Slavic tribes, as we have already said, settled in the zone of forests and forest-steppe. And since ancient times, the steppe was dominated by nomadic pastoralists. In the 6th century, the Huns were replaced by Avars, who subjugated part of the Slavic tribes on the Danube. In the VII-VIII centuries. power over the steppes passed to the Khazars. They, like their related Huns and Avars, spoke Turkic languages and achieved dominance over many Turkic and Iranian-speaking peoples of the Black Sea region and the North Caucasus. Among the Turkic peoples there were also Bulgarians who did not submit to the Khazars. They migrated across the Danube and, together with the Slavs who lived beyond the Danube, created their own state - Bulgaria. Another nomadic horde of Bulgarians retreated to the Middle Volga, where the state of Volga Bulgaria appeared. 
Nomadic warrior from the Black Sea region.
The Khazars also conquered the Slavic tribes that lived close to the steppes, in the Middle Dnieper region - the Polans, Northerners, Radimichi and Vyatichi on the Oka. Nomadic pastoralists could not do without farmers - after all, they and their livestock, primarily war horses, needed bread. Therefore, they demanded tribute from farmers. The Slavic farmers perceived it as a yoke - a yoke that was put on them, as if on arable animals.
The chronicle tells that the glades came under the rule of the Khazars after the death of the legendary founders of Kyiv. The ruler of the Khazars, the Khagan (Khan of Khans), demanded tribute, and the glades sent him swords as tribute. The wise Khazar elders predicted to the ruler: no good will come from this tribute, we achieved it with sabers - weapons sharpened on one side, and the swords of the glades are double-edged. With these more formidable weapons, the tributaries will defeat the Khazars and “will take tribute from us and other countries.” And so it came true, writes Nestor: in 965, Prince Svyatoslav defeated the army of the Kagan. 
Khazar warrior 9th century. He has a straight sword sharpened on one side, a battle ax and a bow with a quiver full of arrows. The horse's bridle and belt are decorated with silver plaques.
Having established themselves in the North Caucasus, the Khazars began to make campaigns in Transcaucasia and Crimea - the Black Sea possessions of Byzantium. But another wave of conquerors moved towards them from Western Asia. These were Arabs who spread a new religion, Islam, by force of the sword. At the beginning of the 8th century, they defeated the Khazars, but were unable to take possession of the steppes of the Black Sea region.
In order to govern the different peoples of Eastern Europe and negotiate with the Islamic Arab Caliphate and Christian Byzantium, the Khazars needed their own religion, a written law recognized by other peoples. The Khazar ruler could not become a Muslim or a Christian: he would be dependent on the caliph or the Byzantine emperor. But in the cities that fell under the rule of the Khazars in the Northern Black Sea region - Phanagoria, Tamatarch (Tmutarakan), Bosporus (Kerch) there lived Jewish communities that professed Judaism - the religion Old Testament. And he was revered by both Muslims and Christians. Therefore, the Khazar Kagan chose Judaism.
At the mouth of the Volga - the Khazars called it Itil - the capital of the Khazar Kaganate was built, also Itil (archaeologists still cannot find this city). The Kagan, his governor (bek) and other Khazars who converted to Judaism lived in the brick palace and the quarter that surrounded it. In another quarter, Muslims settled, including the Kagan’s guards, immigrants from the Central Asian state of Khorezm. In Itil there was also a community of Christians, and even pagans lived - Slavs and Rus'. In the lower reaches of the Don, with the help of Byzantine architects, the Kagan erected the white-stone fortress Sarkel (white tower), which protected the center of his domain.
Byzantium wanted to subordinate the Khazar Khaganate to its influence. In 861, a mission was sent there, led by a native of Greek city Soluni (Thessalonica) in Macedonia by Cyril, or Constantine, nicknamed the Philosopher for his learning (Cyril is the monastic name that Constantine took before his death). In Chersonesos, the main Byzantine city of Crimea, Constantine learned Hebrew and other languages. At the court of the Kagan, he conducted theological debates with learned Jews and even achieved that several Khazar families converted to Christianity. The Kagan himself remained faithful to the Jewish religion.
However, the missionary experience soon came in handy for Constantine.
Neighboring peoples wrote a lot about the Khazars, but they themselves left virtually no information about themselves. Just as suddenly the Khazars appeared on the historical stage, just as suddenly they left it.
The Khazars were first reported in the 5th century by the Armenian historian Moses Khorensky, who wrote that “crowds of Khazars and Basils, having united, crossed the Kura and scattered on this side.” The mention of the Kura River apparently indicates that the Khazars came to Transcaucasia from the territory of Iran. The Arab chronicler Yaqubi confirms this, noting that “the Khazars again took possession of everything that the Persians had taken from them, and held it in their hands until the Romans drove them out and installed a king over the four Armenians.”
