Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria (sometimes referred to as the Volga Bulgar Khanate and Volga Bulgar Emirate) was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia. Volga Bulgaria was a multi-ethnic state with large numbers of Bulgars, Finno-Ugrians, Varangians, and East Slavs. Its strategic position allowed it to create a local trade monopoly with Norse, Cumans, and Pannonian Avars.
History
Origin and creation of the state
The origin of the early Bulgars remains a topic of scholarly debate, as their precise beginnings are still unclear. Most researchers believe their homeland was likely situated somewhere in the vast region stretching between modern-day Kazakhstan and the North Caucasian steppes. Interaction with the Hunnic tribes, causing the migration, may have occurred there, and the Pontic–Caspian steppe seems the most likely location.
Some scholars propose that the Bulgars may have been a branch or offshoot of the Huns or perhaps Huns seem to have been absorbed by the Bulgars after Dengizich's death. Others however, argue that the Huns continued under Ernak, becoming the Kutrigur and Utigur Hunno-Bulgars. These conclusions remain a topic of ongoing debate and controversy among scholars.
The Bulgars were an Oghuric people who settled north of the Black Sea. During their westward migration across the Eurasian steppe, they came under the overlordship of Khazars, leading other ethnic groups, including Finno-Ugric and Iranic as well as other Turkic peoples. In about 630 they founded Old Great Bulgaria, which was destroyed by the Khazars in 668. Kotrag, following the death of his father, began to extend the influence of his Bulgars to the Volga River. He is remembered as the founder of Volga Bulgaria. They reached the Volga region in the eighth century, where they became the dominant population at the end of the 9th century. They assimilated tribes of different origin who lived in the area, notably the Imenkovo culture that used to dominate the region.
However, some Bulgar tribes under the leader Asparukh moved west from the Pontic-Caspian steppes and eventually settled along the Danube River, in what is now known as Bulgaria proper, where they created a confederation with the Slavs, adopting a South Slavic language and the Eastern Orthodox faith. However, Bulgars in the Volga region eventually gave birth to Chuvash people. Unlike Danube Bulgars, Volga Bulgars did not adopt any language. The Chuvash language today is the only Oghuric language that survived and is often considered to be an offshoot of the Volga Bulgar language.
Most scholars generally agree that the Volga Bulgars, during their early historical period, were initially under the political and military dominance of the Khazar Khaganate. This fragmented Volga Bulgaria grew in size and power and gradually freed itself from the influence of the Khazars. Sometime in the late 9th century, unification processes started and the capital was established at Bolghar (also spelled Bulgar) city, 160 km south of modern Kazan. However, complete independence was reached after Khazaria's destruction and conquest by Sviatoslav in the late 10th century; thus, Bulgars no longer paid tribute to it. Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur named the Volga Bulgar people as Ulak.
Conversion to Islam and further statehood
Volga Bulgaria adopted Islam as a state religion in 922 – 66 years before the Christianization of Kievan Rus'. In 921 Almış sent an ambassador to the Caliph requesting religious instruction. The next year an embassy returned with Ibn Fadlan as secretary. A significant number of Muslims already lived in the country. The Volga Bulgars attempted to convert Vladimir I of Kiev to Islam; however Vladimir rejected the notion of Rus' giving up wine, which he declared was the "very joy of their lives".
Commanding the Volga River in its middle course, the state controlled much of trade between Europe and Asia prior to the Crusades (which made other trade routes practicable). Bolghar, was a thriving city, rivalling in size and wealth the greatest centres of the Islamic world. Trade partners of Bolghar included from Vikings, Bjarmland, Yugra and Nenets in the north to Baghdad and Constantinople in the south, from Western Europe to China in the East. Other major cities included Bilär, Suar (Suwar), Qaşan (Kashan) and Cükätaw (Juketau). Modern cities Kazan and Yelabuga were founded as Volga Bulgaria's border fortresses. Some of the Volga Bulgarian cities have still not been found, but they are mentioned in old East Slavic sources. They were: Ashli (Oshel), Tuxçin (Tukhchin), İbrahim (Bryakhimov), Taw İle. Some of them were ruined during and after the Golden Horde invasion.
Volga Bulgaria played a key role in the trade between Europe and the Muslim world. Between the eighth and tenth centuries, elite households in Byzantium and the Islamic world acquired slaves from Eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea region, who were traded along the Dnieper and Volga river systems, as well as through the Carolingian Empire and Venice. Furs and slaves were the main goods in this trade, and the Volga Bulgarian slave trade played a significant role. People taken captive during the Viking raids in Eastern Europe could be sold to Moorish Spain via the Dublin slave trade or transported to Hedeby or Brännö in Scandinavia and from there via the Volga trade route to Russia, where slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silver dirham and silk, which have been found in Birka, Wollin and Dublin; initially this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Kaghanate, but from the early 10th century onward it went via Volga Bulgaria and from there by caravan to Khwarazm, to the Samanid slave market in Central Asia and finally via Iran to the Abbasid Caliphate. Slavic pagans were also enslaved by Vikings, Magyars, and Volga Bulgars, who transported them to Volga Bulgaria, where they were sold to Muslim slave traders and continued to Khwarezm and the Samanids, with a minor part being exported to the Byzantine Empire. This was a major trade; the Samanids were the main source of Arab silver to Europe via this route, and Ibn Fadlan referred to the ruler of the Volga Bulgar as "King of the Saqaliba" because of his importance for this trade.
