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The World of the Khazars (Handbook of Oriental Studies)

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THE WORLD OF THE KHAZARS is a selection of papers from the Jersualem 1999 International Khazar Colloquium edited by Peter B. Golden, Haggai Ben-Shammai and Andras Rona-Tas. Many of the papers were subsequently updated and expanded and the volume was finally published by Brill in 2007 as part of their Handbook of Oriental Studies series.

As an Indo-European - Uralic - Turkic linguist, my main interest when it comes to the Khazars is their language, which is understood to be a member of the Turkic family but whose exact classification is elusive. Marcel Erdal's "The Khazar Language" is a fine introduction to the debate. Erdal abundantly cites earlier discussions and then explains how none of the criteria used to prove that a language is Chuvash-type Turkic have proven conclusive. Andras Rona-Tas' "The Khazars and the Magyars" helps us understand this aspect of early Turkic-Uralic contacts, though it is more a rough extract of his book HUNGARIANS AND EUROPE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE-AGES than a satisfying standalone paper.

Some of the papers are on general history and relations with other states. From Irina A. Arzhantseva we have "The Alans: Neighbours of the Khazars in the Caucasus". Thomas S. Noonan contributes "The Economy of the Khazar Khagante". James Howard-Johnson writes on Byzantine sources for Khazar history. Tatiaana Kalinina, David Wasserstein and Dan Shapira write on interactions between the Khazars and the Muslim world, while Vladimir Petrukhin examines Khazaria-Rus' relations.

The remaining papers deal with the Khazars' famous conversion to Judaism. Peter B. Golden's contribution is a discussion of their adoption of the religion. Artem Fedorchuk offers "New Findings Relating to Hebrew Epigrahic Sources from the Crimea". Victor Shnirelman contributes "The Story of A Euphemism", a look at how Russian nationalists have viewed the Khazars as the first conspiracy against their country, and whose shadowy heirs continue to cause trouble, using the kingdom for some old-time Jew-bashing without being obvious anti-Semite. Paul Wexler offers "Yiddish Evidence for the Khazar Component in the Ashkenazic Ethnogenesis".