Patria Onogoria Some remarks to the relationship of the Onogurs, the Onogundurs and the Bulgars. Second part

Abstract

The article deals with the relationship between the Onogurs, Onogundurs and Bulgars. The Bulgars appear in the same places and times as the Ogur tribal confederations, but while the Latin-language Byzantine sources (Jordanes, Marcellinus) mention the name Bulgar, the Greek-language authors (Priskos, Prokopios, Malalas, Agathias, Theophylactos, Menander, Theophanes) write about the Onogurs, the Kutrigurs or the Utigurs. As I suggest, the Bulgarians of the Latin-language sources may have been the leaders of the various Ogur tribal confederations mentioned in the Greeklanguage sources. Byzantine authors in Latin came from the western regions (Illyricum, Thrace) which were victims of Bulgar raids. This explains their detailed information about the internal organization of their tribal alliances. From the 7th century, the sources almost exclusively use the name Onogundur, which is derived from the name Onogur with the suffix -dur. Perhaps it appeared in the realm of Kuvrat as the name of his overarching Ogur alliance. A variant of Onogur, the name Wangar, is known from Pannonia in the 9th century, and was later inherited by the Magyars who settled here.