. He claimed that Xiongnu descended from a Chinese cultural hero in the mythical past and gave us the names by which the Xiongnu were known to the Chinese before the unification of China in the 3rd century BC : Chunwei, Shanrong, Xianyun, and Xunyu. Scholars have identified the names Chunwei, Xunyu and Xiongnu with the later name Hun. The relation between Xiongnu and the Huns who invaded Europe in the 4th century CE was discussed on my article Origin of Bulgarians and will be explore further at the end of this post. The name is the same and there is certainly a lineal connection between groups of Huns (namely Chieh/Jie) from the former Xiongnu confederation who moved westwards in the first half of the 4th century CE and the Huns who a bit later appeared in Eastern Europe. There is no doubt that apart from the ruling tribes that bore the name Hun, the European Huns also included other tribes with different ethnic affinities.
By the Warring States period three groups of barbarian people (Hu) were distinguished by the Chinese: Rong in the west, Di in the north, and Yi in the east. Chinese historical sources have very little to tell us about the actual steppe frontier to the north and northwest before the end of the 4th century BCE. A group called Quanrong ( literally dog martial people) seems to be identical with early Xiongnu according to Sima Qian. The Di, sometimes differentiated into White Di and Red Di, were close neighbours of the Chinese state of Jin. The Eastern Hu as a whole were proto-Mongol in language, see Ligeti (1970), Pulleyblank (1983: 452–454).
The Xiongnu Empire
The Xiongnu tribes were destabilized in 215 BCE by the offensive campaign of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, a cruel tyrant who unified China in 221 BC. Qin sent the general Meng Tian to occupy and fortify the pastoral areas of the Ordos and to drive the Xiongnu and their shanyu Touman to the north. The first Xiongnu ruler whom we know by name, Touman, had been forced to move north because of pressure from Qin. Qin Shi Huangdi erected the famous Great Wall in order to ward off nomadic Hu. It is said that thousands of workers perished while building the Wall. The Qin dynasty collapsed after a rebellion and China fell into a period of anarchy.
Xiongnu and Han Empires
In 209 B.C.E., just three years before the founding of the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu were brought together in a powerful confederacy under a new shanyu Modu who killed his father Touman. The reason for the creation of the Xiongnu confederation remains unclear. Probably the unification of China prompted the nomads to rally around a political center in order to strengthen their position. Modu expanded the empire on all sides. To the north he conquered a number of nomadic peoples, including the Dingling of southern Siberia. He crushed the power of the Donghu of eastern Mongolia and Manchuria, as well as the Yuezhi in the Gansu corridor. The Xiongnu's political unity transformed them into a formidable enemy. Xiongnu crushed the Emperor Gaozu, forced him to sign a humiliating treaty in 198, and reoccupied the Ordos. Before the death of Modu in 174 B.C.E., the Xiongnu had driven the Yuezhi from the Gansu corridor completely and asserted their presence in the Western Regions in modern Xinjiang. Then Modu subdued the Wusun, Loulan, the Hu Jie and “twenty-six peoples” of the region. In 162 the shanyu Laoshang again crushed the Yuezhi refugees in the valley of the Ili and forced them to migrate to the southwest into sedentary Iranian-speaking Central Asia (Sogdiana, Bactriana). At that time all of Central Asia recognized, at least formally, the suzerainty of the Xiongnu: “whenever a Xiongnu envoy appeared in the region [i.e., western Central Asia] carrying credentials from the Shanyu, he was escorted from state to state and provided with food, and no one dared to detain him or cause him any difficulty” (Shiji, tr. Watson, p. 244). Nevertheless, their control was primarily exercised in the northeast of the Tarim Basin and Turfan, with the Lob Nor as a western frontier: The Office of the Commander in Charge of Slaves, responsible for raising taxes, was established near Karashahr (Qarašahr). Control of the West seems to have been limited to the collection of tribute from the Wusun (Dzungaria) and Kangju (middle Syr Darya and Sogdiana), while further to the south the Yuezhi (Bactriana) were hostile to them.
The Marriage Treaty System and War with Han China
Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (r. 221 - 206 B.C.E.), who unified China under the Qin, built the Great Wall, extending 2600 miles from modern Gansu Province in the west to the Liaodong Peninsula in the east, to defend China from the raids of the Xiongnu. In the winter of 200 B.C.E., following a siege of Taiyuan, Emperor Gao personally led a military campaign against Modu. At the battle of Baideng, he was ambushed reputedly by 300,000 elite Xiongnu cavalry. The emperor was cut off from supplies and reinforcements for seven days, only narrowly escaping capture.
After the defeat at Pingcheng, the Han emperor abandoned a military solution to the Xiongnu threat. Instead, in 198 B.C.E., the courtier Liu Jing was dispatched for negotiations. The peace settlement eventually reached between the parties included a Han princess given in marriage to the shanyu (called heqin 和親 or "harmonious kinship"); periodic gifts of silk, liquor and rice to the Xiongnu; equal status between the states; and the Great Wall as mutual border.
This first treaty set the pattern for relations between the Han and the Xiongnu for some 60 years. Up to 135 B.C.E., the treaty was renewed no less than nine times, with an increase of "gifts" with each subsequent agreement. In 192 B.C.E., Modu even asked for the hand of the widowed Empress Lü. His son and successor, the energetic Jiyu, known as the Laoshang Shanyu, continued his father's expansionist policies. Laoshang succeeded in negotiating with Emperor Wen, terms for the maintenance of a large-scale government-sponsored market system.
While the Xiongnu benefited from the marriage treaties, from the Chinese perspective they were costly and ineffective. Laoshang showed that he did not take the peace treaty seriously. On one occasion his scouts penetrated to a point near Chang'an. In 166 B.C.E. he personally led 140,000 cavalry to invade Anding, reaching as far as the imperial retreat at Yong. In 158 B.C.E., his successor sent 30,000 cavalry to attack the Shang commandery and another 30,000 to Yunzhong.
The status quo then prevailed until 134 BCE, a period during which the Xiongnu secured their pre-eminence over the steppe societies of East Asia. This period was brought to an end by the initiative of the Chinese, who expelled the Xiongnu to the north of the Gobi in 121 and 119 BCE. Between the years 115 and 60 BCE, the weakening of the Xiongnu confederation gave rise to a struggle between the Chinese and the Xiongnu for control of the western regions. The principal events of this struggle included the missions of Zhang Qian in search of alliances in 137 and 115 BCE, the raid on Farḡāna (Ferghana) by a Chinese army in 101 BCE, and the battles for control of the region of Turfan (Jushi) between 67 and 60 BCE. In 57 BCE the disintegration of the confederation led to its division between five and then two shanyu, one in the South (Huhanye) who submitted to China in 53 BCE, the other (Zhizhi) controlling the North and West. The latter, finally taking refuge in Kangju, carved out a kingdom in the valley of the Talas and was defeated there by the Chinese general Zhen Tang in 36 BCE, an episode that marks the farthest advance of the Xiongnu and Chinese armies into the Iranian-speaking West.
The ensuing peaceful period ended when the Xiongnu took advantage of troubles in China (reign of Wang Mang, 9-23 CE) and widely recaptured control of the West before once again splitting into two groups, the Southern Xiongnu and the Northern Xiongnu, in 48 CE. The first group took refuge in the north of China in 50 CE, giving rise to areas of Xiongnu population within the frontiers between Taiyuan and the Yellow River that would endure for several centuries. Their last shanyu disappeared at the beginning of the 3rd century, but the Xiongnu, though highly sinicized, preserved their identity and played a major role in the disturbances and plundering that put an end to the Jin dynasty in North China at the beginning of the 4th century.
While the Northern Xiongnu for a time succeeded in playing a role in the West (their armies intervened at Khotan and Yarkand after 61 CE), China regained control of the region of Turfan in 74 CE and chased them from Mongolia: the shanyu took refuge in the Ili valley in 91 CE, while many Northern Xiongnu tribes surrendered to China and were settled within the frontiers. The Northern Xiongnu, with several thousand men, continued to intervene at Hami and in the region of Turfan throughout the first half of the 2nd century. We know nothing of their fate: in the Wei Lue, written in the middle of the 3rd century, the Xiongnu are completely absent from the plateau north of the Tianshan.
Southern Xiongnu
While we hear nothing more about the Northern Xiongnu after the begining of the 2nd century CE, Southern Xiongnu had a longer history. Economically, they relied almost totally on Han assistance and tensions between settled Chinese and nomadic people were evident. For example there was a large scale rebellion in 94 CE led by Anguo Shanyu against the Han. In 188 the Shanyu was murdered by his own people for agreeing to help Chinese by sending troops to suppress a rebellion in Hebei. Many of the Xiongnu feared that it would set a precedent for unending military service to the Han court. The murdered chanyu's son Yufuluo succeeded him, but was then overthrown by the same rebellious faction in 189 and settled down with his followers at province Shanxi. In 195, he died and was succeeded by his brother Hucuquan. The Xiongnu aristocracy in Shanxi changed their surname from Luanti to Liu for prestige reasons, claiming that they were related to the Han imperial clan through the old intermarriage policy. After Hucuquan, in A.D. 215-216, the southern Xiongnu were partitioned into five local tribes.
Huchuquan Chanyu assumed the patronymic name Liu, thus showing his imperial ancestry. In 304, Liu Yuan became Chanyu of the Five Hordes. In 308, declared himself emperor and founded the Han Zhao Dynasty. Between 311 and 316 CE his son and successor Liu Cong captured two Chinese Emperors from the Jin dynasty, humiliated and finally executed them. North China came under Xiongnu rule. In 318 the Xiongnu prince Liu Yao moved the Xiongnu-Han capital from Pingyang to Chang'an and renamed the dynasty as Zhao. Liu Yao wanted to end the linkage with Han and explicitly restore the linkage to the great Xiongnu chanyu Maodun. However, the eastern part of north China came under the control of a rebel Xiongnu-Han general of Jie ancestry named Shi Le. Liu Yao and Shi Le fought a long war until 329, when Liu Yao was captured in battle and executed. North China was ruled by Shi Le's Later Zhao dynasty for the next 20 years. The "Liu" Xiongnu remained active in the north for at least another century.
