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How did Moscow support its intervention in Syria and how has the experience changed Russian thinking about maritime logistics? With ties to naval theory and the Soviet past, the "Syrian Express"--the supply route from the Black Sea to Syria via the Turkish Straits--has changed the way Russia views its role in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and beyond. Russia's 2022 Maritime Doctrine reflects these aspirations and rationale to establish additional logistics support facilities astride strategic chokepoints in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents an epilogue to the journal's special issue on mass violence in Syria. Topics include how systemic violence operates in Syria, the author's argument that ideology matters in thinking about authoritarian resilience and mass violence, and the kinds of violence, outright repression and insidious mechanisms of social control.

An introduction is presented which discusses various reports within the issue on topics, including the modalities of mass violence in Syria, research on abducted Lebanese citizens being held in Syrian prisons, and attempts made by the families since the 1980s to find their missing relatives.

Despite the official secularity of the Syrian state, religion has always been a viable instrument used by the Baˈathist regime to consolidate its authority and legitimacy. Taking different historical trajectories ranging from confrontation to co-optation, the boundaries between state and religion have shifted to conflation in the post-2011 uprising. The official political rhetoric has become explicitly religious and anti-secular, ending an era of official secularity since the 1970s. This newly employed religious rhetoric is evident in the presidential discourse, which is heavily and explicitly infused with religious language. Analysis of Bashar al-Assad's speech to high-ranking ulama in 2011 and his other public statements on the website of the Ministry of Awqaf provides evidence not only of how such religious language marks the move from secularity, which was used to strategically co-opt religious institutions up to 2010, but also how the deployment of religion has become a source of security, legitimacy and survival for the Baˈathist regime since 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on Syrian history remaining a relevant question for the future of the Syrian state. Topics include battles against the rebels taking the lives of thousands of civilians where many of them using the chemical weapons in the town of Duma; and economic and social spheres undoubtedly contributing to the solidification of the new-old identity where Syrian regime seeking for inculcating into the people.

This article offers a comparative study of city states in the Christian and Islamic spheres of the later medieval Mediterranean world, with a particular focus on Italy, Syria and al-Andalus. Medieval city states are not usually associated with the Islamic world, but rather with a narrative that has foregrounded the exceptional nature of European cities in world history, especially the famous city republics in Northern and Central Italy, and the role that city states played in the formation of European states. Yet city states were a phenomenon that could be observed across urbanized regions of the Mediterranean world where cities turned into important political arenas in the context of sustained political fragmentation. City states are best approached as political systems that were characterized by brittle regimes and experienced high levels of political volatility: they often lacked a clear boundary between the 'inside' and 'outside' of city states and were characterized by the multiple political organizations that crystallized in, and fought hard to control, urban political space. The most commonly shared type of political organization in city states was the urban lordship, but city-based lords usually found themselves in intense competition with elite-based collective associations, families and factions, and popular political organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Russia has carefully employed its military and diplomatic tools of statecraft in the Syrian conflict. The Syrian war has been a quagmire with the diversity of actors involved having national, regional, and global interests. Russia’s decisive role and direct involvement in the conflict has brought it to the forefront of Middle Eastern politics. Russia after taking control of the Syrian airbase can carry out missions across the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean. Moreover, Russia has not only courted the regional states into its side particularly Turkey but has also successfully averted any direct clash with the US and Israel in Syria. Russia has been able to demonstrate its strategic will to take decisive actions and transforming the risks into opportunities. Syria has brought the Russians back to the international decision-making as an important player. Moreover; Syria has provided Russia with a geopolitical advantage in the Middle East and to uphold Russian status as a global power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the strategic calculations, assessments and dynamics behind Israel's decision to establish the so called "Southern Syria Region" (SSR) as an undeclared security zone on the Syrian Golan Heights with the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War. The article likewise considers Israel's policy vis-à-vis various rebel groups and other actors in the SSR and ultimately, what led Israel to end its intervention once the Syrian army returned to the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a decade of civil war, hundreds of thousands of casualties and immense destruction is now clear that Bashar al‐Assad won the war in Syria. Assad's victory in the war is the result of a variety of reasons, one of them is the military and economic assistance he received from Russia, his close ally. The present article follows the Russian involvement in Syria and examines what are Russia's interests in Syria? Has the Kremlin taken a uniform and consistent diplomatic position towards Syria and the Middle East, both in the Soviet era and after the fall of the USSR, or has its policy changed over the years? Why did Moscow see fit to intervene in the internal Syrian conflict in 2015, considering that until then the United States seemed to have been dominant in the Middle East? Finally, did Russia take this action out of global motives that go beyond the regional context? In this context, the main argument of this article is that the Syrian civil war gave Moscow a one‐time opportunity to penetrate the Middle East more deeply and further its ambitions in the region. Moscow identified an outstanding opportunity to restore its status as a superpower and promote its regional and global objectives, at the expense of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an account of the conquest of the ancient kingdoms of Armanum and Ebla in Syria by Naram-Sin, a ruler of the Akkadian Empire from 2254-2218 BC. Topics discussed include discovery of its inscription from the Iraqi archaeological heritage of Tulul al-Baqarat, significance of the Armanum affair as a military campaign against a western kingdom and its allies, and to the rulership of Naram-Sin.

