So, tell me about the Khazars.

Zioneer

Banned
So I've been interested in the Khazars for a while (I mean, come on, Turkic pagans converting to Judaism between hostile Christians and Muslims, and actually surviving for a few hundred years? Awesome) but I don't know much about them.

In all reality, I only know their general area, a few Wiki'd Khazar terms and rulers, and the fact that they were practitioners of Judaism.

So, since we all know that Wikipedia doesn't have all the info (yet), I'd like to know more. In fact, I'd like to start a TL on them. But a TL requires knowledge, and I have only a bit of knowledge on the Khazars.

I'd like the kind members of AH.com to tell me more about the Khazars and their empire. Culture, rulers, effects on history, military maneuvers, all of it. I want to know as much as I can about the Khazars.

Would anyone be so kind as to hook me up with the info in these Turkic Jewish Khazars?
 
So I've been interested in the Khazars for a while (I mean, come on, Turkic pagans converting to Judaism between hostile Christians and Muslims, and actually surviving for a few hundred years? Awesome) but I don't know much about them.

In all reality, I only know their general area, a few Wiki'd Khazar terms and rulers, and the fact that they were practitioners of Judaism.

So, since we all know that Wikipedia doesn't have all the info (yet), I'd like to know more. In fact, I'd like to start a TL on them. But a TL requires knowledge, and I have only a bit of knowledge on the Khazars.

I'd like the kind members of AH.com to tell me more about the Khazars and their empire. Culture, rulers, effects on history, military maneuvers, all of it. I want to know as much as I can about the Khazars.

Would anyone be so kind as to hook me up with the info in these Turkic Jewish Khazars?

I don't know much myself on the Khazars but you might need to hook up with some books for that or look up on Google.
 
Splendid Tuesday - I researched extensively on the Khazars in planning of a TL that in all probability will never get written. So I managed to dredge up some of my old notes, and I'll post them here. Most of them were culled from sources that I have included with the notes.

[Nomads in the Sedentary World]
By the 10th century, most of the Khazar people were Jewish, but some remained pagan.

  • According to “Nomads in the Sedentary World” [p. 82] “The Places where Men Pray Together” [p. 326], Atil was on the western bank of the Itil / Volga River and was the half where the khagan resided and the Khazars lived. Khazaran was on the eastern bank and it was where the Muslims and Christians lived (note that there are conflicting reports of which city was the Khazar residence and which was primarily for people of other faiths, but I have gone with the traditional interpretation of Atil being the Khazar residence). Atil was fortified by a brick wall that protected its inhabitants. The khagan’s palace was made of brick, and was in the city, although it may (according to al-Mas'udi) have been on an island on the Itil between the two cities. In any case, Khazaran and Atil were connected by a pontoon bridge. [Source]
    • [p. 82] Many buildings in Atil were in fact yurts or makeshift clay buildings, which could indicate the still partially nomadic lifestyle of the Khazar aristocracy.
  • Most of the Khazars were semi-nomadic. They lived in Khazaran or other cities during most of the year, but went out to work in agriculture, viticulture (working with grapes in a vineyard), and pastoralism.
  • The Khazar Khaganate was a heterogeneous empire consisting of tribes and lands that had been conquered by the Khazars and were held by force (it was not a peacefully confederacy).
  • [p. 80] In the 9th century, the Khazars faced threats from all around them (Byzantines, Pechenegs, Rus’, Alans, Bulgars, etc). To counter this, they played nomadic tribes against each other, and also maintained a very substantial military.
    • Nominally headed by the khagan, but de facto the army was controlled by the beg (basically khagan = spiritual head of everything in the khaganate, beg = chief military and administrative official).
    • Bulk of the army was the Khazar nobility and their men.
    • There were also mercenaries, primarily hired from the Muslims of Khwarezm. In OTL there were around 7,000 of them in 943, when the Khazars were in decline, so it is reasonable to assume that there were at least 10,000 of these horsemen in 900 AD. These mercenaries would not participate in war against Muslims, and were allowed to openly practice their religion.
    • Third source was conscripts from subject peoples that had proven to be loyal and trustworthy. In particular were the Burtas, a (probably) Finno-Ugric people who provided ten thousand cavalrymen for the Khazars, and the Alans were invaluable as well.
      • Some Slavs and Varangians served in the khagan’s army as well.
      • Hostile subjects such as the Volga Bulgars (OTL name), resented the Khazars, did not provide troops, and sought to offset the khagan’s influence by courting the Abbasids.
  • [p. 81] Peoples under the Khazars were required to pay annual tribute to the khagan. The Burtas paid “one sable skin per household,” and the Burta ruler had to send his son to be a hostage of the khagan.
    • The (eastern) Polians [Polans], the Severians, and the Viatichians [Vyatichi] pay “one squirrel skin per hearth.” Later another Slavic tribe, the Radimichians [Radimichs], pay “one silver coin per plowshare.”
    • (Important: it would seem that when coined money was available, the subjects of Khazaria paid tribute with them. When it was unavailable, they used furs.)
    • There were various taxes on goods and services throughout the khaganate (food, drink, etc).
    • Muslims of Khazaria (or at least of Khazaran) all paid annual taxes based on their wealth.
    • Summary: there were 25 subject peoples of the Khazars, all of whom paid taxes or tribute and gave hostages to the khagan to ensure good behavior.
  • These tributes and taxes went mostly into the coffers of the Khazar nobility. The khagan and his family (the Ashina clan) derived most of their treasury from taxes on trade within the empire.
    • Tariffs levied on every trade route through Khazaria, both sea (Volga, Dnieper trade routes), and land routes too.
    • Merchants passing through via river also paid a tithe (one-tenth of his goods) to the khagan in Khazaran.
  • Black Bulgars = those Bulgars that remain living on the Don-Kuban steppe as Khazar subjects.
  • Possibly the title of khagan was awarded to the Rus’ ruler by the Khazar khagan, or it was adopted by a Rus’ ruler
[THE MAGYARS in the NINTH CENTURY, p. 231]

  • The Kabar rebellion actually failed. The Khazar government was able to crush and subdue the rebels. Several large groups (called “hordes” in De Administrando Imperio) of them fled to live in Atelkuzu with the Magyars. These exiled Kabars spread the Khazar language among the Magyars, and possibly did the same with Judaism.
[Viking Rus, p. 46]

  • The Pechenegs did not cross the Volga until the 890s, and it was not until then did they emerge as a power on the Pontic steppes.
    • Sarkel was not built against the Pechenegs or Rus, but possibly against the rebelling Kabars (my own interpretation) or the Magyars.
[Ukraine-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective, p. 6]

  • Early tenth-century Atil had around 35,000 people living in it, around 30% of which were Jewish. The total population of the other fourteen major Khazar towns was around 70,000 people (the largest being 10,000 in the Crimea). Thus the total urban population of Khazaria was around 111,000 people – all the urban population along with ~6,000 living in twenty Khazar fortresses / strongholds.
    • The ratio of Jews in Atil was consistent with the overall relation of Jews to the greater population: 1:3. There were around 30,500 Jews in early tenth-century Khazaria.
[History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, p. 6]

  • C. 872-873, Basil the Macedonian began a great persecution of the Byzantine Jews. Hundreds of Jewish communities were devastated, and a great deal of displaced Jews emigrated to Khazaria.

[Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, p. 233]

  • Cyril and Methodius visited the Khazars in 861 (Autumn 860-1). The brothers journeyed to Khazaria with the intent of proselytizing.
  • Around 860, the khagan had a Jewish advisor (probably the beg) who was “minded to adopt Christianity” (according to Cyril, who probably is biased here).
    • The khagan had a Muslim advisor as well.
  • The Christian mission failed IOTL, and it was around the same time (861) that the Judaization of the Khazars was complete.
[Final paragraph]

  • Christianity had gained “considerable influence” in Khazaria from the 7th century on. This was partly due to the missionary efforts of Caucasian Albanian monks. During the aftermath of the iconoclast struggle, many iconodules fled to Khazaria.
  • Legendarily, Cyril and Methodius baptized 200 Khazar nobles after preaching to them once, which may be indicative as to their success. However, this is only hearsay and probably written by Greeks, so one should not accept it at face value.
  • Cyril probably knew the Khazar language and how to write it. He probably translated crucial Christian documents into Khazarian.


 

Zioneer

Banned
Uh, rcduggan and Paladin? Thanks. I know that too much praise sounds really creepy, so I won't spend four paragraphs of text praising both of you, but that info really means a lot to me. Thank you.

Very useful, too. Extremely useful, even. I will use both sets of resources if I make a Khazar TL.

As a side note, what was the PoD of your possible Khazars TL, rcduggan? And what would be an interesting Khazar PoD, anyway? Perhaps a lucky victory over Sviatoslav I of Kiev?
 
I wrote a paper about Khazaria in 11th grade (I am now 23) so its been awhile. As I remember it the Khazar ruling class converted because the Khagan did but most of the populace stayed pagan. I think if Khazaria can avoid the devastating sacking of Antil in the 850s (?) they will stay a regional power for a couple centuries (till 1200s) but will be whiped out by the Mongols no matter what. The sacking by the Kievan Rus (ie Vikings) was what opened up Khazaria to the later pillaging and devastation that occured. I feel if you can avoid this event than you can have a successful Khazaria for longer although lasting to present day I feel is ASB because they need the straits or to deal with the Muslim threat to the south. Khazaria arose during a power vaccum between the end of the 1st Byzantine renaissance that coinsided with the final downturn in the Abbasid Caliphate.

An interesting idea is to have a Khazarian Rabbi carry the word East to Mongolia and in the late 1190s convert a young man by the name of Temujin.

I know it is possible to Butterfly Genghis but how cool would a Jewish Mongol Horde be? Especially when Christendom finds out?

Edit: despite my misgivings I would read any attempts and once I finished Laurens Lives I would be taking on this subject although I am realizing that Laurens Lives will be at least a year long thing and so why mind might completely change.
 
I wrote a paper about Khazaria in 11th grade (I am now 23) so its been awhile. As I remember it the Khazar ruling class converted because the Khagan did but most of the populace stayed pagan. I think if Khazaria can avoid the devastating sacking of Antil in the 850s (?) they will stay a regional power for a couple centuries (till 1200s) but will be whiped out by the Mongols no matter what. The sacking by the Kievan Rus (ie Vikings) was what opened up Khazaria to the later pillaging and devastation that occured. I feel if you can avoid this event than you can have a successful Khazaria for longer although lasting to present day I feel is ASB because they need the straits or to deal with the Muslim threat to the south. Khazaria arose during a power vaccum between the end of the 1st Byzantine renaissance that coinsided with the final downturn in the Abbasid Caliphate.

An interesting idea is to have a Khazarian Rabbi carry the word East to Mongolia and in the late 1190s convert a young man by the name of Temujin.

I know it is possible to Butterfly Genghis but how cool would a Jewish Mongol Horde be? Especially when Christendom finds out?

Edit: despite my misgivings I would read any attempts and once I finished Laurens Lives I would be taking on this subject although I am realizing that Laurens Lives will be at least a year long thing and so why mind might completely change.

Wow, that's even more eclectic than my year 8 paper (I did 'Why did Mehmet II besiege Constantinople in 1453?) I'm sure your teacher loved you:D.

Anyway, interesting everyone. I've been hearing about the Khazars here for awhile and have never really understood them. Thanks for the resources, they seem pretty interesting, and not just your typical horde of steppe nomads.
 
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