Creation of the state of Syria. Archaeological sites of Palmyra

Plan
Introduction
1 Prehistoric period
2 In the shadow of ancient civilizations
3 Aram
4 Under the scepter of the eastern kings
5 Ancient period
6 Medieval history
7 Ottoman period
8 Greater Syria Project
9 French Mandate
10 Modern Syria
References

Introduction

This article is devoted to the history of Syria.

1. Prehistoric period

About 10 thousand years BC. e. Syria became one of the centers of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, where cattle breeding and agriculture appeared for the first time in the world. The subsequent Pre-Pottery Neolithic B is characterized by the rectangular houses of the Mureybet culture. During the pre-ceramic Neolithic era, local residents used vessels made of stone, gypsum and burnt lime. Finds of obsidian originating in Anatolia indicate ancient trade relations.

During the late Neolithic and early Bronze Ages, the cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role.

Damascus is located in the center of the Ghouta oasis, stretching from north to south for 25 km, and from west to east - 16 km. The first mention of it is known around 2500 BC. e. although archaeological excavations show that the urban population lived here already in the 4th millennium BC. e. In addition to farming, local residents have been engaged in trade since ancient times. This was facilitated by the city's extremely advantageous location - on the edge of the Eastern Desert, near two navigable rivers, at the point where roads diverged to the west, south, and east. In this regard, Damascus played an important role throughout the centuries-old history of Syria.

2. In the shadow of ancient civilizations

In the 3rd millennium BC. On the territory of Syria there was a Semitic city-state of Ebla, which was part of the circle of Sumerian-Akkadian civilization. It inherited the traditions of the Neolithic revolution, writing in cuneiform. The Amorites were harassing from the south, and the Hurrians were advancing from the north. Subsequently, the Amorite state of Yamhad was formed on the territory of Syria, which was put to an end by the invasion of the Hittites. In the 17th century, in the zone of interaction between the Indo-Europeans (Hittites) who invaded from the Balkans and the Mesopotamian civilizations, local Hurrian tribes formed the state of Mitanni. In the 15th century BC Syria is invaded by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose I.

One of the brightest eras of its early history was the X-VIII centuries BC. e., when, after the aggressive campaigns of kings Reason I and Tab-Rimmon, the city of Damascus became the center of the powerful Aramaic kingdom, which soon made it the hegemon of all Syria. This dominant position continued under their descendants. At the beginning of the 9th century. BC e. Tab-Rimmon's son, Ben-Hadad I, fought with the kingdom of Israel, and seized part of northern Galilee from the Israelites. But a few decades later, the hegemony of Damascus began to be threatened by the rapidly growing Assyrians. They first collected tribute from the rulers of Syria in 859 BC. e. In order to more successfully resist the enemy, the local rulers decided to combine their forces. The son of Ben-Hadad I, Ben-Hadad II, managed to create a powerful anti-Assyrian alliance, which included the kings of Hamat, Israel, Arvad, Aman and some others. In 854 BC. e. A fierce battle took place under the walls of the city of Karkara, on the banks of the Orontes River. It was very bloody, but ended in vain. Some time later, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III again invaded Syria, besieged Damascus, but was unable to take it.

However, the coalition of Syrian and Palestinian rulers, dangerous for the Assyrians, did not last long. Soon between the Israeli king Ahab and Ben-Hadad II (bib. Venadad) the war began. At the Battle of Rimot-Gilead in 850 BC. e. The Israelites were defeated and Ahab was killed (2 Kings 22:35). Then in 843 BC. e. Ben-Hadad II himself also died - one of his close associates, a certain Ghazael, taking advantage of the fact that the king was sick, strangled him with a blanket and seized power himself. In 834 BC. e. The 120,000-strong Assyrian army approached Damascus for the second time. King Shalmaneser III of Assyria discovered that the Syrians had taken up positions on Mount Senir, one of the mountain peaks of Lebanon, and were entrenched there. The Assyrians managed to defeat the Syrian army, and Hazael himself was forced to flee to Damascus. The Assyrians surrounded the city and cut down the groves in its surroundings. Shalmaneser III was able to capture large booty, but he failed to take the city this time too.

Hazael, king of Syria(2 Kings 15:22), was able to retain the throne after the departure of the Assyrians, and some time later began a war with the Israelites. The Syrians were lucky and actually managed to turn the Israeli king Jehoahaz into a vassal. But in 802 BC. e. The Assyrians again attacked Syria. Adadmerari III, who led the campaign, finally managed to defeat the Syrians and capture their capital Damascus. The Assyrians then captured huge booty and completely plundered the city. Hazael had to recognize himself as a vassal of Assyria. But he was again able to retain the throne and ruled until 796 BC. e. The son of Hazael, Ben-Hadad III, fought several times with the Israeli king Jehoash, but everything seemed to be unsuccessful - the Israelis took back all the previously lost cities from the Syrians. Jehoash's son, Jeroboam II continued to push Damascus, and even capture vast Syrian territories, which may have included the entire Bekaa Valley.

4. Under the scepter of the eastern kings

The next Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser III, decided to expand the borders of his state, and with this goal began to conduct conquests in a western direction (that is, towards Syria). In 739 BC. e. Assyrian troops managed to take Arpad. In 738 BC e. they also captured 19 more Syrian cities. Under these conditions, the Syrian rulers forgot about their strife and rallied around the new Damascus king Reason II. The Syrians' ally was the king of Israel, Pekah, as well as the kings of Gaza and Edom. But the forces of the Syrians were clearly inferior to Assyria. In 734 BC e. Tiglath-pileser III conquered Israel, and in 733 BC. e. The Assyrians took Damascus. The city was severely destroyed. The power of the Syrians was undermined. King Reason II was captured and executed by the Assyrians, his kingdom became an Assyrian province. After this, most of the Aramaic population was forcibly resettled in the interior of Assyria.

The Assyrians were replaced by the Chaldeans and then the Persians.

5. Ancient period

After the Battle of Issus, Alexander the Great, instead of pursuing Darius, moved to Syria. Parmenion captured the entire convoy of the Persian army in Damascus, and Alexander himself occupied Phenicia. Thus, in 332 S. became part of the Macedonian kingdom. After the death of Alexander Vel. S. first belonged to Antigonus, who lost his kingdom and life at the Battle of Issus (301). Syria fell to Seleucus Nicator, under whom it reached its highest development; the borders of the Syrian state reached the Oxus (now Amu Darya) and the Indus. Seleucus and his son Antiochus founded a number of Hellenistic cities (Seleucia on the Tigris, Seleucia on the Orontes, Antioch, etc.). These newly founded cities became the main instrument of mixing nationalities, religion, language and culture, since their inhabitants consisted of Macedonians, Greeks and natives. Seleucus's successors were not able to maintain dominance over the vast territory; in their hands from the beginning of the 2nd century. BC there was only one S. left. In 83, Tigran, the king of Armenia, conquered S., expelled the last Seleucids and annexed the remnants of the Syrian kingdom to his state.

In 64, after Pompey's victory over Mithridates and Tigranes, S. became a Roman province, and Judea was annexed to it. The Roman proconsuls tried their best to control Syria. Antioch soon became the most important city in the province of Asia and the third city of the entire Roman Empire; Since Antioch was located inland, the city of Seleucia Pieria served as a harbor for it. Both in Antioch and in the rest of S., the educated strata of society still spoke Greek and retained Greek morals and customs. S. constantly suffered from Parthian invasions. With the weakening of the Roman Empire, the Palmyra kingdom appeared on the territory of Syria. Under the Eastern Roman emperors, S. fell more and more and finally became the prey of the Saracens.

6. Medieval history

In 635, S. was devastated and then conquered by the Arabs, who converted a significant part of the Aramaic population to Islam. In 660-750, when Damascus served as the residence of the caliphs, Syria's well-being began to rise again, but with the decline of the Damascus Caliphate, the country became poorer. The Crusades made Northern the theater of continuous military conflicts for 2 centuries. The Principality of Antioch was formed here. In 1187, the Egyptian Sultan Saladin conquered S. from the Crusaders.

In 1260, the declining Ayyubid state was attacked by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan, who captured Aleppo and Damascus, but was stopped by Mamluk forces led by Sultan Qutuz at the Battle of Ain Jalut in northern Palestine.

7. Ottoman period

Syria was under Egyptian rule until its conquest in 1517 by Ottoman Sultan Selim I. Under the Ottomans, Syria was divided into 4 provinces led by governors who were directly subordinate to the Istanbul administration. In the 18th century, French influence increased in Syria. Napoleon's soldiers landed on the coast. In 1833, the Egyptian khedive Megemet-Ali conquered S., but in 1840, due to the intervention of European powers, he was forced to return S. back to Turkey. In the late 1850s and early 1860s. Bloody feuds broke out between the Druze and the Maronites, which required the sending of a French corps and ended with the founding of a semi-autonomous Maronite region in Lebanon. The development of industrial society in Europe contributed to the decline of local crafts and the penetration of European capital.

8. Greater Syria Project

From Europe, through the Young Turk movement, ideas of nationalism penetrate into Syria, which acquire a pan-Arab overtones. During World War I, Arabs mainly from the Hejaz participated with the British in liberating Syria from the Ottomans. When the Arab army led by Faisal ibn Hussein entered Damascus in October 1918, it was greeted as a liberator. The city was declared the seat of an independent government for all of Syria, which was perceived as a revival of the Damascus Caliphate. Faisal I went to a conference in Paris in 1919, trying in vain to achieve recognition of the rights of the Hashemite dynasty to rule the Arab East. Returning to Syria, he declared himself king of Syria, convened twice pan-Arab congresses in Damascus, and drafted a constitution in 1920. He did not take into account that Great Britain, behind his back, agreed to give Syria to France in exchange for abandoning the oil-rich Mosul region.

Translation for – plagioclase

Britain provided the Arabs with military assistance, promising complete independence at the end of hostilities. On May 6, 1916, dozens of Syrian national leaders were hanged by Turkish authorities in Damascus and Beirut.

In Lebanon and Syria, this day is still remembered as “Martyrs’ Day.” Arab armies led by the Sherif of Mecca, Hussein, soon achieved victory over the Turks, and in early 1918, Arab-British forces occupied Damascus, ending four centuries of Turkish occupation.

Later in 1918, King Faisal I, the son of Sherif Hussein, declared Syria an independent kingdom. However, France and Britain had their own plans. In the Sykes-Picot Agreement they divided the Middle East into French and British "spheres of influence". Syria ended up in French territory. In early 1920, French troops landed on the Syrian coast and, after several battles with poorly equipped Syrian units, took control of the country. In 1923, the League of Nations officially recognized the French mandate over Syria.

The Syrians decided to resist the new invaders. In 1925 they rebelled against French rule. Several clashes occurred in Jabal al-Arab province and Damascus. As a result of French air raids that followed in response to support for the rebels, the capital suffered significant damage. In 1936, France nevertheless granted partial independence to Syria by signing an agreement in Paris, while the French army remained on Syrian territory and continued to exert political influence.

During World War II, part of the occupying forces supported the Vichy government, which entered into an alliance with Germany, while others sided with Britain. In 1941, the British army and its French allies occupied the country, promising Syria complete independence after the war.

However, the French again broke their word. The Syrians rebelled again, and on May 29, 1945, French troops attacked the Syrian parliament building in Damascus, causing further outrage and further demonstrations. The UN Security Council, having considered the issue, adopted a resolution demanding the complete withdrawal of French troops from Syria. The French were forced to submit - the last French soldier left Syria on April 17, 1946. This day has become a national Syrian holiday.

The first years of independence were characterized by political instability. In 1948, the Syrian army was sent to Palestine to, together with the armies of other Arab states, confront the newly formed Israel. The Arabs were defeated and Israel occupied 78 percent of the area of ​​historical Palestine. In July 1949, Syria became the last Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel. However, this was only the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In 1949, the national Syrian government was overthrown in a military coup led by Hussni Al-Zaim. Later that year, Al-Zaim himself was overthrown by another military man, Sami Al-Hinnawi. A few months later, Hinnawi was overthrown by Colonel Adib Al-Sheshekli. Seshekli ruled the country until 1954, when growing public discontent forced him to relinquish power and leave the country.

Syria was again led by a national government, which had to face external problems. In the mid-1950s, against the backdrop of strengthening Soviet-Syrian friendship, relations between Syria and the West noticeably deteriorated. In 1957, Türkiye, a staunch US ally and NATO member, massed its troops on the Syrian borders, threatening Syria with military invasion.

The threat from the West was also one of the reasons for the unification of Syria and Egypt into the United Arab Republic under the leadership of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in February 1958. Nasser agreed to the unification subject to the dissolution of all Syrian political parties. This was one of many reasons that led to the collapse of the United Arab Republic on September 28, 1961, as a result of a bloodless military coup in Damascus.

On March 8, 1963, as a result of a coup called the “March Revolution,” the Arab Socialist Party — “Baath” — took power in Syria. Baath supporters dissolved parliament and introduced a one-party regime, which also did not achieve stability due to contradictions within Baath itself. In February 1966, the right wing of Ba'ath achieved leadership in the party, proclaiming the radical Salah Jadid as its national leader.

In the spring of 1967, serious military clashes took place on the border of Syria and Israel. In April, Israeli officials openly threatened Syria with a military invasion. These threats, along with other important events, were the cause of Israel's Six-Day War with neighboring Arab countries. On June 5, 1967, Israel launched an attack on the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, as well as on the West Bank of the Jordan River. Then, on June 10, Israeli forces attacked the Golan Heights, which belonged to Syria. As a result of two days of fighting

Syria lost a strategic region, including the most important city of Quneitra. On June 11, at the request of the UN, the warring parties stopped hostilities. Later in 1967, the UN Security Council adopted the famous Resolution 242, demanding the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied territories occupied during the Six Day War in exchange for peace negotiations and Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist.

