Iron Age and Classical Antiquity Before the city was founded as a Greek colony the area was dominated by
Colchians (west Georgian) and
Chaldian (Anatolian) tribes. The
Hayasa, who had been in conflict with the Central-Anatolian
Hittites in the 14th century BC, are believed to have lived in the area south of Trabzon. Later Greek authors mentioned the
Macrones and the
Chalybes as native peoples. One of the dominant Caucasian groups to the east were the
Laz, who were part of the monarchy of the
Colchis, together with other related
Georgian peoples. The city was founded in
classical antiquity in 756 BC as Tραπεζούς (
Trapezous), by
Milesian traders from
Sinope. It was one of a number (about ten) of Milesian
emporia or
trading colonies along the shores of the Black Sea. Others included
Abydos and
Cyzicus in the
Dardanelles, and nearby
Kerasous. Like most
Greek colonies, the city was a small enclave of Greek life, and not an empire unto its own, in the later European sense of the word. As a colony, Trapezous initially paid tribute to Sinope, but early banking (money-changing) activity is suggested to have occurred in the city already in the 4th century BC, according to a silver
drachma coin from Trapezus in the
British Museum, London.
Cyrus the Great added the city to the
Achaemenid Empire, and was possibly the first ruler to consolidate the eastern Black Sea region into a single political entity (a
satrapy). reached on their retreat from Persia. 19th c. illustration by Herman Vogel. Trebizond's trade partners included the
Mossynoeci. When
Xenophon and the
Ten Thousand mercenaries were fighting their way out of
Persia, the first Greek city they reached was Trebizond (Xenophon,
Anabasis, 5.5.10). The city and the local Mossynoeci had become estranged from the Mossynoecian capital, to the point of civil war. Xenophon's force resolved this in the rebels' favor, and so in Trebizond's interest. Up until the conquests of
Alexander the Great the city remained under the dominion of the Achaemenids. While the Pontus was not directly affected by the war, its cities gained independence as a result of it. Local ruling families continued to claim partial Persian heritage, and Persian culture had some lasting influence on the city; the holy springs of Mt. Minthrion to the east of the old town were devoted to the Persian-Anatolian Greek god
Mithra. In the 2nd century BC, the city with its natural harbours was added to the
Kingdom of Pontus by
Pharnaces I.
Mithridates VI Eupator made it the home port of the Pontic fleet, in his quest to remove the Romans from Anatolia. After the defeat of Mithridates in 66 BC, the city was first handed to the
Galatians, but it was soon returned to the grandson of Mithradates, and subsequently became part of the new client Kingdom of Pontus. When the kingdom was finally annexed to the
Roman province of
Galatia two centuries later, the fleet passed to new commanders, becoming the
Classis Pontica. The city received the status of
civitas libera, extending its judicial autonomy and the right to mint its own coin. Trebizond gained importance for its access to roads leading over the
Zigana Pass to the Armenian frontier or the upper
Euphrates valley. New roads were constructed from
Persia and
Mesopotamia under the rule of
Vespasian. In the next century, the emperor
Hadrian commissioned improvements to give the city a more structured harbor. The emperor visited the city in the year 129 as part of his inspection of the eastern border (
limes). A
mithraeum now serves as a crypt for the church and monastery of Panagia Theoskepastos (
Kızlar Manastırı) in nearby Kizlara, east of the citadel and south of the modern harbor. ,
Vatican Library. and the Eugenius Aqueduct are among the oldest remaining structures in the city.
Septimius Severus punished Trebizond for having supported his rival
Pescennius Niger during the
Year of the Five Emperors. In 257 the city was pillaged by the
Goths, despite reportedly being defended by "10,000 above its usual garrison" and two bands of walls. Eugenius had destroyed the statue of
Mithras which overlooked the city from
Mount Minthrion (Boztepe), and became the patron saint of the city after his death. Early Christians sought refuge in the Pontic Mountains south of the city, where they established
Vazelon Monastery in 270 AD and
Sumela Monastery in 386 AD. As early as the
First Council of Nicea, Trebizond had its own bishop. Subsequently, the Bishop of Trebizond was subordinated to the
Metropolitan Bishop of
Poti. An inscription above the eastern gate of the city, commemorated the reconstruction of the civic walls at Justinian's expense following an earthquake. The city regained importance when it became the seat of the theme of
Chaldia. Trebizond also benefited when the trade route regained importance in the 8th to 10th centuries; 10th-century Muslim authors note that Trebizond was frequented by Muslim merchants, as the main source transshipping
Byzantine silks into eastern Muslim countries. According to the 10th century
Arab geographer
Abulfeda it was regarded as being largely a
Lazian port. The Italian maritime republics such as the
Republic of Venice and in particular the
Republic of Genoa were active in the Black Sea trade for centuries, using Trebizond as an important seaport for trading goods between Europe and Asia. Some of the
Silk Road caravans carrying goods from Asia stopped at the port of Trebizond, where the European merchants purchased these goods and carried them to the port cities of Europe with ships. This trade provided a source of revenue to the state in the form of custom duties, or
kommerkiaroi, levied on the goods sold in Trebizond. The Greeks protected the coastal and inland trade routes with a vast network of garrison forts. Following the
Byzantine defeat at the
Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Trebizond came under
Seljuk rule. This rule proved transient when an expert soldier and local aristocrat,
Theodore Gabras took control of the city from the Turkish invaders, and regarded Trebizond, in the words of
Anna Comnena, "as a prize which had fallen to his own lot" and ruled it as his own kingdom. Supporting Comnena's assertion,
Simon Bendall has identified a group of rare coins he believes was minted by Gabras and his successors. Although he was killed by the Turks in 1098, other members of his family continued his de facto independent rule into the next century.
Empire of Trebizond The
Empire of Trebizond was formed after a
Georgian expedition in Chaldia, commanded by
Alexios Komnenos a few weeks before the
sack of Constantinople in 1204. Located at the far northeastern corner of
Anatolia, it was the longest surviving of the
Byzantine successor states. Byzantine authors, such as
Pachymeres, and to some extent Trapezuntines such as
Lazaropoulos and
Bessarion, regarded the Trebizond Empire as being no more than a
Lazian border state. Thus, from the point of view of the Byzantine writers connected with the
Lascaris and later with the
Palaiologos, the rulers of Trebizond were not emperors. , as drawn by
Charles Texier Geographically, the Empire of Trebizond consisted of little more than a narrow strip along the southern coast of the
Black Sea, and not much further inland than the
Pontic Mountains. However, the city gained great wealth from the taxes it levied on the goods traded between Persia and Europe via the Black Sea. The Mongol
siege of Baghdad in 1258 diverted more trade caravans towards the city. Genoese and to a lesser extent Venetian traders regularly came to Trebizond. To secure their part of the Black Sea trade, the Genoese bought the coastal fortification "Leonkastron", just west of the winter harbour, in the year 1306. The Venetians likewise built a trading outpost in the city, a few hundred meters to the west of the Genoese. In between these two Italian colonies settled many other European traders, and it thus became known as the "European Quarter". Small groups of Italians continued to live in the city until the early decades of the 20th century. One of the most famous persons to have visited the city in this period was
Marco Polo, who ended his overland return journey at the port of Trebizond, and sailed to his hometown
Venice with a ship; passing by
Constantinople (
Istanbul) on the way, which was retaken by the
Byzantines in 1261. in a fresco of the
Sant'Anastasia church in
Verona, painted between 1436 and 1438 Together with Persian goods, Italian traders brought stories about the city to Western Europe. Trebizond played a mythical role in European literature of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Miguel de Cervantes and
François Rabelais gave their protagonists the desire to possess the city. Next to literature, the legendary history of the city – and that of the Pontus in general – also influenced the creation of
paintings,
theatre plays and
operas in Western Europe throughout the following centuries. The city also played a role in the early
Renaissance; the western takeover of Constantinople, which formalized Trebizond's political independence, also led Byzantine intellectuals to seek refuge in the city. Especially
Alexios II of Trebizond and his grandson
Alexios III were patrons of the arts and sciences. After the great city fire of 1310, the ruined university was reestablished. As part of the university
Gregory Choniades opened a new academy of astronomy, which housed the best observatory outside Persia. Choniades brought with him the works of Shams al-Din al-Bukhari,
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and
Abd al-Rahman al-Khazini from Tabriz, which he translated into Greek. These works later found their way to western Europe, together with the
astrolabe. The observatory Choniades built would become known for its accurate
solar eclipse predictions, but was probably used mostly for
astrological purposes for the emperor and/or the church. Scientists and philosophers of Trebizond were among the first western thinkers to compare contemporaneous theories with classical Greek texts.
