As well as the archaeological sites, the museum has around 200,000 smaller items from 5 AD to the 15th century, over 5,000 of which are currently exhibited. These include:


The Institute of Classical Archaeology of the University of Texas at Austin and the local Archaeological Park has investigated the site since 1992. The Ukrainian government has included the site on its tentative World Heritage List. The site, however, is in danger of further urban encroachment and coastal erosion.


In 2013, "The Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora" was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This World Heritage Site consists of seven locations that encompass the city of Chersonesus and six plots of agricultural land. The site was designated as a World Heritage site under the UNESCO criterion (ii) and (v). UNESCO considers these areas to show cultural lifestyles and land use of ancient populations that inhabited these areas.


During the 2014 Crimean crisis, the Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia, but UNESCO has maintained that it will continue to recognize Crimea and its heritage sites as belonging to Ukraine.


The encroachment of modern building in and around the ancient archaeological site, coupled with a lack of funding to prevent such development pressures, has left the site of Chersonesus firmly at risk.


In an October 2010 report titled "Saving Our Vanishing Heritage", Global Heritage Fund identified Chersonesus as one of 12 worldwide sites most "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures as primary causes.


On July 29, 2015 governor of Sevastopol Sergei Menyailo (Сергей Меняйло), after firing the director of Chersonesus Preserve Andrey Kulagin (Андрей Кулагин), appointed a priest, Sergiy Khalyuta (Сергий Халюта) to the position. This move caused heated protests of the staff, and the 109 members unanimously refused to work under the new director. The conflict attracted a significant attention of the media. The workers claim that the conflict of the governor and the director of the Preserve started on July 11, when director complained about road construction works within the territory of the Preserve, approved by Governor without the permits necessary for works in protected areas. Eventually, under the pressure, Father Sergiy stepped down.


Sevastopol City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine


The Sevastopol City Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, commonly referred to as the Sevastopol CPU gorkom, was the position of highest authority in the city of Kiev.


The position was created in 1954, and abolished in August 1991.


The First Secretary was a de facto appointed position usually by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine or the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. The First Secretary exercised a large influence throughout the Soviet Union.


Maciej (Suleyman bey) Sulkiewicz (, , , Matvei (Magomet) Sulkevich; 20 June 1865, Kiemiejšy, now Voranava District, Grodno Region, Belarus – 15 July 1920, Baku) was a Imperial Russian lieutenant general, Prime Minister of Crimean Regional Government (1918), and Chief of General Staff of Azerbaijani Armed Forces in 1918–20.


Born to parents of Lipka Tatar origin, he changed his name to Mohammad after settling in Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, but in Azerbaijan he is still known as Suleyman bey Sulkiewicz and Mammad bey Sulkiewicz.


He was executed by the Bolsheviks, after the Bolshevik invasion of Azerbaijan in 1920.


The intermittent Germanisation of Prussia was a historical process that resulted in the region’s inclusion in various German states. Originating with the arrival of ethnically German groups in the Baltic region, it progressed sporadically with the development of the Teutonic Order and then much later under the Kingdom of Prussia, which continued to impact the region with germanising policies generally aimed at enhancing state control. Ultimately, attempts at Germanisation peaked as the Prussian state transitioned into the German Empire, by which point the main target of reforms were Germany's Polish subjects, only to be halted by the outbreak of the First World War.


From the early 13th century the establishment of trade settlements in the Baltic began, advancing the economic interests of a powerful German, mercantile, ruling-class. Consequently, this settlement coincided with growth of the Hanseatic League, particularly north of Prussia with the growth of the Brothers of the Sword Order. This established a definitively German presence in the region, allowing for future expansion, contemporarily promoted as crusading. This was especially the case for Prussia, which scholars have contrasted to other incursions such as those into Livonia and Lithuania as the best example of conventional crusading, with religious justifications remaining central rather than political or economic motivations taking precedence.


Having formally crowned himself King "in" Prussia, Frederick III (then Frederick I of Prussia) cemented the unification of the remaining secularised possessions of the Teutonic Order with the Duchy of Brandenburg in 1701, ending Brandenburg-Prussia. Frederick I's father, Frederick William the Great Elector, had been previously granted full sovereignty over Ducal Prussia, the eastern portion of Prussia, for his eventual support of Poland in the Second Northern War. The 'in' rather than 'of' in 'King in Prussia' was stipulated so as to reconcile a desire for greater political clout with the appeasement of the Polish crown by not directly threatening its titles.


This re-iterated geographical concerns associated with the separation of Prussian possessions, which Frederick the Great, the grandson of Frederick I, sought to remedy. By 1772, Frederick the Great had acquired the vast majority of West Prussia from Poland through a diplomatic "fait accompli", backed by Russia and Austria in what was the First Partition of Poland. Thus, Frederick restored much of the Teutonic Order's former territory to Germanic ownership, bar the cities of Danzig and Thorn which remained for a short while longer in Poland's possession. Moreover, this united the region of Prussia with the remainder of the Kingdom as predominately a singular landmass.


Under Frederick the Great's father, Frederick William I of Prussia, any historical records linking Prussia to the Polish crown were erased, so as to assert the region's independence and justify the continuance of The Prussian Kingdom.


Importantly, Frederick the Great considered the Polish to be an inferior people, underscoring the resumption of Germanisation policies, albeit with greater vigour than previous historical occurrences. Altogether, his reforms were numerous and formative in encouraging efficient integration, with every fifth Prussian being involved in the mass resettlement across Prussia at the time of his death.


While policy norms established by Frederick the Great focused upon tolerance, regarding Poles as inferior but still respecting their cultural differences, the policy shift under Otto von Bismarck following the unification of Germany was significant. Correspondingly, a determination to eradicate non-German cultural aspects exhibited themselves again amongst the Prussian region, targeting particularly education and land ownership. Moreover, the targeting and disempowerment of the Polish and other minorities was also driven by martial interests, due to the strategic proximity of Polish populations to the capital in Berlin. Here, the security interests of the military additionally saw Polish soldiers diffused throughout the German army, so as to prevent a concentration of Polish soldiers at a regimental level.


Center for Urban History of East Central Europe


The Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Ukrainian: Центр міської історії центрально-східної Європи) is an independent research center, that was founded by the Austrian historian Harald Binder in 2004 as a private non-profit organization. It is one of the principal academic establishments looking at the urban history of East Central Europe, the region between the German-speaking countries and Russia. The academic principal of the center is Sofia Dyak.


The Center for Urban History is located on Akademika Bohomoltsia Street off of Ivana Franka Street. The Center is not far from Soborna Square and the Danylo Halytsky Monument and about a ten-minute walk from Rynok Square. The building was developed by the renowned Ukrainian architect Ivan Levynskyi and is considered to be one of Lviv's best preserved clusters of Art Nouveau architecture. Secessionist latticework consisting of leaves and flowers dominates in its facade over its Neo-Renaissance layout which follows Classical order principles.


The database project «Урбаністичні образи» (“Urban Images”) aims at collecting and processing the urban image of East and Central Europe through engravings, photos and postcards and openly accessible.


The Center has hosted a number of conferences:


The Sarmatians (; Greek: ; , ) were a large Iranian confederation that existed in classical antiquity, flourishing from about the fifth century BC to the fourth century AD.


Originating in the central parts of the Eurasian Steppe, the Sarmatians were part of the wider Scythian cultures. They started migrating westward around the fourth and third centuries BC, coming to dominate the closely related Scythians by 200 BC. At their greatest reported extent, around first century AD, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.


The Sarmatians were eventually decisively assimilated (e.g. Slavicisation) and absorbed by the Proto-Slavic population of Eastern Europe.


"Sarmatae" probably originated as just one of several tribal names of the Sarmatians, but one that Greco-Roman ethnography came to apply as an exonym to the entire group. Strabo in the first century names as the main tribes of the Sarmatians the Iazyges, the Roxolani, the Aorsi, and the Siraces.


The Greek name "Sarmatai" (Σαυρομάται) sometimes appears as "Sauromatai", which is almost certainly no more than a variant of the same name. Nevertheless, historians often regarded these as two separate peoples, while archaeologists habitually use the term 'Sauromatian' to identify the earliest phase of Sarmatian culture. Any idea that the name derives from the word lizard ("sauros"), linking to the Sarmatians' use of reptile-like scale armour and dragon standards, is almost certainly unfounded. Whereas the word "ὀμμάτιον/ μάτι", meaning eye, would suggest the origin of the name could be due to having what appeared as lizard eyes to Greeks.


Both Pliny the Elder ("Natural History" book iv) and Jordanes recognised the "Sar-" and "Sauro-" elements as interchangeable variants, referring to the same people. Greek authors of the fourth century (Pseudo-Scylax, Eudoxus of Cnidus) mention "Syrmatae" as the name of a people living at the Don, perhaps reflecting the ethnonym as it was pronounced in the final phase of Sarmatian culture.


English scholar Harold Walter Bailey (1899–1996) derived the base word from Avestan "sar-" (to move suddenly) from "tsar-" in Old Iranian ("tsarati, tsaru-", hunter), which also gave its name to the western Avestan region of "Sairima" ("*salm", "– *Sairmi"), and also connected it to the tenth–eleventh century AD Persian epic "Shahnameh"s character "Salm".


Oleg Trubachyov derived the name from the Indo-Aryan "*sar-ma(n)t" (feminine – rich in women, ruled by women), the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian word "*sar-" (woman) and the Indo-Iranian adjective suffix "-ma(n)t/wa(n)t". By this derivation was noted the high status of women (matriarchy) that was unusual from the Greek point of view and went to the invention of Amazons (thus the Greek name for Sarmatians as "Sarmatai Gynaikokratoumenoi", ruled by women).


The Sarmatians were part of the Iranian steppe peoples, among whom were also Scythians and Saka. These also are grouped together as "East Iranians". Archaeology has established the connection 'between the Iranian-speaking Scythians, Sarmatians, and Saka and the earlier Timber-grave and Andronovo cultures'. Based on building construction, these three peoples were the likely descendants of those earlier archaeological cultures. The Sarmatians and Saka used the same stone construction methods as the earlier Andronovo culture. The Timber grave (Srubnaya culture) and Andronovo house building traditions were further developed by these three peoples. Andronovo pottery was continued by the Saka and Sarmatians. Archaeologists describe the Andronovo culture people as exhibiting pronounced Caucasoid features.


