- Also called:
- Bulgarian
Bulgar
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Who were the Bulgars?
The Bulgars were a nomadic group of warriors who lived north of the Black Sea. They were known as skilled horsemen governed by khans and boyars.
In 635, Khan Kubrat led the Bulgars to revolt against the Avars, forming Great Bulgaria. After his death, the Khazars attacked, splitting the Bulgars into five groups. One group, led by Asparukh, moved to the Danube River and defeated the Byzantine army in 681. This victory led to the establishment of the first Bulgarian state, from which Bulgaria gets its name.
The Bulgars merged with local Slavs, adopting Slavic language and culture. By the 11th century, they had formed a unified Bulgarian people.
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Where did the Bulgars originally come from?
The Bulgars were a group of people who lived on the steppes north of the Black Sea around the 5th century CE. They were known as skilled, warlike horsemen led by khans and boyars.
Though their origin is still debated, some scholars believe they came from a Turkic tribe of Central Asia, possibly with Iranian elements, while modern genetic research suggests affiliations with western Eurasian and European populations. Khan Kubrat led the Bulgars in a revolt against the Avars in 635 and formed an independent tribal confederation known as Great Bulgaria. After his death, the Khazars attacked, and the Bulgars dispersed into five groups.
One group, led by Asparukh, moved to the area south of the Danube River and established a state that would become the first Bulgarian empire in 681, which is where the modern nation of Bulgaria gets its name. Over time, the conquering Bulgars merged with local Vlach and Slavic populations, adopting a Slavic language and culture.
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How did the Bulgars influence the formation of Bulgaria?
The Bulgars, a subject of academic debate regarding their origin, greatly influenced the formation of Bulgaria. In 635 CE, Khan Kubrat led a revolt and formed Great Bulgaria. After his death, the Bulgars split into five groups. One group, led by Asparukh, moved south of the Danube, conquering or expelling Slavic tribes. In 681 CE, Byzantium recognized Bulgar control, marking the start of the Bulgarian state. The conquering Bulgars were assimilated by Vlach and Slavic elements, adopting Christianity. Their language mixed with Slavonic, creating a common culture. By the 11th century, they had melded into a Slavic-speaking, Christianized people, forming the basis of modern Bulgarians.
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What were the customs and traditions of the Bulgar people?
The origin of the Bulgar people is still a matter of academic dispute, with arguments for both Turkic and Indo-European roots. They were known as skilled, warlike horsemen led by khans and boyars. After Khan Kubrat's death in 642, the Bulgar tribes dispersed, with one group, led by Asparukh, settling south of the Danube River. They conquered or expelled the Slavic tribes and established control over the region, which Byzantium recognized in 681.
Contemporary Bulgarian culture is a mix of old folk traditions and formal culture that helped create national identity during Ottoman rule and the development of a modern state. Bulgarian culture has little variation, even regionally, because the population is mostly homogeneous. The state supports culture through schools, libraries, museums, publishing, and media. Many festivals take place, such as the International Folklore Festival and Sofia Musical Weeks.
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How did the Bulgars interact with other groups and empires in Europe?
The Bulgars were known in eastern European history during the Middle Ages. In the 6th century, the Bulgars attacked the Danubian provinces of the Byzantine Empire. They were threatened by the Avars, who advanced from Asia into central Europe. Some Bulgars submitted to the Avars for two decades.
Unified under Kubrat, the Bulgars formed a polity known as Great Bulgaria. After his death, the Bulgars split into five hordes. One group was absorbed into the Khazar empire, another merged with the Avars, and another served under the Lombards in Italy. Two hordes had longer futures.
Khan Asparukh led one horde across the Danube, establishing what became the first Bulgarian empire. In 681, the Byzantine Empire recognized this state. Asparukh’s successor, Tervel, helped restore Emperor Justinian II to the Byzantine throne in 705 and, with a Bulgarian army, joined the Byzantines to defeat an Arab army invading Constantinople in 717–718.
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Bulgar, member of a people known in eastern European history during the Middle Ages. A branch of this people was one of the primary three ethnic ancestors of modern Bulgarians (the other two were Thracians and Slavs).
Although many scholars, including linguists, had posited that the Bulgars were derived from a Turkic tribe of Central Asia (perhaps with Iranian elements), modern genetic research points to an affiliation with western Eurasian and European populations. Early Bulgars inhabited the European steppe west of the Volga River from about 370 ce. Retreating with the Huns, they resettled about 460 in an arc of country north and east of the Sea of Azov. Hired by the Byzantines in 480 to fight against the Ostrogoths, the Bulgars subsequently became attracted by the wealth of the Byzantine Empire. In the 6th century the Bulgars continually attacked the Danubian provinces of the Byzantine Empire until, in the 560s, they were themselves threatened by the Avars, who were then advancing from Asia into central Europe. The Avars destroyed one Bulgar tribe, but the rest saved themselves by submitting, for two decades, to another horde of Turkic newcomers, most of whom then retreated back into Asia.
