Kabar

The Kabars (Greek: Κάβαροι) or Khavars were Khalyzians, Turkic Khazar people who joined the Magyar confederation in the 9th century.

History

The Kabars consisted of three Khazar tribes who rebelled against the Khazar Khaganate some time in the ninth century; the rebellion was notable enough to be described in Constantine Porphyrogenitus's work De Administrando Imperio. Subsequently the Kabars were expelled from the Khazar Khaganate and sought refuge by joining the Magyar tribal confederacy called Hét-Magyar (meaning "seven Hungarians.") The three Kabar tribes accompanied the Magyar invasion of Pannonia and the subsequent formation of the Principality of Hungary in the late 9th century.

Around 833 the Hungarian tribal confederacy was living in Levedia, between the Don and the Dnieper rivers, within the orbit of the Khazar empire. Toward 850 or 860, driven from Levedia by the Pechenegs, they entered Atelkuzu (Etelköz). The Magyars reached the Danube river basin around 880. Shortly afterward, the Byzantine emperor Leo VI, then at war with Simeon, the Bulgarian czar, called the Hungarians to his aid. The Magyars, led by Árpád, crossed the Danube and attacked Bulgaria. The Bulgarians, in turn, appealed to the Pechenegs, now masters of the steppe, who attacked the Hungarians in the rear and forced them to take refuge in the mountains of Transylvania. At that moment, Arnulf, duke of Carinthia, at war with the Slav ruler Svatopluk, prince of Great Moravia , decided like the Byzantines to appeal to the Hungarians. The Hungarians overcame Svatopluk, who disappeared in the conflict (895). Great Moravia collapsed, and the Hungarians took up permanent abode in Hungary (907).