Index Page, "The Opening of Khazaria", historical section, 5 chapters
This book is a compilation of earlier writings, and there are many interesting parts. Some are historical, posted here and some relate to anthropology / archaeology methods, posted elsewhere.
Notes on the book "The Opening of Khazaria"
(Below these notes and links are some previews about the Caspian Sea and Archaeology. Please check all the way to the bottom.)
We have traced the history of the Khazar people from its emergence to its end. We have seen that the fate of the Khazars and the state they created was changeable and contradictory. The ancestors of the Khazars - the descendants of the Huns - did not inherit the traditions of Middle Asian culture, lost in the constant relocations, in the glorious victories and cruel defeats. But the Asiatic tradition still came to them, and the complicity in the undertakings of the Turkic khans melded fragments of very different tribes into a single people. Even after the fall of Turkic Kaganate Khazars they remained faithful to the ancient Turkic customs, they spread their power over the neighboring tribes and peoples with a sharp saber and a long spear.
Nevertheless, during this era, the role of the Khazars in history was progressive. They stopped the onslaught of the Arabs, opened the door to the Byzantine culture, established order and security in the Caspian and Black Sea steppes, which gave a strong impetus to the development of the economy of these countries and caused the settlement of the Slavs in the forest-steppe strip of Eastern Europe.
But the adoption of the Jewish religion was a fatal step for them. From that time the contact between the government and the people was lost, and the development of cattle breeding and agriculture was replaced by an era of intermediary trade and parasitic enrichment of the ruling elite. The new government rightly lacked faith in its people and they were kept on the spears of the Muslim hired guard. Talmudic education did not affect the masses, remaining the privilege of the few. Since that time, the role of the Khazar Kaganate was sharply negative and the culture of the peoples of Eastern Europe has flowed in other directions.
All the wealth accumulated by the Judean merchants in the city Itil could not buy the hearts of the Slavs settling in the forest-steppe, the steppe Pechenegs of the Black Sea, the nomads of the Ural Plain - Oguzes, the Alans in the mountain gorges of the Middle Caucasus and the Bulgars dwelling along the Azov coast. Dan-lop, who was about to write a history of the Judean Khazars, did not [391-392] realize what insidious role Judea played with the Khazar state. The Jews managed to become the head of the state, but it melted away in their hands because the connection between the government and the people was completely severed. Khazar Jews did not take into account that religion is a powerful factor in social cohesion even when it does not need an economic basis. And the Judean religion, due to its exclusiveness, could not become a religion, not only of many peoples who were part of the Khazar state, but even the Khazars themselves as a whole.
The most powerful enemy of the Judean Khazaria was the Kievan Rus, on the path of economic and political development where it found itself. The consequence of the clash was a complete and total destruction of Khazaria. Khazar state died and Khazar people also disappeared. The latter merits special attention, as usually nations do not disappear with the destruction of their states. In this case, it happened because the Khazar people began to disappear long before the collapse of the Khazar kingdom. It fell apart, with which the majority merged with other related peoples, and the minority who settled in Itil, lost their nationality and became a parasitic class with a Judean coloration.
The Russians have never been alienated by the cultural achievements of the East. From Türkuts they inherited the title Kagan which was accepted by the first Kievan princes, from Pechenegs was borrowed the ladder system, the famous "Yaroslavl row", from Cumans the curved sabers, the "Karaluz swords" (Karluk) and much more, but from the Itil Khazars the Rus took nothing. However, other peoples associated with the Khazars, such as the Magyars, Bulgarians, Pechenegs, Alans and Polovtsians, also belonged to the militant Khazar Judaism. That is why there is no trace of late Khazar culture anywhere.
But at the same time, we cannot underestimate the importance of even this late period of the Khazar history, although it was essentially negative. The need to fight the exploiters from Itil stimulated the unification of the Oguzes and Slavs around the golden table of Kiev, and this unification in turn, created the opportunity and prospect for rapid growth of not only the Russian statehood, but also the ancient Russian culture. This culture has always been distinctive and has never been dependent on the Khazars. Those minor eastern elements in the Russian [392-393] culture transmitted through the Khazars, which are usually kept in mind when dealing with the question of cultural ties Rus and Khazars, did not penetrate into the depths of Russian culture, and, remaining on the surface. They had short-term and minor importance. They do not give any reason to identify a special "Khazar" period in the history of Russian culture.
For more than a hundred years existed an idealistic-concept of the history of the Khazars, created by the young V.V. Grigoriev. A destructive blow to it was dealt only in our time by a small critical note printed in "Pravda" by unknown P. Ivanov. B.A. Rybakov hastened, contrary to the facts, to relegate the Khazars to a secondary historical role.
1 Conclusion from the book of M.I. Artamonov, "The History of the Khazars" (published in the State Hermitage, L., 1962), whose scientific editor was L.N. Gumilev.
Gumilev’s task was to establish the truth by reviewing all currently available data on the history of the Khazars. It was much more difficult than it seemed to V. V. Grigoriev and B. A. Rybakov. Well, it happens always if we closely and in detail get acquainted with this or that phenomenon, whether in life or in history. [392-393]
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Kazaria turned out to be a power center for Jewish merchants, and the trade route they controlled brought them great riches and accumulated capital, that served them in the following centuries.
Gumilev died in 1992. This book was printing in 2004. Therefore the book is a collection of earlier works, maybe from 1962 to 1988. The premise is that a great nation on the Volga delta flowing into the Caspian Sea, from about 700 AD to 1,300 AD, was written about in many chronicles from the surrounding empires, nations, and tribes. But no written history remained from Khazaria itself. That nation and people were a mystery, full of contradictory historical assumptions and projections. In addition, no remains of any city had been ever found, or neither even the burial sites of the inhabitants. The nation was little more than a myth.
Because the book is written in different times, there is repetition of some of the explanations in this compilation of Articles, taken from the different years, and also some sections are directly quoted, to bring each new presentation up to speed. I won't post the complete book straight through, but some of the excerpts.
I look at the book as Eight Sections.
First; you have to understand a thousand years of climate change. The Volga River catchment basin (and other rivers flowing into the Caspian Sea) were subject to long periods of limited rains, and long periods of abundant rain, 100's of years each.
The rain is somewhere else on the planet, weather patterns move, for instance out onto the Steppe, on which grasses then grew and nomadic herders, Huns, Turks, Mongols, and others, had their eras of increasing power.
Net effect for Kazaria on the Volga Delta; in the wet centuries their land was flooded. On the south shores of the Caspian there are steep banks. But on the northern shore there are very limited altitude differences. A few meters of water level affects the shoreline for miles. Below here I show some graphics of the Caspian, scroll down.
Second; There is a 113 page section of "the Discovery of Kazaria". This is a series of Archaeological expeditions, about 1959 - 1966, uncovering the ruins of the once civilization. Each year's discoveries justified an expedition for the next year. I will post this later in a separate section devoted to methodology. (Now Published)
This section is most interesting if you want to know how an archaeologist works. It is a very deep insight into that science. Some have commented, that how can you trust history, there are so many distortions, each favoring another power structure. You will see, down to the finest detail, how true history can be combed out of the evidence. Although I feel this specialty doesn't carry a wide level of interest, and I will post it in another methodology part.
Next, come several shorter pieces about the surrounding neighbors, some unexpected turns, and more on the Caspian.
Sixth; in the works is a very detailed analysis of all the ancient written accounts, and correlating them together and with the Archaeological evidence, 90 pages. This is how Gumilev writes and works. I think many of his books go on these types of "excursions". He tries to cover everything possible to truly know about it.
He tells of the Khazar origins, but then at a certain point there was a coup, and People of Jewish extraction managed to gain control of the country. They did not participate in the rural life, nor farm nor fish. They settled in the cities and were separated from the population.
But they managed to grasp hold of the trade route in the Great Silk Road. Really it was active from about II BC until XIV AD, but the Khazars had control for a shorter period, maybe VII AD until XIII AD, then finally they were disintegrating. Of course they didn't travel from China to Spain, about a 200 day trip, But they held the choke points for two routes at the head of the Caspian Sea. A third route went through Iran, which had its own problems.
4,000 Jewish Khazar families controlled most of international trade, and profited immensely from it. They probably financed many of the runs. The rest of the Khazar population got nothing out of it, and they were continually taxed to run the country. The Jewish king, Joseph, had money to hire a Muslim army, that suppressed the population and protected the elites. Actually the trade route was a game of the elites in all countries. Neither the Chinese population nor the European population benefited at all from it. The production of silk was a Chinese tax. And the European furs and silver that went in the other direction were extracted as free tribute from the many tribes losing wars.
This is what I will post here, so you can read about it yourself.
Seventh; is a shorter panel discussion from 1988.
And Eighth; are the interesting indexes, of people, places, researchers, and tribal names. They are all related to the page numbers in the original Russian book, which I have maintained while editing. I thought that I wanted to post this, BUT - - -
There are about 900 entries each with a line break list, - Substack inserts a space for every line-break, so I think it would be so long to be cumbersome or useless. Maybe I'll have a way to download an Excel file or some other solution?
