In the 7th-10th centuries, the state of the nomadic Khazars occupied vast territories from Central Asia and the North Caucasus to modern Ukraine, Crimea and Hungary. A variety of peoples lived in it, professing various religions - from monotheistic Christianity, Islam and Judaism to paganism, Tengrism and shamanism. What caused such amazing religious tolerance and religious tolerance of the Khazar state?

Tolerance of the Khazar Khaganate

Indeed, almost all other countries surrounding the Khazar Khaganate adhered to one monotheistic state religion and with great difficulty accepted the religious minorities living in their territories. In Khazaria, however, everything was different: numerous sources report on the religious pluralism and religious tolerance of this state. So, according to the Muslim author ibn Ruste, the ruler of the Dagestan region Sarir, which was part of the kaganate, went to the mosque on Fridays to pray, on Saturdays to the synagogue, and on Sundays to the church. The geographer Gardizi added that the rest of the inhabitants of Sarir did the same. This message should be treated rather as a historical anecdote, showing, nevertheless, the degree of religious tolerance of the Khazar state.

And here is a more detailed description of the Khazar judicial system by the Arab geographer of the tenth century Abul-Hasan al-Masudi: “In the Khazar capital, according to the rule, there are seven judges (qadi); two of them are for Muslims; two - for the Khazars, who judge in accordance with the Torah; two for Christians who judge according to the gospel; and one for saklabs, Russ and other pagans, who judges according to pagan [custom], that is, according to the dictates of the mind.

Further, Al-Masudi describes in detail which religions were professed by various segments of the population of Khazaria. Judaism, according to his information, was the religion of a rather limited, but the most influential minority: it was adhered to by the Khazar nobility, the king, his retinue and the Khazars of the royal family. The majority of the population of the country were Muslims, of which the army of Khazaria consisted mainly; they were also known as al-larisiya or arsiya.

The pagans in Khazaria, according to Masudi, were the Slavs (in Arabic "sakaliba") and the Rus. Under the "Rus" meant, of course, the Varangians from the territory of northern and central Russia. The geographer writes the following about their pagan customs: “They burn their dead along with their horses, utensils and ornaments. When a man dies, his wife is burned alive with him, but if a woman dies, the husband is not burned.” Russ and Slavs also served in the army of the Khazar ruler.

From other sources, we know that paganism in the form of Tengrism was practiced mainly by the Turkic inhabitants of the Kaganate, especially the Savirs and the Khazars themselves (with the exception of the ruling aristocracy). Deifying the sun, thunder, fire and water, they considered the main god of the sky and the sun - Tengri (Khan). The gods were worshiped in temples and sacred groves, sacrificing horses.

What was the main religion?

There is no single answer to this question. From the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th centuries, Judaism became the religion of the Khazar aristocracy. However, it is difficult to say how widespread it was among the entire population of the kaganate. According to such researchers of this topic as B. Zakhoder and V. Minorsky, Judaism was the religion of only the Khazar aristocracy, i.e., the kagan and his entourage. The complete absence of any archaeological sites with pronounced Jewish symbols on the territory of the Khaganate also speaks about the spread of Judaism in Khazaria exclusively among the ruling elite and aristocracy. Neither the synagogues mentioned in the documents, nor the religious schools, nor the burials, nor the graffiti, nor any other evidence of the practice of Judaism by the Khazars have been found.

Muslim sources (al-Istakhri, ibn Ruste, ibn Haukal, etc.) write that the majority of the inhabitants of Khazaria profess Christianity and Islam. Here is an excerpt from al-Istakhri (circa 950): “Their king is a Jew [a Jew]. He has about 4,000 foot troops. Khazars - Mohammedans, Christians, Jews and pagans; Jews are a minority, Mohammedans and Christians a majority; however, the king and his courtiers are Jews; the common people are chiefly made up of pagans."

At the same time, according to al-Masudi, the Khazar army consisted mainly of Muslims, Christians and partly pagans (Slavs and Varangians-Rus). According to other authors, among the Turkic peoples of the kaganate, the majority of pagans were Tengrians, who worshiped the sky god Tengri.

How tolerant was the Khazar state?

Despite the above general atmosphere of religious tolerance, of course, there were conflicts between representatives of various religions of the kaganate. For example, the Muslim geographer al-Yakut wrote that the Khazar king ordered the destruction of the minaret in the city of Itil and executed local muezzins in response to the destruction of the synagogue in Dar al-Babunaj by Muslims. Or we can recall the brutal suppression by the Khazars around 787 of the uprising of John of Gotha in the Christian region of Gothia in the Crimea. However, these sectarian conflicts were the exception rather than the rule.

