How the prophetic Oleg is now going
Take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars,
Their villages and fields for a violent raid
He doomed swords and fires;
With his retinue, in Constantinople armor,
The prince rides across the field on a faithful horse.

From the dark forest towards him
There is an inspired magician,
Submissive to Perun, the old man alone,
The promises of the future messenger,
In prayers and divination spent the whole century.
And Oleg drove up to the wise old man.

"Tell me, sorcerer, favorite of the gods,
What will happen in my life?
And soon, to the delight of neighbors-enemies,
Will I cover myself with grave earth?
Tell me the whole truth, don't be afraid of me:
You will take a horse as a reward for anyone.

"Magi are not afraid of mighty lords,
BUT princely gift they do not need;
Truthful and free is their prophetic language
And friendly with the will of heaven.
The coming years lurk in the mist;
But I see your lot on a bright forehead.

Now remember my word:
Glory to the Warrior is a joy;
Your name is glorified by victory;
Your shield is on the gates of Tsaregrad;
And the waves and the land are submissive to you;
The enemy is jealous of such a wondrous fate.

And the blue sea is a deceptive shaft
In the hours of fatal bad weather,
And a sling, and an arrow, and a crafty dagger
Years spare the winner ...
Under formidable armor you know no wounds;
An invisible guardian is given to the mighty.

Your horse is not afraid of dangerous labors;
He, sensing the master's will,
That meek stands under the arrows of enemies,
It rushes across the battlefield.
And the cold and cutting him nothing ...
But you will accept death from your horse.

Oleg chuckled, but
And the eyes were clouded with thought.
In silence, hand leaning on the saddle,
He dismounts from his horse, sullen;
And true friend parting hand
And strokes and pats on the neck steep.

"Farewell, my comrade, my faithful servant,
The time has come for us to part;
Now rest! no more footsteps
In your gilded stirrup.
Farewell, be comforted - but remember me.
You, fellow youths, take a horse,

Cover with a blanket, shaggy carpet;
Take me to my meadow by the bridle;
Bathe; feed with selected grain;
Drink spring water."
And the youths immediately departed with the horse,
And the prince brought another horse.

The prophetic Oleg feasts with the retinue
At the ringing of a cheerful glass.
And their curls are white as morning snow
Above the glorious head of the mound ...
They remember days gone by
And the battles where they fought together ...

“Where is my friend? - said Oleg, -
Tell me, where is my zealous horse?
Are you healthy? Is his run still easy?
Is he still the same stormy, playful?
And listens to the answer: on a steep hill
He had long since passed into a sleepless sleep.

Mighty Oleg bowed his head
And he thinks: “What is fortune-telling?
Magician, you deceitful, mad old man!
I would despise your prediction!
My horse would carry me to this day."
And he wants to see the bones of the horse.

Here comes the mighty Oleg from the yard,
Igor and old guests are with him,
And they see - on a hill, on the banks of the Dnieper,
Noble bones lie;
The rains wash them, their dust falls asleep,
And the wind excites the feather grass above them.

The prince quietly stepped on the horse's skull
And he said: “Sleep, lonely friend!
Your old master has outlived you:
At the funeral feast, already close,
It's not you who will stain the feather grass under the ax
And drink my ashes with hot blood!

So that's where my death lurked!
The bone threatened me with death!”
From dead head grave snake,
Hissing, meanwhile crawled out;
Like a black ribbon wrapped around the legs,
And suddenly the stung prince cried out.

Ladles are circular, foaming, hissing
At the feast of the deplorable Oleg;
Prince Igor and Olga are sitting on a hill;
The squad is feasting at the shore;
Fighters commemorate past days
And the battles where they fought together.

Analysis of the poem "Song of the Prophetic Oleg" by Alexander Pushkin

The poem "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg" was written by Pushkin in 1822, when he was in Chisinau (southern link). The source of inspiration for the poet was the chronicle evidence of the death of the ancient Russian prince Oleg. indirect sources of steel folk tales and legends. Oleg was very popular in Ancient Russia. The main positive features that characterized the great people at that time were considered courage and courage. For Oleg, the nickname Prophetic was fixed among the people, which meant respect for his mental abilities.

The work is written in the ballad genre. Pushkin gave it the character of a chronicle narrative. “Song…” is presented in a very beautiful musical language with an abundance of epithets and figurative expressions. The victorious campaigns of the prince, his courage during the battles are listed.

All colorful descriptions serve as a background for the main theme of the work - the inevitability of fate in the fate of a person. The glorified prince meets a sorcerer who knows the will of the gods. The ancient Russian Magi, even after the adoption of Christianity, enjoyed great authority for a long time. They were credited with the ability to see the future. Even Oleg, nicknamed the Prophet, respectfully addresses the elder and asks him to reveal the secret of his fate.

In the image of the sorcerer, Pushkin symbolically portrays the poet-creator, who is not subject to time and earthly power. Perhaps this is an allusion to his own exile, which is not able to influence the poet's beliefs. The proud old man rejects Oleg's reward for the prediction and reveals the harsh truth that the prince will die from his horse.

Oleg bitterly says goodbye to his comrade-in-arms. After many years, covered with victories and glory, the prince learns about the death of his horse. He curses the "deceitful old man", but dies from a snake crawling out of a horse's skull. Only before death does he realize the truth of the prediction.

Oleg's death can be regarded in two ways. This is the fulfillment of the prediction, and the revenge of the sorcerer for the reproach own name. Pushkin again puts in place all the rulers and bosses who consider themselves omnipotent. He reminds that no one has power over their own destiny. The ability to see, recognize millions of accidents and try to predict the future is the destiny of creative people. They should not be treated with disdain, because in the hands of the Magi, poets, prophets, the key to the future.

The Song of the Prophetic Oleg, for all its artistic merits, is one of Pushkin's first attempts at a philosophical understanding of the poet's place in the life of society.

How the prophetic Oleg is now going
Take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars...

A. S. Pushkin

The Khazars, which the great Russian poet mentions in The Song of the Prophetic Oleg, is another mystery of history. It is known that the prince of Kyiv had good enough reasons for revenge: at the beginning of the 10th century, the Khazars defeated and imposed tribute on many Slavic tribes. Khazars lived east of the Slavs. The Byzantines write about Khazaria as a state allied to them (even the henchman of the kagan, i.e. the king, Leo Khazar, sat on the throne in Constantinople): "Ships come to us and bring fish and skin, all kinds of goods ... they are with us in friendship and feed on us ... they have military strength and power, hordes and troops. The chroniclers speak of the greatness of the capital Itil. Surrounded by large settlements, castles that stood on trade routes grew into cities. Just such a city that grew out of the kagan's castle was Itil, which, as we know from sources, was somewhere in the Volga delta. Many attempts to find its ruins for a long time led to nothing. It appears to have been completely washed away by the frequently changing course of the river. Several rather detailed, although sometimes contradictory, ancient descriptions of this city (mostly by Arab authors) have come down to us. Itil consisted of two parts: a brick palace-castle built on an island, connected to the castle by floating bridges and also enclosed by a powerful wall made of mud bricks. The fortress of the kagan was called al-Bayda, or Sarashen, which meant "white fortress". It had many public buildings: baths, bazaars, synagogues, churches, mosques, minarets and even madrasahs. Randomly scattered private buildings were adobe houses and yurts. Merchants, artisans and various common people lived in them.

Khazars - in Arabic Khazar - the name of the people of Turkic origin. This name comes from the Turkish qazmak (to wander, move) or from quz (country of the mountain turned to the north, shady side). The name "Khazars" was known even to the first Russian chronicler, but no one really knew who they were and where the "core" of Khazaria was, nothing remained of it archaeological sites. Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov spent more than one year studying this issue. In the late 50s - early 60s, he repeatedly traveled to the Astrakhan region as the head of the archaeological expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences, wrote in his writings that the Khazars had two major cities: Itil on the Volga and Semender on the Terek. But where are their ruins? The Khazars were dying - where did their graves go?

