The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who dominated the Pontic steppe and the North Caucasus from the 7th to the 10th century CE. The name 'Khazar' seems to be tied to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering".
In the 7th century CE, the Khazars founded an independent Khaganate in the Northern Caucasus along the Caspian Sea. Although the Khazars were initially Tengri shamanists, many converted to the Abrahamic faiths through interaction with the Byzantine Empire & successive Islamic caliphates; during the eighth or ninth century, the Khaganate adopted Judaism as state religion. At their height, the Khazars and their tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the Northern Caucasus ( Circassia, Dagestan, Chechnya), parts of Georgia and the Crimea.
Between 965 and 969, their sovereignty was broken by Sviatoslav I of Kiev, and they became a subject people of Kievan Rus'. Gradually displaced by the Rus, the Kipchaks, and later the conquering Mongol Golden Horde, the Khazars largely disappeared as a culturally distinct people.
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