Empire of Trebizond

Empire of Trebizond
Successor of the Byzantine Empire
1204–1461
Empire of Trebizond (violet) and surrounding states in 1300
Capital		Trebizond
Languages		Greek (officially) Laz (popularly)
Religion		Eastern Orthodoxy
Government		Absolute monarchy
Emperor1
•	1204–1222	Alexios I
•	1459–1461	David
Historical era		Late Medieval
•	Established	1204
•	Disestablished	August 15, 1461
Preceded by Succeeded by Byzantium under the Angeloi Trebizond Eyalet Gazaria (Genoese colonies) Principality of Theodoro
1 the full title of the Trapezuntine emperors after 1261 was "the faithful Basileus and Autokrator of All the East, the Iberians and Perateia"
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The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was a monarchy that flourished during the 13th through 15th centuries, consisting of the far northeastern corner of Anatolia and the southern Crimea. Originally formed during a revolt against the usurpation of the imperial throne by the grandsons of Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, Trebizond (current Trabzon, Turkey, with which the name of the empire is a cognate) became a Byzantine Greek successor state established after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) in the Fourth Crusade, along with the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus. The Emperors of Trebizond pressed their claim on the Imperial throne for decades after the Nicaean reconquest of Constantinople in 1261.

The Trapezuntine monarchy survived the longest of the Byzantine successor states. The Despotate of Epirus was slowly decimated, and briefly occupied by the restored Byzantine Empire c. 1340, thereafter becoming a Serbian dependency and later inherited by Italians, ultimately falling to the Ottoman Empire in 1479, having long ceased to contest the Byzantine throne. While the Empire of Nicaea had become the resurrected Byzantine Empire, it came to an end in 1453 with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire. The Empire of Trebizond continued until 1461 when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered it after a month-long siege and took its ruler and his family into captivity. The Crimean Principality of Theodoro, an offshoot of Trebizond, lasted another 14 years, falling to the Ottomans in 1475.

Geographically, the Empire of Trebizond consisted of the narrow strip along the southern coast of the Black Sea and the western half of the Pontic Alps, along with the Gazarian Perateia, or southern Crimea (soon losing Genoese Gazaria and Theodorite Gazaria). Its demographic legacy endured for several centuries after the Ottoman conquest in 1461 and the region retained a substantial number of Greek Orthodox inhabitants until 1923. These are usually referred to as Pontic Greeks. The eastern branch, who settled around Kars and Georgia, are often referred to as Caucasus Greeks, and the Crimean branch, resettled by Catherine the Great on the north shores of the Sea of Azov, are referred to as Mariupolitan Greeks.