Mythologies of the Avar Tribe

The Avars, also known as Maharuls (Avar: магӀарулал, maⱨarulal, "mountaineers"), are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group. The Avars are the largest of several ethnic groups living in the Russian republic of Dagestan. The Avars reside in the North Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Alongside other ethnic groups in the North Caucasus region, the Avars live in ancient villages located approximately 2,000 meters above sea level. The Avar language spoken by the Caucasian Avars belongs to the family of Northeast Caucasian languages. Sunni Islam has been the prevailing religion of the Avars since the 13th century. According to 19th-century Russian historians, the Avars' neighbors usually referred to them with the exonym Tavlins (tavlintsy). Vasily Potto wrote, "The words in different languages have the same meaning... [of] mountain dwellers [or] highlanders." Potto claimed that members of Avarian tribe also often referred to themselves by the alternate endonym maarulal, also meaning "mountaineer". Most of those known as Tavlins trace their lineage to the upper parts of two tributaries of the Sulak River: the Andiyskoe Koisu and Avarskoye Koisu. Between the 5th and 12th centuries, Georgian Orthodox Christianity was introduced to the Avar valleys. During the Islamic conquests, Arabs invaded the Caucasus, conquering Azerbaijan in 639 and Derbent in 643. They also founded the Emirate of Tbilisi in 736. Later, the Christian kingdom of Sarir governed much of modern-day Dagestan. The Kingdom of Georgia was also Christian. However, when Sarir fell in the early 12th century and Mongol invasions led by Subutai and Jebe weakened Georgia, Christian influence in the area ended. The Avar Khanate, a predominantly Muslim polity, succeeded Sarir. The only extant monument of Sarir architecture is the 10th-century Datuna Church in the village of Datuna. The Mongol invasions seem not to have affected the Avar territory, and the alliance with the Golden Horde enabled the Avar khans to increase their prosperity. In the 15th century the Horde declined, and the Shamkhalate of Kazi-Kumukh rose to power. The Shamkhalate absorbed the Avar Khanate.

The Pannonian Avars (/ˈævɑːrz/) were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of various origins. The peoples were also known as the Obri in chronicles of Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai (Greek: Βαρχονίτες, romanized: Varchonítes), or Pseudo-Avars in Byzantine sources, and the Apar (Old Turkic: 𐰯𐰺) to the Göktürks (Kultegin Inscription: Apar – Avars were called "Apar"). They established the Avar Khaganate, which spanned the Pannonian Basin and considerable areas of Central and Eastern Europe from the late 6th to the early 9th century. The name Pannonian Avars (after the area in which they settled) is used to distinguish them from the Avars of the Caucasus, a separate people with whom the Pannonian Avars may or may not have had links. Although the name Avar first appeared in the mid-5th century, the Pannonian Avars entered the historical scene in the mid-6th century, on the Pontic–Caspian steppe as a people who wished to escape the rule of the Göktürks. They are probably best known for their invasions and destruction in the Avar–Byzantine wars from 568 to 626 and influence on the Slavic migrations to the Balkans.

Avar, one of a people who, though likely originating in Mongolia, built an empire in the area between the Adriatic and the Baltic seas and between the Elbe and Dnieper rivers (6th–8th century). Inhabiting an area in the Caucasus region in 558, they intervened in Germanic tribal wars, allied with the Lombards to overthrow the Gepidae (allies of Byzantium), and between 550 and 575 established themselves in the Hungarian plain between the Danube and Tisza rivers. This area became the centre of their empire, which reached its peak at the end of the 6th century. The Avars engaged in wars against Byzantium, almost occupying Constantinople in 626, and against the Merovingians; they also were partly responsible for the southward migration of the Serbs and the Croats. In the second half of the 7th century, internal discord resulted in the expulsion of about 9,000 dissidents from the Avar empire. The state, further weakened by a revolt precipitated by the creation of the Bulgarian state in the Balkans (680), survived until 805 when it submitted to Charlemagne.