Archaeology
Political center of the Xiongnu state was in Mongolia and almost all of the Xiongnu kings buried in Mongolia. In the 1920s, Pyotr Kozlov's excavations of the royal tombs at the Noin-Ula burial site in northern Mongolia that date to around the first century CE provided a glimpse into the lost world of the Xiongnu. Other archaeological sites have been unearthed in Inner Mongolia and elsewhere; they represent the Neolithic and historical periods of the Xiongnu's history. Those included the Ordos culture, many of them had been identified as the Xiongnu cultures. The region was occupied predominantly by peoples showing Mongoloid features, known from their skeletal remains and artifacts. Portraits found in the Noin-Ula excavations demonstrate other cultural evidences and influences, showing that Chinese and Xiongnu art have influenced each other mutually. Well-preserved bodies in Xiongnu and pre-Xiongnu tombs in the Mongolian Republic and southern Siberia show both Mongoloid and Caucasian features. Analysis of skeletal remains from sites attributed to the Xiongnu provides an identification of dolichocephalic Mongoloid, ethnically distinct from neighboring populations in present-day Mongolia. Russian and Chinese anthropological and craniofacial studies show that the Xiongnu were physically very heterogenous, with six different population clusters showing different degrees of Mongoloid and Caucasoid physical traits.
Xiongnu and the Huns
Could these Xiongnu have given rise to the Huns who appeared on the Volga from the year 370 CE before they invaded Europe? The question is highly controversial and has been the subject of numerous works since de Guignes first proposed the identity of the two groups in 1758.
First, we can prove that the names are indeed identical. In 313 it was a Sogdian merchant writing in the Gansu corridor who, in a letter to a correspondent at Samarqand, described with precision the plundering of the Southern Xiongnu in China and called them Xwn, a name which must be connected to that of the Huns (Henning, 1948). In addition one must also cite the Buddhist translations of Zhu Fahu, a Yuezhi of Dunhuang, who in 280 CE translating from Sanskrit to Chinese, rendered Hūṇa by Xiongnu, and then did the same in 308 in another translation.
Moreover, the Wei shu, taking up information precisely dated to 457, states: “Formerly, the Xiongnu killed the king (of Sogdiana) and took the country. King Huni is the third ruler of the line”. This leads us to place the “Xiongnu” invasion of Sogdiana in the first half of the 5th century. Here, too, there is hardly any reason to doubt this direct testimony stemming from the report of an official Sogdian envoy in China (Enoki, 1955) Also, the personal names found in the Sogdian caravaneer graffiti of the Upper Indus (3rd to 5th century CE) frequently include the first or last name Xwn, whereas it no longer exists in the later texts. This reflects the presence of Hun invaders in Sogdiana and the fusion of the populations (la Vaissière, 2004) during a precise period of time.
From an archaeological point of view, there are now few doubts that the Hunnic cauldrons from Hungary are indeed derived from the Xiongnu ones. Moreover, they were used and buried on the same places, the banks of rivers, a fact which proves the existence of a cultural continuity between the Xiongnu and the Huns (Erdy, 1994; de la Vaissière, 2005b).
The Huns of Central Asia thus consciously succeeded the Xiongnu and established themselves as their heirs, and an authentic Xiongnu element probably existed within them, although it was probably very much in the minority within a alliance with other people. This is the only hypothesis that accounts for all of the known facts given the current state of our information. Indeed we cannot neglect the fact what we read in ancient sources:
" swarms of Huns and monstrous Massagetae filled the whole earth with slauther"
Huns were a nomadic pastoralist people who invaded southeastern Europe 370 AD and during the next seven decades built up an enormous empire there and in central Europe. Appearing from beyond the Volga River some years after the middle of the 4th century, they first overran the Alani, who occupied the plains between the Volga and the Don rivers, and then quickly overthrew the empire of the Ostrogoths between the Don and the Dniester. About 376 they defeated the Visigoths living in what is now approximately Romania and thus arrived at the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire.
As warriors the Huns inspired almost unparalleled fear throughout Europe. They were amazingly accurate mounted archers, and their complete command of horsemanship, their ferocious charges and unpredictable retreats, and the speed of their strategical movements brought them overwhelming victories.
Hun Empire
Between 395-398 CE, the Huns overran the Roman territories of Thrace and Syria, destroying cities and farmlands in their raids but showing no interest in settling in the regions.
Their pressure on surrounding tribes, and on Rome, continued as they raided at will and without restraint. In December of 406 CE, the Vandals crossed the frozen Rhine River and invaded Gaul to escape the Huns and brought the remnants of many other tribes along with them. In 408 CE the chief of one group of Huns, Uldin, completely ransacked Thrace and, as Rome could do nothing to stop them militarily, they tried to pay them for peace. Uldin, however, demanded too high a price, and so the Romans opted to buy off his subordinates. This method of keeping the peace was successful and would become the preferred practice for the Romans in dealing with the Huns from then on.
It is no surprise that the Romans chose to pay off the Huns for peace rather than face them on the field. To emphasize Ammianus' description of the Hun's tactics in war, already cited above:
"they fight in no regular order of battle, but by being extremely swift and sudden in their movements, they disperse, and then rapidly come together again in loose array, spread havoc over vast plains, and flying over the rampart, they pillage the camp of their enemy almost before he has become aware of their approach."
They were expert horsemen, described as seeming to be one with their steeds; they were rarely seen dismounted and even carried on negotiations from the backs of their horses. Neither the Romans nor the so-called barbarian tribes had ever encountered an army like the Huns.
For half a century after the overthrow of the Visigoths, the Huns extended their power over many of the Germanic peoples of central Europe and fought for the Romans. By 432 the leadership of the various groups of Huns had been centralized under a single king, Rua, or Rugila. When Rua died in 434 he was succeeded by his two nephews, Bleda and Attila. The joint rulers negotiated a peace treaty at Margus (Pozarevac) with the Eastern Roman Empire, by which the Romans agreed to double the subsidies they had been paying the Huns. The Romans apparently did not pay the sums stipulated in the treaty, and in 441 Attila launched a heavy assault on the Roman Danubian frontier, advancing almost to Constantinople and sacked the cities of the province of Illyricum, which were very profitable Roman trade centers. They then further violated the Treaty of Margus by riding on to that city and destroying it. The Roman emperor Theodosius II (401-450 CE) then declared the treaty broken and recalled his armies from the provinces to stop the Hun rampage.
In 447 Attila, for unknown reasons, made his second great attack on the Eastern Roman Empire. He devastated the Balkans and drove south into Greece as far as Thermopylae.
Since Ammianus’ time the Huns had acquired huge sums of gold as a result of their treaties with the Romans as well as by way of plunder and by selling their prisoners back to the Romans. This influx of wealth altered the character of their society. The military leadership became hereditary in Attila’s family, and Attila himself had autocratic powers in peace and war alike. He administered his huge empire by means of “picked men” (logades), whose main function was the government of and the collection of food and tribute from the subject peoples who had been assigned to them by Attila.
In 451 Attila invaded Gaul but was defeated by Roman and Visigothic forces at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, or, according to some authorities, of Maurica. This was Attila’s first and only defeat. In 452 the Huns invaded Italy and sacked several cities, but famine and pestilence compelled them to leave. In 453 Attila died; his many sons divided up his empire and at once began quarreling among themselves. They then began a series of costly struggles with their subjects, who had revolted, and were finally routed in 455 by a combination of Gepidae, Ostrogoths, Heruli, and others in a great battle on the unidentified river Nedao in Pannonia.
The literary evidence for the Huns
The earliest systematic description of the Huns is that given by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, writing c. 395. They were apparently primitive pastoralists who knew nothing of agriculture. They had no settled homes and no kings; each group was led by primates, as Ammianus called them. Whether or not they had a single overall leader in the 4th century is still a matter of dispute. The savage hordes of the Huns were demonized earlier. In 364 Hilary of Poitiers predicted the coming of the Antichrist within one generation. After the battle of AdrianopleAmbrose wrote that "the end of the world is coming upon us". Behind the Huns the Devil was lurking. Jordanes tells us a curious story about the origin of the Huns:
"Filimer, king of the Goths, son of Gadaric the Great, who was the fifth in succession to hold the rule of the Getae after their departure from the island of Scandza,--and who, as we have said, entered the land of Scythia with his tribe,--found among his people certain witches, whom he called in his native tongue Haliurunnae. Suspecting these women, he expelled them from the midst of his race and compelled them to wander in solitary exile afar from his army. (122) There the unclean spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through the wilderness, bestowed their embraces upon them and begat this savage race, which dwelt at first in the swamps,--a stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance to human speech. Such was the descent of the Huns who came to the country of the Goths." [1]
The Huns were not a people like other peoples. They were fiendish ogres roaming over the desolate plains beyond the borders of Christian world from where they brought death and destruction to the faithful. Even after the fall of the empire of Attila, the most famous king of the Huns, the people who were believed to have descended from the Huns were in alliance with the devil.
Ancient authors seem to know next to nothing about the origin of the Huns. Instead of facts they serve us with equations. They used the names of Scythians and Massagetae interchangeably with that of the Huns. Themistius (317-390), Claudian (370-404), and later Procopius (500-560) called the Huns Massagetae. However the Huns, not the Massagetae, attacked the Alans, who threw themselves upon the Goths. The Gaul called the Huns by their name, the Greek called them Massagetae. Eastern writers looked on the Huns as "bandits" and called them Scythians, a name that in 4-5 century had lost its specific meaning. Eunapius only suggest their identity with Herodotus's Royal Scythians who dwell near the Ister (Danube). Ammianus Marcellinus hated all barbarians, but for him the Huns were the worst. His descriptions of the Huns are distorted by hatred and fear:
" None of them ever ploughs or touches a colter. Without a permanent seats, without a home, without fixed laws or rites, they all roam about, always like a fugitives... restless roving over mountains and through woods. They cover themselves with clothes sewed together from the skins of forest rodents."...
"...they neither require fire nor well flavored food, but live on the roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw flesh of any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing it between their own thighs and the backs of their horses."
" There is not a person in the whole nation who cannot remain on his horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety of dream. And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under kingly authority, but are contented with the irregular government of their chiefs, and under their lead they force their way through all obstacles...."
Archaeological evidence confirms deformation of Hunnic children and Ammianus Marcellinus, writing about fifty years before Attila’s reign, describes a barbaric practice: "At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children are deeply marked by an iron..." Jordanes, an historian writing about one hundred years after Attila’s death, elaborates:
"Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds."
It was their cruelty, and their military prowess, which made the Huns a conquering people even before Attila became their king. As Ammianus Marcellinus observes, at the beginning of his history:
"The people called Huns, slightly mentioned in the ancient records, live beyond the Sea of Azov, on the border of the Frozen Ocean, and are a race savage beyond all parallel."
Huns Warfare
The Huns were expert horsemen, they were rarely seen dismounted and even carried on negotiations from the backs of their horses. Neither the Romans nor the so-called barbarian tribes had ever encountered an army like the Huns. They seemed to have been bred for mounted warfare and used the bow with great effect. Their ability to appear out of nowhere, attack like a whirlwind, and vanish away made them incredibly dangerous opponents who seemed impossible to defeat or defend against.
