Bulgars

The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century. Emerging as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, according to some researchers their roots can be traced to Central Asia. During their westward migration across the Eurasian steppe the Bulgars absorbed other ethnic groups and cultural influences, including Hunnic and Indo-European peoples. Modern genetic research on Central Asian Turkic people and ethnic groups related to the Bulgars points to an affiliation with Western Eurasian populations. The Bulgars spoke a Turkic language, i.e. Bulgar language of Oghuric branch. They preserved the military titles, organization and customs of Eurasian steppes, as well as pagan shamanism and belief in the sky deity Tangra. The Bulgars became semi-sedentary during the 7th century in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, establishing the polity of Old Great Bulgaria c. 635, which was absorbed by the Khazar Empire in 668 AD. In c. 679, Khan Asparukh conquered Scythia Minor, opening access to Moesia, and established the First Bulgarian Empire, where the Bulgars became a political and military elite. They merged subsequently with established Byzantine populations, as well as with previously settled Slavic tribes, and were eventually Slavicized, thus forming the ancestors of modern Bulgarians. The remaining Pontic Bulgars migrated in the 7th century to the Volga River, where they founded the Volga Bulgaria; they preserved their identity well into the 13th century. The Volga Tatars and Chuvash people claim to be originated from the Volga Bulgars. The etymology of the ethnonym Bulgar is not completely understood and difficult to trace back earlier than the 4th century AD. Since the work of Wilhelm Tomaschek (1873), it is generally said to be derived from the Common Turkic bulğha, bulga- or bulya ('to mix'; 'to become mixed'), which with the consonant suffix -r implies a noun meaning 'mixed'. Other scholars have added that bulğha might also imply 'stir', 'disturb', 'confuse' and Talat Tekin interpreted bulgar as the verb form 'mixing' (i.e. rather than the adjective 'mixed'). Both Gyula Németh and Peter Benjamin Golden initially advocated the 'mixed race' theory, but later, like Paul Pelliot, considered that 'to incite', 'rebel', or 'to produce a state of disorder', i.e. the 'disturbers', was a more likely etymology for migrating nomads. According to Osman Karatay, if the 'mixed' etymology relied on the westward migration of the Oğurs, meeting and merging with the Huns, north of the Black Sea, it was a faulty theory, since the Oghurs were documented in Europe as early as 463, while the Bulgars were not mentioned until 482 – an overly short time period for any such ethnogenesis to occur. However, the 'mixing' in question may have occurred before the Bulgars migrated from further east, and scholars such as Sanping Chen have noted analogous groups in Inner Asia, with phonologically similar names, who were frequently described in similar terms: during the 4th century, the Buluoji (Middle Chinese b'uo-lak-kiei), a component of the 'Five Barbarian' groups in Ancient China, were portrayed as both a 'mixed race' and 'troublemakers'. Peter A. Boodberg noted that the Buluoji in the Chinese sources were recorded as remnants of the Xiongnu confederation, and had strong Caucasian elements. Another theory linking the Bulgars to a Turkic people of Inner Asia has been put forward by Boris Simeonov, who identified them with the Pugu (僕骨; buk/buok kwət; Buqut), a Tiele and/or Toquz Oguz tribe. The Pugu were mentioned in Chinese sources from 103 BC up to the 8th century AD, and later were situated among the eastern Tiele tribes, as one of the highest-ranking tribes after the Uyghurs. According to the Chronicle by Michael the Syrian, which comprises several historical events of different age into one story, three mythical Scythian brothers set out on a journey from the mountain Imaon (Tian Shan) in Asia and reached the river Tanais (Don), the country of the Alans called Barsalia, which would be later inhabited by the Bulgars and the Pugurs (Puguraje). The names Onoğur and Bulgar were linked by later Byzantine sources for reasons that are unclear. Karatay interpreted gur/gor as 'country', and noted the Tekin derivation of gur from the Altaic suffix -gir, which is related to the word yir, meaning 'earth, place'. Generally, modern scholars consider the terms oğuz or oğur, as generic terms for Turkic tribal confederations, to be derived from Turkic *og/uq, meaning 'kinship or being akin to'. The terms initially were not the same, as oq/ogsiz meant 'arrow', while oğul meant 'offspring, child, son', oğuš/uğuš was 'tribe, clan', and the verb oğša-/oqša meant 'to be like, resemble'. There also appears to be an etymological association between the Bulgars and the preceding Kutrigur (Kuturgur > Quturğur > *Toqur(o)ğur < toqur; 'nine' in Proto-Bulgar; toquz in Common Turkic) and Utigur (Uturgur > Uturğur < utur/otur; 'thirty' in Proto-Bulgar; otuz in Common Turkic) – as 'Oğur (Oghur) tribes, with the ethnonym Bulgar as a 'spreading' adjective. Golden considered the origin of the Kutrigurs and Utigurs to be obscure and their relationship to the Onogurs and Bulgars – who lived in similar areas at the same time – as unclear. He noted, however, an implication that the Kutrigurs and Utigurs were related to the Šarağur (šara oğur, shara oghur; 'white oğhurs'), and that according to Procopius these were Hunnish tribal unions, of partly Cimmerian descent. Karatay considered the Kutrigurs and Utigurs to be two related, ancestral people, and prominent tribes in the later Bulgar union, but different from the Bulgars.