Authors: Neal Ascherson
1096
First Crusade.
Twelfth century Arrival of Karaite Jewish sect in Crimea.
1204
Fourth Crusade; Byzantium conquered and looted by Frankish Crusaders. Alexius Comnenus founds Grand Comnenian Empire of Trebizond.
c.
1204
Venetians establish colony at Soldaia (Sudak) in Crimea.
1206
Mongols led by Chingiz (Genghis) Khan begin conquest of Asia.
1223-40
Mongol invasions of Russia.
1234
Mongol conquest of China; Chin dynasty overthrown.
Mongol host, later known as the Golden Horde, on the lower Volga.
Tatar-Mongol invasion of east-central Europe.
1253
Friar
William de
KuriruquisT^ubruck)
travels to meet Batu Khan.
i
z6
1
Byzantine Empire restored at Constantinople.
1264
Kublai Khan founds Yuan (Mongol) dynasty in China.
1275
Marco Polo of Venice arrives in China.
c.
1280
Foundation of Genoese colony at Kaffa, Crimea.
1296
Venetian fleet attacks Genoese at Kaffa.
1347
Black Death reaches Kaffa, then spreads to Europe.
1370
Timur (Tamberlane) begins his career of conquest.
1
3
95
Timur sacks Tana, on river Don, and goes on to invade India.
1423-40
Establishment of Crimean Tatar Khanate, independent of the Golden Horde, under the Giray dynasty.
1453
Ottoman Turks (Mehmet the Conqueror) capture Constantinople.
1461
Trebizond surrenders to Turks.
1475
Fall of Mangup-Theodoros, Kaffa, Tana, etc. to Turks and Tatars.
1480
Tsar Ivan III forces Tatars to retreat, at battle on the river Ugra.
1569
Union of Lublin completes Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1637
Cossacks capture Azov from Turks, but lose it again.
1695-6
Peter the Great constructs a Russian navy at Voronezh, destined for the Azov and Black Seas.
1696
Peter captures Azov.
1772
First Partition of Poland.
1774
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji: Russia expels Ottoman Turks from part of Black Sea coast.
1783
Empress Catherine II (the Great) of Russia annexes Crimea; end of the independent Tatar Khanate.
French Revolution.
Russia storms Ismail, Turkish-held city at Danube mouth.
Treaty of Jassy between Turkey and Russia: advances Russian frontier on the Black Sea to the Dniester.
Second Partition of Poland.
Foundation of Odessa.
Third (and final) Partition of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria.
1815
Congress of Vienna.
1821
Greek War of Independence.
1825
Exile of Adam Mickiewicz in Odessa and Crimea. Death of Tsar Alexander I; accession of Nicholas I; Decembrist Conspiracy in St Petersburg.
1828—9
Russo-Turkish War.
1830
November rising in Poland.
1841
Death of Lermontov in a duel at Pyatigorsk.
1848
Foundation of Polonezkoy (Polish settlement) in Turkey by Prince Adam Czartoryski.
185 3-6
Crimean War.
1855
Death of Adam Mickiewicz at Constantinople.
January rising in Poland.
Russian annexation of northern Caucasus.
1877-8
Russo-Turkish War.
1905
Revolution in Russia.
1914
Outbreak of First World War.
Fall of tsardom; Bolshevik Revolution.
Collapse of German and Habsburg empires; end of First World War. Poland regains independence. Allied intervention in Russian civil war begins.
1919-20
Polish-Soviet War. Brief period of Ukrainian independence.
1920
Evacuation of Denikin's White armies from Novorossisk. Mustafa Kemal heads Turkish nationalist rebellion against partition of Turkey.
Greek invasion of Turkey repelled.
Republic proclaimed in Turkey. The 'Exchange' of populations between Greece and Turkey.
1928
Stalin assumes supreme power in the Soviet Union.
1933
Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
1939
Outbreak of Second World War.
1941
Nazi Germany invades Soviet Union:
1941-5
Great Patriotic War.
Soviet forces recapture Crimea. Deportation of Crimean Tatars, Chechens and Ingush.
Collapse of Nazi Germany. Yalta and Potsdam conferences.
1949
Deportation of the Greeks in the southern regions of USSR.
Death of Stalin.
Crimea ceded to Ukraine from Russia by Nikita Khrushchev.
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
Explosion in nuclear power station at Chernobyl, in Ukraine.
Catastrophic spread of ctenophore
Mnemiopsis leidyi
in Black Sea.
Collapse of Communist regimes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Revolution in Romania; death of President Nicolae Ceausescu.
Lithuania declares independence. Gorbachev becomes President of the USSR.
1991
(June) Boris Yeltsin elected President of Russia.
1991
(August) Failed putsch against Gorbachev, led by Gennadi Yanayev and others. CPSU suspended and later dissolved.
1991
(December) Dissolution of the Soviet Union. Independence
of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, etc.
Abkhazian-Georgian war. Convention for the Protection of the Black Sea signed by six riparian states.
Russian parliament refuses presidential order to dissolve. Troops loyal to President Yeltsin bombard parliament into surrender.
1994—5
Russian Army suppresses self-proclaimed independence of Chechnya, in northern Caucasus.
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Warsaw,
1898.
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Tr. P. Vellacott. London and New York,
1991.
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Various authors. Paris,
1926.
Apollonius Rhodius.
The Argonautica.
Tr. T. C. Seaton. London,
1912.
Archeion Pontou (vol.
35).
Athens,
1979.
Barbaro, Josafa [Giosafat], and Contarini, Ambrogio.
Travels to Tana and Persia.
Tr. William Thomas. London,
1873.
Blanch, Lesley.
The Sabres of Paradise.
London and New York,
i960.
Blondal, Sigfus.
The Varangians of Byzantium.
Cambridge,
England,
1978.
Bogucka, Maria.
W Krqgu Sarmatyzmu.
Warsaw,
1974.
Swiat Sarmatow.
Warsaw,
1991.
'Gesture, Ritual
8c
Social Order in
16th
and
17th
-century
Poland
'
. In
A Cultural History of Gesture,
eds. J. Bremmer and H. Roodenburg, London,
1991.
Borges, Jorge Luis.
Obras Completas.
Buenos Aires,
1974.
Borja-Villel, Manuel (ed).
Krzystof Wodiczko.
Barcelona,
1992.
Bremner, Robert.
Excursions in the Interior of Russia.
London,
1840. 2
vols.
Broniowski (Broniewski), Marcin. 'Collections . . . contayning a Description of Tartaria'. In:
Purchas, his Pilgrims.
London, edn.
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