The problem of identifying the term Burjan, used by Arab-Muslim historiography and geographical literature, with the ethnopolitical formations of the Middle Ages known to history, is still a "white spot" of science. The ethnonym and toponym Burjan is considered to be the Arabic name of Danube Bulgaria. However, upon closer examination, this thesis does not stand up to criticism. The analysis of Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Byzantine and Khazar sources shows that the name Burjan meant an independent ethnic group, the news of which, after breaking through the centuries, became associated exclusively with the Bulgars - the North Caucasus and Danube. In fact, the Burjans, repeating the fate of the Bulgars, split into several parts and settled throughout Eurasia-from Danube Bulgaria to Mangyshlak, giving rise to the Bulgar-Burjan problem. Some researchers, considering this problem unsolvable, were inclined to recognize the term as a consequence of lapsus calami, however, this conclusion is crossed out by the very fact of the existence of a living carrier of the mentioned ethnonym in the person of the Burjan tribe as part of the modern Bashkirs.

Key words: Berzilia, Burjan, Bulgars, Huns, Suvars.

Europeans ' familiarity with Arabic historiography and geographical literature led them to the conclusion that Arab authors refer to Danube Bulgaria as Burjan 1. I. Markwart came to the conclusion that under the burjans of Arab sources are hidden the Bulgarians of the Danube and North Caucasus, but not the Volga, and also - in the description of Harun ibn Yahya 2's journey to Western Europe-the Burgundians [Marquart, 1903, S. 207, 491].

Since then, the point of view on this issue has hardly changed at all. To the question of why the Arabs called the Danube Bulgars Burjans, there is still no satisfactory answer. A. Garkavi, commenting on the information of Arab authors, wrote:"...why these Bulgars were used by Western writers [name] Burgiani, Burgani, and the eastern Burjans are well indicated by Shafarik " (Garkavi, 1870, p. 11). However, the appeal to the named author does not explain anything, since P. Shafarik simply states that in ancient and medieval sources the Bulgars appear under the names "Bulgari, Bulgares, Bulgarkh, Burgari, Burgian, Borgian, Burgan, Borgan, Borgal, Borgar, Burugundi, Wurugundi, Wurgari, Vulgari, Vulgares..." [Shafarik, 1848, p. 273]. He does not give any explanations about the relationship between the above names and the Arabic term "Burjan". In our opinion, A. Garkavi, based on

1 The authors of the 19th century came to this conclusion. Engel, d'osson, Quatremer, Defremery, and Merin (Garkavi, 1870, p. 20).

2 The story of Harun ibn Yahya is given in the work of Ibn Rustah [Ibn Rustah, 1891, pp. 119-130].

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based on his conclusions about the correspondence of the name Wurgonthaib 3 to the Bulgars in the work of Paul the Deacon, he arbitrarily puts an equal sign between the ethnonyms Wurgonth and Burjan, and therefore between the latter and the Bulgars. However, he does not explain how this chain of inferences became the property of ninth-century Arab geography. Given its "bookish" nature, of course, we can assume that once taken from the Western tradition, the identification of Bulgars and Burjans, then began to roam for centuries throughout the Arabic literature of the IX-XV centuries. However, this does not explain why a number of Arab authors, along with the Bulgars, definitely knew the Burjan people themselves as an independent ethnic group.

Considering the contradictions in the arguments of his predecessors insoluble, T. Lewicki inclined to recognize the term" burjan "as a consequence of lapsus calami [Lewicki, 1956, p. 24-27]. And V. V. Polosin translated the problem into a different plane, suggesting that" bulgar"," burgar"," burgaz "and" burjan " represent the four main types of the problem. the reason for writing the ethnonym Bulgar in the Arabic literature, where the third consonant " j " in the word "burjan" conveys the sound " g "is quite a likely assumption: in dialects of the Arabic language, the sounds" g "and" j " sometimes alternate. Thus, it is more correct to read not" burjan", but "burgan", but V. V. Polosin does not stop there and makes the second assumption: he also suggests changing the last letter " n "in the word" burgan "to" p "and reading" burgar " (Polosin, 1971, p.145). In short, he reduced the historical Bulgar-Burjan problem to a particular issue of philology (Khamidullin, 2005, pp. 241-244).

It turns out that the people bearing the ethnonym Burjan never existed at all and that this ethnonym itself was the result of either lapsus calami (according to T. Levitsky) or phonetic metamorphoses (according to V. Polosin). O. Frolova expressed a similar idea. Based on al-Qazwini's account of the" lawless "and" savage " Burjan people in the far north, which alternates between polar day and polar night, she suggested that the Arab author had misspelled the Burjans as Normans, who in Spain were known as "lurmanes" or "lormanes". According to O. Frolova, the Arabic script of this term could easily be transformed into "burjan" (Frolova, 1977, p.195). It must be said that the above points of view are refuted by the very fact of the existence of a living bearer of the ethnonym Burjan as part of the Bashkir people. Therefore, it is necessary to look for a historical explanation of this problem.

Already A. Ya. Garkavi noticed discrepancies between the identification of Burjan with Danube Bulgaria and the data of a number of sources: "It is true that some Arab geographers are confused about Burjan, for example, Yakut in the Big Dictionary says that this is the region of Khazaria and that Muslims attacked it during the time of the Ottomans "[Garkavi, 1870, p. 20-26]. The perplexity about Iakut's report is amplified when we consider that the caliphate of Osman lasted from 644 to 656, i.e., when Danube Bulgaria did not yet exist, which means that Burjan could not correspond to it either geographically or chronologically. Therefore, Garkavi considers the words of the above-mentioned author to be among the misunderstandings, believing that the mention of the possession of Burjan in the Balkans by a large number of other Arab authors excludes its existence in the North Caucasus as a province of Khazaria. However, an analysis of Arabic sources suggests that Iakut was far from alone in localizing Burjan in the Caucasus.

Arabic written tradition places the emergence of the kingdom of Burjan in the third century. Ibn Khordadbeh narrates that in the time of Ardashir Papakan (220-240), it was mainly-

3 The second part of the word Wurgonthaib, as Grimm proved, originated from the Old German eiba - "edge" (Shafarik, 1848, pp. 218-219). Thus, the name translates as "the country of Wurgaunt", by which, by consonance, it is better to mean the Burgundians, and not the Bulgars.

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During the Sasanian dynasty, Burjan Shah was among the other rulers bordering Iran (Ibn Khordadbeh, 1986, p. 61). And he is not the only Arab author who attributes the appearance of burjans to the period of late antiquity. Thus, Ma'sudi, describing the circumstances of the foundation of the construction of Constantinople, says that this was preceded by "an incident between Constantine and one of the kings of Burjan." Roman Caesar entered the war with the Burjans, judging by the text, in the east of Asia Minor, probably in Transcaucasia, after which he successfully converted to Christianity [Mas'udi, Vol. 1, 1987, pp. 317-318]. The answer to the question about the location of the kingdom of Burjan is given by the" History " of one of the early Arab historians Ya'qubi (late IX century). In the chapter "Kingdoms of the North" (Mamalik al-Jarbi), devoted to the genealogy of the peoples of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, he writes that some of the descendants of Nuh (Noah) went to the north: "And they spread over that country, and there were several kingdoms: and these are Burjan, Deylem, Tabar, Tilsan, Gilan, Filan, Alan, Khazar, Dudaniya, Arman..." [Ibn - Wadhih, 1883, p. 203]. The final point in this issue is put by the data of Yakut ar-Rumi: "Burjan: a country from among the Khazarian regions. Astrologers claim that [the country of Burjan] is in the sixth climate, and its location is forty degrees of longitude and forty-five degrees of latitude; the Muslims attacked [Burjan] in the days of ' Uthman-may Allah be pleased with him!"[Yaqut al-Rumi, 1977, vol. 1, p. 373]. This report leaves no room for doubt about the location of Burjan, since the Muslims" in the days of ‘Uthman " (644-656) fought the Khazars only in the territory of modern Dagestan north of Derbent, which was an Arab military base.

Having found out that the name Burjan is first recorded in the Caucasus region, it remains to be determined whether it corresponds to the Bulgars. Arab sources do not provide an answer to this question. However, for this territory, we have Byzantine and Armenian sources that are independent of the Arab tradition. The ninth-century author Theophanes the Byzantine wrote that the Khazars were "a great people who emerged from the depths of Berzilia, the country of the first Sarmatia" [Chichurov, 1980, p. 61]." The father of Armenian history "Moses Khorensky writes that during the reign of King Vagharshak (193-213)" the masses of mountaineers - I mean Khazars and Basils, - after connecting, we passed through the Chora Gate (Derbent pass. - S. Kh.) under the leadership of their tsar Vnasep Surkhap" (Khorensky, 1893, p. 113). And since both Moses of Khoren and Theophanes speak of the same peoples - the Khazars and Berzils (Barsli or Basils of Armenian sources-S. Kh.), then, consequently, Berzilia (Bersilia) was located to the north of Derbent, i.e., where the Arabs placed Burjan. Arabic sources help to draw a final conclusion about the geographical identity of Berzilia and Burjan.

