Baranjars

{{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 Baranjars (''Balanjars'', ''Belenjers'') were a confederacy of Turkic tribes who flourished in the

early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

. They are first mentioned in

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

chronicles of the 7th century. They were supposedly settled in the northern

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...

Mountains in the 370s CE, having come to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

with the

nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

. From the second half of the 6th century they were subjected to the Göktürk

Khaganate A khaganate or khanate was a polity ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. That political territory was typically found on the Eurasian Steppe and could be equivalent in status to tribe, tribal chiefdom, principality, monarch ...

. After the collapse of the Göktürk power in the 630s they formed a state centered on the town of

Balanjar Balanjar (''Baranjar'', ''Belenjer'', ''Belendzher'', ''Bülünjar'') was a medieval city located in the North Caucasus region, between the cities of Derbent and Samandar, probably on the lower Sulak River. It flourished between the seventh and t ...

on the lower Terek and

Sulak Sulak may refer to: ;Places * Sulak, Khuzestan, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran *Sulak, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, a village in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Iran *Sulak, Russia, several inhabited localities in Russia * Sulak, Silvan ...

rivers in

Daghestan Dagestan ( ; rus, Дагеста́н, , dəɡʲɪˈstan, links=yes), officially the Republic of Dagestan (russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respúblika Dagestán, links=no), is a republic of Russia situated in the North Ca ...

and along the western shore of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...

. Their independence was short-lived, however, and by the end of the 630s they were incorporated into the Bulgar Khaganate and later the

Khazar The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

Khanate. In the ninth and tenth centuries some Baranjars resettled in

Volga Bulgaria Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria, was a historic Bulgar state that existed between the 7th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia. Volga Bulgaria was a multi-ethnic state ...

, to the environs of

Bilär Bilär (Tatar: Биләр) - was a medieval city in Volga Bulgaria and its second capital before the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria. It was located on the left bank of the Small Cheremshan River in Alexeeyevsky District of the Tatarstan. Th ...

and later were absorbed into the Volga Bulgarian nation. History of Tatarstan Turkic peoples of Europe