What was the reason for the religious tolerance of the Khazars?

What explanation can be found for this, surprising enough for the harsh medieval mentality, tolerance towards other religions? Researcher O. B. Bubenok suggested that the religious tolerance of the Khazars can be explained by poly-confessionalism and indifference to religious issues, characteristic of the nomadic peoples of the Middle Ages. However, by the 9th-10th centuries, the inhabitants of the Khazar Khaganate were actually settled peoples, living mainly in urban centers and, in addition to military activities, engaged in agriculture, trade and handicrafts.

Other researchers give a different explanation for this phenomenon. The fact is that, according to the customs of those times, religion had to be accepted from the centers of religious propaganda of other states - thereby recognizing these states as their patrons. Recall, for example, that the Byzantine emperor demanded vassalage from the Russian prince Vladimir as a favor for converting the Rus to the Orthodox faith, and in order to avoid this, Vladimir began his famous campaign against Byzantium, capturing medieval Kherson. For this reason, the adoption of the Christian religion as the only faith of the state would mean for the Khazars to fall into vassal dependence on Byzantium or Rome, while the adoption of Islam is dependence on the Arab Caliphate. It was easier with Judaism - it could be accepted without becoming a vassal of any other state. This is what the ruling elite of the Khazars did, while also maintaining other religions as permissible and not persecuted by the state. Therefore, such diverse religions as rabbinical Judaism, Byzantine Christianity, Shiite Islam, Tengrian paganism and shamanism could coexist on the territory of the kaganate.

Such religious pluralism did not know, perhaps, not a single major power of that time. It is possible, however, that it was precisely the absence of a consolidating factor in the form of a single state religion that became one of the main reasons for the fall of the kaganate in the 10th century.

Russia and Kaganate

On July 3, 968, Prince Svyatoslav put an end to the existence of the Khazar Kaganate

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The capital of Khazaria was Godod Edel (יטל), most often transcribed as Itil in modern literature. This word is translated from the Hebrew language as myt - customs duty from passing ships and caravans. The former name of Itil was Khamlikh. Khalmykh became Itil only after the transfer of the Khazar capital to it, which took place after the capture of the city of Semender by the Arabs. Itil was located in the Volga Delta on the site of the modern village of Samosdelka in the Astrakhan region, where excavations of the former Khazar capital are now underway. The main, central part of the settlement was located on an island stretched along the old, now dried-up channel of the Volga.

Khazaria did not create wealth, but only appropriated someone else's. The Khazars fed and clothed themselves at the expense of neighboring peoples, exhausting them with tribute, robber raids, and trade duties. Trade routes crossed in the city of Itil, and the Khazars themselves had nothing to offer foreign merchants, except for slaves and beluga glue.

From China to Europe, through which silk was imported into Europe in exchange for gold and European goods. A section of the Great Silk Road ran along the Black Sea and the Don, supplying silk, spices and luxury goods from China to Byzantium.
From Biarmia (Great Perm) to the Baghdad Caliphate across the Volga and the Caspian Sea, along which furs were exchanged for silver.
From the Germans, the Khazars bought Slavic slaves captured in the Slavic lands they conquered, with subsequent resale to Muslim countries. The path "from the Germans to the Khazars" through Regensburg, Prague, Krakow and Kyiv provided the Khazars with access to the markets of Western Europe.

In the markets of Itil, Bulgarian sables, Russian beavers and foxes, Mordovian honey, Khorezm fabrics, Persian dishes, Byzantine weapons were traded. Silver coins with inscriptions incomprehensible to the Khazars passed from hand to hand. The main profit of the Khazars was from the slave trade. They ordered the Hungarians and Pechenegs to seize Russian peasants into slavery and sold the slaves to Christian Byzantium and Muslim Khorezm and Persia. For the indigenous Khazar nomads who professed Tengrism and gave the name to the kaganate, the Jewish city of Itil was only a place of temporary residence. With the onset of spring, they went with their yurts and herds to the steppes, to the famous Black Lands in the valley of the Manych River, to the Don and to the Volga, and roamed there until autumn. The kagan lived in a large brick palace built on an island; the island was connected with the rest of the city only by a bridge, near which there were always guards. Only the ruler of the palace - kender-kagan - and the gatekeeper-chaushiar were honored to see the Kagan. Even the king, the leader of the army and the sovereign ruler of Khazaria, was allowed into the palace only occasionally. The rest of the people were forbidden to approach the red palace walls.

