The “Internal” Ethnic Communities in Khazaria 229
(the V-n-n-trs) were the most active in their resistance against Khazaria, but
they did not get support from Batbayan and were therefore easily defeated by
the Khazars and forced to migrate.23
S. Pletneva expresses a similar opinion, assuming that the Khazars fought
only with the Bulgars of Asparukh (the Unogundurs, the V-n-n-trs), who were
not supported by Batbayan. The majority of the Bulgars remained in their lands
and accepted the supremacy of the khagan.24 It should be assumed that some
Bulgar communities became an integral part of the khaganate during its very
establishment, while others were absorbed later, probably without much resis-
tance. There, they had a status equal to that of the Khazars. Indirect proof of
the fact that there were Bulgars in the Khazar army (who were neither merce-
naries, nor sent there by force) can perhaps be seen in Tsar Simeon’s (893–927)
attitude towards the Khazars, captured in 894 after having fought on the side
of Byzantium: he ordered their noses to be chopped off.25
It is apparent that the Khazar ruler Joseph distinguishes the Unogundurs
(the V-n-n-trs) from the other Bulgar communities in Khazaria. But he does
not mention all the Bulgar groups that inhabited the khaganate and whose
existence is documented by both written sources (the Black or Inner Bulgars)
and the archaeological ones. It should be borne in mind that in his letter
Joseph talks of ethnic groups when describing the eastern parts of the kha-
ganate (mostly along the Volga) and of the peoples who inhabited the moun-
tainous part of the North Caucasus (where he also does not mention Bulgars,
although there is evidence of their significant presence there). In the western
part of Khazaria (the Crimea and the Don River Valley), he mentions only cit-
ies and settlements (in the Crimea, the Taman Peninsula and along the lower
reaches of the Don) without specifying which ethnic groups inhabited them.
23 Bozhilov and Dimitrov 1995, 30–31; Dimitrov 1989, 50–52.
24 Pletneva 1976, 22; Pletneva 1980, 29; Pletneva 1997, 36–43. See also Tortika 2006a, 68,
94, 207, and 472; Naumenko 2004a, 63–64; Zuckerman 2001, 330; Novosel’tsev 1990, 91.
According to Dimitrov 1987, 76, “the Khazar expansion against the Proto-Bulgarians did
not lead to any serious exodus of the latter from these lands, but rather helped impose the
political supremacy of the newly established Khazar Khaganate”.
25 Zlatarski 1994, 289. According to Tortika 2006a, 87, the Bulgars were gradually “absorbed”
into the Khazar union and formed troops that were used for military action in places such
as the Crimea or for the conquest of the Slavic tribes. He assumes that the Bulgars who
were subject to Batbayan controlled the new territories (Tortika 2006a, 472). In Tortika’s
opinion, members of the Bulgar nobility entered the Khazar elite, while remaining at the
helm of the local “nomadic” Bulgar communities. Those who retained their tribal struc-
ture and military potential later became the basis of the Black Bulgaria that Constantine
Porphyrogenitus wrote about (Tortika 2006a, 68, 87, 105, 127, and 207).