Science and Culture

The Khazar Jews. Romanian History and Ethnography(I)

Motto: It is a known fact that, when a nation is bound to disappear, the aristocracy
disappears first, and its litterature along with it.”

Milorad Pavici, Khazar Dictionary

 

The recent historiography is especially abundent, varied in themes and rich in
subjects of highly degree, concerning the khazars’ history.1
My historiographical attempt aims at covering a restrained segment in space and
time. In spite of its location in close vicinity of the Mediaeval Khazar Empire2 , the Romanian territory is rarely mentioned
in the specialist’ works, therefore it is a difficult task to offer arguments
for one theory or another3; the
vast, dynamic area of ethnography is at hand, of course, feeding itself with
numerous elements of civilization well preserved within its cultural dowry.4

I have constructed the present study based upon two main elements: a historical
one and an ethnographical one – by means of which I intend to present eventual
civilization influences coming from the Khazar Jews, towards the Romanians, by
the beginning of the Middle Ages. The historic element is connected to the
Hungarian influence in Transylvania, during the 9th – 11th  centuries, and the ethnographic one – to the
research undertaken in Oltenia region, by the philologist Lazar Saineanu,
during the last two decades of the 19th century.

I shall not insist upon the constitutive elements of the khazar history, as these
are refered to whithin the contents of the hundreds of books that have been
published since 1900.5

The Khazar State was formed North of the Caucaz mountains, between the Caspian and
the Black Seas, starting from the 6th / 7th centuries.
Throughout the 8th / 9th it extended nortwards, eastwards
and westwards, by the conquest of new territories. Towards the North the Khazar
influence reached the Vladimir and Moskow regions, towards the West – the
Dniestr line, towards the East – the Ural Mountains and the Aral Lake where the
Oghude Turks were dwelling. To the South, the Khazar influence was difficulty
holted by the Arab Caliphates ruling over Armenia end the Iranian Plateau. The
most important conquest of the Khazar Empire was the Crimean Peninsula, where a
few Khazar communities were to survive up to the modern era. This empire was in
control of the Carpathian area, of the Panonia plain and of the medium and
lower course of the Danube river.6

This situation lasted up to the 10th – 11th centuries, when
the Khazar empire knew a territorial draw-back caused by the expansion of the
Rhus population, of Scandinavian origin. The territories North of the Black Sea
were lost at that time. Ther Mongol invasion from the 12th – 13th
centuries was going to destroy the Khazar state surviving between the Kaspian
and the Black Seas.7

The fundamental historical event in the Khazars’ history was their avowal of the
Judaic religion, during the 8th century; Judaism was the only religion which abolised the ethnicity8,
while the other religions accepted it as such. Hence, the extraordinary
international cohesion of zionism. But the majority of the Khazar people (the
black Khazar or the Kara Khazars) “have, of course, always been tribal,
analphabet, pagan, nomad Turkish riders (an excelent source of soldiers for an
army of riders). The high classes, the so-called “white Khazars” or the
“Aq/Khazars”, the noblemen (taidsi), nucleus of the arisal and formation of the
Khazar state, were the promoters and mediators of the Hellenistic culture. They
were highly cultivated, well organized, and held strong relations with the
Hellenistic world. And they were also Jews, in the sense of Israelite heirs,
with Judaic ties, kins, knowledge, traditions!”9

Officially, a khazar could have been of Turkish origin, or of some other ethnical origin,
such as: Greek, Slave, Rhus, Arab, “Goth”, Hungarian, “Roman” (possibly of
Roman origin – a.n.) so that the khazar state was pluri-linguistical and
multi-confessional.10
Khazaria was “a cosmopolite country, opened to all sorts of cultural and
religious influences; it was a surprising modern country, as compared to its
neighbours”.11

Starting with the 9th century and especially during the 10th and
11th centuries, numerous Khazar communities emigrated and settled in
Poland, Rhutenia, Hungary, Romania and in the Balkans, generating durable
colonies; this migration happened having as a background the territorial
decrement of the Khazar state in its originary space comprised between the
Kaspien and Black Seas.12

 

Khazar Jews and Transylvania. A Historiographic Argument

 

 

            The penetration of some small Khazar communities in Transylvania, by the vast
transmigration process, throught the central and the South-Eastern Europe, of
the former Khazar Empire population, is recorded by a series of papers.13

The starting point of the present
paper was, in fact, a statement taken by Arthur Koestler, from a previous
paper: “A Romaninan legend tells us about an invasion – in this country – of
some armed Jews, at an unknown date.”14

The previous paper is, in fact, an
impressing four volumes work published in New York, in 1957: “A social and
religious History of the Jews”, signed Baron S.W. . As this book is not
available for me, in Romania, the only elements I was left to identify this
legend are the few historical and ethnographical works published in Romanian.

A possible interpretation of this
invasion of a Jewish army, during the early Middle ages, undoubtfully an army
of the Khazar Jews, could only have been linked to the Western Transylvanian
area where the Kabar tribe once penetrated, during the 10th century,
a tribe of Khazar origin. This controversed and delicate subject of the
Romanian contemporary historiography represents the content of the first part
of the present study.

Numerous historians agree upon the fact that, in the year 896, “the magyars were led in Panonia by a disident
Khazar tribe known under the name of kabar”, who settled along with the
magyars, in their new dwelling place. The Kabar-Khazars were well known as
skillful gold and silver workers; the magyars (more primitive, initially) only
learned these skills when arriving in their new home.”15 The Khazar empire, the magyars, were
used as tax-collector within and during their centuries of common dwelling with
the Khazars, the Magyars had received, “metaphorically speaking, but perhaps
also ad litteram, a blood persfusion from the past of the Khazars”, and this
“has affected them in many ways”, at least in what concerns their language.16

The fact that the Magyars were led
in Panonia by a tribe of Khazars, is due to their “knowing the way had
previously gone through, on occasion of their first entrance in Pannonia, along
with the Huns, as the road was maintaining their link between Pannonia and
their political centre North the Kaukaziens”.17

Arpad, the first Magyar leader, was
invested “by the Khazar traditions and rituals, by being rised on the fighters’
shields.”18 Arpad was the son of
Almus or Almutzes, “a Kabar-Turkish tribes and of the seven Hungarian ones, on
their way from Atelkuz to Pannonia; he was killed in Erdeuelu (Ardeal or
Transylvania a.n.).”19 So, the
Hungarians were “subdued by the Cabars who belonged to the great kin of the
Turkish origine Khazars. Led by the three Kabar tribes who had subdued them,
and having the kabar Almutzes as a leader, the Hungarians were directed towards
Pannonia.”20

“Their leader’s name was Kande (Kende in Hungarien), and this is the title of their greather king, although
the real leader’s rank is Jula (Gyula, in Hungarien). And the Magyars do
everything this Jula of theirs orders them to.”21
Thus, Almutzes was their Gyula, and their main leader was leved. Almutzes
passed his power over to his son, Arpad.

An interesting features resulted for the young Hungarien state, within its frame, from this tight kabaro-Magyar
communion, so that, “act least till the year 950, both the Khazar and the
Magyar languages were spoken”. Bury, J.B. (A
History of the Eastern
Roman Empire,
London, 1912) wrote: “the result of this double language was the mixed
character of modern Hungarian, which offered false but attractive arguments to
the Magyars.” Toynbee, A (Constantine
Porphyrogenitus and His World
, London, New York, Toronto, 1973) asserted:
“the Hungarians were bilingual, at the beginnings of their state, it is proved
by the 200 or more borrowings from the old Ciuvash
dialect of the Turkish language which was spoken by the Khazars.”22

In his work dedicated to the
Hungarian ethnogenesis, the Hungarian historien Erik Molnar attributed a great
importance to the Khazar influence which is said to have losted for 200 years.
This opinion was previously stated by Gyula Moravcsin, also. According to the
two historians, the Kabar tribes “played an important part in the ethnical
composition of the Hungarians.”23

As the Magyar state was growing more
consolidated, “the Alfold plain was occupied by the nomad people of the Kabars
real Turks, cattle risers, riders and fighters; “these Kabars’kins plundered
the Slaves and the Russian in the plain.”24

The Kabars’ settlement at Alfold
refers, in fact, to a larger space, the nucleus of which was the middle course
of the Tisa river, starting from here, the space controlled or conquered by the
Khazars might have grown wider, spreading towards the Apuseni Mountains, having
the Danube river to the South and Somes river to the North.25

The old area of Bihor is located at
the very centre of this area. In fact, this toponym is of Khazar origin, and
its derivatives are: Bihor, Biheros, Bihar, Virhor.26

Istvan Erdely asserted that “the
Khazar tribes settled in north Hungary by the Carpathians, on the superior
course of the Tisa river.”27 It is
interesting, because Victor Neumann describes a peculiarity of the modern
Judaic diaspora from Maramures: the Jewish shepherding. The Jewish
shepherds’sheepfold were “an economic reality impossible to ignore”, in
Maramures and in Bucovina as well, “till the beginning of the 20th
century.”28 It is quite possible
that one of the typical features of the Kabar civilization – cattle-breeding –
has become dominant, in time, to the detriment of the military trend. The
author himself asserts that these rural Jewish communities are the migrated
colonies from the Polish (Galitia), during the modern period, but the large
majority of the (Galitian) Jews is of Khazar origin. Next, the author mentiones
the same areal of the middle course of the Tisa river, inhabited by the Khazar
Jews, “where the first mediaeval statal structures called voievodate had already been formed.”29