The article examines the ancient roots and the Byzantine concept of Syria as an Arab empire. Topics discussed include use of Syria as a Byzantine concept by emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the mid-10th century, presence of the Byzantine military force in the region in the first half of the 10th century, and the role and importance of Arabs in the history of Syria.

Many existing studies on the war in Syria offer important insights but none fully engages the longue durée of history and its implications. Syria like many other states in Asia was established and institutionalized in the context of the growth and expansion of a capitalist world economy centred in Europe. The Franco-British reorganization of the Levant between the two world wars was supposed to support long-term processes of wealth accumulation and economic growth but forceful integration in the world economy set the stage instead for nationalist backlashes, economic crises, and war. Indeed, one of the driving forces of conflict in Syria as well as in other parts of the developing world has been the recurrence of struggles between those pushing for ever greater capitalist integration and those resisting such efforts in the name of alternative ideologies, including communism, Pan-Arab nationalism, and various distinct currents of political Islam. To demonstrate these dynamics, this paper will present a sweeping overview of the history of Syria and of the greater region, from Ottoman times to the present. It will also examine in detail the war that broke out in Syria in 2011, highlighting how it relates to broader struggles unfolding across the immediate region and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the encounter between the Ottoman state and an influential community of U.S. Congregationalist and Presbyterian missionaries who worked in Syria from 1820 until 1919. U.S. missionaries in Syria complied with Ottoman political structures and provided services which furthered the Islamic Empire's goals while Ottoman officials provided them with both political protection and material support. The U.S. civil war shaped the missionaries' relationship with the Ottoman state by securing the missionaries' access to the capital. The empire's ambitious educational program made missionaries active participants in the Ottoman state's political projects as well as passive subjects of its religious system. The Sublime Porte treated the missionaries as friends and collaborators.

This study analyses the original waqf documents belonging to Qijmās al-Isḥāqī, an amir who lived in late Mamluk Egypt and Syria, from three perspectives: first, the types of assets possessed or endowed by Qijmās and the creation of these assets; second, the contexts and purposes of establishing waqfs by comparing the data obtained from the documents and the life history of Qijmās, which was reconstructed from literary sources; and third, how his personal relationships reflected the character of his waqfs. Further, this study reveals how he selectively and strategically used the waqf system for personal and/or public benefit at different stages of his life and according to the prevalent social circumstances. This case study proves that the waqf system had multi-dimensional and complex functions: in addition to realizing its universal purpose of enabling the performance of charitable deeds, the waqf system fulfilled the founder's particularistic secular intentions and expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of History Studies (13094688) is the property of History Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The excessive violence that has spread across virtually all of Syria since the 2011 uprising against the regime of Bashar al-Asad has so far prevented a serious debate about feasible solutions. Together with internal power struggles and the intervention of external actors, ideational factors and identity construction are playing a key role in shaping the dynamics of the Syrian conflict. Fear of exclusion in a future order dominated by radical Islamist forces is keeping the minority groups and some secularists close to the regime. However, there are also grounds for cautious optimism: as this paper shows, most actors from the moderate opposition acknowledge the need to take the minorities’ fears seriously and to provide them with guarantees of participation in a future political order, while stopping short of the option of a power-sharing arrangement between community representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

