TAR 



74 



T A H 



minst the will of the patriarch, and who had crowned 



(us .! agahst tlir ecclesiastical authority by 



marr\ ie Khaghan. ' For,' adds ll. 



11 being orthodox Christia 

 it nil. but impious, heathens; and l.co was 

 punished for his crime by a carbuncle in 1 which 



lie died voting, alter severe sufferings.'* Christianity in- 

 deed, although some feeble traces of it appear in Kl 

 as early as 7 Id. was not adopted by the majority of the 

 Khazars. On the contrary, their kin^s were .lew-.., and 

 many Jews had founded great families in that country. 



Hinvever strange thin circumstance may appear, it is an 

 undoubted fact. According to Friihn, one of the best 

 writers on the Kharars, the religion of Moses was pro- 

 pagated among this people by the Jews, who were ex- 

 pel led from the Byzantine empire at the end of the eighth 

 century. Tlie princes, states Ibn Haukal. were obliged to 

 be Jews, but the nine ministers of the Khaghan might be 

 Jew-. Christians, Mohammedans, or heathens, a fact from 

 which we must conclude that there was great toleration in 

 Khazaria. In the subsequent centuries we meet with 

 some Christian princes, such as Georges Tzuda, in 1016, 

 hut the Khaghan Cosro (Khosrew'i, who reigned about 

 HID. was a .lew who had been converted to the religion 

 of Moses by the rabbi Isaak Sangarus, as is stated by the 

 rabbi Jehudah, in his work cited below, which is dedicated 

 to that king. 



(Ibn Haukal; Massudi, in Silvestre de Sacy, C/irrst. 

 Arabe: Herhelot . KbtiotMqHt Orifiitud', sub voce 'Khozar ;' 

 Frahn; Lehrberg, L'ntertuchungtn xur iilteren (ii-xrliidilr 

 /I'.vxv/.iWv; Karamsin and Bulgarin, Hist, of Russia ; 

 Miiller, Her Ugrische Volhx\t<nnin : Joh. Buxtorfius, fll., 

 Lihfr Cosri, Basileae, HKXJ, 4to. This last book was ori- 

 ginally written in Arabic, by Jehudah Levita, and was 

 translated into Hebrew by Jehudah Abn Tybbon, both 

 Spanish rabbis.) 



The Khazars were very different from those barbarous 

 Mongol tribes which afterwards invaded Europe. Although 

 many of them led a nomadic life, they were generally 

 settled in villages and towns, which they embellished with 

 magnificent buildings erected by Arabian and Byzantine 

 architects, and the ruins of which still attest their former 

 splendour. Ignorant historians have asserted that neither 

 navigation nor commerce flourished among them, but 

 there are numerous facts which prove the contrary. In 

 the first place, the number of Jews and the toleration that 

 existed in Khazaiia may be considered as certain indica- 

 tions of the flourishing state of its commerce. The Khazars 

 were renowned for their fine carpets, which were princi- 

 pally manufactured in their capital. Itel, the present 

 Astrakhan, which was also called Bilindsher and Nihije, 

 Semend, with the surname of Serai' Banu.or'the palace of 

 the lady,' now Tarku, Old Kasan, and Sarkel, a fortress on 

 the Don, were also commercial towns. Honey, skins, 

 leather, furs, fish, salt, copper of the Ural, were tne goods 

 they exchanged in the southern countries for silk, wines, 

 spices, jewellery, which they carried to the inhabitants of 

 the north. Gold and silver vessels, which were fabricated 

 in India in antient times, have been found in our own days at 

 Perm on the Kama, in the north-eastern corner of Russia. 

 The Wolga with its tributary rivers and the Dwinawere the 

 commercial roads by which they communicated with the 

 kingdom of Perm, the Hiannia of the old Scandinavian 

 and Anglo-Saxon writers, and with the Norwegians, who, 

 after having doubled North Cape, anchored in the mouth 

 of the Dwina. This route ceased to be used when the 

 Tatars of Kiptshak stopped all intercourse across eastern 

 a, and was not re-opened before the end of the 

 ith century, when Jenkinson, an Englishman, dis- 

 ed it again. Another road followed the Dniepr as 

 far as Orkha, and, reaching the Duna in the west and the 

 Wolkhow in the north, brought them into communication 

 with the Baltic, and with Julin, the famous city of the 

 Wcndes. The Arabs took a considerable part in this 

 commerce, and their presence in these northern regions is 

 d not only by their geographers, such as Ibn Koszlan, 

 Massudi, Shemseddin, and Yakut, but also by nun. 

 Kufic coins which have been found in Scandinavia, and in 



CoulMthiiu confound* two of hU prnitecnon. Tht eratxror Kl\ i>n 

 CflMUollDiii, KTr.i hrratlc. martini Im, th* <Uu|bUr of th. Kliwlun. 

 ml ili.il In TO ; Ilirir too PUriut L*<>, lurnamml Chuunu, on account of lit< 

 m.ilrtn.l origin. " ulll rrmfr hnrtle. and riml in 70. of carhiini-l*. in 

 U> f ,co in kW ihirtMh )*u. (Buniluriui. Cum in mp. 13, Do Admix. Imp. ; 

 Dm Ouf*. U<U. Bftnt. P. 1. FamUiat a, Slrmmaa, p. 124-1S6.1 



the vast country ! lie and the Black and the 



. scan. In short, in the period fr Hie seventh to 



the eleventh century, the Khn/nrs and the Arabs Ml 



certain commercial ionics in Russia, the nati. 



tages of which were HO nh\ ions, that the emperor < 'oiistan- 



tinu.- I'orphyrogeiiitus, overlooking entirely the trae 



I ween the upper part of the Duicpr Uld the sources of 



the l.ovat, believed that the Ri 



t Novgorod on the Wolkhow, sailed with theii 

 directly to Kievv on the l)nie]ir. i Itc .li/rii. Inn 

 The present canal system of Russia, which i> 

 regarded as the realization of an idea nf I'eter the ' 

 and field-marshal Miinnieh. is founded on thai 

 commercial intercourse winch had been carried into . 

 by the Khazars a thousand 



The power of the Kha/iirs in Europe vva broken hv the 



us in 1(110. who made their Khagha- [Vula 



a prisoner: but in Asia it continued for tw.> 

 longer, until it gradually sank under the n 

 of the Pecl^ . the Kun 



the Yasses, and their very name had disnppe:i, 

 in the beginning of the thirteenth century, eastern K 



.erwhelmed by the greatest of all coniru. 

 ghis Khan. (GoiuteBtimn I'orphyrogcniti'- 

 Inuiiln Imperio; Nestor: Frahn": Lchrherg : 



I'rtr>i/iHttitifi>', >ol. iii., p. -i(i; .l/i- 



ddnie de Si. I , vol. i., p. ">'J7: vol. ii., 



p. 2!t7: vol. hi., p. 73; vol. viii., p. 577: Hiillman- 

 xrhirh If ilex Byzantinitcken II uul"/< ; Mo- 



IK/II/' till (,'nl/r, . 



of Perm, in Herman- -he Annul. '!("/ 



the Commerce of Rtutia, in Storch, ' 

 schen Retches, vol. iv. : Krestinin, (ifsrhirhtf il"r - 

 Archangel; Lelewel, Numismatique, sect. ' Poland ;' Han- 

 way, Hittoriful Art-mint uf tlir ltrili.\!i Tr<ule nrrr the 

 Caspian Sea; Hakluyt, Navigation, with regard to Jen- 

 kinson and Chancellor.) 



Tatar* of tln> Golden Horde, or of Kiptxhak. While 

 Genghis Khan was earn ing his arms into India and China, 

 Batu, his grandson, invaded the west as far as the frontiers 

 of Germany, commcrcd the easternmost part 

 which was inhabited by Slavonic, Turkish, and Finnish 

 nations, and compelled the princes of Russia to become 

 his vassals. One of Genghis Khan's last acts l'^!7 

 tu bestow upon Batu the dignity of a Khan or 

 the western conquests, which formed one of th. 

 afterwards five, uluses, or under-kingdoms. into which the 

 Mongol empire was divided. The new viceroy cho- 

 his \ast dominions the name of Kaptshak, more eoirci-tly 

 Kiptshak, or 'the hollow tree,' winch was the name of a 

 warlike Turkish people who lived in the flat country be- 

 tween the Wolga and the Don, the name of \\hiei 

 Deshti Kipt.shak. or 'the steppe of the hollow tree.' The 

 narrower fignilication of this name, which still : 

 a district near the mouth of the Terek, must therefo 

 be confounded with its larger meaning as that of an em- 

 pire the frontiers of which varied according to th 

 success of its inhabitants. A second name of I! 

 kingdom was that of the Golden Horde, or rather, of the 

 (ioldcn Camp, ordn, the camp, having been confo! 

 with arila, the horde. In his golden tent, which w 



Sera'i on the Akhtuha, a branch of the lower part of 

 the Wolga. Hat ii 1C Russian p-inccs who vv civ his 



vassals; Saython. Kingof Armenia ; and Piano Carpini and 

 Rnvshroek Rul>rii|iiis . the ambassadors of Saint. 1. 



'f France, who, while fighting against the Moham- 

 medans in Egypt a^ enemies ol'Cluist. courted the 1.: 

 ship of heathen Tatars as useful in his seheii' 



. iy. Batn founded the town of < . his 



capital ; Serai', called aftcrwaids Haghji-SeiaT. i 



.1 ; and New Kasan at a short distance from Old 



lie died in 1255. 



After the short reign of Sertak and Ulaghji. 

 and the youngest .sons of l!atu, the thrui ijiied 



by their paternal uncle Berke, who seized ' uicnt 



in spite of the right of the second and the thiid sons of 

 liis late brother. Berke was the first khan of Kiptshak 

 who was converted to the Mohammedan religion, and he 

 showed himself SO zealous that he ordered all 

 be put to death who refused to follow the Koran. This 

 happened bcfoic 1J.V, and thus the Islum took root on 

 the bank- of the Wolga and in the .snowy deserts of Sibe- 

 ria. In 1200 Berke scut NoghaV, his greatest captain, 



