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Asparuh acquired experience in politics and statesmanship in Great Bulgaria. In the 10th century the Khazar ruler Joseph left a written statement that the greatest part of the Bulgars had followed Asparukh. In fact according to him: "...these Bulgarians were as numerous as the sand on the shores of the sea, ..." In the mean time, the Slavs who had invaded these lands, had set up large tribal alliances, among which the seven Slavic tribes and the Severians, inhabiting the lands between the Danube and the Balkan range, were the most powerful. At the end of the 670s Asparuh made an alliance with the tribal alliance of the seven Slavic tribes and the Severians.
The Slavs had lived with/been ruled by Nomads for millennia, so this was nothing new to them. The Bulgars were the militarily dominant group of people and thus they became the ruling class. The name of the new state, consisting of Bulgars, Slavs and Thracians {Vlachs} was Bulgaria. The peoples of this new state had nothing in common. They did not have a language in common, they did not have a history in common, they did not have a culture in common, they had nothing in common. Add to that the fact that they were living on the focal point of Europe, Asia and Africa, surrounded by powerful enemies, and you can begin to imagine the survival chances this new state had. Bulgaria had two possible paths to take, one led to doom, the other led to the unification of it's people and the chance to fight another day.
As we all should know by now, Romans don't like Barbarians. Especially not the ones founding states in their back yard. The Romans decided to go to war, they imagined their mighty Roman legions would squash the barbarians and Byzantine would get these lands back under complete control. But that's not quite how it went... Legions don't do well against nomads. The Bulgar troops were mainly horse-mounted. Besides the light cavalry {Mongolian ponies} which was customary with the peoples in the steppes, the Bulgarians had contingents of heavily-armed soldiers with both men and horses {Sarmatian draft horses} covered in chainarmour made of iron or felt. A blow delivered by the heavily armed cavalry {in Khan Krum times at the beginning of the 9th century it was about 30 000-strong} could be compared with the effect of the blow a contemporary tank army would have on lightly-armed infantry divisions. In fact, the repeated Bulgarian victories over Byzantium were mainly due to the blows struck by the heavy cavalry. The Byzantine army had never had more than 400 heavily-armed warriors on horseback. In 680 AD, Bulgarian cavalry and Slav infantry contingents struck a series of stunning blows on the Byzantine troops under the personal command of emperor Constantine IV Pogonatus. The military operations were shifted to Thrace. While the capital city of Pliska - the new state-administrative and political center was under construction in the northeastern part of Moesia, the rumble of the Bulgarian cavalry reverberated more and more often over the hills off the Bosphorus. In the autumn of 681 AD Byzantium was forced to conclude a peace treaty with the Bulgarians. It officially recognized the detachment of Moesia from the empire and Byzantine had to pay annual tribute to Bulgaria . At this point in history, 681 AD, there were only three officially recognized states in all of Europe. Oh there were many peoples, but only 3 officially recognized, independent, states - The West Roman Empire, The East Roman Empire, and Bulgaria.
The supreme power in the new state was given to the Bulgar aristocracy as recognition for its merits in the struggle against the external enemies of the state and the real military force supporting it. The state administration was headed by a Khan whose power was hereditary. There was also a council of twelve great Boyls {or Boyars} representing the noble families. The decisions of paramount state importance were made by the so-called people's assembly - a meeting of representatives of all Bulgarian noble families and the princes of the Slav tribes dwelling in the Bulgarian state. Asparuh kept an ardent watch over the Bulgar-Slav alliance and severely punished any violation of it. A tireless builder and a just arbitrator, he was the perfect leader of an emerging state. The first ruler of Bulgaria died in 700 AD in one of the many battles in defense of the new state...
Dating from approximately 750 AD the subject of this composition relates to the religious notions of the Bulgars - a shaman visits the spirits' world accompanied by the holy horse, his mediator between Earth and Heaven.
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