“How the Prophetic Oleg is now planning to take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars...” It is these lines from Pushkin that the majority of Russian people limit their knowledge about the Khazars. But the Khazars are the first serious external enemy Kievan Rus. In addition, this is also the first acquaintance of Ancient Rus' with Judaism, the Jewish religion that proclaims the chosenness of God and the right to world domination of this Old Testament people.

When in the middle of the 7th century, on the ruins of the Turkic Khaganate, the Khazar power rose - the Khazar Khaganate, on the lands Eastern Slavs there was no single state yet. The Slavs lived in separate tribes. A significant part of them, having fallen under the rule of the Khazars after many military clashes, paid them tribute. Among the tributaries were Polyans, Northerners, Radimichi, Vyatichi. The conquered Russian princes were obliged to field auxiliary troops at the first request of the Khazar rulers, thereby forcing them, contrary to their own interests, to participate in wars on the side of the Khazars. Among other things, the conquerors forced the Russian princes to give their daughters to the harem of the Khazar ruler. A description of this humiliation is often found in ancient Russian legends and epics, which tell how Slavic princes, in order to save their lands from ruin, gave their beloved daughters to a filthy snake.

What was the Khazar kingdom that existed over a thousand years ago on the territory of our Motherland? The Khazar Kaganate was a gigantic state that occupied the entire Northern Black Sea region, most of the Crimea, the Azov region, the Northern Caucasus, the Lower Volga region and the Caspian Trans-Volga region. As a result of numerous military battles, Khazaria became one of the most powerful powers of that time. The Khazars were in control of the most important trade routes of Eastern Europe: The Great Volga Road, the path "From the Varangians to the Greeks", great silk road from Asia to Europe. The huge tribute collected from numerous conquered peoples ensured the prosperity and well-being of this state. Ethnically, Khazaria was a conglomerate of Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples who led a semi-nomadic lifestyle. In winter, the Khazars lived in cities, but in the warm season they roamed and cultivated the land and also staged regular raids on their neighbors. At the head of the Khazar state was the Kagan, who came from the Ashinov dynasty, whose power rested on military force and deepest national veneration. In the eyes of ordinary pagan Khazars, the Kagan was the personification of divine power. He had 25 wives from the daughters of rulers and peoples subject to the Khazars, 60 concubines, and was, as it were, a guarantee of the well-being of the state. In case of serious military danger, the Khazars brought out their kagan, one sight of which, it was believed, could put the enemy to flight. True, in the event of any misfortune - military defeat, drought, famine, etc., the nobility and people could demand the death of the Kagan, since the disaster was directly associated with the weakening of his spiritual power.

According to the ritual that existed at that time, when a new kagan was enthroned, they threw a silk noose around his neck and, having strangled him well, asked how long he was going to reign. When the Kagan, in a semi-conscious state, named the number of years, he was enthroned. If the ruler, after reigning for the named period, did not die a natural death, he was killed. The maximum reign of the kagan was limited to forty years. After this time, he was killed, since, according to the Khazars, the Kagan’s mind and reason, as well as his divine power, weakened, and he was no longer able to benefit his people.

In the first half of the 8th century, one of the noble people of Khazaria, Bulan, accepted the Jewish faith and managed to impose it on a number of other Khazar princes. The Kagan himself converted to Judaism.

A descendant of Bulan, the Khazar military leader Obadiah, carried out a coup d'etat, seized power in the country and turned the Kagan into an obedient puppet. The Kagan became only a sacred state symbol and the personification in the eyes of ordinary Khazars of the power and strength of Khazaria. Everything is real political power completely passed to the Jewish king (bek) and his closest Jewish entourage, consisting of several thousand people. The Kagan, deprived of power, turned into a kind of sacrificial animal, which, with any rumor about the weakening of his divine power, could be calmly killed “at the request of the people” or the Bek himself. This turned the Kagan into an obedient and resigned creature, blindly obeying Bek and his Jewish entourage and slavishly blessing all their actions. Removed from the people, the Kagan began to live in complete seclusion in his palace under the close supervision of the Bek and the Jews. And only occasionally was he shown to people in order to convince them that he was alive and well.