A ZIGZAG OF HISTORY, Between two oceans, 1 of 4
The Persian word for road is rab; the verb "to know" is don; those who knew the roads were Rahdonites. This was the name given to the Jewish merchants who seized the monopoly of the Silk Road. 2 of 4
There are tons of details and mini-stories in this book. Do you need them for understanding? I don’t know, but I haven’t seen another history written like this.
It's unclear why a large Jewish community, devoid of sincere friends, hated by its neighbors, unsupported by its subjects, dominated international commerce for a 150 years leading 1/2 the world Jews?
This article is different from the 4 sections above, and written about 10 years later. Here Gumilev demonstrates an analysis to compare written records with each other and with the undeniable events that could only happen under certain scenarios. Trade was one of the events that provided a more accurate understanding.
Sample Sections:
CASPIAN SEA
In the first part they are investigating the Caspian Sea. It is known that a wall was built in the VI century, and you see that it goes into the sea for about 300 meters. Historians for centuries puzzled on how they built it underwater. Gumilev’s theory was that the Caspian Sea was lower then and the wall was built on dry land. This is in part, why remains of cities have not been found. They are underwater, and covered with silt. Let me show you:
To start with the Caspian is the largest lake (inland sea) in the world. It is currently about 25 or more meters below sea level, (in the oceans). High ground around the delta might be 14 meters below sea level. With no outlet it is limited only by evaporation. It has one third the salinity of the oceans. It covers about 750 miles by 200 miles, about the same size as all the islands of Japan. Five times bigger than Lake Superior in North America.
It has two deep holes, but the northern “Hook” where the Delta enters is quite shallow, maybe averaging 5 meters deep, and it’s also quite long (maybe 350 miles) so that prevailing winds stir it up into a boil.
You see the delta on this picture where the Khazars lived. The flat ground and the shallow sea made it such that one or two meters difference in water depth moved the shore line several kilometers. During the period, the depth changed probably 12 meters, which in the end eliminated the farms and living space of that people.
Here is another graphic that shows the current shipping routes. You see that big ships do not come into the upper shallow section.
One last feature of the lay of the land that I’ll show, is the estimate of the lake level in a very wet period 14,000BC to 17,000 BC.
White is the current level, blue is ancient. What it shows is how flat the land is in that area of the world.
WHEN THEY STARTED FINDING BURIAL REMAINS
This part reveals what the work of the archaeologist is. There were about 36 excavations described. Here’s one:
The system of knolls between Tas and Kabchik (Tarnovaya) channels.
On the hillock of Bilinga (abs. elevation minus 14.4 m, actual sea level) burial was found (abs. elevation minus 16.1 m). The skeleton is oriented to the northwest, lying on its back, arms outstretched, head inclined to the right. The skull is crushed, the bones are very poorly preserved.
Around the skeleton, two clusters of ceramic fragments: at the right knee, remnants of a grey-clay molded vessel with a gridded corrugation, the corolla with a roller on the inside; at the head, light brown with a smoothed surface, black-clay molded, resembling the Guz pottery.
Near the skull is a fragment of an iron knife. One meter to the right of the right knee - a funerary pot, reddish-brown stucco, corolla without a ridge. Dimensions: height - 4,5 cm, width of the neck - 3,0 cm, width of the middle - 5,0 cm, At the right elbow - clay spindle, and at the right side - iron awl. On the chest is a bronze round mirror with a handle and a button in the center; mirror diameter 5 cm; handle length -1.2 cm; in the handle is a round hole.
At the left shoulder, right elbow and on the chest bronze fibulae. The lower part, where the needle is fixed, is wrapped with wire; the middle part is lyre-shaped with thickenings and a button at the end. The hem of the robe or gown (fragments of fabric sticking to the ground) is marked with beads - 13 whole and 9 fragments. The beads are glass, round, made of pieces of tubes, covered with a layer of iridation, hiding the color. One is a carnelian bead. The date of the beads (as determined by 3.A. Lvova) is I-II cc.
The material on the hilltop of Bilinga is diverse: near the Muslim cemetery - Tatar ceramics of the XV-XVI centuries; west of the burial there are many fragments of molded ceramics, similar to those described with the skeleton. There are many [186-187] fragments of iron items: knives, ducks and a sword fragment. The greatest number of finds is associated with spots of killed (trampled) earth, (the floors of dwellings). To the east of the burial described above, another one was found, head to the north, very poorly preserved, in a hard layer of cemented loam, covering the bones in places by 5 cm. Accompanied by fragments of grey-clay molded ceramics, (molded, without potters wheel), small and unexpressive. The objects at the skeleton were not detected. Lifting material is fragments (up to 2 cm) of iron implements, scattered haphazardly on the surface of the knoll.
