Jewish Khasars?

**Ozzmosis** · January 18, 2010, 04:01 PM

The Khasars were a Turkic people who migrated into the caucasus regions in around the 7thC AD. They were originally Tengri Shamanists, like other mongol and Turkic tribes, but, understandably, they were influenced by the christians to the west and the muslims to the east. The Khasar rulers understood that if islam and christianity were allowed to permeate through their tribe, they would be ripped in half, and it could mean the end of their culture, so they did something gobsmackingly unexpected: they converted to Judaism. It is actually quite amusing how the first ruler to convert to Judaism was called Bulan, a traditional Turkic name, and then his son was named Obadiah!
My question is whether they will be represented as a faction in EoR. IMO they were definitely influential and powerful enough to be: one of their princesses, Chichek (meaning flower, called Tzitzak in Greek) actually wedded a byzantine emperor and gave birth to the emperor Leo the Khasar. The men of the byzantine court were astounded by her beautiful wedding dress, which was extremely colourful, and started a fashion trend among the male byzantine nobility called Tzitzakion, named after her. I think it is important they be included, as otherwise, the caucasus will be pretty much empty apart from the armenians: the byzantines will be occupied with the muslims, as will be the persians, so some competition is needed. Perhaps a script similar to the conversion of lithuanians from paganism to christianity can be applied here? Perhaps they could start as Tengriist and have heavy influence from christians and muslims, which should be detrimental to the Khasars, unless they choose to embrace Judaism, after which their rulers will stop having Turkic names and start having Hebrew names.
They were definitely important in their time, and extremely interesting people. I put it to you to consider their inclusion.
Btw, I recommend the book, "The Thirteenth Tribe" by Arthur Koestler. Although his theory that most modern Jews are descended from Turkic peoples is pretty much disproved, the book is very interesting and tells a lot about the khasars and other Turkic tribes.

**FliegerAD** · January 18, 2010, 06:13 PM

Thank you for your input! The Khazars are culturally and politically indeed a quite attractive choice, although militarily they were not that unique. Anyway the first installments of EoR focusses on Justinian and his campaigns and that is why the Khazars will have to wait for later installments. But I can assure you I have them on my screen, especially as they were the first to subjugate the Crimean Goths.

By the way, our Caucasus is the exact opposite of empty! We have the Kingdoms of Alwan (Albania), Kartli (Iberia) and Armenia, additionally the Avars and Bulgars in the north could make some pressure. Then there is Rome and Persia... trust me, there will be a mightly struggle in the Caucasus.

regards

**Nakharar** · January 19, 2010, 05:03 AM

i agree whole hartedly with Flieger, we considered the Khazars but for the first version its just too much...

**Ozzmosis** · January 19, 2010, 01:26 PM

Nice to hear about the Caucasus. Just wondering. I guess they would be the only Jewish faction though, even if they only had standard turkic units.

**Reno Melitensis** · July 15, 2010, 02:28 AM

Interesting, did you know that when the Muslims overran the middle east, both the Khazars and Ghazzanids where moved or migrated away from the hot point. Some of them found their way on tiny Malta. Their names still survive today in the surnames Cassar ( spelled Kassar) and Gasan.

Cheers.

**RomanSoldier9001** · October 04, 2010, 03:10 PM

Khazars would be nice faction to appear in East of Rome Khazars dont appear in that many games about Ancient and Medieval Times they are normaly "put aside" even in mods their appareance is rare so would be nice to see them in this mod anyway Bulgars appear to be smilar to Khazars so in way we already have at least a smilar people.
As for First Poster comment I got say Khazars werent only Jews in fact a lot of Khazars never left their "tradional" religion if not most. Only Upper class of Power trully convert to Judaism and even those many didnt. So I would find wrong to put all names after "conversion" in game in Jewish fashion also many christians and especealy muslims live with Khazars the backbone of their army were muslim units and isnt that strange that also some Khazars may convert to Islam so I got say Khazars were far from being just a people with only religion of Judaism but indeed they are rare exception of "state" that adopt Judaism as the "oficial" religion I think they are quite unique in that perspective and of course like always the "conversion" was more for political reasons than religious ones.