1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
3.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
4.
Republic
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It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as humanism, is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect, Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage, for instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government. The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia, cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. And also amongst classical Latin, the term republic can be used in a way to refer to any regime. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments, in the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, the terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term can quite literally be translated as public matter. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, in subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, likewise, in Polish, the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term republic commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the rather than from another basis. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many cities developed again. The modern type of itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world. Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the era that are today still called republics
5.
Crimea
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The peninsula is located south of the Ukrainian region of Kherson and west of the Russian region of Kuban. It is connected to Kherson Oblast by the Isthmus of Perekop and is separated from Kuban by the Strait of Kerch, the Arabat Spit is located to the northeast, a narrow strip of land that separates a system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of Azov. Crimea has historically been at the boundary between the world and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Crimea and adjacent territories were united in the Crimean Khanate during the 15th to 18th century, in 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. It became the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within newly independent Ukraine in 1991, with Sevastopol having its own administration, within Ukraine, the ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet and its facilities were divided between Russias Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian Naval Forces. The two navies shared some of the harbours and piers, while others were demilitarised or used by either country. Sevastopol remained the location of the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters with the Ukrainian Naval Forces Headquarters also based in the city, most of the international community does not recognize the annexation and considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory. Russia currently administers the peninsula as two federal subjects, the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. Ukraine continues to assert its right over the peninsula, the classical name Tauris or Taurica is from the Greek Ταυρική, after the peninsulas Scytho-Cimmerian inhabitants, the Tauri. In English usage since the modern period the Crimean Khanate is referred to as Crim Tartary. The Italian form Crimea also becomes current during the 18th century, the omission of the definite article in English became common during the later 20th century. The name Crimea follows the Italian form from the Crimean Tatar name for the city Qırım which served as a capital of the Crimean province of the Golden Horde, the name of the capital was extended to the entire peninsula at some point during Ottoman suzerainty. The origin of the word Qırım is uncertain, suggestions argued in various sources include, a corruption of Cimmerium. A derivation from the Turkic term qirum, from qori-, other suggestions that have not been supported by sources but are apparently based on similarity in sound include, a derivation from the Greek Cremnoi. However, he identifies the port, not in Crimea, no evidence has been identified that this name was ever in use for the peninsula. The classical name was revived in 1802 in the name of the Russian Taurida Governorate, in the 8th century BCE the Cimmerians migrated to the region and subsequently the Scythians as well it being the site of Greek colonies. The most important city was Chersonesos at the edge of todays Sevastopol, the Persian Achaemenid Empire expanded to Crimea. Later occupiers included the Romans, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, the Byzantine Empire, Khazars, the Kipchaks, the Golden Horde, consideration of the succeeding residents of the peninsula by their linguistic grouping is also of relevance
6.
Municipality
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It is to be distinguished from the county, which may encompass rural territory and/or numerous small communities such as towns, villages and hamlets. The term municipality may also mean the governing or ruling body of a given municipality, a municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French municipalité and Latin municipalis, a municipality can be any political jurisdiction from a sovereign state, such as the Principality of Monaco, or a small village, such as West Hampton Dunes, New York. The power of municipalities range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to the state, municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax, property tax, and corporate income tax, but may also receive substantial funding from the state. Similar terms include Spanish ayuntamiento, also called municipalidad, Polish gmina, Dutch/Flemish Gemeente, in Australia, the term local government area is used in place of the generic municipality. Here, the LGA Structure covers only incorporated areas of Australia, incorporated areas are legally designated parts of states and territories over which incorporated local governing bodies have responsibility. In Canada, municipalities are local governments established through provincial and territorial legislation, the Province of Ontario has different tiers of municipalities, including lower, upper, and single tiers. Types of upper tier municipalities in Ontario include counties and regional municipalities, nova Scotia also has regional municipalities, which include cities, counties, districts, or towns as municipal units. In India, a Nagar Palika or Municipality is a local body that administers a city of population 100,000 or more. Under the Panchayati Raj system, it directly with the state government. Generally, smaller cities and bigger towns have a Nagar Palika. Nagar Palikas are also a form of local self-government entrusted with duties and responsibilities. Such a corporation in Great Britain consists of a head as a mayor or provost, since local government reorganisation, the unit in England, Northern Ireland and Wales is known as a district, and in Scotland as a council area. A district may be awarded borough or city status, or can retain its district title, in Jersey, a municipality refers to the honorary officials elected to run each of the 12 parishes into which it is subdivided. This is the highest level of government in this jurisdiction. In the United States, municipality is usually understood as a city, town, village, or other local government unit, in the Peoples Republic of China, a direct-controlled municipality is a city with equal status to a province, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing. In Taiwan, a municipality is a city with equal status to a province, Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei. In Portuguese language usage, there are two words to distinguish the territory and the administrative organ, when referring to the territory, the word concelho is used, when referring to the organ of State, the word município is used
7.
Sudak Municipality
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As a municipal division, the town of republican significance of Sudak is incorporated as Sudak Urban Okrug. Within the framework of administrative divisions of Ukraine, Sudak is incorporated as the town of significance of Sudak. Ukraine does not have municipal divisions, besides the city of Sudak the region includes the town of Novyi Svet and 14 villages which are organized into 7 communities. Former Crimean Tatar names which were changed in 1945-49 and are now used only by the Crimean Tatar community are mentioned in brackets
8.
Humid subtropical climate
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A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterised by hot, usually humid summers and mild to cool winters. It normally lies on the southeast side of all continents, generally between latitudes 25° and 40° and it tends to be located at coastal or near coastal locations. However, in cases it extends inland, most notably in China. Under the Köppen climate classification, subtropical climates are found in the warmest parts of his Warm Temperate climates or Cfa and this climate features mean temperatures in the coldest month between 0 °C and 18 °C and mean temperatures in the warmest month 22 °C or higher. However, while some climatologists have opted to describe this type as a humid subtropical climate Köppen himself never used this term. The humid subtropical climate classification was created under the Trewartha Climate classification. The Trewartha system was a 1966 update of the Köppen climate classification and this was seen to effectively separate temperate climates like London or New York City from true subtropical locations like Brisbane or Savannah for example. Rainfall often shows a peak, especially where monsoons are well developed, as in Southeast Asia. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms that build up due to the surface heating and strong subtropical sun angle. Weak tropical lows that move in from adjacent warm tropical oceans, winter rainfall is often associated with large storms in the westerlies that have fronts that reach down into subtropical latitudes. However, many subtropical climates such as southeast Asia or Florida have very dry winters, with frequent brush fires, in Africa, the humid subtropical climates are found in two separate areas on the southern hemisphere of the continent. The Cwa climate is found over a portion of the interior of the Middle. Some lower portions of the Ethiopian Highlands also have this climate, the climate is also found in the narrow coastal sections of southern and eastern South Africa, primarily in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape provinces. South Africas version of this climate features heavy oceanic influences resulting in milder temperatures. This is particularly evident in its winters when temperatures do not drop as low as in other regions within the humid subtropical category. Locations in Asia with a subtropical climate differ from those in other continents in that they often have marked seasonal differences in precipitation. Cities near the boundary of this zone include Hong Kong, Hanoi. At Hainan Island and in Taiwan, the transitions from subtropical into fully tropical
9.
Ukrainian language
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Ukrainian /juːˈkreɪniən/ is an East Slavic language. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script, historical linguists trace the origin of the Ukrainian language to the Old East Slavic of the early medieval state of Kievan Rus. After the fall of the Kievan Rus as well as the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, the Modern Ukrainian language has been in common use since the late 17th century, associated with the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate. From 1804 until the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian language was banned from schools in the Russian Empire and it has always maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine, where the language was never banned, in its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors. The Ukrainian language retains a degree of intelligibility with Belarusian and Russian. The first theory of the origin of Ukrainian language was suggested in Imperial Russia in the middle of the 18th century by Mikhail Lomonosov and this theory posits the existence of a common language spoken by all East Slavic people in the time of the Rus. Another point of view developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by linguists of Imperial Russia, like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. This general point of view is the most accepted amongst academics worldwide, the supporters of this theory disagree, however, about the time when the different languages were formed. Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at time periods. During the time of the incorporation of Ruthenia into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and this point of view is, however, at variance with some historical data. In fact, several East Slavic tribes, such as Polans, Drevlyans, Severians, Dulebes, White Croats, Tiverians, notably, some Ukrainian features were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented. In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Alexei Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times. According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century, Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky went even further, denying the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past. Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko, according to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to a migration of the population within the territory of todays Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was supported by George Shevelovs phonological studies. During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of Galicia-Vollhynia and their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts, examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh, rura, rynok, kushnir, and majster
10.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
11.
Crimean Tatar language
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Crimean Tatar, also called Crimean Turkish or simply Crimean, is a language spoken for centuries in Crimea. It is a Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as communities in the United States. It should not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia, though only distantly related, it has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz Turkic languages such as Turkish, Turkmen, and Azerbaijani. Today, more than 260,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea, approximately 150,000 reside in Central Asia, where their ancestors had been exiled in 1944 during World War II by the Soviet Union. However, of all people, mostly the older generations are the only ones still speaking Crimean Tatar. In 2013, the language was estimated to be on the brink of extinction, Turkey has provided support to Ukraine, to aid in bringing the schools teaching in Crimean Tatar to a modern state. An estimated 5 million people of Crimean origin live in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th, of these an estimated 2,000 still speak the language. Smaller Crimean Tatar communities are found in Romania, Bulgaria. Crimean Tatar is one of the endangered languages in Europe. Almost all Crimean Tatars are bilingual or multilingual, using as their first language the dominant languages of their home countries, such as Ukrainian, Turkish, Uzbek. Each of the three groups of the Crimean Tatars has its own dialect. The dialect of the Nogays, the inhabitants of the Crimean steppe, is of Kypchak–Nogay origin. The Yalıboylus, who lived on the southern coast of Crimea before 1944, the Tat Tatars from the Crimean Mountains use a middle dialect of Kypchak–Cuman origin. The dialect is a descendant of the Cuman language. The modern Crimean Tatar written language is based on Tat because the Tats comprise about 55% of the total Crimean Tatar population, the forming of the Crimean Tatar spoken dialects began with the first Turkic invasions of Crimea and ended during the period of the Crimean Khanate. However, the written languages of the Crimean Khanate were Chagatai. After Islamization, Crimean Tatars wrote with an Arabic script, in 1876, the different Turkic Crimean dialects were made into a uniform written language by Ismail Gasprinski. A preference was given to the Oghuz dialect of the Yalıboylus, in 1928, the language was reoriented to the middle dialect spoken by the majority of the people
12.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
13.
Republic of Crimea
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The Republic of Crimea is a federal subject of Russia that is located on the Crimean Peninsula. It has a population of 1,891, 465 , Russia then annexed the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol as federal subjects of Russia. Russia disputes this, citing the right of the people of Crimea to self-determination, in 1792, under the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, Crimea was ceded to Russia by the Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Jassy, which formally ended the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1792. From 1802, it constituted a part of the Taurida Governorate of the Russian Empire until the collapse thereof in 1917. The Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to Crimea in the mid-1980s under perestroika, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine, which led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised, Crimean Tatars began returning from exile and resettling in Crimea. Ukraine restored Crimeas autonomous status in 1991, the document specifically mentioned Kosovo as a precedent in the lead part. The available choices did not include keeping the status quo of Crimea, on 16 March 2014, according to statements of organizers of Crimean status referendum, a large majority voted in favour of independence of Crimea from Ukraine and joining Russia as a federal subject. The referendum was not recognized by most of the international community, the BBC reported that most of the Crimean Tatars that they interviewed were boycotting the vote. Reports from the UN criticised the circumstances surrounding the referendum, especially the presence of paramilitaries, self-defence groups, the European Union, Canada, Japan and the United States condemned the vote as illegal. After the referendum, Crimean lawmakers formally voted both to secede from Ukraine and applied for their admission into Russia, the Sevastopol City Council, however, requested the ports separate admission as a federal city. On 18 March 2014, the self-proclaimed independent Republic of Crimea signed a treaty of accession to the Russian Federation, the accession was only recognised internationally by a few states with most regarding the action as illegal. Though Ukraine refused to accept the annexation, the Ukrainian military began to withdraw from Crimea on 19 March. On 3 April 2014, Moscow sent a note to Ukraine on terminating the actions of agreements concerning the deployment of the Russian Federations Black Sea Fleet on the territory of Ukraine. As part of the agreements, Russia paid the Ukrainian government $530 million annually for the base, the Kremlin stated that as the base is no longer located in Ukraine, there were no legal grounds for the discount to be continued. On 3 April 2014, Crimea and the city of Sevastopol became part of Russias Southern Military District, on 11 April 2014, the parliament of Crimea approved a new constitution, with 88 out of 100 lawmakers voting in favor of its adoption. The constitution ensures the Republic of Crimea as a state within the Russian Federation and says that its territory is united. The Crimean parliament will become smaller and have 75 members instead of current 100, on 12 April 2014, the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea, adopted at the session of the State Council on 11 April entered into legal force
14.
