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Jewish-Khazar correspondence is a collective name uniting three works from the mid-10th century:

1. Letter of Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a dignitary of the Cordoba Caliphate, to the Khazar king (bek) Joseph
2. Reply letter of King Joseph
3. Fragment of a reply letter from a subject of Joseph, an unnamed Khazar Jew (the so-called Cambridge Anonymous)
The works are written in Hebrew. They have survived as copies in several medieval manuscripts. They are of particular value as the only written sources of Khazar origin. They contain unique information on political and religious history, socio-economic structure, geography of Khazaria and its relations with neighboring states, including Rus'.

Circumstances of creation

The initiator of the correspondence was Hasdai ibn Shaprut — a high-ranking Jew at the court of the Cordoba Caliph Abd al-Rahman III. Being effectively the second person in the state, managing finances and diplomatic contacts, Hasdai sought to patronize Jewish communities in other countries. From Eastern merchants who arrived in Cordoba from Khorasan, he learned of the existence of the Khazars, who have their own state and profess Judaism. This news made a stunning impression on him, and he received it with distrust, since Jews since the era of the diaspora had not had their own statehood. After some time, Byzantine envoys arrived in Cordoba, who confirmed this information to Hasdai and clarified that Khazaria is located next to Byzantium and the current Khazar king is named Joseph. Then Hasdai wrote him a letter in which, expressing his admiration for the unprecedented fact of the existence of an independent Jewish state, he told about himself and asked about various aspects of Khazaria's structure.

To deliver the message, Hasdai sent his servant Isaac ben Nathan to Constantinople, but the Byzantines refused to let him through their territory, citing the fact that further lands are controlled by hostile peoples. Isaac spent six months at the imperial court and returned to Spain. Then Hasdai decided to send the letter through the Middle East and Armenia. However, two German Jews, Mar Saul and Mar Joseph, undertook to forward it through Central Europe. Eventually, the letter was delivered through Germany, Hungary, Rus' and Volga Bulgaria. It was delivered directly to the Khazar king by another German Jew — Rabbi Jacob ben Eliezer.

Hasdai's Letter
Dating
The time of composition of the letter is determined by events mentioned in the text. Not earlier than 954 (embassy to Cordoba from Otto I) and not later than October 15, 961 (end of Abd al-Rahman III's reign).

Content

The letter was probably recorded from Hasdai's words by his personal secretary — Menachem ibn Saruk, whose name together with Hasdai's appears as an acrostic in the opening lines of the rhymed greeting. The text begins with an extensive poem wishing blessings to the addressee, then Hasdai tells about himself and provides basic information about Spain. Further, he reports how he gathered news about Khazaria and describes his attempts to contact the king. Hasdai constantly emphasizes his admiration for the fact of the existence of a Jewish kingdom, noting that this news will strengthen the morale of the Jews. In conclusion, he asks the king to tell about Khazaria and asks about 20 questions on various aspects of history and the current structure of Khazaria: how the appearance of Israelites in this region occurred, the size of the country, its geography, relations with neighbors, political structure, army size and amount of tribute collected. At the end, Hasdai writes that he is ready to personally visit Khazaria and asks whether the Khazar king knows about the "time of the end of wonders" — the date of the deliverance of the Jewish people.

