List of Khazar Rulers - Late Khazar Rulers

Late Khazar Rulers

In 969 AD, Sviatoslav I of Kiev sacked Itil, the capital of the Khazar Khaganate. Khazar successor states appear to have survived in the Caucasus and around the Black Sea. We know of two later Khazar rulers:

• c. 986-988 David
• ? -1016 Georgius Tzul (In Kerch)

Georgius Tzul was captured by a joint Rus-Byzantine expedition and his state was destroyed. Shortly thereafter, the Kipchaks became masters of the Pontic steppe (see Cumans). However, there continue to be tantalizing references, in Muslim sources, of battles against "Khazars" in the Caucasus well into the late 11th century; whether Khazar states continued to survive or their name was used generically to describe Caucasian highlanders is unclear.

The fate of the Jewish Khazars is unclear. Jewish travellers of the 12th century continue to refer to them in passing. Khazar Jews are known to have lived in Kiev and even to have emigrated to Spain, the Byzantine Empire and Iraq. According to some sources the majority may have gone to Hungary, Poland and the Crimea, mingling with Jews in those areas and with later waves of Jewish immigrants from the west.