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Bulgar warriors slaughter Byzantines, from the Menology of Basil II, 10th century.

The Bulgars (also Bolgars or proto-Bulgarians) were a seminomadic people, originally from Central Asia, who from the AD 2nd century inhabited the steppe north of the Caucasus and the banks of river Itil (now Volga). There are different theories about their origin, the most widely accepted theory being that they were a Turkic people.

The most widely accepted theory today is that the now extinct Bulgar language belongs to a distant branch of the Turkic languages, broadly classified as Bulgar Turkic, whose only living representative is the Chuvash language^[1], thus the Bulgars were a Turkic people.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} It is supported, among other things, by the facts that some Bulgar words contained in the few surviving stone inscriptions,^[7] and in other documents (mainly military and hierarchical terms such as tarkan, bagatur, and probably kan and kanartikin "prince") appear to be of Turkic origin, that the Bulgars apparently used a 12-year cyclic calendar similar to the one adopted by Turkic and Mongolian peoples from the Chinese, with names and numbers that are deciphered as Turkic, and that the Bulgars' supreme god was probably called Tangra, a deity widely known among the Turkic peoples under names such as Tengri, Tura etc..^[8] Some also point out the presence of a (fairly small) number of Turkic loanwords in the Slavic Old Bulgarian language, and the fact that the Bulgars used an alphabet similar to the Turkic Orkhon script, although this alphabet hasn't been satisfactorily deciphered yet: fortunately, the Bulgar inscriptions were sometimes written in Greek or Cyrillic characters, most commonly in Greek, thus allowing the scholars to identify some of the Bulgar glosses. Accordingly, the name Bulgar is derived from the Turkic verb bulģa "to mix, shake, stir" and its derivative bulgak "revolt, disorder".^[9]

Toponyms that are identical or similar in proposed Bulgar locations as an argument for the Iranian theory.

A newer theory, the Iranian theory, is that the Bulgar language was originally an Iranian language, and so the Bulgar people were an Iranian people, although some of its proponents concede that the language was later influenced by Turkic due to Hunnic military domination.^{[10][11][12][13]} Bulgar is assumed to have been used in Great Bulgaria, later in Volga Bulgaria, as well as in Danubian Bulgaria. The language became extinct in Danubian Bulgaria in the 9th century as the Bulgar nobility became gradually Slavicized through intermarriages with the Slavic majority there. In Volga Bulgaria, it persisted longer (according to the prevalent theory of its Turkic affiliation) and ultimately gave rise to the modern Turkic Chuvash language.^[14][15][16] This notion became popular in Bulgaria in the 1990s, with the works of Petar Dobrev, a specialist in economic history.^[17] Supporters of this theory are mostly Bulgarian historians such as Georgi Bakalov^[18] and Bozhidar Dimitrov^[19]. The theory is supported mostly by linguistic arguments, as authors (who are usually not linguists^[20]) attempt to prove the Iranian origin of a number of words and sometimes even grammatical features in Bulgar and modern Bulgarian.^[21] Archaeological and cultural evidence is also used: for example, advocates of the theory state that Bulgars wrote from left to right, unlike Turkic peoples, and point out that some ancient authors differentiated between Turkic and Bulgar populations. However, this last argument is not endorsed by the fact that the term "Turk" was not used either exclusively, or particularly, for a certain, well-defined group of peoples, until much later. Petar Dobrev also dismisses the general view of all the above-mentioned titles, names of animals etc. as Turkic (except for the ordinal numbers for which he gives his own Pamirian etymologies). He maintains that these words, far from being evidence for the Bulgars being Turkic, were actually borrowed by Turkic and Mongol tribes from the Bulgars, as the Bulgars possessed, in his view, a more ancient and sophisticated civilization with roots in Sumerian and Akkadian culture.

In the 19th century, even theories of a Slavic or Finno-Ugric affiliation were proposed on the basis of the little or no evidence.^[22] These have practically no adherents among today's scholars. Another tiny minority view is that Bulgar, far from being affiliated to Chuvash, belonged instead to the same branch as all other surviving Turkic languages and more specifically Kazan Tatar. Bulgarian scholar Ivan Shishmanov speculated in 1900 that this was the case^[22], and the same view is espoused also by modern Bulgarist Kazan Tatar linguist Mirfatyh Zakiev.^[23]

Contemporary sources like Procopius, Agathias and Menander called the Kutrigur and Utigur Bulgars "Huns"^[24] while others, like the Byzantine Patriarch Michael of Antioch, called them "Scythians" or "Sarmatians". But this latter identification is clearly due to the Byzantine tradition of naming peoples geographically; for example, centuries later the obviously Turkic Petchenegs and Cumans, were still addressed with the respective terms.

