Greek diaspora
127-471: Constantinople and Asia Minor : Africa : Other regions : Other groups : Other languages The Urums ( / ʊəˈr uː m / , / ʊ ˈ r uː m / ; Greek : Ουρούμ , Urúm ; Turkish and Crimean Tatar : Urum, IPA: [uˈɾum] ) are several groups of Turkic -speaking Greek Orthodox people native to Crimea . The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to
254-702: A League of Armed Neutrality , designed to defend neutral shipping from being searched by the British Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War . From 1788 to 1790, Russia fought a war against Sweden instigated by Catherine's cousin, King Gustav III of Sweden, who expected to overrun the Russian armies still engaged in war against the Ottomans and hoped to strike Saint Petersburg directly. But Russia's Baltic Fleet checked
381-523: A pleuritis that almost killed her. She credited her survival to frequent bloodletting ; in a single day, she received four phlebotomies . Her mother's opposition to this practice brought her the Empress's disfavour. When Sophie's situation looked desperate, her mother wanted her confessed by a Lutheran pastor. Awaking from her delirium, however, Sophie said, "I don't want any Lutheran; I want my Orthodox father [clergyman]". This increased her popularity with
508-485: A "Northern Accord" between Russia, Prussia, Poland, and Sweden to counter the power of the Bourbon – Habsburg League. When it became apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favour with Catherine and she had him replaced with Ivan Osterman (in office 1781–1797). Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. Although she could see
635-639: A "revolution" in her teenage mind as Tacitus was the first intellectual she read who understood power politics as they are, not as they should be. She was especially impressed with his argument that people do not act for their professed idealistic reasons, and instead she learned to look for the "hidden and interested motives". According to Alexander Hertzen , who edited a version of Catherine's memoirs, Catherine had her first sexual relationship with Sergei Saltykov while living at Oranienbaum, as her marriage to Peter had not yet been consummated, as Catherine later claimed. Nonetheless, Catherine would eventually leave
762-485: A 1749 Russian military plot to crown Peter (together with Catherine) in Elizabeth's stead. As a result of this plot, Elizabeth likely wanted to deny both Catherine and Peter any rights to the Russian throne. Elizabeth, therefore, allowed Catherine to have sexual lovers only after a new legal heir, Catherine and Peter's son Paul , survived and appeared to be strong. After this, Catherine carried on sexual liaisons over
889-728: A 1790 letter to Baron de Grimm written in French, she called the Qianlong Emperor " mon voisin chinois aux petits yeux " ("my Chinese neighbour with small eyes"). In the Far East, Russians became active in fur trapping in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands . This spurred Russian interest in opening trade with Japan to the south for supplies and food. In 1783, storms drove a Japanese sea captain, Daikokuya Kōdayū , ashore in
1016-669: A Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica Confederation . After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the Polish–Russian War of 1792 and in the Kościuszko Uprising (1794), Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of the remaining Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria (1795). The Qianlong Emperor of China was committed to an expansionist policy in Central Asia and saw
1143-430: A cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Her hunger for fame centered on her daughter's prospects of becoming Empress of Russia, but Joanna also infuriated Elizabeth , who eventually banned her from the country for allegedly spying for King Frederick. Elizabeth knew the family well and had intended to marry Joanna's brother Charles Augustus (Karl August von Holstein). He died of smallpox in 1727, before
1270-735: A dialect of Azeri. Late Soviet censuses also showed Azeri as the mother tongue of the Tsalka Urums, however this may have been done simply due to the Soviets' somewhat unfavourable attitude towards Turkish culture. No secondary education in Urum Turkish has been available; its speakers attended schools where subjects were taught in Azeri and later in Russian. The Tsalka Urums themselves call their language bizim dilja (turk. 'our language') or moussourmanja (turk. 'Muslims' language). Nowadays,
1397-547: A land of "burned faces" ( Ethiopians ) and the source of the Nile. Though he is assumed to have been personally familiar with the river only as far as Aswan , he did identify a "city of Ethiopians" at Meroë , apparently from reports by Psamtik II and Cambyses II . A new era of Greek-Nubian relations began in 332 BC, when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and soon dispatched reconnaissance expeditions into Nubia, possibly to find
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#17327732993681524-677: A letter written in the first half of the 3rd century and mentioning the gymnasiarch and the boulē (thereby indicating the author and recipient were of the upper class) uses the Christian nomina sacra and the Biblical Greek : ἐν κυρίῳ , romanized: en kyrίōi , lit. 'in the Lord', drawn from the Pauline epistles . The Church in Egypt (Patriarchate of Alexandria) split into
1651-750: A myth. The language of the North Azov Urums is a Turkic language belonging to the West Kipchak branch . It has been written with the Greek alphabet , and between 1927 and 1937 it was written with Yañalif , and it was taught in some schools. After Yañalif's replacement by the Cyrillic script in 1940, the Urum language was to only be written in Cyrillic. Urum is considered by some to be a dialect of Crimean Tatar. The Tsalka Urum language belongs to
1778-472: A new war against Persia in 1796 after they, under the new king Agha Mohammad Khan , again invaded Georgia and established rule in 1795, expelling the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. The ultimate goal for the Russian government, however, was to topple the anti-Russian shah (king), and to replace him with his pro-Russian half-brother Morteza Qoli Khan , who had defected to Russia. It
1905-742: A record two months and weighed 2.3 kg (5.1 lbs). From 1762, the Great Imperial Crown was the coronation crown of all Romanov emperors until the monarchy's abolition in 1917. It is one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty and is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum . During her reign, Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire by some 520,000 square kilometres (200,000 sq mi), absorbing New Russia , Crimea ,
2032-596: A regent or as a usurper , tolerable only during the minority of her son, Grand Duke Paul. Catherine was crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 22 September 1762. Her coronation marks the creation of one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty, the Great Imperial Crown of Russia , designed by Swiss-French court diamond jeweller Jérémie Pauzié . Inspired by Byzantine design,
