The Myth of the Khazars and Intellectual Antisemitism in Russia, 1970s-1990s by Victor Shnirelman (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 779 of the state's coercive forces that counts for most and not simply organized collective resistance (civil society) but the possibilities for armed resistance that is crucial. But such criticismsare simply illustrativeof the multiplicityof potentially significantfactorsrelevant to the complexity of social explanation andthe difficulty,therefore,of achievingsatisfactoryexplanations,particularly when based on few cases, however well chosen. Though Sharman may not have succeeded fully in the general theory of Communist systemsand their impact on the way people within them defend their interests, to which aspired, importantly Sharman does succeed in opening new avenues of thought through drawingtogether ideas of totalitarianismwith socialmovement theories.Sharmanalsosucceedsindemonstrating the importanceof the questionof how the governmentsof Communistsystems 'stay in power without the consent of the governed'. In short, this is a highly rewardingbook to read. School ofPolitics(SPIRE) R. H. T. O'KANE Keele University Shnirelman,Victor. TheMythoftheKhazars andIntellectual Antisemitism inRussia, I970s-I99Os. The Vital Sassoon International Center for the Study of AntisemitismandThe HebrewUniversityofJerusalem,Jerusalem, 2002. 200 pp. Index. Bibliography.Map. Illustrations.$15.00 (paperback). On avisitto Moscow in I992, I askedthe dealerwho soldbookson the railings outside the Lenin Libraryif he had any works by Gumilev. 'Sorry, no,' he replied. 'It'sa shame too, since he was such an interestingpoet.' It is doubtful today that anyone would confuse Lev Gumilev with his father,the poet, early victim of Bolshevism, and husband of Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilev. The works of Lev Nikolaevich crowd the shelves of Russian bookstores, and he has become the saint of the so-called Neo-Eurasianists.Gumilev is famous for his theory of the 'scientific theory of ethnogenesis', which sees ethnos (ethnicity) as a primordial, natural phenomenon, to which every human belongs. He establisheda hierarchyof sub-ethnos, ethnos, and super-ethnos, the latter being a group who come into being simultaneouslyin a particular region, and demonstratesa historicalunity.A super-ethnoscan be threatened and destroyedby a 'chimera',a groupof alien interloperswho arenot adapted to their new natural environment, and must exploit it like parasites or a cancer. Russianhistorycan be interpretedthroughthe interactionof the Slavs and surrounding ethnic groups. The inter-ethnic relationship that has attracted the most attention, because of its presumed long-term impact, is between the Rus' and the Khazars, a strugglebetween a Slavic super-ethnos and aJewish chimera. The Khazarswere one of the many nomadicpeoples who lived on thelower Volga and who, in the eighth to ninth centuries, created a prosperous state that withstood Arab incursionsinto the region. In the mid-tenth century the Khazars were defeated by the Rus' under the leadership of Grand Prince Sviatoslav.With theirimperiumon the wane, the Khazarsdisappearedin the courseof the twelfthcentury.The most strikingfeatureof the Khazarswas the 780 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 conversion of their elite ruling class to Judaism apparentlyin its rabbinic form by the end of the eighth century. Most of Khazar historyis contested, but they are an enduringpresence. A fabled correspondence between the Khazar ruler,Joseph, and a prominent Jewish official in Muslim Spain, Hisdai ibn Shaprut, has been the focus of scholarly debate for centuries. The discovery of a letter in the Cambridge Genizah collection from a group of KhazarianJews provided the firstwritten appearance of the city's name Kiev. The famous Primagy Chronicle account of Prince Vladimir's choice of a higher religion featured Khazars as the spokesmenforJudaism. ArthurKoestler created a sensation and produced a best-seller, TheThirteenth Tribe, by recyclingthe nineteenth-centurytheorythat the dispersed Khazars were the foundation settlement of PolishJewry. The Khazars, who even boast a well-maintained website, remain a topic of fascination for specialistsand 'buffs'alike. As Victor Shnirelman reveals, in this wide-rangingand well-documented study,the Khazar legend has proven a rich source of anti-Semitictropes,up to the presentday. Since much of the historyof the Khazarsremainsobscure,archaeologywas early on called upon to elucidate the Khazar past. This led to disputes as to whether or not settlement and burial sites were Khazar-specific.Nor could these investigationsresolve questions of the Khazar relationshipwith neighbours and tributaries. Was there a Khazar imperium providing peace, prosperity and security for their subjects, or was Khazaria a rapacious, parasitic state whose levies bled white the Slavs and whose benefits accrued only to its 'Kike' leadership? Shnirelman traces the on...