ON THE ETHNIC AFFILIATIONS AND CONNECTIONS OF THE TWIN TRIBES UTIGURS AND KUTRIGURS

Abstract

Utigurs and Kutrigurs were two tribes associated with each other, living respectively in the eastern and northern shores of the Sea Azov. They appeared with their clear names in the mid- 6th century only for a few decades. After that, the Utigurs disappeared from the sources, although there are no accounts about what happened to them, and traces of the Kutrigurs, who faced great calamities that affected even their existential capacities according to the sources, can be found only in some ethnic and personal names that can be associated with them. This is a contradic-tory and enigmatic situation. The latter are described in the sources as a division or offspring of the former, thus the original or one former abode of the Kutrigurs should be also in the east of Azov. Therefore, if they are related to each other, there should be a supra formation unifying the two tribes, and perhaps some others unknown to us. Sources describe the eastern shores of Azov and the lower banks of Kuban as the home of the Asi people, before and after the Utrigur period, but the name Asi is never mentioned around the 6th century. This paper suggests that, as a new the-ory, the twin tribes represent a temporal rise of the member tribes of the Asi union.