In Arabic literature, the story about the circumstances of the construction of the Derbent fortifications complex by the Iranian Shah Khosrov Anushirvan, borrowed from Pahlavi literature, was very popular. In short, its plot boils down to the following. The interests of the growing Turkic Khaganate and the apogee of the power of the Persian empire intersected in the Caucasus and Central Asia, where they were opposed by the power of the Hephthalites. According to Balazuri, to conclude an anti-Eftalite alliance, the "king of kings" Shahanshah Anushirvan and the" khan of khans " Khagan Sinjibu (Istemi) met in the area of al-Barshalia (the Arabic spelling of the name Berziliya.) in the Caucasus (Baladzori, 1927, p. 6). To win over the khagan, Anushirvan asked his daughter to marry him, promising to give his own in return. But then the Shah of Iran played a trick, trying to get the Turkic Khagan out of the Eastern Ciscaucasia, which Anushirvan apparently considered a zone of influence of the Sasanian state. Ibn al-Asir writes: "Anushirvan ordered to gather loyal people so that they could approach the army of the Turks from the edges and commit arson there. And they did it. When morning came, the king of the Turks complained to Anushirvan, but he denied knowing anything about what had happened. Then Anushirvan ordered the same thing to be done the next night. The Turk made a fuss, but Anushirvan was lenient

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I apologized to him. Then Anushirvan ordered a fire to be set in the camp of his troops, and there were only hay shacks. When morning came, he complained to the Turk. He said, " How can you suspect me?". And the Turk swore that he knew nothing. Anushirvan said to him, " Indeed, our troops did not like that we made peace because they were deprived of their booty because they could not raid each other. I am afraid that they will do something that will upset our hearts and bring us back to hostility. I think you should let me build a wall between you and me, where we can make a gate. So no one will come in to you without your permission, just as no one will come in to me except the one I choose to let in." And the Turk agreed with him. And Anushirvan built a wall from the sea to the tops of the mountains. And he made an iron gate in it and set up a guard... " [Ibn al-Athir, 1884, p. 196]. The Shah and Khagan exchanged daughters. However, the exchange turned out to be unequal: the shah received a khan's daughter named Kaen 4 [History..., 1862, p. 39], and Khan-the shah's adopted daughter. Upon learning of the forgery, Sinjibu became enraged and gave chase. But, having met an insurmountable obstacle in the form of the newly built Derbent wall, he went home.

In contrast to Balazuri and Ibn al-Asir, Tabari makes a brief statement: Anushirvan "went on a campaign against the Haythals (Eftalites), seeking revenge for his grandfather Firuz." Even before that, Anushirvan became related to the Khagan and wrote to him before his speech, informing him of his intention and encouraging him to speak out against the Khaytals "[Tabari, 1939, p. 528]. According to Tabari, the Khagan and the Shah became related before the joint campaign against the Hephthalites. But if we consider the construction of the Derbent wall and the marriage of the kings as simultaneous events, as Balazuri claims and Ibn al-Asir repeats, and connect these events with the meeting of the sovereigns in Barshalia, then it turns out that the Derbent wall was erected before the joint campaign against the Hephthalites. However, if the Khagan was so cruelly deceived by the Shah on the eve of the war with the Hephthalites, then the Turkic-Iranian alliance could hardly have continued, while it existed for many years. Therefore, it seems to us that the story given by Balazuri is just a Persian anecdote about the cunning of the Shah and the stupidity of the kagan, i.e. a folklore version of real historical events.

In fact, what happened in the area of al-Barshalia was the following: first, an exchange of daughters took place and, secondly, an offensive anti-Eftalite alliance was concluded. The construction of the Derbent fortifications was started by Shah Yezdigerd II in 439-457. Most likely, Anushirvan had only to finish what he had started. Anyway, until the end of the Hephthalite war, especially during the khagan's stay in Barshalia, the shah could not complete his plan. Fortunately, Ibn al-Asir gave two versions of what happened - the folklore version already given above, and the documentary version. The latter was borrowed first by Tabari and then by Ibn al-Asir from a lost work by the earlier writer Hisham al-Kalbi (d. 819). Ibn al-Asir reports: "So he went to the land of Haythal (Hephthalite) to avenge his grandfather Firuz. And before that, Anushirvan became related to the Kagan. And Chosroes entered their land, and slew the king of the Ephthalites, and destroyed the members of his family. Then he reached Balkh and Transoxiana. And left his troops in Ferghana. Then he returned to Madain 7 and

4 Kaen-means "Birch" in Turkic. The khan's daughter became the mother of the next Shah of Iran - Hormiz-da IV, nicknamed the Turk.

5 Shah Firuz was killed by the" White Huns " (Hephthalites) in 484.

6 It seems that the Hephthalites had several kings, for the same Tabari writes:: "The Khagan of Sinjibu was the strongest, bravest and most powerful of the Turks, and he had the most troops. He was the one who went to battle with Varz, the king of the Hythals, undaunted by the numbers and strength of the Hythals. And he killed Varz, their king, and all his army, seized their wealth, and took possession of their country, except that part of it which was conquered by Khosrow "(Tabari, 1939, p. 526).

