Another one of Kubrat's sons, Asparukh, fled across the Dnieper and the Dniester rivers, and by 670 established the Bulgars who had followed him in the region between the lower Siret and Prut rivers, not far from the Danube Delta. It is from this region that the Bulgars began raiding the east Balkan territories still under Byzantine control. In 681, Emperor Constantine IV organized an expedition by land and sea against them. The campaign went awry and in the debacle, Asparukh's warriors crossed the Danube and occupied Dobrudja and northeastern Bulgaria. Two Slavic tribes in the region were forced into submission and resettled as border guards, respectively, in the west against the Avars, and on the southern frontier, against the Byzantines. During the subsequent decades, most other Slavic groups in the northern and central Balkans were drawn into the orbit of the newly established polity. In the early eighth century, Bulgaria won considerable prestige and power as a consequence of the political and military assistance Asparukh's son and successor Tervel offered to the deposed emperor Justinian II for regaining power in Constantinople. Throughout much of the eighth century, the Bulgar rulers were at war with Byzantium. In 811 a Byzantine emperor, Nicephorus I, was defeated and killed while campaigning in Bulgaria. The victorious ruler, Krum, turned Bulgaria into a major power in the region, a development that continued under his successors Omurtag and Malamir. In the early ninth century, the rulers of the Bulgars styled themselves "rulers from God" in public inscriptions written in Greek and displayed near the monumental palatial compound in Pliska. Following the conversion to Christianity of Boris (852), Bulgaria became one of Byzantium's major rivals in military power and cultural prominence. The practice among historians writing in English has been to use the term "Bulgars" (an English equivalent of the German term "Protobulgaren" and the Bulgarian word "prabălgari") in reference to developments ante-dating the conversion to Christianity and "Bulgarians" for the history of Christian Bulgaria. When referring to Bulgaria on the Volga, various authors employ "Bulghars" to distinguish them from Bulgars in the Middle Danube region or in the Balkans.
Florin CurtaSource:
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