[Faction Research Thread] The Avars

[Nakharar]

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[daxter]

<H1 class=firstHeading>Eurasian Avars


The Avars were a highly organized and powerful multi-ethnic tribal confederation, with a Turkic core of aristocratic nomads, governed by a central ruler (khagan) [2]. They appeared in Central and Eastern Europe in the 6th century. Avar rule persisted over much of the Pannonian plain up to the early 9th century.:hmmm:

Origins
The origin of the European Avars is unclear. Information is derived primarily from the works of Byzantine historians Menander Protector and Theophylact Simocatta. The confusion is compounded by the fact that many clans carried a particular name because they believed it to be prestigious, or it was attributed to them by outsiders describing their common characteristics, believed place of origin or reputation.[3] Such a case has been seen repeatedly for many nomadic confederacies.
According to the research of historian András Róna-Tas[4], the Avars formed in central Asia through a fusion of several tribal elements, in the classical age. Rona-Tas suggests that Turkic Oghurs migrated to the Kazakh steppe, possibly moving south to inhabit the lands vacated by the Huns. Here they interacted with a body Indo-European-speaking Iranians – forming the Xionites (Hunas). Sometime during the 460s, they were subordinated by the Mongolic Ruanruan. The Ruanruan imposed their own rulers– referred to as Uar -at the head of the confederacy. Being a highly cultured people, the Ughurs rose to prominence within the tribal confederacy. The 6th century historian Menander Protector noted that the language of the Avars was the same (possibly meaning similar) as that of the Huns. If language is an indicator of origin, this supports the theory that they might have been an Oghuric Turkic people[5]. The connection with the Rouran has prompted some scholars to suggest that the European Avars’ ruling core was Mongolic, although this has been disputed by others.[6]

Central Asia c. 500 AD, showing possible homelands of the Avars


Early in the sixth century, the confederacy was conquered by the Gokturk empire (the Gokturks were previously yet another vassal tribal element under Ruanruan supremacy). In his History of the World, Theophylact Simocatta noted that the (Gok)Turks “enslaved the entire Ohgur tribe, which was one of the most powerful, .. and was accomplished in the art of war”. One body of people, perhaps wishing to evade Gokturk rule, escaped and migrated to the northern Caucasus region c. 555 AD. According to Simocatta, their new neighbours believed them to be the true Avars. They established diplomatic contact with the Byzantines, and the other nomadic tribes of the steppes lavished them with gifts. However, the Gokturks later persuaded the Byzantines that these nomads were not the real Avars, but were instead a group of "fugitive Scythians" who had fled from the Gokturks and stolen the prestigious name of Avar[7]. Hence they have subsequebtly called pseudo-Avars (or Eurasian Avars).
For all the theories, historian Walter Pohl asserted in 1998, instancing the detailed attempts made by H. W. Haussig in 1953[8] and K. Czeglèdy in 1983[9] and his own methodological objections[10]:"It is pointless to ask who exactly the forefathers of the European Avars were. We only know that they carried an ancient, very prestigious name (our first hints to it date back to the times of Herodotus); and we may assume that they were a very mixed group of warriors who wanted to escape domination by the Gokturks."[11] If the Avars were ever a distinct ethnic group, that distinction does not seem to have survived their centuries in Europe. Being an 'Avar' seems to have meant being part of the Avar state (in a similar way that being 'Roman' ceased to have any ethnic meaning).What is certain, by the time they arrived in Europe, the Avars were a heterogeneous, polyethnic people [12][13]. Modern research shows[14] that each of the large confederations of steppe warriors (such as the Scythians, Xiongnu, Huns, Avars, Khazars, Cumans, Mongols, etc.) were not ethnically homogeneous, but rather unions of multiple ethnicities. The skeletons found in European Avar graves show heterogeneity, including some Asiatic features.

The Early Avar Period (580-670)
Like Attila before him by about 580 the Avar Khagan, Bayan, established supremacy over practically all Slavic, Hunno-Bulgar, and Germanic tribes.[19] When the Eastern Roman Empire was unable to pay subsidies or hire Avar mercenaries, the Avars raided Rome's Balkan communities. According to Menander, to sack Dalmatia in 568, Bayan commanded ten thousand “Kutrigurs” effectively cutting Byzantium's land link with North Italy and the West. However, during Maurice’s Balkan campaigns in the 590s Avars experienced setbacks. Being defeated in their homeland, some Avars defected to the Byzantines in 602,[20] but Emperor Maurice decided against returning home as was customary, but rather to maintain his army camp beyond the Danube throughout the winter, which caused the army to revolt (602). This gave the Avars a desperately needed respite. The ensuing civil war prompted a Persian invasion and after 615 gave the Avars a free hand in the undefended Balkans. An invasion of northern Italy was attempted in 610. Payments in gold and goods reached the record sum of 200,000 solidi shortly before 626

PICS INFO HISTORY YOU NAME IT! CAN`T POST COPYWRITED MATERIAL SO WERE IT IS
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...6/Khazar_1.gif


http://steppes.proboards23.com/index...int&thread=439

http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/page2.html

[Sebulba]

Avar Helmet from VII century found in Niederstotzingen
http://anter.boo.pl/oferta/oferta.php?id=wczesne/hlam

[Boztorgai_Khan]

I Think this is my Work :original:

Now here we go. :wink:




the Avar Khaganate ( Khanate, Empire )


Alleged flag of the Avar Empire

Official description: Founded by Bayan Khan ( Khagan ), covering the area between the Volga River, Hungary and Bessarabia.
Additional information: Avars were a nomadic Turkish or Mongol people which, in the late VIth century AD invaded the plain of Hungary and set up a powerful kingdom, even besieging Constantinople. They declined in the VIIIth century, until defeated by Charlemagne at the end of the VIIIth century.
Flag: The alleged flag of the Avar Empire is green with a black rider shooting backwards with a bow.


The word Bayan (Mongolian: Баян, rich) is a common part of geographic names in both Mongolia and Inner Mongolia:


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Uar, Chinese: 滑; Pinyin: Huá (for Chinese etymology see Huá ), was the self designation used by the dominant ethnicity in a confederation known to the Chinese as the Yanda and to the west as the Hephthalites. It was the largest of one of the three ethnic components constituting the Hephthalite federation. Peoples with similar ethnicons had been present along the Silk Road for centuries, and several of the Central European family names actually derive from the names of such tribes. The Chinese classic Liang Zhigongtu describes them as originating in the Hua (state) (cf. Mongolia). Simokattes's term Uar is also sometimes written War or Var. The variation Huá, is the name the Hephthalite polity used of themselves according to the Chinese classic Liang chih-kung-t'u.
Theophylaktos Simokattes, mentions the Hunnoi as the other major component under the Hephthal ruling elite. They are identified as the "true" Avars of the east; the true political force behind what Simokattes calls the "Pseudo-Avars" who eventually settled down in Transylvania. This was in response to the Göktürks who encouraged the Byzantines to regard the Avar people (associated with the Uyghurs?) who entered Europe as Pseudo-Avars.
(Chinese: 滑国; Pinyin: Huáguó) refers to Hua (state), which according to the "Book of Liang" and the "Liang Zhigongtu" was the origin of the Hephthalite country's Uar polity.

According to Ferdowsi their legendary ancestor was Afrasiabus. The sketch exhibited in the Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang depicts the Uar\Huá envoy as East Asian and this along with J. Marquart's discovery of many similarities between the terms for the Hephthalites in India and words in the Mongolian language such as the term Khagan, have led scholars to believe that at least a portion of their population had to have been of proto-Mongolic origin, while some of their practices remind us of Hūsìmì. This implies the diverse range of peoples under the Hepthalite dynasty. Like Procopius, contemporary Chinese chroniclers had their own theories about the origins of the Hephthalite and their "Uar" polity.
either the Hepthalites were related in some way to the Visha (Indo-Europeans known to the Chinese as the The Clan of Yue), originally pronounced something like *wor, though based in Turpan and conquered by the Rouran, they came from Pingyang and originally Hua (state) and were important in the early Jade trade. Pingyang remains the centre of the Huá clan even today.
or they were a branch of the Kang Chu-Gaoche descended from the general Bahua, based in Turpan they sided with the Southern Xiongnu of Pingyang against the Northern Xiongnu (hence the Huá clan's presence in Pingyang) but were later conquered by the Rouran,
or one scholar admitted that he could not make clear their origins at all.
Throughout the 5th century, it was the Uar who managed to succeed to the Central Eurasian Hun heritage in a campaign which spread from the Tian Shan to the Carpathians. Because of the Later Zhao the Oro (deer) people were divided, half going to the Heilongjiang-Amur and half went west. By 460 the Uar had taken over much of Central Eurasia from Xinjiang to the Volga River, though very little is known about the area from the late 5th to early 6th centuries.

The Kidarite dynasty which ruled the Xionites came from the Uar. As a result, the Xionites have sometimes been called Uar-Hunnoi. Simokattes calls the Uar the "real" Avars of the east and the true political force behind what he calls the "pseudo" Avars who eventually settled down in Transylvania. Uar and Hunnoi are the names associated with the two biggest tribes of "Procopius's White Huns" commonly identified with the Sanskrit SvetaHuna. They were called Varkhon or Varkunites (OuarKhonitai) by Menander Protector. Procopius writes that these White Huns are white-skinned and have an organized kingship. According to him, their life is not wild/nomadic, and they live in cities. Around 630, Theophylaktos Simokattes wrote that the European "Avars" were initially composed of two nations, the Uar and the Hunnoi tribes. He wrote that: "...the Barsilt, the Unogurs and the Sabirs were struck with horror... and honoured the Newcommers with brilliant gifts..." when the Avars first arrived in their lands in 555AD. The Uar and the Hunnoi are supposed to have united around 460 under the rule of one of the five Yuezhi families - the Hephthal. They were also joined near the end of the 6th century by the Zabender, Tarnach and Kotzagerek Huns and they became known as Onogurs, from whom the name Hungary derives. The Onogurs themselves were composed of three groups. See also Avars and Kabars. During the 7th century around 670 the Bulgars under Kouber and Asparukh, who were also part of their empire, revolted, the Kouber tribes moving south to the Pelasgian plain and Asparukh leading his people south of the Danube.

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[Boztorgai_Khan]

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Map - Place Names;




Eurasian Avars









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The Avars were a Mongolian peoples, known to the Chinese as the Juan-Juan. In the Fourth Century they were one of many Mongol and Turkic groupings to trouble the northern borders of the Chinese Empire. At this time there was political chaos in China, the north of which fragmented into numerous local states. The restlessness and upheaval, on both sides of the Great Wall, mirrored what was happening in Europe at the same time.
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The Eurasian Avars were a nomadic people of Eurasia, who appeared in central and eastern Europe in the 6th century. They are known to history as Avars, though the Romans called them "pseudo-Avars." Avar rule persisted over much of the Pannonian plain up to the early 9th century.

