from 200 BC to AD 1014 - dal 200 a.C. all'AD 1014
lo stato moderno nei confini attuali dal 1945 - the modern boundaries since 1945
from 200 BC to AD 1014 - dal 200 a.C. all'AD 1014
lo stato moderno nei confini attuali dal 1945 - the modern boundaries since 1945
Contents in this page:
1. Introduction
2. Ethnic Origin of Old and Modern Bolgarians
3. The origin of common scholars' theories
4. Some "pearls" of wrong Turco-altaic interpretations
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Discovering the history of the ancient Bolgarian Wakhandur tribe (WHNDR Boulgar from the Armenian sources, called Onogondurs by the turco-altaic Khazars and elsewhere Olokhontor or Alkhun), which took possession of Moesia and Thrace in 679 AC, after eight centuries of dramatic, but also fascinating wandering across Central Asia: from the Tarim basin of Xinjiang to the slopes of the Imeon mountains (Pamir), from the river Oxus (Amu-Darya) to the Caspian planes, then back to Bactria (Balkh) and Ferghana, from Ferghana back to the land between the Volga and the Dniepr rivers, and finally from the Asov Sea shores to the Danube for a last land taking.
Riscoperta della storia dell'antica tribù dei Wakhandur Bolgar (WHNDR Boulgar delle fonti armene, chiamati Onogonduri dai turcoaltaici Khazari, ma anche Olokhontor oppure Alkhun), la quale si stabilì in Moesia e Tracia nell'anno 679 d.C., dopo otto secoli di pellegrinaggio drammatico e affascinante attraverso l'Asia Centrale: dal bacino di Tarim nello Xingkiang ai monti Imeon del Pamir, dalle sponde del fiume Oxus (Amu-Darya) alle pianure del Caspio, poi ritorno a Bactra (Balkh) e nella Ferghana, ancora fuga e ritorno nelle pianure tra i fiumi Volga e Dniepr, e, finalmente, dalle terre attorno al Mare d'Asov fino al Danubio per l'ultima Landnahme.
Ethnic
Origin of Old and Modern Bolgarians
The main purpose of this work is to rehearse the history and archeology of the old Bolgarians based upon evidences of recent discovering. Everybody who's interested in Eurasian and Balkan history needs new instruments of reading and understanding the culture and origins of my ancestors.
Most official history outlines in this field follow controversial and partly misleading interpretations of Bulgarian culture and history. In this sense the work of one Peter Dobrev (Universum Proto-Bulgaricum) appears as a voice in the desert, linking absolutely logical elements known since ever, but neglected by scholars, and revealing new keys of reading Eurasian forgotten times.
The ethnogenesis of modern Bulgaria is without doubt more complex than normally assumed. Because of the following evidence, one has to abandon a theory of full slavization of a small group of Turco-altaic warriors in the 7th-10th century CE. In fact we have approximately 1:1 fusion of Bolgarian and Slav elements (Anti tribes) with some contribution of Thracians, Cumans and Pechenegs (Bachanags). The assimilation of a handful survived Huns after their military defeat and extermination at the end of the V century is more than likely, but without particular effects the Bolgarian ethnicity. The Slav tribes migrated southward from their original homeland in the Ruthenian and Baltic marshes. The proto-Bolgarians, just to use an odd scholar term for a first and last time, had already had a long interaction with iranian tribes like Alans, Sarmatians and Sogdians in the I-VI century period. The Turkish Ottoman rule from 1397 to 1887 has left a Turkish minority in the country along with a group of turkizied Bulgarians who face difficulties today to find an identity of their own.
The ancient Bolgarians (3 historically documented tribes, in some other case there's more than one doubt) came down from a population mixture of Sarmatians, Massagetai, and, most of all, of ancient Tokharians or Yüeh-Chih described in the Chinese chronicles in 200-180 BC. The Yüeh-chih called themselves Twghry which is equivalent to Tawghary or Tokhari (maybe tokh or tukh = rooster in Old Bolgarian, ari = men, people). The Tokharians-Yüeh-chih were pulled out of Xinjiang by the Huns and drove to the lands around the Jaxartes and Oxus rivers (Ferghana and Sogdia) in 140 BC, pushing the Sakas down to India across Afghanistan. Then around 100-50 BC they invaded the Irano-hellenic state of Bactria riding across the Oxus from north/north-east, accounts the historian Mandelshtam. Those people were made up of 5 tribes and had clearly an Irano-celtic culture and tongue, slightly different from the other iranic population of the Pamir, Transoxania and Bactria, but nevertheless intelligible to them.
