Are there two Bulgarias? Someone tell me what the Hell is going on

Are there two Bulgarias? Someone tell me what the Hell is going on.

>bulgar khanate in romania
sutpid map

not a specialist of that but I'm pretty sure the balkanic bulgaria (also modern day bulgaria) is named as such because the nomadic bulgars (on your map, the volga bulgars) invaded and settled here.

A bit like how goths ended up in germany, "slavs" ended up in eastern europe, even though they came from further away.

at some point bulgaria was the biggest guy in the balkans, and not just because the others were small, but because they were huge.

Romanian ultranationalist spotted!

Romanians were the sex slaves of Huns, Avars, Bulgars and Seljuk Turks. The genetic signal of the Turk is strong in the Roma(nian).

Oh shit, I forgot the fucking Cumans.
Dracula was descended from them.

actually bulgars were living around the black sea and the khazar invasion made it so that some ended up on the balkans, others up near the volga

the volga bulgars became muslims and had a good time trading and generally existing until tatars/russians wiped them out/assimilated them?

the balkan bulgars, christians, are still around
that's where it was originally

The original Bulgars were Turkic nomads. Some of them went south to present-day Bulgaria, mixed with their Slavic and Thracian subjects to become the Bulgarians, the first major Slavic civilization with a written language (thanks to Byzantine priests) and emulated Byzantine culture. Bulgaria is criminally overlooked in Medieval history books. They were the powerhouse of the Balkans for centuries and had VICIOUS wars with Byzantium.

The Volga Bulgars were the ones who decided to head north and settle. They retained their Turkic culture and post-Mongol invasion, they helped form the Kazan Khanate.

Bulgaria has a lot of interesting culture and history, moreso than most other Slavic countries, especially tied to the migration period and orthodox religious history. Black Sea cultures are strange and diverse, but pretty fascinating

State gets cut in half by Khazar invasion, eventually split culturally.

Thats where Danube Bulgaria was founded, as we know from Byzantine sources.

You are just mad at the Romanian-Mongolian joint empire.

Bulgaria may be the first organized slavic country, but Russia is the most successful one, and thus has contributed the most "culture" - composers, artists, directors, writers, architecture, etc.

>the volga bulgars became muslims and had a good time trading and generally existing until tatars/russians wiped them out/assimilated them?
They fought the mongols, won the first war (with the infamous "scouting expedition" that conquered half of Russia) and lost the second (to a proper huge army). Since they didn't surrender the siege, they were all executed, and because it was in mid winter, nobody survived. A real genocide.

>The original Bulgars were Turkic nomads
Nope. No DNA trace can prove that theory. Also "original Bulgars" is nonsense.
>mixed with their Slavic and Thracian
Nope. No such thing as "Slavic subjects". It is a meme created by Russians and Greeks.
The so called alliance between Old Slavs and Old Bulgarians was in matter of fact alliance between two major Thracian tribes – Getae and Mysians. That explains why the First Bulgarian Empire became so quickly a very powerful state – related people mix without problem.
>written language (thanks to Byzantine priests)
Nope. So called "Byzantine priests" invented Glagolic alphabet. St. Kliment of Ohrid invented Cyrillic alphabet.
>Bulgaria is criminally overlooked in Medieval history books
True.

The Balkans and Black Sea regions in general have a fascinating group of peoples post-Western Roman Empire and pre-Mongols.

The Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, Khazars, Pechenegs, and Cumans left an indelible imprint in Southeastern Europe. Hell the Khazars are criminally underrated for defending against Islamic in the Caucasus. Had the Muslims penetrated through that region, all those pagan groups would've converted and it's very likely Russia would not be Orthodox.

This is an often cited theory that the old byzantines themselves proposed. They definitely recorded the same people that they would later call "bulgarian" existed in Italy as well after a point in time. How does the thracian theory cover that?

Pic related, an italian monument to the bulgar settlers, that italian historians recognize, while bulgarian historians debate.

By "this theory" I mean the one in this map, that I later replaced with the monument, derp.

>Nope. No such thing as "Slavic subjects". It is a meme created by Russians and Greeks.
>The so called alliance between Old Slavs and Old Bulgarians was in matter of fact alliance between two major Thracian tribes – Getae and Mysians

Please stop embarrassing my country and go back to /balk/

>Mysians

Wrong continent, bro.

>disdian for byzaboo

bump for interest

Pure bulgarian here.
I tested my dna and how can you explain that my proximity to other groups is like this - Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Serbia,Albania, Italy North, Croatia,France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Ukraine.
If my ancestors mixed with slavs, why am I closely related to other Mediterraneans than other slavs?

Because everything east of Berlin is slavs. Their bad blood poisons all other people they come in contact with. The only greeks left are in Anatolia and worship Allah (pbuh).