The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of a fire deity rather than a nature deity, and the prominent role of women in warfare that may have served as inspiration for the Amazons.


There are two theories accounting for the origin of the Sarmatian culture.


In 1947, Soviet archaeologist Boris Grakov defined a culture flourishing from the sixth century BC to the fourth century AD, apparent in late kurgan graves (buried within earthwork mounds), sometimes reusing part of much older kurgans. It was a nomadic steppe culture ranging from the Black Sea eastward to beyond the Volga that is especially evident at two of the major sites at Kardaielova and Chernaya in the trans-Uralic steppe. The four phases – distinguished by grave construction, burial customs, grave goods, and geographical spread – are:


While "Sarmatian" and "Sauromatian" are synonymous as ethnonyms, purely by convention they are given different meanings as archaeological technical terms. The term "Prokhorovka culture" derives from a complex of mounds in the Prokhorovski District, Orenburg region, excavated by S. I. Rudenko in 1916.


Reportedly, during 2001 and 2006 a great Late Sarmatian pottery centre was unearthed near Budapest, Hungary in the Üllő5 archaeological site. Typical grey, granular Üllő5 ceramics form a distinct group of Sarmatian pottery is found ubiquitously in the north-central part of the Great Hungarian Plain region, indicating a lively trading activity.


A 1998 paper on the study of glass beads found in Sarmatian graves suggests wide cultural and trade links.


Archaeological evidence suggests that Scythian-Sarmatian cultures may have given rise to the Greek legends of Amazons. Graves of armed women have been found in southern Ukraine and Russia. David Anthony noted that approximately 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian "warrior graves" on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women dressed for battle as warriors and he asserts that encountering that cultural phenomenon "probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons".


The Sarmatians spoke an Iranian language that was derived from 'Old Iranian' and it was heterogenous. By the first century BC, the Iranian tribes in what is today South Russia spoke different languages or dialects, clearly distinguishable. According to a group of Iranologists writing in 1968, the numerous Iranian personal names in Greek inscriptions from the Black Sea coast indicate that the Sarmatians spoke a North-Eastern Iranian dialect ancestral to Alanian-Ossetian. However, Harmatta (1970) argued that "the language of the Sarmatians or that of the Alans as a whole cannot be simply regarded as being Old Ossetian".


A genetic study published in "Nature Communications" in March 2017 examined several Sarmatian individuals buried in Pokrovka, Russia (southwest of the Ural Mountains) between the fifth century BC and the second century BC. The sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1b1a2a2. This was the dominant lineage among males of the earlier Yamnaya culture. The eleven samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the haplogroups U3, M, U1a'c, T, F1b, N1a1a1a1a, T2, U2e2, H2a1f, T1a, and U5a1d2b. The Sarmatians examined were found to be closely related to peoples of the earlier Yamnaya culture and to the Poltavka culture.


A genetic study published in "Nature" in May 2018 examined the remains of twelve Sarmatians buried between 400 BC and 400 AD. The five samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1a1, I2b, R (two samples), and R1. The eleven samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to C4a1a, U4a2 (two samples), C4b1, I1, A, U2e1h (two samples), U4b1a4, H28, and U5a1.


A genetic study published in "Science Advances" in October 2018 examined the remains of five Sarmatians buried between 55 AD and 320 AD. The three samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1a1a and R1b1a2a2 (two samples), while the five samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup H2a1, T1a1, U5b2b (two samples), and D4q.


A genetic study published in "Current Biology" in July 2019 examined the remains of nine Sarmatians. The five samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup Q1c-L332, R1a1e-CTS1123, R1a-Z645 (two samples), and E2b1-PF6746, while the nine samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup W, W3a, T1a1, U5a2, U5b2a1a2, T1a1d, C1e, U5b2a1a1, U5b2c, and U5b2c.


In a study conducted in 2014 by Gennady Afanasiev, Dmitry Korobov and Irina Reshetova from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, DNA was extracted from bone fragments found in seven out of ten Alanic burials on the Don River. Four of them turned out to belong to yDNA Haplogroup G2 and six of them possessed mtDNA haplogroup I.


In 2015, the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow conducted research on various Sarmato-Alan and Saltovo-Mayaki culture Kurgan burials. In these analyses, the two Alan samples from the fourth to sixth century AD turned out to belong to yDNA haplogroups G2a-P15 and R1a-z94, while two of the three Sarmatian samples from the second to third century AD were found to belong to yDNA haplogroup J1-M267 while one belonged to R1a. Three Saltovo-Mayaki samples from the eighth to ninth century AD turned out to have yDNA corresponding to haplogroups G, J2a-M410 and R1a-z94.


In the late second or early third century AD, the Greek physician Galen declared that Sarmatians, Scythians, and other northern peoples had reddish hair. They are said to owe their name (Sarmatae) to that characteristic.


The Alans were a group of Sarmatian tribes, according to the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus. He wrote that nearly all the Alani were "of great stature and beauty, their hair is somewhat yellow, their eyes are frighteningly fierce".


Herodotus ("Histories" 4.21) in the fifth century BC placed the land of the Sarmatians east of the Tanais, beginning at the corner of the Maeotian Lake, stretching northward for a fifteen-day journey, and adjacent to the forested land of the Budinoi.


Herodotus (4.118–144) later relates how the Sauromatians under their king Scopasis, answered the Scythian call for help against the Persian King Darius I, to repel his campaign in Scythia, along with the Gelonians and the Boudinians. The Persians invaded much of the Sauromatian territory, but eventually were forced to withdraw due to the tactics used by the tribespeople, of delay and the use of a scorched earth policy.


Hippocrates explicitly classes them as Scythian and describes their warlike women and their customs:


Polybius (XXV, 1) mentions them for the first time as a force to be reckoned with in 179 B.C.


Strabo mentions the Sarmatians in a number of places, but never says much about them. He uses both the terms of Sarmatai and Sauromatai, but never together, and never suggesting that they are different peoples. He often pairs Sarmatians and Scythians in reference to a series of ethnic names, never stating which is which, as though Sarmatian or Scythian could apply equally to them all.


Strabo wrote that the Sarmatians extend from above the Danube eastward to the Volga, and from north of the Dnieper River into the Caucasus, where, he says, they are called Caucasii like everyone else there. This statement indicates that the Alans already had a home in the Caucasus, without waiting for the Huns to push them there.


Even more significantly, Strabo points to a Celtic admixture in the region of the Basternae and he notes that they were of Germanic origin. He places the Celtic Boii, Scordisci, and Taurisci there as well as a fourth ethnic element interacting and intermarrying, the Thracians (7.3.2), and moreover, that the peoples toward the north were Keltoskythai, "Celtic Scythians" (11.6.2).


Strabo portrays the peoples of the region as being nomadic, or Hamaksoikoi, "wagon-dwellers", and Galaktophagoi, "milk-eaters". This latter likely referred to the universal "kumis" eaten in historical times. The wagons were used for transporting tents made of felt, a type of the yurts used universally by Asian nomads.


According to Pliny, Scythian rule once extended as far as Germany. Jordanes supports this hypothesis by telling us on the one hand that he was familiar with the "Geography" of Ptolemy that includes the entire Balto-Slavic territory in Sarmatia, and on the other that this same region was Scythia. By "Sarmatia", Jordanes means only the Aryan territory. The Sarmatians were, therefore, a sub-group of the broader Scythian peoples.


In his "De Origine et situ Germanorum", Tacitus speaks of "mutual fear" between Germanic peoples and Sarmatians:


According to Tacitus, the Sarmatians wore long, flowing robes similar to the Persians (ch 17). He also noted that the Sarmatians exacted tribute from the Cotini and Osi, and that they exacted iron from the Cotini (ch. 43), "to their shame" (presumably because they could have used the iron to arm themselves and resist).


By the third century BC, the Sarmatian name appears to have supplanted the Scythian in the plains of what now is south Ukraine. The geographer, Ptolemy, reported them at what must be their maximum extent, divided into adjoining European and central Asian sections. Considering the overlap of tribal names between the Scythians and the Sarmatians, no new displacements probably took place. The people were the same Indo-Europeans, but were referred to under yet another name.


Later, Pausanias, viewing votive offerings near the Athenian Acropolis in the second century AD, found among them a Sauromic breastplate.


The description by Pausanias is well borne out in a relief from Tanais (see image). These facts are not necessarily incompatible with Tacitus, as the western Sarmatians might have kept their iron to themselves, it having been a scarce commodity on the plains.


In the late fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus describes a severe defeat that Sarmatian raiders inflicted upon Roman forces in the province of Valeria in Pannonia in late 374 AD. The Sarmatians almost destroyed two legions: one recruited from Moesia and one from Pannonia. The latter had been sent to intercept a party of Sarmatians that had been in pursuit of a senior Roman officer named Aequitius. The two legions failed to coordinate, allowing the Sarmatians to catch them unprepared.


In the fourth and fifth centuries the Huns expanded and conquered both the Sarmatians and the Germanic tribes living between the Black Sea and the borders of the Roman Empire. From bases in modern-day Hungary, the Huns ruled the entire territory formerly ruled by the Sarmatians. Their various constituents flourished under Hunnish rule, fought for the Huns against a combination of Roman and Germanic troops, and departed after the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (451), the death of Attila (453), and the appearance of the Bulgar ruling elements west of the Volga.


During the Early Middle Ages, eventually the Proto-Slavic population of Eastern Europe decisively assimilated and absorbed the Sarmatians. However, a people related to the Sarmatians, known as the Alans, survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.


Sarmatism (or Sarmatianism) is an ethno-cultural concept with a shade of politics designating the formation of an idea of the origin of Poland from Sarmatians within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The dominant Baroque culture and ideology of the nobility ("szlachta") that existed in times of the Renaissance to the eighteenth centuries. Together with another concept of "Golden Liberty", it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture and society. At its core was the unifying belief that the people of the Polish Commonwealth descended from the ancient Iranic Sarmatians, the legendary invaders of Slavic lands in antiquity.


The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the North Caucasus - generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the Alans with the Central Asian Yancai of Chinese sources and with the Aorsi of Roman sources. Having migrated westwards and become dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Alans are mentioned by Roman sources in the 1st century AD. At that 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. From 215250 AD, their power on the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Goths.


Upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375AD, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406AD along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans and Valence. Around 409 AD, they joined the Vandals and Suebi in crossing the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Hispania Carthaginensis. The Iberian Alans were soundly defeated by the Visigoths in 418 AD and subsequently surrendered their authority to the Hasdingi Vandals. In 428AD, the Vandals and Alans crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa, where they founded a powerful kingdom which lasted until its conquest by forces of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in 534 AD.


The Alans who remained under Hunnic rule founded a powerful kingdom in the North Caucasus in the Middle Ages, which survived until 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 name "Alan" is an Iranian dialectal form of "Aryan".


The Alans were documented by foreign observers from the 1st century CE onward under similar names: ; '; ' (Pinyin; "Alan" + "Liu") in the 2nd century, ' in the 3rd century, later "Alanguo" (); Parthian and Middle Persian "Alānān" (plural); Arabic "Alān" (singular); Syriac "Alānayē"; Classical Armenian "Alank; Georgian "Alaneti" ('country of the Alans'); Hebrew "Alan" (pl. "Alanim"). Rarer Latin spellings include "Alauni" or "Halani". The name was also preserved in the modern Ossetian language as "Allon".


The ethnonym "Alān" is a dialectal variant of the Old Iranian *"Aryāna", itself derived from the root "arya"-, meaning 'Aryan', the common self-designation of Indo-Iranian peoples. It probably came in use in the early history of the Alans for the purpose of uniting a heterogeneous group of tribes through the invocation of a common, ancestral 'Aryan' origin. Like the name of Iran (*"Aryānām"), the adjective *"aryāna" appears to be related to "Airyanəm Waēǰō" ('stretch of the Aryas'), the mythical homeland of the early Iranians mentioned in the "Avesta".


Some other ethnonyms also bear the name of the Alans: the "Rhoxolāni" ('Bright Alans'), an offshoot of the Alans whose name may be linked to religious practices, and the "Alanorsoi" ('White Alans'), perhaps a conglomerate of Alans and Aorsi. The personal names "Alan" and "Alain" (from Latin "Alanus") may have been introduced by Alan settlers to Western Europe during the first millennium CE.


The Alans were also known over the course of their history by another group of related names including the variations "Asi", "As", and "Os" (Romanian ', Bulgarian ', Hungarian ', Russian ', Georgian ""). It is this name at the root of the modern "Ossetian".


The first mentions of names that historians link with the "Alani" appear at almost the same time in texts from the Mediterranean, Middle East and China.


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 CE the Alans were in firm control of the Lower Volga and Kuban. These lands had earlier been occupied by the Aorsi and the Siraces, whom the Alans apparently absorbed, dispersed and/or destroyed, since they were no longer mentioned in contemporaneous accounts. It is likely that the Alans' influence stretched further westwards, encompassing most of the Sarmatian world, which by then possessed a relatively homogenous culture.


In 135 CE, 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, who wrote a detailed report ("Ektaxis kata Alanoon" or 'War Against the Alans') that is a major source for studying Roman military tactics.


From 215 to 250 CE, the Germanic Goths expanded south-eastwards and broke the Alan dominance on the Pontic Steppe. The Alans however seem to have had a significant influence on Gothic culture, who became excellent horsemen and adopted the Alanic animal style art. (The Roman Empire, during the chaos of the 3rd century civil wars, suffered damaging raids by the Gothic armies with their heavy cavalry before the Illyrian Emperors adapted to the Gothic tactics, reorganized and expanded the Roman heavy cavalry, and defeated the Goths under Gallienus, Claudius II and Aurelian).


After the Gothic entry to the steppe, many of the Alans seem to have retreated eastwards towards the Don, where they seem to have established contacts with the Huns. Ammianus writes that the Alans were "somewhat like the Huns, but in their manner of life and their habits they are less savage." Jordanes contrasted them with the Huns, noting that the Alans "were their equals in battle, but unlike them in their civilisation, manners and appearance". In the late 4th century, Vegetius conflates Alans and Huns in his military treatise "Hunnorum Alannorumque natio", the "nation of Huns and Alans"and collocates Goths, Huns and Alans, "exemplo Gothorum et Alannorum Hunnorumque".


The 4th century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus noted that the Alans were "formerly called Massagetae," while Dio Cassius wrote that "they are Massagetae." It is likely that the Alans were an amalgamation of various Iranian peoples, including Sarmatians, Massagetae and Sakas. Scholars have connected the Alans to the nomadic state of Yancai mentioned in Chinese sources. The Yancai are first mentioned in connection with late 2nd century BCE diplomat Zhang Qian's travels in Chapter 123 of "Shiji" (whose author, Sima Qian, died c. 90 BCE). The Yancai of Chinese records has again been equated with the Aorsi, a powerful Sarmatian tribe living between the Don River and the Aral Sea, mentioned in Roman records, in particular Strabo.


Link to "Yancai" (奄蔡) /"Alanliao" (阿蘭聊) /"Hesu" (闔蘇).


The Later Han dynasty Chinese chronicle, the "Hou Hanshu", 88 (covering the period 25–220 and completed in the 5th century), mentioned a report that the "Yancai" nation (奄蔡 lit "Vast Steppes" or "Extensive Grasslands" < LHC *"ʔɨamB"-"sɑC", compare Latin "Abzoae", identified with the Aorsi (Ancient Greek "Αορσιοι")) had become a vassal state of the Kangju and was now known as "Alanliao" (阿蘭聊)


Y. A. Zadneprovskiy suggests that the Kangju subjugation of Yancai occurred in the 1st century BCE, and that this subjugation caused various Sarmatian tribes, including the Aorsi, to migrate westwards, which played a major role in starting the Migration Period. The 3rd century Weilüe also notes that Yancai was then known to be Alans, although they were no longer vassals of the Kangju.


Dutch Sinologist A. F. P. Hulsewé noted that:


Around 370, according to Ammianus, the peaceful relations between the Alans and Huns were broken, after the Huns attacked the Don Alans, killing many of them and establishing an alliance with the survivors. These Alans successfully invaded the Goths in 375 together with the Huns. They subsequently accompanied the Huns in their westward expansion.


Under Beorgor (), they moved throughout Gaul, till the reign of Petronius Maximus, when they crossed the Alps in the winter of 464, into Liguria, but were there defeated, and Beorgor slain, by Ricimer, commander of the Emperor's forces.


In 442, after it became clear to Aetius that he could no longer rely upon the Huns for support, he turned to Goar and convinced him to move some of his people to settlements in the Orleanais in order to control the bacaudae of Armorica and to keep the Visigoths from expanding their territories northward across the Loire. Goar settled a substantial number of his followers in the Orleanais and the area to the north and personally moved his own capital to the city of Orleans.


Following the fortunes of the Vandals and Suebi into the Iberian peninsula (Hispania, comprising modern Portugal and Spain) in 409, the Alans led by Respendial settled in the provinces of Lusitania and Carthaginensis. The Kingdom of the Alans was among the first Barbarian kingdoms to be founded. The Siling Vandals settled in Baetica, the Suebi in coastal Gallaecia, and the Asding Vandals in the rest of Gallaecia. Although the newcomers controlled Hispania they were still a tiny minority among a larger Hispano-Roman population, approximately 200,000 out of 6,000,000.


In 418 (or 426 according to some authors), the Alan king, Attaces, was killed in battle against the Visigoths, and this branch of the Alans subsequently appealed to the Asding Vandal king Gunderic to accept the Alan crown. The separate ethnic identity of Respendial's Alans dissolved. Although some of these Alans are thought to have remained in Iberia, most went to North Africa with the Vandals in 429. Later the rulers of the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa styled themselves "Rex Wandalorum et Alanorum" ("King of the Vandals and Alans").


There are some vestiges of the Alans in Portugal, namely in Alenquer (whose name may be Germanic for the "Temple of the Alans", from "Alan Kerk", and whose castle may have been established by them; the Alaunt is still represented in that city's coat of arms), in the construction of the castles of Torres Vedras and Almourol, and in the city walls of Lisbon, where vestiges of their presence may be found under the foundations of the Church of "Santa Luzia".


In the Iberian peninsula the Alans settled in Lusitania (Alentejo) and the Cartaginense provinces. They became known in retrospect for their massive hunting and fighting running mastiff-type dogs, the Alaunt, which they apparently introduced to Europe. The breed is extinct, but its name is carried by a Spanish breed of dog still called "Alano", traditionally used in boar hunting and cattle herding. The Alano name, however, has historically been used for a number of dog breeds in a few European countries thought to descend from the original dog of the Alans, such as the German mastiff (Great Dane) and the French Dogue de Bordeaux, among others.


The Alans who remained in their original area of settlement north of the Caucasus (and for a time east of the Caspian Sea as well), came into contact and conflict with the Bulgars, the Gökturks, and the Khazars, who drove most of them from the plains and into the mountains.


Some of the other Alans remained under the rule of the Huns. Those of the eastern division, though dispersed about the steppes until late medieval times, were forced by the Mongols into the Caucasus, where they remain as the Ossetians. Between the 9th and 12th centuries, they formed a network of tribal alliances that gradually evolved into the Christian kingdom of Alania. Most Alans submitted to the Mongol Empire in 1239–1277. They participated in Mongol invasions of Europe and the Song dynasty in Southern China, and the Battle of Kulikovo under Mamai of the Golden Horde.


In 1253, the Franciscan monk William of Rubruck reported numerous Europeans in Central Asia. It is also known that 30,000 Alans formed the royal guard (Asud) of the Yuan court in Dadu (Beijing). Marco Polo later reported their role in the Yuan dynasty in his book "Il Milione". It is said that those Alans contributed to a modern Mongol clan, Asud. John of Montecorvino, archbishop of Dadu (Khanbaliq), reportedly converted many Alans to Roman Catholic Christianity in addition to Armenians in China. In Poland and Lithuania, Alans were also part of the powerful Clan of Ostoja.


It is believed that some Alans resettled to the North (Barsils), merging with Volga Bulgars and Burtas, eventually transforming to Volga Tatars. It is supposed that the Iasi, a group of Alans founded a town in the northeast of Romania (about 1200–1300), near the Prut river, called Iași. The latter became the capital of ancient Moldavia in the Middle Ages.


Alan mercenaries were involved in the affair with the Catalan Company.


