Great Bulgaria: the state that existed before Kievan Rus & nbsp. Great Bulgaria

Keywords

DANUBE BULGARIA / BALKAN-DANUBE CULTURE / BALKAN-DANUBE CULTURE / SALTOVO-MAYAK CULTURE / SALTOV-MAYATSKAYA CULTURE / CREAMATION FROM ISMAIL / CREMATION FROM ISMAIL / GRAVE OF SLOBOZEY / CEMETERY AT SLOBOZIA / FIRST BULGARIAN KINGDOM

annotation scientific article on history and archeology, the author of the scientific work is Nikolai Dmitrevich Russev

Bulgaria arose in the Danube Delta region, which was an important part of the khan's possessions. After the baptism, the northeast of Bulgaria gradually became isolated, becoming a haven for the followers of the traditional way of life. Burials associated with Bulgarians balkan-Danube culture few, but varied and perfect according to pagan rites cremation from Ishmael, burial at Sadovy and burial ground Slobodzeya.

North-Eastern Possessions of the First Bulgarian Kingdom in 7th-10th cc .: History and Burial Sites

Bulgaria emerged in delta of the Danube River, which was an important area of \u200b\u200bkhan "s possessions. A? Er Christianization, north-eastern part of Bulgaria gradually got separated and became an asylum for advocates of the traditional way of life. Burials of the Balkan-Danube culture associated with Bulgarians are not numerous, but they are diverse and follow pagan rites: cremation from Ismail, a burial from Sadovo and a cemetery at Slobozia.

Text of scientific work on the topic “North-eastern possessions of Danube Bulgaria VII-X centuries. : history and funerary monuments "

N. D. Russev

North-Eastern Possessions of the First Bulgarian Kingdom in 7th-10th cc: History and Burial Sites.

Bulgaria emerged in delta of the Danube River, which was an important area of \u200b\u200bkhan "s possessions. After Christianization, north-eastern part of Bulgaria gradually got separated and became an asylum for advocates of the traditional way of life. Burials of the Balkan- Danube culture associated with Bulgarians are not numerous, but they are diverse and follow pagan rites: cremation from Ismail, a burial from Sadovo and a cemetery at Slobozia.

Tinuturile nord-estice ale Taratului Bulgar Tn sec. VII-X: istoria si monumentele funerare.

Bulgaria a aparut Tn delta Dunarii, o zona de mare importanta pentru tinuturile hanului. Dupa adoptarea cre§tinismului, nord-estul Bulgariei treptat s-a izolat, devenind astfel un refugiu pentru adeptii modului traditional de viata. Cu toate ca mormintele ce se atribuie culturii balcano-dunarene asociate cu bulgari nu sTnt numeroase, ele sTnt diverse §i executate conform traditiilor pagTne: mormTntul cu crematie de la Ismail, dinormTntul din Sadovo §i cimitirul Slobozia.

N. D. Russev.

North-eastern possessions of Danube Bulgaria in the 7th-10th centuries: history and burial monuments

Bulgaria arose in the Danube Delta region, which was an important part of the khan's possessions. After the baptism, the northeast of Bulgaria gradually became isolated, becoming a haven for the followers of the traditional way of life. The burials of the Balkan-Danube culture associated with the Bulgarians are few in number, but they are diverse and performed according to pagan rites - cremation from Izmail, burial at Sadovoye and Slobozeya burial ground.

Keywords: First Bulgarian Kingdom, Balkan-Danube culture, Saltov-Mayatskaya culture, cremation from Ismail, cemetery at Slobozia.

Cuvinte cheie: Taratul Bulgar, cultura balcano-dunareana, cultura Saltov-Mayatskoye, crematia de la Ismail, cimitirul din Slobozia.

Key words: Danube Bulgaria, Balkan-Danube culture, Saltovo-Mayak culture, cremation from Izmail, Slobodzeya burial ground.

In the second half of the VII century. along a narrow strip of steppes adjacent to the Black Sea coast, the Bulgarians of Asparuh made their way to the Danube. According to the reports of Byzantine authors, the khan "settled at Istra, reaching a place convenient for settlement, severe and inaccessible to the enemy, called in their language Oglom." Among its swamps, rivers and steep slopes the Bulgarians built a kind of fortress. Here in 679-680. For the first time Asparuh defeated and drove away the troops of the Romans, forcing the emperor Constantine Pogonat (668-685) to pay

tribute (Chichurov 1980: 61, 162). The Tale of Bygone Years noted that they came “from the Khazars, the so-called Bulgarians, and settled down the Danube, and were settlers in the land of the Slavs” (PVL 1996: 10/146). In another interpretation, the ending of the phrase is conveyed by the words “there were rapists to the Slavs” (PVL 1950: 208), which recorded the dominant position of the Bulgarians on the Lower Danube. Probably, since that time, the interdependent processes of the Bulgarians mastering the Byzantine experience and parting with the traditions of the steppe have been developing.

1. Between civilization and barbarism

Already Tervel (700-721), the son of Asparuh, intervened in the dispute over the Byzantine crown. Having moved to Constantinople "all the people of the Bulgars and Slavs under his control", he returned the power to the deposed Justinian II (685-695, 705-711). For this service, the emperor ceded some border territories to the Bulgarians, although the khan's indigenous possessions were still in the lower reaches of the Danube. This is indicated by the route of Justinian II, who arrived from the Crimean exile “to Tervel, the lord of Bulgaria,” the emperor Galiad not accidentally dropped anchor at the mouth of the Danube (Chichurov 1980: 63, 163-164). Obviously, the nearby lands on both sides of the river were the core of “Bulgaria” and were reliably controlled by the central government.

In further Bulgarian-Byzantine relations, the Slavs became a key factor. During the reign of Constantine V (741-775), many of them moved from the Bulgarian possessions to the lands of the empire, whose troops made at least five large campaigns against their northern neighbors. It is significant that in the wars with the Bulgarians, the Vasileus, like his predecessors, repeatedly sent the fleet to the mouths of the Danube. In the campaign of 756, up to 500 ships of the Romans took part: "Finding themselves at the Istra River, they betrayed the lands of the Bulgars to fire and took many prisoners." In the events of 763, the emperor sent about 800 ships to the Danube. At the same time 20 thousand Slavic warriors "from neighboring tribes" fought on the side of the Bulgarians. In 774, a "fleet of 2 thousand helandies" was put forward against them, and the Vasilevs himself went to the river delta (Chichurov 1980: 68-69, 166-167; Zlatarski 1970: 278-306).