2159-576: A significant amount of intermarriage took place between the Greek and Egyptian communities". The name Ethiopia itself is Greek and means "of burned face". It is first attested in the Homeric epics but it is unlikely to have referred to any particular nation, but rather, to people of African descent in general. Beginning in the Hellenistic age around the third century BC, Greek culture permeated
2286-896: A system of government fully controlled by the Russian Empire through a Permanent Council , under the supervision of her ambassadors and envoys . Fearing that the May Constitution of Poland (1791) might lead to a resurgence in the power of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the growing democratic movements inside the Commonwealth might become a threat to the European monarchies, Catherine decided to refrain from her planned intervention into France and to intervene in Poland instead. She provided support to
2413-904: A time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was annexed following victories over the Bar Confederation and the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War . With the support of Great Britain , Russia colonised the territories of New Russia along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas . In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth —ruled by Catherine's former lover, King Stanisław August Poniatowski —was eventually partitioned , with
2540-763: Is an example of Egyptian Greek language, used in the Coptic Church : ⲇⲟⲝⲁ ⲡⲁⲧⲣⲓ ⲕⲉ ⲩⲓⲱ: ⲕⲉ ⲁ̀ⲅⲓⲱ ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁⲧⲓ: ⲕⲉ ⲛⲩⲛ ⲕⲉ ⲁ̀ⲓ̀ ⲕⲉ ⲓⲥ ⲧⲟⲩⲥ ⲉⲱⲛⲁⲥ ⲧⲱⲛ ⲉ̀ⲱ̀ⲛⲱⲛ ⲁ̀ⲙⲏⲛ Δόξα Πατρὶ κὲ Υἱῷ κὲ Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, κὲ νῦν κὲ ἀῒ κὲ ἰς τοὺς ἐῶνας τῶν ἐώνων. Ἀμήν. Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. According to Walker, early Ptolemaic Greek colonists married local women and adopted Egyptian religious beliefs, and by Roman times, their descendants were viewed as Egyptians by
2667-525: Is an example of Nubian Greek language: ⲟⲩⲧⲟⲥ ⲉⲥⲧⲓⲛ ⲁⲇⲁⲩⲉⲗ ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲉⲩ ⲙⲱⲥⲉⲥ ⲅⲉⲱⲣⲅⲓⲟⲩ, ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲉⲩ ⲛⲟⲩⲃⲇⲏⲥ, ⲁⲣⲟⲩⲁ, ⲙⲁⲕⲣⲟ Catherine the Great Catherine II (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst ; 2 May 1729 – 17 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great , was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III . Under her long reign, inspired by
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#17327732993682794-563: Is now Sudan. Vice versa, ancient Nubia also had an influence on Greek culture from those early times onwards, as it was well known by scholars throughout the Hellenic world, where several of the classical writers mentioned it. It evidently inspired curiosity about the exotic lands South of Egypt and particularly about the sources of the Nile river. Hence, the pioneering historian Herodotus (circa 484 – circa 425 BC) made references to Nubia as
2921-605: Is one of the last references to Nubia from that time. The Axumite Empire engaged in a series of invasions that culminated in the capture of the Nubian capital of Meroë in the middle of the 4th century AD, signaling the end of independent Nubian Pagan kingdoms. The Axumites then converted the Nubians to Christianity, establishing the authority of the Coptic Church in the area, and founded new Nubian Christian kingdoms, such as Nobatia , Alodia , and Makuria . Tribal nomads like
3048-505: Is particularly associated with the 1828-29 Russo-Turkish War , when many Pontic Greeks collaborated with or welcomed the Russian army that had occupied the region and then, to escape likely Turkish reprisals, followed it with their families when it withdrew back into Russian territory. Many Pontian Greeks spoke Turkish either as Greek-Turkish bilinguals, or as a mother tongue due to linguistic assimilation processes that isolated groups of
3175-632: Is used by the following sub-ethnic groups of Greeks as a way of ethnic self-identification: The Greeks of Crimea (and later of the adjacent Azovian region; present-day Donetsk Oblast , Ukraine) were represented by two groups: the Hellenic-speaking Romaioi , whose dialect is known as Rumeíka , a.k.a. Mariupol Greek , and the Turkic-speaking Urums (also called Graeco-Tatars). These Byzantine Greeks of Crimea are Pontic Greeks who colonised Crimea. Both groups populated
3302-586: The 5th century ; the Nubian Greek language resembles Egyptian and Byzantine Greek ; it served as a lingua franca throughout the Nubian Kingdoms, and had a creolized form for trade among the different peoples in Nubia. Nubian Greek was unique in that it adopted many words from both Coptic Egyptian and Nubian ; Nubian Greek's syntax also evolved to establish a fixed word order. The following
3429-521: The Aleutian Islands , at that time Russian territory. Russian local authorities helped his party, and the Russian government decided to use him as a trade envoy. On 28 June 1791, Catherine granted Daikokuya an audience at Tsarskoye Selo . Subsequently, in 1792, the Russian government dispatched a trade mission to Japan, led by Adam Laxman . The Tokugawa shogunate received the mission, but negotiations failed. Nicholas I, her grandson, evaluated
3556-679: The Beja , Afar , and Saho managed to remain autonomous due to their uncentralized nomadic nature. These tribal peoples would sporadically inflict attacks and raids on Axumite communities. The Beja nomads eventually Hellenized and integrated into the Nubian Greek society that had already been present in Lower Nubia for three centuries. Nubian Greek culture followed the pattern of Egyptian Greek and Byzantine Greek civilization, expressed in Nubian Greek art and Nubian Greek literature. The earliest attestations of Nubian Greek literature come from
3683-762: The Byzantine emperor ). It is estimated that as much as 30 percent of the population of Faiyum was Greek during the Ptolemaic period, with the rest being native Egyptians; the Faiyum mummy portraits reflect the complex synthesis of the predominant Egyptian culture and that of the elite Egyptian Greek minority in Faiyum. By the Roman period, much of the "Greek" population of Faiyum was made up of either Hellenized Egyptians or people of mixed Egyptian-Greek origins, and by
3810-755: The Crimean Tatar language . Another theory is that the Urums arose as a result of the adoption of Christianity by a group of Crimean Tatars . A specialist in the history of the Crimean Greeks, M. Arajioni notes: “The narrowing of the scope of the use of the Greek language in the southwestern Crimea and in the cities of Crimea led some of the Crimean “Romans” to the loss of their native language. Thus, Urums are Greeks who have undergone linguistic assimilation, and not "baptized Tatars". Some also speculate that
3937-571: The Greek people in the continent of Africa . Greek communities have existed in Africa since antiquity. Greeks have been present in Egypt since at least the 7th century BC. Herodotus visited ancient Egypt in the 5th century BC and claimed that the Greeks were one of the first groups of foreigners that ever lived there. Diodorus Siculus claimed that Rhodian Actis , one of the Heliadae , built