Feodosia
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Feodosia, also called Theodosia, is a port and resort, a town of regional significance in Crimea on the Black Sea coast. Feodosia serves as the center of Feodosia Municipality, one of the regions into which Crimea is divided. During much of its history the city was known as Caffa or Kaffa, the city was founded as Theodosia by Greek colonists from Miletos in the 6th century BC. Noted for its agricultural lands, on which its trade depended. Theodosia remained a village for much of the next nine hundred years. It was at times part of the sphere of influence of the Khazars, like the rest of Crimea, this place fell under the domination of the Kipchaks and was conquered by the Mongols in the 1230s. Between 1204–1261 and again in 1296–1307, the city of Kaffa was ruled by Genoas chief rival, in the late 13th century, traders from the Republic of Genoa arrived and purchased the city from the ruling Golden Horde. It came to one of Europes biggest slave markets. From 1266 and on, Kaffa was governed by a Genoese consul, in early 1318 Pope John XXII established a Latin Church diocese of Kaffa, as a suffragan of Genoa. The first bishop was Fra Gerolamo, who had already been consecrated seven years before as a missionary bishop ad partes Tartarorum, the diocese ended as a residential bishopric with the capture of the city by the Ottomans in 1475. Accordingly, Kaffa is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see and it is believed that the devastating pandemic the Black Death entered Europe for the first time via Kaffa in 1347, through the movements of the Golden Horde. Fleeing inhabitants may have carried the back to Italy, causing its spread across Europe. However, the plague appears to have spread in a stepwise fashion, also, there were a number of Crimean ports under Mongol control, so it is unlikely that Kaffa was the only source of plague-infested ships heading to Europe. In addition, there were overland caravan routes from the East that would have been carrying the disease into Europe as well, the thriving, culturally diverse city and its thronged slave market have been described by the Spanish traveler Pedro Tafur, who was there in the 1430s. In 1462 Caffa placed itself under the protection of King Casimir IV of Poland, however, Poland did not offer help when real danger came. Following the fall of Constantinople, Amasra, and lastly Trebizond and he was at no loss for a pretext to extinguish this last Genoese colony on the Black sea. In 1473, the tudun of the Crimean Khanate died and a fight developed over the appointment of his successor, the Genoese involved themselves in the dispute, and the Tatar notables who favored the losing candidate finally asked Mehmed to settle the dispute. Mehmed dispatched a fleet under the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha and it anchored before the walls of the city on 1 June, started the bombardment the next day, and on 6 June the inhabitants capitulated
15.
Simferopol
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Simferopol is a city on the Crimean peninsula, the status of which is disputed between Ukraine and Russia. Archaeological evidence in Simferopol indicates the existence of an ancient Scythian city, the location was also home to a Crimean Tatar town, Aqmescit. After the annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire, the name comes from the Greek Sympheropolis, meaning city of common good. It is spelled Simferopol or Symferopil, in Crimean Tatar, the name of the city is Aqmescit, which means The white mosque. In English, the name was given as Akmechet or Ak-Mechet, a transliteration from Russian Акмечет, Ак-Мечеть. Archaeological evidence in the Chokurcha cave shows the presence of ancient people living in the territory of modern Simferopol, later, the Crimean Tatars founded the town of Aqmescit. For some time, Aqmescit served as the residence of the Qalğa-Sultan, the city was renamed Simferopol in 1784 after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire by Catherine II of Russia. The name Simferopol is in Greek, Συμφερόπολις, and literally means the city of usefulness, the tradition to give Greek names to places in newly acquired southern territories was carried out by Empress Catherine the Great as part of her Greek Plan. In 1802, Simferopol became the centre of the Taurida Governorate. During the Crimean War of 1854–1856, the Russian Imperial Army reserves, after the war, more than 30,000 Russian soldiers were buried in the citys vicinity. In the 20th century, Simferopol was once affected by wars. At the end of the Russian Civil War, the headquarters of General Pyotr Wrangel, on 13 November 1920, the Red Army captured the city and on 18 October 1921, Simferopol became the capital of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. During World War II, Simferopol was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1 November 1941 to 13 April 1944, retreating NKVD police shot a number of prisoners on 31 October 1941 in the NKVD building and the citys prison. Germans perpetrated one of the largest war-time massacres in Simferopol, killing in total over 22,000 locals—mostly Jews, Russians, Krymchaks, and Gypsies. On one occasion, starting 9 December 1941, the Einsatzgruppen D under Otto Ohlendorfs command killed an estimated 14,300 Simferopol residents, in April 1944, the Red Army liberated Simferopol. On 18 May 1944 the Crimean Tatar population of the city along with the whole Crimean Tatar nation of Crimea was forcibly deported to Central Asia in a form of collective punishment, an asteroid 2141 Simferopol discovered in 1970 by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova is named after the city. Following a referendum on 20 January 1991, the Crimean Oblast was upgraded an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on 12 February 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, Simferopol became the capital of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Simferopol became the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within newly independent Ukraine
16.
Classical antiquity
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It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer, and continues through the emergence of Christianity and it ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity, blending into the Early Middle Ages. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures, Classical antiquity may refer also to an idealised vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poes words, the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome. The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society. The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse, the 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical, with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, in the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games, in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from Canaan ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean, carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which created conflicts of interest with Etruria. The Etruscans had established control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21,753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth and it was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, the people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretias kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, summoned the Senate and had Superbus, after Superbus expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word Rex meaning King became a dirty and hated throughout the Republic. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras. Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC
17.
Republic of Genoa
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It began when Genoa became a self-governing commune within the Regnum Italicum, and ended when it was conquered by the French First Republic under Napoleon and replaced with the Ligurian Republic. Corsica was ceded to France in the Treaty of Versailles of 1768, before 1100, Genoa emerged as an independent city-state, one of a number of Italian city-states during this period. Nominally, the Holy Roman Emperor was overlord and the Bishop of Genoa was president of the city, however, actual power was wielded by a number of consuls annually elected by popular assembly. The Adorno, Campofregoso, and other merchant families all fought for power in this Republic, as the power of the consuls allowed each family faction to gain wealth. The Republic of Genoa extended over modern Liguria and Piedmont, Sardinia, Corsica, through Genoese participation on the Crusades, Genoese colonies were established in the Middle East, in the Aegean, in Sicily and Northern Africa. The collapse of the Crusader States was offset by Genoa’s alliance with the Byzantine Empire, as Venices relations with the Byzantine Empire were temporarily disrupted by the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath, Genoa was able to improve its position. Genoa took advantage of opportunity to expand into the Black Sea and Crimea. Internal feuds between the families, the Grimaldi and Fieschi, the Doria, Spinola, and others caused much disruption. However, this prosperity did not last, the Black Death was imported into Europe in 1347 from the Genoese trading post at Caffa in Crimea, on the Black Sea. Following the economic and population collapse, Genoa adopted the Venetian model of government, the wars with Venice continued, and the War of Chioggia -- where Genoa almost managed to decisively subdue Venice—ended with Venices recovery of dominance in the Adriatic. In 1390 Genoa initiated a crusade against the Barbary pirates with help from the French, though it has not been well-studied, the fifteenth century seems to have been a tumultuous time for Genoa. After a period of French domination from 1394–1409, Genoa came under rule by the Visconti of Milan, Genoa lost Sardinia to Aragon, Corsica to internal revolt and its Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Asia Minor colonies to the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Under the ensuing economic recovery, many aristocratic Genoese families, such as the Balbi, Doria, Grimaldi, Pallavicini, according to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and others, the practices Genoa developed in the Mediterranean were crucial in the exploration and exploitation of the New World. At the time of Genoa’s peak in the 16th century, the city attracted many artists, including Rubens, Caravaggio and Van Dyck. The architect Galeazzo Alessi designed many of the city’s splendid palazzi, as did in the decades that followed by fifty years Bartolomeo Bianco, a number of Genoese Baroque and Rococo artists settled elsewhere and a number of local artists became prominent. At the time of its founding in the early 11th century the Republic of Genoa consisted of the city of Genoa, as the commerce of the city increased, so did the territory of the Republic. By 1015 all of Liguria fell under the Republic of Genoa, after the First Crusade in 1098 Genoa gained settlements in Syria. In 1261 the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor became Genoese territory, in 1255 Genoa established the colony of Caffa in Crimea
18.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea
19.