The Russian principalities to the west posed the only tangible military threat. In the 11th century, the country was devastated by several raids by other Russians. Then, at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, the rulers of Vladimir (notably Andrew the Pious and Vsevolod III), anxious to defend their eastern border, systematically pillaged Volga Bulgarian cities. Under Russian pressure from the west, the Volga Bulgars had to move their capital from Bolghar to Bilär.
Decline
From the beginning of the 13th century, the Volga Bulgars were subject to multiple raids from the Russian principalities as multiple skirmishes took place for control of the Unzha River, which was an important commercial route. In 1220, the Grand Prince Yuri II of Vladimir captured Ustyug and besieged the important Bulgar town of Aşlı. The consequence of this was that Vladimir-Suzdal gained access to Volga Bulgaria's northern trade routes and hindered the means of the Bulgars acquiring fur. The Nikon Chronicle also details that following this, Yuri II began amassing a large force of Russians for an even larger campaign against the Bulgars. The Bulgars would send entreaties and proposals for peace but these were all rejected. Yuri travelled with his army to Omut where further entreaties for peace were received from the Bulgars however these were still rejected. However, by the time Vasilko Konstantinovich of Rostov arrived, Yuri accepted an offer of gifts and agreed to adhere to an earlier peace treaty with the Bulgars that was agreed under the rule of his father, Vsevolod the Big Nest.
In September 1223, near Samara, an advance guard of Genghis Khan's Mongol army under the command of Uran entered Volga Bulgaria but was defeated in the Battle of Samara Bend. In 1236, the Mongols returned and in five years had subjugated the whole country, which at that time was suffering from internal war. Henceforth Volga Bulgaria became a part of the ulus of Jochi, later known as the Golden Horde. It was divided into several principalities; each of them became a vassal of the Golden Horde and received some autonomy. By the 1430s, the Khanate of Kazan was established as the most important of these principalities.
Kazan Khanate
After the destruction of the Volga Bulgaria by the troops of the Tatar-Mongol army in the 13th century, 2/3 of the population was destroyed -mainly the urban elite. The surviving village Bulgars crossed to the right bank of the Volga to the Sviyaga River, where at that time some Bulgar tribes lived, and to the right bank of the Kama to the Kazanka River, where they founded an area called in the chronicles as "Sainov yurt", which included several cities: Kashan, Kermenchuk, Chally, etc. Later in the Kazan Khanate it was renamed "Zureiskaya Daruga".
In the 15th century, Yuri Dmitrievich, Prince of Moscow, raided the Bulgar region (Sainov Yurt), ravaged and burned the cities of Old Kazan, Kremenchuk, Zhukotin and New Bolgar, and killed the Tsar and Tsarina, as the chronicles report. For about 40 years, Old Kazan and its adjacent territories stood half-empty, until the fugitive Ulug-Muhammad moved the capital to New Kazan at the mouth of the Kazanka River, on an elevated, well-defended hill. People from all its outskirts began to gather in the new Kazan, as the chronicles report: Muslims, Cheremis, Votyaks, Bulgars. Quote from the Kazan History, compiled in 1564–1566:
And he went through the surrounding field and climbed over the Volga, and sat down in empty Kazan, Sainov Yurt. There were few living in the city. And the Sratsyn and Cheremis, who somehow lived in the Kazan voloses, gathered together and came to his aid. And with the poor Bulgarians who remained from captivity, the Kazanians prayed to him to be an intercessor for troubles, who were from the violence and war of the Russians, and an assistant, and a builder of the kingdom, so that they would not be completely desolate. And they obeyed him.
Original (Old Russian):
И шед полемъ округь и перелѣз Волгу, и засяде Казань пустую, Саиновъ юртъ. Мало было во граде живущих. И собирающися срацыне и черемиса, которые по волостямъ казанскимъ нѣкако живяху, и ради ему бывше. И со оставшимися от плѣна худыя болгаре казанцы и молиша его заступника быти бѣдам, иже от насилиа и воевания рускаго, и помощника, и царству строителя, да не до конца запустѣют. И повинушася ему.
At the same time, the collapse of the Golden Horde began, which allowed the Kazan Khanate to emerge, into whose vassal possessions and protectorate the Bulgarian lands also fell. In the Kazan Khanate, the controlled and dependent lands were called Darugas.
The Russian siege of Kazan
The first contacts of Ivan the Terrible with the subjects of the Kazan Khanate began in 1546, he diplomatically agreed with the mountain people (Right high bank of the Volga) and with the princes of the Arsk and Zyurei Daruga (Left bank of the Volga) about an alliance against Khan Safa Giray who sat on the Kazan throne.
Mountain people are the population of the Mountain side of the Volga of the Kazan Khanate (right high bank), including the Mountain Cheremis (modern Mari) and the Upper (Mountain) Chuvashes. These peoples were under the rule of Kazan, but their relations with the Khanate were complicated due to tax oppression and military conflicts.
People of the Arsk Daruga are the population of Arsk controlled by the Udmurts.
People of the Zyurei Daruga are the population of Zyuri controlled by the Lower (Meadow) Chuvashes.
According to Russian chronicles, the key moment came in 1551, when Ivan the Terrible agreed to build the fortress of Sviyazhsk on the territory of the Mountain Side, inhabited by the upper Chuvash and mountain Cheremis. Sviyazhsk was built to create a bridgehead for the siege of Kazan, and its construction became an important factor in the subjugation of the local peoples.
It is known that Andrei Kurbsky mentioned it when describing the Russian campaign against Kazan: