Subject: Re: Khans of the Khazars and Byzantine emperors From: Chris Pitt Lewis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, Feb 21, 1999 07:32 EST Message-id: <IWAavEAtz$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes > >In an article posted here 27 October 1998 (and copied and pasted from >dejanews) Chris Chennet wrote: >>In article <7129jo$flq$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stewart Baldwin) wrote: > >><snip> >> >>> To my knowledge, the known genealogy of the Khazar kings is completely >>> isolated, and not connected with any other dynasty. I have seen books >>> which briefly give their genealogy, but none of them mentioned either >>> Menu Morat of the Bihar Khazars or his supposed Hungarian connection. >> >In addition, I am not even sure that the "Bihar Khazars" of Moncreiffe >> >are the same group as the well known Khazars. >> > >>Not quite completely isolated -- two Byzantine emperors (Justinian II and >>Constantine V) married Khazar princesses. However, the main source of Khazar >>royal genealogy, the letter of king Joseph (quoted in the Koestler book >>IIRC), only covers the period after the version to Judaism, while these two >>marriages occured a few generations earlier, so it is difficult to link them >>to the later line. Joseph's letter gives no marriages, just the descent >>line, and no dates. > >The marriage of Justinian II must have been sometime between 695 and >705 during his exile after his first deposition. Constantine V >married an Irene, a daughter of a Khan of Khazar. I've no other >nearby dates so what follows is guesswork: C~ V's grandson, C~ VI, >was put into a marriage deal with Rotrude, dau of Charlemagne, by his >mother (the notorious Irene) in 781 (THAT'S A DEFINITE DATE), when he >(C~ VI) was about 12 years old. This would place the marriage of Leo >IV to the said notorious Irene at not later than about 768. Supposing >C~ V to have been 20 years old when he married the dau of the Khan, he >would have to have been born before about 748, That would be 43-53 >years after the marriage of Justinian II, which would suggest that the >Khans whose daughters married Byzantine emperors were two generations >apart, although it wouldn't be too difficult to telescope the >chronology down to a single generation apart. >Now, supposing that there was a regular male succession of the Khans >of the Khazars, two alternative tentative outlines can be >constructed: > >1 Unknown Khan I > 2. Daughter m. Justinian II > 2. Unknown Khan II > 3. Irene m. Constantine V > > OR > >1 Unknown Khan I > 2. Daughter m. Justinian II > 2. Son > 3 Unknown Khan II > 4. Irene m. Constantine V > >If one of the above outlines (or a better alternative) could be filled >in with real persons, it would provide an interesting link between the >otherwise-apparently-unconnected Heraclean and Isaurian/Syrian >dynasties. > >Can anyone connect the dots? > >Bryant Smith >Austin, Texas Justinian's marriage was to the sister of the then ruling Khan (between 695 and 705), and Constantine's marriage was in 733 to the daughter of the Khan. So it is not inconceivable that the same Khan could have been involved, and they are probably unlikely to have been more than a generation apart. Koestler says the Khan whose sister married Justinian was called Busir or Bazir. He does not give a source for this statement. The Khan who adopted Judaism, apparently around 740, is said in Joseph's letter, a late source, to be called Bulan, and to be the grandfather of the Obadiah with whom Joseph's genealogy begins. Presumably for the names of Khazar Khans at this date we are dependent on stray references in Byzantine and Arab sources. 200 years later, according to Ibn Fadlan, Khazaria had a dual monarchy, like early 20th century Nepal. If that situation existed in the early 700s it would further complicate matters, since the sources might not distinguish between them. -- Chris Pitt Lewis