7 The Arabic name for Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian kingdom.

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He attacked Burjan." Just below, Ibn al-Asir makes a clarification: "And when his affairs were strengthened, he fought in Ferghana and Burjan, then returned [from Burjan] and built the cities of Shabiran, Muscat, and Bab al-Abbwab." And it is called [the city] "Gate" because it is built on the way to the mountains "[Ibn al-Athir, 1884, p. 196]. Tabari writes even more explicitly: "Anushirvan attacked Burjan, then returned [from there] and built Bab al-Abbwab..." [Tabari, 1939, p.528]. In other words, the Shah of Iran passed through the Derbent Pass from south to north, entered the territory of Burjan, and on his return from there erected the Derbent fortifications.

Thus, if we discard the folklore layers, the following picture emerges: after the defeat of the Eftalites, the need for a Turkic-Iranian alliance disappeared, and Anushirvan made a rapid rush from Ferghana to Madain, and from there went to Barshalia for the second time (according to Balazuri)9 or Burjan (according to Tabari and Ibn al-Asir), so that the Berzils/Burjans, who were subjects of the Turkic Khaganate, could not prevent him from completing the construction of the Derbent wall. Having defeated Burjan, he fulfills his plan. The Shah of Persia's audacity may have been caused by the death of the Istemi Kagan in 576. Anushirvan himself died three years later, in 579. Apparently, in the interval between the deaths of these two great sovereigns, the Bab al-Abwab wall was completed. Given that the accounts of Balazuri, Ibn al-Asir, and Tabari relate the same events that took place in the same area, the identity of Berziliyah/Barshali and Burjana are obvious, although, as it may seem, their phonetic correspondence to each other is not obvious. Therefore, we will give a complete summary of the sound variants of these names in the Arabic, Persian, Byzantine, Armenian, Khazar, Russian and Western European traditions.

In Arabic-Persian historiography and geographical literature (Ya'qubi, Tabari, Mas'udi, Khudud al - ' Alam, Ya'qut, Ibn al-Asir, Ibn Ruste, Ibn Khaldun, etc.), the toponym and ethnonym Burjan Balazuri uses a different form-al-Barshaliyya and he is not alone: Ibn Ruste the author of "Hudud al - 'Alam", along with the Burjans, knows the tribe of b.rsula [Ibn Rustah, 1891, p.141] and b.rzula the Persian author Gardizi - b.rsula [Zahoder, 1967, p. 28-36].

The Byzantine Theophanes knows Berzilia, Berzitia, or Belzitia (ΒερζΗλια / ΒερζΗτια / ΒελζΗτια), and Theophylact Simocatta knows Barselt (Βαρσελτ) [Simocatta, 1957, p.160]. Armenian authors mention the Barsil people and the associated city and locality of Varajan, or Varachan. The Khazar king Joseph names Bi [r]z among the ten eponyms of the Khazar Khaganate tribes.l, as well as the locality of V. R. shan [Kokovtsev, 1932, pp. 86, 91]. As you can see, in all written traditions, with the exception of the Byzantine one, there are two phonetic constructions in parallel-B. R. jn (Burjan, Varajan, V. R. shan) and B. r. zl (Berzilia, Barshalia, Barsil), in which the root berz or burj is clearly distinguished, to which the suffixes are added -il-or-an-. The meaning of the root is obvious: berz/Burj / Burz are respectively ancient Iranian, Middle Persian (Pahlavi) and New Persian (Farsi) forms of the word "high", "great", "noble".

The assumption that" barsils or bersula are the same Borjans (borjuls) " was first suggested by A. Bulatov [Bulatov, 1971, p.323]. Ibn Khaldun gives the name of the Burj-oglu tribe as part of the Polovtsians [Sbornik..., 1884, p. 539, 541], from which the famous Mamluk Sultan Rukn ad-din Baybars came. The ethnonym Burj-oglu means "son of Burj" and is Turkic

8 Bab ("Gate"), or Bab al-Abbwab ("Gate of the Gate") is the Arabic name for Derbent.

9 Balazuri, in all probability, mixed together two different campaigns of Anushirvan to Barshalia/Burjan: the first for the purpose of marrying and forming an alliance with the Istemi Kagan, and the second for the purpose of building Derbent fortifications. According to his story, which is obviously folklore, all these events occur simultaneously.

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a tracing paper of the word berzula, since the suffix ula - (berz + ula) is an Indo-European diminutive formant (for example, Venezu + ela = "little Venice", urs + ula = "bear", etc.), which also existed in the Scythian dialects of Eurasia (Abaev, 1965, p. 80). In short, the suffixes ula and ogly carry a similar semantic load from the standpoint of Indo-European and Turkic languages. Based on this, it should be concluded that the roots berz and burz/burj, being variations of the same proto - base-beroz, in combination with suffixes give the forms berz + ula and burj + an, of which the former is an Indo - European diminutive suffix, and the latter is a formant of plurality and collectivity in Iranian languages.