The crisis in Bulgaria, which came in connection with the end of the Dulo dynasty, was overcome only under Krum (803-814). The invasions of this khan into Byzantium 811-813. led to the destruction of many fortresses in Eastern Thrace, and the Bulgarians took a huge prisoner from Adrianople - only men up to 10 thousand. By order of the khan, slaves with their families were settled “in Bulgaria beyond the Danube”, somewhere in the lower reaches of Seret, Prut and Southern Bessarabia. Christians, referred to in the sources as "Macedonians", retained the right to bear arms and even a military organization headed by a stratilate. The future emperor Basil I (867-886), the founder of the Macedonian dynasty (Zlatarski 1970: 357-358), was also among the displaced Romans. Apparently in the lands to the north

from the Danube delta, the Bulgarians experienced a particular lack of a sedentary population.

It is assumed that the definition “beyond the Danube” (Bozhilov 1979: 176-185), which appeared then to designate the northern possessions of Bulgaria, on the left bank of the river, referred to the territories established by the treaty with the Frankish Empire. Apparently, they passed along the Tisza to the headwaters of the Prut, and further down the river, the Leovo - Bendery line and then along the Dniester to the sea (Zlatarski 1970: 323). The Acts of the Hungarians clearly states that the Bulgarian Khan took possession of the space between the Tisza and the Danube “to the very borders of the Ruthenes and the Poles, and settled Sklavs and Bulgarians there” (LIBI 2001: 13, 25). "Description of fortresses and areas on the northern bank of the Danube" by the Bavarian geographer of the early 9th century. says that the Trans-Danube lands of Bulgaria are vast and there are five fortresses on them. Their population is very large, which, according to the anonymous author, explains why this people does not need to build a large number of fortresses (Guzelev 1981: 68-70, 80). Some researchers extend the trans-Danube territories of Bulgaria to the Dnieper (Bozhilov 1979: 183-184).

Indeed, Khan Omurtag (814-831) fought against the Khazars in the north-east. Around 818-824 during a campaign into the lands of the kaganate, the Bulgarian military leader Okorsis drowned in the Dnieper (Beshevliev 1979: 212-214, no. 59). It is possible that the ruler of Bulgaria intervened in the affairs of his neighbors, seeking to protect kindred “kavars” or “kabars” (Konstantin Porphyrogenitus 1991: 163). It is assumed that we are talking about the "black Bulgarians" who rebelled against the imposition of Judaism in Khazaria (cf. Dimitrov 1998: 21; Zlatarski 1970: 393-395).

Carrying out territorial and administrative transformations, Omurtag divided the expanded Bulgarian state into 10 parts, undermining the tribal autonomy of the Slavs. From now on, the central region, called the "inner", was surrounded by 9 provinces - "komitats", the chiefs of which were appointed from Pliska and were often close relatives of the khan. One of the committees centered in Dorostol (Silistra) was the lands of Dobrudja and the south of the Carpathian-Dniester region. The most important task of his committee was to protect the mouth of the Danube from the Byzantine fleet. Another northeastern committee, which probably included sparsely populated areas up to the Dnieper, could have been headed by the aforementioned Okorsis (Venedikov 1979: 92-95).

Around 837, the Byzantines managed to take out the captives who had been settled beyond the Danube Krum to their homeland. The ships sent by the emperor Theophilos (829-842) entered the river, on the left bank of which the Bulgarian commite entered into battle with the "Macedonians". In the absence of the main forces located at the southern borders of the country, the Bulgarians resorted to the help of the Hungarians who lived nearby. Nevertheless, some of the Byzantines managed to break through to the ships and return home with their families (GIBI 1964: 156-157; 1965: 136-137; cf. Zlatarsky 1970: 432-435; Venedikov 1979: 92-93; Dimitrov 1998: 21-22). As stated in the Old Slavonic version of this story, among the surviving Romans, the future Vasilevs “avoided the nets of the Blagars from the evil ones” (HKM 1988: 197).

An abrupt turn in the history of Bulgaria took place with the adoption of Christianity, when “the very cruel and militant Bulgarian people for the most part left idols, renounced pagan superstitions, and believed in Christ” (Guzelev 2006: 188). The feat of Khan Boris, baptized into Michael, consisted in the fact that “by the power of Christ and the sign of the cross, he defeated the callous and rebellious Bulgarian tribe, ... destroyed their altars” (Bogdanov 1980: 66). For Christ's sake, in 865, he destroyed 52 clans of the old Bulgarian nobility, personifying the top of the pagan adherents (Guzelev 1969; 2006: 188; Bozhilov 1995: 86; Rashev 2001: 124).

Meanwhile, his son Vladimir-Rasate, having occupied the throne, began "by all means to return the newly baptized people to pagan rites." However, in 893, his father, who was about to go to a monastery, took up arms, deprived Vladimir of power and “summoned his entire kingdom” - a council that elevated Simeon to the throne. The old prince had to publicly intimidate his younger son by repeating the fate of his brother in case he “deviated from true Christianity” (Guzelev 2006: 188; Rashev 2001: 150-152).

"Half-Greek" Simeon strove to create a new empire, in which Byzantium saw a threat to its existence. Therefore, in 922, the Ecumenical Patriarch assured the Tsar of the Bulgarians that the emperors "will not cease to stir up every nation for your destruction" (Tikhomirov 1947: 137). Back in 894-896. the Hungarians, having ruined the trans-Danube possessions of the Bulgarians from the Dniester to the Tisza, with the support of the imperial fleet, crossed the Danube, devastated Dobrudzha and reached Preslav. Only after making peace with the Greeks, Simeon, in alliance with the Pechenegs, crushed the Hungarians (Dimitrov 1998: 29-37).