The Avars were a confederation of heterogeneous (diverse or varied) people consisting of Rouran, Hephthalites, and Turkic-Oghuric races who migrated to the region of the Pontic Grass Steppe (an area corresponding to modern-day Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan) from Central Asia after the fall of the Asiatic Rouran Empire in 552 CE. They are considered by many historians to be the successors of the Huns in their way of life and, especially, mounted warfare. They settled in the Huns' former territory and almost instantly set upon a course of conquest. After they were hired by the Byzantine Empire to subdue other tribes, their king Bayan I (reigned 562/565-602 CE) allied with the Lombards under Alboin (reigned 560-572 CE) to defeat the Gepids of Pannonia and then took over the region, forcing the Lombards to migrate to Italy. The Avars eventually succeeded in establishing the Avar Khaganate, which encompassed a territory corresponding roughly to modern-day Austria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria down to and including parts of Turkey. The departure of the Lombards for Italy in 568 CE removed another hostile people from Pannonia, enabling Bayan I to expand his territories with relative ease and found the empire which lasted until 796 CE, when the Avars were conquered by the Franks under Charlemagne.

The nomadic Avars appeared suddenly in Eastern Europe 1,500 years ago, crushed the remains of the Roman Empire under their boots and ruled for two centuries. Who were the Avars? These conquering nomads rode from the east some 1,500 years ago, dealt crippling blows to an already moribund Roman Empire and ruled over large swaths of eastern Europe for more than two centuries. But the question of who exactly they were has occupied ancient and modern historians ever since. Now geneticists have sequenced the genomes of dozens of these fearsome invaders. They were, it turns out, Mongolians, who formed an empire centuries before Genghis Khan. More specifically, the Avars were the scions of an ancient tribal empire that spanned modern-day Mongolia as well parts of China and Russia. When that empire fell, part of its population apparently migrated thousands of kilometers in a mere handful of years from the steppes of northeast Asia to the plains of eastern Europe, concludes the study published Friday in the journal Cell.

The Avars, mysterious horse-riding warriors who helped hasten the end of the Roman Empire, dominated the plains between Vienna and Belgrade, Serbia, for more than 2 centuries. Then, they vanished without a trace. Scholars have been searching for their origins ever since. Now, archaeological and genetic evidence reveals the Avars were migrants from Mongolia—and their migration was, up to that point, the fastest long-distance movement in human history. The Avars had no written records. Grave goods and historical accounts suggest they dominated the plains of modern-day Hungary soon after their arrival in Europe about 1500 years ago. They interred their elites in massive burial mounds, surrounded by weapons, and finely decorated gold and silver vessels. They were often buried with horses and riding equipment. (The earliest stirrups in Europe are from Avar graves.) It was those elaborate burials that yielded clues to the Avars’ origins. An international team of researchers extracted ancient DNA from the skeletons of dozens of high-status men and women buried in 27 sites from modern-day Hungary. Comparing that DNA with existing ancient DNA data, the team found the closest matches came from graves from the sixth century in what is today Mongolia, they report today in Cell.

