Avars

The Avars are people wandering proto-Turkish of riders directed by a Khâgan , sometimes identified with the Ruanruan, which threatened the China at the 3rd century.

They would be originating in Tartarie, of the family of the Huns. At the 5th century, Chö-louen, khan of the Ruanruan (Jouan Jouan), found a wandering empire of the Korea to the Irtych. This empire is managed by two governors, in the east and the west. The population is organized around the army. They camp under mobile tents, and will never have other cities but their immense camps which, had in the shape concentric circles, take from there name of boxing rings or rings. Their chief was called Khan or Khagan.

The Ruanruan are nomads, stockbreeders and hunters, and will cultivate the ground only around the 6th century. They practice barter and make in period peace an intense trade with the China of the Wei. The art of metals reaches a level very high in the empire. They do not have an original writing, but one found plates of wood engraved of figures. The aristocrats and the administration use the language and the Chinese writing. The Chinese chronicles report that the Ruanruan made come from China of the doctors, the astrologers and the craftsmen. At the 6th century, them they will be in contact with the Bouddhisme.

They are established in the surroundings of the Altaï, when they are attacked and driven out of their territory by an invasion of the Chinese in 552.

Those which escape direct towards the Europe where they are known under the name of Avars, and migrate towards the west while absorbing small turco-Mongolian tribes, and reach the the Volga at the 6th century when they build a kingdom based primarily on plunderings, the requests for tributes and ransoms. They cross the Volga and the Don in 557, and come soon to be established on the edges of the the Danube. Under their Khâgan (“Khân of Khâns”) Bayan, combined with the Byzantine Empire, they is charged with the Lombards to drive out the Gépides Pannonia towards 567 and fights against the tribes Slaves and the Bulgares. They make the war with the Greek emperors, and remove the Dacie and the Pannonia to them (582), from where they are spread in the Germanie in the north of the the Danube, and until in the Italy.

They end up controlling a zone extending from the the Volga and the Elba until the the Baltic, badgers the Byzantine territories in the south with the the Danube, plunders the Balkans, threatens the imperial capital and the Italy lombarde. The limits of the empire of Avars varied much. At the time of its greater extension (590 - 630), he embraces immense lonelinesses in Danube north since the Lusace until beyond Gift; at the end of the 7th century, it is tightened in North and in the West by the Lèkhes, the Vende S and the Czech S (today Poland, Silesia, Brandebourg, Bohemia); in the East by the Khazars which lived between the Boug and the Dniepr.

Starting from 610, the things change when they turn to the west and decide to attack the Bavaria and Italy. They put the the Friuli at fire and blood and fight the king lombard Agilolf. In 626, to their apogee, they are turned over against Byzance and decide to attack the capital with: 80000 riders and infantrymen (figure certainly exaggerated by the chroniclers of the time), comprising in addition to Avars, of the Slavic tribes, Asian, and Germanic. While being combined with the Persian , sworn enemies of the Byzantines, they besiege the city and require a heavy tribute. Their chief Baïan, combined Khosro II, was overcome there by the emperor Héraclius. However, they fail and are pushed back in Illyrie by a coalition bulgaro - Byzantine. Starting from the end of the 7th century, Avars lose little by little their hegemony and, isolated from any share, must face the pushes in particular Bulgare S. Their empire is folded up on the territories of current the Hungary, by accommodating there the fragments of another people come from the steppes (turco-Bulgarian or Finno-ugric?). One more peaceful period starts, which develops a refined craft industry (decorated engraved objects “of claws and the rinceaux one”).

As from the year 791, the Frank of Charlemagne and his/her son Pip of Italy, decided to finish some with these pagan, the violently fight and without slackening with their franques, Bavarian troops and lombardes. Their fortified camp, the Boxing ring avar , is taken in 795 with a considerable treasure, fruit of several centuries of plundering (see Prise Boxing ring Avar). After its destruction, in 799, Charlemagne preserved of it only the Western part, located between the Theiss and the Inn, and made of it under the name of Avarie a walk of the empire of the Francs. The remainder was occupied by the Magyars or Hungarian.

Avars are exterminated; those which are subjected are converted with the Christianisme liking but very often of force, and the last rebels are overcome in 805. A franque law orders not to however sell any weapon in Avars reduced, and their existence as distinct people stops there. A very last forwarding in 811 destroys the resistant last. Some, very few, take refuge in the mountains of Transylvania and mingle with other Slavic, Asian and Germanic tribes; the Sicules can be regarded as their descendants. Those remained in Pannonia are badgered and completely exterminated by the Bulgarian ones formerly persecuted by these same Avars. One will not hear any more of them as from the years 822.

Of Avars occupy at the 19th century part of the Circassie on the septentrional slope of the the Caucasus, between the Aksaï and the mount Cherdagh. They formed then approximately: 12000 families, obeying a particular khan; they live of hunting and Rapine. They were then vassal Russia, of which they formally recognized the authority in 1859.

See too

Partial source

Internal bonds

cruel Kingdoms
Empire avar

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