164-902: Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
328-585: A communist-led revolution in Afghanistan, Soviet forces invaded the country, ultimately starting the Soviet–Afghan War . In May 1988, the Soviets started to withdraw from Afghanistan , due to international opposition, persistent anti-Soviet guerrilla warfare, and a lack of support by Soviet citizens. From 1985 onwards, the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev , who sought to enact liberal reforms in
492-653: A troika was designated to take charge. Eventually Joseph Stalin , the General Secretary of the Communist Party , managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the country's dictator by the 1930s. Leon Trotsky , the main proponent of world revolution , was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, and Stalin's idea of Socialism in One Country became
656-655: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
820-511: A Thing must live: with a transfusion of one's own worse Life if one can't retain the Originals better. Better a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle. (letter to E. B. Cowell, 4/27/59) For comparison, here are two versions of the same quatrain by FitzGerald, from the 1859 and 1889 editions: Herewith a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou Beside me singing in
984-611: A Varangian from the Rus' people , named Rurik , was elected ruler of Novgorod in 862. In 882, his successor Oleg ventured south and conquered Kiev , which had been previously paying tribute to the Khazars . Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Sviatoslav subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar Khaganate, and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia . In
1148-510: A crisis. By 1991, economic and political turmoil began to boil over as the Baltic states chose to secede from the Soviet Union. On 17 March, a referendum was held, in which the vast majority of participating citizens voted in favour of changing the Soviet Union into a renewed federation . In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first directly elected President in Russian history when he
1312-736: A decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front . With the onset of the Cold War , it competed with the United States for ideological dominance and international influence . The Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements , including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space . In 1991,
1476-417: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
1640-479: A fellow-mystic, but a free-thinking scientist". The sceptic interpretation is supported by the medieval historian Al-Qifti (ca. 1172–1248), who in his The History of Learned Men reports that Omar's poems were only outwardly in the Sufi style but were written with an anti-religious agenda. He also mentions that Khayyam was indicted for impiety and went on a pilgrimage to avoid punishment. Critics of FitzGerald, on
1804-664: A global superpower. After World War II, according to the Potsdam Conference , the Red Army occupied parts of Eastern and Central Europe, including East Germany and the eastern regions of Austria . Dependent communist governments were installed in the Eastern Bloc satellite states. After becoming the world's second nuclear power , the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact alliance, and entered into
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#17327651681751968-415: A gourd of wine Set for us two alone on the wide plain, No Sultan's bounty could evoke such joy. A gourd of red wine and a sheaf of poems — A bare subsistence, half a loaf, not more — Supplied us two alone in the free desert: What Sultan could we envy on his throne? John Charles Edward Bowen (1909–1989) was a British poet and translator of Persian poetry. He is best known for his translation of
2132-593: A hundred years and had changed his religion, philosophy, and beliefs twice a day, he could scarcely have given expression to such a range of ideas". Hedayat's final verdict was that 14 quatrains could be attributed to Khayyam with certainty. Various tests have been employed to reduce the quatrains attributable to Omar to about 100. Arthur Christensen states that "of more than 1,200 ruba'is known to be ascribed to Omar, only 121 could be regarded as reasonably authentic". Foroughi accepts 178 quatrains as authentic, while Ali Dashti accepts 36 of them. FitzGerald's source
2296-504: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
2460-800: A large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks . The ancestors of Russians are among the Slavic tribes that separated from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who appeared in the northeastern part of Europe c. 1500 years ago. The East Slavs gradually settled western Russia (approximately between modern Moscow and Saint-Petersburg ) in two waves: one moving from Kiev towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod and Rostov . Prior to Slavic migration, that territory
2624-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
2788-619: A little ruby wine and a book of verses, Just enough to keep me alive, and half a loaf is needful; And then, that I and thou should sit in a desolate place Is better than the kingdom of a sultan. If a loaf of wheaten-bread be forthcoming, a gourd of wine, and a thigh-bone of mutton, and then, if thou and I be sitting in the wilderness, — that would be a joy to which no sultan can set bounds. Multilingual edition, published in 1955 by Tahrir Iran Co./Kashani Bros. Two English editions by Edward Henry Whinfield (1836–1922) consisted of 253 quatrains in 1882 and 500 in 1883. This translation
2952-500: A member state of the G20 , SCO , BRICS , APEC , OSCE , and WTO ; and the leading member state of post-Soviet organisations such as CIS , CSTO , and EAEU/EEU . It possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and has the third-highest military expenditure . Russia is generally considered a great power and is a regional power . Internationally, Russia ranks very low in measurements of democracy , human rights and freedom of
3116-545: A million inhabitants. Its capital and largest city is Moscow . Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city and its cultural capital . The East Slavs emerged as a recognised group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus' , arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire . Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated;
3280-487: A number of conflicts in former Soviet states and other countries , including its war with Georgia in 2008 and its war with Ukraine since 2014, which has involved the internationally unrecognised annexations of Ukrainian territory including Crimea in 2014 and four other regions in 2022 during an ongoing invasion . Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council ;
3444-534: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
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#17327651681753608-415: A prose translation in 1898. He also wrote an introduction to an edition of the translation by Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo) into English from Nicolas's French translation. Below is Quatrain 17 translated by E. H. into English: This worn caravanserai which is called the world Is the resting-place of the piebald horse of night and day; It is a pavilion which has been abandoned by a hundred Jamshyds; It
3772-571: A secret protocol within the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany . The Soviet Union later invaded Finland , and occupied and annexed the Baltic states , as well as parts of Romania . On 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union , opening the Eastern Front , the largest theater of World War II. Eventually, some 5 million Red Army troops were captured by the Nazis;
3936-481: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
4100-462: A struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War , with the rivalling United States and NATO . After Stalin's death in 1953 and a short period of collective rule , the new leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin and launched the policy of de-Stalinization , releasing many political prisoners from the Gulag labour camps. The general easement of repressive policies became known later as
4264-421: A verse in which Khayyam is made to say "the unbeliever knows his Koran best," and rewrites another to describe pious hypocrites as "a maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew," rather than the original Persian which emphasizes their ignorance of religion. Rather than a symbol for gnostic wisdom, wine becomes a straightforward image of libertinism for La Gallienne. Some example quatrains follow: Look not above, there
4428-659: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
4592-623: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
4756-487: Is a palace that is the resting-place of a hundred Bahrams. The English novelist and orientalist Jessie Cadell (1844–1884) consulted various manuscripts of the Rubaiyat with the intention of producing an authoritative edition. Her translation of 150 quatrains was published posthumously in 1899. A. J. Arberry in 1949 and 1952 produced translations of two putative thirteenth-century manuscripts acquired shortly before by
4920-847: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
5084-675: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
Persian language - Misplaced Pages Continue
5248-423: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
5412-862: Is found in his biography by al-Isfahani , written 43 years after his death. This view is reinforced by other medieval historians such as Shahrazuri (1201) and Al-Qifti (1255). Parts of the Rubaiyat appear as incidental quotations from Omar in early works of biography and in anthologies. These include works of Razi (ca. 1160–1210), Daya (1230), Juvayni (ca. 1226–1283), and Jajarmi (1340). Also, five quatrains assigned to Khayyam in somewhat later sources appear in Zahiri Samarqandi's Sindbad-Nameh (before 1160) without attribution. The number of quatrains attributed to him in more recent collections varies from about 1,200 (according to Saeed Nafisi ) to more than 2,000. Sceptical scholars point out that
5576-615: Is literal, and that "Khayyam took refuge in wine to ward off bitterness and to blunt the cutting edge of his thoughts." FitzGerald's text was published in five editions, with substantial revisions: Of the five editions published, four were published under the authorial control of FitzGerald. The fifth edition, which contained only minor changes from the fourth, was edited posthumously on the basis of manuscript revisions FitzGerald had left. Numerous later editions were published after 1889, notably an edition with illustrations by Willy Pogany first published in 1909 (George G. Harrap, London). It
5740-421: Is no answer there; Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer; Near is as near to God as any Far, And Here is just the same deceit as There. (#78, on p. 44) "Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think, And at the same time make it sin to drink? Give thanks to Him who foreordained it thus— Surely He loves to hear the glasses clink!" (#91, p. 48) Edward Heron-Allen (1861–1943) published
5904-460: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
6068-473: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
6232-584: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
6396-403: Is pessimistic, suggesting that contemporary scholarship has not advanced beyond the situation of the 1930s, when Hans Heinrich Schaeder commented that the name of Omar Khayyam "is to be struck out from the history of Persian literature". A feature of the more recent collections is the lack of linguistic homogeneity and continuity of ideas. Sadegh Hedayat commented that "if a man had lived for
6560-420: Is rhyming and metrical, and rather free . Many of the verses are paraphrased, and some of them cannot be confidently traced to his source material at all. Michael Kearney claimed that FitzGerald described his work as "transmogrification". To a large extent, the Rubaiyat can be considered original poetry by FitzGerald loosely based on Omar's quatrains rather than a "translation" in the narrow sense. FitzGerald
6724-494: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
Persian language - Misplaced Pages Continue
6888-473: Is the view of a minority of scholars. Henry Beveridge states that "the Sufis have unaccountably pressed this writer [Khayyam] into their service; they explain away some of his blasphemies by forced interpretations, and others they represent as innocent freedoms and reproaches". Aminrazavi (2007) states that "Sufi interpretation of Khayyam is possible only by reading into his Rubaiyat extensively and by stretching
