Borġ in-Nadur

Borġ in-Nadur Ruins today.

Sadly, it seems as if the Borġ in-Nadur temple complex will be the end of our Malta Megalithic Temple round ups on the blog. We've poured a lot of heart and soul into these Maltese posts and are sad to see them end for the time being. Hopefully a new archeological discovery will reignite some topics we've touched on so we can revisit this topic again soon!

Borġ in-Nadur is in ruins compared to many of the other Maltese temples from the prehistoric times. This is because it was abandoned sometime during the Neolithic and then used as scrap pieces by thje Bronze Age Maltese. The shape of the temples though was typical of all the Maltese temples. Borġ in-Nadur was built during the final temple building phase on Malta, the Tarxien Phase. So, the Prehistoric Maltese were pretty set in their ways on how to build temples by then. The Borġ in-Nadur would have overlooked the St. George's Bay in Southwestern Malta in its heyday. (I'm pretty sure that it wasn't named St. George's Bay back then though). What makes the Borġ in-Nadur temple drastically different than all the other temples on Malta is the lack of evidence for human activity. This is probably due to the Bronze Age settlement that came and used the temple's site for their own purposes, but it could have been the giantesses as well. Mystical things seem to happen at Borġ in-Nadur.

Angelik can't personally deliver his message.

In 2005, Angelik Caruana perceived visions of the Virgin Mary at the hilltop of Borġ in-Nadur. Angelik states that the Virgin Mary wished to be called 'Our Lady of Borġ in-Nadur' and extolled the Maltese towards a resurgence of prayer and the conversion to Catholicism for all the nations. Angelik's visions have been dismissed by the Archbishop of Malta. However this has not stopped Angelik from garnering a following. He continues to visit Borġ in-Nadur to receive visions and has actually gone over to the island of Gozo (one of the other populated islands of Malta). In one of his visions he Angelik reported that he got a personal message for Pope Benedict XVI. Angelik decided that he would visit the Vatican and climb over a barrier to deliver his message to the Pope personally. This resulted in him being escorted out of Vatican City.

Something about these megalithic temples in Malta gives them an air of spirituality. I hate that word very passionately. It's vague and overused, often improperly. People often describe any sort of quiet peace as spiritual. That seems to be a bit of a bastardization of the word. However, in the case of giant cathedrals or ancient temples and other ancient religious sites there seems to be a heritage of people seeking something beyond themselves. They are reaching for the spiritual and sometimes they attain it (other times they attain something they think is spiritual). It is this quest for the thing that completes us that is our spiritual journey. The ancient Maltese and the modern Maltese are connected through this straining for that which completed us. Angelik worships the Christian God and is incorporating both fundamental (not a bad word by the way as many have made it out to be) Catholic faith traditions, local customs and personal beliefs. The ancient Maltese that built it likely worshiped a pantheon of gods giving special primacy to a fertility goddess. But, both Angelik and the builders of the temple at Borġ in-Nadur were seeking the spiritual completion to their lives. One of the reasons why Angelik probably feels that special spiritual connection at Borġ in-Nadur is because there is something about that area that gives that aura of spirituality. If it didn't, the early Maltese probably wouldn't have built Borġ in-Nadur Temple there in the first place.

A Short Look at Transnistria

Transnistria is the last of the disputed territories we're going to cover this week. We've touched on Kosovo, Northern Cyprus and the Caucusus' states of Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia already. Transnistria is not a member of the Caucusus region, but Transnistria's independence claims stem from the collapse of the USSR like these Caucusus would-be nations. Transnistria is sandwiched between the Ukraine and Moldova. Moldova, from whom they claimed independence, doesn't not recognize them and still holds Transnistria as part of its sovereign territory. Transnistria has a much older history though than the current independent or not state.

In prehistoric times and antiquity it was occupied Dacian and Scythian tribes, settled by Greek colonists at Tyras and eventually became a Thracian homeland to a branch of the Getae. The area would fall under the sway of the Roman Empire in 56 AD when Rome rebuilt the city of Tyras along the Black Sea. Tyras would become an important minting city for Rome and over a couple of centuries this city in what Rome called Lower Moesia. Numerous copper coins would go out from Tyras throughout the whole empire.

