Chapter VI Khazar Khaganate The Khazars have been known since the times of the European empire of the Huns of the 4th-5th centuries. n. e. During the formation of the Great Turkic Kaganate, they supported the Istemi Kagan and participated in the campaign against Georgia and Azerbaijan (6, p. 146-152).

In the Early Middle Ages in Eastern Europe, in the vicinity of Kievan Rus, there was such a powerful state as the Khazar Kaganate. The Khazars themselves were originally a Caucasian tribe living in the territory of modern Dagestan. Then this people migrated and settled along the shores of the Caspian and in the lower reaches of the Terek. At that time, the level of the Caspian Sea was 8 meters lower than the current one. Therefore, the Volga delta was extremely large and reached the Buzachi peninsula. All these lands abounded in fish and grapes brought by the Khazars from the Caucasus.

The enemies of the Caspian Khazars were Burtases and Bulgars. In the VI century, both of them were subdued by the Turks. Then dynastic feuds began among the victors. At the same time, some Turks relied on the Bulgars, others on the Khazars. The Khazars and their allies won the victory. Bulgars fled to the Middle Volga, where they founded the city of the Great Bulgar. Another part of the Bulgar horde, headed by Khan Asparuh, went to the Danube. There she mixed with the local Slavic tribes and laid the foundation for the Bulgarian people.

In the 7th-8th centuries, the Khazars were attacked by the Arabs. The Turks helped them in this war. This people was very brave and warlike. It was the Turks who were the first to master such a rider's weapon as a saber. In the middle of the 7th century, the Türkic dynasty was defeated by the Chinese Tang dynasty (618-907). The representative of the broken dynasty fled to the Khazars. They accepted him and made him their khan, since the khan-Turk suited them.

He roamed with his headquarters in the lower reaches of the Volga, in the spring roamed to the Terek, spent the summer between the Terek, Kuban and Don, and with the arrival of winter he returned to the Volga. Such a khan did not need to be supported. He did not demand taxes, but fed on his own nomadic economy. It was the Turkic khans, who became the head of the Khazars, who organized their protection from the Arabs. They attacked from Azerbaijan through Derbent to the Terek and Volga. But their invasion was repulsed. After that, a joint Turkic-Khazar state was formed in the Caspian region.

Khazars and Jewish people

The history of various peoples is notable for the migration of the population. At the same time, migrations are very different. It happens that people move to someone else's territory and fully adapt to it. This happened with the Slavs. From the upper reaches of the Vistula, they spread to the Baltic, the Adriatic and Aegean seas. At the same time, they managed to settle everywhere. But the Vandals, Suevi and Goths mixed with the local population and disappeared.

At all times, there was another migration: a group of merchants or conquerors created their own small colony on foreign territory. These include the British who colonized India and the French who created African colonies. The former did not become Indians, and the latter did not become Negroes. After working and serving away from home, they came back. For the Khazars, the Jewish people, or rather, its Persian and Byzantine branches, became the colonizers.

The Persians and Byzantines drove the Jews out of their lands, and they found refuge north of the Terek. Trade routes passed here, and the Khazars who lived in these places did not show aggressiveness towards the refugees. Those, using their literacy, began to master and develop occupations that were unusual for the local population. Trade, diplomacy, education were in their hands.

At the beginning of the 9th century, the Jewish population of the Khazar Kaganate added political power to its intellectual and economic power. The wise Obadiya seized the actual power in the state. He drove out the Turks, who made up the military class. At the same time, he relied on mercenary detachments of the Guzes and Pechenegs. The Khazar Turks resisted, but were defeated and retreated to Hungary.

In the 9th century, the Baghdad Caliphate began to fall apart. Its main city, Baghdad, sucked all the juices from the regions under its control and did not give anything in return. As a result, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia broke away. Separated Egypt, Eastern Iran, Central Asia and separated the Deilem region off the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. This area was inhabited by extremely warlike people, and they professed Islam in the form of Shiism.

