The article offers a new interpretation of the term "sakaliba", which Ahmad ibn Fadlan, an Arab traveler of the first half of the tenth century, uses in his report in relation to the population of the Middle Volga region. It is most likely that this term was used in this region during this period as a demonym, i.e. denoting the inhabitants of a certain territory, regardless of their genealogy, the peculiarities of material and spiritual culture. The genesis of the demonym is associated with the ethnos of Imenkov archaeological culture carriers of the IV-VII centuries, similar to reliably Slavic cultures; since the VIII century. it is replaced by Turkic and Finno-Ugric cultures. The path from ethnonym to demonym could be assimilation processes.

Volga Bulgaria appeared not earlier than the end of the IX-beginning of the X century. as an association of ethnopolitical groups of various origins under the leadership of the leader of the Bulgars. In the 920s, Almush, the ruler of the Bulgars, and after him Ibn Fadlan designated by the term "sakaliba" all ethnopolitical associations subject to Almush in the aggregate. In the course of consolidating the power of the Bulgar leaders, the demonym "sakaliba" is replaced by the term "Bulgars" in the works of Ibn Ruste, Mas'udi, Istakhri, Ibn Haukal, etc.

Keywords: Volga Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, Ibn Fadlan, cultural identity, medieval Arab geography, medieval Muslim travelers.

In the medieval geographical literature, there are data that do not fit into modern scientific ideas (and therefore they are often considered erroneous), but they are sometimes "put into circulation" by travelers who have visited the regions in question, and therefore the question of why the author mentioned them in particular deserves special attention.

This fully applies to the term sakaliba in Ibn Fadlan's account of the embassy to Volga Bulgaria. The oddities of the use of the word sakaliba in this source have long been noted. As a rule, if we are not talking about the author's mistake, in Muslim literature, sakaliba in the ethnic sense means Slavs [Mishin, 2002, p. 308], and the erroneous classification of an ethnic enclave as Slavs is explained by its territorial proximity to Slavic Ioliths.1
Ibn Fadlan is the first and, in fact, the only original author who clearly localizes Sakalib in Volga Bulgaria and calls its ruler Malik as-Sakalib. There is no doubt that Ibn Fadlan visited Volga Bulgaria after the discovery (1924) and studied the Mashhad manuscript (Kovalevsky, 1950). The author's mistake is excluded, since he mentions sakalib 47 times in his essay; a comparable number of references are made only in relation to the Turks (Turk), the rest of the terms,

1. For example, in al-Mas'udi's Muruj al-zahab, the term namjin, a Slavic loethnonym by origin, is used in relation to the Germans [al-Mas'udi, B. G., p. 273].

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those that can be considered ethnonyms are used much less frequently. In other words, the traveler consciously called sakaliba people, known to all his contemporaries-compatriots as Bulgars. A convincing explanation for this phenomenon is not yet available, and there is reason to add another one to the existing interpretations2.

There is one peculiarity in Ibn Fadlan's use of the term sakaliba, which was noted by D. E. Mishin. The absolute majority of references are related to the title of the ruler of this country - Malik/sahib (Ibn Fadlan, 1985, l.197a3) as-saqalib. It occurs only twice in the text of Balad al-saqaliba (country, region of Saqaliba); the author prefers to replace this construction, which is so natural for Arabic geography, with phrases like Balad al-malik (Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p. 208a). Ibn Fadlan also avoids using the ethnonym "Bulgars" in relation to the subjects of the ruler of Almush in general. He calls them Ahl mamlakatihi ("the inhabitants of his domain") or Ahl al-balad/ baladihi ("the inhabitants of (his) country") [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p.208a].

At the same time, Almush is referred to only twice throughout the text as the ruler (malik) and Emir of Bulgar. We are talking about the khutbah, which before the intervention of Ibn Fadlan was proclaimed with the traditional title of Almusha: al-malik yiltuar malik Bulgar, i.e. ruler-Elteber, ruler of Bulgar (or Bulgar as a community). Elteber in the ancient Turkic hierarchies is an autonomous, but usually vassal ruler of a dependent territory, which Almush was in relation to the Khazar khakan. Then Ibn Fadlan teaches khatib to pray correctly for his sovereign, and the title already sounds like "Emir of Bulgar( bulgar), client (mauli) of the ruler of the faithful", i.e. the supreme jurisdiction was transferred by Ibn Fadlan from the Khazar Khaqan to the Baghdad caliph [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, l.204a, 204b].

