Avars are images of ancient Russian chronicles. History, traditions and customs of the Avars - the most numerous nation of Dagestan Avars in the Russian chronicle are called

tribal union of nomadic, and mainly Turkic-speaking tribes. They raided the Slavs, Franks, and Byzantium. In the 6th century. formed the Avar Kaganate in the Danube basin, retaining part of the lands in the Northern Black Sea region and the Azov region. The conquered Dulebs were treated cruelly. At the end of the 8th century. defeated by the Franks at the beginning of the 10th century. conquered by the Hungarians.

Story

In the middle of the 6th century. A. invaded the steppes of the Western Caspian region and further into the Northern Black Sea region, the Danube region and the Balkans. In the 50-60s. 6th century they devastated the lands of the Savirs, Antes, Gepids and other European tribes. At the same time, in Pannonia (the territory of part of modern Hungary, Yugoslavia and Austria), the Avar Kaganate was created - a tribal association of the “ barbarian empires" It was headed by the great commander Khan Bayan. Relying on the system of Pannonian fortresses (“hrings”), A. raided the Slavs, Franks, Lombards, Georgians, as well as Byzantium. The Kaganate rested only on the military subordination of various tribes and bribery of the tribal elite. Own economic base his was extremely weak and was limited to extensive nomadic cattle breeding. This predetermined the internal weakness and fragility of the Kaganate. Despite the enrichment of the tribal elite, the process of forming a class society in A. was not completed. Major victories in Dalmatia, Illyria and Moesia (late 6th century) were followed by a decline in the military power of A. In the 1st half of the 7th century. they suffered a series of defeats from Byzantium, the Slavs, the Franks, and the Bulgarians. Strife began within the Kaganate, which contributed to its collapse. In the middle of the 7th century. A. were forced out of the Northern Black Sea region, and power over Pannonia was limited to the Bulgarian kingdom, created in 680 on the Danube. In the 90s 8th century A. were finally defeated by the Franks of Charlemagne, and in 796 the most important of the “hrings” fell. Subsequently, A. were completely assimilated by the peoples of the Western Black Sea region and the Danube region.

Avar language

Data on the Avar language are very scarce and do not allow us to judge with certainty its identity. Preserved in written sources Avar titles and personal names are universal for the Altai language family. As evidenced by archaeological data, the Avars used a type of runic writing, but all the inscriptions found are very short and cannot be deciphered. The only monument from which they are trying to reconstruct the Avar language of the European period is an inscription made in Greek letters on a vessel from the Nagy Szent Miklos treasure. The conclusions of linguists are different. Russian linguist E. Khelimsky attributed its language to the Tungus-Manchu group. O. Mudrak, on the contrary, defined it as typically Bulgarian (Turkic).

Settlements and economy

Currently, the location of several hundred Avar settlements of the 7th - 9th centuries is known. The largest excavations in Hungary were carried out near the city of Danaui-Varosha, where the remains of 37 dwellings were preserved. In their villages, the Avars lived in half-dugouts with wooden walls, inside of which stoves were built. Grain pits were found in many dwellings, and adobe hearths were found between the buildings. In the 7th century, the dwellings in each village were located in a circle. The semi-nomadic Avars returned to these winter settlements along with their cattle after grazing them on the summer pastures. From spring to autumn they lived in easily portable yurt-like structures.

The basis of the Avar economy was semi-nomadic cattle breeding. Gradually, the semi-nomadic lifestyle was replaced by a sedentary one. Therefore, part of the population (mainly the descendants of the Romans, Sarmatians and Slavs) was also engaged in agriculture.

The horse played a major role in Avar life. Based on bone remains, it was established that these were horses of mainly eastern blood, fast, suitable for movement in the steppe and on sandy soils. It was precisely these horses that were depicted by bone and silver carvers of the early Avar era.

In addition to horse breeding, the Avars raised cattle, sheep, goats, and small chickens; painted eggshells were often found in burials.