Obviously, the isolation of Bulgaria's possessions beyond the Danube occurred as the Christianization of the Balkan lands and the influx of new waves of nomads. The influence of the Pechenezh factor became more and more significant. The Bulgarian leadership was forced to maneuver between the Byzantines of the same faith and the ethnically close Turkic pagans. It is no accident that the Patriarch of Constantinople in 917 reproached Simeon for repeated attempts “through the marriages of his children” (IDSB 1991: 83) to achieve an alliance with the Pechenegs, whose nomadic camps were already near the Danube. In the middle of the X century. it is clearly stated that “the Bulgars show constant diligence and care for peace and harmony with the pachinakits”, clearly fearing the aggression of their neighbors. The lands of the Pechenegs were separated from the possessions of Bulgaria by only half a day's journey (Konstantin Porphyrogenitus 1991: 41, 157, 163). Of course, Bulgarians and Pechenegs communicated with each other in their Turkic dialects. Mahmud Kashgarsky directly points out that the language of the Pechenegs is related to the dialects of the Bulgarians and Suvar (Koledarov 1977: 57).

The above facts reflect the close relationship of the pagan Bulgarians who remained in the steppes of the North-Western Black Sea region with the Pechenegs related in language and culture. Do not forget that from time to time new groups of Bulgarians themselves moved to the Danube from the east. So the Kavars, having lost the war to the Khazars, fled from their homes and “settled in the land of the Pachinakites” (Konstantin Porphyrogenitus 1991: 163).

As it turns out, the traditions of their ancestors were kept among Bulgarians for a long time. On the periphery, nothing threatened them, but in the Christianized lands they only retreated, taking on latent forms of existence. In the middle of the X century. elements of Turkic paganism are noted even in the reigning house. Bayan - one of the sons of Simeon - "learned magic so much that he could suddenly turn from a man into a wolf and into any other beast." Together with brother John, they wore traditional “Bulgarian dress” rather than the Byzantine style at court (Guzelev 2006: 189, 263). The royal power had to turn a blind eye to demonstrative manifestations of adherence to paganism, ranging from purely external attributes to shamanic rituals. Apparently there was still idolatry with the Tangra cult. The adherents of the old religion had to address both their deities and their fellow believers in the old-fashioned way, in the Bulgarian-Turkic dialect.

This situation in the northeastern regions of the state of Simeon and his successor Peter (927-970) contributed to the peaceful penetration of the Pechenegs here. New settlers from the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region strengthened the vitality of Turkic paganism in the Danube region, gradually giving the region a different vector of ethnopolitical development.

In modern historical science, there is no clear idea of \u200b\u200bthe fate of the population, who, after the baptism of Bulgaria, preserved the foundations of the material and spiritual culture of their ancestors, including the Turkic language and the Tangrist religion (see Dobrev et al. 2008). A significant part of the Turkic-speaking Bulgarians, deprived of the aristocracy that had become glorified and in part destroyed, were pushed to the sidelines of public life. Apparently, they survived in the steppes on both sides of the Lower Danube, including the historical "Ogl" ("Onglos") and the "Bulgarian desert" - Dobrudja, where there were conditions for a pastoralist way of life, and even in the middle of the 12th century. “huge herds of wild animals” were grazing (Bozhilov, Guzelev 2004: 379). Such politically amorphous groups relatively easily interacted with the more active pagan Turks, whose representatives, in a favorable environment, could form the core of the newly formed ethnopolitical conglomerate. This process is already noticeable in the middle of the 10th century, when Bulgaria surrendered almost all of its steppe possessions to the north-east of the lower Danube to the Pechenegs without resistance.

The accelerated layering of an essential "Pechenezh supplement" on the Bulgarian basis took place after the establishment of Byzantine rule in the Lower Danube region, where the so-called. "Mixovarvarov" (T'pkova-Zaimova 1976: 126-128). Mikhail Attaliat argues that the “Scythians” (Pechenegs) who came from behind Istra not only brought the “Scythian way of life” into urban everyday life, but also radically changed the mood of the townspeople - some of them decided to throw off the power of the Romans, using the “Pechenezh people”. When the Bulgarian Nestor, sent by the Katepan to the emperor Dristra (Silistra), who did not want to obey, found here relatives who had transferred the fortress to the Pechenezh leader Tatrush, he switched over to the side of the “local residents” and began an irreconcilable war with the Byzantines, having included “the Pechenezh tribe” (GIBI 1965: 183).

Archaeological projections of the historical picture unfolded here, although they exist in historiography, are still far from being interpreted unambiguously.

2. The intertwining of buried traditions

The Balkan-Danube culture is associated with the early medieval Bulgarians in the interfluve of the Prut, Lower Danube and Dniester rivers, which for several decades has been brought closer to the Old Bulgarian culture in Bulgaria (Vaklinov 1977), the Drydu culture in Romania (Eabana 1967), the Saltovo-Mayak culture in Russia and Ukraine (Artamonov 1962; Pletneva 1981). Despite the fact that the study of this circle of antiquities has been going on for a long time, the problem as a whole remains not entirely clear even for specialists. In particular, this also applies to burial monuments that preserved the most characteristic features of ethnic traditions of the pre-Christian era.

At one time, the point of view was expressed that on the territory of the Moldavian SSR, 4 variants of the Balkan-Danube culture should be distinguished, named after the most studied monuments - Kalfa, Khansk, Petrukh and Stynkautsy. Within the framework of the same generalization, the first attempts to analyze the burial rite were carried out (Hincu 1974: 143-147).

Of particular interest are the materials of two ground necropolises of the forest-steppe belt located near the settlement of Khan - Kapriria and Limbar, which are respectively dated to the X-XI and XII-XIV centuries. Burials here were performed mainly according to the Christian rite, but with individual pagan elements, which are more pronounced on the monument of Capraria. Within this cemetery, where 75 burials have been discovered, a geographically separate group of 8 crumpled burials and 7 cenotaphs has been identified, which do not find analogies among the 96 graves excavated at Limbar. They were supposed to be Turkic-Bulgarian (Saltovsk); their carriers had already lost their ethnographic characteristics, but still retained their anthropological specificity. At both necropolises, cases of ritual burials of domestic animals and the dismemberment of the dead were recorded, as well as elements possibly indicating the spread of the Bogomil rite of placing the dead in the grave (Hynku 1970; 1973; 1974: 140-143).