On November 16, 1970, Hafez Al-Assad, who served as Minister of Defense, led the “Correction Movement,” which brought stability and security to Syria after a long turbulent period. Assad, elected president by an overwhelming majority in 1971, began preparing his country to fight for lost territory. He united the country's major political forces into the Progressive National Front and revived the People's Council (parliament).

The Syrians did not waste time. On October 6, 1973, Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack on Israeli forces in the Sinai and Golan Heights. Within a few days, Syrian troops managed to almost completely liberate the occupied territories, however, thanks to the American “air bridge”, the Israelis managed to recapture their positions. Syria soon found itself alone against the United States and Israel. Given the cessation of hostilities on the Egyptian front, the Syrians agreed with the UN peace initiatives. The Security Council issued a new resolution - 338, demanding that Israel withdraw troops from Arab territories, as well as conduct peace negotiations in order to achieve calm in the Middle East.

For obvious reasons, the Syrians were not happy with this outcome of events. In early 1974, they began a war of attrition with Israeli forces in the Golan Heights. The tenacity and moral superiority of the Arabs forced the United States to resolve relations between Syria and Israel. Through the mediation of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an agreement was reached to end hostilities between Syrian and Israeli troops in the Golan Heights.

In accordance with the agreements reached, Syria regained control over part of the Golan Heights, including the large city of Quneitra. President Assad raised the Syrian flag over the liberated lands on June 26, 1974, but the Syrians were unpleasantly surprised to discover that Quneitra and many other settlements in the Golan Heights had been deliberately destroyed by the Israelis. The city was never restored. In order to prevent violation of the truce, UN forces were stationed between the positions of the Syrian and Israeli armies.

In 1975, the Lebanese civil war began. In 1976, at the request of the Lebanese government, Syrian troops entered Lebanon. In 1982, Lebanese forces resisted the Israeli military invasion with full-scale combat operations on the ground and in the air. In 1990, Syria and its Lebanese allies ended a 15-year civil war, and Syrian troops remained in Lebanon to maintain peace and security.

In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat signed a separate peace agreement with Israel, dealing a major blow to Arab unity. Syria was among other Arab countries that condemned Sadat's decision. According to Assad, to achieve peace, the Israelis only needed to return the territories occupied in 1967.

In 1980, Iraq started a war against Iran. Earlier in 1979, Islamic revolutionaries in Iran broke their alliance with the West and declared support for Palestine. Syria condemned the war as ill-timed and misdirected. Few Arab countries shared the Syrian position. In August 1990, two years after the end of a fruitless and bloody war against Iran, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, a small Arab Gulf country, causing a wave of condemnation around the world.

Syria took part in the actions of the international coalition led by the United States to protect Saudi Arabia and liberate Kuwait. The Gulf War that followed these events ended with the defeat of Iraq and the imposition of harsh international sanctions on it. Another large Arab state was actually knocked out of the conflict with Israel.

After the Gulf War, Syria, at the invitation of the United States, took part in an international conference on the Middle East. The conference, held in Madrid in November 1991, marked the beginning of bilateral Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. The basis for the negotiations was a UN resolution demanding that Israel give up the territories it occupied in 1967 under the so-called “territory for peace” formula. However, these negotiations were frozen for many years due to Israel's refusal to part with any Arab territories. The Arab position was further weakened when the Palestinians and Jordanians signed a separate peace with Israel in 1993 and 1994.

Syria and Lebanon, however, have vowed to sign peace deals only together, or not at all. Syria continued to support Lebanese resistance fighters led by Hezbollah against occupying Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. In May 2000, Hezbollah managed to liberate southern Lebanon from 22 years of Israeli presence.

Syrian-Israeli peace talks stalled in 1996 when Israel refused to discuss the full liberation of the Golan Heights. At the end of 1999, Israel expressed its desire to resume negotiations. They continued in the United States with the participation of Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sahar and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Negotiations stalled again in 2000 when Barak tried to exclude the eastern shore of Lake Tiberis from the agreement. Syria made it clear that it would not give up a single inch of its land.

On June 10, 2000, President Assad died of a heart attack. On July 10, his son, Bashar Al-Assad, was elected president of Syria.

2. Ancient civilizations in Syria

Sumerian colonies

Today we will talk about the first civilizations, the actual civilizations that existed on the territory of Syria, that is, formations that had statehood, writing, developed urban life, and about the origins of the geographical and cultural of these formations, where they actually came from in Syria .

Here we can talk about two trends at once, which, in principle, are always relevant when talking about a particular civilization. This is an autochthonous tendency that explains the emergence of local centers by purely local characteristics, local traditions, local efforts, and the idea of ​​introduction, the concept of introducing civilization, introducing culture from the outside, when a more developed area transmits its values, its codes to local external cultures.

In a sense, we can say that the ancient Syrian civilization, this Syrian subcivilization, if you like, was largely, on the one hand, autochthonous, local origin, on the other hand, the Sumerians played a huge role in its formation.

Sumerian culture existed in southern Mesopotamia. It developed from the turn of the 5th-4th millennium BC. Actually, the period is called Uruk, Jemdet-Nasr, and a later formation, in fact, partly coinciding with Jemdet-Nasr is the civilization of Kish, also a Sumerian center, located just north of Uruk. And it was from Southern Mesopotamia that a very interesting transmission of their own identities further to the north began already in the 4th millennium.

It had two aspects, two components. Firstly, it was a physical, in the literal sense of the word, resettlement of part of the Sumerian population up the Euphrates, and, secondly, it was the introduction by the Sumerians of their culture, which was perceived by the local population. I will also say more about the linguistic character of the local population. For now, I want to dwell on the fact that already in the 4th millennium, proto-urban and urban centers began to emerge on the middle reaches of the Euphrates, which in many ways can be considered as a kind of cultural colonies, and sometimes physical colonies of the Sumerians.

First of all, I would like to say about such a center as Jebel Aruda and Habuba Kabira, South Habuba Kabira, which were located on the territory of modern Syria along the Euphrates. And these are, perhaps, the most western centers in which Sumerian culture was traced in the 4th millennium BC. These centers were not long-term. They fell into decline relatively quickly. As early as 3200 BC. they cease to exist, but simultaneously with them or a little later, Sumerian colonies arose along the Khabur River. It is a tributary of the Euphrates, which also flows into the Euphrates from the north, moving from the northern foothills.

And just at the origins of Khabur there were several interesting cultural centers. One of them is called Tel Baydar. Tel Baydar is the modern name. It is located in the province of Hasakah, in Syria, in the governorate of Hasakah, in the territory of the Syrian Republic. Presumably it was called Nabada at one time, but this is a very conditional, tentative name. It is impossible to definitively say with confidence that this is his authentic name.

And another very important center is Tel Brak, in the same province of Hasakah. It was called Nagar or Navar a little later and was also located in the upper reaches of Khabur. These two centers are very interesting because here there was a meeting of the ancient Sumerian culture with local peoples, the local non-Sumerian language, and an interesting original culture with a strong Sumerian influence in all spheres was formed. These were still non-literate centers, since among the Sumerians themselves, writing in the full sense of the word appeared only at the very end of the 4th millennium BC, already at the turn of the Uruk and Kish periods. And these centers of northern Syria were still cultures that did not have their own written language.

From Sumerians to Semites

I would like to say a few words about the ethnic or, more precisely, linguistic character of the population of these areas. Sumerian is an isolate. To date, it does not show any obvious connections with the languages ​​of other families and groups. And during this period in the north, northwest, he interacted with languages ​​that we can more or less identify genetically.

Firstly, these are Semitic languages, and Semitic languages ​​exist to this day and have a rich written tradition, and secondly, these are Hurrian languages. The Hurrian languages ​​are a branch of a certain common, apparently Hurrian-Urartian group. Their genetic relationships are controversial. There is a hypothesis that Starostin proposed at one time about the kinship of the Hurrito-Urartian languages ​​with the Vainakh languages, but today this hypothesis raises objections among a number of linguists.

Here are the three main linguistic communities that then operated in Mesopotamia, Northern Mesopotamia and Syria. Syria in this sense is very curious, because here, one might say, a kind of stripe of literally Hurrian and Semitic settlements arose, and a very intense cultural exchange took place. And yet we can talk about a dominant tendency towards the assimilation of the Hurrians by the Semites. This process took several thousand years, and gradually the Hurrians in this territory completely disappeared, the local population completely switched to the languages ​​of the Semitic group.

Here I would like to draw the attention of our listeners to a very interesting moment in the history of ancient and modern Semites. This area, modern Syria and further up to the borders of Egypt, the Palestinian-Jordanian region, is in many ways a unique territory in which the local cultural, linguistic and written tradition has not been interrupted since approximately 2500 BC. That is, we can say that this is perhaps the only region on the planet in which such linguistic and cultural stability is maintained. If we look at ancient China or India, the states of ancient America, or even more so modern Europe, we will see that all the peoples who today have their own statehood and written tradition here all appeared here relatively late.

The ancient Semites, who were also, apparently, migrants from some of their ancestral homelands, where it is a separate and very complex topic, but be that as it may, we can say that from about the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. on the territory of the Levant, that is, from the border of Turkey to the border of modern Egypt, there is a stable Semitic-speaking community that maintains its linguistic identity, which has a written and political tradition since very ancient times.

There is such a funny saying that Damascus is the most ancient capital on earth, the operating capital of a functioning state. Naturally, Damascus had its periods when it was not the capital, but indeed we can say that in this sense Damascus is a very interesting place. This is truly one of the most ancient central cities of the Semites. But Damascus was, of course, not the first Semitic center.

Ebla city

And here it is necessary to say a few words about such a significant Semitic center located in Northern Syria, which is called Ebla. Ebla is a very interesting city. Its ancient population is very difficult to establish linguistically. The city appeared there, apparently, or a proto-urban formation in about 2900 BC, that is, at the very beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. And Ebla has its own development cycles, its own, so to speak, periodization system.

The oldest period of Ebla is the pre-literate period, from approximately 2900 to 2400, give or take 100 years, that is, this is the period when the local population did not yet have a written language. When writing appears, it appears again, of course, under the influence of the Sumerian cuneiform script, and, apparently, Ebla is a unique center in this sense, since it was here that, apparently, the adaptation of an alien writing system for its own language was first carried out , that is, the writing system that the Sumerians created, Sumerian cuneiform for the local Semitic language.

Similar actions in Elam or Akkad can be roughly correlated in time with these cultural transformations in Ebla, but still, apparently, Ebla is slightly ahead of both Akkad and Elam in this sense. Moreover, it must be said that Elam had its own writing system. The Elamites used their own linear script, and before that there was still a proto-Elamite script, the bearers of which could hypothetically also be identified with the Elamites, but this is a separate topic.

So, in this sense, Ebla is a unique center, but it is also surprising in that a huge local archive has been preserved there. Archive - again, depending on how we count the monuments that have come down to us, we can talk about about 20,000 fragments of clay tablets that contain written information, and of these 20,000 fragments, about 1,800 represent complete texts. This is the earliest example of Semitic writing to date, and this archive allows us to imagine the history of this region from the middle to at least the 3rd millennium BC. and up to later periods, although it must be said that the bulk of the Ebla archive covers a fairly short period of time, from about 2400, as I said, give or take 100 years, until 2200, when Ebla was destroyed by another Semitic center, Akkad .

Contemporary events in Syria have a tragic impact on the possibility of continuing the study of ancient cultural monuments. The fact is that Ebla is located not far from the city of Aleppo, the same Aleppo around which tragic fighting is now taking place, 50 kilometers from it to the southwest, to Idlib (this name is also popular now), in fact, in this governorate, in Idlib, not far from this city.

In addition to the fact that this system of borrowing Sumerian writing for its own language arises in Ebla, Ebla, apparently, is today the first center in which dictionaries were created: dictionaries that made it possible to make translations from language to language, that is from the language spoken by the local Semitic population into Sumerian. The language of the population of Ebla is a subject of debate in the scientific community. That is, the dominant point of view today is that it was an East Semitic, not a West Semitic language.

Semitic languages ​​are divided into East and West Semitic. Accordingly, the East Semitic languages ​​are the languages ​​of the ancient Akkadians, and the Western Semitic languages ​​were the languages ​​of Canaan, the ancient Hebrews, and ancient Ugarit. The language of Ebla is very interesting in this sense, and it also contains elements of West Semitic languages. And there is even a hypothesis that, perhaps, the language of the local population, namely the spoken, everyday language of the local population, was West Semitic, and the language of written monuments, the Ebloite language itself, represents a kind of lingua franca phenomenon of that period, which later, for example, played the Aramaic language in the same region. That is, it is a language that allowed the Semitic population of the region to communicate without problems in this language, which was understood in Akkad, and in Ebla, and in Northern Mesopotamia, and in the centers located between Ebla and Akkad.

City of Marie

Actually, one of these centers, which is located between Ebla and Akkad, is also worth mentioning separately. This is the city of Marie. Today, its ruins are located on the territory of modern Syria, right on the border between Syria and Iraq, on the Euphrates.

It is located next to the city of Abu Kamal, which was called the last capital, the last center of the so-called “Islamic State” (Banned in Russia - Ed.). And, in fact, the final military actions are taking place there right now between his opponents and this very state. And just in this place are the ruins of the ancient city of Mari.

The ancient city of Mari arose, apparently, again under the strong cultural influence of the Sumerians, who moved from south to north and founded their colonies here. And Mari may have been the point at which not only the Semites and Sumerians met, but also representatives of that very other people or group of peoples, the Hurrians, who in ancient times inhabited a very vast region of Mesopotamia and Syria. As I already said, it was not only Syria, but also the territory that is now commonly called Iraqi Kurdistan. But even more than that, Hurrian settlements apparently moved even further south and captured the banks of the Euphrates. And just this distance from the Syrian-Iraqi border and right up to modern Baghdad was probably inhabited by Hurrian tribes mixed with Semites who intensively migrated to this territory, apparently from the Arabian Desert, and Sumerians moving from the south , insignificant in quantitative terms, but very significant in cultural terms.