the time of Muwattalli’s death, perhaps shortly after these events, Hattusili’s status and influence, and the powers accorded him, must have set him far above all others amongst the king’s subjects. Not without good reason. He had played an important role in Syria, he had confounded the attempts of his personal enemies to discredit him, and most importantly he had brought some measure of peace and stability to the northern regions of the kingdom. Thus when the king died without leaving a male heir of the first rank, he might have been sorely tempted to claim the throne for himself. a reasonably harmonious relationship between Urhi-Teshub and his uncle eventually turned sour. Unfortunately, we have only Hattusili’s version of the reasons for this, a version which predictably assigns all blame to Urhi-Teshub.According to Hattusili, his nephew’s jealousy was the chief cause of the increasing hostility between them: ‘When Urhi-Teshub saw the goddess’s goodwill towards me, he envied me and sought to do me harm. He took away from me all my subjects. Further, he took away from me all the depopulated lands which I had resettled and made me weak’ In actual fact, Urhi-Teshub probably had good reason for distrusting his uncle, to the point where he was forced to strip him of much of his power. There was no denying the substantial contributions Hattusili The Ill-Fated Reign of the Second-Rank Son had made to the kingdom, particularly in strengthening the northern regions against enemy attack, and recapturing and resettling areas which had long been under enemy control and occupation. Further, in the early days of Urhi-Teshub’s reign one of Hattusili’s crowning achievements had been the reoccupation and rebuilding of the holy city of Nerik, which had been captured and sacked by the Kaskans during the reign of Hantili II some 022 years earlier, and left in ruins since that time. ended in a decisive defeat for Urhi-Teshub. He had managed to reach Samuha, where he established his base. But Hattusili placed the city under siege, and eventually forcing his surrender. Urhi-Teshub had left Hattusa as the king of the Hittite realm. He now suVered the ignominy of returning to the city as his uncle’s prisoner, probably only a few years after he had assumed the royal power.He was formally deposed, and his uncle seized the throne. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tarih İncelemeleri Dergisi is the property of Tarih Incelemeleri Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The story of Syria during the Six-Day War is the story of a state whose leadership was young, inexperienced, reckless, and radical; it sowed fire and reaped a firestorm. For a while the war seemed as a turning point in the history of Syria since it led to the rise of Hafiz al-Asad, who gave his country political stability that enabled him to turn it into a powerful and esteemed state at home and abroad. However, the Asad's era was marked by freeze, stagnation and the maintenance of the status quo which became the essence of the Syrian regime's policies and course of action not only vis-à-vis Israel, but also in its activity domestically, whether in the social, political, or economic sphere. The ultimate result, as this article argues, was the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, which demonstrated that the appearance of stability and strength projected by the regime was a false facade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a historical perspective of the activities of King-Crane Committee and the diplomatic struggle for Syria in 1919. It discusses how the 1919 Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey began as an outgrowth of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It highlights how this Commission of Enquiry worked to prevent disposition of non-Turkish areas within the former Ottoman Empire.

