The Khazar qaghanate (ca. 650–ca. 965–969; qaghan [khagan] is an Inner Asian term for “emperor”), one of the largest polities of the medieval Eurasian world, extended from the Dnepr zone in Ukraine to lands east of the Volga and from the Middle Volga to the North Caucasus and Crimea. Khazaria played a major role in the trade between the northern forest zone and the Byzantine and Islamic empires. The Khazar qaghans ruled over Turkic, Iranian, Finno-Ugrian, Slavic, and Palaeo-Caucasian peoples as well a…