Unified under a single ruler, Kurt, or Kubrat (reigned c. 605–c. 642), the Bulgars constituted a powerful polity known to the Byzantines as Great Bulgaria, with the Kuban River as its southern frontier. After Kurt’s death his five sons split the people into five hordes. One of these five, remaining on the coast of the Sea of Azov, was absorbed into the new empire of the Khazars, another migrated to central Europe and was merged with the Avars, and another disappeared into service under the Lombards in Italy. Two of the five hordes, however, had longer futures.
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Kurt’s son Kotrag avoided the Khazars by leading his horde far to the north, where it eventually occupied an ill-defined country around the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers. Subdivided there into three groups (probably through mergers with indigenous peoples or with other immigrants), the horde maintained itself in prosperity for some 600 years. These Volga Bulgars formed not so much a state as a seminomadic confederation, but they had two cities, Bulgar and Suvar, which profited as transshipment points in the trade between the fur-selling Ugrians and Russians of the far north and the southern civilizations—Byzantium, the Muslim caliphate of Baghdad, and Turkistan. The Volga Bulgars were converted to Islam about 922. In 1237 they were made subject to the Mongol Golden Horde, and, though the city of Bulgar flourished for a long time afterward, the people gradually lost their identity and were mingled with the Russians.
The fifth product of the breakup of Great Bulgaria was the horde that Kurt’s son Asparukh led westward across the Dniester River and then southward across the Danube. There, on the plain between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains, they established the kernel of the so-called first Bulgarian empire—the state from which the modern nation of Bulgaria derives its name. In the 7th century the Danubian region was nominally controlled by the Byzantine Empire, and it was inhabited by Vlachs (ancestors of the modern Romanians) and also very largely by recently arrived Slavs. In 681 the first Bulgarian empire was officially founded and recognized by the Byzantine Empire. Asparukh’s successor, Tervel (701–718), helped to restore Emperor Justinian II to the Byzantine throne in 705 and was rewarded with the title “caesar.” In 717–718 Tervel and a Bulgarian army joined with the Byzantine emperor Leo III to launch a massive offensive against an Arab army invading Constantinople (now Istanbul). The Bulgarian army defeated the Arabs and successfully defended the city.
The conquering Bulgars were soon permeated by Vlach and, even more thoroughly, by Slavic elements. At the same time, their conquests were carrying them deeper into the ambit of Byzantine Christianity. Territorial expansion into Serbia and Macedonia under Krum (khan 803–814) and under Pressian (836–852) was followed by the conversion of the Bulgars to Christianity under Boris I. The new church’s liturgy was in the language known as Old Bulgarian (Old Church Slavonic), which was a composite of Bulgar and Slav linguistic elements. It proved to be a powerful agent in creating a common culture among the Bulgars and Slavs. By the time Bulgaria was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire early in the 11th century, the Bulgars and Slavs had melded into a Slavic-speaking, Christianized people essentially identical to today’s Bulgarians.
Boris I’s son Simeon I, who was acknowledged as tsar, or emperor, of the Bulgars, brought the first empire to its acme as a Balkan power, even though he had to give up the lands north of the Danube to fresh invaders from the Eurasian steppe. As invasions of the Balkan Peninsula from the north continued intermittently over the next four centuries, the Turkic element in the Bulgarians’ ethnic makeup was reinforced by strains derived from the Pechenegs, Kipchaks, and Cumans—all Turkic peoples. In this period Bulgaria became a cultural centre of eastern Europe, especially famous for its literary schools of Preslav (now Veliki Preslav) and Ohrid.
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After Simeon’s death the first Bulgarian empire was undermined by internal divisions and invasions of Magyars, Pechenegs, Rus, and Byzantines. In 1018 Bulgaria was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire. An anti-Byzantine revolt of the Balkan peoples in 1185 produced the second Bulgarian empire, and by 1241 the Bulgarian tsars of the house of Asen (1185–1280) were supreme in most of the lands from the Danube River to the Aegean Sea and from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. But Mongol attacks from the north, Serbian encroachment on the west, and internal rivalry among the successors of the Asens eroded this second empire, and in 1396 it fell to the Ottoman Turks, who were overrunning the Balkans from the south.
Throughout the long period of direct Ottoman rule (1396–1878), the Bulgarians’ obstinate Christianity prevented their being merged completely with the Muslim Turks, while their retention of a Slavic language kept them from absorption by the Greeks predominant in the Eastern Orthodox Church as recognized by the Ottomans. In 1878 an autonomous Bulgarian principality under Ottoman suzerainty was established. Bulgaria was declared independent, as a tsardom or kingdom, in 1908.