Reply Letter of King Joseph
Content

The reply letter is written on behalf of Joseph ben Aaron — the de facto head of Khazaria, who ruled the country on behalf of the khagan. He calls himself "king" (Hebrew: ha-melekh). The text begins with a brief greeting and polite words addressed to the Cordoba Caliphate and a retelling of the main points of Hasdai's letter. Joseph reports that his ancestors previously maintained relations with the ancestors of the caliph (meaning the Umayyads). Joseph then immediately proceeds to answer the questions. Notably, he did not answer all of them (approximately 2/3). He reports that the Khazars descend from the offspring of Japheth, that is, he does not conceal that they are not Semites. The rise of the Khazars occurred during a victorious war with the numerous V-n-n-t-r's (Bulgars). Next, a significant part of the letter is devoted to the circumstances of the Khazars' conversion. The story of Joseph's ancestor — King Bulan, who voluntarily converted to Judaism when an angel appeared to him twice in a dream, is told. Considerable space is devoted to describing the religious polemic that took place between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic priests who came to Bulan. During the dispute, the Christian acknowledged the triumph of Judaism over Islam, and the Muslim — of Judaism over Christianity. Then Joseph tells of Bulan's descendant — Obadiah, who ruled several generations later. He carried out major religious reforms, in particular introducing the Talmud, making Khazar Judaism orthodox. With him begins a continuous list of names of 12 (in another version 11) successively reigning kings. Joseph's lineage came from Obadiah's brother — Hanukkah. After the historical part of the letter, follows a geographical description of Khazaria. Joseph lists the tribes that pay him tribute and describes the capital of the country, located on the Itil River and consisting of three parts. He tells that he, together with other Khazars, leaves the city in spring and summer for nomadic migrations. At the end, he reports that his main foreign policy concern is the Rus', whom he does not allow to pass by ship into the Caspian Sea and by land to Derbent, hinting that he protects the Islamic world from their onslaught. This remark is the most valuable evidence of Russian-Khazar tension on the eve of the defeat of the khaganate by Svyatoslav Igorevich in 965. Otherwise, there is nothing in the letter that would indicate a premonition of imminent collapse. At the end, Joseph reports that he does not know about the end of wonders and says that he will be very glad to see Hasdai.

Editions

The text of the letter has survived in two recensions — a short and a long one. It is believed that both go back to a lost original, or else the short one is a later reworking of the long one. The long recension, judging by an insertion in the text, was created around 1070. The original text is better preserved in it. It is distinguished by a more complete list of peoples surrounding Khazaria, the list of kings contains one more name (Aaron I), etc. A retelling of the letter with extensive quotation (sometimes called the third recension) is contained in the treatise of the Spanish Jew Yehuda Barzilai (of Barcelona) "Book of Times," written between 1090 and 1105. It is close to the long recension.

History of study. Debate on authenticity

The letters of Hasdai and Joseph (short recension) were first published in 1577 in Constantinople by Isaac Akrish in his book "Voice of the Messenger of Good News" ("Kol Mevasser"). Akrish, a Jew among the Sephardim exiled from Spain, was interested in the same thing as Hasdai — the search for examples of Jewish statehood. He decided to print the correspondence to raise the spirits of the Jews. What manuscript he used is unknown. From his words it can be concluded that it was found in Constantinople or Cairo. This version of the text is very close to that which later became known in Europe, in the so-called Oxford manuscript. In 1670, the letters according to Akrish's text in the original and in Latin translation were published by the German Hebraist J. Buxtorf the Younger, placing them as an appendix to Yehuda Halevi's Khazar book. Buxtorf did not consider the correspondence as a historical source, believing it to be a 16th-century forgery. Most subsequent researchers held the same opinion. In Russia, the first edition of the monument was carried out by K. Kossovich in 1845 (Hasdai's letter) and D. Gartenshtein in 1847 (Joseph's letter). In 1874, the St. Petersburg orientalist A. Harkavy found among Jewish manuscripts delivered from the Cairo Geniza by the famous Karaite scholar A. S. Firkovich the long recension of Joseph's reply. This gave rise to a new wave of skepticism, since some manuscripts (including those on Khazar history) were deliberately forged by Firkovich. Numerous confirmations of the correspondence data in Arabic and Byzantine sources on the Khazars introduced into scholarly circulation were explained by skeptics as borrowings. Convincing evidence to the contrary appeared in the 1920s. In 1924, the work of Yehuda Barzilai with the oldest version of the reply was discovered in the British Museum. This meant that the correspondence had a medieval origin and was not composed by Akrish in the 16th century. In 1931, J. Mann published fragments of other letters of Hasdai, in one of which Khazars were also mentioned. Finally, in 1932, the Soviet Semitologist P. K. Kokovtsov carried out the first critical edition of all three texts according to all known manuscripts (the last edition in Russian). He firmly recognized the letters of Hasdai and Joseph as authentic. Nevertheless, even after this, some scholars of that time (G. Grégoire, P. Peeters, etc.), while recognizing the authenticity of Hasdai's letter, continued to categorically deny the authenticity of Joseph's letter. Among the claims of skeptics: the geography of Crimea — this region is described in the most detail and contains names that appeared only in the 13th century; a confusing geographical description of rivers, whose names are difficult to identify, and the Caspian Sea as if turns out to be in the east. From the point of view of proponents of the document's authenticity, this can be explained by copyist distortions. In the 1940s, A. Polak in Israel and a little later and independently of him B. A. Rybakov in the USSR expressed the opinion that the letter was a propaganda pamphlet created after the fall of Khazaria to raise the spirits of the Jews. This theory was convincingly refuted by D. M. Dunlop and M. I. Artamonov, who published the first comprehensive monographs on the history of the Khazars (in 1954 and 1939/1962 respectively). Dunlop noted that Joseph, on the contrary, glosses over many inconvenient issues. Artamonov discovered a number of deeper, than in simple compilation, correspondences with other sources. Since then, the authenticity of the letter has not been doubted in the scholarly community.

