54 CHAPTER 1
the link to Togarmah. As stated earlier, the notion of the primogenitor (Noah,
Fereydun, Targitaus) suggests the existence of several descendants who estab-
lish the royal dynasties in the various tribes. If the Khazar rulers validated
their legitimacy through Togarmah, then the link to Ashina was not necessary,
since the ruling clan was also a descendant and not equivalent to Targitaus or
Fereydun. This implies the existence of more than one royal family with a com-
mon ancestor and thus makes it possible for the Khazar ruler to be not neces-
sarily a descendant of the Ashina clan, but of the common forefather.
T. Noonan regards the interpretation of Ansa as Ashina as true and believes
that the Ashina clan origin is part of the imperial ideology of the Khazar
dynasty.156 According to V. Petrukhin, the idea that the Khazar dynasty
belonged to the Ashina clan is “obvious”.157 This obviousness, in my opinion,
remains unclear.
A. Novosel’tsev is of a somewhat different opinion. He does not agree with
the identification of Ansa with Ashina and, like D. Dunlop, believes Ansa to
mean the shad title.158 Thus, he rejects one of the main arguments of the pro-
ponents of the theory about the link between the Khazar ruling dynasty and
the Ashina clan. At the same time, A. Novosel’tsev assumes that in the first
half of the seventh century Khazaria was a semi-independent state, the rul-
ers of which bore the title yabghu khagan. They continued to be nominally
considered subjects of the Turkic khagans due to their kinship with the latter,
namely the Ashina dynasty. The Khazar yabghu khagan took on the khagan
title in the 630s, after the death of his relative, the Turkic khagan Tun-Shehu
(Ton Yabghu Khagan).159 This theory cannot be accepted, since the men-
tioned yabghu khagan was the ruler of the Western Turkic Khaganate and
not Khazaria, which was a part of it. It should also be borne in mind that the
yabghu title is not found in sources on the Khazars and was not among the
titles used in the Khazar Khaganate.160
O. Pritsak expresses a similar opinion. He believes that the vicegerent
of the Turkic Khaganate in Khazaria, also a member of the Ashina dynasty,
bore the yabghu title. He declared himself an independent khagan in the
mid-seventh century.161 The sources do not back up this theory. Not surpris-
ingly, C. Zuckerman states that “the connection between Ashina and the
156 Noonan 2001, 89.
157 Petrukhin 1995a, 75.
158 Novosel’tsev 1990 134; Dunlop 1967, 160.
159 Novosel’tsev 1990, 87–89.
160 Dunlop 1967, 28–30; Golden 1980, 50–51; Artamonov 1962, 146–150; Zuckerman 2001, 321–
322; see also Shapira 2007b, 332–346.
161 Golb and Pritsak 1997, 54.