Descendants of the Alans, who live in the autonomous republics of Russia and Georgia, speak the Ossetian language which belongs to the Northeastern Iranian language group and is the only remnant of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect continuum, which once stretched over much of the Pontic steppe and Central Asia. Modern Ossetian has two major dialects: "Digor", spoken in the western part of North Ossetia; and "Iron", spoken in the rest of Ossetia. A third branch of Ossetian, "Jassic" ("Jász"), was formerly spoken in Hungary. The literary language, based on the Iron dialect, was fixed by the national poet, Kosta Khetagurov (1859–1906).


The fourth-century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote this on the appearance of the Alans:


In a study conducted in 2014 by V. V.Ilyinskyon on bone fragments from 10 Alanic burials on the Don River, DNA could be abstracted from a total of seven. Four of them turned out to belong to yDNA Haplogroup G2 and six of them had mtDNAI. The fact that many of the samples share the same y- and mtDNA raises the possibility that the tested individuals belonged to the same tribe or even were close relatives. Nevertheless, this is a strong argument for direct Alan ancestry of Ossetians, competing with the hypothesis that Ossetians are alanized Caucasic speakers, since the major Haplogroup among Ossetians is G2 also.


In 2015 the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow conducted research on various Sarmato-Alan and Saltovo-Mayaki culture Kurgan burials. In this analysis, the two Alan samples from the 4th to 6th century CE had yDNAs G2a-P15 and R1a-z94, while from the three Sarmatian samples from 2nd to 3rd century CE two had yDNA J1-M267 and one possessed R1a.


Also, the three Saltovo-Mayaki samples from 8th to 9th century CE turned out to have yDNAs G, J2a-M410 and R1a-z94 respectively.


A genetic study published in "Nature" in May 2018 examined the remains of six Alans buried in the Caucasus from ca. 100 CE to 1400 CE. The sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1 and haplogroup Q-M242. One of the Q-M242 samples found in Beslan, North Ossetia from 200 CE found 4 relatives among Chechens from the Shoanoy Teip. The samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to HV2a1, U4d3, X2f, H13a2c, H5, and W1.


Archaeological finds support the written sources. P. D. Rau (1927) first identified late Sarmatian sites with the historical Alans. Based on the archaeological material, they were one of the Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes that began to enter the Sarmatian area between the middle of the 1st and the 2nd centuries.


The ancient language of the Alans was an Eastern Iranian dialect either identical, or at least closely related, to ancient Eastern Iranian languages. This is confirmed by comparison of the word for horse in various Indo-Iranian languages and the reconstructed Alanic word for horse:


Prior to their Christianisation, the Alans were Indo-Iranian polytheists, subscribing either to the poorly understood Scythian pantheon or to a polytheistic form of Zoroastrianism. Some traditions were directly inherited from the Scythians, like embodying their dominant god in elaborate rituals.


In the 4th5th centuries the Alans were at least partially Christianized by Byzantine missionaries of the Arian church. In the 13th century, invading Mongol hordes pushed the eastern Alans further south into the Caucasus, where they mixed with native Caucasian groups and successively formed three territorial entities each with different developments. Around 1395 Timur's army invaded the Northern Caucasus and massacred much of the Alanian population.


As time went by, Digor in the west came under Kabard and Islamic influence. It was through the Kabardians (an East Circassian tribe) that Islam was introduced into the region in the 17th century. After 1767, all of Alania came under Russian rule, which strengthened Orthodox Christianity in that region considerably. A substantial minority of today's Ossetians are followers of the traditional Ossetian religion.


The history of the Caucasus region may be divided by geography into the history of the Northern Caucasus (Ciscaucasia), historically in the sphere of influence of Scythia and of Southern Russia (Eastern Europe), and that of the Southern Caucasus (Transcaucasia; Caucasian Albania, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) in the sphere of influence of Persia, Anatolia and (for a very brief time) Assyria.


After dissolution of Kingdom of Urartu () and up to including the early-19th century, Persia mostly controlled the Southern Caucasus and a part of the Northern Caucasus (Dagestan). In 1813 and 1828 by the Treaty of Gulistan and the Treaty of Turkmenchay respectively, Persians ceded the Southern Caucasus and Dagestan to Imperial Russia.


Russia conquered and annexed the rest of the Northern Caucasus in the course of the 19th century in the Caucasian Wars (1817–1864).


The Northern Caucasus became the scene of intense fighting during the Second World War. Nazi Germany attempted to capture the Caucasus region of Soviet Union in 1942 by a two-pronged attack towards both the western bank of the Volga (intended to seize the city of Stalingrad) and southeast towards Baku, a major center of oil production. Some parts of the Northern Caucasus fell under German occupation, but the Axis invasion eventually faltered as it failed to accomplish either goal, and Soviet soldiers drove the Germans back west following the Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943).


Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia became independent nations. The Caucasus region has become the setting of territorial disputes in the post-Soviet era, leading to establishment of unrecognized states of Artsakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.


The Kingdom of Urartu rose to power in the mid-9th century BC


and flourished for two centuries before it was absorbed into the Median Empire in the early 6th century BC, followed by the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire.


The Northern Caucasus enters the historical record later, being in cultural contact with the Pontic steppe. The Koban culture (ca. 1100 to 400 BC) is a late Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the northern and central Caucasus. Its end presumably correlates with the Scythian expansion in the region.


During the Middle Ages Bagratid Armenia, Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget, Kingdom of Syunik and Principality of Khachen organized local Armenian population facing multiple threats after the fall of antique Kingdom of Armenia.


Caucasian Albania maintained close ties with Armenia and the Church of Caucasian Albania shared same Christian dogmas with the Armenian Apostolic Church and had a tradition of their Catholicos being ordained through the Patriarch of Armenia.


While Georgia and Armenia remained Christian, the Chechens gradually adopted Sunni Islam. The Circassians were mostly Islamized under the influence of the Crimean Tatars and the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.


Polonization (or Polonisation; ) involves the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, in particular the Polish language. This happened in some historic periods among the non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially under the influence of Poland. Like other examples of cultural assimilation, Polonization could either be voluntary or forced; it is most visible in the case of territories where the Polish language or culture were dominant or where their adoption could result in increased prestige or social status, as was the case for the nobility of Ruthenia and Lithuania. To a certain extent political authorities have administratively promoted Polonization, particularly in the period following World War II.


Between the 12th and the 14th centuries many towns in Poland adopted the so-called Magdeburg rights that promoted the towns' development and trade. The rights were usually granted by the king on the occasion of the arrival of migrants. Some, integrated with the larger community, such as merchants who settled there, especially Greeks and Armenians. They adopted most aspects of Polish culture but kept their Orthodox faith. Since the Middle Ages, Polish culture, influenced by the West, in turn radiated East, beginning the long process of cultural assimilation.


In the 1569 Union of Lublin, the Ruthenian territories controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were transferred to the newly formed Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The non-Polish ethnic groups found themselves under strong influence of the Polish culture and language. Quarter century later, following the Union of Brest the Ruthenian Church sought to break relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church. The sparsely populated lands, owned by the Polish and Polonized nobility, were settled by farmers from central Poland. The attractions, and pressures of Polonization on Ruthenian nobility and cultural elite resulted in almost complete abandonment of Ruthenian culture, traditions and the Orthodox Church by the Ruthenian higher class.


The Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila was offered the Polish crown and became Władysław II Jagiełło (reigned 1386–1434). This marked the beginning of the gradual, voluntary Polonization of the Lithuanian nobility. Jagiełło built many churches in pagan Lithuanian land and provided them generously with estates, gave out the lands and positions to the Catholics, settled the cities and villages and granted the biggest cities and towns Magdeburg Rights. The Ruthenian nobility was also freed from many payment obligations and their rights were equalized with those of the Polish nobility.


Under Jogaila successor as a king of Crown Władysław III of Varna, who reigned in 1434–1444, Polonization attained a certain degree of subtlety. Władysław III introduced some liberal reforms. He expanded the privileges to all Ruthenian nobles irrespective of their religion, and in 1443 signed a bull equalizing the Orthodox church in rights with the Roman Catholicism thus alleviating the relationship with the Orthodox clergy. These policies continued under the next king Casimir IV Jagiellon. Still, the mostly cultural expansion of the Polish influence continued since the Ruthenian nobility were attracted by both the glamour of the Western culture and the Polish political order where the magnates became the unrestricted rulers of the lands and serfs in their vast estates.


As the Eastern Rite Greek-Catholic Church originally created to accommodate the Ruthenian, initially Orthodox, nobility, ended up unnecessary to them as they converted directly into the Latin Rite Catholicism en masse, the Church largely became an hierarchy without followers. The Greek Catholic Church was then used as a tool aimed to split even the peasantry from their Ruthenian roots, still mostly unsuccessfully. The commoners, deprived of their native protectors, sought protection through the Cossacks, who, being fiercely Orthodox, tended also to easily turn to violence against those they perceived as their enemies, particularly the Polish state and what they saw as its representatives, the Poles and generally the Catholics, as well as the Jews.


After several , especially the fateful Khmelnytsky uprising, and foreign invasions (like the Deluge), the Commonwealth, increasingly powerless and falling under the control of its neighbours, started to decline, the process which eventually culminated with the partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the end of the 18th century and no Polish statehood for the next 123 years.


While the Commonwealth's Warsaw Compact is widely considered an example of an unprecedented religious tolerance for its time, the oppressive policies of Poland towards its Eastern Orthodox subjects is often cited as one of the main reasons that brought the state's demise.


During all time of existing of Commonwealth Polonization in western part of country referred to rather small groups of colonists, like Bambrzy in Greater Poland.


Polonization also occurred during times when a Polish state didn't exist, despite the empires that partition Poland applied the policies aimed at reversing the past gains of Polonization or aimed at replacing Polish identity and eradication of Polish national group.


The Polonization took place in the early years of the Prussian partition, where, as a reaction to the persecution of Roman Catholicism during the Kulturkampf, German Catholics living in areas with a Polish majority voluntarily integrated themselves within Polish society, affecting approximately 100,000 Germans in the eastern provinces of Prussia.