Bulgar in this case is more likely an area and/or community under Almush's personal control than a synonym for sakalib. The fact is that before this episode, some four rulers (muluk) are mentioned, who are subordinate to him. Who is directly subject to these rulers is not mentioned here4, although later the traveler calls the leader of one of the Suwar associations Malik [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p. 208 b].

The term malik indicates the relative independence of suvar from the supreme ruler and implies independent ownership of subordinate resources. So, part of Suwar later refuses to migrate with Almush and, apparently, convert to Islam, and the other part, led by Malik named As. k. l, submits to him.

When Ibn Fadlan first writes about these subordinate rulers, he calls Almusha Malik as-sakaliba (Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p. 203a), which in this context is perceived as the title of the supreme sovereign. Further, when Ibn Fadlan lists those who gathered at the order of Almush to read the Caliph's message, he mentions these four rulers (muluk), the leaders (kuwwad) and the people of his land (ahl baladihi) [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p.203b], i.e. in the hierarchy, the Muluk were the first to follow Almush. Immediately following this ceremony is the story of the khutb and the title mentioned, which Ibn Fadlan reproduces as al-malik yiltuar malik bulgar.

Well-known authors of the tenth century, who worked in line with various traditions, mostly wrote about the Bulgar not only as a country (balad / bilyad) [Ibn Ruste, 1977,

2 Recent versions (see the historiography of the question in the same place): The ruler of Volga Bulgaria deliberately misled the Caliph Muqtadir and his officials in order to exaggerate his power, which increased the prospect of allied relations [Mishin, 2002, p.29-33]; the Sakaliba are descendants of the Imsnkov culture of the IV - VII centuries, who did not lose their Slavic ethnic identity [Zhikh, 2013, p. 178-186]. These interpretations will be discussed later in the article.

3 The ruler of Saqalib is referred to as" sahib " only once, otherwise as Malik. The numbering of the text is given in accordance with the Msshkhed manuscript.

4 This data may have been included in the original text; the Mshssd manuscript contains an abridged version of the text [Kovalevsky, 1950, p. 270].

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S. 30], the region (nahiyah) [Ibn Haukal, 1967, p. 392, 396] or the city (balad [al-Marwazi, 1942, p. * 44] / Madina [Istakhri, 1927, p. 225]), but also as a community, describing the features of the economic structure, the existence of the Bulgarian language, similar to Khazar and different from Burtas, etc.5 They did not name the inhabitants of the Middle Volga region as Sakaliba, although Mas'udi, Istakhri, Ibn Haukal, and the authors who borrowed their data most likely used information derived from the report of Ibn Fadlan. 6
Among the associations subject to Almush, Ibn Fadlan mentions the suwars (s. var/s. vaz), as. k. l. 7 [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, l. 208B] and 5 thous. Muslim Baranjars 8 [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p. 207b]. Ibn Fadlan actively uses the usual ethnic groups for these territories in relation to the peoples neighboring the Almush possessions: Guzy Turks, Bashkir Turks (bash.g.r.d), Visu. yura.

Why does the khutba use the title Malik Bulgar-not Malik as-sakaliba, which Almush called himself in the message to Caliph Muqtadir 9, and there is no listing of the tribes subordinate to Almush?

The most logical version is the following. In the nomadic tradition, which Almush undoubtedly followed, the role of the capital was replaced by the chief's headquarters, the location of which changed along with migrations. Even in the" imperial "stage of development, the nomad" capitals " moved easily, although not as often as before. A similar principle applies to the composition of polities on a nomadic basis: it was very mobile, and conflicts between tribal leaders and the supreme ruler were resolved by migration, sometimes peaceful, sometimes with mutual violence [Barfield, 1992, p.36-82].10 The situation could change instantly, as it happened with part of suvar. Thus, Almush could have full power only over his own tribe, which, apparently, were the Bulgars.

