Dimitri Korobeinikov, Byzantium and the Turks in the Thirteenth Century (Oxford Studies in Byzantium), Oxford 2014

Dimitri Korobeinikov has been working as Assistant Professor at the Department of History of the University at Albany, State University of New York since 2013. He received his PhD in 2004 from the University of Oxford, Exeter College. His research interests focus on the political history of Byzantium from 1000 to 1453, history of the Crusader states, Byzantine-Latin relations and Levantine history in the eleventh through the sixteenth century, Christian-Muslim relations, and Byzantine-Turkish relations from the eleventh to the fifteenth century with special emphasis on political history.

The book under examination is based on the author’s dissertation. The monograph has to do with the Byzantine Empire and its relations with the Seljuk Turks of Rūm, the Mongols of the Ilkhanate, and the Turkish nomadic confederations, as the author calls them, in the frontier zones from 1204 to 1304/5. Korobeinikov also emphasizes the political contacts between the Seljuk Turks and the Mongols. His book fills a gap in the modern research literature, as there had been so far no monograph on the 13th-century history of Byzantium which would at the same time describe in detail the loss of the Byzantine western Asia Minor to the Turks. The books by Speros Vryonis Jr. (The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1971), Angeliki Laiou (Constantinople and the Latins. The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II. 1282–1328, Cambridge Mass. 1972), Donald M. Nicol (The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261–1453, 2nd edition, Cambridge 1993), and Claude Cahen (The Formation of Turkey. The Seljukid Sultanate of Rūm: Eleventh to Fourteenth century, edited and translated by Peter M. Holt, Harlow 2001) provide only but a few pages on this topic.

The book has an introduction and seven chapters. In the introduction, the author presents the aim of the study and clarifies certain terms that he uses in his text, such as ‘Turks’ and ‘Turkmen’. He also explains the reason he used only sources written between 1200 and 1350. Chapter 1 presents those sources, dividing them into Byzantine, Oriental, and Ottoman. The Oriental sources are further categorized into Persian and Arabic. Chapter 2 presents the so-called Empire of Nicaea that formed on the lands of Byzantine Asia Minor, its political structure and military organization. Chapter 3 delineates the emergence of the Sultanate of Rūm, its territories, and its political and military organization. Chapter 4 describes the Nicaean-Seljuk relations, and chapter 5 the Mongols of the Ilkhanate and their relations with the Seljuks, the Empire of Nicaea during the period from 1246 to 1256, and with the restored Byzantine state in the 1260–1270 and 1290–1310. Chapter 6 narrates the loss of the Byzantine Asia Minor up to 1303. The author connects this loss to the political circumstances that weakened the Byzantine and Seljukid control of the area and gave prominence to the various Turkoman tribes living in the boundary zone between Byzantium and the Sultanate as well as within the latter. Chapter 7 shortly describes the last efforts of the Byzantine state to restore its control over western Asia Minor after 1303.

The central conclusions of the book can be summarized as follows. The Empire of Nicaea was on friendly terms with the Sultanate of Rūm, and these good relations trace back to the 12th century, during which Byzantium still existed as an empire under the Komnenian dynasty (p. 289). According to Korobeinikov, these relations provide the actual explanation for the Lascarid emperors’ successes in defending the eastern frontiers of their state, not the favorable treatment of their soldiers at the borders (akritai), as the Byzantine historian Georgios Pachymeres (1242–ca.1310) argues. The arrival of the Mongols and the Sultanate’s subjugation by them caused further migration of the Turkish population which ultimately resulted in the collapse of the Byzantine frontier in Asia Minor (p. 294). In 1280–1282, Michael VIII increased the number of soldiers and concentrated military power under his authority in western Asia Minor (p. 295). The author deems those reforms as the right answer to the creation of large Turkmen coalitions near the imperial frontier, which represented an obvious threat (p. 295). On the contrary, from 1284 to 1295, under Andronikos II’s rule, no important military expedition took place. The emperor’s strategy on reconstructing fortresses and providing the garrisons with money and troops, based on the Laskarid policy of securing the region, is considered as a “short-sighted” policy by Korobeinikov (p. 295). Finally, the Turkish victories of 1302–1305 and the following annexation of western Asia Minor were no longer the result of a nomadic intrusion but rather of the sedentarization of the nomads that led to Muslim emigration from the deeper parts of Asia Minor (p. 296).

The biggest advantage of this book is that it offers a detailed and well-documented account of the relations between the states and the nomadic groups that shaped the history of the 13th century Asia Minor. Moreover, it employs all the available contemporaneous sources written in various languages. Nonetheless, the structure of the chapters could be improved by diving them into subchapters to provide the reader with a better overview of this massive work.

The monograph is essential for the researchers of the history of the Byzantine Empire and the Sultanate of Rūm in the 13th-century and for those interested in the process of the conquest of western Asia Minor by the various Turkish nomadic tribes. Although the book is fascinating and well-written, the complexity of the topic could discourage the individuals not specialized in the era from reading it.