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The Khazars of Record
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14674 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1988 |
4,376 Words |
| Author
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Peter B. Golden
Peter B. Golden is professor of history at Rutgers
University. He is the author of Khazar Studies and numerous
works on the history of the peoples of medieval Eurasia. He
is currently completing An Introduction to the History of the
Turkic Peoples. |
"We do not know a people under heaven among whom there are not Christians. For even among Gog and Magog, who are peoples of the Huns, [is] one called by them Gazars, up till now a people that was more powerful than those which Alexander brought together, [that] has been circumcised and observes all of Judaism. The Bulgars, also, who themselves are from these same peoples, are daily converting…"
This passage, in a commentary on Matt. 24.14, written by Christianus Druthmar, a monk in what is now Belgium, is the first reference in contemporary sources to Judaism among the Khazars (the "Gazars" of the author). The further comment that the Bulgars were daily converting to Christianity places the time of writing at around 864. We cannot deduce from this passage how much earlier the Khazar conversion may have taken place. As with so many other aspects of Khazar history, our written sources are fragmentary, at times contradictory, occasionally elliptical, and with several notable exceptions, refracted through the cultural prisms of the sedentary Christian, Islamic, and Jewish milieus of their authors. Archaeological finds, given the continuing absence of artifacts that can be attributed to the Khazars with absolute certainty, raise as many problems as they attempt to resolve.
The pursuit of the hard facts, the incontrovertible data of Khazar reality, has always been an arduous process of sifting through layers of partially glimpsed "truths," from which emerges a complex mosaic assembled from multicolored and often ill-fitting tiles. This is familiar territory to students of the history of Medieval Eurasia. In a field strewn with pitfalls, the line between reality and those fantasies which have been canonized as national dogma has often become blurred.
Perhaps it is this elusive quality of Khazar and related studies that attracted Milorad Pavić. His "Lexicon-novel" Dictionary of the Khazars, use the "Khazar Problem" as a vehicle to explore age-old questions of objective/subjective perceptions of truth and reality, and the difficulties of using human language to express a kaleidoscopic world. At the center of this Rashomon-like exploration lies the question of the Khazar conversion to Judaism, a real but still highly problematic event of more than antiquarian interest.
Origins in Mongolia
To appreciate properly the rich textures of Pavić's novel, we must first view the actual Khazars within their historical context. We begin with the
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