Seven Slavic tribes

In the meantime the Bulgarian leader made an alliance with the Seven Slavic tribes for mutual protection against the Byzantines and formed a federation.

The Slavs on the territory of today Bulgaria: Seven Slavic tribes, Smolyani and Severians.

Asparuh's victory led to the Bulgarian conquest of Moesia and the establishment of some sort of alliance between the Bulgars and the local Slavic groups (described as the Severi and Seven Slavic tribes).

The Seven Slavic tribes together with other Slavic tribes of the Bulgarian Empire, gradually formed the Bulgarian ethnicity in the 9th century due to the Christianization of Bulgaria under Boris I and the preceding administrative reforms that deprived them of their autonomy and self-government.

With the arrival of the Seven Slavic tribes and the Bulgars in the 6th-7th century and the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 680 in the former lands of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), the entire region was soon incorporated into the Bulgarian realm.