Archaeological remains show that the Bulgars had the typical culture of the nomadic equestrians of Central Asia. Anthropological data collected from early Bulgar necropolises from Bulgaria and the Ukrainian steppe shows that Bulgars were a high-statured Caucasoid people with slight Mongoloid features, and practiced artificial cranial deformation of the round type^[25]. The same sort of anthropological type and burial rites are common in Central Asia, where the practice of artificial skull deformation was also common in the area Ancient Greeks called Bactria and locals call Bukhara, Bokhara or Balhara.^{[citation needed]} It has been argued that the latter was the land of origin of the Bulgars.

Cäğfär Taríxı, a Russian language document of disputed authenticity, purports to be a 1680 compilation of ancient Bulgar annals. It was published by a Volga Tatar Bulgarist editor in 1993. Cäğfär Taríxı contains a very detailed description of Bulgar history. Among other things, it implies that the Bulgars were formed as a result of consolidation of many Turkic and Turkicized tribes.

The Bulgars were governed by hereditary rulers. For three of these, the native form of their title, kanasubigi, is attested. This is generally assumed to include the word khan, probably in its archaic form kan. There is additional evidence suggesting that the latter title was used, e.g. the fact that the name of early Bulgarian ruler Pagan occurs in Patriarch Nicephorus's so-called Breviarium as Καμπαγάνος (Kampaganos), likely an erroneous rendition of the phrase "Kan Pagan"^[26]. Among the proposed translations for the phrase kanasubigi as a whole are lord of the army, from the reconstructed Turkic phrase *sü begi, parallelling the attested Old Turkic sü baši,^[27] and, more recently, (ruler) from God, from the Indo-European *su- and baga-, i.e. *su-baga (a counterpart of the Greek phrase ὁ ἐκ Θεοῦ ἄρχων, ho ek Theou archon, which is common in Bulgar inscriptions)^[28]. This titulature presumably persisted until the Bulgars adopted Christianity.^[29] Some Bulgar inscriptions written in Greek and later in Slavonic refer to the Bulgarian ruler respectively with the Greek title archon or the Slavic title knyaz.^[30] Other similar but non-kingly titles attested among the Bulgarian noble class include kavkan (vicekan), tarkan, and boritarkan. The aristocratic families, whose members were called boila (boyars), bore military titles and formed the tribal and state governing class. The religion of the Bulgars is also obscure but it is supposed that it was monotheistic, worshipping the Turkic Sky god Tengri.

Map showing the location of Bulgars, c. 650.

In the early 2nd century, some groups of Bulgars migrated from Central Asia to the European continent and settled on the plains between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Between 351 and 389, some of these crossed the Caucasus and settled in Armenia. Toponymic data testify to the fact that they remained there and were eventually assimilated by the Armenians.

Swept by the Hunnish wave at the beginning of the 4th century, other Bulgar tribes broke loose from their settlements in Central Asia to migrate to the fertile lands along the lower valleys of the Donets and the Don rivers and the Azov seashore, assimilating what was left of the Sarmatians. Some of these remained for centuries in their new settlements, whereas others moved on with the Huns towards Central Europe, settling in Pannonia.

Those Bulgars took part in the Hun raids on Central and Western Europe between 377 and 453. After the death of Attila in 453, and the subsequent disintegration of the Hunnish empire, the Bulgar tribes dispersed mostly to the eastern and southeastern parts of Europe.

At the end of the 5th century (probably in the years 480, 486, and 488) they fought against the Ostrogoths as allies of the Byzantine emperor Zeno. From 493 they carried out frequent attacks on the western territories of the Byzantine Empire. Later raids were carried out at the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th century.

In the middle of the 6th century, war broke out between the two main Bulgar tribes, the Kutrigur and Utigur. At the end of the 6th century, the Kutrigur allied with the Avars to conquer the Utigur. The Bulgars fell under the domination of the Göktürk Khanate in 568.

This sword was found in what is widely considered to be the tomb of Kubrat. The hilt bears a Greek inscription and is decorated with crosses, which might suggest that its owner (or the original owner at least) was a Christian.

Near East in 800AD, showing the Bulgarian Empire and its neighbors.

