Old Great Bulgaria
Old Great Bulgaria or Great Bulgaria often known by the Latin names Magna Bulgaria and Patria Onoguria, was a 7th century state formed by the Onogur Bulgars on the western Pontic-Caspian steppe. Great Bulgaria was centred between the Dniester and lower Volga; the original capital was Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula between the Azov seas. In the mid-7th century, Great Bulgaria expanded west to include Avar territory and was centered in Poltava. During the late 7th century, however, an Avar-Slavic alliance in the west, Khazars in the east, defeated the Bulgars and the Great Bulgaria disintegrated. Successor states included the First Bulgarian Empire; the etymology of the ethnonym Bulgar is not understood and difficult to trace back earlier than the 4th century AD. It is believed to derive from the Turkic verb bulğha suggesting that other Turkic peoples regarded the Bulgars as a "mixed" people, and/or "rebellious". Byzantine scholars implied that the Bulgars had been known as the Onogurs. Agathon wrote about the "nation of Onogur Bulğars", Nikephoros I stated that Kubrat was lord of the Onogundurs, Theophanes referred to them as Onogundur Bulgars and Constantine VII remarked that the Bulgars called themselves Onogundurs.
Variations of the name include: Onoguri, Onghur, Onghuri, Onogundur and Unokundur. There are several theories about the origin of the name Onogur. In some Turkic languages on means "10" and ğur "arrow". Within the Turkic languages, "z" sounds in the easternmost languages tend to have become "r" in the westernmost Turkic languages. Between 630 and 635, Khan Kubrat managed to unite the Onogur Bulgars with the tribes of Kutrigurs and Utigurs under a single rule, creating a powerful confederation, referred to by the medieval authors in Western Europe as Old Great Bulgaria, or Patria Onoguria. According to some scholars, it is more called the Onogundur-Bulgar Empire; some scholars assume that it stretched as far west as the Pannonian Plain and included among its subjects some of the Pannonian Avars. It is presumed. Kubrat's grave was discovered in 1912 at Ukraine. According to the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans, Kubrat was from the royal clan Dulo and a rightful heir to the Bulgar throne. Hermann Zotenberg, while translating John of Nikiu Chronicles from Old Ethiopian, intentionally replaced the name Qetrades to Kubrat.
Since the historiography erroneously holds a misconception that Kubrat was raised and baptized by the Byzantine court, while the John's character Qetrades has no real-life connection to the ruler of the Great Bulgaria Kubrat. Kubrat managed to overthrow Avar domination, extending Onogur influence among the Bulgars in Pannonia in what subsequently became known as Hungary. However, although there is no evidence that the Utigurs were independent of the Onogurs until after Kubrat's empire disintegrated, it is believed he seceded from the Onogurs when they became entangled in dynastic wars. After Kubrat's burial in Mala Pereshchepina, the Khazars, who had triumphed in the collapse of Onoguria, subjugated Kubrat's eldest son and heir Batbayan, forcing his other sons to flee north up the Volga and west into the Balkans and Italy The events that unfolded following Kubrat's death are described by the Byzantine Patriarch Nikephoros I. In the times of Emperor Constantine IV, he narrates, Kubrat died and Batbayan, the eldest of his five sons, was left in charge of the state.
Under strong Khazar pressure, Kubrat's other sons disregarded their father's advice to stay together in order to resist the enemies and soon departed, taking their own tribes. Old Great Bulgaria disintegrated under Khazars pressure in 668; some Bulgars remained under the domination of the Khazars. Some believe that the present-day Balkars of the Caucasus are the descendants of the Batbayan horde though they speak a Turkic language of the Kipchak type, but in most Turkic languages the sound "b" became "m". After Kotrag, the leader of the Kutrigurs, took control on the western steppe, Batbayan led them into the upper Volga-Ural region. There they established Volga Bulgaria, at the confluence of the Kama; as the Volga or Silver Bulgars, they converted voluntarily to Islam in the 9th century. They managed to preserve their national identity well into the 13th century, by repelling the first Mongol attacks in 1223. However, they were subdued, their capital Bolghar city became one of major cities of the Golden Horde of the Mongols and the Bulgars mixed with the Tatars.
The citizens of the modern Russian republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia are considered to be descendants of those Bulgars. Kuber ruled in Sirmium over a mixed group of peoples – Bulgars, Byzantine subjects, Germanic tribes – as a vassal of the Avar Khagan. After a revolt he led his people to Macedonia. There he had settled in the region of Keremisia and made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Thessaloniki. After this, he disappears from history and his people were consolidated into the First Bulgarian Empire by Khan Krum. Other Bulgars, circa 662, led by their "Duke Alzeco" sought refuge from the Avars with the Lombard
Dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family in the context of a feudal or monarchical system, but sometimes appearing in elective republics. Alternative terms for "dynasty" may include "family" and "clan", among others; the longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, otherwise known as the Yamato dynasty, whose reign is traditionally dated to 660 BC. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a "noble house", which may be styled as "royal", "princely", "ducal", "comital" etc. depending upon the chief or present title borne by its members. Historians periodize the histories of numerous nations and civilizations, such as Ancient Egypt and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties; as such, the term "dynasty" may be used to delimit the era during which a family reigned, to describe events and artifacts of that period. The word "dynasty" itself is dropped from such adjectival references; until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty: that is, to expand the wealth and power of his family members.
Prior to the 20th century, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. In nations where it was permitted, succession through a daughter established a new dynasty in her husband's ruling house; this has changed in some places in Europe, where succession law and convention have maintained dynasties de jure through a female. For instance, the House of Windsor will be maintained through the children of Queen Elizabeth II, as it did with the monarchy of the Netherlands, whose dynasty remained the House of Orange-Nassau through three successive queens regnant; the earliest such example among major European monarchies was in the Russian Empire in the 18th century, where the name of the House of Romanov was maintained through Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna. In Limpopo Province of South Africa, Balobedu determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mother's dynasty when coming into her inheritance.
Less a monarchy has alternated or been rotated, in a multi-dynastic system – that is, the most senior living members of parallel dynasties, at any point in time, constitute the line of succession. Not all feudal states or monarchies were/are ruled by dynasties. Throughout history, there were monarchs. Dynasties ruling subnational monarchies do not possess sovereign rights; the word "dynasty" is sometimes used informally for people who are not rulers but are, for example, members of a family with influence and power in other areas, such as a series of successive owners of a major company. It is extended to unrelated people, such as major poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team; the word "dynasty" derives from Latin dynastia, which comes from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to "power", "dominion", "rule" itself. It was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, "power" or "ability", from dýnamai, "to be able". A ruler from a dynasty is sometimes referred to as a "dynast", but this term is used to describe any member of a reigning family who retains a right to succeed to a throne.
For example, King Edward VIII ceased to be a dynast of the House of Windsor following his abdication. In historical and monarchist references to reigning families, a "dynast" is a family member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchy's rules still in force. For example, after the 1914 assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg, their son Duke Maximilian was bypassed for the Austro-Hungarian throne because he was not a Habsburg dynast. Since the abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Duke Maximilian and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position; the term "dynast" is sometimes used only to refer to agnatic descendants of a realm's monarchs, sometimes to include those who hold succession rights through cognatic royal descent. The term can therefore describe distinct sets of people. For example, David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth II through her sister Princess Margaret, is in the line of succession to the British crown.
On the other hand, the German aristocrat Prince Ernst August of Hanover, a male-line descendant of King George III of the United Kingdom, possesses no legal British name, titles or styles. He was born in the line of succession to the British throne and was bound by Britain's Royal Marriages Act 1772 until it was repealed when the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 took effect on 26 March 2015. Thus, he requested and obtained formal permission from Queen Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco in 1999. Yet, a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time, stipulating that dynasts who
Tervel of Bulgaria
Khan Tervel called Tarvel, or Terval, or Terbelis in some Byzantine sources, was the Khan of Bulgaria during the First Bulgarian Empire at the beginning of the 8th century. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named him Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title, he was born a Pagan like his grandfather Khan Kubrat. But was possibly baptised by the Byzantine clergy. Tervel played an important role in defeating the Arabs during the Siege of Constantinople in 717–718; the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans states that Tervel belonged to the Dulo clan and reigned for 21 years. According to the chronology developed by Moskov, Tervel would have reigned 695–715. Other chronologies place his reign in 701–718 or 700–721, but cannot be reconciled with the testimony of the Imennik; the testimony of the source and some traditions allow identifying Tervel as the son and heir of his predecessor Asparukh, who had died in battle against the Khazars. Tervel is first mentioned in the Byzantine sources in 704, when he was approached by the deposed and exiled Byzantine emperor Justinian II.
Justinian acquired Tervel's support for an attempted restoration to the Byzantine throne in exchange for friendship and his daughter in marriage. With an army of 15,000 horsemen provided by Tervel, Justinian advanced on Constantinople and managed to gain entrance into the city in 705; the restored emperor executed his supplanters, the emperors Leontius and Tiberius III, alongside many of their supporters. Justinian awarded Tervel with many gifts, the title of kaisar, which made him second only to the emperor and the first foreign ruler in Byzantine history to receive such a title, a territorial concession in northeastern Thrace, a region called Zagora. Whether Justinian's daughter Anastasia was married to Tervel as had been arranged is unknown. Only three years however, when Justinian II consolidated his throne he violated this arrangement and commenced military operations to recover the ceded area but Khan Tervel routed the Byzantines at the Battle of Anchialus in 708. In 711, faced by a serious revolt in Asia Minor, Justinian again sought the aid of Tervel, but obtained only lukewarm support manifested in an army of 3,000.
Outmaneuvered by the rebel emperor Philippicus, Justinian was captured and executed, while his Bulgarian allies were allowed to retire to their country. Tervel took advantage of the disorders in Byzantium and raided Thrace in 712, plundering as far as the vicinity of Constantinople. Given the chronological information of the Imennik, Tervel would have died in 715. However, the Byzantine Chronicler Theophanes the Confessor ascribes Tervel a role in an attempt to restore the deposed Emperor Anastasius II in 718 or 719. If Tervel had survived this long, he would have been the Bulgarian ruler who concluded a new treaty with Emperor Theodosius III in 716. However, elsewhere Theophanes records the name of the Bulgarian ruler who concluded the treaty of 716 as Kormesios, i.e. Tervel's eventual successor Kormesiy, it is probable that the chronicler ascribed the events of 718 or 719 to Tervel because this was the last name of a Bulgar ruler that he was familiar with, that his sources had been silent about the name, as in his account of the siege of Constantinople.
According to another theory Kermesios was authorized by Tervel to sign the treaty. Most researches agree that it was during the time of Tervel when the famous rock relief the Madara Rider was created as a memorial to the victories over the Byzantines, to honour his father Asparukh and as an expression of the glory of the Bulgarian state. On 25 May 717 Leo III the Isaurian was crowned Emperor of Byzantium. During the summer of the same year the Arabs led by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik crossed the Dardanelles and besieged Constantinople with a large army and navy. Leo III made a plea to Tervel for help, relying on the treaty of 716 and Tervel agreed; the first clash between the Bulgarians and the Arabs ended with a Bulgarian victory. During the first stages of the siege the Bulgarians appeared in the Muslim rear and large part of their army was destroyed and the rest were trapped; the Arabs built two trenches around their camp facing the walls of the city. They persisted with the siege despite the severe winter with 100 days of snowfall.
In the spring, the Byzantine navy destroyed the Arab fleets that had arrived with new provisions and equipment, while a Byzantine army defeated Arab reinforcements in Bithynia. In early summer the Arabs engaged the Bulgarians in battle but suffered a crushing defeat. According to Theophanes the Confessor, the Bulgarians slaughtered some 22,000 Arabs in the battle. Shortly after, the Arabs raised the siege; the Byzantine-Bulgarian victory of 718 and the victory of the Frankish king Charles Martel in the battle of Tours stopped the Muslim advance in the interior of Europe. In 719 he again interfered in the internal affairs of the Byzantine Empire when the deposed emperor Anastasios II asked for his assistance to regain the throne. Tervel sent troops. Anastasios marched to Constantinople. In the meantime Leo III sent a letter to Tervel in which he conjured him to respect the treaty and to prefer peace to war; because Anastasios was abandoned by his supporters, the Bulgarian ruler agreed to the pleas of Leo III and broke relations with the usurper.
