So here's a brief rundown of the events that led to the formation of the Post-Attila Kutrigur/Utigur Hunnic state:
In 453 AD, as we all know, Attila died due to Cirrhosis of the liver. Attila had gained his position as ruler of the Huns by assassinating the ruler of the Eastern (and dominate) half of the Hunnic realm: Bleda. This constituted a massive political upheaval and led to the rebellion of the Akatir Huns (Acatziri), the most powerful Hunnic group in the East which Attila suppressed before it could do any real damage.
Upon Attila's death his son Illak (Ellac) was the king of the Akatir Huns, which led to a succession dispute for the Hunnic realm: would the traditional method of rule reassert itself, or would the Western King remain dominant? The problem was that Attila had appointed many Huns, or Germanics, as princes over the various Germanic nations who had enjoyed the shift in Hunnic power. Chief amongst these was Ardaric (Ardareiks), whom Kim believes to be a Hun but is probably a Germanic appointed as a Hun prince. When Ellak brought the Akatir Hunnic army and the other Eastern Hunnic groups down into Hungary to assert dominance, this culminated in the Battle of Nedao where the Western Hunnic groups and the Germanics (Gepids, Amal Goths, Iazyges Sarmatians, Suebi, Scirii, Heruli, Rugii, etc) that supported continued Western Hunnic rule came into conflict. Unfortunately for Ellac, this culminated in his death and the weakening of Hunnic power in the Carpathian region.
However, the disputes between Hunnic princes and Attila's sons ultimately began to untangle the Western Hunnic state. The Ultzinzur* Huns, under Emnetzur and Ultzindur, on the right bank of the Danube in the region of Oescus, split off. The Goths of Valamir, formerly a Hunnic vassal, also broke off, and went to war with the Scirii. However, the Hunnic kingdom, now under Dengzich in the West and Ernak in the East, was called in by the Scirii against the Goths of Valamir.
The Huns were experiencing other problems at that time: when the Huns had in large part migrated out of Central Asia, they left behind many of their subjugated Dingling/Tingling peoples, i.e. the original Oghur-Turkic speaking tribes. These tribes would unite into the Tiele confederation, which included the Onoghurs (Ten Oghurs), Saraghurs (White [implying West] Oghurs), Oghurs (called Ourogs by Priscus... IIRC this depends on your translation of Priscus), Barsils, and other peoples. They were driven west by the Sabirs, who Kim suggests were the remnants of the collapsed Xianbei confederation and long-time enemies of the Huns, who were living in Western Mongolia bordering the Tiele Confederation in Kazakhstan (who bordered both the Yueban Huns and the Hepthaltite Var/Hua). The Sabirs were being driven West by the Rouran, i.e. the Central Asian Avars (not to be confused with the Eurasian Avars i.e. the Varkhionitai). This led to the overthrow of the Kidarite/Khionite ("Red Hun") Dynasty by the Hepthaltite ("White Hun") Dynasty, and pushed the Tiele Confederation past the Aral Sea, over the Volga, and into the Huns.
In 463 AD the Saraghurs defeated the largest of the Hunnic groups under Ernak, the Akatir Huns (Acatziri). Faced with Hunnic resistance, they would turn South and raid across Transcaucasia in 467/468. The Onoghurs would settle, according to Menander in the 6th century, along the Kuban and the lower Don just East of the Sea of Asov and the Roman/Gothic/Akatir Huns on and around the Crimea. This was a perfect position for them to raid into Lazica, which they would later do. The Barsils, it is believed, settled in the Volga delta, while it is known the Sabirs settled in the Dagestan/Derbent region.
With pressure from the East, Ernak did not provide support of the Eastern half of the Hunnic Empire to Dengzich, which would ultimately result in disaster. Dengzich marched South West and joined with the loyal Scirii of Odoacer (now back in Carpathia after an extended stay in Gaul), and with a surprise attack subjugated the Goths of Valamir, killing him and forcing Thuidimer and Vidimer to swear loyalty to him. The Ultzinzur Huns also quickly joined up under Dengzich. However, Dengzich had to rely heavily on his unreliable Gothic subjects, and the Bittugur Huns. In 466 Dengzich, at the height of his power, demanded a treaty and a market for the Romans and Huns to trade, along with other concessions they had previously given to Attila, but he was denied.