Khazars
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The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people, who created what for its duration was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Kaganate. For some three centuries the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea, the alliance was dropped around 900. Between 965 and 969, the Kievan Rus ruler Sviatoslav I of Kiev conquered the capital Atil, the native religion of the Khazars is thought to have been Tengrism, like that of the North Caucasian Huns and other Turkic peoples. The polyethnic populace of the Khazar Khaganate appears to have been a multiconfessional mosaic of pagan, Tengrist, Jewish, Christian and this theory still finds occasional support, but most scholars view it with scepticism. The theory is associated with antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Gyula Németh, following Zoltán Gombocz, derived Xazar from a hypothetical *Qasar reflecting a Turkic root qaz- being an hypothetical velar variant of Common Turkic kez-, louis Bazin derived it from Turkic qas- on the basis of its phonetic similarity to the Uyğur tribal name, Qasar. András Róna-Tas connects it with Kesar, the Pahlavi transcription of the Roman title Caesar, D. M. Dunlop tried to link the Chinese term for Khazars to one of the tribal names of the Uyğur Toquz Oğuz, namely the Gésà. One method for tracing their origins consists in analysis of the possible etymologies behind the ethnonym Khazar itself. The tribes that were to comprise the Khazar empire were not a union, but a congeries of steppe nomads and peoples who came to be subordinated. They appear to stem from Mongolia and South Siberia in the aftermath of the fall of the Hunnic/Xiōngnú nomadic polities, moving west, the confederation reached the land of the Akatziroi, who had been important allies of Byzantium in fighting off Attilas army. An embryonic state of Khazaria began to form sometime after 630, Göktürk armies had penetrated the Volga by 549, ejecting the Avars, who were then forced to flee to the sanctuary of the Hungarian plain. The Āshǐnà clan whose tribal name was Türk appear on the scene by 552, by 568, these Göktürks were probing for an alliance with Byzantium to attack Persia. Both briefly challenged Tang hegemony in eastern Turkestan, to the West, two new nomadic states arose in the meantime, Old Great Bulgaria under Kubrat, the Duōlù clan leader, and the Nǔshībì subconfederation, also consisting of five tribes. The Duōlù challenged the Avars in the Kuban River-Sea of Azov area while the Khazar Qağanate consolidated further westwards, led apparently by an Āshǐnà dynasty. The Qağanate of the Khazars thus took out of the ruins of this nomadic empire as it broke up under pressure from the Tang dynasty armies to the east sometime between 630–650. According to Omeljan Pritsak, the language of the Onoğur-Bulğar federation was to become the lingua franca of Khazaria as it developed into what Lev Gumilev called a steppe Atlantis, Khazaria developed a Dual kingship governance structure, typical among Turkic nomads, consisting of a shad/bäk and a qağan. The emergence of this system may be deeply entwined with the conversion to Judaism, particularly elaborate rituals accompanied a royal burial. At one period, travellers had to dismount, bow before the rulers tomb, such a royal burial ground is typical of inner Asian peoples
20.
Ravenna Cosmography
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The Ravenna Cosmography is a list of place-names covering the world from India to Ireland, compiled by an anonymous cleric in Ravenna around AD700. Textual evidence indicates that the frequently used maps as his source. The most recent critical edition of the three manuscripts is that of Joseph Schnetz in 1942, the surviving texts are quite challenging. The three manuscript copies are distanced from the autograph by three or four generations, as a result, the copies are plagued by errors of spelling, word division, omission, and even errors of hearing. The text-to-text variations are not limited to the place-names, but are significant in the intervening commentary. Thus, the bulk of the blame cannot be placed on the original author, antonine Itinerary Ptolemys Geography Tabula Peutingeriana Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia et Gvidonis Geographica at Archive. org. The Ravenna Cosmography, Introduction and British section, the Roman Map of Britain The British section of the Ravenna Cosmography and its sources. Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography, a reassessment, Introduction and link to an edition of the Latin original
21.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
22.
Alans
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The Alans were an Iranian nomadic pastoral people of antiquity. The name Alan is an Iranian dialectical form of Aryan, a common self-designation of the Indo-Iranians, possibly related to the Massagetae, the Alans have been connected by modern historians with the Central Asian Yancai and Aorsi of Chinese and Roman sources, respectively. Having migrated westwards and become dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic Steppe, at the time they had settled the region north of the Black Sea, and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman Empire. In 215–250 AD their power on the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Goths, upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375 AD, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406 AD along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans, around 409 AD they joined the Vandals and Suebi in the crossing of the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Carthaginiensis. The Iberian Alans were soundly defeated by the Visigoths 418 AD, the Alans who remained under Hunnic rule founded a powerful kingdom in the North Caucasus in the Middle Ages, which ended with the Mongol invasions in the 13th century AD. These Alans are said to be the ancestors of the modern Ossetians, the Alans spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian. The various forms of Alan – Greek, Ἀλανοί Alanoi, Chinese, 阿蘭聊 Alanliao in the 2nd century, 阿蘭 Alan in the 3rd century – and Iron and later Alanguo are derived from Iranian dialectal forms of Aryan. These and other variants of Aryan were common self-designations of the Indo-Iranians, scarcer spellings include Alauni or Halani. The Alans were also known over the course of their history by another group of related names including the variations Asi, As and it is this name that is the root of the modern Ossetian. The first mentions of names that historians link with the Alani appear at almost the time in texts from the Mediterranean, Middle East. In the 1st century AD, the Alans migrated westwards from Central Asia, the Alans are mentioned in the Vologeses inscription which reads that Vologeses I, the Parthian king c. 51–78 AD, in the 11th year of his reign, battled Kuluk, the contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus supplements this inscription. Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have formerly mentioned somewhere as being Scythians and these Alans therefore plundered the country without opposition, and with great ease, and proceeded as far as Armenia, laying waste all before them. The fact that the Alans invaded Parthia through Hyrcania shows that at the time many Alans were still based north-east of the Caspian Sea, by the early 2nd century AD the Alans were in firm control of the Lower Volga and Kuban. These lands had earlier occupied by the Aorsi and the Siraces. It is likely that the Alans influence stretched further westwards, encompassing most of the Sarmatian world, in 135 AD, the Alans made a huge raid into Asia Minor via the Caucasus, ravaging Media and Armenia. They were eventually driven back by Arrian, the governor of Cappadocia, in 215–250 AD, the Germanic Goths expanded south-eastwards and broke the Alan dominance on the Pontic Steppe
23.
