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CRIMEAN

Date "CRIMEAN" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1861. (references)

 

Specialty Definition: Crimea

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Crimea (ancient Tauris or Tauric Chersonese, called by the Russians by the Tatar name Krym or Crim) is a peninsula on the north side of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine.

In 1944 the Tatar ethnic people were forcibly expelled by the Soviet government.

1911 encyclopedia text:

Crimea a peninsula on the north side of the Black Sea, with the mainland of which it is connected by the Isthmus of Perekop (3-4 miles across). It measures 200 miles between 44° 23’ and 46° 10’ N., and 110 miles between 32° 30’ and 36° 40’ E. Its area is 9700 square miles.

The shores are broken by several bays and harbours—on the west side of the Isthmus of Perekop by the Bay of Karkinit; on the south-west by the open Bay of Kalamita, on the shores of which the allies landed in 1854, with the ports of Eupatoria, Sevastopol and Balaklava; by the Bay of Arabat on the north side of the Isthmus of Yenikale or Kerch; and by the Bay of Kaffa or Feodosiya (Theodosia), with the port of that name, on the south side of the same.

The south-east coast is flanked at a distance of 5 to 8 m. from the sea by a parallel range of mountains, the Yaila-Dagh, or Alpine Meadow mountains, and these are backed, inland, by secondary parallel ranges; but 75% of the remaining area consists of high arid prairie lands, a southward continuation of the Pontic steppes, which slope gently north-westwards from the foot of the Yaila-Dagh. The main range of these mountains shoots up with extraordinary abruptness from the deep floor of the Black Sea to an altitude of 2000 to 2500 ft., beginning at the south-west extremity of the peninsula, Cape Fiolente (anc. Parthenium), supposed to have been crowned by the temple of Artemis in which Iphigeneia officiated as priestess.

All over the steppes are scattered numerous kurgans or burial-mounds of the ancient Scythians.

The picture which lies behind the sheltering screen of the Yaila-Dagh is of an altogether different character. Here the narrow strip of coast and the slopes of the mountains are smothered with greenery. This Russian Riviera stretches all along the, south-east coast from Cape Sarych (extreme S.) to Feodosiya (Theodosia), and is studded with summer sea-bathing resorts— Alupka, Yalta, Gursuv, Alushta, Sudak, Theodosia. Numerous Tatar villages, mosques, monasteries, palaces of the Russian imperial family and Russian nobles, and picturesque ruins of ancient Greek and medieval fortresses and other buildings are found.

History

The earliest inhabitants of whom we have any authentic traces were the Celtic Cimmenians, who were expelled by the Scythians during the 7th century B.C A remnant, who took refuge in the mountains, became known subsequently as the Tauri. In that same century Greek colonists began to settle on the coasts, e.g. Dorians from Heraclea at Chersonesus, and Ionians from Miletus at Theodosia and Panticapaeum (also called Bosporus).

Two centuries later (438 B.C) the archon or ruler of the last-named assumed the title of king of Bosporus, a state which maintained close relations with Athens, supplying that city with wheat and other commodities. The last of these kings, Paerisades V, being hard pressed by the Scythians, put himself under the protection of Mithradates VI, king of Pontus, in 114 B.C After the death of this latter sovereign his son Pharnaces, as a reward for assistance rendered to the Romans in their war against his father, was (63 B.C) invested by Pompey with the kingdom of Bosporus. In 15 B.C it was once more restored to the king of Pontus, but henceforward ranked as a tributary state of Rome.

During the succeeding centuries the Crimea was overrun or occupied successively by the Goths (AD. 250), the Huns (376), the Khazars (8th century), the Byzantine Greeks (1016), the Kipchaks (1050), and the Mongols (1237).

In the 13th century the Genoese destroyed or seized the settlements which their rivals the Venetians had made on the Crimean coasts, and established themselves at Eupatoria, Cembalo (Balaklava), Soldaia (Sudak), and Kaffa (Theodosia), flourishing trading towns, which existed down to the conquest of the peninsula by the Ottoman Turks in 1475.