The Avars are one of the most numerous indigenous peoples of the former Daghestan SSR. For the most part the Avars inhabit mountainous parts of central and northwestern Daghestan, its northern foothills, and parts of the plains to the north, situated roughly between 43°05′ and 41°43′ N at about 47°25′ E. Some of the Avars live compactly grouped in the north of the Azerbaijan SSR (Belokansky and Zakatal'sky districts), in Turkey and in other countries of the Near East. Physically the Avars resemble other indigenous Caucasian peoples. The geography of the Avar territory is characterized by ridges that run parallel to the main Caucasus chain, between which are high mountain plateaus (2,000 meters above sea level), wide basins, and valley flats with semiarid vegetation and a hot climate. These regions are relatively densely settled. The high mountain regions, however, have the typical indices of the alpine zone: a cold climate, wooded terrain, an economy oriented toward livestock rearing, and a low population density. Avar country includes the highest mountain in the republic (Mount Kazbek, 5,012 meters). The Avars in the former USSR number 604,200, of which 495,700 dwell in the Daghestan SSR. At lower elevations in Avaria, the density is 35-39 persons per square kilometer; in high mountain country, it is 9.2 per square kilometer. The Avar language belongs to the Daghestanian Branch of the Northeast Caucasian Family. It is divided into two dialect groups: the Northern (Khunzakh and Salatav subdialects) and the Southern (Antsukh). The latter group is subdivided into five subdialects (Antsukh, Gidatlin, Batlukh, Andalal, and Keleb), each of which is divided in turn into more finely differentiated regional varieties. Some sources, however, list four major dialects; others claim that every valley possesses its own dialect. Avaria, in any case, is involved in so-called vertical polylingualism, where ethnic groups speak the languages of those living at lower elevations: many Andis speak Avar; many Avars speak Kumyk. The Avar literary language—Bolmats, or "language of the people, the host"—is based on the Northern dialect; Bolmats was also the lingua franca of many of the ethnic groups of southern Avaria and of all minor peoples of Daghestan. Bolmats is the language of literacy, used for literature, newspapers, magazines, radio programs, theatrical stagings, and teaching in primary schools. As of 1970, there were no less than fourteen district-level newspapers printed in Avar, as well as one on the republic level printed in Makhachkala. After the unification of Daghestan with Russia, the Russian language spread widely, becoming, during the Soviet period, the language of secondary schools and university education, science, record keeping, and international communication. Nevertheless, the Avars today rank among the least Russified and Sovietized of all Daghestanian groups (Bennigsen and Wimbush 1986).

Less known than Attila’s Huns, the Avars were their more successful successors. They ruled much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. We know that they came from Central Asia in the sixth century CE, but ancient authors and modern historians debated their provenance. Now, a multidisciplinary research team of geneticists, archaeologists and historians, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, obtained and studied the first ancient genomes from the most important Avar elite sites discovered in contemporary Hungary. This study traces the genetic origin of the Avar elite to a faraway region of East Central Asia. It provides direct genetic evidence for one of the largest and most rapid long-distance migrations in ancient human history. In the 560s, the Avars established an empire that lasted more than 200 years, centered in the Carpathian Basin. Despite much scholarly debate their initial homeland and origin has remained unclear. They are primarily known from historical sources of their enemies, the Byzantines, who wondered about the origin of the fearsome Avar warriors after their sudden appearance in Europe. Had they come from the Rouran empire in the Mongolian steppe (which had just been destroyed by the Turks), or should one believe the Turks who strongly disputed such a prestigious legacy? Historians have wondered whether that was a well-organised migrant group or a mixed band of fugitives. Archaeological research has pointed to many parallels between the Carpathian Basin and Eurasian nomadic artefacts (weapons, vessels, horse harnesses), for instance a lunula-shaped pectoral of gold used as a symbol of power. We also know that the Avars introduced the stirrup in Europe. Yet we have so far not been able to trace their origin in the wide Eurasian steppes. In this study, a multidisciplinary team - including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, the ELTE University and the Institute of Archaeogenomics of Budapest, Harvard Medical School in Boston, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton - analysed 66 individuals from the Carpathian Basin. The study included the eight richest Avar graves ever discovered, overflowing with golden objects, as well as other individuals from the region prior to and during the Avar age. “We address a question that has been a mystery for more than 1400 years: who were the Avar elites, mysterious founders of an empire that almost crushed Constantinople and for more than 200 years ruled the lands of modern-day Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Croatia and Serbia?”, explains Johannes Krause, senior author of the study.

The Avar Khaganate was a steppe people that for centuries have been considered irrelevant in the annals of history. Yet the Pannonian Avars were a people who greatly affected the course of medieval history in eastern Europe when they reached the Carpathian Basin. Its the history of a political and military force that ruled the Pannonian plains for a quarter of a millennium. But who were the Avars, how did they manage to remain as a prominent force in eastern Europe for so long and how were the Avar Khaganate and the Avar society structure?

