Eurasian Avars

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A steppe, possibly Avar, warrior with a captive[citation needed]
A steppe, possibly Avar, warrior with a captive[citation needed]
Not to be confused with Caucasian Avars.
The Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan.

The Avars were a highly organized and powerful Turkic confederation, governed by a central ruler (khagan) [1]. 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.

Contents

[edit] Origins

The origin of the European Avars is unclear. Our 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.[2] Such a case has been seen repeatedly for many nomadic confederacies.

According to the research of historian András Róna-Tas[3], the Avars formed in central Asia through a fusion of several tribal elements, in the classical age. Roma-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[4]. 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.[5]

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

Early in the sixth century, the confedecracy 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[6]. 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[7] and K. Czeglèdy in 1983[8] and his own methodological objections[9]:"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."[10] 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 heterogenous, polyethnic people [11][12]. Modern research shows[13] 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.

[edit] History

[edit] Arrival in Europe

The Avars arrived to the vast grasslands of Ukraine circa 555 AD. Here, they subjugated various nomadic tribes- such as the Kutrigur Bulgars, the Sabirs and Onogurs- and included them in the Avar confederacy. By their arrival into the Balkans, they were a heterogeneous group of c.20, 000 horsemen[14]. 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.[15] 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. However, further expansion into Germania was halted by stern Frankish opposition and the harsh conditions of western Europe.

By 562 AD, they settled the lower Danube basin. Here they subjegated many Slavic tribes, including the Antean tribal league, who, whilst numerous, were divided into many petty tribes [16]. In 565, they demanded increased tribute from the Byzantines, and when refused, they began to raid imperial territory south of the Danube.

The Avars yearned for the lands of the Carpathian plain, and the natural defenses it afforded (ever fearing Gokturk attacks)[17]. In 567, they signed an alliance with the Lombards, who were engaged in conflict with another Germanic tribe- the Gepids. Together, the Avars and Lombards destroyed the Gepids, who had established a powerful "kingdom" over much of Dacia, Danubia and Syrmia after the collapse of Hunnic power in 454 AD. They then turned on the Lombards, forcing them to invade northern Italy, an invasion that marked the last Germanic mass movement in the Migration Period. The Avars thus established a nomadic empire stretching from Austria in the west to the Pontic steppes in the east, ruling over a multitude of peoples.

Map showing the location of Avar Khaganate, c. 600 AD.
Map showing the location of Avar Khaganate, c. 600 AD.

[edit] 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.[18] 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,[19] but Emperor Maurice decided against returning home as was customary caused the army to revolt (602), to maintain his army camp beyond the Danube throughout the winter. 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.[20]

The Carpathian basin was the centre of the Avar power base. The Avars re-settled captives from the peripheries of their empire to more central regions. Avar material culture is found south to Macedonia. However, to the east of the Carpathians, there is next to no Avar archaeological finds, suggesting that they were mainly in the western Balkans. The khagan was the paramount figure, surrounded by a minority of nomadic aristocracy. A few, expectionally rich burials have been uncovered - confirming power was limited to the Khagan and close-knit class of 'elite warriors'. Apart from hordes of gold coins, they were often buried with symbols of rank - such as decorated belts, weapons, stirrups resembling those found in central Asia, as well as their horse. Under them were the various subjects and allies - Slavs, Gepids and Bulgars- who did the bulk of the fighting for little reward. Initially, the Avars and their subjects lived separately, except for Slavic and Germanic women that were married by Avar men. Eventually, the Germanic and Slavic peoples were included in the Avaric social order and culture – which itself was Persian- Byzantine in fashion[21]. Scholars have identified a fused, Avar-Slavic culture, characterized by ornaments such as half moon-shaped earrings, Byzantine-styled buckles, beads, bracelets with horn-shaped ends [22]. Paul Fouracre notes “there appears in the seventh century a mixed Slavic-Avar material culture, interpreted as peaceful and harmonious relationships between Avar warriors and Slavic peasants. It is thought possible that at least some of the leaders of the Slav tribes could have become part of the Avar aristocracy”[23]. Apart from the assimilated Gepids, a few graves of west Germanic (Carolingian) peoples have been found through the Avar lands, who perhaps served as mercenaries.[24]

