As they say, "Prophetic Oleg is going to take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars." Were they really below the Slavs in terms of development? What do we even know about this people?
Let's get answers to these questions together.
The Mystery of the Disappeared People
Thanks to mentions in written sources of the period of Kievan Rus, we know that Prince Svyatoslav destroyed the main cities of the Khazar Khaganate.
Sarkel, Semender and Itil were destroyed, and the position of the state was undermined. After the 12th century, nothing is said about them at all. The last available information indicates that they were captured and subjugated by the Mongols.
Until that time - from the 7th century - Khazaria is spoken of in Arabic, Persian, Christian sources. Its kings have great influence in the territories of the North Caucasus and the Caspian steppes near the mouth of the Volga. Many neighbors paid tribute to the Khazars.
Until now, this nation is shrouded in mystery, and much of the information does not converge. Researchers struggle to navigate nationally specific eyewitness accounts.
The Arabs have some measures of distance and time, the Turks have completely different ones, add here the Byzantine, Jewish, Slavic and actually Khazar concepts. City names are often givenin one paragraph in an Islamic manner, in another in Hebrew or Turkic. That is, it is quite possible that there were more or less cities, since it has not yet been possible to fully compare the ethnonyms. As well as discovering the remains of all major settlements.
Judging by the correspondence, it turns out to be a complete confusion and nonsense. In the descriptions of the king, the cities are huge, 500 kilometers each, and the provinces are tiny. Perhaps, again, this is a feature of the nomadic measure of distances. The Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians counted the journey in days, and distinguished the length of the road in the mountains and on the plain. How was it really? Let's sort it out step by step.
Hypotheses about the origin
In the middle of the 7th century, in the expanses of flat Dagestan, in the Eastern Ciscaucasia, a hitherto unknown, but very strong people appeared - the Khazars. Who is this?
They call themselves "Kazars". The word, according to most researchers, comes from the common Turkic root "kaz", denoting the process of "nomadism". That is, they can simply call themselves nomads.
Other theories concern Persian ("Khazar" - "thousand"), Latin (Caesar) and Turkic ("enslave") languages. In fact, it is not known for certain, so we add this question to the list of open ones.
The origin of the people themselves is also shrouded in mystery. Today, most consider it still Turkic. What tribes claim to be the progenitors?
According to the first theory, these are the heirs of the Akatsir tribe, one part of the once great empire of the Huns.
The second option is that they are considered settlers from Khorasan. These hypotheses have little evidence.
But the next two are quite strong and are confirmed by some facts. The only question is which sources are more accurate.
So, the third theory refers the Khazars to the descendants of the Uighurs. The Chinese in their chronicles mention them as "the people of Ko-sa". During the collapse of the Hun empire, taking advantage of the weakening of the Avars, part of the Oguzes went to the west. The self-names of the groups are translated as "10 tribes", "30 tribes", "white tribes", and so on.
Were there Khazars among them? Who can confirm this? It is believed that this people was among them.
In the process of resettlement, they find themselves in the Northern Caspian and Kuban. Later, with the growth of influence, they settled in the Crimea and near the mouth of the Volga.
The Crimean peninsula for a very long time in medieval sources was referred to as "Guzaria". In addition, even in Kyiv there was a detachment of mercenaries from this country. A similar fact can be judged thanks to the preserved toponym “Kozary tract”.
Political structure
Initially, the nomadic people in the process of settling gained more and more influence and subjugated new tribes. A hierarchy adopted in the Turkic empires is being established. The head of the state was a "kagan", in Jewish references - "melech", in Arabic - "malik" or "caliph". He was a protege of God on earth and combined spiritual and secular functions. In fact, this title made it possible to rule, but not manage. Something similar to the modern position of the Britishqueens.
When ascending the throne, the Khazars had an interesting tradition. In the room with the supreme council of tribes, the new kagan was strangled to death with a silk cord. They then asked how many years he intended to rule. At the end of the term, by the way, he was killed.
If the applicant was cunning and called a large number, they still de alt with him after the king turned forty.
"Earthly" power belonged to the bek. In our understanding, this is the executive branch of the board. At his disposal was the army, officials. In fact, he ruled the Khaganate.