ANOTHER PART SPEAKS OF WEAPONS
Let's talk about the most important technology then, (and probably now); The technology of weapons.
In prehistoric times, when individual small tribes challenged each other for possession of hunting grounds, there was a need for weapons. Initially, the technique of killing their own kind was based on three principles:
throwing weapons - a stone, which we will not touch in this section;
stabbing - a spear and
striking - a mace.
Over time they improved: a lightweight spear became a dart and an arrow, a weighted one became a spade; a mace with the addition of a machined stone on the end became an axe.
But I already hear an objection: "And where is the principle of cutting, i.e. the knife, without which no man nowadays can live an hour? How did ancient people do without it?" Yes, they were cutting even then, but the technique of stone did not allow to bring the cutting objects to the degree of perfection that is necessary during battle. A stone knife could cut the throat of a bound enemy or, like the Aztec priests, remove a captive's heart from his chest, but no more. Bronze daggers were used as a short-range stabbing weapon and could not compete with spears and swords.
And after the invention of fusible metals, a long sword. The distance in time is enormous, but the principles were unchanged. All the ancient world fought with such weapons. Of course, some refinements were introduced when iron hardening was mastered. It was possible to make a sword with a sharp end and use it simultaneously as a stabbing and cutting weapon. Such was the glaudius of Roman legionnaires.
You could put an axe on a pike - you got a halberd, which the Chinese infantrymen masterfully wielded.
The sword, at first glance, is a better weapon than the spear, but it has a fundamental disadvantage. A short sword is difficult to reach a dodging opponent, and a long, double-edged sword is heavy and tires the swordsman's hand during prolonged combat, while with a spear you can fight for a long time. Ancient warriors reached such heights in this art that at full gallop they caught with the end of their spear, the ring which their instructor held in his fingers. Of course, this required long training and constant practice.
But in the 6th century or so the Altai blacksmiths, who obtained excellent iron by crunching, invented a bend in a sword slightly and to bend its hilt backwards. Then this blade, when pulled back, began not only to chop, but also to slice. The effectiveness of the weapon increased many times over. The saber (that's what it is called) didn't break heads and crush bones; it cut them, and no great weight of the blade was required, but only the ability to pull the weapon on itself at impact. In those days iron armor was a rarity and most used caftans with plates and plaques sewn on them. It was easy to find a place to strike and the horsemen armed with sabers proved to be a decisive force in the hand-to-hand fight. Not without reason, "The Tale of Bygone Years" gives the example that the Polans paid tribute to the Khazars with swords, and the Khazars were armed with sabers. The chronicler in hindsight predicts that a double-edged sword would eventually defeat a single-edged saber; but of course, as we have seen, there were many good reasons of another nature for the defeat of the Khazars by the Russians.
Many died for lack of knowledge in the novelties of military technology. They expected to meet the enemy with a sword, not a saber. Then the armor would have protected, they would have received a slight wound and the possibility of a second blow, which on approach would have been attacker's last.
Of course, the close formation of the spear men was still invulnerable to riders with sabers, but they did not take the fight, instead they shot the crowded enemy with bows; and when the spear men scattered so as not to present too compact of a target for the enemy's arrows, the sabers forced them into duels and had every chance of victory.
The Battle of Balyarat ended with the victory of the Byzantines, only because they pinned the Persians on cliffs, deprived them of freedom of maneuver and crushed their numerical superiority - 60 thousand against 40 thousand. But in the steppes horsemen armed with sabers and bows, had no equal until the invention of firearms. Despite the fact that European knights during the Crusades suffered a lot from the Turkish and Arab sabers, they were not able to reconstruct their usual military training, and continued to fight with swords, which over time turned into cuirassier swords.
The art of wielding a saber required quite different training and other psychophysical qualities of the fighter and even the horse. Heavy European horses, on which knights hurled themselves in devastating but usually unsuccessful attacks, were no match for the saber-rider whose main qualities were agility and quickness. Only Napoleon tried to retrain his cavalrymen, taking the tactics of the Egyptian Mamelukes as an example, but the reform was belated and did not save the French cavalry from the Russian Hussar sabers and Cossack swords, only slightly improved in comparison with the one that we found in Khazaria graves.
I don’t know if this should be uploaded as one book?
Or should the separate parts be considered separate monographs. I’ll have to finish working with it first, to decide.
In any case, thanks for your interest if you reached this far.
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