Cyril Leo Heraclius, Prince Toumanoff (13 October 1913 – 4 February 1997) was a United States-based historian and genealogist who mostly specialized in the history and genealogies of medieval Georgia, Armenia, the Byzantine Empire, and Iran. His works have significantly influenced the Western scholarship of the medieval Caucasus.^[1]

  Family

Cyril Toumanoff was born in Saint Petersburg into a family of the military officer of the Russian army. His father came of the princely family of Tumanishvili from Georgia,^[2] whose ancestors had emigrated from their original homeland in Cilician Armenia in the 15th century.^[1] This family is on the list of the Georgian princes that was attached to the Treaty of Georgievsk concluded between the Georgian king Erekle II and the Russian empress Catherine II in 1783. On December 6, 1850, the Tumanishvili were officially enrolled on the Russian Empire's list of Georgian princely families as knyaz Tumanov.^[3] Toumanoff's mother, Elizabeth Zhdanova, was a descendant of a number of Russian noble families, with genealogical ties with the Western European nobility.^[1]

  Career

Toumanoff's parents fled the October Revolution in St. Petersburg in 1917. His father joined the White Russian forces during the Russian Civil War, while his mother was put to death by the Bolsheviks.^[1] Cyril Toumanoff was initially sheltered by his maternal grandparents in Astrakhan. In 1928, Toumanoff's father was able to escape to the United States, bringing his son with him. Cyril Toumanoff attended the Lennox School which he graduated from in 1931 and went to Harvard. His educators John Coddington and Robert P. Blake helped him secure funding for travel to Brussels to study Armenology under Nicholas Adontz and then to Berlin, where he studied Georgian under Michael Tsereteli.^[1] During these years, Toumanoff converted to Roman Catholicism. A breach with his Orthodox Christian father ensued and was only terminated when the two reconciled at the latter's deathbed in 1943.^[1]

Toumanoff earned a doctorate from the Georgetown University in 1943 and soon accepted a position there which he held until his retirement as a professor emeritus of history in 1970. Thereafter he moved to Rome.^[1] A recognized authority on nobiliary and dynastic questions, Prince Toumanoff was also a Professed Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, High Historical Consultant, Grand Magistry,^[4] and the Grand Prior of Bohemia.^[1]

Cyril Toumanoff died in 1997 in Rome at the age of 83.^[1] He is buried at the chapel of the Knights of Malta at Campo Verano, Rome.^[5]

  Bibliography

• On the Relationship between the Founder of the Empire of Trebizond and the Georgian Queen Thamar, Speculum, 15 (1940).
• Medieval Georgian Historical Literature (VIIth-XVth Centuries), Traditio 1 (1943).
• The old Manuscript of the Georgian Annals: The Queen Anne Codex (QA) 1479-1495 Traditio 5 (1947)
• The Early Bagratids. remarks in connexion vith some recent publications, Le Museon 62 (1949).
• The Fifteenth-Century Bagratids and the institution of Collegial Sovereignty in Georgia, Traditio 7 (1949–1951)
• Christian Caucasia between Byzantium and Iran. New light from Old Sources, Traditio 10 (1954).
• (French) La noblesse géorgienne sa genèse et sa structure, Rivista Araldica, Sett (1956).
• Chronology of the Kings of Abasgia and other problems, Le Museon,69 (1956)
• Caucasia and Byzantine studies, Traditio 12 (1956)
• The Bagratids of Iberia from the Eight to the Eleven Century, Le Museon 74 (1961)
• The dates of the Pseudo-Moses of Chorence, Handes Amsorya,75 (1961)
• Studies in Christian Caucasian History, Georgetown University Press, (1963).
• The Cambridge Medieval History IV cap XIV "Armenia and Georgia", nouv.éd 1966.
• Chronology of the Early Kings of Iberia, article dans Traditio 25 (1969)
• The Mamikonids and the Liparitids, Armeniaca Venise (1969).
• The Third-Century Armenian Arsacids: A chronological and Genealogical Commentary, revue des études arméniennes no 6 (1969) pages 233 à 281.
• Caucasia and Byzantium, Traditio,27 (1971)
• (French) L’Ordre de Malte dans l’Empire de Russie : Grand-Prieuré Catholique de Russie, Rivista Araldica, Maggio-Giugno (1973)
• (French) Manuel de généalogie et de chronologie pour l’histoire de la Caucasie chrétienne (Arménie, Géorgie, Albanie), Éd. Aquila, Rome, (1976).
• (French) Aransahikides ou Haykides ? Derniers rois de Siounie, Handes Amsorya (1976)
• (French) Les Maisons Princières Géorgiennes de l’Empire de Russie, Rome, (1983).
• The Albanian Royal Succession, Le Museon 97 (1984).
• The Social Myth: Introduction to Byzantinism, Viella libreria editrice, Rome (1984).
• Heraclids and the Arsacids, revue des études arméniennes no 19 (1985).
• Problems of Aransahikid Genealogy, Le Museon 98 (1985).
• (French) Les dynasties de la Caucasie chrétienne de l’Antiquité jusqu’au XIXe siècle ; Tables généalogiques et chronologiques, Rome, 1990.

  References