Old Great Bulgaria - Kubrat

Kubrat

Kubrat (also Kurt or Houvrat) was of the kingly Dulo clan and the rightful heir of the Bulgar throne. He spent his adolescence in the Byzantine Empire, where he was educated and baptised, while his maternal uncle Organa ruled over his tribe.

Around 628, Kubrat returned to his fatherland, to become khagan over the Crimean Huns with the support of the Onogur who had always opposed the European Avar Khaganate. If it had not already been achieved by his predecessors in alliance with first the Byzantines then Samo, Kubrat quickly managed to overthrow Avar domination extending Onogur influence among the Bulgarians in Pannonia in what subsequently became known as Hungary. Ultimately however, although there is no evidence that the Utigurs were independent of the Onogurs until after Kubrat's empire disintegrated, it is believed he seceded from the Onogur when it became entangled in dynastic wars. After Kubrat's burial in Mala Pereshchepina, the Khazars who had triumphed in the collapse of Onoguria subjugated Kubrat's heir Batbayan forcing his other sons to flee north up the Volga (Kotrag) and west into the Balkans (Kuber & Asparukh) and Italy (Alcek).