>two

Balkaria (Caucasus), Volga valley, Danube valley, Vojvodina and Macedonia, Southern Italy and Ravenna.

t. Theophanes the Confessor

Hиe

This is such a bullshit map, holy shit.
It takes the biggest each state has been, which is hundreds of years apart, and puts them next to each other as if they are contemporary.

When Danube Bulgaria was that big, Dnieper Bulgaria didn't exit anymore, and Volga Bulgaria was literally just cities along the river, not this HUGE blob.
Volga Bulgaria never build a network of fortresses needed to claim land other than just the trade routes and posts long them, meaning the river and the valley.
Of the three kingdoms, only Danube Bulgaria did that, so only they could properly blob.

The first one was Carantania

>The original Bulgars were Turkic nomads

It is unknown what they were, there are a million hypothesis about their ethnicity, some claim they were Turkic, some Iranian tribes, most likely a mixed batch.

>mixed with their Slavic and Thracian subjects to become the Bulgarians,

How can we say that the Thracians even exist at this point, isn't it a bit late?

>Volga Bulgaria was literally just cities along the river, not this HUGE blob.

And then it got even bigger.

looks hell similar to tartars territory from 13th

What im interested is Bulgar cavalry, especially their heavy cavalry, there are literally 0 illustrations i can find, wiki says they were similar to the Avars, but i can't find a single decent illustration. Pic related is a Bulgar, but the armour doesn't look very Avar to me.

Thats just a non-existing confederation of similar territories ruled by different clans. It was never a state.
Volga Bulgaria was just a bunch of cities along the river, and the armies that protected them.
They did raid and "tax" land away from their realm, but they didn't build a network to secure that, they contested it with other similar "states".

You can't paint blobs like that when talking about states of that level. They didn't exist away from their towns, only projected away to fight others and loot.

Byzantines just painted them the same way they painted their own heavy cavalry.
Chronologists just described them as clad in iron, as well as their horses, and thats that.

...

antispam pls stop

last one, just google for "bulgar cavalry" or "bulgar army" or something, and take the photos that are not obviously artist rendition.
But again, they were made by people who probably didn't see any bulgars, and just made them look like the soldiers they could see from their window in Constantinople.

>Byzantines just painted them the same way they painted their own heavy cavalry.
>Chronologists just described them as clad in iron, as well as their horses, and thats that.

Does that imply Cataphract like armor and weapons? Or did the Byzantines just not care enough to distinguish them. I find Turkic armor fascinating, and was just wondering who did the Bulgars resemble. Im well aware that the Bulgars, later on would have armor both infantry and cavalry similar to the Byzantines, but while they were semi-nomads did they have a specific type of armor?

>But again, they were made by people who probably didn't see any bulgars, and just made them look like the soldiers they could see from their window in Constantinople.

Thats probably true, are there any findings of Bulgar armor or helmets in graves in Bulgaria or Ukraine?

>Cataphract
These come from Armenia, and Bulgars probably come from the other side of the mountain, east of the Black Sea, so it is very likely they had the same technological development and military tradition.

>findings of Bulgar armor or helmets
Bulgarian ones, that is after the Danube state was established, we have.
Bulgar one, as in before the Danube state, the Russians had, but are keeping in archives and not showing. They did demolish one khan/king grave to build a factory and kept what was inside, but aren't displaying it, other than one captured roman golden eagle.

Kubrat's sword, pre-Danube Bulgaria.

Should be noted he was part of a hostage exchange with the Eastern Roman Empire when a treaty was signed, so he grew up in Constantinople, and his arms may not represent the average lord.

Kubrat's roman patrician ring, at the time the diplomatic relationship was sort of "we let you live there, as long as you kill other people who try to live there", like the romans often had with nomads they agreed to let settle near.

What ever became of the (((Khazar khanate)))?

Arabs from the south and Vikings from the North fucked them up, and they declined and disappeared.

aka they became german-pole-slavs east of rhine-danube, that and scattered into balkans, some made as far as france and beyond

>the Russians had, but are keeping in archives and not showing. They did demolish one khan/king grave to build a factory and kept what was inside, but aren't displaying it, other than one captured roman golden eagle.

FUCKING PHILISTINES, why aren't they showing it? What could they have possibly found?

Fucking nice, i love eastern sabres. Thank you for the information.

>FUCKING PHILISTINES, why aren't they showing it? What could they have possibly found?

Russia supports the "out of Siberia" theory of Bulgarian origin, for the obvious reason of claiming it belongs in the USSR, so I imagine they found something contrary to that, and aren't showing it.
Or there is just no interest for it in the museum, so it sits in the warehouse and rots, and foreign historians aren't allowed to look at it because bureaucracy.

I unironically think both are as likely.

>How can we say that the Thracians even exist at this point, isn't it a bit late?
At that time, they would be quite mixed with Slavs there, I presume.