Khazar Kaganate on the map

They captured part of Azerbaijan up to Derbent, the western regions of Persia and conquered Baghdad. Thus, the convenient route from the Volga along the coast of the Caspian Sea to Baghdad came under the control of the Dailemites. And they did not let anyone in.

As a result, the Jewish government of the Khazar Kaganate found itself in a difficult situation, as trade routes to the south were cut off. Before that, the Jews attracted soldiers from Gurgan to the service and paid them a high salary. But the Kurgan people refused to fight against the Muslim Deilemites, since they were co-religionists. And then the Khazar Kaganate was forced to hire the Rus on the same terms.

The Rus encountered the Deilemites in 913 and were defeated by the Muslims. In an unsuccessful campaign, the entire Russian squad perished, and Khazaria after that two decades was occupied by minor conflicts with the Slavs and the newly formed Kiev principality.

In 939, a very important historical event took place. Russian prince Igor captured the city of Samkerts (Taman), owned by the Khazars and located on the shore of the Kerch Strait. In response to this, in 940, the Khazar army under the command of the Jew Pesach moved against the Rus. He freed Samkerts, crossed the Kerch Strait with an army and marched along the southern coast of Crimea. Then Passover crossed Perekop, reached Kiev and imposed tribute on the Russian principality. All these events are described in the Tale of Bygone Years.

In 943, the Khazars once again sent the Rus as tributaries to the Caspian for the war with the Deilemites. The Russian squad captured the Berdaa fortress in the lower reaches of the Kura River. But after this victory, dysentery began among the Russian soldiers. She turned out to be more terrible than enemy sabers. The Rus hastily plunged into boats and sailed away from the inhospitable shores. But no one returned to their homeland.

For Kievan Rus, the Khazar Kaganate became an extremely serious problem, which surpassed the war with Byzantium in its importance. As a result, in the summer of 964 the young Kiev prince Svyatoslav began a campaign against the Khazars. He did not lead his squad from Kiev to the Volga through the steppes. The Rus climbed the Dnieper to the upper reaches and dragged the boats to the Oka. Along the Oka and Volga Svyatoslav reached the capital of Khazaria, the city of Itil.

Itil was located on a large island 18 km wide. It was formed by two Volga channels: the Volga itself from the west and Akhtuba from the east. In those days, the Akhtuba River was as deep as the Volga. The city had a stone synagogue, a king's palace, large wooden houses. There was a stone mosque, as Muslims were treated politely.

Warriors of Svyatoslav against the Khazars

Svyatoslav's squad surrounded the city, but many Khazars before that fled to the Volga delta and hid in the labyrinth of the channel. But the Jewish population of Itil remained outside the city walls. It went out to fight the Rus and was utterly defeated.

After that Svyatoslav moved to the Terek and surrounded the city of Semender, the second most important in the Kaganate. Its inhabitants did not resist for long. They surrendered to the mercy of the victors. The Russians took the horses, oxen, and carts from the population and moved home through the Don. On the way, they stormed the Sarkel fortress and destroyed it.

As a result of the campaign of 964-965, Svyatoslav excluded the Volga, the middle reaches of the Terek and part of the Middle Don from the Khazar influence zone. But the main achievement of the campaign was that Kievan Rus regained its independence and stopped paying tribute to the Khazar Kaganate.

Sunset of the Khazar Kaganate

In the 80s of the 10th century, many Khazars converted to Islam and received help from Khorezm. The kagan and his court returned to Itil again, but in 985 the Kiev prince Vladimir organized a new campaign against Khazaria and imposed a tribute on it. In the XI century, the Khazars completely lost their political influence in the region. They could not resist the Polovtsians and began to leave their ancestral lands.

In the XII century, instead of Itil, the city of Saksin appeared. Khazars-Muslims lived in it, but they were few. But the Khazars-Jews migrated to Europe, where they dissolved among other Jews. On the former lands of the kaganate, nomads began to dominate. These territories united into a single whole only during the time of the Golden Horde.

