Today, August 9, marks 1342 years since the first mention of Bulgaria on the Lower Danube, and this is an occasion to remember the events surrounding the founding of Danube Bulgaria and its first ruler Asparukh.
The first mention of Danube Bulgaria, August 9, 681.
At the latest in the spring of 681, Byzantium concluded peace with Bulgaria and undertook to pay it tribute - Bulgaria was already established and this year celebrates its 1342nd birthday. On August 9, 681 - at the sixteenth session of the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (November 7, 680-September 16, 681) - Bulgaria on the Lower Danube was mentioned for the first time by the delegate Constantine of Apamea:
"The holy council said: 'Let the venerable Constantine, who stands here, give information about himself and the reason why he has come.'
The Venerable Constantine said: “My name is Constantine. I am presbyter of the holy church of God, which is in Apamea, in the province of Second Syria. I was ordained by Abrahamius, bishop of Arethusa{1}. I came to your holy council to teach you that if I had been listened to, we would not have suffered what we suffered this year, namely what we suffered in the war with Bulgaria...{2}" {3}.
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After Kubrat's death, under the pressure of the Khazars, the proto-Bulgarian "steppe empire", known from Byzantine sources as Old Great Bulgaria, fell apart. Kubrat's sons split up, each leading a part of the tribes that made up the population of the vast until recently state union in different directions. As mentioned by the Byzantine chroniclers Theophanes the Confessor and Patriarch Nicephorus, the proto-Bulgarians led by Asparuh (680-700) reached Ongla (Oglosa) in the Danube delta. Complementing each other, the two describe the place as swampy, surrounded by rivers and inaccessible cliffs.
There has long been a bitter dispute over where exactly the fortified Aul Ongle was located. Pavel Shafarik and Konstantin Irecek suggest that Ongle comes from the Slavic word for angle. And they associate it with the name of the Slavic tribe Uglichi/Ulichi. According to Vasil Zlatarski, the name "Ongle" comes from Turkic and means a fenced place. Peter Mutafchiev suggests that Ongula is the Bujak region in Bessarabia, since "bujak" means corner in Turkic. According to the Armenian geography "Ashkharatsuits", Asparukh settled on the disappeared island of Pyuki (Pevki) in the delta of the Danube river - this is the most common opinion today about the location of Asparukh's settlement.
After settling in the Ongle region, the Bulgarians created a fortified camp. As it can be seen, this is the Nikulitselsky fortified camp with an area of 48,3 km2. There are three fortification lines. To the north it was surrounded by the so-called South Bessarabian rampart and the Danube river, and from the south it was probably protected by another arm of the Danube river, which has disappeared today.
In the spring of 680, the Byzantine ruler Constantine IV Bradati set off with a land force and a fleet towards Ongle. At the sight of the Byzantine army, the Bulgarians shut themselves up in their fortified camp, where they prepared for an active defense. According to Byzantine sources, the emperor abandoned his army and sailed with one of the ships to Mesemvria (today's Nessebar) to be treated, probably for gout {5}. A rumor reached the Roman cavalry that the emperor had fled. There is a commotion among the Byzantine army, and the defenders of the fortification leave it with a battle cry.
As a result of the victory at Ongla, Asparuh and the army led by him reached the "so-called Varna region", and the passes in the Eastern Stara Planina were heavily guarded. After the hostilities in Thrace in the spring of the following year 681, Byzantium was forced to make peace with Bulgaria, beginning to pay an annual tribute. The lands north of Stara planina became the possession of the newly created Bulgarian state.
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Today, domestic sources are also known about these events and about Asparuh himself. The first is in the "Name Book of Bulgarian Rulers", where Asparuh is mentioned like this:
"And after that came the Danube Isperich [or Espererich, or Esperich] prince from here. It's the same so far. Prince Isperih 61 years [ruled]. His lineage [is] Dullo. And his power was given [in the year of] the tiger - vereni, [month] first - alem." {6}
Important information about Asparukh (Ispor) - handed down for centuries as oral legends before being written down - is also contained in the Bulgarian nameless chronicle from the XNUMXth century, the work of an unknown author:
"And then after him [after Tsar Slav, the first Bulgarian ruler according to the author of the Bulgarian Nameless Chronicle], another king was found in the Bulgarian land - a child carried in a basket for three years, who was given the name Ispor Tsar, [who] accepted the Bulgarian kingdom . And this king created great cities: on the Danube - Druster city [today's Silistra]; he also created a great presidium from the Danube to the sea; he also created Plyuska city [today's city of Pliska, Shumensko]. And this king destroyed a great multitude of the Ishmaelites. And this king inhabited the whole Karvun land{7}…”{8}
The account of the "great multitude of the Ishmaelites" being destroyed in the above excerpt gives scholars reason to believe that Asparukh died in battle with the Khazars.
Today, August 9, marks 1342 years since the first mention of Bulgaria on the Lower Danube, and this is an occasion to remember the events surrounding the founding of Danube Bulgaria and its first ruler Asparukh.
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{1} The Byzantine city of Apamea is located on the banks of the Orontes River, north of Antioch, and was the capital of the Byzantine province of Second Syria. Near the mighty fortress of the city today is the city of Qalaat al-Madiq, in the modern Syrian province of Hama, to the northeast of the provincial capital of the same name.
{2} Arethusa is a city in Syria, present-day Er-Rastan (or Al-Rastan) in the modern Syrian province of Homs, 26 km north of the provincial capital of the same name.
{3} A clear allusion to the Bulgarian victory in the first Bulgarian-Byzantine war of 680-681 (see below).
{4} Translation and notes by Ivan Duychev – In: GIBI III. BAS Publishing House, Sofia, 1960 // pp. 169-170
{5} The sources clearly hint that the emperor actually fled the battlefield and that the reason for this was probably the Bulgarian victory in the battle. By telling the story of the emperor sailing to Messemvria to bathe there, the Byzantine chroniclers are actually looking for a justification for the military defeat.
{6} Based on translations by Vasil Gyuzelev (from Omeljan Pritsak "Die bulgarische Fürstenliste und die Sprache der Protobulgaren". Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden: 1955 // 76-77 and Veselin Beševliev "Die protobulgarischen Inschriften". Berliner byzantinistische Arbeiten 23. Akademie- Verlag, Berlin: 1963 // p. 306) and to Mosko Moskov from the Uvarov, Moskovskaya and Pogodino transcripts, that is, from the transcripts by which the Namesake has reached our days - see Moscow Moscow "Namebook of the Bulgarian Khans (new interpretation)". Dr. Petar Beron, Sofia: 1988 // p. 25
{7} In the Bulgarian nameless chronicle is the first mention of this geographical concept, it seems to be synonymous with the present-day Dobruja region.
{8} Translation by Ivan Duychev (see Ivan Duychev "From the old Bulgarian literature. Literary and historical monuments from the First Bulgarian Kingdom". T. I. Hemus, Sofia: 1940 // p. 155-156) by Yordan Ivanov "Bogomilski books and legends'. Fund "D. P. Kudoglu", State Printing House/ Science and Art, Sofia: 1925/1970 // pp. 281-282
In the exhibition of the National History Museum, in hall 3-east, early evidence of Slavic and proto-Bulgarian presence on the Bulgarian lands is on display.
Text: Ivan Petrinsky, Iliya Stoimenov
