Military service class and the formation of the state on Volga Bulgaria of the VIII–X centuries

Abstract

The study of the Bulgarian statehood developed from raising the question of its barbaric and early class character to determining its feudal definition. However, this characteristic itself does not clarify the essence of the processes that took place and the mechanism of the real formation of medieval Bulgarian society. It is known that, an important role in these processes was played by the military estate with its specific culture. Therefore, in the absence of full–fledged written sources, the study of weapons and elements of military culture of the VIII - X centuries can play an important role. During this period, the Bulgarian military structure acquired features characteristic of medieval monarchies, but still retained elements of tribal organization, which was characteristic of many Turkic states of the early Middle Ages. The elite of society and the state, the basis of its military power was the military service class, called in epigraphic monuments "chury /chory". It was this elite, which concentrated the main levers of state power in its hands, that formed the basis of the military organization of Bulgaria in the tenth century. During this period, a special complex of weapons and a squad culture is being developed. One of its most expressive elements was the combat typesetting belts, as a symbol of military valor and social status. During the same period, such new elements of culture as chivalrous stories appeared, reinterpreting the heroic epic in the Islamic spirit. The specifics of the power structure in Bulgaria is its eastern appearance, which is in many ways similar to the power structure in the Seljuk Sultanate or Mamluk’s Egypt, where the Turkic nomadic tribes represented the class elite of society, nominating from their elite the rulers of the territories and population subject to them.