The Myth of the Khazars and Intellectual Antisemitism in Russia, 1970s-1990s

Deals with antisemitic propaganda in the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods, when the term "Khazars" was used as a euphemism for Jews. Explores the image of the Jewish Khazars in the rhetoric and worldview of contemporary Russian nationalists and their ethnocentric myths of the past and the "Russian idea." Clarifies these antisemites' view of a world Jewish conspiracy, explaining the resort to the Khazars as symbols of supposed Jewish domination of Russia from the time of Kievan Rus through the epoch of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevik dictatorship (with Stalin seen as a pawn of the Jew Kaganovich) until the breakup of the Soviet Union - the Jews are blamed for all these calamities. The "Khazar version" of Russian history was touted by "patriotic" nationalists in periodicals, by such archaeologists as Gumilev, and by nationalistic writers of science fiction and belles lettres. Some of these writers highlighted the role of the Khazars in subjugating the Slavs; others stressed world Zionism as a new Khazar plot. These ideas even penetrated the Russian educational system. The myth of the Khazars also attracted Ukrainian nationalists (pp. 148-159).