As the saying goes, "Prophetic Oleg comes to avenge the unreasonable Khazars." Were they really below the Slavs in terms of development? What do we know about these people?
Let's get the answers to these questions together.
The mystery of the disappeared people
Thanks to references in written sources of the period of Kievan Rus, we know that Prince Svyatoslav destroyed the main cities of the Khazar Kaganate.
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 latest available information indicates that they were captured and conquered by the Mongols.
Until that time - from the 7th century - Khazaria is spoken of in Arabic, Persian, Christian sources. Its kings have a huge influence on 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, these people are shrouded in mystery, and many information do not agree. Researchers hardly make their way through the national specifics of eyewitness accounts.
The Arabs have the same measures of distance and time, the Turks have completely different measures; add here the Byzantine, Jewish, Slavic and actually Khazar concepts. City names are often given in 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 was not possible to fully compare the ethnonyms. As well as discovering the remains of all large settlements.
Judging by the correspondence, it turns out the most complete confusion and nonsense. In the king’s descriptions, the cities are huge, 500 kilometers long, and the provinces are tiny. Perhaps, again, this is a feature of the nomadic measure of distances. The Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsy considered the way as days, and distinguished the length of the road in the mountains and on the plain.
How was everything really? Let's sort it out gradually.
Origin hypotheses
In the middle of the 7th century, on the expanses of the plain Dagestan, in the Eastern Ciscaucasia, an unknown until now, but very strong people - Khazars appeared. Who is it?
They call themselves "Cossacks." The word, according to most researchers, comes from the common Türkic root “kaz”, meaning the process of “wandering”. That is, they can call themselves simply nomads.
Other theories relate to the 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 under the cover of mystery. Today, most consider him still Turkic. What tribes claim the role of ancestors?
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 migrants 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 Uyghurs. The Chinese in their chronicles refer to them as the "people of ko-sa." During the collapse of the Hunnic empire, taking advantage of the weakening of the Avars, part of the Oguzes went west. The group names are translated as “10 tribes”, “30 tribes”, “white tribes”, and so on.
Were there any 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 increasing influence, they settle in the Crimea and near the mouth of the Volga.
The Crimean peninsula for a very long time in medieval sources was called nothing more than “Guzaria”. In addition, even in Kiev there was a detachment of mercenaries from this country. Such a fact can be judged by the surviving toponym “Kozary tract”.
Political system
Initially, the nomadic people in the process of settling gained more influence and subjugated new tribes. The hierarchy established in the Turkic empires is established.
The head of state was "kagan", in Jewish mentions - "melech", in Arabic - "malik" or "caliph". He was a henchman of God on earth and combined spiritual and secular functions. In fact, this title made it possible to rule, but not control. Something similar to the current position of the British Queen.
When ascending the throne, the Khazars had an interesting tradition. In the room with the supreme council of the tribes of the new Kagan, they were strangled to the death with silk lace. They further asked how many years he intends to rule. After the term, by the way, he was killed.
If the applicant was cunning and called a large number, they still dealt with him after the king was forty years old.
The "earth" power was possessed by the beck. In our understanding, this is the executive branch of the board. At his disposal was the army, officials. In fact, he controlled the kaganate.
The upper class was the Khazar aristocracy - the Tarkhans, one notch was to know the enslaved peoples - the Eletebras.
The provinces were governed by governors - tuduns, whose duties included tax fees, duties and maintaining order in the territory entrusted.
Economy
Typical eastern medieval state, with all the traditions and lifestyle. The only difference is that it went through the stages from nomadic life to sedentary.
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 melons.
With the advent of cities, crafts develop. Jewelers, blacksmiths, potters, tanners and other craftsmen form the basis for domestic trade.
Know and the ruling elite, as well as the army, lived at the expense of looting and tribute from the conquered neighbors.
In addition, a significant income item was duties and taxes on goods that were transported through the territory of the kaganate. In view of the fact that the history of the Khazars is inextricably linked with the east-west crossroads, they simply could not help but take advantage of the opportunities.
In the hands of the kaganate was the way from China to Europe, under the control of the state was shipping on the Volga and the northern part of the Caspian Sea. Derbent became a wall separating the two warring religions - Orthodoxy and Islam. What gave an unprecedented opportunity for the emergence of intermediary trade.
Some people call such 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. Captured northerners perfectly sold out by Persians and Arabs. Girls are like concubines for harems and servants, men are like warriors, houseworkers and for other hard work.
The state also minted its own coin in 10-11 centuries. Although it was an imitation of Arab money, it is noteworthy that in the inscription “Muhammad is a prophet”, on the Khazar coins, the name “Moses” stood.
Culture and religion
Researchers get the basic information about the people from the original written sources. With nomadic tribes such as the Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsy, things are more complicated. An ordered collection of any documents simply does not exist.
And scattered inscriptions of a religious or everyday nature do not carry a large semantic load. Of these, only bits of information are obtained.
How much do we learn about the culture of the tribe from the inscription on the pot “made by Joseph”? Here, it will only be possible to understand that pottery and some linguistic traditions were widespread, for example, the names belong to different nations. 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. “Unreasonable Khazars” included several nationalities and tribes who spoke Slavic, Arabic, Turkic and Jewish dialects. The state elite 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 to the Khazar language of the existing ones is Chuvash.
Religions in the state were also different. However, by the time of the sunset of the kaganate, Judaism was becoming more and more prevailing and dominant. The history of the Khazars is thoroughly connected with it. In the 10-11 centuries, “peaceful cohabitation of faiths” came to an end.
Unrest even 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 affairs at the lower levels of society in view of the absence of any sources other than a few brief references. But more on that later.
Khazar documents
Amazing sources about the state of affairs in the state, its history and structure came to us, thanks to one Spanish Jew. A Cordoban court, named Khasday Ibn Shafrut, wrote a letter to the Khazar king asking him to tell about the Khaganate.
A similar act was caused by his surprise. Being a Jew himself, and highly educated, he knew about the distraction of his fellow tribesmen. And here, merchants from the east talk about the existence of a centralized, powerful and highly developed state in which Judaism dominates.
Since Khasdai was also responsible for diplomacy, he was an ambassador and turned to the kagan for true information.
He still got the answer. Moreover, he wrote (rather dictated) himself personally, "Melech Joseph, son of Aaron," the Khagan of the Khazar empire.
In the letter he reports a lot of interesting information. The greeting says that his ancestors had diplomatic ties with the Umayyads. Further, he tells about the history and structure 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 of the adoption of Judaism in the role of state religion. According to her, it was decided to replace paganism, which the Khazars used to profess. Who could do this in the best way? Of course the priests. A Christian, Muslim, and Jew were invited. The latter was the most eloquent and argued the rest.
According to the second version (not from the letter), the test for the priests consisted in deciphering the unknown scrolls, which, by “lucky coincidence,” turned out to be the Torah.
Further, the kagan tells about the geography of his country, its main cities and the way of life of the people. They spend spring and summer in a nomad, and return to the settlements in the cold season.
The letter ends with a boastful remark about the situation of the Khazar Khaganate as the main deterrent that saves Muslims from the invasion of the northern barbarians. Russia and the Khazars, it turns out, were very hostile in the 10th century, which led to the death of the Caspian state.
Where did the whole nation go?
And yet, the Russian princes, such as Svyatoslav, Oleg the Prophet, could not destroy all the people at the root. The Khazars had to stay and assimilate with the invaders or neighbors.
In addition, the army of mercenaries of the kaganate was also not small, since the state was forced to maintain peace in all the occupied territories and confront the Arabs with the Slavs.
To date, the following is recognized as the most plausible version. The empire owes its disappearance to a combination of several circumstances.
Firstly, the rise 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, cramped by a natural disaster, people began to escape and move to the north and west, where they faced the confrontation of their neighbors. So the princes of Kiev had the opportunity to "take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars." The reason was long 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 the weak position of the oppressors and revolted. Gradually, the provinces were lost one after another.
As a sum of all these factors, the weakened state fell as a result of the Rusich campaign, which destroyed the three main cities, including the capital. The prince's name was Svyatoslav. The Khazars could not oppose worthy opponents to the northern pressure. Mercenaries do not always fight to the end. Your life is more expensive.
The most plausible version of who are the surviving descendants is as follows. During assimilation, the Khazars merged with the Kalmyks, and today they are part of this people.
References in the literature
In view of the small amount of preserved information, works on the Khazars are divided into several groups.
The first is historical documents or religious controversy.
The second is fiction based on the motive of the search for the missing country.
The third is pseudo-historical works.
The main characters are the kagan (often as a separate character), Tsar or Bek Joseph, Shafrut, Svyatoslav and Oleg.
The main theme is the legend of the adoption of Judaism and relations between such peoples as Slavs and Khazars.
War with the arabs
In total, historians distinguish two armed conflicts in the 7-8 centuries. The first war lasted about ten years, the second - more than twenty-five.
The confrontation was a kaganate with three caliphates, which in the process of historical development replaced each other.
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, several images on the vessels have been preserved. Thanks to them, we can understand what the Khazars were like. Appearance, weapons, armor.
After ten years of haphazard skirmishes and local conflicts, Muslims decided on a massive attack, during which they suffered a devastating defeat under Belenjer.
The second war was longer and more prepared. It began in the first decades of the eighth century, and lasted until 737. During this military conflict, the Khazar troops reached the walls of Mosul. But in response, Arab troops captured Semender and the Hagan’s headquarters.
Similar clashes continued until the 9th century. After this, peace was concluded in view of strengthening the positions of Christian states. The border passed beyond the wall of Derbent, which was Khazar. Everything south belonged to the Arabs.
Russia and the Khazars
The Kiev prince Svyatoslav defeated the Khazars. Who will deny it? However, the fact reflects only the final relationship. What happened during the couple of centuries before the conquest?
The Slavs in the annals are mentioned by separate tribes (Radimichi, Vyatichi and others), who were subordinate to the Khazar Kaganate, until they were captured by the Prophetic Oleg.
It is said that he imposed them a lighter tribute with the only condition that they would not pay the Khazars now. Such a turn of events undoubtedly caused a corresponding reaction of the empire. But war is not mentioned in any source. We can only guess about it by the fact that peace was concluded and the Rus, the Khazars and Pechenegs went on joint campaigns.
That was such an interesting and difficult fate for this people.