Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie (Mar 2024)
The Genoese consuls of Tana (Azak) according to the tax registers from the State Archives of Genoa: the chronology of consulates (1449–1475)
Abstract
Purpose of the study: The Genoese trading station – Tana, which existed on the territory of the Golden Horde and then the Crimean Khanate, was closely connected with the center of Genoese Gazaria – Caffa and served as an important transshipment point in Genoa’s relations with the East, as well as a place for the acquisition of the most important goods – valuable varieties of fish, caviar, salt, spices brought here, furs, leathers, etc., and was also the most important market for the slave trade. However, it has been studied much less in comparison with a similar Venetian settlement in the same place. This applies even more to the last period of its existence, after the Ottomans captured Constantinople and blocked the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. This period lasted from 1453 to 1475. Moreover, it is poorly supplied with documentary sources. Therefore, the use of new archival data allows us to expand our understanding of Tana, its connections with the Ulus of Jochi and the Crimean Khanate. The names of the highest magistrates of the Genoese Tana – consuls elected by the Bank of St. George of Genoa, who controlled all the Black Sea trading stations of the Genoese Republic since 1453 onwards, were until now known only through random and sporadic mentions. Meanwhile, this is the most important dating feature in the history of the trading post. The article makes a possible reconstruction of the dates of the rule of the magistrates of these settlements on the basis of not scattered, but relatively verifiable data of tax records on their salaries – the so-called stalii. Research materials: archival sources that have not yet been introduced into scientific circulation are used as a source – registers of taxes paid by magistrates, stored in the State Archives of Genoa. Comparisons of these records with the massariae (receipt and expense books) of Genoese Caffa and other sources were carried out. Research results and scientific novelty: the clarification of the dates of the rules of the Genoese consuls of Tana makes it possible to reconstruct the events and circumstances of the political history of the region in the middle of the 15th century, after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, to obtain more accurate dates of events, and finally to prove the existence of the Genoese Tana, albeit declining in size until the Ottoman conquest in 1475.
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