Theodora of Khazaria

Theodora was the sister of the khagan of the Khazars. She became the wife of Justinian II, a Byzantine emperor in exile.^[1] After he regained his throne, he had her fetched to Constantinople and crowned.^[1]

Marriage

Justinian had lost the throne and lived at Cherson. There he declared in public more than once that he would regain the empire.^[1] The people of Cherson felt that they were in danger. They planned to kill him or to hand him over as a prisoner to Apsimaros, who then ruled in Constantinople.^[1] Justinian learned of it and fled to the fortress of Doros, in the land of the Goths.^[1]

From Doros, Justinian asked the lord of the Khazars, whom they call Chagan, for leave to visit him. The Chagan agreed and received him with honour. After they had become friends, the Chagan gave him his own sister Theodora in marriage.^[1] With the Chagan’s consent, Justinian went to Phanagoria and lived there with her.^[1] Theophanes tells the flight, the marriage and the plot against Justinian under the year 703/4.^[2] Some scholars place the marriage about 704.^[3] A second dates it to 700.^[4]

Nikephoros calls the khagan only the Chagan.^[1] Theophanes does the same.^[5] An anonymous Byzantine chronicle of the eighth century gives his name in garbled forms, among them Ibouzēros Gliabanos and Bouzēros Gliabaros.^[6] The first part of the name is understood as Busir.^[3] Some scholars think that she took the name Theodora on her marriage.^[7] A second calls Theodora a baptismal name, given at the time of her marriage or of her husband’s restoration.^[8] A third points out that the sources do not give her name before baptism and do not say when she was baptised.^[9]

The plot against Justinian

Apsimaros learned where Justinian was. He pressed the lord of the Khazars with repeated requests and promised him large sums of money and gifts. In return he asked for Justinian alive or for his head.^[1] The Chagan gave way and promised to do it. He sent men to guard Justinian, on the pretext that Justinian might fall victim to a plot by his own countrymen. In truth, the guard was there to stop him from escaping.^[1] The Chagan also ordered the chief of his tribesmen, a friend of Justinian, and the commander of the Scythian Bosporos to be ready to kill him when the order came.^[1]

A servant of the Chagan told Theodora of the plot. She told her husband.^[1] Justinian invited the Khazar friend, took him aside and had him strangled. He killed the commander of the Bosporos in the same way.^[1] Then he sent Theodora back to the Chagan and sailed away to seek help from the Bulgarian ruler Terbelis.^[1]

Nikephoros calls the Chagan her father in this passage and the servant one of her father’s household. A modern commentary on the text points out that she was the Chagan’s sister. The same slip occurs in Michael the Syrian.^[10]

Empress

With Bulgarian help, Justinian took Constantinople.^[1] He then fetched his wife Theodora and their son Tiberios from Khazaria and invested them with the imperial crown.^[1] His return to the throne is dated to 705.^[11]

Her marriage belongs to a series of ties between the Khazar house and Byzantium.^[4] In 732 another Khazar princess, Tzitzak, married into the imperial family.^[12]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Nikephoros; Mango 1990, ch. 42
^ Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 520–521
^ a b Dunlop 1954, p. 171
^ a b Zuckerman 2020 (Turkish translation of a chapter of The World of the Khazars, Brill 2007), p. 167
^ Theophanes the Confessor; Scott 1997, p. 520
^ Golden 1980, p. 61, 182–183
^ Scott 1997, p. 520
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 171–172
^ Canıağır 2025, p. 1755
^ Mango 1990, commentary on ch. 42
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 172
^ Golden 1992, p. 238

Sources

Nikephoros
Theophanes the Confessor (after Theophylact Simocatta)

Literature

Cyril Mango (ed., trans.), Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople: Short History (1990)
Cyril Mango, Roger Scott (trans.), The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 (1997)
Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies, Vols. I–II (1980)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Constantine Zuckerman; Alper Geçer (trans.), Hazarlar ve Bizans—İlk Karşılaşma (The Khazars and Byzantium—The First Encounter) (2020 (Turkish translation of a chapter of The World of the Khazars, Brill 2007))
Oğulcan Canıağır; Emin Kırkil, Hazar Kağanlığında Hristiyanlık (2025)