Anagast, son of Arnegisclus who was slain by Attila at the river Utus, was sent with the Thracian Army (or what little had been rebuilt of it probably) with generals Basiliscus, the Goth Ostryis, and the Hun Chelchal. The Romans laid siege to the forces of Dengzich's Goths in a valley, after separating them from the main army, and sent ambassadors to the Goths. The Hun Chelchal persuaded the Goths that the Emperor had come to a concession and had granted lands to the Huns with them, but not to the Goths of Thuidimer and Vidimer, who promptly slaughtered the Hunnic forces. However, they figured out they had been decieved and attacked the Roman Battle line. Although they broke through and escaped, they suffered heavy losses from the Romans. Anagast continued his campaign with a force of Bucellarii for another 2 years, eventually resulting in peace and settlement of the Goths.
The Romans came to a treaty with the Amal Goths and settled them in Thrace, but unsatisfied with their holdings the Goths attacked the Sadages (possibly a Hunnic people) who had allied themselves with Dengzich. Dengzich gathered the Angisciri (Sciri?), Bittugur Huns, Bardor Huns, and Ultinzur Huns with him and attacked the Goths at the Battle of Bassianae in Moesia, but was defeated and the Huns permanently crushed. Anagast, fittingly enough, was the one who defeated Dengzich (son of Attila who had killed his father) and brought his head to Constantinople and displayed it on a stake upon the great walls.
Ultimately this led to the utter collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the Carpathian region, leaving Ernak as the sole ruler in the Pontic region. According to the Bulgar Prince list, Ernak was the founding ruler of the "Bulgar" Huns. Ernak subdued many of the incoming Oghur peoples, and assimilated them due to their shared language (Oghur Turkic i.e. Hunnic). These peoples, after all, had formerly been members of the Hunnic Central Asian state prior to 370, or of the Yueban Hunnic state. Procopius and Menander both record that two sons named Kutrigur and Utigur were given power by a single ruler. The names were eponymous, where effectively he took the names of the states and applied them to two real Hunnic succesors of unknown name. But the names "Kutrigur" (9 Oghurs) and "Utigur" (30 Oghurs) both clearly indicate that there was a permanent Oghur turkic impact on the Hunnic people (Xiongnu/Hunyu/Huna/Yueban/Kidarite/Khionite/Chunni/etc. etc.). The Utigurs followed the tradition of precedence, being the Eastern tribe.
Procopius places the Kutrigurs in the "greater part of the plains" west of the Sea of Asov, while he places the Utigurs in the Kuban region East of said sea (with the Onoghur Huns). When Menander records that Sandilikh, king of the Utigurs, was contacted by the envoys of Justinian to encite him to war against the Kutrigurs, he replied that it would be "unholy" and "improper" to attack his fellow tribesmen. The Onogurs, also in the Kuban/Don region, were evidently also part of this Hunnic state, and finally the old Akatir Huns were its fourth component (presumably alongside the Onogurs as the subsidiary wings like in the old Xiongnu state). When Justinian recieves the Avar ambassador Targites, he also distinctifies that he will not pay the same tribute to the Avars as he did to the Huns before them, mentioning the Kutrigur and Utigur states by name alongside the term. These three peoples together seem to have adopted a new ethnic self-identification according to Kim, calling themselves "Bulgar", or that "Bulgar" was simply an alternative name for "Huns". Meanwhile Kutrigur, Utigur, and Onogur were not ethnic identifications but rather socio-military and socio-political organizations of these peoples (9, 30, and 10 tribes). The fact of the matter is that the term "Hun" did not begin usage as a generic term for steppe nomads until the 7th century theophylact Simocatta, who applies the name to both the Avars and Turks.
However, Roman subterfuge, by sending gifts only to Sandilikh and not to Zabergan of the Kutrigurs, and telling Sandilikh of the Kutrigur expedition against the Romans, eventually caused him to succumb and attack the Kutrigurs, resulting in a war that broke the power of both halves of the Pontic Hunnic state and resulted in their absorption by the incoming Avars.
