Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century

Summary

Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak: Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London. 1982. pp. xvi + 166.

The growing interest in recent decades in the history of the Khazar state has produced a considerable number of studies, among which this source volume by Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak, with its rich and varied commentary, occupies an important place. (See the bibliography in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 2 (1983), p. 1788, as well as the full contents list in D. Ludwig: Struktur und Gesellschaft des Chazaren-Reiches im Licht der schriftlichen Qy,ellen, (Münster/Westphalen, 1982) pp. 178-232. The study by M.G. Magomedov, Obrazovanie Chazarskavo Kaganata, (Moscow, 1983), is based exclusively on the literature available in Russian, and mainly uses archeological material.)

Khazaria, the multi-faith state of half-settled Tukic nomads, covered vast areas of eastern Europe during its few centuries of existence. Apart from the increasingly rich archaeological sources from the birth place of Khazarian statehood on the Caspian Sea and in the northern Caucasus, our knowledge of this civilisation is based in the first instance on accounts written by foreigners from outside the Khazar state itself. Only three source documents have been discovered which can be linked with the area covered by the Khazar state. During the period of its greatest expansion in the ninth century, Khazaria reached as far as the River Dnieper in the west and imposed tribute on the Slavic tribes settled in the Dnieper basin. In the north it brought under its control the Bulgars on the banks of the Volga. These three documents were all written in Hebrew, which can be explained by the adherence of a section of the Khazar people, mainly the upper classes, to Judaism. The Khazar Kagan Joseph's reply to a letter from Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Cordova (954-961) is known to us in two editions and after lively debate has been accepted as authentic. Published and commented on many times, it has not been reprinted in this collection - no doubt rightly.