Only three times a year did the Kagan break his seclusion. On a white horse, he rode through the streets and squares of the capital, and behind him the Nokhchi guardsmen followed in even rows. It was forbidden to look at the kagan. Those who violated this ban were immediately pierced by Chechens with mines.
Nevertheless, by the time of the fall of the kaganate, a system of dual rule had developed in Khazaria, in which the military power was exercised by the beks, and the priestly functions and nominal supremacy remained behind the khagans. The executive power was exercised by the king-infantry. The last king of the Khaganate was Joseph ben Aaron. Joseph allowed Byzantine Jews to move to Khazaria, when under the emperor Roman they were persecuted.

However, few people know the fact that for some time Russia was under the yoke of the Khazars, and the activities of the Kiev prince were controlled by the Khazar tudun. No, the Khazars did not conquer Russia. Quite simply, the Kiev merchants owed money to the Khazar usurers, and forced the prince to pay for them with the independence of the state. Kyiv paid tribute to the Khazars not only in money, but also tribute with swords i.e. warriors. The Slavs supplied the Khazars with fairly large military units, and if they were defeated, then the soldiers were executed.

The Tuduns were the actual rulers of Kyiv, just as in Khazaria itself, on behalf of a nominal Turkic-speaking kagan and the power was exercised by the Jewish kahal, in the face of a man called in Turkic back , but in Hebrew ha-melech . The first tudun was in 839 the Khazar governor Almus.

One of these tuduns was the famous Dir, who was killed by the Prophetic Oleg together with Prince Askold during the capture of Kyiv in 882. After that, Oleg fought with the Khazars for two more years and until the very year 939 he delivered Russia from their power.

However, in the same year 939, the Khazar governor Pesach ambushed the Russian army returning from the campaign, defeated it, after which it ravaged Kyiv and restored Khazar domination in Russia. The princes again became tributaries of the Kaganate. It was in order to pay tribute to the Kaganate that Igor arranged a polyudye - he collected tribute from the Slavic tribes subject to Kiev.

And then the autumn of 945 came. Prince Igor had just paid another tribute to the Khazars, but this time the Khazars considered the amount of tribute insufficient. Igor had to go through the people again and re-extract honey and skins for the Khazar tribute. So he again appeared in the land of the Drevlyans, where he was killed.

This event has another version. According to this version, the Drevlyans killed Igor at the instigation of the Khazars. The fact is that a year before that, Igor, who from 941 to 944 fought with Byzantium at the request of the Kaganate, unexpectedly made peace with the Empire and concluded a non-aggression pact with it. This pact was supplemented by a secret protocol on the division between Russia and the Empire of the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region.

At that time, Prince Mal ruled in the Drevlyansk land. Most likely, this is a Slavic distortion of the Jewish name Malch, meaning "king." The word is of the same root as the one already mentioned ha-melech. Probably his mother was a Khazarian. It was this same Malch who lured Igor's squad into an ambush.

Warrior of the Khaganate

The ancient Slavs had this custom: if someone kills a prince, he becomes a prince. This is what Malchus intended to do. Having killed the prince, he intended to take possession of everything that he had, including Igor's wife Olga, but she was not going to become the wife of some Malch, the man who killed her husband. Therefore, having played a comedy with a wedding, Olga killed all these Drevlyans along with their prince.

Subsequently, Olga tried to enlist the support of Byzantium in the fight against the Kaganate, but the Greeks made baptism a condition. Olga accepted it. She also advised Svyatoslav to accept Orthodoxy, but he answered her: “How do I want to adopt a new law? And my squad will start laughing at this. Translated into the current language, it sounds like this: “What are you, mother, my boys are pinning me up.”

Despite the baptism of Olga, help from Byzantium never came, and the matured Svyatoslav had to rely only on his own strength.

In the end, on July 3, 968, Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich defeated the Khazar army and wiped Itil, Semender and other Khazar cities off the face of the earth, and all the Khazar gold was thrown into the Volga, since Svyatoslav’s warriors were, as they say, zapadno to take wealth for themselves, derived from human trafficking. The expression "money does not smell" was in those days, apparently, still unfamiliar to our ancestors.

After the defeat of Khazaria by our glorious ancestors, one of its fragments was formed with a center in the first capital of Khazaria, Semender, next to the current village of Shelkovskaya, now located in Chechnya. Another fragment of the Jewish Khazaria - the Khazar principality with the center in Kerch was conquered in 1016 in a joint campaign of the Byzantine and Russian troops.
A small political entity in the Lower Volga region, dependent on Khorezm, with its center in Saksin, located on the site of Itil, underwent Islamization.

The Great Steppe, stretching for thousands of kilometers from east to west of the Eurasian continent, has known in its history more than one state located on its expanses, founded by nomadic peoples. One of these states was the Khazar Khaganate, which in its popularity can only compete with history buffs with the Mongol Empire and the empire of Attila.