HISTORY

The 6th Century historian Menander Protector noted that the language of the Avars was the same as that of the Huns, appearing as an Altaic Oghuric Turkic branch like modern Chuvash or Turkic Bulgarian and Khazar. It has been argued that their ruling class was related to the presumably Mongolic Zhuan Zhuan (Rouran), although this is questioned (mainly on geographical and chronological grounds ), while the majority were part of the Turkic peoples. Nevertheless, historian Walter Pohl asserted in 1998, instancing the detailed attempts made by H. W. Haussig in 1953 and K. Czeglèdy in 1983 and his own methodological objections: "It is pointless to ask who exactly the forefathers of the European Avars were. We only know that they carried an ancient, very prestigious name (our first hints to it date back to the times of Herodotus); and we may assume that they were a very mixed group of warriors who wanted to escape domination by the Turks."
The Avars were driven westward when the Sassanid Persians – allied with the Göktürks – defeated the Hephthalites in the 550s and the 560s. They entered Europe in the 6th century A.D., subjugating peoples such as the Kutrigur Huns as they went. Their first recorded official contact with the Roman world was in the winter of 558/59, when their embassy arrived in Constantinople and negotiated a treaty by which they were to subdue unruly gentes on behalf of the Empire, and receive payments and rights in return. Having been bought off by the Eastern Emperor Justinian I, they pushed north into Germany (as Attila the Hun had done a century before), eventually reaching as far north as the Baltic.

Finding the country unsuited to their nomadic lifestyle (and the Franks stern opponents), they turned their attention to the Pannonian plain, which was then being contested by two Germanic tribes, the Lombards and the Gepids. Siding with the Lombards, they destroyed the Gepids in 567 and established a state in the Danube River area. Their harassment soon (ca. 568) forced the Lombards to try their luck in northern Italy, an invasion that marked the last Germanic mass movement in the Migrations Period.

According to Menander, the Avar leader Bayan (c565 - c600) then commanded 10,000 Kutrigurs to sack Dalmatia in 568, effectively cutting Byzantium's land link with North Italy and the West. By about 580, Bayan had established his supremacy over practically all the various groups of "barbarian" warbands along the Balkan frontier, a monopoly of power that only Attila had briefly enjoyed before him. When the Eastern Roman Empire found itself unable to pay subsidies or hire Avar mercenaries, the Avars took to raiding Roman communities in the Balkans as well. At first, the Byzantines resisted successfully, even crossing the Danube to harass the Avars in their homeland, but the Emperor Maurice's decision to maintain his army camp beyond the Danube throughout the winter instead of returning home as was customary caused the army to revolt (602). The ensuing civil war prompted an opportunistic Persian invasion and gave the Avars a free hand in the now undefended Balkans. An invasion of northern Italy was also attempted in 610. Walter Pohl notes that payments in gold and goods reached the record sum of 200,000 solidi shortly before 626.
In 626, the Avars and the Persians jointly besieged but failed to capture Constantinople. Following this defeat, the Avars retreated to Pannonia, leaving most of the Balkans in the hands of Slav tribes, with neither Avars nor Byzantines able to reassert control. Most of the Avars' subject peoples became independent, with just Pannonia remaining under direct Avar rule.
By the early 9th century, internal discord and external pressure started to undermine the Avar state. It was finally liquidated during the 810s by the Franks under Charlemagne and the First Bulgarian Empire under Krum. After the fall of the Avar Empire around 800 the name Avar and the self-identified constructed ethnicity it carried disappeared within a single generation. An Avar presence in Pannonia is still certain in 871 but thereafter the name is no longer used by chroniclers: "It simply proved impossible to keep up an Avar identity after Avar institutions and the high claims of their tradition had failed." The Avars are also likely to have merged with Slavs, who had formed new states in the region: the principality of Nitra in the north (later Great Moravia) and the Balaton Principality in the central parts of Pannonia. Their remnants were probably the "Huns" encountered by the invading Magyars in the 10th Century. Their hypothetical descendants, the Szekely (who apparently preserved the Avar Dragon Totem well into the 15th century), were relocated to Transylvania in the 12th century. In the Republic of Hungary there are a number of Avar ruins, mostly burial mounds, that display symbols nearly identical to those of the Caucasian Avars.
Some claim that the Avars were the first tribe to introduce the stirrup to Europe. However, the subject is under debate and other candidates for the importers include the Huns.


Anthropological origins

There are several popular points of origin suggested for the Avar peoples:

the Mongolia - East Asian Mongol or Turkic people living north of the Great Wall, known to the Chinese as the Zhuan Zhuan.

the Caucasus – as a branch of the Proto-Iberians or Alarodians

the Hindu Kush, around present-day Kabul – associated with the Zhuan Zhuan (Rouran), Uar and Hephthalites

the region beyond the Jaxartes (Transiaxartesia), around Lake Balkhash in today's eastern Kazakhstan – associated with the Parni

Perhaps a suitable synthesis of these ideas may be that they were originally inhabitants of Khwarezmia, and had thus influence in all three areas. If the Avars were ever a distinct ethnic group, that distinction does not seem to have survived their centuries in Europe. Being an 'Avar' seems to have meant being part of the Avar state (in a similar way that being 'Roman' ceased to have any ethnic meaning).

The Romans were persuaded by the Caucasian Turks that their northern neighbours were only "pseudo-Avars", who should properly be called 'Varchonites' (War-Huns), representing respectiving the War (Chinese Huol-Hu) element and a Hunnic majority (Hsiung-nu). Contemporary Byzantine sources present these Varchonites as being former slaves, who fled from their masters the Turks (i.e. the real Avars), and who started to "call themselves Avars", so as to secure their position as foederati of the Romans.
Modern scholars have seen these two groups as representing the War or Var. These matters are still highly contentious.

The skeletons found in European Avar graves show heterogeneity, including some Asiatic features, and sometimes contain objects displaying Jewish influences. The reasons for the latter peculiarity are disputed. Some historians link it to the cultures of the Caucasus region, where the Turkish Khazars are supposed to have adopted Judaism as a way of remaining neutral between the Christian Byzantines and the Muslim Caliphate to the south. Others trace it back to 5th Century Khwarezmia, where a form of Mosaic Law was supposedly practised.



Bayan I (Avar Khagan)

Bayan I was an Avar khagan between 562 and 602. As the Göktürk Empire expanded westwards, Bayan Khagan led a group of Avars and Bulgars out of their reach, eventually settling in Pannonia in 568.

In 562, the Avars had reached the Lower Danube: it was most likely in that year that Bayan became their supreme Khagan, as his predecessor Kandik had died. As allies of the Byzantine empire, then ruled by Justinian I, the Avars had obtained a grant of gold to crush other nomads — the Sabirs, Utigurs, Kutrigurs and Saragurs - in the lands later known as the Ukraine, a task they accomplished to the emperor's satisfaction. Bayan's Avars now exacted the renewal of the alliance, increased pay and a land to live in. Bayan had eyed the plain just south of the Lower Danube, what would become northern Bulgaria, as his promised land, but the Byzantines were adamant the Avars should not in any case cross the river. So Bayan and his horde in 563 rode around the northern Carpathians to Germany, where they were soundly stemmed along the river Elbe by the Frankish king Sigebert I of Austrasia. This defeat induced them to come back on their footsteps to the Lower Danube region. After vainly trying to force the Danubian border when the new Byzantine emperor Justin II denied them both entry and wage, the Avars renewed their ride to Thuringia. This time (566) they did defeat Sigebert, but had nonetheless to stop; in the meantime the Göktürks, in pursuit of their former subjects, remained a real danger.

The Avars, traditionally a nomadic people, desperately needed both shelter and pasture for their livestock, but the route to Pannonia was blocked by impassable mountains covered with thick forests: the Carpathian range. It was in the critical winter of 566-567 that the Avars, stuck in what is now eastern Germany, were sent feelers by Alboin, the strong ruler of the Lombards and brother-in-law of Sigebert, who sought an alliance to crush his old enemies the Gepids. These last ones, by chance, controlled the only practical way from the Lower Danube to the craved Pannonian pastures. So in 567 king Cunimond's Gepid kingdom was attacked by two directions: from the west came the Lombards, from the north, through Moravia and the Danube, the Avars. Bayan crushed Cunimond's forces and made a cup from his defeated enemy's skull as a present (and warning) for his ally Alboin (who is famously quoted as having forced Cunimond's daughter Rosamund, whom he had taken as war bride, to drink from it, sealing his own fate). Then the Avar horde marched against Sirmium, by now firmly held by Gepid remnants and a Byzantine garrison led by general Bonosus. In the meantime large numbers of Slavs settled in Pannonia in the wake of the Avars; and in 568 Alboin and his Lombards deemed it wise to move for the half-ruined but promising lands of Italy where they would establish a long-lasting kingdom. They concluded however a treaty with the Avar Khagan so as they could reenter parts of Pannonia and Noricum (Austria) if they chose so in the future, then departed with large numbers of the vanquished Gepids and a host of other Germanic tribes.

After ten years of uneasy, undocumented peace, Bayan again marched against Sirmium, wresting it from Byzantine hands after a two years siege, then took also Singidunum, evicting the Byzantines from the inner Balkans and opening the area to an unstoppable influx of Slavs, that in five years at most flooded all the semi-abandoned region down to the Peloponnesus. It was the year 582: Bayan was now able to attack the Byzantines in Thrace, and when Tiberius II Constantine, who had failed in stopping him, was succeeded in Constantinople by his son-in-law Maurice, he managed to extract a huge tribute in gold: 100,000 gold coins, or some 1,000 lbs, per year.

In later times Avars and Slavs still raided the remaining Byzantine lands as Maurice was hard pressed to defend his native Cappadocia and Armenia from the mighty Sassanians of Persia. By 592 the Byzantine ruler, once defeated the Persian menace, was bent on revenge and counterattacked in full force, soon reverting the roles. Repeated, massive defeats shook the Avaro-Slavic hordes as strong organized Byzantine armies penetrated north of the Danube into Wallachia, and eventually, under general Priscus, crushed the enemy along the river Tisza in the very core of Pannonia. It was Phocas' rebellion against Mauricius in 602 what ultimately saved the Avars and almost terminated, on the other hand, the Byzantine empire. In the same year Khagan Bayan died, his empire now safe and firmly established.

-

Kandik was an Avar khagan between 554 and 562. He led his people as refugees away from the Turks and approached Sarosios to mediate for him with Byzanteum in 557. The Eastern Hunno-Bulgars that his people conquered became known as Kutrigurs.

-

Bayan II was an Avar khagan between 602 and 617.


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[Boztorgai_Khan]

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more info of the AVARS



History of the Huns, Avars and Bulgars




A.) The Kutrigur Huns

Soon after Attila's death a power struggle broke out, the Gepids winning over the Huns. The latter withdrew from the Pannonian basin (modern Hungary into the steppe. The Huns split in two groups, the more powerful KUTRIGUR HUNS, controlling the steppe from Valachia, Moldavia across the lower Dnjepr, Dnjestr, Don to the lower Volga, the UTIGUR HUNS in the area to the north of the Caucasus, the SABIRIAN HUNS in the steppe east of Volga and Ural. A pocket of Goths survived on the Crimea.


B.) The Avars

In the middle of the 6th century, some Mongolian and White Hun peoples were driven out of the steppe East of the Ural by the Turks. The Mongolians and White Huns appear in Western sources as one people, the AVARS. They conquered the formerly Kutrigur Hun s teppe of Southern Russia and Valachia. The Avar Khanate soon extended into central Europe, conquering the ALFOELD (the Hungarian plain) from the Gepids in 568, and driving the Lombards out of their lands in western Hungary. Like Attila's Hun Khanate before, the Avar Khanate was a state ruled by a steppe people which imposed their rule upon many subject peoples. The majority of the Avar subject people was Slavic. While the Avar Khanate was centered in the Alfoeld and in constant confrontation with the Byzantine Empire, when after Justinian the Byzantine defenses broke and Slavic incursions into the Balkans peninsula lead to Slavic settlement there.


C.) The Great Bulgars

Early in the 7th century the Avar Khanate disintegrated, the Huns inhabiting the steppe along the lower Don and Volga now being called Bulgars. Their state is known as the KHANATE OF GREAT BULGARIA. However, it did not last long; by the middle of the century, it was conquered by the KHAZARS. A group of Bulgars moved up the Volga where they established the Khanate of the VOLGA BULGARS.


Rouran Empire

Rouran (Chinese: 柔然; Wade-Giles: Jou Jan, literally Soft-like), Juan Juan (Chinese: 蠕蠕; Pinyin: Ruǎnruǎn, literally meaning the Wriggling Insects, a name given by the Toba ruling elites of northern China), or Ruru (Chinese: 茹茹; Wade-Giles: Ju Ju, literally meaning Fodder) was the name of a confederation of nomadic tribes on the northern borders of China Proper from the late 4th century until the late 6th century. Because one of their member tribes, the Hua (who they placed at the head of the Uyghurs in 460) later appeared in Europe as the Eurasian Avars, the gross oversimplification that they were synonymous with the Avars has become widespread. The term Rouran is a Mandarin Chinese transciption of the pronunciation of the name the confederacy used to refer to itself. Ruanruan and Ruru remained in modern usage despite once being derogatory. They derived from orders given by the Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei, who waged war against the Rouran and intended to intimidate the confederacy.

Origin and expansion

The Rouran were a proto-Mongolic peoples who were first noted as having defeated the Gaoche and establishing an empire extending all the way to the Hulun, at the eastern Inner Mongolia. To the west of the Rouran was a horde known in the west as the Hephthalites who originally, until the 5th century, were a vassal horde of the Rouran[citation needed]. The Rouran controlled the area of Mongolia from the Manchurian border to Turpan and, perhaps, the east coast of Lake Balkhash, and from the Orkhon River to the China Proper. Their ancestor Mugulu is said to have been originally a slave of the Toba tribes, situated at the north banks of Yellow River Blend. Mugulu's descendant Shelun is said to be the first chieftain who was able to unify the Rouran tribes and to found the power of the Rouran by defeating the Gaoche and Xianbei. Shelun was also the first of the steppe peoples to adopt the title of khagan in 402, which had originally referred to some nobles of the Xianbei tribes.
The Rouran and the Hephthalites had a falling out and problems within their confederation were encouraged by Chinese agents. In 508, the Gaoche, then opereating under the name Tiele, defeated the Rouran in battle. In 516, the Rouran defeated the Tiele. Within the Rouran confederation was a Turkic tribe noted in Chinese annals as the Tujue. After a marriage proposal to the Rouran was rebuffed, the Tujue joined with the Western Wei, successor state to the Northern Wei, and revolted against the Rouran. In 555, they beheaded 3,000 Rourans. Common European history books claim that the Juan Juan then fled west across the steppes, though this is probably a mistake. The remainder of the Rourans fled into China, were absorbed into the border guards, and disappeared forever as an entity. The last Rouran khagan fled to the court of Western Wei, but at the demand of Tujue, Western Wei executed him and the nobles that accompanied him.
Little is known of the Rouran ruling elite, which the Book of Wei cited as an offshoot of the Xianbei. The Rouran subdued modern regions of Xinjiang, Mongolia, Central Asia and parts of Siberia and Manchuria from the late 4th century. Their frequent interventions and invasions profoundly affected neighboring countries. Though they admitted the Ashina of Göktürks into their federation, the power of the Rouran was broken by an alliance of Göktürks, the Chinese Northern Qi and Northern Zhou dynasties and tribes in Central Asia in 552. The Northern Wei, for instance, had established the Six Garrisons of Ordos bordering the Rouran, which later became the foci of native peoples uprising against sinicised peoples in the early 6th century.

Qaghans of the Rouran ( Juan-Juan )

Temple names

Regal names

Family names and given name

Durations of reigns

Era names and their according durations

Chinese convention: for those who have regal names, use regal names; otherwise, use family name and given name, or use given name + "Khan"

Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Mùgǔlǘ
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Chēlùhuì
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Tǔnúgūi
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Bátí
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Dìsùyuán
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Pǐhóubá
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
zv Yùjiǔlǘ Màngētí
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Héduōhàn
4th cent.
Did not exist
Did not exist
Qiudoufa Khan ()
Yùjiǔlǘ Shèlún
402-410
Did not exist
Did not exist
Aikugai Khan (@w)
Yùjiǔlǘ Húlǜ
410-414
Did not exist
Did not exist
Mouhanheshenggai Khan (vw)
Yùjiǔlǘ Dàtán
414-429
Did not exist
Did not exist
Chilian Khan (B)
Yùjiǔlǘ Wútí
429-444
Did not exist
Did not exist
Chu Khan ()
R Yùjiǔlǘ Tǔhèzhēn
444-450
Did not exist
Did not exist
Shouluobuzhen Khan (_)
Yùjiǔlǘ Yúchéng
450-485
Yongkang ( Yǒngkāng) 464-484
Did not exist
Fumingdun Khan ()
Yùjiǔlǘ Dòulún
485-492
Taiping ( Tàipíng) 485-491
Did not exist
Houqifudaikezhe Khan ( )
w Yùjiǔlǘ Nàgài
492-506
Taian ( Tàiān) 492-505
Did not exist
Tuohan Khan ()
D Yùjiǔlǘ Fútú
506-508
Shiping ( Shǐpíng) 506-507
Did not exist
Douluofubadoufa Khan (_)
h Yùjiǔlǘ Chǒunú
508-520
Jianchang ( Jiànchāng) 508-520
Did not eixst
Chiliantoubingdoufa Khan (B^)
Yùjiǔlǘ Ānàgūi
520-552
Did not exist
Did not exist
Mi'oukeshegou Khan ()
_T Yùjiǔlǘ Póluómén
521-524
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
F Yùjiǔlǘ Tiěfá
552-553
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Dēngzhù
553
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Kāngtí
553
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
C_ Yùjiǔlǘ Ānluóchén
553-554
Did not exist
Did not exist
Did not exist
Yùjiǔlǘ Dèng Shūzǐ
555
Did not exist



The Kutrigurs (Kotrags/Kotzagerek/Kazarig) were a horde of equestrian nomads better known as the Bulgars that wandered the Eurasian plains during the dark ages. They came into existence when the Eurasian Avars conquered half of the Hunno-Bulgars. Those remaining free under Sandilch in the west retained the name Utigur, while those conquered by the Avars in the east became known as Kutrigurs. The conquest of the Kotzagereks by new arrivals led by three brothers from the Imaon Mountains in the 6th century is mentioned by Bar Hebraeus, as well as in the Chronicle of the late 12th century Jacobite patriarch of Antioch Michael the Syrian[1]. At this time they came to be dominated by clans related to the Göktürks. When their Khazar faction grew powerful, and won tribute from Batbayan, in the mid 7th century, a dissenting faction seems to have traveled to the upper Volga, while another seems to have fled from Sirmium south to the Pelagonian plain. Thereafter they disappear from history.


The Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan.
The Eurasian Avars were a nomadic people of Eurasia, supposedly of proto-Mongolian Turkic stock, who migrated from eastern Asia into central and eastern Europe in the 6th century. The Avar rule persisted over much of the Pannonian plain up to the early 9th century.

History

Avars were driven westward when the Gokturks defeated the Hephthalites in the 550s and the 560s. They entered Europe in the sixth century and, having been bought off by the Eastern Emperor Justinian I, pushed north into Germany (as Attila the Hun had done a century before).
Finding the country unsuited to their nomadic lifestyle (and the Franks stern opponents), they turned their attention to the Pannonian plain, which was then being contested by two Germanic tribes, the Lombards and the Gepids. Siding with the Lombards, they destroyed the Gepids in 567 and established a state in the Danube River area. Their harassment soon (ca. 568) forced the Lombards into northern Italy, a migration that marked the last Germanic migration in the Migrations Period. The Avar leader from c. 565 to c. 600 was called Bayan.
Under pressure from the Turks at the close of the 6th century, the new leadership in Byzantium began to distinguish the Pannonian Avars as pseudo-avars whose real designation should be Varchonites. Avars turned against the Eastern Roman Empire which had employed Avar mercenaries to combat attacks from other steppe tribes. Avars sought new allies and in 626, the Avars and the Persians besieged but failed to capture Constantinople. Following their defeat at Constantinople the Avars retreated to Pannonia.
By the early 9th century, internal discord and the external pressure started to undermine the Avar state. The Avars were finally liquidated during the 810s by the Franks under Charlemagne and the Bulgars under Krum. Their presence in Pannonia is still certain in 871 but then that name is no longer used by chroniclers. The Avars are also likely to have merged with Slavs, who had formed new states in the region: the principality of Nitra in the north (later Great Moravia), and the Balaton Principality in the central parts of Pannonia.
Some theorize that Avars were the first tribe to introduce the stirrup to Europe. However, the subject is under debate and other candidates for the importers include the Huns.

