What kind of people are the Khazars? Ancient and modern Khazars. Descendants of the Khazars

If you are asked about the Khazars, you will probably be able to vaguely remember Pushkin's poem dedicated to Oleg the Prophet. The same one in which the prince quickly set off to “take revenge on the foolish Khazars.” But this people could only be called unreasonable from the heights of past times. During the heyday of the Khazar Kaganate state, the Khazars were cunning, brave, enterprising and furious. So that you can verify the veracity of this statement, let us briefly introduce the Khazar Khaganate on the pages of this small study.

1. Where was the Khazar Kaganate?

The question is fundamental. After all, if Khazaria was located in the region of China, this is one thing, but if it was adjacent to the territory of Slavic tribes, it is completely different. It's always more interesting to learn about your neighbors. Yes, the Khazars were neighbors of the Russians. Moreover, both during the times of princely civil strife and during the existence of Kievan Rus, there were quite strong economic ties between the Slavs and Khazars. Also, the state of Khazaria had connections with Byzantium, and with the Arab Caliphate, and with Volga Bulgaria.

However, it is impossible to say definitely what territory the Khazar Kaganate occupied. This is due to the fact that its borders were not something immutable and were not marked along the perimeter. Roughly speaking, in the south the Kaganate extended to Derbent, in the southwest it included the Crimea, in the northwest it continued to the Don River, and in the east to the Yaik River (Ural).

Map of the Khazar Khaganate.Bright orange indicates the borders of the country in 650 AD, light orange - in 750, yellow-orange - in 850. Yellow color - territories that paid tribute to the Kaganate.

2. Brief history of the Khazar Kaganate

Any story begins, as usual, with chronicles. The Khazars “appeared” in the Byzantine for 582 AD. Then there was neither a rumor nor a spirit about the tribes, except that sometimes the Arabs mentioned their military skirmishes with the Khazars.

In 650 the state became independent. The founder of the Khazar Kaganate is a ruler from the once powerful Turkic family of Ashin, but completely defeated by the Arabs. He managed to “put together” the ruling elite of the Kaganate and set off on an aggressive campaign.

Presumably, the Khazar flag and the Khazar Khagan.

In general, the entire history of Khazaria is an ongoing military confrontation with the Arabs, cooperation with Byzantium, and short-term relations with various other tribes, who were used either as allies or as “subjects” (those who, after conquest and pogroms, were obliged to pay tribute). The stumbling block of the Arab-Khazar wars has always been Armenia and Albania.

Arabian stage

• 650 - capture of Great Bulgaria by Khazaria.
• 655 - capture of Crimea
• 670 - 690 - capture of part of the future Kievan Rus (+ Black Sea and Caspian steppes)
• 684 - invasion of Albania, Armenia, Georgia. The territories are subject to tribute.
• 710 - conquest of Derbent (from the Arabs).
• 721 – 737 - Arab-Khazar war, waged with varying success. In the end, the Arabs are victorious, but withdraw and the Khazars are restored.

Arab warriors

After the defeat, the Khazars stopped actively seizing nearby lands and focused on the economy. Thus, one of the noble Khazars, according to legend, converted to the Jewish faith after seeing an angel in a dream. And then this comrade becomes a kagan. And Judaism comes to the top of Khazar society. In addition, the Khazars peacefully move north, fearing a new invasion of the Arabs, and colonization proceeds without undue cruelty.

By the year 800, the Khazar Kaganate increased its territory, the Khazars extended their power to the Oka and Dnieper.

At the same time, the capital “moved” from Semendera (Caucasus) to the beautiful and large city of Itil on the Volga.

Hungarian stage

Around the 800-850s, the main problem of the Khazars became relations with the Finno-Ugric/Hungarians, or, as they were called then, with the “Burtas” tribes. At first the Burtases were subordinate. Together with the Hungarians, the Khazars captured Kyiv. And then a bloody war begins between the old allies.

Hungarian warrior

At the same time, clear borders of the state were established (Derbent from the south, Yaik from the east, Crimea from the west, Kama Bulgaria from the north). The Jewish community defeats the rebels in the capital. The legendary Sarkel fortress is being built, the treasures of which are being sought today at the bottom of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir. In 865, Judaism became the state religion of the Khazars.

Russian stage

At this time, in the northwest of the Khazar Kaganate, a young state was being formed, familiar to us by its painfully native name - Rus'. And the main activities of the Khazar Kaganate are becoming more and more peaceful. And in vain, as it turned out.

In 885, the ruler of Rus', a certain Oleg (later called the Prophetic) declared war on the Khazars. He repels a couple of Slavic tribes and imposes tribute on them instead of the Khazars. And the Kaganate is tormented at this time by the Pechenegs, Alans and Guzes.

