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Ultimo aggiornamento: 25 maggio 2021
Nicolle D., Shpakovsky V.
Armies of the Volga Bulgars & Khanate of Kazan
9th-16th Centuries
Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2013
Scheda a cura di: Nicolle D., Shpakovsky V.
Facing off against
Byzantines, Arabs, Vikings, Turks, Mongols, and Russians, this steppe culture
dominated Black Sea and Caucasus trade during Medieval times.
The Bulgars were a Turkic
people who established a state north of the Black Sea, and who showed
similarities with the Alans and Sarmatians.
In the late 500s and early
600s AD their state fragmented under pressure from the Khazars; one group moved
south into what became Bulgaria, but the rest moved north during the 7th and
8th centuries to the basin of the Volga river.
There they remained under
Khazar domination until the Khazar Khanate was defeated by Kievan
(Scandinavian) Russia in 965. Thereafter the Volga Bulgars - controlling an
extensive area surrounding an important hub of international trade - became
richer and more influential; they embraced Islam, becoming the most northerly
of medieval peoples to do so.
Given their central position
on trade routes, their armies were noted for the splendor of their armour and
weapons, which drew upon both Western and Eastern sources and influences (as,
eventually, did their fighting tactics).
In the 1220s they managed to
maul Genghis Khan's Mongols, who returned to devastate their towns in revenge.
By the 1350s they had recovered much of their wealth, but they were caught in
the middle between the Tatar Golden Horde and the Christian Russian
principalities. They were ravaged by these two armies in turn on several
occasions between 1360 and 1431. A new city then rose from the ashes - Kazan,
originally called New Bulgar - and the successor Islamic Khanate of Kazan
resisted the Russians until falling to Ivan the Terrible in 1552. The costumes,
armament, armour and fighting methods of the Volga Bulgars during this
momentous period are explored in this fully illustrated study.
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