What if nomadic Bulgars invade Hungary and Magyars invade Bulgaria

raharris1973

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How do the land, people and languages mix differently from OTL.

Would Western Europe fear Bulgar raids for a spell?

Would the Bulgars of Pannonia choose Catholicism, and the Magyars of the eastern Balkans choose Orthodoxy?
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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While not addressing the Magyar part of the equation, the discussion Carp and I had in a separate, but similar thread suggests one option for the Bulgars settling in Central Europe:



It seems to me that this would essentially require "Bulgaria" to remain a steppe empire in the manner of the original Bulgars. The process of transition into a settled, agriculturalist, Slavicized state necessarily meant that Paristrion/Upper Macedonia would be the heart of the county; it was where the people were. Such settled states, however, had difficulty with new nomads from the east. Pannonia, Moldavia, and Wallachia were lost precisely because they are basically the westernmost extensions of the Pontic Steppe, thinly populated and highly vulnerable to nomadic incursions. For an increasingly settled Bulgarian state to hang on to them for basically the entirety of the medieval period (to 1400!) seems like a fairly difficult proposition.

The best way to approach this, IMO, is to start before the date of your map and have the Bulgars basically be proto-Magyars and settle in Pannonia. This would involve taking on and destroying the Avar Khaganate around 700 or so and retaining a semi-nomadic lifestyle on the Pannonian plan, while continuing to dominate Wallachia and Moldavia. In this scenario, what we consider "Bulgaria" IOTL is instead a peripheral Slavic tributary of a Pannonian-centered steppe empire.

That said, I don't think there's much of a chance of that state lasting until 1400, especially since the Bulgars themselves are a relatively small elite. They're either going to assimilate and settle, like the OTL Magyars, in which case they'll be hard pressed to keep all that steppe land from the nomads; or they'll get obliterated by a settled empire like the Avars or Pechenegs ultimately did. In the grand scheme of things, not many empires last for 600-700 years, and you've picked a particularly difficult part of the map to hang on to.
A well-reasoned response. It's tough to hunker down in the Romanian flatlands.

Still, the alternative you suggest is interesting, and it gets us partway there.

The Pannonian based "Bulgaria" might get obliterated like the Avars or Pechenegs, or it might stabilize into "Hungary". If fortunate, they can retain control of all of the St. Stephen's lands for a millennium, while keeping their domination over Moldavia and Wallachia from 814 up to a later period like 1014 or 1114.
 
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