According to some scholars the biggest successes in Polonization of the non-Polish lands of former Commonwealth were achieved after the Partitions, in times of persecution of Polishness (noted by Leon Wasilewski (1917), Mitrofan Dovnar-Zapolsky (1926). Paradoxically, the substantial eastward movement of the Polish ethnic territory (over these lands) and growth of the Polish ethnic regions were taking place exactly in the period of the strongest Russian attack on everything Polish in Lithuania and Belarus.


The general outline of causes for that is considered to include the activities of the Roman-Catholic Church and the cultural influence exacted by the big cities (Vilna, Kovno) on these lands, the activities of the Vilna educational district in 19th century–1820s, the activities of the local administration, still controlled by the local Polish or already Polonized nobility up to the 1863–1864 January uprising, secret (Polish) schools in second half nineteenth to the beginning of the 20th century ("tajne komplety") and the influence of the land estates.


With time, the traditional Latin was fully eliminated from the University and by 1816 it was fully replaced by Polish and Russian. This change both affected and reflected a profound change in the Belarusian and Lithuanian secondary schools systems where Latin was also traditionally used as the University was the main source of the teachers for these schools. Additionally, the University was responsible for the textbooks selection and only Polish textbooks were approved for printing and usage.


Dovnar-Zapolsky notes that "the 1800s–1810s had seen the unprecedented prosperity of the Polish culture and language in the former Great Duchy of Lithuania lands" and "this era has seen the effective completion of the Polonization of the smallest nobility, with further reduction of the areal of use of the contemporary Belarusian language. also noting that the Polonization trend had been complemented with the (covert) anti-Russian and anti-Eastern Orthodox trends. The results of these trends are best reflected in the ethnic censuses in previously non-Polish territories.


Following the Polish November uprising aimed at breaking away from Russia, the Imperial policies finally changed abruptly. The University was forcibly closed in 1832 and the following years were characterized by the policies aimed at the assimilationist solution of the "Polish question", a trend that was further strengthened following another unsuccessful uprising (1863).


By the times of Second Polish Republic (1918–1939) much of Poland's previous territory, which were historically mixed Ruthenian and Polish, had Ukrainian and Belorussian majorities. Following the post-World War I rebirth of the Polish statehood, these lands again became disputed but the Poles were more successful than the nascent West Ukrainian People's Republic in the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918. Approximately one third of the new state's population was non-Catholic, including a large number of Russian Jews who immigrated to Poland following a wave of Ukrainian pogroms which continued until 1921. The Jews were entitled by a peace treaty in Riga to choose the country they preferred and several hundred thousand joined the already large Jewish minority of the Polish Second Republic.


The issue of non-Polish minorities was a subject of intense debate within the Polish leadership. Two ideas of Polish policy clashed at the time: a more tolerant and less assimilationist approach advocated by Józef Piłsudski, and an assimilationist approach advocated by Roman Dmowski and Stanisław Grabski.


Linguistic assimilation was considered by National Democrats to be a major factor for "unifying the state." For example, Grabski as Polish Minister for Religion and Public Education in 1923 and 1925–1926, wrote that "Poland may be preserved only as a state of Polish people. If it were a state of Poles, Jews, Germans, Rusyns, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Russians, it would lose its independence again"; and that "it is impossible to make a nation out of those who have no 'national self-identification,' who call themselves 'local' ("tutejszy")." Grabski also said that "the transformation of the state territory of the Republic into a Polish national territory is a necessary condition of maintaining our frontiers."


In internal politics, Piłsudski's reign marked a much-needed stabilization and improvement in the situation of ethnic minorities, which formed almost a third of the population of the Second Republic. Piłsudski replaced the National-Democratic "ethnic-assimilation" with a "state-assimilation" policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their ethnicity. The years 1926–1935 were favourably viewed by many Polish Jews, whose situation improved especially under the cabinet of Piłsudski's appointee Kazimierz Bartel. However a combination of various reasons, from the Great Depression, through the Piłsudski's need for support from parties for the parliament's election to the vicious spiral of terrorist attacks by Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and government pacifications meant that the situation continued to degenerate, despite Piłsudski's efforts.


However, Polonization also created a new educated class among the non-Polish minorities, a class of intellectuals aware of the importance of schooling, press, literature and theatre, who became instrumental in the development of their own ethnic identities.


The territories of Western Belarus, western Ukraine and the Vilnius region, were incorporated into interwar Poland in 1921 at the Treaty of Riga in which the Polish eastern frontiers had been first defined following the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. At the same time, the government of the new Polish state, with pressure from the Allies agreed to grant political autonomy to Galicia, but not Volhynia.


The Treaty of Riga signed between sovereign Poland and the Soviet Russia representing the Soviet Ukraine without any participation from Belarusian side assigned almost half of the modern-day Belarus (the western half of Soviet Belarus) to the Polish Second Republic. The government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic according to the text of the Riga treaty was also acting "on behalf of Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic" formed in the course of war. Additionally, in accordance with the Treaty, the Soviet Russia received three regions from the newly formed Soviet Belarus, which were reassigned back by the Bolsheviks in 1924 and 1926. Protests by the exiled government of the Belarusian Democratic Republic proclaimed in 1918 were ignored by Poland and the Soviets.


According to Per Anders Rudling, the Belarusian language was essentially pushed out of the schools in Polish West Belarus in violation of the Minorities' Treaty between Poland and the Western powers of 1919. The Polish author Marek Wierzbicki brings this in connection with the fact that the first textbook of Belarusian grammar was written no earlier than 1918.


Following the intentions of the majority of the Polish society, the Polish government introduced harsh policies of polonization and assimilation of Belarusians in West Belarus. The Polish official Leopold Skulski, an advocate of polonization policies, is being quoted as saying in the Sejm in late 1930s: "I assure you that in some ten years you won't be able to find a single [ethnic] Belarusian [in West Belarus]".


Władysław Studnicki, an influential Polish official at the administration of the Kresy region, openly stated that Poland needed the Eastern regions as an object for colonization.


There widespread cases of discrimination of the Belarusian language, it was forbidden for usage in state institutions.


Orthodox Christians also faced discrimination in interwar Poland. This discrimination was also targeting assimilation of Eastern Orthodox Belarusians. The Polish authorities were imposing Polish language in Orthodox church services and ceremonies, initiated the creation of "Polish Orthodox Societies" in various parts of West Belarus (Slonim, Bielastok, Vaŭkavysk, Navahrudak).


Belarusian Roman Catholic priests like Fr. Vincent Hadleŭski who promoted Belarusian language in the church and Belarusian national awareness were also under serious pressure by the Polish regime and the leadership of the Catholic Church in Poland. The Polish Catholic Church issued documents to priests prohibiting the usage of the Belarusian language rather than Polish language in Churches and Catholic Sunday Schools in West Belarus. A 1921 Warsaw-published instruction of the Polish Catholic Church criticized the priests introducing the Belarusian language in religious life: “"They want to switch from the rich Polish language to a language that the people themselves call simple and shabby"”.


Before 1921, there were 514 Belarusian language schools in West Belarus. In 1928, there were only 69 schools which was just 3% of all existing schools in West Belarus at that moment. All of them were phased out by the Polish educational authorities by 1939. The Polish officials openly prevented the creation of Belarusian schools and were imposing Polish language in school education in West Belarus. The Polish officials often treated any Belarusian demanding schooling in Belarusian language as a Soviet spy and any Belarusian social activity as a product of a communist plot.


The Belarusian civil society resisted polonization and mass closure of Belarusian schools. The Belarusian Schools Society (), led by Branisłaŭ Taraškievič and other activists, was the main organization promoting education in Belarusian language in West Belarus in 1921–1937.


Compared to the (larger) Ukrainian minority living in Poland, Belarusians were much less politically aware and active. Nevertheless, according to Belarusian historians, the policies by the Polish government against the population of West Belarus increasingly provoked protests and armed resistance. In the 1920s, Belarusian partisan units arose in many areas of West Belarus, mostly unorganized but sometimes led by activists of Belarusian left wing parties. In the spring of 1922, several thousands Belarusian partisans issued a demand to the Polish government to stop the violence, to liberate political prisoners and to grant autonomy to West Belarus. Protests were held in various regions of West Belarus until mid 1930s.


The largest Belarusian political organization, the "Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union" (or, the Hramada), which demanded a stop to the polonization and autonomy for West Belarus, grew more radicalized by the time. It received logistical help from the Soviet Union, and financial aid from the Comintern. By 1927 "Hramada" was controlled entirely by agents from Moscow. It was banned by the Polish authorities, and further opposition to the Polish government was met with state-imposed sanctions once the connection between "Hramada" and the more radical pro-Soviet Communist Party of Western Belarus was discovered. The Polish policy was met with armed resistance.


Territories of Galicia and Volhynia had different backgrounds, different recent histories and different dominant religions. Until the First World War, Galicia with its large Ukrainian Greek Catholic population in the east (around Lwów), and Polish Roman Catholics in the west (around Kraków), was controlled by the Austrian Empire. On the other hand, the Ukrainians of Volhynia, formerly of the Russian Empire (around Równe), were largely Orthodox by religion, and were influenced by strong Russophile trends. Both "Polish officials and Ukrainian activists alike, distinguished between Galician and Volhynian Ukrainians" in their political aims. There was a much stronger national self-perception among the Galician Ukrainians increasingly influenced by OUN (Ukrainian nationalists).


While the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), which functioned in communion with the Latin Rite Catholicism, could have hoped to receive a better treatment in Poland where the leadership saw Catholicism as one of the main tools to unify the nation – the Poles under Stanisław Grabski saw the restless Galician Ukrainians as less reliable than the Orthodox Volhynian Ukrainians, seen as better candidates for gradual assimilation. That's why the Polish policy in Ukraine initially aimed at keeping Greek Catholic Galicians from further influencing Orthodox Volhynians by drawing the so-called "Sokalski line".


Due to the region's history the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church attained a strong Ukrainian national character, and the Polish authorities sought to weaken it in various ways. In 1924, following a visit with the Ukrainian Catholic believers in North America and western Europe, the head of the UGCC was initially denied reentry to Lviv for a considerable amount of time. Polish priests led by their bishops began to undertake missionary work among Eastern Rite faithful, and the administrative restrictions were placed on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.


The Polish administration closed many of the popular Prosvita Society reading rooms, an action which, combined with the devastation brought about during the war years, produced a marked decline in the number of reading rooms, from 2,879 in 1914 to only 843 in 1923.