In 964, the war between Khazaria and Russia unfolded at full power. Numerous by the standards of that time (about 40 thousand warriors) were the troops of Prince Svyatoslav. In 965, Svyatoslav took Sarkel, Itil, and even the old capital Semender.

A Russian ship arrives at a Khazar fortress.

After such a pogrom carried out by the Russians, the Kaganate, most likely, “ordered to live long.” Svyatoslav did not hold back Kozaria, and it leaned toward Khorezm, a Muslim state.

But this was not the end. In 985, Prince Vladimir, who is our “Red Sun,” again trampled through the Kaganate and captured its strategic points. And he imposed tribute. By the way, Vladimir was wondering what faith to accept, and was considering the option of Judaism (the fundamental religion of the Khazar Kaganate). If he had come across a smart enough Khazar preacher, who knows how the history of Kievan Rus would have turned out?

Independent stage

After the destructive campaigns of Vladimir, the Khazar Kaganate became an independent country - one on which nothing else depended. It shrank in size (including due to the fact that the level of the Caspian Sea rose and the territories were flooded), shrank in ambitions, and turned into a principality centered on the ancient capital of Semender. It disappeared after the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1238-1239 .

3. Population of the Khazar Kaganate

Bek's daughter in the Khazar Kaganate

Despite the fact that the Khazars’ religion was Jewish, and they spoke a Slavic dialect, their tribal union originally belonged to the Turkic linguistic branch. After all, the tribe realized itself after the collapse of the Western Turkic Kaganate. The Khazars themselves considered Togarama, the biblical ancestor of the Turks, to be the founder of their tribe. At the same time, the Khazar Kaganate included not only Turkic language families; there were representatives of Hunnic, Iranian and Ugric tribes.

In the eighth century AD. “Khazars” - “Kozars” called all subjects of the Kagan and Bek. And among them there were Jews and Slavic tribes. Thus, the Kaganate was a multinational federation.

Here is an approximate list of “subjects of the Khazar federation”:

• Azov and Volga Bulgars
• Burtases
• Crimean Goths
• Iranians
• Magyars-Hungarians
• Don Alans
• Caucasian highlanders
  and etc.

Historical fact

The traveler Ibn Haukal (10th century) once divided the Khazars into two parts - “kara-Khazars” (black, similar to Hindus) and “abyad” (white, beautiful).

4. Religion of the Khazar Khaganate

Here, as you already understand, everything is simple. The multinational composition provided a variety of denominations. That is, fans of different faiths felt good in the Kaganate. Occasionally, only Muslims were persecuted, but this was due to the ongoing Arab-Khazar skirmishes and wars.
The religion of the ruling elite and the main layer of Khazar society was Judaism. Where did he come from?

Let us remember that Islam appeared in 613, and the Khazars, although they gravitated towards the East, simply did not know about it. But ethnic Jews began to arrive from the south in the 450s. Yes, right from where they were driven out by the evil Assyrians, who forcibly implanted Zoroastrianism. There is an opinion that this was one of the ten disappeared tribes of Israel, descended from Shim'on (son of Jacob). One way or another, the Khazars accepted the Jews and mixed with them.

Perhaps this was the main reason for the adoption of Judaism in one particular mysterious eastern country.

Khazar rabbis

Or maybe there were other reasons. Political, for example. To spite their rivals, the Arabs and Byzantines, something had to be done. Or economic. After all, Jews are capital, an influx of capital into Khazaria, exhausted by conquests and pogroms.

Historical fact

Yehuda ha-Levi, a 12th-century Jewish philosopher, recounts the story of the Khazar king Kuzari's adoption of Judaism. As if this king had invited a devout Jew, a Karaite, a Muslim, a philosopher of the Aristotelian school and a Christian. And he conducted dialogues with them about religion. Of course, HaLevi's work affirms the superiority of Judaism.

5. Development and achievements of the Khazar Khaganate

Political system

Initially, somewhere in the 7th century, the head of the Kaganate was the Kagan. But later he turned into an iconic, sacred figure - a symbol of Khazaria.

Real power belonged to the bek (shad), the military leader. He was in charge not only of the troops, but also of the country's economy, the collection of tribute and taxes. This administration of the Khazar Khaganate was formed in the first half of the 8th century.

Both the bek and the kagan were elected for a certain term.

How was the Kagan appointed?

They began to strangle the candidate with a silk cord and at the same time asked how many years he wanted to “be in the kingdom.” When he named a number in a half-suffocated state, they approved him. If the kagan died before the appointed time, he was lucky, and if he “stayed late at his post,” he was killed.

Power in the “climate” provinces belonged to the tuduns. This title roughly corresponds to the concept of “viceroy”, because The tuduns reported directly to the bek. There is information that the tuduns of some towns themselves called themselves shads and beks, so for historians the question of the unity of Khazaria remains open.

