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The Decline of the Khazars and the Rise of the Varangians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Frederick I. Kaplan
Frederick I. Kaplan*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

In Russia during the ninth century, there existed two societies having their basis in trade. One was the kingdom of the Khazars utilizing the Baltic, Volga, Caspian route and the other the Varangian communities along the river routes from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It was along this water road that the Varangians established their trade with Constantinople and controlled the cities that grew into the first Russian state.

In view of the fact that the Khazar state had existed for at least two centuries before the appearance of the Varangians and controlled a flourishing trade with the Slavs, the Persians, and the Arabs along the Don and Volga rivers, the question arises of why the Varangians and not the Khazars succeeded in establishing the Russian state and in controlling Russian trade.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , February 1954 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1954

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References

1 The sources on the Khazars are few and should be used with caution. This paper has employed principally: Masudi, El, Historical Encyclopedia entitled Meadows of Gold Mines of Gems, Alois Spenger, tr. (London, 1841), Vol. I.Google Scholar; Nestor, , The Russian Primary Chronicle, Samuel Cross, tr. (Cambridge, 1930)Google Scholar, henceforth referred to as R.P.C.; and three early versions of the lost original Arabic or Persian report of the lands on either side of the Volga. These three versions are found in translation appended to Macartney, Carlile A., The Magyars in the IX Century (Cambridge, 1931)Google Scholar. The three versions, to quote Macartney, are:

  1. “(1) An extract from the Book of Precious Jewels, written apparently in the early tenth century by the Arab Abu Ali Ahmad b. ‘Omar ibn Rusta.

  2. “(2) An extract from the chronicle of the Persian Abu Sa'id ‘Ab al-Hajj b. ad. Dahhak b. Mahmud Gardezi, who wrote 1050–2.

  3. “(3) An extract from the Book of Kingdoms and Roads by the Spanish Arab Abu ’Ubaid ’Abdallah b. ’abd al-Aziz al-Bekri, who died in 1094,” pp. 5–6.

The three reputedly original Khazar documents, which, if authentic, are the only materials left behind by the Khazars themselves, have not been quoted in this paper because their authenticity is gravely in doubt, and it is the opinion of most scholars, notably Gregoire in his “Le Glozel Khazar” that the documents are spurious, Byzantion, XII, Part I (Brussels, 1937), 215–66.

2 The term Varangian as it is used in this paper refers to the Scandinavian Vikings, the leaders of the state that was established along the Baltic-Black Sea water road. Vernadsky distinguishes between two groups of Vikings, Varangians of the North and the Rus of the South, presenting the thesis of a Rus settlement in the Azov region, the Tmutorokan kaganate. For a presentation of his thesis, see Vernadsky, George, Ancient Russia (New Haven, 1943), pp. 275–86 and pp. 333–44Google Scholar. See also Vernadsky, George, “The Rus in the Crimea and the Russo Byzantine Treaty of 945” in Byzantina Metabyzantina: a Journal of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, I, Part I (New York, 1946), 249–59Google Scholar. In a short note appearing on pp. 259–60 of the same journal, Gregoire has presented a brief refutation of Vernadsky's point of view regarding the Tmutorokan kaganate and the sources upon which its existence is based.

3 See Kerner, R. J., The Urge to the Sea: the Course of Russian History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1946), p. 14 Google Scholar.

4 Mahmud-Gardezi in Macartney, op. cit., p. 200.

5 El Masudi, op. cit., p. 412.

6 R.P.C., p. 144.

7 Constantine Porphyrogenitos, De Administrando Imperio (henceforth referred to as D.A.I.), Chapter x, as cited in Macartney, op. cit., pp. 24–25.

8 R.P.C., as cited in Macartney, op. cit., pp. 24–25.

9 D.A.I., Chapter xlii, as cited in Macartney, op. cit., pp. 24–25.

10 Cambridge Medieval History (Cambridge and New York, 1936), IV, 201 Google Scholar.

11 Kerner, The Urge to the Sea, p. 19.

12 El-Masudi, op. cit., p. 419.

13 Macartney, op. cit., p. 102.

14 El-Masudi, op. cit., p. 419.

15 R.P.C., p. 145.

16 R.P.C., p. 147. Cross in his introduction to the R.P.C., p. 118, places the Severians in the region of the eastern shore of the Dnieper between the Desna and the Sula rivers, and the Radimichians along the Soz. Vernadsky in his Ancient Russia (p. 316) places the Severians, during the first half of the ninth century, in the whole of the Donets basin and the Radimichians in the Desna basin.

17 300 Hegira = 913 A.D. Hegira took place in 622 A.D., but the Moslem year is eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year; therefore A.H. gains one year on A.D. every 33 years.

18 Caspian Sea.

19 One copy reads Autas. Sprenger's note.

20 El-Masudi, op. cit., pp. 416–20.

21 Macartney, op. cit., p. 55.

22 Sarkel and Belevesha are one and the same.

23 Macartney, op. cit., p. 75. Vernadsky is of the opinion that the Khazars built Sarkel as protection against the Azov Rus. See Vernadsky, Ancient Russia, pp. 304–5. Contrary to Vernadsky's opinion based upon the thesis of the Tmutorokan kaganate, Macartney states that “All evidence goes to show that Sarkel was built near the mouth of the Don and as a defence against the nation occupying the country immediately opposite it—the Magyars; the Magyars being the nation which is reported as active in South Russia, for the first time at precisely this date,” Macartney, op. cit., p. 75. For Macartney's full discussion of the problem, see pp. 29–79.

24 For a list of the principal portages of the Volga and Don rivers see Kerner, The Urge to the Sea, Appendix IA, pp. 117–25; B, pp. 125–26.

25 Semenov-Tian Šanskij, V., “Volga v fiziko-geografičeskom otnošenii,” Bol'saja sovetskaja ènciklopedija, XII, p. 677 Google Scholar.

26 For Vernadsky's view of the policies of Oleg, Igor, and Svjatoslav toward the Caspian see Vernadsky, George, Kievan Russia (New Haven, 1948)Google Scholar, Chapter ii, especially pp. 23, 33, 43, presenting his thesis of the Azov Rus.

27 R.P.C, p. 171.

28 Ibid. According to Vernadsky in Kievan Russia, p. 44, this date should be 963, not 965.

29 R.P.C, p. 171. According to Vernadsky in his Kievan Russia, this date should be 964. He points out that the Varangians conquered the Viatichians so that they could subsequently attack the Volga Bulgars and secure from them control of the middle Volga, p. 44. Cross, R.P.C., p. 118, places the Viatichians along the southern course of the Oka River.

30 Al-Bekri, translated in Macartney, op. cit., Appendix, p. 198.

31 Ibn Rusta, translated in ibid., Appendix, pp. 198–99.

32 Vernadsky, , Ancient Russia, p. 213 Google Scholar. See also Artamanov, M., Očerki drevnejshej istorii Khazar (Leningrad, 1936), pp. 88 ffGoogle Scholar.

33 See translations of Ibn Rusta and Gardezi in Macartney, op. cit., p. 198, for the semi-nomadic life of the Khazars. See also Vernadsky, , Ancient Russia, p. 213 Google Scholar.

34 Eberhard, Wolfram, A History of China (London, 1950), p. 122 Google Scholar.

35 Brutzkus, J., “The Khazar Origin of Ancient Kiev,” The Slavonic and East European Review (American Series III) XXIII, No. 58 (May, 1944), pp. 108, 124, and 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar