Sudak or Sudaq ( ; ) is a small historic town located in Crimea, Ukraine situated to the west of Feodosiya (the nearest railway station) and to the east of Simferopol, the capital of Crimea. Today it is a popular resort, best known for its Genoese fortress, the best preserved on the northern shore of the Black Sea.

History

It is believed that the city was founded in 212 AD by Alani settlers. Greek merchants from the Byzantine Empire founded Σουγδαία (a reference to Sogdia) in the 3rd century. In the 6th century, the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I ordered the construction of a fortress. The Khazars attacked in the 7th century, giving it the name Suğdaq. The Life of St. Stefan of Surozh ( ) describes the 8th century town as a dependency of the Byzantine Empire. Around the start of the 9th century, it was supposedly attacked by the Rus' chieftain, Bravlin. It is thought that the Khazars retained the town from the early 800s until 1016, when the Byzantines finally defeated the Khazar warlord Georgeios Tsulo. Afterwards, the town seems to have preserved some sort of autonomy within the Byzantine Empire.

From the 9th century until around the 12th century, there were important trade exchanges between the then Surozh and the Kievan Rus'.

It became an important location for trading on the Silk Road in the 12th and 13th centuries, despite attacks by the Kypchaks in the 11th century and further damages inflicted by the Tatars (in 1223, but also in 1239). The Seljuk Anatolian Sultanate of Iconium army and fleet from Sinop held and fortified Sudak in 1224.

The Venetians also came to Sudak at the beginning of the 13th century to take their share, naming the fortress Soldaia, before ceding it to Genoese control in 1365. The Ottomans took control of Soldaia and all other Genoese colonies, as well as the Principality of Theodoro in 1475. Although Sudak was the strategical center of the qadılıq, the smallest administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire, the town lost much of its military and commercial importance, until the Crimean Khanate took over.

In 1771, Sudak was occupied by Rumyantsev's army. In 1783, it definitively passed to the Russian Empire, with the rest of Crimea. Though sometimes contested, it seems that a mass emigration occurred as a result of the ensuing instability in that period. Even Potemkin ordered in 1778 the eviction of the Christian population from Crimea. The town rapidly turned into a small village, and according to the 1805 census, Sudak had just 33 inhabitants.

In 1804, the first Russian school of viticulture was opened there.

The present status of the town was acquired in 1982.

References

Footnotes

1. The old Slavic name of the city was then Сурож (Surozh). There is a monastery bearing his name in the village of Qızıltaş: .
2. Members of the Polo family and other Venetian merchants having resided in the town since the 12th century.

Sources

• Sugdea, Surozh, Soldaia in History and Culture of the Ruthenian Ukraine - Scientific conference materials, Kyiv-Sudaq, 2002 (prints only)
• Sugdea Collection, Kiev-Sudaq (Академпериодика, 2004)
• Miscellaneous publications by A. Yu. Vinogradov ( Библиотека Якова Кротова)

See also

• Krasnokam‘yanka - Qızıltaş - Krasnokamyenka
• Novyi Svit - Novıy Svet - Novyi Svyet
• Gazaria - the name for Genoese communities in Crimea
• Principality of Theodoro
• Russian Orthodox Diocese of Surozh - the old name of the city as an episcopal see in the Russian Orthodox Church, Surozh, is now transferred to the Russian Orthodox Diocese in Great Britain and Ireland

External links

• Pictures of Sudak
• Pictures of the Genoese fortress in Sudak
• Pictures of Sudak and Noviy Svet
• History and monuments of Sudak
• Monastery of St. Stefan of Surozh
• Theodora, the basilissa of Sugdaia (eng)