Chorpan Tarkhan is recorded by
Moses of Kalankatuyk Movses Kaghankatvatsi ( hy, Մովսէս Կաղանկատուացի ''Movses Kaġankatvac’i''), or Movses Daskhurantsi ( ''Movses Dasxuranc’i'') is the reputed author (or authors) of a tenth-century Classical Armenian historiographical work on C ...
as a
Khazar
The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...
general, who conquered
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
in April 630 CE. He was most likely an officer in the army of the
Western Gokturks led by
Böri Shad
Böri Shad (fl. c. 627) ( otk, 𐰋𐰇𐰼𐰃𐱁𐰑, böri šad, , "Wolf governor") was a Turkic prince or general who fought the Persians south of the Caucasus during the Third Perso-Turkic War. In this war the Western Turkic Khaganate was al ...
in the wake of
Ziebel
Tong Yabghu Qaghan (r. 618–628 or 630) (also known as T'ung Yabghu, Tong Yabghu Khagan, and Tong Yabğu, Traditional Chinese 統葉護可汗, Simplified Chinese: 统叶护可汗, pinyin ''Tǒng Yèhù Kěhán'', Wade-Giles: ''T'ung Yeh-hu K'o-ha ...
's (or
Tong Yabghu Khagan
Tong Yabghu Qaghan (r. 618–628 or 630) (also known as T'ung Yabghu, Tong Yabghu Khagan, and Tong Yabğu, Traditional Chinese 統葉護可汗, Simplified Chinese: 统叶护可汗, pinyin ''Tǒng Yèhù Kěhán'', Wade-Giles: ''T'ung Yeh-hu K'o-ha ...
's) victory in the
Third Persian-Turkic War
The Third Perso-Turkic War was the third and final conflict between the Sassanian Empire and the Western Turkic Khaganate. Unlike the previous two wars, it was not fought in Central Asia, but in Transcaucasia. Hostilities were initiated in 627 AD ...
. Chorpan Tarkhan ambushed and killed a 10,000-strong Persian cavalry force sent by
Shahrbaraz
Shahrbaraz (also spelled Shahrvaraz or Shahrwaraz; New Persian: ), was shah (king) of the Sasanian Empire from 27 April 630 to 9 June 630. He usurped the throne from Ardashir III, and was killed by Iranian nobles after forty days. Before usurpi ...
to contain the invasion.
References
*
Peter B. Golden. ''Khazar Studies: An Historio-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars.'' Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1980.
*
Lev Gumilev
Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov (russian: Лев Никола́евич Гумилёв; 1 October 1912 – 15 June 1992) was a Soviet historian, ethnologist, anthropologist and translator. He had a reputation for his highly unorthodox theories of e ...
. ''The Gokturks''. Moscow, 1967.
{{Khazaria
Khazar generals
630
7th-century military personnel
7th century in Armenia
7th-century Turkic people