It is characteristic that after the Khutba story, Ibn Fadlan does not change the title of Almusha, but continues to call him Malik as-sakaliba with a tenacity that has increased by an order of magnitude, judging by the number of references, forgetting about the existence of Malik Bulgars. In other words, despite the nuances of titling within polities, the author of the report considers the title Malik al-Saqaliba to be the most accurate representation of reality for the Arab reader.

So what is sakaliba Ibn Fadlana: an ethnic group with all its inherent characteristics (for traditional society, first of all, the language and the idea of common origin), the name of a territorial group of the population (demonym), or a phantom that migrated from vague ideas about the northern peoples?-

5 An exception is the anonymous author of the treatise Khudud aya - 'Alom (982), which Bulgar and Suvar understand exclusively as cities, and the block of information associated with the Bulgars in Ibn Ruste refers to burtas [Hudud al -' Alam, 1962, p. 194; Hudud al - ' Alam, 1970, p. 162-163].

6 A story about a very short night with reference to the khatib of the Bulgar mosque, the peoples of the North Visu and Yura, truposozhenis among the Rus, etc. Mas'udi even mentions an embassy to the Caliph Muqtadir [al-Mas'udi, b. g., p. 132].

7 In the report, this name of the leader of one of the two parts of the Suvar association is clearly associated with as. g. l. one of the three types (sinf) of Bulgars, along with b. r. sula and the Bulgars themselves (bulkar), mentioned by Ibn Ruste, who probably wrote at the beginning of the X century, and some other authors the so-called Jaihani tradition.

8 The author refers to Baranjars as ahl Beit, which in this case means people who are related by blood. The Balanjar tribe is also known in the Volga region and the region of the Caspian Sea to earlier Arabic authors. Thus, the historian Muhammad Ibn Jarir al-Tabari mentions the Balanjars in his account of the events of the second half of the sixth century. [Ta'rih at-Tabari..., 2003, vol. 1, p. 251]. In the mid-seventh century chronicle, the city of Balanjar appears somewhere in the Caspian region [Ta'rih at-Tabari..., 2003, vol. 2, pp. 722-723, 779]. Starting from the events of the 20s of the eighth century, the historian al-Kufi [Kufi, 1991, part 8, pp. 236-237] and the compiler of the" Dictionary of Countries " Yaqut al-Hamawi (XIII century), referring to al-Balazuri and other (unnamed) sources, define Balanjar as a city in the country of the Khazars (Yaqut, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 489-490].

9 Although this epistle has not been preserved, the presence of the title Malik al-Saqalibah in it is not in doubt, only in this way the title could have been legalized in the report from the first lines of the source.

10 A striking example is the migration of the Kavar tribe from the Khazar Khaganate in the 9th century. (Konstantin Bagryanorodny, 1989, p. 163).

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Is it possible to include Ibn Fadlan's followers not only in his report, but also in Almush's message to Caliph Muqtadir?

Assessing the probability of each of the versions, I will proceed from the fact that the tradition of localization of the term sakaliba in the Volga region, most likely, really took place in medieval Muslim literature.

"Sakaliba River" (or "river flowing from Sakaliba country") It is mentioned twice by Ibn Khordadbeh. First, in a story about the countries of the north at the mouth of the river that flows from the country of Sakaliba, the geographer localizes the Khazar city of Hamlidj. This river flows into the Jurjan (Caspian) Sea (Ibn Khordadbeh, 1889, p. 124).

For the second time, Ibn Khordadbeh places Hamlij on the "Sakaliba River" in the story of Rus merchants traveling across the Caspian Sea to Baghdad. The lord of Hamlidjh charges the Rus a tithe for admission to the Caspian Sea. The geographer cites the name of this river, which is greatly distorted in the surviving manuscripts, but is restored as Tanais or Itil (Ibn Khordadbeh, 1889, p. 154). The main argument against Itil is the lack of archaeological data on the Slavs on the Volga in the 9th century, the rest points in favor of this particular conjecture.

