Caspian Expeditions of The Rus' - Destruction of Khazaria

Destruction of Khazaria

The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Byzantine incitement also apparently played a role. Khazars were the allies of the Byzantines until the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus, who persecuted the Jews of his empire. According to the Schechter Letter, the Khazar ruler Joseph responded to the persecution of Jews by "doing away with many Christians" and Romanus retaliated by inciting Oleg of Novgorod (called Helgu in the letter) against Khazaria.

The conflict may also have been spurred by the Khazars' decision to close passage down the Volga in response to the raid of 943. In the Khazar Correspondence, written around 950–960, the Khazar ruler Joseph reported his role as defender of the Muslim polities of the Caspian region against Rus' incursions: "I have to wage war with them, for if I would give them any chance at all they would lay waste the whole land of the Muslims as far as Baghdad." Earlier conflict between Muslim elements of the Khazar army and Rus' marauders in c. 912 may have contributed to this arrangement and the hostility of the Rus' against Khazaria.

In 965, Sviatoslav I of Kiev finally went to war against Khazaria. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the Khazars' superior cavalry. Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, and possibly sacked (but did not occupy) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea. He subsequently (probably in 968 or 969) destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil. A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslav's campaign: "The Rus' attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch." Ibn Hawqal is the only author who reports the sack of Semender, after which the Rus' departed for "Rûm and al-Andaluz" .

Sviatoslav's campaign brought the prosperity and independence of Khazaria to an abrupt end. The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus' to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.