Reply Letter of an Unknown Jew

Main article: Cambridge Document
The third monument of the correspondence is usually called by its location the Cambridge Letter or the Cambridge Anonymous, or by the name of its discoverer the Schechter Letter. The beginning and end of the document are missing, so the name of the author is unknown, the addressee, and the circumstances of its origin are not obvious. As follows from the surviving part of the text, the author of the message was in Constantinople. He calls himself a Jew, King Joseph his master, and Khazaria his country. This leads to identifying him as a courtier. The addressee of the letter, also unnamed, is a certain lord whose envoys arrived in Constantinople from a Mediterranean country. This circumstance, together with the very content of the text, makes almost indisputable the identification of the addressee with Hasdai ibn Shaprut, and the message itself with another reply (this time of a private nature) to the same request about Khazaria.

Dating

The time of writing of the letter is determined by researchers differently. The last event mentioned in the text can be dated to 945. The connection of the letter with the embassy of Isaac ben Nathan to Byzantium is very likely, in which case it can be dated approximately to 949.

Content

The surviving text consists of three thematic parts: the history of the appearance of the Jewish community in Khazaria and a variant of the legend of the Khazars' conversion, the account of the reign of the last three Khazar kings: Benjamin, Aaron II and Joseph (their names are also mentioned in Joseph's reply), and a geographical description, at which the text breaks off.

The text begins with the story of Jews who fled from Armenia or through Armenia, escaping persecution. They settled among the Khazars and intermarried with them. For a long time they hardly observed the norms of Judaism. The version of the Khazars' conversion set out further differs significantly from the official version in Joseph's letter. The initiator is named as a certain Jew whom the Khazars elect as king for military valor. He decides to return to the faith of his ancestors under the influence of a pious wife. Learning of this, the Byzantines and Arabs turn to the Khazar leaders with a call to reject the religion of the oppressed Jews. The Jewish leader organizes a dispute between preachers of the three religions before the Khazar nobility. The preachers cannot out-argue each other, and the Khazar leaders offer them to interpret the incomprehensible books kept in a cave. The books turned out to be the Torah, and then the Khazars converted to Judaism. After this, they made their leader king (that is, his power became hereditary) and named him Sabriel. At the same time, a khagan was chosen from among the Jewish sages — who began to perform the functions of a judge. As modern researchers note, this is an attempt by the author to explain to his correspondent the system of Khazar dual power, which favorably distinguishes this reply from Joseph's answer, where the existence of the khagan is hushed up. Overall, the version of the legend represents the view of the Jewish community of the khaganate, mixing Khazars and Jews, and interpreting the Khazars' transition not as a conversion, but as a return.

From Sabriel, the narrative turns to the wars of the Khazars during the reign of his three descendants. The story is told of the war that King Benjamin had to wage with a coalition of several nomadic peoples, which Byzantium directed against the Khazars. Under Benjamin's son — Aaron, Byzantium induced the Alan king to attack the Khazars. The most detailed is the reign of Joseph, contemporary to the author. In Byzantium at this time, Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (920–944) ruled. He began persecuting the Jews, in response Joseph persecuted Christians. The result was a Rus'-Khazar-Byzantine clash. The capture by the "king of Rus'" Helgu of the Khazar city of Samkerts is described, followed by the victorious retaliatory campaign of the Khazar commander Pesakh, who defeated Helgu's army, which in the author's interpretation meant the subjugation of Rus' to the Khazars. Pesakh forced the Rus' to march against Byzantium. The campaign proved unsuccessful, as the Rus' fleet was burned by Greek fire, and Helgu, ashamed to return to his homeland, went with his retinue to Persia, where he died. There is every reason to believe that here, from the Khazar side, the Rus' campaign against Byzantium of 941 and the subsequent campaign in Transcaucasia of 944/945 are described. The name Helgu is the closest to the original form transmission of the Scandinavian name Oleg.