In addition, burials were discovered in a forest - the Orhei codruh - on sites attributed to the Petrukh variant. Thus, within the limits of the Lukashevka V settlement, three inhumations with a western orientation were recorded. A distinctive feature of the burial ground near the Branesti XIII settlement is the presence

against the background of the overwhelming majority of Christian-style cremation burials - 97 against three (Hincu 1969; 1974: 140).

Among the dwellings and pits at the Kalfa settlement, 6 burials of different orientations were excavated, of which only one contained things. All of them are interpreted as non-Christian, belonging to the pro-Bulgarians and dated to the end of the 10th century. - the time when life at this point stopped altogether (Chebotarenko 1973: 73-75).

The treatment of the entire set of archaeological complexes described as variants of a single Balkan-Danube culture met with rather sharp objections (Fedorov, Chebotarenko 1974; Byrnya, Rafalovich 1978; 1983; Chebotarenko 1982). As a result, the cultural and chronological attribution of monuments, including burial ones, was revised. Settlements such as Stynkautsy had to be excluded from the list of monuments of the Balkan-Danube culture. The material culture of settlements in the central part of the Prut-Dniester interfluve (variants of Petrukh and Khansk), according to another interpretation, developed in the contact zone of the Old Russian and South Slavic populations under the influence of nomadic waves that arrived here through the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region, and generally dates from the 10th-12th centuries. (Chebotarenko 1982: 41-42). Another opinion is that monuments of the Petrukh-Lukashevka type are the result of an ethnocultural synthesis of the ancient Russian population with the Saltovites who settled in the region (Rabinovich, Gukin 1991: 208-211).

After the revision of the artifacts, the Branest burial ground is considered abandoned by the Christian population of the second half of the 10th - first half of the 11th centuries, which retained some of the pagan features of burial rituals. In particular, this was expressed in the presence of a significant number of things with the deceased (more than 300 copies in total) and the cremation of individual deceased. Analysis of the grave goods - ceramics, ornaments, tools and weapons - provided grounds for determining the ancient Russian ethnicity of the monument. A comparative anthropological study made it possible to establish the East Slavic appearance of the people buried in the Branesht area, and their ethnogenetic connection with the Drevlyans living to the north (Fedorov, Chebotarenko 1974: 105-108; Velikanova 1975: 91-113; 1983: 25).

The settlement of Lukashevka V belongs to the last period of habitation of the old Russian settlement.

lukashevsky settlement. Graves without inventory were found here, two of which were made simultaneously inside an abandoned dwelling, but oriented in different directions. Apparently, the corpses of people were buried in a hurry without strict observance of the ceremony. It is no coincidence that a dog's skeleton was found near them, at almost the same level. Perhaps the discovered remains are evidence of the death of the posad, dating from about the middle of the 12th century. At the settlement, there are materials typical not only of the Eastern, but also of the Southern Slavs, as noted in semi-dugout 5 with two buried. Finds of things typical of nomads are also known at the site (Fedorov, Chebotarenko 1974: 103-105; Fedorov, Chebotarenko 1982: 30, 42-45). A typologically and chronologically similar situation with the killed people buried in the pit of an abandoned dugout was also noted at the village of Branesti XIII, which may indicate the common fate of this group of inhabitants of the Orhei Codri (Rabinovich, Gukin 1991: 213-214).

The cemeteries of Capreria and Limbar were recognized to be largely synchronous within the 11th century, although burials at the first began and stopped earlier. The burials of Capreria belong to a mixed population, including the Slavs and the nomads who settled next to them - the Alano-Bulgarians and the Pechenegs. The materials of the Limbar necropolis turned out to be heterogeneous, associated with the eastern and southern Slavs, and to some extent with the steppe people. Craniological measurements showed that the people buried here represented a "mechanical mixture". The study established the proximity of the female skulls of this burial ground to the local Slavs, and the male ones to people with some Mongoloid features. This population, which came to the Prut-Dniester interfluve from the east, revealed a close relationship with the Bulgarian group of carriers of the Saltov-Mayak culture, but in anthropology it differed significantly from the inhabitants of the Balkan-Carpathian region (Fedorov, Chebotarenko 1974: 108-116; Velikanova 1975: 114- 138; 1983: 25-26; Chebotarenko 1982: 54).

So, to the Balkan-Danube culture proper, only monuments of the Kalfa type, defined as South Slavic, were in many respects identical to the Old Bulgarian settlements that hardly survived the death of the First Bulgarian Kingdom for a long time. Four decades ago, it was about 89 monuments, divided into two groups: the lower Danube of the VIII-X centuries. - 62 settlements

Fig. 1. Burial plan No. 10 from burial mound No. 1 near the village. Sarovoe, 1990

and the Lower Dniester X century. - 27 (Chebotarenko 1969: 211-229). The latest summary data on the number of "Old Bulgarian (South Slavic) settlements of the steppe interfluves of the Danube and Dniester" relate to 137 sites of the late VIII - early XI centuries: 102 settlements were recorded in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Danube lakes, and 35 - on the right side of the Lower Dniester (Kozlov 1991; 1996: 109, fig. 5; 1997: 103, fig. 1, 3). It is significant that if initially part of the settlements of the Prut-Dniester region even authoritative researchers considered a variant of the Saltovo-Mayatsk culture (Pletneva 1967: 7-8, 12, 187-188; 1981a: 64-65; 1981b: 75-77), then the controversial monuments began to be perceived as "a single culture of the Bulgarian state of the 9th-10th centuries." (Pletneva 1990: 88).

The peculiarities of the archaeological complexes of the region of the VIII-XII centuries, of course, testify to the conventionality of their attribution to one cultural-chronological horizon. Regarding burial sites, the available data for accurate conclusions, unfortunately, are not enough. This is also the reason why geographically “wide-range” approaches cannot make the results of new scientific works in terms of either expressive or plausible (see Tepschs 1996; Musteata 2005).

Certain hopes for this have appeared recently, in connection with the publication of an interesting burial ground of the period under consideration, discovered on the left bank of the Dniester. Back in 1994, between the settlements of Chobruchi and Slobodzeya, in the northeastern part of the cape formed by the river, a burial mound poured in the Eneolithic era was excavated. It contains 43 burials of different times, of which 26 are inlet and the latest belong to the early medieval nomads. Simple pits, western with seasonal deviations, the orientation of the corpse

zheniy, the ritual destruction of most of the skeletons and the grave goods found in 14 graves made it possible to attribute this pagan necropolis, which had functioned for about half a century, undoubtedly to the end of the 8th - first half of the 9th centuries. According to the publishers of the materials, the burial complex on the left bank of the Dniester can be attributed to the steppe Bulgarian version of the Saltov-Mayak culture and, at the same time, to the early period of the Balkan-Danube culture (Shcherbakova et al. 2008: 4-6, 12, 69, 91 -92, 137).

