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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.

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