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KHAZARS
AND BULGARS |
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The Khazars
were a Turkic people, who had wandered from Asia to Europe
after the Huns in the second half of the 4th century. They
took the steppes between the lower Volga and the Caucasus
Mountains in possession. Like most of the contemporary nomads
they made their living from husbandry and pillaging
expeditions to the Byzantine and Persian possessions in
Transcaucasia. Later, after 560 they submitted to so-called
Turkish, and after its collapse in the end of the 6th century
- Western Turkish, Khaganate. About the middle of the 7th
century that realm also began to decline; that was when the
independent Khazar Khaganate emerged. Its capital was in
Semender on Terek, close to the Caspian Sea. The Khazar state
quickly grew in power, and subordinated new lands and tribes,
among others the Bulgars, who by then had already had their
own state-tribal organization on the coasts of the Sea of Azov. In
8th century the Khazars possessed the territories up to the
lower Dnieper, as well as substantial part of the Crimea. This
way the Khazar Khaganate encompassed in its boundaries various
Turkic, Finno-Ugric, and Slavonic tribes, although it is
impossible to establish exactly, which ones. |
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It is known only
that some of the Slavonic tribes subordinated to the Khazars
or paid them a tribute. The Khazars
had the biggest problems with the Arabs, who in the middle of
the 7th century conquered Transcaucasia. Nevertheless the
Khazars developed favourable economic conditions, maintained
animated trade with various tribes, and built a new capital
city - first Itil in the mouth of Volga, and then the strong
fortress Sarkel (Belaya Vezha) on the lower Don. Development
of the trade was accompanied by an absolute religious
tolerance. The believers of all the denominations lived in
Khazaria, and a part of the Khazars themselves adopted Judaism
yet in the first half of the 8th century. Several decades
later Judaism was declared the state religion, but only the
Khazars had adopted it. The critical period began to the
Khazars in the end of the 9th century as the new tribes (the
Pechenegs) arrived to the steppes on the Dnieper. The
territory of the Khaganate shrunk, and in the 10th century
began the long series of the wars with the Old Russian state,
which resulted in the Khazaria's total annihilation.
| Farther to
the north, between Volga and Kama, and within the same century
had eventually formed the state of the Bulgars known as the
Volga Bulgars or Kama Bulgars. |
| The roots of their state are
very interesting. Yet before the arrival of the Khazars the
Bulgars, a people of Turkic origin, were wandering in the
steppes of the Sea of Azov. They had even managed to unite
other tribes in one state-tribal union known from the sources
as Great Bulgaria. In the second half of the 7th century this
union collapsed crushed by the Khazars, and the Bulgars had
wandered to the new lands: some westward, across the Dnieper
and then farther to the territory of modern Bulgaria, which
was founded by the Bulgars; others moved northward, and
settled in the areas between Volga and Kama. Till the 10th
century they were under Khazaria, and after her collapse -
completely independent. The capital city of the Volga Bulgars
was Bulgar built near the confluence of Volga and Kama. |
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Volga
Bulgaria had managed to create strong economic system. In the
10th century the Bulgars were completely settled and made a
substantial progress in the agriculture; they knew the plough.
Impressive is the geography of their merchant contacts with
Rus, Byzantium, and Arab countries. Bulgaria was mainly
selling grain, furs, handcrafts, and slaves. The warrior
spirit was no less than merchant skills. The wars with Russian
principalities were particularly long and stubborn. The state
of the Volga Bulgars survived till the end of the 14th century. |
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M. Arushev
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