Khazaria floats on the outer edges of our literary and historical consciousness, if we know it at all.
Most of us have a general idea of the histories of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish worlds, but Khazaria belongs to none of them; and we think we know Europe, Asia and the Middle East, but Khazaria is peripheral to all three; and we have a fair idea about the ancient and modern worlds, but Khazaria existed only in the Dark Ages between them.
Its semi-mythical existence is a gift to writers, who can make of it what they will.
Khazaria in the imagination
All the Horses of Iceland
All the Horses of Iceland (Tor, 2022) is a beautiful novella by Sarah Tolmie. As a poet, novelist and mediaevalist she is almost uniquely qualified to write about a ninth-century Icelandic trader’s journey to Central Asia and back.
