Phasiane ( el, Φασιανοί ''Phasianoi''; hy, Բասեն ''Basean;'' ka, ბასიანი ''Basiani'') is a
historical region
Historical regions (or historical areas) are geographical regions which at some point in time had a cultural, ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that ...
now part of the
Eastern Anatolia
The Eastern Anatolia Region ('' tr, Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi'') is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous province in the region is Van Province. Other populous provinces are Malatya, Erzurum and Elazığ.
It is bordered by the Black Se ...
region of
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, as well as the name given to the region where the
Aras River
, az, Araz, fa, ارس, tr, Aras
The Aras (also known as the Araks, Arax, Araxes, or Araz) is a river in the Caucasus. It rises in eastern Turkey and flows along the borders between Turkey and Armenia, between Turkey and the Nakhchivan excl ...
originates.
Origin
According to one version, the name is derived from ancient called
Phasians The Phasians ( ka, ფაზიელები ''Pazielebi''; el, Φασιανοί ''Phasianoi''; la, Phasiani) were an ancient tribe located in the eastern part of Pontus. The Greek commander Xenophon, who encountered them during his march throug ...
(Phazians), mentioned in
The Anabasis
''Anabasis'' (; grc-gre, Ἀνάβασις ; an "expedition up from") is the most famous work of the Ancient Greek professional soldier and writer Xenophon. It narrates the expedition of a large army of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Youn ...
of the ancient Greek historian
Xenofon (5-4th century BC). The name of this tribe seems to have survived in latter-day regional toponyms –
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
n ''Basiani'',
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''Phasiane'',
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
n ''Basean'', and
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
''Pasin''.
History
In the 8th and 7th centuries BC the province was part of
Urartu
Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Va ...
known as Biani ("land of Bia/Bias"). It was then part of the
Satrapy of Armenia
The Satrapy of Armenia (Old Persian: 𐎠𐎼𐎷𐎡𐎴 or 𐎠𐎼𐎷𐎡𐎴𐎹 ), a region controlled by the Orontid dynasty (570–201 BC), was one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC that later became an ind ...
and the subsequent
Kingdom of Armenia. In 384, the region was contested by Rome and
Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
. The
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
commander
Senitam Khusro defeated the Byzantines in the district of Phasiane, in 605/606. In the 7th century, the province was conquered by an
Arab Caliphate
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
. In the 9th century Basean became part of
Bagratid Armenia
The Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia, also known as Bagratid Armenia ( xcl, Բագրատունեաց Հայաստան, or , , 'kingdom of the Bagratunis'), was an independent Armenian state established by Ashot I Bagratuni of the Bagratuni dynasty ...
.
In the 10th century, the border between the Byzantine Empire and expanding early Georgian Kingdom of Tao-Klarjeti went along the
Aras river, therefore part of northern Basean/Basiani became a domain of the
Georgian Bagratids
The Bagrationi dynasty (; ) is a royal dynasty which reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, the name of the dynasty is sometim ...
. In 1001, after the death of David Kuropalates, Basean/Basiani were inherited by Byzantine Emperor Basil II, who annexed the Armenian lands (Tayk/Tao, Basean/Basiani), captured by King David Kuropalates to Byzantium
[Cyril Toumanoff. Armenia and Georgia // The Cambridge Medieval History. — Cambridge, 1966. — Т. IV: The Byzantine Empire, part I, chapter XIV. — P. 593—637.] and organized them into the
theme of Iberia
The theme of Iberia ( el, θέμα Ἰβηρίας) was an administrative and military unit – theme – within the Byzantine Empire carved by the Byzantine Emperors out of several Georgian lands in the 11th century. It was formed as a result ...
with the capital at
Theodosiopolis, forcing the successor Georgian Bagratid ruler
Bagrat III to recognize the new rearrangement. Bagrat's son,
George I George I or 1 may refer to:
People
* Patriarch George I of Alexandria ( fl. 621–631)
* George I of Constantinople (d. 686)
* George I of Antioch (d. 790)
* George I of Abkhazia (ruled 872/3–878/9)
* George I of Georgia (d. 1027)
* Yuri Dolgoruk ...
, however, inherited a long-standing claim to David's succession. While Basil II was preoccupied with his Bulgarian campaigns, George gained momentum to invade Tao and Basiani in 1014, which caused unsuccessful
Byzantine-Georgian wars. In 1048 and 1049, the
Seljuk Turks
The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes
by the Turk ...
under
Ibrahim Yinal
Ibrahim Inal (also spelled İbrahim Yınal, died 1060) was a Seljuq dynasty, Seljuk warlord, the son of ''Yûsuf Yınal'' and a foster brother of the Sultan Tughril.
In 1047, Ibrahim wrested Hamadan and Kangavar from the Kakuyid ruler Garshasp I. ...
made their first incursion into the Byzantine frontier region of Iberia and defeated a combined Byzantine-Georgian army of 50,000 at the
Battle of Kapetrou
The Battle of Kapetron or Kapetrou was fought between a Byzantine-Georgian army and the Seljuq Turks at the plain of Kapetron (modern Hasankale/Pasinler in northeastern Turkey) in 1048. The event was the culmination of a major raid led by the ...
on 10 September 1048. Many of the eastern Byzantine territories were conquered by the
Seljuk Turks
The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes
by the Turk ...
between the 1070s and 1080s, but were then retaken by the Georgian King
David IV
David IV, also known as David the Builder ( ka, დავით აღმაშენებელი, ') (1073–1125), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king of United Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125.
Popularly considered to be ...
. In the 13th century, at the
Battle of Basian
The Battle of Basiani was fought, in the 13th century, between the armies of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Seljuqid Sultanate of Rum in the Basiani valley, 60 km northeast of the city of Erzurum in what is now northeast Republic of Turkey ...
, Georgians defeated the army of the
Rum Sultanate. The province was part of the Kingdom of Georgia, and then of
Principality of Samtskhe
The Samtskhe-Saatabago or Samtskhe Atabegate ( ka, სამცხე-საათაბაგო), also called the Principality of Samtskhe (სამცხის სამთავრო), was a Georgian feudal principality in Zemo Kartli, ru ...
until 1545, when Basiani was finally conquered by the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. In the 17th century, it became a
sanjak
Sanjaks (liwāʾ) (plural form: alwiyāʾ)
* Armenian language, Armenian: նահանգ (''nahang''; meaning "province")
* Bulgarian language, Bulgarian: окръг (''okrǔg''; meaning "county", "province", or "region")
* el, Διοίκησι ...
of
Erzurum Vilayet.
See also
*
Byzantine–Georgian wars
The Byzantine–Georgian wars ( ka, ბიზანტიურ-ქართული ომები, tr) were a series of conflicts fought during the 11th-13th centuries over several strategic districts in the Byzantine-Georgian marchlands.
Ba ...
*
Battle of Basian 1203
Further reading
* D. Muskhelishvili, ''Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia'', Tbilisi, 1977
References
Western Armenia
Former regions of Armenia
Former provinces of Georgia (country)
{{Georgia-geo-stub