Obadya built synagogues and schools in Khazaria, collected a large number of Jewish sages from all over the world and having paid them a lot of gold and silver, he received explanations of the sacred Jewish scriptures, the Talmud, the Mishnah and holiday prayers. It was from Obadiah that the 12 Khazar kings of Judah went.

Obadiah's reforms contributed to a sharp increase in the Jewish diaspora of Khazaria, which had formed even earlier as a result of the flight of Jews from Sasanian Iran and, later, from Byzantium. One of the largest Jewish communities existed in Crimea.

By the 9th-10th centuries. There was a serious change in the position of the Jews in the world - on the basis of the Khazar Kaganate they managed to complete the creation of a powerful international trade organization that had a strong influence on the entire world politics that time. The French emperors of the Carolingian dynasty received funds from the Khazar Jews. The Spanish Umayyads also patronized them. A significant part of all international trade ended up in the hands of Khazar Jews. Most of the tribute collected by the Khazars ended up with the Tsar Bek, his immediate circle and the Jewish diaspora, which concentrated in its hands, in fact, the entire monopoly on trade in the state. Jewish traders, being the main support of the authorities, constituted the upper layer of Khazar society. Simple Khazars were given the right only to protect them, who lived in all the cities of Khazaria in luxury and prosperity.

Bek and his immediate Jewish circle did not trust the indigenous population. The Khazar king was guarded by a well-armed guard, consisting of 10-12 thousand Muslim mercenaries, with the help of which the Jews suppressed all sorts of anti-government protests, keeping the people in fear and submission.

The Khazars continued to pursue a cruel, merciless policy towards the Slavs, whose lands became an inexhaustible source of “living goods” for the enslavers. The main goal of the Slavic policy of the Khazar Kaganate was the maximum weakening of Russian territories and the destruction of the Principality of Kyiv. This would turn Jews into financial masters of the entire Eurasian space.

So, in the 10th century, the Jewish diaspora, whose stronghold was the Khazar Kaganate, was on the verge of an unprecedented rise. Khazaria became a powerful support base for Judaism and a center for its spread throughout the world. It seemed that the “chosen people,” a thousand years after the crushing military defeat inflicted on them by the Roman legionnaires, were once again close to realizing their long-standing dream of world domination...

The far-reaching plans of the Khazar rulers were destroyed thanks to the courage, will and military genius of one man. The Russian prince Svyatoslav dealt a crushing blow to the Jewish empire, after which it virtually ceased to exist as single state.

Having descended along the Volga into the Khazar lands in 965, Svyatoslav defeated the Kagan and his army in open battle, captured the city of Sarkel (White Vezha), the capital of Khazaria, the city of Itil, and, a little later, the city of Semender. These victories decided the fate of the war and determined the further collapse of the Kaganate. The Jewish diaspora fled in horror, the Jewish center of a complex political, military and trade system was destroyed, which entailed a serious change in the entire geopolitical situation of that time.

As a result of the destruction of Khazaria, most of the East Slavic tribes merged into a single state, which received complete political and economic independence. Kievan Rus established control over the most important trade routes along the Volga and Don, secured its borders and became one of the strongest European states.

The final defeat of the Khazar kingdom was completed by Prince Vladimir at the end of the 10th century.

In the 7th–10th centuries, the state of the nomadic Turkic Khazars occupied vast territories of modern post-Soviet republics from Central Asia and North Caucasus in the east to modern Ukraine and Crimea in the southwest. The Khazar Khaganate, like most other huge empires, resembled a colossus with feet of clay. A motley conglomerate of various peoples lived on its territory: Savirs, Bulgars, Huns, Turkuts, Ugrians, Khazars, Slavs, Arabs, Jews and many others who spoke different languages and professed different religions. At a certain stage of development of statehood (we cannot say with certainty when exactly - perhaps in 740, and perhaps later, at the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th century or, according to other assumptions, around 860), the ruling elite of Khazaria declares Judaism the state religion of the Kaganate. However, other faiths were also practiced on the territory of the Kaganate: Islam, Christianity and shamanism.

