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EUROPE in the EARLY MIDDLE AGES
Slavs and Bulgars
The Slavs
Migrating at the same time as the Anglo-Saxons were the Slavs. These were a people who spoke an Indo-European language, suggesting they were Aryan. They were polytheists, with shamans, and still believed in sacrificing creatures as gifts to the gods.
The Slavs expanded in various directions from the plains north of the Black Sea. Moving northward, they followed rivers, passed through forests and mixed with Finns and Baltic peoples. From the 540s to the 580s they moved south into the Balkans -- a part of Constantinople's empire -- as far south as central Greece, and they approached Adrianople. Constantinople's Byzantine emperor, Maurice, who ruled from 582 to 602 and spent many years warring against them, wrote:
They have abundance of cattle and grain, chiefly millet and rye, but rulers they cannot bear and they live side by side in disunion. [note]
Slavs in the Balkans have also been described as "scores of dissociated tribes," living in villages, herding, farming and sharing as within a family. They fished, kept bees, made pottery and weaved baskets. Merchants from Constantinople and Thessalonica came and sold them jewelry, silks and spices and gave them contacs with Byzantine culture, including Christianity.
Following the defeat of the Avars by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in the 620s, many Slavs broke free of Avar control. Some Slavs came under the authority of Avars, and some voluntarily or involuntarily joined the mounted Avar forces as infantry. Some Slavs moved farther west than others, to become known as Slovenes, Slovaks, Croats and Serbs. The Slavs mixed with people indigenous to the Balkans, except for those indigenous peoples who had fled to coastal and other areas hoping for imperial protection. Heraclius did what he could to protect these refugees and to win back control over the Balkans. He recovered Greece from Slavic control, but he felt compelled to grant Croats and Serbs settlement rights in the Balkan northwest, hoping they would guard the area from other incursions.
The Creation of Bulgaria
The Bulgars have been described as a Turkic people, speaking a language described by Wikipedia as "alongside with Khazar, Hunnic and Chuvash, a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family," a statement supported by much documentation. (See Wikipedia/Bulgars.)
The Bulgars were a herding people who fought their way westward from Asia, raiding for plunder in Constantinople's empire in the Balkans during the rule of Justinian I, and then retreating.
The Bulgars were under Avar domination. A man named Kubrat, Kuvrat or Kurt, meaning "Wolf," rose to prominence among the Avars and Bulgars. He had a Bulgar mother and an Avar father -- males of a dominant people often taking women from among those they dominate. Kubrat grew up as a hostage in Byzantium. Between the years 630 and 635, in the Ukraine (north of Constantinople's empire), Kubrat, freed from captivity, organized a federation consisting of Avars and Bulgars -- Onoguria.
Within a few decades, Onoguria divided and some of the people from there moved together southward across the Danube River into the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans. According to a Byzantine chronicler this was the year 679. Constantinople was annoyed but busy warring against Muslim Arabs.
The Bulgar invaders were under a military leader, or khan, and they behaved as conquerors had before them. They were uninterested in farming and made themselves lord and master over Slav farmers they came upon, exploiting peasant labor -- a plunder with continuity.
During the rule of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V (741- 775) the Arab danger had abated, and Constantine felt free to attack the Bulgarians, but by now the Bulgarians had consolidated their power and were able to withstand his attacks. The warring lasted into the 800s, with Emperor Nicephorus against the khan named Krum. In 811, Khan Krum outwitted the Byzantines and trapped them in closed valleys, killing nearly all of them, including Emperor Nicephorus. Krum made a drinking cup of Nicephorus' skull -- an object of pride during feasting with his captains.
Krum harassed Thrace and laid siege to Constantinople in 813. People climbed their city's walls for a view of those they considered exotic barbarians. A description of the attackers survives.
Krum offered sacrifices after the custom of his nation by slaughtering men [human sacrifice!] and cattle before the Golden Gate [a gate to the city]. He then washed his feet in the sea and performed his ablutions, after which he besprinkled the people crowding around to do him honor. Returning to his camp he passed through the array of his concubines who worshiped and glorified their lord.
Krum's appeals to his gods was to no avail. His army was unable to penetrate Constantinople's walls, and he had no fleet of ships to block Constantinople's contacts by sea. He returned to Thrace, whence he had come.
More Cultural Diffusion
As early as the 500s and 600s, Christianity had been spreading slowly and in bits and pieces from Byzantium to the Slavs in the Balkans, and by the 800s it was spreading to the Bulgars, despite their having considered Byzantium decadent. But the Bulgars also recognized Constantinople as advanced in civilization -- as having writing, books and learning.
Living more than 200 years side by side with the Slavs, and intermarrying with them, the Bulgar's difference from the Slavs diminished. The Slavs had been more culturally advanced, and it was their alphabet and language that the Bulgars adopted. Bulgaria was organized and united to the degree that it became the first Slavic state on the Balkan peninsula worthy of being called a state.
The Bulgarian khan, Boris, adopted Christianity and opened Bulgaria to influences from Constantinople. And he sent one of his sons, Simeon, to be educated by the Byzantines.
Simeon ruled Bulgaria from 893 to 927. He wanted to help his people advance culturally, and he helped in translating numerous books into the language of the Slavs. He also continued the tradition of his forefathers in opposing Constantinople as a power. Simeon held the title of emperor -- tsar in his Slavic language. He wished to destroy that power in order to enhance the power and grandeur of his kingdom, and he was at war with Constantinople through most of his reign. Four times within eleven years Simeon advanced to Constantinople and attacked its walls, without success.
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Copyright © 2009 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.