Mari experienced several tragic destructions during its existence, and since it was located on important caravan trade routes between Sumer and Syria, control of this center was naturally extremely important. Therefore, its history is a history of constant conflicts with Nagar, with Ebla, with Akkad, in which this center ultimately died. The written sources that have been preserved, that have been found, are the archives of this city. It also covers, as in the case of Ebla, a very insignificant period, from about the 19th century BC. until the 17th century BC

And again, it is the Semitic language that dominates here both officially and in everyday life, and Sumerian cuneiform is used to record it. But what is most interesting is that Mari is, apparently, today the first point chronologically in which actual Hurrian texts were discovered, that is, this is approximately the 19th, maybe the 18th century BC, and the Hurrians who were not the leading socio-political group in Mari, while they could already create here their own written tradition, their own written culture. The Hurrians, like the local Semitic population, used Sumerian writing, that is, cuneiform was such a universal system for transmitting information throughout this region, and the Hurrians borrowed Sumerian cuneiform and actively used it. Since the Hurrians occupied a vast territory in Western Asia, this cuneiform script spread further to the north, and they recorded their original literary works, which have partially reached us.

Akkad and Sargon of Akkad

As you already understand, the history and culture of the territories and states that were located on the territory of modern Iraq were closely connected with the history and culture of Syria. Here we are talking not only about the Sumerians, but also about, perhaps, the most famous Semitic-speaking state of antiquity, about Akkad, or, as it is also called, Akkad and one of the most famous rulers of this state and, in general, in principle, the ancient Semitic world, Sargon of Akkad.

Sargon, or as his name is sometimes reconstructed as Sharrumken, Sharrukin, was apparently of humble origin. And there is even a famous legend about Sargon, who is caught in the river as a baby, similar to the legend about Moses. And this Sargon was able to become the ruler of a small center at first, the city of Akkad, which was located in the center of modern Mesopotamia, apparently, where the Tigris and Euphrates in the Mesopotamian lowland come as close as possible to each other in the middle reaches, that is, this is approximately the region of Baghdad modern. Where ancient Akkad was located is not completely known. This city has not yet been found. And I think that if it is ever found, it will provide historians with an absolutely incredible amount of information.

Sargon rose to power at the end of the 24th century BC, and his reign was relatively long. It also covered the first half of the 23rd century BC, that is, apparently, he ruled for about 50 years, like some of our modern dictators. And during this period, he launched the broadest expansion in all directions. In some cases, this expansion may not be clearly documented. But in other cases, where he led attacks, for example, on Mari or on Ebla, this is confirmed in written and archaeological sources. And it was Sargon who was credited with subjugating Mari, and his heir Naram-Sin, or Naram-Suen, with the capture and destruction of Ebla.

And, in fact, from this time, this happens around the middle of the 23rd century BC, the fall of Ebla, the build-up of this rich local archive stops, and a period of, in a sense, decline of this center begins. Mari managed to survive, although it was subjugated by Sargon, but the rise of Sargon's dynasty was short-lived, and already around the 22nd century BC, perhaps closer to its end, Mari regained its independence. The turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. seems very interesting in many ways, because new states are emerging and old formations are collapsing. As one of the ancient chronicles says, their dominion passes from people to people. And, in fact, here it is necessary to say about the formation in the 2nd millennium BC. new centers of power.

New centers of power of the 2nd millennium BC.

First of all, these are the Hittites in Asia Minor, Mitanni in Northern Mesopotamia and Egypt, who begin expansion in a northern direction. That is, we can say that Syria was more an object than a subject of international relations of that time, that is, Syria was a region into which neighboring states tried to extend their dominion. At that time, she herself did not lay claim to the role of a self-sufficient hegemon, which was trying to extend its control to adjacent areas. And what this is connected with is a very complex question, but it is clear that there is interest in Syria as a place where trade and economic lines converge, running from north to south, from Asia Minor to Egypt and from east to west, that is, from Mesopotamia to coast of the Mediterranean Sea, made Syria a stumbling block, a bone of contention, a region for which there was a fierce struggle. And already in 2000 BC. Ebla was once again captured and destroyed, apparently by Hurrian conquerors who moved from the north, but who did not create their own state here. And the centers that were located in Mesopotamia grew already during this period.

One of these centers was Babylon, where a dynasty ruled, its brightest representative being Hammurabi. And it was Hammurabi who was the ruler who destroyed the state of Mari in the 18th century BC. The power of the Babylonian state did not extend further during that period, but in the 18th and 17th centuries, a new state formation, very interesting, took shape on the territory of Northern Mesopotamia.

This is Mitanni. This was the state of Hanigalbat, as the Semites called it. It was a Hurrian state primarily in language, but its dynasts bore Indo-European names. This is a very unusual phenomenon, unique, one might even say, the presence of Indo-Europeans. Moreover, one can even talk about the proximity of their culture to the Indo-Aryans, and not to the Iranians. And this dynasty existed in Northern Mesopotamia, was Hurrian, as I already said, in language, but retained this interesting Indo-European substrate and related to the Indo-Aryans.

Perhaps they were somehow related to the peoples of another group, that is, modern Dards or modern Nuristanis by language. Perhaps their culture was directly related to the Indo-Aryans. It is very difficult to say now, because no coherent monuments in this Mitannian Indo-European language have reached us. Some terms have reached us, personal names have reached us, mentions of some Indo-Aryan gods have reached us, but coherent texts have not reached us. Therefore, in fact, this phenomenon of Mitannian Aryan culture is a big mystery in history, which may still be waiting for its researcher, an archaeologist who will be able to find, perhaps someday, archives with the local Aryan language.

And the territory of Syria has become an object of struggle between several states since about the 18th century. These are primarily Mitanni, which moves from the northeast, Egypt, which is trying to extend its power from the south, and the Hittite state, which moves from the northwest. Here Syria turns out to be the site of a clash between three states, three forces trying to subjugate it. During this period, several small entities arose here (Yamhad in the north, Qatna in the south of modern Syria), and these states became objects of pressure from aggressive neighbors.

Ancient Hittites

A few words need to be said here about the ancient Hittites. They are a people of Indo-European origin, Indo-European in language. The Hittites adopted Mesopotamian culture very early. Firstly, it was Akkadian writing. Already at the very beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Colonies of Semitic Assyrian merchants appeared on the territory of Asia Minor, who left behind written monuments, the so-called Cappadocian tablets. These are precisely the monuments of the Akkadian language.

And the second element that the Hittites actively assimilated was the culture of the Hurrians, who in turn also actively accepted the Mesopotamian cultural tradition. And the literature of the Hurrians, the pantheon of the Hurrians, had a very great influence on the Hittites. And as the Hittites moved into the territory of the Hurrians, that is, into the territory of Northern Syria and Northern Mesopotamia, they entered into this cultural exchange with the Hurrians and borrowed a lot from them.

And here, in principle, we can talk about a certain civilizational integrity of all these formations: the Sumerians, who had already disappeared by about 2100-2000 BC, the Semites, the Hurrians, the Hittites. These are peoples who are united by a powerful artistic layer, the origins of which are in Sumerian art, and, of course, cuneiform, which was borrowed by all these peoples. And thus, we can say that the Sumerians were a kind of epicenter of a civilization that spread far to the north and northwest of southern Mesopotamia proper.

The emergence of alphabetic writing

Another interesting phenomenon is associated with the territory of ancient Syria, from which the culture of all subsequent humanity largely stems. We are talking about alphabetic writing. It is very difficult to say where and when the first alphabet appeared. There is a hypothesis that ancient alphabetic systems arose under the influence of Egypt, and not cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics.

And there are examples of Sinaitic writing that date back to quite early times. This is approximately XIX-XVIII BC. The Sinai letter has not been deciphered, that is, apparently, it is a Semitic letter, but it has not yet been possible to decipher it. And in addition to the Semitic writing, texts were discovered on the territory of modern Egypt, in the desert east of the Nile, with even more ancient monuments, which have also not yet been deciphered and which, apparently, are the earliest examples of proto-alphabetic writing.

The classical consonantal alphabetic script is Canaanite and Phoenician. But a few words still need to be said about the writing of Ugarit. It also appears around the 18th century BC, apparently, although there are more moderate dates that place it at the 16th-15th centuries. The Ugaritic script is interesting because it was cuneiform in appearance, but only in appearance. Structurally, it was precisely the consonantal alphabet, that is, a completely different writing system. As some distant analogue, one can recall Persian cuneiform, because Persian writing was syllabic, but at the same time used cuneiform characters, that is, the principle of writing was completely different, although outwardly it was very reminiscent of Sumerian cuneiform.

Ugaritic writing did not develop for several reasons. Partly because Ugarit was the only coastal center of the Levant that did not withstand the blow of the Sea Peoples. In about 1200 or 1180, in this interval, it was destroyed by these same peoples of the sea. Moreover, a letter from the local ruler has been preserved, which he addresses to one of his, apparently, overlords, asking for help, in which he says that only five ships of these attackers are approaching his city. That is, apparently, these raids were not so massive, but they were distinguished by their persistence and consistency, and, apparently, this is what destroyed a number of territories in Northern Syria.

Ashur, Damascus and Babylon

Actually, the invasion of the peoples of the sea is associated with the so-called collapse of the Bronze Age, with the catastrophe of the Bronze Age, which occurs during this period, when many old centers are destroyed, the Hittite state falls, Ugarit ceases to exist and the rise of new states occurs. One of such states is Assyria, ancient Ashur. At one time, Ashur was a center inhabited by Hurrians. It survived the period of Mari's dominance, apparently, but then there was a gradual Semitization of the population. The people learn the Akkadian language and create their own state.

One of the first victims of Ashur's expansion was Mitanni, which was destroyed, apparently, in the 14th century BC. or in the middle of the 13th century. This dating is possible. And from this period begins the era of Assyrian invasions, Assyrian hegemony, and Assyria managed for many centuries to maintain the very ominous Pax of Assyrica in the territory from the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates up to the Egyptian borders. The history of Assyria is quite well known. We will not dwell on it in detail. We will only say that one of the victims of Assyrian expansion on the territory of modern Syria was the Damascus state, the Damascus kingdom.

The kingdom of Damascus is a Western Semitic state, Aramaic in language, and the time of its origin is a matter of debate. The fact is that the texts of the Bible tell us about the existence of the Kingdom of Damascus, but there are no other sources in which its emergence could be dated, for example, to the 10th century BC. And Damascus appears in other sources much later. And at the end of the 8th century BC. Damascus was captured by the Assyrians and brought under their rule. Actually, around the same period, in 722 BC, Assyria destroys the northern Jewish state, the Kingdom of Israel, with its capital in Samaria.

Assyrian dominance over the region ends with the rise of New Babylon and Media, and Northern Syria in 605 BC. comes under the control of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom.

Nabu-kudurri-usur, Nebuchadnezzar II, defeated the Egyptians in 605 BC. at Carchemish. This is also an interesting center, which is located on the Euphrates, on the border of modern Turkey and Syria. The Egyptians tried, taking advantage of the weakening of Assyria, to extend their power far to the north, all the way to Asia Minor, once again, but this attempt was defeated thanks to the efforts of the new hegemon from Mesopotamia, the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. And the year 605 is the milestone when the territory of the Levant comes under the control of Babylon. And the next milestone is the year 539, when a new state, a new powerful conqueror from the East, the Persian state of the Achaemenids, having captured Babylon, subjugates these provinces.

Encroachments of Egypt

Egypt was very interested in extending its power to the territory of the Levant, and Egyptian pharaohs made invasions of this territory from about the 18th century BC, perhaps even earlier, and this also gave rise to retaliatory actions. For example, the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, which was apparently predominantly Semitic in nature. And the Hyksos managed to capture Lower Egypt and establish their dynasty here. XVIII dynasty of Egypt in the 16th century BC. expels the Hyksos, and from that time on the heyday of Egypt's military expansion in the northern direction began, but, however, not only in the northern direction. The Egyptian pharaohs of the 18th dynasty also made many campaigns in Nubia.

But the successes of this dynasty in the conquest of Syria were, in general, unprecedented, because the troops of Thutmose III reached the territory of modern Turkey, to the middle reaches of the Euphrates. And when the Egyptians saw the Euphrates, they were amazed that the great river flowed from north to south, because for the Egyptians this was extremely unusual, since the Nile flows from south to north. And the Euphrates was called by the Egyptians “inverted water”, “inverted river”.

But Egyptian dominance in this region was unstable. The Egyptians did not try to impose their administrative structure here. They adhered to the principle of maintaining local dynasts and levying tribute or carrying out regular raids. Besides this problem, there was another one. Egypt's rival in this territory was the Mitannian power and the Hittite power. And the Hittites, who were able to defeat Mitanni, and, taking advantage of the weakening of Egypt under Akhenaten, who carried out religious reform in the 14th century, they began to actively move further south.

And this advance of the Hittites into the zone that Egypt had always considered its sphere of influence led to a clash, and this happened already during the 19th dynasty, the famous Battle of Kadesh, about which evidence has been preserved from both the Hittites and the Egyptians.

And the records of Ramses II, who commanded the Egyptian army, speak of his great victory over the enemy, but from the results of this conflict it is obvious that the Hittites were able to keep the territory of Northern Syria under their control, and the domination of the Egyptians took place somewhere precisely in the southern regions of modern Syria , that is, all of Northern Syria remained in the zone of influence of the Hittites. This Battle of Kadesh, one of the most documented battles of antiquity, also takes place on the territory of the modern Syrian Republic.

