"The Khazars are Coming!"
Brit-Am Note: Some decades back ago we received an article from Ephraim Hirsch describing the Khazars as kind of an 'American-type' people riding forth in cowboy fashion to establish civilized values over the steppes of Russia. Most of the article is given below:
The opinions expressed in the article by Hirsch are his own. His account is highly idealized and maybe exaggerated nevertheless sources do exist that render most of his claims defensible. The article concerns the Khazars who were related to the Parthians. The Parthians were also known for their tolerance and for a laissez faire administration that was successful. Both Parthians and Khazars were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes and both were kinsfolk to entities now amongst nations of northwest European descent.. Maybe the ambition to realize human potential through constitutional freedom is a recurring urge of the Israelite Peoples.
A major portion of the Khazars came from the Agathyrsi descendants of Aiezer [Ai-g-ezer] of Manasseh. The North Americans are also dominated by Manasseh and the account below reads like another version of the American Dream.
"The Khazars are coming" by Edward (Ephraim) Hirsch:
It sounds like the plot from an Arnold Schwarzenegger epic. A nomadic people in the South Russian steppes rise up against tyranny and barbarism. Surrounded by wild tribes who yoked their women to chariots, they enjoyed all the comforts of civilized nations, a well-constituted and tolerant government, a flourishing trade, and a well-disciplined standing army. At a time when fanaticism, ignorance and anarchy reigned in western Europe, this kingdom could boast of its just and broad-minded administration. They practiced complete freedom of religion. Christian, Jew and Muslim rode together as brothers under the same flag. ......They were an equal opportunity employer.
They ruled over Russia from the lower course of the Volga and the northern slopes of the Caucasus, as far as the lands bounded by the sea of Azov and the Caspian. Their kingdom lasted a thousand years. During that span, they saved Christianity, rescued the Jews, and embraced the Muslims as partners. They gave sanctuary to an outcast Byzantine emperor and risked their lives and empire for the poor and oppressed. They chose their king from the most humble of their subjects and he never made a public appearance, lacking the status of even a figurehead. Their women were reputed to be among the most beautiful in the world and were married off to the most powerful rulers in history. This will-'-the-wisp people appeared out of nowhere in the second century and disappeared with hardly a trace in the twelfth. They spoke an unknown language, unrelated to their neighbors of which only fifty words remain. They left virtually no artifacts, no ruins and no written documents. Although at one time their capital city, Atil, named after the mythical land of Atlantis, was the richest and the greatest on the globe.
As unlikely as this scenario may sound, every word is historical truth. They were the Khazars, a tribal union that emerged in the aftermath of a series of migrations of nomadic people from Inner and Central Asia. Like everything else about them, their racial origin is unknown. Scholars first argued that they were of Finno-Ugrian extraction, but later maintained they were a Turkish off-shoot. Eventually, the leading academicians decided they had no idea where they came from. Readers of Gibbon are familiar with the name of Leo the Khazar, an Emperor of the Greeks, whose mother was one of those glamorous Khazar princesses. More recently, inveterate viewers of late night television saw the Khazars on cable. The descendants of the Khazars are those guys storming the Hitler bunker on the documentary 'World at War'. The Khazars were known by their enemies as the most valiant warriors of their epoch and the tradition has lingered. The Russians used the mountain Tats, reputed to be the last of the Khazars, as shock-troops. .......
Among the accomplishments of the Khazars, according to historians, is holding the line between the advance of the Muslim hordes and Europe, much as Charles Martel fended off the Moors at Tours. The Khazars also are known for the conversion of the royal family to the Jewish religion in the eighth century. Scholars claim that this came about as the result of a religious debate when emissaries of the three faiths were sent to the kingdom. The Khazars adopted the Jewish religion because of their imperative to help the oppressed, in the same way that the king of Denmark later donned a Star of David to show solidarity with the besieged people.
The Khazars did things like that.
In their spare time they invented Democracy. Although the Greek philosopher Pericles is generally credited with the idea, it is known that Herodotus, a buddy of Pericles visited Khazaria shortly before Pericles came up with this inspiration that has shaped modern thought.
Historians report that the Khazar king dreamed that God spoke to him, saying, "Your intentions are good but your works leave a lot to be desired." Thereafter, the Khazars not only preached total freedom and justice, they implemented it. Their government consisted of a council of two Christians, two Jews, two Muslims, and a barbarian. They never withdrew loyalty once granted.
No man was so despised that he could not find forgiveness in the Khazar kingdom. ......... They invented the concept of liberty, fraternity and equality.
According to D.M. Dunlop of Colombia University, the foremost American scholar of the Khazars, the reason the Khazars are not generally known by the public is that the historical records exist mistily in Arabic and Turkish texts. Also, the thrust of history as taught in our schools concerns itself mostly with Greece, Rome and western Europe. But Dunlop says, "It can scarcely be doubted that but for the existence of the Khazars in the region north of the Caucasus, Byzantium, the bulwark of European civilization in the east, would have found itself outflanked by the Arabs, and the history of Christianity and Islam might well have been very different from what we know."
Khazaria derived its wealth from its international trade routes that crossed its territory linking the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Caliphate and Northern Europe. In order to protect their commercial interests, the Khazars strove to maintain peace in the region and to exclude or neutralize any nomadic invaders from the east...... Shielded by this peace accord, the East Slavic tribes north of the open steppe were able to expand further southward and to prosper in their livestock-raising pursuits.
Although Khazaria subsequently became known as the first land whose rulers embraced Judaism in the Medieval Period the Khazars had [previously] been most renowned for their prowess in commerce. The Khazars were the first true capitalists as well as the first democratic political entity.
An account of the Khazars was in fact given by the Cambridge historian J.B. Bury in a chapter of his History of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Khazars are mentioned in most encyclopedias and dictionaries.
The Khazars are found in our hearts. The Khazars were never a nation in the real sense. They were an empire of the senses, a trading organization and a confederation of peace loving people. They were the law west of the Pecos -- and the Volga, Dnieper, and Don for that matter. Our ideals, our vision and even our system of government were forged by the Khazars.......