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4064-586: The Greek Dark Ages from 1100 to 750 BC, the city of Naucratis was founded in Ancient Egypt. It was located on the Canopic branch of the Nile river, 45 mi (72 km) from the open sea. It was the first and, for much of its early history, the only permanent Greek colony in Egypt; acting as a symbiotic nexus for the interchange of Greek and Egyptian art and culture. At about the same time,
4191-734: The Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria following the fourth ecumenical council , the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Some 30,000 Greeks of Chalcedonian persuasion were ranged against some five million Coptic non-Chalcedonians. The Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria remained in communion with the other patriarchs by accepting the council's decision, and were referred to as melkites ("the King's men", meaning those loyal to
4318-649: The Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641. Under Greco-Roman rule, Egypt hosted several Greek settlements, mostly concentrated in Alexandria , but also in a few other cities, where Greek settlers lived alongside some seven to ten million native Egyptians . Faiyum 's earliest Greek inhabitants were soldier-veterans and cleruchs (elite military officials) who were settled by the Ptolemaic kings on reclaimed lands. Native Egyptians also came to settle in Faiyum from all over
4445-478: The North Caucasus , right-bank Ukraine , Belarus , Lithuania , and Courland at the expense, mainly, of two powers—the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Catherine's foreign minister, Nikita Panin (in office 1763–1781), exercised considerable influence from the beginning of Catherine's reign. A shrewd statesman, Panin dedicated much effort and millions of rubles to setting up
4572-990: The Oghuz branch of the Turkic language and displays substantial similarities with the Turkish dialects of Anatolia (e.g. in vocal harmony), but also with Russian (e.g. in the use of subordinate clauses). Much of Urum's religious vocabulary is descended from words of Turkic origin, for example, Allah for ‘God’ or cänäm for ‘hell’ (compare Turkish allah, cehennem). However, Russian loanwords are restricted to narrow Christian terms, e.g., gimn meaning ‘hymn’, derived from Russian gimn (Гимн) and episkop meaning ‘bishop’, derived from Russian episkop (Епископ). African Greeks Greek diaspora Constantinople and Asia Minor : Africa : Other regions : Other groups : Other languages African Greeks , or Greeks in Africa ( Greek : Έλληνες της Αφρικής ), are
4699-416: The Ottoman Empire , Rum denoted Orthodox Christians living in the Empire; in modern Turkish , Rum denotes Greeks living in Turkey and Cyprus. The word "Urum" involves a prothetic u- that generally appears in Turkic language loanwords initially starting with a r-. The common use of the term Urum appears to have led to some confusion, as most Turkish -speaking Greeks were called Urum. The term
4826-436: The Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 . Russia inflicted some of the heaviest defeats ever suffered by the Ottoman Empire, including at the Battle of Chesma (5–7 July 1770) and the Battle of Kagul (21 July 1770). In 1769, a last major Crimean–Nogai slave raid , which ravaged the Russian held territories in Ukraine, saw the capture of up to 20,000 slaves for the Crimean slave trade . The Russian victories procured access to
4953-416: The Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 . This war was another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimised the Russian claim to the Crimean peninsula and granted the Yedisan region to Russia. In the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783), Russia agreed to protect Georgia against any new invasions and further political aspirations of their Persian suzerains . Catherine waged
5080-457: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World while during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus , the Library of Alexandria was the biggest library in the world until it was destroyed. The last Pharaoh was a Greek princess, Cleopatra VII , who took her own life in 30 BC, a year after the battle of Actium . After its conquest by the Roman forces in 30 BC, Egypt became a province of the new Roman Empire and remained an Eastern Roman territory until
5207-428: The Trialeti Greeks or the Transcaucasian Turcophone Greeks, Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks , or Τσαλκαλίδες ( Tsalkalides ), a name that refers to the Georgian town of Tsalka , where Urums once made up the largest ethnic community. Between the fall of the Empire of Trebizond to the Ottomans in 1461 and the Russian annexation of Georgia in 1801 there had been several waves of Pontic Greeks who left
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5334-400: The 1790s. In 1768, she formally became the protector of the political rights of dissidents and peasants of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which provoked an anti-Russian uprising in Poland, the Confederation of Bar (1768–1772), supported by France. After the rebels, their French and European volunteers, and their allied Ottoman Empire had been defeated, she established in the Commonwealth
5461-404: The 17th centuries. Bringing together the Crimean Greeks along with Greek-speaking Crimean Goths , with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity. There are two main theories covering how the Urums may have originated. One hypothesis is that the Urums arose as a result of some Crimean Greeks converting to using
5588-475: The Anatolian Greeks were exposed to. According to Andrei Popov , throughout the 19th century hundreds of Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox families from Erzurum , Gümüşhane and Artvin moved to Southern Russia and settled on the Tsalka Plateau , in present-day Georgia. During the Soviet era they populated over 20 villages in Georgia's Tsalka , Dmanisi , Tetritsqaro , Marneuli , and Akhaltsikhe regions. In 1926, there were 24,000 Greeks living in Tiflis and
5715-413: The Axumite king Zoskales ( Ancient Greek : Ζωσκάλης ) established the Axumite Empire ( Ancient Greek : Ἀξωμίτης ) (c. 100 AD–c. 960 AD), which maintained Ethiopian Greek culture and used Greek as its lingua franca . In the city of Axum , many obelisks, statues, and architecture made in Egyptian Greek style still mark the landscape. As the Islamic conquest of North Africa severed Axum's link with
5842-422: The Black Sea and allowed Catherine's government to incorporate present-day southern Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of Odessa , Nikolayev , Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine") and Kherson . The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca , signed 21 July 1774 (OS: 10 July 1774), gave the Russians territories at Azov , Kerch , Yenikale , Kinburn and the small strip of Black Sea coast between
5969-476: The Crimean state and maintain friendly relations with Russia. His period of rule proved disappointing after repeated effort to prop up his regime through military force and monetary aid. Finally, Catherine annexed Crimea in 1783. The palace of the Crimean Khanate passed into the hands of the Russians. In 1787, Catherine conducted a triumphal procession in the Crimea, which helped provoke the next Russo-Turkish War. The Ottomans restarted hostilities with Russia in
6096-474: The Empress and her court as a whole. Elizabeth doted on Sophie and saw her as a daughter after this. Sophie's father, a devout German Lutheran, opposed his daughter's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy . Despite his objections, on 28 June 1744, the Russian Orthodox Church received Sophie as a member. It was then that she took the new name Catherine (Yekaterina or Ekaterina) and the (artificial) patronymic Алексеевна (Alekseyevna, daughter of Aleksey), so that she
6223-462: The Great conquered Egypt at an early stage of his conquests. He respected the pharaonic religions and customs and he was proclaimed Pharaoh of Egypt. He established the city of Alexandria . After his death, in 323 BC, his empire was divided among his generals . Egypt was given to Ptolemy I Soter , whose descendants would give Egypt her final royal dynasty – a glittering one. The dynasty was composed solely by ethnic Greeks and produced dynasts such as
6350-480: The Great of Prussia took an active part. The objective was to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria , and to overthrow the chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin , a known partisan of the Austrian alliance on whom the reigning Russian Empress Elizabeth relied. The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely due to the intervention of Sophie's mother, Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp . Historical accounts portray Joanna as
6477-479: The Greek geographer and librarian at Alexandria , sketched "with fair accuracy" the course of the Nile as far south as what is now Khartoum , based on the accounts of various travellers. Pliny listed a number of Greeks who had travelled to Meroë and sometimes beyond: Dalion , Aristocreon , Bion , Basilis, and Simonides the Younger , who apparently lived at Meroe for five years. Relations between Kush and Ptolemaic Egypt thereafter remained tense, but stable. By
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#17327732993686604-459: The Greek world in the 7th century, Greek culture and knowledge waned; Muslim presence in the Red Sea also caused Axum to suffer economically and it declined in power. Axum's final three centuries are considered a dark age, in which Ethiopian Greek culture disappeared; the Axumite Empire finally collapsed around 960 AD. Despite its position as one of the foremost empires of late antiquity, Axum fell into obscurity as Ethiopia remained isolated throughout
6731-433: The Greek world remained sporadic until Ptolemy II 's Nubian campaign for Meroë in the 270s BC. Ptolemy's interest in Nubia was to secure a source of war elephants from Meroë, and to gain access to Meroitic gold mines. At the same time, Ergamenes (Arkamani II), a king of one of the nine Nubian kingdoms, studied Greek language and customs at the Alexandrian court in the Ptolemaic Empire. Eratosthenes (circa 276–194 BC),
6858-458: The Ismailovsky Regiment to go to the Semenovsky Barracks, where the clergy was waiting to ordain her as the sole occupant of the Russian throne and began her reign as Empress of Russia as Catherine II. She had her husband arrested and forced him to sign a document of abdication, leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. On 17 July 1762—eight days after the coup that amazed the outside world and just six months after his accession to
6985-400: The Meskhetian-Ahiska Turks have been in contact with during the Russian and Soviet rule. However some linguists, like Nikolai Baskakov , classify it as a separate Oghuz language due to differences in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar. Present-day Urum Turkish is also thought by some to be phonetically closer to Azeri than to the literary Turkish, which leads them to believe that it is rather
7112-412: The Middle Ages. Later Abyssinian Greeks were attested in the 1700s, largely descending from Greek craftsmen and sailors residing in Abyssinia, who facilitated commerce between Abyssinia and Europe. The explorer James Bruce reported that a number of Greek refugees from Smyrna had also arrived in Gondar during the reign of Emperor Iyasu II . The Smyrniot refugees included twelve silversmiths, whom
7239-518: The North Azovian Greeks ( приазовские греки / priazovskie greki ) henceforth. Some linguists believe that the dialect spoken by the North Azovian Urums differs from the common Crimean Tatar language on a more than just dialectical level and therefore constitutes a separate language unit within the Kypchak language sub-group (see Urum language ). Urums practice Eastern Orthodox Christianity . Throughout history, they represented an isolated cultural group and rarely settled in towns populated by
7366-444: The Ottomans in 1461 and the 1828-29 Russo-Turkish War . However, the Greek settlers of the Crimea region underwent social and cultural processes, which led to them adopting the Crimean Tatar language as a mother tongue. In 1777, after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Empire , Empress Catherine the Great ordered all Greeks from the peninsula to settle in the North Azov region around Mariupol , and they have been known as
7493-474: The Romaioi, despite sharing Greek heritage with them. Unlike Greek, Urum has never been a language of secondary education in Ukraine. Turkologist Nikolai Baskakov estimated that by 1969, 60,000 people spoke Urum as a native language. According to the All-Ukrainian Population Census of 2001, only 112 of the Donetsk Oblast 's 77,516 Greeks listed languages other than Greek , Ukrainian and Russian as their mother tongue. Tsalka Urums are sometimes referred to as
7620-422: The Roman rulers, despite their own self-perception of being Greek. The dental morphology of the Roman-period Faiyum mummies was also compared with that of earlier Egyptian populations, and was found to be "much more closely akin" to that of ancient Egyptians than to Greeks or other European populations. Victor J. Katz notes that "research in papyri dating from the early centuries of the common era demonstrates that
7747-419: The Royal Swedish navy in the tied Battle of Hogland (July 1788), and the Swedish army failed to advance. Denmark declared war on Sweden in 1788 (the Theatre War ). After the decisive defeat of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Svensksund in 1790, the parties signed the Treaty of Värälä (14 August 1790), returning all conquered territories to their respective owners and confirming the Treaty of Åbo . Russia
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#17327732993687874-403: The Russian Empire as a potential rival, making for difficult and unfriendly relations between Beijing and Saint Petersburg. In 1762, he unilaterally abrogated the Treaty of Kyakhta , which governed the caravan trade between the two empires. Another source of tension was the wave of Dzungar Mongol fugitives from the Qing Empire who took refuge with the Russians. The Dzungar genocide which