Economy and main occupations of the population

The activities of the Khazar Khaganate were not too intricate. As usual, the Khazars raised livestock - mainly bulls and rams due to religion. They sold it too. They also sold slaves, the surplus of which was constantly felt after raids and wars. Tribute from the conquered peoples was also exported - the furs of sables, ermines, foxes, and beavers.

Warrior of the Khazar Khaganate

Viticulture predominated among agricultural activities, and Khazar wines were at a premium.
Interestingly, another source of state income was the export of fish glue. Khazaria used its coastal position as best it could.

But the most profitable main occupation of the population of the Khazar Kaganate was trade. Trade routes simply penetrated the Khaganate length and breadth. Trade caravans followed the path “from the Germans to the Khazars”, from the cities of Regensburg, Prague, Krakow; The route from the Arabs to the Baltic and Scandinavia ran along the Caspian Sea. A section of the Great Silk Road from China to Europe passed through the Black Sea, and caravans stretched across the steppes of Central Asia to the Urals.

And all these “threads” connecting European civilizations with eastern ones were held in the hands of the Khazars. The Jews were in charge of trade. The “currency” of the Khazar Kaganate, sheleg, was highly valued in the countries of Central Asia, which indicates a fairly “advanced” level of the economy.

Legacy of the Khazar Khaganate

If you put everything into detail, this is what you get.

1. Kaganate defended Europe from Arab invasion
2. The administrative system of the Kaganate was borrowed by Kievan Rus: for example, for two centuries (before Vladimir Svyatoslavovich) the great princes were called “Kagans”, despite the fact that there was a second branch of power - the military, headed by the “voevoda”.
3. The Russians also borrowed the tax system - in the sense that they took the same amount of tribute from the former Khazar “subjects”.
4. Historian V. Mavrodin argued that the pre-Cyrillic writing of the Rus was created on the basis of Khazar symbols.
5. In Kyiv, the names of objects that have remained since the times of the Khazars-Jews have been preserved - the Zion Mountains, the Jordan River.
6. Perhaps the self-name of the “Cossacks” community came from the name “Khazars” (“Kozars” in Old Russian).

6. Treasures of the Khazar Kaganate

There was money in Khazaria. There was also unimaginable luxury, and the zealous Jews probably hid their silver and gold, because times in the Kaganate were always turbulent - either a raid or a war. This means that treasures should have remained.

The Kaganate knew how to make gold items.

You can search for Khazar gold and silver in the Kuban, Donetsk region of Ukraine, as well as at the mouth of the Volga River. Most likely, you will have to prepare for an underwater search: the location of the capital of the Kaganate has not been clarified, but there is an assumption that it sank to the bottom of the Caspian Sea. In the Caucasus region you can try to find Semendera, and at the bottom of the Tsimlyansk reservoir in the Rostov region of the Russian Federation - the Sarkel fortress.

It is better to choose reputable search equipment - high-frequency deep metal detectors, ground penetrating radars.

Good luck. Maybe you'll get lucky and make an archaeological discovery worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

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 direct heir to the power of the Khazar Khagan in modern times. 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) still exist today is an interesting fact in itself. The story of the Crimean Karaites becomes even more interesting 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 of the Crimean Karaite community. 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 are remembered, first of all, for their endless military skirmishes - which is also mentioned in Pushkin’s “Song of the Prophetic Oleg”: “How the prophetic Oleg is now planning to take revenge on the foolish Khazars, Their villages and fields for the violent raid he condemned 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, they were all taken into captivity - to Assyria, to Media, and from that moment the ten tribes of Israel seemed to disappear from faces 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 strength, 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 its natural conditions, about cities, about his army, but the most important questions: “what tribe is he from,” 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 all kinds of 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 Obadia himself and both of his sons died in this struggle: otherwise how can one explain the fact that after Obadia, 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 the Kyiv prince 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 Kiev.

“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 Khazar government was maintained, and the last Khazar Khagan was located here.

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.

The history of the Khazar Khaganate, the largest and strongest state in Eastern Europe in the 8th-9th centuries, still raises many questions. The Kaganate was a multi-confessional state in which Jewish, Muslim, pagan and Christian communities existed on equal terms. Perhaps this was also due to the multi-ethnic composition of Khazaria, whose population was a motley mixture of different ethnic groups. Ugrians, Turks, Iranian-speaking Alans - they were both the conquerors of these territories and the vanquished. These and other questions are answered in the book of orientalist Novoseltsev “Khazar Kaganate”.

The Lomonosov publishing house published a book by the famous orientalist Anatoly Novoseltsev, “The Khazar Kaganate.” Novoseltsev (1933-1995) is known as the largest Russian orientalist, including one of the best researchers of the Khazars.

In the book “Khazar Kaganate” he examines versions of the origin of this ethnic group, the structure of their state and how it influenced the history of Eastern Europe.

Novoseltsev, in particular, cites the opinions of foreign and domestic historians and archaeologists. For example, the historian Grushevsky noted the role of Khazaria (until the 10th century) as a barrier to Europe from the new nomadic Asian hordes, rightly considering the Khazar state in the 8th-9th centuries to be the strongest state in Eastern Europe. And the American historian Dunlop believed that the Khazar state existed until the 13th century (although its defeat by the Rus at the end of the 10th century greatly weakened and fragmented the Kaganate).

The idea of ​​the Hungarian historian Barth that Khazaria was a trading state (and not nomadic or semi-nomadic) is interesting. It is noteworthy that he observed that almost all the settlements of the Kaganate were located in river basins. This, by the way, was a common characteristic feature of Eastern Europe at that time, including Rus'.

One of the sections of Novoseltsev’s book concerns the issue of the ethnic origin of the Khazars. As is known, the Kaganate was a multi-confessional state in which Jewish, Muslim, pagan and Christian communities existed on equal terms. Perhaps this was also due to the multi-ethnic composition of Khazaria, whose population was a motley mixture of different ethnic groups. With the permission of the Lomonosov publishing house, we publish an excerpt from the book by Anatoly Novoseltsev, which talks about the ethnic composition of Khazaria.

“Since the 4th century, together with the tribes of the Hunnic Union, a stream of Finno-Ugric and proto-Turkic tribes poured into Eastern Europe from Siberia and more remote areas (Altai, Mongolia). They found a predominantly Iranian (Sarmatian) population in the steppe regions of Eastern Europe, with whom they entered into ethnic contacts. Throughout the 4th-9th centuries, in this part of Europe there was a mixing and mutual influence of three ethnic groups: Iranian, Ugric and Turkic. Ultimately the latter prevailed, but it happened quite late.

The nomads of the Hunnic association primarily occupied lands suitable for cattle breeding. However, their predecessors - Alan, Roksolan, etc. - they could not, and did not want to completely drive them away from these lands and for some time wandered with them or nearby. In the Eastern Ciscaucasia there were just such lands suitable for cattle breeding, and the nomads of the Hunnic association rushed here immediately after the defeat of their main enemies - the Alans. The Alans suffered great losses in this struggle, but survived in the North Caucasus, although mainly in its central part, and their closest relatives, the Massagetae-Mascouts, lived in the coastal zone of modern Dagestan and neighboring regions of present-day Azerbaijan. It was here that, obviously, there was an intensive synthesis of local Iranians (and possibly Caucasians) with newcomers, who in this area were called Huns for quite a long time, perhaps because among them the Hunnic element was very influential.

However, it was not the Huns who played the main role in the ethnogenesis of the Khazars, but primarily the tribe of Savirs - the same Savirs (Sabirs) by whose name, according to al-Mas'udi, the Turks called the Khazars.

For the first time, Sabirs-Savirs appear in sources for Eastern Europe in connection with the events of 516/517, when, having passed the Caspian Gate, they invaded Armenia and further into Asia Minor. Modern researchers unanimously consider them to be natives of Western Siberia.

It can be reasonably believed that the Finno-Ugric tribes of southern Siberia were called Savirs, and perhaps the very name Siberia goes back to them. It seems that this was a significant tribal association in the south of Western Siberia. However, the advance of the Turkic hordes from the east pressed the Savirs and forced them in groups to leave their ancestral territory. So the Savirs, together with the Huns or later, under pressure from some enemies, moved to Eastern Europe and, finding themselves in the North Caucasus, came into contact with the multi-ethnic local population. They belonged to various tribal associations and sometimes headed them.

In the period from approximately the second decade to the 70s of the 6th century, the Savirs in this area are especially often mentioned by Byzantine authors, especially Procopius of Caesarea, as well as Agathias. As a rule, the Savirs were in alliance with Byzantium and fought against Iran, and this is evidence that they lived near the famous fortifications of Chokly-Chora (Derbent), which were re-fortified in the first half of the 6th century and took the form that has survived to this day. days.

And then the Savirs somehow immediately disappear from almost all sources about the North Caucasus, although the memory of them was preserved in the Khazar legends set forth by King Joseph. At the same time, in the “Armenian Geography” the Savirs are present among the tribes of Asian Sarmatia to the east of the Khons (Huns), Chungars and Mends (?) to the Tald River, which separates the Asian Sarmatians from the country of the Apakhtarks. This news is contained in the section “Ashkharatsuytsa”, which gives the impression of a complex combination of sources from different times. There is a lot that is unclear here, including the ethnonyms “Chungars” and “Mend”; it is not easy to identify the Tald River (perhaps it is Tobol). But the word “apakhtark” is explainable from the Middle Persian language as “northern”, and therefore it is possible to assume that this part of the text goes back to unpreserved versions of Sasanian geographies, which the author of “Ashkharatsuyts” undoubtedly used enjoyed it. And then this news dates back to the 6th century. True, the continuation of this text again looks strange, because it says that these Apakhtark (plural) are Turkestanians, their king (“tagovar”) is Khakan, and Khatun is the Khakan’s wife. This part is clearly artificially “fastened” to the previous one and could have appeared in connection with the Turkic Kaganate, whose inhabitants were “northern” residents in relation to Iran.

