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Post by aynur on Apr 7, 2012 18:05:09 GMT 3
During the last few months I've been curious about the overall society and structure of the Khazar Khaganate, but I keep bumping into this 'Khazars are Ashkenazi Jews' thing almost everywhere.
If I want to search for visual material or pictures of Khazar warriors, pretty much the only thing I get to see is Israelis with black hats and beards. Now, it bugs me. Where on Earth did people first come up with this idea? Is it some type of new trend or rooted somewhere else in past history? Because as far as I'm concerned, most Khazars identify themselves as Muslim and Kazakh and live in southern Russia/Kazakhstan/Caucasus and have nothing to do with Jewish people.
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Post by Ardavarz on Apr 8, 2012 2:24:46 GMT 3
Kazakhs are not Khazars as far as I know. I've read somewhere by Lev Gumilëv that Cossacks may be descendants of the Khazarian warrior class who adopted Christianity and began to serve the Russian Tsars.
The only Turkic Judaists I am aware of are the Karaims and they are an unorthodox sect - they adopt Torah, but refute Talmud, Rabbinate and Messianism. According to the article I read in Bolshaya Sovetskaya Encyclopaedia, the Karaims do have some legends about their origin from the Khazarian elite.
I think that all this topic about the Khazarian Judaism is over-exaggerated. It seems that only a small upper class of the Khazars have adopted (Karaim?) Judaism in 8th/9th century. But some Israeli nationalists would like to believe that there was a Jewish empire in the early middle ages and that was Khazaria, so they perpetuate this myth. Also amogst the conspiracy theorists is popular the opinion that all Jews in Eastern Europe are actually Khazars - I think they've got this from the Mormons since usually cite their sources.
In Genesis (10; 2-3) Ashkenaz is son of Gomer and grandson of Japheth and it is supposed that this name has represented Scythians while Gomer meaning Cimmerians - maybe because the Scythians have inherited their country (it is interesting also that the Persian name of the Arsacid dynasty which is from Central Asian Scythian origin is Ashkani). But as can be seen from the letter of the Khazar Qagan Joseph to Hasdai ibn Shaprut, the Judaist Khazars haven't considered themselves to be descendants of Ashkenaz, but (together with Bulgars, Avars, Savirs and others) of another son of Gomer - Togarmah (which could be alluding to Tocharians).
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Post by aynur on Apr 8, 2012 7:54:01 GMT 3
That makes sense. All of the over-exaggeration seems to stem from both sides of the extreme spectrum, with Zionists claiming that the Khazars were their ancestors and far-right Christians and neo-Nazis saying they supposedly control the world's banking and industries.
There's substantial evidence out there saying that the Khazars were originally a Tengriist-oriented nation, giving one no doubt of their Turkic origin. Sure, a sizable portion of the Khazar elite may have adopted Judaism to seek a neutral stance in the growing Islam-Christianity conflict, but some people choose ignorance and continue to rant this 'Ashkenazi Jews are Khazars' thing over and over again. Quite laughable.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Apr 8, 2012 12:02:03 GMT 3
The Khazars were Judaist as much as the Orkhon Uyghurs were Manichaeists - only the ruling elite and perhaps a part of the society was. We have many Islamic geographical and diplomatic accounts which describe the Khazar Empire and it's capital as a multi-religioned and multi-ethnic entity. Judaists, Christians, Muslims and "pagans/Tengriists (followers of non-Semitic Turkic and Finno-Ugric, perhaps also Slavic beliefs)" all had their own courts in which they were tried according to their own customs.
As far as who the Khazars were, they surely were a Turkic people without doubt. The dynasty from which Khazar qaghans stemmed from are thought to be a branch of the ruling dynasty from the Ashina tribe ruling over the Western Gokturk Qaghanate - most probably they descended from one of Tong Yabghu Qaghan's sons who ruled the region as a Shad and later as a Yabghu during the 620s (if I recall correctly, this person even met with the Byzantine emperor Heraclius during their joint campaign in Tbilisi against the Sassanids - or the lineage might have continued from one of the brothers of that Shad who later became a Yabghu). After the disintegration of the Western Gokturk Qaghanate following Tong Yabghu Qaghan's murder in 630, the imperial princes ruling Tokharistan and Khazaria with the title Yabghu all became independent, the Khazar Yabghus eventually becoming Khazar Qaghans. However, the exact origins and language of the Khazar tribesmen whom the Khazar qaghans ruled over is far from being clear as there is very few written records left from the Khazars. Were they a continuation of the Sabars, were they speakers of an R-Dialect of Old Turkic, or were they Z-Dialect speakers related with the Uyghurs in the east? Who knows.
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Post by Ardavarz on Apr 9, 2012 0:48:44 GMT 3
When some new religion is adopted there is often some contamination of the older legends and mythology. According to the genealogical myth in the letter of Qaghan Joseph there were ten sons of Togarmah. I wonder if this could be an allusion to the ten tribes of On-Oq confederation of the Western Gökturk Qaghanate or the Onoghurs. Then if "Togarmah" is indeed a cipher for Tocharians, what was the meaning of "Tochar"? It is said to resemble Tibetan "white head", but this hardly can be the original meaning. Could it be then the Chuvash tohur - "nine" (R-variant of toquz)? Maybe at first there were only nine tribes in the union of Tocharians who were one of the four people in the Kushan empire, then later after its fall and with another tribe joining they became ten (On-Oq or Onoghur). The tenth tribe could have been the Ashinas or some else. (It is said indeed that Tocharians were ruled by Asianae - another of the four Kushan tribes, but whether they were related to Ashina is not clear). Then this could have been mythologized by the Judaist Khazars as "the ten sons of Togarmah", one of them being Khazar. Just a speculation for now... BTW, recently I came across an article about some Karachay document called "The chronicle of Karcha" allegedly written in Bulgar-Khazarian language first with Greek and later with Arabic script. www.bulgarizdat.ru/book105.shtmlBut then again the same old story - original is lost, only part in Cyrillic and Russian translation survives. It seems quite dubious, but could be interesting nonetheless.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Apr 9, 2012 9:39:30 GMT 3
I don't think the Tokharians were related with the On Oq or Onoghurs. We know that Ïshbara Die-li-shi Qaghan (Sha-bo-luo Die-li-shi Ke-han 沙鉢羅咥利失可汗), who became the ruler of the Western Gokturk realm in 634, reorganized the Turkic tribes dwelling in his qaghanate under the name On Oq or "Ten Arrows (Tribes)". At that time the Khazars were already in existence in the west as a separate ethnogroup.
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Post by Ardavarz on Apr 10, 2012 2:13:02 GMT 3
I am not sure, but I think there was some mentioning about "ten arrows" earlier - during the internal war in the late 6th century when the Chinese Emperor sent them as a sybolic wish for unification. Then the defeated clans-followers of Dulu migrated westward and joined the Avars. But I may be wrong - I've read about this long ago and I don't remember exactly where...
It is interesting however that a legend told in the Syrian chronicles puts the migration of three tribes - Bulgars, Khazars and a third unnamed - from Central Asia to Eastern Europe roughly about the same period.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Apr 10, 2012 9:56:53 GMT 3
That might be about the formation of the Toquz Oghuz ("Nine Arrows") union that happened in the 620s from the various Tiele tribes living in Mongolia. This union was formed against the Gokturks.
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Post by massaget on Apr 10, 2012 12:20:35 GMT 3
Onoghoria was in the meotis swamps, noth east of the black sea in the early 4.th century according to Libanius greek philosohper, its mentioned in the 7th century work of Ravenna Geographicus. Therefore its not that sure they were a türkic tribe. Hungarian form of the name hungarian- ungar, derives from onoghur. Also the name onoghur is convincing as its form in the sources are mostly not onoghur, several sources mentions it as ungur, unnigur, etc.
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Post by hjernespiser on Apr 10, 2012 22:45:03 GMT 3
Ungur derives from Slavic phonetic deformation of the Turkic On Oghur.
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Post by massaget on Apr 11, 2012 0:27:10 GMT 3
Not at all, its from Anecdota Syriaca's Syrian author.
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Post by hjernespiser on Apr 11, 2012 8:46:27 GMT 3
Sorry, I was thinking of Ungri, which is the Slavic phonetic deformation of Ungur based on Slavic plural morphology. How Onoghur became Ungur or Ongur is not very clear though. What is clear is that the neighboring Slavs used Ongur and then Ongre (Slavic plural). It wasn't something coming from the Syrians. I don't know where the Syrians got that form from.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Apr 11, 2012 11:04:51 GMT 3
The Onoghurs were clearly a Turkic people. No need to doubt that.
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Post by ancalimon on Apr 11, 2012 12:09:24 GMT 3
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhanagoriaIs this name related with Hungary or "On Ogur Öyü" ? I've read that when the Greeks first created a colony here, Turks were living West of Cimmerian Bosphorus. (Maybe Cimmeria: Taurica : Turk Öyü ?)
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Post by massaget on Apr 11, 2012 13:35:26 GMT 3
Ihsan : its not that clear as you state it. Many historician (not only in hungary) derives hungarians self name ungar from onogur. The primary chronicle of the rus says in 670 the white ugors moves trough slavic territories. They were the onogurs. They call Arpad's people as black ugors. I think the onogurs were a mixed population of the turkic huns, and finno ugrian hungarians.
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