As the Western Roman Empire was collapsing the area would see a whole host of people groups swing through, including the Goths and the Huns. The Huns would destroy the city of Tyras but the Goths would stick around for centuries and live throughout Transnistria. Then the Slavic peoples migrated through the area, both Southern and Eastern tribes. Also various Turkic peoples would settle and then move sometimes living alongside Slavic tribes and other times displacing them. The area would eventually become dominated by a Turkic confederation by a tribe called the Cumans. Cumania, a land more or less controlled by this semi-nomadic confederation stretched from the Balkans in the west to the Caucusus and further east into modern Iran. This large swathe of land brought them into conflict with the new threat from the east, the Mongols. But the Mongols didn't establish any tangible permanent legacy and the region entered part of the Kievan Rus' sphere of influence.

At about the turn of the 15th century the area became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then part of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth. This would last for nearly 300 years until the area was taken over by the Russian Empire in 1792 and 1793. By this time the area was occupied primarily ethnic Moldavian, ethnic Ukrainian and a number of various Tatar peoples (one of the few holdovers from Mongol invasions). Under Russian influence which lasted from 1793 until the Russian Revolution in 1917 the area was heavily colonized. Russian peasants were moved there to be given land (as all of the Russian land was in the hands of noble Russians). Also, Jews and Germans were moved to the region to help build up the economy.

After the fall of the Russian Empire and the dawn of the USSR, Transnistria became a part of the Socialist Republic of Moldova under the power of the Kremlin. The area was not given any rest though as it was invaded during World War II when it came under the control of Romania. Romania instituted a strict Romanianization program over the area and a multitude of Ukrainian and Moldovan Jews were either killed or sent to concentration camps by combined Romanian and German forces. Other ethnic groups were relocated and forced to move. After the war the Soviets reacquired the region but took a page out of German/Romanian playbook and relocated numerous Moldovan and Romanian families, often eastward to places like Kazakhstan and Siberia.

In the late 1980's as the USSR was coming apart at the seams the Moldovan authorities pushed for more autonomy and power. They readopted the Latin alphabet, declared Moldovan to be the only official language of the region and declared the closeness of Moldovan and Romanian linguistic heritage. This nationalism and ethnic posturing caused many Russian speaking and Slavic ethnic groups to become very uncomfortable. They were worried about two major things. First, the rhetoric of some of the Moldovan groups was very damning to non-Moldovan/Romanian people living within Moldova. Second, they were terrified by a reunification of Romania and Moldova.

In response to all of this war broke out as the people who did not want to return to a Romanian-Moldovan alliance attempted to break away from Moldova. From 1990 - 1992 war between Moldovan and Romanian forces against the breakaway region raged. Transnistria would have been easily crushed had it not been for support they received from official elements of the Russian army, Russian volunteers and Ukrainian volunteers. As a result of the war Transnistria has been a de facto state since 1992, only it has been almost entirely recognized as a part of Moldova by the international community.

Since 1992, the government of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria) has been ruled from its capital of Tiraspol, a city built on or near the ruins of the Greek settlement of Tyras by the Russians in 1792. The population of Transnistria is over 30% Moldovan, making it the largest percentage of the population. However, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians combine for a near 60% of the population. Thus, they speak Slavic based Russian language and use the Cyrillic alphabet in Transnistria as opposed to the Romance based Moldovan language and Latin alphabet used in Moldova. Tensions still simmer in this disputed region, especially given the fact that FC Sheriff Tiraspol dominates the Moldovan Football League. In a recent BBC World Football report it was noted that crossing the border from Moldova to Transnistria for a football match was a lot like crossing the border back into the days of the USSR, murals, police checkpoints, complete with hammer & sickle and all. It is a starkly different place than both Moldova and Ukraine which border it.

A brief look at South Ossetia

In continuing our blog discussion on the disputed territories and states of Europe we're heading back to the Caucuses. This time we're going to focus on South Ossetia, a state that has a few backers in the international community but one that Georgia still claims as part of its territory. Like most of the other Caucuses states that we've talked about this week, much of the current state of affairs has to do with the break up of the Soviet Union and deep historical issues that predate the communist empire by centuries.

The Ossetians were a people group that are believed to have descended from the Alani tribes, one of the many barbarian hoards that poured into parts of the Roman Empire when everything out east went haywire because of the Huns and other massive tribes that messed up the old social order. The Ossetians became Christianized through Byzantine and Georgian influences during the early Middle Ages. But, like the Alani from whence they came they too were pushed out of their homeland by a massive group of barbarians, the Mongols. When the Mongols started pouring eastward the Ossetians settled into what became known as Ossetia, which today is split into roughly two halves, North Ossetia-Alania, a federal subject of Russia and South Ossetia, the de facto independent state that is disputed by Georgia. This split occured during the late Middle Ages, early Modern period when the northern Ossetians fell under Russian rule and the Southern ones came under Georgian power. Both enjoyed refuge from the Mongols in this set up so all was well and dandy.