Besides the toponym Bihor, a name was recorded, also
considered to be of Khazar origin: Menumorut. Its derivatives are: Menumarot,
Menu Marot. He was the son of a certain Morut or Marot, of Khazar origin.”30

Another occupation of the Khazar
Jews was one connected with the transportation of salt along the Mures river –
they owned means of transportation and storehouses in Transylvania; this
situation was to last up to the 11th century and more. On the other
hand, the khazars “were practicing an unknown religion, they were venerating
the salt they used to carve temples in salt mines, or in salt mountains.”31 It is a known fact that the only areas
containing salt sediments within Khazaria, except for the Caucasus was the
Carpathian area.

Besides, there are two archeological sites in the vicinity of the above – mentioned area, attributed to the Khazar
Jews. One is located “in the Southern part of Hungaria”32, the second one – at Celarevo,
Voievodina, in the Serbian part of the Banat. Celarevo is an archaelogical site
dated from the 7th – 9th centuries A.D., “near the
Danube, in Jugoslavia, sheltering a mediaeval necropolis. The settlement which
has nourished the necropolis was not found, yet. It is not certain who were the
ones buried at Celarevo, but a few elements are certain: similarities with the
Persian influence upon some objects found in the tombs, the(menorahs) (the
seven armed Judaic candlestick)and other brief Hebrew notes. The archaeological
ritual sites at Cherson,of in Crimeea were sheltering the same kind of plates
and (menorah), come to the conclusion that there are vestiges, around the Novi
Sad (where Celarevo is located), differing from the Avar ones, which might
suggest the presence of another population which had moved in the Pannonic
plain before the Hungarians’ arrival. (fact also underlined by Paul Lazar
Tonciulescu a.n.) Written testimonies exist in this respect. An anonymous
scribe of King Bela’s, Abdul Hamid of Andaluzia, and Kinam considered that this
danubian area was inhabited by populations of Turkish origin (ismaelites)
descending from the migratory tribes coming from Cherson. The fact itself might
prove that the necropolis at Celarevo partly belongs to the Judaic Khazars.
Doctor Isailo Suk, archaeologist and arabist, originary from the area, one of
the first who undertook diggings at Celarevo, wrote a note found after his death.
This note concerned not only the Celarevo site; it was rather a personal
reflection. The text goes as follows: “The ones burried at Celarevo, the
Hungarians wanted them Hungarians or avar, the Jews wanted them Jews, the
Muslims wanted them Mongoles, but nobody wanted them Khazars. And, in fact,
that was exactly what they were… The cemetery is full of the pottery fragments
having (menorahs) corved upon them. And, as with the Jews, a broken pot means a
fallen man, a lost man, this graveyard, too, belonged to the lost men, as were
the Khazars, in these places, and during those times.”33

In 1799, a hoard was found at
Sannicolaul Mare, a place in the Timis county, Romania – in the Banat region –
and it was dated from the 10th century. “The figure of the victorious
prince” is rendered on one of the main vessels found there, “dragging a
prisoner by the hair”, and “the mythological scenes on the back of the vessel
show affinities with the Khazar Sarkel.”34

Another toponyme bearing a Khazar
resonance is Semender, the summer residence of the Khazar Kagkhan, on the
Kaspian Sea shore; well, there is on old mediaeval fortress on the Southern
shore of the Danube, from Belgrade, and it is called Semendria.

These descoveries demonstrate a
khazar presence within an area delimited by the Danube, the Somes river, the Apuseni
Mountains and the Tisa river. Although the character represented on the gold
vessel of the above-mentioned hoard “is dragging a prisoner by the hair”, it
seems that “neither the Bavarian geographer nor anonymus would record any
conflicts or wars between the Khazars and the native Daco-Roman population. It
is for certain the relationship between the two population was peacefull, or
else the chroniclers of the epoch would have recorded something, in case of any
conflicts, as they did in similar situations.”35
If we consider the Romanian mythological representations, though, things were
right on the contrary, as we shall see further into.