The collapse of the Khazar state and the development of scientific interest in it in the 19th century

In 965-968, the strongest defeat of Khazaria was inflicted Kyiv prince Svyatoslav. After this, the Khazar state, themselves and even their name almost completely disappear from political map medieval Europe. The fascinating story about the disappearance of a huge powerful empire, the destruction of its cities and settlements and the almost complete dissolution of the Khazars among the peoples of neighboring states became the subject of heated debate and discussion, starting, probably, with the 12th century Jewish writer and poet Yehuda Halevi and ending with orientalists, theologians, historians , nationalists and ideological leaders of new and recent times.

According to H. Frehn (1823), history medieval Rus' was so closely connected with the Khazars that the latter became important object studies in pre-revolutionary Russia. A classic example of the growing interest in the Khazar theme in Russia is early XIX century is the famous poem by Alexander Pushkin, in which the prophetic Oleg is going to “take revenge on the foolish Khazars.” This phrase would later become known to every Soviet schoolchild. In addition to the “Song of the Prophetic Oleg,” the poet will turn to the Khazar theme again - in the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” one of the heroes of which is the rival of the knight Ruslan, “full of passionate thoughts, the young Khazar khan Ratmir.”

Among Russian historians at that time there were two main trends in the interpretation of the history of the Khazars. Conservative historians (Tatishchev, Karamzin, Nechvolodov) considered the liberation from paying tribute to the Khazars and the successful campaign of Prince Svyatoslav as decisive events in the process of formation ancient Russian state and the Russian people. These researchers talked about the Khazar yoke, about the confrontation between the forest and the steppe, and presented the Khazars as dangerous enemies of Kievan Rus. Liberal historians, on the contrary, wrote about the positive side of relations between Khazaria and Russia, about their symbiosis.

In the 80s of the 20th century, in the wake of interest in the fictional book “The Khazar Dictionary” - a rather talented excursion into medieval Khazar themes, written by the famous Serbian writer Milorad Pavic, the attention of the general public to the Khazars and Khazar history became even stronger.

Theories about the descendants of the Khazars

It’s paradoxical, but true: a purely scientific problem - the history of the medieval Khazar state - became a serious topic in the political games of European nationalists of the 20th-21st centuries. Some of them tried (and are trying) to use the history of the Khazars to legitimize their political demands, others declare themselves the “only” and “real” descendants of the Khazars, others are trying to rewrite the medieval history of Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish peoples, using the “Khazar myth”.

Especially often the subject of various kinds of pseudo-historical speculation is the question of where those who disappeared in the X-XI centuries Khazars and who, accordingly, are the heirs of their culture and statehood. This question has given rise to a huge number of absolutely pseudo-academic and, at times, completely absurd theories, masquerading as historical research. For example, based on the phonetic similarity between the words Cossack/Cossack and Khazar/Khozar, the ideologists of the Ukrainian Cossacks of the 18th century claimed their origins from the Khazars. Thus, in 1710, the Cossack ataman Joseph Kirilenko wrote in a letter to the hetman that the Moscow kings had never been the natural rulers of the “Cossack people” since the reign of the “Cossack Khagans”.

The Jew Arthur Koestler considered the Khazars to be the “thirteenth tribe of Israel,” from which all Ashkenazi (i.e., European) Jewry descended. Lev Gumilev believed that the descendants of the Khazars are the Slavs - Brodniks and Don Cossacks. The romantic Karaite nationalist Abraham Firkovich created a Karaite version of the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism, thereby seeking to show the superiority of the Karaites over the Rabanite Jews. Another Karaite, Seraya Shapshal, went even further and began to argue that the Karaites are the direct - and only - descendants of the Khazars. However, the Karaites are far from the only ethnic group to claim Khazar origin. The second most significant contender for the Khazar heritage is, perhaps, modern Crimean Jews-Krymchaks. Like the Karaites, they renounce their Jewish origin and claim that they are descendants of the Khazars.

