Onogurs

The Onogurs were a living on the northeast edge of the Black Sea late antique equestrian people.

The Onogurs (or in some sources Unnuguren ) are mentioned several times in late antiquity and early medieval sources, as in Priscus, Pseudo - Zacharias (ie in the extended version of the Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias of Mytilene ), Jordanes, Agathias, Menander Protector and Theophylaktos Simokates. Suggestive of an earlier time in oriental statements (such as Armenian ) sources are not trustworthy; Priscus begins only with the safe tradition in terms of Onogurs.

Their origin and their subsequent history is controversial in research. In several sources Onogurs be related to the Proto-Bulgarians in close relationship and called eg as Unnogur - Bulgarians. Especially in later Byzantine sources this is the case: Theophanes mentioned in the context of a digression to the early history of the Bulgarian Unnogundur Bulgars and in another source is reported, the Bulgarians would have previously called Onogunduren. It is still unclear whether Onogurs were part of the Bulgarians or parts of them later joined by only the Bulgarians; at least the Bulgarians became apparent distinction between individual parts. Often that is the Onogurs in research are considered part of the Bulgarians, and partly reversed. With regard to the relationship between Onogurs and Bulgarians much remains uncertain. The term "Bulgarians" was in any case later used to refer to other groups, including the former Onogurs. An inaccurate term Pontic steppe peoples is not uncommon, as the imprecise use of the terms Scythians and Huns shows in the Greco-Latin sources.

The sources for the actual history of Onogurs which very likely were a Turkic people, are not very numerous. Priscus reports of various embassies of some steppe peoples in the northern Black Sea to Constantinople Opel in the single 460 years. In this context, the Onogurs be mentioned, who were defeated in battle with the Sabirs. They had abandoned their old ancestral homes and moved to the Black Sea. For 552 is reported in the sources of a slump in Onogurs in the Caucasus area, in the late 560s years Onogurs mentioned as subjects of a ruler of the Kok - Turks in the lower Volga region. Could Onogurs in this context, not an ethnic, but be a purely organizational designation, namely on the basis of Turkish Ogur / oguz ( as a term for " ten tribes "). Turxanthos, son and successor of Türkenkhagans Sizabulos, boasted to an eastern Roman embassy in 576, he also command over the Onogurs. After the power of the Kok - Turks waned, the Avars seem to have gained supremacy over the Onogurs. The Bulgarian ruler Kubrat then commanded probably also on Onogurs. Their subsequent history can, as mentioned above, no longer be safely reconstructed. But at least larger parts should have acted together with the Bulgarians.

The German name of Hungary is derived from Onogurennamen.