Literature

1. Ancient Ebla (Excavations in Syria). Comp. and input P. Matthieu. General ed. and closing article by I. M. Dyakonov. M., 1985.
2. Kovalev A.A. Mesopotamia before Sargon of Akkad. The most ancient stages of history. M, 2002.
3. N.V. Kozyreva. Essays on the history of Southern Mesopotamia in early antiquity (VII millennium BC - mid-II millennium BC). St. Petersburg, 2016.
4. Kornienko T.V. The first temples of Mesopotamia. Formation of the tradition of religious construction on the territory of Mesopotamia in the preliterate era. St. Petersburg, 2006.
5. Marie. Grater // Source study of the history of the Ancient East. M., 1984. P. 96-102.
6. Correspondence from the royal archive of Marie // History of the Ancient East. Texts and documents. M., 2002. pp. 197-201.
7. Saiko E.V. The oldest city. Nature and genesis (Middle East. IV-II millennium BC). M., 1996.
8. Finkelstein I., Zilberman N. “The Unearthed Bible.” A new look at archeology / Transl. from English T. Svitlyk, Y. Klimenkovsky, Arseny Enin.
9. Hassan Hassan. The ancient city of Mari (problems of historical and archaeological study) // Vita Antiqua, 2, 1999. pp. 45-52.
10. Shifman I. Sh. Culture of ancient Ugarit (XIV-XIII centuries BC). M., 1987.

, Vilayet of Aleppo, Vilayet of Beirut)

History of Syria- history of the territory in which the Syrian Arab Republic is located. About 10 thousand years BC. e. Syria became one of the centers of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, where cattle breeding and agriculture appeared for the first time in the world. In the 3rd millennium BC. e. On the territory of Syria there was a Semitic city-state of Ebla, which was part of the circle of Sumerian-Akkadian civilization. One of the brightest eras of its early history was the X-VIII centuries BC. e., when, after the conquests of kings Reason I and Tab-Rimmon, the city of Damascus became the center of the powerful Aramaic kingdom, which soon became the hegemon of all Syria. In 739 BC. e. Assyrian troops managed to take Arpad. In 738 BC. e. they also captured 19 more Syrian cities. Under these conditions, the Syrian rulers forgot about their strife and rallied around the new Damascus king Reason II. After the Battle of Issus, Alexander the Great, instead of pursuing Darius, moved to Syria. Parmenion captured the entire convoy of the Persian army in Damascus, and Alexander himself occupied Phenicia. Thus Syria in 332 BC. e. became part of the Macedonian kingdom.

In 635, Syria was devastated and then conquered by the Arabs, who converted a large part of the Aramaic population to Islam. In the years 660-750, when Damascus served as the residence of the caliphs, the welfare of Syria began to rise again, but with the decline of the Damascus Caliphate, the country became poorer. In 1260, the declining Ayyubid state was attacked by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan, who captured Aleppo and Damascus, but was stopped by Mamluk forces led by Sultan Qutuz at the Battle of Ain Jalut in northern Palestine. Syria was under Egyptian rule until its conquest in 1517 by Ottoman Sultan Selim I. Under the Ottomans, Syria was divided into 4 provinces led by governors who were directly subordinate to the Istanbul administration. During World War I, Arabs (mostly from the Hejaz) participated with the British in liberating Syria from the Ottomans. When the Arab army led by Faisal ibn Hussein entered Damascus in October 1918, it was greeted as a liberator. In 1920, France received a mandate to rule Syria in San Remo and began an offensive from the coast to the east with its 60,000-strong army. Soon the French entered Damascus and expelled Faisal with his 8 thousand army.

On April 17, 1946, Syria gained complete independence from France. In 1958, Syria attempted to unite with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic. In 1973, Hafez al-Assad became the head of the republic. After the death of Hafez al-Assad, his son, Bashar al-Assad, became president of Syria. In 2011, an uprising broke out in Syria.

Prehistoric period

About 10 thousand years BC. e. Syria became one of the centers of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, where cattle breeding and agriculture appeared for the first time in the world. The subsequent Pre-Pottery Neolithic B is characterized by the rectangular houses of the Mureybet culture. During the pre-ceramic Neolithic era, local residents used vessels made of stone, gypsum and burnt lime. Finds of obsidian, originating in Anatolia, indicate ancient trade relations. Settlement of Tell Halula (en:Tell Halula) IX-VIII millennium BC. e. in northern Syria had an area of ​​8 hectares. A DNA study of the inhabitants of Tell Halul and Tell Ramad in southern Syria showed that the first European settlements were founded by residents of the Middle East.

During the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, the cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role.

Aram

One of the brightest eras of its early history was the X-VIII centuries BC. e., when, after the conquests of kings Reason I and Tab-Rimmon, the city of Damascus became the center of the powerful Aramaic kingdom, which soon became the hegemon of all Syria. This dominant position continued under their descendants. At the beginning of the 9th century. BC e. Tab-Rimmon's son, Ben-Hadad I, fought with the kingdom of Israel and seized part of northern Galilee from the Israelites. But a few decades later, the hegemony of Damascus began to be threatened by the rapidly growing Assyrians. They first collected tribute from the rulers of Syria in 859 BC. e. In order to more successfully resist the enemy, the local rulers decided to combine their forces. The son of Ben-Hadad I, Ben-Hadad II, managed to create a powerful anti-Assyrian alliance, which included the kings of Hamat, Israel, Arvad, Aman and some others. In 854 BC. e. A fierce battle took place under the walls of the city of Karkara, on the banks of the Orontes River. It was very bloody, but ended in vain. Some time later, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III again invaded Syria, besieged Damascus, but was unable to take it.

However, the coalition of Syrian and Palestinian rulers, dangerous for the Assyrians, did not last long. Soon between the Israeli king Ahab and Ben-Hadad II (bib. Venadad) the war began. At the Battle of Rimot-Gilead in 850 BC. e. The Israelites were defeated and Ahab was killed (2 Kings). Then in 843 BC. e. Ben-Hadad II himself also died - one of his associates, a certain Ghazael, taking advantage of the fact that the king was sick, strangled him with a blanket and seized power himself. In 834 BC. e. The 120,000-strong Assyrian army approached Damascus for the second time. King Shalmaneser III of Assyria discovered that the Syrians had taken up positions on Mount Senir, one of the mountain peaks of Lebanon, and were entrenched there. The Assyrians managed to defeat the Syrian army, and Hazael himself was forced to flee to Damascus. The Assyrians surrounded the city and cut down the groves in its surroundings. Shalmaneser III was able to capture large booty, but he failed to take the city this time too.

Antique period

French Mandate

In 1920, France received a mandate to rule Syria in San Remo and began an offensive from the coast to the east with its 60,000-strong army. Soon the French entered Damascus and expelled Faisal with his 8,000-strong army. In accordance with the Franco-Turkish Treaty on October 20, 1921, the Alexandretta Sanjak was allocated as a special autonomous administrative unit within the French mandate, since, in addition to Arabs and Armenians, a significant number of Turks lived there. On September 7, 1938, the State of Hatay was formed in northwestern Syria on the territory of the Alexandretta Sanjak, which was annexed by Turkey on June 29, 1939. After the Revolt of 1925-27, France was forced to make concessions on issues of local government, and in 1932 Syria was declared a republic (with the retention of the French mandate).

Modern Syria

Syria received complete independence from France on April 17, 1946, which is celebrated as Evacuation Day. The first president was the head of the colonial administration, Cuatli. The emergence of the State of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent Arab-Israeli War led to an acute political crisis. In 1949, three military coups replaced three dictators in Syria: Husni al-Zaim, Sami al-Hinnawi ( English) and Adib al-Shishakli. In 1958, Syria attempted to unite with Egypt, resulting in the formation of the United Arab Republic.

Syria, with its 15 million population, after an unsuccessful attempt at unification with Egypt, as a result of a coup in 1963, found itself under the rule of the leaders of the Baath Party (Arab Socialist Renaissance Party). In the Baath, the nationalist faction with an orientation towards total socialism, close to the Soviet model, quickly gained the upper hand. The socialist emphasis in the economy was soon softened, but this was followed by a military coup in 1966. The course towards strengthening the role of the public sector in the economy was continued. The main opposition to the Baath were Islamists. In 1976-1982, mass protests organized by Islamists and terrorist struggle against the Baath took place in the country, called the Islamic uprising.

The 1969 Constitution defined Syria as a democratic, people's, socialist republic with a planned economy, with private property limited by law. On November 16, 1970, as a result of a military coup, President Salah Jadid was overthrown, and Hafez al-Assad, whose rule was actually a dictatorship, became the president of the republic in 1971. The obvious Soviet bias of the Syrian leadership was balanced by nods towards Islam. The Arab-Israeli wars in and 1973 contributed to an increase in the role of Syria in the general confrontation.

During the reign of Hafez al-Assad, Syria sought to limit Israeli influence in the region. The Syrian Golan Heights came under Israeli control, but Syria’s almost complete political control over Lebanon, established during the civil war in that country, became a kind of “compensation” for this loss. This came to an end when Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon.

After the death of Hafez al-Assad, his son, Bashar al-Assad, became president of Syria.

Bashar al-Assad's policy is more soft and flexible compared to his father. He agreed to withdraw Syrian troops from Lebanon and even agreed to cooperate with UN investigators suspecting Syrian intelligence services in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

According to an article by K. Kapitonov, even before the 2003 Iraq War, bypassing the UN Security Council ban, Syria participated in supplying weapons to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Russia (2008), the USA, the EU, Israel and France accused Assad of providing logistical support to paramilitary groups opposed to Israel (Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad), recognized as terrorist organizations in a number of countries around the world.

Write a review about the article "History of Syria"

Notes

not a fire spotter, but VKS officer Alexander Parkhomenko.

Literature

• Bickerman E. Seleucid State / Transl. from French L. M. Gluskina. - M.: Science, Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature, 1985. - 264 p.
• Woolley Leonard. Forgotten Kingdom / Trans. from English E. N. Samus. - M.: Science, Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature, 1986. - 168 p.: ill. - Series “In the footsteps of the disappeared cultures of the East”.
• Grushevoy A. S. Essays on the economic history of Syria and Palestine in antiquity (1st century BC - 6th century AD). - St. Petersburg: Nestor-History, 2013. - 392 p. - Series “Historical Library”. - ISBN 978-5-90598-803-5
• Ancient Ebla (Excavations in Syria) / Comp. and an introduction by Pierre Matthieu. Ed. I. M. Dyakonova. - M.: Progress, 1985. - 368 p.: ill.
• Zablotska Julia. History of the Middle East in antiquity (from the first settlements to the Persian conquest). - M.: Science, Main Editorial Board of Oriental Literature, 1989. - 416 p. - Series “In the footsteps of the disappeared cultures of the East”. - ISBN 5-02-016588-3
• Matveev K. P., Sazonova A. A. Five lives of ancient Suri. - M.: Young Guard, 1989. - 188 p.: ill. - “Eureka” series.
• Pigulevskaya N.V. Culture of the Syrians in the Middle Ages. - M.: Science, Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature, 1979. - 272 p.: ill. - Series “Culture of the Peoples of the East”.
• Smirnov S.V. State of Seleucus I (politics, economics, society). - M.: Russian Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Science; Dmitry Pozharsky University, 2013. - 344 p.
• Tseren Erich. Biblical Hills / Transl. with him. N.V. Shafranskaya. Ed. D. P. Kallistova. - M.: Science, Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature, 1966. - 480 pp.: ill. - Series “In the footsteps of the disappeared cultures of the East”.
• Tsirkin Yu. B. History of biblical countries. - M.: Astrel, Transitbook, 2003. - 576 p. - Series “Classical Thought”. - ISBN 978-5-17-018173-6
• Shifman I. Sh. Syrian society of the era of the Principate (I-III centuries AD). - M.: Science, Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature, 1977. - 310 p.: ill.
• Shifman I. Sh. Ugaritic Society (XIV - XIII centuries BC) - M.: Nauka, Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature, 1982. - 392 pp.: ill.
• Shifman I. Sh. Culture of ancient Ugarit (XIV-XIII centuries BC). - M.: Science, Main Editorial Office of Oriental Literature, 1987. - 236 p.: ill.

Links

Excerpt characterizing the History of Syria

Princess Marya postponed her departure. Sonya and the Count tried to replace Natasha, but they could not. They saw that she alone could keep her mother from insane despair. For three weeks Natasha lived hopelessly with her mother, slept on an armchair in her room, gave her water, fed her and talked to her incessantly - she talked because her gentle, caressing voice alone calmed the countess.
The mother's mental wound could not be healed. Petya's death took away half of her life. A month after the news of Petya’s death, which found her a fresh and cheerful fifty-year-old woman, she left her room half-dead and not taking part in life - an old woman. But the same wound that half killed the countess, this new wound brought Natasha to life.
A mental wound that comes from a rupture of the spiritual body, just like a physical wound, no matter how strange it may seem, after a deep wound has healed and seems to have come together at its edges, a mental wound, like a physical one, heals only from the inside with the bulging force of life.
Natasha’s wound healed in the same way. She thought her life was over. But suddenly love for her mother showed her that the essence of her life - love - was still alive in her. Love woke up and life woke up.
The last days of Prince Andrei connected Natasha with Princess Marya. The new misfortune brought them even closer together. Princess Marya postponed her departure and for the last three weeks, like a sick child, she looked after Natasha. The last weeks Natasha spent in her mother’s room had strained her physical strength.
One day, Princess Marya, in the middle of the day, noticing that Natasha was trembling with a feverish chill, took her to her place and laid her on her bed. Natasha lay down, but when Princess Marya, lowering the curtains, wanted to go out, Natasha called her over.
– I don’t want to sleep. Marie, sit with me.
– You’re tired, try to sleep.
- No no. Why did you take me away? She will ask.
- She's much better. “She spoke so well today,” said Princess Marya.
Natasha lay in bed and in the semi-darkness of the room looked at the face of Princess Marya.
“Does she look like him? – thought Natasha. – Yes, similar and not similar. But she is special, alien, completely new, unknown. And she loves me. What's on her mind? All is good. But how? What does she think? How does she look at me? Yes, she is beautiful."
“Masha,” she said, timidly pulling her hand towards her. - Masha, don’t think that I’m bad. No? Masha, my dear. How I love you. We will be completely, completely friends.
And Natasha, hugging and kissing the hands and face of Princess Marya. Princess Marya was ashamed and rejoiced at this expression of Natasha’s feelings.
From that day on, that passionate and tender friendship that only happens between women was established between Princess Marya and Natasha. They kissed constantly, spoke tender words to each other and spent most of their time together. If one went out, then the other was restless and hurried to join her. The two of them felt greater agreement among themselves than apart, each with herself. A feeling stronger than friendship was established between them: it was an exceptional feeling of the possibility of life only in the presence of each other.
Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes, already lying in bed, they began to talk and talked until the morning. They talked mostly about the distant past. Princess Marya talked about her childhood, about her mother, about her father, about her dreams; and Natasha, who had previously turned away with calm incomprehension from this life, devotion, humility, from the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now, feeling herself bound by love with Princess Marya, fell in love with Princess Marya’s past and understood a side of life that was previously incomprehensible to her. She did not think of applying humility and self-sacrifice to her life, because she was accustomed to looking for other joys, but she understood and fell in love with this previously incomprehensible virtue in another. For Princess Marya, listening to stories about Natasha’s childhood and early youth, a previously incomprehensible side of life, faith in life, in the pleasures of life, also opened up.
They still never spoke about him in the same way, so as not to violate with words, as it seemed to them, the height of feeling that was in them, and this silence about him made them forget him little by little, not believing it.
Natasha lost weight, turned pale and became so physically weak that everyone constantly talked about her health, and she was pleased with it. But sometimes she was suddenly overcome not only by the fear of death, but by the fear of illness, weakness, loss of beauty, and involuntarily she sometimes carefully examined her bare arm, surprised at its thinness, or looked in the mirror in the morning at her elongated, pitiful, as it seemed to her , face. It seemed to her that this was how it should be, and at the same time she became scared and sad.
Once she quickly went upstairs and was out of breath. Immediately, involuntarily, she came up with something to do downstairs and from there she ran upstairs again, testing her strength and observing herself.
Another time she called Dunyasha, and her voice trembled. She called her again, despite the fact that she heard her steps, called her in the chest voice with which she sang, and listened to him.
She didn’t know this, she wouldn’t have believed it, but under the seemingly impenetrable layer of silt that covered her soul, thin, tender young needles of grass were already breaking through, which were supposed to take root and so cover with their life shoots the grief that was crushing her that it would soon not be visible and not noticeable. The wound was healing from the inside. At the end of January, Princess Marya left for Moscow, and the Count insisted that Natasha go with her in order to consult with doctors.

