Idyll (Volga) Bulgarian State
Origin of Bulgarians
While some of the researchers state that the first Muslim Turkish State was the Karahanli State apart from those that were founded in Egypt, some researchers accept that the first Muslim Turkish State was the Idyll Bulgarian Khanate. In the recent researches carried out, it has become definite that the Bulgarians were rooted from Turks. It has been observed that the Bulgarians arrived to the steppes of Southern-Russia upon the waves of Hun migrations. These people had helped the Byzantine Emperor, Zenon (474-475, 476-491) in the course of a war against Got people. Afterwards, it has been understood that there were Onogur people that held the majority among the first Bulgarian group that was mixed among the other Hun communities. Meanwhile, the centre of the Bulgarian country was the River Kuban in the Caucasus and the steppes within the environs of the Sea of Azov.
Bulgarians had lived under the dominion of Gokturk Khanate in the beginning. However, upon the interregnum period of Gokturk Khanate in 630, the Bulgarians established the "Great Bulgaria" state. But this state could not live for a long time and it was dissolved by the neighbouring Khazar Khanate after 665. Pursuant to this dissolution, the crowded Bulgarian groups under the administration of Asparuh oriented toward the Danube River and they entered into the Balkans (668 or 671). Then, they founded the Danube Bulgarians State (681). The Danube Bulgarians were assimilated among Slavs in the course of time and they became Christians upon the adoption of Orthodoxy by Boris Khan in 864.
Some of the Bulgarians stayed in their ancient centres of settlement, in Kuban River and within the environs of the Sea of Azov until the century X. This country of Bulgarians was called as "Black Bulgaria" by the Byzantine and Russian historians. They did not play an important role in the history of Bulgarians and they probably were assimilated among the waves of Hungarians, Pecenek and Kuman people that came to the region one after another.
It has been understood that pursuant to the dissolution of the Great Bulgaria State, the Otuz Ogur people on the banks of the Don River had withdrawn towards the north and to the region where the Middle Idyll, in other worlds Idyll (Volga) and Kama (Colman) rivers ran into each other. It is probable this movement took place in the end of the century VII and in the beginning of the century VIII. Idyll Bulgarians established dominion over the native people of the region, the Finno-Ugrian people and the other Turkish groups and they found a state in this region. However, we do not have proper and definite information about the first periods of Idyll Bulgarian State. There were Baskirt (Bashkurts) people in the east of the Bulgarian country and Burtas people who were Finnish or Turkish people and Russians in the west and Khazar people in the south.