Rusudan, daughter of Giorgi III of Georgia

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Rusudan was the younger daughter of King Giorgi III of Georgia and of his wife, Burdukhan (Gurandukht), daughter of Khuddan, King of Ossetia. Her elder sister was Tamar, who succeeded their father as ruler of Georgia.

Born about 1158/1160, Rusudan was married, possibly in 1180, to Manuel Komnenos (born 1145), the eldest son of Andronikos I who was to be Byzantine Emperor from 1183 to 1185. Manuel and Rusudan had two sons, Alexios, probably born in 1182, and David, born around 1184.

When Andronikos was deposed and killed Manuel was blinded, and may have died as a result; at any rate he disappears from the historical record. It is said that Rusudan fled Constantinople with her sons, taking refuge either in Georgia or in the Pontus.

When the Latins seized Constantinople in 1204, Tamar sent Georgian troops to help Alexios and David to take control of the former Byzantine province of Pontus. Combined with their additional conquests this became the new Empire of Trebizond.

[edit] Bibliography

  • C. Toumanoff, "On the relationship between the founder of the Empire of Trebizond and the Georgian Queen Thamar" in Speculum vol. 15 (1940) pp. 299-312.
  • Varzos, K. (1984), Ē genealogia tōn Komnēnōn, Thessaloniki, especially vol. 2 p. 515 note 24.
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