List of Avar Rulers

552-562
Kandik aka Khingila asked the Alan King Sarosios for introduction to Byzantium as refugees from Central Asia.
562-602
Bayan I settles Pannonia in 568 and established Avar puppet Houdbaad of Onogunduri - Kutigurs & Utigurs in 580s
602-617
Bayan II of Avars
617-630
N... (established Regent Organa 600s-635 over Onogunduri)
685-791
1st Khazar Avar alliance.
729/730
Surakat (Khazar puppet establishes Caucasian Avaristan)
791-795
Yugurus during Avar civil war
795-?
Kajd Tudun
803-?
Zodan the puppet of Krum who claimed European Eastern Avaria through relation to Kuber.
?-814
Theodorus (Carolingian Puppet) faced opposition by Khazar candidates.
814-?
Abraham (Khazar puppet) supported against Carolingians
?-835
Isaac Tudun (Khazar puppet)
899
?Kursan



Avars

The Avars are a nomadic people who were established in the Volga River area about the 6th century. Avar people were a combination of Mongols and Uighurs (Uygurs) (a Turkic people also called as pseudo-Avars), who were conquered by Mongols in the 5th century. Forming a confederation in present Russia, they tried to survive in the competition with other Turkic tribes, by which they were eventually annihilated. The survivors of this group of Turkic/Mongol people established the Avars and they migrated toward East Europe, starting an era of conquest.
Allies of the Byzantine Empire, they fought against the Slavs and the Bulgars, controlling the area between the Volga River and the Elbe River as far as the Baltic Sea.
They tried to invade Italy in 610 and attacked Constantinople in 619 and 626. The emperor Heraclius and the Bulgars fought them and puhed them back to Illyria. In 791 they invaded Europe once again. The so-called Avar Ring[?] was defeated by Franks led by Charlemagne in the 9th century.
The faction which emigrated to the Caucasus formed a powerful khanate[?] in the 10th century. One of the prominent figures in the modern Avar history is Shamil[?]. Shamil successfully led the liberation movement of highland peoples of Caucasus against the Russian invasion in the 19th century. The movement was substantially suppressed by Russia in 1864. Today Avars live in part of Dagestan[?]. (However, the Caucasus emigration theory is debatable and ANY connections between the Turkic Avars and the Caucasian Avars is also questionable, except for the fact that the name "Avar" might be of common Turkic etymology meaning "vagabond")
So it was that, when I next.html">next heard the after listening intently for a moment, realized that my friend for his next Sunday's paper, all thought of the interesting rose quickly from my couch at the first sounding of the gong. "Got a Holmes story, eh?" I said, walking to his side, have been. "I have that, and it's a winner," he replied, enthusiastically. about two minutes." "I'll do both," I said. "I believe all the Sherlock Holmes If they weren't true they wouldn't be so wonderful." With this I picked up the first page of the manuscript and I read the following extraordinary tale: Apollyon --------------- WHO THE LADY WAS! of the Nizam of Jigamaree mystery.html">Mystery that I was called upon to take eleven centuries. The reader will remember the mystery of the Nizam of Jigamaree brought from India to present to the Queen dead three years at the time, but, by a special dispensation of to London for the jubilee season, where it so happened that.


TECHNICAL NOTE

The language of Avars is practically unknown; but educated guesses tell that it may have been Old Turkish, or something between Turkish and Mongolian. So for Avar names & titles I use the official orthography of Turkey, if I can reproduce the letter (i.e. Khagan->Kagan &c.). I try to do the same for names whose speech community did not have a Latin alphabet. Note then that in Carpathians, e.g., the "C" is English C not Turkish.ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY
The author admits that he is not a historian. This material was written to fill a lacuna in historic literature. My text, therefore, may contain errors and of course is infected with ignorance. But it seems that important data are simply absent in the literature. Still I think some missing data exist somewhere. So this text does not want to be Word of History but simply a nucleation core of the specific topic.ABSTRACT
A brief and still grossly incomplete chronology of Avar Kagans is given.INTRODUCTION
History is an occupation needing at least some money. True research needs founds, either grants or research positions. And History is intimately connected with states, minorities, religions &c. Nations give money to search their own histories; maybe even those of enemies. As for histories of passed nations, some are regarded as predecessors of modern nations (either rightfully or not), and then the successors keep their memories. The remaining ones are investigated for their importance in World History, for sheer curiosity or not at all.
In Europe the situation is simple enough. In ancient times all Mediterranean Europe belonged to Greece & Rome, and these civilisations do have inheritors. North of them lived Germans & Celts, and they have inheritors too. But the past of the territory of Hungary is different.
Hungarian State officially starts with the Magyar Conquest in April 896. Previous states there do not belong to the history of the Nation. Slovakia is interested in the past of proto-Slovakians back to the end of Vth century (according to Slovakian consensus) or to the second half of VIth century (according to Hungarian majority opinion), but even they are not too interested in histories of earlier or nomadic peoples. And so on.
Now, the organisation principle of steppe nomads is based on tribal alliances. When troubles happen on the borderless steppe, unlucky alliances break up immediately; then clans enter new tribes and tribes enter new alliances. Above a "nation", a tribal alliance or such there is a ruler who rules according to the mandate of the (Eternal) Blue Sky, Kök Tängri (now "Tanri" is "God" in Turkish and "tenger" is "sea" in Magyar, indeed blue and infinite for a Hungarian). He surely rules from the mandate of Blue Sky, because when he loses the mandate, he is no more Kagan. Either he is replaced by the new mandatee (as Kagan Buda of the Huns was replaced by his younger brother Kagan Atilla in 445, for reasons you may try to ask about Kök Tängri himself) or the whole "state" comes apart. Turning to a more recent example, according to the opinion of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in 1922 Sultan (Pad-i-sah) Mehmed VI (Vahidüddin) lost the mandate and the ninth Turkish state (that of the Ottomans) ceased to exist. Instead, a tenth state started, the Republic of Turkey.
The Carpathian Basin bw. 568 and 799 was ruled by a Far Eastern mounted warrior state, the Avars. This was the second state in prehistory & history which united the Carpathian Basin (the first was the Eneolithic Pécel culture, in the IVth millenium BC); the Danube is rather wide a river, even Romans could not cross it regularly. The Hungarian State does not, and never did, recognise the Avar State as legal predecessor, and of course I will not question the wisdom of the Hungarian State. However surely among all the existing states now they are nearest to Hungary. I admit that Turkey is the second, and Turkish netsites indeed give Avar chronologies; but shorter even as we can.
Chapter 2 is the chronology, and discussions of the ample nontrivial and obscure points will be given in Chapter 3.
The present text is the status of my knowledge at New Year Day of 2003. When I get a new information, I will update it.

2. THE TENTATIVE LIST OF AVAR KAGANS
Date
Event
Note
From 185
Avar (Juan-juan) state on the NW border of China, to the Mtn. Altai
a
c. 350
Juan-juans take the Sien-pi lands.
-
402
Juan-juans take Cungaria and Upper Irtis.
-
439
The Türk (in Chinese texts t'u-küe) tribe, led by the Asina clan, is admitted into the Juan-juan state, and settles the S. slopes of Altay.
b
522-552
Kagan A-na-kuei (A-na-kui).
-
551-552
Turkish revolt, starting in the Altay
c
April 552
Juan-juan defeat; a part of the fleeing Juan-juans enter C'i lands in China, the Kagan is K'u-t'i (552-554), then An-lo-ch'en, son of A-na-kui. The majority (?) starts to West. On the old Juan-juan territory the Old Turkish Khaganate starts.
d
558
Avar embassy in Constantinople; alliance against Sabirs & Utigurs. The Kagan may be Kandik 552?-562.
e
562
East Romans start to pay annual tax to the Avars. Avars defeat King Gisebert of Thuringy. Then they start to go to the East for the Carpathian Basin, incorporating large numbers of Slavic peoples as secondary, foot warriors.
-
562-602:
Kagan Bayan
f
End of 565
With the death of Emperor Justinian Roman tax ceases.
-
Spring 567
Turks, pursuing the Avars, cross R. Itil (Volga)
g
April 567
Avars and Lombards crush Gepidia, E. of R. Tisia. The Sirmium garrison capitulates to E. Rome; Avar conquest on the remaining Gepid lands.
-
April 2, 568
Lombards evacuate the territories W. of Danube and start to N. Italy. All the Basin is Avaria. The E. border of Avaria is somewhere N. of Black Sea
h
602-c. 630
The dynasty of Bayan; two sons in sequence 602-617 & 617-c. 630, names unknown
i
614
Avars and their Croat allies destroy Epidaurus & Salona in Dalmatia.
j
626-629
Campaigns (Avars incl. Slavic peoples of Avaria, Croats, Lower Danube Slavs, Persian Empire) against Constantinople; unsuccessful.
-
629-635
Troubles, then restoration.
k
635-c. 680
Second Avar Khaganate, names unknown.
l
c. 635
Avaria loses the Pontus area (to Bulgars & Khazars), see Note l. From this time Avaria is the Carpathian Basin, with marches outside: to R. Enns on W., the area of Uherské Hradiste & Uhersky Brod in Later Moravia and unknown territories E. of E. Carpathians; allies on N. & S.: White Croats & Adria Croats.
-
April 677
According to the Vienna Illuminated Chronicle, Árpád, Dux of Hungarians conquers the Basin.
m
c. 680
Kuber, 4th son of Kagan Kovrat (Kurt; Wolf) of the Pontus Bulgars arrives with his fleeing people at the Basin. In a few years Bulgars revolt in the Basin. Kuber flees to Danube Bulgaria (founded in 681 by his elder brother Asparukh).
n
c. 685-795
Third Avar Khaganate, names unknown.
o
791
Charlemagne attacks Avaria, repelled with heavy losses.
p
795
Civil war bw. the Kagan (name unknown) and the Yugurrus (the 2nd man). The Tudun (Governor of the Western Lands) does not want anything of it, and allies with Erik, Margrave of Friuli against them. Charlemagne sends more than ample troops into the already friendly Avaria and sacs it. (The details are somewhat obscure.). See also Note p.
-
795-c. 814:
The Tudun Kajd (?) takes the office of Kagan, later, baptized, takes the name Theodorus. Or: Kajd, then Theodorus.
q
803
Kagan Krum of Bulgaria occupies Eastern Avaria.
-
c. 814 - c. 835
Kagans Abraham & Isaac.
r
835 - 899 (?)
Names unknown.
s
899
Conquering Magyars of Árpád take the territories W. of the Danube, so also the territory of Rump Avaria. While Western texts for a while still mention Avars, it is possible that it is already an anachronism, while the existence of ethnic Avars is rather sure. Medieval Magyar sources never mention the Avars. Later fate of Avars is unknown, but in Xth c. the Magyar tribal alliance incorporates other peoples as direct subjects of the Sublime Kagan. Hungarian archaeologists guess that some cemeteries are mixed Avar-Magyar ones. Some hypothesize Avar migration to Transylvania. By any probability fragments of the Avar society could have been incorporated into the Hetumoger=Hétmagyar=7 Magyar(s) without any problem. So this is the latest possible end of Avar state. Speculations exist that some self-organised Avar group may have existed in Transylvania since 803, the Bulgarian incorporation of the Great Plains, but up to now we do not know anything about leaders, for any case. The connection of Avars with recent Avar ethnic group & language in Mtn. Caucasus is a matter of hypothesises and may even not exist.
-

