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The article is devoted to the consideration of the Bulgarian problem in the historiography of the Russian Empire of the 19th century. Ethnic Ruthenian Yuri Venelin became interested in the Danube Bulgarians during his stay in Chisinau (modern Moldova) and for the first time tried to give a complex social-cultural, ethnographic and historical description of this people. From the point of view of Venelin, Bulgarians, like all Eastern Europeans peoples, were Slavs by origin, while the Volga Bulgars were Muslim people and were not associated with them genetically but have received their name for their main city, Bulgar. Venelin’s theory almost did not rise any polemics in the Russian printed press; however, it was sought by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire and had an impact on the doctrine of Pan-Slavism. Kazan nobleman Andrei Likhachev gained fame as a collector of art and amateur archeologist, his ancestral estate was located at the distance of 25 km from the ruins of the Bulgar on the Volga. Likhachev got a degree in natural sciences, but his interest in numismatics led to the study of the Arabic and Persian languages. On the material of Bulgar coins Likhachev established the sequence of Bulgarian rulers and proved the Turkic origin of Bulgars; he considered them one of the Uighur tribes. However, for a number of reasons, scholars of Kazan University remained on the positions of the Slavic origin of Bulgars. Likhachev’s book on the history of the Volga Bulgaria remained unpublished. In this paper we use the biographical and comparative research methods. The article is intended for experts in the history of science and Asian and African studies, as well as the history of relations of the Russian Empire with the states of the Balkans and Central Asia in the 19th century.