7052-490: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
7216-504: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
7380-573: The Oxford English Dictionary , the English name Russia first appeared in the 14th century, borrowed from Medieval Latin : Russia , used in the 11th century and frequently in 12th-century British sources, in turn derived from Russi , 'the Russians'; and the suffix -ia . In modern historiography, this state is usually denoted as Kievan Rus' after its capital city. Another Medieval Latin name for Rus'
7544-554: The Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. Another German failure was the Siege of Leningrad , in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941 and 1944 by German and Finnish forces, and suffered starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendered. Soviet forces steamrolled through Eastern and Central Europe in 1944–1945 and captured Berlin in May 1945. In August 1945,
7708-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
7872-765: The Brusilov Offensive of the Imperial Russian Army almost completely destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army . However, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, high casualties , and rumors of corruption and treason. All this formed the climate for the Russian Revolution of 1917, carried out in two major acts. In early 1917, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate ; he and his family were imprisoned and later executed during
8036-581: The Chester Beatty Library and Cambridge University Library . However, it was soon established that, unbeknown to Arberry or the libraries, the manuscripts were recent forgeries. While Arberry's work had been misguided, it was published in good faith. The 1967 translation of the Rubáiyat by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah created a scandal. The authors claimed it was based on a twelfth-century manuscript located in Afghanistan, where it
8200-475: The Congress of Vienna , which defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe. The officers who pursued Napoleon into Western Europe brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia, and attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825. At the end of the conservative reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), a zenith period of Russia's power and influence in Europe, was disrupted by defeat in
8364-693: The Crimean War . Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–1881) enacted significant changes throughout the country, including the emancipation reform of 1861 . These reforms spurred industrialisation, and modernised the Imperial Russian Army, which liberated much of the Balkans from Ottoman rule in the aftermath of the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War . During most of the 19th and early 20th century, Russia and Britain colluded over Afghanistan and its neighbouring territories in Central and South Asia;
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#17327651681758528-592: The Grand Duchy of Moscow led the unification of Russian lands, leading to the proclamation of the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers , developing into the Russian Empire , which remains the third-largest empire in history . However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule
8692-614: The Great Northern War (1700–1721), securing Russia's access to the sea and sea trade. In 1703, on the Baltic Sea, Peter founded Saint Petersburg as Russia's new capital. Throughout his rule, sweeping reforms were made , which brought significant Western European cultural influences to Russia. He was succeeded by Catherine I (1725–1727), followed by Peter II (1727–1730), and Anna . The reign of Peter I's daughter Elizabeth in 1741–1762 saw Russia's participation in
8856-404: The Khrushchev Thaw . At the same time, Cold War tensions reached its peak when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the United States Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba . In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite , Sputnik 1 , thus starting the Space Age . Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit
9020-462: The Oldowan period in the early Lower Paleolithic . About 2 million years ago, representatives of Homo erectus migrated to the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia. Flint tools, some 1.5 million years old, have been discovered in the North Caucasus . Radiocarbon dated specimens from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains estimate the oldest Denisovan specimen lived 195–122,700 years ago. Fossils of Denny , an archaic human hybrid that
9184-450: The Rurik dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus' collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, the Novgorod Republic in the north, and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west. By the 12th century, Kiev lost its pre-eminence and Kievan Rus' had fragmented into different principalities. Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky sacked Kiev in 1169 and made Vladimir his base, leading to political power being shifted to
9348-407: The Russian Civil War . The monarchy was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government , and proclaimed the Russian Republic . On 19 January [ O.S. 6 January], 1918, the Russian Constituent Assembly declared Russia a democratic federal republic (thus ratifying the Provisional Government's decision). The next day the Constituent Assembly
9512-408: The Seven Years' War (1756–1763). During the conflict, Russian troops overran East Prussia , reaching Berlin. However, upon Elizabeth's death, all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom of Prussia by pro-Prussian Peter III of Russia . Catherine II ("the Great"), who ruled in 1762–1796, presided over the Russian Age of Enlightenment . She extended Russian political control over
9676-474: The Siberian River Routes , and by the mid-17th century, there were Russian settlements in eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula , along the Amur River , and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov became the first European to navigate through the Bering Strait . Under Peter the Great , Russia was proclaimed an empire in 1721, and established itself as one of the European great powers. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in
