CHALYZIANS:
A people who, according to the Byzantine historian, John Cinnamus (twelfth century), accepted the Mosaic law. They fought, together with the Dalmatians, against the Greeks in the reign of Manuel Comnenus in 1154. "Chalyzians," as A. Harkavy suggests, is probably the name given by Cinnamus to the Chazars, whom Duke Taksony of Hungary invited, among other tribes, to settle in his domains, in order to make good the losses in the population of the country, due to the many raids which the Hungarians undertook into surrounding countries, but which, after causing alarm to the whole of Europe, resulted in the final defeat of Duke Taksony in the year 970.
The Polish historian August Bielkowski, however, suggests that the Chalyzians of Cinnamus were the Chvalissy of Nestor. When the Hungarians removed to Dacia and Pannonia, the reigning family among them was the Kabary, one of the Chazar tribes.
- Cinnamus, Epitome, etc., ed. Niebuhr, iii. 107, 247, Bonn, 1836;
- A. Harkavy, Ha-Jehudim u-Sefat ha-Slavim, p. 132, Wilna, 1867;
- Nestor's Aelteste Jahrbücher der Russischen Geschichte, translated by Scherer, p. 42, Leipsic, 1774.
