126 CHAPTER 1
Sacral kingship in Eurasia and especially sacral regicide are incomprehensible
without the cult of the Great Goddess. The supreme female deity and strong
female power constitute an indispensable part of the steppe peoples’ tradition.
They have also been preserved in medieval concepts of the origin of kingship.
The symbol that indicates the existence of the cult of the goddess in Khazaria
is the trident. Accounts from the seventh century regarding the Caucasian
Huns also speak of this.
It is unclear whether the cult of the goddess in Khazaria had the same
semantic content as in Khwarezm or in the Bosporan Kingdom. Neither is it
clear whether it remained unchanged until the tenth century. However, the
cult of the goddess defined the dual kingship and the stronger sacralization of
one of the rulers. The androgyny and the male/female features of the “sons of
the Goddess” (both the divine characters and the kings) help in clarifying the
authority of the Khazar khagan. He probably personified the “female” features
of power. The khagan was a mediator between worlds as an incarnation of the
world tree. He was responsible for the fertility and the existence of the world.
In their core the notions of power in Bulgaria and Khazaria lead to the
steppe and Middle Asian tradition.522 For the Bulgars and Alans in the kha-
ganate these ideas were not “foreign”, but a part of their understanding of
the world order. The Khazar dual kingship should not be construed from the
Judaization, since the pagan notions in this regard are evident and can explain
the dual kingdom. These notions suggest a mixed development and do not
always lead to the full sacralization of the supreme ruler, the way the Khazar
khagan is described in Eastern sources. Assuming that such notions were also
dominant in Bulgaria prior to 865, the difference is evident. In this regard the
Khazar Khaganate shows a development which could have been determined
by the views of the Khazars themselves.
There is no evidence of a disruption between the Khazar nobility and the
population of the khaganate after the conversion to Judaism. On the contrary,
the sacralization of the person of the khagan was most probably reinforced.
Problems concerning the legitimacy of the khagan and the respect for his
authority arose mainly from communities of converts to Islam or Christianity
with an autonomous or semiautonomous status (for example, Volga Bulgaria
and Alania).
522 See for instance Stepanov 1999a, 2005a and 2005b; Golden 2003; Pritsak 1981b.