who are pomaks?

djeezes man, i've lost my post :(

it doest unlog by itself :S

anyway, NikeBG great post, i agree with it and wanna add that the name "bulgar" (= means mixed in Turkic) does perfectly past with those people.

You know that Hungarians where also heavily "Turkisized" or heavily influenced by Turkic people, their name whas also given by Turkic people etc.

Both have similar history.

While re-reading the books of Prof. Dimitar Ovcharov about the Bulgar culture and religion, I decided to quote a part of his introduction to his book "Introduction to the Bulgar culture" (so, a part of the introduction to the "Introduction" ;). And sorry for the quick and not-so-good translation, but my time online is a bit limited...

"It is necessary to clear out another question, concerning the origin of the Proto-Bulgarian [shortly called on English "Bulgar"] ethnos and the culture created by him. In this direction there are several and different hypotheses, which reflect the two main directions of the scholarly searchings. One of them joins the Proto-Bulgarians to the Turkic ethnical community, while the other suggest their Indo-European background. A precondition for the diversity in the opinions is the presence of a number of characteristic features with Turkic or Indo-European character, contained in the cultural arsenal of the Proto-Bulgarians, which created their own state on the Balkan Peninsula. The stiff maintaining of one or the other concept is an extreme, which could hardly be argumentated and supported.
A number of "clues" [sorry, can't find the right word] from different nature are showing that various ethnical groups have taken part since the very beginning of the Proto-Bulgarian ethnogenesis. In this correlation, most perspective seems to be the opinion, according to which the Proto-Bulgarians have the biggest propinquity with the eastern part of the Usuns (Alans, Assi), which could be traced back to the earliest stages in the regions of Central Asia. Already then, however, Turkic elements have actively joined that community, and later on there's a strong influence upon it by the cultures of Chinese, Indians, East Iranians. Only this way could the different (and for some researchers - unexpected) expressions of the Bulgarian culture from later times could be explained. In the end, there's the undoubtful fact that the Proto-Bulgarians arrive on the Balkan Peninsula highly Turkicized, which could hardly be denied."

Later on, in the first chapter "From East to West - in search of the homeland", there's one interesting paragraph, which I would like to quote as well:
"In correlation with the realized connections of the Proto-Bulgarians with the Indo-Iranian world, there's an interesting statistics about the 186 known Proto-Bulgarian names from the period IV-Xc. The origin of 145 names (78%) has been precisely determined. 41% of them are showing resemblance with the pagan names of the Altaic peoples, 51% - with Iranic and Caucasian names and 8% - with the names of other peoples. This fact is a direct indication for the strong mixing of various ethnical components of the Proto-Bulgarian community."

Btw, the book is interesting. There are some interesting graffitis of hunters, warriors and runes as well, but I can't scan them right now...

Bulgars weren't Turkizied,they slavizied.

it is wrong in my opinion to call ancient Bulgars as "Turks", bulgars where a Turkic tribe but today they are slavic people. Also in my opinion as a Turkish to say ancient bulgars are included or belong to Turkish history, no it is Bulgarian history as how kwarezmian, karakhan khanate is central asian (uzbek?), safavvids are Iranian, Mamelukes are Egyptian, avars are eventually serbian-bulgarian-hungarian-croat-macedonian khanate etc etc


All what they have similar is they eventually spoke Turkic language or had Turkic rulers and all of them belong to the big Turkic history

Originally posted by Bulldog Was it the Bulgars who first founded a Bulgar-ian state,

Well if we consider that the Danubian bulgarian khanate was founded in 681 year - that was a kind of union between them and the slavs.
But if the year of the real founding was before 681 - then i think - yes.

can this state be considered as the foundation of Bulgarians as a seperate nation and state?

In the first century after the foundation - i think - no.
In the byzantine sources of VII - VIII century - there are mentioned the bulgar cavalry and the slavic infantry as the two parts of the army of the bulgarian khan. And at that time - VII - VIII cent. - the byzantines still considered the balkanic slavs as a slavs but not as "bulgarians".

But after the christianisation and after the adopting of the cyrillic alphabet (both in IX century) begins the mass "slavization" of the bulgars and mass the "bulgarisation" of the balkanic slavs(with their new ethnic name - "bulgarians"/bulgari).