The culture of the ancient Bolgarians originated from the culture of the Tarim basin (west from the Gobi Desert, more than 1'000 km away from the original homeland of all Turco-altaic peoples, Huns and Türük (Turks), which is called Ötüken, between the rivers Selenga and Orkhon, more than 1'500 km away from the homeland of the Avars or Zhu Zhan that lived on the Onon banks. The mummies of 3'500-1'000 BC, which were discovered 10 years ago in the present land of the altaic Uygurs (Uyghurstan, Chinese province of Xinjiang), witness of a long tokharian staying in a region far away from usual Indo-European settlements. That culture was an extension of the Afanasievo culture dating back to 3'500 BC, north of the Takla Makan desert and the Khotan oasis, south of the Tien Shan mountain chain. The Khotan civilization is an off-spring of Tarim Tokharians and Saka migrants.
According to a 7th century armenian geographical work, the Ashharatsuits, published by S. Eremyan and ascribed to Ananiy Shirakaci, "the Bolgars were among the 15 peoples that once lived in the land between Turkestan (modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and the Aryans (Bactria), at the footsteps of the Imai Mountain (Hindukush and Pamir), in the west of Syr-Darya (in the south-west indeed), exactly where the western limits of the Imeon mountains, with the impressive 7495 m high Imeni peak, meet the northern mountains or the Zervansh crests (Zeravshan Mounts) of the Pamir", probably in the Vakhsh valley! In a strange source called Apahtark, according to Peter Dobrev, there are 5 countries of which two (Sogdiana, Sakastan) are inhabited by 15 peoples like Massagetai and the people of Bolkh (Bolgars), and, behind them, to the north-west, the Horesmians. Moreover there are also 43 nomadic barbarian tribes like Hental (Hephthalites that were akin to the Arshakide Parthava, therefore Iranians), Alkhon (al = first and khon = khan to give first county lords) should be identical with the Hentals = the wide plain (from tal, cfr. German Tal, hen = wide) dwellers), Valkhon (valk = wolf and khon for khans or hans that were county princes in Parthian times, long before Turco-altaic tribes developed tribal structures led by qaghans), and many other strange names. "
The Tokharians (great Yüeh-Chih or great Moon People) had 5 big tribes at that time, and one of them, the Kushans, took over the leadership in the I century CE to found an empire with capitals in Peshawar, Bactria (Balkh) and Samarkand. The spread of the Buddhism found support in the Kushan court and that led to the development of an original culture which did not effect the other semi nomadic Tokharian tribes. The transoxanian Zoroastrian substrate had much more importance to them, along with their native moon and sun worship. Around 150 CE the tribe of the Wakhandurs consolidated in the Wakhan river valley of the Pamir. A clan named Doulo, or better Dylo (OU is a common greek transcription of Y) because of the year of kingship formation in the chinese-like 12 animal calendar, the year 153 CE was indeed a Year of the Serpent or Dyl, become prominent among them and gave birth to almost all princes in the following 7-8 centuries. The other tribes could easily have been the Utigurs, the Cutrigurs and Hephthalites (Alkhuna or Olokhontor for White Huns, Chionites and Kidarites for Red Huns in the historical sources). The time spent in the Pamir (regions today shared between Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) has forged the ethnicity and culture of those ancient tribes by means of slight interactions with Iranian peoples of Sogdia, Ferghana, Bactria and Bukhara, with Massagetai (Saka tribes) and Dahae, without producing a language indicated by the Tokharian A and B, which is the result of a strong influence of the Bactrian language on the Kushans. So, the first regions populated by the Tokharian tribes after the Hunnic slaughter in Xinjiang were the Ferghana and Wakhan valleys! Both Alkhuns and Wakhandurs began to call themselves Bolkhi meaning the strong ones around 250 CE.