[edit] Middle (670-720) and Late (720-800) Avar Periods

In 626, the Avars and the Persians jointly besieged Constantinople and failed. Following this defeat, the Avars' prestige and power declined. The Byzantines document a battle between the Avars and their Slav clients in 629. Shortly after this, the Croats and Serbs took over rule in Dalmatia/ Illyria. In the 630s, Samo increased his authority over lands to the north and west of the khanate, at the expense of the Avars, becoming ‘’King of the Wends’’. In 631-32, there was a civil war, possibly a succession struggle, between Bulgar and Avar parties. The Bulgar party lost, and chroniclers recorded that 9,000 Bulgars sought asylum and fled to Bavaria, only to be slaughtered by King Dagobert. Around 630, Kubrat of the Dulo clan revolted, ending Avar authority over the Pontic steppes, and formed an independent Bulgarian realm on the Don.

By 670, the Khazars broke the Kubrat’s Onogur-Bulgar confederation, causing various tribal groups to migrate. One group of Bulgars migrated into the Carpathina basin and accepted Avar supremacy. Byzantine sources reveal they later revolted, led by Kuber (possibly one of Kubrat’s sons). After fending off a punitive Avar attack, they moved to Macedonia. However significant number of Bulgars must have remained in Pannonia. This new ethnic element (marked by hair clips for pigtails; curved, single-edged sabres; broad, symmetrical bows) marks the middle Avar period (670-720 AD). Although the Avar’s empire had diminished to half its original size, they consolidated ruled over the central Pannonian lands, mid Danubian basin, and once again extended their sphere of influence west to the Viennese Basin (with the Death of Samo, some Slavic tribes again fell under Avar rule). New regional centers appear, such as those near Ozora and Igaz (county Feher/Hungary). This strenghtened the Avars' power base, although most of the Balkans now lay in the hands of Slav tribes, since neither the Avars nor Byzantines were able to reassert control.

Late Avar period
Late Avar period

In the early 8th century a new Archaeological culture appeared in the Carpathian basin- the so called 'griffin and tendril' culture. Although, some earlier scholars (such as the “double conquest” theory of archaeologist Gyula László) have attempted to place it to the arrival of new settlers (such as early Magyars), there is no evidence for a new wave of immigration from the steppes after 700 AD. Instead, Laszlo Makkai and Andras Moczy place this to an internal evolution of Avar cuture, formed by the integration of the Bulgar émigrés from the previous generation (ie 670s): “’’the material culture — art, clothing, equipment, weapons — of the late Avar period evolved autonomously from these new foundations’’”. Many regions that had once been important centres of Avar Empire had lost their significance, whilst new once arose. Whilst Avaric material culture found over a much of the northern Balkans might indicate an existing Avar presence, it probably more accurately represents the presence of independent Slavs who had adopted Avaric customs[25].

[edit] Collapse

The gradual decline of Avar power was brought to a rapid crash within the space of a decade. A series of campaigns in the 790s led by Frankish king Charlemagne led to their conquest of the Avar realm, taking most of Pannonia up to the Tisza river. The Franks baptised many Avars and integrated them into the Frankish Empire (...(sc. Avaros) autem, qui obediebant fidei et baptismum sunt consecuti...). The Franks turned the Avar lands under their control into a military march. The eastern half of this March was then granted to the Slavic Prince Pribina, who established the Balaton principality in 840 AD. The western part continued to exist until 871, when it was integrated into the Carantanian and Eastern marches. The Bulgarian Empire took the southeastern Avar lands- Transylvania, Wallachia and south-eastern Pannonia to the Middle Danube river. Many Avars joined the Bulgarian Khanate, and some historians suggest that Khan Tervel was an Avar[26].