Basilios Bessarion and
George of Trebizond travelled to Italy and taught and published works on
Plato and
Aristotle, starting a fierce debate and literary tradition that continues to this day on the topic of national identity and
global citizenship. They were so influential that Bessarion was considered for the position of
Pope, and George could survive as an academic even after being defamed for his heavy criticism of Plato. The
Black Death arrived at the city in September 1347, probably via
Kaffa. At that time the local aristocracy was engaged in the
Trapezuntine Civil War. In 1340, Tur Ali Beg, an early ancestor of the
Aq Qoyunlu, raided Trebizond. In 1348, he besieged Trebizond, however he failed and lifted the siege. Later on,
Alexios III of Trebizond gave his sister to
Kutlu Beg son of Tur Ali Beg, and established a kinship with them. Constantinople remained the Byzantine capital until it was
conquered by the
Ottoman Sultan
Mehmed II in 1453, who also
conquered Trebizond eight years later, in 1461. Its demographic legacy endured for several centuries after the Ottoman conquest in 1461, as a substantial number of
Greek Orthodox inhabitants, usually referred to as
Pontic Greeks, continued to live in the area during Ottoman rule, up until 1923, when they were deported to Greece. A few thousand
Greek Muslims still live in the area, mostly in the
Çaykara-
Of dialectical region to the southeast of Trabzon. Most are Sunni Muslim, while there are some recent converts in the city and possibly a few
Crypto-Christians in the
Tonya/
Gümüşhane area to the southwest of the city. Compared to most previously Greek cities in Turkey, a large amount of its Greek Byzantine architectural heritage survives as well.
Ottoman era The last Emperor of Trebizond,
David, surrendered the city to Sultan
Mehmed II of the
Ottoman Empire in 1461. Following this takeover, Mehmed II sent many Turkish settlers into the area, but the old ethnic
Greek,
Laz and
Armenian communities remained. According to the Ottoman tax books (
tahrir defterleri), the total population of taxable adult males (only those with a household) in the city was 1,473 in the year 1523. The total population of the city was much higher. Approximately 85% of the population was Christian, and 15% Muslim. Thirteen percent of the adult males belonged to the Armenian community, while the vast majority of Christians were Greeks. In 1598 it became the capital of its own province - the
Eyalet of Trebizond - which in 1867 became the
Vilayet of Trebizond. During the reign of Sultan
Bayezid II, his son
Prince Selim (later Sultan
Selim I) was the
Sanjak-bey of Trabzon, and Selim I's son
Suleiman the Magnificent was born in Trabzon in 1494. The Ottoman government often appointed local
Chepni Turks and
Laz beys as the regional
beylerbey. It is also recorded that some
Bosniaks were appointed by the
Sublime Porte as the regional beylerbeys in Trabzon. The Eyalet of Trabzon had always sent troops for the
Ottoman campaigns in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. Trebizond had a wealthy merchant class during the late Ottoman period, and the local Christian minority had a substantial influence in terms of culture, economy and politics. A number of European consulates were opened in the city due to its importance in regional trade and commerce. In the first half of the 19th century, Trebizond even became the main port for Persian exports. The opening of the
Suez Canal greatly diminished the international trading position of the city, but did not halt the economic development of the region. In the last decades of the 19th century, the city saw some demographic changes. As the population of the province greatly expanded due to increased living standards, many families and young men - mostly
Christians, but also some Jews and Greek or Turkish speaking Muslims - chose to migrate to the Crimea and southern Ukraine, in search for farmland or employment in one of the cities which had been newly established there. Among these migrants were the grandparents of
Bob Dylan and Greek politicians and artists. Many Christian and Muslim families from Trabzon also moved to Constantinople, where they established businesses or sought employment - such as the grandfather of
Ahmet Ertegün. These migrants were active in a wide range of trades including baking, confection, tailoring, carpentry, education, advocacy, politics and administration. The influence of this diaspora has since continued, and can still be seen in the many restaurants and shops in cities around the Black Sea in the 21st century such as in Istanbul,
Odesa and
Mariupol. At the same time, thousands of Muslim refugees from the Caucasus arrived in the city, especially after 1864, in what is known as the
Circassian genocide. Next to Constantinople,
Smyrna (now
İzmir) and Salonika (now
Thessaloniki), Trebizond was one of the cities where western cultural and technological innovations were first introduced to the Ottoman Empire. In 1835, the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions opened the Trebizond Mission station that it occupied from 1835 to 1859 and from 1882 to at least 1892. Hundreds of schools were constructed in the province during the first half of the 19th century, giving the region one of the highest literacy rates of the empire. First, the Greek community set up their schools, but soon the Muslim and Armenian communities followed. International schools were also established in the city; An American school, five French schools, a Persian school and a number of Italian schools were opened in the second half of the 19th century. The city got a post office in 1845. New churches and mosques were built in the second half of the 19th century, as well as the first theater, public and private printing houses, multiple photo studios and banks. The oldest known photographs of the city center date from the 1860s and depict one of the last
camel trains from Persia. Between one and two thousand Armenians are believed to have been killed in the Trebizond
vilayet during the
Hamidian massacres of 1895. While this number was low in comparison to other Ottoman provinces, its impact on the Armenian community in the city was large. Many prominent Armenian residents, among them scholars, musicians, photographers and painters, decided to migrate towards the Russian Empire or France. The large Greek population of the city was not affected by the massacre.
