Khazar Khaganate

Overview

The Khazar Khaganate was a major semi-nomadic Turkic empire that dominated the steppes between the Black and Caspian Seas and the north Caucasus from roughly the mid-7th to the late 10th century. According to the English Wikipedia "Khazars" infobox, it covered some 3,000,000 km² (1,200,000 sq mi) at the 850 estimate, falling to about 1,000,000 km² by the 900 estimate. It was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multilingual polity, a crucial commercial hub on the trade routes linking the Abbasid Caliphate, Byzantium, and the northern forest zones. Its capitals shifted: Balanjar (c. 650–c. 720), Samandar (c. 720–750), and from around 750 Atil (Itil) on the lower Volga.

The Khazar state was famously governed by a dual kingship: a sacral khagan (a figurehead with limited, largely spiritual powers) and a bek (also khagan bek or ishad), who wielded real military and administrative authority. Atil was divided by the Volga, with the rulers' palaces on an island between the halves.

The Khazars fought a long series of Arab–Khazar wars (roughly 642–652 and 732–737) that halted Umayyad expansion north of the Caucasus. Their most celebrated feature is the conversion of the ruling elite to Judaism. The traditional account (in the Khazar Correspondence and Judah Halevi's Kuzari) attributes this to a King Bulan and later reforms under Obadiah. The date and extent are heavily debated: many scholars place the conversion around 740, others in the first half or middle of the 9th century (al-Masudi placed it in the reign of Harun al-Rashid, 786–809; Constantin Zuckerman argued for 861, during Cyril's visit); and the historian Shaul Stampfer, in "Did the Khazars Convert to Judaism?" (Jewish Social Studies, 2013), argued controversially that no formal conversion took place at all, since the most reliable contemporary sources are silent, some are pseudepigraphic, and archaeological evidence is scant. The consensus remains that at least the elite adopted Judaism, but the scale (whether the general population converted) is uncertain.

The khaganate declined under pressure from the Pechenegs and the rising Kievan Rus'. The decisive blow came when the Rus' prince Sviatoslav I sacked the Khazar fortresses of Sarkel and the capital Atil in his campaign of 965 (with Atil's fall variously dated 965, 967, or 968/969, since Ibn Hawqal and al-Muqaddasi mention the site after 969, suggesting partial rebuilding). A near-contemporary visitor to Atil wrote that "no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch."

Historiographical note

There is no surviving Khazar-language record; the Khazar Correspondence (the letter of King Joseph) is of contested authenticity, and much reconstruction depends on Arab, Byzantine, and Hebrew sources of varying reliability.