A study of pig bones found among the remains of food that was supplied to the deceased on a long journey through the afterlife showed that Slavic livestock breeders of the Avar era crossed the southern European breed of domestic pig, bred in the Neolithic, with a northern European one. It is since then that the Alföld fat-bearing pig breed, widespread in the mid-20th century, has existed.

Little is known about Avar crop production. Remains of grain crops are usually found in a charred state. Thus, grains of millet (this crop was grown by both Avars and Slavs), wheat (VI-VII centuries), rye and oats (IX centuries) were preserved.

The land was plowed with a wooden plow with an iron coulter. In Hungary, such a coulter has been known since the 9th century, and in ancient Moravia even earlier. The wheat was reaped with a sickle.

Avar (Kagan?) with signs of artificial deformation of the skull and Yenisei (Asian-Hunnic) facial features
Reconstruction after Elvira H. Toth - Istvan Horvath

Most of the burials found good quality clay vessels, a significant part of which in the late Avar period were made at potter's wheel. Some vessels were imported from nearby places, not from far away, since clay products do not withstand long-term transportation.

On the territory of Hungary at that time, the remains of an iron smelting furnace-blast furnace for the production of raw materials for weapons and agricultural implements were also discovered.

Goods were produced not only to satisfy their own needs, but also for exchange. Avar burials contain many things imported from other places. Among them are gold, silver and bronze earrings, bracelets, rings, buckles, hats, and colored glass beads. Apparently, silk fabrics and other material for clothing were brought, which have not survived to this day. They paid for all this, apparently, in cattle, horses, leather, and wool.

From Latin sources, trading and market places are known where Avars, traveling merchants and artisans, appeared with their goods. The burial of one of them was discovered in the vicinity of the village of Kunszentmarton. Among the finds was plate breast mail: the roads in the country were not always safe for travelers.

Merchants came to the Avar Kaganate from afar, from the East. According to some reports, important trade routes to the west. According to the custom of all nomadic peoples, the Avars collected duties from trade caravans. As a result, the prestige of the rulers of certain regions of the country and the Kagan himself increased significantly.

The Avars themselves did not mint their own money. Some researchers believe that the Avars were engaged in counterfeiting Byzantine gold coins. However, no more than a dozen such counterfeits were found throughout the entire territory of the Kaganate, and this is not enough to finally resolve the issue, especially since counterfeit money was also found among neighboring peoples.

Beliefs

Very little is known about the beliefs of the Avars and other peoples of the Avar Kaganate. One source mentions a chief shaman; another testifies that the Avars were idolaters.

It is clear that the Avars seemed to double the world: in addition to the earthly, they also imagined the afterlife. Along with the deceased, food and a horse with weapons were usually placed in the grave so that the warrior could continue his journey and battles. Otherworld, according to shamanistic beliefs, consisted of several levels located one above the other. The dead could get to the upper level only after various tests. Arrows helped this upward movement - that’s why they were placed in the quiver next to the buried person.

Before or during the funeral rite, the grave pits were “cleansed” of evil spirits with the help of fire or burning coals.

Different peoples, according to their beliefs, buried people with their heads towards one or another part of the world - towards the center of the world or in the direction from which they expected the resurrection. The Avars did not have a single orientation - they were too diverse; The burial took place with the head facing both east and west. In many cases, magical actions were performed on the dead. After the burial, the grave was opened, the skull of the buried person was taken out and spells were read over it. The fear that the deceased might return from the other world sometimes prompted people to bury the dead spread out on their stomachs.

To preach Christianity among the Avars, a bishopric was established in Salzburg back in 739. The conversion of the Avars to Christianity accelerated at the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th century, along with their fall under Frankish rule.