Ossetian language
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Ossetian, also known as Ossete and Ossetic, is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in Ossetia, a region on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. It is a descendant of the Scythian, Sarmatian and Alanic languages. Ossetian speakers number about 577,450, with 451,000 speakers in the Russian Federation recorded in the 2010 census, Ossetian belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages. Within Iranian it is placed in an Eastern subgroup and further to a Northeastern sub-subgroup, the other Eastern Iranian languages such as Pashto and Yaghnobi show certain commonalities but also deep-reaching divergences from Ossetic. From deep Antiquity, the languages of the Iranian group were distributed in a vast territory including present-day Iran, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Ossetian is the sole survivor of the branch of Iranian languages known as Scythian. The Scythian group included numerous tribes, known in ancient sources as the Scythians, Massagetae, Saka, the more easterly Khorezmians and the Sogdians were also closely affiliated, in linguistic terms. Ossetian, together with Kurdish, Tati and Talyshi, is one of the main Iranian languages with a community of speakers in the Caucasus. It is descended from Alanic, the language of the Alans and it is believed to be the only surviving descendant of a Sarmatian language. The closest genetically related language may be the Yaghnobi language of Tajikistan, the names of ancient Iranian tribes in fact reflect this pluralization, e. g. Saromatae and Masagetae. The earliest known sample of Ossetian is an inscription which dates from the 10th to 12th centuries and was found near the River Bolshoi Zelenchuk at Arkhyz. The text is written in the Greek alphabet, with special digraphs, the scholarly transliteration of the Alanic phrases is, dæ ban xʷærz, mæ sfili, xsinjæ kurθi kændæ and du farnitz, kintzæ mæ sfili, kajci fæ wa sawgin. Equivalents in modern Ossetian would be Dæ bon xwarz, me’fšini ‘xšinæ, kurdigæj dæ. and farm neč, the passage translates as, The Alans I greet in their language, Good day to you my lords lady, where are you from. Good day to you my lords lady, where are you from, and other things, When an Alan woman takes a priest as a lover, you might hear this, Arent you ashamed, my lordly lady, that your cunt is being fucked by a priest. Arent you ashamed, my lady, to have an affair with the priest. Marginalia of Greek religious books, with parts of the book translated into Old Ossetic, have been recently found. Heavy-stem nouns possessed a long vowel or diphthong, and were stressed on the first-occurring syllable of this type. This is precisely the situation observed in the earliest records of Ossetian presented above and this situation also obtains in Modern Ossetian, although the emphasis in Digor is also affected by the openness of the vowel. The trend is found in a glossary of the Jassic dialect dating from 1422
24.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
25.
Christianization
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Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire groups at once. Various strategies and techniques were employed in Christianization campaigns from Late Antiquity, often the conversion of the ruler was followed by the compulsory baptism of his subjects. In essence, it was intended that the traditions and practices still existed, Early works of this type have tended to be downplayed and even dismissed as a form of Protestant apologetics aimed at purification of Christianity. The Council of Jerusalem, according to Acts 15, agreed that lack of circumcision could not be a basis for excluding Gentile believers from membership in the Jesus community. Rather, they instructed new believers to avoid pollution of idols, fornication, things strangled, the Apostolic Decree thus helped to establish nascent Christianity as a unique alternative among the forms of Judaism for prospective Proselytes. The Armenian and Ethiopian churches are the instances of imposition of Christianity by sovereign rulers predating the council of Nicaea. The initial conversion of the Roman Empire occurred mostly in areas of Europe. Later conversions happened among the Grecian-Roman-Celtic populations over centuries, often initially among its urban population, the term pagan is from Latin and means villager, rustic, civilian. It is derived from this historical transition, the root of that word is present in todays word paisan or paisano. The Christianization of the Roman Empire is typically divided into two phases, before and after the year 312, which marked the momentous quasi-conversion of Constantine. By this date, Christianity had already converted a significant but unknown proportion of at least the urban population of the empire, Constantine ended the intermittent persecution of Christianity with the Edict of Milan, which granted tolerance to all religions, but specifically mentioned Christianity. Under Constantines successors, Christianization of Roman society proceeded by fits and starts, Constantines sons, for example, banned pagan state religious sacrifices in 341, but did not close the temples. Although all state temples in all cities were ordered shut in 356, under Julian, the temples were reopened and state religious sacrifices performed once more. When Gratian declined the position and title of Pontifex Maximus, his act brought an end to the state religion due to the positions authority. Again, however, this process ended state official practices but not private religious devotion, however, many temples remained open until Theodosius Is edict of Thessalonica in 381 banned haruspices and other pagan religious practices. From 389 to 393 he issued a series of decrees which led to the banning of religious rites and by confiscating their property. Further laws were passed against remaining pagan practices over the course of the following years, the effectiveness of these laws empire-wide is debatable. Christianization of central Balkans is documented at the end of the 4th century, where Nicetas the Bishop of Remesiana brought the gospel to those mountain wolves, reportedly his mission was successful, and the worship of Dionysus and other Thracian gods was eventually replaced by Christianity
26.
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
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The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history. The ecumenical patriarchs in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity, in the Middle Ages they played a major role in the affairs of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as in the politics of the Orthodox world, and in spreading Christianity among the Slavs. Within the five sees of the Pentarchy, the Ecumenical Patriarch is regarded as the successor of Andrew the Apostle. The current holder of the office is Bartholomew I, the 270th holder of the title, in his role as head of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, he also holds the title Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome. The see of Byzantium, whose foundation was ascribed to Andrew the Apostle, was originally a common bishopric. It gained importance when Emperor Constantine elevated Byzantium to a second capital alongside Rome, the sees ecclesiastical status as the second of five Patriarchates were developed by the Ecumenical Councils of Constantinople in 381 and Chalcedon in 451. The Turkish government recognizes him as the leader of the Greek minority in Turkey. The Patriarch was subject to the authority of the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, today, according to Turkish law, he is subject to the authority of the state of Turkey and is required to be a citizen of Turkey to be Patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople has been dubbed the Ecumenical Patriarch since the 6th century, the monastic communities of Mount Athos are stauropegic and are directly under the jurisdiction of Ecumenical Patriarch, who is the only bishop with jurisdiction thereover. The Ecumenical Patriarch has a role among Orthodox bishops, though it is not without its controversy. He is primus inter pares, as he is senior among all Orthodox bishops and this primacy, expressed in canonical literature as presbeia, grants to the Ecumenical Patriarch the right to preside at pan-Orthodox synods. Additionally, the literature of the Orthodox Church grants to the Ecumenical Patriarch the right to hear appeals in cases of dispute between bishops. Historically, the Ecumenical Patriarch has heard such appeals and sometimes was invited to intervene in other disputes and difficulties. Even as early as the 4th century, Constantinople was instrumental in the deposition of multiple bishops outside its traditional jurisdiction. This still occurs today, as when in 2006 the patriarchate was invited to assist in declaring the archbishop of the Church of Cyprus incompetent due to his having Alzheimers disease. Additionally, in 2005, the Ecumenical Patriarchate convoked a synod to express the Orthodox worlds confirmation of the deposition of Patriarch Irenaios of Jerusalem. That is, his role is one of promoting and sustaining Church unity. Such a title is acceptable if it refers to this unique role, the five patriarchs of the ancient Pentarchy are to be given seniority of honour, but have no actual power over other bishops other than the power of the synod they are chairing
27.