Alexey Starikov

In the 7th-10th centuries, the state of the nomadic Khazars occupied vast territories from Central Asia and the North Caucasus to modern Ukraine, Crimea and Hungary. It was inhabited by a variety of peoples professing various religions - from monotheistic Christianity, Islam and Judaism to paganism, Tengrianism and shamanism. What caused such an amazing religious tolerance and religious tolerance of the Khazar state?

Tolerance of the Khazar Kaganate

Indeed, practically all the other countries surrounding the Khazar Kaganate adhered to one monotheistic state religion and with great difficulty accepted the religious minorities living in their territories. In Khazaria, however, everything was different: numerous sources report on the religious pluralism and tolerance of this state. So, according to the Muslim author Ibn Rust, the ruler of the Dagestan region Sarir, which was part of the kaganate, went to pray at the mosque on Fridays, to the synagogue on Saturdays, and to church on Sundays. Geographer Gardizi added that the rest of the inhabitants of Sarir did the same. This message should be regarded more as a historical anecdote, showing, nevertheless, the degree of religious tolerance of the Khazar state.

And here is a more detailed description of the Khazar judicial system by the 10th century Arab geographer Abul-Hasan al-Masudi: “In the Khazar capital, there are seven judges (qadi) according to the rule; two of them are for Muslims; two - for the Khazars, who judge in accordance with the Torah; two for Christians who judge according to the gospel; and one for Saklabs, Rus and other pagans, who judges according to pagan [custom], that is, at the behest of reason ”.

Further, Al-Masoudi describes in detail which religions were professed by various segments of the population of Khazaria. Judaism, according to his information, was the religion of a rather limited, but the most influential minority: it was adhered to by the Khazar nobility, the king, his retinue and the Khazars of the royal family. The majority of the country's population were Muslims, of whom the army of the Khazars consisted mainly; they were also known as al-larisiyya or arsiyya.

The pagans in Khazaria, according to Masudi, were the Slavs (in Arabic "Sakaliba") and the Rus. By "Rus" they undoubtedly meant the Varangians from the territory of northern and central Russia. The geographer writes the following about their pagan customs: “They burn their dead together with their horses, utensils and ornaments. When a man dies, his wife is burned alive with him, but if a woman dies, the husband is not burned. " Rus and Slavs also served in the army of the Khazar ruler.

From other sources we know that paganism in the form of Tengrianism was practiced mainly by the Turkic inhabitants of the Kaganate, in particular the Savirs and the Khazars themselves (with the exception of the ruling aristocracy). Deifying the sun, thunder, fire and water, they considered the main god of the sky and the sun - Tengri (khan). The gods were worshiped in temples and sacred groves, sacrificing horses.

Which religion was the main one?

There is no definite answer to this question. From the late 8th - early 9th centuries, Judaism became the religion of the Khazar aristocracy. However, it is difficult to say how much it was spread among the entire population of the kaganate. According to such researchers of this topic as B. Zakhoder and V. Minorsky, Judaism was only the religion of the Khazar aristocracy, that is, the Kagan and his entourage. The spread of Judaism in Khazaria exclusively among the ruling elite and aristocracy is also evidenced by the complete absence of any archaeological monuments with pronounced Jewish symbols on the territory of the kaganate. No synagogues mentioned in the documents, no religious schools, no burials, no graffiti, or any other evidence of the Khazars professing Judaism were found.

Muslim sources (al-Istakhri, ibn Rust, ibn Haukal, etc.) write that the majority of the inhabitants of Khazaria profess Christianity and Islam. Here is an excerpt from al-Istakhri (about 950): “Their king is a Jew [Jew]. He has about 4,000 foot troops. Khazars - Mohammedans, Christians, Jews and pagans; Jews are a minority, Mohammedans and Christians are in the majority; however, the king and his courtiers are Jews; the common people are mostly pagans. "

At the same time, according to al-Masoudi, the army of the Khazars consisted mainly of Muslims, Christians and partly pagans (Slavs and Varangian-Rus). According to other authors, among the Turkic peoples of the Kaganate, the majority of the pagans were Tengrians who worshiped the god of heaven Tengri.

