, in Islamic literature the name of a Turkic people by whom two states, one on the Volga, the other on the Danube, were founded in the early middle ages.

Early history: The original Bulg̲h̲ārs seem to have arrived in the south Russian steppes with one of the Hunnic waves. They are mentioned for the first time by Joannes Antioch. (Müller, Fragm. Hist. Graec. iv, 619) in the year 481 A.D., when they helped the Emperor Zeno in his fight against the Goths. The centre of the Bulg̲h̲ār country was then the steppes in the vicinity of the Kuban river and the Maeoti…