Intake burial No. 10, discovered in 1990 during excavations of the Dnestrovsky estuary located on the banks of the Dnestr estuary near the village Sadovoe (Belgorod-Dnestrovsky district of Odessa region of Ukraine) of mound No. 1. It has been preserved in part - only the bones of the legs and part of the foot. Judging by the position of the legs, the buried was laid with his head to the west (Fig. 1). The grave pit, the contours of which were not clearly traced, was of a rectangular shape with rounded corners - 150 ^ 55 cm, the depth did not exceed 60 cm. As stated in the field diary, throughout the entire area of \u200b\u200bthe pit at different levels - from 35 to 60 cm - “fragments a broken pot (pottery) of the Balkan-Danube culture with a characteristic wavy ornament. " They are the basis for classifying the burial as a Bulgarian antiquity. Unfortunately, searches in the funds of the Odessa Archaeological Museum for these rather large ceramic fragments have not yet brought the expected results1.

1 For the information about this burial, I am grateful to the author of the excavations, a researcher at the Odessa Archaeological Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine A.E. Malyu-kevich.

In September 1990, on the territory of the former Turkish fortress Izmail (Odessa region of Ukraine), protective archaeological excavations were carried out. The excavation stretched from the Danube along the hostel of the local technical school of mechanization and electrification of agriculture, from the side of the diorama "Storming the fortress of Izmail" located in the building of the former mosque. Here I have found traces of an early non-medieval burial ground, apparently, almost completely destroyed by the cultural layers of the Ottoman period.

We are talking about three fragments of the bottoms and several fragments of the walls of pottery opened about 100 m from the Danube bank, as well as a crushed pot with the remains of cremation. The cultural layer of the time of existence of the found ceramics was almost completely destroyed by the later activities of people, presumably in the 17th-18th centuries. For this reason, it was not possible to trace it. With the exception of the urn-pot, the rest of the fragments of early medieval utensils were found in a displaced state at a depth of 0.6-0.8 m from the modern day surface - sq. 301 and 307 (Rosokhatsky 1991: 4, fig. 18, 2-4).

A pot with inventory-free cremation (Fig. 2) was found on the outlier during the transition to the mainland soil - the northeastern corner of the square. 315, depth 1.2 m. The shape of the pit in which he was placed was also not traced due to later digging. Burnt human bones filled about two

Fig. 2. Pot-urn from Izmail, 1990

third of the volume of the vessel. The cremations can be classified as clean, although along with calcified bones, several embers of a funeral pyre were found. The remains of the skeleton (fragments of tubular bones 4-6 cm long and the skull cover) make it possible to conclude that the burial belonged to an adult.

A pottery vessel of elongated proportions, characteristic of the Balkan-Danube culture, served as the burial urn. Pot dimensions: height - 26 cm, rim diameter - 18 cm, maximum body diameter - 23 cm, bottom diameter - 11 cm. The intricately profiled rim is bent outward. The neck of the vessel is short, rather abruptly passes into a steep shoulder, where the pot reaches its maximum diameter, and then tapers to the bottom. In the central part of the flat bottom there is a relief stamp - a circle depicted by a wide line, into which is inscribed a square with a cross executed in thin lines (Fig. 3).

The pot is made of dense clay dough containing coarse sand. Furnace roasting, sour. The body of the vessel is almost entirely covered by a cut-in ornament of straight horizontal lines. The ornamental field begins immediately under the rim and descends to the bottom of the pot (Rosokhatsky 1991: 5, fig. 18, 1). Judging by those found nearby in the square. 301 and 307 ceramic fragments, other vessels from which only fragments have survived can be similarly characterized.

It is quite obvious that on the territory of the Ottoman fortress Izmail of the XVI-XIX centuries. Once there was an early medieval necropolis with cremations in urns, unfortunately, completely unpromising for purposeful archaeological research. It can be assumed that the burial ground belonged to the settlement of the Balkan-Danube culture Matroska2, discovered in 1979 by S.V. Palamarchuk, located down the slope on the bank of the river. Repida, which flows into the Danube within the modern Izmail port (Kozlov 1991: app. 1, no. 40).

A close analogy to the burial urn from the Izmail Fortress was found among the rich ceramic material of the Orlovka IV settlement, located 6 km north of the village of the same name in the Reni district of the Odessa region. Opened by intelligence

2 Lifting material from the monument is kept in the funds of the Izmail Museum A.V. Suvorov.

Fig. 3. The bottom of the urn-pot with a stamp (a), a drawing of the stamp (b).

LV Subbotina in 1964, on the plateau of the eastern shore of Lake Cahul, explored a small settlement with an area of \u200b\u200b200x100 m (Chebotarenko 1969: 222-223) in 1985 and 1987. V.I.Kozlov. The ceramics of Orlovka IV, in particular 1142 fragments from building 2 (cellar), are of considerable interest. They belong to no less than 54 pots, 40 of which have been reconstructed. Among them, a vessel was found very similar to the pot-urn from Ishmael. The shapes, sizes, character of ornamentation and marks on the bottom of these items turned out to be similar up to the coincidence of details (Kozlov 1991: app. 1, no. 65, fig. 67: 33)

The diversity and "cultural hybridity" of the relatively small number of burial sites require a more correct formulation of the question of the specifics of the development of ethnocultural processes in the north-east of the possessions of Danube Bulgaria in the 7th-10th centuries. and in the same places, but after the fall of the Bulgarian statehood - in the XI and partly in the XII centuries.

In the second case, it should be borne in mind that groups of settlements such as Khansk and Petrukh - Lukashevka, undoubtedly, appeared when Bulgaria as a state lost power over most of the region. It seems that the possible participation in their formation of the carriers of the Balkan-Danube, as well as the Saltov-Mayak cultures should become the subject of a separate study.

It seems that both massifs of early medieval settlements, which are actually Balkan-Danube, arose as a result of the development of the southern part of the Prut-Dniester

the interfluve by counter waves of immigrants of different times from across the Danube, Dniester and Transnistria. The only burial belonging to the Danube group - the cremation from Izmail - fits perfectly into the circle of this kind of pre-Christian antiquities known in Bulgaria and Romania from the materials of the 9th century. The funeral monuments of Transnistria, on the other hand, are represented exclusively by inhumations. For a number of signs, they should also be interpreted as pagan, to some extent close to nomadic.

The Slobodzeya burial ground, which, despite its geographical proximity to the Transnistrian group, is located in a zone where not a single monument of both the Balkan-Danube and Saltov cultures has yet been discovered, attracts special attention. By its nature, it is certainly heterogeneous, which distinguishes it from the already known pagan necropolises of the Bulgarians. For some features (burial of scarecrows

Fig. 4. A pot from the Orlovka IV cellar (after V.I. Kozlov).

horses, the presence of individual vessels), it can be assumed that not only Bulgarians, but also representatives of other tribes, in particular the Pechenegs, were in the group of nomads who advanced here from the east. This is also indicated by the possibility of a later (up to the first half of the 10th century) dating of some of the burials - nos. 16, 17, 36, 38, 40.

The monuments of the Balkan-Danube culture are characterized by the almost complete absence of typical Christian burials and religious objects, for example, the usual and even mass finds of crosses and medallions for the northeastern lands of modern Bulgaria. This may indicate that the trans-Danube lands after Christianization,

indeed, they remained a kind of refuge for the pagans.

Of course, not all of the assumptions and guesses expressed here have found reliable confirmation. One has, as before, counting on the imminent discovery of new burial complexes of the cultural-historical circle under consideration, as well as on the improvement of methods for accurate dating of items of clothing. In a word, “the lack of elaboration of questions of chronology” as a reason for discrepancies in the interpretations of these antiquities (Pletneva 1967: 7-8, 12, 187-188; 1981a: 64-65; 1981b: 75-77) remains a stumbling block for archaeologists-medievalists.

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The formation here of the Slavic-Turkic state - Danube Bulgaria.

In 626, the Bulgarian Khan Kubrat, who adopted Christianity from the Patriarch of Constantinople, freed himself from the power of the Kagan and created the so-called Great Bulgaria in the Black Sea and Azov steppes. However, the Bulgars did not have enough strength to control such a vast territory, and in the second half of the 7th century they were forced to cede the southern steppes to the Khazars, an ethnically related North Caucasian people. One of the Bulgar hordes retreated to the north and settled on the middle Volga and the lower Kama, where later, having subjugated the surrounding Finnish tribes, formed a vast state - Volga Bulgaria. Another horde went to the Eastern Azov region (our chronicles know it under the name of the Black Bulgars). The third was temporarily isolated in the so-called Corner, between the Dniester and the Danube, under the protection of swamps and rivers.

Around 670, in search of new lands for settlement, this last horde, led by Khan Asparuh, crossed the Danube, defeated the Romans and invaded Moesia on their shoulders. The local population, already basically Slavic (representatives of the so-called Union of Seven Slavic Tribes), without resistance recognized its power over themselves; the dissatisfied simply moved to neighboring lands. Obviously, the tribute demanded by the Bulgars was preferable to the Slavs over the infamous Byzantine tax system. In 716, after a series of unsuccessful military conflicts for it, Byzantium finally recognized the independence of the Bulgarian state (the First Bulgarian Kingdom with the capital in Pliska) and pledged to pay the Bulgarian khans an annual tribute. From that time on, the North Balkan lands were finally isolated from the empire, and the Byzantine writers of the 8th - 9th centuries. completely lose even the correct geographical idea of \u200b\u200bthem.

Under King Krum (803 - 814), the borders of Bulgaria expanded significantly due to the Byzantine possessions: in 809 Sofia was captured, in 813 Adrianople was taken. His successor Omurtag (814 - 831) conquered the Slavic tribes of the Timochans and Branichevites, captured the cities of Sirmium and Singidunum, which led to the formation of the Bulgarian-Frankish border.

In 865, the Bulgarian Tsar Boris I (852-889), successfully playing on the contradictions between the Western and Eastern Churches, converted to Christianity according to the Greek rite, and five years later achieved church independence of Bulgaria from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The resettlement of Clement and Naum (disciples of the Slavic educators Cyril and Methodius) to Bulgaria led to a bright flourishing of Slavic culture within the framework of the Christian society. The translation into the Church Slavonic language of the main biblical books, as well as the works of the holy fathers, carried out by them, laid the foundations of Slavic literature.

Boris's son, Simeon (893 - 927), educated in Constantinople, ruled in a truly imperial style. He subdued almost all of Serbia, Macedonia, part of Thrace and significant areas along the Danube, expanding the territory of the Bulgarian kingdom from the Adriatic Sea in the west to the Black Sea in the east. Although his repeated attempts to take Constantinople failed, in 927 Simeon nevertheless declared himself "the king of the Bulgarians and Greeks." During his reign, the capital of the Bulgarian state moved from Pliska to Preslav, built on the model of Byzantine cities. The reign of Simeon crowned the compilation of the first Slavic code of law.

First Bulgarian kingdom (VII-X centuries)

At first, the new state formation - Bulgaria - consisted mainly of two ethnic groups: the nomad Bulgars, who assumed the functions of political domination and the organization of the country's military security, and the sedentary Slavic tribes, who voluntarily agreed to keep the newcomers in order to free themselves from subordination to the emperor. Perhaps, memories of the period of relatively mild Hunnic rule played some role in the peaceful subordination of the Slavs to the Bulgars, for the Bulgars were one of the main tribes in the motley Hunnic horde.

Assimilation of the Bulgars-Turks in the Slavic environment took place very quickly. Already in the decrees of King Krum, no distinctions were made according to ethnicity. Among his entourage were persons with Slavic names. So, the Slav Dragomir was the ambassador of Krum in Constantinople. In the future, the role of the Slavs in the elite of the Bulgarian kingdom only increased, and by the end of the 10th century. Bulgaria turned into a predominantly Slavic state.
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The founder of Great Bulgaria is Khan Kubrat, who in the Black Sea steppes, by combining peaceful - diplomatic and military operations, avoiding serious clashes, attempted to "gather the people" (his name is interpreted from the Turkic just like that: you must gather the people).