As for the educational system, the provincial school administration from the Austrian era, which was based in L'viv and had separate Ukrainian representation, was abolished in January 1921. All decisions were subsequently to be made in Warsaw and to be implemented by administrators in local school districts. Ukrainians now found themselves within six different school districts (L'viv, Volhynia, Polissia, Cracow, Lublin, and Bialystok), although at least initially the Ukrainian school system, especially at the elementary level, was left undisturbed.


In 1924, the government of Prime Minister Władysław Grabski passed a law (known as the lex Grabski), over the objections of Ukrainian parliamentary representatives, which set up bilingual Ukrainian and Polish schools. The result was a rapid decline in the number of unilingual Ukrainian schools together with a sharp increase in Polish-Ukrainian bilingual schools in Galicia and Polish schools in Volhynia (1,459 in 1938).


The principle of "numerus clausus" had been introduced following which the Ukrainians were discriminated when entering the Lviv University (not more than 15% of the applicants' total number, the Poles enjoying not less than the 50% quota at the same time).


The land reform designed to favour the Poles in Volhynia, where the land question was especially severe, and brought the alienation from the Polish state of even the Orthodox Volhynian population who tended to be much less radical than the Greek Catholic Galicians.


Traditionally, Volhynian Ukrainian peasants had benefited from rights of use in the commons, which in Volhynia meant the right to collect wood from forests owned by nobles. When all land was treated as private property with defined owners, such traditional rights could not be enforced. Forests were cleared, and the lumber sold abroad. Volhynian peasants lost access to what had been a common "good", without profiting from its commercialization and sale.


By 1938 nearly two million acres (some 800,000 hectares) had been redistributed within Ukrainian-inhabited areas. The redistribution did not necessarily help the local Ukrainian population, however. For instance, as early as 1920, 39 percent of the newly allotted land in Volhynia and Polissia (771,000 acres [312,000 hectares]) had been awarded as political patronage to veterans of Poland's 'war for independence,' and in eastern Galicia much land (494,000 acres [200,000 hectares]) had been given to land-hungry Polish peasants from the western provinces of the country. This meant that by the 1930s the number of Poles living within contiguous Ukrainian ethnographic territory had increased by about 300,000.


While Operation Vistula was underway in south-western Poland, the Soviet NKVD deported over 114,000 mostly women and children from West Ukraine to Kazakh SSR and Siberia during the parallel Operation West. Only 19,000 men were among the Soviet deportees, most of them sent to coal mines and stone quarries in the north. None of the families deported by the NKVD received any farms or empty homes to live in. They were instantaneously forced into extreme poverty and hunger. Dr Zbigniew Palski informs also that during Operation Vistula none of the three conditions of the United Nations Charter of 26 June 1945 about the possible struggle toward their own self-determination among the Polish deportees was broken at the time. Other international laws were already in effect.


Caucasology, or Caucasiology refers to the historical and geopolitical studies of the Caucasus region. The branch has more than 150 years history. In 1972, the Caucasiological Center (renamed to International Caucasiological Center in 2000) was founded under the auspices of the Israel President Zalman Shazar.


Nader's last years are characterised by wandering his own empire in a series of barbaric campaigns in which rebellions were put down in the most brutal and cruel manner. One of his very last major battles was a battle near Kars against the Ottomans where he annihilated the Ottoman army sent against him prompting Istanbul to seek terms of peace. He was finally assassinated by a faction of his officers in his own tent. The death of Nader spelt the beginning of an extremely troubled and bloody chapter in Iranian history were continuous civil war engulfed the nation for over half a century before the establishment of the Qajar dynasty under Agha-Mohammad Khan Qajar.


Revolts swept through the province during the 1720s as a direct consequence of the Afghan revolt in the eastern provinces of the empire which eventually led to an invasion led by the Hotaki leader Mahmud Hotaki. In a pitched battle Mahmud inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Imperial forces sent from Isfehan in the battle of Gulnabad, after which he marched on the capital itself where he captured Isfehan after a terrible siege.


A courtier in Isfahan by the name of Malek Mahmoud Sistani reached an accord with the Hotaki Afghan conquerors in which he would set up an independent kingdom in khorasan in exchange for his recognition of Mahmud as Shah of Iran. Sistani entered Khorasan and managed to regain most of Khorasan from the rebels and local warlords in a relatively short period of time with the capital Mashad falling into his hands. At this juncture Nader had established himself in the fortress of kalat north of Mashad and with a mere force of 1,200 men raided Sistani's territory, although they did not come into direct confrontation Nader had established himself as the only real challenge to Sistani's influence in Khorasan.


Tahmasp II and the siege of Mashhad.


After the conclusion of the siege of Isfahan Mahmud sent a contingent of his Afghans to subdue Qazvin where a new Safavid pretender Tahmasp had risen and proclaimed himself Shah. He was forced to flee Qazvin but could not stay in the region permanently as those areas not under Afghan control were unremittingly coming under the marching boots of Ottoman soldiers invading from the west. Tahmasp was chased from the west of the country and in Astarabad found a loyal if difficult subject warlord by the name of Fathali Khan of the Qajar clan.


The Qajar contingent however remained with the Loyalist army despite Fathali's beheading and ironically it was a betrayal on the other side of the conflict that brought the siege to an end where Pir Mohammad allowed Nader to infiltrate the city walls forcing Sistani to take refuge in the citadel, surrendering shortly after.


The defeated Malek Mahmoud Sistani was surprisingly treated with courtesy and in a show of reconciliatory mercy allowed to spend the rest of his life as a sage (Though he was executed the following year when he became suspect in Nader's eyes). The results of the siege had gifted the capital of Khorasan to Tahmasp as well as gifting Fathali's position to the sole person of Nader as he now took to subdue the remaining Khans and tribes of the province hence further augmenting his forces. His conquest of Khorasan allowed the Safavid loyalist movement to next focus on an expedition further east towards Herat.


The Conquest of Afghanistan by Nader Shah consisted of a series of intermittent and fluid engagements culminating in the finale of Nader's military operations against the Abdali Afghans. Nader having recently concluded a successful campaign against his own monarch and prince, the badly humiliated Tahmasp II, set out from Mashad on May 4, 1729 making sure the Shah also accompanied him on this journey where he could be kept under close supervision.


The battle of Kafer Qal'eh resulted in a tactical victory for Nader after which Allahyar Khan was pursued and re-engaged. At the height of the battle Nader's scouts brought word of Zulfaqar Khans approach prompting Nader to carry out an ingenious ruse. A column of Iranian troops was sent on a march round Allahyar Khan's army with their victory drums & horns sounding loudly which led him to believe that Zulfaqar Khan's men had already been defeated forcing him to beat another hasty retreat.


As Allahyar broke away towards Herat Nader dispatched a portion of his army to pursue him but kept the bulk of his men to turn and face the fresh troops under Zulfaqar khan's command, however before Nader engaged Zulfaqar's contingent a sandstorm swept into the area rendering any further fighting all but impossible, thereby providing a cover under which the Abdali forces managed to withdraw towards Herat unmolested.


The entire campaign thus far had been a chain of skirmishes, marches and counter marches where Nader excelled as a quick thinking commander who outwitted his foes at every corner despite at times seemingly caught in near impossible situations such as when news of Zulfaqar's imminent arrival reached him when he was already heavily engaged with Allahyar Khan's men. The impressive campaign however did not result in the Abdali's destruction and Nader followed their retreat eastward until he came in view of Herat where the combined forces of Allahyar & Zulfaqar rode out to meet him in a finale to the campaign.


When battle was joined for the final time in view of Herat itself the action was uncannily similar to the previous engagements between the Iranians and the Abdalis except that on this particular occasion the frontal charge of the Abdalis was firmly halted by muskets of the Iranian line infantry crashing out simultaneously breaking the impetus of the Afghans charge and providing adequate persuasion to the Abdalis to fall behind the city walls. Herat now came under an intense bombardment from the Iranian guns and mortars, convincing the governor of Herat, Allahyar Khan, to sue for peace in exchange for recognition of Iran as suzerain of Herat.


With the Abdalis in Herat brought into orbit the road now lay open to the heartland of the Iranian empire and the liberation of Isfahan seemed feasible given the successes of the previous campaigns. Nader had also demonstrated the effectiveness of his military system and through numerous engagements had perfected the art and technique of overcoming fierce cavalry charges by steady infantry formations supported by cannon and guarded by cavalry on the flanks where the combined fire of musketry & cannon-fire would break the charge of the mounted assailants. This tactical system would be put to the ultimate test in the battles of Mihmandust & Murche-Khort by Nader's veteran troops going up against the very best of the cavalry the oriental world had to offer.


The Safavid restoration to the throne of Iran took place in the latter part of 1729 by a series of battles fought between Nader, Tahmasp's commander-in-chief and Ashraf Hotaki. Despite nominally bringing Tahmasp to the seat of power, true authority still rested with Nader who had, ever since the debacle in northern Khorasan, managed to seize Tahmasp II as his vassal. As for Afghan rule, the Ghilzai Afghans were ejected from the Iranian Plateau permanently and in the following years were re-annexed by Nader whence they were once again absorbed into the Iranian empire.


Having delayed a confrontation with Tahmasp long enough, Ashraf found himself threatened by the pretender to the Safavid throne and his young general Nader. Hearing of their expedition against the Abdali of Herat Ashraf decided to march on the capital of Khorasan and capture Mashad before Nader could return from the east. However Nader was back in Mashad well before Ashraf had a chance of invading Khorasan.


Marching towards Damghan Nader and Ashraf clashed near the village of Mihmandoost where despite being heavily outnumbered the Iranians gave the Afghans a terribly bloody lesson in modern warfare and crushed Ashraf's army forcing him to retire towards Semnan.


Ashraf retreated west where he set up a well thought out ambush in the Khwar pass where he hoped the Iranians, flushed with their recent triumph, would be surprised and dealt a heavy blow. Nader upon discovering the ambush encircled and then completely destroyed it with whatever remnants fleeing towards Isfahan.


Requesting urgent support from the Ottoman Empire Ashraf sought to counter the Iranian army's thrust towards Isfahan. The Ottomans keen to hold Ashraf in power instead of seeing a resurgent Iran on their eastern frontier were all too eager to help with both guns and artillerymen. At the battle of Murche-Khort the Afghans were yet again decisively defeated forcing Ashraf to flee south.