The territory of the Khazar Khaganate on the map is marked on the interfluve of the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper and Volga. At the peak of its development, this state also included Western Kazakhstan, the North Caucasus, and Crimea. Many neighboring tribes were taxed by the Khazars. But this country, founded by a nomadic people, never had stable, clearly defined borders.

The emergence of the country, the location of the capital

Although the Khazars have been mentioned in written sources since 555, the formation of the early feudal Khazar state took place only in the middle of the 7th century on the ruins of the Western Turkic Khaganate. The homeland of the Khazars is considered to be the flat region of the North Caucasus, where Dagestan is now located. Here the first association of the Khazar tribes arose, in which the Turks from the Ashina dynasty retained power.

The Khazar state was governed in different periods of its history from two capitals. At first it was the city of Semender, located on the territory of their historical homeland. Later, the capital of Khazaria was moved to Itil, a city on the Lower Volga. It was destroyed in 965, during the conquest of the country by the Kiev prince Svyatoslav.

Expansion to the south, wars with the Arabs

Khazaria reached its highest development in the 7th - 8th centuries. Having divided the territory of the Western Turkic Khaganate with the Volga Bulgaria, the Khazars eventually subjugated the Bulgars to themselves. Thus, a state arose that for several centuries became a barrier to the uncontrolled expansion of the nomadic peoples of Asia into Eastern and Central Europe, until its destruction by the Rus.

During this period, the foreign policy of Khazaria, which became a kaganate (kingdom), consisted in conducting aggressive campaigns against the rich agricultural states of Transcaucasia. This expansion was stopped only by the no less powerful Arab Caliphate.

In the first half of the 8th century there was an almost continuous war between the Caliphate and the Kaganate, which ended with the Arabs giving up their claims to the North Caucasus. The Kaganate retained its independence, shielding Europe from the Arabs and pulling their forces away from Byzantium. In the future, the relations of the Kaganate with Byzantium developed into allied ones and were sealed in 732 by the dynastic marriage of the daughter of the kagan with the future emperor Constantine V.

Adoption of Judaism, fall of the state

During its existence, this people was not an adherent of the same religion. Initially, the religion of the Khazars was Tangrianism, a traditional pagan belief of Asian nomads, the earthly incarnation of which was considered a kagan. The creation of the state led to the modernization of religious beliefs, more suitable for the more complex social structure.

The Khazar kingdom was formed at the junction of several religious worlds:

• Christianity;
• Islam;
• Judaism.

All three confessions coexisted here peacefully, without religious conflicts. The penetration of new beliefs into the territory of the Khaganate was not simultaneous. First - back in the 7th century. - it was Christianity. Acquaintance with Islam was facilitated by the Arab-Khazar wars. Much later, already in the time of the Golden Horde, this religion became dominant in the territory of Khazaria, which had disappeared by that time.

Judaism was the last to penetrate into the Khazar Khaganate, and as a result of the gradual Judaization of society, it became its main religion in the final stages of the existence of the state. It did not have time to become truly dominant because of the fall of the Khaganate in the 10th century.

By this time, other states were already dynamically developing next to Khazaria: the Volga Bulgaria, the state of the Samanids, Byzantium was still strong. All of them posed a real threat to the existence of the country. But the Russians played a decisive role in the destruction of the Khazar Khaganate. In 964−969. Prince Svyatoslav made several trips to Khazaria, during the last of them destroying both - the old and the current (Semender and Itil) - its capitals. The last date is considered the final date in the existence of an independent Khazaria.

State structure

Khazaria, originally a nomadic khanate, borrowed the governance structure from the Turkic Khaganate. The head of state was the kagan, who did not have a coercive apparatus at his disposal and had to rely only on the sacred meaning of his title and the ability to distribute military booty. The Khazars adopted the bureaucratic structure from their more developed neighbors.

Separate dependent territories had self-government and were only required to regularly pay tribute to Khazaria and take part in military campaigns. At the beginning of the ninth century In Khazaria, a system of dual government was established.

Behind the back of the pagan dynasty of Khagans stood the Judaic clan of Bulanids, who concentrated real power in their hands, leaving formal rituals to the king.

Economic structure

The basis of the income of the common people of Khazaria was nomadic cattle breeding. In the later stages of the existence of the kaganate, many former nomads in the coastal regions and lower reaches of the rivers switched to settled agriculture.

The income of the nobility consisted of war booty, but with the development of trade there was a gradual reorientation to other sources of income. This was facilitated by the presence of large trade routes passing through the territory of the country. But the Khazars themselves were not engaged in trade, leading a traditional nomadic lifestyle. This was the work of the Jewish and Muslim communities. The Khazar Khaganate minted its own money, but this was not a regular process. Most of the Khazar coins were an imitation of the Arab coinage.

military organization

The history of the army of the kaganate is divided into two periods. They differ in the way of completing combat units, which consisted of:

• militia;
• horse guard.

The Arab-Khazar wars were waged by the khaganate with the help of the militia, which were obliged to put up all the dependent tribes. The size of the army could reach several hundred thousand people, its core was the cavalry. When storming cities, siege engines were used. The Khazar army was formed by the method of militia until the 9th century.

The Khazar army of the late period of the existence of the kaganate was formed according to a different principle. It was based on heavily armed cavalry guards stationed in Itil. Warriors in the guard were recruited from Muslims of Khorezmian origin - Larisians. The transition to a professional army made it possible for the country to withstand wars with much superior enemy forces for at least another hundred and fifty years.

In addition to the heavy cavalry, the army consisted of mercenary detachments of the Rus and Slavs, horsemen, who were supposed to put up nobles, the classic militia, which was put up by dependent tribes.

Many researchers believe that the Khazars as a people did not completely disappear. Their descendants may be Karaites - a small Turkic-speaking people who until recently lived in the Crimea, which Italian medieval sources back in the 16th century. called Khazaria.

Most sources about the Khazar Khaganate primarily cover political history, somewhat weaker - economy. As for culture, questions of ideology are most affected and almost nothing is known about its other aspects. The Khazars did not leave us literary works, religious treatises, historical chronicles. Therefore, we are forced to resort to disparate data of medieval authors and archaeological materials. Perhaps the most illuminated is the ideological aspect of the Khazar culture. It has already been said above that the Khazars were an ethnic group that was formed as a result of the merger of various tribes, both who had long lived in Ciscaucasia and who came here from the East. This left its mark on the religion of the Khazars. Initially, the Khazars were pagans (most of them remained as such later). In the beliefs of the Khazars, all kinds of primitive forms of religion can be traced. Ancient totemic beliefs were preserved in the legends about the origin of the Khazars. From the time the Khazars entered the Hunnic confederation, they had a legend about a deity in the form of a deer, which carried away the hunters and led the tribe to new lands. One of the most famous rulers of Khazaria bore the name Bulan (deer, elk). This legend is clearly characteristic of the forest tribes, which were the Finno-Ugrians.

Another legend is about the origin of the Turks. When the enemies destroyed the whole tribe, only a ten-year-old boy survived. From starvation (because his legs and arms were cut off) he was saved by a she-wolf. When the boy grew up, the she-wolf gave birth to 10 sons from him in the Altai mountains, who took wives from Turfan. One of them was the ancestor of the Turkic clan Ashina. By the way, Ashina means "noble wolf". The banners of the Turkut khans also depicted a golden wolf's head. Immediately it should be noted that the reading of the wolf as the progenitor is not a discovery of the Turks. They undoubtedly borrowed this cult from the Indo-Iranian nomads (as well as the cattle-breeding way of life), as evidenced by the wide distribution of such plots among the Indo-European peoples.3 Moses Kagankatvatsi provides quite detailed information about the pagan beliefs of the population of Khazaria. The Savirs "sacrificed fire and water, worshiped some gods of the ways, also the moon and all the creatures that seemed amazing to them in their eyes." He also mentions the sacred trees, where horses were sacrificed, the blood of which was poured around the sacred trees, and the head and skin were hung on the branches. Medieval authors mention ritual duels of naked men during funeral rites. Tree worship and ritual fights are perhaps the most characteristic of the Finno-Ugric tradition. It is interesting that the plots of ritual fights or dances are found both on the chalk blocks of the Mayatsky settlement, and on silver vessels from the sanctuaries of the Khanty and Mansi.

The most important place in the paganism of the population of Khazaria was played by the cult of fire. It was characteristic both for the Iranian-speaking nomads and for the Turks who were under their strong cultural influence. The fiery cult is most clearly manifested in the funeral rite, where there is coal bedding, or a full-fledged rite of cremation. The supreme servant of fire was the kagan. According to Bahri, before converting to Judaism, the Khagan of the Khazars was a magician, i.e. fire worshiper and priest of fire. The anonymous author of “Akhbar al-Za-man” (IX-beginning of the X century) gives a unique description of the rite performed by the kagan: “The day comes for the king when they make a huge fire. He goes to him, and stands near him, and looks at him, and speaks, growling, and a great fire rises. If it is green, there will be rain and fertility, and if it is white, then drought, and if it is red, there will be bloodshed, if it is yellow, then illness and plague, and if it is black, this indicates the death of the king or his long journey...

The fire also performed a cleansing function. During the embassy of the Byzantine Zemarch to the Turkut kagan, he underwent a fire purification procedure. The supreme deity of the pagan Khazars was Non-Tengri (Blue Sky) or Tengri Khan, personifying sunlight, heavenly divine energy. Undoubtedly, the earth was also deified. Mentioned in the sources, the ministers of the pagan cult are most often referred to as sorcerers. Indeed, in addition to their priestly duties, they performed the important function of rainmakers, both for purely economic purposes and as a way to influence the enemy in case of war.

During the period when power in Khazaria passes into the hands of the shad, the sacred functions of the kagan become dominant. Divine honors are given to him, and at the same time, in case of disasters (drought, crop failure, unsuccessful war), the kagan was killed as having lost divine power.

However, in the conditions of the neighborhood of the kaganate with countries dominated by monotheistic religions, their penetration into the Khazar lands was inevitable. This process was facilitated not only by the broad political and trade and economic ties of the country, but also by the development of class relations, as well as the significant religious tolerance of the Khazar pagan elite, since paganism in general is characterized by respect for foreign gods. Christianity was the first to penetrate Khazaria. This is due to both close political contacts with Byzantium and ties with Transcaucasia, where this form of religion was established in Armenia and Georgia. Christian missionaries in the 7th century successfully mastered Azerbaijan and penetrated into the Khazar borders. The most noticeable in this regard was the activity of Bishop Israel in the 80s. 7th century

However, Christianity could not establish itself in Khazaria due to the opposition of the ruling elite, who feared the strengthening of Byzantine influence. Because of Derbent and through Central Asia, Islam penetrates into the Khaganate together with Muslim merchants. The defeat of the Khazars by the Arabs in 737 led to the fact that the kagan was forced to agree to his conversion to Islam. And yet, neither Christianity nor Islam become the ideology adopted by the top of the kaganate. Of the monotheistic religions, Judaism was chosen, which, according to the rulers of Khazaria, ensured ideological and political independence from Constantinople and Baghdad. Judaism was practiced by the king, ka-gan, the king's entourage and his family. The tsar and the kagan were required to be Jews by religion. However, even among the relatives of the kagan, not all were adherents of Judaism. Istakhri reports on a young man - a grain merchant, who was the closest contender for the post of kagan (by birth), but was not elected, because he was a Muslim and did not change his faith. On the wide dissemination of the Jewish faith in Khazaria even in the 10th century. don't have to speak. Most sources mention Jews only in third place, after Muslims and Christians. An impassable abyss lay between the people and the rulers. Many representatives of the nobility did not accept the new religion, which led to turmoil, the victims of which were the Jewish kings Obadiah, Hezekiah and Manasseh. In the international arena, such a step could also bring nothing but enmity between neighbors. The adoption of Judaism by the top of the Kaghanate is so illogical that L.N. Gumilyov even expresses the idea of ​​a coup, as a result of which the Jews came to power, and not the Khazars who converted to Judaism. The new religion was unable to solve the problem of consolidating the multi-ethnic state of the Khazars, which, coupled with the process of feudalization and the strengthening of the nobility, led to the internal weakness of the state and its death under external blows. More than three hundred years of existence of this empire could not but influence the fate of the peoples of this region. The Khaganate was the first class state in Eastern Europe. For a long time he played an important role in the politics of states whose interests clashed in the Caucasus region. Even in pre-revolutionary Russian historiography, Khazaria received an important assessment as a barrier to the path of nomadic tribes, which allowed the Slavs in the 7th-9th centuries. colonize large areas of Eastern Europe. Within the framework of the kaganate, a process of rapid class formation among subject peoples takes place, tribal reigns of the Slavs (Polyans and northerners) are formed, Volga Bulgaria is formed (in the future, the strongest state on the Volga). Russian chronicles practically do not mention the conflicts of the Slavs with the steppe during the heyday of the kaganate (7th-early 9th centuries), but even in a later period, the threat from the Khazars significantly weakened the warlike aspirations of wild nomadic tribes, for example, the Pechenegs. It is no coincidence that the first title of Russian princes, equating them with neighboring lords, was “kagan” - so great was the charm of the political power of Khazaria. It was during the existence of the Kaganate that the Volga first turned into the most important trade route in Eastern Europe. By the way, after the death of the Khazar state, this path loses its significance for almost two hundred years. During the period of the Khaganate, agricultural culture penetrated into the previously underdeveloped regions of the Don and Volga regions. Even the culture of viticulture in Eastern Europe, and that begins with Khazaria.