8001-448: The Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, Russians became the first Europeans to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America . Many cities and towns were founded on Catherine's orders in the newly conquered lands, most notably Yekaterinoslav , Kherson , Nikolayev , and Sevastopol . An admirer of Peter the Great , Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and
8128-401: The Russian language, rising late at night to repeat her lessons in her bedroom. Staying up late at night in the harsh Russian cold caused her to fall ill with pneumonia , though she survived and recovered. In her memoirs, she wrote that she made the decision then to do whatever was necessary and to profess to believe whatever was required of her to become qualified to wear the crown. Although she
8255-519: The Russian protectorate since the reign of Peter I, but he did not intervene into the problem of political freedoms of dissidents advocating for their religious freedoms only. Catherine did turn Russia into a global great power, not only a European one, but with quite a different reputation from what she initially had planned as an honest policy. The global trade of Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. Her dynasty lost power because of this and of
8382-446: The Urums from Crimea/Ukraine and Georgia have the same origins from Anatolia , with some even going as far to say that the two Urum groups speak the same language; however, the latter is not supported with the available linguistic data. The term Urum is derived from the Arabic word روم ( rūm ), meaning Roman and subsequently Byzantine and Greek , with a prothetic u in some Turkic languages. In Ottoman Turkish under
8509-420: The Zubovs had other plans for the army, ordered the troops to retreat to Russia. This reversal aroused the frustration and enmity of the powerful Zubovs and other officers who took part in the campaign; many of them would be among the conspirators who arranged Paul's murder five years later. Catherine longed for recognition as an enlightened sovereign. She refused the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp, which had ports on
8636-408: The benefits of friendship with Britain, Catherine was wary of Britain's increased power following its victory in the Seven Years' War , which threatened the European balance of power . Peter the Great had gained a foothold in the south, on the edge of the Black Sea, during the Azov campaigns . Catherine completed the conquest of the south, making Russia the dominant power in the Balkans following
8763-429: The city of Heliopolis before the cataclysm ; likewise the Athenians built Sais . Siculus reports that all the Greek cities were destroyed during the cataclysm, but the Egyptian cities including Heliopolis and Sais survived. According to Herodotus (ii. 154), King Psammetichus I (664–610 BC) established a garrison of foreign mercenaries at Daphnae , mostly Carians and Ionian Greeks. In 7th century BC, after
8890-432: The city of Heracleion , the closest to the sea, became an important port for Greek trade. It had a famous temple of Heracles . The city later sank into the sea, only to be rediscovered recently. From the time of Psammetichus I onwards, Greek mercenary armies played an important role in some of the Egyptian wars. One such army was led by Mentor of Rhodes . Another such personage was Phanes of Halicarnassus . Alexander
9017-426: The coast of the Atlantic Ocean and refrained from having a Russian army in Germany. Instead, she pioneered for Russia the role that Britain later played through most of the 19th and early 20th centuries as an international mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war. She acted as mediator in the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779) between the German states of Prussia and Austria. In 1780, she established
9144-537: The country, notably the Nile Delta , Upper Egypt , Oxyrhynchus and Memphis , to undertake the labor involved in the land reclamation process, as attested by personal names, local cults and recovered papyri . Christianity probably arrived in Egypt among the Hellenized Alexandrian Jews, from Palestine's communities of Jewish Christians. The earliest evidence of Christianity in Egypt is
9271-562: The court poet Derzhavin in his famous ode; he later commented bitterly on Zubov's inglorious return from the expedition in another famous poem. By mid-June 1796, Zubov's troops easily overran most of the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan , including three principal cities— Baku , Shemakha , and Ganja . By November, they were stationed at the confluence of the Aras and Kura Rivers , poised to attack mainland Iran. In this month, Catherine died, and her son and successor Paul I, who detested that
9398-460: The crown was constructed of two half spheres, one gold and one silver, representing the Eastern and Western Roman Empires , divided by a foliate garland and fastened with a low hoop. The crown contains 75 pearls and 4,936 Indian diamonds forming laurel and oak leaves, the symbols of power and strength, and is surmounted by a 398.62-carat ruby spinel and a diamond cross. The crown was produced in
9525-790: The eastern Black Sea coastline and the highlands of the Pontic Alps , and then settled as refugees or economic migrants in Georgia and the South Caucasus . The largest and most recent waves came in the late 18th and especially the early 19th century, when the South Caucasus experienced mass migrations of Greeks from the Ottoman Empire , mainly from the region of Pontus , as well as the vilayets of Sivas and Erzurum in northeastern Anatolia. This wave of Pontic emigrants
9652-627: The economy continued to depend on serfdom , and the increasing demands of the state and of private landowners intensified the exploitation of serf labour. This was one of the chief reasons behind rebellions, including Pugachev's Rebellion of Cossacks , nomads, peoples of the Volga, and peasants. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility , issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. The construction of many mansions of
9779-642: The emperor put to work producing a variety of items for both his court and the churches of Gondar. Abyssinian Greeks held many of the highest positions in the Abyssinian Empire ; the principal Abyssinian Greek community stayed with the Abyssinian Emperor in the capital, Gondar. Emperor Theodore II specifically made known that he favored the Abyssinian Greeks, because of their virility and integrity of character. Cyrenaica
9906-483: The famous Cleopatra . Its capital was Alexandria. Ptolemy added legitimacy to his rule in Egypt by acquiring Alexander's body. He intercepted the embalmed corpse on its way to burial, brought it to Egypt, and placed it in a golden coffin in Alexandria. It would remain one of the famous sights of the town for many years, until probably destroyed in riots in the 3rd century AD. The initial objective of Ptolemy's reign
10033-517: The field of religion or belief are said to be loanwords - much less than the average across world languages, being estimated to be 43%. According to legend common among the Urums of Georgia, long before they left Turkey, the Orthodox Greeks were forced to make a choice between their language and faith. Being devout Christians, they chose to keep their Orthodox faith and thus relinquished their language. However, most historians consider this to be