By the way i think, that part of the central - asian turkic peoples are with names of great liders - as the kirgizs and uzbeks. So, the changing of the ethnic names in the early middle ages was not so strange thing.

Read here my first text-post in the AE Forums:

Lightly edited:

We consider ourselves as a whole, as slavic people. But our country is found from two nations: the proto-bulgars (turkic tribe, who comes from Altay mountain in Asia) in the lead of Khan Asparukh, son of Khan Kubrat, and the slavic tribes in East half of the Balkan peninsula. The thracians are one of the most ancient known human inhabitants of the Eastern half of the Balkan peninsula, and of the today`s territory of Romania, known in the historical sources. In the time of the barbarian pillage-raids in the Balkan peninsula (in IV-VII century), very big part of the thracians was killed, or drived away and assimilated form the barbarian tribes (including the slavs and the proto-bulgarians). Today`s bulgarians have huge percent thracian and slavic faces. The slavic peoples finally settles constantly the Balkan peninsula between 600-620 year. Khan Asparukh comes in the Danubian plane in 680, and after one victorious battle against the byzantine army in 681 year, near the Danubian Delta he found the Danubian Bulgarian Khanate, AS ONE UNION between the proto-bulgars and the balkanic slavs.  This Union was concluded, because the Byzantine Empire had a powerful army, and the bulgarians or the slavs were not enough powerful to defend themselves against the Empire separately. When the people in Bulgaria accept Christianity as official religion  (in 864 year), begins slow "washing away" of the differences between the slavic and bulgarian tribes. Since the slavic language and the slavic alphabet become official chruch/ecclesiastical and public written language (in 893 year), the proto-bulgarians were assimilated by the slavs, but in the same time the slavs begins consider themselves as "bulgarians"(bulgari, this "u" is the turkish "i" without the point item).

Edited by The Chargemaster - 28-Oct-2006 at 12:58

Originally posted by Bulldog Nike_BG I'm sorry if you believe these "alternate" un-based views regarding "Bulgars" due to pollitical motives.

The Bulldog, same as always - he doesn't read, he just writes as if he's the only one in the forum, who has to say something. Can I ask you, dear Bull-dog, what "alternate" un-based views do I believe in? And from where do you know that? And have you even read what I posted?

Nike_BG I'm sorry if you believe these "alternate" un-based views regarding "Bulgars" due to pollitical motives.

The theories, that the "proto"-bulgarians were not turkic, but iranic, or that they are from Pamir - mountain and that they were arian people, are absolutely disgusting nonsence. That`s a kind of fascistic theory - "we are pure, strong and proud white-skined arians", blah-blah-bulsh*ts...

Haha, the Bulldog is here! Again! And he's trying to play with words. Again! Well, with so many agains, then I guess I'll have to give my two cents on that... again...

First, to oppose blue a bit:

Originally posted by blue Well I don't know,but there are many facts that point that they were few in number(at least in our land).For example traces of the pagan temples of the protobulgars are found only in a small area in north east Bulgaria(around Pliska and Shumen)

This isn't exactly true. There are enough remains from the Bulgar culture in Bulgaria all the way to the Xc. (i.e. even after the conversion to Christianity). It's just that the works on this matter are not so popular as the so modern today (pseudo)historian writings. You could, f.e., read the books of Prof. Dimitar Ovcharov "The Bulgar religion, origin and meaning" and "Introduction to the Bulgar culture" (at least those two I have, so I can speak about them). There are some pretty interesting and not very popular things about the Bulgar graffitis (Dimitar Ovcharov's specialty; and yes - there were graffitis even in the Middle Ages), which show that the shamanism among the Bulgars existed for some time even after the conversion.