We could mention some names of
Judaic kings of the Arpadian Kingdom, such as Aba Samuel “who, for his own
respect, called himself Oba. Oba refers to Aba Samuel, who was married to king
Stephen the Saint’s sister. He ruled the Hungarian kingdom between 1041-1044.
His name confirms the fact that he was a Khazar-Turk, because in Hebrew, Aba
means “father”.36 Also, king Andrew
(1046-1060) had a son called Solomon (1036-1074), during whose reign “Biharvar
was practically the second capital of Hungary”37,
that is, the centre of the area comprised between the Tisa and Mures rivers,
and the Apuseni Mountains, region inhabited by Kabar tribes.

Moreover, during the 10th century, the Hungarian leader Taksony (947-970) “invited a second wave of
khazar immigrants to come and settle on his domain”38, a fact also signalled by the chronicles
Anonymus.39

Two centuries later from ruler
Tacsony’s invitation, Ioan Cinnamus “the Byzantine chronicler mentioned troops
that preserved the mosaic law, but fought within the Magyar army of Dalmatia,
in 1154. (…)no doubt that most of the modern Jews have their origins in the
migratory waves of the khazar-kabars who played an important part in the early
history of Hungary. Not only that the country was, at the beginnings,
bilingual, but also its government was based upon the monarchic dualism (a
regime accepted by the hungarians in the modern times also). In 1867, by the
Austro-Hungarian dualism, the Austrian emperor (kende) was also Gyula of
Hungary, that is, a king. Perhaps, the Magyar nobility of the epoch saw in this
new regime a return to tradition, in other words, a version of the khazar
system: the king of Jula, or Gyula (very popular even today as a Hungarian
christian name). The system lasted up to the end of the 10th
century, when King Stephen the Saint was converted to the roman-Catholic faith and
defeated a certain rebelling Gyula (who ruled over the Transylvanian voyvodate a.n.) – a khazar, as we can
expect, “proud of his faith, who would not, by any means, get christianized.”
This episode put on end to the monarchy dualism, but not to the influence the
Jewish-Khazar community had over Hungary.”40

An Istvan Erdely hypothesis, upheld
by E.Moor, concerns the presumed khazar origin of the present day Seklers who
are supposed to have arrived in the Bihor region invited by the duke Tacsony,
during the 10th century.41
Paul Lendvai supposes that, “within the Carpathian basin, the Seklers initially
migrated as a Bulgarian Turanic tribe, along with the khabars, or before the
Magyars and that, during the settlement fights, they held the Hungarians’ part.
Anyhow, it is certain that, by the beginnings of the modern epoch, the Seklers
were still using some version of the Turkish writing.”42

Another version asserts that the
Seklers “might be identified as a Turkish population who migrated in the
Carpathian bazin by the year 670”, but “the arcaeological evidence was not
confirmed linguistically”. By the middle of the 10th century, they
were “still bilingual, speaking both their mother tongues: Turkish and the
ugro-finnic Hungarian language. Their name, in general, derived from that of a
Turkish-Bulgarian tribe Eskil, but this is, in fact, a very disputed thing”.
Constantinus Porfyrogenitos asserted that the Seklers “derive from a tribe
called “of the Kabars”. “Anyhow, the Seklers’ origin “may be Turkish”, as they
preserved their Turkish tribal organization till the modern times.43

In 1990, the historian Kevin Alan
Brook visited the seklers lands in Transylvania, within an expedition
concerning the Jews of the Ardeal region. Here, Alan Brook found elements to confirm
the Turkish origin of the Transylvanian Jews, according to the traditional
conception. But this “would not prove they were Khazars. They could have been
Tartars, Cumans or Oghuzes. At least, They could have been Khazars like the
Khazar themselves, converted to the principle of Judaism in greater number than
any other Turkish group.”44

Consequently, both problems – that
of the ethnical origin of the Seklers and the one concerning the Jews of Ardeal
– remain open. The above-mentioned Romanian legend refered to by Koestler,
concerning a Jewish invasion, it can be
located somewhere in
western
Transylvania
. In spite of Lazar Tonciulescu’s assertion that the epoch
documents do not record any conflicts between the Khazars and the native
population, the same author widely comments upon the khazar king Joseph’s
letter to Rabbi Chasdai/Hasdai of Cordoba, letter dating from the year 960. In
that letter, the khazar king declared to have been told by god: “Be strong and
powerful, take the leading of your brave men and go to the Ruddas country, as I
have put fear of you in the hearts of those inhabitants over there and I shall
deliver them to you.”45

Next, we have the Sannicolaul Mare
hoard, showing us the khazar knight drawing a prisoner by the hair. The
archaeological and historical vestiges show their presence on the Tisa river
and Eastwards, between the somes river, the apuseni mountains and the danube.
The ethnographical and mythological trails have preserved the memory of the
Khazar Jews’ presence in an area close to Banat and Transylvania, a regiuon
connected to the previously mentioned territory, by commercial exchanges and
pastoral travels: Oltenia.

