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From Huns Into Persians: the Projected Identity of the Turks in the Byzantine Rhetoric of Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

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From Huns Into Persians: the Projected Identity of the Turks in the Byzantine Rhetoric of Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries From Huns into Persians: The Projected Identity of the Turks in the Byzantine Rhetoric of Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries By Roman Shliakhtin Supervisor: Daniel Ziemann, Niels Gaul Submitted to the Medieval Studies Department Central European University, Budapest In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Medieval Studies CEU eTD Collection Budapest 2016 1 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor professor Niels Gaul who fostered my talents and supported me. His care and trust helped me to overcome many obstacles I met on the way and stimulated me to challenge my own limits and systematize my results. I express gratitude to my supervisor Daniel Ziemann and to the pre-defense committee members Volker Menze and Tijana Krstic. I also thank my first teacher Rustam Shukurov who encouraged me to start the project in 2007 and keeps supporting me with his friendship and advice up to the present day. I thank my colleagues and friends Mariana Bodnaruk, Marijana Vukovic, Andras Kraft and Divna Manolova who read parts of this dissertation at the later stage. I express my gratitude to my mentor and the former head of the Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Studies Program, professor Michael Maas who commented on the methodology of the project. I also thank Head of the PhD Program Alice Choyke and PhD Coordinator Csilla Dobos for their patience and help. I express my appreciation to the following specialists for sharing their expertise and providing feedback on my project: Mary Cunningham, Leslie Brubaker, Michael Jeffreys, Elizabeth Jeffreys, Michael Angold, Mark Whittow, Ingella Nilsson, Ruth Macrides and Paul Magdalino. I thank my colleagues Max Law, Luisa Andriollo, Wiktor Ostasz, Maria Lidova, Nikos Zagklas, Bradley Hostetler, Siren Celik, Nick Matheou, Foteigni Spignou, and Matthew Savage for supporting and helping me on my way. I wish to express my gratitude to many colleagues and friends in the department. First, I thank Janos Mihaly Bak for his useful advice, Judith Rasson for her patience with my English, Gabor Klaniczay for his balanced opinion on different matters, Marianne Shagy for her optimism CEU eTD Collection and Joshka Laszlovsky for stimulating my interest towards the landscape studies and Cristian Nicolae Gaspar for his lessons of Latin. I also express my gratitude to many old friends of mine 2 including Agi Droztmer, Dora Merai, Mircea Dulus, Anna Adashinskaya and all people in CEU who were around me during these six years. I appreciate the financial support from Central European University for a PhD stipend during the three years of my study, for multiple travel grants, and for the write-up grant. I thank all the people who invested in my studies financially and morally. I express special gratitude to Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection and to Robert and Mildred Bliss. Their generous donation allowed me to stay for nine months at Dumbarton Oaks, use the resources of the library and enjoy everyday communication with my colleagues. I also thank DAAD Grant Scheme and other bodies that invested in my project on different stages. I thank many members of my family for their support. I thank my father, my mother, my grandmother, and my sister. My last thanks go to my great-grandmother Klavdia. She questioned me about my progress in the project every second week and I am happy that she lives to see this thesis done. My last and the most important word of gratitude goes to my wife Nadezhda, whose hope supported me on my way, and to my daughter Vasilissa, whose zeal for knowledge allows me to see myself, my project and the world in a new way. CEU eTD Collection 3 Table of Contents CHAPTER I. Identity of the Turks? Introduction 9 1.Previous Research. 10 2. Outline 14 3. Methodologies and Definitions 17 4. Sources and Genres 24 5. The Limits of the Dissertation 38 CHAPTER II. Collective Labels as Pillars of the Projected Identity 40 1. The birth of the Turks. Semantic change of the eleventh century 41 2. The “Persification” of the Turks. Semantic change of the twelfth century 53 3. Conclusion. Semantic Changes and Imperial Politics 64 Chapter III. Space of Seljuks, Place of Seljuks 67 1. Seljuk Migration in the works of Attaleiates and Skylitzes 71 2. New Space of the Turks: Anna Komnene and Theodore Prodromos 79 3. The Ideal Borderland? Imagined Space in Grottaferrata Digenis Akritis 99 4. Space and Place of the Turks in Late Komnenian Era 101 5. Conclusions. The Shrinking of Space 112 CHAPTER IV. The Persian Authority 124 1. Enter the sultan: How Byzantine Literati Defined the Ruler of the Turks 128 2. Introduction of the satraps in the poems of Theodore Prodromos 139 3. Invention of atabeg and Turkic authority in the Alexiad of Anna Komnene 145 4. Xerxes and Darius. Role Models for the sultans in the Komnenian panegyric 155 5. The Legitimate Authority. Sultans in the Late Komnenian Rhetoric 159 6. The Power of Wine. Drinking Persians in the Komnenian Rhetoric 167 7. The Absent Women 171 8. Conclusion 176 Chapter V. The Seljuk Beliefs 178 1. Gog and Magog. Turks in Byzantine Apocalypticism? 