Art of the Avar era

The Avars were good carvers of bone and horn plates. As chronicles testify, they made magnificent carpets, embroideries, fabrics, and were engaged in artistic processing of silver and wood. None of this has survived to this day, but beautiful metal jewelry has been preserved - Byzantine earrings, bracelets, rings, rings; colored glass beads and necklaces, apparently made in the East. Free warriors from the 6th to 9th centuries wore belts decorated with metal plaques. Horse harnesses were also covered with the same plaques. In the late Avar period, plaques were made using artistic casting. Among them it is difficult to find two identical ones. Large cast tips with floral patterns, human figures, or depicting animal struggles were attached to the waist belts. The swords and quivers of leaders were covered with gold, and those of ordinary warriors with silver. Even the iron stirrups were artistically forged, and some were inlaid with silver.

The pottery (pottery kilns were discovered near the town of Szekszard) was poorly ornamented.

The Avars, with their aggressive policies, caused a lot of trouble for their powerful neighbors. For more than two centuries they terrorized Byzantium, the Bulgarian kingdom and the Frankish empire until they “dissolved” in the process of forming early feudal Europe.

Aliens

The chronicles accurately recorded the last day of the Lombards' stay on the lands of the Roman province of Pannonia (the territory of modern Hungary, as well as a number of neighboring states) - April 1, 568. A day later, they moved to Northern Italy, where they created the Lombard Kingdom (today's Lombardy).
Their place on both banks of the Danube was taken by the Avars who came from the east, who by that time had already settled throughout the Carpathian Basin. The newcomers managed to create a strong state here, subordinating the tribes living on these lands, including the Slavs and Gepids, to their influence.
The Avar Khaganate occupied an advantageous trading position. According to some sources, important trade routes connecting the East and West passed through the Carpathians. According to the traditions of nomadic peoples, the Avars collected duties from trade caravans, as a result of which the wealth and prestige of the state only grew.
Now no one will undertake to say exactly where the Avars came to Europe from. However, the main versions of the origin of the Avars are similar in the direction of their migration - from east to west.
According to one hypothesis, the Avars are part of the Rourans defeated by the Turkuts, who, after the defeat in 555, were forced to flee across the entire Central Asia. Another version says that the Avars are a cross between the Ugric tribe Uvar and the Iranian-speaking ethnic group Khionites, who originally lived in the Aral Sea region.
The Hungarian historian Andras Rona-Tas suggests that the Avars, at least in the later period of their existence, acquired a significant admixture of the Turkic element. One way or another, all theories admit that as the Avars moved into Europe, they were influenced by heterogeneous ethnic components.

Mysterious ethnic group

Oddly enough, there is no mention of the Avars who lived on the territory of modern Hungary in the Hungarian chronicles. Byzantine and Latin chronicles, as well as archaeological data, help us determine the ancient settlement territory of this tribe and imagine its daily life.
According to the Byzantine chronicles, the Avars were able to establish friendly relations with the Proto-Bulgarians, who moved to the Danube lands from the territories of the Khazar Khaganate in the late 70s of the 7th century. Archaeological material allows us to assert that the Proto-Bulgarians had a noticeable influence on the Avar culture; moreover, they presumably took part in the formation of the Avar ethnos.
Excavations of Avar burials led archaeologists to the conclusion that the tradition of setting up large burial grounds and burying horses separately from people indicate the Mongolian roots of the Avars.
Indeed, the reconstruction of skulls from most burial grounds of the Avar era makes it possible to attribute them to the Mongoloids. But in some burial grounds this type is rare. Skulls from another category of Avar burials indicate that they belonged to Caucasians of the Mediterranean, East Baltic and North European types.
The results of archaeological research can indicate not only the active mixing of Avars with other tribes, but also their ethnic heterogeneity. That is why scientists still cannot reconstruct a reliable anthropological appearance of this people.
According to the studied remains, the average life expectancy of Avars was short: for men - 38 years, for women - 36 years. Children often died before the age of two. However, this is not very different from the demographic situation in Europe at that time.