Second Council of Nicaea
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The Second Council of Nicaea is recognized as the last of the first seven ecumenical councils by both West and East. Orthodox, Catholics, and Old Catholics unanimously recognize it, Protestant opinions on it are varied and it met in AD787 in Nicaea to restore the use and veneration of icons, which had been suppressed by imperial edict inside the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Leo III. His son, Constantine V, had held the Council of Hieria to make the suppression official, the veneration of icons had been banned by Byzantine Emperor Constantine V and supported by his Council of Hieria, which had described itself as the seventh ecumenical council. The emperors vigorous enforcement of the ban included persecution of those who venerated icons, Constantines iconoclastic tendencies were shared by Constantines son, Leo IV. After the latters death, his widow, Irene of Athens, as regent for her son, began its restoration, moved thereto by personal inclination. However, a council, claiming to be ecumenical, had abolished the veneration of icons, Pope Adrian I was invited to participate, and gladly accepted. However, the intended for the oriental patriarchs could not even be delivered to them. The Roman legates were an archbishop and an abbot, both named Peter, in 786, the council met in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. However, soldiers in collusion with the opposition entered the church, as a result, the government resorted to a stratagem. Under the pretext of a campaign, the bodyguard was sent away from the capital — disarmed and disbanded. The council was summoned to meet, this time in Nicaea. The council assembled on September 24,787 at the church of Hagia Sophia and it numbered about 350 members,308 bishops or their representatives signed. Tarasius presided, and seven sessions were held in Nicaea, first Session — Three bishops, Basilius of Ancyra, Theodore of Myra and Theodosius of Amorium begged for pardon for the heresy of iconoclasm. Second Session — Papal legates read the letters of Pope Hadrian I asking for agreement with veneration of images, third Session — Other bishops having made their abjuration, were received into the council. Fourth Session — Proof of the lawfulness of the veneration of icons was drawn from Exodus 25,19 sqq, ezekiel 41,18, and Genesis 31,34, but especially from a series of passages of the Church Fathers, the authority of the latter was decisive. Fifth Session — It was claimed that the iconoclast heresy came originally from Jews, Saracens, sixth Session — The definition of the pseudo-Seventh council was read and condemned. Seventh Session — The council issued a declaration of faith concerning the veneration of holy images, and exhibited on the walls of churches, in the homes, and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere, to be revered by all who might see them. For the more they are contemplated, the more they move to fervent memory of their prototypes, eighth Session — The last session was held in Constantinople at the Magnaura Palace
28.
Iconodule
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The term is usually used in relation to the iconoclastic controversy in the Byzantine Empire, the most famous iconodules of that time being the Saints Theodore the Studite and John of Damascus. The controversy was instigated by Byzantine Emperor Leo III in 726, a wider prohibition of icons followed in 730. St. John of Damascus argued successfully that to prohibit the use of icons was tantamount to denying the incarnation, icons reminded the church of the physicality of God as manifested in Jesus Christ. Veneration of icons was restored by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, however this was met with opposition, in particular of Charlemagne. The last outburst of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire was overcome in 843, Byzantine iconoclasm Iconoclasm Iconography Idolatry Iconolatry References Sources Barnard, Leslie William. The Graeco-Roman and oriental background of the iconoclastic controversy
29.
Constantine V
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Constantine V was Byzantine emperor from 741 to 775. Constantine was born in Constantinople, the son and successor of Emperor Leo III, in August 720 he was associated on the throne by his father, who had him marry Tzitzak, daughter of the Khazar khagan Bihar. His new bride was baptized as Irene in 732, Constantine V succeeded his father as sole emperor on 18 June 741. Artabasdos was the stratēgos of the Armeniac theme, Constantine was defeated and sought refuge in Amorion, while Artabasdos advanced on Constantinople and was accepted as Emperor. Constantine received the support of the Anatolic and Thracesian themes, Artabasdos secured the support of the themes of Thrace and Opsikion, the rival emperors bided their time making military preparations. Artabasdos marched against Constantine in May 743 but was defeated, three months later Constantine defeated Artabasdos son Niketas and headed for Constantinople. In early November Constantine was admitted into the capital and immediately turned on his opponents, the usurpation of Artabasdos was connected with restoring the veneration of images, leading Constantine to become perhaps an even more fervent iconoclast than his father. Constantines avowed enemies over this extremely emotional issue, the iconodules, using this obscene name, they spread the rumour that as an infant he had defecated in his baptismal font, or on the imperial purple cloth with which he was swaddled. Constantines position on Iconoclasm was clear, He cannot be depicted, for what is depicted in one person, and he who circumscribes that person has plainly circumscribed the divine nature which is incapable of being circumscribed. In February 754 Constantine convened a synod at Hieria, which was attended entirely by Iconoclast bishops, the council approved of Constantines religious policy and secured the election of a new Iconoclast patriarch, but refused to follow in all of Constantines views. The synod was followed by a campaign to remove images from the walls of churches and to purge the court, the repressions against the monks were largely led by the Emperors general Michael Lachanodrakon, who threatened resistant monks with blinding and exile. An iconodule abbot, Stephen Neos, was lynched by a mob at the behest of the authorities. As a result, many fled to southern Italy and Sicily. By the end of Constantines reign, Iconoclasm had gone as far as to brand relics, ultimately, iconophiles considered his death a divine punishment. In the 9th century he was disinterred, and his remains were thrown into the sea, Constantine was an able general and administrator. He reorganised the themes, the districts of the Empire. This organization was intended to minimize the threat of conspiracies and to enhance the capabilities of the Empire. With this reorganized army he embarked on campaigns on the three major frontiers, in 746, profiting by the unstable conditions in the Umayyad Caliphate, which was falling apart under Marwan II, Constantine invaded Syria and captured Germanikeia
30.
Andrew the Apostle
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Andrew the Apostle, also known as Saint Andrew and called in the Orthodox tradition Prōtoklētos or the First-called, was a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter. The name Andrew, like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews, Christians, no Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him. According to Orthodox tradition, the successor to Saint Andrew is the Patriarch of Constantinople. The New Testament states that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter and he was born in the village of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee. Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he make them fishers of men. At the beginning of Jesus public life, they were said to have occupied the house at Capernaum. In the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Mark Simon Peter and these narratives record that Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, observed Simon and Andrew fishing, and called them to discipleship. In the parallel incident in the Gospel of Luke Andrew is not named, the narrative indicates that Simon was not the only fisherman in the boat but it is not until the next chapter that Andrew is named as Simons brother. However, it is understood that Andrew was fishing with Simon on the night in question. Matthew Poole, in his Annotations on the Holy Bible, stressed that Luke denies not that Andrew was there. In contrast, the Gospel of John states that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him, Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother. Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ, on a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to follow Jesus. Subsequently, in the gospels, Andrew is referred to as being present on important occasions as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus. Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes, Andrew was present at the Last Supper. Andrew was one of the four disciples who came to Jesus on the Mount of Olives to ask about the signs of Jesus return at the end of the age, Eusebius in his church history 3,1 quoted Origen as saying that Andrew preached in Scythia. The Chronicle of Nestor adds that he preached along the Black Sea and the Dnieper river as far as Kiev, hence, he became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. According to tradition, he founded the See of Byzantium in AD38, according to Hippolytus of Rome, Andrew preached in Thrace, and his presence in Byzantium is also mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew. Basil of Seleucia also knew of Apostle Andrews missions in Thrace, Scythia and this diocese would later develop into the Patriarchate of Constantinople
31.