The historically educated reader knows that the Khazars were a powerful people who lived in the lower reaches of the Volga, professed the Jewish faith and in 965 were defeated by the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav Igorevich. The reader - historian or archaeologist - poses many questions: what was the origin of the Khazars, what language did they speak, why did their descendants not survive, how could they profess Judaism when it was a religion, conversion to which was forbidden by its own canons, and, most importantly, how did the Khazar people themselves, the country inhabited by them, and the huge Khazar kingdom, which covered almost the entire South-Eastern Europe and was inhabited by many peoples, correlate with each other?

L.N. Gumilyov. Discovery of Khazaria.

Found the legendary city of Itil...

And now archaeologists have announced that they managed to make a long-awaited discovery: to discover the capital of the ancient Khazar Khaganate- the legendary city of Itil... This was announced by one of the leaders of the expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences, candidate of historical sciences Dmitry Vasiliev.

According to the scientist, a joint expedition of archaeologists from the Astrakhan State University and the Institute of Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences worked on the Samosdelsky settlement near the village of Samosdelki, Kamyzyaksky district of the Astrakhan region. The researchers came to the conclusion that this settlement is ancient capital Khazaria.

"Our scientific team, we are now publicly declaring this at scientific conferences says the archaeologist. - We found a very powerful cultural layer.

There are about three and a half meters, and not only the Khazar time, but also the pre-Mongolian and Golden Horde times. A large number of brick buildings were found, the contours of the citadel, the island on which the central part of the city stood, and less prosperous quarters were revealed.

According to him, archaeologists have been working on the settlement for ten years already - since 2000, a large number of interesting finds. "We donate them to our Astrakhan museum, every year 500-600 items. This is the 8th-10th centuries of our era," Vasiliev added.

However, it will never be possible to prove "100%" that the found city is Itil, the scientist believes. "There are always some doubts - after all, we will not be able to find a sign with the inscription "City of Itil".


Here is the mass indirect signs, on which we are based,” he explains. First, archaeologists pay attention to the presence of a brick fortress: “Brick construction in Khazaria was a royal monopoly, and we know only one brick fortress on the territory of the Khazar Khaganate.

This is Sarkel, which was built directly by the royal decree. "Secondly, using the radiocarbon method, the lower layers of the Samosdelsky settlement were dated to the VIII-IX centuries - that is, the Khazar time.

In favor of the hypothesis of archaeologists speaks and big size cities. "The explored, or rather explored, known area is more than two square kilometers, according to the Middle Ages, it is a giant city. We do not know the population density, but we can assume that its population was 50-60 thousand people," Vasiliev said.


He added that the latest references to the Khazars refer to XII century, after which they dissolved in the mass of other peoples and lost their ethnic identity. However, Itil continued to exist in the Golden Horde era and disappeared in the XIV century due to the rise in the level of the Caspian, it was simply flooded.

Astrakhan archaeologists are sure they have found the legendary Itil

A joint expedition of archaeologists from the Astrakhan State University and the Institute of Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the Samosdelskoye settlement near the village of Sasmadeki, Kamyzyaksky district of the Astrakhan region, found confirmation that the settlement, on which excavations scientists have been working for more than one year, is the legendary Itil.

Employees of the archaeological laboratory took a panorama of the settlement from the air. It turned out that in ancient times in this now arid place there was an island surrounded on all sides by deep channels. The island was small, and people also settled along the banks of the river. This coincided with medieval descriptions of the city of Itil, which are found among Arab historians and geographers.

Based on materials from the media of the Astrakhan region - AIF

Secrets of the Russian Khaganate Galkina Elena Sergeevna

"... Take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars"

The plot of the Primary Chronicle is widely known about the "relative" of Rurik Oleg, to whom he, dying in Novgorod in 879, transferred the reign and his son Igor. Then Oleg gathered an army, descended along the path from the Varangians to the Greeks in the Middle Dnieper, subjugating cities and tribes along the way, and by cunning captured Kyiv, killing its “illegal” rulers Askold and Dir. After that, he sat down in Kyiv, being regent for the young Igor.

But back in the 19th century. scientists have noted the oddities of the above history. Firstly, this is a rare variety of Oleg's "graves" and versions of his death, indicated in the Tale of Bygone Years. And later in Kyiv, visitors were shown two graves of Oleg - on Shchekovitsy and at the Western Gate. So, there were reasons for this. Secondly, the genealogy given in the Primary Chronicle from Rurik to Svyatoslav is too unnatural. Rurik, according to the chronicle, died in 879, and his grandson Svyatoslav, the son of Olga and Igor, was born in 942. In the same chronicle, under 903, Igor's marriage to Olga is reported. Thus, before his death, Rurik produces the only heir - Igor. Igor's three years before tragic death in the Drevlyane land (945) the only heir Svyatoslav is born again. At the same time, they did not have children with Olga for 39 years of marriage, and Olga in 945 was about 60 years old! At this venerable age, the Drevlyansky prince Mal wants to marry her. Then Olga subtly takes revenge on the Drevlyans for the murder of her husband. Moreover, the chronicler further reports that when Olga went to Constantinople in 956, Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus was seduced by her beauty. That is, Olga in the events of the 940-950s. clearly presented as a young, attractive, energetic woman. Yes, and Igor does not look like an old man.

Obviously, at least one link is missing in the genealogy of the “Rurikovichs”. And this lacuna tried in every possible way to hide. What for? The answer is obvious: to tie the Kyiv dynasty to Rurik, who once ruled in Novgorod. According to the extensive and detailed genealogies of the Baltic Slavs, Rurik and his brothers belonged to a very ancient and eminent family of Obodrite kings and princes. Of course, the Kyiv princely house of the late X - XI centuries, after the shift of the center of gravity foreign policy to Europe, it was advantageous to declare oneself the descendants of a well-known family in the West. That is why Igor, Oleg and even the Kyiv rulers Askold and Dir are called Varangians, which, apparently, they were not. This version of origin Kyiv dynasty- rather late in comparison with others, the remains of which have been preserved in the annals.

For another reason, chroniclers, especially those from Novgorod, seek to deprive Oleg of his princely dignity and present him as Igor's "voivode". This fiction was needed to present Igor himself as the ancestor of the dynasty. In the Novgorod First Chronicle, Oleg is generally the second person in the state: it is not he who captures Kyiv, but Igor, the campaign against Byzantium is carried out jointly with Igor, and not in 912, but in 922. It is obvious that if such forgeries are used, the power of the “founder” of the dynasty was seized in the most illegal way. The circumstances of this capture are clarified by the surviving independent source - the Bohemian chronicles. It turns out that Igor was the nephew of the Kyiv prince Oleg the Prophet, who had a direct heir, son Oleg. It was he who, after the death of his father, made a campaign against Byzantium in 922. Igor seized the Kyiv table by force, drove out cousin, and he was forced to hide in Moravia.

Slavic associations in the 9th century. (before 882) 1 - materials of the Volyntsev type

Thus, nothing speaks of the Varangian origin of Oleg the Prophet. On the contrary, both his and Igor's treaties with the Greeks testify to their close ties with the Northern Black Sea region and Alanian Rus.

It is also interesting that the first thing Oleg the Prophet, according to the Tale of Bygone Years, was to sort things out with the Khazars:

“In the summer of 6392 (884). Oleg went to the northerners (descendants of the tribes of the Volyntsev culture, which were part of a strategic alliance with the Russian Kaganate. - E.G.), and defeated them, and laid a light tribute on them, and freed them from tribute to the Khazars, saying: “I am their opponent, and you don't need to. In the summer of 6393 (885). He sent it to the Kradimichi (also descendants of the Slavs of the Russian Khaganate. - E.G.), asking: “To whom do you give tribute?” They answered: “To the Khazars.” And Oleg said to them: "Don't give it to the Khazars, but give it to me." And they gave Oleg a slap, as they used to give the Khazars. And Oleg owned glades, and Drevlyans, and northerners, and Radimichi ... "

That is, Oleg gathered just those Slavic tribes that used to be part of the Russian Khaganate. Was this not a memory of 839? But be that as it may, the domination of the Khazars over the Slavic and other territories did not last long. The forces of the new Khazar leadership were only enough for a brief rapid rise in the political power of Khazaria with the active support of the Byzantine Empire. Then began a long period of slow fading and decay, which ended in 965 Kyiv Prince Svyatoslav.

