European Kingdoms

Khazars / Kasars (Turkics)

Turkic Tribes All Modern States Caucuses Tribes Finno-Ugric & Samoyed Tribes Indo-Europeans (Intro)

The nomadic Khazars were one of many blended Turkic groups on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the wake of the collapse of Hunnic power. Bulgars and many other large groupings had arrived on the steppe between the fourth and fifth centuries AD, collecting smaller groups along the way to bolster their numbers and create a vast melting pot of tribal and ethnic influences.

This gradual intermixing also served to dilute specific origin and, in time, form a more generalised set of tribes out of an initial population of Indo-Iranian Scythian and Sarmatian remnants. By the sixth century there appear to have been a number of Indo-European-Turkic tribal groupings in this region of Europe, particularly in its eastern zones.

The Khazars were one such group (quite probably the same as the single-mention of Kasars), although their earliest appearance is uncertain. It came while the Bulgars were still forming Great Bulgaria, and that empire's destruction brought the Khazars a longer lasting spell of dominance of their own.

They were able to establish a major commercial empire which covered the south-eastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. They created the most powerful polity of its time to emerge from the break-up of the Western Göktürk khaganate, one which can be referred to as Khazaria. It may even have survived the fall of the Khazar empire in the form of a weak rump state which barely enters the historical record.

Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and south-western Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of what would become the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroads between China, the Near East and the Kievan Rus.

For around three centuries between about AD 650-965 the Khazars dominated a vast area which extended from the Volga-Don steppe to eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus. They served as a buffer state between the Eastern Romans, the nomads of the northern steppe and, in the south, the late Sassanid empire, followed by the Islamic empire.

(Information by Trish Wilson & Peter Kessler, with additional information from An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples, Peter B Golden (1992), from Volga Bulgaria Stories for Children, S Shamsi & I Izmailov (Kazan, 1995), from The Proto-Bulgarians North and West of the Black Sea, D Dimitrov (Varna, 1987), from The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture - Chapter IX. Language: 5. Iranian Names, Otto J Maenchen-Helfen (University of California Press, 1973), from Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire, E A Thompson (Wisconsin Studies in Classics, University of Wisconsin, 1982), from Avar Blitzkrieg, Slavic and Bulgar Raiders, and Roman Special Ops: mobile warriors in the 6th century Balkans, Florin Curta (Eurasia in the Middle Ages. Studies in Honour of Peter B Golden, Zimonyi István & Osman Karatay, Otto Harrassowitz, 2015), from Istorija Khazar, M I Artamonov (Leningrad, 1962), from The Scythians: Invading Hordes from the Russian Steppes, Edwin Yamauchi (The Biblical Archaeologist, 1983), from The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol 3 Pt 2, John Boardman & M P Charleworth (Eds, Second Edition, University of Oxford, 1992), from History of the Jewish Khazars, David Morton Dunlop (Princeton, 1954), and from External Links: Turkic History, and Proto-Bulgarian Runic Inscriptions, and Kroraina, Vassil Karloukovski, and The Natural History, Pliny the Elder (John Bostock, Ed), and Khazaria, and The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage by Arthur Koestler, Garabet K Moumdjian (Available via Academia.edu), and The Thirteenth Tribe, Abdul Bey (Available via Academia.edu).)

c.50

Pliny the Elder, writing his Natural History in the mid-first century AD, mentions the tribes which live along the River Tanais (today's Don, which empties into the Sea of Azov around the territories of the Maeotians).

The Spalaei are mentioned as the conquerors of the Napaei, or perhaps it is three Scythian tribes (the Asampatae, Athernei, and Auchetae). The Maeotians are fated to be dominated by the Sarmatians, then the Goths, and then the Hunnic empire.

Sarmatians followed the Agathyrsi and Scythians onto the Pontic steppe, and were followed by the Alani and, unfortunately for all of them, the Huns

The eventual collapse of that empire and the integration of the Maeotian-dominating Utigurs into the Bulgar empire permits the rise of the Khazars, who control the region for several centuries. Today the region is part of the Russian federation.

c.467

Oguric-speaking tribes have recently been pushed out of the Kazakh steppe by the Sabirs due to population pressures from farther east and a domino effect of tribal movement in a westwards direction. Now they make their presence felt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe. The Saragurs attack the Akatirs and other tribes which had been part of the enforced Hunnic union.