10160-419: The final version of her memoirs to her son, the future Paul I , in which she explained why Paul had been Peter's son. Saltykov was used to make Peter jealous, and she did not desire to have a child with him; Catherine wanted to become empress herself, and did not want another heir to the throne; however, Elizabeth blackmailed Peter and Catherine to produce this heir. Peter and Catherine had both been involved in
10287-428: The foreign policy of Catherine the Great as a dishonest one. Catherine failed to reach any of the initial goals she had put forward. Her foreign policy lacked a long-term strategy and from the very start was characterised by a series of mistakes. She lost the large territories of the Russian protectorate of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania and left its territories to Prussia and Austria. The Commonwealth had become
10414-421: The greatest intellectual and artistic centers of the Greek world, famous for its medical school, learned academies and architecture, which included some of the finest examples of the Hellenistic style . The Cyrenaics , a school of thinkers who expounded a doctrine of moral cheerfulness that defined happiness as the sum of human pleasures, were founded by Aristippus of Cyrene. Other notable natives of Cyrene were
10541-704: The horns of a ram to his image. Ammon had a wife, Ammonia , and a son, Parammon ( Thoth-Hermes ), considered Ammon's hypostasis (incarnation). Parammon was also the secretary of Osiris , one of the sons of Ammon. Intercultural exchange between the Hellenic and Nubian civilizations started at least two and a half millennia ago. The Greek presence in the Nile Valley and its considerable impact on ancient Nubia have long been recognized by scholars. The first recorded contact took place in 593 BC: graffiti at Abu Simbel reveal that large numbers of Greek mercenaries served under Psamtik II in his invasion of what
10668-688: The ideas of the Enlightenment , Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres, along with large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe. In her accession to power and her rule of the empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin . Assisted by highly successful generals such as Alexander Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev , and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov , she governed at
10795-457: The likely goal of subsequently getting rid of Peter III since at least 1749. Peter III's temperament became quite unbearable for those who resided in the palace. He would announce trying drills in the morning to male servants, who later joined Catherine in her room to sing and dance until late hours. In 1759, Catherine became pregnant with her second child, Anna, who only lived to 14 months. Due to various rumours of Catherine's promiscuity, Peter
10922-480: The majority speaks Russian. Also starting from the 1960s, there has been a modest cultural revival among the Turcophone Greeks. Historian Airat Aklaev 's research showed that 36% of them considered Greek their mother tongue despite not speaking it; 96% expressed a desire to learn Greek. A documentation project on the language of Caucasus Urum people compiled a basic lexicon, a sample of translations for
11049-426: The marriage was unsuccessful; it was not consummated for years due to Peter III's mental immaturity. After Peter took a mistress, Catherine became involved with other prominent court figures. She soon became popular with several powerful political groups that opposed her husband. Unhappy with her husband, Catherine became an avid reader of books, mostly in French. She disparaged her husband for his devotion to reading on
11176-480: The neighbouring area with 20,000 of them being Turcophone. The dialect spoken by the Tsalka Urums is similar to that of the Meskhetian-Ahiska Turks, an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, which hails from the regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin. The Turkish Meskhetian-Ahiska dialect has also borrowed from other languages (including Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek) which
11303-481: The night of 8 July 1762 (OS: 27 June 1762), Catherine was given the news that one of her co-conspirators had been arrested by her estranged husband and that the coup they had been planning would have to take place at once. The next day, she left the palace and departed for the Ismailovsky Regiment , where she delivered a speech asking the soldiers to protect her from her husband. Catherine then left with
11430-595: The nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the empress, changed the face of the country. She is often included in the ranks of the enlightened despots . As a patron of the arts, she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment , including the establishment of the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens , the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe. Catherine
11557-659: The nobility. Peter ceased Russian operations against Prussia, and Frederick suggested the partition of Polish territories with Russia. Peter also intervened in a dispute between his Duchy of Holstein and Denmark over the province of Schleswig (see Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff ). As Duke of Holstein-Gottorp , Peter planned war against Denmark, Russia's traditional ally against Sweden . In July 1762, barely six months after becoming emperor, Peter lingered in Oranienbaum with his Holstein-born courtiers and relatives, while Catherine lived in another palace nearby. On
11684-458: The north-west of present-day Germany near the border with Denmark) in 1739. The newlyweds settled in the palace of Oranienbaum , which remained the residence of the "young court" for many years. From there, they governed the duchy (which occupied less than a third of the current German state of Schleswig-Holstein , even including that part of Schleswig occupied by Denmark) to obtain experience to govern Russia. Apart from providing that experience,
11811-553: The one hand "Lutheran prayer-books, the other the history of and trial of some highway robbers who had been hanged or broken on the wheel". It was during this period that she first read Voltaire and the other philosophes of the French Enlightenment . As she learned Russian, she became increasingly interested in the literature of her adopted country. Finally, it was the Annals by Tacitus that caused what she called
11938-608: The original Theran colonists and ethnic Libyans , second, Peloponnesians and Cretans, and third, Aegean islanders. Under the Cyrenean constitution, the king only had the authority to grant land to citizens, and held the role of chief priest, in charge of religious duties. Libyan Greek religion was directly influenced by Ancient Egyptian religion . The Cyreneans assimilated the Egyptian god Amun with Zeus as "Ammon", embodying Zeus in his style and Amun in his nature, attributing
