Khazar Khanate: A Visual History

The Khazar Khaganate emerged from the western Turkic empire around 650 and ruled the steppes between the Black and Caspian Seas, the lower Volga and Don, and the Crimea for three centuries. It fought the Umayyads to a standstill in the Caucasus, allied with Byzantium (two emperors had Khazar wives), and around the ninth century its ruling elite adopted Judaism, unique among steppe states. Rich from tolls on Volga trade, it declined as the Pechenegs and Rus rose; Sviatoslav of Kiev destroyed its capital Atil around 965-969.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Khazar Khanate. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Khazar territory

Timeline of the Khazar Khanate

1. 650
   Khazar khaganate emerges
2. 668
   Great Bulgaria destroyed
3. 737
   Arab army reaches the VolgaMarwan's campaign.
4. 740
   Bulan's conversionTraditional date of the elite's Judaism.
5. 833
   Sarkel fortress built with Byzantine help
6. 860
   Cyril's mission to the Khazars
7. 965
   Sviatoslav sacks Atil
8. 969
   Khaganate ends

Rise and the Arab wars

As the Western Turkic Khaganate collapsed the Khazars, ruled by a khagan of the Ashina line, took over the Pontic steppe and destroyed Old Great Bulgaria around 668, pushing the Bulgars to the Danube and the Volga. From 642 to 737 they fought the Arab caliphate for the Caucasus passes; the Arabs reached the Volga in 737 but could not hold it, and Khazaria remained a bulwark keeping Islam out of the steppe.

Judaism and trade

Byzantium courted the Khazars against Persia and the Arabs; Justinian II and Constantine V married Khazar princesses, and Leo IV was 'the Khazar'. At some point between the 740s and 860s the khagan and nobility adopted Judaism, perhaps to stay independent of both Christian Byzantium and the Muslim caliphate; the correspondence of King Joseph with Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Cordoba describes it. Atil taxed the fur, slave and silver trade between the Rus, Volga Bulgars and the Islamic world.

Fall

A dual kingship developed with a sacred khagan and a ruling bek. Pecheneg migrations disrupted the steppe; Byzantium turned to alliances with the Pechenegs and Rus instead. Sviatoslav of Kiev campaigned down the Volga around 965, took Sarkel and Atil, and the khaganate dissolved; Khazar remnants persisted in the Crimea and Dagestan into the eleventh century.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Western Turkic Khaganate (603 to 742)
• Umayyad Caliphate (661 to 750)
• Byzantine Empire (395 to 1453)
• Kievan Rus (882 to 1240)
• Bulgarian Empire (681 to 1396)
• Abbasid Caliphate (750 to 1258)
• Avar Khaganate (567 to 822)
• Samanid Empire (819 to 999)

8 surprising things about the Khazar Khanate

1. The Khazars are the only known steppe empire whose ruling class converted to Judaism.
2. The Byzantine emperor Leo IV (775-780) was known as Leo the Khazar after his mother.
3. The Khazar khagan, according to Arab writers, was ritually strangled at his accession until he named how many years he would reign, then killed when the time came.
4. The Khazar Correspondence between King Joseph and Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Cordoba is one of the strangest documents of medieval diplomacy.
5. The Arab general Marwan reached the Volga in 737 and forced the khagan to accept Islam, but the conversion did not stick.
6. The Khazars are the reason the Caspian is called the 'Khazar Sea' in Persian, Turkish and Arabic.
7. The theory that Ashkenazi Jews descend from Khazars has been repeatedly discredited by genetic studies.
8. Sarkel, the Khazar fortress on the Don, was excavated by Soviet archaeologists and then drowned by a reservoir in 1952.

Sources

• Khazar Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Khazars Wikipedia
• Khazars World History Encyclopedia
• Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies (1980) Akademiai Kiado

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