Then, perhaps prompted by the Eastern Roman empire, the Ogurics raid Sassanid-held Transcaucasia, ravaging the Georgian kingdoms of Egrisi and Iberia and also Armenia while on their way southwards.

Shown here are both sides of a silver drachm which was issued by the Hephthalites and which imitated issuances of the powerful but unlucky Sassanid Shah Peroz

The Ogurics also appear in a listing of tribes in the supplement to the Syriac translation of 'Pseudo-' Zacharias Rhetor's Ecclesiastical History, composed around AD 555 and based on an earlier text.

The supplement (perhaps not fully reliable for the fifth century situation) mentions the tribes of Onogur, Ogur, Sabir, Burgar (Bulgar), Kutrigur, Abar, Kasar (this name is uncertain, possibly also being Kasir or Akatzir - although it bears a startling similarity to the later Khazars), Sarurgur (Sarugur/Saragur), Xwâlis, and Abdel (Hephthalites).

They are described in the clichéd phrases which are reserved for nomads in the ethnographic literature of the period. The Saragurs probably become incorporated into other more powerful tribal unions, their amalgamation being induced by the movements of other steppe peoples, perhaps the Sabirs, who enter the region by the late fifth and early sixth centuries.

550/551

The Gothic writer Jordanes, a bureaucrat in the Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople, completes his sixth century work at this time, entitled Getica. Among many other things, it provides an account of the people of the Acatziri who live to the south of the Goths (Tauric Goths).

Shown here are two sides of a type of coinage which was typical of that being issued under Eastern Roman emperors, Justin I and Justinian I, during the height of Eastern Roman power in the aftermath of the collapse of the western empire

Beyond them, above the Pontic Sea (Black Sea), is the habitat of the 'Bulgari', seemingly neighbouring the Hunnic branches of the Altziagiri (possibly the Altyn Ola horde) and Saviri (probably Sabirs). However, the Bulgars temporarily disappear from the historical record around this point in time as the Kutrigurs come to the fore. All of the tribes are soon overwhelmed by the Avars.

The twelfth century chronicle of the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, Michael of Syria, uses earlier sources to describe the arrival of at least one group of proto-Bulgars on the Pontic-Caspian steppe (although certainly not the first).

The story is a conglomeration of facts which pertain to several events from different periods in time, all of them united around the story of the expansion of Khazar political power in the second half of the seventh century.

According to the story, three 'Scythian' brothers (perhaps indicating an Indo-Iranian origin or cultural bias) set out on a journey from the mountain of Imaon (Tien-Shan) in Asia and reach the River Tanais (the modern Don). Here one of the brothers, called Bulgarios, takes ten thousand people with him, parts from his brothers and, with the permission of Eastern Roman Emperor Maurice, settles in Upper and Lower Moesia and Dacia.

Oguric-speaking warriors on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the sixth century would have been largely indistinguishable from each other but, under Eastern Roman influence, some would have begun to resemble the Romans just like the eighth century Bulgars shown here

Here, no doubt, they can be used as a buffer against the Avars whom Maurice pushes to the north of the Danube by 599. The need for this additional migration can be attributed to Khazar pressure on the Caspian steppe.

The other two brothers enter the country of the Alani, which is called Barsalia (Bersilia - the land of the Barsils). Their towns are built with assistance from the Eastern Romans to serve as a buffer against the steppe nomads.

One of these towns is named as Caspij, identified by most historians as the area around the Torajan Gates or Caspian Gates (Derbent). The Bulgars and the Pugurs inhabit these places, seemingly providing an origin for the Barsils themselves.

One of the brothers is named as Khazarig - probably an attempt to provide an origin story for the Khazars (it is the Khazars who later dominate those Barsils who do not migrate northwards to join the Volga Bulgars), possibly an origin story for Uturgur, founder of the Khazarig dynasty of Hunno-Bulgar leaders of the Kutrigurs and Utigurs.

It is possibly also an origin story for the Avars, in that the leader who commands them on their east-west migration is Kazrig. It could be the case that Kazrig/Khazarig actually does command all of these groups, at least for a time.

Barsilia was a nebulous stretch of territory in the sixth and seventh centuries AD which can be located on the west bank of the Lower Volga, approximately between modern Volgagrad and Astrakhan

554 - 559

Led Avars west from Göktürks. Avar, Bulgar, Khazar?

558

The nomadic Avars assume control of the Carpathian Basin, having migrated there from the Pontic steppe. Referred to as pseudo-Avars by Theophylact Simocatta, they are described as being formed of two different groups of Ogurs (possibly Onogurs) - the Var and the Chunni - and that they had divided themselves away from the original eastern host to enter the Pontic steppe.

560s - 571

A people, country, and town with the name in later Islamic sources of Belendzher or Balandzhar is mentioned for the first time by the Arab historian at-Tabari in connection with events from the 560s. Sassanid-controlled Armenia is invaded by four peoples - 'abkhaz', 'b-ndzh-r' (Bandzhar), 'b-l-ndzh-r' (Balandzhar), and the Alani.

Between these two dates, İstemi, the khagan of the Western Göktürks, defeats the peoples who are noted in later Arab sources as 'b-ndzh-r' (Bandzhar), 'b-l-n-dzh-r' (Balandzhar), and Khazars, who then agree to serve him. The scholar, A V Gadlo, concludes that the name 'bandzhar' refers to the Ogurs, and 'balandzhar' is a Perso-Arabic form of the Onogur/Utigur name.

As was often the case with Central Asian states which had been created by horse-borne warriors on the sweeping steppelands, the Göktürk khaganate swiftly incorporated a vast stretch of territory in its westwards expansion, whilst being hemmed in by the powerful Chinese dynasties to the south-east and Siberia's uninviting tundra to the north (click or tap on map to view full sized)

fl 620s/630s

Uncertain. Possibly Western Göktürk, Khagan Tong.

fl 630s/640s

Uncertain. Nephew of Tong.

? - c.651

Lost power or killed around 651.

c.651

The Bulgar chief, Koubrat, dies some time after 651 and his creation - Great Bulgaria - gradually falls apart. He is buried - perhaps - at Pereshchepina, where the treasure of the same name is discovered in 1912. His son succeeds him, but comes under increasing pressure from the Khazars to his immediate east.

A Chinese account of the Western Göktürk 'Western Wing' division lists five tribes which includes the Esegels (Ezgil or Asijie, soon to be found along the Volga with the Bulgars). The leader of the first tribe of Esegels is one 'Kül-erkin' ('Qiue-syjin' in its Chinese form - possibly a title rather than a name). He is 'most prosperous and strong, the number of his soldiers reached several tens of thousands'.

The impressive landscape of the Altai Mountains seems to have been where the Turkic peoples were formed, seemingly as a heterogeneous mixture of Mongolian peoples and Tocharian Indo-Europeans

fl c.651

A Kashu / Geshu chieftain (Khazar).

fl c.651

A Kashu / Geshu chieftain (Khazar).

Alongside him are the other four tribes of this division: another Kül-erkin or Qiue-syjin, this time of the Kashu or Geshu (Khazars - with the same man as head of both tribes?) and Tun-shabo(lo)-syjin of the Barskhan.

Then there is Nizuk-erkin (Nishu-syjin) of a second tribe of Ezgil (Esegels), and Chopan-erkin (Chuban-syjin) of a second tribe of Kashu (Khazars). The last is probably Chuban-turkhan, the latter word meaning either 'warrior general' or 'leader'. Possibly he is a high-ranking commander, but it is equally possible that he leads his own group.

652 - 653

The Arab General Salman in 652-653 campaigns through the Caucasus from Armenia, concentrating on the towns and settlements of the western coast of the Caspian Sea and on defeating the Khazars who are commanded - according to much later Rus source material - by a certain Irbis of the Göktürk Ashina.

The vast Mongolian steppe provided the main heartland of the khaganate's territory and allowed it to make its initial sweeping gains of new territory towards the west

fl 652

Khazar chieftain. Recorded in much later Rus sources.

