Bulgarsとは 意味・読み方・使い方

The Bulgars (also Bolgars, Bulghars or Proto-Bulgarians) were people who lived in Eastern Europe during the Early Middle Ages. Their ethnic origins are uncertain, but most scholars assume that they were a Turkic people with some Iranian elements, that migrated to Europe from Central Asia in 4th century. In the 7th century they established two states on the Pontic-Caspian steppe: Great Bulgaria, which spanned between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea, and Volga Bulgaria on the territory that is now part of the Russian Republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia. Likewise, they imposed themselves in the Balkans as the elite ruling class of the Danube Bulgar Khanate (First Bulgarian Empire). In each of these regions they gradually merged over a period of centuries with other ethnic groups, giving rise to several modern peoples claiming descent from them: Volga Tatars (see Bulgarism) and Chuvash, Balkars and Bulgarians.