But before that there were very interesting events associated with the Khazars and Russ. Neither in the fate of Khazaria, nor for the Rus, they decided nothing. But their wide popularity compels them to dwell on these facts (L. Gumilyov and V. Kozhinov made a good advertisement for them in their works). The only source from which they became known is an anonymous Hebrew-Khazar letter from the middle of the tenth century, found in the Cambridge library. Here is what it says:

“And even in the days of Tsar Joseph, my master, they sought his support when there were persecutions (of the Jews) in the days of the villain Romanus (Byzantine emperor. - E.G.). When this became known to my master, he destroyed many of the uncircumcised. But the villain Roman sent great gifts to Khlgu, the Tsar of Russia, inciting him to commit an evil deed. And he came at night to the city of Smkria (Samkerts, Kerch. - E.G.), and seized it by deceit, since there was no ruler there, the slave-Khashmonai. And it became known to Bulshtsi, who is Pesach ... and he went in anger against the cities of Romanus and killed (everyone) from men to women. And he captured three cities, and besides, many villages. From there, he went to (the city) Shurshun (Kherson. - E.G.) and fought against him ... And they came out of the earth like worms ... Israel and 90 people died of them ... but forced them to pay tribute and do work. And he delivered (Pesach the Khazars) from the hand of the Rus and struck down all those who were there with a sword. And he went from there to Chlgu and fought with him for four months, and God subjected him to Pesach, and he went and found the booty that (Chlgu) captured in Smkriu. Then he said (Chlgu) that it was Romanu who made me do it. And Pesach said to him: If this is so, then go to war against Romanus, as you fought against me, and then I will leave you alone. If not, then I will die or live until I avenge myself. And he went and did so against his will and fought against Constantinople at sea for four months. And his men fell there, because the Macedonians defeated him with fire. And he fled, and was ashamed to return to his land and went by sea to Prs (Persia. - E.G.) and he and his army fell there. And so the Rus fell under the rule of the Khazars..

Based only on the source, it is possible to describe the events in this way. The reign of the Khazar king Joseph, the author of the famous letter to the Spanish Jew, is not exactly known, but scientists conditionally lied at 920-960s. Emperor Roman I Lekapin (920-944) persuaded a certain “king” of the Rus Khlgu to attack the Khazars. Khlgu captured Samkerts. The Khazar governor Pesach in response took three unknown Byzantine cities, and also forced the inhabitants of Chersonesos to pay tribute to him. After that, Pesach fought for four months with the “king” of the Rus, eventually subjugated him and forced him to go to war against Byzantium. For four months Khlgu fought at sea against Constantinople, but was defeated and went by sea to Persia, where he died along with the army. It was then that Russia was subordinated to the Khazars.

Cambridge Document

There are a lot of questions. The most important of them - who is Hlgu and where was his "kingdom"?

And here is how some scientists comment on this news recent decades. L. N. Gumilyov has no doubt that Pesach defeated precisely the Kievan Rus, and Igor is hiding under the name Khlg: “The Kaganate managed not only to impose tribute on Kyiv, but also to force the Slavic-Russians to make campaigns against Byzantium, the primordial enemy of the Judeo-Khazars.” Of course, Igor went to Byzantium in 944, and his fleet was burned by Greek fire (this is known from the Primary Chronicle). But the circumstances of Igor's death are also covered in the Tale of Bygone Years, as well as the events that followed his death: he was killed by the Drevlyans while collecting tribute, and his wife Olga avenged him. So Igor did not disappear in any Persia. Secondly, there is no logical explanation why a well-known outside Kievan Rus The author of the letter, a connoisseur of history, calls Igor Khlgu.

N. Golb and O. Pritsak, erudite authors of the new translation of the text, solve the second problem. They know that, according to the Novgorod First Chronicle, Prince Oleg of Kyiv attacked Constantinople in 922. They identify this Oleg with Oleg the Prophet and Khlgu anonymous. And again, it turns out that the Khazars subjugated Kievan Rus. Moreover, the authors believe that it was the Khazars (more precisely, the Khazar Jews) who forced Oleg the Prophet to first go to war against Byzantium in 922, and then attack Persia.

Since nothing is known about the campaign of the Rus in Iran, N. Golb and O. Pritsak classify the lands of Transcaucasia, including Berdaa, as “Prs”. This city is valid in 943-944. on - the Rus fell, as reported by eastern sources close to the events. According to Ibn Miskaveykh, a Persian author of the second half of the 10th - early 11th centuries, a Rus detachment captured the rich Transcaucasian city of Berdaa near the Kura River in the Armenian-Georgian border area. The ruler of Berdaa, Marzban, was absent at that time, fighting in Syria. The Rus quickly dealt with the small garrison of the city, after which they announced to the inhabitants that they would guarantee freedom of religion and security if they recognized the power of the Rus over themselves. However, this proposal did not meet with the expected support, and part of the city's inhabitants were destroyed. The returned Marzban could not drive the invaders out of Berdaa. The Rus themselves left the city after an epidemic of a certain gastric infection broke out among them. At night, they left the fortress, taking the booty, reached their camp on the banks of the Kura, from where they departed for their homeland. Another oriental author, Bar Geb-rei, adds that the Alans and Lezgins also participated in the campaign.

The same Russ fought in Transcaucasia in the second half of the 9th century, and in 913-914, and later, as already mentioned in previous chapters. But here is what cannot be found either in Russian chronicles or in other monuments ancient Russian literature, so this is even a hint of such Transcaucasian activity in Kyiv at that time. And the Eastern authors quite clearly indicate the place of residence of these Rus - in the North Caucasus, next to the Alans. Finally, we must admit that Eastern Europe 10th century there was more than one tribe Rus. Then there will be no need to shift the dates of various Russian campaigns indicated in the sources, trying to tie them to the biographies of the Kyiv princes, and also to find out what Oleg the Prophet or Igor needed in the Caucasus. In Eastern writings describing campaigns in Transcaucasia, on the one hand, and in the Cambridge Document, on the other, completely different groups of Rus are mentioned, not connected with the Kyiv ones and pursuing an independent policy.

Khlgu, who fought with the Khazars in the Crimea, was the head of the Black Sea Rus. Firstly, all the actions of the story of the Cambridge anonymous about the confrontation between the Rus and the Khazars do not go beyond the Crimea and the nearest Black Sea region. Even the governor of the Crimean Khazaria, Pesach, is forced to deal with the Russian "tsar" alone, without the help of the Caspian metropolis or any allies. Pesach, of course, would not have had enough resources to conquer Kievan Rus. M. I. Artamonov tries to resolve this issue in the following way: he declares Khlga one of Igor’s governors, like Sveneld known from the annals, arguing that Pesach dealt with some kind of “Varangian squad” that wandered around the Black Sea in search of prey. But this version is rejected for two reasons. Firstly, the document says that Khlgu had “his own land”, to which he was ashamed to return after the defeat at Constantinople. In this country, Pesach fought with the “king” of the Rus for four months, which shows the possibility of replenishing both human and material resources on both sides. In other words, a war between two neighboring countries could have been so long, and not trials with a wandering squad. Secondly, Chlgu in the source is called in Hebrew "melech", which corresponds to the Arabic "malik" - sovereign, independent ruler, master of his land.