Nader liberated Isfahan and soon after received Tahmasp II outside the main city gates where the Shah expressed his gratitude to Nader. The city had been devastated by the Afghans leaving very little in terms of riches for when Nader arrived. Tahmasp famously weeped when he saw what had befallen the capital. The city was greatly reduced both in terms of population and in terms of wealth. The people took vengeance on those Afghans who were found hiding throughout the city.


Nader set out from Isfahan heading towards Shiraz where Ashraf was busy raking together what he could with the support of some of the local Arab tribes. At this juncture there was no realistic hope for a revival of Afghan fortunes and near Zarghan the Iranian engaged and decimated the last army Ashraf commanded, with historical sources disagreeing on his exact fate in the aftermath of the battle.


Nader's first Ottoman Campaign was his first against perhaps his most formidable of adversaries, namely the Ottomans, where he proved triumphant in conquest. The great successes of his expedition, however, were rendered null when Shah Tahmasp II decided to take personal command of the theatre in Nader's absence, forcing a furious Nader to return and rectify the situation after forcing Tahmasp's abdication in favour of his infant son Abbas III.


The Ottomans had entered the western regions of the country in the early 1720s when the Hotaki invasion of Mahmud I was launched against the Safavid state. In a decisive engagement near Gulnabad, Mahmud Hotaki managed a surprising victory against a far greater (though severely divided) Iranian army. The route of the imperial army allowed him to march on the capital Isfahan which he captured after a 6-month siege that caused unheard misery and loss of life in the city. During the chaos of the Safavid overthrow, the Tsardom of Russia and the Ottoman Empire seized on this opportunity to annex as much land as they could with Ottoman Turkey taking western Iran and dividing the Caucasus up with the Russians.


Soon the Hotaki conquerors installed a new leader as king through a coup de'tat in which Mahmud I was replaced with a capable cousin of his; Ashraf. Ashraf marched west to put a halt to any further expansion by the Ottomans and to the surprise of many defeated them. The diplomatic outcome however was very much reconciliatory as the Ottomans promised recognition of Ashraf as the legitimate Shah of Iran in exchange for Ashraf's acknowledgement of Ottoman rule in their new territories in the Caucasus and western Iran.


On March 9, 1730, the Iranian army exited Shiraz and in a leisurely manner celebrated the new year (Nowruz), after which Nader commenced a rapid forced march westward in the hope of catching the Ottomans off balance. Reaching Ottoman-occupied town of Nahavand via Luristan, Nader put the Turks here to flight towards Hamadan, where, recovering from their initial shock and panic, they regrouped and presented themselves in the valley of Malayer to give battle in the hope of ending the Iranian advance on Hamadan.


The Ottoman force arrayed in front of the Iranian army was of a different nature altogether from all the previous foes the Iranian army had faced up to this point. The Afghan and tribal opponents of Nader had been almost completely devoid of any infantry or artillery units (excluding Murche-Khort), comprised almost exclusively of excellent mounted warriors instead.


Now Nader faced an adversary who in many respects mirrored the Iranian army's own composition in structure as well as constituent unit types. The Turks had drawn themselves up parallel to a stream flowing through the valley, on the other side of which Nader deployed his men into three separate divisions, placing himself in the centre. As the two armies came within musket range of each other, a general fire broke out along the entire length of the line, with the smoke created from the muskets & cannon dancing over shallow body of water separating the two armies, obscuring the Iranians and Ottomans from each other's view. Nader, under the veil of smoke, started strengthening and preparing his right wing for a bold gamble.


After liberating Hamadan along with its 10,000 imprisoned Iranian soldiers, Nader gained Kermanshah, thus liberating large swathes of western Iran from Ottoman rule. Leaving behind a fortified position, he now moved his army to Azerbaijan, where he took Tabriz on August 12, crushing an army sent (too late) to reinforce Tabriz. The Turkish prisoners were treated kindly, with Nader freeing many of the Pashas, dispatching them with messages of peace to Constantinople (Istanbul). In a lightning campaign Nader had reincorporated all the main provinces of the Iranian heartland.


At this time in Constantinople, Patrona Halil, a mob rebellion had produced a change in leadership bringing Mahmud I to power. Sultan Mahmud I appointed a half-Venetian statesman to command in the east at the head of an army which would prove Tahmasp's undoing. Aiming to cloak the Caucasus under Iranian hegemony as in the time of his forefathers Tahmasp aimed to conquer Chokhur-e Sa'd, Georgia and Daghestan from the Turks. An army of 18,000 was led into Chokhur-e Sa'd were Tahmasp found himself scoring a victory over an Ottoman army near Yerevan.


There seems to have been an unintentional initiation of musketry by the inexperienced Iranian infantry leading to a pitched battle where the Iranian cavalry on either flank overcame their counterparts but were let down by the nervous infantry in the centre who were easily put to flight by the advance of the Janissaries which now turned to aid their mounted comrades in a counter-attack on the Iranian horsemen routing them in turn also. Tabriz also fell to Hakimoghlu Khan with Ahmad Pasha complementing his gains by capturing Hamadan.


Tahmasp was obliged to sign a treaty by which he accepted Ottoman suzerainty over the Caucasus and in exchange he would be given back Tabriz, Hamadan and kermanshah. The conclusion of his incompetence in this foreign venture had resulted in signing one of the most humiliating treaties of his dynasty although this seemed to weigh little on his mind as he soon returned to Isfahan to resume a magnificently opulent lifestyle.


On discovering the cataclysmic events that had unfolded in the west Nader abandoned any further conquest in the east to return to Isfahan with much justified anger at the Shah's inept statesmanship which must have been all the more infuriating as Nader's impressive achievements against the Ottomans during the previous year had become utterly irrelevant. This gave Nader the political ammunition to force Tahmasp II to abdicate in favour of his infant son Abbas III in effect making Nader the supreme and unchallenged authority in the realm paving the way for his eventual overthrow of the Safavid dynasty altogether.


As a direct result of Tahmasp II's blunders in his ill-fated invasion of the Ottoman Caucasus all of Nader's previous gains in the theatre were lost and a humiliating treaty had been signed giving away hegemony over the Caucasus to Istanbul. This settlement gave Nader the authority to force Tahmasp's abdication and resume the war against the Turks by launching an invasion of Ottoman Iraq and Mesopotamia.


Ottoman held Iraq seemed a peculiar choice for Nader's invasion as all the western territories of Iran were restored under the ignominious treaty signed by Tahmasp with the Caucasus under Turkish control. Axworthy speculates that Nader intended to seize Baghdad as a bargaining chip in exchange for the Caucasus but with Baghdad being such a strategic prize in itself it is rather doubtful any civil exchange of territory was held in mind at the time at all. Despite the unexpected choice of theatre the Ottomans in the region were well prepared to receive the Iranians.


To achieve a modicum of surprise Nader decided upon a march through the mountains as opposed to a direct advance against the fortified border town of Zohab near Qasr-e Shirin. The mountain path was a difficult and snowy route to negotiate and some amongst the soldiers perished but Nader managed to get his 600 men to descend down into the valley behind the Ottoman battlements and without hesitation struck in the dead of night. Completely out-witted by Nader the garrison of Zohab woke up and fled their posts in terror. Nader ordered a new fort to be built and moved south to join the main Iranian army that had left Hamadan and was heading to Baghdad.


Besieging Kirkuk with a residue force of 7,000 the main Iranian army marched on until they defeated an Ottoman army near Baghdad and then proceeded to encircle the city itself in preparation for a siege after a hard fought campaign of manoeuvre were Nader managed to cross the Tigris. Ahmad Pasha would prove a stubborn defender of the city and held out until the approach of a relief effort in the form of an army of 80,000 under Topal Pasha.


In a cunning ruse Topal drew Nader into a disadvantageous battle where despite losing a quarter of his own men Topal inflicted a crushing defeat on the Iranian army, half of which was destroyed and all its guns lost. This monumental victory allowed the lifting of the siege further to the south where Ahmad Pasha- having heard of Topal Osman's victory -came out with an enthusiastic garrison to chase away the 12,000 Iranians left to maintain the blockade of Baghdad.


Making an almost fantastical recovery from his seemingly irreplaceable losses Nader rebuilt his army in an incredibly short amount of time and invaded Ottoman Iraq once more. After some minor frontier skirmishing he sent Haji Beg Khan to lure out Topal Pasha which he succeeded in doing. The Ottoman advance guard was set upon drowned under the waves of a ferocious ambush after which Nader gathered his men and marched directly against the main Ottoman army nearby.


An intense musketry duel was kept up along the entire breadth of the line until Nader ordered his infantry unsheathe their sabres and charge the Ottomans, supporting them with a pincer movement by his cavalry reserve which put Topal Osman's army in a cauldron of Iranian troops. The Turks crumbling in the face of this manoeuvre found that not even the presence of the old fox in the person of Topal Pasha could rally them and fled leaving all their guns.


Nader however could not pursue his impressive conquest due to a growing uprising in southern Iran which required his immediate attention. Therefore, Baghdad was yet again saved from falling into Iranian hands. The campaign itself did not decide the fate of the war but set the stage for Nader's Caucasus campaign in 1735 where through a shattering defeat of the Ottomans at Baghavard, Istanbul was brought to its knees.


As the Iranian empire set about re-incorporating the lost territories to the west, Hussein sultan of Qandahar intrigued the Abdalis of Herat to raise against their masters while the main Iranian forces were arrayed against the Ottomans thousands of kilometres to the west. The governor of Herat, Allahyar Khan, who was confirmed in his position by Nader after his the war of in 1729 remained loyal but his chief lieutenant Zulfaqar Khan was very much taken by Qandahar's assurances and support.


Allahyar Khan was obliged to flee Herat and was given refuge by Nader's brother Ibrahim Khan. The Abdalis soon invaded Khorasan itself and marched on its capital, Mashad, defeating the Iranian under Ibrahim Khan and forcing it to withdraw into the city walls which now came under siege. Although the Abdalis had little chance of actually taking the city as what little artillery they possessed would make hardly any impression on the battlements of Mashad, these events shook Nader who received word that his power base back in Khorasan was under threat. On August 16 Nader left Tabriz behind and marched his force across 2,250 kilometres over the Iranian plateau with lightning speed, bringing him Mashad where he found the Abdalis in headlong retreat.


