264 CHAPTER 5
(Tmutarakan), which was the main Khazar center in the western part of
Khazaria. It is this city that the Kievan Prince Vladimir recaptured in the 980s,
during his war against the Khazars.197 Samkerts became the center of the
Russian Tmutarakan principality. It is therefore no coincidence that the title
of one of the Tmutarakan princes, Rostislav Vladimirovich (1064–1066), was
“archon of Matrakha (Tmutarakan), Zichia and the whole Khazaria”.198
It could be argued that after Sviatoslav’s military campaigns Tmutarakan
became a unifying center for the subjects of the Khazar Khaganate who pop-
ulated the vicinity of the Taman Peninsula and the Kuban River. According
to both V. Maiko and I. Baranov, after Pesakh’s campaign in the Crimea (in
the 940s) the Bulgars (the majority of which were Christians who supported
Byzantium’s policy) were ousted from the peninsula and replaced by a new
population. V. Maiko assumes that it mainly consisted of ethnic Khazars and
Alans. The two historians believe that the 940s and 950s were the heyday of the
Khazar domination on the peninsula.199 So it is no coincidence that in the sub-
sequent centuries this region (and the Crimea in particular) became known as
Khazaria.200
In the highlighted events different groups of Bulgars held different posi-
tions. The Christianized Bulgars in the Crimea probably supported Byzantium
(especially in light of the close relations that existed at that time between the
already Christian Danube Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire), while the mostly
pagan Bulgar population along the Don and the Severski Donets supported
Khazaria. Much later, in 1016, after an almost 40-year war between Bulgaria
and Byzantium, the Christianized Bulgars in the Crimea rebelled against the
Byzantine Empire (led by Georgius Tzul who was probably a Byzantine digni-
tary) and were crushed by the joined forces of the Rus’ and the Byzantines,201
who together plundered the Bulgarian lands on the Balkans as well.202
The reasons for Khazaria’s “disappearance” should not only be sought
“inside” the khaganate. We have almost no information on the situation in
Khazaria during the second half of the tenth century (unlike the available
197 Gadlo 1990, 21–23.
198 Gadlo 1991, 7.
199 Baranov 1990, 54; Baranov and Maiko 2001, 109–110; Maiko 1997, 113–114 and 2002.
According to Aibabin 2003, 77, Pesakh destroyed most of the Bulgar settlements in the
Crimea.
200 See for instance Artamonov 1962, 446; Baranov 1990, 53; Romashov 2005, 152.
201 On these events, see Sokolova 1971; Artamonov 1962, 437; Gadlo 1990, 27; Romashov 2005,
144–146.
202 Zlatarski 1994, 767; see also Giuzelev 2000, 36; Pavlov 2000, 97.