''Baliqchi'' (most probably Old Turkic ''balıkçı'') was a supposed military title used by the

Khazar 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, an ...

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, ...

. The main piece of support for the term's existence is the historiography of

Theophanes the Confessor Theophanes the Confessor (; 759 – 817 or 818) was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking up the religious life. Theophanes attended the Second C ...

, which mention a governor of

Phanagoria Phanagoria (; ) was the largest ancient Greek city on the Taman peninsula, spread over two plateaus along the eastern shore of the Cimmerian Bosporus. The city was a large emporium for all the traffic between the coast of the Maeotian marshe ...

during

Justinian II Justinian II (; ; 668/69 – 4 November 711), nicknamed "the Slit-Nosed" (), was the last Byzantine emperor of the Heraclian dynasty, reigning from 685 to 695 and again from 705 to 711. Like his namesake, Justinian I, Justinian II was an ambitio ...

's 705 CE excursion into

Khazaria 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, an ...

by the name of '' Balgitzin'' – which has sometimes been as a Greek corruption of the title ''baliqchi'', but this is unclear. If ''Balgitzin'' can be associated with ''baliqchi'', then it may mean " n executer of a labour/issuepertaining to a walled town/stronghold", as ''balık'' in Old Turkic means "walled town, stronghold", therefore affording a title or a common name for a townwall guardian. Other meanings for ''baliqchi'' have been proposed, such as "fisherman", which might imply a connection to a naval force. The Schechter Letter describes the Khazar general Pesakh as "''BWLŠṢY''" (), which has been interpreted as both the Hebrew rendition of ''baliqchi'', or as ''Boluščï'', a Turkic personal name, which would imply that "Pesakh" was not the general's name at birth.

References

Kevin Alan Brook Kevin is the anglicized form of the Irish masculine given name (; ; ; Latinized as ). It is composed of "dear; noble"; Old Irish and ("birth"; Old Irish ). The variant ''Kevan'' is anglicised from , an Irish diminutive form.''A Dictiona ...

. ''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. * Peter B. Golden. ''Khazar Studies: An Historio-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars.'' Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1980. *

Norman Golb Norman Golb (15 January 1928 – 29 December 2020) was a scholar of Jewish history and the Ludwig Rosenberger Professor in Jewish History and Civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Life Golb was born in Chicago, Ill ...

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 first director (1973–1989) of the Harvard Ukrainian Rese ...

, ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century.'' Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982. Khazar titles {{mil-rank-stub