The Balkans | Page 7

Persians in 628, the influence and power of the
Greeks began to reassert itself throughout the peninsula as far north as
the Danube; this process was coincident with the decline of the might
of the Avars. It was the custom of the astute Byzantine diplomacy to
look on and speak of lands which had been occupied by the various
barbarian invaders as grants made to them through the generosity of the
emperor; by this means, by dint also of lavishing titles and substantial
incomes to the invaders' chiefs, by making the most of their mutual
jealousies, and also by enlisting regiments of Slavonic mercenaries in
the imperial armies, the supremacy of Constantinople was regained far
more effectively than it could have been by the continual and
exhausting use of force.

BULGARIA

4
The Arrival of the Bulgars in the Balkan Peninsula, 600-700
The progress of the Bulgars towards the Balkan peninsula, and indeed
all their movements until their final establishment there in the seventh
century, are involved in obscurity. They are first mentioned by name in
classical and Armenian sources in 482 as living in the steppes to the
north of the Black Sea amongst other Asiatic tribes, and it has been
assumed by some that at the end of the fifth and throughout the sixth
century they were associated first with the Huns and later with the
Avars and Slavs in the various incursions into and invasions of the
eastern empire which have already been enumerated. It is the tendency

of Bulgarian historians, who scornfully point to the fact that the history
of Russia only dates from the ninth century, to exaggerate the antiquity
of their own and to claim as early a date as possible for the authentic
appearance of their ancestors on the kaleidoscopic stage of the Balkan
theatre. They are also unwilling to admit that they were anticipated by
the Slavs; they prefer to think that the Slavs only insinuated themselves
there thanks to the energy of the Bulgars' offensive against the Greeks,
and that as soon as the Bulgars had leisure to look about them they
found all the best places already occupied by the anarchic Slavs.
Of course it is very difficult to say positively whether Bulgars were or
were not present in the welter of Asiatic nations which swept
westwards into Europe with little intermission throughout the fifth and
sixth centuries, but even if they were, they do not seem to have settled
down as early as that anywhere south of the Danube; it seems certain
that they did not do so until the seventh century, and therefore that the
Slavs were definitely installed in the Balkan peninsula a whole century
before the Bulgars crossed the Danube for good.
The Bulgars, like the Huns and the Avars who preceded them, and like
the Magyars and the Turks who followed them, were a tribe from
eastern Asia, of the stock known as Mongol or Tartar. The tendency of
all these peoples was to move westwards from Asia into Europe, and
this they did at considerable and irregular intervals, though in alarming
and apparently inexhaustible numbers, roughly from the fourth till the
fourteenth centuries. The distance was great, but the journey, thanks to
the flat, grassy, treeless, and well-watered character of the steppes of
southern Russia which they had to cross, was easy. They often halted
for considerable periods by the way, and some never moved further
westwards than Russia. Thus at one time the Bulgars settled in large
numbers on the Volga, near its confluence with the Kama, and it is
presumed that they were well established there in the fifth century.
They formed a community of considerable strength and importance,
known as Great or White Bulgaria. These Bulgars fused with later
Tartar immigrants from Asia and eventually were consolidated into the
powerful kingdom of Kazan, which was only crushed by the Tsar Ivan
IV in 1552. According to Bulgarian historians, the basins of the rivers

Volga and Don and the steppes of eastern Russia proved too confined a
space for the legitimate development of Bulgarian energy, and
expansion to the west was decided on. A large number of Bulgars
therefore detached themselves and began to move south-westwards.
During the sixth century they seem to have been settled in the country
to the north of the Black Sea, forming a colony known as Black
Bulgaria. It is very doubtful whether the Bulgars did take part, as they
are supposed to have done, in the ambitious but unsuccessful attack on
Constantinople in 559 under Zabergan, chief of another Tartar tribe; but
it is fairly certain that they did in the equally formidable but equally
unsuccessful attacks by the Slavs and Avars against Salonika in 609
and Constantinople in 626.
During the last quarter of the