By the time of Ibn Khordadbeh, Eastern Europe was no longer an unknown destination for merchants and travelers of the Caliphate. 760-790s - the time when the first hoards of Kufic dirhams were deposited here. In the first third of the ninth century, their number, as well as items of Eastern import, increased significantly. The topography of the finds makes it possible to identify the main routes of commodity and money flows from the Caliphate to Eastern Europe (the Don-Seversky Donets and Volga arteries) [Yanin, 2009, p. 93-100]. These data indicate the establishment of direct or indirect permanent ties between the Arabs and the peoples of Eastern Europe.

In the work of Ibn Khordadbeh there is some information about the inhabitants of the steppes of South-Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, where he also mentions sakalib. In his account of the countries of the north (a quarter of the inhabited lands of al-Jadya), the geographer writes: "There are also al-Babr, at-Tailasan 11, al-Khazar, al-Lan, as-Sakaliba, al-Abar "[Ibn Khordadbeh, 1889, p. 119].

The presence of sakalib near the Khazars, Alans, Avars, and Transcaucasian oronyms may indicate the connection of one of the sources of the list with the events of the Caucasian wars of the caliphate in the second half of the seventh and first half of the eighth centuries and references to sakalib in the neighborhood of the Khazars in the works of Bal'ami, al-Balazuri, and especially Kufi [Novoseltsev, 1965, p. 362 Balazuri, 1866, pp. 207-208; al-Kufi, 1991, part 8, pp. 261-262]. Kufi writes that after the success in the country of the Khazars, the detachments of Marwan ibn Muhammad, the governor of Armenia and Azerbaijan, went further, where they raided sakalib and other types (asnaf) of pagans (Kuffar), captured 20 thousand household members 12 and went until they reached the river Slavs (Nahr as-sakalib), behind which they defeated the Khazar army and forced the Khazar khakan to convert to Islam.

The data provided by Kufi are not sufficient to identify this river with any other waterway. The thickets (gaida, plural gyyad-thicket, swampy thickets), valleys and" mountains " that he mentions near the Sakaliba River may correspond to both the Upper Don Region and the Middle Volga Region, so the opinions of researchers are divided mainly between these two versions, although there are other options 13. But it's worth it

11 According to V. F. Minorsky, at-Taylasan corresponds to the Talysh Mountains in Azerbaijan; al-Babr is a mountainous area west of Talysh between Ardabil and Zanjan (Hudud al - ' Alam, 1970, p. 391).

Ahl beit. 12 Most likely, the number of prisoners is greatly exaggerated, since Kufi will also give an unlikely figure of Marwan's troops - 150 thousand people.

13 For a review, see [Lobanova-Gulak and Tortika, 2005, pp. 155-174]. The authors themselves believe that nahr al-sakaliba is a book "wandering" object, and in Kufi it probably corresponded to Qom, and sakaliba to the Kasogi ethnic group. We cannot agree with this hypothesis, since: 1) sakaliba - it is the Slavs in the Arab medieval literature, and the Caucasus and the peoples inhabiting it, the Arabs knew, as well as from about the middle of the VII century. they had very clear ideas about the Slavs [Mishin, 2002]; 2) Kufi-the author of the end of the IX-beginning of the X century, when both the Slavs, and even more so the peoples of the Caucasus were known to the Arabs in detail, but he did not consider sakalib as his source

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It should be noted that Ibn Ruste, a contemporary of Kufi, uses the same word gyyad in describing the habitats of the Volga Bulgars [Ibn Ruste, 1977, p. 30], and characterizes the territory of the Slavs as wooded (mushajir) and flat [Ibn Ruste, 1977, P.34].

I will return to Ibn Khordadbeh (or rather, his source), who clearly states that the sakaliba River flows directly into the Caspian Sea. That is, this river turns out to be at least the lower course of the Volga, which was included in the concept of "Itil" by medieval Muslim authors. Recognition of this fact, as mentioned earlier, is hindered by the fact that a Slavic enclave was unknown on the Volga in the 9th century, while on the Don there is definitely a Slavic Borshev archaeological culture.

