The workshop will explore the impact of Mongol rule on the wider Black Sea region in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the sea became a meeting point of the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate, Byzantium and Trebizond, and the merchant networks linking them to Italy, Armenia and Eastern Europe. Bringing together specialists working on different regions of EurAsia, and drawing on documentary, narrative and material evidence alongside digital methods, the workshop aims to shed new light on how people, goods and knowledge of various kinds (administrative, commercial, literary, geographical) moved into, across and beyond the Black Sea world during the Mongol period.

Programme

(subject to change)

Wednesday, 21 October

17.30–19.00    WELCOMING ADDRESS
Claudia Rapp | Co-Director of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) and Director of the FWF-Cluster of Excellence „Eurasian Transformations“
Andreas Rhoby | Head of the Department of Byzantine Research (ABF) at IMAFO/OeAW

KEYNOTE LECTURE (introduced by András Barati)
Lorenzo Pubblici | Università di Napoli L'Orientale
Whose Frontier? Rethinking Crimea and Azov in the Age of the Golden Horde

19.00        RECEPTION

Thursday, 22 October

9.30–11.00    ARCHIVES AND ADMINISTRATIONS
Chair: Lewis Read | IMAFO/ABF, OeAW
Samvel Grigoryan | University of Stirling
The Chancellor of Armenia at Almaliq: Reappraising the Documentary Evidence for the Mongol–Armenian Alliance
Zahir Bhallo | Univ. Hamburg
Ādūchī’s List: A Glimpse into the Archival Practice of a Mongol Amir
András Barati | IMAFO/ABF, IFI, OeAW
What the Manual Does Not Teach: The yarlīgh and the Boundary of the Provincial Chancery in Mongol Anatolia

11.00–11.30    Coffee break

11.30–13.00    MERCHANTS, COMMODITIES AND CONTAGION
Chair: Benedetta Contin | IMAFO/ABF, OeAW
Philip Slavin (online) | University of Stirling
The Worst 'Mongol Exchange': the Black Death in the Black Sea Region (1346-48) and Beyond
Alexandr Osipian | Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europa, Leipzig
Operating Long-distance Trade and Diplomatic Relations in the Black Sea Region: Armenian Merchants in the Golden Horde and Its Neighbour States
Sara Nur Yıldız | METU, Ankara
Allume di rocca di Colonna (Koloneian Alum) and the Regional Economy of the Inner Pontus during the Mongol Century

13.00–14.00    Lunch 

14.00–15.30    BETWEEN THE BALTIC, THE BLACK SEA AND THE AEGEAN
Chair: Klaus Belke | IMAFO/ABF, OeAW
Darius Baronas | Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius
Lithuania, the Tatars and the Black Sea Region in the Late Fourteenth – Early Fifteenth Century
Daiki Sano (online) | University of Edinburgh
The Emperor's Ill-Starred Decision? The Great Comet of 1264 and Michael VIII’s Expedition against Epirus
Ekaterini Mitsiou | Univ. Vienna
Byzantium and the Black Sea in the 13th century

15.30–16.00    Coffee break

16.00–17.30    DIGITAL APPROACHES TO MONGOL EURASIA
Chair: Andreas Zajic | IMAFO, OeAW
Mehmet Akif Top | Sabancı University, Istanbul
Glimpsing the Grassroots: Mongol Anatolia and the Black Sea through Mappa Anatolicorum
Felix Müller & Johannes Preiser-Kapeller | IMAFO/ABF, OeAW
Entangling Elites, Routes and Charters across medieval AfroEurAsia – Networks, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence
Jenny Reddish & Dániel Kondor | Complexity Science Hub, Vienna
Seshat Global History DB

18.00        Dinner for invited guests

Friday, 23 October

9.00–10.30    SETTLEMENTS AND GEOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE
Chair: Katalin Szende | CEU, Vienna
Maxime Durocher | Sorbonne Université, Paris & Burcu Erciyas | METU, Ankara
A Town in the Hinterland of the Black Sea: Komana during the Mongol Period
Yihao Qiu | Fudan University, Shanghai
The ‘Invisible’ Sea Encircled by Real Toponyms: Reconstructing the Black Sea and Its Adjacent Regions from Yuan–Ming Chinese Sources
Antonio Garcia Espada | UNED, Madrid
The Black Sea in the Libro del conosçimiento de todos los reynos

10.30–11.00    Coffee break

11.00–12.30    THE MONGOL IMPRINT ON THE BLACK SEA WORLD
Chair: Francesca Fiaschetti | IMAFO/HI, OeAW
Andrew Peacock | University of St Andrews
Islamic Literary Culture at the Court of the Golden Horde in Crimea
Nikolaos Vryzidis (online) | University of West Attica, Athens
Beyond the Mongol Moment: Eurasian Material and Visual Legacies in Later Byzantium
Rustam Shukurov | IMAFO/ABF, OeAW
The Empire of Trebizond and the Mongols

12.30–13.00    CONCLUDING REMARKS AND DISCUSSION

13.00–14.00    Light lunch

14.00-16.30    Guided tour: From the Black Sea to the Danube – A Walk through Vienna´s historical Centre between Mongols, Tatars and Ottomans
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller | IMAFO/ABF, OeAW