War

The military art of the Avars, which many peoples of Europe encountered, has much in common with the tactics used by the nomads: exhausting the enemy with numerous maneuvers, avoiding close combat, massive shelling of enemy positions from long-range bows.
Particularly striking were the counterattacks of the heavily armed plate cavalry of the Avars, which entered the battle at the most unexpected moment, cutting and demoralizing the enemy’s ranks. The Byzantines considered the Avar methods of warfare extremely effective and adopted a number of tactical innovations.
In Constantinople, they wanted to see the Avars as allies; it is no coincidence that in 558 an agreement was concluded between the Byzantines and the Avars, according to which the latter were to fight on the side of the empire. However, very soon the Avars, together with the Kutrigurs, began to attack the allies of Byzantium - the Carpathian and Danube Antes.
For some time, the Avars managed to force Constantinople to pay tribute. According to some estimates, 1/75th of the gold reserves of Byzantium were paid as tribute to the Avars (the annual supply of gold to the treasury of the empire at that time averaged 37 thousand kilograms of gold).
In 565, having rounded the Carpathians from the north, again in alliance with the Kutrigurs, the Avars penetrated into Thuringia and Gaul, where they caused complete destruction. The conquerors managed to capture the Frankish king Sigisbert I as a trophy.
The expansive intentions of the Avars grew stronger from year to year. In 567, together with the Lombards, they defeated the Gepids, in 570, having failed negotiations, they declared war on Byzantium, in 595, in alliance with the Slovenes, they began to fight the Bavarian tribes, and two years later they captured Dalmatia.
Only in 626 did the Avars slow down their warlike ardor when they were defeated by the Byzantines during an attempt to capture Constantinople.

A fall

The unsuccessful campaign against Constantinople seriously affects the state of the Kaganate itself. There is a split within the state into Avar and Kutrigur groups, each of which supports its own contender for the throne.
In 640, the Avars were forced out of Dalmatia by the Croats and subsequently continued to lose their lands. Very soon the vast Avar possessions are compressed into the territory of modern Hungary.
For almost a century and a half, the Avars disappeared from chronicles and appeared on the pages of chronicles only in 788, when they entered into an alliance with the Bavarian Duke Thassilon III against the Franks. This idea failed, and the Frankish king Charlemagne begins to develop a plan for the final destruction of the dangerous enemy.
In 791, the Franks advanced in two large armies towards the Avar Khaganate, gradually capturing fortifications along the Danube. For some time, the advance of the armies was stopped by the Saxon uprising, organized within the Frankish empire. However, turmoil also engulfed the Avar Kaganate itself, which brought its imminent fall closer. In 804-805, the Bulgarian Khan Krum took possession of the eastern lands of the Avars, which actually divided the Kaganate into two parts - Bulgarian and Frankish.
One of the Byzantine chronicles of the 9th century preserves interesting information about the reasons for the disintegration of the Khaganate. One of the old Avar warriors who were captured by the Bulgarians, when asked by Khan Kurum why their masters and their people were ruined, answered: “At first, because of a quarrel that deprived the Kagan of his faithful and truthful advisers, power fell into the hands of wicked people. Then the judges, who were supposed to defend the truth before the people, were corrupted, but instead fraternized with hypocrites and thieves; the abundance of wine gave rise to drunkenness, and the Avars, having weakened physically, also lost their minds. Finally, a passion for trade began: the Avars became traders, one deceived the other, brother sold brother. This, our lord, became the source of our shameful misfortune.”
In 882, the Avars were last mentioned in the chronicles as a tribe dependent on the Franks. And then the traces of the people, who at one time brought fear to the powerful states of Europe, are completely lost.

Avars. VI–VII centuries

In the middle of the 6th century, various tribes of nomads poured into Southern Europe, into the valley of the Lower and Middle Danube, following the lost strength and scattered Huns from across the Volga, through the Black Sea steppes, who were united by Kagan Bayan on the territory of modern Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine to Old Turkic Avar Khaganate, existed from 562 to 823.