According to our unknown Jew, the Rus caused a lot of anxiety to the Crimean Khazars: Pesach saves Crimean Khazars "by the hand of the Rus". From this message it is clear that the Black Sea Rus in the middle of the 10th century represented an independent and rather influential enclave, approximately equal in strength to the Khazar colony in the Crimea (otherwise the author would not have proudly declared the salvation of the Khazars). The name of the leader of the Rus - Khlgu (Khalegu - Iranian "creator", "creator") - really coincides with the name of the Kyiv prince. But this does not at all indicate that Khlgu and Oleg the Prophet are one and the same person. It’s just that part of the Kievan Rus and the inhabitants of the Black Sea region were ethnically close, and the same names were popular with them.

A common past does not always imply common interests. But in the tenth century the Rus of the Dnieper and the Black Sea often acted together, as can be seen from the treaties of Oleg and Igor with the Greeks. Their main opponents, the Byzantines and the Khazars, remained common, until Svyatoslav Igorevich put an end to the Russian-Khazar confrontation.

In the summer of 965, Prince Svyatoslav put an end to the existence of the Khazar Khaganate.

Pushkin knows

How the prophetic Oleg is now going

Take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars:

Their villages and fields for a violent raid

He doomed swords and fires...

Thanks to the "Song of the Prophetic Oleg", written by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, the Russians are still in school age learn about the existence of such a people as the Khazars.

But for most acquaintance with the issue ends there. Who the Khazars are, why they are "unreasonable" and whether the claims against them from Prince Oleg were fair - the Russians are rather vaguely aware of this.

Meanwhile, the state of the Khazars was formed much earlier than the ancient Russian one, and the existence of such a concept as the “Khazar world” testifies to its influence. This term refers to the period of dominance in the Caspian-Black Sea steppes of the Khazar Khaganate, which stretched out for almost three centuries.

The Turks who took Tbilisi

As most often happens with ancient peoples, historians have several versions of the origin of the Khazars at once. The most common point of view is that the Khazars originated from a union of Turkic tribes.

Until the 7th century, the Khazars occupied a subordinate position in nomadic empires, but after the collapse of the Turkic Khaganate, they were able to form their own state - the Khazar Khaganate, which lasted more than 300 years.

Initially, the territory of the Khazars was limited to the regions of modern Dagestan north of Derbent, but then it expanded significantly, including the Crimea, the Lower Volga region, Ciscaucasia and the Northern Black Sea region, as well as the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe up to the Dnieper. AT different time The Khazar Sea was called the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas.

Chroniclers mention the Khazars as a separate powerful military force during the Iranian-Byzantine war of 602–628, during which in 627 the Khazar army, together with the Byzantines, stormed the city of Tbilisi.

These military successes, along with the weakening of the Turkic Khaganate, made it possible to create the Khazar Khaganate. A powerful army became the key to his well-being.

people of war

As a result of numerous military battles, the Khazar Khaganate turned into one of the powerful powers era. The most important trade routes of Eastern Europe were in the power of the Khazars: the Great Volga route, the route "from the Varangians to the Greeks", the Great silk road from Asia to Europe. For the passage of goods, the Khazars took a tax, which provided a steady income.

The second main source of income for the Khazar Khaganate was the receipt of tribute from the tribes conquered in the course of regularly carried out raids.

Initially, the main direction of the Khazar raids was Transcaucasia, but then, under the pressure of the ever-increasing Arab Caliphate, the Khazars began to move north, where their raids affected the Slavic tribes. Whole line Slavic tribes, which later formed the Old Russian state, were forced to pay tribute to the Khazars.

In the VIII century, the Khazars, having entered into a coalition with the Byzantine Empire, waged wars against the gaining strength of the Arab Caliphate. In 737, the Arab commander Marwan ibn Muhammad, at the head of a 150,000-strong army, completely defeated the army of the Khazar Khaganate, pursuing its ruler up to the banks of the Don, where the Khagan was forced to promise to convert to Islam. And although the complete transition of the Khazar Khaganate to Islam did not take place, this defeat seriously affected the further development of the state. Dagestan, where the capital of the kaganate, the city of Semender, was previously located, turned into the southern outskirts, and the center of the state moved to the lower reaches of the Volga, where a new capital, the city of Itil, was built.

Jews from the banks of the Volga

Until the middle of the 8th century, the Khazars remained pagans. However, around 740, one of the prominent Khazar commanders, Bulan, converted to Judaism. This happened, apparently, under the influence of numerous Jewish communities living at that time in the "historical territory" of the Kaganate - in Dagestan.

Over time, Judaism received wide use among the ruling elite of the Khazar Khaganate, however, according to most historians, it did not completely turn into a state religion. Moreover, part of the military and commercial elite of the state opposed the ruling elite, which led to confusion and political instability.

Since the beginning of the 9th century, a kind of dual power has developed in the Khazar Khaganate - nominally the country was headed by khagans from a royal family, but the real control was carried out on their behalf by "beks" from the Bulanid clan that converted to Judaism.

It was difficult to envy the Khagans of Khazaria because of the peculiar traditions that existed among this people at the time of paganism. Despite the fact that the kagan was considered the earthly incarnation of God, when he ascended the throne, he was strangled with a silk cord. Brought to a semi-conscious state, the kagan had to name the number of years during which he would rule. After this period the kagan was killed. Saying too many years also did not save - in any case, the kagan was killed when he reached the age of 40, because it was believed that by this time he was beginning to lose his divine essence.

Farmers versus nomads

Despite cruel morals and a religion not the most common in the region, adopted by the elite, the Khazar Khaganate remained an important player in international politics.

The Khazars actively interacted with Byzantium, participated in the political intrigues of the empire, and in 732 the allied relations of the powers were sealed by the marriage of the future emperor Constantine V with the Khazar princess Chichak.

The Khazars left a particularly deep trace in the history of the Crimea, which was under their control until the middle of the 9th century, as well as in Taman, which the kaganate controlled until its fall.

A clash between the Old Russian state and the Khazar Khaganate was inevitable. Simplistically, it can be imagined as a confrontation between settled farmers and nomadic invaders.

The Old Russian state was faced with the fact that part of the Slavic tribes turned out to be tributaries of the Khazars, which categorically did not suit the Russian princes. In addition, the regular raids of the Khazars led to the destruction of the settlements of the Russians, robberies, the withdrawal of thousands of Slavs into captivity and their subsequent sale into slavery.

In addition, the control of the Khazars over trade routes interfered with the communication of the Rus with other states, as well as the establishment of mutually beneficial trade relations with other countries.

The Khazars could not refuse raids on the territory of the Slavic tribes, since robberies and the slave trade by the 9th century turned into the most important article state income.

The first fighters against the "Russian threat"

In 882, Oleg became prince of Kyiv. Having gained a foothold in Kyiv, he begins to conduct methodical work to expand the territory of the state. First of all, he is interested in the Slavic tribes that are not controlled by Kyiv. Among them were those who were tributaries of the Khazars. In 884 and 885, the northerners and Radimichi, who had previously paid tribute to the Khaganate, recognized Oleg's authority. Of course, the Khazars tried to restore the status quo, but they no longer had enough strength to punish Oleg.

During this period, the Khazars, more sophisticated in diplomacy, tried to transfer the "Russian threat" to Byzantium or the states of Transcaucasia, ensuring the unimpeded passage of the Russian troops through their possessions.

True, and here it was not without deceit. An episode that occurred after the return of the Russians after one of these expeditions to the coast of Azerbaijan is indicative. The ruler of the Khazar Khaganate, having received a previously agreed part of the booty, allowed his guard, formed from Muslims, to avenge their fellow believers. As a result, most of the Russian soldiers died.

The struggle of the Old Russian state with the Khazar Khaganate continued with varying success until Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich came to power. One of the most warlike princes of Ancient Russia decided to put an end to the Khazar raids once and for all.

