How could the Khazars survive?

Valdemar II

Banned
A high ratio of Byzantophiles on this site.

No more like it's less good than it looks at first, both the early Turks and Timur Lenk succed in overrunning i, and if a Jewish state can't survive being overrun by Christians or Muslims a single time. Simply because no one are going to come help them out. While Muslim and Christian state can be reestablish later by a new bunch of conquers of the same religion. The Khazars need to live a place where conquering them, are more trouble than it's worth.
 
It doesn't look like Khazaria really has to "reclaim" their empire; they just have to recover further from the Kabar uprising, and, most importantly, reestablish contact with the Byzantines.
Seeing as the Kabar rebellion was a failure in OTL (they were driven out by the Khazars), I don't see how it could have been resolved differently. A better way to keep the Khazars strong would be to avoid the Kabar rebellion and keep the Magyars living in Atelkuzu (in OTL Ukraine and Moldova).

Same here, except for a few other sources.

Anyways, I wonder if I could have the Jewish rabbis that come to Khazaria tone down the nomadic lifestyle of the Khazars, making them focus more on Itil then before?
They were pretty urban in OTL anyway. The Khazars would spend most of the years living in their various cities (Atil, Khazaran, etc) and would occasionally go out into the countryside to work in agriculture, wine-making, herding, and other things you'd expect of a nomadic tribe. But the focus was generally on the urban life.

I tried to get them to survive in Raptor of Spain but.... it's not happening. They're dying in the late 11th Century. It's the Highway issue, they have to keep fighting off waves of eastern steppe peoples but are also becoming more urbanized as a whole and thus weaker against them.

So essentially I agree with Valdemar II. The Khazars essentially ran out of steppe and so had to fight every single wave of eastern invaders and while they did well for a while eventually events are going to turn against them all at once (unless they remain lucky for 500 years) and they will be overcome.
Honestly, this does not seem like a huge issue. There was plenty of land nominally controlled by the Khazars, who really just needed cities anyway. The encroaching Patzinaks / Pechenegs did not trouble the Khazars until the khaganate began to decline in the 10th and 11th centuries. With a strong central authority, perhaps the Khazar ruler could dictate to the Patzinak (and eventually Cuman / Kipchak) leaders to settle somewhere in the plentiful plains of the Ukraine.:D


Russia are very hard to avoid, it's well placed for unification and expansion, of course it also had a lot of luck in the Poles more or less self destructing, but expansion into the Don and Volga watershed are almost unavoidable. Of course lots of people are still alive in the Caucasus even with the Russian conquest, and we could easy see Khazars survive to modern day in the area as the Ossetians, Armenian and Georgian has done.
One idea I had was for the Khazars to subvert the growth of independent Russian states by keeping Kiev, preventing the Varangians from taking the fort. This would force the early Rus' to trade down the Volga, leaving them dependent on the Khazars. They would have to pay tolls and whatnot, and perhaps become more culturally aligned with the Khazars. This idea vaguely ended with the early Rus' states becoming part of Khazaria, which resulted in an empire linguistically a mix of Khazar Turkic, Hebrew, and Slavic. :eek:
 

Valdemar II

Banned
One idea I had was for the Khazars to subvert the growth of independent Russian states by keeping Kiev, preventing the Varangians from taking the fort. This would force the early Rus' to trade down the Volga, leaving them dependent on the Khazars. They would have to pay tolls and whatnot, and perhaps become more culturally aligned with the Khazars. This idea vaguely ended with the early Rus' states becoming part of Khazaria, which resulted in an empire linguistically a mix of Khazar Turkic, Hebrew, and Slavic. :eek:

Won't work, the point of the Kiev trade routes was trade between Constantinoble and the Baltic, it can't be replaced by the Volga route, beside the Khazars failed to make anybody culturally align with them to the point that large part of the Bulgars and Magyars decided to say fuck them and leave and the Volga Bulgars whom stayed converted to Islam as a "fuck you" to Khazars. The Khazars problem was that they wasn't especially unique, they had little difference from other pastorials semi-nomads which dominated the area until modern age, the only thing which set them apart was their conversion to Judaism. To survive they need either a lot of luck, setting up a small hold up in a area hard to overrun or radical change lifestyle. The last one are the most interesting, if they could conquer the Greek city enclaves along thenorthen and easten side of Black Sea and establish a free area for Jews, I could see Jews following the Khazarian Judaism establish a permanent majority in coastal areas and even keep independent city states to modern age, through they will likely drop Khazar Turkish language in favour of Greek (with heavy Hebrew and Turkish influence), but they will likely keep calling themself Khazars.
 

Zioneer

Banned
I have to say, I'm really liking the idea of the Khazars creating a new state in Georgia and the Greek Black Sea areas after being forced out by the Volga Bulgars, or a plague/flood, or whatnot.

The Khazars would probably even have support in Georgia, from the old Jewish communities there. Perhaps a hybrid Hebrew-Greek language could appear in this new Khazaria?

I could even have Jews from all over Europe migrating to Georgia, as a result of an extended Khazar Correspondence (the Khazar khan exchanged letters with a Jewish Vizer in Cordoba around the 950s.)

Hmm.. anyone mind helping me figure out the details of this Khazar TL?
 

Zioneer

Banned
*bump de bump*

Anyways, I'm thinking of stuff to put in this TL, but I'm still not sure for the name of the southward moving Khazar state. I'm don't think it should still be called Khazaria, as per the events of the TL, the Khazars have clearly been forced to flee and take refugee among the Caucasus. Georgia wouldn't fit either, as the Georgians are called so because of St. George.

Perhaps a Hebrew name could fit? Any suggestions?
 
*bump de bump*

Anyways, I'm thinking of stuff to put in this TL, but I'm still not sure for the name of the southward moving Khazar state. I'm don't think it should still be called Khazaria, as per the events of the TL, the Khazars have clearly been forced to flee and take refugee among the Caucasus. Georgia wouldn't fit either, as the Georgians are called so because of St. George.

Perhaps a Hebrew name could fit? Any suggestions?
Seeing as the Khazars didn't call their state Khazaria (they weren't big on Latin AFAIK ;)), I don't see why continuing to call it that would be a problem at all.
 

Zioneer

Banned
I thought they did survive, sorta kinda.

Yeah, but the Kumyks weren't/aren't exactly independent. At all. I'm looking for a fairly long-lived (even if weak) Khazar state.

As for the thing about the Khazars not calling their land Khazaria, yeah, that's what I mean. They need a different name to be called by others, and to call themselves.
 

Zioneer

Banned
Still need a bit of help, I can't find much "history of Khazaria" that isn't anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and nor can I find much of the history of mid 900s Georgia, which will be major locations in my TL.
 
Still need a bit of help, I can't find much "history of Khazaria" that isn't anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and nor can I find much of the history of mid 900s Georgia, which will be major locations in my TL.
Check out this website, khazaria.com. It's a great resource, and the book it based off of (The Jews of Khazaria by Kevin Alan Brook) is amazing. I own a copy, it contains information on pretty much everything you need to know about the Khazars. I'd definitely give it a read if you want to learn more about the subject.
 

Zioneer

Banned
Check out this website, khazaria.com. It's a great resource, and the book it based off of (The Jews of Khazaria by Kevin Alan Brook) is amazing. I own a copy, it contains information on pretty much everything you need to know about the Khazars. I'd definitely give it a read if you want to learn more about the subject.

Thank you! That site is extremely useful for me, and I'll be sure to check out the book when I have the time. I'm really interested in the Khazars, so that is a great find.

With this info, I'll probably start a timeline in a few days. Thanks again! :)
 

Zioneer

Banned
What, you don't call the Shamkhalate of Tarki independent (before the Russians came and screwed things up)?

I had never even heard of the Shamkhalate of Tarki before now. I suppose they'd be considered independent (if only for a historically short while).
 
Last edited:
Top