Avars(other - Russian Obra) - a nomadic people made up of Sarmatian-Alan tribes of Central Asian origin with a large admixture of Turkic-speaking tribes, who moved to Central Europe in the 6th century. Ethnicity Avar causes controversy among historians, different groups of which consider the Avars either a Mongol-speaking, or an Iranian-speaking, or a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, but agree that the Avars in any case did not represent a homogeneous tribe. The Avars, pushed west by the ancient Turks, appeared in 555 in the steppes of western Kazakhstan. In 557, their nomads moved to the western bank of the Volga in the steppe North Caucasus, where they enter into an alliance with the Alans. This confirms the opinion of L. N. Gumilyov A that the Avars are related to the Sarmatian tribes of the Alans.

In 559, the Avars marched through the lands of the northerners (Sabirs) to Voronezh, occupied by the Goths, and, together with the Russian squads of Pride and the Alan squads of Skoten, took the city by storm. Not daring to overcome the “serpent ramparts,” under the leadership of Kagan Bayan, around 560, the Avars and Kutrigurs invaded the lands of the Dulebs and Ants in Volyn, located at the sources of the Bug, Pripyat and Dniester. The Volyn principality was ruled by Prince Mezamir, son of Idarizia and brother of Kelagast.

When the Avars attacked, the Antes found themselves face to face with the enemy and found themselves in dire straits. Trying to avert the final defeat, Prince Mezamir in 561 went to the Avars as an ambassador to negotiate peace and ransom his captive fellow tribesmen. In the camp of the Avars, Mezamir was killed. A Byzantine historian spoke about the circumstances of the murder of Mezamir Menander Protector. (For more details, see chapter “Ants, Croats, Tiverts. V–VI centuries.”)

The further movement of the Avars led to the migration of other tribes, among which there were probably Antes, who inhabited the Black Sea lands and the Lower Danube region, where the Avar hordes passed through. At this time, the Antes in the Dnieper region continued to fight the Goths advancing from the Crimea.

The Avars on the Danube entered into an alliance with the Goths and in 562 attacked the Slavic settlements in Scythia Minor, on the western shore of the Black Sea near the Danube delta, in later times known as Dobrudzha. The Slavs of Scythia Minor, abandoning their huts, hid in the forests, and then fled to Prince Dobrita, where Slavic squads gathered to repel the enemy.

At the end of the 6th century, the Avars from the mouth of the Danube go to the Middle Danube into Pannonia, where another part of the Avar horde comes from the east through Galicia. On the Danube, the Avar Kagan Bayan founded Avar Khaganate(VI–IX centuries), located on the territory of modern Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine and existed until 823. The capital of the Kaganate was a hring (fortified military camp) on the territory of Timisoara. The Avars made a series of raids from there into the Carpathians and Volyn, into the areas where the Dulebs settled. In 568, after the Lombards left for Italy, the Avars, led by their kagan Bayan, became masters of the entire Transdanubia, which became the main focus of their attacks on Byzantine possessions. In the 580s, the Avars conquered all of Pannonia, and on the Dniester in Galicia the lands of the Croats and Dulebs. In 582, the Avars, together with the subordinate Slavs, captured the strategic Byzantine outpost of Sirmium (modern city of Sremska Mitrovica), and the next year they devastated Illyria. In 597, the Avars captured Dalmatia, flooding it with Croats. In 599 Tomis was besieged on the Black Sea coast.

At the end of the 6th century, the Avars invaded the empire, crossed Thrace and Macedonia and reached Constantinople. In 600, a peace shameful for Byzantium was concluded. The Avar Kaganate terrorized the peoples of Europe for more than 200 years. The Ant Slavs, the Slavic population of the Czech Republic and Moravia and a number of regions of the Eastern Carpathians fell under the rule of the khans of the Avar Kaganate in the 6th–7th centuries. were obliged to recruit soldiers into the Avarian army.

