Rusudan was the younger daughter of King Giorgi III of Georgia and of his wife, Burdukhan (Gurandukht). 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 possibly may have died died from his wounds. It is said that Rusudan fled Constantinople with her sons, taking refuge either in Georgia or in the former Byzantine province of Pontus.
While the Fourth Crusade were camped outside Constantinople between 1203 and 1204 (and would later take the city), Tamar sent Georgian troops to help Alexios and David to take control of Pontus in April of 1204. Combined with their additional conquests this became the new Empire of Trebizond.
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), written at Thessaloniki, Ē genealogia tōn Komnēnōn, especially vol. 2 p. 515 note 24.
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