3. NOTES AND EXPLANATIONS
Note a: The tribal alliance is always mentioned by Chinese sources as Juan-juan, but this is an "onomatopoetic" word showing the eternal stupid motion, swarming or pullulation. The identification Juan-juan = Avar is classical, comes from De Guignes = Desguignes [1], and I see no reason to doubt it.
Note b: The migration of Türks under the Asina clan (originally Hiung-nu, so Asiatic Hun) is given by Chinese annals of the Later Wei Dynasty, at Emperor T'ai-wu-ti.
Note c: In the Turkish folk tradition a leader of this revolt is the Gray Wolf, Boz Kurt. In history it was led by Prince, later Kagan Bumin.
Note d: The details of the war can be followed in Northern C'i annals, of which I give a reference to [2]. Here I note, and this will not be repeated, that at some points I have to translate Hungarian Academic orthography of Chinese to English or Turkish, which is by no means unequivocal.
Note e: Kagan Kandik with his closing year is given in a Kutrigur chronology [3]. Since An-lo-ch’en, son of the last independent Juan-juan Kagan remained on the East, the migrants must have elected a nontrivial successor. This may or may not have been Kandik. However he may have followed some interregnum too.
Note f: For the Avar motions, diplomatic negotiations, and the place of Slavic foot warriors in the originally fully mounted Avar army see [4] and citations therein. Obviously the most reliable Slavic allies were settled in the mountainous regions of the Carpathian Basin, where they live now as well.
Note g: The Kök Tümlrk Kagan sent a message to Constantinople, telling that he was pursuing his slaves, whom he would crush under the hooves of Turk horses like ants, without using swords. See [4], with further citations of Longobard chronicles. Anyway, it did not happen. The Basin is easy to be defended.
Note h: The day is recorded in Lombard chronicles, because it was Easter Monday, see [4] and citations therein. According to Longobard tradition the evacuation happened in line of an Avar-Longobard agreement of 200 year friendship & mutual help. Indeed, the Avar-Longobard connections remained friendly. We do not know what was the Avar help to the exodus.
Note i: Or maybe two younger brothers of him. See [5]. Ref. [3] gives 617 as death of Bayan (and gives Bayan as destroyer of Epidaurus & Salona). So the easiest guess is that Bayan’s first successor had a similar name, we may call him Bayan II until no better suggestion arises, and he died in 617.
Note j: See e.g. [6]. This is the first extant record about Adria Croats.
Note k: Croatian books are unequivocal that they "became independent" in 630. Since Avar-Croat relations seem friendly afterwards, this can only mean the reorganisation of the state. Recent Hungarian books repeat two "facts" after the unsuccessful long campaign: troubles, and (possible) change of the dynasty.
Note l: From a very obscure period Ref. [7] gives a relative detailed report; but it needs the ability to read Hungarian. So I give also [8], [9], [10] and [11]; but the sources are surprisingly silent. Various Slavic authors mention Samo, as a successful leader of Slavs, who made a part of Avaria independent. Samo is indeed recorded in the (not too reliable) Codex Fredegarius as a Frankish merchant among Slavs; the problem is that in centuries XIX & XX various Slav movements & states reported the traces of Samo from practically all Slavic territories around present Hungary, i.e at the peripheries of Avaria, so, accepting the existence of Leader Samo I would relegate the details to among the folk tales of romantic/nationalistic histories. Hungarian archaeologists are unable to find any trace of Samo's "state". The Western part of Hungary is densely packed by Avar sites. Maybe Slovenia?
I must emphasize that when I call the Fredegarius compilation "not too reliable", I do not mean its historical coherence; I am not a historian. But let you decide the linguistic quality and self-confidence of a compiler starting so: "Mundus iam seniscit, ideoque prudenciae agumen in nobis tepiscit, ne quisquam potest huius tempore nec presumit prudenciae precedences esse consimilis. Ego tamen, ut rusticitas et stremitas sensus mei valuit, studiosissime de hisdem libris breviatem, quantum plus potui, aptare presumsi..." Anybody can see from the Latin of the text that the rusticitas of the sense of the author is doubtless great enough; he speaks about its stremitas too, not I. According to a Neo-Latin expert [12] the Fredegarius compilation is the nadir in the history of Latinitas.
Maybe the last stroke of troubles is the revolt of Kagan Kovrat of the Bulgars. Some sources put here the pretension of Alzeco, chief of either the Bulgars or the Kutrigurs to the Avar throne [9]. However it seems that this is a chronologic error and the event happened 50 years later (see there).
Note m: The Illustrated Vienna Chronicle is a Hungarian work from the Royal Chancellery. Its date is cca. 1374, under Louis I of Hungary, from the Angevins, and according to experts it was a prestige publication sent to France amongst engagement gifts ("to show the haughty French who are we"). For the text see [13]. The date cannot be pen error; the Pope & Eastern Emperor are correctly named. See another "invasion" c. 680.
Note n: The Hungarian historiography seems to have cleared up the chaos about the sons of Kovrat, the Bulgarian. (Kovrat is the Bulgarian or –r Turk form. In Common or –z Turk it would be Kurt. The Boz Kurt of Note c would be cca. Bora Kovrat in Bulgarian.) For the actual event in the Carpathian Basin see [14]. However that is again in Hungarian, so I repeat some statements here. Kagan Kovrat dies in Pontus in 665. He had 5 sons, in age sequence Batbayan, Kotrag, Isperik, Küber & Alzeko. In some years the Khazars attack Kagan Batbayan. He becomes Khazarian vassal, but his brothers migrate away with some parts of the nation. Kotrag founds Volga Bulgaria. Isperik goes to the Lower Danube and founds Danube Bulgaria in 681. (Still in existence in 2003.) About the remaining 2 sons Theofanés, a chronicler of Byzance from IXth c. writes that they crossed the Danube and went further, one to Avar Pannonia, the other to the Pentapolis at Ravenna, Italy. Now the Greek Orthodox Legend of St. Demetrios [15] tells that about 680 the Avar ruler nominated a governor for the non-Avar peoples whose name was Küber. This Küber led an exodus from Avaria, fought with the Kagan, and reached Keramesium, near to Thessaloniké. Now in the Madara inscript Kagan Tervel of Bulgaria states that his uncle lives near to Thessaloniké; and Küber was Tervel's uncle indeed.
So it seems that Küber arrived with a quantity of Pontus Bulgars into Avaria. They were admitted, but in a few years Küber claimed the throne. He was able to start a fight; at the end he was stopped and expelled with some followers. Very probably Alzeko was the youngest brother, and the names are confused.
Note o: Hungarian archaeologists detect the changes of styles and it is a commonplace that from c. 680 a Late Avar Period starts; the new component has strong Caucasian affinities. The Frank sources do not mention the Avars between 678 & 791; and the Byzantine chronicles report the last Avar embassy from 678. So indeed something happened in the Khaganate. If not a new dynasty (Küber was unsuccessful) then at least a new, isolationist ideology.
Note p: The 791 campaign is discussed from Carpathian Basin viewpoint in [16]. Foreigners have the tendency to confuse it with the 795-6 events.
Note q: Of course everything is confused in Western sources; and modern Turkish ones work from old Western ones. Let us see a modern Turkish one [17]. It names a Tudun I for 791-803, a Zodan for 803-805) and a Thedorus from 805. However Tudun is not a name, but an office, and Zodan seems to be a variation of Tudun. One Western source explicitly states that the "capcan", so probably the Kagan, asked for help and he became baptised in the R. Fischa to the name Theodorus. So the minimal theory suggests that the original tudun tried to make first some balance politics as Kagan of the Avars bw. Charlemagne and Kagan Krum, he was able to retain some independence until 803, and then Bulgaria attacked. Then he must have admitted an unequivocal Western "alliance", becoming Christian, but he could not have been anything else than a vassal. Some Hungarian scholars guess (from tradition) that the pagan name of Theodorus had been Kajd; but this is very uncertain. Namely Magyar folk traditions never mentioned the name Avar. The guess is that they can be found under the name Hun. Frankish sources are so scanty that they permit to assume also a Kajd until 804 and then a different Theodorus.
Hungarian experts can imagine that Kapkan (Capcanus) means something slightly below Kagan; see the example of a historical Turk: Kapagan Kagan. But while here I would accept any Türk opinion, be it Turkish, Kazak or Karaim, in this case "capcanus" is written in a Frankish chronicle. Franks did not know too much about Altaic titles.
Note r: Sources are unequivocal (if they tell anything at all) that the next Kagan had the baptismal name Abraham. For any chance he was son or close kin of the old tudun, so Ref. [17]'s Tudun II is correct, only that is a title, not a name. See also [18]. Some sources mention Isaac, son of Abraham.
Note s: According to the present status of art the title may have been vacant; nobody knows. Avar presence in the Basin is certain in 871.4. CONCLUSIONS
In Magyar "God" is "Isten". Now, interestingly enough, Yabgu Istämi, father of Kagan Tardu, is considered the founder of the separate Old Western Turkish Khaganate, and so he is the predecessor of all Magyar Kagans, Hungarian Kings & Presidents.
J. Láng explains [19] that many peoples of world regard the spirit of the founder, first chief &c. as Supreme God. (And what is the Father of the first Kagan?) He can generate thunder, lightning, good/bad weather, diseases and such. And He is doing so, for example, if the descendants, having forgotten Him, do not make offers or other rituals.
Now, I do not have to compile a List of Avar Khagans. The founder ruler for me is Yabgu Istämi, so Isten, i.e. God; according to a Hungarian way of speech, the God of Hungarians, a magyarok Istene. Avars were the previous wave, and as Slovakians tell, they vanished without trace.
Still, Avars ruled just here, in my city too. And they were also able horsemen. So may their shadows rest in peace; most definitely they will not now disturb my dreams, since I collected at least a few names to commemorate them.