The Avar Kaganate was a multi-ethnic power, in which the majority of the population was Slavic, which is confirmed by the spread in the Middle Danube in the 6th–7th centuries. Slavic ceramics, layered on the cultural layers of the Slavic population that previously existed in a number of areas of the Middle Danube. In some regions of the spread of the Slavic-Avar culture, the Slavs apparently formed the main core of the population. The distribution of these antiquities over a vast territory from the Adriatic to the Dnieper, according to Yugoslav researchers, reflects the Slavic settlement of the 7th century. and determines the direction of migration from the east, from the northern Black Sea lands to the west, to the Danube region and to the Balkan Peninsula. Judging by Byzantine sources, historians early Middle Ages sometimes Avars meant Ant Slavs.

The Avars mainly waged long wars in the Balkans, fighting with Constantinople and suppressing individual local tribes. Having conquered the kingdom of the Gepids in alliance with the Lombards, the Avars went along the Tisza to the southern borders of Slovakia and around 600, together with the Horutan Slavs, settled Inner Norik. But then the Avars began to suffer defeats from the Greeks, and the uprisings of the conquered tribes finally undermined the strength of the Avars. In 623 (according to Mauro Orbini in 617), the Western Slavs, led by Self the Slavs rise up against the Avars and a strong Slavic movement arises in the territory of modern Czech Republic and Lower Austria State Samo(631–658), a confederation of the ancestors of modern Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatian Serbs and Slovenes. Prince Samo waged successful wars with the Avars and Franks, in particular, after the victory in 631, he conquered lands inhabited by Lusatian Serbs from the Franks. The Slavs expelled the Avars from Illyria and settled in the historical Slavic lands of Croatia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Dalmatia and Macedonia. Itself is called a Slav in anonymous Salzburg treatise of the 9th century. "Conversion of the Bavarians and Carentans." After Samo's death in 658, the state he created collapsed under the pressure of the Avars.

As a result of a series of defeats from Byzantium, the Slavs, Croats and Franks, the Avar Khaganate, decomposed by internal strife, began to disintegrate in the middle of the 7th century. Khan Altsek leaves it with his horde of Kutrigurs. By 632, Khan Kubrat, having united the Bulgar tribes Kutrigur, Utigur and Onogur, created the medieval state of Great Bulgaria, displacing the Avars from the Northern Black Sea region and the Lower Danube. By 640, the Croats had driven the Avars out of Dalmatia. The Avar Kaganate suffered its final defeat at the end of the 8th century as a result of the Franco-Avar War. The Avars resisted fiercely and suffered catastrophic casualties. They rebelled against the rule of the Franks several more times, but in 803–804. The Bulgarian ruler Khan Krum captured all the Avar lands up to the Middle Danube and the remnants of the Avars quickly assimilated among the ethnically related proto-Bulgarians. The Avar Khaganate ceased to exist around 823.

With the collapse of the Avar Khaganate, the territory of modern Hungary was inhabited by significant groups of Slavs. It is known that in the area between the Sava and Drava rivers in the 9th century. there was a Slavic principality. In Pannonia in the middle of the 9th century. A Slavic principality arose with its center in the area of ​​​​the city of Zalavar, headed by Pribina and his son and successor Kocel. At the beginning of the 9th century. Timoch Slavs settled in the Zala River basin. Large masses of the Slavic population concentrated on the hilly outskirts of the Carpathian Basin, the center of which continued to serve as pasture for the remnants of the Avar population. Throughout the 9th century. the remnants of the Avars are gradually dissolving among the Slavic settlers who have poured into Transdanubia. The expression from the Russian chronicle is widely known: “ perished as if they were lost, their tribe has no heir, no heir.”

After several previous chapters describing the history of the invasion of nomadic peoples in the 4th–7th centuries. in the Black Sea region, I cannot help but give opinions on this issue Yu. I. Venelina, Russian historian of the 19th century. He believed that the times of rule in the Black Sea region of the Huns, Bulgars, Khazars and Avars (the same Indo-Europeans related to the Slavic Rus) were actually the time of the birth of the early state formation of the Russian people on the Russian Plain, i.e. it was Rus'.