In Russian chronicles, the Burj-Oglu tribe (i.e., Berzula) is called the Burchevich horde: burch (j) + evich (patronymic formant), which is a tracing of the Kipchak name Burj-oglu, which, in turn, is just a tracing of the Alan-Sarmatian Berzul. The latter, taking into account the Turkic and Russian semantic series, can also be translated as "children of burzov/berzov/burj". In Western European sources, the ethnonym under study is reflected in the toponym Burzeland, i.e. "the land of Burts (Burja), located in the south-east of the Kingdom of Hungary, where the Kipchaks moved" (Bubenok, 2004, p.238) from the Burj-oglu family. Thus, Western sources indicate that in addition to the above-mentioned forms with the suffixes-ula -, - an -, - evich-the root burj itself also had an independent use as an ethnonym: Burts + land.

Information about the origin of the Burjan/Berzula people is contained in the" Chronicle " of Michael the Syrian (XII century), according to which Berzilia is called "the country of the Alans" (Artamonov, 1962, p.128; Marquart, 1903, p. 485). Bashkir ethnogenetic traditions also connect Burjan with the Alans. One of them says: "Iskander Dhul-Karnain (Alexander the Great - S. H.) was a shah: [having set out] from Rum, he captured many Iranian ('ajam) lands; ...then in the lands of Hindustan he took a thousand districts and a hundred islands, and from there he went to Chin, from Chin to Khitai, from Khitai to the Uyghurs, who were relatives of the Bashkirs; from them to Turkestan, from there to Khaverstan, from there to the Alan-Burjans - these and other [tribes] then mixed with the Bashkirs..."[Umidbaev, 1897, p. 39]. It is noteworthy that historical memory correctly notes two important facts of the ethnogenesis of the Bashkir people: first, the Turkic origin of the Bashkirs themselves, who, according to the Chinese chronicle Sui-shu 10, were part of the Tele confederation [Togan, 2003, p. 4] and, consequently, were relatives of the Uyghurs and other Oghuz tribes, and second, the Turkic origin of the Bashkirs themselves.second, the Iranian origin of the Bashkir Burjan family 11. Murad Ramzi, a Bashkir historian of the early twentieth century, also notes the different origins of the Bashkirs and Burjans: "In our time, a small group of people in the Orsk Uyezd, called bashkurd with the addition of [the word] burjan, has remained of them; and besides them (i.e., the above-mentioned group of Burjans-S. Kh.), they are scattered everywhere, where they have turned into separate peoples, but no traditions remain about them; and their [our] predecessors did not consider them Bashkurs, but on the contrary, they are mentioned separately in [dedicated to them] articles; and the surviving group [Burjans] does not consider themselves descended from Bashkurs and show a strong tribal spirit ('asabiyya)..." [Ramzi, 1907, p. 242].

In the middle of the sixth century, the tribes of the North Caucasus - the Berzils, Unugurs, and Sabirs - recognized the power of the Avars, who were retreating to the west under the onslaught of Turkic troops. It seems to us that some of these tribes may have been attracted by the wave of Avar migration to Central Europe and the Balkans, where the Avar Khaganate emerged in 562. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Kagan organized a series of campaigns into the Byzantine Empire. According to

10 In the chronicle of Sui-shu (VII century), the ethnonym Bashkir is expressed by the transcription ba-shu-ki-yai.

11 The Bashkir epic "Ural-Batyr", passed down from mouth to mouth by the storytellers of the Burjan family, is replete with plot analogies with the Avesta and Shahnameh: the maiden bird Humay, the king of birds Samrau (Senmurv), the dragon Kakhkaha (azhi Dahhak).

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According to Archbishop John of Thessalonica's "Miracles of Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica", in 616, the Berzites were among the tribes that besieged Thessaloniki [Svod..., 1995, p.125], in the person of which, in all probability, one should see the well-known North Caucasian Berzils. Their migration was supposed to cause the name Burjan to be transferred from the Caucasus to the Balkans, which was confirmed in Arabic sources.

In 717, an Arab army landed in Thrace and laid siege to Constantinople (Muller, 2004: 587-588). Tabari writes: "... in the year of the 98th [Hijra of the Prophet], the Burjans attacked the Maslama of ben ' Abd al-Malik...", although, as is known, the Muslims were attacked by the Bulgar troops of Khan Tervel. As we can see, the confusion in terminology began with the first meeting of the Arabs with the Danube Bulgars. In the question of the correlation of the Burjan and Bulgar ethnonyms, Mas'udi's information is of great importance. His source of information about Byzantium and its surrounding countries is known-this is the Arab Muslim bin Abi Muslim al-Jarmi 12, who wrote "about the history of the Byzantines and their kings and dignitaries, about their land and its ways and roads, about the periods [favorable] for raids on their territory, about military campaigns in that area." land, about the neighboring [Byzantine Empire] kingdoms - Burjan, Abar, Burgar, Sakaliba and Khazar " [Mas'udi, 1894, p. 191]. As can be seen from the quote, Muslim al-Jarmi clearly divided the kingdoms of Burjan and Bulgar. Mas'udi, using the data of Muslim, follows this strictly. Describing the campaign of the 100-thousandth army of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus in 837 deep into the territory of Asia Minor, captured by the Arabs, he writes: "This year is the year two hundred and twenty - three," Tufil said (Theophilus - S. Kh.), the king of the Romans, with his soldiers, and with him - the kings of the Burjans, Burghars, Saklabs and other [peoples]..." [Mas'udi, vol.4, 1987, p. 59]. From this passage it follows that the Burjans had their own king, and the Burjans were a separate people from the al-Burgar and al-Sakalib, i.e., the Bulgars and Slavs.