However, the distribution area of this crop covers the forest-steppe Don region (the coast of the upper Don, Khoyer, Voronezh), which is many hundreds of kilometers away from the Don-Volga portage. This space wasn't empty: it was occupied by tribes of steppe and forest-steppe variants of the Saltovo-Mayak culture. Although the Saltovo-Mayak culture itself is traditionally considered by most archaeologists to be the state culture of the Khazar Khaganate, the steppe and forest-steppe of the Don region and the Don Region were inhabited by peoples close to the Alans and Proto-Bulgars, and significantly surpassed the Slavs-Borshevs in terms of the development of material culture and trade activity [Terekhova et al., 1997, pp. 159-215]. In such circumstances, it would be very strange for Eastern travelers to call the lower and middle reaches of the Don "Slavic River", if the main role in trade and craft was played here by Alans, Proto-Bulgars and Khazars.

If we assume that the sakaliba River was understood as the Volga or part of it both in the chronicles of Marwan's campaigns and in the work of Ibn Khordadbeh (see Galkina, 2005, p. 12-13) for more details), then Almush is referred to as the ruler of Sakaliba throughout Ibn Fadlan's report15.

The origin of this title can be revealed by the ethnic attribution of the Imenkov culture of the Middle Volga region of the IV-VII centuries, which, as researchers have repeatedly noted, has a significant similarity with reliably Slavic cultures [Zhikh, 2012, pp. 256-264]. The level of material culture of the Imenkov people was very high for its time, they were one of the centers of distribution of arable agriculture in Eastern Europe [Vyazov, 2008, p. 39]. But if we assume that Imenkovtsy called themselves Slavs, the title Malik as-sakaliba, which was worn by Almush, could not refer to the carriers of this culture directly, since already in the VIII century the region was dominated by cultures that are associated with the proto-Bulgars and other Turkic ethnic groups, and Imenkov settlements disappear. Linguist V. V. Napolskikh, who identifies the Balto-Slavic component in the Middle Volga region and the Lower Kama region in the middle

3) Kufi in the same section, near the Kura River and the Sarir country, repeatedly mentions the area of K. saq [al-Kufi, 1991, part 8, p. 263], in which there is much more reason to see the settlement of the Kasogs, described by Mas'udi several decades later as the people of K. sh. k. [al-Mas'udi, B. G., p. 132]. In response to the argument of M. Lobanova-Gulak and A. Tortiki that the Don or Volga are too far away for Marwan's troops, we can cite Mas'udi's story about the inglorious end of the Rus ' campaign to the Caspian around 913/914, when the remnants of the Rus, driven by Khazar Muslims, abandoned their ships in the lower reaches of the Volga and fled along the eastern bank to the Middle Volga region [al-Mas'udi, B. G., pp. 125-126].M. I. Zhikh points to Timur's campaign against the Golden Horde in 1395, which passed through the Caucasus, the lower reaches of the Caspian Sea, the left bank of the Volga, and then to the Don and Dnieper (Zhikh, 2013, p. 177). Iakut al-Hamawi, the compiler of the "Dictionary of Countries", determined the distance from the mouth of the Volga to the Bulgar in about a month of a slow journey of a merchant caravan through the steppe (Iakut, 1996, vol. 1, p. 485).

14 The upper Volga and Oka are the Slavs 'river near Garnati (mid-12th century):" When I went to the country of the Slavs, I left Bulgar and sailed by ship along the Slavs 'River (Nahr as-sakaliba)" [Travel..., 1971, p.35]. But this river flows into the country of the Slavs, which is located not in the Middle Volga region, but at a distance from the Bulgar, and in which there is a city, the spelling of the name of which allows the conjecture of G. R. o Kuiav [Travel..., 1971, p. 37, 74]. That is, the context is different than in the sources under consideration.

15 Sakalib's interpretation of these sources as Slavs in the Volga region (more specifically, on the territory of Volga Bulgaria) has a long tradition and begins with A. Ya.Garkavi, who suggested their significant role in the history of this state [Garkavi, 1870, p. 105].