Meanwhile the Onogur, Barsil, and other Caucasian Huns would have as much success against the Romans and Sassanids in Transcaucasia as the Kutrigurs and Utigurs did in Thrace. Part of the Caucasian huns would end up persisting for centuries, largely within the Khazar Khaganate (believed to be formed out of the Gokturks and Khwarzermian Var/Hepthaltites). Mentioned amongst the peoples of the Khazars, was a Hunnic hereditary state in the Sulak River basin.
However, the majority of the Pontic and Caucasian Huns were swallowed by the Avar Khaganate. In 557, the Barsil, Onogurs, and the Sabirs (possibly Huns, more likely Xianbei) submitted to Avar Hegemony. They then swallowed the feuding Kutrigur and Utigur Huns, and effectively completely re-established Attila's Empire reigning from the Pontic Steppes West of the Don to Hungary, and defeating the Franks of Sigibert, vassalizing the Gepids, adopting Oghur Turkic as their language, and a new Royal Dynasty (The Avar Dynasty, rather than the Attilid Dynasty, just like the Gokturk dynasty overcame the Hepthaltite dynasty which replaced the Kidarite/Chionite dynasty).** By 568 the Avars had ravaged as far south as Athens, and by 584 the Romans were paying a tribute of 80,000 solidi a year. In 626 AD, they even laid siege to Constantinople, although in an alliance with the Sassanid Persians, and they ultimately failed.
After the siege failed, the Avar empire split in half when the Attilids rose up against them. The Pontic steppes became Old Great Bulgaria under the Onogur Huns and Kutrigur Huns ruled by Kubrat, who in turn were crushed by the Khazars and formed Danubian Bulgaria and Volga Bulgaria (which included the Sabirs), neither of which would live up to the power of the Attilid or Avar dynasties before them. The Remnants of the Avars would be dismantled in 896 when the Finno Ugric Magyars under the Arpad dynasty would come into Hungary and create that nation. Danubian Bulgaria, another descendant of the true Hunnic state under the Attilids, would last until 1014 when the Roman Emperor Basil II Bulgaroktonos reconquered the Balkans.
So give or take some stuff, the Armenian source Movses Khorenats'i is right. His description of the migration of the Bulgars was in fact the migration of the Huns, but not through Central Iran and not at the time FrozenmenSS believes it to be.
This is the first mention, an event thought to be contemporary to the campaign of the Armenian ruler Varazdat:
"...
named Basen by the ancients... and which were afterwards populated by immigrants of the vh' ndur Bulgar Vund, after whose name they (the lands) were named Vanand..."
The second mention is of the actual migration is thought to have been during Arshak III's reign:
"
...great disturbances occurred in the range of the great Caucasus mountain, in the land of the Bulgars, many of whom migrated and came to our lands and settled south of Kokh..."
(Translations found in this piece:
http://www.kroraina.com/p_bulgar/p_bulg1a.htm)
So he is describing the coming of the Attilid Huns, and the settlement of the Caucasian Huns. Many Huns would raid down into Persarmenia from roughly 395-531, and it's possible some would even settle there certainly. In the time he was writing (he lived from 410-490 AD), the Huns were given or would be given the ethnonym Bulgar in c. 480 AD.
This post largely de-garbles much of what I said earlier, so I do need to retract a few of my prior statements.
I highly recommend everyone here read this book, for free, online:
https://www.academia.edu/9609971/Stu...rasian_Steppes
*Not to be confused with the Altziagiri of Jordanes, who do not appear to be a hunnic group but simply a corruption of Ultzincur/Altzincur: the title of a member of the Hunnic council of Six lords.
**It should be noted that I am not suggesting this was a simple Dynastic change like when a new Emperor came to the throne in the Roman Empire. This was a violent subjugation of a rival nation and incorporation of its Dynasty into their own Steppe Empire. The overthrow of the Avars by the Attilids after 626 would be likewise comparable to the overthrow of the Arsacids by the Sassanids from 198-217 AD. Kubrat's Old Great Bulgaria, therefore, is not a direct continuation of the Hunnic Empire of Attila or his sons, unlike the Kutrigur/Utigur Bulgars, but could be considered a successor state.
The Origin of the Huns
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Originally Posted by Magister Militum Flavius Aetius
