British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The Eastern Mediterranean in the Thirteenth century:
identities and allegiances
Abstract
The Empire of Trebizond and Beyond
Dr Rustam Shukurov
Sources:
The available sources relating to the earliest period of the history of the Empire of Trebizond (1204-1261) can be characterized by two essential features. 1) The source base is outstandingly multilingual (Greek, Arabic, Persian, Georgian, Armenian, Turkic, Syrian, Western) and very much fragmented. Very scanty and brief information is dispersed in a considerable number of texts of different genres belonging to diverse cultural and linguistic areas. 2) In the first half of the thirteenth century, the region stepped into a sort of informational vacuum, an informational hole. Region's history is seen as if from behind the veil with contours and details very much blurred and imprecise. It is true in the regard of all cultural areas providing information for the history of the Empire of Trebizond (Byzantium, the Saljuq Sultanate, Georgia, Armenia).
Methodology:
I adduce some examples of prosopographic study of the Pontic population in order to show the importance of the etymological analyses of personal names. The names of Arabic, Turkic, Persian, Kartvelian, Romance, Armenian origin will be discussed. Some examples will be given to show the importance of the proper study of place-names that in many cases were derived from personal names.
Broadening the horizons:
The fate of the Greeks, Armenians, Georgians and Latins in the Saljuq Sultanate (refugees, mercenaries or the locals and Saljuq subjects) has to be regarded as a part and continuation of the Byzantine world and included into the Prosopographic Lexicon. Some examples of individuals, who crossed boarders to and fro and had double identity, will be discussed.