Hussein Hotaki was growing increasingly anxious about his position in Qandahar with Nader approaching Herat, prompting him to enter into negotiations with Nader in which he sent back a few captive Safavid princesses. Hussein sultan's support for his proxy, Zulfaqar Khan, however did not cease or even lessen – in fact a Ghilzai force of at least a few thousand strong commanded by Mohammad Seidal Khan was sent from Qandahar to support him.


The final decisive engagement took place outside the city when Zulfaqar Khan and Seidal Khan agreed to a joint coordinated attack against the Iranians. The attack was decimated when Nader sent a flanking force round the Afghans and himself rode directly against their front with a large body of cavalry. The defeat caused Seidal Khan's departure which in turn led to the remaining defenders of Herat asking for terms of submission.


Under the treaty signed by both sides Allahyar Khan was returned his governorship of Herat with Zulfaqar Khan being exiled to Farah. Nader did not however militarily occupy the citadel – an action which would prove a terrible mistake when 4,000 fighters came down from Farah an stoked the fires of rebellion once more. Allahyar Khan was pressured despite his reluctance to join the revolt. Allahyar Khan was also exiled.


The siege of the citadel was hence resumed with the Afghan's sending peace emissaries once they realised their predicament. The negotiations lasted a long while but were eventually concluded, giving Zulfaqar Khan and his brother a chance to escape to Qandahar whilst Herat came under occupation but was surprisingly not looted or sacked by Nader's troops. Ibrahim Khan managed to conquer Farah, helping to pacify the region as a whole in addition to Nader's policies of forced migration for many of the tribes involved in the rebellion as well as incorporating many of their fighters into his own armed forces.


After Nader put down the revolt in Afghanistan, he was able to continue his invasion of the Ottoman Empire and the Caucasus which ended in an Iranian victory allowing Nader to recast Iranian hegemony over almost the entire Caucasus, region, reconconquering it for the Safavid state.


The Caucasus had fallen under Ottoman control since 1722 with the collapse of the Safavid state. The first target of the campaign was the reconquering of the Shirvan Khanate, with its capital Shamakhi falling in August 1734 freeing up the Iranian forces to march west and lay siege to Ganja. The battlements of Ganja as well as its garrison of 14,000 soldiers provided a formidable defence. After Tahmasp Khan Jalayer engaged and routed a joint Ottoman and Crimean Tatar force in the south east Caucasus Nader cut their line of retreat further west dealing them another crippling blow, scattering them into the mountains north.


The mountains to the north in Avarestan made any pursuit of the defeated foe a daunting prospect especially considering the approach of winter, so Nader chose to turn west and besiege Ganja where he was drawn into an intense effort to capture the surprisingly formidable fortress. The Iranian artillery was still severely lacking in strong siege guns and consisted mostly of field batteries which were effective in battles but unable to make significant impact against city walls and battlements.


Failing in their siege artillery capacity the Iranians sent sappers to dig underground to reach the citadels walls from beneath but the Turks received timely intelligence reports revealing the intention of the besiegers. Tunnelling underground the Iranians and Ottomans burrowed into each other's way whence they came to grips in hand-to-hand combat. The Iranians were able to detonate six charges killing 700 Ottoman defenders but still failed in their main object of destroying the citadels walls. The Iranians also lost some 30 to 40 men themselves.


Nader also blockaded Yerevan and Tiflis forcing a response from the Ottoman 'Saraskar' Koprulu Pasha. Istanbul had found the preliminary negotiations by Ahmad Pasha, governor of Ottoman Baghdad unsatisfactory and sent an enormous army consisting of 50,000 cavalry, 30,000 janissaries and 40 cannon to be commanded by Koprulu Pasha foe the defence of Ottoman possessions in the region.


Nader having besieged many of the key cities and fortresses in the area awaited the arrival of Koprulu Pasha's main army of some 130,000 men according to Nader's court historian Mirza Mehdi Astarabadi, prompting Nader to gather his advance guard of around 15,000 men and march them westwards to engage the relief army under Koprulu Pasha. By the time the main Iranian army of 40,000 reached the scene of the battle Nader, despite the enormous disparity in numbers, routed the Ottomans, forcing Istanbul to finally sign a peace recognizing Iranian control of the Caucasus and the border in Mesopotamia already agreed to in the treaty of Zuhab.


The crushing defeat at Baghavard also provided sufficient persuasion to retreat for the 50,000 Crimean Tatars who were commanded by the Turkish Sultan to march south along the coast of the Black Sea descending down into the Caucasus in order to aid Koprulu Pasha's forces.


Emperor Nader Shah, the Shah of Iran (1736–47) and founder of the Afsharid dynasty, invaded the Mughal Empire with a fifty-five thousand strong army, eventually attacking Delhi in March 1739. His army had easily defeated the Mughals at the battle at Karnal and would eventually capture the Mughal capital in the aftermath of the battle.


Nader Shah's victory against the weak and crumbling Mughal Empire in the far East meant that he could afford to turn back and resume war against Iran's archrival, the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, but also the further campaigns in the North Caucasus and Central Asia.


Nader Shah became the official Iranian monarch in 1736, and founded the Afsharid dynasty in that year overthrowing the last puppet safavid shah after the successful campaign of 1730-35. In 1738, Nader Shah conquered Kandahar, the last outpost of the Hotaki dynasty, he, then, began to launch raids across the Hindu Kush mountains into Northern India, which, at that time, was under the rule of the Mughal Empire.


The Mughal empire had been weakened by ruinous wars of succession in the three decades following the death of Aurangzeb. The Muslim nobles had asserted their independence whilst the Hindu Marathas of the Maratha Empire had captured vast swathes of territory in Central and Northern India. Its ruler, Muhammad Shah, proved unable to stop the disintegration of the empire. The imperial court administration was corrupt and weak whereas the country was extremely rich whilst Delhi’s prosperity and prestige was still at a high. Nader Shah, attracted by the country's wealth, sought plunder like so many other foreign invaders before him.


At the Battle of Karnal on 13 February 1739, Nader led his army to victory over the Mughals, Muhammad Shah surrendered and both entered Delhi together.


The keys to the capital of Delhi were surrendered to Nader. He entered the city on 20 March 1739 and occupied Shah Jehan’s imperial suite in the Red Fort. Coins were struck, and prayers said, in his name in the Jama Masjid and other Delhi mosques. The next day, the Shah held a great durbar in the capital.


The Iranian occupation led to price rises in the city. The city administrator attempted to fix prices at a lower level and Iranian troops were sent to the market at Paharganj, Delhi to enforce them. However, the local merchants refused to accept the lower prices and this resulted in violence during which some Iranians were assaulted and killed.


When a rumour spread that Nader had been assassinated by a female guard at the Red Fort, some Indians attacked and killed Iranian troops during the riots that broke out on the night of 21 March. Nader, furious at the killings, retaliated by ordering his soldiers to carry out the notorious "qatl-e-aam" (qatl = killing, aam = publicly, in open) of Delhi.


Areas of Delhi such as Chandni Chowk and Dariba Kalan, Fatehpuri, Faiz Bazar, Hauz Kazi, Johri Bazar and the Lahori, Ajmeri and Kabuli gates, all of which were densely populated by both Hindus and Muslims, were soon covered with corpses. Muslims, like Hindus and Sikhs, resorted to killing their women, children and themselves rather than submit to the Iranians.


Muhammad Shah was forced to beg for mercy. These horrific events were recorded in contemporary chronicles such as the Tarikh-e-Hindi of Rustam Ali, the Bayan-e-Waqai of Abdul Karim and the Tazkira of Anand Ram Mukhlis.


Finally, after many hours of desperate pleading by the Mughals for mercy, Nader Shah relented and signalled a halt to the bloodshed by sheathing his battle sword once again.


It has been estimated that during the course of six hours in one day, 22 March 1739, something like 20,000 to 30,000 Indian men, women and children were slaughtered by the Iranian troops during the massacre in the city. Exact casualty figures are uncertain, as after the massacre, the bodies of the victims were simply buried in mass burial pits or cremated in grand funeral pyres without any proper record being made of the numbers cremated or buried.


The city was sacked for several days. An enormous fine of 20 million rupees was levied on the people of Delhi. Muhammad Shah handed over the keys to the royal treasury, and lost the Peacock Throne, to Nader Shah, which thereafter served as a symbol of Iranian imperial might. Amongst a treasure trove of other fabulous jewels, Nader also gained the Koh-i-Noor and Darya-ye Noor ("Mountain of Light" and "Sea of Light," respectively) diamonds; they are now part of the British and Iranian Crown Jewels, respectively. Iranian troops left Delhi at the beginning of May 1739.


The plunder seized from Delhi was so rich that Nader stopped taxation in Iran for a period of three years following his return. Nader Shah's victory against the crumbling Mughal Empire in the East meant that he could afford to turn to the West and face the Ottomans. The Ottoman Sultan Mahmud I initiated the Ottoman-Iranian War (1743–1746), in which Muhammad Shah closely cooperated with the Ottomans until his death in 1748.


Nader's Indian campaign alerted the East India Company to the extreme weakness of the Mughal Empire and the possibility of expanding to fill the power vacuum.


Nader attempted to ratify the Treaty of Constantinople (1736), by demanding that the Ja'fari, a small Shi'ite sect was to be accepted as a fifth legal sect of Islam.


In early 1744 Nader Shah resumed his offensive and besieged Kars, but returned to Daghestan to suppress a revolt. He returned afterwards and routed an Ottoman army at the battle of Kars in August 1745. The war disintegrated. Nader Shah grew insane and started to punish his own subjects, which led to a revolt from early 1745 to June 1746. In 1746 peace was made. The boundaries were unchanged and Baghdad remained in Ottoman hands. Nader Shah dropped his demand for Ja'fari recognition. The Porte was pleased and dispatched an ambassador but before he could arrive, Nader Shah was assassinated by his own officers.


John Frederick Baddeley (July 1854 – Oxford, 16 February 1940) was a British traveller, writer and journalist, best known by his works on Russia and the Caucasus region.


He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire. After visiting Russia for seven months in 1879, Baddeley became the St. Petersburg correspondent for the London Standard, and began a lifelong relationship with that country, travelling widely and writing several important books on its history. In the summer of 1900 he made his first of several journeys to Siberia and the Russian Far East. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1902-1940.