Volga Bulgars






History of the Huns, Avars and Bulgars



A.) The Kutrigur Huns

Soon after Attila's death a power struggle broke out, the Gepids winning over the Huns. The latter withdrew from the Pannonian basin (modern Hungary into the steppe. The Huns split in two groups, the more powerful KUTRIGUR HUNS, controlling the steppe from Valachia, Moldavia across the lower Dnjepr, Dnjestr, Don to the lower Volga, the UTIGUR HUNS in the area to the north of the Caucasus, the SABIRIAN HUNS in the steppe east of Volga and Ural. A pocket of Goths survived on the Crimea.


B.) The Avars

In the middle of the 6th century, some Mongolian and White Hun peoples were driven out of the steppe East of the Ural by the Turks. The Mongolians and White Huns appear in Western sources as one people, the AVARS. They conquered the formerly Kutrigur Hun s teppe of Southern Russia and Valachia. The Avar Khanate soon extended into central Europe, conquering the ALFOELD (the Hungarian plain) from the Gepids in 568, and driving the Lombards out of their lands in western Hungary. Like Attila's Hun Khanate before, the Avar Khanate was a state ruled by a steppe people which imposed their rule upon many subject peoples. The majority of the Avar subject people was Slavic. While the Avar Khanate was centered in the Alfoeld and in constant confrontation with the Byzantine Empire, when after Justinian the Byzantine defenses broke and Slavic incursions into the Balkans peninsula lead to Slavic settlement there.


C.) The Great Bulgars

Early in the 7th century the Avar Khanate disintegrated, the Huns inhabiting the steppe along the lower Don and Volga now being called Bulgars. Their state is known as the KHANATE OF GREAT BULGARIA. However, it did not last long; by the middle of the century, it was conquered by the KHAZARS. A group of Bulgars moved up the Volga where they established the Khanate of the VOLGA BULGARS.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		The Avars, from Peoples of the Dark Ages
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCES Colin McEvedy, The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, London : Penguin, without year


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 8th 2004

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