Around 960, the Khazar Khagan Joseph, in a letter to the dignitary of the Cordoba Caliphate, Hasdai ibn Shafrut, noted that he was waging a “stubborn war” with the Rus, not letting them into the sea and overland to Derbent, otherwise they, according to him, could conquer all Islamic lands to Baghdad. At the same time, Joseph was sure that he was able to fight for a long time.

And then Svyatoslav came ...

In 964, during a campaign to the Oka and the Volga, Svyatoslav freed the last union of Slavic tribes, the Vyatichi, from the Khazar dependence. At the same time, it is worth noting that the Vyatichi did not want to obey Kyiv either, which resulted in a series of wars stretching for many years.

In 965, Svyatoslav with an army moved directly to the territory of the Khazar Khaganate, inflicting a crushing defeat on the troops of the Khagan. Following this, the Russians stormed the Sarkel fortress built on the banks of the Don with the help of Byzantium. The settlement came under the authority of the Old Russian state and received a new name - Belaya Vezha. Then the city of Samkerts on the Taman Peninsula was taken, which turned into the Russian Tmutarakan.

Over the next few years, Svyatoslav's army captured both capitals of the Khazar Khaganate - Itil and Semender. An end was put in the history of the once mighty state.

After Svyatoslav, the Russians retreated from the lower Volga for some time, which allowed the exiled kagan of Khazaria to return to Itil, relying on the support of the Islamic ruler of Khorezm. The payment for this support was the conversion of the Khazars to Islam, including the head of state himself.

However, this could not change the course of history. In 985, the Russian prince Vladimir again set off on a campaign against the Khazars and, having won a victory, imposed tribute on them.

From that moment on, the Khazars appear in the historical annals not as representatives of a single power, but as small groups acting as subjects of other countries. Gradually, the Khazars dissolved among other, more successful peoples.

And in memory of the “first enemy of Russia”, we were left with only historical works and Pushkin’s lines about the “unreasonable”, with whom the prophetic Oleg intended to “revenge”.

PS The Khazar fortress Sarkel, aka Belaya Vezha, was planned to be flooded in 1952 during the construction of the Tsimlyansk reservoir.

Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrukhin - Doctor of Historical Sciences,

Leading Researcher, Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences,

professor at RSUH.

When it comes to the Khazars, the first thing that comes to mind is Pushkin's "Song of the Prophetic Oleg", familiar from the school desk:

How the prophetic Oleg is now going

Take revenge on the unreasonable Khazars.

Their villages and fields for a violent raid

He doomed swords and fires ...

The plot of Pushkin's "song" is not at all connected with the Khazars - after all, it tells about the death of Oleg from his beloved horse, but the beginning of any story is always remembered in the first place. At the time of Pushkin, they did not really know who the Khazars were, but they remembered that the beginning of proper Russian history was connected with them.

Nestor the chronicler, who told at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries. about the first Russian princes and the death of Oleg, begins Russian history with a mention of the tribute that the Khazars collected from the Slavic tribes of the Middle Dnieper, and the overseas Varangians from the tribes of Novgorod land back in the middle of the 9th century. Nestor tells in the Primary Chronicle - "The Tale of Bygone Years", how the steppe-Khazars approached the land of the meadows - the inhabitants of Kyiv and demanded tribute from them, and the meadows gave them tribute with swords. The Khazar elders saw in this tribute an unkind sign: after all, the Khazars conquered many lands with sabers sharpened on one side, and the swords were double-edged. And so it happened - Nestor completes his story about the Khazar tribute, the Russian princes began to own the Khazars.

The annals say nothing about revenge on the Khazars by the prophetic Oleg - this is a poetic "reconstruction" of history: in fact, it was "unreasonable" to oppress the Slavs and make "violent raids". The chronicle describes the relationship between Oleg and the Khazars in a different way. Oleg was a Varangian, heir to the Novgorod prince Rurik. He was called from across the sea with his Scandinavian (Varangian) squad, nicknamed Rus, in Novgorod land to rule there according to Slavic customs - "in a row, by right." An outstanding domestic orientalist A.P. Novoseltsev even believed that the Slavs called the Viking Varangians to Novgorod in order to avoid the Khazar threat. One way or another, the first prince sent south - to Tsargrad, according to famous way from the Varangians to the Greeks, their warriors, who settled in Kyiv, and after the death of Rurik, Oleg went there with the young Igor Rurikovich. He appeared in Kyiv in the 880s, proclaimed the new capital "the mother of Russian cities" and agreed with Slavic tribes- tributaries of the Khazars, that they would pay tribute to the Russian prince. It was still far from “revenge” here - the Khazars were already “avenged” by Igor’s heir Svyatoslav, who in the 960s defeated the Khazar state, and only the remains of the Khazar cities - settlements on the Don and Seversky Donets, in the North Caucasus and in the Crimea - remind of once powerful Khazar state.

Archaic mythological plot with the World Tree.

Drawing from a vessel found in a burial ground on the Lower Don.

Publication by S.I. Bezuglov and S.A. Naumenko.

Real history is incomparably richer and more interesting than this old official doctrine. The Khazars were by no means the first inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe who sought to impose tribute on farmers and townspeople. At the end of IV-V century. Europe was shocked by the Hun invasion: the ancient cities of the Northern Black Sea region were destroyed, nomadic hordes rushed to Central Europe, to Rome and Constantinople, the centers of the Roman Empire. But the huge Hunnic state collapsed by the 6th century, and the Huns from Central Asia a new wave of conquerors came - the Turks, who created their own "empire" - the Turkic Khaganate. The title of the lord of this "empire" - kagan, "khan of khans", was equated with the imperial title. Then, in the 6th century, Slavs began to settle from Central Europe to the Danube and to the east - to the Dnieper and Volkhov.

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The Khazars are first mentioned in a certain historical and geographical context as a people living in the "Hunnic limits" north of the Caspian Gates - Derbent (Bab al-abwab). The very name Khazars most researchers correlate with traditional Turkic ethnonyms such as Kazakh denoting a nomad (it is assumed that Chinese sources called them Ko-sa). Syrian Christian author of the middle of the VI century. Zechariah Rhetor in his "Chronicle" first lists the five Christian peoples of the Caucasus, to which he also refers the Huns, then gives a description of the barbarian nomads. “Anvar, Sebir, Burgar, Alan, Kurtagar, Avars, Khasar, Dirmar, Sirurgur, Bagrasik, Kulas, Abdel, Eftalit - these 13 nations live in tents, exist on the meat of cattle and fish, wild beasts and weapons." The "Hun limits" of Zechariah are given extremely broadly, if he also includes the Central Asian Ephthalites ("White Huns"), but the Khazars, obviously, close the list of nomadic peoples of the Black Sea steppes: Sebirs - Savirs, Burgars - Bulgarians, Alans - Alans, Kurtagars - Kutrigurs, Avars - Avars, Khasar - Khazars.

In the VI century. after the Huns lost their power in the Eurasian steppes, a new state association arose in Central Asia, created by the Turks, headed by their ruler - a kagan from the Ashina clan - the Turkic Khaganate. His possessions stretched from Central Asia to the Black Sea steppes and included a large number of peoples. Since Turkic peoples replaced Iranian-speaking nomads in the steppes - Sarmatians, Alans. In the 7th century The Turkic Khaganate broke up into warring groups of Turks. On the western outskirts of the Khaganate, the Turks subjugated the Hephthalites and began to threaten Iran, including in Transcaucasia, which was subject to it - it was not for nothing that the Iranian rulers of the Sassanids began to fortify Derbent in the Caspian so that the Turks would not break into Iran-controlled Armenia through the Caspian gates.