After the clash at Vyazma, where Kutuzov could not restrain his troops from the desire to overturn, cut off, etc., the further movement of the fleeing French and the Russians who fled after them, to Krasnoye, took place without battles. The flight was so fast that the Russian army running after the French could not keep up with them, that the horses in the cavalry and artillery became weak and that information about the movement of the French was always incorrect.
The people of the Russian army were so exhausted by this continuous movement of forty miles a day that they could not move faster.
To understand the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army, you only need to clearly understand the significance of the fact that, having lost no more than five thousand people wounded and killed during the entire movement from Tarutino, without losing hundreds of people as prisoners, the Russian army, which left Tarutino numbering one hundred thousand, came to Red in the number of fifty thousand.
The rapid movement of the Russians after the French had just as destructive an effect on the Russian army as the flight of the French. The only difference was that the Russian army moved arbitrarily, without the threat of death that hung over the French army, and that the backward sick of the French remained in the hands of the enemy, the backward Russians remained at home. The main reason for the decrease in Napoleon's army was the speed of movement, and the undoubted proof of this is the corresponding decrease in Russian troops.
All of Kutuzov’s activities, as was the case near Tarutin and near Vyazma, were aimed only at ensuring, as far as was in his power, not to stop this movement disastrous for the French (as the Russian generals wanted in St. Petersburg and in the army), but assist him and facilitate the movement of his troops.
But, in addition, since the fatigue and huge loss that occurred in the troops due to the speed of movement appeared in the troops, another reason seemed to Kutuzov to slow down the movement of the troops and to wait. The goal of the Russian troops was to follow the French. The path of the French was unknown, and therefore the closer our troops followed on the heels of the French, the greater the distance they covered. Only by following at a certain distance was it possible to cut the zigzags that the French were making along the shortest path. All the skillful maneuvers that the generals proposed were expressed in the movements of troops, in increasing the transitions, and the only reasonable goal was to reduce these transitions. And Kutuzov’s activity was directed towards this goal throughout the entire campaign, from Moscow to Vilna - not by accident, not temporarily, but so consistently that he never betrayed it.
Kutuzov knew not with his mind or science, but with his whole Russian being, he knew and felt what every Russian soldier felt, that the French were defeated, that the enemies were fleeing and it was necessary to see them out; but at the same time, he felt, along with the soldiers, the full weight of this campaign, unheard of in speed and time of year.
But to the generals, especially not Russians, who wanted to distinguish themselves, to surprise someone, to take some duke or king prisoner for something - it seemed to the generals now, when every battle was disgusting and meaningless, it seemed to them that now was the time fight and defeat someone. Kutuzov only shrugged his shoulders when, one after another, he was presented with plans for maneuvers with those poorly shod, without sheepskin coats, half-starved soldiers, who in one month, without battles, had melted to half and with whom, under the best conditions of ongoing flight, it was necessary to go to the border the space is larger than that which was traversed.
In particular, this desire to distinguish itself and maneuver, overturn and cut off was manifested when Russian troops encountered French troops.
So it happened near Krasnoye, where they thought to find one of the three columns of the French and came across Napoleon himself with sixteen thousand. Despite all the means used by Kutuzov in order to get rid of this disastrous clash and in order to save his troops, for three days Krasny continued to finish off the defeated gatherings of the French with the exhausted people of the Russian army.
Toll wrote the disposition: die erste Colonne marschiert [the first column will go there then], etc. And, as always, everything was done not according to the disposition. Prince Eugene of Wirtemberg shot at the fleeing crowds of Frenchmen from the mountain and demanded reinforcements, which did not come. The French, running around the Russians at night, scattered, hid in the forests and made their way further as best they could.
Miloradovich, who said that he did not want to know anything about the economic affairs of the detachment, which could never be found when he was needed, “chevalier sans peur et sans reproche” [“knight without fear and reproach”], as he called himself , and eager to talk with the French, sent envoys demanding surrender, and lost time and did not do what he was ordered.
“I give you guys this column,” he said, driving up to the troops and pointing to the cavalrymen at the French. And the cavalrymen on thin, tattered, barely moving horses, urging them on with spurs and sabers, at a trot, after great exertion, drove up to the donated column, that is, to a crowd of frostbitten, numb and hungry Frenchmen; and the donated column threw down its weapons and surrendered, which it had long wanted.
At Krasnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, hundreds of cannons, some kind of stick, which was called a marshal's baton, and they argued about who had distinguished himself there, and were happy with that, but they very much regretted that they did not take Napoleon or at least some hero, Marshal, and reproached each other and especially Kutuzov for this.
These people, carried away by their passions, were blind executors of only the saddest law of necessity; but they considered themselves heroes and imagined that what they did was the most worthy and noble thing. They accused Kutuzov and said that from the very beginning of the campaign he had prevented them from defeating Napoleon, that he only thought about satisfying his passions and did not want to leave the Linen Factories because he was at peace there; that he stopped the movement near Krasny only because, having learned about Napoleon’s presence, he was completely lost; that it can be assumed that he is in a conspiracy with Napoleon, that he is bribed by him, [Wilson's Notes. (Note by L.N. Tolstoy.) ], etc., etc.
Not only did contemporaries, carried away by passions, say so, but posterity and history recognized Napoleon as grand, and Kutuzov: foreigners as a cunning, depraved, weak old court man; Russians - something indefinable - some kind of doll, useful only because of its Russian name...

In 12 and 13, Kutuzov was directly blamed for mistakes. The Emperor was dissatisfied with him. And in history, written recently by order of the highest, it is said that Kutuzov was a cunning court liar who was afraid of the name of Napoleon and with his mistakes at Krasnoe and near Berezina deprived the Russian troops of glory - a complete victory over the French. [The history of Bogdanovich in 1812: characteristics of Kutuzov and reasoning about the unsatisfactory results of the Krasnensky battles. (Note by L.N. Tolstoy.)]
This is not the fate of great people, not grand homme, whom the Russian mind does not recognize, but the fate of those rare, always lonely people who, comprehending the will of Providence, subordinate their personal will to it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish these people for their insight into higher laws.
For Russian historians - it’s strange and scary to say - Napoleon is the most insignificant instrument of history - never and nowhere, even in exile, who did not show human dignity - Napoleon is an object of admiration and delight; he's grand. Kutuzov, the man who, from the beginning to the end of his activity in 1812, from Borodin to Vilna, without ever changing one action or word, shows an extraordinary example in history of self-sacrifice and consciousness in the present of the future significance of the event, – Kutuzov seems to them like something vague and pitiful, and when talking about Kutuzov and the 12th year, they always seem to be a little ashamed.
Meanwhile, it is difficult to imagine a historical person whose activity would be so invariably and constantly directed towards the same goal. It is difficult to imagine a goal more worthy and more consistent with the will of the entire people. It is even more difficult to find another example in history where the goal that a historical figure set for himself would be so completely achieved as the goal towards which all of Kutuzov’s activities were directed in 1812.
Kutuzov never spoke about the forty centuries that look out from the pyramids, about the sacrifices he makes for the fatherland, about what he intends to do or has done: he didn’t say anything about himself at all, didn’t play any role, always seemed to be the simplest and most ordinary a person and said the simplest and most ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and m me Stael, read novels, loved the company of beautiful women, joked with generals, officers and soldiers and never contradicted those people who wanted to prove something to him. When Count Rastopchin on the Yauzsky Bridge rode up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches about who was to blame for the death of Moscow, and said: “How did you promise not to leave Moscow without fighting?” - Kutuzov replied: “I will not leave Moscow without a battle,” despite the fact that Moscow had already been abandoned. When Arakcheev, who came to him from the sovereign, said that Yermolov should be appointed chief of artillery, Kutuzov replied: “Yes, I just said that myself,” although a minute later he said something completely different. What did he care, the only one who then understood the whole enormous meaning of the event, among the stupid crowd surrounding him, what did he care whether Count Rostopchin attributed the disaster of the capital to himself or to him? He could be even less interested in who would be appointed chief of artillery.
Not only in these cases, but constantly, this old man, who through life experience had reached the conviction that the thoughts and words that serve as their expression are not the motive forces of people, spoke completely meaningless words - the first ones that came to his mind.
But this same man, who so neglected his words, never once in all his activity uttered a single word that was not in accordance with the single goal towards which he was striving during the entire war. Obviously, involuntarily, with a heavy confidence that they would not understand him, he repeatedly expressed his thoughts in a wide variety of circumstances. Starting from the Battle of Borodino, from which his discord with those around him began, he alone said that the Battle of Borodino was a victory, and repeated this orally, and in reports, and reports until his death. He alone said that the loss of Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In response to Lauriston’s proposal for peace, he replied that there could be no peace, because such was the will of the people; he alone, during the French retreat, said that all our maneuvers were not needed, that everything would turn out better by itself than we wished, that the enemy should be given a golden bridge, that neither the Tarutino, nor the Vyazemsky, nor the Krasnenskoye battles were needed, what with what Someday you have to come to the border, so that he won’t give up one Russian for ten Frenchmen.
And he alone, this court man, as he is portrayed to us, the man who lies to Arakcheev in order to please the sovereign - he alone, this court man, in Vilna, thereby earning the disfavor of the sovereign, says that further war abroad is harmful and useless.
But words alone would not have proven that he then understood the significance of the event. His actions - all without the slightest retreat, were all directed towards the same goal, expressed in three actions: 1) strain all his forces to clash with the French, 2) defeat them and 3) expel them from Russia, making it as easy as possible disasters of the people and troops.
He, that slow-moving Kutuzov, whose motto is patience and time, is the enemy of decisive action, he gives the Battle of Borodino, dressing the preparations for it in unprecedented solemnity. He, that Kutuzov, who in the Battle of Austerlitz, before it began, said that it would be lost, in Borodino, despite the assurances of the generals that the battle was lost, despite the unprecedented example in history that after a won battle the army must retreat , he alone, contrary to everyone, maintains until his death that the Battle of Borodino is a victory. He alone, throughout the retreat, insists not to fight battles that are now useless, not to start a new war and not to cross the borders of Russia.
Now it is easy to understand the meaning of an event, unless we apply to the activities of masses of goals that were in the minds of a dozen people, since the entire event with its consequences lies before us.
But how then could this old man, alone, contrary to the opinions of everyone, guess, and then guess so correctly the meaning of the popular meaning of the event that he never once betrayed it in all his activities?
The source of this extraordinary power of insight into the meaning of occurring phenomena lay in the national feeling that he carried within himself in all its purity and strength.
Only the recognition of this feeling in him made the people, in such strange ways, from an old man in disfavor, choose him against the will of the tsar as representatives of the people's war. And only this feeling brought him to that highest human height from which he, the commander-in-chief, directed all his strength not to kill and exterminate people, but to save and take pity on them.
This simple, modest and therefore truly majestic figure could not fit into that deceitful form of a European hero, ostensibly controlling people, which history had invented.
There cannot be a great person for a lackey, because the lackey has his own concept of greatness.

November 5 was the first day of the so-called Krasnensky battle. Before the evening, when after many disputes and mistakes of generals who went to the wrong place; after sending out adjutants with counter-orders, when it became clear that the enemy was fleeing everywhere and there could not be and would not be a battle, Kutuzov left Krasnoye and went to Dobroye, where the main apartment had been transferred that day.