9840-412: The Soviet Union , by joining the Russian SFSR into a single state with the Byelorussian , Transcaucasian , and Ukrainian republics. Eventually internal border changes and annexations during World War II created a union of 15 republics ; the largest in size and population being the Russian SFSR, which dominated the union politically, culturally, and economically. Following Lenin's death in 1924,
10004-453: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of
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#173276516817510168-432: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
10332-423: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
10496-478: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
10660-494: The 10th to 11th centuries, Kievan Rus' became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium , and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code , the Russkaya Pravda . The age of feudalism and decentralisation had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of
10824-448: The 16th century, Russia expanded east of the Ural Mountains . However, the Tsardom was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (later the united Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ), the Kingdom of Sweden , and Denmark–Norway for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade. In 1572, an invading army of Crimean Tatars were thoroughly defeated in
10988-401: The 1890s, when "more than two million copies ha[d] been sold in two hundred editions". The extreme popularity of FitzGerald's work led to a prolonged debate on the correct interpretation of the philosophy behind the poems. FitzGerald emphasized the religious scepticism he found in Omar Khayyam. In his preface to the Rubáiyát , he describes Omar's philosophy as Epicurean and claims that Omar
11152-571: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
11316-428: The Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Russia's, coat-of-arms. Vasili III united all of Russia by annexing the last few independent Russian states in the early 16th century. In development of the Third Rome ideas, the grand duke Ivan IV ("the Terrible") was officially crowned the first tsar of Russia in 1547. The tsar promulgated a new code of laws ( Sudebnik of 1550 ), established
11480-406: The Earth, aboard the Vostok 1 crewed spacecraft on 12 April 1961 . Following the ousting of Khrushchev in 1964, another period of collective rule ensued, until Leonid Brezhnev became the leader. The era of the 1970s and the early 1980s was later designated as the Era of Stagnation . The 1965 Kosygin reform aimed for partial decentralisation of the Soviet economy . In 1979, after
11644-492: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
11808-540: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
11972-523: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
12136-480: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
12300-400: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
12464-823: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
12628-740: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and annexed most of its territories into Russia , making it the most populous country in Europe. In the south, after the successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire , Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, by dissolving the Crimean Khanate , and annexing Crimea . As a result of victories over Qajar Iran through the Russo-Persian Wars , by
12792-941: The Provisional Government and gave full governing power to the soviets, leading to the creation of the world's first socialist state . The Russian Civil War broke out between the anti-communist White movement and the Bolsheviks with its Red Army . In the aftermath of signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers of World War I ; Bolshevist Russia surrendered most of its western territories, which hosted 34% of its population, 54% of its industries, 32% of its agricultural land, and roughly 90% of its coal mines. The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-communist forces. In
12956-940: The Red Army invaded Manchuria and ousted the Japanese from Northeast Asia, contributing to the Allied victory over Japan. The 1941–1945 period of World War II is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War . The Soviet Union, along with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four of Allied powers in World War II, and later became the Four Policemen , which
13120-400: The Rubaiyat". FitzGerald's work has been published in several hundred editions and has inspired similar translation efforts in English, Hindi and in many other languages. The authenticity of the poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam is highly uncertain. Khayyam was famous during his lifetime not as a poet but as an astronomer and mathematician. The earliest reference to his having written poetry
13284-464: The Rubaiyat, titled A New Selection from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Bowen is also credited as being one of the first scholars to question Robert Graves' and Omar Ali-Shah's translation of the Rubaiyat. A modern version of 235 quatrains, claiming to be "as literal an English version of the Persian originals as readability and intelligibility permit", was published in 1979 by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs . Their edition provides two versions of
13448-566: The Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the Russian Federation. A new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system . Since the turn of the century, Russia's political system has been dominated by Vladimir Putin , under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and become an authoritarian dictatorship . Russia has been militarily involved in
13612-455: The Russian autocratic state. The destruction of Kievan Rus' saw the eventual rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow , initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal . While still under the domain of the Mongol - Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the region in the early 14th century, gradually becoming the leading force in the "gathering of the Russian lands". When
13776-539: The Russian parliament culminated in a constitutional crisis which ended violently through military force. During the crisis, Yeltsin was backed by Western governments, and over 100 people were killed. In December, a referendum was held and approved, which introduced a new constitution, giving the president enormous powers. The 1990s were plagued by armed conflicts in the North Caucasus , both local ethnic skirmishes and separatist Islamist insurrections. From
13940-481: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
14104-588: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
14268-515: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of
14432-1062: The Sign of the Lark (1898, 1900), illustrations by Florence Lundborg ; The Macmillan Company (1899); Methuen (1900) with a commentary by H.M. Batson , and a biographical introduction by E.D. Ross; Little, Brown, and Company (1900), with the versions of E.H. Whinfield and Justin Huntly McCart; Bell (1901); Routledge (1904); Foulis (1905, 1909); Essex House Press (1905); Dodge Publishing Company (1905); Duckworth & Co. (1908); Hodder and Stoughton (1909), illustrations by Edmund Dulac ; Tauchnitz (1910); East Anglian Daily Times (1909), Centenary celebrations souvenir; Warner (1913); The Roycrofters (1913); Hodder & Stoughton (1913), illustrations by René Bull ; Dodge Publishing Company (1914), illustrations by Adelaide Hanscom . Sully and Kleinteich (1920). Critical editions have been published by Decker (1997) and by Arberry (2016). FitzGerald's translation
14596-408: The Soviet Union led Russia into a deep and prolonged depression. During and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, wide-ranging reforms including privatisation and market and trade liberalisation were undertaken, including radical changes along the lines of " shock therapy ". The privatisation largely shifted control of enterprises from state agencies to individuals with inside connections in
14760-575: The Soviet Union. The transitional disorganisation of the country's agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought, led to the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 ; which killed 5.7 to 8.7 million, 3.3 million of them in the Russian SFSR. The Soviet Union, ultimately, made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse within a short span of time. The Soviet Union entered World War II on 17 September 1939 with its invasion of Poland , in accordance with
14924-459: The Soviet system, introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to end the period of economic stagnation and to democratise the government . This, however, led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements across the country. Prior to 1991, the Soviet economy was the world's second-largest, but during its final years, it went into
15088-604: The Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky , offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian tsar, Alexis ; whose acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War . Ultimately, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper , leaving the eastern part, ( Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev ) under Russian rule. In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of vast Siberia continued, hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along
15252-823: The Volga-Dnieper region of southern Russia and Ukraine as the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans . Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Ukraine and Russia spread Yamnaya ancestry and Indo-European languages across large parts of Eurasia. Nomadic pastoralism developed in the Pontic–Caspian steppe beginning in the Chalcolithic . Remnants of these steppe civilizations were discovered in places such as Ipatovo , Sintashta , Arkaim , and Pazyryk , which bear
15416-598: The Wilderness— And Wilderness is Paradise enow. A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness— Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! This quatrain has a close correspondence in two of the quatrains in the Bodleian Library ms., numbers 149 and 155. In the literal prose translation of Edward Heron-Allen (1898): I desire
15580-496: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
15744-591: The capital Moscow. In 1612, the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by merchant Kuzma Minin and prince Dmitry Pozharsky . The Romanov dynasty acceded to the throne in 1613 by the decision of the Zemsky Sobor, and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis. Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of the Cossacks . In 1654,
15908-455: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
16072-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
16236-552: The content to fit the classical Sufi doctrine". FitzGerald's "scepticist" reading of the poetry is still defended by modern scholars. Sadegh Hedayat ( The Blind Owl , 1936) was the most notable modern proponent of Khayyam's philosophy as agnostic scepticism. In his introductory essay to his second edition of the Quatrains of the Philosopher Omar Khayyam (1922), Hedayat states that "while Khayyam believes in
16400-545: The control of the Golden Horde and consolidated the whole of northern Rus' under Moscow's dominion, and was the first Russian ruler to take the title "Grand Duke of all Rus'". After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire . Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina , the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI , and made
16564-891: The country was more often referred to by its inhabitants as Rus ' , the Russian land ( Russkaia zemlia ), or the Muscovite state ( Moskovskoe gosudarstvo ), among other variations. In 1721, Peter the Great changed the name of the state from Tsardom of Russia ( Russian : Русское царство , romanized : Russkoye tsarstvo ) or Tsardom of Muscovy ( Russian : Московское царство , romanized : Moskovskoye tsarstvo ) to Russian Empire ( Rossiiskaia imperiia ). There are several words in Russian which translate to "Russians" in English. The noun and adjective русский , russkiy refers to ethnic Russians . The adjective российский , rossiiskiy denotes Russian citizens regardless of ethnicity. The same applies to
16728-450: The crucial Battle of Molodi . The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the disastrous famine of 1601–1603 , led to a civil war, the rule of pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , taking advantage, occupied parts of Russia, extending into