In 626, when the Avars Turks, who migrated to Central Europe in the 6th century, and their allies, the Slavs, besieged Constantinople, the Khazars were already included in the general geopolitical system - the situation of the struggle of two great powers - and acted in Transcaucasia on the side of Byzantium, then Iran. In Armenian sources, the ruler of the Khazars is called jebu hakan and is recognized as the second person in the hierarchy of the ruling layer of the Turkic Khaganate. In the era of the collapse of the Turkic Khaganate, the Bulgarian association of tribes, headed by the noble Dulo family, supported one of the Turkic groups that fought for power in the Khaganate, the Khazars supported the other; It is believed that after the collapse of the Turkic Khaganate in the middle of the 7th century. a “prince” from the Ashina clan fled to them, which gave the rulers of the Khazars the right to be called khagans (khakans).

Khazaria and neighboring regions in10th century

Map from the book: Golb N., Pritsak O.

Khazar-Jewish Documents10th century

Moscow - Jerusalem, 1997.

The nomadic Bulgarians (proto-Bulgarians) in the process of disintegration of the state of the Huns, pressed by other Turkic nomadic Aquarians, in interaction with Iranian and Ugric tribal elements from the second half of the 5th century BC. invaded the Black Sea region. Tribes of Kutrigurs, Utigurs, Saragurs, Onogurs, Ogurs (Urogs, Ogors), Barsils, Savirs, Balanjars in the 5th-7th centuries. inhabited the territory from the Lower Danube to the Eastern Sea of ​​Azov, lived in the North Caucasus, in the Caspian Sea; they fought with the Avar and Turkic Khaganates. In the first third of the 7th c. during the collapse of the Turkic Khaganate, the Onogurs, part of the Kutrigurs and others, led by Khan Kubrat (Kuvrat) from the Dulo clan, formed the association of Great Bulgaria with a center in Phanagoria (on Taman), which included the territory between the Don and Kuban and to the west up to the Middle Dnieper.

Khazar warrior. Drawing by Oleg Fedorov.

The Khazars roamed fertile lands foothills of the North Caucasus - in the country of the Savirs and, no less important, they were familiar with the life of ancient cities. Like any nomads, they quickly found profit in political struggle, which, as always, was led in the Caucasus by the great powers: in those days it was Byzantium and Iran. In the 7th century the Khazars became so strong that they began to claim dominance not only in the Black Sea steppes, but also in the Byzantine cities of Taman and the Crimea, and in Transcaucasia. A new "empire" was being formed - the Khazar Khaganate: many peoples and lands began to obey the Khagan, the ruler of the Khazars. In the North Caucasus, the Alans, the Iranian-speaking descendants of the ancient Scythians and Sarmatians, became allies and vassals of the Khazars.

In the second half of the 7th c. the Khazars, in alliance with the Alans, who settled in the Caspian steppes and in the North Caucasus, invaded the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov and defeated Great Bulgaria. After that, part of the Bulgarians, incl. who switched to a settled and semi-settled way of life, remained under the rule of the Khazar Khaganate, making up, along with the Alans, most of the population of Khazaria. Another part of the Bulgarians - a horde led by Khan Asparukh, migrated to the Balkans to Byzantium (681). There, together with the Balkan Slavs, they created a new state - Danube Bulgaria. Another group of Bulgarians retreated to the interfluve of the Volga and Kama: there, by the 9th century. Volga Bulgaria (Bulgaria) was formed, nominally recognizing the power of the Khazar Khagan. In the forest-steppe, the Slavs began to pay tribute to the Khazars, who settled from the Dnieper region to the Oka and Don, including in those regions where farmers did not dare to settle until the time the Cossack villages were created. The power of the Khazars contributed to the Slavic agricultural colonization - after all, the Khazars needed bread and furs obtained in the forests of Eastern Europe.

Having subjugated the Alans, Bulgarians and other peoples of Eastern Europe, the Khazars clashed with Byzantium in its possessions in the Northern Black Sea region. At the end of the 7th-8th centuries. they captured the Bosporus, Eastern Crimea, even claimed Chersonese. But soon the Khazars and Byzantium had a common enemy - the Arab conquerors. The Arabs captured Central Asia, ousted the Khazars from the countries of Transcaucasia, and in 735 invaded the Caspian steppes. The ruler of Khazaria was forced to leave his headquarters in Dagestan - the cities of Belenjer and Semender and found a new capital in the inaccessible Volga delta. It received the same Turkic name as the Volga River: Itil, or Atil. "Jihad" approached the borders of the current Russian state at the time of the formation of Islam.

The Arabs, however, could not hold out for long in the steppes: they retreated to Transcaucasia, and Derbent remained their outpost - and the outpost of Islam. Kagan restored his power in the North Caucasus and other areas.

This power needed to be strengthened, and the construction of fortifications began in the kaganate. Fortress systems arose in the North Caucasus and on the axial river highway of Khazaria - in the Don basin. For the construction of fortresses, the traditions of both Iranian and Byzantine fortification were used. Around 840, the Byzantine engineer Petrona erected the Sarkel fortress on the Don, excavated in the middle of the 20th century. archaeologists led by the largest researcher Khazar - M.I. Artamonov. On the other side of the Don, fortifications were erected that controlled the crossing across the river. A powerful fortress in Khumar controlled the Kuban basin. Settlements of the Khazar time continue to be explored by S.A. Pletneva, M.G. Magomedov, G.E. Afanasiev, V.S. Flerov, V.K. Mikheev, but research has so far affected only an insignificant part of the Khazar heritage.

Fortifications. Hillfort Humara.

The fortress controlled the Kuban basin.

AT last years(since 2000) these fortresses have been studied as part of the Khazar project, initiated by the Russian Jewish Congress (E.Ya. Satanovsky) and the Jewish University in Moscow (now the Higher Humanitarian School named after Sh. Dubnov - coordinators V.Ya. Petrukhin and I.A. Arzhantsev), but archaeologists have to deal primarily with saving dying archaeological sites and fixing the destruction of the Khazar fortresses on the Don, including the Pravoberezhny settlement near the village of Tsimlyanskaya - opposite Sarkel (V.S. Flerov). This white-stone fortress was called together with Sarkel to control the crossing over the Don - the central highway of the Khazar Khaganate. It is interesting that Kyiv, which paid tribute to the Khazars before the appearance of Russian princes there, was located, according to the Russian chronicle, on a ferry across the Dnieper. The Khazars, thus, sought to control the main river communications of Eastern Europe.

Excavations at Samosdelka. Summer 2005. Photo by E. Zilivinskaya.

But the main object of study of the Khazar project was ancient city, discovered in the Volga Delta, on the island of Samosdelka near Astrakhan. There are no such cities in the entire Lower Volga region. The capitals of the Golden Horde - Sarai-Batu and Sarai-Berke, built here by craftsmen brought by the Mongols from Central Asia, did not exist for long - their cultural layer on the main area does not exceed 0.5 m. time - VIII-X centuries. So far, a small area has been excavated (the leaders of the excavations are E.D. Zilivinskaya and D.V. Vasilyev), but it is already clear that brick was used in the construction of buildings (the kagan himself had the right to build bricks in Khazaria), and mass finds indicate that that the population of the city was Bulgarian and Oghuz - from Central Asia. Such was the population of the city in the Volga delta, mentioned by medieval sources - in the pre-Mongolian period it was called Saksin, in the Khazar period - Itil. Itil - the capital of Khazaria, was located in the delta on the island, and perhaps its remains were finally discovered by archaeologists.

Copper belt tips depicting a leopard chasing a hare and a dragon.

XI-13th century Settlement Samosdelka. Excavations by E.D. Zilivinskaya.

Published for the first time.

With the advent of years, the economy of the Khazars became multiform and depended on the traditions of the peoples that were part of the Khaganate. The Alans, who settled not only in the North Caucasus, but also in the Don and Donets basins, were experienced farmers and knew how to build stone fortresses. Agriculture was also practiced by the Khazars, who also learned gardening, winemaking and fishing. The Khazars were residents of ancient cities - Phanagoria and Tamatarkha (Tmutarakan) on Taman, Kerch in the Crimea. The Bulgarians in the steppe preserved mainly a nomadic way of life.

Archaeological monuments of Khazaria are vivid evidence of the formation of urban civilization where previously only steppes stretched and ancient burial mounds rose. But these monuments, like any archeological monuments, are “mute”: the Khazar chronicles have not been preserved, the inscriptions made in Turkic runes are few and have not yet been deciphered. What was said about the Khazar history is known from external - foreign evidence: a treatise Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, descriptions of the Arab geographer al-Masudi and other Eastern authors.

A defensive system and an economy, even a prosperous one, were not enough to win recognition in the world, even in the early medieval period. And recognition, especially of the great powers, was necessary. During the war with the Muslim Arabs, the kagan faced a confessional problem directly. The Khazars were pagans, they worshiped the Turkic gods, and peaceful relations with the pagans were impossible both from the point of view of orthodox Islam and from the standpoint of Christianity - state religion Byzantium.

It is not clear how long and seriously the Khagan professed Islam imposed on him by the Arabs. History has preserved amazing written evidence about the religion of Khazaria, which was brought to us by the so-called Jewish-Khazar correspondence - several letters written in Jewish letters in the 60s. 10th century

Cordova.

The initiator of the correspondence was the dignitary (“chancellor”) of the powerful caliph of Cordoba, the Jewish scholar Hasdai ibn Shaprut. He learned from merchants that somewhere on the edge of the inhabited world (and the North Caucasus was considered the edge of the ecumene in the Middle Ages) there is a kingdom whose ruler is a Jew. He wrote him a letter asking him to tell about his kingdom. Hasdai was answered by Tsar Joseph, the ruler of Khazaria. He spoke about enormous size of their state, about the peoples that are subject to it, and finally about how the Khazars became Jews by faith. A distant ancestor of Joseph, who still bore the Turkic name Bulan, saw in a dream an angel of God, who called him to accept the true faith. The angel gave him victory over his enemies - this was an important demonstration of the power of the biblical God for the Khazars, and Bulan and his people converted to Judaism. Then ambassadors from Muslims and from Christian Byzantium came to the king to reason with him: after all, Bulan accepted the faith of a persecuted people everywhere. The king arranged a dispute between Muslims and Christians. He asked the Islamic qadi which faith he considered more true - Judaism or Christianity, and the qadi, who revered the Old Testament prophets, of course, named Judaism. Bulan asked the priest the same question about Judaism and Islam, and he replied that religion old testament more true. So Bulan established himself as the correctness of his choice.

It still remains a mystery when and where the events described in Joseph's letter took place. Therefore, of particular interest are studies within the framework of the Khazar project of new Jewish monuments on Taman, the time of the appearance of which precedes the formation of the Khaganate (S.V. Kashaev, N.V. Kashovskaya).

The letter of the Khazar king was known in the Jewish communities of Spain and was quoted as early as at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries. Entire correspondence was opened for science as early as the 16th century. Isaac Akrish, a descendant of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, and published it in Constantinople around 1577. European science I got acquainted with the correspondence in the second half of the 17th century, but it did not inspire confidence among researchers either in the 18th or even in the 19th century. indeed, in the Renaissance and subsequent centuries - in the period of formation historical science- a lot of hoaxes were created (the writers of “new stories”, such as Academician Fomenko and others like him, are still speculating on this). Moreover, a learned Jew could be suspected of a hoax, who was looking for periods of glory and power in the history of the persecuted people, it was not for nothing that he called the book itself with the publication of correspondence “The Voice of the Evangelist”.

But three hundred years after the publication of Akrish, when another scholarly enthusiast, the Karaite Abraham Firkovitch, collected a huge number of Jewish manuscripts in his expeditions, the attitude towards the Khazar documents changed. Among these manuscripts, the famous domestic Hebraist Abraham Garkavin discovered another - a lengthy edition of the letter of Tsar Joseph in a manuscript of the 13th century. This meant that the Jewish-Khazar correspondence was not a forgery.

In a lengthy version of his message, Joseph writes that he himself lives on the Itil River near the Gurgan Sea - there was the capital of the kaganate and the wintering quarters of the kaganate, from which, following the traditions of the nomadic nobility, he set off for the summer through the lands of his domain between the Volga and Don rivers . The king lists the “many peoples” subject to him near the Itil River: these are Bur-t-s, Bul-g-r, S-var, Arisu, Ts-r-mis, V-n-n-tit, S-v-r , S-l-viyun. Further, in the description of Joseph, the border of his possessions turns to "Khuvarism" - Khorezm, a state in the Aral Sea region, and in the south it includes S-m-n-d-r and goes to the Caspian gates and mountains. Further, the border follows to the "sea of ​​Kustandin" - "Konstatinople", i.e. Cherny, where Khazaria includes the areas of Sh-r-kil (Sarkel on the Don), S-m-k-r-ts (Tamatarkha - Tmutarakan on Taman), K-r-ts (Kerch), etc. from there the border goes north to the B-ts-ra tribe, which wanders to the borders of the Kh-g-riim region.

Right-bank Tsimlyansk settlement.

Many names of peoples who, according to Josephus, pay tribute to the Khazars, are quite reliably restored and have correspondences in other sources. The first of them - Burtases(Bur-t-s), whose name is sometimes compared with the ethnicon "mordens" (Mordva), mentioned by the Ostrogoth historian of the 6th century. Jordan. However, in the Old Russian "Word of the Destruction of the Russian Land" (XIII century), a strikingly close list of peoples already subject to Russia is given, where the Burtases are mentioned along with the Mordovians: the borders of Russia stretch "from the sea to the Bulgarians, from the Bulgarians to the Burtas, from the Burtas to the Chermis , from Chermis to Mordvi". In the context of Joseph's letter, this ethnicon is obviously tied to the Volga region, where the Burtases are followed by the Bulgarians (in Joseph's list - Bul-g-r), and then - S-var, a name that is associated with the city of Suvar in Volga Bulgaria.

Next ethnicon arisu is compared with the self-name of the ethnographic group Mordovians erzya(accordingly, in the Burtases they sometimes see another group of Mordovians - moksha). Name C-r-m-s resonates with chermis old Russian source: these are Cheremis, the medieval name of the Mari, a Finnish-speaking people in the Middle Volga region. The described situation, obviously, dates back to the heyday of the kaganate: in the 60s. In the 10th century, when the letter of Tsar Joseph was compiled, it was hardly possible that the peoples of the Middle Volga region, primarily the Bulgarians who had converted to Islam, depended on the dying kaganate.

The same can be said about next group peoples, in which they see the Slavic tributaries of Khazaria. In ethnicon V-n-n-tit usually see the name Vyatichi/Ventichi, who, according to the Russian chronicle, lived along the Oka and paid tribute to the Khazars until the liberation by Prince Svyatoslav during a campaign against Khazaria in 964-965. The next ethnicon - S-v-r - obviously means northerners living on the Desna: they were freed from the Khazar tribute by Prince Oleg, when the Russian princes settled in the Middle Dnieper. The term S-l-viyun, which completes this part of the list of tributaries, refers to the common name of the Slavs. Apparently, here we can mean the whole set of Slavic tributaries, including radimichi and polyan who, according to The Tale of Bygone Years, paid tribute to the Khazars before the appearance Russ in the Middle Dnieper in the 860s. In general, the list of tributaries, therefore, dates back to no later than the second half of the 9th century, rather to the middle of the 9th century, the heyday of the Khazar Khaganate and the construction of white-stone fortresses, including the one mentioned in the Sarkel letter (c. 840).