Until the 7th century, the Khazars behaved rather modestly, being part of various nomadic empires - longest of all the Turkic Khaganate. But by the middle of the century they grew stronger and bolder so much that they created their own state - the Khazar Khaganate, which was destined to exist for more than three centuries.
The Byzantine and Arab chronicles describe in all colors the greatness of Itil, the beauty of Semender and the power of Belenjer. True, one gets the feeling that the chroniclers only reflected the rumors circulating about the Khazar Kaganate. Thus, the anonymous author, as if retelling a legend, answers the Byzantine dignitary that there is a country called “al-Khazar”, which is separated from Constantinople by 15 days of travel, “but between them and us there are many nations, and their king’s name is Joseph.”
Attempts by archaeologists to establish what the mysterious “Khazaria” was began to be actively undertaken in the 20-30s of the 20th century. But everything was unsuccessful. It turned out to be easiest to discover the Khazar fortress Sarkel (White Vezha), since its location was known relatively accurately. Professor Mikhail Artamonov managed to excavate Sarkel, but he could not find traces of the Khazars. “The archaeological culture of the Khazars itself remains unknown,” the professor sadly stated and suggested continuing the search in the lower reaches of the Volga.
Continuing Artamonov’s research, Lev Gumilev conducts his search for “Khazaria” on the unflooded islands of the Volga delta, but the list of finds attributed to the Khazar culture is small. Moreover, he was never able to find the legendary Itil.
Then Gumilyov changes his strategy and conducts underwater reconnaissance near part of the Derbent wall, which goes into the Caspian Sea. What he discovered amazes him: where the sea now splashes, people lived and needed drinking water! Even the medieval Italian geographer Marina Sanuto noted that “The Caspian Sea is growing year by year, and many good cities already flooded."
Gumilyov concludes that the Khazar state should be sought under the thickness sea water and sediments of the Volga delta. However, the attack came not only from the sea: a drought was approaching “Khazaria” from land, which completed what had been started by the Caspian.
What nature failed to do, the Russian-Varangian squads accomplished, finally destroying the once powerful Khazar Khaganate and scattering its multinational composition around the world. Some of the refugees after Svyatoslav’s victorious campaign in 964 were met in Georgia by the Arab traveler Ibn Haukal.
Modern researcher Stepan Golovin notes a very wide geography of settlement of the Khazars. In his opinion, “the Khazars of the delta mixed with the Mongols, and the Jews partly hid in the mountains of Dagestan, and partly moved back to Persia. Christian Alans survived in the mountains of Ossetia, and Turkic Khazars Christians moved to the Don in search of co-religionists.”
Some studies show that the Christian Khazars, having merged with their Don co-religionists, subsequently began to be called “wanderers”, and later Cossacks. However, more credible are the conclusions according to which the bulk of the Khazars became part of the Volga Bulgaria.
The 10th-century Arab geographer Istakhri claims that “the language of the Bulgars is similar to the language of the Khazars.” These loved ones ethnic groups What unites them is that they were the first to create their own states on the ruins of the Turkic Kaganate, which were headed by Turkic dynasties. But fate decreed that first the Khazars subjugated the Bulgars to their influence, and then they themselves joined the new state.
At the moment, there are many versions about the descendant peoples of the Khazars. According to some, these are Eastern European Jews, others call Crimean Karaites. But the difficulty is that we do not know what the Khazar language was: the few runic inscriptions have still not been deciphered.
Writer Arthur Koestler supports the idea that the Khazar Jews, having moved after the fall of the Khaganate to eastern Europe, became the core of the world Jewish diaspora. In his opinion, this confirms the fact that the descendants of the “Thirteenth Tribe” (as the writer called the Khazar Jews), being not of Semitic origin, ethnically and culturally have little in common with modern Jews of Israel.
Publicist Alexander Polyukh, in an attempt to identify the Khazar descendants, followed a completely unusual path. It is based on scientific findings, according to which the blood group corresponds to the way of life of the people and determines the ethnic group. Thus, Russians and Belarusians, like most Europeans, in his opinion, more than 90% have blood group I (O), and ethnic Ukrainians are 40% carriers of group III (B).
Polyukh writes that group III (B) serves as a sign of peoples who led a nomadic lifestyle (where he includes the Khazars), for whom it approaches 100% of the population.
Further, the writer reinforces his conclusions with new ones archaeological finds Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valentin Yanin, who confirms that Kyiv at the time of its capture by the Novgorodians (IX century) was not a Slavic city, as evidenced by the “birch bark letters”.
Also, according to Polyukh, the conquest of Kyiv and the defeat of the Khazars, carried out by Oleg, suspiciously coincide in terms of timing. Here he makes a sensational conclusion: Kyiv is the possible capital of the Khazar Kaganate, and ethnic Ukrainians are the direct descendants of the Khazars.
However, sensational conclusions may be premature. In the early 2000s, 40 kilometers south of Astrakhan, Russian archaeologists discovered “Khazar traces” during excavations in the medieval city of Saksin. A series of radiocarbon analyzes date the cultural layer to the 9th century - the heyday of the Khazar Khaganate. As soon as the settlement was outlined, its area was determined - two square kilometers. Which Big City besides Itil, did the Khazars build in the Volga delta?
It’s certainly too early to rush to conclusions, however, already now the pillars of Khazarology M. Artamonov and G. Fedorov-Davydov are almost sure that the capital of the Khazar Kaganate has been found. As for the Khazars, most likely they simply disappeared into the ethnoculture of neighboring peoples without leaving behind direct descendants.
Are the Khazars only a thing of history? No.
The Khazars still live in Crimea, or at least there is a people who think that they descended from the Khazars. Only now modern Khazars are known under the name Crimean Karaites, or Karai.
The Crimean Karaites are an amazing community that numbers only about 2,000 people.
Our editor Maxim Istomin, who recently visited the territory of Crimea, collected material about the Karaites, including official Karaite publications, and visited their shrines.
Modern
Khazars - Crimean Karaites
The illustration shows the seal and stamp of the last Karaite Crimean-Lithuanian gahan (khagan) Shapshal during the period of his emigration from Crimea to Lithuania in 1939.
The illustration shows the seal and stamp of the last Karaite Crimean-Lithuanian gahan (khagan) Shapshal during the period of his emigration from Crimea to Lithuania in 1939
In the illustration: Seal and stamp of the last Karaite Crimean-Lithuanian gahan (khagan) Shapshal during his emigration from Crimea to Lithuania in 1939.
This illustration is from the book of Gahan (Kagan) Shapshal about the Karaites “Karaites of the USSR in relation to ethnicity. Karaites in the service of the Crimean Khans,” published by the organization of Crimean Karaites “Krymkaraylar” in Simferopol in 2004.
In fact, the Karaite Crimean and Lithuanian Gahan was the only one in modern times direct heir to the power of the Khazar Kagan. Some sources indicate that until the beginning of the twentieth century, the head of the Crimean Karaite community was called gaham (from the Hebrew “hakham” - “sage”), but Shapshal changed the spelling of the traditional term “gaham” to “gahan”, citing the fact that the highest religious title Karaites does not come from the Hebrew word “hakham”, but from the Khazar word “kagan”.
The fact that the Khazar people (now the Crimean Karaites) exist today is in itself interesting fact. Even more interesting story with the Crimean Karaites it becomes when you start going into details.
Amazing
Features of the Crimean Karaite community
Let's list some of them:
1. Our own among strangers, strangers among our own. For many centuries, the religion of Karaites around the world has been identified with Judaism, which Karaites in all lands and countries, including Crimea and Lithuania, resist, and the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites, belonging to the worldwide Karaite faith, also resist attempts to attribute them to the Jewish people (unlike Karaites in other parts of the world, who recognize their Jewish roots, and separate from the Jews only on religious grounds). The Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites attribute their origin to the Turkic steppe nomads. And in order to differentiate themselves from other Karaites who recognize their ethnic connection with the Jewish homeland, the Karaites of Crimea call themselves Crimean (Crimean-Lithuanian) Karaites, or Karaites. In general, the word Karaite from Hebrew means “reader” or “person of the book, scripture.” The Karaite religion takes us back to ancient times.
2. Israel recognizes them as Jews, Hitler did not recognize them as Jews. During the Nazi occupation of Crimea, the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites and, as some sources write, personally the last Gahan (Kagan) (i.e. Khan of Khans) Karaite Hadji Serayya Khan Shapshal (in Russian transcription Serayya Markovich Shapshal) achieved official recognition by the German authorities of the Crimean- Lithuanian Karaites by a non-Jewish people, thanks to which the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites escaped Nazi repression. But in Israel, Karaites from all parts of the world are still considered, as the semi-official “Jewish Encyclopedia” writes, a “Jewish sect,” although they accept the special differences of the Crimean Karaites, as Jews who in ancient times assimilated with the Khazars. The Crimean Karaites believe that they were originally Khazars-Turks who accepted the Karaite faith, born in the Middle East, which has nothing in common with Judaism, but rather is close to early Christianity. Later, a number of Crimean Karaite families moved from Crimea to the Lithuanian-Polish state, which bordered the Crimean Khanate in the Middle Ages. Thus, according to the Crimean Karaites, the people of the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites or, as they are usually called, the Crimean Karaites, arose.
3. Loyal servants of the Crimean Khan. Crimean Karaites also emphasize their incredible devotion to the Crimean Khanate and its rulers. Their official publications indicate that even after the annexation of Crimea to Russia under Empress Catherine II and the expulsion of the last Crimean Khan, the Karaites voluntarily collected tribute from their community for the Crimean Khan and sent this money to the Khan in exile. The Karaites note their role under the Crimean khans as a kind of guard - the garrison of the Chufut-Kale fortress, which guarded the Crimean capital Bakhchisarai. The Karaites also controlled the Khan's mint and the prison for the Khan's prisoners. Many noble prisoners of the khan, including Moscow boyars-hostages, were kept in the prison guarded by Karaites.
4. A caste that was allowed to live only in cave cities - fortresses. But the Karaites under the Crimean khans were also a kind of outcast prisoners, although an honorable caste. Under the Crimean khans and the Ottomans, the Karaites were allowed to live only in the fortresses of Chufut-Kale and Mangup, guarding the property and prisoners of the Crimean khans. These fortresses, located on inaccessible mountain plateaus, also include cave cities.
The name of the main Karaite shrine, the Chufut-Kale fortress (translated from Turkic as “Jewish fortress”), became common in Crimea. But the Karaites prefer to call this impregnable mountain fortress, where Karaite prayer houses - kenas - still function, "Juft-Kale" (translated as "Double Fortress" due to the structural features of the walls). The Tatars called the fortress “Kyrk-Or” (“Forty Fortresses” - because of its inaccessibility). When talking about this fortress, the Karaites always mention that the last Khazar Khagan took refuge in this building before the final fall of the Khazar Khaganate a thousand years ago. However, the Khagans did not disappear a thousand years ago, as many people think. And the Crimean Karaites do not think so.
5. The heir to the power of the Khazar Kagan of our days is the Karaite Gahan. The last gahan (khagan) of the Karaites, Shapshal, ruled the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites until his death in 1961, regularly visiting “Juft Kale”. Although the Soviet authorities forced the Kagan after the Second World War to renounce his title and become a simple Soviet scientist, he remained a Kagan in the eyes of the Karaites even despite such an official renunciation.
We have listed the main amazing features Crimean Karaite communities. And now more about the Khazars and their heirs, an amazing relic of the past - the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites.
Khazars
- unusual steppe people
The Khazars remain a people widely known to the common man, despite the fact that this people disappeared from the historical arena many centuries ago, dissolving into the mass of other steppe ethnic groups. For Rus', the Khazars were remembered, first of all, for their endless military skirmishes - which is also mentioned in Pushkin’s “Song of the Prophetic Oleg”: “How is it going now?” prophetic Oleg to take revenge on the foolish Khazars, Their villages and fields for the violent raid He doomed to swords and fires...”
Also, the Khazars are still known to the general public because the Khazar state stood out sharply among other steppe inhabitants with its state religion. The Khazars were Jews. The Karaites believe that the Khazars were not Jews, but belonged to the Karaite religion.
Modern Israeli
publications about the Jewish state of the Khazars
The modern Israeli author Felix Kandel tells in his popular “Essays on Times and Events of Jewish History” that the Jewish people, scattered throughout the Western world and adjacent territories and deprived of statehood, were extremely surprised by the existence of the steppe Jewish state:
“(The Jews) depended on foreign rulers, they were representatives of a scattered and oppressed people, who had no political independence anywhere, and the Catholic clergy constantly emphasized that the Jews were a people despised by God and that all their former advantages had long since passed to Christians. That is why Spanish Jews reacted with such excitement to any rumors about the existence of independent Jewish states in unknown lands.
At the end of the ninth century, a man named Eldad appeared in Spain, who claimed to come from the tribe of Dan, one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. He reported that the four tribes - Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher - lived richly and happily under the scepter of the Jewish king in the country of Kush (Abyssinia) beyond the legendary Sambation River. This news shocked the Spanish Jews and brought them into indescribable excitement. After all, everyone knew that the ten tribes of Israel made up the population of the kingdom of Israel, and when it was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC new era, they were all taken into captivity - to Assyria, to Media, and from that moment on, the ten tribes of Israel seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. They were searched for, legends were created about them, strange people appeared from time to time, half-adventurers, half-dreamers, who assured everyone that they came from those places where these lost tribes lived independently under the rule of a just Jewish king - and they were believed, these people, because they really wanted to believe that not all the sons of the people live under someone else’s power and whim. Eldad from the tribe of Dan also reported that “the tribe of Shimon and half the tribe of Menashe live in the country of Kuzarim, far from Jerusalem, at a distance of six months’ journey, and they are numerous and innumerable, and the Ishmaelites pay them tribute.”
Obviously, Eldad, in his travels around the world, heard somewhere that Jews live in the “land of Kuzarim”, and about the tribes of Shimon and Monashe - this is his own addition.
Hasdai ibn Shaprut knew about the stories of Eldad from the tribe of Dan and - like all Spanish Jews - expected confirmation of this. And in the middle of the tenth century he learned from visiting Persian merchants from the city of Khorasan that somewhere in the east, in the distant steppes, there is a powerful Jewish state. At first he did not believe these merchants - and, indeed, it was difficult to believe - but soon envoys from Byzantium confirmed this message. There is such a state fifteen days' journey from Byzantium, its name is al-Khazar, and King Joseph rules there.
“Ships come to us from their country,” the envoys reported, “and bring fish and leather and all kinds of goods... They are in friendship with us and are revered among us... There is a constant exchange of embassies and gifts between us and them. They have military force, power and troops that go to war from time to time.”
The Jews received this news of the existence somewhere in the east of an entire kingdom that lives according to the laws of Moses with delight. They immediately decided that the Khazars were the descendants of Yehuda, and that in this way the biblical prophecy was fulfilled: “The scepter will not depart from Yehuda.”
Further, Felix Kandel, in his essays, which reflect the official idea of Jewish history in modern Israel and are recommended for study by a newly arrived Jewish immigrant to the country - aliyah, writes about the Khazars:
“Even when it later became clear that the Khazars were idolaters who had converted to Judaism, this did not shake sympathy for the unknown people. Jews read stories about the Khazars in subsequent centuries; there was a variety of Jewish literature on this topic, and the correspondence of Hasdai ibn Shaprut with King Yosef occupies a place of honor in it.
Hasdai ibn Shaprut immediately wrote a letter to the Khazar king:
“From me, Hasdai, son of Isaac, son of Ezra, from the descendants of the Jerusalem diaspora in Sefarad (Spain), the servant of my master, the king... that he may live long and reign in Israel...”
He initially sent this letter with a special envoy through Byzantium, but the emperor there kept the envoy for six months and then returned him back, citing the incredible dangers that lie in wait on the way to Khazaria - at sea and on land. Most likely, Christian Byzantium simply did not want to contribute to the rapprochement of European Jews with the Khazar Kaganate.
The persistent Hasdai ibn Shaprut then decided to send the letter through Jerusalem, Armenia and the Caucasus, but at that moment an opportunity arose - two Jews from Zagreb, who took his letter to Croatia, and from there it was sent to Hungary, then through Rus' to the Khazars.
Hasdai ibn Shaprut wrote in his letter that if the information about the Jewish state was correct, then he himself would
“neglected his honor and renounced his dignity, would leave his family and set off to wander over mountains and hills, over sea and land, until he came to the place where my lord the king is, to see his greatness, his glory and high position to see how his slaves live and how his servants serve, and the peace of the surviving remnant of Israel... How can I calm down and not think about the destruction of our magnificent Temple... when we are told every day: “every nation you have your own kingdom, but they don’t remember you on earth.”
In the same letter, Hasdai ibn Shaprut asked the king many questions - about the size of the state, about his natural conditions, about cities, about his army, but the most important questions: “from what tribe is he,” this king, “how many kings reigned before him and what are their names, and how many years did each of them reign, and what language do you speak.”
The Khazar Kagan Yosef received this letter, and two versions of his answer have survived to this day: a short and a lengthy version of his letter. It was written in Hebrew, and it is possible that it was not written by; the Kagan himself, and one of his associates - Jews. Yosef reported that his people came from the clan of Togarma. Togarma was the son of Japheth and grandson of Noah. Togarma had ten sons, and one of them was called Khazar. It was from him that the Khazars came.
At first, Yosef reported, the Khazars were few in number,
“They waged war with peoples who were more numerous and stronger than them, but with the help of God they drove them out and occupied the entire country... After that, generations passed until one king appeared among them, whose name was Bulan. He was a wise and God-fearing man, who trusted in God with all his heart. He eliminated fortune tellers and idolaters from the country and sought protection and protection from God.”
After Bulan, who converted to Judaism, King Yosef listed all the Khazar Jewish kagans, and they all had Jewish names: Obadiah, Hezkiyahu, Menashe, Hanukkah, Isaac, Zevulun, Menashe again, Nissim, Menachem, Binyamin, Aaron and finally the author of the letter — Yosef. He wrote about his country, what is in it
“no one hears the voice of the oppressor, there is no enemy and there are no bad accidents... The country is fertile and fat, consists of fields, vineyards and gardens. All of them are irrigated from rivers. We have a lot of different fruit trees. With the help of the Almighty, I live peacefully.”
Yosef was the last ruler of the powerful Khazar Khaganate, and when he sent his letter to distant Spain - no later than 961, he did not yet know that the days of his kingdom were already numbered.
At the end of the eighth - beginning of the ninth century, the Khazar Khagan Ovadiah made Judaism the state religion. This could not have happened by chance, out of nowhere: probably already then there were a sufficient number of Jews in Khazaria, in today’s language - a certain “critical mass” close to the ruler’s court, who influenced the adoption of such a decision.
Even under Bulan, who was the first to convert to Judaism, many Jews moved to the Eastern Ciscaucasia to escape Muslim persecution. Under Obadiah, as the Arab historian Masudi noted,
“many Jews moved to the Khazars from all Muslim cities and from Rum (Byzantium), because King Rum persecuted the Jews in his empire in order to seduce them into Christianity.”
Jews settled entire neighborhoods of Khazar cities, especially in Crimea. Many of them settled in the capital of Khazaria - Itil. Kagan Yosef wrote about those times: Ovadiah “corrected the kingdom and strengthened the faith according to the law and rule. He built houses of meeting and houses of learning and gathered together many wise men of Israel, gave them much silver and gold, and they explained to him the twenty-four books of the Holy Scripture, the Mishnah, the Talmud and the whole order of prayers.”
Obadiah's reform obviously did not go smoothly. The Khazar aristocracy in the distant provinces rebelled against the central government. She had Christians and Muslims on her side; the rebels called for help from the Magyars from across the Volga, and Ovadia hired the Ghuz nomads. The Byzantine emperor and historian Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote about this:
“When they separated from their power and an internecine war broke out, the central government gained the upper hand, and some of the rebels were killed, while others fled.”
But although the central government won, it is possible that Ovadia himself and both of his sons died in this struggle: otherwise how can one explain the fact that after Ovadia, power passed not to his direct heir, but to his brother?
Judaism continued to be the state religion, and Jews lived in peace in the territory of the Khazar Khaganate. All historians of those times noted the religious tolerance of the Khazar Jewish rulers. Jews, Christians, Muslims and pagans lived peacefully under their rule. The Arab geographer Istakhri wrote in the Book of Countries:
“The Khazars are Mohammedans, Christians, Jews and pagans; Jews are the minority, Mohammedans and Christians are the majority; however, the king and his courtiers are Jews... You cannot elect a person who does not belong to the Jewish religion as kagan.”
The Arab historian Masudi wrote in his book “Gold Pans” that in the capital of the Khazar kingdom
“seven judges, two of them for Muslims, two for the Khazars, who judge according to the law of the Torah, two for the local Christians, who judge according to the law of the Gospel, and one of them for the Slavs, Russians and other pagans, he judges according to the pagan law, then eat according to reason."
And in the “Book of Climates” by the Arab scientist Muqaddasi it is said quite simply:
“The country of the Khazars lies on the other side of the Caspian Sea, very vast, but dry and infertile. There are a lot of sheep, honey and Jews in it."
There were attempts to make Christianity the state religion of Khazaria. For this purpose, the famous Cyril, the creator of Slavic writing, went there in 860. He took part in a dispute with a Muslim and a Jew, and although it is written in his “Life” that he won the dispute, the Kagan still did not change his religion, and Cyril returned with nothing.
“Our eyes are fixed on the Lord our God, and on the wise men of Israel, on the academy that is in Jerusalem, and on the academy that is in Babylonia,”
- Kagan Yosef wrote in his letter. Having learned that Muslims had destroyed the synagogue in their lands, the Khazar Kagan even ordered the destruction of the minaret of the main mosque in Itil and the execution of the muezzins. At the same time he said:
“If I, truly, were not afraid that in the countries of Islam there would not be a single undestroyed synagogue, I would definitely destroy the mosque.”
After the adoption of Judaism, Khazaria developed the most hostile relations with Byzantium. First, Byzantium set the Alans against the Khazars, then the Pechenegs, then Prince of Kyiv Svyatoslav, who defeated the Khazars.
Today historians explain differently the reasons for the fall of the Khazar Kaganate. Some believe that this state has weakened as a result of constant wars with surrounding enemies.
Others claim that the Khazars’ adoption of Judaism, a peace-loving religion, contributed to a decline in the morale of the nomadic warlike tribes.
There are also historians today who explain this by saying that the Jews with their religion turned the Khazars from a “nation of warriors” into a “nation of traders.”
The Russian chronicle writes about this simply, without going into the reasons:
“Per year 6473 (965). Svyatoslav went against the Khazars. Hearing this, the Khazars came out to meet them, led by their prince Kagan, and agreed to fight, and in the battle Svyatoslav defeated the Khazars and took their city and the White Vezha...”
In other words, Svyatoslav took the Khazar capital Itil, took Semender on the Caspian Sea, took the Khazar city of Sarkel on the Don - later known as White Vezha - and returned to Kyiv.
“The Rus destroyed it all and plundered everything that belonged to the Khazar people,”
- wrote the Arab historian. After this, for several years in a row, the Ghuz tribes freely plundered the defenseless land.
The Khazars soon returned to their destroyed capital Itil and restored it, but, as Arab historians note, it was not Jews who lived there, but Muslims. At the end of the tenth century, Svyatoslav's son Vladimir again went against the Khazars, took possession of the country and imposed tribute on them. And again the cities of Khazaria were destroyed, the capital was turned into ruins; Only the Khazar possessions in the Crimea and on the shores of the Sea of Azov survived. In 1016, the Greeks and Slavs destroyed the last Khazar fortifications in Crimea and captured their kagan, George Tsulu, who was already a Christian.
Some researchers now believe that the Khazar Khaganate did not completely collapse at the end of the tenth century, but continued to exist as an independent, small state until the Mongol invasion. In any case, in the eleventh century the Khazars were still mentioned in the Russian chronicle as participants in a conspiracy against Prince Oleg of Tmutarakan, but this is the last mention of them in European sources. And only in the descriptions of Jewish travelers of subsequent centuries, the Crimean peninsula was still called Khazaria for a long time.” (Quote from history.nfurman.com. There is also a printed version of the book of these essays, published in Israel in Russian).
So writes Felix Kandel.
And here we smoothly move from the Khazars to the Crimean Karaites. According to official publications of the Crimean-Lithuanian Karaites, they are the descendants of the Khazars, who took refuge in Crimea after their defeat. Crimea became the last territory in which the Khazar public administration, and here was the last Khazar Khagan.
What the Crimean people themselves write Karaites about their origin and history. See our review
Opinion of a Turkish traveler of the 17th century. Celebi about the Karaites;
A modern Israeli view of the Karaites;
Modern Ukrainian publication about the ancestral nest of the Karaites;
Modern Karaite official publications do not confirm the fact of the transition of the Khazar Khagans to Christianity and reject any connection with Judaism and Jews. Moreover, the Crimean Karaites emphasize their difference from the Jews even in everyday life.
The last Karaite Gahan (Kagan) Shapshal in his already mentioned book about the Karaites “Karaites of the USSR in relation to ethnicity. Karaites in the service of the Crimean Khans” writes that “... among the Karaites and Tatars, the most favorite national dish is a combination of lamb with katyk (sour milk), while religious Jews do not allow mixing meat with milk in food.” Shapshal was an apologist for the doctrine of the Turkic origin of the Karaites, which is official for the Karaite leadership today.
Continued on.
A secret report leaked to the press reveals the true origins of the Jews, their plans to colonize Crimea, and more.
Rapid developments
Those who follow the situation in the Middle East know two things: always expect the unexpected, and do not underestimate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has political lives more than the proverbial cat.
More recently, news has emerged that Syrian rebels are planning to give the Golan Heights to Israel in exchange for creating a no-fly zone against the Assad regime. Israel took an even bolder step, deciding to at least temporarily relocate its settlers from communities outside the settlement blocs to Ukraine. Ukraine arranged this based on a historical connection and in exchange for badly needed military cooperation against Russia. This surprising turn of events has an even more surprising origin: genetics, a field in which Israeli scientists have long excelled.
Warlike Turkic people and mystery
It is well known that in the 8th-9th centuries, the Khazars, a warlike Turkic people, converted to Judaism and ruled large territory, which later became southern Russia and Ukraine. What happened to these people after Russia destroyed their empire around the eleventh century remained a mystery. Many believed that the Khazars became the ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews.
Khazar Empire, from the map of M. Schnitzler “The Empire of Charlemagne and the Empire of the Arabs”, (Strasbourg, 1857)
In attempts to deny historical Jewish claims to the land of Israel, Arabs have long invoked Khazar theory. During the UN debate on the division of Palestine, Chaim Weizmann sarcastically remarked: This is very strange. All my life I was a Jew, I felt like a Jew, and now I found out that I am a Khazarian. Prime Minister Golda Meir put it more simply: Khazars, shmazars. There are no Khazar people. I didn’t know a single Khazarian in Kyiv. Or to Milwaukee. Show me the Khazars you are talking about.
Warlike people: Khazar battle axe, ca. 7-9 centuries
With his 1976 book The Thirteenth Tribe, former Hungarian communist and scholar Arthur Koestler brought the Khazar theory to a wider audience, hoping that challenging the popular racial narrative of Jews would end anti-Semitism. It is clear that this hope did not come true. Recently, the liberal Israeli historian Shlomo Sand's book The Invention of the Jewish People took Koestler's thesis in an unexpected direction, arguing that because the Jews were a religious community, descended from converts, they were not a nation and did not need their own state. However, scientists rejected the Khazar hypothesis due to the lack of genetic evidence. Until recently. In 2012, Israeli researcher Eran Elhaik published the results of a study claiming to prove that Khazar genes are the single largest element in the Ashkenazi genetic pool. Sand declared himself vindicated, and progressive newspapers such as Haaretz and The Forward trumpeted the findings.