Meanwhile the Tatars had got a firm footing in the northern and central parts of the peninsula as early as the 13th century, and after the destruction of the Golden Horde by Timur they founded an independent khanate under a descendant of Genghis Khan, who is known as Hadji Ghirai. He and his successors reigned first at Solkhat (Eski-krym), and from the beginning of the 15th century at Bakhchi-Sarai. But from 1478 they ruled as tributary princes of the Ottoman Empire down to 1777, when having been defeated by the Russian general (future generalissimo) Suvorov they became dependent upon Russia, and finally in 1783 the whole of the Crimea was annexed to the Russian Empire.

Crimea was the scene of some of the most bloody battles in the Great Patriotic War (Second World War) with Sevastopol heroically, though unsucessfully, defended from December 17, 1941 and July 4, 1942 agsinst the Nazi invaders.

In the Soviet era Crimea was governed as part of Russian SFSR until, in 1955, it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR to mark the tenth anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the Crimea therefore became part of the newly indpendent Ukraine, a situation resented by the majority of its population. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula there were worries of armed conflict.

With the electoral defeat of the more radical nationalist political forces in Ukraine tension slowly eased.

The Crimea proclaimed independence on May 5, 1992 but later it agreed to become an autonomous territory in the Ukraine.

See also Crimean War of 1854-65.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Crimea."

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Crimean War

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Crimean War lasted from 1854 to 1856. It was fought between Russia and an alliance of the United Kingdom, France, the Ottoman Empire joined somewhat tardily by Piedmont-Sardinia. The majority of the conflict took place around the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea.

After a dispute with the Ottoman Empire over the guardianship of several holy towns in Palestine and the protection of Orthodox Christians, Russia invaded Moldavia and Walachia, both semi-autonomous vassals of the Ottoman Empire, resulting in a declaration of war by the Ottomans in late 1853. The Russians, under the command of a hero of Navarino sea battle admiral Nakhimov, sank the Ottoman fleet at Sinope on November 30. The Ottomans were joined by Britain and France on March 28, 1854, and by Sardinia in January 1855. Austria also threatened to enter the war on the Ottoman side, causing the Russians to withdraw from the occupied areas, which were immediately occupied by the Austrians, in August 1854.

The following month, though the immediate cause of war was withdrawn, allied troops landed in the Crimea and besieged the city of Sevastopol, home of the tsar's Black Sea fleet and a threat of future Russian penetration into the Mediterranean.The Russians had to scuttle their ships and used the naval cannons as the additional artillery, and the ships' crews as the marines. Admiral Nakhimov was mortally wounded in the head by a sniper shot, and died on June 30, 1855. The city was finally captured in September 1855. In the same year, the Russians occupied the Turkish/Armenian city of Kars.

After the occupation of Sevastopol and the accession of Alexander II peace negotiations began. The war ended with the Treaty of Paris (1856).

The war became infamously known for military and logistical incompetence, epitomized by the Charge of the Light Brigade immortalized in Tennyson's poem. Cholera undercut French preparations for the siege of Sevastopol, and a violent storm on the night of November I4, 1854 wrecked nearly thirty vessels with their precious cargoes of medical supplies, forage, clothing and other necessaries. In the desperate winter that followed, scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers, which was covered by war correspondents for newspapers, prompted the work of Florence Nightingale, introducing modern nursing methods. The Crimean War was also the first in which tactical use was made of railways.

Most Interesting Side Note: The Crimean War occasioned the invention of hand rolled "paper cigars" - cigarettes - by French and British troops who copied their Turkish comrades in using old newspaper for rolling when their cigar-leaf rolling tobacco ran out or dried and crumbled.

Timeline

Military commanders

Obscure cross-links:

External links

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INDEX

1. Definition
2. Bibliography


  

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