Bagrat II. Bagratuni

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Bagrat II. Bagratuni ( Armenian Բագրատ Բ Բագրատունի , Arabic بقرت إبن Buqrāṭ ibn Ashūṭ ; † after 851) was an Armenian nobleman of the Bagratid dynasty and the Ishkhan Ishkhanats ("Prince of Princes") of the Ostikanat Arminiya (Armenia under Arab suzerainty) between 830 and 851. He was the successor of his father, Ashot IV. Bagratuni , as lord von Taron (Տարոն) from 826. 830 he was appointed Ischchan Ischchanat by the caliph al-Ma'mūn from the Abbasid dynasty . In 849 he led an open rebellion against the Abbasids in Armenia. Thereupon Bugha al-Kabir ( Arabic بوقا الكبير) who put down the rebellion in a three-year campaign. Bagrat was cunningly captured during negotiations in 851 and taken as a prisoner to the Abbasid capital, Samarra . He was succeeded in Taron by his sons, while the title of Ishchan went to his nephew, who later became King Ashot I (Armenia) .

Life

Bagrat was the eldest son of Ashot IV. Bagratuni , who at the time of his death in 826 had brought most of the Armenian highlands under his control and was recognized by the Abbasids as Ishchan of Armenia. After his death, Bagrat and his brother Sembat (Սմբատ Բագրատունի) shared their inheritance: Bagrat took over the regions around Taron, Khoith and Sassoun , that is, the ancestral family lands on the upper reaches of the Euphrates , while Sembat took over the lands around Bagaran and on the Araxes river received. In a deliberate move to divide the brothers, the Abbasid government divided Ashot's power and transferred the title of Sparapet (Supreme Commander) to Sembat , while Bagrat was appointed Ishkhan Ishkhanats ′ (Supreme Prince) four years after his father's death. Bagrat was possibly the first prince to bear the title alongside the traditional “Prince of Armenia”.

The Abbasid calculations worked because the two brothers spent a lot of time in internal quarrels. In 841, for example, Bagrat had the Armenian bishops depose the Catholicos of Armenia , John IV , but he was promptly reinstalled in his office by Sembat with the support of the other princes. Nevertheless, the Armenian princes were able to use their position when the caliphate with the Churramite rebellion ( Persian خرمدینان) was employed by Babak Khorramdin . They were able to maintain a significant degree of autonomy during this period. Sembat, who had spent as a hostage at the court of the caliph, was more cautious and shied away from openly challenging the Arab powers. But even together, the two brothers were not strong enough to shake off the Abbasid rule. Bagrat took part in the sacking of Amorion by caliph al-Muʿtasim against the Byzantine Empire in 838 and he even fought in the battle of Dazimon against the emperor Theophilos . In 841, however, the Armenians, under the leadership of the sparapet Sembat, revolted against the appointment of the governor of the caliph Khalid ibn Yazid al-Shaybani , who had become enormously unpopular in his previous terms of office and had no support from either the Christian or Arab princes of the country had more. The rebels obtained his recall by the caliph and his replacement by the weaker and more compliant Ali ibn Husayn , from whom the Armenians not only withheld taxes, but also blocked the capital, Bardaa .

This allowed Armenia to remain outside the control of the Abbasids during the reign of Caliph al-Wāthiq (842-847), but the takeover of power by the energetic al-Mutawakkil in 847 brought a ruler to the throne who had the will to rule the Abbasids restore. In 849 the caliph appointed a new governor for Arminiya : Abu Sa'id Muhammad al-Marwazi . When he wanted to move with his army to Armenia, he was received at the border by envoy Bagrat with gifts and the promised tribute to prevent the Arab tax collectors from entering the country. This was an open affront by Bagrat, but Abu Sa'id preferred to withdraw for the moment. The next year Abu Sa'id sent two local Arab princes, al-Ala ibn Ahmad al-Azdi and Musa ibn Zurara (the Emir of Arzen , who was married to a sister of Bagrat), to the two southern provinces of Taron and Vaspurakan to submit, on the pretext of collecting the taxes. With that, the open conflict between the Arabs and Bagrat and the Artzruni ruler of Vaspurakan, Ashot I, was inevitable. Ashot defeated al-Ala and drove him from his territory, then aided Bagrat. The Armenian armies placed and defeated Musa near the capital of Taron, Mush , and pursued him until Baghesh . They stopped at the request of Musa's wife, Bagrat's sister. The Armenians then massacred the Arab settlers in Aghdznik , whereupon the caliph responded with power. Abu Sa'id sent off a new expedition in 851 but died on the way, and his son, Yusuf ibn Abi Sa'id al-Marwazi , took over the leadership of the expedition. The arrival of the Abbasid army in his territory moved Ashot Artzruni to negotiate a separate peace with the Arabs, which also forced Bagrat to enter into negotiations with Yusuf. However, during the talks, Bagrat, with the knowledge of his brother, was captured and taken to the capital of the caliphate, Samarra.