In warfare they used the bow and javelin. Early writers such as Ammianus (followed by Thompson) stated that they used primitive, bone-tipped arrowheads, but this claim has been contested by archaeological findings in Hunnic tombs, which have exclusively yielded iron arrowheads. Maenchen-Helfen states: "Had the Huns been unable to forge their swords and cast their arrow-heads, they never could have crossed the Don. The idea that the Hun horsemen fought their way to the walls of Constantinople and to the Marne with bartered and captured swords is absurd." They also fought using iron swords and lassos in close combat. According to archaeological data the Hun sword was a long(90 cm), straight, double-edged sword of early Sassanian style. These swords were hung from a belt using the scabbard-slide method, which kept the weapon vertical.The Huns also employed a smaller short sword (50–60 cm) or large dagger which was hung horizontally across the belly. A symbol of status among the Huns was a gilded bow. Sword and dagger grips also were decorated with gold.
With the arrival of the Huns, a tradition of using more bone laths in composite bows arrived in Europe. Bone laths had long been used in the Levantine and Roman tradition, two to stiffen each of the two siyahs (the tips of the bow), for a total of four laths per bow. (The Scythian and Sarmatian bows, used for centuries on the European steppes until the arrival of the Huns, had no such laths.) A style that arrived in Europe with the Huns (after centuries of use on the borders of China), was stiffened by two laths on each siyah, and additionally reinforced on the grip by three laths, for a total of seven per bow.
The main body of Hun armies consisted of light-armed cavalry equipped with big (120–150 cm) and powerful composite bows that were the Hun principal weapon of offence. The Huns, including their leaders, were particularly noted for their great skill of archery. The bow served, too, as a badge of power among the Huns. This is confirmed by the fact that among their high nobility there were in use models of the arm outfitted with golden end laths, the so-called "golden bows", playing a very prestigious social role. The Hun warriors were dressed in heavy leather greased with animal fat, making their battle dress both supple and rain resistant. They wore soft leather boots that were excellent for riding but probably useless for foot travel. Speaking of Hun arrows, Ammianus Marcellinus (XXXI, 2, 9) refers solely to those provided with bone heads skilfully attached to shafts. Bone arrowheads were widespread among the Xiongnu of Central Asia. Huns also made use of metal (iron) arrowheads and, in fact, the Huns even brought with themselves new types of metal arrowheads. There is an opinion that arrows shot from Hun bows could pierce through armour at a distance of 100 m. One more important offensive arm, very typical for nomadic peoples of Eurasia, was the lasso, which the Huns threw on their opponents at a middle range. Heavy armour did not spread to any considerable degree in the bulk of Hun troops because of their tactics of mobility and fight from a distance.
Hun ordinary soldiers had curved fur-caps ("galeri incurvi": Amm. Marc. XXXI, 2, 6) that served as protectors to their heads. The Huns used whips as riding equipment but also as a weapon of close combat. The whips were also used to give the prearranged tactical signals. The whip was also esteemed as a symbol of high social status and power.
The Hun saddles were rigid wooden construction with the high front and rear arches allowing the Hun riders to have a firm seat on horseback when riding at full speed and shooting arrows both forward and backwards without any problem. The Hun cavalry always charged first and did that with swift movement using a loose battle formation. According to Ammianus Marcellinus (XXXI, 2, 8–9) one can distinguish two main phases of the Huns’ tactics:
1. initial charge by the deep loose formation accompanied by a terrible war cry and with intensive shooting bows at the enemies from a distance
2. middle-range and hand-to-hand combat, when the Huns, moving fast through the battle field threw the lassos on their foes and face to face fight with swords.
Very usual stratagem for the European Huns was a feigned retreat to deceive and fatigue their foes, which was then followed by a sudden counterattack. While retreating, they shot the bows backwards with so high accuracy that their persecutors, not expecting such a tactic, had serious losses both in killed and wounded. Two other favorite stratagems of the Huns were surrounding the enemy order and laying ambushes. Once again should be noted that the Huns preferred to fight from a distance, not in close combat. Beyond any doubt, their strategy and tactics went back again to military practices of the Xiongnu. The outcome of battle was decided not in hand-to-hand-combat, but in methodical and very efficient shooting at the enemy from afar, i. e. with the least losses for themselves.
Hun Religion
That the Huns had shamans is certain.
The Hunnic method of deliberate foreknowing was scapulimancy. Attila’s haruspices examined the entrails of cattle and certain streaks in the bone that had been scraped. In the Sarmatoid cemeteries at Vrevskil, south-west of Tashkent, and Lavyandak, near Bukhara, both of them datable to the last centuries B.C. , were shoulder blades of sheep, one of them scorched, found. If they had been used for divination, they would point to an Eastern, non-Iranian element. The Huns could not have borrowed scapulimancy from their neighbors and subjects in Hungary and the western steppes. In China it had been practiced since pre-Shang times. There can be no doubt that the scapulimancy of the Huns was of Eastern origin.
The Kidarites (Chinese: 寄多羅 Jiduolo[1]) were a dynasty of the "Ki" clan named after their ruler Kidara. They were part of the complex of Iranian-speaking tribes known collectively as Xionites or "Hunas".
During the 4th-5th century they established the Kidarite kingdom.
Kidarites lands
History of Kidarites
The Kidarites, a nomadic clan, are supposed to have originated in China and arrived in Bactria with the great migrations of the first half of the 4th century.
When Shi Le established the Later Zhao state, it is thought that many of the Uar (Chinese 滑 Huá) fled (c. 320 CE) from the area around Pingyang (平陽; modern Linfen, Shanxi) and fled west along the Silk Road. This put pressure on the Xionites, who increasingly encroached upon Khorasan and the frontiers of the Kushan state.
The Kidarite king Grumbat mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus was a cause of much concern to the Persians. Between 353 AD and 358 AD, the Xionites under Grumbat attacked in the eastern frontiers of Shapur II's empire along with other nomad tribes. After a prolonged struggle they were forced to conclude a peace, and their king Grumbat accompanied Shapur II in the war against the Romans. Victories of the Xionites during their campaigns in the Eastern Caspian lands are described by Ammianus Marcellinus:Grumbates Chionitarum rex novus aetate quidem media rugosisque membris sed mente quadam grandifica multisque victoriarum insignibus nobilis. ("Grumbates, the new king of the Xionites, while he was middle aged, and his limbs were wrinkled, he was endowed with a mind that acted grandly, and was famous for his many, significant victories." –Ammianus Marcellinus, 18.6.22.)
The southern or "Red" Kidarite vassals to the Kushans in the North-Western Indus valley became known as Kermikhiones.
A "Kidarite dynasty", south of the Oxus, was at war with the Sassanids in the fifth century. Peroz I fought Kidara and then his son Kungas, forcing Kungas to leave Bactria. They entered Kabul and replaced the last of the Kushan Empire rulers. However, the Kidarites in turn were soon overwhelmed by the Hephthalites.[2]
Kidar Bulgars involved in causing Hunnic migrations across the Volga into Europe were identified with Kidarites by David Marshall Lang.[3]
Origin of Kidarites
According to the Chinese sources Kidarites appeared in Kazakhstan and Bactria in 4th century and
Archer riding on reverse
were branch of the Little Yuezhi. Some of them inherited the Kushan Empire and were called little Kushans.[4][5] Kidarites were also called Red Huns,[6][7] they practiced artificial cranial deformation[8] and were displayed on Sogdian coins as archers riding on the reverse.[9] The Little Yuezhi remained in North China and were included into Xiongnu confederation under the name Jie (sometimes also Chieh) people. Chinese chronicles documented them as one of the 19 tribes of Xiongnu.[10] Obviously their number wasn't small at all, as it is usually assumed, because we are told that between 184 AD and 221 AD there was a serious revolt of the Little Yuezhi in Gansu and the Chinese couldn't suppress it for almost 40 years.[11] In 349 AD there was a massacre of Jie Chieh people in North China, Maenchen-Helfen points out that 200 000 of them were slain. Probably it can be considered as the final date of the Little Yuezhi migration from North China/Tarim basin toward Kazakhstan and Bactria.
Kidarite kingdom
The Kidarite kingdom was created either in the second half of the 4th century, or in the twenties of the 5th century. Ammianus Marcellinus who visited Bactria between AD 356-357 - prior to the Xionite/Kidarite invasions of eastern Iran - and stated that the 'Chionitae' (Xionites) were living with the Kushans.
The only 4th century evidence are gold coins discovered in Balkh dating from c. 380, where 'Kidara' is usually interpreted in a legend in the Bactrian language. Most numismatic specialists favor this idea. All the other data we currently have on the Kidarite kingdom are from Chinese and Byzantine sources from the middle of the 5th century.
They may have risen to power during the 420s in Northern Afghanistan before conquering Peshawar and part of northwest India, then turning north to conquer Sogdiana in the 440s, before being cut from their Bactrian nomadic roots by the rise of the Hephthalites in the 450s. Many small Kidarite kingdoms seems to have survived in northwest India up to the conquest by the Hephthalites during the last quarter of the 5th century are known through their coinage.
The Kidarites are the last dynasty to regard themselves (on the legend of their coins) as the inheritors of the Kushan empire, which had disappeared as an independent entity two centuries earlier.
Kidara I
fl. c. 320 CE
Kungas
330's ?
Varhran I
fl. c. 340
Grumbat
c. 358-c. 380
Kidara (II ?)
fl. c. 360
Brahmi Buddhatala
fl. c. 370
(Unknown)
fl. 388/400
Varhran (II)
fl. c. 425
Goboziko
fl. c. 450
Salanavira
mid 400's
Vinayaditya
late 400's
Kandik
early 500's
The Kidarites were the first "Hunas" to bother India. Indian records note that the Hūna had established themselves in modern Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province in present-day Pakistan by the first half of the 5th century, and the Gupta emperor Skandagupta had repelled a Hūna invasion in 455.
White Huns
As a result of "Wusun vultures" descending upon them in Transoxiana, the Kidarite powerbase moved in 460 from southern "Red" Balkh to western "White" Khiva, where the Hephthalite dynasty was established by Khingila I. However different sources give different names for this relocation: "The Hsiao-yüeh-chih (Little Yuezhi) have their capital at Peshawar. The King was originally the son of Chi-to-lo, king of the Ta-yüeh-chih(Great Yuezhi). Chi-to-lo was forced to move westwards by the attack of the Hsiung-nu and later made his son guard this city. For this reason, the kingdom was named the Hsiao-yüeh-chih."[12]
The Greek envoy Rhetor often referred to the "White Huns" as "Kidarite Xionites" when they united with the Uar under the Hepthalite clan. While in India, the Kidarite Xionites became known as Sveta-Hūna meaning "White Huns". They were said to have been of fair complexion according to Procopius, although according to the Central Asian order of cosmic precedence, "White Huns" would simply mean "Western Huns".
