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Battle Of Levounion
The Battle of Levounion was the first decisive Byzantine victory of the Komnenian restoration. On April 29, 1091, an invading force of Pechenegs was crushed by the combined forces of the Byzantine Empire under Alexios I Komnenos and his Cuman allies. Background On August 26, 1071, a Byzantine army under Romanos IV Diogenes was defeated by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in eastern Asia Minor. The defeat caused the emperor to be deposed and replaced by the ineffectual Michael VII Doukas, who refused to honour the treaty that had been signed by Romanos. In response, the Turks began to move into Anatolia in 1073, meeting no opposition. Chaos reigned as the empire's resources were squandered in a series of disastrous civil wars. Thousands of Turkoman tribesmen crossed the unguarded frontier and moved into Anatolia. By 1080, an area of had been lost by the empire. It is almost impossible to overestimate the significance of these events, as within less than a decade more than half of ...
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Komnenian Restoration
The Komnenian restoration is the term used by historians to describe the military, financial, and territorial recovery of the Byzantine Empire under the Komnenian dynasty, from the accession of Alexios I Komnenos in 1081 to the death of Andronikos I Komnenos in 1185. At the onset of the reign of Alexios I, the empire was reeling from its defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The empire was also being threatened by the Normans of Robert Guiscard, who were invading the Balkans from their base in southern Italy. All this occurred as the empire's military institution was in disarray and had grown increasingly reliant on mercenaries. Previous emperors had also squandered the large gold deposits of Constantinople, so the defense of the empire had broken down, and there were few troops to fill the gaps. The Komnenoi nevertheless managed to reassert Byzantine pre-eminence in the Mediterranean world, militarily and culturally. Relations between the Byza ...
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Battle Of Manzikert
The Battle of Manzikert or Malazgirt was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire on 26 August 1071 near Manzikert, Iberia (theme), Iberia (modern Malazgirt in Muş Province, Turkey). The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes played an important role in undermining Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Medieval Armenia, Armenia, and allowed for the gradual Turkification of Anatolia. Many Turks, travelling westward during the 11th century, saw the victory at Manzikert as an entrance to Asia Minor. The brunt of the battle was borne by the Byzantine army's professional soldiers from the eastern and western Tagma (military), tagmata, as large numbers of mercenaries and Anatolian Conscription, levies fled early and survived the battle. The fallout from Manzikert was disastrous for the Byzantines, resulting in civil conflicts and an economic crisis that severely weakened the Byzantine Empire's ability to defend its bo ...
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Komnenian Dynasty
The House of Komnenos ( Komnenoi; , , ), Latinized as Comnenus ( Comneni), was a Byzantine Greek noble family who ruled the Byzantine Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries. The first reigning member, Isaac I Komnenos, ruled from 1057 to 1059. The family returned to power under Alexios I Komnenos in 1081 who established their rule for the following 104 years until it ended with Andronikos I Komnenos in 1185. In the 13th century, they founded the Empire of Trebizond, a Byzantine rump state which they ruled from 1204 to 1461. At that time, they were commonly referred to as Grand Komnenoi (, ), a style that was officially adopted and used by George Komnenos and his successors. Through intermarriages with other noble families, notably the Doukas, Angelos, and Palaiologos, the Komnenos name appears among most of the major noble houses of the late Byzantine world. Origins The 11th-century Byzantine historian Michael Psellos reported that the Komnenos family originated from the village ...
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Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe shares the landmass of Eurasia with Asia, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. Europe is commonly considered to be Boundaries between the continents#Asia and Europe, separated from Asia by the Drainage divide, watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural (river), Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the waterway of the Bosporus, Bosporus Strait. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles." Europe covers approx. , or 2% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface (6.8% of Earth's land area), making it ...
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Maritsa
Maritsa or Maritza ( ), also known as Evros ( ) and Meriç ( ), is a river that runs through the Balkans in Southeast Europe. With a length of ,Statistical Yearbook 2017
National Statistical Institute (Bulgaria), p. 17
it is the List of rivers of Europe, longest river that runs solely in the interior of the Balkans, Balkan peninsula, and one of the List of rivers of Europe#Rivers of Europe by discharge, largest in Europe by discharge. It flows through Bulgaria in its upper and middle reaches, while its lower course forms much of the border between Greece and Turkey. Its drainage area is about , of which 66.2% is in Bulgaria, 27.5% in Turkey, and 6.3% in Greece. It is the main river of the historical region of Thrace, most of which lies in its drainage basin. It has its origin ...
