Khazars/History

The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who created what for its duration was the most powerful polity to emerge from the breakup of the western Turkish steppe empire, known as the Khazar Khanate or Khazaria. Astride a major artery of commerce between northern Europe and southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading emporia of the medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and played a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East, and Kievan Rus'.

The Khazars are believed to have been refugees from the Western Turkic Khanate when it was destroyed and scattered by the Chinese. Following their defeat, the survivors moved westward before founding new homes in the Caucasus on the western shore of the Caspian Sea (centred around present day Dagestan, Chechnya and Kalmykia in southern Russia). There, they became erstwhile allies of the Byzantine Romans against the Persians and the Arabs until they were wiped out by the Russians of Kiev in the mid-10th century CE.

The Ten Tribes
The Western Turkic Khaganate, or the Onogur "Ten Tribes" confederacy as it was known, was said to be an extensive tribal confederation that controlled the territories we now today identify as the Central Asian republics, ranging from the Caspian Sea eastwards towards the Pamirs, and was a thorn in the flesh of the Chinese, who identified this polity by the name of Xitujue ie "West Turks.

Thanks to their raids in the Tarim Basin in the early 7th century CE, the Chinese, now reunited and consolidated under the Tang regime, decided that enough was enough: Chinese punitive expeditions escorted by friendly Uyghur allies were despatched to subdue the Turks and punish their Sogdian and Kuchan allies throughout the 650s CE. The expeditions met with success, and the Khaganate collapsed. Survivors of the disaster regrouped, and while some eventually would form the Magyar confederacy in the Urals (the future ancestors of the Hungarian state in eastern Europe), others would eventually settle in the plateaus and plains of the Caucasus region, just due west of the Caspian Sea.

New Home, New Friends
It was these refugees who settled on the shores of the Caspian, away from the Chinese and the Uyghurs, whio became the progenitors of the Khazar hordes.

Judaism
For some three centuries (c 650s–965 CE) the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus. The Khazars were a Central Asian people whose king converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages. There is a legend that he called in representatives of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, in order to decide which religion to choose for himself and the royal family. After listening to each of their arguments, he chose Judaism. Some people believe that many of the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe are descendants of the Khazars. Despite this claim which is often made by anti-semites or anti-zionists, both archaeological and genetic evidence has shown otherwise.

The Arab traveller, Ibn Fadlan, on his way to his celebrated and famous meeting with the Varangians of the far north, made Khazaria one of the stops on his journey. His writings provide us with a wealth of detailed information on Khazar society and reveal that at the time of his visit, the Khazars had founded for themselves a rich and sophisticated community for themselves, prospering from agriculture, fishing and trade.

A letter recovered from Egypt, purportedly written by a Khazar khagan named Joseph, states that the Khazars first converted to Judaism under the khagan Bulan.