Although they fought against the Sassanians, early 5th century "OIONO" coins (thought to have been minted by Xionite rulers) imitate Sassanian drachmas (for more information on coins see Xionites).
The Kidarite Xionites flourished under the Hephthalites, until something forced them to migrate from Khiva to Atil under Kandik in the mid-6th century. Not long afterwards, the Hephthalites remaining in Central Asia submitted to Gokturk rule in 567AD.
Relation to the Huns of Europe
The Huns already present on the Black Sea Steppes might not have been as closely related to the northern Karakum Desert Kidarites and the related Xionites or Hunas as is usually presumed.[13] Though the Chronicles of Kiev mention how the Ki clan founded Kiev after subjugating the eastern Hunno-Bulgars who subsequently became known as the Kazarig.
References and notes on Kidarites:
1. Sasanian Persia, Touraj Daryaee (2009), London and New York: I.B.Tauris, p. 17
2. The Empire of the Steppes, Grousset, Rene (1970), Rutgers University Press, p. 68–69
3. The Bulgarians: from pagan times to the Ottoman conquest (1976), David Marshall Lang, pages 31 and 204: "The Armenian geographer states that the principal tribes of Bulgars were called Kuphi-Bulgars, Duchi-Bulgars, Oghkhundur-Bulgars, and Kidar-Bulgars, by the last-named of which he meant the Kidarites, a branch of the Huns. "
5. A NOTE ON KIDARA AND THE KIDARITES, WILLIAM SAMOLIN, Central Asiatic Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1956), pp. 295-297, „The Yueh-chih origin of Kidara is clearly established...“
13. The Huns, Hyun Jin Kim, p. 49: "Kidarites's name ... may simply indicate that they were the western Huns"
ENOKI, K., « On the Date of the Kidarites (I) », Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, 27, 1969, p. 1–26.
GRENET, F. « Regional Interaction in Central Asia and North-West India in the Kidarite and Hephtalite Period », in SIMS-WILLIAMS, N. (ed.), Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples, (Proceedings of the British Academy), London, 2002, p. 203–224.
В началото на 7-ми век хуните и българите които заедно са навлезнали в Европа преди повече от 2 века продължават да живеят полу-номаден начин на живот в степите на южна Украйна около бреговете на Азовско море. Към средата на 6-ти век множеството хуно-български племена са управлявани от хан Кубрат от династичният род Дуло. От този род произхожда и Атила наричан Бич Божи от римляните. Кубрат е основател на стара велика България която след неговата смърт започва да се разпада в началото на втората половина на седми век поради разпри между синове му и външния натиск от запад от страна на хазарите. Въпреки, че Кубрат завещава на синовете си да живеят в мир и съгласие и никога да не се разделят след неговата смърт петимата братя бързо се изпокарват, разделят хората помежду си и всеки поема своя път.
Най големият, Баян, остава там където е роден. Усилията му да спре хазарското нашествие били неуспешни и неговите земи станали плячка на хазарите; той им се подчинил и бил принуден да им плаща данък. Хронистите наричат българите останали под властта на хазарите 'вътрешни' или още 'черни' българи. Арабски пътешественици и историци споменават черните българи и буртасите (друга българска група) като самостоятелни от хазарската власт народности. За тях пишат още и византиийските летописци като патриарх Никифор и Теофан Изповедник, според които два века след разпадането на Велика България българите все още живеят на своите земи и са фактор в региона. Черните българи са споменати и в руския летопис "Повест временьх лет" (932) където се описва война с тях и опустошаването на един български град от русите, които са съюзници на Византия. Българите отговорили с нападения в района на град Херсон (дн. Украйна). Тази им действия говорят, че черните българи са имали самостоятелна държава след разпадането на хазарският хаганат. Екзекуторът на държавата на черните българи е същият Василий II Българоубиец отговорен и за екзекуцията на Дунавска България. През 1016г. Василий изпраща флот срещу размирните българи в Хазария който разгромява армията им, пленява техният архонт Георги Цуло (Дуло?) и го откарва в Константинопол.
Вторият брат, Котраг, поема на север към устието на Волга където по-късно основава Волжска България. Името Котраг вероятно подсказва, че той е управлявал племето котригури/кутригури. По-късно към тях се присъединяват и други български и сродни на българите племена: берсили, сабири, есегели, бутраси. Сред завареното местно население имало славяни, арменци, фини и др. Столица на Волжска България станал град Болгар, построен където се вливат Волга и Кама. Град Болгар с течение на времето станал важен търговски център. През девети век жителите на Волжска България започват да приемат ислямската религия вероятно заради конкретни политически цели. Едната от тях е освобождаване на Волжска България от васалната зависимост от Хазарския хаганат с помощта на мощния тогава Арабски халифат. Волжска България просъществува до 13 век и въпреки решителната си победа в така наречаната Овнешка битка в крайна сметка е разрушена от монголо-татарите.
Четвъртият син, Кубер, се придвижва на запад към Панония където се присъединява към аварите и другите прабългари в централната дунавска равнина. Че там е имало прабългари е извън всякакво съмнение и е почти сигурно, че те са придружавали аварите при голямата обсада на Константинопол през 626г. Вероятно са били от същия родов клон, тъй като по-онова време Кубратовите българи заговорничели с императора срещу аварите. Четвъртият син на Кубрат дошъл, за да се присъедини именно към тях. Панонските прабългари останали подвласни на аварите до началото на IX в., когато ще чуем отново за тях. Куберовите прабългари се опитват чрез въстание да извършат преврат и да завземат централната власт. Обаче бунта срещу аварската власт е неуспешен и Куберовите българи се насочват на юг, към земите на Византия. Аварите ги преследват но биват победени от българите в шест последователни сражения. Кубер сключва мирно споразумение с Византия и се заселва в Керамисийското поле (Прилепско поле), намиращо се в днешната Република Македония. От 675 до 677 г. Кубер прави опит да превземе Солун и градът е обсаден от големи групи прабългари, съюзени с бунтуващите се славяни от околните земи. Продължилата дълго време обсада обаче е неуспешна.
Най малкият, Алцек, мигрира още по далеч и завършва дните си в Равена, Италия. Хронистите обаче използвали Равена като синоним на Италия. В действителност най-младият син стигнал по-далеч. По времето на лангобардския крал Гримуалд (662—671 г.) българина Алцек навлязъл мирно в Италия и предложил на краля да стане негов васал. Гримуалд го изпратил заедно с войската му в Беневент, при сина си Ромуалд, който му предоставил за заселване три села близо до своята столица — Сепинум, Бовианум и Изерния. Той се заселил там с хората си и „до ден днешен“ (един век по-късно) те продължили да говорят отчасти на родния си език.
Така българите се разделили и се разпръснали из Европа, от Волга до Италия. Остава ни само да разкажем за най-могъщия им клон, единствения, оцелял сред бурите на столетията. Аспарух, третият син на хан Кубрат, не така буен, както по-младите си братя, но по-предприемчив в сравнение с по-старите прекосява Днепър и Днестър и достига брега на долни Дунав.
Бележка:
По това време Източната Римска Империя, наричана още и с името Византия била управлявана от император Константин. Византия е литературно понятие въведено след 16-ти век за означаване на Източната Римска Империя.
Източници:
A History of the First Bulgarian Empire, Steven Runciman
The origin of the Bulgars and their homeland are still subjects of research generating many hypothesis and violent disputes. Bulgars, also called Bulgarians, were one of the three ethnic ancestors of modern Bulgarians (the other two were Thracians and Slavs). They were mentioned for the first time in 354 AD by Anonymous Roman Chronograph as people living north of the Caucasus mountain and west of the Volga River. Headed by their chieftan Vund, Bulgars invaded Europe with the Huns about 370 AD,[0] and retreating with the Huns about 460 AD they resettled in the area north and east of the Sea of Azov.[1][2][3]
The Huns
About A.D. 370 a nomadic people called Huns invaded Eastern Europe. Coming from the East they quickly built an enormous empire in central Europe which reached its apex under the leadership of Attila (444-453 A.D.). Attila's sudden death followed by internal power struggle among his sons who were defeated at the battle of Nedao (still unidentified Pannonian river) at 455 A.D. put an end to the Hunnic empire. Some time later, as we learn from Jordanes, groups of Huns returned to their "inner" territory on the river Dnieper (Ukraine) where they reorganized on a smaller scale.[4] The Huns continued to be mentioned frequently in the 6th century under different tribal names as Utigurs, Kutrigurs, Onogurs, Bulgars, Sabirs and others.
The Huns and their tempestuous onrush over Europe is a story that has often been told. But whence they come and where they went are lost in mystery. Some say they were the Xiongnu, the race that was the terror of China, a hypothesis first proposed by the French sinologist J. Deguignes in 1748; but the Goths, who knew them best, thought otherwise. They told of the wicked sorceresses that king Filimer the Goth banished from his Scythian kingdom, who mingled on their wanderings with the evil spirits of the desert; and from that wild union were born the Huns. We will try to peer into the mysteries that hang over the Steppes to see if we can discover who were these Huns and Bulgars whose final incoming changed so lastingly and profoundly the history of Europe. At the end of this article we will see that both the Gothic legend and the ingenious hypotheses of Deguignes are actually true. The Huns and their awful ancestry have always been the boast of every bellicose nation; Attila is proudly called cousin, if not grandfather by them all; of all these claims, it seems that the Bulgars' is best justified; the blood of the Scourge of God flows now in the valley of the Balkans, diluted by time and pastoral Slavs.[5]
Bulgars
Old Great Bulgaria succeeded Patria Onoguria
Bulgars (vh'ndur, Vanand) is the name used by historians and geographers like Movses Khorenatsi, Procopius Caesariensis and later by Agathias of Mirena, Menander Protector, and Theophylact Simocatta in the 6th century to refer the eastern branch of the Hunno-Bulgars who were the successors of the Hunnic empire along the coasts of the Black Sea in Patria Onoguria.[6][7] The late antique historians used the names of Huns, Bulgars, Kutrigurs and Utigurs as interchangeable terms,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] thus prompting some modern historians to coin the term Hunno-Bulgars.[18][19]
According to Procopius, Agathias and Menander Utigurs and their relatives Kutrigurs were Huns, they were dressed in the same way and had the same language.[20][21][22][23][24]Utigurs, Kutrigurs and Onogurs were in all likelihood identical with the Bulgars.[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Many historians consider Utigurs and Kutrigurs as successors of the Hunnic empire in the east, on the territory of modern-day Ukraine, where the Huns retreated after the death of Attila.[32][33] Menander Protector mentioned an Utigur leader in the late 6th century called Sandilch.[34][35] Later these Bulgars of the Eurasian steppes had come under the control of the Western Turkic Kaghanate and were also known as Unogundurs.[36] In the early 7th century, Khan Kubrat of the Dulo clan was "ruler of the Unogundurs" and the founder of Old Great Bulgaria.[37][38][39]
The Bulgars ancestors of the Utigurs represented the Pontic-Kuban part of the Hun Empire, and were ruled by descendants of Attila through his son Ernakh,[40][41][42] who is called Irnik in the Nominalia of Bulgarian Khans.