A significant phenomenon in the Turkic and global history was the Khazar Khaganate. But the history of this state is often described as a background or context for the history of other peoples. It is still not included in the system of the general Turkic civilization and the statehood of the Tatar people, although there are many signs-criteria (a common historical origin, language, way of life, etc.) that allow us to consider Khazaria as an important component of the Turkic civilization and the Tatar subculture.

Creation of the Khazar Khaganate

The Khazar Khaganate (from the 7th to the 10th centuries) became the first early feudal state in the east of Europe, which arose by the middle of the 7th century. in the Caspian steppes as a result of the collapse of the Western Turkic Khaganate.

Turkic-speaking Khazars - nomads and pastoralists appeared here after the Hunnic "throw" to Europe. According to the Syrian historian Zacharias of Mytilene, at the turn of the 5th - 6th centuries. 13 Turkic-speaking tribes settled in the northwestern Caspian region, among which were Savirs, Avars, Bulgarians, Khazars. The Khazars, together with the Savirs, showed themselves as a noticeable military force, making campaigns against the Byzantine and Iranian possessions in the Transcaucasus.

In the 560-570s. Khazar tribes fell under the influence of the Turkic Khaganate. Together with the main Turkic groups of the kaganate, which made an alliance with Byzantium, the Khazars participated in campaigns against Iran. After the weakening and collapse of the Western Turkic Khaganate, the Khazars turned out to be one of the largest and most influential tribes in the North Caucasus, creating a new union of tribes - the Khazar Khaganate. The Turkic (Turkut) Ashina dynasty retained power in the kaganate.

Tribes of the Khazar Khaganate

In the second half of the 7th c. Khazars, taking advantage of the division of Great Bulgaria between the sons of Khan Kubrat, subjugated part of the Bulgarian tribes. The Khazar Khaganate also included Savirs, Barsils, Belenjers, Alans and other local tribes.

Territory of the Khazar Khaganate

At the end of the 7th - beginning of the 8th century. the Khazars were able to subjugate the nearby East Slavic tribes and imposed tribute on them. As a result of a military confrontation with the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the 7th-8th centuries. Khazars captured the Taman Peninsula, the Bosporus, most of the Crimean Peninsula, with the exception of Chersonesus.

At the height of its prosperity at the beginning of the 8th century. The Khazar Khaganate included the vast territories of the North Caucasus, the entire Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, most of the Crimea, controlled the steppe and forest-steppe expanses up to the Dnieper. Despite the strengthening of the Khazar presence in the Black Sea region, Byzantium, alarmed by the Arab campaigns, establishes allied relations with Khazaria.

VII - VIII centuries. were a period of explosive expansion of the Arab civilization, which created a huge empire - stretching from the Indus River in Asia to the Pyrenees in Europe. Already during the first military campaigns, the Arabs were pushing back the powerful powers of that time - the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Iran, weakened by internal contradictions and eternal mutual struggle.

In the middle of the 7th century the Arab conquest of Iran ended, and at the beginning of the 8th century. The Arab state included Transcaucasia and part of Central Asia. Baghdad became the center of a prosperous caliphate.

The Khazars made several trips to the Arab-controlled lands of Transcaucasia. In response, the Arabs in 735, having overcome the Caucasus Mountains, defeated the Khazars. The Khazar Khagan and his entourage adopted Islam from the Arabs, which they then spread among part of the population of the Khaganate. This is the result of Arab civilizational influence, the penetration of Arab preachers and Muslim merchants into the country.

Capital of the Khazar Khaganate

After the Arab campaigns, the center of the kaganate moved to the north. The capital of the kaganate was first the ancient city of Semender in the North Caucasian Caspian region, and then the city of Itil on the Lower Volga (not far from modern Astrakhan). The city was located on both banks of the Volga and on a small island, where the residence of the kagan was located. It was walled and had a good system of fortifications.

In the eastern part of the city (Khazaran) there was a handicraft and trade center with large fairgrounds, caravanserais, workshops, and the western part was inhabited by bureaucratic and military aristocracy, administrative buildings and the khan's palace were also located here.

The population of the capital, as well as the entire kaganate, was ethnically diverse: in addition to the Khazars, there lived Bulgarians and Alans, Turks and Slavs, Arabs and Khorezmians, Jews and Byzantines. Many visiting merchants stayed in Khazaria for a long time. Muslims had mosques, Christian churches, Jews - synagogues, and pagans - pagan temples and places of prayer.

According to contemporaries, there were at least 30 mosques, parochial schools and schools in the city. Residential buildings consisted of wooden houses or tents, felt yurts and semi-dugouts. Itil existed until 965, when it was destroyed by the Kiev prince Svyatoslav Igorevich.