SYRIA. STORY
The modern Syrian state emerged after the First World War, when France received a mandate from the League of Nations to govern Syria and Lebanon, and Great Britain - Palestine and Transjordan. Until this time, the concept of Syria included all four of these countries plus small areas currently located in southern Turkey and northwestern Iraq. Thus, the history of Syria before the 1920s refers to a much larger territory, sometimes called Greater Syria, than the current lands of the country, whose own political history begins only from this time.
Ancient culture and history. Excavations in the area of ​​Tell Mardiha, immediately south of Aleppo, have shown that c. 2500 BC in this area was the capital of the rich and powerful state of Ebla. Its elected head and senate, composed of nobles, ruled northern Syria, Lebanon and part of northern Mesopotamia, with the main enemy being the kingdom of Mari, which existed in the Euphrates valley. Ebla conducted an active trade in wood, textiles and metal products with the small city-states of the Euphrates Valley and northern Persia, as well as with Cyprus and Egypt; Treaties of friendship were concluded between her and the Assyrian city of Ashur, in northern Mesopotamia, and the city of Hamazi, in northern Persia. In the 23rd century BC Ebla was conquered by Akkad, its capital was completely destroyed. Around 1760 BC the territory of Syria was included in Babylonia, and a century later it was conquered by the Hittites. In turn, the Hittites were challenged by the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, but his army was unable to capture Syria, losing around 1285 BC. defeat in the Battle of Kadesh (in the vicinity of modern Homs). Over the next century, the Jordan Valley was inhabited by ancient Jewish tribes, who soon began to fight the Philistines who inhabited the Mediterranean cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza. Around the same time, most of the Mediterranean coast came under the trade influence of the Phoenicians, and the Arameans conducted active overland trade with the Indian Ocean region. In the 9th century BC Syrian lands fell predominantly under the rule of the Assyrians. They, in turn, were subjugated by the Chaldeans, whose most famous ruler was Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylonia, who captured in 587 BC. Jerusalem. After 50 years, the Chaldean state was conquered by the Achaemenids, who continued their advance to the west and subjugated the main regions of Syria and Anatolia. After the campaign of Alexander the Great in the 4th century. BC Syria, under the Seleucid dynasty, enters the Hellenistic era. His influence affected primarily the nobility of the Syrian cities, which was Hellenized, and they themselves entered into rivalry with the cities of Asia Minor and Alexandria. Towards the end of the Seleucid era, several small kingdoms emerged in the region, such as the state of Israel created by the Maccabees. In the 1st century BC Syria was conquered by Rome. Over the next seven centuries it was an important province of first the Roman and then the Byzantine empires. The Syrians were famous in the Mediterranean for their traders, military leaders, scientists, jurists, priests and officials. The semi-Syrian Sevre dynasty ruled Rome for almost 40 years from 193 to 235 AD. Syria turned out to be the center of the formation and spread of Christianity: the Patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria were the oldest and most influential in the East until primacy passed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In the 3rd century. AD, as political fragmentation increased, various kingdoms and tribes fought for the possession of Syria in the Mediterranean zone. Some of these states, such as Palmyra, Edessa and Hatra, were Arab and had close political and economic ties with the Bedouins of Northern Arabia and Transjordan. First, Roman governors and then the kings of Sasanian Iran fought for the loyalty of the Arab leaders of southern Syria. When in the middle of the 6th century. The Byzantines began building new fortifications, the Sassanids launched a major retaliatory offensive, as a result of which Antioch was devastated. The war in southern Syria lasted 50 years and ended with the Persian capture of Jerusalem in 614. Sasanian generals ruled Syria until about 630, when the Byzantine Empire recaptured the region's largest cities and attempted to revive an alliance with the Bedouins of eastern Syria and northern Arabia. The intervention of the Byzantines in the affairs of the tribes inhabiting the areas bordering Syria became an obstacle to the spread of Islam from central Arabia and southern Iraq. The Islamic rulers of Mecca and Medina for a long time maintained good relations with the merchants of the Syrian cities of Bostra and Gaza, whose caravans transported grain and spices between Yemen and Transjordan. In order to secure these trade routes and persuade the southern Syrian Bedouins to accept Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, starting in 631, sent several expeditions to the desert areas around Damascus and Gaza. After all attempts to achieve a convincing victory over the Byzantines and their allied tribes ended unsuccessfully, the most talented Arab commander, Khalid ibn al-Walid, was transferred from southern Iraq to Damascus in 634. After victories at Ajnadayn, Fahl and Marj es-Suffar, his troops entered Bostra and Damascus, and in 635 they occupied Baalbek and Homs. However, the Byzantine army numbering approx. 100 thousand people, which also included Armenians, residents of Aleb and Antioch and Syrian Bedouins, launched a counter-offensive. In the fall of 636, she fought in a fierce battle near the Yarmouk River with significantly smaller Muslim forces, on whose side women also fought in this battle. The defeated Byzantines fled, and their victors recaptured Damascus and Homs. In 637, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem and Gaza, Aleppo, Antioch, Hama and the strategically important city of Qinnasrin surrendered to them. In the mountainous areas around Caesarea, Latakia, Tripoli and Sidon, resistance to the Muslims continued until the mid-640s.
First Muslim period. Even during the lifetime of the generation that conquered Syria, wealth, the level of development of crafts and the population of Syrian cities prompted supporters of Islam to move the center of the Islamic state to Damascus (from Mecca and Medina). Beginning in 661, when the ruler of Syria, Muawiyah, declared himself caliph, and until 750, Damascus remained the seat of the Umayyad dynasty and the capital of the Arab Caliphate. The Umayyad state was ruled by Syrians, both Muslims and Christians, and Syrian soldiers fought the forces of the Byzantine emperors. Arabic replaced Greek as the official language. However, elements of the Hellenistic heritage survived as the Arabs gradually adopted the culture, social organization and political system they encountered in the Syrian cities. In the 8th century. regional, religious and dynastic contradictions led to the fact that Damascus, and with it Syria, lost their importance. The Umayyads were replaced by the Abbasid dynasty, which made Baghdad its capital. The population of Syria has decreased, the wealth of local cities has faded. Over the next three centuries, amid relative poverty and political instability in the region, many Syrians converted to Islam. Arabic came into use, although Aramaic continued to be spoken in some remote villages. Christians, fearing for their safety, moved to the mountains in entire communities. With the beginning of the decline of the Abbasids, the northern borders of Syria became more vulnerable to attacks by the Byzantines. Small Muslim and Christian principalities arose in the region, which turned to Baghdad and Constantinople for help. Various heretical sects flourished, Shiism spread widely, becoming the basis of the teachings of the Alawites and Druze. From Egypt (the center of the Fatimid Ismailis), Persia (the center of the Assassins) and Mesopotamia, secret teachings penetrated, preaching revolutionary political, social, religious and philosophical views. The general intellectual potential of the country contributed to the creativity of poets and writers. At the Shiite Hamdanid court in Aleppo, the philosopher al-Farabi created treatises on the worldview of Plato and Aristotle, and wrote books on medicine, mathematics, occult sciences and music. At the same time lived the great Abul-Faraj al-Isfahani, the compiler of the anthology of Arabic poetry, the Book of Songs, which was called “the fundamental source for the study of fiction.” The largest representatives of Syrian culture of that era were the poets Abu-l-Ala al-Maarri and al-Mutanabbi. The first received particular fame for his Message of Forgiveness, many of the quatrains from which had a strong influence on the poetry of Omar Khayyam, and a number of experts believe that Dante’s Divine Comedy was written under the influence of this work. Al-Mutanabbi was a Hamdanid court poet whose flowery style still makes him the most popular classical poet of the Arab world.
Invasion of the Seljuk Turks. The period of the revival of Syria, which occurred in the 10th - early 11th centuries, was slowed down by the conquest of its interior regions by the Seljuk Turks, who came from Asia Minor and northern Mesopotamia. The tribes that invaded Syria were part of the huge Persian Seljuk power, but soon broke their vassal relations with it and created two independent states, with capitals in Damascus and Aleppo. The Seljuks never penetrated into southern Syria, which remained under local rulers such as the Tanukids or was a vassal of the Egyptian Fatimids. At the end of the 11th century, as a consequence of the invasion of the crusaders who arrived from Western Europe, further fragmentation and weakening of Syria occurred.
Crusades. At the end of the 11th century. European knights appeared in the country, landing in Antioch, and then at other points on the Mediterranean coast. By the beginning of the 12th century. Four crusader states were created on Syrian territory: the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Edessa. Following the Christians, the Seljuks rushed into the region. The governor of Mosul, Emir Maudud, prepared a campaign in northern Syria and in 1111 besieged Aleppo. Local Turkic and Arab leaders opposed the Seljuks, in particular the ruler of Damascus, who hired assassins to carry out raids on the Seljuks. However, with his death in 1128, cooperation between the city authorities and the Assassins ceased, and the new Emir of Mosul, Zengi, immediately invaded the northern regions of Syria and occupied Aleppo. After this, the Zengid dynasty, with the support of Kurdish cavalry hired as a striking force, under the pretext of the impending threat from the Crusader states, established its control over all of Syria. One of the Kurdish commanders, Salah ad-Din (Saladin), who became famous for his campaign in Egypt in the 1160s, after the death of Nur ad-Din ibn Zengi in 1174, became the head of the Zengid state and at the same time opposed the crusaders and the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq. In 1187, his troops defeated the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but were exhausted by the ensuing 3rd Crusade, led by Richard I, Philip II Augustus and Frederick I Barbarossa. Salah ad-Din's successors, the Ayyubids, retained control of the Syrian interior but were forced to fight bitterly against the Seljuk Sultanate of Konya in the north, the Crusader states in the west, and the various Turkic states that existed in the area of ​​Mosul and western Persia in the east. In 1260, the declining Ayyubid state was invaded by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan, who captured Aleppo and Damascus, but was stopped by Mamluk forces led by Qutuz at the Battle of Ain Jalut, in northern Palestine.
Mamluk rule. Immediately after the defeat of the Mongols, Qutuz was killed by Baybars, who assumed the title of Sultan and laid the foundation for the Mamluk dynasty, which ruled Egypt and Syria. During the 1260s, Baybars captured the most important of the remaining Ismaili strongholds in the Syrian mountains. At the end of the century, Sultan Ashraf Salah ad-Din Khalil captured the last Crusader fortresses on the Syrian Mediterranean coast. Already during the first century of Mamluk rule in Syria, an effective administrative system was created, trade was restored with both the East and the West, and the rise of crafts and agriculture began. Syria reached its greatest prosperity when it was ruled by Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalaun (1310-1341). But already under his immediate successors, as a result of the plague that swept through Syria and increased trade competition from the states of Anatolia and North Africa, the Mamluk power entered a period of relative decline, which opened the way for the Turkic-Mongol commander Timur (Tamerlane) to capture Aleppo and Damascus. Having occupied them for a short time in 1401, Timur began to resettle talented artisans from these cities to his capital Samarkand. Meanwhile, the Mamluk sultans in Cairo turned their attention to Arabia and the lands on the shores of the Red Sea, and northern Syria became the object of the claims of the Timurids, Ottomans and other Turks. By the end of the 15th century. The rivalry between the Mamluks, Ottomans and Iranian Safavids escalated into a real war. Taking advantage of the struggle that the Mamluks were forced to wage against the Portuguese, who were organizing raids in the Red Sea area, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Selim I easily conquered Syria in 1516.
Ottoman period. For the next four centuries, Syria was part of the sultanate and was ruled from Istanbul. Soon after the Ottoman conquest, it was divided into three provinces: Tripoli, Aleppo and Damascus, which included all the lands south of Damascus to the borders with Egypt. Later, several more provinces were created, including Sidon and Acre (modern Akka). Each province was headed by a pasha, who reported directly to the capital administration. Each pasha ruled his own territory with the help of local cavalry units and a cohort of civil and judicial officials who enjoyed a significant degree of independence. The order established in the region contributed to the revival of trade and production in the 16th century, but after 1600, as a result of the struggle that the authorities on the periphery, the central treasury in Istanbul and large trading houses began to wage among themselves, the economy began to deteriorate. The growth of Dutch and English trade in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean countries accelerated the decline of the Ottoman Empire's economy. In the 18th century Aleppo and Beirut have become the main trading centers of Syria; Colonies of European merchants were established in several cities (most of the trade with Europe passed through their hands). Missionaries, especially Franciscans and Jesuits, began to arrive in large numbers to work among local Christians. Contacts between missionaries and local authorities led to further stratification of Syrian society. Taking advantage of the situation, strong local clans broke away from the central Ottoman government. Internecine fighting intensified, and as a result of one such conflict, the defeated Druze sect moved to an isolated mountainous region southeast of Damascus, and the area itself was named Jabal ed-Druze. At the end of the 18th century. Most of southern Syria fell under the rule of the Pasha of Acre, Ahmad al-Jazzar, who attempted to modernize the administrative system and promote economic development. By the end of the 18th century. European powers began to actively intervene in the internal affairs of Syria, establishing their spheres of influence. Thus, the French supported the Maronites and other Syrian Catholics, the Russians declared their right to defend the Orthodox, and the British offered their friendship to the Druze. In 1798-1799, the troops of Napoleonic France, having failed to capture Egypt, landed on the Syrian coast. Al-Jazzar, with the help of the British fleet, managed to stop the French at Acre, forcing Napoleon to return to France. Syria's successes in developing industries of material production and trade attracted the attention of the powerful Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali, whose army invaded the country in the fall of 1831. The Egyptian military leader Ibrahim Pasha established centralized government surveillance of the Syrian economy. Commerce and agriculture continued to develop, but they were no longer controlled by the local nobility. Trade with Europe flourished, passing in particular through the port of Beirut. Imports of cheap British fabrics destroyed local textile crafts in Aleppo and Damascus, while increasing demand for olive oil, cotton and silk in European states and Egypt strengthened the position of Syrian Christian traders. Clashes between Egyptian troops stationed in Syria and Ottoman forces in Anatolia forced European powers to intervene in 1839 to maintain Ottoman authority in the Middle East. British and Ottoman agents encouraged the Druze to rebel against the Egyptian army. At the same time, the joint Anglo-Austrian fleet established a blockade of Beirut, which forced Ibrahim Pasha to withdraw his troops from the country in 1840. With the restoration of the power of the Sultan, Syria fell under the Anglo-Ottoman trade convention of 1838, which opened the imperial market for European goods. Their influx destroyed the main handicraft industries and prompted the city's merchants and nobles to begin actively purchasing agricultural land. The tendency for them to pass into the possession of townspeople who did not live on their estates intensified after 1858, when the Ottoman Empire passed a new law that allowed the transfer of communal lands in villages to private ownership in exchange for higher payments. In the last quarter of the 19th century. French companies received numerous concessions in Syria in exchange for providing loans to the Ottoman Empire. The French invested in Syrian ports, railways and roads. As material production declined, anti-Christian and anti-European sentiment began to grow. This trend led to increased European intervention in the political life of Syria, which contributed to the growing dissatisfaction of the local Arab elite with Ottoman rule. In the 1890s, societies advocating Syrian independence from the Ottoman Empire emerged in Aleppo, Damascus and Beirut. The number of these societies increased rapidly at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Arab national sentiments reached their peak after the July Revolution of 1908 in Istanbul, which brought the Young Turks to power. When it became obvious that the Young Turks would primarily defend the interests of the Turkic-speaking population, the Syrians stood at the head of several organizations advocating autonomy for the Arab provinces.