The end of the manuscript is devoted to geographical information. It tells about the location of Khazaria relative to the Mediterranean Sea and indicates that the capital of the country is called Kazar. The last surviving phrase lists the peoples warring with the Khazars at the time of writing (Rus', Alans, Derbent) (depending on grammatical nuances, it can be translated in two ways, as warring against or conversely together with).

Many aspects in the letter are interpreted differently than in Joseph's reply. However, overall, the two versions do not so much contradict as complement each other.

History of study. Debate on authenticity

The letter was discovered by Professor S. Schechter of Cambridge University among documents from the Cairo Geniza. Published in 1912. In 1913, P. K. Kokovtsov published its Russian translation. As before, the entire correspondence, the Anonymous's letter raised doubts about authenticity. Researchers were puzzled by its discrepancies with the data of Joseph's letter (in a number of cases noticeably greater tendentiousness, etc.). Russian scholars were most interested in the figure of Helgu, but were baffled by the discrepancy with the chronology of the Primary Chronicle and the subordination of Rus' to the Khazars. P. K. Kokovtsov initially recognized the document as authentic. However, in the final publication of 1932, he changed his mind. He found in it parallels with the Jewish chronographer Josippon. This work is a reworking of Josephus's "The Jewish War" and was created in Italy in the mid-10th century. This date, in Kokovtsov's opinion, makes it improbable that the author of the Cambridge Document was a contemporary of Hasdai and Joseph. In the end, Kokovtsov concluded that the letter was created after the fall of Khazaria, in the 11th century, as a propaganda version of the reply to Hasdai. He hypothetically attributed the original information contained in it to some lost Byzantine work. After him, the opinion of late origin was supported by A. P. Novoseltsev. D. Dunlop recognized the source as authentic, although not as confidently as Joseph's letter. Other researchers (Yu. D. Brutskus, V. A. Moshin, M. I. Artamonov, K. Zuckerman) following Schechter unconditionally identified it with the reply addressed to Hasdai. The question received a positive resolution in a recent publication by the American Hebraist N. Golb, who in 1982 retranslated the letter, restoring some gaps in the text with the help of ultraviolet light. He established that Josippon arose earlier than Kokovtsov believed, and proved that the Cambridge Document is part of a codex of other letters of Hasdai.

Mentions in other sources

Five more letters (in whole or in part) have survived from Hasdai's diplomatic correspondence. In one of them, which is a fragment of a message, presumably to the Byzantine Empress Helena, he mentions Khazaria and asks for a ship to be provided. In another letter, addressed to the Jews of Provence, Mar Saul and Mar Joseph figure, and the text is written in the same handwriting as the Anonymous's letter. It is not impossible (though unlikely) that Hasdai managed to visit Khazaria himself, as may be evidenced by a mention in the Arab traveler Ibn Hawqal, who visited Cordoba in 971. In one of the manuscripts of his work on a map there is a marginal note that says that Hasdai ibn Ishaq (the Arabized name of Hasdai ibn Shaprut) visited the Caucasian countries and met with their kings.

That the Khazar king Joseph sent a letter to Hasdai is directly mentioned by two Jewish authors of 12th-century Spain. Yehuda Barzilai between 1090 and 1105 retells Hasdai's letter and quotes the beginning of Joseph's letter, while remarking that he cannot judge whether they are authentic or not. Another author — Abraham ibn Daud in the treatise "Book of Tradition" (60s of the 12th century) mentions the correspondence and says that he saw descendants of the Khazars in Toledo.
Yehuda Barzilai also confirms the existence of the Anonymous's letter. He reports that he saw a copy of a letter written by a Jew from Constantinople, and very briefly outlines its subject matter.