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Constantinople
Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empires between its consecration in 330 until 1930, when it was renamed to Istanbul. Initially as New Rome, Constantinople was founded in 324 during the reign of Constantine the Great on the site of the existing settlement of Byzantium, and shortly thereafter in 330 became the capital of the Roman Empire. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire; 330–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). Following the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish capital then moved to Ankara. Although the city had been known as Istanbul since 1453, it was officially renamed as Is ...
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Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia (country), Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The Black Sea is Inflow (hydrology), supplied by major rivers, principally the Danube, Dnieper and Dniester. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its drainage basin includes parts of 24 countries in Europe. The Black Sea, not including the Sea of Azov, covers , has a maximum depth of , and a volume of . Most of its coasts ascend rapidly. These rises are the Pontic Mountains to the south, bar the southwest-facing peninsulas, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and the Crimean Mountains to the mid-north. In the west, the coast is generally small floodplains below foothills such as the Strandzha; Cape Emine, a dwindling of the east end ...
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Chaka Of Smyrna
Chaka Bey (),"Tzachas" is the Hellenized form of a Turkish name which does not appear in any historical documents, but was likely "Chaka", "Chagha", or "Chaqan". The name "Chaka", in the modern Turkish alphabet "Çaka", prevailed especially in modern Turkey, after Akdes Nimet Kurat used it in his work ''Çaka: Orta Zamanda İzmir ve Yakınındaki Adaların Türk Hakimi'', Istanbul, 1936, ''... yüksek siyasî ve askerî görüş sahibi olarak büyük önem taşıyan bu bey'in adının gerçek söylenişi henüz tamamen kesinliğe kavuşmuş değildir. Bu hususta şimdiye kadar üç ihtimal ileri sürülmüştür: Çaka, Çağa, Çakan. AN Kurat'ın bunu "Çaka" kabûl ederek eserini de "Çaka Bey" diye adlandırması, özellikle memleketimizde Çaka şeklinin yaygınlaşmasına yol açmıştır denebilir.'' (''Tarih Dergisi'', Cilt 20, İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, İbrahim Horoz Basımevi, 1983p. 56. was an 11th-century Seljuk Oghuz Turk military commander who ...
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Emir
Emir (; ' (), also Romanization of Arabic, transliterated as amir, is a word of Arabic language, Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocratic, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or ceremonial authority. The title has a history of use in West Asia, East Africa, West Africa, Central Asia, and South Asia. In the modern era, when used as a formal monarchical title, it is roughly synonymous with "prince", applicable both to a son of a hereditary monarch, and to a reigning monarch of a sovereign principality, namely an emirate. The female, feminine form is emira ( '), with the same meaning as "princess". Prior to its use as a monarchical title, the term "emir" was historically used to denote a "commander", "general", or "leader" (for example, Amir al-Mu'min). In contemporary usage, "emir" is also sometimes used as either an honorary or formal title for the head of an Islamic, or Arab (regardless of relig ...
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John Julius Norwich
John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich, (15 September 1929 – 1 June 2018), known as John Julius Norwich, was an English popular historian, writer of widely read travel books, and television personality. Biography Youth Norwich was born at the Alfred House Nursing Home on Portland Place in Marylebone, London, on 15 September 1929. He was the son of the Conservative politician and diplomat Duff Cooper, later Viscount Norwich, and of Lady Diana Manners, a celebrated beauty and society figure. He was given the name "Julius" in part because he was born by caesarean section. Such was his mother's fame as an actress and beauty that the birth attracted a crowd outside the nursing home and hundreds of letters of congratulations. Through his father, he was descended from King William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan. He was educated at Egerton House School in Dorset Square, London, later becoming a boarder at the school when it was evacuated to Northamptonshire before the ...
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Turkmens
Turkmens (, , , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-western Afghanistan. Sizeable groups of Turkmens are found also in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the North Caucasus ( Stavropol Krai). They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Eastern Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages. In the early Middle ages, Turkmens called themselves Oghuz; in the Middle Ages, they took the ethnonym Turkmen. These early Oghuz Turkmens moved westward from the Altai Mountains through the Siberian steppes, and settled in the region now known as Turkmenistan. Further westward migration of the Turkmen tribes from the territory of modern Turkmenistan and the rest of Central Asia started from the 11th century and continued until the 18th century. These Turkmen tribes played a significant role in the ethnic formation of such peoples as Anatolian Turks, Turkmens of Iraq, and Syria ...
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