How tolerant was the Khazar state?

Despite the above general atmosphere of religious tolerance, of course, there were conflicts between representatives of various religions of the Kaganate. For example, the Muslim geographer al-Yakut wrote that the Khazar king ordered the destruction of the minaret in the city of Itil and executed the local muezzins in response to the destruction of the synagogue in Dar al-Babunaj by the Muslims. Or we can recall the brutal suppression of the uprising of John of Gotha in the Christian region of Gothia in the Crimea by the Khazars around 787. However, these sectarian conflicts were the exception rather than the rule.

What was the reason for the tolerance of the Khazars?

What explanation can be found for this, quite surprising for the harsh medieval mentality, tolerance towards other religions? Researcher OB Bubenok suggested that the religious tolerance of the Khazars can be explained by polyconfessionalism and indifference to religious issues, typical of the nomadic peoples of the Middle Ages. However, by the 9th-10th centuries, the inhabitants of the Khazar Kaganate were already actually sedentary peoples, living mainly in urban centers and, in addition to military activities, engaged in agriculture, trade and crafts.

Other researchers give a different explanation for this phenomenon. The fact is that, according to the customs of those times, religion had to be accepted from the centers of religious propaganda of other states - thereby recognizing these states as their patrons. Let us recall, for example, that the Byzantine emperor demanded vassal dependence on the Russian prince Vladimir as a service for converting the Rus to the Orthodox faith, and to avoid this, Vladimir began his famous campaign against Byzantium, capturing medieval Kherson. For this reason, the adoption of the Christian religion as the only faith of the state would mean for the Khazars to fall into vassal dependence on Byzantium or Rome, while the adoption of Islam is dependence on the Arab Caliphate. It was easier with Judaism - it could be accepted without becoming a vassal of any other state. This is exactly what the ruling elite of the Khazars did, while maintaining also other religions as permissible and not persecuted by the state. Therefore, such diverse religions as rabbinic Judaism, Byzantine Christianity, Shiite Islam, Tengrian paganism and shamanism were able to coexist on the territory of the kaganate.

Perhaps no major power of that time knew of such religious pluralism. It is possible, however, that it was precisely the absence of a consolidating factor in the form of a single state religion that became one of the main reasons for the fall of the Khaganate in the 10th century.

The Khazar Khaganate was a significant phenomenon in Turkic and world history. But the history of this state is often described as the background or context of the history of other peoples. It is still not inscribed in the system of the common Turkic civilization and statehood of the Tatar people, although there are many criteria-signs (common historical origin, language, way of life, etc.) that allow us to consider Khazaria as an important component of the Turkic civilization and the Tatar subculture.

Creation of the Khazar Kaganate

The Khazar Kaganate (from the 7th to the 10th centuries) became the first early feudal state in the east of Europe, which arose by the middle of the 7th century. in the Caspian steppes as a result of the collapse of the Western Turkic Kaganate.

Turkic-speaking Khazars - nomads and cattle-breeders appeared here after the Hunnic "throw" into Europe. According to the Syrian historian Zachary Mitylensky, at the turn of the 5th - 6th centuries. 13 Türkic-speaking tribes settled in the northwestern Caspian region, among which were Savirs, Avars, Bulgarians, Khazars. The Khazars, together with the Savirs, manifested themselves as a noticeable military force, making campaigns against the Byzantine and Iranian possessions in the Caucasus.

In the 560-570s. Khazar tribes fell under the influence of the Turkic Kaganate. Together with the main Turkic groups of the Kaganate, which concluded an alliance with Byzantium, the Khazars participated in the campaigns against Iran. After the weakening and disintegration of the Western Turkic Khaganate, the Khazars turned out to be one of the largest and most influential tribes of the North Caucasus, creating a new union of tribes - the Khazar Khaganate. The power in the kaganate was retained in its hands by the Turkic (Turkut) dynasty of Ashina.