A description of this campaign is based on a manuscript by Ahmed-bin-Azami, and it mentions that '...Salman reached the Khazar town of Burgur... He continued and finally reached Bilkhar, which was not a Khazar possession, and camped with his army near that town, on rich meadows intersected by a large river'.

This is why several historians connect the town with the proto-Bulgarians. The Arab missionary Ahmed ibn-Fadlan also confirms this connection, as he mentions the fact that, during his trip to the Volga Bulgars in 922, he sees a group of five thousand Barandzhars (balandzhars) who had migrated a long time ago to Volga Bulgaria.

According to Ibn al-Nasira, after capturing Belendzher-Bulker, Salman reaches another large town, called Vabandar, which has 40,000 houses (families?). M I Artamonov links the name of that town with the ethnicon of the Unogundur Bulgars, which is given as 'v-n-nt-r' by the Khazars (in the letter by their Khagan Joseph).

In AD 632, Qaghan Koubrat came to power as the head of an Onogur-Bulgar confederation, and three years later he was able to throw off Avar domination to found Great Bulgaria (click or tap on map to view full sized)

It is shown as 'venender' or 'nender' by the Arabs, and as Unogundur-Onogur by the Eastern Romans. Variations of 'v-n-nt-r' appear in 668, 982, and 1094, and all suggest that elements of the Venedi have been pinpointed without the authors really knowing their identity.

659

After some decades of increasing interference and influence, the Tang Chinese now establish full control of the Western Göktürk khaganate by defeating Çençu in battle and taking him back as a permanent hostage.

Emperors continue to appoint puppet khagans in the west whilst attempting to put down an independent splinter of the Eastern Göktürk khaganate. It is this act which seems to free up the Khazars to be regionally-dominant masters of their own domains, aside from the Bulgar presence, that is.

c.660

With Great Bulgaria seemingly already fracturing under pressure from the Khazars, and the 'Slav Kingdom' essentially being disbanded following the death of its ruler, the Avars are able to resume their own independent control of the Carpathian Basin - beginning the 'Middle Avar' period (as originally proposed by Ilona Kovrig and generally accepted universally thereafter).

The modern southern Austrian region of Carinthia marked the upper edge of the Adriatic hinterland, and the southern borders of Samo's seventh century Slav kingdom, one of the earliest Slav states to appear

This 'Second Khaganate' though is of a different nature to the first attempt. The Avars and their Slav vassals have formed a shared culture with a common Slav language.

668

Great Bulgaria disintegrates following a massive Khazar attack during their period of expansion in the second half of the seventh century. According to tradition, Qaghan Koubrat's son and successor, Bat Bayan, and his brothers part company, each leading their own followers. Bat Bayan and his followers remain in their adopted land and are soon subdued by the Khazars.

The second son, Kotrag, takes his people northwards where they found a state in the confluence of the Volga and the Kam (Kama), known as Volga Bulgaria (or the Volga Bulgars), which survives until the beginning of the thirteenth century.

This modern illustration of Qaghan Koubrat and his warrior sons show them at the height of their power, probably around the AD 650 point in time

This state eventually includes in its number the majority of the population of Barsils (although it may take a generation or two for the migration northwards to be complete).

c.690

A state emerges into history which is centred on Doros (today's Mangup Kale, around fifteen kilometres to the east of Sevastopol in Crimea). This more-or-less autonomous state with Tauric Ostrogothic connections may or may not be a dependency of the Khazars and later conquerors, or it may be entirely independent, at least until the 780s.

c.690 - 710

A Khazar chieftain. Gave sanctuary to ERE Justinian II.

695

Having been banished to seek refuge with the Khazars, Justinian II is succeeded as ruler of the Eastern Roman empire by the first of a series of non-dynastic rulers of Constantinople, although the situation is unstable enough for him to regain the throne himself for a short time in 705.

700s

After three hundred years of vassalage to the Huns, Göktürks, and Khazars, but still a strong force in their own right, the Alani of the eighth century coalesce to form a minor but fairly powerful kingdom known as Alania.