Territory of Great Bulgaria

The main territory of Great Bulgaria became the lands stretching from the Kuban to the Dnieper, inhabited by the Bulgarian tribes of the Onogurs, partly the Kutrigurs and, apparently, by the ancient Hungarian tribes.

The ancient ancient city of Phanagoria, located on the Taman Peninsula, which was restored after the Hunnic defeat, became the capital of Great Bulgaria.

Khan Kubrat, who grew up at the court of the Byzantine emperor, received an excellent education, knew many languages \u200b\u200bof the peoples of the Black Sea region, was an adherent of a unification policy.

Diplomacy of Great Bulgaria

In order to consolidate the Turks, Khan Kubrat maintained allied relations with Byzantium, which, in turn, sought to use the Bulgarians as a military and political counterweight to the Avars. Therefore, the support of Byzantium in the struggle of the Bulgarians against the Avar Kaganate for their independence was fragile. Probably, this largely explains the fragility of Great Bulgaria. After the death of Khan Kubrat in the early 640s. Great Bulgaria was divided among his sons.

Unfortunately, the Great Bulgarian stage in Russian historiography is often described only as a short-term episode, as an insignificant historical phenomenon. In fact, the culture of Great Bulgaria was not an episode or one of the bright flashes of the transition from ancient to medieval historical time, but a connecting link that ensured the continuity of the evolution of the Turkic civilization, a factor in the preservation and spread of its essential features under the ethnonym “Bulgarians” () in broad geopolitical coordinates.

Collapse of Great Bulgaria

This period is characterized by the strengthening of the new state unification - the Khazar Kaganate, the core of which is the Turkic-speaking tribe of the Khazars, close to the Bulgarians, who lived after the departure of the Huns and Avars in the western part of the Caspian region from the Lower Volga to the Sulak River.

The Khazars tried to subordinate all the Bulgarian tribes to their influence. The eldest son of Kubrat Khan Batbai, who led the Azov group of Bulgarians, suffered in the middle of the 7th century. defeat from the Khazars, became their tributary and was forced to move south to the foothills of the Caucasus. Modern Balkars are considered the Turkic descendants of the ancient Bulgarians.

The Western Group of Bulgarians, led by the youngest son of Kubrat, Khan Asparukh, went to the lower Danube, where they defeated the troops of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IV Pogonat, who made peace with Asparukh and pledged to pay tribute to the Bulgarians.

So in 681, Khan Asparukh founded the Bulgarian state. His successor, Khan Tervel, received the title of Caesar from the Byzantine emperor Justinian II, and subsequent Bulgarian rulers significantly expanded the boundaries of the kingdom by joining the former Avar lands on the left bank of the Danube.

Over time, this group of Bulgarians was assimilated by the Slavic population, but retained the ethnonym in the name of the state - Bulgaria and left a noticeable mark in the history of the Bulgarian statehood, significantly influencing the ethnogenesis of the Bulgarian people.

Creation of the Volga Bulgaria

Another significant group of Bulgarian tribes over the next century moved to the north and, passing the steppes of the lower Volga, at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries. created its own state - Volga Bulgaria. The version widespread earlier in the literature that these were the Bulgarian tribes headed by the son of Kubrat Kotrag, has recently been seriously questioned.

In all likelihood, the conglomerate of Bulgarian tribes, consisting of the Bulgarians proper, Savir, Barsil, Belendzher, etc., before settling in the Volga-Kama region, scattered over the vast territory of the Khazar Kaganate.

There, these tribes, together with the Turkic-speaking Khazars, Iranian-speaking Alans and other local ethnic groups, created a kind of agricultural and nomadic civilizational community, which was called the Saltov-Mayak archaeological culture.

This culture belongs to several hundreds of various archaeological sites - the remains of nomads, settlements, castles, cities and burial grounds dating back to the 8th - 9th centuries. They are located on a vast territory from the Volga to the Danube, although the main part is concentrated along the banks of the Don and in the Azov Sea.

Having formed in the zone of intensive civilizational interaction of many Turkic-Ugric and Indo-European peoples, this culture was a combination of nomadic, agricultural and urban traditions of various regions of Eurasia. The famous archaeologist S.A. Pletneva considers the Saltovo-Mayatsk culture, located on the Slavic-Khazar borderland, "one of the brightest and highest cultures of the Middle Ages."

The decline of the Saltovo-Mayak culture can obviously be associated with the departure of some of the tribes that made it up to the west (in the Black Sea region and the Danube) and north (in the Volga region), as well as with the weakening of the Khazar Kaganate as a result of military strikes by the Arabs, Eastern Slavs and especially the Pechenegs ...

The Volga-Bulgarian slice of culture, which has enriched the world community with lessons of both a peaceful-constructive, trade-economic, and military-conquest character, has not sunk into oblivion. He continued to exert his influence on many aspects of the common Turkic civilization.

And even after many centuries, he gave "cultural signals", manifested himself in the form of moral and ethical norms, traditions and customs that entered mythology, everyday practice and the spiritual life of many peoples - historical heirs and successors of the Bulgarians, including the Tatar people ...

GREAT BULGARIA - the union of the Proto-Bulgarian Turkic-speaking nomadic tribes, which took shape in the 1st third of the 7th century. in the Azov region during the disintegration of the Western Turkic Kaganate (see. Türkic Kaganate). From 635 Khan Kubrat owned the lands from the Kuban to the Dnieper. In the middle of the 7th century. under the blows of the Khazars, the Proto-Bulgarians settled in the Lower Don, in the Lower Danube, on the Middle Volga, where the Volga-Kama Bulgaria was formed.

