“NOTE” (“RISALA”) BY IBN FADLAN AND FEATURES OF THE EARLY STAGE OF THE VOLGA BULGARS FORMATION (X century)

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The tribes mentioned in Ibn Fadlan’s “Note” before their migration to the Middle Volga lived on the territory of the Khazar Khaganate (the North Caucasus, the Volga-Don steppes). It was there that they began to move to a settled life, as well as to converge in language and culture. The main part of the tribes genetically belonged to the Turkic-Ogurs, the ancestors of the Bersils were Persian-speaking, and the Esegels were Ugrians. Consequently, their ethnonyms were constructed in a completely different form. During the formation of the state of the Volga Bulgars, the term as-Sakaliba meant not only a specific ethnic group, but a political unification of various northern tribes. From the 10th century its place was taken by the polytonym Bolgars (Bulgars), known in the Byzantine world since the end of the 5th century and meaning the Oghur-speaking heirs of the Huns. The process of interaction between the intraethnic groups of the Volga Bulgars of that time was based on the traditions, on the one hand, of migrants from the North Caucasus and, on the other, of the Bulgar ethnic groups from the Volga-Don steppes. The main leaders of these intraethnic groups in 922 were, as Ibn Fadlan described, Emir Almysh and a certain “imposter” from the Suvars, nicknamed “thief, robber, bandit” (Vărăh). The main reason for the public unrest was the official acceptance of the religion of Islam by the Bulgarian king, which was followed by oblivion of the traditions of the ancestors. The society was divided into two groups: traditionalists and passionaries. The cult of Muslim saints of the Volga Bulgars developed through the development of early genealogical traditions of the Oguro-Bulgar tribes. Over time, they merged with images from the Judeo-Muslim literature. The new ethnic consciousness of the Volga Bulgars since the 10th century began to function in a two-level mode. At the interstate level, the exoethnonym Bulgar is approved, and at the level of the region and the Bulgar ethnos – the endoethnonym Bulyar.