Similarly, the author of the Persian work "Hudud al-‘Alam" ("Borders of the World") separates Burjan from the Bulgars: "Burjan is a province with a lot called Thrace; it is a fertile place, very favored by nature, but with little wealth. In general, it is steppe and cultivated land. This place is well-maintained and has running water. This is part of ar-Rum and (its people) pay kharaj to the king of ar-Rum...". The author of "Borders of the World", as well as Mas'udi, clearly separates Burjan from the Bulgars, as below gives information about the Bulgarian kingdom: "Bulgari is the name of the people living on Mount Bulgari in the north- west of the Room. They are infidels. They are also Rumians, but they are constantly at war with the rest of the Rumians. These Bulgars are mountain dwellers who own fields and a large number of livestock... " [Hudud..., 1962, pp. 185-186].

Byzantine literature also separates the Danubian Bulgars from the Berzils. Under 765, in the Chronography of Theophanes, it is written: "... the ruler of Bulgaria sent 12 thousand troops under the leadership of Voila, to take the inhabitants of Berzitiya (ΒερζΗλτα) captive and resettle them in Bulgaria..."[Chronicle..., 1884, p. 326]. It is likely that the purpose of this action was to replenish the population of the khanate with people closely related to the Bulgars, against the background of the increasing predominance of Slavs. The Berzites pursued an active foreign policy: in 791, the Berzite prince Akamir tried, at the insistence of the Greeks, to restore the throne to the sons of the murdered Emperor Constantine: "Akamir is the chief of the Slavs in Verzitia, encouraged by the inhabitants of Hellas, and would like to lead the sons of Constantine away and proclaim one of them king..." [Chronicle..., 1884, p.347].

12 Muslim al-Jarmi is perhaps the only source of information about the administrative division of the Byzantine Empire for the entire Arabic geographical literature. The information provided by him is trusted by researchers, since he not only lived on the Arab-Byzantine border, but also managed to visit the Byzantine captivity. He described everything he saw there in a work that has not survived to this day.

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Based on this passage of Theophanes, P. Shafarik, although with a large degree of uncertainty, declares Berziti a Slavic principality, and the Berzites themselves-Slavs. At the same time, he makes a reservation that it should not be "confused with Barzelia, the homeland of the Pechenegs and Polovtsians, lying on the borders of Europe and Asia, called by Armenian writers and Theophanes of Berzilia" [Shafarik, 1848, p.366]. However, P. Shafarik finds it difficult to say "what they were actually called: Brezichi or Brezhichi", which recognizes the alienness of the name and ethnic group of Berzits [Shafarik, 1848, p. 228]. N. S. Derzhavin believed that the name of Prince Akamir is not Slavic [Derzhavin, 1945, p.170]. Yes, and the text of Theophanes - Ακαμηρος ο των αρχων της ςκλαβινων Βελζητιας13 - can be interpreted in different ways. As in Danubian Bulgaria, in Berzitia the majority of the population was made up of Slavs-Sklavins, and the Bulgars and Berzites were the dominant stratum, which does not imply their Slavic origin. Shafarik believed that the principality of Berzitia was located in Macedonia, and "maybe even in Thessaly or Livadia" (Shafarik, 1848, p. 365). In any case, the problem of ethnic attribution of the Berzitiya principality and its correspondence to the Burjan of Arab sources, in contrast to the North Caucasian Berzilia, cannot yet be considered solved.

The final point in the question of the relationship between Bulgaria and Burjan was put by a geographer of the XIII century. Ibn Sa'id, who wrote: "To the west of it (the Bosporus) is the city of al-Kustantiniyya, which was built by Constantine, the founder of Christianity. And the area [of this city] was the pasture land of the king of al-Bursan, and he had to resort to a trick [to build the city]. After communication was interrupted by rain and mud, this city was built, which became the headquarters of the Caesars. And King al-Bursan was not able to do anything against it. Then al-Bursan died... " [Ibn Sa'id, 1958, pp. 117-118]. Ibn Sa'id also explains why "Bursan perished": "to the north-west of it [Constantinople] is the city of Bursan, which was the capital of the people captured by the Almans (Alemans, i.e. Germans or Latins in general.And there are no more references to them ... " [Ibn Sa'id, 1958, p. 118]. The Arabic author shows an awareness of the Byzantine question when he writes that the ruler of al-Kustantiniyya( Byzantium), at that time the Nicene Empire, is al-Ashkri, that is, the Greek Laskarid dynasty. Separately, an Arab geographer mentions "the city of B. R. Gadna, which is also called Burgar".