Less known than Attila's Huns, the Avars were their more successful successors. They ruled much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. We know that they came from Central Asia in the sixth century CE, but ancient authors as well as modern historians have long debated their provenance. Now, a multidisciplinary research team of geneticists, archeologists and historians, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, obtained and studied the first ancient genomes from the most important Avar elite sites discovered in contemporary Hungary. This study traces the genetic origin of the Avar elite to a faraway region of East Central Asia. It provides direct genetic evidence for one of the largest and most rapid long-distance migrations in ancient human history. In the 560s, the Avars established an empire that lasted more than 200 years, centered in the Carpathian Basin. Despite much scholarly debate their initial homeland and origin has remained unclear. They are primarily known from historical sources of their enemies, the Byzantines, who wondered about the origin of the fearsome Avar warriors after their sudden appearance in Europe. Had they come from the Rouran empire in the Mongolian steppe (which had just been destroyed by the Turks), or should one believe the Turks who strongly disputed such a legacy?

The Avar people were constituted as a singular ‘official’ nationality from a large variety of culturally related local groups in the 1930s. Avars in Dagestan inhabit primarily mono-ethnic districts. Traditionally Avars have played a pre-eminent role in the delicate, informal power-sharing system between the many ethnic groups in Dagestan. This system has successfully contained a number of traditional rivalries, for instance, that between Caucasian highlanders, such as the Avars, and Turkic lowlanders. An example is the repeated rejection in three post-Soviet referenda in Dagestan that would have established a presidency, an institution that would concentrate power in the hands of one ethnic group over others. Avars played a central role in blocking the introduction of a presidency, which would have diminished their numerical advantage. Instead, Dagestan’s 1993 Constitution provides for a collective presidency, known as the State Council, composed of 14 members, one from each of Dagestan’s 14 official titular nationalities – including Avars. Although the chairmanship of the State Council was originally intended to be a post rotating between ethnic groups, it was abolished in 1998 in recognition of the de facto control over the chairmanship of an ethnic Dargin. To balance Dargin influence, an ethnic Kumyk prime minister was appointed and an ethnic Avar as parliamentary speaker. In 2003 Dagestan’s Constitution was amended to allow for direct presidential elections, an amendment later rendered obsolete by President Putin’s abolishment of directly elected heads of federation subjects. In 1990 an Avar National Movement was formed to counter the influence of a parallel Kumyk organization, Tenglik. In May 1993 clashes over disputed territory in the mountains broke out between Avars, Laks, and Chechens. The Avar National Movement was disbanded in 2000. Competition between Avars and Dargins for political influence continued in subsequent years. In the summer of 2005, for instance, the Avar mayor, Saidpasha Umukhanov, of Dagestan’s second largest town Khasavyurt organized protests against the Dargin chair of the State Council. Umukhanov also headed the Northern Alliance, an Avar-dominated group opposed to the Dargin political elite.

The Avars (Avar: аварал, магIарулал, avaral, maharulal ("mountaineers")) constitute a Caucasus native ethnic group, the most predominant of several ethnic groups living in the Russian republic of Dagestan. The Avars reside in a region known as the North Caucasus between the Black and Caspian Seas. Alongside other ethnic groups in the North Caucasus region, the Caucasian Avars live in ancient villages located approximately 2,000 m above sea level. The Avar language spoken by the Caucasian Avars belongs to the family of Northeast Caucasian languages and is also known as Nakh–Dagestanian. Sunni Islam has been the prevailing religion of the Avars since the 13th century. According to the historian Sergey Tolstov, the Avars originated in Khurasan, south-east of the Caspian Sea, and migrated to the Caucasus. These geographical origins apparently link them to the Hurrians of Subartu. (And subclades of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup J typical of Avar males are also common in the area formerly occupied by Subartu.) The earliest mention of the Avars in European history is by Priscus, who reported in 463 AD that a combined legation from the Saragurs, Urogs and Unogurs had requested an alliance with Byzantium. The legation claimed that in 461 their peoples had been displaced by the Sabirs, as a result of pressure from the Avars. It is not clear whether or in what way the Caucasian Avars are related to the early "Pseudo-Avars" (or Pannonian Avars) of the Dark Ages, but it is known that with the mediation of Sarosios in 567, the Göktürks requested Byzantium to distinguish the Avars of Pannonia as "Pseudo-Avars" as opposed to the true Avars of the east, who had come under Göktürk hegemony. The modern Arab Encyclopaedia states that the Magyars originated in this area.