Tribes of the Khazar Kaganate

In the second half of the VII century. The Khazars, taking advantage of the division of Great Bulgaria between the sons of Khan Kubrat, subdued a part of the Bulgarian tribes. The Khazar Kaganate also included Savirs, Barsils, Belendzhers, Alans and other local tribes.

Territory of the Khazar Kaganate

At the end of the 7th - beginning of the 8th century. the Khazars were able to subjugate the nearby East Slavic tribes and imposed tribute on them. As a result of the military confrontation with the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the VII-VIII centuries. the Khazars captured the Taman Peninsula, the Bosporus, most of the Crimean peninsula, with the exception of Chersonesos.

During its peak at the beginning of the VIII century. The Khazar Kaganate included the vast territories of the North Caucasus, the entire Azov region, most of the Crimea, controlled the steppe and forest-steppe expanses up to the Dnieper. Despite the strengthening of the Khazar presence in the Black Sea region, Byzantium, alarmed by the Arab campaigns, establishes allied relations with Khazaria.

VII - VIII centuries. were a period of explosive expansion of the Arab civilization, which created a huge empire - stretching from the Indus River in Asia to the Pyrenees in Europe. Already in the course of the first military campaigns, the Arabs were pushing back the powerful powers of that time - the Byzantine Empire and Sassanian Iran, weakened by internal contradictions and the eternal mutual struggle.

In the middle of the VII century. completed the Arab conquest of Iran, and at the beginning of the VIII century. the Arab state included Transcaucasia and part of Central Asia. Baghdad became the center of a prosperous caliphate.

The Khazars made several trips to the Arab-controlled lands of the Caucasus. In response, the Arabs in 735, having overcome the Caucasus Mountains, defeated the Khazars. The Khazar Kagan and his entourage adopted Islam from the Arabs, which was then spread among a part of the population of the Kaganate. This is the result of Arab civilizational influence, penetration of Arab preachers and Muslim merchants into the country.

Capital of the Khazar Kaganate

After the Arab campaigns, the center of the kaganate moved to the north. The capital of the kaganate was first the ancient city of Semender in the North Caucasian Caspian region, and then the city of Itil on the Lower Volga (not far from modern Astrakhan). The city was located on both banks of the Volga and on a small island where the kagan's residence was located. It was walled and had a good fortification system.

In the eastern part of the city (Khazaran) there was a craft and trade center with large fairgrounds, caravanserais, workshops, and the western part was inhabited by the bureaucratic and military aristocracy, administrative buildings and the khan's palace were also located here.

The population of the capital, like that of the entire kaganate, was ethnically variegated: in addition to the Khazars, Bulgarians and Alans, Turks and Slavs, Arabs and Khorezmians, Jews and Byzantines lived here. Many visiting merchants stayed in Khazaria for a long time. Muslims had mosques, Christian churches, Jews - synagogues, and pagans - pagan temples and places of prayer.

According to contemporaries, there were at least 30 mosques, parish schools and schools in the city. Residential buildings consisted of wooden houses or tents, felt yurts and semi-dugouts. Itil existed until 965, when it was destroyed by the Kiev prince Svyatoslav Igorevich.

Economy of the Khazar Kaganate

The main economic occupation of the population of Khazaria remained semi-nomadic cattle breeding, but agriculture, horticulture and viticulture were actively developing. Many grain, vegetable and garden crops came to the farmers of the Khazar Kaganate from Central and Central Asia, from the Middle East, from South and Central Europe. The proximity of the Caspian and Azov seas, Volga, Don and other rivers made fishing habitual for the population of Khazaria.

In the summer, many pastoralists went to temporary pastures, in the winter they lived in settlements and cities. The craft developed rapidly, which adopted the most progressive techniques and technologies of various civilizations and peoples.

Trade of the Khazar Kaganate

Trade played a special role in the formation of the Khazar Kaganate and the expansion of its international relations.