This paper presents major trends in pottery development in the final Ninevite 5 period, which corresponds to the final EJZ 2 period in the Syrian Jezirah. This discussion is based primarily on a pottery assemblage from Tell Arbid, a site in north-east Syria. The pottery was recovered from a dwelling quarter (Area D), where both final Ninevite 5 (final EJZ 2) and post-Ninevite 5 (EZJ 3) occupation were recognized. Excavations at Tell Arbid have provided new data regarding the late Ninevite 5 pottery repertoire and its internal development. Morphological types of vessels and their technology are discussed at length. Major traits of the final Ninevite 5 pottery are recognized and defined, including pottery “index fossils” as well as some less distinct pottery types. Chronological variability of pottery types has also been traced, special attention being given to continuity and changes in pottery production between final Ninevite 5 and post-Ninevite 5 (EJZ 3) periods. A trend toward standardization visible in the final Ninevite 5 pottery development is related to political and economic factors in the Syrian Jezirah at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Islamist Uprising in Syria between 1976 and 1982 remains understudied in view of the growing availability of new primary sources on the subject. The present article explores the unfolding of the Revolt, examining the causes for its eventual defeat and the long-term legacy of the Uprising. It argues that the Islamist Uprising in Syria failed for a variety of reasons, first and foremost internal disunity and indecisiveness, leading to a lack of military preparedness, planning, and coordination at critical junctures, and a lack of mass mobilization for the Revolt. Failure to rally sufficient foreign support made the Uprising crumble in the face of the regime’s unrestrained brutality. Rather than serving as a rallying cry for the Syrian opposition, the defeat at Hama has had a divisive effect, illustrated by the contradictory narratives embraced by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadi opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most famous stories in Ugaritic literature is the legend of Aqht that was found at Ras Shamra, Syria, during the early 1930s. Written in Ugaritic script and spread over three worn and broken tablets, this text has been thoroughly studied for the past eighty years. More than a few studies have dealt with the following questions: Is the end of the known text in the third tablet really the end of the story ? Or is there perhaps a missing tablet, or tablets, that continue the plot from the third tablet (KTU 1.19)? These questions have been answered on the basis of storyline and plot, and many believe that there must have been more contents that complete this story and that it cannot end where the text ends. In this paper we have tried to answer this question based on epigraphic evidence found in the third tablet of the Aqht legend. After carefully examining four unique features of this tablet, we conclude that KTU 1.19 is, in fact, the last one of this specific sequence. We support this evidence by an analysis of the contents, showing that there is indeed enough text to suggest a proper closure for this legend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article challenges those perspectives which assert first, that the Security Council’s engagement with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) during the Arab Spring evidences a generally positive trend, and second, that the response to the Arab Spring, particularly Syria, highlights the need for veto restraint. With respect to the first point, the evidence presented in this article suggests that the manner in which R2P has been employed by the Security Council during this period evidences three key trends: first, a willingness to invoke R2P only in the context of Pillar I; second, a pronounced lack of consensus surrounding Pillar III; and third, the persistent prioritisation of national interests over humanitarian concerns. With respect to veto restraint, this article argues that there is no evidence that this idea will have any significant impact on decision-making at the Security Council; the Council’s response to the Arab Spring suggests that national interests continue to trump humanitarian need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman authorities in Syria incorporated parts of the desert into the territory under their direct rule. An important element of this policy was the government's integration of the leaders of powerful tribal confederacies into its administrative structures in return for material gains. The article argues that this policy changed the nature of tribal leadership and injected greater stability into a power structure that had been precarious. As a result, Ottoman tribal policy created stronger sheikhs with a new measure of authority and a more secure position of leadership within the confederacy, which allowed them to form more enduring hereditary lines of succession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reconstructs a debate between Hanafi jurists who operated throughout Ottoman Greater Syria (and beyond) from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries concerning the evidentiary status of the Ottoman imperial registers (defters). At the centre of the jurists' debate is the permissibility of using imperial registers as independent, uncorroborated evidence. It was a debate about who had the right to regulate and determine what constituted an authentic evidential document: while some jurists argued that it was almost exclusively the privilege of the jurists, others were willing to concede this authority, at least in part, to the Ottoman dynasty and its bureaucracy. Furthermore, the article contends that the debate about the evidentiary validity of the defters captures the complex relationship between Ottoman dynastic law and the Hanafi fiqh discourse. Finally, the debate sheds light on the legal "defterization" of other types of documents and texts, such as a chronicle (taʾrīkh) and court records (sijill). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on two lines of paragraph five of On the Syrian Goddess , a treatise professing to describe the temple and cult at Hierapolis in Syria, which is the best available literary source for the study of religious life in the Roman Near East. Topics discussed include authenticity of Lucian's authorship of the lines; investigation of similarities in syntax, diction and verbs of lines with Lucianic literary work; and foundation myths of the temple at Hierapolis.

