art and architecture: Russian
Receiving Christianity only in 988/9, the East Slavic Rus’ expressly appropriated art and architecture based on Byzantine models and elaborated their own styles. Kiev, Novgorod, and Vladimir ...
August coup
(19–21 Aug. 1991)A coup attempt against the reformist Soviet leader Gorbachev. It was led by people who had personally benefited from the Gorbachev regime, such as Vice-President Yanaev and the ...
Barbarossa
Nickname (‘Redbeard’) of Frederick I (c. 1123–90), king of Germany and Holy Roman emperor.Barbarossa was the code name for the military operation in which Hitler's armies launched their invasion of ...
Battle of Stalingrad
(1942–43)A long and bitter battle in World War II in which the German advance into the Soviet Union was turned back. During 1942 the German 6th Army under General von Paulus reached the key city of ...
Black Sea
The sea situated on the junction of the trade routes from the east Mediterranean to further north and east. In the early MA most of its coastline belonged to Byzantium. ...
Bosporus, the Cimmerian
The straits of Kerch′, connecting the Black Sea (Euxine) and the sea of Azov (Maeotis). The straits were the centre of a major kingdom, which was known, accordingly, as the ...
Cherson
A town in the Crimea. In 711 Justinian II sent a punitive expedition to Cherson, which later turned into a rebellion against him. Cyril (Constantine) studied Hebrew grammar in Cherson ...
Dnieper
(Δάναπρις, also Βορυσθένης), river flowing south from the Valdai hills to the Black Sea west of the Crimea. Tributaries and portages link the upper Dnieper to the Volga for eastern ...
Golden Horde
The Tartars of the Mongol khanate of the Western Kipchaks (1242–1480). The word “horde” derives from the Mongol ordo, meaning a camp, while “golden” recalls the magnificence of Batu Khan's ...
Justinian II
Emperor (685–95 and 705–11); born Constantinople ca.668, died Damatrys 7 Nov. 711 (Grierson, “Tombs and Obits” 51).He was son of Constantine V and Anastasia; an improbable tradition places his ...
Kaffa
(Καφα̑ς in De adm. imp. 53.170), ancient Theodosia, a strategic post on the southeastern coast of Crimea along the passage from the Black Sea to the Azov Sea. Taken by ...
Khazaria
(Ξαζαρία), the land of the Khazars. The term was applied to the Khazar khaganate, which Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos places near Rhosia, Zichia, Alania, Black Bulgaria, the land of the Uzes ...
Khazars
National group, originally of S. Russia, who professed Judaism. The Khazars were an independent nation of E. Europe between the 7th and 10th cents. ce. They converted to Judaism c.740 ...
Kiev
Located on the river Dnieper, on the trade routes from central Europe and the Baltic to Byzantium and the Arab caliphates, Kiev had been settled for several centuries before Varangian ...
Maritime Republics
This term is customarily used to designate the four main Italian cities that dominated maritime commerce in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages: Amalfi, Genoa, Pisa and Venice. The traditional ...
Matthew of Khazaria
Late 14th-C. poet. A hieromonk from the monastery of Kyrizou (in Constantinople or Bithynia), Matthew was sent to Crimea in Aug. 1395 by Patr. Antony IV as exarch of Khazaria ...
Mongol empire
An empire founded by Genghis Khan early in the 13th century. Loosely related nomadic tribesmen who lived in felt huts (yurts) and subsisted on meat and milk – and fermented mares' milk (koumiss) – ...
Phoulloi
(Φου̑λλοι) or Phoulla〈i〉, a city in the Crimea the location of which is disputed; identifications have been suggested with Solkhat (R. Blockley in History of Menander the Guardsman [Liverpool 1985] ...
Piotr Nikolaevich Baron Wrangel
(b. 15 Aug. 1878, d. 25 Apr. 1928).Russian general Born in St Petersburg, he joined a cavalry regiment as a private in 1901, and by 1910 had graduated from the Academy of the General Staff. He ...
plague
A number of epidemic diseases, particularly the infectious bubonic plague caused by bacteria in fleas carried by rodents. The form known as the Black Death swept through Europe during 1346–50: ...