Manuscripts

Hasdai's letter together with the short recension of Joseph's letter — a 16th-century manuscript. Held in the library of Christ Church, Oxford.
Isaac Akrish's edition — held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Fragment of the poetic greeting at the beginning of Hasdai's letter — a late manuscript from the collection of A. Firkovich. Held in the St. Petersburg Public Library.
Long recension of Joseph's letter — a 12th–13th-century manuscript. Found in the Cairo Geniza, from the collection of A. Firkovich. Held in the St. Petersburg Public Library.
Anonymous's letter — an 11th-century manuscript. Found in the Cairo Geniza. Held in the Cambridge University Library. COPY

Materials:

700–1000 AD. Khazars | 800–950 AD. Paleo-DNA G2. Alans, Khazars | 954 AD. Jewish-Khazar Correspondence | 586 BC — 79 AD. Exodus of Jews to Mtskheta | Genetic Studies on the Origin of Georgian Jews | Khazar Confederates in the Don Basin. Afanasyev | Druze

Kokovtsov P.K. Jewish-Khazar Correspondence in the 10th Century. 1932.

More details.

Son of King George II. He was appointed governor of Kartli after his father removed his elder son Constantine from this position. Leon assisted his father in the subjugation of Kakheti. After his father's death, he interrupted the military expedition in Kakheti, made peace with the chorepiscopus Kvirike and gave his daughter in marriage to the chorepiscopus's son.
After ascending to the throne in Abkhazia and the sudden death of his daughter, Leon III again invaded Kakheti with a large army, reached the banks of the Aragvi and devastated Mukhrani, Kherki and Bazaleti.

Leon III extended his power and subjugated Javakheti. He appointed his protege Zviad Marushiani (Marushidze) as governor of this region. In Javakheti, which became the easternmost limit of the Abkhazian Kingdom on the border with Armenia, near modern Akhalkalaki, a church was built in the village of Kumurdo by his order. In this church there is a building inscription that names both Leon himself and his new governor in this region, Zviad Marushiani. In the church, founded in 964, relief images of Leon III and his sister Gurandukht with an infant (the future Abkhazian king Bagrat II) in her arms have been preserved. The building inscription at Kumurdo reads: "Bishop John laid the foundation of this church by the hand of the sinful Sakotsari under King Leon in the year 964, in May, on the Saturday of the first moon, during the governorship of Zviad."
In central Abkhazia, Leon III built a remarkable church in the village of Mokva and established a bishopric. This church is the highest achievement of the Abkhazian architectural school and testifies to the high economic and cultural level of the state.
Until the end of his life, Leon III continued the struggle for the establishment of his power in Kakheti. In one of such expeditions, he suddenly fell ill and died. He was buried in the barely completed Mokva Cathedral.

The weakening of the "Khazars" brought the Rus' to the borders of Kasogia. Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, having attacked the "Khazars" and destroyed their city of Sarkel, went to war against the Kosogs [northern Adyghe] and Yases [Ossetians] between the Kuban and Manych and sent many prisoners to Kiev.


Materials:

History of Adygea. Gubzhokov 2009

Inherited his brother Leon III. The fourth and youngest brother — Theodosius — had been sent to Constantinople by his father George II from childhood to prevent strife between the brothers over the crown. However, some influential feudal lords provoked Theodosius's arrival in Abkhazia. Supported by the Meskhi aznauri, Theodosius decided to reclaim the throne from his brother, but was suddenly defeated by Demetrius's army and fled to Kartli. A year later, Demetrius gave sworn assurances to Theodosius in the presence of noble persons about peace and agreed to rule the country jointly with Theodosius, just as he had once ruled together with his brother Leon. Thus, Demetrius lulled his brother Theodosius's vigilance, who was captured and blinded. This event caused a revolt among Theodosius's supporters, but Demetrius resolutely and cruelly suppressed these disturbances.

Материалы:

Все правители Абхазии

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Бгажба О. Х., Лакоба С. З. История Абхазии с древнейших времен до наших дней. 2007
Культура и идеология раннесредневековой Абхазии (V—Х вв.). Амичба 1999
"История Абхазии в датах". Т.А. Ачугба 2011
Объезд Эвксинского Понта. Флавий Арриан
Naturalis Historia. Pliny the Elder 77–79. Latin-English 1969
Известия древних писателей греческих и латинских о Скифии и Кавказе. Латышев 1947
Константин Багрянородный. Об управлении империей: Текст, перевод, комментарий. Литаврин 1991