 

Author: Adrian Majuru Phd, Associate professor,
Faculty of Urbanism, University oh Architecture and Urbanism – «Ion Mincu»,
Bucharest. The theme of the course: Urban Anthropology(begining 2010)


 

1 From the wide bibliography covering this subject, I record,
selectively: Artamonov, M.I., Khazar
History
, Leningrad, 1962; Bartha, A., A
IX-X Szazadi Magyar Tarsadalomn
(Hungarian Society in the 9th
–10th Centuries), Budapest, 1968; Dunlop, D.M., The History of the Jewish Khazars, Princeton, 1954; Frazer, Sir
James, The Killing of the Khazar Kings,
Folklore, XXVIII, 1917;Graetz, H.H., History
of the Jews
, Philadelphia, 1891-1898; Kokovtsov, P., The Hebrew-Khazar Correspondence in the Tenth Century, Leningrad,
1932; Kutschera, Hugo Freiherr von, Die
Chasaren
, Wien, 1910; Landau, The
Present
Position of the Khazar
Problem
”, Zion, Jerusalem, 1942; Poliak, A.N., The Khazar Conversion to Judaism,
Zion, Jerusalem, 1941 şi Khazaria – The
History of a Jewish Kingdom
in Europe,
Mossad Bialik, Tel Aviv, 1951; Roth, C., The
World History of the Jewish People
, vol.II: The Dark Ages, London, 1966; Shapiro, H., The Jewish People: A Biological History”, UNESCO, Paris, 1953;
Vetulani, A., The Jews in Medievael
Poland
, Jewish J. of Sociology, December, 1962; Zajackowski, The Khazar Culture and its Heirs,
Breslau, 1946 şi The Problem of the
Language of the Khazars
, Proc.Breslau Soc. Of Sciences, 1946; Zborowski,
M., and Herzog, E., Life Is With People –
The
Jewish Little-Town of Eastern
Europe
, New York, 1982

 

2 During the
10th century, the Khazar empire had reached the line of the Dnistr
river, as its Western border.

3 Of the
several Romanian language works subsidiary dealing with the Khazar problem, I
remind: Victor Newman, The Temptation of
Homo Europaeus. The Genesis of Modern Ideas in Central
and South-Eastern Europe, All Publishers, Bucharest, 1997;
V.Spinei, P.Diaconu and I.Ferenczi, Migrators
between Millenia: Hungarians, Pecenegs, Cumans
, in Romanian’s History, III,
Encyclopedic Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001; more documented is Paul Lazar
Tonciulescu’s work Ardeal – Romanian Land
and Language
, Bucharest, 2001.

4 Among the
most important works of Lazar Saineanu, I recoll, selectively: Turkish Elements in the Romanian language, Bucharest, 1885; A Dialectologic Study upon the German-Jewish Speech, Bucharest, 1889; A
History of Romanian Philology. Critical Studies
, Bucharest, 1892; Romanian Fairy-Tales Compared to antique
classical legends and connection with
Tales of the
Neighbouring peoples and
all Roman Nations. A comparative Study
, Bucharest, 1895; Folkloric Studies. Research in the Field of
Folk Literature
, Bucharest, 1896; Oriental
influence upon the
Romanian Language
and Culture
, Bucharest, 1920

5 The paper
which gave an impulse to the research concerning the Khazar Jews was Arthur
Koestler’s writing The 13th
Tribe. The Khazar Empire and its Heritage
. For the Romanian version, see
thesample published by Nagard, Rome, 1987 and, recently, Antet, Filipestii de
Targ, 2002.

6 “In the
early Middle Ages a powerful state, inhabited by the Khazars, existed on the
coast of the Black Sea”. (Raymond Leslie Buell, Polland:Key to Europe, New York, N.Y., A.A.Knopf, 1939, p.288)

“The
immigration (originally transmigration) of fews to Poland started in the middle
of the IX century. (…)Chazars was situated in the vicinity of Kiev and extended
to the Dniestr, it ceased to exist in 1969.” (Michal M.Borwicz, A thousand years of Jewish Life in Polanfd,
Paris, 1955, p.18)

7 see Khazaria (586/1083 A.D.), essay based on
Dennis A.Leventhal’s article, Suggested
Modifications to an MW Army List: The Khazars
, Saga, no.83, February 2000,
pp.31/35

8 “(…)The
Kagan went towards the Jewish emissary, inquiring about his religion. Rabbi
Isaac Sangri answered that, in fact, the Khazars were not even supposed to
acquire a new religion, but to go on with their traditional one. Because
every-one seemed astonished at his very of thinking, the Rabbi explained: You
are not Khazars. You are Jews, returning where jou belong: to the True God of
your ancestors.” (Milorad Pavici, quoted in, pp.228-229)

The
answer of the Greek theologist of the Constantinopole University went as
follows: We, Greeks, by giving you the cross, shall not take the word as an
pledge, such as the Sarasins or the Jews would do. We won’t ask you to learn
our Greek language, togetjher with acquiirng the Christian faith, either. On
the contrary, keep your khazar language in peace. But take care, for, if you
shall accept the Judaic or Muslim low, it won’t be the same, as, along with
their faith, you shall have to adopt their language, too.” (quoted in, p.130)

9 See the site
The Khazar Heritage, cap. The Jewish Kingdom of Khazaria. We find
out, about the Khazar Empire territory: “The geographical expansion did not
decrease until the khazar empire covered an area from Hungary-Austria in the
west to the Aral sea in the east, Kiev-Upper in the /north and the Black and
Caspian seas and Caucasus in south. They installed counts (the so called Jewish
princes) in Hungary-Austria, they taxated Goths in Crimeea and greek-Byzantine
towns and landlords at the northern shores of the Black sea, they taxated Rhus
merchands and raiders and all other trading through their territory.”

10 “A khazar
official could be of Turk, Slav, Greek, Rhus, arab, Goth, roman and Magyar
ethnical origin, as well as a confessional Christian, Jew, Muslim or maybe just
pagan. They then just had to be multilingual and capable of communicating with
all these nationalities.” (ibidem)

11 Arthur
Koestler, quoted in., pp.45-47 “(…)by tradition, there are seven judges in the
Khazar capital. Of these, two are for the Muslim, two for the Khazars – who
judge after the Tora, two for the Christians – who judge after the Evangile,
and one for the Saqualiti, for the Rhus people and other pagans, who judges
after the pagan law. There are many Muslims in his (the Kagkahn’s, a.n.)town,
merchants and artisans, who came in this country due to its justice and the
shelter it ensures from dangers”. (ibid., p.52). Khazaria was the only refuge,
the only “form of mercy shown by history for the bannished”. Khazaria had
became a real “national home” for all refugees from Byzantium, from the Arab
Califate or from somewhere else – an image the U.S.A. has today.

12 “After
900, in an attempt to escape Russia and keep their sovereignity, small detachments
of Khazars with their families, especially from the spinted and distrupted
army, fled westward to Crimeea, Roumania and Hungary. A northern group,
penetrating Russia, went out of reach tu Prussia/Lithuania”. (The Khazar
Heritage, The Jewish Kingdom of Khazaria,
p.1)

13 “The
Khazar kings, nobility and many tribesmen converted to Judaism and the khazars
became a sedentary nation. Together with their Judaic compatriots they advanced
civilization throughout Russia and Transylvania. (…)The art thereafter spread
with the advancing khazar Judaic influence up the Volga, Danube, Don, Dniester
and Dniepr rivers into Trnasylvania and Silesia.” (Samuel Kurinsky, The Jews and the Khazars)

Victor Neumann writes about
“the more or less accidental presence of some Jews in the region comprised
between the Mures and the Danube, where the first mediaeval states had already
been formed. The information comes throughout Erasmus’ notes, and those of
Gherhardus of Sagredo, Benjamin of Tudela, Petahija of Ratisbona. The documents
recall the relationships (for the centuries of the early Middle Ages)between
Jews, Magyars, Romanians, Bulgarians, respectively with the Russians, Serbiens,
Greek.” (Victor Neumann, quoted in, p.82)

14 “A
Romanian legend tells of an invasion – the date unknown – of armed Jews into
that country.” (Arthur Koestler, p.176, quoted by Baron, S.W., A Social and Religions History of the Jews,
vol.IV, New York, 1957, p.77)

15 Arthur
Koestler, p.50

“The Magyars had been the Khazars’ allives and,
appearently, their vassals, willingly, since the foundation of the Khazar
Empire. At their origin, the Magyars were not kins of the Slave and Turanic
populations in the plains, amids  whom
they came to live; so it is all an ethnical peculiarity, and so it remaind,
till the present day. At an unknown date, during the first centuries of the
Christian era, this nomad tribe was bennished from its initial area, from the
Ural Mountains, and it migrated Southwards, through the steppe, finally setling
in the region comprised between the Don and Cuban rivers. Thus, they became
neighbours of the Khazars before the latter become important. For a while, they
were part of a federation of semi-nomad populations, the Onogurs (the ten arrows, or ten tribes); it is belived that their
name Hungarian represents a Slave
version of the respective word, while Magyar
is the name they themselves were using since ancient times, a name which they
preserved till the presetn day”. (p.98)