It seems Israel has finally admitted defeat. A group of top scientists from leading research institutions and museums recently provided the government with a secret report admitting that European Jews are in fact Khazars. (Whether this will result in yet another proposal to revise the text of HaTikvah remains to be seen.) On the face of it, this news is very bad, given the Prime Minister's relentless insistence on the need for Palestine to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" and end peace negotiations. But the Prime Minister was underestimated at his own peril. One of his assistants joked that when life hands you an etrog, you might as well build a hut.
In an unofficial report, he explained: At first we thought that recognizing ourselves as Khazars was one way to get around Abbas's demand that no Jew could remain in a Palestinian state. Perhaps we were grasping at straws. But when he refused to admit it, it forced us to look for more creative solutions. God's message was an invitation to the Jews to return from Ukraine. Transfer of all settlers to Israel in short time would be difficult for logistical and economic reasons. We certainly don't need another expulsion of settlers from Gaza.
Speaking off the record, a senior intelligence source said: “We are not saying that all Ashkenazi Jews will return to Ukraine. Obviously this is not practical. The press, as usual, is exaggerating and trying to sensationalize it; that’s why we need military censorship.”
Khazaria 2.0?
All Jews who wish to return will be accepted back even without citizen status, especially if they take part in the promised large-scale Israeli military cooperation, which includes soldiers, equipment, and the construction of new bases. If the first resettlement is successful, the rest of the West Bank settlers will also be invited to move to Ukraine. After Ukraine, activated by such support, regains control over its entire territory, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea will again become an autonomous Jewish entity. The small-scale successor to the medieval Khazar Empire (as the peninsula was once known) would be called Khazerai in Yiddish.
Khazar Empire, map of Europe during the era of Charlemagne. Compiled by: Karl von Spruner, historical and geographical manual atlas (Gotha, 1854)
“As you know,” the intelligence official continued, “the Prime Minister has said more than once: we are proud and ancient people, whose history in this territory goes back four thousand years. The same applies to the Khazars: they just returned to Europe and not so long ago. But look at the map: the Khazars did not have to live “within the borders of Auschwitz.”
No "Auschwitz borders": most of the Khazar Empire (in pink on the right) is clearly visible in this map of Europe circa 800 by Monin (Paris, 1841). The designated Khazar Empire can be compared to the empire of Charlemagne (pink on the left).
According to the Prime Minister, no one will tell Jews where they can or cannot live in the historical territory of their existence as a sovereign people. He is willing to make painful sacrifices for the sake of peace, even if it means giving up part of our biblical homeland of Judea and Samaria. But then we should expect that we will exercise our historical rights elsewhere. We decided that this would happen on the shores of the Black Sea, where we have been an indigenous people for more than two thousand years. Even great historian Semyon Dubnov, who rejected Zionism, said that we have the right to colonize Crimea. It's in all the history books. You can search
Old-new land?
Black Sea. The presence of the Khazars in Crimea and coastal regions is shown. Compiled by: Rigobert Bonnet, territory of the Roman Empire. East End(Paris, 1780). In the upper left corner are Ukraine and Kyiv. Right: The Caspian Sea, designated, as was customary, as the Khazar Sea.
According to a respected State Department Arabist, in hindsight this could have been predicted: the largely unnoticed report that Russia had stopped Israeli smuggling of Khazar artifacts, the decision of Spain and Portugal to grant citizenship to the descendants of exiled Jews, and evidence that former Defense Forces Israel led rebel groups supporting the Ukrainian government. And now there also remains a possibility that the missing Malaysian plane was sent to Central Asia.
An experienced Middle Eastern journalist said: It's problematic, but in a perverse way brilliant. In one fell swoop, Bibi managed to confuse both friends and enemies. He put the ball back in the Palestinian court and weakened the American pressure without actually making any real concessions. Meanwhile, by allying with the Syrian rebels and Ukraine, as well as with Georgia and Azerbaijan, he compensated for the loss of the alliance with Turkey and began to put pressure on Assad and Iran. And the new gas deal between Cyprus and Israel supports Ukraine and weakens the economic leverage of Russia and the Gulf oil countries. Simply brilliant.
World reaction
Most of the hasty comments were predictable:
Then: Khazar barbarian. A warrior with a prisoner, image from an archaeological site.
Now: Israeli border police with Palestinian protester.
Most “average Israelis,” who feel that Netanyahu is not doing enough for peace but also doubt the sincerity of the Palestinians, are skeptical and despairing. One woman said sadly: We all want agreement, but we just don't know how to achieve it. All we see now is Hazerai.
Update from the article's editor: Recent news, including Vladimir Putin's recognition of Crimea as a "sovereign and independent state" and estimates that the resettlement of Israeli settlers under any peace agreement would cost ten billion dollars, confirms the details of this article.
