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Khazar Studies
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a Nomadic empire, nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. They created what, for its duration, was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the Early Middle Ages, early medieval world, commanding the western March (territory), marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East, and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries (–965), the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus. Khazaria long served as a buffer state between the Byzantine Empire, the nom ...
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Khaganate
A khanate ( ) or khaganate refers to historic polity, polities ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. Khanates were typically nomadic Mongol and Turkic peoples, Turkic or Tatars, Tatar societies located on the Eurasian Steppe, and politically equivalent in status to chiefdom, kinship-based chiefdoms and Feudalism, feudal Monarchy, monarchies. Khanates and khaganates were organised Tribe, tribally, where leaders gained power on the support and loyalty of their warrior subjects, gaining tribute from subordinates as realm funding. In comparison to a khanate, a khaganate, the realm of a khagan, was a Nomadic empire, large nomadic state maintaining subjugation over numerous smaller khanates. The title of khagan, translating as "Khan of the Khans", roughly corresponds in status to that of an emperor. Mongol khanates Mongol Empire (1206–1368) The Mongol Empire was the largest steppe nomadic Khaganate as well as List of largest empires, second largest empire and t ...
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Yarmaq
Yarmaq was name for Khazar Khaganate currency. The term for silver coin was '' sheleg'' (it might have direct connection to the term shekel. The currency was mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years as tribute money for Vyatichi and other Khazar subjects . Shelegs were probably minted in Kabir ( Moxel, client state of Khazar Kaghanate) since approximately 5th c AD. The term for the gold coin might be oka, as they were minted in the same place and called oka () Etymology The term meant since at least early Middle Ages, no other meanings had been attested. Other versions Ar- or yar- evolved from the verb "to cut longitudinally, to split", Turkish verb is also co-originating with the Old Turkic Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ... word ır- or yır- which means the ...
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Turkic People
Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging to the Turkic subfamily...". "The Turkic peoples represent a diverse collection of ethnic groups defined by the Turkic languages." According to historians and linguists, the Proto-Turkic language originated in Central-East Asia, potentially in the Altai-Sayan region, Mongolia or Tuva.: "The ultimate Proto-Turkic homeland may have been located in a more compact area, most likely in Eastern Mongolia": "The best candidate for the Turkic Urheimat would then be northern and western Mongolia and Tuva, where all these haplogroups could have intermingled, rather than eastern and southern Mongolia..." Initially, Proto-Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter-gatherers and farmers; they later became nomadic Pastoralism, ...
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Nomadic Empire
Nomadic empires, sometimes also called steppe empires, Central or Inner Asian empires, were the empires erected by the bow-wielding, horse-riding, nomadic people in the Eurasian Steppe, from classical antiquity (Scythia) to the early modern era ( Dzungars). They are the most prominent example of non- sedentary polities. Some nomadic empires consolidated by establishing a capital city inside a conquered sedentary state and then exploiting the existing bureaucrats and commercial resources of that non-nomadic society. In such a scenario, the originally nomadic dynasty may become culturally assimilated to the culture of the occupied nation before it is ultimately overthrown. Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) described a similar cycle on a smaller scale in 1377 in his Asabiyyah theory. Historians of the early medieval period may refer to these polities as "khanates" (after ''Khan (title), khan'', the title of their rulers). After the Mongol conquests of the 13th century the term Orda (orga ...
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List Of Khazar Rulers
The following is a list of Khazar rulers. Khazar Khagans (Ashina dynasty) The Khagans were supreme chiefs of the people, holding positions of much influence and spiritual authority, but with little day-to-day command. Khazar Beks The Khagan Beks were war chiefs, military commanders who exercised considerable day-to-day authority, and were sometimes regarded by outsiders as the supreme lords of the Khazar nation. Conversion to Judaism Hazer Tarkhan's army was annihilated at Itil in 737 AD, and the Umayyad Caliphate imposed Islam upon the Khazars. Nevertheless, the Caliphs could not adequately garrison Khazaria, and within a few years the Khazars were once again independent. The famous conversion to Judaism seems to have occurred about this time. The date of the actual conversion to Judaism is a matter of some controversy. According to Yehuda Halevi in ''Kuzari'', it occurred around 740 AD, though some Arab sources point to a date closer to the end of the 8th century or ear ...
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Georgius Tzul
Georgius Tzul (also ''Georgios''; ) was a Khazar warlord against whom the Byzantine Empire and Mstislav of Tmutarakan launched a joint expedition in 1016. He appears only in the account of the Byzantine court historians Kedrenos and John Skylitzes, who place him at Kerch and calls him "khagan" (the title of the Khazar emperors). Kedrenos states that he was captured by the expeditionary force but does not relate his ultimate fate. Inscriptions and other references exist referring to a Tzul or Tsal clan in Crimea during this period; presumably he was a member although the relationship of that family to the original ruling dynasty of Khazaria is unknown. Almost nothing else about him, including the extent of his holdings, is known. Even though earlier writers maintained that the Khazar khagan was required to adhere to Judaism, Georgius is a Christian name. Whether Georgius Tzul was himself a Christian, a Jew or Shamanist with an unusual Greek name, or whether the name is merely a ...
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David Of Taman
A purported Khazar ruler of the late tenth century CE who ruled over a Khazar successor-state in the Taman region. David is mentioned in a single document dated AM 4746 (985/986 CE) which contains a reference to "our lord David, Prince of the Khazars, who lives in Taman." The document in question is of uncertain authenticity, as it passed through the hands of Abraham Firkovich, who on occasion forged documents and inscriptions. Dan Shapira expressed certainty that the document is a forgery by Firkovich and his viewpoint was adopted by other scholars who cited him including Michael Toch and Kevin Brook. Based upon this text, Heinrich Graetz hypothesized that the Khazars reorganized themselves after 969 in Crimea and the Taman peninsula. Graetz further maintained that the Khazar Jewish representatives summoned by Vladimir I of Kiev to debate the merits of their religion against representatives from Catholic Germany, Orthodox Byzantium, and Muslim Volga Bulgaria were dispatche ...
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Joseph (Khazar)
Joseph ben Aaron was king of the Khazars during the 950s and 960s. Joseph was the son of Aaron II, a Khazar ruler who defeated a Byzantine-inspired war against Khazaria on numerous fronts. Joseph's wife (or probably, one of many wives) was the daughter of the king of the Alans. Whether Joseph was the Khagan or the Bek of the Khazars is contested among historians. He describes leading Khazar armies which seems to imply the role of the Bek. However, as he does not refer to a co-ruler in his writings, it is possible that by his time the two-king system had been abandoned altogether (see Khazar Kingship). Joseph actively sought contact with Jews elsewhere in the diaspora. He corresponded with Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a rabbi in Cordoba, and invited him to settle in Khazaria. He is also mentioned in the Schechter Letter. Joseph was involved in wars against the Kievan Rus and the Pechenegs, as well as sporadic fighting with the Byzantines in the Crimea. He reported that he was allie ...
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Aaron II (Khazar)
A Khazar ruler during the early 10th century CE, Aaron ben Benjamin was the son of the Khazar king Benjamin. Whether Aaron, like the rest of the Bulanids, was a Khagan or a Bek is an unresolved issue. According to the anonymous author of the Schechter Letter, during Aaron's reign a war was launched against Khazaria by a Byzantine-inspired coalition led by the Alans, who had been allies of Aaron's father Benjamin. Aaron defeated his enemies with the help of Oghuz mercenaries and captured the king of the Alans. Rather than execute his captive, he demanded an oath of fealty and spared his life. The Alan king's daughter married Aaron's son Joseph. In ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century'', Omeljan Pritsak dated this war to the early reign of Romanos I (i.e., the early 920s CE). Sources *Brook, Kevin Alan. ''The Jews of Khazaria.'' 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2006. * Dunlop, Douglas M. ''The History of the Jewish Khazars,'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Un ...
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Benjamin (Khazar)
A Khazar ruler (probably the bek), mentioned in the Schechter Text and the Khazar Correspondence, Benjamin was the son of the Khazar ruler Menahem and probably reigned in the late ninth and early tenth centuries CE. The only extant account of Benjamin's reign comes from the Schechter Text, whose anonymous author reported a war between Benjamin's Khazars and a coalition of five nations: 'SY, TWRQY, 'BM, and PYYNYL, who were instigated and aided by MQDWN. "MQDWN", or Macedon, is used in medieval Jewish documents to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire, particularly under its Macedonian dynasty (867-1025). "TWRQY" can be identified with the Oghuz on Khazaria's eastern flank. The other three entities are less easily identifiable. In ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century'', Omeljan Pritsak argued that "PYYNYL" was actually "PTzNYK" Pecheneg, the misreading ascribed to the degradation of the letter itself. He further identified 'SY with the Asya, who he connects to the ...
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Manasseh I
Menasseh ben Hezekiah was a hypothetical Turkic ruler of the Khazars mentioned in the Khazar Correspondence. He probably reigned in the mid to late ninth century CE. He was the son of Hezekiah, the son of Obadiah. Little is known about his reign. Historical authenticity and accuracy of the only document mentioning his name has been questioned. As with other Bulanid rulers, it is unclear whether he was Khagan or Khagan Bek of the Khazars, although the latter is more likely. Menasseh was succeeded by his uncle Hanukkah or by Isaac. References Sources *Kevin Alan Brook. ''The Jews of Khazaria.'' 3rd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2018. * Douglas M. Dunlop, ''The History of the Jewish Khazars,'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954. * Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak (; 7 April 1919 – 29 May 2006) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of History of Ukraine, Ukrainian History at Harvard University and the founder and ...
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Zachariah (Khazar)
Zachariah, or Zacharias, was a Khagan of the Khazars The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ..., reported in the account of St. Cyril. The start and end dates of his reign are unknown but he was khagan during Cyril's visit to Khazaria in 861. References Khazar rulers 9th-century monarchs in Europe Jewish royalty {{royal-stub ...
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