I think that further informations do exist, but for a more complete list some Magyar-Turkish-Bulgar-Uygur collaborations would be needed, at least on Internet.APPENDIX: THE CHRONOLOGIC TABLE
Cent.
China
Juan-juan
Europe
II
-
Names unknown
-
III
-
Names unknown
-
IV
-
Names unknown. Presence is doubtless.
-
V
-
Names unknown
-
VI
K’u-t'i 552-554
An-lo-ch’en 554-?
?
?
A-na-kui 522-552
Kandik 552?-562
Bayan 562-602
VII
??
Defunct
Bayan II 602-617
Anon. 617-c. 630
Troubles 630-635
2nd Avar state 635-c. 680, all anon.
Troubles
Küber (pretender) 680-685
3rd Avar State 685
VIII
Defunct?
Defunct
Anon till 791
Civil war 791-795
Kajd/Theodorus 795-c. 814
IX
Defunct
Defunct
Abraham/Isaac c. 814-c. 835
Anon 835-899
X
Defunct
Defunct
Defunct

For dynasties the picture is as follows:
0th Avar dynasty, Juan-juans NW of China
185?-552
1st Transition, Chinese vassals and Western Migration
552-568
(Surviving Juan-juan statelet in China)
554-?
1st Avar State
568-630
2nd Transition, immigrants
630-635
2nd Avar State
635-680
3rd Transition, immigrants
680-c. 685
3rd Avar State
c. 685-795
4th Transition, attempt to reorganize
795-803
Late period, vassalage
803-899
End, total incorporation into the Magyar state
899-900


REFERENCES
[1] Deguignes H.: Histoire générale des huns, des turcs et des autres tartares occidentaux avant et depuis J.C. jusqu'à présent. Paris, 1756-8
[2] Li Po-yo: Pei-C'i-shu: So-yin po-na-pen er-shi-sï shi. Peking, 1958
[3] ***: The Turning of Time, Chaps. 3 & 4. wysiwyg://126/http://www.geocities.com/kutriguri/body_3.html & wysiwyg://126/http://www.geocities.com/kutriguri/body_4.html
[4] Bóna I.: The Dawn of the Dark Ages. Corvina, Budapest, 1976
[5] Olajos Teréz: Theophylaktos Simokattés és a Baján-dinasztia kronológiája. Antik Tanulmányok 20, 60 (1973)
[6] ***: Croatia Chronology until 1990. http://www.dalmatia.net/croatia/history/chronology_614_1990.htm
[7] Ferenczy E.: A magyar föld népeinek története a honfoglalásig. Gondolat, Budapest, 1958.
[8] Kollautz A.: Quellenbuch zur Geschichte der Awaren, Prague, 1944
[9] Kollautz A.: Die Awaren. Saeculum 5, 128 (19540
[10] László Gy.: Études archéologiques sur l'histoire de la société des Avars. Archaeologia Hungarica XXXIV, 255 (1955)
[11] Ostrogorsky G.: Geschichte des byzantinichen Staaten. 1952, p. 66 sqq.
[12] Herrman J.: A francia nyelv története. Gondolat, Budapest, 1966.
[13] Szentpétery I.: Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis Arpadinae gestarum. Budapest, 1937, Vol. 1, p. 239 sqq.
[14] Dümmerth D.: Az Árpádok nyomában. Panoráma, Budapest, 1977.
[15] Migne J-P .: Patrologia Greco-Latina, Tomus CXVI, Paris, 1891, p. 1363 sqq.
[16] Bóna I.: Nagy Károly nyomdokain. In: Évezredek hétköznapjai, ed. Szombathy V., Panoráma, Budapest, 1973., p. 141 sqq.
[17] ***: Avar Imperatorlugu. http://www.cankaya.gov.tr/avar.htm
[18] Tomka P.: Avarok a Kisalföldön. In: Régészeti barangolások Magyarországon, ed. Szombathy V., Panoráma, Budapest, 1978., p. 124. sqq.
[19] Láng J.: Lélek és isten. Gondolat, Budapest, 1974.



Buta-Ul, Son of Buta Khan.. was Noble AVAR. ( After BAYAN I KHAGAN )

Buta-ul ("the son of Buta") was Avar noble, ruler of Banat and Bačka regions in the 8th century.

He buried a large treasure in northern Banat (near the present day village of

Nakovo in Kikinda municipality, Serbia). The treasure was excavated in 1799, and today it is kept in Vienna cultural-historical museum.

The treasure contain an inscription, which can tell us who was its owner: "The great župan Buta-ul, ruler of two Getian lands, Targorska and Eciska, and across the Tisa".

The "great župan" (rendering veliki župan) is a traditional Slavic ruler's title, while "Getian land" was a designation for present day Banat. The land "across the Tisa" is obviously present day Bačka.

The treasure was probably buried in 796, when Pippin, the son of Frankish ruler Charlemagne, penetrated with his army into the centre of Avar caganate near the river Tisa. Buta-ul probably buried his treasure in great hurry before the Frankish army arrived, since the treasure was buried only half metre deep in the ground.

The people who excavated the treasure of Buta-ul in 1799 thought that it was a treasure of Attila the Hun, but the research showed that treasure was Avar.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 4 - COMING SOON..
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Boztorgai_Khan]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 4
------------------------------------------------------------------------

the AVAR - PICTURES:

AVAR SOLDIERS / PEOPLES



3. is AVAR


MAP










------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 5 - COMING SOON..
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Boztorgai_Khan]

the AVARS - populair unit - Rouran heaviest horse archers

here are some ideas: ( SO FAR )

mercenaries:

Croat axeman

peasant archers and spearman (mostly sheepherders and the weakest units)

Avar infantry with swords
Avar infantry with spears
Avar Vlach Peasants
Slav Peasants
Slav Tribesman
Balkan Archers
Cuman heaviest infantry
Pecheneg heaviest axeman
Dismounted Bagaturs heaviest swords

(i think that infantry was not very popular among nomadic people so they had not much armor on)

Avar light cavalry archers
Avar light cavalry with sword and axe
Avar Noble Cavalry
Avar Bagatur heaviest cavalry
Avar Tarkhan heavy cavalry
Avar Bagatur heaviest cavalry with swords
Avar Tarkhan heavy cavalry with swords
Avar Bagatur heaviest horse archers
Kypchak heaviest cavalry
Cuman Noble heavy cavalry
Pecheneg cavalry
Cuman heaviest horse archers
Kypchak heaviest horse archers
Rouran heaviest horse archers
Khagan's Guard heaviest cavalry

the nomadic faction (Avars) should be more cavalry based.


Tumen = General
Tigin / Jigin = Prince
Shaman / Chaman = Cleric
Khagan / Chagan = Leader



AVAR Noble Cavalry


AVAR - BAGHATURS


AVAR Horseman



MORE COMING SOON.. GIVE TIME :wink:

[Boztorgai_Khan]

the AVARS


AVARS

AVAR - KHAGAN



AVAR






AVAR JUAN-JUAN LANCER


AVAR - NOBLE CAVALRY


AVAR ARCHERS


AVARS - MORE UNIT's












AVAR - JUAN-JUAN - ARCHER




AVAR JUAN-JUAN INFANTRY ARCHERS




AVAR JUAN-JUAN Spearman




AVAR HORSE / CAVALRY










AVAR Heavy Cavalry




AVAR Light


AVARS















AVAR - TARKHAN'S





AVAR - PECHENEG'S



AVAR - SLAV'S

[Boztorgai_Khan]

Okay, Here is FINALROSTER. ( is this too much? then make it shorter please )


the AVARS - populair unit - Juan-Juan heaviest horse archers

here are some ideas: ( SO FAR )

mercenaries:

Croat axeman

peasant archers and spearman (mostly sheepherders and the weakest units)

Avar infantry with swords
Avar infantry with spears
Avar Vlach Peasants
Slav Peasants
Slav Tribesman
Balkan Archers
Cuman heaviest infantry
Pecheneg heaviest axeman
Dismounted Bagaturs heaviest swords
Juan-Juan heavy archers
Juan-Juan spearman

(i think that infantry was not very popular among nomadic people so they had not much armor on)

Avar light cavalry archers
Avar light cavalry with sword and axe
Avar Noble Cavalry
Avar Juan-Juan Lancer
Avar Bagatur heaviest cavalry
Avar Tarkhan heavy cavalry
Avar Bagatur heaviest cavalry with swords
Avar Tarkhan heavy cavalry with swords
Avar Bagatur heaviest horse archers
Juan-Juan heaviest horse archers
Juan-Juan heavy archers
Kypchak heaviest cavalry
Cuman Noble heavy cavalry
Pecheneg cavalry
Cuman heaviest horse archers
Kypchak heaviest horse archers
Khagan's Guard heaviest cavalry

the nomadic faction (Avars) should be more cavalry based.


Tumen = General
Tigin / Jigin = Prince
Shaman / Chaman = Cleric
Khagan / Chagan = Leader

[Boztorgai_Khan]

the AVARS


FOR THE MEMORY OF THE AVAR KHAGANS

B. Lukács
Matter Evolution Subcommittee of the Geonomy Committee
of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
RMKI CRIP H-1525 Bp. 114. POB 49.
lukacs@rmki.kfki.hu