Eventually though, South Ossetia became part of the Russian Empire in 1801 with the rest of Georgia. This lasted until the Bolshevik uprising when North Ossetia sided with the Bolsheviks and Georgia sided with a breakaway communist group called the Mensheviks. Some Georgians accused the South Ossetians of being Bolshevik supporters and a series of South Ossetian rebellions sprang up between 1918-1920. Eventually though the Bolsheviks would control the whole Soviet Empire and the relative peace and normality that existed between Ossetians and Georgians would resume, basically unabated until the end of the Soviet Era.

As the USSR was crumbling there was a surge of nationalism within much of the Soviet Empire and the Ossetians and Georgians were no different. South Ossetia didn't mind being part of a new nation of Georgia so long as they retained the autonomy they had enjoyed under Soviet dominion. Georgia however was looking to annex all of its historical boundaries and create a unified state. South Ossetians bucked at a call for Georgian to be the only nationally recognized language and conflict soon broke out when Georgia removed any autonomy for South Ossetia. The 1991-92 South Ossetian war witnessed atrocities committed by both Georgian and South Ossetian militias. In 1992 a cease fire was reached between Georgia and South Ossetia because the Georgians feared a full scale military conflict with Russia who was backing South Ossetia. It was this war and the genocidal tendencies within that really fueled the current state of affairs in the Georgian-South Ossetian relations.

All was relatively quiet for 12 years until in 2004 tensions flared up again. Georgia created a South Ossetian government within the Georgian capital of Tblisi in order to gain more control over the region. South Ossetians, especially those in the region's capital of Tskhinvali railed against this power grab. Georgian troops came in and stormed a black market operation that crippled the South Ossetian economy and fought against South Ossetians and Russian "freelance" fighters. Somehow I think the term mercenary here would be appropriate. The fighting was short-lived but atrocities furthered the rift between South Ossetia and Georgia.

In 2008 fighting flared up again. A quick cease-fire was announced but Georgian troops rolled in right before the cease-fire was supposed to come into effect. They did this, according to Georgian sentiments because of a growing number of Russian military troops and vehicles in the region. In the attack on Tskhinvali a number of Russian peacekeepers were killed. The day after Russia came into the region and steamrolled the Georgian forces. As this was happening, Russia entered into Georgia proper by way of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia and Russia came to a cease-fire, but South Ossetia was left as a de facto independent state. Unfortunately though the capital of Tskhinvali was left in ruins and nearly 40,000 people had been killed or displaced by the short war. Today, South Ossetia operates as its own independent state and efforts to rebuild the capital are underway, albeit slowly.

A Quick Survey of Northern Cyprus

Northern Cyprus is another one of those disputed areas of sovereignty that we said we would cover this week on the blog. It has only one state outside of itself that recognizes, Turkey. The rest of the world considers Northern Cyprus to be an occupied territory within the Republic of Cyprus. The question we want to get to the bottom is what is all the kerfuffle about?

It started long ago and with many of our other disputed states this week it has to do with ethnic and religious tensions. In the case of Northern Cyprus we are talking about the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. The Greek Cypriots occupy most of the island while the Turkish Cypriots live in the Northeastern part of the island called Northern Cyprus. The island of Cyprus has an extensive history, one we're not going to cover on this blog post. So, we'll start with the most recent tensions that began shortly after 1960 when the island became independent from England.

There were two competing thoughts on what to do with the islands new found independence. Many Turkish Cypriots wanted to adopt "takism", the Turkish word for partition. This theory of self-rule wanted to split the island into two sections and possibly two distinct states, one for the Greeks and one for the Turks. Many Greek Cypriots however wanted to adopt the policy of "enosis", the Greek word for union. Under this plan Cyprus would become part of Greece. But, in 1960 delegates from both sides agreed to scrap both policies to make Cyprus its own state. The peace however did not last.

In 1963 the Akritas Plan was enacted that was designed to weaken the position of the Turkish Cypriots in the government and ultimately link Cyprus back with Greece. Violence broke out between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots with the Turks getting the worse end of the violence. Looting of Turkish villages within the island nation caused thousands to either withdraw into what would over time become Northern Cyprus or to emigrate to places like Britain, Australia or Turkey proper. The Turkish Cypriot government withdrew from all official government activities and Turkish paramilitary groups began to form that in effect created the partition of the island that constitutes it today.