First World War. With the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman high command transferred the Arab divisions of the Ottoman 4th Army to Gelibolu (in Europe). The military governor of Syria, Jamal Pasha, ordered many leaders of the national movement to be arrested or deported. However, local support for Arab nationalists continued to grow as a consequence of the serious crisis in all sectors of the economy caused by increased taxes for military needs and the British blockade of Mediterranean ports during the war. The impetus for the further rise of the movement was the uprising that was raised in Arabia, with the support of the British, by the sheriff of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali, who hoped to thus create an independent Arab kingdom. When the Arab army, led by his son Faisal ibn Hussein, entered Damascus in October 1918, it was greeted as a liberator. The city was declared the seat of an independent government for all of Syria. At the same time, Beirut established its own Arab administration. In both cases, immigrants from Syria who gained experience in management work in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt were appointed to responsible positions. Both administrations sent representatives to the General Syrian Congress, convened in July 1919 in Damascus, which adopted a resolution calling for the declaration of full independence for Syria, the creation of a constitutional monarchy led by Faisal, and legal protection for all minorities. While Syrian nationalists advocated autonomy, British and French representatives began to discuss the future of the country's government. The agreements between them were embodied in the decisions of the San Remo conference in April 1920, according to which Faisal's government in Damascus was dissolved, France received a League of Nations mandate to govern Syria and Lebanon, and Great Britain to govern Palestine and Transjordan. The news of the decisions of the San Remo conference caused mass protests in the largest Syrian cities, and representatives of the national bourgeoisie invited the large landowner Hashim al-Atasi to head an openly anti-French government. Faisal tried to mediate between the militant nationalists and the French, recognizing the mandate of the League of Nations in July 1920 and using recruits to suppress protests in the cities. When French troops launched a march on Damascus to take power, a group of volunteers led by Yusuf Azme took up defensive positions near the city of Maysalun, trying to stop their advance. Azme's detachment was defeated, and at the end of July the French established control over all of Syria. (In 1921, the British declared Faisal the king of Iraq, for which they also received a mandate, and made his older brother Abdallah first the emir and then the king of Transjordan.)
French mandate. The French authorities in Syria tried to suppress the Arab national movement using the principles of “divide and conquer”. To do this, they strengthened religious minorities and promoted sectarian strife. The Maronite region in Mount Lebanon was expanded by annexing the predominantly Muslim Bekaa Valley and the cities of Tripoli, Beirut, Saida and Sur (Tire). The rest of Syria was divided into five semi-autonomous units: Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia (Alawite region), Jebel ed-Druze (Druze region) and Alexandretta (modern Iskanderun, transferred to Turkey in 1939). In addition, in the extreme northeast of the country, in the region of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, a separate district was allocated, governed directly from the center. The political affairs of these territories were in charge of the High Commissioner in Damascus, who appointed all government and local officials and was responsible for the state of emergency introduced in 1920. The terms of the mandate opened the Syrian market to free access to all member states of the League of Nations. As a result, the country was flooded with overseas goods. Imports played a particularly disastrous role for the Syrian textile industry: between 1913 and 1926, the number of weavers in Aleppo decreased by half, and the number of operating looms by 2/3. Due to unemployment, which reached almost 25% in cities, and the influx of a large number of Armenian refugees from Turkey, who were even looking for low-paid jobs, there was a drop in wages. In 1925, the Druze from Jebel ed-Druze rebelled against the French. In October, the leaders of the national movement organized an uprising in Aleppo and Damascus, but after two days of artillery shelling of Damascus, which led to the death of 5 thousand Syrians, it was defeated. In 1926-1927, against the background of the ongoing struggle of the Druze, the first wave of protests by workers dissatisfied with their plight swept across the country. Separate spontaneous strikes began in Aleppo and Homs, which soon spread to Damascus, but they were brutally suppressed by armed force. The stifling of the labor movement led to increased sympathy for the People's Party. This liberal nationalist organization was created by the urban bourgeoisie and supported by small urban merchants and rural landowners who found themselves in a difficult situation as a result of mandate economic policies. Soon the People's Party established control over the Constituent Assembly, convened by the administration in 1925 in order to stem the wave of popular discontent. In 1928, the successor to the People's Party, the National Bloc, put forward a draft Constitution for the country, which provided for the reintegration of Syria and left no place in it for the colonial authorities. Following this, the High Commissioner dissolved the Constituent Assembly, and in 1930 introduced a new Constitution, which confirmed French control over the country, but provided for the presence of an elected president and a unicameral parliament. In 1935, the authorities approved a new labor law, which limited the list of professions whose representatives were allowed to join trade unions and placed workers' syndicates under strict state control. In response to the adoption of this law, a second wave of workers' protests swept across the country. In 1936, the trade unions of Damascus united into a single trade union, and two years later they formed the General Federation of Trade Unions in Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. The speeches of workers' organizations created the conditions for the adoption by the National Bloc in January 1936 of the "National Pact", which again raised the issue of declaring independence and preparing a draft of a new constitution. The publication of this pact coincided with a fifty-day general strike that paralyzed markets, schools, public services and factories throughout the country. The French authorities tried to suppress the strike, but in vain. As a result, the High Commissioner was left with no choice, and he began negotiations with the National Bloc. As a result of the negotiations, an agreement was prepared, according to which the independence of Syria was de jure recognized and a new parliament was convened, but at the same time the broad rights of the French in the military and economic fields were confirmed. In the elections in November 1936, Hashim al-Atasi was elected president of the country, and the National Bloc received the majority of seats in parliament. The suppression of the Arab uprising in Palestine in April 1936 split the national liberation movement in Syria along class lines. Workers and city traders, under the auspices of various Islamist groups, organized collections of food, money and weapons to send to Palestine, and also held strikes in support of rebels opposed to British rule and Jewish immigration. Wealthier merchants and industrialists, particularly in Damascus, attempted to limit the amount of Syrian aid: their main concern was to protect the most profitable markets and to convince the British of the need for Syrian independence. They also feared that the uprising in Palestine would push Syrian workers and peasants into political action. Dissatisfaction with the moderate position of the National Bloc on the Palestinian issue ultimately led to the alienation of the pan-Arab wing, whose center of activity was Aleppo, and to a split in the ruling coalition. Taking advantage of this circumstance, the French again introduced a state of emergency in Damascus, and in 1939 the High Commissioner suspended the Constitution, dissolved parliament and arrested some of the most active leaders of the national movement. In managing the internal affairs of the country, the government was replaced by a Board of Directors. World War II and the Declaration of Independence. After the surrender of France in 1940, shortages of bread, sugar and gasoline began in the country, which accelerated the revival of the national movement. In February 1941, the National Bloc, headed by Shukri Kuatli, organized a strike in Damascus; it soon spread to Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Deir ez-Zor. The strike continued for two months, forcing the High Commissioner of the Vichy government in France to dissolve the previously appointed Board of Directors. Instead, a Committee was formed led by the moderate nationalist Khaled al-Azem, which ruled Syria until the fall of 1941, when British and Free French troops occupied the country and restored the Constitution. An agreement was reached between Couatli, the Free French authorities and British representatives, according to which new parliamentary elections were held in the country in July 1943. They were again won by the National Bloc (transformed into the National Patriotic Union), which won the overwhelming majority of seats in parliament. The new government included prominent figures of the national movement from Damascus, Aleb and Homs, but representatives of Hama, Alawites and Druze were left out. As a result, there was a consolidation of forces opposing the government around the leaders of Hama and the mountainous areas in the west and south of the country. Akram Haurani, a firm opponent of the landowners who dominated the leadership of the National Patriotic Union, was elected to parliament. Meanwhile, separatists from Alawite and Druze areas advocated for autonomy. Various Islamist organizations began to conduct propaganda work among poor artisans and small traders in the cities of the north and among residents of the poorest Damascus neighborhoods, where migrant peasants from the villages settled. The socialists, led by Michel Aflyak, demanded economic security for both the workers of Damascus and the impoverished smallholders in the western and southern regions of the country. There was also a weakening of the positions of the former Syrian leaders as a result of the toughening of the French policy towards their political opponents and the severance after 1944 of trade and financial ties between Damascus and Beirut and Haifa due to the creation of autonomous states in Lebanon and Palestine. Syria became nominally an independent state in 1945, when the creation of a national army was announced and the country joined the United Nations and the Arab League. However, complete independence was gained only after the final evacuation of French troops, which ended on April 15, 1946. The collapse of the parliamentary form of government. With the withdrawal of the last French troops from the country, the previously existing unity among the leaders of the national movement disappeared, and four forces emerged that began to fight for control of the state. Large landowners and wealthy merchants, profiting from wartime shortages of grain and manufactured goods, controlled the National Party and Parliament. Independent small-scale producers concentrated in the Alawite and Druze areas, as well as poor and landless peasants of the central plains, criticized the corruption and nepotism that had reigned among previous leaders and advocated political and economic reforms. In early 1947, the peasant movement, led by Akram Haurani, initiated a campaign to change the law on parliamentary elections. In response, Shukri Kuatli, elected president of the country in 1943, declared a state of emergency and limited the activities of the Haurani Arab Socialist Party and the pan-Arab Arab Renaissance Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din Bitar. This ensured the victory of the National Party candidates in the parliamentary elections in July 1947 and the re-election of Kuatli as president. Since 1948, the party began to fragment on a regional basis (Damascus and Aleppo). Both factions began to seek favor with large landowners who were able to attract votes from the rural electorate. Political infighting over the government's efforts to amend the Constitution to allow President Quatli a second term has prevented Syria from confronting the escalating Palestinian civil war. After the declaration of the State of Israel in May 1948, the Syrian brigade invaded the Northern Galilee, becoming the only Arab military unit that managed to advance during the first Arab-Israeli war. However, immediately after the ceasefire in parliament, accusations of incompetence and misappropriation of financial resources were brought against the executive branch. At the end of November, a strike by school and university students escalated into riots. The government was forced to resign, and the chief of the general staff, Colonel Husni al-Zaima, ordered the troops to restore order. After independence, the creation of their own armed units became a means of improving the economic and social situation for people from various Syrian minorities. This was especially evident among the Alawites and Druze, who, starting in 1946, actively entered the military academy in Homs. There they became familiar with new political ideas, in particular the Baath Party and local communities. Young graduates of the academy gradually became more and more intolerant of the old elite, from which they were separated by class origin and regional affiliation. Growing discontent within the army prompted the high command, many of whom were Sunni urbanites, to advocate social change and align themselves with the leaders of the nationalist movement in neighboring Arab states. In the winter of 1948-1949, in the wake of dissatisfaction among the population and members of parliament with the military defeat in Palestine, a group of senior officers led by al-Zaima, disillusioned with the previous regime, overthrew the legally elected government. Having come to power in March 1949, al-Zaima abolished the 1930 Constitution, banned the activities of political parties and began to rule by decrees. In June, he proclaimed himself president, but in mid-August he was killed by his opponents in the armed forces, during a second military coup. The leader of the coup, Colonel Sami Hinawi, announced the restoration of the civilian regime and the holding of elections to the People's Council, which was to create a new constitution. In these elections, in which women were admitted for the first time, the parliamentary majority was won by the Aleppo branch of the National Party, which called itself the People's Party, after the organization that operated in northern Syria in the 1920s. Its deputies, many of whom had close trade and financial ties with the Northern regions of Iraq, advocated a political union with this country. However, opponents of the union, in particular staunch Syrian nationalists such as Haurani and senior army officials, blocked the normal work of the newly elected parliament during the last two months of 1949. As a result, on December 19, young officers led by Colonel Adib Shishekli tried to find a way out of the situation. Hinawi was removed. Shishekli resumed the activities of parliament and asked it to continue work on the draft constitution. The new Constitution, promulgated on September 5, 1950, proclaimed a parliamentary form of government, declared broad civil rights and the implementation of socio-economic reforms. However, Shishekli and his associates, who were behind the cabinet leapfrog of 1950-1951, turned to harsh measures in an attempt to bring the reviving trade unions and the peasant movement under their control. In November 1951 they dissolved parliament and suspended the Constitution. For six months, the country was led directly by the military in the absence of a government. In April 1952, political parties were banned. In 1953, Şişekli promulgated a new Constitution and became president as a result of a referendum. The civil-military coalition, which came to power in February 1954, nominated Sabri al-Asali to the post of prime minister, whose government restored the force of the 1950 Constitution and allowed the activities of political parties. In September 1954, parliamentary elections were held, in which a significant part of the mandates was won by the Arab Socialist Renaissance Party, formed as a result of the unification of the Arab Socialist Party of Haurani and the Arab Renaissance Party of Aflaq and Bitar. However, the leftist forces were unable to agree on the creation of a coalition government, which was eventually formed by Faris al-Khouri. In February 1955, al-Khouri was replaced as prime minister by the leader of the National Party, Sabri al-Asali. The government immediately announced sweeping reforms in industry and the agricultural sector. Frightened by this prospect, as well as by demands from PASV and communists for further radical changes, conservatives in parliament blocked a proposed law on the rights of agricultural workers and began a campaign in favor of former President Kuatli, who soon returned to the country from Egypt, where he had been in exile. In elections in August 1955, Quatli was elected president with financial support from Saudi Arabia. In the early 1950s, as a result of US Middle East policy, Syria was drawn into the Cold War. In 1955, the country joined Egypt in its fight against the Baghdad Pact (later the Central Treaty Organization, CENTO) created by Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan under the auspices of the United States and Great Britain. In December, Syria became the second (following Egypt) state in the Arab world to sign an agreement with the USSR on the supply of military equipment. In 1955 and 1956, Syria reached an agreement with Egypt to unify the military command and create a common Military Council. The Suez crisis of 1956, which led to a joint British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, further strengthened bilateral ties. The country's close ties with Egypt, coupled with US and Iraqi attempts to undermine its leadership led by President Kuatli, strengthened the influence of the head of Syrian military intelligence, Colonel Abd al-Hamid Sarraj. His agents in 1956 uncovered a carefully prepared conspiracy behind which stood the Baghdad intelligence services. The danger of the situation became apparent in August 1956, when Iraqi weapons were secretly transferred to Jabal al-Druz. In December, 47 prominent members of the People's Party with close ties to Iraqi traders were court-martialed on charges of treason. Prime Minister al-Asali removed representatives of the People's Party from his cabinet, replacing them with anti-American independent politicians. The US tried to destabilize the new government by offering American wheat to traditional Syrian markets - Greece and Italy. This led to increased popular support for PASV, which accused the United States of interfering in the internal affairs of Syria. Meanwhile, the revelation of American plans to overthrow Quatli and seize power by a pro-Western military junta led Sarraj and the Chief of the General Staff to visit Cairo to discuss possible Egyptian assistance. At the end of 1957, the political games of pro-American, pro-Egyptian and pro-Syrian figures led to the postponement of municipal elections. In January 1958, Chief of the General Staff Afif al-Bizri made a secret trip to Egypt, turning to Abdel Nasser with a proposal to immediately unite Syria and Egypt into a single state. In February, Kuatli flew to Cairo, where the creation of the United Arab Republic (UAR) was announced.
