Elteber

In the hierarchy of the Göktürk and Khazar empires, an Elteber was the client king of an autonomous but tributary tribe or polity.

In the case of the Khazar Khaganate, the rulers of such vassal peoples as the Volga Bulgars, Burtas and North Caucasian Huns were titled elteber or some variant such as "Ilutwer", "Ilutver" (North Caucasian Huns), "Yiltawar" or İltäbär (Volga Bulgaria).

The earliest extant mention of the term is for a ruler of the North Caucasian Huns in the 680's CE, referred to in Christian sources from Caucasian Albania as "Alp Ilutuer". The title was also mentioned in "Letter to Kültegin" in 732. It was used by rulers of pre-Islamic Volga Bulgaria during the period of their vassalage to the Khazars.

References

*Kevin Alan Brook. "The Jews of Khazaria." 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2006.
*Douglas M. Dunlop. "The History of the Jewish Khazars," Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954.
*Peter B. Golden. "Khazar Studies: An Historio-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars." Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1980.
*Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak, "Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century." Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982.