Re: Christian Turks of the Dobruja

#31746
Armagan
Anahtar yönetici

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commandant to accept the amnesty offered by the victor and to yield. That stubborn commandant was a certain Georgios Lyzikos of Berrhoia (Verria), i.e. of our (Kara-)Feria [77]. As to his family name, it is undoubtedly identical with the name of Līzaqōs borne by the chief of the Karaferia family who surrenders his town, some sixty years later, to Bāyezīd’s Ottomans. In the winter 1350-51 we meet Georgios Lyzikos again, this time as the commandant of Edessa, a strong place near Berrhoia, which he defends against the Serbians, the enemies of his emperor Kantakuzenos. The town is taken and destroyed, the valiant Lyzikos is sent in chains to Scopia (Üsküb) for punishment but dies on the way [78].
The Karaferia story has certainly mentioned some of these heroic events, in any case, as our text shows, that of 1328 when a Lyzikos was forced to submit to the emperor. For Yazi_k.jpgji_k.jpgoghlu, however, this ‘Infidel matter’ was of no interest save in so far as he could use it to explain, in a manner calculated to win the reader’s forbearance, such a lamentable fact as the apostasy of these valiant descendants of the Seljuks. We have seen how Yazi_k.jpgji_k.jpgoghlu shrinks from saying outright that some of the Turks in Karaferia had become Christians. In the case of the Turks in the Dobruja, where he cannot help mentioning that those who remained there abandoned Islam (§ 15), he seeks at least to give the impression that their numbers were insignificant. The future Baraq has to suffer imprisonment before he accepts baptism. The Lyzikos of 1328 bears clearly a Christian name: Georgios. The family must have been Christians already when they came to Karaferia and so also the Turks who were with them — as we shall see, also those of them who returned to Anatolia were in reality not Muslims but Christians.
As to the Ottoman part of the story: the occupation of Karaferia is known [79] to have occurred already under Murād I, in 1387; its attribution to Bāyezīd I suggests that the town was again abandoned and then re-occupied. In all these events what counted most for the Lyzikos family was, of course, their transfer to Zikhna, and this probably happened under Bāyezīd I. It goes without saying that part of the Karaferia Turks, too, were directed to Zikhna, a most illuminating fact for our study. ‘Līzaqōs’ became subashi_k.jpg of Zikhna because he was the chief of these Turks. It may appear almost incredible that a Christian should have been appointed subashi_k.jpg of an Ottoman district and in this capacity, as an officer in the feudal cavalry, should have taken part in the Sultan’s
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campaigns; that in the early Ottoman state such a thing was in fact possible will soon be clear beyond doubt after the imminent publication of the defter of Albania, dating from the reign of Murād II [80].
A final question: is it possible that the Lyzikos family was descended from ‘Izzeddīn Kaikāūs? Certainly, since ‘Izzeddīn had left with the Byzantines a son Melik Konstantinos, whom we have already met and shall meet again. When this prince in 1307 disappears from the Byzantine scene he must have been about 50 years old and very probably the father of children. The Lyzakos of 1328 may well be a son of his. It is not excluded that Melik Konstantinos himself had for a certain time been connected with Karaferia. There is, however, no need to take the claim of the Lyzikos family so seriously. We shall see that all the Turks connected with ‘Izzeddīn continued to call themselves ‘the people of Kaikāūs’. For the noble families among them it was but a small and tempting step to change this into ‘the lineage of Kaikāūs’. There was yet another family in Rumeli which claimed descent from Kaikāūs: that of the famous Sheikh Bedreddln [81].
§§ 14 and 15. End of the story of the Dobruja Turks: except for the few who stay behind and are doomed to become Christians, especially since their spiritual leader Ṣari_k.jpg Ṣalti_k.jpgq is dead or nearing death, they return to Anatolia (just as those of them who had joined the prince in Karaferia are said in § 13 to have done). Their return is connected with the name of Khalīl Eje and with the ascendancy the Bulgarian princes had won over the emperor. This enables us to perceive which events are meant.
Khalīl Eje is doubtless identical with the Khalīl (Χαλήλ) in Gregoras’ account [82] of the happenings after the chief of the overbearing Catalan mercenaries, Roger de Flor, had been assassinated in the palace of the junior emperor Michael IX at Adrianople, in April 1305. The Catalans transform Gallipoli where they are stationed into a stronghold and wage open war on the emperor. To strengthen their ranks ‘they send envoys to the Turks of the opposite littoral (i.e. the Troas, Qarasi_k.jpg) inviting them to fight on their side and take into their service 500 of them being themselves 3,000 strong’ [83]. Together they devastate the neighbouring country so that Michael IX has to march against them with an army which included the corps of the Tourkopouloi.
663 line.gif ‘These Tourkopouloi, numbering a 1,000 men, were Turks who had followed Sultan ‘Izzeddīn when he came over into the empire and had remained there when the sultan was carried off by the Tatars of the Golden Horde — they had adopted the Byzantine way of life and accepted the Christian faith and baptism; from then onward they were enrolled in the Byzantine army.’ [84] In the battle of Aproi (1307), in which the Catalans and their Turkish allies defeat the army of Michael IX, the Tourkopouloi behave ambiguously and ‘a few days later they go over to the Catalans and are gladly accepted; being of the same race they are joined to Khalīl’s Turks — for the leader of the Turks was called Khalīl’ [85]. The Catalans, emboldened by their victory and the adherence of the Tourkopouloi, ravage Southern Thrace for two whole years, after which, crossing the Rhodope mountains, they establish themselves in Kassandreia (the westernmost of the three ‘fingers’ of the Chalkidike) where they create a stronghold from which to plunder Macedonia. Foiled in their hopes by the emperor’s effective defence measures they leave for Thessaly (1309), still accompanied by their Turks, then numbering 3,000 men — 1,100 of them those who on ‘Izzeddīn’s flight had been left behind together with Melik (Μελήκ), been baptized and enrolled in the Byzantine army, and who had increased in numbers by their offspring, whereas the majority were the Turks who had crossed over from Asia with Khalīl as hired auxiliaries of the Catalans [86]. On the march to Thessaly the Turks want to separate from the Catalans: their leaders Melik and Khalīl arrange with the Catalans for an amicable separation [87] and the division of the prisoners and the booty. ‘After their separation from the Catalans the Turks themselves divide into two groups, the one following Khalīl, the other Melik.’ Melik, having forfeited for good the friendship of the Byzantines — indeed, in spite of his baptism and the emperor’s largesse he had gone over to the enemy — leads his 1,000 riders and 500 footmen into Serbia and submits to the King (Urosh II Milutin). Khalīl, with his 1,300 horsemen and 800 soldiers, returns to Macedonia and enters into negotiations with the emperor in order to obtain free passage to Gallipoli and ships to take him across the straits. Watched by strong Byzantine forces these Turks are conducted to the Dardanelles, but at the sight of their horses, their money, ahd their other booty the Byzantines decide to annihilate them [88]. Aware of the danger, the Turks