Copyright of Romanian Review of Eurasian Studies / Revista Română de Studii Eurasiatice is the property of Romanian Review of Eurasian Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Islamization of Syria, a multi-faceted social and cultural process not limited to demography, was slow and highly variable across different locales. This article analyzes geographical works—ten in Arabic, one in Persian, and one in Hebrew— as well as the earliest Ottoman defters of the province to outline the process of Islamization in Syria from the Islamic conquest in the seventh century to the Ottoman conquest in the sixteenth. Geographical texts cannot be mined as databases, but when interpreted as literature they provide often detailed information regarding the foundation of mosques, the slow conversion of multi-religious shrines, and areas within Syria known for particular religious affiliations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on archival research, ethnographic fieldwork in Syria in the 2000s, and texts published in print and on the Internet, this article investigates how social and collective identities in Syria's tribal milieu have been negotiated through interactions between different social actors during the period of the French Mandate (1920-46) and the decade 2001-11. By scrutinizing administrative distinctions between "nomadic" and "semi-sedentary tribes", or "Bedouin" and "Shawaya", adopted during the Mandate, the article explores how notions of social order, which were partly informed by stereotypical imaginations of the Bedouin, have shaped local politics and influenced social dynamics in northern Syria. The article also traces how the experiences of the Mandate years resonate in articulations of social and political identity in Syria around the beginning of the twenty-first century. Taking inspiration from Judith Butler's exposition of the performative constitution of gender identities, it is suggested that the constitution of tribal identities in Syria, too, can productively be regarded as a performative process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study on the Meskeneh concentration camp in Syria during the Armenian genocide from 1915-1916 focusing on collaboration, power, and humanitarian resistance. Topics mentioned include the identify of the transit and concentration camp clusters by historian Raymond Kévorkian, the listing of the Meskeneh camp as transit camp with deportees from Bab, Czechoslovakia, and the massacre of deportees with the decision to empty and close the camp.

The article presents information on post-national feminism in post-colonial Syria and discusses post-colonial literature, the concept of orientalism, and the history of Syria. Other topics mentioned in this article include historian Fredric Jameson, Arab literature, and writers and researchers Edward Said and Ghadah al-Samman.

One argument advanced for the Syrian, rather than Roman, provenance of Mark’s Gospel concerns geographical proximity to the 66-70 war. This article evaluates this largely unexamined argument, concluding that the attempt to sustain Syrian provenance on the basis of geographical proximity to the events narrated in Mark 13 fails to persuade. This argument cannot show unique correspondences between text and context, and the equation of great effects with geographical proximity fails the tests of Philo’s narrative concerning Gaius’ threat to the temple, contemporary experience, and contemporary attachment theory (Kirkpatrick) that highlight the key role of psychological attachments that are not restricted by geography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From independence, Syria evolved somewhat differently from other Arab states. When Hafez al-Assad took over, internally he favoured a very Soviet-style centralisation of power and in the eyes of the West his foreign policy made Syria a “pariah” state. When his son Bashar succeeded him, there were hints of an open-ness to new political and economic thinking. European powers started to thicken up their relationship. The US/UK invasion of Iraq put an end to that. The Old Guard regained the ground they had lost. At least on the surface, the economic situation seemed manageable, though agricultural livelihoods were deteriorating sharply. Enter the Arab Spring. The regime's response was brutal and widely condemned, but in an international context very different from that of other threatened Arab regimes. Syria is a major Russian client and an ally of Iran. Nor were there easy choices for the West. The initially-moderate opposition splintered, with Islamist forces increasingly prominent. If there is a slender hope for the future it lies in building on the recent US/Russian diplomatic cooperation over the dismantling of the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal. The improved atmosphere in the talks over the Iran nuclear issue could also be a possible ray of sunlight. But the present situation is grim: casualties are mounting and the immense refugee problem needs more attention from the West. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since its independence in 1946, Syria has fielded a team for every summer Olympic competition except 1956, yet has won only three Olympic medals. In contrast with its smaller, higher-powered neighbour Lebanon, its participation at the Olympics has been consistent but limited, with the country making little impact internationally. Yet the history of Syria's involvement with the Olympics reflects key elements of its political and social history: its ambitious but short-lived partnership with Egypt, the Baathist-supported promotion of women as athletes and head of the National Olympic Committee and its commitment to participation in the vexed but ideologically important Pan-Arab Games. This article uses official International Olympic Committee publications and related press coverage to examine the history of Syria's involvement with the Olympic Games, the Mediterranean Games and the Pan-Arab Games. It argues that Syria's participation was initially important not for its medal count but for the ‘sign of statehood' that membership in the Olympic community conferred, and that its participation in regional games supported Syria's political positions as a Baathist, Arab republic. It concludes by contending that these political commitments have renewed salience as the conflict in Syria that began in March 2011 continues, and the country's participation in Olympic and regional games becomes increasingly politicised. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]