Successors of the Türks in the Western Eurasian Steppes—The Khazars and their Conversion to Judaism

The Khazars (ca. mid-7^th century to 965-969), centered in the lower Volga with their capital at Atïl, created one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, extending from the Middle Volga in the north to the North Caucasus and Crimea in the south and from the western Eurasian steppes to western Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the east. It was a polyethnic state with a population of Turkic, Iranian, Finno-Ugric, Slavic and Palaeo-Caucasian elements. Khazaria had an ongoing entente with Byzantium, serving as its partner in wars (during the latter part of the 7^th to mid-8^th century) with the Arabian Caliphate and as Constantinople’s first line of defense in the steppes. During the 9^th and 10^th centuries, it was one of the major arteries of commerce between Northern Europe and the Middle East as well as a connection to the Silk Road. The question of Khazar origins, a successor state of the Western Türks, and linguistic affiliations within Turkic remain problematic. Various Turkic groupings speaking Oghuric and Common Turkic composed the Khazar union. The belief system of the Khazars before their conversion to Judaism, as can be reconstructed from archaeological finds, descriptions of kindred subject peoples  (e.g. the North Caucasian “Huns”) brief mentions in the Islamic geographers and other sources indicates Tengri (the celestial supreme deity of the Turkic and Mongolic peoples) worship and shamanism. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the much debated dating of the conversion (most probably early 9^th century), the conversion narratives and the spread of Judaism among the population of Khazaria.