The Huns - a second look
Roman historians Themistius (317-390), Claudian (370-404), and later Procopius (500-560) called the Huns Massagetae.[43] . The Huns were called Massagetae also by Ambrose (340-397), Ausonius (310-394), Synesius (373–414), Zacharias Rhetor (465-535), Belisarius (500-565), Evagrius Scholasticus (6th century) and others. However some historians mentioned Huns and Massagetae as distinct and different people who were cooperating during their raids, for example St Jerome tells us about the Great Hun raid of 395-6 into Armenia and Syria that " swarms of Huns and monstrous Massagetae filled the whole earth with slaughter".[44] Maenchen-Helfen also noted in his monography that despite the fact that Romans called the Huns Massagetae, the Huns and not the Massagetae, attacked the Alans, who threw themselves upon the Goths.[45] According to Pulleyblank European Huns comprised two groups of tribes with different ethnic affinities and the ruling group that bore the name Hun was directly connected with the Xiongnu.[46] But why Massagetae? There were no Massagetae in the 4th century AD. Let's see if we can find out who were they. Alexander Cunningham, B.S. Dahiya(1980, 23) and Edgar Knobloch (2001, 15 ) identify Massagetae with the Great Yuezhi: Da Yuezhi -> Ta-Yue-ti (Great Lunar Race) -> Ta-Gweti -> Massa-Getae. Dahiya wrote about the Massagetae and Thyssagetae : "These Guti people had two divisions, the Ta-Yue-Che and Siao-Yue-Che, exactly corresponding to the Massagetae and Thyssagetae of Herodotus ... " (Dahiya 1980, 23). Thyssagetae, who are known as the Lesser Getae, correspond with the Xiao Yuezhi, meaning Lesser Yuezhi.[47]. James P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair also supported this identification and wrote in their book : " Da (Greater) Yuezhi or in the earlier pronunciation d'ad-ngiwat-tieg, has been seen to equate with the Massagetae who occupied the oases and steppelands of West Central Asia in the time of Herodotus; here Massa renders an Iranian word for "Great," hence "Great Getae."... ". [48][49][50][51]
Artificial cranial deformation is a valuable cultural artifact for tracing the Huns and Bulgars back in time. According to Otto Maenchen-Helfen the artificially deformed skulls in proto-Bulgarian graves cannot be seperated from those in the graves of the Sarmatized Turks or Turkicized Sarmatians of the post-Attilanic graves in the South Russian steppes.[56] The Huns and proto-Bulgarians practiced a pronounce form of artificial cranial deformation at very high rate[57] and its circular type can be used to trace the route that the Huns took from north China to the Central Asian steppes and subsequently to the southern Russian steppes. Circular modification appeared for the first time in Central Asia in the last centuries BC as an ethnic attribute of the early Huns. The distribution of the skulls parallels the movement of the Huns.[58][59]
The spread of the custom of cranial deformation parallels the movement of the Huns
The people who practiced annular artificial cranial deformation in Central Asia were Yuezhi/Kushans.[60][61][62][63] The migration of the Yuezhi started from North China during 2BC, it is well documented[64] and their movement parallels the distribution of the artificially deformed skulls. According to Maenchen-Helfen some of their groups migrated far to the west and were present in the steppes north of the Caucasus and on the shores of the Black Sea as early as 1st century BC.[65]
The spread of the custom of cranial deformation from Central Asia to Europe occurred in 6 phases and the distribution of the skulls parallels the movement of the Huns. Modern taxonomic analysis of the artificially deformed crania from 5th–6th Century AD (Hun-Germanic Period) found in Northeastern Hungary showed that none of them have any Mongoloid features and all the skulls belong to the Europid "great race" but further identification was impossible.[66]
The Huns, Bulgars and part of the Yuezhi share some common burial practices as the narrow burial pits, pits with a niche and the northern orientation of the burials. The results of the research on the origin of Bulgars lead to one particular region in Middle Asia - the lower and middle reaches of the Syr Darya. After the second century AD the Sarmatian culture on the lower reaches of the Volga underwent significant changes. New features uncharacteristic for the previous period appeared: artificial deformation of the skulls, narrow burial pits and pits with a niche, cut into one of the walls. These features are also found in later Bulgar necropoles.[67]
And last but not least: the recurve bow, the weapon that gave military advantage of the Huns over the Romans, was brought to Bactria by Yuezhi around 130 BC.[70]
Genetic research of Bulgars
Although many scholars had posited that the Bulgars were Turkic tribes of Central Asia, modern genetic research points to an affiliation with European and western Eurasian populations.[71] The phylogenetic analysis of ancient DNA samples shows that mtDNA haplogroups can be classified as European and Western Eurasian and suggest a Western Eurasian matrilineal origin for proto-Bulgarians as well as a genetic similarity between proto- and modern Bulgarians.[72] The Y-Chromosome genetic tests suggest that a common paternal ancestry between the proto-Bulgarians and the Altaic and Central Asian Turkic-speaking populations either did not exist or was negligible.[73]
Genetic research: Tarim Basin - Bulgaria
Haplogroup I-M170
The origins of Tocharians and Tocharian related Yuezhi is controversial topic. Nevertheless, certain facts emerge. Usually they are assumed to have spoken Tocharian languages, but Tocharian is first attested in the 8th c. AD, or about 3 thousand years after the earliest appearance of Caucasoids in the region of Tarim Basin and Xinjiang, North China. Positing linguistic continuity is not an appropriate default position when direct evidence is absent. There is evidence that Caucasoid population in Tarim Basin were already mixed with Mongoloids as early as the early Bronze Age (at least in their mtDNA).[74] This reduces our confidence that they spoke an Indo-European language. An attempt to discover the origin of the Tocharians was made by a careful sorting of Y-chromosome lineages in the present-day Uyghur population of Xinjiang that is assumed to have absorbed the pre-Turkic inhabitants of the region. By removing Eurasian lineages that are likely to be associated with the Xiongnu, Mongols, Uyghur, and non-Tocharian sources (such as Iranians, or various Silk Road outliers), the phylogeographic analysis leaves three candidate haplogroups : J2-M172, R1a1a-M17, R1b-M343 (and its main R-M269 clade).[75] About 80% of the total genetic variation in modern Bulgarians falls within haplogroups J-M172, R-M17 and R-M269, E-M35, I-
Haplogroup E-M35
M170.[76] Because the haplogroups E-M35 and I-M170 are indigenous for the Balkan Peninsula
prior to the arrival of the Bulgars, this leads to the conclusion that there is an isomorphic correspondence between the haplogroups that can be associated with Tocharian related Yuezhi and the haplogroups that can be associated with the proto-Bulgarians (Bulgars). The conclusion correlates with the historical data that modern Bulgarians have three ethnic ancestors - Bulgars, Slavs and Thracians.
According to Hemphill and Mallory (2004) there were two Europoid physical types in the Tarim basin, the second type share closest affinities with Eastern Mediterranean populations. The same type is attested also in Bactria.[77]
The Yuezhi
Yuezhi in Dunhuang/China
The Yuezhi were recorded by the Chinese during the period of Warring States (495-221 B. C.) as nomadic people living in the the lands of the Western Region,specifically around Dunhuang and Guazhou. The Yuezhi had occupied Dunhuang district and became very strong nation in the Northwest China. Han Shu further records: " The Great Yuezhi was a nomadic horde. They moved about following their cattle, and had the same customs as those of the Xiongnu. As their soldiers numbered more than hundred thousand, they were strong and despised the Xiongnu. In the past, they lived in the region between Dunhuang and Qilian [Mountain](south of Hexi Corridor)" The Yuezhi was so powerful that the Xiongnu monarch Touman even sent his eldest son Modu as a hostage to the Yuezhi.The Yuezhi often attacked their neighbour the Wusun to acquire slaves and pasture lands. Wusun originally lived together with the Yuezhi in the region between Dunhuang and Qilian Mountain. The Yuezhi attacked the Wusun, killed their monarch Nandoumi and took his territory. The son of Nandoumi, Kunmo fled to the Xiongnu and was brought up by the Xiongnu monarch.