Ivan Aivazovsky made the painting
Massacre of the Armenians in Trebizond 1895 based on the events. Due to the high number of Western Europeans in the city, news from the region was being reported on in many European newspapers. These western newspapers were in turn also very popular among the residents of the city.
Ottoman era paintings and drawings of Trebizond File:Ivan Aivazovsky Trebizond 1865.jpg|Trebizond from the sea by
Ivan Aivazovsky File:Harbour Trebizond C. Lapante HQ.jpg|Engraving of the port at Çömlekçi by C. Lapante File:Durand-Brager 3.jpg|Trebizond by
Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager File:Port of Trebizond Y.M. Tadevossian.jpg|Trebizond from the sea by
Yeghishe Tadevosyan File:Trebizond Godfrey Thomas Vigne (1833).jpg|Trebizond from the south by
Godfrey Vigne File:Quarantine station at Trebizond by Jules Laurens.jpg|The quarantine station by
Jules Laurens File:Trebizond 'East town' 1922.jpg|Street view by
Nikolay Lanceray Modern era In 1901 the harbour was equipped with cranes by
Stothert & Pitt of
Bath in England. In 1912 the Sümer Opera House was opened on the central Meydan square, being one of the first in the empire. The start of the
First World War brought an abrupt end to the relatively peaceful and prosperous period the city had seen during the previous century. First Trebizond would lose many of its young male citizens at the
Battle of Sarikamish in the winter of 1914–15, while during those same months the Russian navy bombarded the city a total of five times, taking 1300 lives. Especially the port quarter Çömlekçi and surrounding neighborhoods were targeted. In July 1915 most of the adult male Armenians of the city were marched off south in five convoys, towards the mines of Gümüşhane, never to be seen again. Other victims of the
Armenian genocide were reportedly taken out to sea in boats which were then capsized. In some areas of Trebizond province - such as the Karadere river valley in modern-day
Araklı, 25 kilometers east of the city - the local Muslim population tried to protect the Christian Armenians. The coastal region between the city and the Russian frontier became the site of key battles between the Ottoman and
Russian armies during the
Trebizond Campaign, as part of the
Caucasus Campaign of World War I. The Russian army landed at
Atina, east of Rize on March 4, 1916.
Lazistan Sanjak fell within two days. However, due to heavy guerrilla resistance around Of and Çaykara some 50 km to the east of Trabzon, it took a further 40 days for the Russian army to advance west. The Ottoman administration of Trabzon foresaw the fall of the city and called for a meeting with community leaders, where they handed control of the city to Greek metropolitan bishop
Chrysantos Philippidis. Chrysantos promised to protect the Muslim population of the city. Ottoman forces retreated from Trabzon, and on April 15 the city was taken without a fight by the
Russian Caucasus Army under command of
Grand Duke Nicholas and
Nikolai Yudenich. There was also a massacre of Armenians and Greeks in Trabzon just before the Russian takeover of the city. In early 1917 Chrysantos tried to broker a peace between the Russians and the Ottomans, to no avail. During the
Russian Revolution of 1917 Russian soldiers in the city turned to rioting and looting, with officers commandeering Trebizonian ships to flee the scene. Governor Chrysantos was able to calm the Russian soldiers down, and the Russian Army ultimately retreated from the city and the rest of eastern and northeastern
Anatolia. In March and April 1918 the city hosted the
Trebizond Peace Conference, where the Ottomans agreed to give up their military gains in the Caucasus in return for recognition of the eastern borders of the empire in Anatolia by the
Transcaucasian Seim (a short-lived transcaucasian government). In December 1918 Trabzon deputy governor
Hafız Mehmet gave a speech at the
Ottoman parliament in which he blamed the former governor of
Trebizond province Cemal Azmi – a non-native appointee who had fled to Germany after the Russian invasion – for orchestrating the Armenian genocide in the city in 1915, by means of drowning. Subsequently, a series of war crimes trials were held in Trebizond in early 1919 (see
Trebizond during the Armenian genocide). Among others, Cemal Azmi was sentenced to death in absentia. During the
Turkish War of Independence several Christian
Pontic Greek communities in the Trebizond province rebelled against the new army of
Mustafa Kemal (notably in
Bafra and