These medieval towers which stand in what is now the territory of Ingushetia would have been part of the kingdom of Alania in the northern Caucasus

c.715 - 731

A Khazar chieftain. Fought off the Umayyads. Killed.

c.720 - 722

Alania is invaded by the troops of the Umayyad Caliph Umar II. In 722, the Khazars come to their aid under a chieftain called Barjik. Together, the two peoples push out the Muslims, and the Khazars subsequently erect several strongholds in the region.

728

Another Umayyad general penetrates Alania's fortress which is known as the Gate of the Alani and devastates the region of the northern Caucasus.

730 - 731

Barjik invades Umayyad-controlled Azerbaijan where he defeats the Arabs at Ardabil, killing the general, al-Djarrah al-Hakami, and briefly occupying the town. Barjik is defeated and killed in the following year at Mosul, where he directs Khazar forces from a throne which is mounted with al-Djarrah's severed head.

In a rare defeat during the seventh century, the invading Arab army found itself unsuccessful when it tried to take the fortress of Old Dongola during its second attempt to capture the kingdom

c.731/732

Khazar female, possibly regent.

fl c.732

A Khazar khagan.

? - 737

Khazar general. Killed with his army at Itil.

736 - 737

Once again, the Islamic empire sends a force into Alania which manages to devastate the forts there. Hazer Tarkhan and his army are annihilated at Itil in 737. The continued raids, however, strongly suggest that the invaders are unable to establish a bridgehead inside Alania. Alani resistance, possibly with continued Khazar support, must be fierce.

fl c.740

Khazar khagan or general. Possibly had Islam imposed.

758

The last-known serious attack takes place by the Islamic empire on Alania. An Arab general captures and holds the Gate of the Alani, although for how long is unknown. Not permanently, it seems. Yazid ibn Usayd al-Sulami, the Arab commander in occupied Armenia, is ordered by the caliph to take a Khazar bride as a peace bargain, which he does.

At the peak of its prosperity the nomadic Turkic Khazar state controlled the northern Caucasus, the lower and Middle Volga regions, part of Kazakhstan, and part of what is now Ukraine, including Crimea

fl 758 / 764

A Khazar khagan. Married his daughter to Yazid.

As a result of the alliance between the Alani and the Khazars, the latter become overlords of the Alani. The situation serves the Alani equally well as the two peoples are able to work together to defend the territory. Although the Khazar bride dies (possibly in childbirth), the upset is brief in terms of more cordial relations with the Arabs.

c.786 - 809

Descendant of Bulan. Khazar khagan. Existence uncertain.

c.809 - ?

Son. Khazar khagan. Existence uncertain.

800s

By this time, as the Volga Bulgars form a coherent state of their own (otherwise referred to as Pontic Bulgars), Eastern Roman sources - notably the patriarch-historian Nikephoros - are referring to them as the Onogundur-Bulgars.

The proto-Bulgars of Barsilia are not mentioned again except in connection with the Volga Bulgars, which probably shows that any who have not migrated to Volga Bulgaria have been absorbed by the Khazars.

The River Kam (Kama) joins the mighty Volga just below the site of Kazan, founded as a border post by the Volga Bulgars to keep a watchful eye on the neighbouring Volga Finnic tribe of the Mari and the Bjarmian Udmurts

c.825 - 830

A Khazar khagan.

fl 840s

A Khazar khagan or a leading warrior?

840s

A Tarkhan is mentioned in Arabs sources as leading the Khazars. A tarkhan can be a warrior commander or it can be a personal name, making opaque any references to this individual.

mid-800s?

Son of Hezekiah. A Khazar khagan. Existence uncertain.

fl c.861

A Khazar khagan.

857

Boḡā, a general of the caliph of Baghdad, invades Transcaucasia and the northern Caucasus, devastating Georgia, Abasgia, Alania, and the Khazar lands. The Alani soon recover however, and restore their state.

Nicholas Roerich's 1901 painting, Overseas Guests is dedicated to the arrival in the ninth century of Rurik and his kin in the lands of the Rus

c.862?

According to the Russian Primary Chronicle (RPC), with Rurik at Novgorod are Askold and Dir (possibly one and the same man if some modern name analyses are to be believed). They are not kin (meaning princes of the blood), but are instead boyars (high nobility).