Migrations of the Yuezhi
Gradually the Xiongnu grew stronger and war broke out between them and the Yuezhi. There were at least four wars between the Yuezhi and Xiongnu according to the Chinese accounts. The first war broke out during the reign of the Xiongnu monarch Touman (who died in 209 B.C) who suddenly attacked the Yuezhi. The Yuezhi wanted to kill Modu, the son of Touman kept as a hostage to them, but Modu stole a good horse from them and managed to escape to his country. It appears that the Xiongnu did not defeat the Yuezhi in this first war. The second war took place in the 7th year of Modu era (203 B.C.). From this war, a large area of the territory originally belonging to the Yuezhi was seized by the Xiongnu and the hegemony of the Yuezhi started to shake. The third war probably was at 176 BC (or shortly before that) and the Yuezhi were badly defeated. The forth war was during the the period of Xiongnu monarch Laoshang (174 BC-166 BC) and was a disaster for the Yuezhi, their king was killed and a drinking cup was made out of his skull. Probably around 165 BC the majority of the Yuezhi migrated from the Tarim basin westward to Fergana. They finally settled in Transoxiana and Bactria.[78][79]
Bulgars and Yuezhi
It is hard to say if the Yuezhi (Yue-Chi) should be included in any of the recognized divisions of Turanian tribes such as Turks or Huns. Nothing whatever is known of their original language. Judging by the physical type represented on the Kushan's coins the Yue-Chi type is Turkish rather than Mongol or Ugro-Finnic. Some authorities think that the name Turushka or Turukha sometimes applied to them by Indian writers is another evidence of the connexion with the Turks. But the national existence and name of the Turks seem to date from the 5th century A.D., so that it is an anachronism to speak of the Yue-Chi as a division of them. The Yue-Chi and Turks, however, may both represent parallel developments of similar or even originally identical tribes. Some authors consider that the Yue-Chi are the same as the Getae and that the original form of the name was Ytit or Get, which is also supposed to appear in the Indian Jat.[80]
The clothes of the Yuezhi depicted on Bactrian Embroidery[68] are almost identical to the traditional Bulgarian costumes made nowadays.[69]
According to Hyun Jin Kim the nomadic Yuezhi possessed political institutions that closely resemble the Xiongnu and later Hunnic models. The Chinese refer to the five xihou or Lords of the Yuezhi who rule the five tribes of their imperial confederation. According to Pulleyblank the Yuezhi were Indo-Europeans and they spoke a Tocharian type language.[81] The title xihou corresponds in the pronunciation to what would later become the Turkic title yubgu. This originally Yuezhi royal title appears on the coins of their rulers as IAPGU/yavuga[82] and it came to the Xiongnu from the Yuezhi.[83] Among the Turks, the title yabgu gained a new lease of life. In the Turkish inscriptions of Mongolia, it refers to a noble ranking immediately after the qagan.[84] Kuyan/kayan was a "common Uechji" symbol for a terrestrial embodiment for the Moon and Milky Way.[85]
Language of Bulgars
Pritsak in his notable study "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan" (1982)[86] analyzed the 33 survived Hunnic personal names and concluded that the language of the Bulgars was Hunnic language:
1. Danube-Bulgarian was a Hunnic language (page 444)
2. Danube-Bulgarian had the suffix /mA/, with the same meaning as the Middle Turkic suffix /mAtOmeljan / 'the greatest among' (page 433)
3. In the Hunno-Bulgarian languages /r/ within a consonantic cluster tends to disappear (page 435)
4. In Hunno-Bulgarian there was also a tendency toward the develop ment of di > ti > ći (page 436)
5. In the Hunno-Bulgarian there was vocalic metathesis bli- < *bil (page 443)
6. There was initially a g- in the Hunno-Bulgarian languages (page 449)
7. One of the typical features of the Hunno-Bulgarian linguistic group is a cluster in the word initial position. (page 460)
8. Hunnic (language) shared rhotacism with Mongolian, Old Bulgarian, and Chuvash. (page 470)
According to Pritsak the language was between Turkic and Mongolian, probably closer to Turkic.
According to Antoaneta Granberg "the Hunno-Bulgarian language was formed on the Northern and Western borders of China in the 3rd-5th c. BC.[87] The analysis of the loan-words in Slavonic language shows the presence of direct influences of various language-families:[88]Turkic, Mongolian, Chinese and Iranian. The Huns and Proto-Bulgarians spoke the same language, different from all other “barbarian” languages. When Turkic tribes appeared at the borders of the Chinese empire in the 6th c., the Huns and Proto-Bulgarians were no longer there.[89] It is important to note that Turkic does contain Hunno-Bulgarian loans, but that these were received through Chinese intermediary, e.g. Hunnic ch’eng-li ‘sky, heaven’ was borrowed from Chinese as tängri in Turkic.[90] The Hunno-Bulgarian language exhibits non-Turkic and non-Altaic features. Altaic has no initial consonant clusters, while Hunno-Bulgarian does. Unlike Turkic and Mongolian, Hunno-Bulgarian language has no initial dental or velar spirants. Unlike Turkic, it has initial voiced b-: bagatur (a title), boyla (a title). Unlike Turkic, Hunno-Bulgarian has initial n-, which is also encountered in Mongolian: Negun, Nebul (proper names). In sum, Antoaneta Granberg concludes that Hunno-Bulgarian language has no consistent set of features that unite it with either Turkic or Mongolian. Neither can it be related to Sino-Tibetian languages, because it obviously has no monosyllabic word structure."
Assuming that the connection Yuezhi->Hunno-Bulgars was substantiated enough we can try to find explanation in the preserved data about the language of Yuezhi/Kushans and see if we can find some correspondence. Some scholars have explained the words connecting the Yuezhi 月氏 or the Kushans as coming from the Turkic languages, thus concluding that the language of the Kushans was from the Türkic language branch. this theory is inadequate. In the Zhoushu 周書, ch. 50, it is recorded that: “The ancestors [of the Türks] came from the state of Suo 索.”34 It has been suggested that “Suo索” [sheak] is a transcription of “Sacae.” In other words, it may be possible that the ancestors of the Türks originally were kin of the Sacae. If this is true, it would not be difficult to understand why some words and titles connected with the Yuezhi 月氏 or the Kushans can be explaned by the Türkic languages. In the Rājataraṅgiṇī (I, 170) there is a reference to the fact that the Türkic ruler in Gandhāra claimed his ancestor was Kaniṣka, and maybe this is not merely boasting. Other scholars have judged that the language of the Kushans was the Iranian language. This theory is also inadequate, for the following reasons. First, they were a branch of the Sacae, a tribal union composed of at least four tribes, i.e., Asii, Gasiani, Tochari and Sacarauli. Of these there were some tribes who spoke the Iranian language, but also some who spoke Indo-European languages other than the Iranian language, e.g., the Tochari. Next, the tribes that spoke Tokharian were in close contact with the tribes that spoke the Iranian language, and the words connected to them that can be explained with Iranian possibly originally were Tokharian.[91]
Yury Zuev included the Yuezhi (Uechji) among the tribes of early Turks. He wrote that " in the Northern Caucasus they spoke East - Iranian language, and in the Kangju they spoke in Türkic."[92] His sketches about early Türkic tribes and state type confederations showed that "ideological views coincide in many respects and have a common foundation, which ascends to the last centuries BCE. Such foundation was the pantheon of the ancient confederations of Uechji (Yuezhi) and Kangars that left a trace in the ideological complexes of Ashtak Türks, Oguzes, Kypchaks, Az-kishes, Kimeks, Kangly, etc. Certain features of it still are in the folklore of the modern Türkic peoples. The tradition of the ideological continuity is permeating the history of these peoples from extreme antiquity until the new time."[93] Probably one of the most striking customs was the custom of the population to completely shave their heads. "The seven-tribe Uechji -"Tochars” were “White-headed” i.e. with completely shaven heads. "Bold-headness" was equivalent to Moon-headness."[94] Remember that the word Yuezhi is a Chinese exonym, formed from the characters yuè (月) "moon" and shì (氏) "clan" - hence they shaved their heads to resemble the Moon. We are not surprised to discover the same custom among the rulers of Bulgarian Dulo clan : "These five princes ruled the kingdom over the other side of the Danube for 515 years with shaven heads and after that came to this side of the Danube Asparuh knyaz and until now (rules)."[95]
The Little Yuezhi
The Little Yuezhi remained in North China and were included into Xiongnu confederation under the name Chieh people (AY: Jie people).[95A] Chinese chronicles documented them as one of the 19 tribes of Xiongnu.[96] Obviously their number wasn't small at all, as it is usually assumed, because we are told that between 184 AD and 221 AD there was a serious revolt of the Little Yuezhi in Gansu and the Chinese couldn't suppress it for almost 40 years.[97] At the beginning of 4th century under the pressure of Rouran Khaganate the Little Yuezhi started migration toward Kazakhstan and Bactria under the name War-Huns.[98] In 349 AD there was a massacre of Chieh people in North China, Maenchen-Helfen points out that 200 000 of them were slain. Probably we can consider that as the final date of their migration from North China/Tarim basin toward Kazakhstan and Bactria. The Jie/Chieh who remained in north China became known as Buluoji Bulgars.[99]
Kutrigurs Huns
Archer riding on reverse
Kutrigurs from the Byzantine sources can be identified with Kidar Bulgars from Armenian sources [100] whom in turn David Lang identified with Kidarites.[101] Kidarites appeared in Kazakhstan and Bactria in 4th century and were branch of the Little Yuezhi,[102] they were also called Red Huns[103] and were displayed on Sogdian coins as archers riding on the reverse.[104] The same type military tactic is attested among Bulgars tribes. Some of Little Yuezhi inherited the Kushan Empire and were called little Kushan.[105][106] Given the historical background of the Little Yuezhi (one of the Xiongnu tribes) it follows that Kutrigurs belonged to the Hunnic group with which Bulgars entered Europe.[107][108][109] The Chinese name of Kidarites is Jidoulo.[110]
Dulo clan (House of Dulo)
Dulo clan symbol
The house of Dulo (also known as Dulo clan) was the ruling dynasty of early Bulgars. Though the scholars have advanced many theories, the origin of Dulo clan and meaning of the name Dulo remain obscure: ""According to their traditions their ruling family, known as the house of Dulo, was descended from Attila the Hun."[111] Many scholars agree that the dynasty has Hunnic origin, the first two names in the Nominalia of Bulgarian khans are actually Attila and his third son Ernak.[112][113][114][115] According to Steven Runciman, given all the historical circumstances and striking resemblance to the names Irnik and Ernak it would be unnecessary hypercritical not to trace the Bulgarian royal dynasty to Attila.[116] According to one hypothesis the name Dulo is distorted form of the name of Attila.[117]Omeljan Pritsak connects the name Dulo with the name of the Xiongnu ruling dynasty Tu-ko (EMC d'uo'klo) by suggesting that the name Vihtun from the Nominalia of Bulgarian khans is Xiongnu emperor Modun.[118]
The Huns - third look
Maenchen-Helfen in his famous monograph "The world of the Huns"[119] wrote that we know virtually nothing about the Indo-European languages spoken on the west-north borders of China. All we know of the language of the Huns are names. The tribal names appear to be of Turkish origin. The personal names fall into 3 general categories:
1) Turkish
2) Iranian
3) of unknown origin ( we don't count here apparently Germanic names whose origin is obvious) Examples of such names (concerning the Bulgar branch of the Huns) are :
Zabergan - Kutrigur Hun - Ζαβεργάν; Persian
Sandilch - Utigur Hun - Σάνδιλ; Turkic
Asparuch- Utigur ruler, founder of Danube Bulgaria - probably Iranian ( Maenchen-Helfen, page 384)
Careful consideration of the above information shows that there is correspondence between the possible language of the Yuezhi and the possible language of the European Huns. Unfortunately we have to compare one unknown language to another unknown language - a quite formidable task. Anyway certain facts emerge - both languages exhibit features from Turkic and Iranian languages. We shouldn't forget that according to Pritsak many names appear to be Mongolian. The idea that Bulgars/Yuezhi tribes were dragged into Europe by a small Xiongnu fragment migrating to West has a long history behind. Pulleyblank, despite the fact that he concluded for various reasons it was very unlikely that the Xiongnu language was Turkic or Mongolian or any form of Altaic, assumed it as a plausible idea.[120]It is natural to assume that Yuezhi had a lot of Mongolian borrowings into their language from the very beginning ( the Tarim basin population had Mongoloid admixture from the early Bronze age). Recent studies show that the populations of the Tarim Basin used many different languages and writing systems, 17 languages in 24 different scripts are documented and among them are Old Turkic, Mongolian and Persian.[121] According to some researchers in modern Bulgarian language there are many words of Tocharian origin.[122]
The Gothic legend
At the end of the 4th century the name "Huns and Tochars" (Faunos-Ficarios) surfaces for the last time in the Gothic legend, rooted in annalistic traditions, about an origin of the western Huns: " Filimer, Gothic king and son of Gandaric the Great... learned that among his people are witches, whom he called "Haliarunna" - "diabolic sorcery" in the Gothic language. They were expelled on his orders, and sentenced to range in the steppes, far from the Gothic camp. The forest people Fauns - Fikars ("Huns and Tochars"), upon seeing the witches wandering in the desert, mated with them, and produced these barbarous people - Huns". And in silvestres homines, the "wood people" of the "General history" we see Greek ακατζιροι, Latin Akatziri, Huns - Turkic Agach-eri and Yiysh-teem ("wood people") of the Iranian and Türkic authors. If that so, then according to this version, the Türkic-speaking Huns - Agacheri must be viewed as a western branch of "Huns and Tochars" of the Jetisu.[123]
Conclusions
Absence of information about historical migration of "Xiongnu-Huns" to the west before the end of the 4th century AD, and existence of the "Hun" population on the eastern fringes of Europe in the 3rd century and earlier, lead to the conclusion that in the composition of the western Huns participated other tribes, and first of all Yuezhi-Massagetae. Utigur Bulgars were a tribe of the Great Yuezhi/Massagetae while the Hunnic group with which Bulgar tribes entered Europe were group of tribes of the Little Yuezhi. Kutrigurs belonged to the Hunnic group.