State creation

Khan Kubrat (632-665) managed to unite his horde with other Bulgar tribes of Kutrigurs, Utigurs (who were previously dependent on the Türkuts), and Onogurs (possibly Hunnogurs, Khungurs). The unification of the Bulgar tribes was started by Khan Organ, Kubrat's uncle. Nikifor (IX century), describing the events under 635, noted: “At the same time, Kuvrat, a relative of Organa, the sovereign of the Huns-Gundurs, rebelled against the Avar Kagan and all the people who were around him, subjecting them to insults, drove from native land. (Kuvrat) sent ambassadors to Heraclius and made peace with him, which they maintained until the end of their lives. And Heraclius sent him gifts and honored the rank of patrician. " Having freed himself from the rule of the Western Turkic Kaganate, Kubrat expanded and strengthened his state, which the Greeks called the Great Bulgaria.

Board of Kubrat

Kubrat (Kurt or Huvrat) was born ca. 605. In 632 Kubrat ascended the throne. From the emperor of Byzantium, Irakli Kubrat received the rank of patrician.

Great Bulgaria under Khan Kubrat was independent from both the Avars and the Khazars. But if from the west the danger passed completely in view of the weakening of the Avar Kaganate, then from the east a threat constantly hung. While Kubrat was alive, he had enough strength to keep the Bulgar tribes in unity and resist danger. At about 665 Kubrat died. His grave may be located near the village of Malaya Pereshchepina, Poltava region of Ukraine, where a rich burial of the nomadic leader was found, containing a large number of gold and silver objects and a seal with a monogram, in which the name of Kubrat can be read.

State disintegration

After the death of Kubrat, the territory of Great Bulgaria was divided by his five sons: Batbayan, Kotrag, Asparuh, Kuber, Alcek. Each of the sons of Kubrat led his own horde, and none of them individually had enough strength to compete with the Khazars. During the clash with the Khazars, which followed in the 660s, Great Bulgaria ceased to exist. The ethnic basis of the Khazar Kaganate was formed by the same kindred peoples of the Hunno-Bulgarian circle.

Black Bulgarians

The eldest son Batbai (Batbayan) stayed where he was with his horde. These groups became Khazar tributaries and were later known as the "Black Bulgarians". They are mentioned in the treaty between Prince Igor and Byzantium. Igor undertakes to defend the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea from attacks by black Bulgarians.

Volga Bulgaria

The second son of Kubrat - Kotrag crossed the Don and settled in front of Batbai. Most likely, it was this group of Bulgar tribes that moved north and subsequently settled on the middle Volga and Kama, where the Volga Bulgaria arose. The Volga Bulgars are the ancestors of the population of the Volga region represented by the Chuvashes and Kazan Tatars. There were several migrations of the Bulgarian peoples to the Kama from the territories of Great Bulgaria and the Khazar Kagant.

Danube Bulgaria

The third son of Kubrat - Asparuh with his horde went to the Danube and approx. 650, stopping in the lower Danube region, created the Bulgarian kingdom. Local Slavic tribes, which had no experience in creating states, fell under the rule of the Bulgars. Over time, the Bulgars merged with the Slavs, and from the mixture of the Asparuh Bulgars and the various Slavic and remnants of the Thracian tribes that were included in it, the Bulgarian nation was formed.

Bulgars in Vojvodina and Macedonia

The fourth son of Kubrat - Kuber (Kuver), with his horde Kuber moved to Pannonia and joined the Avars. In the city of Sirmiy, he attempted to become the kagan of the Avar kaganate. After an unsuccessful uprising, he led his people to Macedonia. There he settled in the Keremisia region and made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Thessaloniki. After that, he disappears from the pages of history, and his people united with the Slavic tribes of Macedonia.

Bulgars in Southern Italy

"Slavs and prablgari prez VІ and VІІv." in atlas "Atlas of history in Bulgaria for secondary schools", "Cartography", Sofia, 1990

The fifth son of Kubrat, Alcek, went with his horde to Italy. Around 662, he settled in the Lombards and asked for land from King Grimoald I of Benevento in Benevento in exchange for military service. King Grimuald sent the Bulgars to his son Romuald in Benevento, where they settled in Sepini, Boviana and Inzernia. Romuald accepted the Bulgars well and gave them lands. He also ordered that the title of Alzek be changed from Duke, as the historian Paul the Deacon calls him, to Gastaldia (meaning perhaps the title of Prince), in accordance with the Latin name.

Paul the Deacon concludes the story about the Bulgars of Alcek as follows: And they live in these places, about which we spoke, until now, and although they speak Latin too, they still have not completely abandoned the use of their language.

Excavations in the Vicenne-Campochiaro necropolis near Boino which date back to the 7th century, among 130 burials, there were 13 persons buried along with horses and artifacts of German and Avar origin.

LESSON number 2

Ancient Turks and early states

Great Bulgaria

During the advance of the Huns to the west, the Bulgarians came to the Black Sea and Azov steppes along with other Türkic-speaking tribes. Here were the possessions of the Türkic Kaganate. Bulgarians found themselves in the position of vassals. Under the leadership of the ruler Kubrat in 632, they achieved independence. An independent state arose - Great Bulgaria. (see map )

CUBRAT KHAN RING WITH SEAL

KUBRAT-KHANA

The capital of Great Bulgaria was Phanagoria - an ancient city on the Taman Peninsula.

Crafts and trade were concentrated here. The main occupation of the Bulgarians was nomadic cattle breeding.

The history of Great Bulgaria turned out to be short. The sons of Kubrat violated his covenant not to separate from each other and live in friendship and harmony. After the death of their father, they began a power struggle and divided the land among themselves. The state collapsed.

The son of Kubrat Asparukh was forced to take his subjects to the banks of the Danube. Here the Bulgarians, having conquered the Slavs, in 681 created a new state - Danube Bulgaria.

Most of the Bulgarians, together with Batbai, another son of Kubrat, remained in their native lands. Soon they occupied the Crimean peninsula, the steppes and forest-steppe of the Dnieper region. It was in these steppes, near the village of Pereshchepino in the vicinity of the city of Poltava, that a treasure of gold and silver dishes, precious weapons and jewelry was discovered. "Treasures of Kubratkhan" - this is how this treasure is usually called, on which the name of the founder of Great Bulgaria has been preserved.

BULGARIAN SILVER VASE GOLDEN RING ORGANS

WITH THE IMAGE OF KUBRAT KHAN AND KUBRAT KHAN.

Great Bulgaria -the first own state of the Bulgarians, who became one of the ancestors of the modern Tatars. It existed for a short time, did not even have time to get stronger and therefore did not have a significant impact on the course of history.