The age-old question of authenticity
It is difficult to find in our ancient (official) history a state as closely connected with Russia as Khazaria. Many books, monographs and dissertations have been written on this topic: good and different. However, the question remains about their historical reliability, in relation to the ancient Khazars. Why?
1) One of the most respected scientists (historian, archaeologist, ethnographer, orientalist) L. N. Gumilev, in his writings more than once admitted that the available manuscript sources were not reliable (for various reasons).
2) According to DNA genealogy (A. A. Klesov), several investigated burials of the Khazar nobility gave an interesting result: they all belonged to the haplogroup R1A with the marker Z93 (belonging to the Scythian branch) and no traditional indications of the Jewish religion were found in the graves dead. And where is the Jewish elite?
In other words, we have author's works (reflections) on the theme of Khazaria, based on archaeological finds and personal opinion. The main information is given by sources: Byzantine, Arab and partly Slavic. But regarding the sources, we have an authoritative opinion of Gumilyov (and many other scientists) about their questionable impartiality. Read more about this: Comrade, believe: the history of the past is the door to the future! / How they destroyed the true history of Russia … (part 1) / How they destroyed the true history of Russia … (part 2)
Therefore, please do not treat this article as a statement of something. Let's just remember the information on Khazaria that we have today.
Map of the Khazar Kaganate during the period of power.
Promotional video:
Formation of the kaganate
Khazars. Contrary to popular belief, the Khazars, the descendants of the ancient Caucasian population of Western Eurasia, were not steppe inhabitants and originally lived in the lower reaches of the Terek. After a change in climatic, and then geographic conditions, they settled in the overgrown Volga delta. Surrounded by the steppe peoples: Sarmatians (III century BC), Huns (IV century AD), Bulgarians (V century), Avars (VI century), Magyars and Pechenegs, the Khazars lived quietly in dense coastal thickets, inaccessible for the nomads, with whom they have always been enemies.
At the beginning of the 7th century, after the collapse of the Great Türküt Kaganate, they became part of the Western (Türküt) Kaganate and sheltered a prince from the Ashin dynasty, one of the heirs of the rulers of the Kaganate (650). The fugitive prince and his comrades-in-arms, received hospitably by the Khazars, behaved with dignity: they did not merge with the mass of the people and did not oppose themselves to it. They led the fight against the Arabs and, being masters of the steppe maneuver warfare, taught the Khazars to repulse the onslaught of regular troops.
All historians pay attention to the division of the Khazars into white and black. The White Khazars are the ruling caste of professional warriors. The Black Khazars are Turkic tribes who came to the lower reaches of the Itil-Volga River from the depths of Asia, as refugees from Ancient China. They left their homeland following the Dinlin tribes (also according to European archaeologists, for more details read China's False Antiquity. White Gods.), As their allies in the struggle for independence against the ancient Chinese.
The rook of the Rus arrives at the Khazar city.
Jews. Jewish communities have long lived in this region, and from the second half of the 8th century, Jewish immigrants from Byzantium and Persia began to intensively migrate here. The historical role of the newcomer Jews was much more grandiose than that of the locals. It was they who turned Khazaria from a small khanate into the leading power of the early Middle Ages. Whether this brought joy to the Khazars is another question.
Judaism is the cult of the people "chosen by Yahweh", and therefore rare converts were considered "the leprosy of Israel." Conversion to Judaism almost always took place through sexual contact - through Jewish mothers. In most peoples of the world, inheritance, position and nationality were inherited by the father, and among the Jews - by the mother.
The Jews gave their most beautiful sisters and daughters to the highest nobility of Khazaria as wives, concubines or sex slaves. Jewish women gave birth to children for the Khazar nobility, who, according to Jewish laws, were Jews, were raised by their mothers, like Jews, according to JEWISH traditions, but inherited their position in the social system of Khazaria from their fathers.
Thus, the newcomer Jews quickly took a leading position in Khazaria, settling exclusively in cities. When a critical mass of Jews reached the predominant weight in society, a coup d'etat and a reform of the state government were carried out. It was headed by a descendant of the newcomer Jews Obadiya.
Horse warriors.
The lawful khan of the Ashina clan became a Jew, that is, he accepted the faith of his mother and was accepted into the community. All government posts were distributed among the Jews, and Obadiya himself took the title "peh" (bek), translated into Arabic as "malik", that is, king. This means that he headed the government under the nominal khan (kagan), who was from that time in custody and released to the public once a year.
The position of the kagan can hardly be called enviable. Despite the fact that the kagan was considered an earthly incarnation of God, when he ascended the throne he was strangled with a silk cord. The kagan, brought to a semi-conscious state, had to name the number of years during which he would rule. After this period, the kagan was killed. Pronouncing too many years also did not save - the kagan, in any case, was killed when he reached his 40th birthday, because it was believed that by that time he was beginning to lose his divine essence. He was not only a puppet of the Jews, but was also a kind of sacrificial animal that could be killed at the request of the crowd or the bek. The reason for this could be a natural disaster, military defeat, crop failure, and so on.
The foundation of the kaganate
The road in Persian is rah, the root of the verb "to know" is don; those who know the roads are Rahdonites. This was the name of the Jewish merchants who seized the monopoly of the caravan trade between China and Europe. Khazaria lay just at the crossroads of these paths. The slave trade, which was concentrated in their hands by the Rachdonite merchants, was especially profitable.
Throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the Rachdonites became the main suppliers of slave markets. There is evidence that they gave directions to the Vikings for their raids on the coasts of Europe, then buying up booty and slaves from them at a cheap price. Even the French royal dynasty of the Carolingians and the Spanish Umayyads found themselves in financial bondage.
Muslim mercenary in the Khazar service.
Kaganate's army
The Khazar Jews hired fighting force. At first they used the Pechenegs against the Magyars, but in the second half of the 9th century they quarreled with them and made an alliance with the Guzes. The Guzes, too, did not remain in friendship for long with the Khazar Jews, and they had to look for another source of military strength. He was found on the southeastern coast of the Caspian. Local Muslims willingly hired to serve in Khazaria, only stipulating that they would not be sent to fight against Muslims.
The permanent corps of the mercenary guard in Itil in the 10th century consisted of 7 thousand soldiers. This was enough to keep the suburbs of the kaganate, and their own people, and even for small-scale external wars in submission. Paying the soldiers a large salary, the Khazar government presented them with an original demand: the troops were forbidden to be defeated. Failure to fulfill a combat mission, that is, flight from the enemy, was punishable by death. An exception was made only for the leader and his deputy, who were not mercenaries, but Jews.
Continuation: "Tribute with the blood of warriors. Part 2"