Kerch Strait
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The Kerch Strait connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west from the Taman Peninsula of Russias Krasnodar Krai in the east. The strait is 3.1 kilometres to 15 kilometres wide, the most important harbor, the Crimean city of Kerch, gives its name to the strait, formerly known as the Cimmerian Bosporus. The Krasnodar Krai side of the strait contains the Taman Bay encircled by Tuzla Island, Russia had started the construction of a major cargo port near Taman, the most important Russian settlement on the strait, but its building has been suspended. The straits are about 35 kilometers long and are 3.1 kilometers wide at the narrowest and separate an eastern extension of Crimea from Taman, the western extension of the Caucasus Mountains. In antiquity, there seem to have been a group of islands intersected by arms of the Kuban River, the Romans knew the strait as the Cimmerian Bosporus from its Greek name, the Cimmerian Strait, which honored the Cimmerians, nearby steppe nomads. During the Second World War, the Kerch Peninsula became the scene of much desperate combat between forces of the Soviet Red Army and Germany, fighting frequency intensified in the coldest months of year when the strait froze over, allowing the movement of troops over the ice. The cable railway, which went into operation on 14 June 1943 with a capacity of one thousand tons, was only adequate for the defensive needs of the Seventeenth Army in the Kuban bridgehead. The bridge was never completed, and the Wehrmacht finished evacuating the Kuban bridgehead in September 1943, in 1944 the Soviets built a provisional railway bridge across the strait. Construction made use of supplies captured from the Germans, the bridge went into operation in November 1944, but moving ice floes destroyed it in February 1945, reconstruction was not attempted. A territorial dispute between Russia and Ukraine in 2003 centred on Tuzla Island in the Strait of Kerch, on Sunday 11 November 2007 news agencies reported a very strong storm on the Black Sea. Four ships sank, six ran aground on a sandbank, the Russian-flagged oil tanker Volgoneft-139 encountered trouble in the Kerch Strait where it sought shelter from the above storm. During the storm the tanker split in half, releasing more than 2000 tonnes of fuel oil and it is thought that the effects of the spill are likely to be felt for many years to come. Four other boats sank in the storm, resulting in the release of sulphur cargo, the storm hampered efforts to rescue crew members. Another victim of the storm, the Russian cargo ship Volnogorsk, loaded with sulfur, after the war, ferry transportation across the strait was established in 1952, connecting Crimea and the Krasnodar Krai. Originally there were four train ferry ships, later three ships were added. Train transportation continued for almost 40 years, the aging train-ferries became obsolete in the late 1980s and were removed from service. In the autumn of 2004, new ships were delivered as replacements, moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov campaigned for a highway bridge to be constructed across the strait. Since 1944, various projects to span the strait have been proposed or attempted
32.
Saints Cyril and Methodius
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Saints Cyril and Methodius were two brothers who were Byzantine Christian theologians and Christian missionaries. Through their work influenced the cultural development of all Slavs. They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church Slavonic, after their deaths, their pupils continued their missionary work among other Slavs. Both brothers are venerated in the Orthodox Church as saints with the title of equal-to-apostles, in 1880, Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast into the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patron saints of Europe, the two brothers were born in Thessalonica, in present-day Greece – Cyril in about 827–828 and Methodius about 815–820. Cyril was reputedly the youngest of seven brothers, he was born Constantine, Methodius was born Michael and took the name Methodius upon becoming a monk at Mysian Olympus, in northwest Turkey. Their father was Leo, a droungarios of the Byzantine theme of Thessalonica, the exact ethnic origins of the brothers are unknown, there is controversy as to whether Cyril and Methodius were of Slavic or Byzantine Greek origin, or both. The two brothers lost their father when Cyril was fourteen, and the powerful minister Theoktistos, who was logothetes tou dromou, one of the ministers of the Empire. Cyril was ordained as priest some time after his education, while his brother Methodius remained only a deacon until 867/868, Cyrils mastery of theology and command of both Arabic and Hebrew made him eligible for his first state mission. He was sent to the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil to discuss the principle of the Holy Trinity with the Arab theologians and this mission was unsuccessful, as later the Khagan imposed Judaism on his people as the national religion. It has been claimed that Methodius accompanied Cyril on the mission to the Khazars, the account of his life presented in the Latin Legenda claims that he learned the Khazar language while in Chersonesos, in Taurica. In 862, the brothers began the work which would give them their historical importance and that year Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia requested that Emperor Michael III and the Patriarch Photius send missionaries to evangelize his Slavic subjects. His motives in doing so were more political than religious. Rastislav had become king with the support of the Frankish ruler Louis the German, Rastislav is said to have expelled missionaries of the Roman Church and instead turned to Constantinople for ecclesiastical assistance and, presumably, a degree of political support. The Emperor quickly chose to send Cyril, accompanied by his brother Methodius, the request provided a convenient opportunity to expand Byzantine influence. Their first work seems to have been the training of assistants, in 863, they began the task of translating the Bible into the language now known as Old Church Slavonic and travelled to Great Moravia to promote it. They enjoyed considerable success in this endeavour, however, they came into conflict with German ecclesiastics who opposed their efforts to create a specifically Slavic liturgy. For the purpose of mission, they devised the Glagolitic alphabet
33.
Kingdom of Iberia
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Caucasian Iberians is a Greco-Roman designation for the population of Caucasian Iberia, a Kartvelian speaking people in the east and southeast Transcaucasus region in Antiquity and Middle Ages. In the southwest, Iberians extended into Anatolia, inhabiting interior lands beside Colchians, ancient Caucasian Iberians are considered to be the ancestors of modern eastern Georgians as well the Laz people, another Kartvelian-speaking group. The area was inhabited in earliest times by several related tribes collectively called Iberians by ancient Greek, Iberians called their country Kartli after a mythic chief, Kartlos. One of the Iberian tribes of Mtskheta dominated the early Kingdom, the Mtskheta tribe was later ruled by a prince locally known as mamasakhlisi. The Roman general Pompey invaded Iberia in 65 BC, during his war with Mithridates VI of Pontus, and Armenia, nineteen years later, the Romans again marched on Iberia, forcing King Pharnavaz II to join their campaign against Albania as their ally. While another kingdom of Colchis was administered as a Roman province, Iberia freely accepted the Roman Imperial protection, the Iberian king Mirian III adopted Christianity as a state religion in AD327, and Iberia allied itself with the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. The religion would become a strong tie between Iberia and Rome, and would have a large impact on the states culture. The early reign of the Iberian king Vakhtang I dubbed Gorgasali was marked by relative revival of the kingdom, formally a vassal of the Persians, he secured the northern borders by subjugating the Caucasian mountaineers, and brought the adjacent western and southern Iberian lands under his control. He established an autocephalic patriarchate at Mtskheta, and made Tbilisi his capital, in 482, he led a general uprising against Persia. A desperate war for independence lasted for twenty years, but he could not get Byzantine support, Pharnavaz, victorious in the power struggle, became the first king of Iberia. Driving back an invasion, he subjugated the areas, including a significant part of the western state of Colchis. Pharnavaz then focused on projects, including the citadel of the capitol, the Armaztsikhe. He also reformed the Georgian written language and created a new system of administration and his successors managed to gain control over the mountainous passes of the Caucasus, with the Daryal being the most important of them. It may be possible to trace the presence of Caucasian Iberians in the region for several millennia, the Iberian tribes were an indigenous people of the Caucasus region, united by a common language, the ancestor of the Ibero-Caucasian language group. The name Iberian in its own appears in ancient Greek authors who identified early Georgian tribes as Iberoi. The Iberians called their kingdom Kartli, and their nation Kartlians, some theories have proposed common ethnic and linguistic origins of ancient Caucasian Iberians with the Iberians of the Iberian Peninsula, or the modern Basques in Spain
34.