It is quite possible that it was the Turkic Kaganate that was responsible for the death of the Savir Union. Probably, the resettlement of part of the Savirs to Transcaucasia, which is mentioned by the Byzantine historian of the 6th century Menander the Protector, is connected with this event. These are, obviously, the same “sabartoyaspaloi”, about whose departure to Persia Konstantin Porphyrogenitus writes, although he mistakenly connects their resettlement with the events of the 9th century (the war of the “Turks” and the Pechenegs).

It is not difficult to prove that Konstantin Porphyrogenitus is wrong. Ibn al-Faqih, who wrote at the beginning of the 10th century, mentions savir as al-sawardiya. Al-Mas'udi places the Siyavurdiyya on the Kura River below Tiflis, indicating that they are a branch of the Armenians. The Armenian historian of the first half of the 10th century, Yovannes Draskhanakertsi, places sevordik (plural, singular - sevordi) near the city of Ganja. If the Sevardians were Armenianized in the first half of the 10th century, as V.F. Minorsky believes, then this could not have happened within the lifetime of two or three generations, so their resettlement to Transcaucasia took place long before the 9th century, most likely in the 6th-7th centuries .

The collapse of the Savir Union was, apparently, a notable event in the history of Eastern Europe at that time, and only the limitations of our sources do not allow us to determine its scale. After this, the Savirs, in addition to Transcaucasia, appear under the name Savar in the Middle Volga region, where Volga Bulgaria arose.

But some part of the Savirs remained in the Eastern Ciscaucasia when the flow of Turkic tribes poured here. Among them could be the Turkic Xhosa tribe, known from Chinese sources. Researchers associate the ethnonym “Khazars” with it, although other options can be assumed. Perhaps it was this Turkic tribe that then, during the second half of the 6th century and later, assimilated the remnants of the Savirs in the Ciscaucasia, as well as some other local tribes, as a result of which the Khazar ethnic group was formed.

Among these assimilated tribes there was undoubtedly a part (northern) of the Maskuts, as well as some other tribes, in particular the Basils (Barsilii), Balanjars, etc. Balanjars are mentioned in Primorsky Dagestan in Arabic sources, and for the beginning of the 10th century - in the Middle Volga region (in the form of baranjars). Associated with this ethnonym is the city of Balanjar, which is obviously identical to Varachan. As for the basils, they are worth a special mention, although it is possible that basils and balanjars are one and the same.

(Khazar coin)

The Basils are mentioned several times by Movses Khorenatsi in sections of his history related to the semi-legendary account of the activities of the ancient Armenian kings (Valarshak, Khosrov and Trdat III), and once they appear together with the Khazars, which is, of course, unrealistic for the 2nd-3rd centuries. This information cannot be accurately commented on; it only indicates that the Basil tribe was known in Armenia in the 5th-6th centuries. In “Ashkharatsuyts” the strong people of the Basils (“amranaibaslatsazgn”) are placed on the Atil River, obviously in its lower reaches.

But let us remember that Michael the Syrian calls Barsilia the country of the Alans. From this we can assume that initially the Barsilii (Basils) were an Alan (Iranian) tribe, which was then Turkified and merged with the Khazars in the Eastern Ciscaucasia, and with the Bulgars in the Western Ciscaucasia. The latter is confirmed by information from Ibn Ruste and Gardizi about the Bulgar tribe (in Ibn Ruste’s text “sinf” - “species, category”, in Gardizi “gorukh” - “group”) Barsula (in Gardizi - darsula). In total, these authors have three groups (types) of Bulgars: Barsula, Esgal (Askal) and Blkar, that is, the Bulgars themselves. If we compare this with the division of the Volga Bulgars according to Ibn Fadlan, we will discover a curious thing. Ibn Fadlan, in addition to the Bulgars themselves, names the Askal tribe, but does not mention the Barsilians. But he has the Al-Baranjar clan, and this perhaps confirms the identity of the Turkified Basils (Barsils) and Balanjars.

Sources give rather contradictory information about the ethnicity of the Khazars. They are often classified as Turks, but the very use of the ethnonym “Turks” was not always certain until the 11th century. Of course, in Central Asia, and even in the caliphate of the 9th-10th centuries, the Turks were well known, from whom the guard of the caliphs was formed. But it’s one thing to know “your” Turks, and another thing to understand the diversity of ethnic groups that literally walked across the vast steppe spaces of Eurasia. Among these hordes, the Turks undoubtedly prevailed in the 9th-10th centuries, absorbing not only the remnants of the Iranians, but also the Ugrians. The latter were part of political associations in which the Turks played the main role, and when the same Ugrians broke away from them, the name Turks could remain with them for some time, as was the case with the Hungarians in the first half of the 10th century.