The old surviving Chronicle of Michael the Syrian, also called Mar Michael the Great Patriarch of Antioch, tells of the arrival of the Bolgarians in the span 350-550 CE in southern Russia: "in those times 3 brothers came from Inner Skithia (Central Asia), bringing 30'000 Skithians with them, after a 60 days riding from the Imeon crests (Pamir-Hindukush) to the Tanais river (modern Don) that flows in the Meotidae (Azov Sea), those people were called Boulgarians by the Romans". The western migration was a result of the Kushan empire destruction by the Persians around 250 CE. There are enough proofs of a cohabitation with Sarmatians and Alans who lived around the Caspian Sea and were ethnically akin to the Tokharians. The etymological origin of some military titles like BOYLA and the features of the Bolgarian army, so different from the Kushans, find a logical explanation. The Hun onslaught put an end to this state of matter and incorporated Utigurs and Cutrigurs in the tribal Turco-altaic empire, while the Wakhandur-Bolgarians sought a return to the regions of the Oxus (Amu-Darya) and Yaxartes (Syr-Darya) trying to cross the Iranian land south of the Caspian Sea. They eventually helped the Hephthalites (Olokhontor-Bolgars, Alkhuna) regain the old Kushan territory.
The relatively short Hun dominion (375-463 CE) slowed down the building of the Bolgarian nation but left few traces in its tribes: just some altaic loan words and maybe some military ranking expressions. It is certainly true that the altaic matrix has been strengthened by absorbing the allied Cumans after their definitive defeat in the 13th century (the same did the Poles and Ukrains in their young nations). More than doubtful are ties to the Turco-altaic Avars that came to dominate the steppe and the Russian plaines for some decades, and Pannonia for 200-300 years. Though a short period of military cooperation, a slight ethnical tie should be missing because of incompatible topographic origin (Tarim river in one case, the Onon river in the other). The bloody hate that ended the Bolgar-Avar federation in Pannonia is a clear proof of that. It seems more likely that Avars are one and the same with the Zhu-zhan, therefore akin to the Huns or even one of the tribes of that ancient federation, which was almost stamped out when its generally feared brutal force vanished. Popular equations like Avars = Red Huns or Chionites or Avars = Kidarites are out of question. Both Chionites (the red branch of the Hephthalites, the white one being the Olokhontors) and Kidarites had their home in Ferghana since a long time and could not be of Turco-altaic stock.
An actual ethnographic problem is the relationship between Bulgarians on one side, and Chuvash, Tatars (or Tartars) and Caucasus Balkarians on the other. It all depends on the historical fate of Kama or Volga Bulgaria, or of Bolgarian inhabitants left in the Caucasus after the foundation of the Khazar Khaganate. Ingenuous and partial scholars derived their Turco-altaic conclusions about the origin of the Bolgarians from surveys upon those populations. The case of the caucasian Balkarians is simple: A small Bolgarian population stayed in that region under Khazar rule and was partly altaizied in the time 650-850 CE, before being completely turkizied by the Cuman-Qipchak conquest in the 11th-13th centuries. So the people denomination Balkarians was kept for an ethnical and linguistically Turco-altaic people. The birth of the Khanate of Volga Bulgaria is still unclear (maybe through Cutrigur and Utigur migration from the caucasian Kuban river after an Arab victory over the Khazars in 737). This state existed from 10th-13th century when it was raided by the Mongols. Both islamic Tartars of Turco-altaic speech in today Tatarstan (an autonomous republic inside the Russian Federation) and christian Chuvash of ugro-altaic speech (Chuvash autonomous republic) claim to be descendants of Volga Bulgarians. The altaization in Tatarstan, first by former ruling and later assimilated Khazars and then by conquering Mongols, is self evident. The Khazar Khaghanate was destroyed by Svyatoslav of Kiev in 965-969. This led in the 12th century to a bright fusion with the faith brothers of Volga Bulgaria that had accepted Islam in the 10th century by political reckoning. Only the upper Khazar layer had taken up judaism, while the warrior mass prayed to Allah. The onslaught of the Mongolians Batü and Sübütei in 1236 blew up the medieval kingdom and spread its population among Russians, Tatars and Ugro-Finns. Therefore the Chuvash found their origin in a mixture of Ugro-Finns of the surrounding lands, of Scythian remains, and of Bolgarian survivors refusing mongolian "culture"), Suwars and Khazars. The result of this is a mainly turkizied language with only few stems related to the old Bolgarian language. The Chuvash language allows only limited information about the Bolgarian culture before the Turco-altaic invasions (the artificial Z-R relationship called zeta-rhotation is a very doubtful one). Velentyn Stetsiuk is completely wrong when he sees the Chuvash as heirs of altaic (?) Scythians and of an ancient Bolgarian people that should have lived in Ukraine right from 3rd millennium BC (??). The same argues for all Tartar theories. Bolgarian descendants, if ever existed, must have been dissolved many times both in language (today totally Turco-altaic) and in culture in a sea of Khazars and Mongols. It is not a surprise that Tartars tend to identify themselves in a mythical Bolgarian past, for that culture was the only non-Slav to show an urban, an economic and cultural development proved by archeological evidence. On the other side, the Khazar capital Itil, an earlier stronghold of Attila the Hun, lays on the Caspian bottom. Nor does anything remain of wooden forts and furry tends of plundering Mongols who kept their way of living up to the final defeat by the emerging Russia of Ivan IV !
A probably Turco-altaic element merged with medieval Danube Bolgaria by assimilation of some thousands of Pechenegs (a good part of them melted up with the the Magyar nation of Hungary), which used to be military allies in many occasions during those centuries. This mixed Turco-iranian tribe failed to build up a durable kingdom in southern Russia and suffered a definitive defeat by Byzantium in 1091. Their ethnic origin is unclear. The pagan and Buddhist Pechenegs (BAJANAK is a term of Turco-altaic origin used for their ruling clans of related cousins) came from Sogdia and Ferghana and seem to have been related to the Old Bolgarians, against all Turco-altaic fancy theories. Turco-altaic are indeed the Cumans, sole case of an altaic people to become christianized. Their kingdom in Ukraine was destroyed by the Mongols in 1222. Thousand of warriors with relatives were accepted within the boundaries of the Second Bolgarian kingdom and merged with the local population leaving genetic traces still evident today.
Finally, the slavization of the Wakhandurs in the Balkan area is generally accepted, but erroneous is the estimation of its degree. An attentive analysis of modern Bulgarian language reveals numerous words with monosyllabic stems and Slavonic suffixes, absent in the other Slavonic languages. Such stems are of clear Celto-iranic origin (not Persian, not Turco-altaic). Considering all historical evidence (a minority of Bolgarians never could have opposed Slavs, Greeks, Romans, Magyars, Thracians, and Germans for so long time before slavization), one has to accept a mixture of ca. 1:1 as a consequence of economical, political but also religious evolution from the 10th to the XIIth century!
In conclusion we have to spend some time on the Bulgarian-Macedonian problem of the last century of Balkan history. A lack of honesty and common sense put more than enough fuel on fire in the Balkan area. Bulgarian nationalists are wrong in considering Macedonian people with their language only a western part of a great Bulgarian nation. If there is no identification in a common national idea, in spite of a common past (king Samuil was a monarch of Slavo-Bolgarians and Makedonia or Macedonia was a geographic term of his reign), it will not work to impose it. The result of today seems to be a late and unavoidable consequence of the early Bolgarian kingdom structure, when Slavs and Thracians were allowed to live in autonomous Buffer tribal states all around the Bolgarian core settlements centered on the Danube banks. Those peripheral populations have kept a major Slav ethnical character in Macedonia and a Thracian character in Valakia (Wlakhia), the nucleus of modern Romania.
The
origin of common scholars' theories
Before demolishing the fragile structure of all theories of Soviet, Germanic or Turco-altaic origin which are incorporated in most history books (to say Omelyak Pritsak, Valentyn Stetsiuk), unfortunately passively accepted by many Bulgarian historians as well (Geo Donev, Ivan Venedikov, just to give some references), we should take a look at their development. Turco-altaic lay upon following presumed "facts":
a) The pseudo-altaic origin of the ethnic term BULGARIA. One Kirghis tribe was called BUGU or PUGU, furthermore BULGA means "mixing" in Turkish. The Turkish conquerors saw the Bolgarians as a mixture af many different peoples: Slavs, Bolgarians, Thracians, Huns, Cumans, Pechenegs.