16892-575: The earliest known traces of horses in warfare . The genetic makeup of speakers of the Uralic language family in northern Europe was shaped by migration from Siberia that began at least 3,500 years ago. In the 3rd to 4th centuries CE, the Gothic kingdom of Oium existed in southern Russia, which was later overrun by Huns . Between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, the Bosporan Kingdom , which
17056-533: The entire tradition may be pseudepigraphic . The extant manuscripts containing collections attributed to Omar are dated much too late to enable a reconstruction of a body of authentic verses. In the 1930s, Iranian scholars, notably Mohammad-Ali Foroughi , attempted to reconstruct a core of authentic verses from scattered quotes by authors of the 13th and 14th centuries, ignoring the younger manuscript tradition. After World War II, reconstruction efforts were significantly delayed by two clever forgeries. De Blois (2004)
17220-651: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
17384-481: The first Europeans to reach and colonise Alaska . In 1803–1806, the first Russian circumnavigation was made. In 1820, a Russian expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica . During the Napoleonic Wars , Russia joined alliances with various European powers, and fought against France. The French invasion of Russia at the height of Napoleon's power in 1812 reached Moscow, but eventually failed as
17548-564: The first Russian feudal representative body (the Zemsky Sobor ), revamped the military, curbed the influence of the clergy, and reorganised local government. During his long reign, Ivan nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates: Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga , and the Khanate of Sibir in southwestern Siberia. Ultimately, by the end of
17712-586: The first half of the 19th century, Russia also conquered the Caucasus . Catherine's successor, her son Paul , was unstable and focused predominantly on domestic issues . Following his short reign, Catherine's strategy was continued with Alexander I's (1801–1825) wresting of Finland from the weakened Sweden in 1809, and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812. In North America, the Russians became
17876-532: The following phylogenetic classification: Russia Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia . It is the largest country in the world by area , extending across eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries . It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country . Russia is a highly urbanised country including 16 population centres with over
18040-575: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
18204-475: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
18368-485: The government, which led to the rise of Russian oligarchs . Many of the newly rich moved billions in cash and assets outside of the country in an enormous capital flight . The depression of the economy led to the collapse of social services—the birth rate plummeted while the death rate skyrocketed, and millions plunged into poverty; while extreme corruption, as well as criminal gangs and organised crime rose significantly. In late 1993, tensions between Yeltsin and
18532-465: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
18696-535: The latter deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet POWs , and a vast number of civilians, as the " Hunger Plan " sought to fulfil Generalplan Ost . Although the Wehrmacht had considerable early success, their attack was halted in the Battle of Moscow . Subsequently, the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943, and then in
18860-425: The meadow with a paramour perfect as a Houri and goodly jar of wine, and though I may be blamed for this, yet hold me lower than a dog if ever I dream of Paradise. Richard Le Gallienne (1866–1947) produced a paraphrase in 1897. Le Gallienne knew no Persian and based his paraphrase on earlier translations, exaggerating earlier translators' choices to make Khayyam appear more irreligious. For instance, he invents
19024-627: The meantime, both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror . By the end of the violent civil war, Russia's economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged, and as many as 10 million perished during the war, mostly civilians. Millions became White émigrés , and the Russian famine of 1921–1922 claimed up to five million victims. On 30 December 1922, Lenin and his aides formed
19188-431: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
19352-609: The more recently coined noun россиянин , rossiianyn , "Russian" in the sense of citizen of the Russian state. According to the Primary Chronicle , the word Rus' is derived from the Rus' people , who were a Swedish tribe, and where the three original members of the Rurikid dynasty came from. The Finnish word for Swedes, ruotsi , has the same origin. Later archeological studies mostly confirmed this theory. The first human settlement on Russia dates back to
19516-456: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
19680-466: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
19844-497: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
20008-410: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
20172-589: The north-east. Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky , Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva in 1240, as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle on the Ice in 1242. Kievan Rus' finally fell to the Mongol invasion of 1237–1240, which resulted in the sacking of Kiev and other cities, as well as the death of a major part of the population. The invaders, later known as Tatars , formed
20336-672: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
20500-620: The obstinate resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of invaders, in which the pan-European Grande Armée faced utter destruction. Led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly , the Imperial Russian Army ousted Napoleon and drove throughout Europe in the War of the Sixth Coalition , ultimately entering Paris. Alexander I controlled Russia's delegation at
20664-417: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