In general, the writers of that time clearly saw the fluidity of the steppe population and its continuity. For example, Menander the Protector wrote that the Turks were formerly called Sakas. In this statement of his, as in the persistent calling of the North Caucasian nomads by Armenian sources as Huns or by Arab sources of the Khazars in the 8th century as Turks, one must see not only a tribute to historical tradition, but also an awareness of the fact that the Huns or Turks who formerly lived in the North Caucasus did not disappear, but merged with the same Khazars and therefore could be identified with them. During the period when the Turks became the dominant ethnic element in the steppes from Altai to the Don (IX-X centuries), Muslim authors often included Finno-Ugrians and even sometimes Slavs among them.

(Reconstruction of the capital of Khazaria - the city of Itil)

But some Arab writers of the 9th-10th centuries still separated the Khazars from the Turks. The Khazar language, as proven by linguists, is Turkic, but it, together with Bulgar, belonged to a separate group, quite different from other Turkic languages, the most widespread in the 9th-10th centuries (Oghuz, Kimak, Kipchak, etc.), well known in the Muslim world . This, obviously, explains the seemingly strange fact that Muslim authors give contradictory data about the Khazar language. In the 11th century, when Mahmud of Kashgar compiled his famous “Dictionary of the Turkic Language,” the Khazar language was already disappearing, and the scientist did not record its vocabulary. But Mahmud uses the Bulgar language in his vocabulary, and this is solid evidence of belonging to the Turkic family and the Khazar language, the closest relative of the Bulgar language. Differences between them, of course, existed, but at our current level of knowledge they are elusive.

By the time the Jews arrived in Khazaria, white and black Khazars lived quite amicably in this provincial state. White Khazars- This is the ruling caste of professional warriors from the Slavic-Aryans. Black Khazars- these are Turkic tribes who came to the lower reaches of the Ra River (Itil - Volga) from the depths of Asia, as refugees from Ancient China. They left their homeland following the Dinglin tribes, their allies in the struggle for independence against the ancient Chinese. In principle, the black Khazars are representatives of yellow peoples with an admixture of black ones. They had pitch black hair, black eyes and dark skin. This is what gave rise to the name – Black Khazars, because in comparison with the fair-haired and blue-eyed Slavic-Aryans, they looked very dark.

One way or another, Khazaria existed as a multinational state-province in which Whites and Yellows coexisted peacefully. Just like with all your neighbors. The Great Silk Road passed through the Khazar Khaganate, this is exactly what the Persian Jews from the tribe of Simon liked very much.

Jews from Persia and Byzantium

First, Mazdakite Jews appeared in Khazaria, and very soon they were joined by anti-Mazdakite Jews expelled from the Byzantine Empire.

Mazdakite Jews. At the beginning of the 6th century AD. In the Persian Empire, under the vigilant leadership of Exarch Mar-Zutra, the Jews organized the first revolution under the slogans of Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood (these events are better known as the uprising of the Vizier Mazdak). The ruling caste was destroyed - the White Persians - the descendants of the Slavic-Aryans, who created the Persian Empire. They were declared "enemies of the people" and their wealth was expropriated, which was divided between the poor Jews and the Jewish leaders. But such “justice” and “equality” were not appreciated by the Persian poor and the remnants of the Persian nobility. They organized a counter-revolution, and in Summer 6038 from S.M.Z.H. (529 AD) Kavad was overthrown, and the vizier Mazdak was brutally executed, along with his supporters who could be found. However, the Mazdakite Jews managed to leave the “country of social equality and brotherhood” they had created, along with the looted wealth of the Persian nobility, and settled in Khazaria.

Anti-Mazdakite Jews- These are the rich Jews of Persia who opposed Mazdak. But “for some reason” the Jewish revolutionaries did not touch them, but simply expelled them from Persia along with their wealth. Anti-Mazdakite Jews asked for refuge from the “Persian Revolution” from the emperor of the Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire). The Romans accepted the anti-Mazdakite Jews and, it would seem, the latter should at least be grateful to the Roman Empire. But the Jewish “gratitude” turned out to be very strange:

“The Jews who found salvation in Byzantium should have helped the Byzantines. But they helped in a rather strange way. Making secret agreements with the Arabs, the Jews opened the gates of the cities at night and let in the Arab soldiers. They slaughtered the men and sold the women and children into slavery. The Jews, buying up slaves cheaply, resold them at a considerable profit for themselves. The Greeks could not like this. But, deciding not to make new enemies for themselves, they limited themselves to inviting the Jews to leave. Thus, a second group of Jews appeared in the lands of the Khazars - the Byzantine one."

Judean Khazar Khaganate

Main trade routes through the Khazar Khaganate:
1. The Silk Road from China to Northern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (through the Roman Empire).
2. Trade route from Great Biarmia and Siberia to the South, through Constantinople to the Middle East and Africa.
3. Trade route from Africa through the Middle East to the North and East.
4. Trade route from northern European countries.

The next Night of Svarog was approaching - a time desired by the Jews, when they could easily “press” the necessary “buttons” of human animal nature and, manipulating this, achieve their cherished goal - the accumulation of capital. That is why by the 7th century AD. first the Mazdakite Jews, and then the anti-Mazdakite Jews, came to Khazaria “by chance.” “Poor” wanderers without a homeland began to implement their next grandiose plan.

The first “echelon” in the Jewish offensive against the still unsuspecting Khazaria was Institute of Jewish Brides. The Jews gave their most beautiful sisters, daughters, and sometimes their own wives, to the highest nobility of Khazaria as wives, concubines, or sex slaves. Jewish women gave birth to children for the Khazar nobility, who, according to Jewish laws, were Jews, were raised by their mothers, like Jews, ACCORDING TO JUDIAN TRADITIONS, but inherited their position in the social system of Khazaria from their fathers. In Khazaria, as elsewhere in the lands of the Slavic-Aryan Empire, nationality was determined by father. Thus, among the Khazar nobility, children were born from Jewish women who received after their fathers not only property, but also THEIR POSITION. This is exactly what the “wise men of Zion” needed. Children born from mixed marriages with Jewish women occupied a high position in the Khazar hierarchy, and contributed to their relatives in obtaining trading rights.

Gradually, there were so many Jews on their mother’s side among the highest nobility of Khazaria that they began to directly interfere with the Khazar traditions. First in Summer 6239 from S.M.Z.H. ( 730 AD) one of the leaders named Bulan restored Judaism among his fellow Jews, and then in Summer 6308 from S.M.Z.H. ( 799 AD) a direct descendant of Bulan, the Khazar military leader Obadiah, carried out a coup d'etat and turned the Kagan into an obedient puppet. Power passed completely into the hands of the Jewish king(bek), and Judaism became the state religion of Khazaria. Obadiah, with the help of mercenaries - the Pechenegs and the Guzes - unleashed a bloody civil war. After a long civil war with the invaders, the Khazar Turks were defeated. Some of them were slaughtered along with their wives and children, the other part left their homeland and settled on the territory of modern Hungary. After the victory, the Khazar Jews imposed a heavy tribute on ordinary Khazars, turned into real powerless slaves, prohibited, on pain of death, from having weapons and learning how to use them. Once again, the Jews “thanked” the people who had provided them with refuge in a very unique way.

“The Jews, unlike the Khazars, by the 9th century. actively involved in the then international trade system. The caravans that went from China to the West belonged mainly to Jews. And trade with China in the 8th-9th centuries. was the most profitable occupation. The Tang Dynasty, trying to replenish the treasury that was emptying due to the maintenance of a large army, allowed silk to be exported from the country. The Jewish caravans went to China for silk... Then the caravans crossed the Yaik River and went to the Volga. Here, rest, plentiful food and entertainment awaited tired travelers. Beautiful Volga fish and fruits, milk and wine, musicians and beauties delighted the caravaners. And the Jewish traders who ruled the economy of the Volga region accumulated treasures, silks, and slaves. Then the caravans went further, ending up in Western Europe: Bavaria, Languedoc, Provence, and, having crossed the Pyrenees, they ended the long journey with the Muslim sultans of Cordoba and Andalusia ... "
* L.N. Gumilev "From Rus' to Russia". Chapter II. Slavs and their enemies.

In Summer 6472 (964 AD) Prince Svyatoslav defeated the Judean Khazar Khaganate. The capital of Khazaria - Itil - was destroyed to the ground, the key fortresses of Khazaria were taken. The Jews left the borders of modern Russia. The lands of the Bulgars, Burtases, Yases and Kasogs, dependent on the Kaganate, were also crushed. But as an inheritance from the Khazar Kaganate the Jews were left with trading posts, which by the time the Kaganate was defeated, in most cases had already turned into shadow states within states and had a powerful influence on the economy and politics of the countries in which they were located.

One way or another, it was thanks to Svyatoslav that the Dark Forces were not able to completely enslave the Russian land at the very beginning of the Night of Svarog.
*Based on materials from books by Levashov N.V.

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 Middle East know two things: always expect the unexpected, and don't underestimate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has more political lives 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 and 9th centuries, the Khazars, a warlike Turkic people, converted to Judaism and ruled a large area of ​​what 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. Moving all the settlers to Israel in a 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 a 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 the 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. Eastern part (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

• The members of the YESHA Settler Council were taken by surprise. Always wary of Netanyahu, whom they see as a slippery character rather than a reliable ideological ally, they declined to comment until they had fully assessed the situation.

