Utigurs

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

The Utigurs were a Hunnic people of the steppe east of the Sea of Azov. They were kinsmen and neighbours of the Kutrigurs, who lived to their west.^[1] In 576 their ruler Anagai lay with a Göktürk army before the Roman city of Bosporos. The city fell to the Göktürks and their allies.^[2]

Name

ΟὐτίγουροιGreekMenander Protector
ΟὐτρίγουροιGreekProcopius

The Greek historians write Οὐτίγουροι, with variant forms in Procopius and Agathias.^[1] Some scholars derive the name from an Oguric word for thirty, “the Thirty Ogurs”. They derive the name of the Kutrigurs from the word for nine in the same way.^[1] Others explain it as “those who resist” or as “the victors”.^[1] According to a further proposal, the names of the Utigurs, the Kutrigurs and the Onogurs are tribal names drawn from the names of chiefs. Procopius makes Utigur and Kutrigur two brothers.^[3] Yet another proposal counts the Utigurs among the ten tribes of an Onogur federation.^[4]

On the Sea of Azov

According to Procopius, the two peoples were of common origin and held the steppe of the Don and the Sea of Azov. The Kutrigurs held the west and the Utigurs the east.^[1] In 548 the Tetraxite Goths of the Crimea asked Justinian for protection against the Utigurs.^[5] When the Kutrigurs invaded the empire in 551 and again in 558, Justinian set the Utigurs under their leader Sandilkhos against them.^[6]

Menander preserves Sandilkhos’ answer to the emperor’s embassies.^[2] Sandilkhos said that it was neither holy nor seemly to wipe out his fellow tribesmen. They spoke the same language, lived in the same kind of tents, wore the same dress and were kinsmen, though they were ranged under other leaders.^[2] Because the emperor ordered it, he would take the Kutrigurs’ horses, so that they had nothing to ride on against the Romans.^[2] In the fighting that followed, the two peoples decimated one another.^[6]

Grod, the Hunnic king of Bosporos who was baptised in Constantinople in 528, has been made an Utigur prince.^[7] Others hold the connection unproven. They allow that he may have been a Sabir.^[1]

Under the Avars

Remnants of both peoples were drawn into the union of the Avars, which held the Pontic steppe for a short time.^[6] In 568 the Avar envoy Targitios demanded of Justin II the yearly payments that Justinian had given the Kutrigurs and the Utigurs. He argued that the Avar khagan Baian was now master of both.^[2] Justin answered that the wretched Kutrigurs and Utigurs had partly fled from the Romans and partly been beaten and destroyed by them.^[2]

Under the Göktürks

The Utigurs then came under Göktürk rule.^[6] In 576 the Roman envoy Valentinos, travelling from the Crimea to the Göktürk camp, passed through the land of a woman named Akkagas.^[2] She ruled the Scythians there and had been appointed by Anagai, “who ruled the tribe of the Utigurs”.^[2] Turxanthos was the Göktürk prince who received the embassy. He named the Alans and the Utigurs as peoples who had trusted in their own strength, set themselves against the Göktürks and now obeyed them as slaves.^[8] That passage may name the Onogurs in place of the Utigurs.^[9]

While Valentinos travelled on, Anagai was already encamped near Bosporos with a force of Göktürks. Turxanthos sent the commander Bochan with a second, very large force to take the city.^[2] The siege of Bosporos ended with the city in Göktürk hands.^[2] The siege suggests that the Utigurs, like the neighbouring Alans, were subject to the western Göktürks by 576. The account of how they were subdued would then be lost.^[10]

Later history

After the sixth century, the name of the Utigurs disappears from the eastern shore of the Sea of Azov.^[11] They have been equated with the Burgar of the Syriac list of peoples, and their country with the later Great Bulgaria.^[12] An older view took the Utigurs and the Kutrigurs for Bulgars outright.^[1]

The Utigurs are the one Pontic people whose ruler the Greek sources show in command beside a Göktürk general.

References

^ a b c d e f g Golden 1992, p. 99
^ a b c d e f g h i j Menander Protector
^ Marquart 1903, p. 44-45
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 105
^ Golden 1992, p. 99-100
^ a b c d Golden 1992, p. 100
^ Marquart 1903, p. 301
^ Menander Protector; Dindorf 1871, p. 87
^ Golden 1992, p. 130
^ Marquart 1903, p. 504-505
^ Marquart 1903, p. 505-506
^ Marquart 1903, p. 503-504

Sources

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Josef Marquart, Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge (1903)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)
Ludwig Dindorf (ed.), Historici Graeci minores, Bd. II: Menander Protector et Agathias (1871)
Agathias, Ἱστορίαι / Histories (ca. 570s)