Santa), but when nationalist Greeks came to Trabzon to proclaim revolution, they were not received with open arms by the local Pontic Greek population of the city. At the same time the Muslim population of the city, remembering their protection under Greek governor Chrysantos, protested the arrest of prominent Christians. Liberal delegates of Trebizond opposed the election of Mustafa Kemal as the leader of the Turkish revolution at the
Erzurum Congress. The governor and mayor of Trebizond were appalled by the violence against Ottoman Greek subjects, and the government of Trabzon thus refused arms to Mustafa Kemal's henchman
Topal Osman, who was responsible for mass murders in the western Pontus which were part of the
Greek genocide. Osman was forced out of the city by armed Turkish port-workers. Governor Chrysantos travelled to the
Paris Peace Conference, where he proposed the establishment of the
Republic of Pontus, which would protect its different ethnic groups. For this he was condemned to death by the Turkish Nationalist forces, and he could not return to his post in Trebizond. Instead, the city was to be handed to '
Wilsonian Armenia', which likewise never materialized. Following the war, the
Treaty of Sèvres was annulled and replaced with the
Treaty of Lausanne (1923). As part of this new treaty, Trebizond became part of the new
Turkish Republic. The efforts of the pro-
Ottoman, anti-nationalist population of Trebizond only postponed the inevitable, because the national governments of Turkey and Greece agreed to a mutual
forced population exchange. This exchange included well over 100,000
Greeks from Trebizond and the vicinity, who moved to Greece (founding the new towns of
Nea Trapezounta, Pieria and
Nea Trapezounta, Grevena amongst others). During the war Trebizond parliamentarian
Ali Şükrü Bey had been one of the leading figures of the
first Turkish opposition party. In his newspaper
Tan, Şükrü and colleagues publicized critiques of the Kemalist government, such as towards the violence perpetrated against Greeks during the population exchange. Şükrü argued that recognition of ethnic diversity was not a threat to the Turkish nation. Topal Osman's men would eventually murder parliamentarian Şükrü for his criticism of the nationalist government of Mustafa Kemal in March 1923. Topal Osman was later sentenced to death and killed while resisting arrest. After pressure from the opposition, his headless body was hanged by his foot in front of the Turkish parliament. Ali Şükrü Bey, who had studied in
Deniz Harp Okulu (Turkish Naval Academy) and worked as a journalist in the United Kingdom, is seen as a hero by the people of Trabzon, while in neighboring Giresun there is a statue of his murderer Topal Osman. Three years later Trabzon deputy Hafız Mehmet – who had testified to his knowledge of, and opposition to, the Armenian Ggenocide – was also executed, for his alleged involvement in the
İzmir plot to assassinate Mustafa Kemal. The literal decapitation of the Turkish political opposition – which was in large part based in the Trabzon region – decreased the city's national influence, and led to a long-standing animosity between the Kemalists and the population of Trabzon. A political and cultural divide between the Eastern Black Sea Region and the rest of Anatolia continued to exist throughout the 20th century, and still influences Turkish politics today. Even in the 21st century, politicians who hail from Trabzon are often faced with xenophobic attacks from both nationalist and conservative circles. During World War II shipping activity was limited because the Black Sea had again become a war zone. Hence, the most important export products,
tobacco and
hazelnuts, could not be sold and living standards degraded. As a result of the general development of the country, Trabzon has developed its economic and commercial life. The coastal highway and a new harbour have increased commercial relations with central Anatolia, which has led to some growth. However, progress has been slow in comparison to the western and the southwestern parts of Turkey. Trabzon is famous throughout Turkey for its
anchovies called
hamsi, which are the main meal in many restaurants in the city. Major exports from Trabzon include
hazelnuts and
tea. The city still has a sizable community of
Greek-speaking Muslims, most of whom are originally from the vicinities of
Tonya,
Sürmene and
Çaykara. However, the variety of the
Pontic Greek language - known as "
Romeika" in the local vernacular,
Pontiaka in Greek, and
Rumca in Turkish - is spoken mostly by the older generations. ==Geography==