Crimean Goths
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Crimean Goths were those Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the least-powerful, least-known, and almost paradoxically, the longest-lasting of the Gothic communities. At the time, it was customary to refer to a range of Germanic tribes as Goths. The Ostrogoths became vassals of the Huns until the death of Attila, like the Huns, the Goths in Crimea never regained their lost glory. According to Peter Heather and Michael Kulikowski, the Ostrogoths did not even exist until the 5th century, other Gothic groups may have settled in the Crimea. It has also speculated that the Crimean Goths were in fact Saxons escaping Christian persecution from the west. Either way, the existence of Goths in Crimea is first testified from around the 3rd century, during the late 5th and early 6th century, the Crimean Goths had to fight off hordes of Huns who were migrating back eastward after losing control of their European empire. In the 5th century, Theodoric the Great tried to recruit Crimean Goths for his campaigns in Italy, the Principality of Gothia or Theodoro formed after the Fourth Crusade out of parts of the Byzantine thema of Klimata which were not occupied by the Genoese. Its population was a mixture of Greeks, Crimean Goths, Alans, Bulgars, Kipchaks and other nations, the principalitys official language was Greek. The territory was initially under the control of Trebizond, and possibly part of its Crimean possessions, many Crimean Goths were Greek speakers and many non-Gothic Byzantine citizens were settled in the region called Gothia by the government in Constantinople. There is a theory that some Anglo-Saxons who left England after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 arrived in Constantinople in time to help the Byzantines repel an invasion. As a reward, the Byzantine emperor granted them lands near the Sea of Azov in what may have been the Crimean Peninsula, by the 16th century, the existence of Goths in the Crimea had become well known to European scholars. Many travelers visited the Crimea and wrote about the Goths, one romantic report appears in Joachimus Cureus Gentis Silesiae Annales in which he claims that during a voyage in the Black Sea, his ship was forced ashore by storms. There, to his surprise, he found a man singing a song in which he used German words, when he asked him where he was from, he answered that his home was nearby and that his people were goths. Several inscriptions from the early 9th century found in the use the word Goth only as a personal name. Meanwhile, some legends about a Gothic state in Crimea existed in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, in the 16th century, an Imperial envoy in Suleimans court Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq reported having had a conversation with two Goths in Constantinople. He also left the Gothic-Latin dictionary with about a hundred Germanic words that some traits in common with the ancient Gothic language. The first report of the Crimean Goths appears in the Vita of Saint Cyril and he lists Goths as people who read and praised the Christian God in their own language
35.
Rus' people
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The Rus were an early medieval group of people who gave their name to the lands of Russia, Ruthenia, and Belarus. Later, Ruriks relative Oleg captured Kiev, founding Rus, academically known as Kievan Rus, the name Rus would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden, Ruotsi and Rootsi. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe, discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Gutes, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Veps then said to the Rus, Our land is great and rich, come reign as princes, rule over us. Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected and they brought with them all the Rus and migrated. Later, the Primary Chronicle tells us, they conquered Kiev, the territory they conquered was named after them as were, eventually, the local people. Ibn Haukal and other early Islamic sources, as well as Muhammad al-Idrisi, mainstream Russian-Soviet historiography, tentatively identified these names with the tribal centres at Kiev, Novgorod and Tmutarakan. Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, the swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort. Each woman wears on either breast a box of iron, silver, copper, or gold, each box has a ring from which depends a knife. The women wear neck-rings of gold and silver and their most prized ornaments are green glass beads. They string them as necklaces for their women, as for the Rus, they live on an island. That takes three days to round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests, it is most unhealthy. They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them, they carry them off as slaves and…sell them and they have no fields but simply live on what they get from the Slavs lands. When a son is born, the father will go up to the baby, sword in hand, throwing it down, he says, I shall not leave you with any property. At least no source says they are part of the Slavic race and his description represents the Rus as a warlike northern tribe. Constantine also enumerates the names of the Dnieper cataracts in both Rhos and in Slavic languages, the Rhos names have distinct Germanic etymology, Essoupi Oulvorsi Gelandri Aeifor Varouforos Leanti Stroukoun
36.
Archbishopric
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The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can also be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
37.
Silk Road
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While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
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Ibn Battuta
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He is known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in his Travels. Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands and his journeys included trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Middle East, India, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China. He claimed descent from a Berber tribe known as the Lawata, as a young man he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madhhab, the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. Maliki Muslims requested Ibn Battuta serve as their religious judge as he was from an area where it was practiced. In June 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca and he would not see Morocco again for twenty-four years. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male and my parents being yet in the bonds of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow at this separation. He travelled to Mecca overland, following the North African coast across the sultanates of Abd al-Wadid and Hafsid, the route took him through Tlemcen, Béjaïa, and then Tunis, where he stayed for two months. For safety, Ibn Battuta usually joined a caravan to reduce the risk of being robbed and he took a bride in the town of Sfax, the first in a series of marriages that would feature in his travels. In the early spring of 1326, after a journey of over 3,500 km, Ibn Battuta arrived at the port of Alexandria and he met two ascetic pious men in Alexandria. One was Sheikh Burhanuddin who is supposed to have foretold the destiny of Ibn Battuta as a world traveller saying It seems to me that you are fond of foreign travel and you will visit my brother Fariduddin in India, Rukonuddin in Sind and Burhanuddin in China. Another pious man Sheikh Murshidi interpreted the meaning of a dream of Ibn Battuta that he was meant to be a world traveller and he spent several weeks visiting sites in the area, and then headed inland to Cairo, the capital of the Mamluk Sultanate and an important city. After spending about a month in Cairo, he embarked on the first of many detours within the safety of Mamluk territory. Of the three routes to Mecca, Ibn Battuta chose the least-travelled, which involved a journey up the Nile valley. Upon approaching the town, however, a local rebellion forced him to turn back, Ibn Battuta returned to Cairo and took a second side trip, this time to Mamluk-controlled Damascus. During his first trip he had encountered a man who prophesied that he would only reach Mecca by travelling through Syria. Without this help many travellers would be robbed and murdered, after spending the Muslim month of Ramadan in Damascus, he joined a caravan travelling the 1,300 km south to Medina, site of the tomb of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. After four days in the town, he journeyed on to Mecca, rather than returning home, Ibn Battuta instead decided to continue on, choosing as his next destination the Ilkhanate, a Mongol Khanate, to the northeast. On 17 November 1326, following a month spent in Mecca, the group headed north to Medina and then, travelling at night, turned northeast across the Najd plateau to Najaf, on a journey that lasted about two weeks
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