There are so many prizes of Ukraine for the West, the power that be in the West; -Russian Naval Base at Sevastopol Crimea -Russian transit gas pipelines network to Europe -The Ukrainian southeast industrial complex -The fertile black earth of Ukraine But for the power that be (the Jewish banking cartel), Ukraine is a revenge of a bitter memories, since Svyatoslav I of Kiev, the founding father of Russia, sacked and dismembered Khazaria, the first European Jews State in the world. Shortly after his accession to the throne, Sviatoslav began campaigning to expand Rus control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region. His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus, so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus. Sviatoslav began by rallying the East Slavic vassal tribes of the Khazars to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus rather than to the Khazars. According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Sviatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: I want to come at you! (Old East Slavic: хощю на вы ити) This phrase is used in modern Russian (usually misquoted as Иду на вы) and in modern Ukrainian (Іду на ви) to denote an unequivocal declaration of ones intentions. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he invaded Volga Bulgaria and exacted tribute from the local population, thus bringing under Kievan control the upper Volga River. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the superior cavalry of the Khazars and Bulgars. Sviatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, possibly sacking (but not occupying) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea as well. At Sarkel he established a Rus settlement called Belaya Vyezha (the white tower or the white fortress, the East Slavic translation for Sarkel). He subsequently destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil. A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Sviatoslavs campaign: The Rus attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch. The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil. Although Ibn Haukal reports the sack of Samandar (in modern-day Dagestan) by Sviatoslav, the Rus leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Sviatoslav chose to strike against the Ossetians and force them into subservience. Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region.The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Sviatoslavs campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 21:00:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015