b) The 1st Turkish Empire had dominated the Bolgarians for some decades in the 6th century. In their lists of vassal tribes Utigurs, Cutrigurs, Onogurs and Ogurs, erroneously identified with the Onogondur-Wakhandur Bolgarians, were subjected to other true Turkish tribes.
c) The Bolgarian invasion of the Balkan regions in the 7th century occurred in a historic period that lasted ten centuries from 350 CE on, when every barbarian invasion of Europe was entitled as Turco-altaic (Huns, Khazars Avars, Mongols, Cumans), after considering purely Germanic the precedent wave (Goths, Vandals, Burgunds, Longobards, Saxons).
d) The Turkish warriors, in clear minority with respect to Slav masses, should have been slavizied almost completely with only few Turco-altaic words left in their language as traces of the origin, in order to explain the linguistic evidence of today.
e) The construction of pseudo linguistic, Turco-altaic theories arbitrary connects whatever lexical stem to Old Turkish by means of a free interchange of consonants and vowels. This kind of method is extensively used in the Ugrian and Caucasian cultural area with the purpose of making every ugro-altaic people descendants of the ancient Turks or even Sumers. For instance, the Old Bolgarians word TVIREM should stem from Turco-altaic tekuzinchi (??). No comment!
f) The Chuvash people, just like the Caucasus Balkarians, with their turkizied language, should be true and direct heirs of the Volga Bolgarians.
g) Recent archeological foundlings in the Eurasian steppes are exploited for the construction of ugro-turco-altaic myths and legends (existence of prehistoric Turkish politico cultural entities) that put every Eurasian people under the same hat. Runic inscriptions are neglected or read from right to left in a Turkish way: Just Turkish consonants with free choice of the "right" vowels.
h) Turco-altaic interpretations of royal titles (HAN should come from qaghan, BOYLA from an unknown but surely Turkish stem), of calendar terms (dilom, altom), and of old Bolgarian personal names (in Turkish Qubrat, Äspärük, Doulo = Gyula or Jula) seem to give a satisfactory result which is in reality absurd and contradictory (it does not even allow to understand grave inscriptions!).
i) Somatic and physical differences exist between a part of modern Bulgarians and Slavs like Serbs, Croats and Poles.
j) All peoples of the Eurasian steppe (Sarmatians, Scythians, Tokharians, Bolgarians, Avars, Pechenegs, Khazars, Turks, Huns) should be illiterate nomads with shamanism as main religious form, all in all part of a unique cultural Turco-tartar platform.
Behind such theories there are racist and nationalist motives. The turcophile history writing tries to build up a historic and ethnic base to an union under Turkish guide of all Eurasian nations (Turkmen, Tatars, Kazaks, Mongols, Curds, Bulgarians, Bosnians, Kirghis) in a oversized Turco-altaic and islamic community, which would spread from Volga to Mongolia, from the AdriaticSea across Anatolia to the Caspian shores. This should unify the lands of the vanished empires of Gengis Khan, of Attila the Hun, of Göktürk and the Ottomans, in the illusion that the present 21st century is doomed to witness the realization of this nightmare.
In the texts of Soviet or Russian, Magyar and German historians there is a more or less hidden racism. They display the imagine of all steppes peoples as Turco-Mongolian barbarians, primitive and brutal, even of physical appearance wicked by moral degrade, as illiterate nomads because of lower race than Germans, Magyars and Russian Slavs.
Furthermore, a good portion of ignorance and limited intelligence, thin ethnographic and linguistic knowledge (only a modern European language with some Greek and Turkish), illogical scientific approaches and very few common sense add up to all this confusion. The tendency to personal quarrels ("all other people are wrong because they do not follow my logical reasoning") and the method of endless relativization ("everybody is right, everybody is wrong", "we cannot know the origin of the present things because we do not know their origin") do produce but pseudo-scientific texts that are mediocre or even false indeed.
Some recent papers along with numerous archeological discovering have finally opened a more objective and logical way of studying Eurasian history.
First, every Turco-altaic interpretation is in reality false and erroneous because it makes use of etymological analysis of personal and geographic names, of titles and lexical stems, by means of arbitrary substitution of consonants (the famous R for Z o vice versa, N for D, G for H, L for S, and so on) with tendentious choice of vowels ("right vowels" like ä, ö; ü, i), a thing that does not need any further counter argument!
A recent ugro-uralo-sumero-elamo-turco-magiar example: the ethnonim SARMATIANS should stem from szilö (vine in Magyar) after full exclusion of R in the fancy paper of Adorian Magyar, after which the Sarmatians should have lived upon and cultivated lands rich in vines. The Sarmatians were instead warriors and plunders!
As mentioned before, the old Bolgarian cardinal TVIREM (fourth, it comes from the Avestan tuiram, a similar stem is the Celtic teoir) is absurdly related (because it must be so) with Türk tokuzinchi (number nine), or with a personal name of an unknown sovereign (Khan Tvirem??).
The most important term is BOLGAR, which those people were identified with only from the foundation on of the tribal federation of Great Bulgaria of Houvrat (in altaic Kubrat, in German Kurt). The Turkish term BULGA (= mixing) seems to fit perfectly in, but then only as designation of subjugated people, whereas the old Bolgarians suffered Turkish rule for only some decades. Now, in no logic at all, a fierce people like the tribes of the Clan Doulo would have ever accepted to call themselves by a pejorative and despising term coming from a source they hated. For instance, today's people of Ferghana and Sogdia (modern Tajikistan) call themselves tajic (this used to be a Turco-altaic term to describe non Türk personswith contempt) only after 12 centuries of Turco-altaic rule, which along with radical islamization has broken their old pride.
Furthermore, DOKHS (wild boar in Bolgarian) should stem from TONGUZ (the N ... got lost) and so on for all other terms of the Twelve Animals Calendar: CHITEM from etinchi fro the cardinal 7 and VECHEM from juchinchi for the cardinal 3, VER (dragon) from Tatar vjor (= lupo), or from ävrän (Türk for dragon), TUTOM should be the fourth month, but it is evident that we have an adverb coming from the Indo-European TU = two! In other inscriptions the explanation for ZERCO should be Türk ichirgü, for SHEKHTEM Türk säkiz through a Chuvash invented dialectal form like shäkertrm; DVAN through davlan from tabishgan (hare in Türk), or with no logic from yün (= horse); HOUMSHI from jumshak instead from Sumer-Accadian humsju (piece of cast metal); TULSHI from tulja but not from Sumer-Accadian tulshyu (helmet, a stem that had spread all over the ancient world, also among Turco-Altaians), and last but not least, HLOBRIN from an unknown Türk stem (it must be so!), instead of looking for explanations in the language coming directly from Old Bolgarian: modern Bulgarian! So hlop-vam (Germanic-Slavonic word for knock at a door or other solid surface, Russian hlopat, Althochdeutsch clophon whence klopfen) + bron-ya (armor, bruinne in Celtic for chest, brynja in Norwegian for a metal coat, brunjô in Gothic, Middle English brynie) should mean a siege war machine (armored battering-ram or a siege tower) capable of sheltering a military crew from arrows and projectiles!
The title Ichirgu (specifying Boyla) is generally related to the Türk izürgü (= inner), but much better is ichir-gaw = of this county, of a Bolgarian (ichi = this here) and Ostrogoth stem (gow or gau)! Boyla Colobur (col in Gaelic = fault + bur from Indo-European bher = to collect, to bring, to pick up, so colobur = priest, or somebody who carries the faults of the people before the gods, even better from kolo = Solar Disk for ancient Scythians and Russians, therefore the priest is the bearer of the Solar Disk in religious ceremonies or rites) should stem from Türk qola guz, a ridiculous idea like all other of the kind hutelbury = Avar-zhuzhan for ruling. Finally, the royal clan of Doulo should bear the Turco-Magyar name Jula (Gyula) with few examples from history, instead dul meant in Thracian home or family, while Dyl (OU replacing Y because of greek scribes) gave the Year of the Snake, 153 CE = dylom, when kingship was given to Avitokhol of the Wakhandur tribe that founded the Bolgarian nation! Even an Indian stem like DULAS (from the name of one of the 7 stars of the Pleiades) cannot be excluded.