12065-616: The poet Callimachus and the mathematicians Theodorus and Eratosthenes . The most influential of the Libyan Greeks were the Cyreneans. The Cyreneans invited Greek colonists from all over the Greek world to settle in Cyrene. The Cyrenean government was originally an absolute monarchy, but under Demonax , it became a constitutional monarchy with a senate. Demonax divided the Cyreneans into three groups to elect senators: first,
12192-461: The province, with no major population centers, was called Marmarica ; the more important western portion was known as the Pentapolis, as it comprised five cities: Cyrene (near the modern village of Shahat) with its port of Apollonia (Marsa Susa), Arsinoe or Taucheira (Tocra), Euesperides or Berenice (near modern Benghazi ), Balagrae ( Bayda ) and Barce ( Marj ) – of which the chief
12319-520: The region over the course of many centuries, and consist of both the descendants of the ancient (4th century BC – 4th century AD) Greek and Byzantine Christian Greek colonizers of the northern shores of the Black Sea and interior of southern Russia and Ukraine, and also of Pontic Greeks who fled as refugees, or 'economic migrants,' from northeastern Anatolia between the fall of the Empire of Trebizond to
12446-577: The regions of ancient Ethiopia. Greeks established colonies in Ethiopia, with Ptolemais Theron and Axum becoming major capitals of Ethiopian Greek culture. In the second century BC, Ptolemy III Euergetes annexed several northern Ethiopian cities such as Tigray and the port of Adulis , which became major trading hubs for Ethiopian Greeks. After the Romans annexed the Ptolemaic Empire,
12573-529: The relatively near the North Caucasus region of Krasnodar Krai and other parts of Southern Russia (particularly the cities of Krasnodar , Abinsk , Sochi , and Gelendzhik ). By religion, the majority of Urums are Greek Orthodox Christians . Urums tend to practice their religion in Greek, Georgian or Russian Orthodox churches. Despite there not being any liturgical practices in the Urum language, 60% (18/30 respondents) of native Urum speakers reported that they use Urum in praying. 23% of Urum vocabulary in
12700-525: The rivers Dnieper and Bug . The treaty also removed restrictions on Russian naval and commercial traffic in the Azov Sea , granted Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and made Crimea a protectorate of Russia. In 1770, Russia's State Council announced a policy in favour of eventual Crimean independence. Catherine named Şahin Giray , a Crimean Tatar leader, to head
12827-427: The ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a French governess and from tutors. According to her memoirs, Sophie was considered a tomboy and trained herself to master a sword. Catherine found her childhood to be uneventful; she once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm , "I see nothing of interest in it". Although Sophie was born a princess, her family had little money; her rise to power
12954-533: The sources of the Nile. Scholars assume that the potential Ptolemaic threat contributed to the decision by the Kushitic king Nastasen to move the capital from Napata to Meroë. Greek language and culture were introduced to the Kushitic ruling classes, which may have triggered the creation of an alphabetic Meroitic writing. Hellenic influences are also evident from changes in art styles. Nubian contact with
13081-664: The study of grammar, and a text collection. The website of the project contains further information about the language and the language community. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union , serious migration did take place, so Greeks are no longer the largest ethnic group in Tsalka. Between 1989 and 2002, their population declined from 35,000 to 3,000. Many emigrated to Greece , particularly Thessaloniki and other parts of Greek Macedonia in Northern Greece , and also to
13208-727: The throne as Emperor Peter III and Catherine became empress consort . The imperial couple moved into the new Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The Emperor's eccentricities and policies, including his great admiration for the Prussian King Frederick II, alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated as allies. Russia and Prussia had fought each other during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and Russian troops had occupied Berlin in 1761. Peter supported Frederick II, eroding much of his support among
13335-505: The throne included Ivan VI (1740–1764), who had been confined at Schlüsselburg in Lake Ladoga from the age of six months and was thought to be insane. Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed coup against Catherine. Like Elizabeth before her, Catherine had given strict instructions that Ivan was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. The woman later known as Princess Tarakanova (с. 1745–1775)
13462-411: The throne—Peter III died at Ropsha , possibly at the hands of Alexei Orlov (younger brother to Grigory Orlov, then a court favourite and a participant in the coup). Peter supposedly was assassinated, but it is unknown how he died. The official cause, after an autopsy, was a severe attack of haemorrhoidal colic and an apoplexy stroke. At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rivals for
13589-409: The time he abdicated in 285 BC, in favour of one of his sons, the Ptolemaic dynasty was secure. Ptolemy and his descendants showed respect to Egypt's most cherished traditions – those of religion – and turned them to their own advantage. Alexandria became the centre of the Greek and Hellenistic world and the centre of international commerce, art and science. The Lighthouse of Alexandria was one of
13716-567: The time of Ptolemy VIII (170-163 BC), Greek ships regularly sailed on the Red Sea and to Meroitic ports. The Nubian upper class traded with Greek merchants and adopted certain Hellenic styles of life. However, following the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC and an unsuccessful attempt by the Romans to conquer the kingdom, Greek influences withered in Nubia. The account of Strabo , the geographer and historian of Greek descent, in his Geographia
13843-476: The time of Roman emperor Caracalla in the 2nd century AD, ethnic Egyptians could be distinguished from Egyptian Greeks only by their speech. Egyptian Greek is the variety of Greek spoken in Egypt from antiquity until the Islamic conquest of Egypt in the 7th century. Egyptian Greek adopted many loanwords from Egyptian language ; there was a great deal of intracommunity bilingualism in Egypt. The following
13970-514: The time of his daughter's birth, he held the rank of a Prussian general in his capacity as governor of the city of Stettin. However, because her second cousin Peter III converted to Orthodox Christianity, her mother's brother became the heir to the Swedish throne and two of her first cousins, Gustav III and Charles XIII , became Kings of Sweden . In accordance with the prevailing custom among
14097-463: The wedding could take place. Despite Joanna's interference, Elizabeth took a strong liking to Sophie, and Sophie and Peter were eventually married in 1745. When Sophie arrived in Russia in 1744 at age 15, she spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with Elizabeth, but also with Elizabeth's husband Alexei Razumovsky and with the Russian people at large. She zealously applied herself to learning