However, among European Jews there were also contenders for the “Khazar inheritance”! In the 20s-30s. XX century Polish-Jewish historians, along with Karaite ones, begin to study the history of the Khazars, especially the history of the founding of Jewish settlements in Poland. Some of them (primarily M. Gumplowicz and I. Schipper) concluded that the Khazars played important role in the formation of European Jewry and, moreover, that Khazar Jewish proselytes may have constituted a significant proportion of medieval Jewry in Poland and Eastern Europe.

Recently, the book “When and How You Became Jews” by Tel Aviv University professor and historian Shlomo Sand has made a big splash. An Israeli scientist argues that there is simply no such nation as the Jews, and the Jewish claims about their origins from the Middle East are just a myth to justify the existence of the state of Israel. European Jews, as they say, are the descendants of the Khazarian Turks.

Some researchers and nationalists wrote about the Khazar origins of the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus, Slavic Subbotnik Judaists and Kazakhs.

So who exactly are the descendants of the Khazars?

In our opinion, this question cannot be answered unambiguously. As noted by M.I. Artamonov, “the search for the descendants of the Khazars remains unsuccessful” mainly due to the fact that the Khazars were assimilated by the nomadic Cumans (Cumans) in the 11th-13th centuries. Thus, it is unlikely that any modern people can realistically claim descent from the Khazars. The unparalleled variety of self-serving uses of Khazar history carried out in different time representatives of various political movements and ethnic groups, multiplied by a tangled tangle of Turkic-Jewish historical and religious motives, makes the Khazar theme a unique example of ideological distortion of medieval history.

Will the 21st century bring new examples of the use of Khazarian history for political and ideological purposes? There is no doubt that changes in the highest ideological spheres can also affect the interpretation of the Khazar myth, and who knows, maybe in the near future researchers will discover with some amazement new “heirs” of Pushkin’s unreasonable Khazars.

Khazar: Khazar (Khazar Sea) is the name of the Caspian Sea in different languages ​​such as Azerbaijani, Persian, Turkish, etc. Khazar is a city in Turkmenistan. Khazar is a village in the Derbent region of Dagestan. Khazar eponym (legendary ancestor) of the people... ... Wikipedia

Leading a sedentary life; city ​​dweller. Dialectal variant: Khazir. Thousand. A name given with the wish of a long life. Tatar, Turkic, Muslim male names. Glossary of terms... Dictionary of personal names

KHAZAR, see Cheleken (see CHELEKEN (city)) ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Noun, number of synonyms: 1 Khazarin (1) Dictionary of synonyms ASIS. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

Khazars- I [خزر] kur budani yake az du chashm; kinir 2. tang va khurd gashtani chashm; didan bo gushii chashm II [خزر] 1. nomi digari bahri Caspian, bahri Khazar 2. tar. viloyate dar soҳili bakhri Khazar va ҳududi Geloni Eron 3. kҳn. nomi mardume, ki dar navohi Khazar...

Khazars- zat. Ortagasyrlyk turki tildi halyk. VII Gasyrdyn ortasyna karai x a z a r l a r Soltustik Caucasus ben Kara teniz zhagalauynda Khazar kagandygyn kurdy (ҚҰЭ, 9, 255) ... Kazak tilinin tүsіndіrme сөздігі

Khazari- [خزري] whale. Marbut ba Khazar... Farhangi tafsiriya zaboni tokiki

Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars, Khazars (Source: “Full accentuated paradigm according to A. A. Zaliznyak”) ... Forms of words

Khazars- haz ar, a and haz arin, a... Russian spelling dictionary

Khazars- VII X extinguished tүbәn һәm urta Idel, Don, Azov buylarynda, shulai uk Dagstan, Kyrym territorialәrendә dәүlәt bulyp yashәgәn torki halyk һәm shunyn ber keshese… Tatar telen anlatmaly suzlege

Books

  • History of the Khazar Jews, Dunlop Douglas. The book is dedicated to the history of the Khazars - a mysterious nomadic people whose power was enormous, the territory was located between the lower reaches of the Volga and the northern slopes of the Caucasus, extending to ...
  • History of the Khazar-Jews Religion of the Higher Clans, Dunlop D.. The book is dedicated to the history of the Khazars - a mysterious nomadic people whose power was enormous, the territory was located between the lower reaches of the Volga and the northern slopes of the Caucasus, extending to ...