Let us analyze the information of Ibn Sa'id. The fact that by Bursan he did not mean Bulgaria follows at least from the fact that the Latin Empire, created in 1204 by the Crusaders, did not include the territory of Bulgaria. Moreover, the death of the powerful Second Bulgarian Kingdom (1185-1396) was out of the question, while the Arab author claims that Bursan "perished" as a result of the invasion of the Latins. It is also noteworthy that Ibn Sa'id, whose work was based on the work of al-Idrisi "Nuzhat al-Mushtaq", departs from the instructions of his predecessor in terms of Bulgaria. He not only distinguishes the Bulgars and Burjans from each other, but also refers to the latter by the term Bursan (in some manuscripts, Burshan)14, thereby transmitting another variant spelling of this ethnonym, which speaks in favor of the originality of Ibn Sa'id's information. As we can see, he also considers the Bulgars and Burjans to be separate peoples. In turn, the identity of the terms Bursan and Burjan is confirmed by Abu'l Fida: "Burshan is the location of the people who were called Burjan. In the old days, they had glory and power. And the al-Almaniyyah attacked them and destroyed them so that not even a single person remained among them and no traces of them remained... " [Geographie d'aboulfeda, 1840, p. 211]. Part of Berzilov/

13 Acamerus Sclauinorum, Belzetiae princeps [Memoria..., 1771-1779, p. 83].

14 The word Bursan, strictly speaking B. R. san, according to the laws of Arabic phonetics, can also be read as Bersan, which is another argument in favor of the instability of the root bers/berz/bursh/burj/burts/burch and the absence of an impassable barrier between these forms.

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Burjan is still preserved: as early as the 19th century, an ethnographic group of Macedonians lived in the Balkans, called the Brzyaci (Brzyaks) [Irechek, 1877, p.111].

Thus, the Arabs, having encountered the Burjan people during the Khazar campaigns of the seventh century, met them again in the eighth century. during the wars with the Byzantine Empire, but already in the Balkans and Asia Minor, which led to the emergence of the well-known Bulgar-Burjan problem. Mas'udi and the author of Khudud al-‘Alama, whose information goes back to al-Jarmi, as well as Ibn Sa'id, who compiled his" Geography "largely on the basis of contemporary data, considered the Burjans and Bulgars to be separate peoples. In the works of other authors, there is a confusion of these concepts, for example, in al-Fazari and al-Fargani (Garkavi, 1870, p. 20-26), or a conscious naming of Danube Bulgaria as Burjan, as al-Idrisi does. An outstanding Sicilian scholar of the twelfth century, well acquainted with the geography of Europe and the Mediterranean in particular, and certainly aware of the existence of two kingdoms of the same name, in order to avoid confusion, the term Bulgar refers to the Volga Bulgars, and Burjan - Danubian. Later Arab writers, such as Ibn Khaldun, no longer find Burjan-in-the-Balkans, much less Burjan-in-the-Caucasus, on the modern political map of the world, so they blindly follow the authority of al-Idrisi: the Volga Bulgars are called by their proper name, and the Danube Bulgars by the archaic term burjan, which has long lost its real meaning content. European researchers of the 19th and 20th centuries, having come to the conclusion that the term Burjan corresponds to the Danube Bulgars, began automatically classifying the Burjans of the Caucasus as Bulgars, without bothering to give proof of their correspondence to each other.

We mentioned above that the Burjan / Berzil tribe was divided into parts: some went with the Avars to the Balkans, the other part remained in place and submitted to the Khazar Khaganate, which entered into a deadly battle with the Arab Caliphate. The "sword of Damocles" of the Arab threat for a whole century (mid - VII-mid-VIII centuries) kept the inhabitants of the Burjan domain in a state of constant anxiety, since it was its territory that represented a kind of border barrier on the path of Arab invasions. Apparently, this factor forced part of its population to leave the territory of the Eastern Ciscaucasia and go to the peripheral, and therefore safer areas of the khaganate: part of the Burjans went along with the Bulgars to the Volga 15, another part - to the Southern Urals, and the third - to Mangyshlak. The latter was recorded in the XIV century by Abu'l Fadl Allah al - 'Umari:" And adjacent to Khorezm is a rounded land called Mangyshlak; its length is 5 months of travel, and the width is the same; it is all a steppe inhabited by numerous Burjan tribes " [Sbornik..., 1884, p. 221, 243; Lech, 1968, p. 147].