The legend about the adoption of Judaism by the Khazars explained a lot for historians. Naturally, the kagan did not want to accept Islam: after all, this made him a vassal of the enemy - the Arab caliph. But Christianity did not suit the ruler of Khazaria: after all, he captured the Christian lands of Byzantium. Meanwhile, in the cities of the Caucasus and the Northern Black Sea region, including Phanagoria and Tamatarkh, Jewish communities lived from ancient times, experienced in communicating with the surrounding peoples. These communities also existed in the cities of the Caliphate and Byzantium: Christians and Muslims could communicate with Jews - after all, they were not pagans and revered the one God. The Kagan chose a neutral religion that honored the Holy Scriptures recognized by Christians and Muslims.

Hasdai, however, was an experienced diplomat and understood that the Khazar king was recounting the official legend of the Khazar conversion. Apparently, he turned to another correspondent - a Jew who lived within the boundaries of Khazaria (in Kerch or Taman), who presented the history of the kaganate and the conversion of the Khazars in a slightly different way. It is no longer about an angel who inspired the kagan to accept the true faith - this step of the ruler of the Khazars was vouchsafed by a pious wife from a family of Jewish refugees who escaped persecution in Armenia. This letter was discovered by the English Hebraist Schechter in 1910 in the materials of the largest collection of Jewish manuscripts, which comes from the storage (genizah) of the medieval synagogue in Cairo (Fustat). These materials were transported to Cambridge, and the letter from the anonymous Jew is called the Cambridge Document.

In modern historiography, the perniciousness of the choice of the Jewish faith is usually emphasized: only the Kagan himself and the Khazars accepted Judaism, other peoples retained their "pagan" beliefs. Historians believe that the kagan and the ruling elite of the kaganate were cut off by their faith from other subjects. The reality was still more complicated: if the kagan converted to Islam or Christianity, he would have to forcefully plant a new religion among the tribes and peoples subject to him, but Judaism did not require this.

As a result, an amazing ethno-confessional situation developed in Khazaria: according to the description of al-Masudi, in the Khazar cities, including the capital Itil, different religious communities coexisted side by side: the Jews - the kagan, his commanders bek and the Khazars, who lived in brick buildings, as well as Christians (the Christian population of the Black Sea cities remained among the subjects of the kagan), Muslims (the kagan's guard consisted of Central Asian Oghuz Muslims) and pagans (Slavs and Russia). Each community had its own judges and retained autonomy. This peaceful coexistence of different religious communities was characteristic even for ancient cities Northern Black Sea region and for Constantinople. In Eastern Europe, the formation of such a tradition was also important step on the way to civilization.

However, a strong state pursuing an independent policy at the crossroads of Europe and Asia could not but arouse opposition. neighboring countries, especially since the Khazars did not leave claims to Byzantine possessions in the Black Sea region and power over the Slavs. In 860, Konstantin (Cyril) the Philosopher himself, the future first teacher of the Slavs, went on behalf of the emperor to the headquarters of the kagan to take part in another dispute about faith: the life of Constantine says that he specifically learned the Hebrew language in Chersonese for this. Obviously, the fate of Christians who found themselves under the rule of Khazaria worried Constantinople.

Another recently discovered Jewish document of the 10th century. (read by American Hebraist Norman Golb in 1962)

A letter about a debtor whom the community wants to redeem from debt bondage indicates that

that the Khazar Jews also appeared in the Slavic world.

This document comes from Kyiv and today remains the oldest Russian document.

The signatures of the trustees under this letter are surprising: along with typical Jewish names, a certain

Guests bar Kyabar Kogen.

Guests - Slavic name, known from Novgorod birch bark letters, Kyabar - the name of one of the Khazar tribes,

Cohen - the designation of the descendants of the priestly class among the Jews. Apparently, representatives of this community (one of whom was the son of a Khazarin - kyabara), who probably spoke Slavonic if they had Slavic names, took part (along with Muslim Bulgarians!) And in a dispute about faith, which took place already under Kiev prince Vladimir on the eve of the baptism of Russia in 986.

Tsar Joseph in his letter described Khazaria as a powerful state, to which almost all the peoples of Eastern Europe were subordinate, but by the 60s of the 10th century. reality was far from this picture. Already by the beginning of the X century. Islam spread in Volga Bulgaria, and Christianity spread in Alanya: the rulers of these once vassal lands of Khazaria chose their own religion and the path to independence.

Khazaria itself was threatened by new hordes of nomads from the east: the Pechenegs pressed the Hungarians allied to the Khazars in the Black Sea region (at the end of the 9th century they ended up in Central Europe- present-day Hungary), the Oguzes advanced from the Trans-Volga region.

But Russia became the most dangerous rival of Khazaria in Eastern Europe. Tsar Joseph wrote in his letter: if the Khazars had not stopped the Russians on their borders, they would have conquered the whole world. Russia really rushed through the territory of Khazaria to the main markets of the Middle Ages - to Constantinople and Baghdad. As already mentioned, Prophetic Oleg with his Varangians and Slavs, nicknamed Rus, captured Kyiv and appropriated the Khazar tribute. In 965, Prince Svyatoslav moved on the last Slavic tributaries of the Khazars - the Vyatichi, who were sitting on the Oka. He subjugated the Vyatichi and went out with an army to the Volga Bulgaria. Russia plundered the Bulgarian cities and moved down the Volga. The Khazar Khagan was defeated, and his capital city of Itil was taken.

Then Svyatoslav moved to the North Caucasus, to the Alans (yases) and Circassians (kasogs), imposing tribute on them. Apparently, then the Khazar Tamatarkha became a Russian city - Tmutarakan, and the North Caucasus - a "hot spot" of the Old Russian state. On the way back the prince took Sarkel, which was renamed Belaya Vezha (Slavic translation of the name Sarkel). These Khazar lands came under the rule of Russian princes.

Tsar Joseph turned out to be right in predicting the danger from the peoples whose expansion was held back by Khazaria: the Oguzes seized part of Transcaucasia (forming the ethnic basis of the Azerbaijanis), Svyatoslav's Russia moved from Kyiv to the Balkans, conquering Bulgaria and threatening Byzantium.

The remnants of the defeated Khazars quickly dissolved in this stormy historical space, which remained the steppes and the North Caucasus. The disappearance of the Khazars, whose mention ceases by the 12th century, gave rise to many romantic and quasi-historical conceptions about their heirs, the Karaites of Crimea. Mountain Jews of the Caucasus - up to brilliant literary hoaxes, including the famous "Khazar Dictionary" by Milorad Pavich. Of particular interest is the attempt of the English writer Arthur Koestler to see in the Khazars, who fled from Eastern Europe, the "thirteenth tribe", the ancestors of European Jews - the Ashkenazim. This historically completely unfounded concept was built on a noble impulse: to prove that anti-Semitism is devoid of any historical foundations - after all, the Khazars were not Semites, but Turks. In fact, European Jews, the ancestors of the Ashkenazim, settled in the X-XII centuries. from the traditional centers of the diaspora in the Mediterranean and knew almost nothing about the Khazars. The culture of the Volga Bulgarians became essential component culture of the Golden Horde. The Volga Bulgarians formed the ethnic basis for the formation of the Chuvash and Kazan Tatars.

Many legends associated with the Khazars are associated with the largest medieval Jewish cemetery in Chufut-Kale. A. Firkovich tried to date some of the monuments to the Khazar time: within the framework of the Khazar project, a complete description of the cemetery is being carried out (A. M. Fedorchuk).

The Khazars suffered the fate of their predecessors, who created their "empires" in Eurasia - the Huns and Turks: with the death of the state, social and ethnic ties were destroyed, and the ruling people also disappeared. But the historical experience of Khazaria turned out to be in demand not only in the Jewish diaspora: it was not for nothing that Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, like his son Yaroslav the Wise, was called the title kagan in the Word of Law and Grace. In the historical sense, Khazaria turned out to be the forerunner not only of the Old Russian, but also of the Russian state as a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional entity. Those beginnings of state, ethnic and confessional development, which were laid down by the Khazars, have survived to this day in Eastern Europe. Ethnic and confessional diversity, the coexistence of different peoples, religions and cultures remain the key to the further development of our country.