TECHNICAL NOTE
The language of Avars is practically unknown; but educated guesses tell that it may have been Old Turkish, or something between Turkish and Mongolian. So for Avar names & titles I use the official orthography of Turkey, if I can reproduce the letter (i.e. Khagan->Kagan &c.). I try to do the same for names whose speech community did not have a Latin alphabet. Note then that in Carpathians, e.g., the "C" is English C not Turkish.
ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY
The author admits that he is not a historian. This material was written to fill a lacuna in historic literature. My text, therefore, may contain errors and of course is infected with ignorance. But it seems that important data are simply absent in the literature. Still I think some missing data exist somewhere. So this text does not want to be Word of History but simply a nucleation core of the specific topic.
ABSTRACT
A brief and still grossly incomplete chronology of Avar Kagans is given.
INTRODUCTION
History is an occupation needing at least some money. True research needs founds, either grants or research positions. And History is intimately connected with states, minorities, religions &c. Nations give money to search their own histories; maybe even those of enemies. As for histories of passed nations, some are regarded as predecessors of modern nations (either rightfully or not), and then the successors keep their memories. The remaining ones are investigated for their importance in World History, for sheer curiosity or not at all.
In Europe the situation is simple enough. In ancient times all Mediterranean Europe belonged to Greece & Rome, and these civilisations do have inheritors. North of them lived Germans & Celts, and they have inheritors too. But the past of the territory of Hungary is different.
Hungarian State officially starts with the Magyar Conquest in April 896. Previous states there do not belong to the history of the Nation. Slovakia is interested in the past of proto-Slovakians back to the end of Vth century (according to Slovakian consensus) or to the second half of VIth century (according to Hungarian majority opinion), but even they are not too interested in histories of earlier or nomadic peoples. And so on.
Now, the organisation principle of steppe nomads is based on tribal alliances. When troubles happen on the borderless steppe, unlucky alliances break up immediately; then clans enter new tribes and tribes enter new alliances. Above a "nation", a tribal alliance or such there is a ruler who rules according to the mandate of the (Eternal) Blue Sky, Kök Tängri (now "Tanri" is "God" in Turkish and "tenger" is "sea" in Magyar, indeed blue and infinite for a Hungarian). He surely rules from the mandate of Blue Sky, because when he loses the mandate, he is no more Kagan. Either he is replaced by the new mandatee (as Kagan Buda of the Huns was replaced by his younger brother Kagan Atilla in 445, for reasons you may try to ask about Kök Tängri himself) or the whole "state" comes apart. Turning to a more recent example, according to the opinion of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in 1922 Sultan (Pad-i-sah) Mehmed VI (Vahidüddin) lost the mandate and the ninth Turkish state (that of the Ottomans) ceased to exist. Instead, a tenth state started, the Republic of Turkey.
The Carpathian Basin bw. 568 and 799 was ruled by a Far Eastern mounted warrior state, the Avars. This was the second state in prehistory & history which united the Carpathian Basin (the first was the Eneolithic Pécel culture, in the IVth millenium BC); the Danube is rather wide a river, even Romans could not cross it regularly. The Hungarian State does not, and never did, recognise the Avar State as legal predecessor, and of course I will not question the wisdom of the Hungarian State. However surely among all the existing states now they are nearest to Hungary. I admit that Turkey is the second, and Turkish netsites indeed give Avar chronologies; but shorter even as we can.
Chapter 2 is the chronology, and discussions of the ample nontrivial and obscure points will be given in Chapter 3.
The present text is the status of my knowledge at New Year Day of 2003. When I get a new information, I will update it.
2. THE TENTATIVE LIST OF AVAR KAGANS
Date
Event
Note
From 185
Avar (Juan-juan) state on the NW border of China, to the Mtn. Altai
a
c. 350
Juan-juans take the Sien-pi lands.
-
402
Juan-juans take Cungaria and Upper Irtis.
-
439
The Türk (in Chinese texts t'u-küe) tribe, led by the Asina clan, is admitted into the Juan-juan state, and settles the S. slopes of Altay.
b
522-552
Kagan A-na-kuei (A-na-kui).
-
551-552
Turkish revolt, starting in the Altay
c
April 552
Juan-juan defeat; a part of the fleeing Juan-juans enter C'i lands in China, the Kagan is K'u-t'i (552-554), then An-lo-ch'en, son of A-na-kui. The majority (?) starts to West. On the old Juan-juan territory the Old Turkish Khaganate starts.
d
558
Avar embassy in Constantinople; alliance against Sabirs & Utigurs. The Kagan may be Kandik 552?-562.
e
562
East Romans start to pay annual tax to the Avars. Avars defeat King Gisebert of Thuringy. Then they start to go to the East for the Carpathian Basin, incorporating large numbers of Slavic peoples as secondary, foot warriors.
-
562-602:
Kagan Bayan
f
End of 565
With the death of Emperor Justinian Roman tax ceases.
-
Spring 567
Turks, pursuing the Avars, cross R. Itil (Volga)
g
April 567
Avars and Lombards crush Gepidia, E. of R. Tisia. The Sirmium garrison capitulates to E. Rome; Avar conquest on the remaining Gepid lands.
-
April 2, 568
Lombards evacuate the territories W. of Danube and start to N. Italy. All the Basin is Avaria. The E. border of Avaria is somewhere N. of Black Sea
h
602-c. 630
The dynasty of Bayan; two sons in sequence 602-617 & 617-c. 630, names unknown
i
614
Avars and their Croat allies destroy Epidaurus & Salona in Dalmatia.
j
626-629
Campaigns (Avars incl. Slavic peoples of Avaria, Croats, Lower Danube Slavs, Persian Empire) against Constantinople; unsuccessful.
-
629-635
Troubles, then restoration.
k
635-c. 680
Second Avar Khaganate, names unknown.
l
c. 635
Avaria loses the Pontus area (to Bulgars & Khazars), see Note l. From this time Avaria is the Carpathian Basin, with marches outside: to R. Enns on W., the area of Uherské Hradiste & Uhersky Brod in Later Moravia and unknown territories E. of E. Carpathians; allies on N. & S.: White Croats & Adria Croats.
-
April 677
According to the Vienna Illuminated Chronicle, Árpád, Dux of Hungarians conquers the Basin.
m
c. 680
Kuber, 4th son of Kagan Kovrat (Kurt; Wolf) of the Pontus Bulgars arrives with his fleeing people at the Basin. In a few years Bulgars revolt in the Basin. Kuber flees to Danube Bulgaria (founded in 681 by his elder brother Asparukh).
n
c. 685-795
Third Avar Khaganate, names unknown.
o
791
Charlemagne attacks Avaria, repelled with heavy losses.
p
795
Civil war bw. the Kagan (name unknown) and the Yugurrus (the 2nd man). The Tudun (Governor of the Western Lands) does not want anything of it, and allies with Erik, Margrave of Friuli against them. Charlemagne sends more than ample troops into the already friendly Avaria and sacs it. (The details are somewhat obscure.). See also Note p.
-
795-c. 814:
The Tudun Kajd (?) takes the office of Kagan, later, baptized, takes the name Theodorus. Or: Kajd, then Theodorus.
q
803
Kagan Krum of Bulgaria occupies Eastern Avaria.
-
c. 814 - c. 835
Kagans Abraham & Isaac.
r
835 - 899 (?)
Names unknown.
s
899
Conquering Magyars of Árpád take the territories W. of the Danube, so also the territory of Rump Avaria. While Western texts for a while still mention Avars, it is possible that it is already an anachronism, while the existence of ethnic Avars is rather sure. Medieval Magyar sources never mention the Avars. Later fate of Avars is unknown, but in Xth c. the Magyar tribal alliance incorporates other peoples as direct subjects of the Sublime Kagan. Hungarian archaeologists guess that some cemeteries are mixed Avar-Magyar ones. Some hypothesize Avar migration to Transylvania. By any probability fragments of the Avar society could have been incorporated into the Hetumoger=Hétmagyar=7 Magyar(s) without any problem. So this is the latest possible end of Avar state. Speculations exist that some self-organised Avar group may have existed in Transylvania since 803, the Bulgarian incorporation of the Great Plains, but up to now we do not know anything about leaders, for any case. The connection of Avars with recent Avar ethnic group & language in Mtn. Caucasus is a matter of hypothesises and may even not exist.
-