The ancient and medieval history of mankind holds many mysteries. Even with the current level of technology, there are still blind spots in the study of most issues.

Who were the Khazars? This is one of those problems with no exact answer. We know little about them, but even if we collect all the existing references to this people, even more questions arise.

Let's get to know these interesting people better.

Who are the Khazars

This tribe - the Khazars - is first mentioned in Chinese sources as part of the population great empire Huns. Researchers present several hypotheses regarding the origin of the ethnonym and the ancestral homeland of the Khazars.

Let's first deal with the name. The root "goats" in many Central Asian languages ​​means a number of words associated with nomadism. This version seems the most plausible, because the others look like this. In Farsi, “Khazar” means “thousand”, the Romans called the emperor Caesar, and the Turks understand oppression by this word.

They try to determine the ancestral home from the earliest records that mention the Khazars. Where did their ancestors live, who were their closest neighbors? There are still no clear answers.

There are three equivalent theories. The first considers them the ancestors of the Uyghurs, the second considers them to be the Hunnic tribe of the Akatsirs, and the third is inclined to believe that the Khazars are the descendants of the tribal union of the Ogurs and Savirs.

Whether this is true or not is difficult to answer. Only one thing is clear. The origin of the Khazars and the beginning of their expansion to the west is connected with the land they called Barsilia.

Mention in written sources

If we analyze the information from the notes of contemporaries, we also get confusion.

On the one hand, in existing sources it is said that it was a powerful empire. On the other hand, the fragmentary information contained in the notes of travelers cannot illustrate anything at all.

The most complete source that reflects the state of affairs in the country is considered to be the correspondence of the Kagan with the Spanish dignitary Hasdai ibn Shaprut. They communicated in writing on the topic of Judaism. The Spaniard was a diplomat who became interested in the Jewish empire that, according to merchants, existed near the Caspian Sea.

Three letters contain a legend about where the ancient Khazars came from - brief information about cities, the political, social and economic situation.
Other sources, such as Russian chronicles, Arabic, Persian and other references, mainly describe only the causes, course and results of local military conflicts on the borders.

Geography of Khazaria

Kagan Joseph in his letter tells where the Khazars came from, where these tribes lived, and what they did. Let's take a closer look at its description.

So, the empire spread during its greatest prosperity from the Southern Bug to Aral Sea and from the Caucasus Mountains to the Volga in the region of the latitude of the city of Murom.

Numerous tribes lived in this territory. In forest and forest-steppe regions, a sedentary method of farming was common, in the steppe - nomadic. In addition, there were a lot of vineyards near the Caspian Sea.

Most big cities, which the Kagan mentions in his letter, were as follows. The capital, Itil, was located in the lower reaches of the Volga. Sarkel (the Russians called it Belaya Vezha) was located on the Don, and Semender and Belenger were on the coast of the Caspian Sea.

The rise of the Khaganate begins after the collapse of the Turkic Empire, in the middle of the seventh century AD. By this time, the ancestors of the Khazars lived in the area of ​​modern Derbent, in lowland Dagestan. Hence the expansion to the north, west and south.

After the capture of Crimea, the Khazars settled in this territory. She was identified with this ethnonym for a very long time. Even in the sixteenth century, the Genoese referred to the peninsula as "Gazaria".

Thus, the Khazars are an association of Turkic tribes that were able to create the most durable nomadic state in history.

Beliefs in the Khaganate

Due to the fact that the empire was at the crossroads of trade routes, cultures and religions, it became akin to medieval Babylon.

Since the main population of the Kaganate were Turkic peoples, the majority worshiped Tengri Khan. This belief is still preserved in Central Asia.

The nobility of the Kaganate adopted Judaism, which is why it is still believed that the Khazars are Jews. However, this is not entirely true, because only a very small segment of the population professed this religion.

Christians and Muslims were also represented in the state. Due to unsuccessful trips against the Arab caliphs in the last decades of the existence of the Kaganate, Islam gained greater freedom in the empire.

But why do they stubbornly believe that the Khazars are Jews? The most likely reason is the legend described by Joseph in a letter. He tells Hasdai that when choosing a state religion, an Orthodox and a rabbi were invited. The latter managed to out-argue everyone and convince the Kagan and his retinue that he was right.

Wars with neighbors

The campaigns against the Khazars are most fully described in Russian chronicles and Arab military records. The Caliphate fought for influence in the Caucasus, and the Slavs, on the one hand, opposed the southern slave traders who robbed villages, and on the other, they strengthened their eastern borders.

The first prince who fought with the Khazar Khaganate was He was able to recapture some lands and forced them to pay tribute to themselves, and not to the Khazars.

More interesting information is about the son of Olga and Igor. He, being a skilled warrior and wise commander, took advantage of the weakness of the empire and dealt a crushing blow to it.

The troops he gathered went down the Volga and took Itil. Next, Sarkel on the Don and Semender on the Caspian coast were captured. This sudden and powerful expansion destroyed the once powerful empire.

After this, Svyatoslav began to gain a foothold in this territory. Vezha was built on the site of Sarkel, and the Vyatichi, a tribe bordering on Russia on one side and Khazaria on the other, were subject to tribute.

An interesting fact is that despite all the apparent strife and wars, a detachment of Khazar mercenaries stood in Kyiv for a long time. The Tale of Bygone Years mentions the Kozary tract in the capital of Rus'. It was located near the confluence of the Pochayna River and the Dnieper River.

Where did the whole people go?

Conquests, of course, affect the population, but it is noteworthy that after the Slavs defeated the main cities of the Kaganate, information about this people disappears. They are no longer mentioned in a single word or in any chronicle.

The researchers consider the following to be the most plausible solution to this issue. Being a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, the Khazars were able to assimilate with their neighbors in the Caspian region.

Today, scientists believe that the bulk dissolved in this region, some remained in Crimea, and most of the noble Khazars moved to Central Europe. There they were able to unite with Jewish communities living in the territory of modern Poland, Hungary, and Western Ukraine.

Thus, some families with Jewish roots and ancestors in these lands can, to some extent, call themselves “descendants of the Khazars.”

Traces in archeology

Archaeologists clearly say that the Khazars are the Saltovo-Mayak culture. It was isolated by Gautier in 1927. Since that time, active excavations and research have been carried out.
The culture received its name as a result of the similarity of finds at the two monuments.

The first is a settlement in Verkhny Saltov, Kharkov region, and the second is the Mayatskoye settlement in the Voronezh region.

In principle, the finds are correlated with the Alan ethnic group, who lived in this territory from the eighth to the tenth centuries. However, the roots of this people are in the North Caucasus, so they are associated directly with the Khazar Kaganate.

Researchers divide the finds into two types of burials. The forest version is Alan, and the steppe version is Bulgar, which also includes the Khazars.

Possible descendants

The descendants of the Khazars are another blank spot in the study of the people. The difficulty is that it is almost impossible to trace continuity.

The Saltovo-Mayak culture as such accurately reflects the life of the Alans and Bulgars. The Khazars are listed there conditionally, since there are very few monuments of them. In fact they are random. Written sources “fall silent” after Svyatoslav’s campaign. Therefore, we have to rely on joint hypotheses of archaeologists, linguists and ethnographers.

Today, the most likely descendants of the Khazars are the Kumyks. This is Turkic-speaking. This also includes partly the Karaites, Krymchaks and Judaized mountain tribes of the Caucasus.

Dry residue

Thus, in this article we talked about the fate of such interesting people like the Khazars. This is not just another ethnic group, but, in fact, a mysterious white spot in the medieval history of the Caspian lands.

They are mentioned in many sources of the Russians, Armenians, Arabs, and Byzantines. Kagan corresponds with the Cordoba Caliphate. Everyone understands the power and strength of this empire...
And suddenly - the lightning campaign of Prince Svyatoslav and the death of this state.

It turns out that the whole empire can within short period not just disappear, but sink into oblivion, leaving descendants with only guesses.