The 1970's saw some serious action on the island. In 1974 the military junta of Greece decided to directly involve themselves in Cypriot politics and backed a couple of Greek Cypriot groups to host a coup d'état party. They ousted the presiding president, Makarios III, the president that had basically unilaterally acted back in the early 60's to get the tensions snowballing into the spiral as they did. But, Turkey saw this military intervention by Greece as a reason to send in their own troops. The Turkish Army came in shortly after the coup and established the border between Cyprus proper and Northern Cyprus.

A year later, in 1975 the Turkish Cypriots formed the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus. This however displeased the Republic of Cyprus and no one in the international community outside of Turkey recognized this new designation. The hopeful and nascent Turkish Federated State of Cyprus tried to negotiate with the UN and the leaders of the Greek Cypriots but to no avail. After eight years the Turkish Cypriots declared independence and formed the disputed state that sits atop northeastern Cyprus today, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Since 1983 there has been a whole bunch of bluster about the politics of reunification. In 2004 the Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly voted against reunification whereas the Turkish north voted for it. This left Cyprus entering the European Union with the North basically left out of the deal. In spite of all the hope for unification continuing sanctions has disillusioned much of the Northern Cyprus population and they recently voted in a government that prefers independence to unification and links with Turkey rather than the EU. But, while this current government is ideologically at odds with unification it is pragmatic and the current president Derviş Eroğlu is still performing ongoing negotiations with the Republic of Cyprus on unification plans.

That's all we'll cover this time, but look this week for a further explanation on the divisions within Cyprus through a historical lens and more on the disputed states in Europe. Tomorrow, barring something horrible, the podcast will resume with the Chalcolithic podcast. I'm excited. I hope you are!

A brief roundup of Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh is another one of those autonomous regions in Europe that is a de facto independent nation that is not fully recognized by other nations. In fact Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is only recognized by three other nations, each of which has recognition problems of their own. The reason for this is because both Azerbaijan and Armenia claim the territory for their own nation.

The ancient history of Nagorno-Karabakh has been covered here in the blog twice as the Kura Araxes culture here and here, so we´ll focus more on what happened after this prehistory. There are some legends surrounding the region. Armenian myths claim that the area was first settled by the progeny of Noah. Then in the 5th century AD a prince was appointed by an Armenian king to run the territory for Armenia. During this period the region suffered from frequent invasions by the Persians and then the Armenians would claim it back. This went on for quite some time until the Mongols and Tartars ending up conquering all of the Caucuses. Nagorno-Karabakh became a semi autonomous region under the Mongols for a few centuries before the Arabs and Persians came into control it. Then it was a nealry autonomous region under Persia. The Christianity of the Armenians however seemed to continue unabated through all of this Muslim control. But, many of the Christian Armenians were displaced and moved into other parts of the Persian Empire. This left the area to the mostly Azerbaijani Tartars.

In the early 19th century the region became part of the Russian Empire. Numerous Armenians migrated back to the region from Persia where they had lived for centuries. This population swell of Armenian Christians tipped the scales so that the region became overwhelmingly Armenian and Christian rather than Azerbaijani and Muslim. Friction would soon arise and after a century of Russian rule conflict brokeout between the Muslim Tartars and Armenian Christians. Within a decade though the Russian Empire was broken up as the Soviets came to power.As the Soviets consolidated power Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 1920 to1921.In 1921 the Armenians defeated the Azerbaijani forces, but in the same year the Bolsheviks siezed power in Armenia.

After the Soviets had seized firm enough control in Moscow, they retook the Caucuses including Nagorno-Karabakh. To gain support in Armenia the Bolsheviks promised that Nagorno-Karabakh and a few other predominately ethnic Armenia enclaves within Azerbaijan would fall under Armenian rule within the Soviet Union. But, the Bolsheviks were duplicitous and Nagorno-Karabakh became an autonomous region under Azerbaijani control. From 1921 to 1991, under Soviet rule, ethnic tensions mounted as more and more Azerbaijani settlers moved into the region. The ethnic Armenians in the region resented this turn of events. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent states, war broke out between the two over the region.

The war was bloody and consisted of tons of mass ethnic migrations in both Azerbaijan and Armenia. The end result of the war was that nearly all of the ethnic Azerbaijani were driven from Nagorno-Karabakh and ethnic Armenians were driven from various places within Azerbijan. Today, Nagorno-Karabakh is predominately Armenian and they control a small strip of land to connect Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. However, Azerbaijan still claims it as part of their nation. Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region are still raw and conflict could escalate at any point.

