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The etymology of the ethnonym Bulgar is not completely understood and difficult to trace back earlier than the 4th century AD. [19] [20] Since the work of Tomaschek (1873), [21] it is generally said to be derived from Proto-Turkic root *bulga-[22] ("to stir", "to mix"; "to become mixed"), which with the consonant suffix -r implies a noun meaning "mixed".
However, in late 1223 (or 1224), the Bulgars may have fought with the Mongols. There is no historical mention except a short account by the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir, writing in Mosul some 1,800 km (1,100 mi) away from the event. After several sharp skirmishes with the Bulgars, the tiring Mongols moved back down to the Volga.
The early Bulgars were a warlike people and war was part of their everyday life, with every adult Bulgar obliged to fight. The early Bulgars were exclusively horsemen: in their culture, the horse was considered a sacred animal and received special care. The supreme commander was the khan, who mustered the army with the help of the aristocracy.
The Battle of Wlndr was fought in 934 between the allied Hungarian-Pecheneg army and an army composing of the forces of the Byzantine Empire and First Bulgarian Empire, somewhere in the territory which belonged to the Bulgarian empire, near a large city called W.l.n.d.r (perhaps Belgrade), by the Arab historian and geographer Al-Masudi.
The ensuing battle was a major defeat for the Bulgarians. Thousands of Bulgarian soldiers were captured and blinded by order of Basil II, who would subsequently be known as the "Bulgar-Slayer". Samuel survived the battle, but died two months later from a heart attack, reportedly brought on by the sight of his blind soldiers.
The Bulgars retaliated, and under the leadership of Isbul, the minister of Malamir, they reached Adrianople. At this time, if not earlier, the Bulgars captured Philippopolis and its environs. Several surviving monumental inscriptions from this reign make reference to the Bulgar victories and others to the continuation of construction activities ...
The loss-of-strength gradient (LSG) is a military concept devised by Kenneth E. Boulding in his 1962 book Conflict and Defense: A General Theory. He argued the amount of a nation's military power that could be brought to bear in any part of the world depended on geographic distance. The loss of strength gradient demonstrated graphically that ...
[289] [105] [290] The new religion dealt a crushing blow to the privileges of the old Bulgar aristocracy; also, by that time, many Bulgars were presumably speaking Slavic. [286] Boris I made it a national policy to use the doctrine of Christianity, that had neither Slavic nor Bulgar origin, to bind them together in a single culture. [291]