3. NOTES AND EXPLANATIONS
Note a: The tribal alliance is always mentioned by Chinese sources as Juan-juan, but this is an "onomatopoetic" word showing the eternal stupid motion, swarming or pullulation. The identification Juan-juan = Avar is classical, comes from De Guignes = Desguignes [1], and I see no reason to doubt it.
Note b: The migration of Türks under the Asina clan (originally Hiung-nu, so Asiatic Hun) is given by Chinese annals of the Later Wei Dynasty, at Emperor T'ai-wu-ti.
Note c: In the Turkish folk tradition a leader of this revolt is the Gray Wolf, Boz Kurt. In history it was led by Prince, later Kagan Bumin.
Note d: The details of the war can be followed in Northern C'i annals, of which I give a reference to [2]. Here I note, and this will not be repeated, that at some points I have to translate Hungarian Academic orthography of Chinese to English or Turkish, which is by no means unequivocal.
Note e: Kagan Kandik with his closing year is given in a Kutrigur chronology [3]. Since An-lo-ch’en, son of the last independent Juan-juan Kagan remained on the East, the migrants must have elected a nontrivial successor. This may or may not have been Kandik. However he may have followed some interregnum too.
Note f: For the Avar motions, diplomatic negotiations, and the place of Slavic foot warriors in the originally fully mounted Avar army see [4] and citations therein. Obviously the most reliable Slavic allies were settled in the mountainous regions of the Carpathian Basin, where they live now as well.
Note g: The Kök Tümlrk Kagan sent a message to Constantinople, telling that he was pursuing his slaves, whom he would crush under the hooves of Turk horses like ants, without using swords. See [4], with further citations of Longobard chronicles. Anyway, it did not happen. The Basin is easy to be defended.
Note h: The day is recorded in Lombard chronicles, because it was Easter Monday, see [4] and citations therein. According to Longobard tradition the evacuation happened in line of an Avar-Longobard agreement of 200 year friendship & mutual help. Indeed, the Avar-Longobard connections remained friendly. We do not know what was the Avar help to the exodus.
Note i: Or maybe two younger brothers of him. See [5]. Ref. [3] gives 617 as death of Bayan (and gives Bayan as destroyer of Epidaurus & Salona). So the easiest guess is that Bayan’s first successor had a similar name, we may call him Bayan II until no better suggestion arises, and he died in 617.
Note j: See e.g. [6]. This is the first extant record about Adria Croats.
Note k: Croatian books are unequivocal that they "became independent" in 630. Since Avar-Croat relations seem friendly afterwards, this can only mean the reorganisation of the state. Recent Hungarian books repeat two "facts" after the unsuccessful long campaign: troubles, and (possible) change of the dynasty.
Note l: From a very obscure period Ref. [7] gives a relative detailed report; but it needs the ability to read Hungarian. So I give also [8], [9], [10] and [11]; but the sources are surprisingly silent. Various Slavic authors mention Samo, as a successful leader of Slavs, who made a part of Avaria independent. Samo is indeed recorded in the (not too reliable) Codex Fredegarius as a Frankish merchant among Slavs; the problem is that in centuries XIX & XX various Slav movements & states reported the traces of Samo from practically all Slavic territories around present Hungary, i.e at the peripheries of Avaria, so, accepting the existence of Leader Samo I would relegate the details to among the folk tales of romantic/nationalistic histories. Hungarian archaeologists are unable to find any trace of Samo's "state". The Western part of Hungary is densely packed by Avar sites. Maybe Slovenia?
I must emphasize that when I call the Fredegarius compilation "not too reliable", I do not mean its historical coherence; I am not a historian. But let you decide the linguistic quality and self-confidence of a compiler starting so: "Mundus iam seniscit, ideoque prudenciae agumen in nobis tepiscit, ne quisquam potest huius tempore nec presumit prudenciae precedences esse consimilis. Ego tamen, ut rusticitas et stremitas sensus mei valuit, studiosissime de hisdem libris breviatem, quantum plus potui, aptare presumsi..." Anybody can see from the Latin of the text that the rusticitas of the sense of the author is doubtless great enough; he speaks about its stremitas too, not I. According to a Neo-Latin expert [12] the Fredegarius compilation is the nadir in the history of Latinitas.
Maybe the last stroke of troubles is the revolt of Kagan Kovrat of the Bulgars. Some sources put here the pretension of Alzeco, chief of either the Bulgars or the Kutrigurs to the Avar throne [9]. However it seems that this is a chronologic error and the event happened 50 years later (see there).
Note m: The Illustrated Vienna Chronicle is a Hungarian work from the Royal Chancellery. Its date is cca. 1374, under Louis I of Hungary, from the Angevins, and according to experts it was a prestige publication sent to France amongst engagement gifts ("to show the haughty French who are we"). For the text see [13]. The date cannot be pen error; the Pope & Eastern Emperor are correctly named. See another "invasion" c. 680.
Note n: The Hungarian historiography seems to have cleared up the chaos about the sons of Kovrat, the Bulgarian. (Kovrat is the Bulgarian or –r Turk form. In Common or –z Turk it would be Kurt. The Boz Kurt of Note c would be cca. Bora Kovrat in Bulgarian.) For the actual event in the Carpathian Basin see [14]. However that is again in Hungarian, so I repeat some statements here. Kagan Kovrat dies in Pontus in 665. He had 5 sons, in age sequence Batbayan, Kotrag, Isperik, Küber & Alzeko. In some years the Khazars attack Kagan Batbayan. He becomes Khazarian vassal, but his brothers migrate away with some parts of the nation. Kotrag founds Volga Bulgaria. Isperik goes to the Lower Danube and founds Danube Bulgaria in 681. (Still in existence in 2003.) About the remaining 2 sons Theofanés, a chronicler of Byzance from IXth c. writes that they crossed the Danube and went further, one to Avar Pannonia, the other to the Pentapolis at Ravenna, Italy. Now the Greek Orthodox Legend of St. Demetrios [15] tells that about 680 the Avar ruler nominated a governor for the non-Avar peoples whose name was Küber. This Küber led an exodus from Avaria, fought with the Kagan, and reached Keramesium, near to Thessaloniké. Now in the Madara inscript Kagan Tervel of Bulgaria states that his uncle lives near to Thessaloniké; and Küber was Tervel's uncle indeed.
So it seems that Küber arrived with a quantity of Pontus Bulgars into Avaria. They were admitted, but in a few years Küber claimed the throne. He was able to start a fight; at the end he was stopped and expelled with some followers. Very probably Alzeko was the youngest brother, and the names are confused.
Note o: Hungarian archaeologists detect the changes of styles and it is a commonplace that from c. 680 a Late Avar Period starts; the new component has strong Caucasian affinities. The Frank sources do not mention the Avars between 678 & 791; and the Byzantine chronicles report the last Avar embassy from 678. So indeed something happened in the Khaganate. If not a new dynasty (Küber was unsuccessful) then at least a new, isolationist ideology.
Note p: The 791 campaign is discussed from Carpathian Basin viewpoint in [16]. Foreigners have the tendency to confuse it with the 795-6 events.
Note q: Of course everything is confused in Western sources; and modern Turkish ones work from old Western ones. Let us see a modern Turkish one [17]. It names a Tudun I for 791-803, a Zodan for 803-805) and a Thedorus from 805. However Tudun is not a name, but an office, and Zodan seems to be a variation of Tudun. One Western source explicitly states that the "capcan", so probably the Kagan, asked for help and he became baptised in the R. Fischa to the name Theodorus. So the minimal theory suggests that the original tudun tried to make first some balance politics as Kagan of the Avars bw. Charlemagne and Kagan Krum, he was able to retain some independence until 803, and then Bulgaria attacked. Then he must have admitted an unequivocal Western "alliance", becoming Christian, but he could not have been anything else than a vassal. Some Hungarian scholars guess (from tradition) that the pagan name of Theodorus had been Kajd; but this is very uncertain. Namely Magyar folk traditions never mentioned the name Avar. The guess is that they can be found under the name Hun. Frankish sources are so scanty that they permit to assume also a Kajd until 804 and then a different Theodorus.
Hungarian experts can imagine that Kapkan (Capcanus) means something slightly below Kagan; see the example of a historical Turk: Kapagan Kagan. But while here I would accept any Türk opinion, be it Turkish, Kazak or Karaim, in this case "capcanus" is written in a Frankish chronicle. Franks did not know too much about Altaic titles.
Note r: Sources are unequivocal (if they tell anything at all) that the next Kagan had the baptismal name Abraham. For any chance he was son or close kin of the old tudun, so Ref. [17]'s Tudun II is correct, only that is a title, not a name. See also [18]. Some sources mention Isaac, son of Abraham.
Note s: According to the present status of art the title may have been vacant; nobody knows. Avar presence in the Basin is certain in 871.
4. CONCLUSIONS
In Magyar "God" is "Isten". Now, interestingly enough, Yabgu Istämi, father of Kagan Tardu, is considered the founder of the separate Old Western Turkish Khaganate, and so he is the predecessor of all Magyar Kagans, Hungarian Kings & Presidents.
J. Láng explains [19] that many peoples of world regard the spirit of the founder, first chief &c. as Supreme God. (And what is the Father of the first Kagan?) He can generate thunder, lightning, good/bad weather, diseases and such. And He is doing so, for example, if the descendants, having forgotten Him, do not make offers or other rituals.
Now, I do not have to compile a List of Avar Khagans. The founder ruler for me is Yabgu Istämi, so Isten, i.e. God; according to a Hungarian way of speech, the God of Hungarians, a magyarok Istene. Avars were the previous wave, and as Slovakians tell, they vanished without trace.
Still, Avars ruled just here, in my city too. And they were also able horsemen. So may their shadows rest in peace; most definitely they will not now disturb my dreams, since I collected at least a few names to commemorate them.
I think that further informations do exist, but for a more complete list some Magyar-Turkish-Bulgar-Uygur collaborations would be needed, at least on Internet.
APPENDIX: THE CHRONOLOGIC TABLE
Cent.
China
Juan-juan
Europe
II
-
Names unknown
-
III
-
Names unknown
-
IV
-
Names unknown. Presence is doubtless.
-
V
-
Names unknown
-
VI
K’u-t'i 552-554
An-lo-ch’en 554-?
?
?
A-na-kui 522-552
Kandik 552?-562
Bayan 562-602
VII
??
Defunct
Bayan II 602-617
Anon. 617-c. 630
Troubles 630-635
2nd Avar state 635-c. 680, all anon.
Troubles
Küber (pretender) 680-685
3rd Avar State 685
VIII
Defunct?
Defunct
Anon till 791
Civil war 791-795
Kajd/Theodorus 795-c. 814
IX
Defunct
Defunct
Abraham/Isaac c. 814-c. 835
Anon 835-899
X
Defunct
Defunct
Defunct

For dynasties the picture is as follows:
0th Avar dynasty, Juan-juans NW of China
185?-552
1st Transition, Chinese vassals and Western Migration
552-568
(Surviving Juan-juan statelet in China)
554-?
1st Avar State
568-630
2nd Transition, immigrants
630-635
2nd Avar State
635-680
3rd Transition, immigrants
680-c. 685
3rd Avar State
c. 685-795
4th Transition, attempt to reorganize
795-803
Late period, vassalage
803-899
End, total incorporation into the Magyar state
899-900

REFERENCES
[1] Deguignes H.: Histoire générale des huns, des turcs et des autres tartares occidentaux avant et depuis J.C. jusqu'à présent. Paris, 1756-8
[2] Li Po-yo: Pei-C'i-shu: So-yin po-na-pen er-shi-sï shi. Peking, 1958
[3] ***: The Turning of Time, Chaps. 3 & 4. wysiwyg://126/http://www.geocities.com/kutriguri/body_3.html & wysiwyg://126/http://www.geocities.com/kutriguri/body_4.html
[4] Bóna I.: The Dawn of the Dark Ages. Corvina, Budapest, 1976
[5] Olajos Teréz: Theophylaktos Simokattés és a Baján-dinasztia kronológiája. Antik Tanulmányok 20, 60 (1973)
[6] ***: Croatia Chronology until 1990. http://www.dalmatia.net/croatia/history/chronology_614_1990.htm
[7] Ferenczy E.: A magyar föld népeinek története a honfoglalásig. Gondolat, Budapest, 1958.
[8] Kollautz A.: Quellenbuch zur Geschichte der Awaren, Prague, 1944
[9] Kollautz A.: Die Awaren. Saeculum 5, 128 (19540
[10] László Gy.: Études archéologiques sur l'histoire de la société des Avars. Archaeologia Hungarica XXXIV, 255 (1955)
[11] Ostrogorsky G.: Geschichte des byzantinichen Staaten. 1952, p. 66 sqq.
[12] Herrman J.: A francia nyelv története. Gondolat, Budapest, 1966.
[13] Szentpétery I.: Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis Arpadinae gestarum. Budapest, 1937, Vol. 1, p. 239 sqq.
[14] Dümmerth D.: Az Árpádok nyomában. Panoráma, Budapest, 1977.
[15] Migne J-P .: Patrologia Greco-Latina, Tomus CXVI, Paris, 1891, p. 1363 sqq.
[16] Bóna I.: Nagy Károly nyomdokain. In: Évezredek hétköznapjai, ed. Szombathy V., Panoráma, Budapest, 1973., p. 141 sqq.
[17] ***: Avar Imperatorlugu. http://www.cankaya.gov.tr/avar.htm
[18] Tomka P.: Avarok a Kisalföldön. In: Régészeti barangolások Magyarországon, ed. Szombathy V., Panoráma, Budapest, 1978., p. 124. sqq.
[19] Láng J.: Lélek és isten. Gondolat, Budapest, 1974.

[Boztorgai_Khan]

the AVARS - Cities

[Boztorgai_Khan]

the AVARS - Cities - 2

[Boztorgai_Khan]

New Avars Map:

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/3697/balkansvb0.jpg



the AVARS







Vandal & Avar

[Boztorgai_Khan]

[Boztorgai_Khan]

Nakharar, You Like it ??
I send you Names list and Rulers list later okay ???

[Boztorgai_Khan]

AVARS Unit List with Pictures:


Avar Juan-Juan infantry with swords







AVARJUAN-JUAN INFANTRY ARCHERS





AVAR JUAN-JUAN infantry Spearman




Slav Peasants

3

2




Slav Tribesman

3




Balkan Archers
2




Cuman heaviest infantry




Pecheneg heaviest axeman




Dismounted Bagaturs heaviest swords







(i think that infantry was not very popular among nomadic people so they had not much armor on)


Avar light cavalry archers







Avar light cavalry with sword and axe





Avar Noble Cavalry






Avar Bagatur heaviest cavalry



Avar Tarkhan heavy cavalry




Avar Bagatur heaviest cavalry with swords ( 3. isAVAR )



Avar Tarkhan heavy cavalry with swords





Avar Bagatur heaviest horse archers




Rouran heaviest horse archers





Kypchak heaviest cavalry




Cuman Noble heavy cavalry




AVAR Juan-Juan heaviest Lancer





Pecheneg cavalry






Cuman heaviest horse archers





Kypchak heaviest horse archers





Khagan's Guard heaviest cavalry

[Nakharar]

Nice very nice all of it

[daxter]

i see you found the same site of pics as i but +rep exelent information !!!!see modeling thread for a unit preview in game

[Boztorgai_Khan]

Nice very nice all of it

Thank You..

i see you found the same site of pics as i but +rep exelent information !!!!see modeling thread for a unit preview in game

Thank You..