183 2. The Godless Descendants of Hagar in the long age of Alexios I Komnenos 187 3. Howling on the Hills. Turks and wolves in Komnenian Rhetoric 192 4. Islam in the Grottaferrata version of Digenis Akritis 196 5. Holy War? Turks as the enemies of the Lord in the 1170s 201 CEU eTD Collection 6. The Beliefs of the Turks in History of Niketas Choniates 205 7. Conclusions 213 4 CHAPTER VI. Those Who Cross The Border 215 1. The Space of the Border in the Byzantine rhetoric 217 2. The New Defector’s Clothes. One Aspect of Political Border-Crossing 230 3. Islamization or Christianization? Conversions in the Byzantine narratives 237 4. Byzantine opinions on Byzantine-Turkic marriages. 253 5. Dynasties of Cultural Brokers: the Axouchoi and the Gabrades 262 6. Conclusions 275 CHAPTER VII. Seljuk Caleidoscope. Individual Images of the Turks 278 1. The sultan of Manzikert. Alp Arslān in Attaleiates and Manasses 279 2. Defector and Servant: Erisgen-Chrysoskoulos in Attaleiates and Bryennios. 285 3. Loyal Turk Poupakas the Persian in Kinnamos and Choniates 289 4. Kılıç Arslan II of Ikonion in Kinnamos and Choniates 293 5. Kay Khusraw I of Ikonion in different version of Niketas Choniates’ History 303 6. Conclusion. Function of Seljuks 312 CHAPTER VIII. Conclusions 314 1. Identity of the Turks: Emergence, Localization, Legitimization 315 2. Evolution of Aspects 316 3. Contribution and Perspective 320 Appendix I. Timeline of the Byzantine-Turkic Relations 323 Appendix 2. “Alphabetical Poem” by Stephen Physopalamites 327 Appendix 3. Abbreviations of Some Works of Byzantine Rhetoric 332 Bibliography 333 CEU eTD Collection 5 List of Figures Figure 1. Fragment of Panel Map………………………………………………………..........77 Figure 2. Panel With Enthroned Seljuk Ruler…….……………………………..……………156 Figure 3. Ivory Panel With a Naked Ruler……………………………….…………………..216 Figure 4. Seal of megas domestikos John Axouch. Obverse………………………………....244 Figure 5. Seal of megas domestikos John Axouch. Reverse…………….………….………...245 Figure 6. Seal of Hasan ibn Gabras. Obverse………………………………………….…...…251 Figure 7. Seal of Hasan ibn Gabras. Reverse………………………………………………….252 Figure 8. Poem of Stephen Physopalamites…………………………………………………...304 CEU eTD Collection 6 Note on naming Byzantine names in this dissertation are given according to the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Following the standards of Central European University, I use traditional English spelling for Byzantine names (e. g. “John” rather than “Ioannes”). Where there are two sources with the same title, I use an anglicized name for one of them to avoid confusion. Thus, Michael Attaleiates is the author of Historia, while Niketas Choniates is the author of History. Seljuk names and titles are spelled in accordance with the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam. As the Encyclopedia is a work in progress, the names absent from it are given in the forms they appear in Andrew Peacock's The Great Seljuk Empire. CEU eTD Collection 7 Abbreviations: BS = Byzantinoslavica BZ =Byzantinische Zeitschrift DOP = Dumbarton Oaks Papers EI = Encyclopedia of Islam JÖB = Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik ODB= Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium RCEA= Répertoire chronologique d'épigraphie arabe REB =Revue des études byzantines VV = Vizantiyskiy Vremennik ST = Σύνταγμα των Θείων και Ιερών Κανόνων CEU eTD Collection 8 CHAPTER I. Identity of the Turks? Introduction “The Nepthalite Huns, the neighbors of the Persians, who are separated from land of Persia by Ganges river which four and half mile wide, crossed it” wrote Byzantine military judge Michael Attaleiates in his description of Constantine IX Monomachos’ reign (1042-1055).1 The “Huns” of Attaleiates belonged to the group that we call the Great Seljuks. In the eleventh century, this conglomerate of Persianized pastoralists migrated from northern Iran to Aleppo and Antioch and created the sultanate of the Great Seljuks.2 After the battle of Manzikert(1071), the sultanate became the dominant force in the region that we now call “the Middle East.” The Byzantine army was diminished to naught, while Byzantine nobles struggled for the throne and invited Seljuk adventurers to participate in this struggle. Finishing his Historia in 1081, Michael Attaleiates described the Turks' presence in Bithynia. In the 1080s the new emperor Alexios I Komnenos struggled to shift the boundary zone from the suburbs of the capital but did not achieve much.3 When the participants of the First Crusade arrived in Asia Minor (1096), they found the Turks in Bithynia, next to Nicaea. Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081-1118), his son John II Komnenos (r. 1118-1143) and grandson Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143-1180) applied many measures to limit the influence of the Turks. One hundred years later, Eustathios of Thessaloniki summarized the one hundred years of the presence of the Turks in the peninsula by comparing them with the rooted tree that the Byzantine emperors did not manage to uproot.4 The student of Eustathios, Niketas Choniates grudgingly recognized the “Persian” sultan of Ikonion Kay Khusraw I as the rightful ruler of the Anatolian hinterland.
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