20828-538: The official line. The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge . Under Stalin's leadership, the government launched a command economy , industrialisation of the largely rural country , and collectivisation of its agriculture . During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to penal labour camps , including many political convicts for their suspected or real opposition to Stalin's rule; and millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of
20992-497: The other hand, have accused the translator of misrepresenting the mysticism of Sufi poetry by an overly literal interpretation. Thus, the view of Omar Khayyam as a Sufi was defended by Bjerregaard (1915). Dougan (1991) likewise says that attributing hedonism to Omar is due to the failings of FitzGerald's translation, arguing that the poetry is to be understood as "deeply esoteric". Idries Shah (1999) similarly says that FitzGerald misunderstood Omar's poetry. The Sufi interpretation
21156-522: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
21320-407: The press ; the country also has high levels of perceived corruption . As of 2024, Russia has a high-income economy which ranks eleventh in the world by nominal GDP and fourth at purchasing power parity , relying on its vast mineral and energy resources ; the world's second-largest for oil production and natural gas production . Russia is home to 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites . According to
21484-472: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
21648-440: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
21812-420: The rivalry between the two major European empires came to be known as the Great Game . The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Russia. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists. The reign of his son Alexander III (1881–1894) was less liberal but more peaceful. Under last Russian emperor, Nicholas II (1894–1917), the Revolution of 1905
21976-547: The rouble. High budget deficits coupled with increasing capital flight and inability to pay back debts, caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis , which resulted in a further GDP decline. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains ( rubāʿiyāt ) attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia". Although commercially unsuccessful at first, FitzGerald's work
22140-611: The seat of the Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church moved to Moscow in 1325, its influence increased. Moscow's last rival, the Novgorod Republic , prospered as the chief fur trade centre and the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League . Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow, the united army of Russian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed its parent duchy and surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod . Ivan III ("the Great") threw off
22304-551: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
22468-450: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
22632-457: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
22796-406: The state of the Golden Horde , which ruled over Russia for the next two centuries. Only the Novgorod Republic escaped foreign occupation after it agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols. Galicia-Volhynia would later be absorbed by Lithuania and Poland , while the Novgorod Republic continued to prosper in the north. In the northeast, the Byzantine-Slavic traditions of Kievan Rus' were adapted to form
22960-523: The time Chechen separatists declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war was fought between the rebel groups and Russian forces. Terrorist attacks against civilians were carried out by Chechen separatists, claiming the lives of thousands of Russian civilians. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia assumed responsibility for settling the latter's external debts. In 1992, most consumer price controls were eliminated, causing extreme inflation and significantly devaluing
23124-492: The transmutation and transformation of the human body, he does not believe in a separate soul; if we are lucky, our bodily particles would be used in the making of a jug of wine". He concludes that "religion has proved incapable of surmounting his inherent fears; thus Khayyam finds himself alone and insecure in a universe about which his knowledge is nil". In his later work ( Khayyam's Quatrains , 1935), Hedayat further maintains that Khayyam's usage of Sufic terminology such as "wine"
23288-419: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
23452-399: Was Ruthenia . In Russian, the current name of the country, Россия ( Rossiya ), comes from the Byzantine Greek name for Rus', Ρωσία ( Rosía ). A new form of the name Rus ' , Росия ( Rosiya ), was borrowed from the Greek term and first attested in 1387. The name Rossiia appeared in Russian sources in the late 15th century, but until the end of the 17th century
23616-449: Was elected President of the Russian SFSR. In August 1991, a coup d'état attempt by members of Gorbachev's government, directed against Gorbachev and aimed at preserving the Soviet Union, instead led to the end of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On 25 December 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union , along with contemporary Russia, fourteen other post-Soviet states emerged. The economic and political collapse of
23780-449: Was "hated and dreaded by the Sufis , whose practice he ridiculed and whose faith amounts to little more than his own when stripped of the Mysticism and formal recognition of Islamism under which Omar would not hide". Richard Nelson Frye also emphasizes that Khayyam was despised by a number of prominent contemporary Sufis. These include figures such as Shams Tabrizi , Najm al-Din Daya , Al-Ghazali , and Attar , who "viewed Khayyam not as
23944-417: Was a Hellenistic polity that succeeded the Greek colonies, was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes such as the Huns and Eurasian Avars . The Khazars , who were of Turkic origin , ruled the steppes between the Caucasus in the south, to the east past the Volga river basin, and west as far as Kyiv on the Dnieper river until the 10th century. After them came the Pechenegs who created