He sent to Leo III many of the conspirators who had sought refuge in Pliska. Tervel Peak on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named
Theophanes the Confessor
Saint Theophanes the Confessor was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy, who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking up the religious life. Theophanes attended the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 and resisted the iconoclasm of Leo V the Armenian, for which he was imprisoned, he died shortly after his release. Theophanes is venerated on March 12 in the Roman Catholic Church. Theophanes was born in Constantinople of wealthy and noble iconodule parents: Isaac, imperial governor of the islands of the Black Sea, Theodora, of whose family nothing is known, his father died when Theophanes was three years old, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V subsequently saw to the boy's education and upbringing at the imperial court. Theophanes would hold several offices under Leo IV the Khazar, he convinced his wife to lead a life of virginity. In 799, after the death of his father-in-law, they separated with mutual consent to embrace the religious life, she chose a convent on an island near Constantinople, while he entered the Polychronius Monastery, located in the district of Sigiane, near Cyzicus on the Asian side of the Sea of Marmara.
He built a monastery on his own lands on the island of Calonymus, where he acquired a high degree of skill in transcribing manuscripts. After six years he returned to Sigriano, where he founded an abbey known by the name "of the big settlement" and governed it as abbot. In this position of leadership, he was present at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, signed its decrees in defense of the veneration of icons; when Emperor Leo V the Armenian resumed his iconoclastic warfare, he ordered Theophanes brought to Constantinople. The Emperor tried in vain to induce him to condemn the same veneration of icons, sanctioned by the council. Theophanes was cast for two years suffered cruel treatment. After his release, he was banished to Samothrace in 817, where overwhelmed with afflictions, he lived only seventeen days, he is credited with many miracles that occurred after his death, which most took place on 12 March, the day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. At the urgent request of his friend George Syncellus, Theophanes undertook the continuation of Syncellus' Chronicle, during the years 810 to 815.
The language used occupies a place midway between the vernacular Greek. He arguably made use of three main sources: first, material prepared by Syncellus. Cyril Mango has argued that Theophanes contributed but little to the chronicle that bears his name, that the vast bulk of its contents are the work of Syncellus. Theophanes' part of the chronicle covered events from the accession of Diocletian in 284 to the downfall of Michael I Rhangabes in 813; this part of the chronicle is valuable for having preserved the accounts of lost authorities on Byzantine history for the seventh and eighth centuries that would be otherwise have been lost. The work consists of two parts, wherein the first provides a chronological history arranged per annum, the second contains chronological tables that are regrettably full of inaccuracies, it seems that Theophanes had only prepared the tables, leaving vacant spaces for the proper dates, but that these had been filled out by someone else. In the chronological first part, in addition to reckoning by the years of the world and the Christian era, Theophanes introduces in tabular form the regnal years of the Roman emperors, of the Persian kings and Arab caliphs, of the five ecumenical patriarchs, a system which leads to considerable confusion, therefore of little value.
The first part, though lacking in critical insight and chronological accuracy surpasses the majority of Byzantine chronicles. Theophanes's Chronicle is valuable beginning with the reign of Justin II, as in his work, he drew upon sources that have not survived his timesTheophanes' Chronicle was much used by succeeding chroniclers, in 873–875 a Latin compilation was made by the papal librarian Anastasius from the chronicles of Nicephorus, George Syncellus, Theophanes for the use of a deacon named Johannes in the second half of the ninth century and thus was known to Western Europe. There survives a further continuation, in six books, of the Chronicle down to the year 961 written by a number of anonymous writers, who undertook the work at the instructions of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Krumbacher, C.. Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur. Attribution: This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Mershman, Francis. "St. Theophanes". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia.
14. New York: Robert Appleton; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Theophanes". Encyclopædia Britannica. 26. Cambridge University Press. Endnotes: Editions of the Chronicle: Editio princeps, Jacques Goar J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cviii