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He notes that borrowing from the Balto-Slavic, which is close to the Proto-Slavic language of the Imenkov people, into the Bulgarian language most likely went not directly, but through the Mari or Permian languages (Napolskikh, 2006). That is, by the time of the Caucasian wars of the caliphate in the Middle Volga region, a significant part of the population could hardly speak the Imenkov language.

How, then, did the Sakaliba appear to the Arabs to be the most prominent among the peoples raided by Marwan in the "lands located beyond the Khazar country", and then preserved in the title of ruler of the Bulgar?

The question of the upper date of the Imenkov culture and the fate of its bearers is waiting for a special study by archaeologists. But the migration of some of the carriers of the Imenkov culture of the Volga region to the territory of the tribes that took part in the ethnogenesis of the Bashkirs is probably reflected in the Turbaslin-Imenkov monuments of the Trans-Kama Region, dating back to the second half of the VI-VII centuries. If this assumption is correct, at least some Imenkov residents were gradually assimilated by the local population (Kazakov, 1992: 40-57). This process finds analogies in the ethnogonic legend recorded by the Persian geographer and historian Gardizi in the work Zain al-Akhbar ("Decoration of Izvestia", mid-XI century), where Saklab, the eponym of sakalib, quarreled with the Khazar Khaqan, fled to Basjirt and became related to him (Gardizi, 1982, p. 124-125).

Formation of a tribal association with the name Basjirt, Bash.The city of rd (Bashkort) [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p. 203a] is considered by most researchers to date back to the 9th century, but even in the 10th century, according to Ibn Fadlan, the Bashkir union included tribes of different ethnic origin with different forms of early religion [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, p.203a-203b]. Archaeological data confirm that the history of the Trans-Kama region and the Southern Urals in the second half of the 1st millennium AD is a constant "stratification" and mixing of cultures with different ethnic roots. By the beginning of the tenth century, the traditions of the Turbasli tribes were almost completely erased by several new waves of immigrants-carriers of the Kushnarenkov and Karayakup cultures [Sungatov, 2002, pp. 25-32]. The same assimilation processes could also occur on the territory of the future Volga Bulgaria, about which there is no supporting data yet.

However, there are reasons not only to assert that in the Arabic-language literature there was an idea of sakaliba in the Middle Volga region, but also to assume that we may also know the self-name of the people who were so called by the Arabs. Perhaps a non-Arabic source - a letter from the Khazar king Joseph (mid-tenth century) - shows that the endoethnonym Slavs (S — l-viyun) has also been preserved (Kokovtsov, 1932, pp. 80-81). In the letter, the S-l-Viyun are the last people of the Volga-Ural part, after which "the border turns on the way to Khuvarezm, (reaching) G-r-gan" (for more details, see: [Galkina, 2006, pp. 132-145]).

Joseph called S-l-Viyun a separate ethnopolitical association along with the Burtas, Bulgars, Cheremis, and others. It is not clear whether he did this because he knew the Sakalibs as residents of the Middle Volga region, or whether he referred to the Vyatichs, who lived in the other direction, but paid tribute to the Khazars at that time. In any case, Ibn Fadlan did not meet any representatives of the Sakaliba community during his journey, which is separate from the Bulgars, Suvar, Balanjars and others.

The main question, then, is whether there is a common denominator that can combine the following facts and reconstructions:

- in the vast territory of the entire forest—steppe of the Middle Volga region [Vyazov, 2008, p. 33], in the IV-VII centuries, the Imenkov culture was widespread, similar to the reliably Slavic ones; the further fate of the Imenkov people is unknown, but since the VIII century it has been replaced in the region by cultures whose carriers are associated with the Proto-Bulgars, Magyars, etc.;

- some Arabic-speaking authors of the IX-first half of the X century, telling about the events of the VIII-beginning of the X century, localize the Sakaliba community in the Middle Volga region (or this localization is most likely), and this is how ethnic Slavs were called in the Muslim world of the Middle Ages; the texts are not related to each other, but the authors are united

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relatively deep knowledge of the object of description: Kufi's source on the Caucasian wars of the Caliphate is well informed not only about the course of hostilities, but also about the geography and ethnography of the region; Ibn Khordadbeh wrote the "Book of Ways and Countries" while serving as the head of the postal and Intelligence Service (barid) in the province of Jibal in northwestern Iran and had the opportunity to receive first-hand information; Ibn Fadlan personally visited the Middle Volga region;

- this localization did not meet with understanding and trust on the part of the majority of Muslim authors-contemporaries of the formation and flourishing of Volga Bulgaria (X-first third of the XIII century), although many of them most likely used data from Ibn Fadlan's report in describing the Bulgars, without reference to it and without reference to sakaliba;

- Almush and, after him, Ibn Fadlan used the term sakaliba to refer to all ethnopolitical associations under Almush's control in the aggregate; however, the representatives of Sakaliba clearly did not object to this definition: Tekin-Turk and Bars-saklab were included in the delegation of the Caliph's ambassador to Almush as "guides" [Ibn Fadlan, 1985, l. 197a]. Unlike the active Tekin, the Leopard has not shown itself to be anything outstanding, but it is always close to the Tekin Turk. And the very name Bars is of Turkic origin. However, Ibn Fadlan defines it as saqlaba.

The existence in the Middle Volga region in the second third of the 1st millennium AD of the Imenkov culture, similar to the Slavic ones; traces of a language close to Proto-Slavic; in the Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages of the Volga-Kama region, left before the VIII century AD; the endonym S-l-viyun, mentioned by the Khazar King Joseph among the peoples of the Volga region, - everything points to the connection of the genesis of the Volga demonym Sakalib with the ethnic group of Imenkov culture carriers. The path from ethnonym to demonym could be assimilation processes.

The combination of these factors excludes the possibility of interpreting Sakalib Ibn Fadlan as a book phantom and does not give grounds for asserting that there was an ethnic group in the Middle Volga region at the beginning of the X century that called itself Slavs and was close to the historical Slavs according to archaeological data. The most likely occurrence of this term is at the beginning of the tenth century. as a demonym, i.e. denoting the inhabitants of a certain territory, regardless of their genealogy, features of material and spiritual culture.

Volga Bulgaria as an association of various ethnopolitical groups under the leadership of the leader of the Bulgars appeared not earlier than the end of the IX - beginning of the X century [Iskhakov and Izmailov, 2007, p.47]. According to Ibn Fadlan's report, these groups enjoyed considerable independence from Almush in the 920s, although they recognized him as the supreme ruler. Along with their subordination to the leader of the Bulgars, they were united by the name of sakaliba. At this time, with the growing influence and popularity of Bulgaria, the demonym sakaliba began to lose relevance, and it was replaced by Bulgars in the works of Ibn Ruste, Mas'udi, Istakhri, Ibn Haukal, etc.

list of literature

Balazuri. Kitab futuh al-buldan [The Book of Conquests of Countries] / Liber expugnationis regionum auctore Imamo Ahmed ibn Jahja ibn Djabir al-Beladsori / Ed. M. J. de Gocjc. Leiden: Brill, 1866.

Vyazov L. A. Zohozdelie y plemen imenkovskoy kul'tury [Agriculture among the tribes of the Imenkov culture]. Vestnik Samarskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Humanitarian series. 2008. № 5/1(64).

Galkina E. S. Yugo-Vostochnaya Evropa v predstavlenii arabnykh geografov IX V. [South-Eastern Europe in the view of Arab geographers of the 9th century]. 2005. № 3.

Galkina EU. Territory of the Khazar Khaganate of the IX-1st half of the X century in written sources. 2006. № 9.

Skazaniya moslemskikh pisatelov o slavyanakh i russkikh (S poloviny VII v. do kontsa X v. po Kh.) [Tales of Muslim Writers about Slavs and Russians (From the half of the seventh century to the end of the tenth century A.D.)]. VIII. St. Petersburg: Tip. Imp. Academy of Sciences, 1870.

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