24108-415: Was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR —the world's first constitutionally socialist state . Following the Russian Civil War , the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics , within which it was the largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives , the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s and later played
24272-447: Was allegedly utilized as a Sufi teaching document. But the manuscript was never produced, and British experts in Persian literature were easily able to prove that the translation was in fact based on Edward Heron Allen's analysis of possible sources for FitzGerald's work. Quatrains 11 and 12 (the equivalent of FitzGerald's quatrain XI in his 1st edition, as above): Should our day's portion be one mancel loaf, A haunch of mutton and
24436-414: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
24600-570: Was also a free, rhyming translation. Quatrain I. 20 (equivalent of FitzGerald's quatrain XI in his 1st edition, as above): Yes, Loved One, when the Laughing Spring is blowing, With Thee beside me and the Cup o’erflowing, I pass the day upon this Waving Meadow, And dream the while, no thought on Heaven bestowing. Justin Huntly McCarthy (1859–1936) (Member of Parliament for Newry ) published prose translations of 466 quatrains in 1889. Quatrain 177 (equivalent of FitzGerald's quatrain XI in his 1st edition, as above): In Spring time I love to sit in
24764-440: Was dissolved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee . An alternative socialist establishment co-existed, the Petrograd Soviet , wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called soviets . The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country instead of resolving it, and eventually, the October Revolution , led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin , overthrew
24928-448: Was found at Kostyonki–Borshchyovo , and at Sungir , dating back to 34,600 years ago—both in western Russia . Humans reached Arctic Russia at least 40,000 years ago, in Mamontovaya Kurya . Ancient North Eurasian populations from Siberia genetically similar to Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Ancient Native Americans and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers . The Kurgan hypothesis places
25092-538: Was fully revised and some cases fully translated anew by Ali Salami and published by Mehrandish Books. Whinfield's translation is, if possible, even more free than FitzGerald's; Quatrain 84 (equivalent of FitzGerald's quatrain XI in his 1st edition, as above) reads: In the sweet spring a grassy bank I sought And thither wine and a fair Houri brought; And, though the people called me graceless dog, Gave not to Paradise another thought! John Leslie Garner published an English translation of 152 quatrains in 1888. His
25256-458: Was half Neanderthal and half Denisovan, and lived some 90,000 years ago, was also found within the latter cave. Russia was home to some of the last surviving Neanderthals, from about 45,000 years ago, found in Mezmaiskaya cave . The first trace of an early modern human in Russia dates back to 45,000 years, in Western Siberia . The discovery of high concentration cultural remains of anatomically modern humans , from at least 40,000 years ago,
25420-435: Was issued in numerous revised editions. This edition combined FitzGerald's texts of the 1st and 4th editions and was subtitled "The First and Fourth Renderings in English Verse". A bibliography of editions compiled in 1929 listed more than 300 separate editions. Many more have been published since. Notable editions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries include: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (1887, 1888, 1894); Doxey, At
25584-472: Was open about the liberties he had taken with his source material: My translation will interest you from its form, and also in many respects in its detail: very un-literal as it is. Many quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar's simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him. (letter to E. B. Cowell, 9/3/58) I suppose very few people have ever taken such Pains in Translation as I have: though certainly not to be literal. But at all Costs,
25748-482: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
25912-430: Was popularised from 1861 onward by Whitley Stokes , and the work came to be greatly admired by the Pre-Raphaelites in England. FitzGerald had a third edition printed in 1872, which increased interest in the work in the United States . By the 1880s, the book was extremely popular throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent that numerous "Omar Khayyam clubs" were formed and there was a " fin de siècle cult of
26076-412: Was populated by Finno-Ugrian peoples. From the 7th century onwards, the incoming East Slavs slowly assimilated the native Finno-Ugrians. The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of Varangians , the Vikings who ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas. According to the Primary Chronicle ,
26240-487: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
26404-401: Was the foundation of the United Nations Security Council . During the war, Soviet civilian and military death were about 26–27 million , accounting for about half of all World War II casualties . The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation, which caused the Soviet famine of 1946–1947 . However, at the expense of a large sacrifice, the Soviet Union emerged as
26568-424: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
26732-412: Was transcripts sent to him in 1856–57, by his friend and teacher Edward B. Cowell , of two manuscripts, a Bodleian manuscript with 158 quatrains and a "Calcutta manuscript". FitzGerald completed his first draft in 1857 and sent it to Fraser's Magazine in January 1858. He made a revised draft in January 1859, of which he privately printed 250 copies. This first edition became extremely sought after by
26896-569: Was triggered by the humiliating failure of the Russo-Japanese War . The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms ( Russian Constitution of 1906 ), including granting freedoms of speech and assembly , the legalisation of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma . In 1914, Russia entered World War I in response to Austria-Hungary 's declaration of war on Russia's ally Serbia , and fought across multiple fronts while isolated from its Triple Entente allies. In 1916,
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