Main article: Old Great Bulgaria

United under Kubrat or Kurt of the Dulo clan (supposed^[Who?] to be identical to the ruler mentioned by Arabic chronicler At-Tabari under the name of Shahriar), the joined forces of the Utigur and Kutrigur Bulgars and probably the non-Bulgar Onogurs, and broke loose from the Turkic khanate in the 630s. They formed an independent state, the Onogundur-Bulgar (Oghondor-blkar or Olhontor-blkar) Empire, often called by Byzantine sources^[31] ‘the Old Great Bulgaria’. The empire was situated between the lower course of the Danube to the west, the Black Sea and the Azov Sea to the south, the Kuban River to the east, and the Donets River to the north. It is assumed that the state capital was Phanagoria, an ancient city on the Taman peninsula (see Tmutarakan). However, the archaeological evidence shows that the city became predominantly Bulgarian only after Kubrat's death and the consequent disintegration of his state.

The legend tells that on his death-bed, Khan Kubrat had his sons gather sticks and bring them to him, which he then bundled together and told his eldest son Bayan to break the bundle. Bayan failed under the strength of the combined sticks, and, after the rest of the sons failed this test as well, Kubrat took the sticks back, separated each one, and broke them all one-by-one even in his weakened state. Then he told his sons the words "Unity makes strength", which have become a very popular Bulgarian slogan and now appears on the modern Bulgarian coat of arms.

The Byzantine Patriarch Nicephorus I ^[32] tells that Kubrat's sons, however, did not heed these very specific words, and thus soon after the death of Kubrat around 665, the Khazar expansion eventually led to the dissolution of Great Bulgaria.

The khan’s eldest son, Batbayan (also Bayan or Boyan), remained the ruler of the land north of the Black and the Azov Seas, which was, however, soon subdued by the Khazars. Those Bulgars converted to Judaism in the 9th century, along with the Khazars, and were eventually assimilated. A different theory claims that the Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria may be the descendants of this Bulgar branch.

Another Bulgar tribe, led by Kubrat’s second son Kotrag, migrated to the confluence of the Volga and Kama Rivers in what is now Russia (see Volga Bulgaria). The present-day republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia are considered to be the descendants of Volga Bulgaria in terms of territory and people, though only Chuvash is thought to be similar to old Bulgar language.

A third Bulgar tribe, led by the youngest son Asparukh, moved westward, occupying today’s southern Bessarabia. After a successful war with Byzantium in 680, Asparukh's khanate conquered Moesia and Dobrudja and was recognized as an independent state under the subsequent treaty signed with the Byzantine Empire and emperor Constantine IV Pogonatus in 681. The same year is usually regarded as the year of the establishment of modern Bulgaria (see History of Bulgaria).

A fourth group of Bulgars, under Kuber, initially moved to Pannonia and subsequently settled in western Macedonia and eastern Albania where it formed a khanate, which joined Slavs to attack the Byzantine Empire.

The fifth and smallest group, of Alcek (also transliterated as 'Altsek' and 'Altzek'), after many peripeties, ended up led by Emnetzur and settled in Italy, northeast of Naples.

The Madara Rider (c. 710), a famous example of Bulgar art

Tribes thought to have been Bulgar in origin include:

• Utigurs
  • Kupi-bulgar
  • Duchi-bulkar
  • Chdar-b'lkar
• Kutrigurs (Kotrags)

After the dissolution of Great Bulgaria these tribes formed:

• Asparukh’s Horde
• Batbayan's Horde
• Kotrag's Horde
• Kuber’s Horde
• Alcek’s Horde

• Bulgar language
• Bulgarians
• Pamir languages
• Madara Rider
• Chuvash
• Volga Bulgaria
• Bactrians
• Balkar
• Bolghar
• Yuezhi
• Kuber

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Bulgars

• History of Bulgaria
• History of the Bulgars
• Bulgars on Regnal Chronologies
• The language of the Asparukh and Kuber Bulgars, Vocabulary and grammar, by Peter Dobrev
• Inscriptions and Alphabet of the Proto-Bulgarians, by Peter Dobrev
• On the origins of the Proto-Bulgarians
• Proto-Bulgarian Epigraphic Monuments, Vesselin Beshevliev
• Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies, by Walter Pohl
• History of the Proto-Bulgarians north and west of the Black Sea
• Encyclopaedia Britannica Online - Arrival of the Bulgars