Most of the hasty comments were predictable:

• Right-wing anti-Semitic groups have pounced on the story as justification for their conspiracy theories, claiming it is the culmination of a centuries-old Jewish plot to avenge the Khazars' defeat in battle with the Russians in the Middle Ages, a repeat of Israel's support for Georgia in 2008. One of the group members said: “Jews have memories as long as their noses.”
• Fatah's spokesman in Ramallah said the proposal made some progress, but it did not come close to satisfying Palestinian demands. Holding a drawing of a Khazar warrior from an archaeological artifact, he explained: There is a continuum of conquest and brutality. It's very simple, genetics doesn't lie. We see the results today: the Zionist regime and the brutal occupying forces are descended from militant barbarians. The Palestinians are descended from peaceful herders, in fact, from the ancient Israelites, whom you falsely claim as your ancestors. By the way, it is not even true that your ancestors had a temple in Jerusalem.

Then: Khazar barbarian. A warrior with a prisoner, image from an archaeological site.

Now: Israeli border police with Palestinian protester.

• The unofficial intelligence site DAFTKAfile, known for its reliability, admitted: We are blushing with shame. We were caught off guard and thought the story about returning to Spain and Portugal was true. Obviously, this was a perfectly planned and clever maneuver to divert attention from the impending revolution in Ukraine. Well played, Mossad.
• Prolific blogger Richard Sliverstein, whose knowledge of Jewish culture and uncanny ability to ferret out military secrets regularly amazes even his critics, made the following comment: Frankly, I'm surprised my Mossad sources didn't pass this story on to me first. But I didn't have time to write an essay on the Kabbalistic significance of sesame, the main ingredient in hummus, so I didn't check my email. Do I feel justified? Yes, but this is not complete satisfaction. I have been saying for years that the Jews were descended from the Mongol-Tatar Khazars, but this did not affect the propaganda defense of these Zionist Hasbaroid fools.
• An official from a leading human rights organization said: Evacuation of illegal settlements must be part of any peace agreement, but forcing settlers to leave Palestine first and then resettling them in Ukraine could be a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. We will see what the ICC International Court of Arbitration has to say about this. And if they believe that in Ukraine they can be even more aggressive than in the West Bank, then something else awaits them.
• Ultra-ultra-Orthodox spokesman Menuhem Yontef welcomed the news: We have rejected the Zionist state, which is illegal until the coming of the Messiah. We don't care where we live as long as we can study the Torah and fully observe its commandments. However, we refuse to serve in the army, both there and here. And we also want subsidies. This is God's will.
• A tearful spokeswoman for Episcopal Peace Activists said: We welcome this consistency as a matter of principle. If only all Jews thought like Menuchem Yontef - I call them "Menuhem Yontef Jews", anti-Semitism would disappear and members of all three Abrahamic religions would live here peacefully together again, as they did before the advent of Zionism. The people-state is a relic of the nineteenth century that has led to untold suffering. The main urgent task for restoring peace on Earth is the immediate creation of a free and sovereign Palestine.
• The eminent scholar and theorist Judith Bantler argues: It may seem paradoxical that there are differences and “discontinuities” at the heart of ethnic relations. But to know this, you first need to think about what these concepts mean. It can be argued that the distinctive feature of Khazar identity is that it is interrupted by difference, that the attitude towards the goyim determines not only their diasporic position, but also one of their most basic ethnic relations. While such a statement may well be true (in the sense that it refers to a series of true statements), it retains difference as a predicate of the primary subject. Attitude towards difference becomes one of the predicates of “being a Khazarian.” It is quite another thing to understand this very attitude as considering the idea of ​​the “Khazars” as a static entity, one that is adequately described as a subject... projects of coexistence can only begin with the eradication of political Zionism.
• The leader of the anti-Israel BDS organization, Ali Abubinomial, puts it more simply. Pounding his fists on the table, he seethes with anger: “So that means Israel and Khazaria? Is this what the Zionists mean by a “two-state solution”?! Think for yourself! Has no one read my book?
• Students for Justice in Palestine called an emergency meeting to establish contact with the Pecheneg Liberation Organization, saying that the Pechenegs should not pay for European anti-Semitism. New solidarity group Students for Pechenegs in Ukraine Pechenegs in Ukraine) proclaimed as its motto: “From the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, we will find the one who needs to be freed!”
• In turn, peace activist and former East Jerusalem administrator Myron Benvenuti responded indifferently: I have nothing to worry about: I am a Sephardi and my family has lived here for centuries. In any case, even if I had to go somewhere else, it would be Spain, not Ukraine: more sun, less shooting.

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.