Трапезундская экспедиция 1916-1917 гг.
Russian Trabizon Expedition (1916–1917)

Summary/Abstract: The article describes the events from the history of the Trabizon expedition (1916–1917), organized by the Imperial Academy of Sciences upon the request of the Russian Caucasian front after the capture of a historically important city of Trabizon, the capital of the namesake empire (1204–1461). In the article the main tasks of the expedition are addressed and it is emphasized that its participants faced a difficult task because they dealt with the region that was almost completely unknown to Russian historians of Byzantium and whose culture different from that of the classical Byzantium of Constantinople, West and Central Asia Minor, Antioch, as well as of Palestine and Egypt. The Trabizon empire appeared after the fall of Constantinople to Crusader forces in 1204, and hence it was a different cultural world that that of typical Byzantium described above. The article describes the character and the everyday problems of functioning of the expedition, whose main purpose was to preserve and investigate the original monuments and documents of the Trabizon empire. The article suggests that academician F. I. Uspensky, the head of the expedition, held high hopes for the eventual split of the Ottoman empire and the annexation of Trabizon and its area to the Russian empire. The article also shows that because the members of the expedition could not foresee that they would have to evacuate in about a year, the proposed plan of action brought very little results. Few monuments were described and studied and most of the medieval documents were lost.

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