Economy of the Khazar Khaganate

The main economic occupation of the population of Khazaria remained semi-nomadic cattle breeding, but agriculture, horticulture and viticulture were actively developing. Many grain, horticultural and horticultural crops came to the farmers of the Khazar Khaganate from Central and Central Asia, from the Middle East, from South and Central Europe. The proximity of the Caspian and Azov Seas, Volga, Don and other rivers made fishing habitual for the population of Khazaria.

In summer, many pastoralists went to temporary camps, in winter they lived in settlements and cities. The craft developed rapidly, adopting the most progressive techniques and technologies of various civilizations and peoples.

Trade of the Khazar Khaganate

Trade played a special role in the formation of the Khazar Khaganate and the expansion of its international relations.

The Khaganate found itself at the crossroads of traditional trade routes from east to west () and from the Baltic to the Caspian and Black Seas (the Great Volga Route).

From the north came furs, cattle, honey and wax, beluga glue, from the south they brought Arab steel, jewelry, from the east - spices, precious stones, from the west - weapons, metal products, fabrics. The Khaganate was a transit route in the slave trade, but slavery did not become noticeable here and, in its type, was close to patriarchal slavery.

Sarkel fortress of the Khazar Khaganate

The largest city of Khazaria was the city of Sarkel (from the Khazar “white house”), built in the 9th century. at the intersection of several trade caravan routes with water. In 834, the Byzantine emperor Theophilus, at the request of the Khazar Khagan, sent an architect to the Don to build a stone fortress, which was erected by local craftsmen. The fortress protected the neighboring trading city and was separated from it by a moat. On the inner territory of the fortress, which had thick brick walls and towers, there was a citadel with two watchtowers.

Sarkel grew rapidly and soon turned into the largest city of the Azov region with a multilingual population, a significant part of which were Bulgarians. Subsequently, the city was heavily destroyed by the warriors of Prince Svyatoslav, but it existed as a southern Russian stronghold called Belaya Vezha until the middle of the 12th century.

Byzantium and the Khazar Khaganate

Khazaria, having found itself in the zone of geopolitical competition of the largest empires and civilizations (Byzantium, the Arab Caliphate), was drawn not only into their military rivalry and politics, but also became the cause of cultural and religious confrontation. In connection with such a role of the Khazar Khaganate in the Caspian-Black Sea region, the issue of the state religion acquired key importance. Initially, the pagans - the Bulgarians and the Khazars were influenced by Muslim Arabs, and the Byzantines introduced Christianity, creating in the VIII century on the territory of the Khaganate a metropolis with seven local dioceses.

Almost simultaneously with the adoption of Islam, part of the Khazars of Northern Dagestan began to profess Judaism, which was brought to the Caucasus by Jews expelled first from Sasanian Iran, and then from Byzantium.

Judaism in the Khazar Khaganate

The Khazars showed considerable religious tolerance, as evidenced by many contemporaries. This is probably why attempts to declare one of the state religions met with no resistance in society. This happened when at the turn of the VIII-IX centuries. Khagan Obadiah displaced the former Turkic dynasty and declared Judaism the state religion.

The environment of the kagan adopted Judaism, and most of the population continued to practice paganism, Islam and Christianity. A split occurred among the local feudal lords, the Khazar princes - opponents of the new kagan decided to rely on the help of the Hungarians, who at that time roamed beyond the Volga, and Obadiah hired Turkic detachments of the Pechenegs and Guzes (Oghuz). An internecine struggle began, as a result of which the losers went to the Danube, and one of them, quite likely, migrated to the Middle Volga region.

The defeat of the Khazar Khaganate

At the end of the ninth century The banks of the Don and the Black Sea steppes are filled with new Turkic nomads - the Pechenegs, who seriously impeded the Khazar foreign trade. An even more dangerous threat to the hegemony of the Khazar Khaganate and Khazar trade was Kievan Rus, which also sought to control the transit trade of Eastern Europe: the Great Silk Road and the Baltic-Black Sea-Caspian route. As a result of numerous Russian campaigns, the main life-supporting centers of the city of Itil, Semender and Sarkel were weakened. It was impossible to restore the khanate.

The tribes and peoples of the kaganate moved or were assimilated by other ethnic groups, mainly with the Pechenegs, and then with. The ethnonym "Khazars" still existed for some time in the Crimea, which Italian sources continued to call Khazaria until the 16th century.

In all likelihood, the small Turkic-speaking people of the Karaites, who profess the Karaite version of Judaism, lived in the Crimea in the Middle Ages and partially moved to Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine in the 14th century, can be considered the distant descendants of the Khazars.