Batbayan of Bulgaria

Batbayan (died 690) (also known as Bayan or Boyan, Bezmer or Bezmes, Bazmei + an) was the eldest son of Khagan Kubrat. After Kubrat, Batbayan ruled from Poltava the lands north of the Black Sea and the Azov Sea.

In 668, Batbayan engaged in wars with his relative Cozrig and was driven out of Crimea. Cozrig's Khazars attacked and eventually took the steppes between Don and the Urals, according to the treaty of 668 between Batbayan and the Khazar Khagan (Kaban) under which Batbayan and his sister Huba were taken prisoners. Western Bulgar warriors adopted the practice of wearing Martenitsas in battle to remind them of the sacrifice of their ancestral relatives Batbayan and Huba.

Batbayan's Bulgars are an essential part of the ethnogenesis of the contemporary Balkars and probably in some scale of the Volga Tatars and Crimean Tatars. Bulgarians' ethnogenesis is probably very little influenced by Batbayan's Bulgars. The name "Batbayan" means "firm rich" in the Mongolian language. ^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Martenitsa
• List of Ukrainian rulers

Source

• (German) Friedhelm Winkelmann u.a.: Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit. 1. Abteilung. Bd. 1. Walter de Gruyter Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-11-015179-0, S. 322.