Brief history of Bulgars
Year 680: Bulgars defeated 50 000-strong Roman army supported by navy; the same Roman army defeated Arabs the previous year. Short footage with Bulgars mounted archers riding on reverse at the battle of Ongal. The First Bulgarian Empire was established.
According to Procopius, there was a nation of Huns living to the east of the Sea of Azov and north of the Caucasus, the king of these Huns had two sons, Kutigur and Utigur. The king referred by Procopius is most probably Ernak, the third son of Attila. After the death of the king, the two sons divided the people into two tribes. Analyzing the chronicles of the antique historians Vasil Zlatarski concludes that the name Bulgar was used for both tribes, but in 6th century the tribal names were preferred by the Eastern Roman Empire due to the different policy it had toward these two tribes.[124] In the middle of 6th century the Emperor Justinian, being attacked by the Kutrigurs Bulgars under their leader Chinialus, bribed their relatives the Utigurs Bulgars led by Sandilch to attacked the Kutrigurs in the rear. The resulting internecine war between the two Bulgars tribes weakened them and made them vulnerable to the Avar attack shortly after that.[125] By 568CE some Kutrigurs groups came under the control of the Pannonian Avars (Varchonites) who were migrating to Pannonia and was also known as Avars. The eastern Bulgar groups along the northern coasts of the Black sea, the Utigurs, were conquered by the Western Turkic Kaghanate (who were violently opposed to the Pannonian Avars).[126] Due to civil war the Western Turks retreated back into Asia no later than 583 CE according to Zlatarski.
Kubrat's Utigurs and Onogurs Bulgars defeated the Avars in alliance with Byzantium and reunited the Utigurs and Kutrigurs into a single Crimean Bulgar confederation in Patria Onoguria renamed as "Old Great Bulgaria" After Kubrat's death in 665AD, his empire was divided[127] when his appointed heir Batbayan submitted to the Khazars of Kubrat's second son Kotrag who settled Batbayan's army at the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers where they founded a Khanate known as Volga Bulgaria.[128]
Other sons of Kubrat carried the Utigur name to the Danube and Pannonia Secunda by April 677. Some submitted to a restored Avar Kaghan, while others rebelled moving south to the Pelagonian plain under the leadership of Tervel's Uncle, Kuber in alliance with Khan Asparukh's Utigurs[129] who successfully occupied the southern banks of the Danube following the Battle of Ongal. Kuber's Bulgars displaced some of the populations that had already settled in the region of Macedonia, and intermingled with the populations that remained. Following the Battle of Ongal, Asparukh settled a portion of the Utigur Bulgars in Moesia, to establish the state which would become modern Bulgaria. In the 8th century, the Kuber Bulgars merged with Asparuh's Bulgars who had by the late 7th century already taken both sides of the Danube River.
References
0. Khazaria in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Boris Zhivkov, page 37: "It is generally accepted that the Bulgars came to Europe either slightly earlier or during the Hunnic invasion"
6. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, (2013, Cambridge University Press), Hyun Jin Kim, page 57: "After a period of chaos following Attila's death, dualism again reasserted itself in the succession of Dengitzik and Ernak (west and east respectively). The successor to the Hunnic Empire in the east, or rather probably the coninuation, also featured two wings, the Kutrigurs(west) and the Utigurs(east), ruled presumably by Ernak's descendants."
7. Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries, Romilly James, page 45 : " The Bulgarians seem to have been in origin Huns, who may well have formed part, and survived as a rump, of the hordes of Attila in the fifth century. ... the so called Onogur Bulgarians are found in large numbers somewhere between the Kuban and the Volga rivers..."
8. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, Hyun Jin Kim, (2013, Cambridge University Press), page 256: " Thus in our sources the names 'Kutrigur', 'Bulgar' and 'Hun' are used interchangeably and refer in all probability not to separate groups but one group."
9. Early Mediaeval identity of the Bulgarians, Cafer Saatchi, page 3 : " The early Byzantine texts use the names of Huns, Bulgarians, Kutrigurs and Utrigurs as interchangeable terms. There the Bulgarians are represented as identical, they are a part of Huns or at least have something common with them. The khans Avtiochol and Irnik, listed in the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans today are identified with Attila and Ernach."
11. SOME REMARKS ON THE CHINESE "BULGAR", 2004, SANPING CHEN: page 8 :" In fact contemporary European sources kept equating the Bulgars with the Huns. At the very least, the Hun-Bulgar connection was much more tangible than the Hun-Xiongnu identification. "
12. History of the Later Roman Empire, J.B. Bury: " The Kotrigurs, who were a branch of the Hunnic race, occupied the steppes of South Russia, from the Don to the Dniester, and were probably closely allied to the Bulgarians or Onogundurs — the descendants of Attila's Huns — who had their homes in Bessarabia and Walachia. They were a formidable people and Justinian had long ago taken precautions to keep them in check, in case they should threaten to attack the Empire, though it was probably for the Roman cities of the Crimea, Cherson and Bosporus, that he feared, rather than for the Danubian provinces. As his policy on the Danube was to use the Lombards as a check on the Gepids, so his policy in Scythia was to use another Hunnic people, the Utigurs, as a check on the Kotrigurs. The Utigurs lived beyond the Don, on the east of the Sea of Azov, and Justinian cultivated their friendship by yearly gifts."
13. Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire Jennifer Lawler, " Utigurs - Hunnic tribe that lived on the east steppes of Don, related to the Bulgars", page 296
14. Great Walls and Linear Barriers, Peter Spring, page 199 : " In 460 the Huns split into the Onogurs, Utigurs and Kotrigurs."
15. A history of the First Bulgarian Empire, Steven Runciman (Book I The children of the Huns), G. Bell & Sons, London 1930, page 5: '' On Attila’s death, his empire crumbled. His people, who had probably been only a conglomeration of kindred tribes that he had welded together, divided again into these tribes; and each went its own way. One of these tribes was soon to be known as the Bulgars."
19. История на българската държава през средните векове, Том I. История на Първото българско царство. Част I. Епоха на хуно-българското надмощие, Васил Н. Златарски
20. The World of the Huns, O. Maenchen-Helfen, page 378 : " In one instance we are explicitly told that the Kutrigur and Utigur, called Huns by Procopius, Agathias, and Menander, were of the same stock, dressed in the same way, and had the same language."
21. The Hunno-Bulgarian Language, 2008, Antoaneta Granberg, Göteborg University, page 6: " The Hunno-Bulgarian language was formed on the Northern and Western borders of China in the 3rd-5th c. BC. The analysis of the loan-words in Slavonic language shows the presence of direct influences of various language-families: Turkic, Mongolian, Chinese and Iranian. The Huns and Proto-Bulgarians spoke the same language, different from all other "barbarian" languages. When Turkic tribes appeared at the borders of the Chinese empire in the 6th c., the Huns and Proto-Bulgarians were no longer there. It is important to note that Turkic does contain Hunno-Bulgarian loans, but that these were received through Chinese intermediary, e.g. Hunnic ch’eng-li ‘sky, heaven’ was borrowed from Chinese as tängri in Turkic. The Hunno-Bulgarian language exhibits non-Turkic and non-Altaic features. Altaic has no initial consonant clusters, while Hunno-Bulgarian does. Unlike Turkic and Mongolian, Hunno-Bulgarian language has no initial dental or velar spirants. Unlike Turkic, it has initial voiced b-: bagatur (a title), boyla (a title). Unlike Turkic, Hunno-Bulgarian has initial n-, which is also encountered in Mongolian: Negun, Nebul (proper names). In sum, Hunno-Bulgarian language has no consistent set of features that unite it with either Turkic or Mongolian. Neither can it be related to Sino-Tibetian languages, because it obviously has no monosyllabic word structure."
22. The Empire of the Steppes, Rene Grousset, page 79: " Other Hun clans survived north of the Black Sea in two hordes : the Kutrigur Huns, who led a nomadic life northwest of the of Azov and the Utigur or Utrigur Huns, whose haunts were by the mouth of the Don."
25. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, Hyun Jin Kim, (2013, Cambridge University Press) page 141: "Utigurs, Kutrigurs and Onogurs were in all likelihood identical with the Bulgars"
26. The Age of Justinian, J. A. S. Evans, (1996) page 91: "... Utigur or Onogur Bulgars"
27. Justinian, John Moorhead, 1994, Taylor&Francis
31. Armies of the Dark Ages, Ian Heath, ( 1979), page 53: " The Onogurs appeared after the disintegration of the Hunnic empire,...The Onogur tribes toghether with the Kutrigur and Utigur Huns, ....Once independent they adopted the name Bulgar..."
32. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, 2013, Cambridge University Press, Hyun Jin Kim, page 57, page 138, page 140-141, page 254 : " That the Utigurs and Kutrigurs formed the two main wings of the same steppe confederacy is proved by the foundation legend told by Procopius regarding the ethnogenesis of the two tribal groupings. He states that before the formation of both entities power in the steppe was concentrated in the hands of a single ruler ( presumably he is referring here to Ernak, son of Attila ), who then divided the power/empire between his two sons called Utigur and Kutrigur "
33. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4, Edward Gibbon, page 537: " And both Procopius and Agathias represent Kutrigurs and Utigurs as tribes of Huns. There can be no doubt Kutrigurs, Utigurs and Bulgars belong to the same race as the Huns of Attila and spoke tongues closely related, - were in fact Huns. They had all been under Attila's dominion"
34. The World of the Huns, Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1973), Chapter IX. Language: 6. Turkish names : Studies in Their History and Culture. University of California Press. p. 412
37. Nisephorus Patriarcha. Breviarium. Ed. C. de Boor, p. 24
38. The Early Medieval Balkans, John Van Antwerp Fine, The University of Michigan Press (2000), page 66: " Meanwhile in the Steppes and the region around the sea of Azov dwelled the Onogur Bulgars. They were seminomadic,ethnically mixed people under a Bulgar chief. According to their traditions their ruling family, known as the house of Dulo, was descended from Attila the Hun. Though the scholars have advanced many theories, the origin and meaning of the name Dulo remain obscure. In 635 the Onogur chief Kovrat led a revolt against the Avars which succeeded in driving them from his land and putting an end to Avar suzerainty over the Onogurs"
40. Runciman, Book I, THE CHILDREN OF THE HUNS (1930), page 4: "Attila was proudly called cousin, if not grandfather, by them all. Of all these claims, it seems that the Bulgars’ is the best justified; the blood of the Scourge of God flows now in the valleys of the Balkans, diluted by time and the pastoral Slavs.", for identification Ernach and Irnik see Appendix III, page 35: "There then followed the Khan Sevar, till 739; but of him we know nothing, save that, like his predecessors, he was of the family of Dulo. In him this great house, the House of Attila, died out."
41. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, 2013, Cambridge University Press, Hyun Jin Kim, page 140 :" The same is likely to have been the case among the Utigurs and Kutrigurs who under Attilid rule had even more justification for claiming the imperial mantle of the Huns of Europe."
42. The Bulgarians: from pagan times to the Ottoman conquest, David Marshall Lang, (1976) page 49: "Then came Khan Sevar, who ruled until 740, and was the last of the great house of Dulo to occupy the throne; with him died out the lineage of Attila the Hun "
43. The World of the Huns, Otto Maenchen-Helfen, page 4: "But considering that Themistius, Claudian, and later Procopius called the Huns Massagetae,..." p. 4
45. The World of the Huns, Otto Maenchen-Helfen, page 4: "But considering that Themistius, Claudian, and later Procopius called the Huns Massagetae,..." p. 6
46. THE PEOPLES OF THE STEPPE FRONTIER IN EARLY CHINESE SOURCES, Edwin G. Pulleyblank, University of British Columbia, (1999), page 37: "... there is almost certainly a lineal connection between the Northern Xiongnu who moved westward out of contact with the Chinese in the second century and the Huns who later appeared in Eastern Europe. Apart from the ruling group that bore the name Hun, however, the European Huns undoubtedly included other tribes with different ethnic affinities...", page 49 : " (1) that for various reasons it was very unlikely that the Xiongnu language was Turkic or Mongolian or any form of Altaic, (2) that there might be validity in the suggestion of Louis Ligeti that the Xiongnu language was related to Ket and other now extinct Yeniseian languages of Siberia, (3) that the Xiongnu language had bequeathed a number of important culture words to the later Turkic and Mongolian steppe empires, including Turkish tängri, Mongolian tenggeri ‘heaven’ and titles such as tarqan and tegin and kaghan"
48. Mallory, J. P.; Mair, Victor H. (2000), The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames & Hudson. pages 98-99
49. THE STRONGEST TRIBE, Yu. A. Zuev, page 33: "Massagets of the earliest ancient authors... are the Yuezhis of the Chinese sources"
52. EARLY TURKS: ESSAYS on HISTORY and IDEOLOGY, Yu. A. Zuev, p.38 and p.62 : " The Utigurs of Menandr are Uti, associated with Aorses of the Pliny "Natural history" (VI, 39). The word Uti was a real proto-type of a transcription Uechji < ngiwat-tie < uti (Pulleyblank, 1966, p. 18)"
59. Khodjaiov 1966; Ginzburg & Trofimova 1972; Tur 1996
60. The Kushan civilization, Buddha Rashmi Mani, page 5: "A particular intra-cranial investigation relates to an annular artificial head deformation (macrocephalic), evident on the skulls of diverse racial groups being a characteristic feature traceable on several figures of Kushan kings on coins."
62. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Volume 1, Denis Sinor, page 172: "A striking resemblance may also be noted in the deformed heads of the early Yueh-chih and Hepthalite kings on their coinage",
68. Yuezhi on Bactrian Embroidery from Textiles Found at Noyon uul, Mongolia Sergey A. Yatsenko Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, page 41, paragraph 2 : " The basic color gamma of the depictions is a combination of red/rose and white, which is characteristic for the Bactrian Yuezhi. Furthermore, there is a definite symmetry of these two basic colors. Thus, if an individual has a red caftan, then his shoes are also red but he has white trousers and a white belt, and, on the other hand, if he has a white caftan and shoes, the trousers and belt are red."
77. Hemphill, Brian E.; Mallory, J.P. (2004), "Horse-mounted invaders from the Russo-Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from Western Central Asia? A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang", American Journal of Physical Anthropology 125, pp. 199ff. :
"This study confirms the assertion of Han [1998] that the occupants of Alwighul and Krorän are not derived from proto-European steppe populations, but share closest affinities with Eastern Mediterranean populations. Further, the results demonstrate that such Eastern Mediterraneans may also be found at the urban centers of the Oxus civilization located in the north Bactrian oasis to the west. Affinities are especially close between Krorän, the latest of the Xinjiang samples, and Sapalli, the earliest of the Bactrian samples, while Alwighul and later samples from Bactria exhibit more distant phenetic affinities. This pattern may reflect a possible major shift in interregional contacts in Central Asia in the early centuries of the second millennium BCE.", http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.10354/abstract
83. Turks and Iranians: Aspects of Turk and Khazaro-Iranian Interaction, Peter B. Golden, page 17, footnote 89, Zuev, Early Turks, p.31 : "This title is first of all an Uechji title, or, in the opinion of the eminent scientist [F. Hirth, 1899, p. 48-50], it is a “true Tocharian” title. "
84. ENCYCLOPÆDIA IRANICA, JABḠUYA : "Although yabḡu is best known as a Turkish title of nobility, it was in use many centuries before the Turks appear in the historical record. ... Among the Turks, the title yabḡu gained a new lease of life."
91. SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS, Number 212, 2011, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania , (Victor H. Mair, Editor) The Origin of the Kushans, YU Taishan, page 15
99. Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages, Sanping Chen, page 83: " The Huns and Bulgars: The Chinese Chapter", p. 90: "To summarize, the Buluoji, or the Bulgars of China according to Boodberg, appear to be a group that consisted of the remnants of the Xiongnu confederation that were not absorbed by the succeeding Xianbei conglomerate, with conspicuous Europoid admixture. Their cultural and linguistic affinity seems at least partially Altaic."
102. A NOTE ON KIDARA AND THE KIDARITES, WILLIAM SAMOLIN, Central Asiatic Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1956), pp. 295-297, „The Yueh-chih origin of Kidara is clearly established...“
104. History of Civilizations of Central Asia, р. 120: "...the presence of Kidarites in Sogdiana is provided by early Sogdian coins with the image of an archer on the reverse and the word kydr (Kidara) in the obverse legend."
106. THE KIDARITE KINGDOM IN CENTRAL ASIA, E. V. Zeimal, стр. 132: „The Pei-shih (Chapters 7, 13) mentions that the Kidarites, whom it refers to as the Ta Yüeh-chih (Lesser Yüeh-chih), have money made of gold and silver. This information is confirmed by the evidence of their coins. The first comprehensive attempt to categorize and interpret Kidarite coins was undertaken by Cunningham.“
107. History of the Later Roman Empire, J. B. Bury, CHAPTER XX, § 2. The Gepids and Lombards; Kotrigurs and Utigurs, „The Kotrigurs, who were a branch of the Hunnic race, occupied the steppes of South Russia, from the Don to the Dniester, and were probably closely allied to the Bulgarians or Onogundurs – the descendants of Attila's Huns – who had their homes in Bessarabia and Walachia.“
109. The Bulgarians: from pagan times to the Ottoman conquest, David Marshall Lang, р 35: "The following year, Boyan, khaqan of the Avars, sent ten thousand Bulgars and Kutrigurs against the Romans in Dalmatia, where they destroyed forty Roman castles. ... "
111. The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, John Van Antwerp Fine, University of Michigan Press(2000), p. 66: "According to their traditions their ruling family, known as the house of Dulo, was descended from Attila the Hun. Though the scholars have advanced many theories, the origin and meaning of the name Dulo remain obscure."
112. Early Mediaeval identity of the Bulgarians, Cafer Saatchi, page 3: "The khans Avtiochol and Irnik, listed in the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans today are identified with Attila and Ernach."
113. The World of the Huns, Otto Maenchen-Helfen, p. 415: "Ernak has often been identified with Ирникь in the Bulgarian Princes' List."
115. The Tale of the Prophet Isaiah: The Destiny and Meanings of an Apocryphal Text, Ivan Biliarsky, р. 255: "Among historians, there is almost unanimity they were Attila, the ruler of the Huns, and his son Ernach."
116. A history of the First Bulgarian Empire, Steven Runciman, Appendix III, р. 280: "Under these circumstances, especially considering the remarkable similarity of the names, it is surely unnecessarily hypercritical to refuse to identify Irnik with Ernach, and not to trace the Bulgar royal line from Attila."
119. The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture, Otto Maenchen-Helfen, University of California Press, 1973,
120. THE PEOPLES OF THE STEPPE FRONTIER IN EARLY CHINESE SOURCES, Edwin G. Pulleyblank, University of British Columbia, (1999), page 37: "... there is almost certainly a lineal connection between the Northern Xiongnu who moved westward out of contact with the Chinese in the second century and the Huns who later appeared in Eastern Europe. Apart from the ruling group that bore the name Hun, however, the European Huns undoubtedly included other tribes with different ethnic affinities...", page 49 : " (1) that for various reasons it was very unlikely that the Xiongnu language was Turkic or Mongolian or any form of Altaic, (2) that there might be validity in the suggestion of Louis Ligeti that the Xiongnu language was related to Ket and other now extinct Yeniseian languages of Siberia, (3) that the Xiongnu language had bequeathed a number of important culture words to the later Turkic and Mongolian steppe empires, including Turkish tängri, Mongolian tenggeri ‘heaven’ and titles such as tarqan and tegin and kaghan"