Union with Egypt. The Syrians enthusiastically approved the creation of the UAR in a referendum on February 21, 1958. The Provisional Constitution of the Union State was adopted, which provided for a single president and government, as well as the existence of separate Executive Councils for two regions of the UAR: Northern (Syrian) and Southern (Egyptian). In 1959, the Egyptian National Union Party was declared the only legal political party of the UAR. Sarraj became the Minister of Internal Affairs and the head of all Syrian intelligence services. By his order, trade unions and peasant organizations were destroyed. The desire of the Egyptians to unify the economic structure of both countries provoked a widespread increase in discontent in Syria. In Cairo, it was considered possible to mechanically extend to it development programs developed and suitable only for the Nile Valley. When nationalization and redistribution of property began in Syria in the summer of 1961, Syrian small and medium-sized urban traders began to agitate for withdrawal from the UAR. Even the left-wing PASV opposed socialist innovations, motivating its position with the desire to soften criticism of the process of unification of the two states and citing the fact that these measures are more likely to lead to increased centralized control over the economy than to the achievement of social justice. Widespread opposition to unification and the weakening of pro-Egyptian forces in Syria after Sarraj's transfer to work in Cairo helped a coalition of civilian politicians and military officers achieve the country's secession from the UAR in September 1961.
Parliamentary interregnum. From late 1961 to early 1963, three party coalitions operated on the Syrian political scene. The socialists, led by Haurani and Khaled al-Azem, advocated maintaining government control over heavy industry and greater citizen participation in political life. Large landowners, wealthy merchants and financiers called for the restoration of private enterprise and the political order that existed in the 1950s. Moderates, including the PASV wing led by Aflyak, advocated the preservation of the political and economic system of the UAR period. The Syrian political parties that functioned before 1958 were destroyed by the Egyptian intelligence services, and the old National and People's Parties no longer enjoyed popular support. At the same time, the Nasserists still held senior positions in the trade unions and the central government apparatus. Under these conditions, the leaders of the disengagement supporters were initially unable to nominate a candidate for the post of head of the new Syrian cabinet. In the end, the formation of a government that included former members of the National and People's Parties was entrusted to Maamoun Kouzbari, who had previously served as Secretary General of the National Union of Damascus. This coalition did not receive the support of the main political forces of the country, but due to a split in the camp of the left, the National and People's Parties managed to win a majority in parliament in the elections in December 1961. The new government of Maaruf al-Dawalibi, with the support of the top of the army, began the process of denationalization and encouraged the creation of private enterprises. The decisions taken in the UAR, which led to the expropriation of British, French and Belgian property, were canceled, and the UAR law on land reform was revised. Peasants and small village producers from outlying governorates opposed these changes. They were supported by young officers who shared Baathist principles, a group of whom, led by recent supporters of the separation of Syria and Egypt, arrested the bulk of the members of parliament in March 1962 and tried to force them to continue the previous reforms. Nasserist officers from the Homs garrisons attempted a counter-coup, but were unsuccessful. In April, the commander of the Syrian army, Major General Abdel Kerim al-Din, convened a meeting of senior commanders in Homs, at which it was decided to remove left-wing socialists from the armed forces and restore civilian rule. At the same time, parliament was dissolved, and al-Din was appointed minister of defense. In September, the Military High Command restored parliament and appointed Khaled al-Azem as prime minister. He formed a government consisting of representatives of all parties and groups, with the exception of those who advocated reunification with Egypt. At the same time, al-Azem firmly spoke out against the further participation of the military in the political life of the country. The current situation, which was aggravated by popular protests initiated by the Nasserists and the growing Islamists in January 1963 in Damascus and the geographical region of Hauran (southwest of the capital), provoked a new military coup in March 1963.
Ba'athist regime. This coup was organized by the Military Committee of the Baath Party, which was not officially considered part of the party organization, but shared the goals of its leadership. During the first months after taking power, the leaders of the March coup nationalized banks and insurance companies and launched a new agrarian reform, limiting the size of private landholdings. Prime Minister Salah al-Din Bitar said private ownership would remain "in the efficient sector of industry." However, in May 1964, militant socialists from provincial party organizations nationalized a number of large industrial firms in Aleppo and Homs and introduced a system of self-government to them. By the summer, they had convinced the government to allow the creation of nationwide trade unions and to agree to a new labor law that increased the state's role in protecting workers' rights. In the fall, the General Federation of Peasants was founded, and in mid-December the government decided that all future oil revenues in Syria should remain in the hands of the state. These measures created the basis for a radical transformation of the economy in 1965. In January, the “Ramadan Socialist Decree” was adopted, which placed all the most significant Syrian enterprises under state control. Over the next six months, a program of further nationalization was implemented. In the course of it, the ties between the trade unions and peasants, who formed the support of PASV, and the artisans and traders of large and small cities, who began to move away from the nationalist principles proclaimed by the party, were finally broken. Tensions between these two populations resulted in riots and demonstrations that engulfed the cities throughout the spring and summer. This marked the beginning of a struggle between moderate Ba'athist figures associated with Interior Minister Amin Hafez and left-wing Ba'athist leaders led by General Salah Jadid to determine the future course of the Ba'athist revolution. Amin Hafez, who headed the government in mid-1964, turned to the national (pan-Arab) leadership of the party for support. In turn, Salah Jadid strengthened his position in the regional (Syrian) leadership, placing his associates in strategically important positions in the Syrian army. At the end of February 1966, Jadid's supporters, which included the commander of the air force, General Hafez Assad, managed to finally eliminate Amin Hafez and his supporters from the power structures. The new government began to create state cooperatives, approved measures to concentrate wholesale trade in the public sector, and in 1968 introduced a system of central planning. The new regime entered into an alliance with the Syrian Communist Party, and prominent communists were included in the government. This course was opposed in provincial cities by representatives of the middle strata, who were forced to obey party directives under the supervision of a growing people's militia. In the spring of 1967, anti-Baathist protests began, provoked by an editorial in the army weekly, which was perceived by the general public as atheistic in content. In response, the ruling regime mobilized its armed supporters in the workers' militia, as well as parts of the Palestinian guerrillas based in Syria since 1964, who sought to re-involve the Arab world in their liberation struggle. The spiral of militarization that began to unwind helped them push Syria to participate in the war with Israel in June 1967. Israeli air strikes on large Syrian enterprises and the oil refining complex in Homs caused enormous harm to the country's economy, and the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, in southern Syria, seriously damaged the reputation of the cabinet ministers of Jadid, who was responsible for the defeat of the Syrian army and air force in the June War of 1967. The failure of the central planning authorities to ensure the targeted restoration of the national economy in the post-war period provoked a new wave of anti-government actions that swept through the cities of the country in 1968 and 1969. At the head of these The popular uprising was driven by a militant Islamist organization led by Marwan Hadid from Hama. At the same time, a split was growing within the ruling elite. The radicals who grouped around Jadid set the task of strengthening state influence on the economy and proposed subordinating the military to the civilian wing of PASV. The pragmatists united around Assad sought to create conditions for the development of private enterprise and preserve the autonomy of the army; At the beginning of 1970, they managed to achieve the adoption of a number of resolutions on subsidizing private enterprises and easing restrictions on the import of certain goods. These measures contributed to the economic recovery of the country and created the preconditions for the coup, which in November 1970 brought Hafez Assad to the top of power.
Assad regime. The new leadership preferred a development strategy that included government financing and control of large capital-intensive enterprises while supporting trade and investment in the private sector, especially in construction and agriculture. The Assad government developed a five-year economic recovery plan for the first half of the 1970s. The October 1973 war with Israel, during which Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated offensive on the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, although a costly endeavor, demonstrated that the Syrian armed forces had strengthened significantly compared to 1967. Moreover, in 1974 Israel withdrew its troops from a number of areas in the Golan Heights, including the city of Quneitra. Private firms that emerged in Syria in the early 1970s benefited from rising oil prices that brought prosperity to Arab oil-producing states after 1973, as well as from expanding ties with Lebanese banks and light industries. Syrian entrepreneurs with close ties to Lebanon and the oil-producing Gulf states benefited from Assad's intervention in the Lebanese civil war after 1976 and from strengthening diplomatic contacts with wealthy Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which provided generous economic aid to Syria in the late 1970s. However, the use of public funds to support leading regime supporters, as well as the amount of profit they received from links to state-owned companies, led to accusations against senior officials of corruption and patronage of the Syrian Alawites, to which many of them belonged. These accusations, together with growing competition between state-owned enterprises and private firms, gave impetus to the intensification of the Islamist movement in the late 1970s. At the beginning of 1976, members of several independent Islamist movements began a campaign directed against the ruling regime. In 1977-1978 they organized a series of attacks on government targets and assassinations of prominent government and party leaders. These attacks, and the violent response to suppress them, led to mass protests and strikes by artisans and merchants in the cities. By 1980, a full-scale civil war had broken out in Syria. In the spring of 1980, serious clashes occurred between government troops and rebels in Aleppo, Hama and Homs. After this, the central authorities made a number of conciliatory gestures, but already in July they declared membership in the Muslim Brotherhood organization a criminal offense. A group of influential religious figures brought together leaders of militant Islamist organizations in November in an attempt to create an Islamic Front to coordinate opposition to Baathist leaders. In response to the challenge thrown at it, the regime began to strengthen its position, strengthening the public sector of the economy. The government increased wages at state-owned enterprises, whose dependence on Damascus, according to official regulations, was decreasing, and responsibility to the local administration was increasing. Private companies involved in the manufacturing industry were subject to increased taxes. A series of measures have been implemented, especially in the northern and central governorates, aimed at diverting the flow of raw materials from small private firms to state-owned enterprises. In 1981, the government obliged importing merchants to obtain licenses to import goods from abroad from the Ministry of Commerce and apply for the necessary loans exclusively to state-owned banks. Traders who tried to circumvent these rules were arrested on charges of smuggling and tax evasion. Faced with this attack on their rights, small traders from Hama launched an open rebellion against the authorities in February 1982 with slogans aimed at establishing an Islamic order in Syria. The rebellion was crushed by the army after three weeks of bloody fighting, which left thousands of residents dead and most of the old buildings destroyed. The consequence of the speech in Hama was the creation of the National Union for the Liberation of Syria, which included groups united in the Islamic Front and other underground organizations opposing the regime. The charter they adopted called for an end to corruption, free elections for the Constituent Assembly and a liberalization of the constitution. However, the opposition failed to build on the initial success. The government brought the country's economy under even greater control in an attempt to cope with the growing shortage of productive investment and foreign exchange, and Assad's opponents turned their attention to international affairs, in particular to the issue of Syrian support for Islamist Iran during its war with Iraq (1980-1988). ). In the early 1980s, the economic boom of the previous decade came to an end. While Syria's military spending increased greatly, especially after the launch of a massive Israeli offensive in Lebanon in June 1982, world oil prices began to fall, significantly reducing foreign exchange earnings. The reason was not only a decrease in revenues from the export of liquid fuels; The reduction in cash flows from Syrians working in rich Arab oil-producing states also had an impact. As control of the country consolidated, the Assad government began a second phase of economic liberalization in the late 1980s. The final Statement of the PASV Congress, held in January 1985, criticized the inefficiency and corruption of the public sector of the economy, and proposed to reorganize the complex system of exchange rates in order to reduce illegal currency circulation and losses from illegal black market transactions. In the spring of 1985, the country's new Prime Minister Abdel Raouf Qassem began negotiations with Western states and foreign financial institutions, trying to attract foreign investment in agriculture and the service sector. At the same time, the government continued to assert that such a course was fully consistent with the official plan for economic development of Syria. In the mid-1990s, the Ba'athist regime led by Assad was still struggling with the country's balance of payments and budget deficits, but managed to stay in power by providing more opportunities for private enterprise while suppressing existing and potential political opposition.

Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .