Samandar (also Semender) was a city in (and briefly capital of) Khazaria, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, in what is now Daghestan. At some later date, it may have been moved inland to some areas near the present-day village of Shelkovskaya in the modern Chechen Republic.
The exact location of the city is unknown. Medieval Arabic sources report simply that it was midway between Derbent and Atil, near the shore of the Caspian Sea. [1] Modern scholars have variously identified Samandar with Kizlyar on the Terek River, or with Tarki further south on the Caspian coast. Tarki corresponds more closely to medieval sources, as the 10th-century Hudud al-'Alam reports that Samandar was on the coast, and archaeological finds from the Khazar period, including fortifications, have been found there. [1] The city might possibly had been moved at some later date to the hill fort corresponding to the present day location of the village of Shelkovskaya on the Terek. [1]
The Russian scholar Svetlana Pletnyova suggested that the name "Samandar" meant "Farthest Gate" in Middle Persian, and that the town was built by the Sassanid ruler Khosrow I in the 6th century. [2] Other scholars have proposed that the name of the city may derive from the name of a Hunnish tribe "Zabender". The Greek writer Theophylact Simocatta refers to a migration of Zabender from Asia to Europe in about 598; in addition, an Armenian book on geography attributed to Moses of Chorene mentions a town "M-s-n-d-r" in the land of Huns located to the north of Derbent.
Samandar became the second capital of the Khazar Khaganate in the 720s, after Balanjar was abandoned as a result of the Umayyad invasion. For the same reason, the capital was moved again further north to Atil, sometime between 730 and 750. [3]
According to the 10th-century geographers al-Istakhri and Ibn Hawqal, Samandar was inhabited by Jews, Christians, Muslims, and members of other religious faiths, each of which had its houses of worship. According to al-Istakhri, Samandar was famous for its fertile gardens and vineyards, and a lively centre of commerce with several markets; the city was mostly built of wood. [4] Samandar, like Atil, was destroyed by Kievan Rus' prince Sviatoslav in the 960s, leading to a decline and disappearance of Khazaria.
The Khazars were a nomadic Turkic people that, in the late 6th-century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. They created what for its duration was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Khaganate. Astride a major artery of commerce between Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Khazaria became one of the foremost trading empires of the early medieval world, commanding the western marches of the Silk Road and playing a key commercial role as a crossroad between China, the Middle East and Kievan Rus'. For some three centuries the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea and the northern Caucasus.
Atil, also Itil, was the capital of the Khazar Khaganate from the mid-8th century to the late 10th century. Known to have been situated on the Silk Road, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, its precise location has long been unknown.
Balanjar was a medieval city located in the North Caucasus region, between the cities of Derbent and Samandar, probably on the lower Sulak River. It flourished between the seventh and tenth centuries. The legendary founder of Balanjar, according to the Persian and Kurdish chroniclers Ibn al-Faqih and Abu al-Fida, was named Balanjar ibn Yafith.
Dagestan, officially the Republic of Dagestan, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, along the Caspian Sea. It is located north of the Greater Caucasus, and is a part of the North Caucasian Federal District. The republic is the southernmost tip of Russia, sharing land borders with the countries of Azerbaijan and Georgia to the south and southwest, the Russian republics of Chechnya and Kalmykia to the west and north, and with Stavropol Krai to the northwest. Makhachkala is the republic's capital and largest city; other major cities are Derbent, Kizlyar, Izberbash, Kaspiysk, and Buynaksk.
The Khazar Correspondence is a set of documents, which are alleged to date from the 950s or 960s, and to be letters between Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to the Caliph of Cordoba, and Joseph Khagan of the Khazars. The Correspondence is one of only a few documents attributed to a Khazar author, and potentially one of only a small number of primary sources on Khazar history.
Tmutarakan was a medieval principality of Kievan Rus' and trading town that controlled the Cimmerian Bosporus, the passage from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, between the late 10th and 11th centuries. Its site was the ancient Greek colony of Hermonassa founded in the mid 6th century BCE, by Mytilene (Lesbos), situated on the Taman peninsula, in present-day Krasnodar Krai, Russia, roughly opposite Kerch. The Khazar fortress of Tamantarkhan was built on the site in the 7th century, and became known as Tmutarakan when it came under the control of Kievan Rus'.
Khazar, also known as Khazaric, was a Turkic dialect group spoken by the Khazars, a group of semi-nomadic Turkic peoples originating from Central Asia. There are few written records of the language and its features and characteristics are unknown. It is believed to have gradually become extinct by the 13th century AD as its speakers assimilated into neighboring Turkic-speaking populations.
Togarmah is a figure in the "table of nations" in Genesis 10, the list of descendants of Noah that represents the peoples known to the ancient Hebrews. Togarmah is among the descendants of Japheth and is thought to represent some people located in Anatolia. Medieval sources claimed that Togarmah was the legendary ancestor of several peoples of the Caucasus.
Arsiyah was the name used for a group of Muslim mercenaries in the service of the Khazar Khaganate. Whether the Arsiyah were a single tribe or composed of Muslims from a number of different tribes is unclear. Also unclear is their origin; many historians regard them as deriving from Khwarazm, but some scholars point to the fact that "As" is the Turkic term for Alans and believe that the Arsiyah were Alanic in origin. Other scholars derive the name from Iranian Auruša (white).
Abu Uqba al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami was an Arab nobleman and general of the Hakami tribe. During the course of the early 8th century, he was at various times governor of Basra, Sistan and Khurasan, Armenia and Adharbayjan. A legendary warrior already during his lifetime, he is best known for his campaigns against the Khazars on the Caucasus front, culminating in his death in the Battle of Marj Ardabil in 730.
The peoples of the Caucasus, or Caucasians, are a diverse group comprising more than 50 ethnic groups throughout the Caucasus.
The Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723, known in Russian historiography as the Persian campaign of Peter the Great, was a war between the Russian Empire and Safavid Iran, triggered by the tsar's attempt to expand Russian influence in the Caspian and Caucasus regions and to prevent its rival, the Ottoman Empire, from territorial gains in the region at the expense of declining Safavid Iran.
The Arab–Khazar wars were a series of conflicts fought between the Khazar Khaganate and successive Arab caliphates in the Caucasus region from c. 642 to 799 CE. Smaller native principalities were also involved in the conflict as vassals of the two empires. Historians usually distinguish two major periods of conflict, the First Arab–Khazar War and Second Arab–Khazar War ; the wars also involved sporadic raids and isolated clashes from the mid-seventh century to the end of the eighth century.
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"Gazikumukh Shamkhalate" is a term introduced in Russian-Dagestan historiography starting from the 1950s–60s to denote the Kumyk state that existed on the territory of present-day Dagestan in the period of the 8th to 17th centuries with the capital in Gazi-Kumukh, and allegedly disintegrated in 1642. However, In the 16th century's Russian archival sources Tarki is stated to be the "capital of Shamkhalate" and "the city of Shamkhal", while "Kazi-Kumuk" is mentioned as a residence. These facts contradict "1642 disintegration" date. Moreover, there is absolutely no source before the 1950s containing the term "Gazikumukh Shamkhalate" or a statement that Gazi-Kumukh had ever been the capital of Shamkhalate. Historically, Shamkhalate is widely described as Tarki Shamkhalate or just Shamkhalate.
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