The Ideology Of The Ninth And Tenth Centuries 95
According to D. Shapira, the ambiguity in the identification of the bek and
the khagan in the Khazar Correspondence is due to the presumption that the
beks acquired many of the sacral functions and qualities of the khagans and
“the beliefs previously associated with the qağan were transferred to the figure
of the bek/mlk”.347 If this is so, then there cannot be any talk of dual kingship
in Khazaria, but rather of the replacement of one sacralized ruling house with
another, and in both cases the rulers (the beks and the khagans) are bearers
of both the secular and the priestly authority. However, the information on
the Khazar dual kingship does not come from the Khazar Correspondence, but
from Eastern sources. Without them this topic would probably not exist at all.
Therefore, such a “seizure” of power authorities is hardly possible in light of the
information we have on Khazaria.
For the same reason, A. Tortika’s view that the Khazar dual kingship was
in fact a change of the ruling dynasty cannot be accepted. The khagan not
only lost his power, but the status of the bek’s wife rose and she assumed the
title of khatun348 (a title that in the steppe world was given only to the wife
of the khagan). This statement is not substantiated. According to A. Tortika,
dynastic marriages also became a prerogative of the Khazar beks. He bases
his assumption on the account in the Cambridge Document about the Alanian
woman who married Joseph after his father, Aaron, subjugated Alania.349 At
the same time, A. Tortika notes that the story of a khatun who was of the Barsil
people, contained in the Armenian Geography, shows “that this tribe had a
special position in the khaganate, practically equal to that of the Khazars”.350
The information we have regarding the tenth century refers only to women,
taken into marriage from subordinate lands and tribes, and is unrelated to the
Khazar khatun. It should also be noted that the high status of the khatun in the
state was inconceivable without the sacral character of the khagan.
On the other hand, A. Tortika claims that in the tenth century the Khazar
khagans retained “only the right to ritual polygamy as described by Ibn
Fadlan”.351 Ibn Fadlan, however, associated with the Khazar khagan both the
60 concubines and the 25 wives who were daughters of subordinate rulers.352
So A. Tortika’s theory not only does not clarify the power prerogatives of the
two Khazar rulers, but also, in my opinion, leads to an opposite conclusion.
347 Shapira 2005a, 510.
348 Tortika 2006a, 214–217.
349 Tortika 2006a, 214.
350 Tortika 2006a, 211.
351 Tortika 2006a, 222–223.
352 Ibn Fadlan. Puteshestvie do Volzhska Bulgariia, in Naumov 1992, 76.