266 CHAPTER 5
During these fateful years, the military actions affected the whole territory
of Khazaria. The information available for the period between the 960s and the
990s allows the assertion that a large part of the ethnic groups in the khaganate
took the Khazars’ side. This is true not only with regard to the ethnic groups
from the “inner” Khazar lands (the so-called domain of Joseph), but also for
the groups from the “peripheral”, formally tributary regions and states. A telling
example are the Viatichi who were conquered four times by the Kievan princes
(twice by Sviatoslav (in 964 and 966) and twice by Vladimir (in 981 and 982).
Sviatoslav’s campaigns initiated a significant shift in the political and ethnic
map of Eastern Europe. This process lasted for about a century.
Essentially, the conflict between the Rus’ and the Khazars was a war between
Byzantium and Khazaria. It is quite possible that the change in relations
between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire from the 960s onwards206 was a
reflection of it. Also of importance is the fact that a large part of the Bulgar
settlements in the Khazar state were subjected to destruction and ruin as well.
Thus, probably all the Bulgar communities in Eastern Europe became allies of
the Khazars. The same is also true for the Alans. The Kasogs were most proba-
bly also an ally of the Khazars. Volga Bulgaria not only survived, but emerged as
a kind of successor to the khaganate in the Volga region, in rivalry with Kievan
Rus’ and Khwarezm.207
The position of the Pechenegs was controversial, since they were the “spear”
of the Rus’ against the Khazars according to Ibn Hawqal, but beginning from
the late 980s and especially in the 990s they fought almost constantly with
Kievan Rus’.208 S. Tolstov ties the Pecheneg attacks to the policy of Khwarezm.209
same time Kievan Rus’ organized military campaigns against the Czech state and Poland.
In 1018, the Polish Prince Bolesław I (992–1025) even entered Kiev, in support of Prince
Sviatopolk (1015–1019) (who altered Vladimir’s policies and was an ally of the Pechenegs,
for instance) against Yaroslav (1019–1054). At the same time Poland was at war with
Germany, whose allies then were the Czech state and Hungary. For more details on this
subject, see Ostrogorski 1996, 375–411; Nazarenko 1994; Gumilev 1997, 307–308; Shepard
and Franklin 2000, 290–291; Pashuto 1968, 36; Mavrodin 1945, 353.
206 See for instance Ostrogorski 1996, 376–382; Ivanov 1981.
207 On Khwarezm, see Artamonov 1962, 433; Tolstov 1948b, 253–256.
208 According to Povest’ Vremennykh Let, the war between the Rus’ and the Pechenegs erupted
in 988. The Russian chronicle tells of Pecheneg attacks in 991, 992, 993, 996 and 997 (in
Adrianova-Peretts 1950, 83–87). During this period (from 988 till 995), Rus’ troops joined
the Byzantine army also for the campaigns of Basil II (976–1025) against Bulgaria from 991
to 995 (Pashuto 1968, 76). The last record of Rus’ forces fighting on Byzantium’s side in the
war against Bulgaria dates from 1017. The Nikon Chronicle tells of campaigns of the Kievan
Prince Vladimir against the Volga Bulgars in 994 and 997 (Fakhrutdinov 1984, 44–45).
209 Tolsov 1948b, 262.