Turkic Kingdoms: Notable Concepts and Notable Groups

Bulgars (All Facts)

• Turkic People who absorbed the remaining Huns

  • They were descendants of Asiatic nomads of the Steppes, much like the Huns before them

• They ravaged Thrace around 502, unopposed by the Eastern armies which they had already defeated in 493 and 499

• A great horse of them ravaged Thrace and Macedonia again and reached the walls of Constantinople in 540

  • They then returned home with their booty

• In 681, they founded a new empire on the Danube River delta after defeating the Byzantines there

Avars (All Facts)

• They were most likely Turkic, and definitely Turkic in terms of their ruling class, even if they ruled over non-Turkic populations

  • Appeared in the 500s

  • They were pushed west by the Turks

  • Broke ties with the enormous Turkish race around 560

• They were splendid horsemen, always ready to move on with their ruler, the Khagan (who oversaw their Khaganates)

  • Their capital of their Khaganate, called “The Ring,” always moved with the Khagan and his horsemen

• They eventually settled in the Pannonian (Hungarian) plain between the Danube River and the Carpathians

  • These developments caused the namesake confederation of tribes to migrate towards the Caucuses mountains around 560

  • By 561, they appeared on the Danube River frontier of the Byzantine Empire for the first time

• Founded two states,

  • One based in Mongolia (eastern Turks)

  • One based in Zungaria (western Turks)

• By 580, the Slavs recognized their supremacy in the Balkans

• Their military efforts include

  • 567 - Worked with the Lombards to crush the Gepids, taking over Gepid territory on the middle Danube River

  • 582 - Byzantine Emperor Tiberius II surrendered Sirmium to them and paid them a huge tribute to safeguard the rest of the Balkans

  • 592 - Began fighting against Maurice and the Byzantines

  • 617 - Along with the Avars, they arrived beneath the walls of the imperial capital of Constantinople and ravaged Constantinople’s suburbs 

    • They had completely overran the Balkans, with only a few towns still under Byzantine control 

  • 626 - Allied with the Sassanids to launch a combined assault on Constantinople, but their fleet was destroyed and their “kagan” (ruler) raised the siege, so Constantinople was saved 

• In 619, they were bought off by Emperor Heraclius to stop attacking the Byzantine Empire in order that he could focus on repelling the threat of Khosrow II and the Sassanids 

Khazars (All Facts)

• Turkic Tribe that comprised the namesake Khaganate that stretched between the Don and Volga Rivers

• Asiatic people that spoke a Turkic language

• They were Judaic but largely Christian-influenced

• They were allies of the Byzantine Empire until their collapse

• Their military efforts include

  • 627 - Allied with Heraclius and the Byzantines to defeat Khosrow II and the Sassanids in the Battle of Nineveh

  • 711 - Supported a Crimean revolt against Justinian II

Western Turks (All Facts)

• Founded a vast empire based in Zungaria in 589

• Took control of the Silk Road in 589 

Turks (All Facts)

• Were loyal warriors and superb mounted archers

• They initially did not speak Arabic but the namesake language

• They converted to Islam around the 840s

Pechenegs (All Facts)

• Semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia who spoke the namesake language

• In the 800s and 900s, they controlled much of the steppes of southeast Europe and the Crimean Peninsula

• In the 800s, they began a period of wars against the Kievan Rus and for 200+ years launched raids into the lands of the Kievan Rus, which sometimes escalated into full-scale wars

Bogomils (All Facts)

• Religious sect founded by its namesake priest which was popular in the (First) Bulgarian Empire and was largely comprised of Slavic peasants united in a political movement by their religious beliefs

• Sect that was denounced as heretical and persecuted heavily as a result by the (Bulgarian) Orthodox Church, but they stringently held onto their beliefs despite this

• Sect which believed that the Old Testament was the work of Satan, and that only the Psalms and the Books of the Prophets were true and acceptable to read and study

• Sect which held “dualism” to be true, the belief in a good God and in an almost equally powerful Satan, who created the world, the body, and all material things

• Sect whose more fervent members, the “Perfect” abstained from almost all the things of this world, including sex, meat, and wine

• Sect which believed that they were the only true Christians and that, when they died, they would become ethereal bodies

• Sect which was fervently nationalistic, their movement having reflected considerable resentment of Byzantine culture and imperial power as well as resentment over Slavic serfdom

• Sect which is said to have “taught their people not to obey their lords, revile the wealthy, hate the czar, ridicule the elders, condemn the boyars, regard as vile in the sight of God those who serve the czar, and forbid every servant to work for his master”