A Brief History of Kosovo

The Republic of Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008 and has been recognized by 91 member states of the UN to date. It borders the Republic of Macedonia to the south, Albania to the west and Montenegro to the Northwest. On its north and East is Serbia, who still claims Kosovo to be part of its sovereign territory, albeit controlled by the United Nations. Further confusing the Balkans region is North Kosovo, a disputed area of Kosovo which both Kosovo and Serbia claim to be their own, but is primarily made up of Kosovar Serbs and runs like Serbia within Kosovo.

Ok to recap, we have Kosovo which is inside of Serbia and is de facto independent but still claimed by Serbia and within Kosovo is North Kosovo which is claimed by both Kosovo and Serbia but is run by Kosovar Serbs in conjuction with Serbia. Got it? Unfortunately, a brief look at this trouble filled Balkan nation doesn't offer any simpler understanding of its history.

Kosovo was occupied in its earliest times by prehistoric tribes, meaning people that didn't write their history down, not cavemen. Although, Kosovo did have a pretty cool prehistoric past. But, in the 1st century AD, the Roman Empire took over the region that would become Kosovo in the 1st Century AD and called it Moesia Superior. When the Western Roman Empire began to fall apart due to hoards of barbarians coming up against some pretty terrible rulers of the Late Western Empire a bunch of Slavic people began to migrate to the area. This was during the 6th and 7th centuries. After all this Slavic shifting the area became part of the Bulgarian Empire that arose to challenge Constantinople as a power in the region. But, the Byzantine Empire flexed their muscles and wrenched control of the region back from the Bulgarians.

The Kosovars however were not easily managed and had a penchant for bucking under Byzantine rule. They bounced back and forth allying themselves with Serbian rules and Bulgarian ones so long as they didn't have to pay homage to the Eastern Emperors. Finally this culminated in the powerful but short-lived Serbian Empire. It's patently unfair to call them short-lived but they're in roughly the same region as their contemporaries the Byzantines. Every one seems short-lived compared to them no? But, under the Serbian Empire, Kosovo became the spiritual center of the Serbian Kingdom. It was under this point in Kosovo history that the famous Battle of Kosovo pitted the Serbs against the burgeoning Ottoman Empire. The Serbs and Kosovars fought valiantly and decimated the Ottoman Army. Unfortunately the Serbs were also decimated and unlike the Ottomans did not possess massive reserves of fighting men to the east. Eventually because of the lack of manpower the Serbian Empire and thus, Kosovo would become part of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.

The Ottomans brought many changes, especially the Islamic faith. Ethnic Serbs clung to Christianity but their neighbors the ethnic Albanians generally converted. (This is of course an over simplification but for the sake of brevity one that must be made). This created a tinderbox effect and would have extremely long and devastating consequences. In the late 19th century and early 20th century nationalism was added to the already present religious tensions of the region. Muslim Albanians fought against the Ottoman Empire for more autonomy while many Christian Serbs wanted out. As Kosovo had both of these parties the place was on eggshells to say the least. Then, World War I broke out. Eventually out of the ashes, Yugoslavia would take over the area once owned by the now defunct Ottoman Empire.

The confusing and muddled history of Kosovo continued into the Yugoslavian days as Yugoslavia moved from monarchy to communist state. Many parts of Yugoslavia got their own their own special status as a Socialist Republic within the nation. Serbia was one of them, but Kosovo (inside the SR Serbia) got its own autonomous position as a province. This kept tensions high and as Yugoslavia began to disintegrate Serbia tried to assert its authority over much of the dying nation. Slobodan Milosevic rose to power and in basic response to this Kosovo first declared itself a separate socialist republic within Yugoslavia and then its own independent state. This led to war in the 1990's that witnessed some horrific atrocities and ethnic cleansing in the war between primarily Muslim Albanians and the Christian Serbs. For much of the 1990's Kosovo called itself the Republic of Kosova, but it was only internationally recognized by Albania. In 2000 the region became controlled by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, the status which Serbia still recognizes it. But, The Republic of Kosovo declared its independence from both the UN and Serbia in 2008.