They obtain permission to go to Constantinople with their families, sailing down the Dnieper to reach the western Black Sea. Along the way they pass a settlement on a hill and are told by the locals that it had been founded by three brothers, Kiy, Shchek, and Khoriv. Since their deaths the inhabitants had been living as vassals of the Khazars. They establish themselves as the new masters.

fl c.870s?

Son of Manasseh. Existence uncertain.

c.886 - 889

The most important single source on Hungarian prehistory is De Administrando Imperio of Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. This tenth century work makes free and critical use of earlier sources and of information which has been provided by Magyar settlers of what is soon to become the kingdom of Hungary.

Tradition states that in AD 862 Rurik was invited to rule at Novgorod, with other Rus princes at Izborsk and Beloozero, and in 882 Oleg seized Kyiv at the heartland of Eastern Slavic tribal lands (click or tap on map to view full sized)

It relates that the early Magyars, referred to at this stage as Sabartoi asphaloi, live in the neighbourhood of the Khazars in a region called Levedia (named after their most senior chief). They are closely allied to the Khazars with whom they live together for three years, and whose king gives his daughter to their chief, Lebedias.

According to Constantine, Levedia is adjacent to the land of the Khazars and has a river called Khidmas or Khingilous. Levedia cannot be located by these names, but is generally believed to be to the north of the Black Sea.

In a war which is waged against the Pechenegs, the Magyars are defeated. They subsequently divide into two parts, with one migrating towards Persia (ie. it heads southwards, probably towards the Caucasus) and the other towards the west to a place called Etelköz. Here, on Khazar advice, they decide to elect a new ruler.

The Pechenegs, mounted, are shown slaughtering the 'skyths' of Svyatoslav I, during the dangerous early years of the Rus when their power was limited - Svyatoslav himself was killed by Pechenegs

fl c.880s?

Son. Existence uncertain.

fl c.890s?

Son. Existence uncertain.

894 - 895

The Eastern Romans have arranged for the Magyars to attack the Volga Bulgars in an increasingly active struggle for control and influence on the steppe. In return the Volga Bulgars arrange to have the Pechenegs lead another attack against the Magyars.

With no room for manoeuvre, the Magyars are forced to take flight and again they migrate westwards, passing close to Kyiv of the Rus as they do so.

At the end of 895 they invade the Carpathian basin, advancing towards the Danube. In doing so they sweep away Avar control of the region and lay the foundations of a Hungarian state which maintains approximately the same territory thereafter.

The shy, young Emperor Constantine VII of the Eastern Roman empire ruled with some reluctance, preferring the peace of his studies to the hurly-burly of court life

fl c.890s/900s

Son. Under pressure by Rus and Pechenegs.

c.900

The Alani and the Khazars join together to defeat a Eastern Roman-led coalition which is aimed against the Khazar king, Benjamin. By this time the Khazars are gradually losing control of their former empire, faced with uncertainty caused by the coming of the Rus at Kyiv.

late 920 - c.940

Son.

c.920 - 960s

The Eastern Roman manage to involve Alania in a rebellion against their allies and overlords, the Khazars. In the resultant war the Alani king is captured and they are defeated. The Alani subsequently abandon Christianity, expelling Byzantine missionaries. Khazar domination over them is renewed until the collapse of the latter's empire in the 960s.

c.940 - 965?

Son. Possibly the Khazar king.

c.965

The Rus conquer the Khazar khanate in a long-running and geographically vast campaign. The already-weakened Khazar army is defeated and the capital at Bela Vezha (Belaya Vezha) is captured, although perhaps not until about 968.

The Varangian Guards of the Byzantine court in the tenth century were recruited from eastern-travelling Vikings who came to Greece through the lands of the Rus

Any surviving communities eventually become absorbed into the Mongol ranks, although a rump Khazar community does seem to retain its identity within a greatly reduced territory up until that point. It is little-mentioned in the historical record.

The victory allows Prince Svyatoslav to take control in the lower Volga to the detriment of the Volga Bulgars. The Rus also inherit the Khazar monopoly on trade into the region from Central Asia, in particular from the dominant Samanids, but they have now released the Pechenegs to become a serious opponent.