 

16
“Furthermore the Khazars gave them a king who founded the first Magyar dynasty;
next, several Khazar tribes united to the Magyars and fundamentally transformed
their ethnical character.” (Arthur Koestler, p. 99 and 101)

“For
as long as they stood the domination of the Khazar Kaganate, the Hungarian were
obliged to conform to military and other duties imposed by the empire. The
exact duration of the period of their subdual to the Khazars is not known.”
(V.Spinei, P.Diaconu, I.Ferenczi, p. 252)

17 Paul Lazar
Tonciulescu, pp.304-305

“(…)The
Hungarian belonged, for a longer time, to the Turanic Khazar Empire between the
middle course of the Volga river and the inferior course of the Danube. (…)Yet,
the later Magyar tradition was silent as to both the close tils with the
Khazars, whose leading closs converted to Judaism during the 8th
century, and the real reasons of their migration, which lead their tribes,
together with those of their khazar or Turanic origin allies up to the
Carpathien borders”. (Paul Lendvai, The
Hungarians
, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2001, pp.21-22)

18 Constantin
Porfyrogenetul quoted in Arthur Koestler, p.100

19 Istvan
Erdely, Thesis of Candidate in Science, Budapest, 1959

20 Chronicle
of the Secretary Anonymus “The Hungarians’ Facts”, translated by Paul Lazar
Tonciulescu, Miracol Publishing, Bucharest, 1996, p.16

“Almos
died during the journey and disappeared from history.” (Paul Lendvai, p.23)

21 Gardezi,
quoted by Arthur Koestler, op.cit., p.102

“There
are reasons for us to believe that the first Jula of Hungary were Kabars.” See
also Gergely Andras, History of Hungaria,
Odorheiul Secuiesc, Romania, 1993

22 Bury and
Toynbee quoted, ibidem, p.101

Here
is a recent reference: “Magyars and Khazars learned each others languages such
that tha khazar language was spoken in Hungary until at least the middle of the
tenth century.” (Kevin Alan Brook, The
Jews of Khazaria
, 1999, p.208 – refering to the fact that Khazars living in
Hungary taught their language to their Hungarian neighbours.)

Marczali N., in Histoire
de la nation hongroise
, Budapest, asserts that the Hungarians spoke a mixed
language.

23 Istvan
Erdely, Les Relations Hungaro-Khazares,
Studia Et Acta Orientalia, IV, Bucharest, 1962, pp.40-41 and 42-43

 

24 Arthur
Koestler, p.105

“(…)The
Kabars who were stronger and more fighters became the leading tirbe, and
brought an infusion of their spirit of adventure to their hosts, which was soon
to turn into a flagellum of Europe. (…)They taught the Magyars those special
and typical tactics used by the Turkish people in the oldest times, and known
the nobody else but then. (…)the Khazars played an important part in the
foundation of the Hungarian state.” (Macartney, C.A., The Magyars in the Ninth
Century
, 1930, Cambridge, quoted in idem)

25 Paul Lazar
Tonciulescu, p.302

“(…)This
area correspunds to the medium course of the Tisa, being identical to the one
described by the Bavarian Geographer as being inhabited by the Khazars, at the
end of the 9th century (866-890), that is, before the arrival of the
first migrating Hungarians in Pannonia. Hence, we can draw the cnclusion that
several tribes of the Khazar people already existed on the middle course of the
Tisa river, that is, between the Danube and the apuseni Mountains, by mid.9th
century, forming the western branch of the widely spread Khazar Empire.”
(ibidem, pp.302-303)

26 Armenian version of the life of Saint
Stephen of Sugdaia
, cited in Gero, p.22

27 Istvan
Erdely, op.cit., p. 46

28 Victor
Neumann, op.cit., p. 103

29 Ibidem, p.
82

30 Anonymus,
cited in Douglas Dunlop’s article The
Khazars in The Dark Ages: Jews in Christian
Europe, 711-1096, 1966, p.348

31 Milorad
Pavici, op.cit., p.237. See and pp.240-241 Salt
and Dream

32 “(…)In
southern Hungary, archaeologists discovered a khazar ring engraved with Hebrew
letters. These Khazars joined the pre-existing Jews of Hungary and formed
communities in the main cities, including Buda.” (Eli Valley, The Great Jewish Cities of central and
Eastern Europe,
Northvale, New York: Jason Aronson, 1999, p.377)

33 Milorad
Pavici, op.cit., p.146

“(…)They lie in family tombs spread along the Danube
shore, and in each tomb, the head is oriented towards Jerusalem. They are set
in double tombs, with their horses, only they lie with closed eyes and turned
to another world than the animals’, they lie under their women who are buried coiled
over their stomachs, so they won’t see their faces and breasts anymore.
Sometimes, they are buried standing, and they look terribly old of age, with
their faces decomposed from too much scrutinizing the sky, having with them
some terra-cotta plates having the name Jehuda, or the word “shahor” (black)
carved upon them. Fires burn in the corners of the tombs, they keep their food
at their feet, their knives at their belts. Some animal lies besides them,
always a different one, from one tomb to another: here  a sheep, an ox, a goat, there a chicken, a
pig or a deer, and eggs were put in the children’s tombs. Some other times, you
can find tools by their side, axes, all sort of gold smith pincers. Their lyes,
lors and mouths are covered with terracotasnell lids corved with Jewish seven
armed candlesticks, the terracotta being of Roman origin and dating from the 3rd
or 4th centuries. (…) These carved snell lids for months, ears,
lyes, protected them from the demons and the sedini, preventing them from squeezing through the tombs, only the
fragments were spread in all the cemetery(…).” (ibidem, pp.109-110)

34 Arthur
Koestler, op.cit., p.49

35 Paul Lazar
Tonciulescu, p.303

36
Chronicle…, p.63

37 History of Transylvania, General Editor
Bela Kopeczi, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, 1999, pp.142

38 Arthur
Koestler, p.146

39 “(…)Some
very noble masters come from the bular country, along with a great number of
ismaelites whose name was Billa (see the series of Billa shops in Romania, a.n.) and Bossun. The Duke Tocsun offered
them lands in various Hungarian places and besides, gave them a fortress named
Pest.” (Chronicle…, p.109)

40 Arthur
Koestler, p.146-147

Thus,
for instance, during the 13th century, the custodian of the Royal
incomes, in the times of andrew II (1205-1235) “was the count Chamberlain Teka,
a khazar origin Jew, great landowner and a genius of finance and diplomacy.”
Then, till towards 122, “the Jews were either chiefs of tarapane, teachers (job that the hungarians had undertaken in their
turn, in Khazaria a.n.), fact confirmed by Victor Neumann, p.82

Another
source asserts that “(…)the last khazars who fled into Hungary in 1200-1300,
where they received by their former vassals, the Magyar kings.” (Monroe
Rosenthal and Isaac Mozeson, Wars of the
Jews: A Military History from Biblical to Modern Times
, New York, N.Y.:
Hippocrene Books, 1990, p.224)

41 Moor E., L’etablissement des Hongrois dela conquete
arpadienne et l’origine des Sicules
, Szeged, 1944 and Gyorffy Gy., Du clan hongrois jusqu’an comitat, dela tribu
jusqu’au pays
, II Szazadok, 1958

42 Paul
Lendvai, p. 31

About
the old description of the Seklers, see the article: Dr.Hosszu Gabor, The Bug symbols in the Sekler-Hungarian Rune
Writing

 

 

43 The Formation of the Szekely Settlements, in
History of Transylvania…, pp.178-179

“(…)the
Bihar region was completely occupied by Hungarian settlements during the 10th
centruy, which explains why the Seklers were Magyarized during the 11th
centruy and speak only Hungarian, while traveling throughout Tansylvania, preserving,
at the same time, their runnic alphabet.” (idem)

44 “(…)A
relative of a Transilvanian Jew who has been in touch with we once told him We are not Semites – we are white Turks from
far to the East, and our homes were destroyed by the Russsians.
These are
the Jews of the town Sfantul Gheorghe in what is now Romania. Though their
community had intermingled with some Hungarians and Roumanians, they remained a
cohesive community with knowledge of its Turkic origins for centuries. In the
1999 a genealogical expedition hired by my Transylvanian Jewish acquitance
found confirmation of the tradition that these Jews are Turkic. That does not
prove that they were khazars. They could have been Tatars or Kipchakes(Cumans)
or Oghuzes. But most likely they were khazars, as the khazars converted to
standard Judaism in larger numbers than any other Turkic group.” (Kevin Alan
Brook, Are Russain Jews Descended from
the khazars? A Reassessment Based upon the LatestHistorical, Archeological,
Linguistic and Genetic Evidence.
)

45 Paul Lazar
Tonciulescu, p. 189

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