Second, from the point about the shamanism, which most of you probably know is a typical Turkic thing, we have to come to the conclusion that there was a Turkic element among the Bulgars indeed! I personally don't disagree with this. I do disagree, however, with the somewhat hypocritic behaviour of many of the "Turkic supporters", like our most-respected Bulldog here, which from one side (and IMHO rightfully) oppose the "100% Iranic thesis", but then from the other side they support their own (and IMHO unrightful as well) "100% Turkic thesis". I've said it before, I'll say it again: IMO, the ancient Bulgars were neither 100% Iranics, nor 100% Turkic (which btw is impossible, since neither now, nor then there were any 100% pure peoples in that region). I believe that they were a mix of Turkic tribes and of Iranic tribes (be they Huns and Sarmatians or something else), which also explains why Zacharius the Rhetor writes first that the Bulgars and the Alans live in cities and later he notes the Bulgars also among the tribes, which live in tents - the Iranic Bulgars live in stone cities, the Turkic Bulgars live in yurts, simple as that. This fits well also with the famous theory that Bulgar means "mixed people", which, given the fact that among the ancient Bulgar traces in modern Bulgaria there have been found quite some various archaeological and cultural-anthropological founds (like f.e. a sacral figurine (or maybe an idol), which clearly has some Hindu/Buddhist influence), sounds quite logical. The big question is, however, what was the size or the percentage of the Turkic or of the Iranic peoples among the Bulgar population in the different times. And here comes the main mistake of most of the laic arguers on this matter (in general, not only in this case) - that they focus almost entirely on only one part of the two main Bulgar branches: the Turks and some others close to them focul almost entirely on the Turkic branch, most of the Bulgarians and some other focus almost entirely on the Iranic branch. The world historiography, given the fact that it doesn't have almost any modern research on the Bulgarian history, usually reports of the popular from the old times Turkic thesis and is also centered around it. Which IMHO is wrong.
So, to sum it all up (I know - I can't express myself very well): the ancient Bulgars were "mixed peoples" with two main branches - Turkic and Iranic. My personal opinion is that the ruling elite was also mixed, with a somewhat predominant Turkic influence (like in the Dulo clan f.e.). For me, however, the even more interesting question is about the great mix of the modern Bulgarian nationality from the area of the Balkan melting-pot. Because the ancient Bulgars might have been "mixed peoples", but the modern Bulgarians are even more mixed peoples. We surely have some Slavic element, we surely have some Turkic element (in the very least from the Pecheneg influx in the XI c.), we probably have some autochtonic element as well (and many other smaller or bigger elements). True, some of these elements might be 1% or even less, but it does exist. And I think there's not any shame in that - it only enriches our cultural diversity! What I don't like is that some people try to limit this richness by focusing entirely only on those elements they like! Here I should note to the Bulldog that the ancient Bulgars were not Turkic, just as they were not Iranic - they were Irano-Turkic, probably with some other smaller elements as well. But definitely not simply Turkic!

Third, another thing, which I believe should "correct":

Originally posted by Bulldog Well the Slavs only arrived a century before the Bulgars, they mixed with the Thracians and Dacians.   Are there any remanants of the Bulgar Turkic language in Bulgarian lexis today? or any sort of culture or remaining influence or is all that remains the name Bulgar?

3.1 The Slavs actually didn't arrive on the Balkans before the Bulgars. They settled for good before the Bulgars, but Bulgars raided the Balkans before the Slavs did (this is in the times of the first (IIRC) Bulgar wave, aka the times of the Hunnic invasion and after it).
3.2 Considering that the ancient Bulgar language wasn't simply "Turkic" (as stated above), I would answer with the note that it's not Bulgar Turkic, but simply Bulgar (which would include all the elements of it, which, unfortunately, are not very well known yet). And from here, I'll answer: yes, there are some typically Bulgar words, which have remained in the modern Bulgarian language as well. Those, which I remember right now, are f.e. chertog (palace), bubrek (kidney; the u is an ъ), kuche (dog), biser (pearl), kumir (idol), kapishte (pagan temple) and others I have forgotten. About remaining cultural influence - yes, there is one as well. F.e. on Todorovden there's a tradition to have horse racings, which most ethnologists believe to be a remnant from the old Bulgar times (perhaps something like the Afghan "buzkashi").

Edit: If you (whoever you are) have the time and desire to read, here are some things from Kroraina:
About the Proto-Bulgarian calendar
About medieval Proto-Bulgarian inscriptions at all
And a wide variety of different books, articles etc.


Edited by NikeBG - 23-Oct-2006 at 11:50

I don't understand why you find this all hard to comprehend, it like your stuck in two thoughts of mind.