Bagrat's kidnapping resulted in his subjects killing Yusuf the following year. Al-Mutawakkil responded by sending a large army under the Turkish general Bugha al-Kabir . Over the next three years, Bugha methodically recaptured the entire province of Arminiya , from the southern regions around Taron and Vaspurakan up to the principalities of the Caucasus Albania and most of Iberia in the north. The princes of Armenia remained divided and dealt with their own personal rivalries, which facilitated the Abbasid recapture, especially since they sometimes fought alongside the caliph's troops and captured their rivals. The reestablishment of Abbasid rule was also accompanied by tens of thousands of executions. There was no sparing for the princely families, whether they were Christian or Muslim: When Bugha returned to Samarra in 855, most of the princes of Armenia were prisoners at the court of the caliph with their sons. Nevertheless, the Armenian princes were gradually released and their lands returned: Bagrat's sons Aschot and David succeeded him as rulers of Taron, only a small part of the region probably went to a prince of the Artzruni family, Gurgen I. Artzruni the son of Abu Belj . The title sparapet was given to Ashot V. Bagratuni , the son of Sembat, who also became Ishchan Ishanats in 862, which ultimately made him ruler of the quasi-independent Bagratid Empire of Armenia in 884 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ter-Ghewondyan 1976: 41st
  2. ↑ Laurent 1919: 103-104.
  3. ↑ Ter-Ghewondyan 1976: 41; Laurent 1919: 105.
  4. ↑ Jones 2007: 1-2; Whittow 1996: 216.
  5. ↑ Laurent 1919: 105.
  6. ↑ Laurent 1919: 149-150, esp. note 6.
  7. ↑ Laurent 1919: 105-107.
  8. ↑ Lily, Ralph-Johannes; Ludwig, Claudia; Pratsch, Thomas; Zielke, Beate (2013). Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period Online. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Created after preliminary work by F. Winkelmann. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter PmbZ : Bagrat Bagratuni (# 730).
  9. ↑ Laurent 1919: 212.
  10. ↑ Laurent 1919: 117, 163 note 4; Ter-Ghewondyan 1976: 28.
  11. ↑ Laurent 1919: 117.
  12. ↑ Ter-Ghewondyan 1976: 41-42.
  13. ↑ Laurent 1919: 117-118, 122; Ter-Ghewondyan 1976: 42-43.
  14. ↑ Laurent 1919: 118-124; Ter-Ghewondyan 1976: 43-44.
  15. ↑ Laurent 1919: 124-127.
  16. ↑ Laurent 1919: 128ff .; Ter-Ghewondyan 1976: 53ff.

swell

literature

  • Matthew S. Gordon, Chase F. Robinson, Everett K. Rowson, Michael Fishbein: The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī. (Volume 3): An English Translation. [IHC 152 - The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī] Brill, Leiden 2018: 1266 ISBN 9004364161 , 9789004364165
  • Allison M. Vacca: Conflict and Community in the medieval Caucasus . Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 25, middleeastmedievalists.com, 2017: 66-112.


predecessor Office successor
Ashot Msaker Ischchan Ischchanats'
830-851 		Ashot V. Bagratuni
personal data
SURNAME Bagrat II. Bagratuni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Բագրատ Բ Բագրատունի (Armenian); بقرت إبن (Arabic); Buqrāṭ ibn Ashūṭ
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Armenian Grand Duke
DATE OF BIRTH 9th century
DATE OF DEATH after 851