The kaganate found itself at the intersection of traditional trade routes from east to west () and from the Baltic to the Caspian and Black Seas (the Great Volga Route).

From the north came furs, cattle, honey and wax, beluga glue, from the south they brought Arab steel, jewelry, from the east - spices, precious stones, from the west - weapons, metal products, fabrics. The kaganate was a transit route for the trade of slaves, but slavery did not become noticeably widespread here and in its type was close to patriarchal slavery.

Sarkel fortress of the Khazar Kaganate

The largest city in Khazaria was the city of Sarkel (from the Khazar "white house"), built in the 9th century. at the intersection of several trade caravan routes with waterways. In 834, the Byzantine emperor Theophilus, at the request of the Khazar Kagan, sent an architect to the Don to build a stone fortress, which was erected by local craftsmen. The fortress defended the neighboring trading city and was separated from it by a moat. In the inner territory of the fortress, which had thick brick walls and towers, there was a citadel with two watchtowers.

Sarkel grew rapidly and soon turned into the largest city of the Azov region with a multi-lingual population, a significant part of which were Bulgarians. Subsequently, the city was severely destroyed by the warriors of Prince Svyatoslav, but it existed as a southern Russian stronghold called Belaya Vezha until the middle of the XII century.

Byzantium and the Khazar Kaganate

Khazaria, finding itself in the zone of geopolitical competition of the largest empires and civilizations (Byzantium, the Arab Caliphate), was involved not only in their military rivalry and politics, but also became the cause of cultural and religious confrontation. In connection with such a role of the Khazar Kaganate in the Caspian-Black Sea region, the question of the state religion acquired key importance. Initially, the pagans - Bulgarians and Khazars were influenced by the Muslim Arabs, and the Byzantines introduced Christianity, creating a metropolitanate with seven local dioceses on the territory of the Khaganate in the 8th century.

Almost simultaneously with the adoption of Islam, part of the Khazars of Northern Dagestan began to profess Judaism, which was brought to the Caucasus by the Jews, first expelled from Sassanian Iran, and then from Byzantium.

Judaism in the Khazar Kaganate

The Khazars showed considerable religious tolerance, as evidenced by many contemporaries. This is probably why attempts to declare one of the religions as a state did not meet with resistance in society. This happened when, at the turn of the VIII-IX centuries. Kagan Obadiya overthrew the former Turkic dynasty and declared Judaism the state religion.

The kagan's entourage adopted Judaism, and most of the population continued to profess paganism, Islam and Christianity. A split occurred among the local feudal lords, the Khazar princes, the opponents of the new kagan, decided to rely on the help of the Hungarians who were wandering beyond the Volga at that time, and Obadiya hired Turkic detachments of Pechenegs and Guzes (Oguzes). An internecine struggle began, as a result of which the losers went to the Danube, and one of them, most likely, migrated to the Middle Volga region.

Defeat of the Khazar Kaganate

At the end of the IX century. the banks of the Don and the Black Sea steppes are filled with new Turkic nomads - the Pechenegs, who seriously hampered the Khazar foreign trade. An even more dangerous threat to the hegemony of the Khazar Kaganate and Khazar trade was posed by Kievan Rus, which also sought to control the transit trade of eastern Europe: the Great Silk Road and the Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian route. As a result of numerous Russian campaigns, the main life-supporting centers of the cities of Itil, Semender and Sarkel were weakened. It turned out to be impossible to restore the kaganate.

The tribes and peoples of the Kaganate moved or were assimilated by other ethnic groups, mainly with the Pechenegs, and then with. The ethnonym "Khazars" still existed for some time in the Crimea, which the Italian sources continued to call Khazaria until the 16th century.

In all likelihood, the distant descendants of the Khazars can be considered the small Turkic-speaking people of the Karaites, who profess the Karaimist version of Judaism, who lived in Crimea in the Middle Ages and partially migrated to Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine in the XIV century.