After the fall of the Avar Empire, 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."[27]. The Avars had already been fusing with the more numerous Slavs for generations. In turn, they came under the rule of external polities – that of the Franks, the Bulgar khanate and Great Moravia[28]. Isolated pockets of Avars in Transylvania and eastern Pannonia escaped assimilation, and might have been the “Huns” encountered by the invading Magyars in the 10th Century. The Avars of Tiszantul and Crisana were still bilingual when the Hungarians arrived in 895. Their hypothetical descendants, the Szekely (who apparently preserved the Avar Dragon Totem well into the 15th century[citation needed]), were relocated to Transylvania in the 12th century. In the Republic of Hungary there are a number of Avar ruins, mostly burial mounds, which display symbols nearly identical to those of the Caucasian Avars.

[edit] Language of the Eurasian Avars

The extinct language of the Eurasian Avars is now classified as belonging to the Oghur-Turkic subgroup, and the language itself is referred to as Turkic Avar or Eurasian Avar in order to distinguish it from the North-Caucasian Avar spoken by the modern Caucasian Avars.[citation needed]

[edit] Literature

  • .Fine, Jr, John V.A (1991). The early Medieval Balkans; A critical survery from the sixth to the late twelfth century. The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08149-7. 

[edit] Sources and notes

  1. ^ Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages 500-1250. Florin Curta
  2. ^ name="Pohl"
  3. ^ Hungarians and Europe in the Middle Ages. CEU press
  4. ^ name="Iranica">K.H. Menges, "Altaic people", Encyclopaedia Iranica, v, p. 908-912, Online Edition ([http://www.iranica.com/newsite/search/searchpdf.isc?
  5. ^ E. H. Parker: "A Thousand Years of the Tartars", ISBN-10: 0710307462; ISBN-13: 978-0710307460
  6. ^ Curta
  7. ^ H. W. Haussig, "Theophylakts Exkurs über die skythischen Völker" Byzantion 23 (1953) pp 275-436.
  8. ^ K. Czeglèdy, "From East to West" Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 3 (1983) pp 25-126.
  9. ^ in Die Awaren (1988) and in "Verlaufsformen der Ethnogenese: Awaren und Bulgaren," Typen der Ethnogenese, ed. H. Wolfram and W. Pohl, vol. I, (1990) pp. 113-24.
  10. ^ Walter Pohl, "Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies" Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, (Blackwell), 1998, pp 13-24) p. 18 (On-line text).
  11. ^ Curta
  12. ^ The early Medieval Balkans. John Fine Jr
  13. ^ Walter Pohl (1999), "Huns" in Late Antiquity, editor Peter Brown, p.501-502 .. further references to F.H Bauml and M. Birnbaum, eds., Atilla: The Man and His Image (1993). Peter Heather, "The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western Europe," English Historical Review 90 (1995):4-41. Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire (2005). Otto Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns (1973). E. de la Vaissière, Huns et Xiongnu "Central Asiatic Journal" 2005-1 pp. 3-26
  14. ^ Curta
  15. ^ Pohl 1998:18
  16. ^ Curta
  17. ^ History of Transylvania, Volume I. Laszlo Makkai, Andras Mocsy. Columbia University Press. 2001
  18. ^ Pohl 1998:18.
  19. ^ Walter Pohl, Die Awaren (Munich) 2.ed.2002., page 158.
  20. ^ Walter Pohl, Die Awaren (Munich) 1.ed.1988.
  21. ^ History of Transylvania
  22. ^ History of Transylvania
  23. ^ The New Cambridge Medieval History. Paul Fouracre
  24. ^ History of Transylvania
  25. ^ History of Transylvania
  26. ^ Fine
  27. ^ Pohl 1998:19.
  28. ^ The early medieval Balkans. John Fine, Jr
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