However, it is quite possible that they never left the territory of Mangyshlak and the Northern Aral Sea region, which, judging by the legendary genealogy, were the ancestral homeland of the Burjans, whose nationality was formed in the bowels of ancient Alanya, or Aorsia (Yancai Chinese sources). In the" Shahnameh", the grandson of the Turanian king Afrasiab is called Burzevey, who rushes to the aid of his grandfather, surrounded by enemies [Shahnameh, 1965, p. 394]. V. F. Minorsky associated this character with the Bersula tribe [Hudud al-‘Alam, 1937, p.461]. In the genealogy of al-Kalbi, an excerpt of which is preserved in the encyclopedia of Iaqut, Bursul is called the brother of Huwarism [Yaqut al-Rumi, 1990, vol. 2, p. 390]. Thus, ancient ethnogenetic traditions connect Berzilov/Burjan with the world of Iranian-speaking nomads of Central Asia-the Avestan tours, as well as with the Khorasmians and Alans.

The migration of Burjans to the territory of the Southern Urals did not go unnoticed by archeology. Finds from numerous Ufa burial grounds dating back to the seventh century-

15 Ibn Rustah names three tribes of the Volga Bulgars-Bulkar, Isgil, and Bersula (Ibn Rustah, 1891, p. 141).

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They have obvious North Caucasian analogies (Smirnov, 1957, p. 66). Modern studies show that the population of the Ufa-2 settlement was formed as a result of the migration of the Hunno-Sarmatian population from the territory of the Volga-Don region (Sungatov, 1988, pp. 104-105). It is noteworthy that N. Mazhitov, the discoverer of the Turbasli culture, initially associated its origin with the Alans [Mazhitov, 1959, p. 42]. R. Akhmerov [Akhmerov, 1970, p. 171-172] and S. Stanchev [Stanchev, 1957, p. 128] noted undoubted parallels between the funerary equipment of Ufa burials and the materials of the Danube Bulgarians, but so far Since there was no written evidence of the Bulgars ' presence in the Southern Urals, this theory was not further developed. But in the very fact of the presence of the Burjan clan in the Bashkir tribal nomenclature, we have indisputable evidence of ancient migrations from the Caucasus to the Southern Urals. N. Mazhitov and A. Sultanova write that " ... the Turbasli tribes belonged to a pronounced Caucasian type... Physically, the Turbaslin people are direct descendants of the Sako-Massaget tribes... " [Mazhitov and Sultanova, 1994, p. 102].

Analysis of the entire set of narrative, ethnographic and archaeological sources suggests that the Burjans may have been the bearers of the Turbaslin culture, and therefore the population of the Ufa-2 settlement at a certain stage (VII-X centuries). It is noteworthy that the ethnogenetic traditions of the Bashkir-Burzyans preserved the memory of the North Caucasian Berzilia. "The Burzyan family was divided into two parts in ancient times, due to the fact that their first ancestor or progenitor [named Burjan], having three sons, loved and respected the smaller of them more than the older brothers, why the latter, as insulted by the father and having hatred for the younger brother, left their father and homeland forever and went to the west 16. After crossing the Don River, they chose a place of permanent residence there and formed a family, from which, according to legend, the family of the famous Caucasian ruler Shamil 17 originated ... "[Bikbov, 1899].

According to tradition, during the Mongol invasion, the Burjans were among the Bashkir tribes that allegedly supported Genghis Khan at a critical moment in his political career. In the Bashkir medieval work "Chingiz-nameh", among their leaders, in addition to Maiky bey (Tabsh family), Muiten bey (Usergen family), Kaldar bey (Kyrgyz family), Tamyan bey (Tamyan family), Urdach bey (Ming family), Jurmati bey (Jurmati family), Kereit bey (genus Girey), Saljiut bey (genus Saljiut), Katai Bey( genus Katai), Kipchak bey( genus Kipchak), Burjan Bey is also named. Genghis Khan addresses the latter with the words: "Oh, Burjan Bey, let the oak be your tree, the kuchukan uranus 18 -" Aktugan!", tamga-jagalbai... " [Khalfin, 1822, p.53].

Thus, the whole complex of written, ethnographic and archaeological materials indicates that the ethnonym Burjan is not a "book" term denoting the Danube and North Caucasian Bulgars, but was a self-designation of an ethnic group with its own tradition of statehood that existed in the North Caucasus during late antiquity and the Middle Ages (II-VII centuries). Descendants of the Burjans still live in a number of districts (Burzyansky, Baymaksky) of the Republic of Bashkortostan, preserving their tribal identity.

16 In fact, the reverse process of movement took place - from west to east. Here is a popular reinterpretation of real events.

17 Imam Shamil was an Avar who now inhabit part of the territory of ancient Berzilia. In the legend recorded by Yu. S. Bikbov from the words of an unknown expert of Bashkir antiquity, one can see the desire to connect the ancestors of the Bashkir Burzyans with the population of the Caucasus in the person of the most outstanding personality of that time.

Uranus is a battle cry, which along with the tamga, bird and tree was one of the attributes of Bashkir (and Turkic in general) clans and symbols of the power of tribal princes-beys.

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