The highest class was the Khazar aristocracy - the Tarkhans, one step below was the nobility of the enslaved peoples - the Eltebers.
The provinces were ruled by governors - tuduns, whose duties included tax collections, duties and maintaining order in the entrusted territory.
Economy
Typical eastern medieval state, with all the traditions and way of life. The only difference is that it went through stages from nomadic life to settled life.
The basis of the economy was cattle breeding, according to the ancient traditions of the ancestors. But to it is added the cultivation of vineyards and the production of alcoholic beverages, the cultivation of cereals and gourds.
With the advent of cities, handicrafts develop. Jewelers, blacksmiths, potters, tanners and other craftsmen form the backbone of domestic trade.
The nobility and the ruling elite, as well as the army, lived off robberies and tribute from conquered neighbors.
In addition, significantthe source of income was duties and taxes on goods that were transported through the territory of the khanate. Since the history of the Khazars is inextricably linked with the East-West crossroads, they simply could not miss the opportunities.
The route from China to Europe was in the hands of the Khaganate, and shipping along the Volga and the northern part of the Caspian Sea was under state control. Derbent has become a wall separating two warring religions - Orthodoxy and Islam. This gave an unprecedented opportunity for the emergence of intermediary trade.
Some call this behavior of the country "parasitic", others insist on the only possible and logical way of existence and prosperity in the realities of that situation.
In addition, Khazaria has become the largest transshipment point in the slave trade. The captive northerners were perfectly bought up by the Persians and Arabs. Girls are like concubines for harems and servants, men are like warriors, houseworkers and other hard labor.
Also, the state minted its own coin in the 10-11th centuries. Although it was an imitation of Arab money, a remarkable point is that in the inscription “Muhammad is a prophet”, on Khazar coins, there was the name “Moses”.
Culture and religion
The researchers get the main information about the people from original written sources. With nomadic tribes such as the Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsy, things are more complicated. An ordered set of any documents simply does not exist. But scattered inscriptions of a religious or everyday naturedo not carry much meaning. They get only bits of information.
Do we learn much about the culture of the tribe from the inscription on the pot "made by Joseph"? Here it will be possible to understand only that pottery and some linguistic traditions were widespread, for example, the belonging of names to different peoples. Although this is not entirely true. This vessel could simply be bought and brought, for example, from the same Byzantium or Khorezm.
In fact, only one thing is known. The "unreasonable Khazars" included several nationalities and tribes who spoke Slavic, Arabic, Turkic and Jewish dialects. The elite of the state communicated and kept documentation in Hebrew, and ordinary people used runic writing, which leads to the hypothesis of its Turkic roots.
Modern researchers believe that the closest existing language to the Khazar language is Chuvash.
Religions in the state were also different. However, by the era of the decline of the Khaganate, Judaism became more and more dominant and dominant. The history of the Khazars is fundamentally connected with him. In the 10th and 11th centuries, the "peaceful cohabitation of faiths" came to an end.
Even unrest began among the Jewish and Muslim quarters of large cities. But in this case, the followers of the Prophet Muhammad were smashed.
We can hardly judge the state of things in the lower classes of society due to the lack of any sources, except for a few brief references. But more on that later.
Khazar documents
Stunning sources about the state of affairs in the state, its history anddevice came to us thanks to a Spanish Jew. A cordovan courtier named Hasdai ibn Shafrut wrote a letter to the king of the Khazars asking him to tell about the kaganate.
Such an act was caused by his surprise. Being himself a Jew, and highly educated, he knew about the absent-mindedness of his fellow tribesmen. And here merchants coming from the east talk about the existence of a centralized, powerful and highly developed state dominated by Judaism.
Since Hasdai's duties included diplomacy, he, as an ambassador, turned to the kagan for truthful information.
He did get an answer. Moreover, he wrote (rather dictated) it himself personally “Melech Joseph, son of Aaron”, the Khagan of the Khazar Empire.
In the letter he gives a lot of interesting information. The greeting states that his ancestors had diplomatic ties with the Umayyads. Then he tells about the history and way of the state.
According to him, the ancestor of the Khazars is the biblical Yaphet, the son of Noah. The king also tells the legend about the adoption of Judaism as the state religion. According to her, it was decided to replace the paganism that the Khazars used to profess. Who could do it best? Of course, the priests. A Christian, a Muslim and a Jew were invited. The last one was the most eloquent and out-argued the others.
According to the second version (not from a letter), the test for the priests was to decipher unknown scrolls, which turned out to be the Torah by a “lucky chance.”Further, the kagan tells about geographyhis country, its main cities and the way of life of the people. They spend spring and summer in nomad camps, and return to settlements for the cold season.
The letter ends with a boastful remark about the position of the Khazar Khaganate as the main deterrent that saves Muslims from the invasion of northern barbarians. Russia and the Khazars, it turns out, were at enmity in the 10th century, which led to the death of the Caspian state.
Where did the whole nation go?
And yet, Russian princes, such as Svyatoslav, Oleg the Prophet, could not destroy the whole people to the root. The Khazars had to stay and assimilate with the invaders or neighbors.
In addition, the army of mercenaries of the kaganate was not small either, since the state was forced to maintain peace in all the occupied territories and confront the Arabs with the Slavs.
To date, the most plausible version is the following. The empire owes its disappearance to the combination of several circumstances.
First, the rise in the level of the Caspian Sea. More than half of the country was at the bottom of the reservoir. Pastures and vineyards, dwellings and other things simply ceased to exist.
Thus, pressed by a natural disaster, people began to escape and move to the north and west, where they faced opposition from their neighbors. So the Kyiv princes had the opportunity to "take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars." The reason was a long time ago - the withdrawal of people into slavery, duties on the Volga trade route.
The third reason, which served as a control shot, was the confusion in the conquered tribes. They felt weakthe positions of the oppressors and rebelled. Provinces were gradually lost one by one.
As the sum of all these factors, the weakened state fell as a result of the Russian campaign, which destroyed three main cities, including the capital. The prince's name was Svyatoslav. The Khazars could not oppose worthy opponents to the northern pressure. Mercenaries don't always fight to the end. Your own life is more precious.
The most plausible version of who the surviving descendants are is as follows. In the course of assimilation, the Khazars merged with the Kalmyks, and today they are part of this people.
References in literature
Due to the small amount of preserved information, works about the Khazars are divided into several groups.
The first is historical documents or religious controversy.
The second is fiction based on the search for the missing country. The third is pseudo-historical works.
The main characters are kagan (often as a separate character), king or bek Joseph, Shafrut, Svyatoslav and Oleg.
The main theme is the legend of the adoption of Judaism and the relationship between such peoples as the Slavs and the Khazars.
War with the Arabs
In total, historians identify two armed conflicts in the 7th-8th centuries. The first war lasted about ten years, the second - more than twenty-five.
The confrontation was a kaganate with three caliphates, which succeeded each other in the process of historical development.
In 642, the first conflict was provoked by the Arabs. They invaded through the Caucasus into the territory of the Khazar Khaganate. From this period, preservedseveral images on the vessels. Thanks to them, we can understand what the Khazars were like. Appearance, weapons, armor.
After ten years of unsystematic skirmishes and local conflicts, the Muslims decided on a massive attack, during which they suffered a crushing defeat at Belenjer.
The second war was longer and more prepared. It began in the early decades of the eighth century, and continued until 737. During this military conflict, the Khazar troops reached the walls of Mosul. But in response, the Arab troops captured Semender and the headquarters of the kagan.
Such clashes continued until the 9th century. After that, peace was concluded in view of strengthening the positions of Christian states. The border passed behind the wall of Derbent, which was Khazar. Everything south belonged to the Arabs.
Rus and the Khazars
Kyiv Prince Svyatoslav defeated the Khazars. Who will deny it? However, the fact reflects only the end of the relationship. What happened during the couple of centuries leading up to the conquest?
Slavs in the annals are mentioned by separate tribes (Radimichi, Vyatichi and others), which were subordinate to the Khazar Khaganate until they were captured by Prophetic Oleg.
It is said that he imposed a lighter tribute on them with the only condition that they will not pay the Khazars now. This turn of events undoubtedly provoked a corresponding reaction from the empire. But the war is not mentioned in any source. We can guess about it only by the fact that peace was concluded and the Rus, Khazars and Pechenegs went on joint campaigns.
This people had such an interesting and difficult fate.
