Chaka of Smyrna

Chaka of Smyrna ( _tr. Çaka Bey; Greek: Polytonic| Τζαχᾶς, "Tzachas") was an 11th century Turkish emir who ruled an independent state based in Smyrna.

Chaka was taken as a prisoner during a war with the Byzantine Empire by Emperor Nicephorus III Botaneiates. The emperor took an interest in the youth and brought him to live in the palace. He was granted the title of "protonobilissimus".

After Alexios I Komnenos became the Byzantine Emperor, Chaka returned to Anatolia and began a war against the Byzantines. In 1081, Chaka conquered several cities on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, including Smyrna. Intent upon expanding his power, he ordered the construction of a fleet at the shipyards of Smyrna and Ephesus. This fleet, which consisted of 33 sail ships and 17 oar ships, was the first Anatolian Turkish navy.

Chaka's fleet conquered Lesbos (1089) and Chios (1090), before defeating the Byzantine fleet under Niketas Kastamonites near the Koyun Islands off Chios on 19 May 1090. In 1091, his fleet conquered the islands of Samos and Rhodes, but also suffered a crushing defeat in the Sea of Marmara to Constantine Dalassenos, undoing much of his previous successes.

According to Byzantine sources, Chaka was murdered in 1092 by his son-in-law Kilij Arslan I. However, his name appears in later dates, such as a campaign against the strategic port city of Adramyttium (Edremit) in 1095, where, according to these sources, he died. Some historians [Doğuştan Günümüze Türk-İslam Tarihi (Turkish-Islamic History, from its Birth to the Present)] indicate that it was in fact his son who was appointed by Kilij Arslan to take his post.

At any rate, after Chaka's death, his "beylik" disappeared from history. The Byzantines would soon recapture the area under the leadership of Alexius I, and it would take the Seljuks more than two centuries to reach the Aegean coast again.

References

*Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Decline and Fall. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996) p. 26.

ee also

*History of the Turkish Navy