14224-501: The years with many men, including Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski , Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734–1783), Alexander Vasilchikov , Grigory Potemkin , Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov and others. She became friends with Princess Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova , the sister of her husband's official mistress. In Dashkova's opinion, Dashkova introduced Catherine to several powerful political groups that opposed her husband; however, Catherine had been involved in military schemes against Elizabeth with
14351-561: Was colonized by Greeks beginning in the 7th century BC. The first and most important colony was that of Cyrene , established in about 631 BC by colonists from the Greek island of Thera , which they had abandoned because of a severe famine. Their commander, Aristoteles, took the Libyan name Battos. His descendants, known as the Battiad dynasty , persisted in spite of severe conflict with Greeks in neighboring cities. The eastern portion of
14478-495: Was 10, she met the second cousin who would become her future husband and Peter III of Russia . She later wrote that she immediately found Peter detestable and that she stayed at one end of the castle and Peter at the other. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol. The choice of Sophie as wife of the future tsar was a result of the Lopukhina affair , in which Count Jean Armand de Lestocq and King Frederick
14605-498: Was able to learn Russian, she spoke with a heavy accent, and made grammatical mistakes. Her writing also contained numerous spelling errors. In most circumstances Catherine II spoke French in her court. In fact the use of French as the main language of the Russian imperial court continued until 1812, when it became politically incorrect to speak French in court due to the war with Napoleonic France. Sophie recalled in her memoirs that as soon as she arrived in Russia, she fell ill with
14732-575: Was another potential rival. Although Catherine did not descend from the Romanov dynasty, her ancestors included members of the Rurik dynasty , which had preceded the Romanovs as rulers of Russia. She succeeded her husband as empress regnant , following the legal precedent of Empress Catherine I , who had succeeded her husband Peter I in 1725. Historians debate Catherine's technical status, whether as
14859-526: Was born on 2 May 1729 in Stettin , Province of Pomerania , Kingdom of Prussia , as Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica (Sophie Auguste Friederike) von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. Her mother was Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp . Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt . He failed to become the duke of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia and, at
14986-571: Was committed by the Qing Empire had led many Dzungars to seek sanctuary in the Russian Empire, and it was also one of the reasons for the abrogation of the Treaty of Kyakhta. Catherine perceived that the Qianlong Emperor was an unpleasant and arrogant neighbour, once saying: "I shall not die until I have ejected the Turks from Europe, suppressed the pride of China and established trade with India". In
15113-515: Was in all respects the namesake of Catherine I , the mother of Elizabeth and the grandmother of Peter III. The following year, on 21 August 1745, the long-planned dynastic marriage between Catherine and Peter finally took place in Saint Petersburg . Catherine had recently turned 16. Her father did not travel to Russia for the wedding. The bridegroom, then known as Peter von Holstein-Gottorp, had become Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (located in
15240-422: Was led to believe he was not the child's biological father and is known to have proclaimed, "Go to the devil!" when Catherine angrily dismissed his accusation. She therefore spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. In the first version of her memoirs, edited and published by Alexander Hertzen, Catherine strongly implied that the real father of her son Paul
15367-515: Was not Peter, but rather Saltykov. Catherine recalled in her memoirs her optimistic and resolute mood before her accession to the throne: I used to say to myself that happiness and misery depend on ourselves. If you feel unhappy, raise yourself above unhappiness, and so act that your happiness may be independent of all eventualities. After the death of the Empress Elizabeth on 5 January 1762 ( OS : 25 December 1761), Peter succeeded to
15494-478: Was one of the best means of advancing their interests. To improve the position of her house, Sophie was groomed throughout her childhood to become the wife of a powerful ruler. In addition to her native German, Sophie became fluent in French, the lingua franca of European elites in the 18th century. The young Sophie received the standard education for an 18th-century German princess, concentrating on etiquette, French, and Lutheran theology . In 1739, when Catherine
15621-492: Was supported by her mother Joanna's wealthy relatives, who were both nobles and royal relations. The more than 300 sovereign entities of the Holy Roman Empire, many of them small and powerless, made for a highly competitive political system in which the various princely families fought for advantages over one another, often by way of political marriages. For smaller German princely families, an advantageous marriage
15748-539: Was the eponymous Cyrene. The term "Pentapolis" continued to be used as a synonym for Cyrenaica. In the south, the Pentapolis faded into the Saharan tribal areas, including the pharaonic oracle of Ammonium . The region produced barley, wheat, olive oil, wine, figs, apples, wool, sheep, cattle and silphium , a herb that grew only in Cyrenaica and was regarded as a medicinal cure and aphrodisiac . Cyrene became one of
15875-471: Was to establish firm and broad boundaries to his newly acquired kingdom. That led to almost continuous warfare against other leading members of Alexander's circle. At times he held Cyprus and even parts of mainland Greece . When these conflicts were over, he was firmly in control of Egypt and had strong claims (disputed by the Seleucid dynasty ) to Palestine . He called himself king of Egypt from 306 BC. By
16002-469: Was to stop any involvement in the internal affairs of Sweden. Large sums were paid to Gustav III and peace ensued for 20 years even in spite of the assassination of Gustav III in 1792. In 1764, Catherine placed Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski , her former lover, on the Polish throne . Although the idea of partitioning Poland came from Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine took a leading role in its execution in
16129-452: Was widely expected that a 13,000-strong Russian corps would be led by the seasoned general Ivan Gudovich , but the Empress followed the advice of her lover, Prince Zubov , and entrusted the command to his youthful brother, Count Valerian Zubov . The Russian troops set out from Kizlyar in April 1796 and stormed the key fortress of Derbent on 21 May (OS: 10 May). The event was glorified by
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