And that is a brief, probably far too brief, but basic understanding of where Kosovo stands in Modern European History. Unfortunately the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia seems to be still brewing under the surface. Just yesterday a story emerged that Serbia was blocking Kosovo in the neutral buffer zone because Serbia was unhappy with the commercial goods moving north out of Kosovo. It is minor incidents like these that could lead to a further escalation of the long standing crisis that could erupt into another confusing and unfortunately bloody war, rife with ethnic and religious divisions.

A very brief history of Modern Abkhazia

The next few weeks of Podcasts (which I think I said would start on Sunday, but our episode days will be Fridays not Sundays, that way every one will have something to look forward to) will be focusing on the end of the Prehistoric period and moving into a bit more of the historical period. Of course, it's not the historical period per se, but we'll be entering into the Bronze Age and have a much better trove of information to draw on. However, this week on the Blog we're going to be focusing on some of the "states" of Europe that are either not fully recognized internationally or are dependencies of other nations with enough amounts of autonomy to warrant a Label by this humble Blog. We'll start with Abkhazia.

Abkhazia is located in the Northwestern corner of Georgia. I say this because Georgia feels that Abkhazia is part of its territory, not because I am backing up Georgia's claim to the territory. I'm neither backing it or denying it. But, Abkhazia is only recognized by a number of nations as being its own state, three tiny island nations in the Pacific, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Russia. Russia's recognition of Abkhazia caused Georgia to claim that Abkhazia is a "Russian occupied territory". Tensions between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia have been at a boiling point since the break up of the Soviet Union. In a war from 1992-93 after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Abkhazia went to war with Georgia. The result of the war was a victory to the Russian and Armenian backed Abkhazia over Georgia. During and after the war 200,000 - 250,000 ethnic Georgians living within the territory of Abkhazia were either killed or forced into mass exodus in what has been labeled an ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia. In 1998 some ethnic Georgians within Abkhazia started a guerrilla war against Abkhazia that officially lasted for about six days, but continued into the early 2000's.

I wondered if this conflict was limited to Modern European History or if it had deeper roots. I researched to find more information on this breakaway region and scantly recognized state. The origin of the Abkhaz people is somewhat disputed, as could be guessed because of the ongoing conflict. The 1st Century Greek writer Strabo labeled the primary group living in the current region of Abkhazia as the Zygii. But in the late 8th century a kingdom popped up on the map known as the Kingdom of the Abkhazes when it gained independence from the Byzantine Empire. It lasted for a little over a 120 years before being married into and absorbed by the larger medieval Kingdom of Georgia. The Georgians and Abkhaz people seemed to get along well enough in the early medieval period because they teamed up against the Seljuk Turks and expelled them from the Georgian lands. However, by the 15th century, when the Kingdom of Georgia erupted into the civil war that would be its eventual downfall, the Principality of Abkhazia, a Georgian feudal entity, sided against Georgia. Abkhazia would go on to become a relatively autonomous part of the Ottoman and the Russian empires before becoming a full fledged part of the Russian Empire in 1864.

But it was under the Soviets when things flared up again to take a turn for the worst. During the Soviet era Abkahzia was under the dominion of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Many of the Abkhazia elite became dismayed at the "Georgianization" of Abkhazia and demanded to be transfered from Georgian dominion to Russian dominion as many as three times, in 1957, 1967 and again in 1978. This seems to be a continuing strife that ripples through the Northern Caucus regions as both South Ossetia (another Georgian breakaway region) and Abkhazia continue to look toward Russia as Georgia begins to look increasingly westward. So, there you have it, a very brief history of the modern Abkhazia and its historical reference points.

On this day in history the death of Jan Frans de Boever

Jan Frans de Boever was a Flemish painter, born in Belgium. He passed away today 63 years ago in 1949 for the mathematically challenged. He was an incredibly self-absorbed man, considering himself the best Belgian painter ever. Considering that Belgium has produced incredible artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens de Boever might have been full of other things other than himself. While, Jan Frans de Boever was incredibly talented and I do enjoy his work, his egotistical behavior alienated himself from most of his peers and he became reclusive.

In his reclusiveness and self-absorption he created his own style that was pretty, how to say it nicely... dirty. He painted morbid paintings of prostitutes and scantily clad women as objects of evil. Considering he was probably spurned by numerous women in his loneliness, his depiction of them as lustful temptresses using men as toys might be a bit of sour grapes. However, his best work were his depictions of Charles Baudelaire's erotic poems Les Fleurs du Mal. He created them for an exclusive client who paid him handily. The last few decades of his life were lived out in America. Considering he died nearly 70 years ago he probably looks a bit like this painting here below nowadays.