Eurasian Avars: Encyclopedia II - Eurasian Avars - History

Eurasian Avars - History

Avars were driven westward when the Gokturks defeated the Hephthalites in the 550s and the 560s. They entered Europe in the sixth century and, having been bought off by the Eastern Emperor Justinian I, pushed north into Germany (as Attila the Hun had done a century before).

Finding the country unsuited to their nomadic lifestyle (and the Franks stern opponents), they turned their attention to the Pannonian plain, which was then being contested by two Germanic tribes, the Lombards and the Gepids. Siding with the Lombards, they destroyed the Gepids in 567 and established a state in the Danube River area. Their harassment soon (ca. 568) forced the Lombards into northern Italy, a migration that marked the last Germanic migration in the Migrations Period. The Avar leader from c. 565 to c. 600 was called Bayan.

Under pressure from the Turks at the close of the 6th century, the new leadership in Byzantium began to distinguish the Pannonian Avars as pseudo-avars whose real designation should be Varchonites. Avars sought new allies and in 626, the Avars and the Persians besieged but failed to capture Constantinople. Avars turned against the Eastern Roman Empire which had employed Avar mercenaries to combat attacks from other steppe tribes. Following their defeat at Constantinople the Avars retreated to Pannonia.

As the Hegemony of the Western Turkic Empire crumbled, the Onogur dynasty was founded by Kubrat around 630, a man of Avar-Bulgar heritage from the Bulgar Dulo clan. He united the Avars, the Bulgars and probably also the Uar (Hephthalites) in a powerful Khaganate that also ruled over areas of today's Ukraine. The Bulgar warlords broke off the alliance with the Avars soon after Kubrat's death. The Avar state persisted in Pannonia throughout the 7th and 8th century, and the Avars are presumed to have mostly controlled the Slavs who had lived in the area since a few decades before the Avar arrival.

By the early 9th century, internal discord and the external pressure started to undermine the Avar state. The Avars were finally liquidated during the 810s by the Franks under Charlemagne and the Bulgars under Krum. Their presence in Pannonia is still certain in 871 but then that name is no longer used by chroniclers. The Avars are also likely to have merged with Slavs, who had formed new states in the region: the principality of Nitra in the north (later Great Moravia), and the Balaton Principality in the central parts of Pannonia.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki