Cyprus: Encyclopedia II - Cyprus - History

Cyprus - History

Cyprus - Prehistoric and Ancient Cyprus

There are but scanty traces of the Stone Age, but the Bronze Age is characterized by a well-developed and clearly marked civilization. The people quickly learned to work the rich copper mines of the island. The Mycenæan civilization seems to have reached Cyprus at around 1600 B.C. and several Greek and Phœnician settlements that belong to the Iron Age can be found on the island. Cyprus was invaded by Thothmes III of Egypt about 1500 B.C., and was forced to pay tribute.

Around 1200 B.C. begins the massive arrival of the Mycenæan Greeks as permanent settlers to Cyprus, a process which lasted for more than a century. This migration is remembered in many sagas concerning how some of the Greek heroes that participated in the Trojan war came to settle in Cyprus. The newcomers brought with them their language, their advanced technology and introduced a new outlook for visual arts. Thus from 1220 B.C. Cyprus has remained predominantly Greek in culture, language and population despite various influences resulting from successive conquests. In times Cyprus supplied the rest of the Greeks with timber for their fleets.

In the 16th century B.C., Amasis of Egypt conquered Cyprus, which soon fell under the rule of the Persians when Cambyses conquered Egypt. In the Persian Empire, Cyprus formed part of the fifth satrapy and in addition to tribute it had to supply the Persians with ships and crews. In their new fate the Greeks of Cyprus had as companions the Greeks of Ionia (west coast of Anatolia) with whom they forged closer ties. When the Ionian Greeks revolted against Persia (499 BC) the Cypriots except for the city of Amathus, joined in at the instigation of Onesilos, brother of the king of Salamis, whom he dethroned for not wanting to fight for independence. The Persians reacted quickly sending a considerable force against Onesilos. The Persians finally won despite Ionian help.

After their defeat, the Greeks mounted various expeditions in order to liberate Cyprus from the Persian yoke, but all their efforts bore only temporary results. Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) finally liberated the island from the Persians. Later, the Greek rulers of Egypt controlled it; finally Rome annexed it in 58-57 BC. No doubt the most important event that occurred in Roman Cyprus was the visit by Apostles Paul and Barnabas accompanied by St Mark who came to the island at the outset of their first missionary journey in 45 AD. After their arrival at Salamis they proceeded to Paphos where they converted the Roman Governor Sergius Paulus to Christianity. In this way Cyprus became the first country in the world to be governed by a Christian ruler.

Image:Paphos.JPG Cyprus is the legendary birthplace of the goddess of beauty, love, sex and passion, the beautiful Aphrodite. According to Hesiod's Theogony, the goddess, who was also known as Kypris or the Cyprian, emerged fully grown from the sea where the severed genitals of the god Uranus were cast by his son, Kronos, causing the sea to foam (Greek: Aphros). The legendary site of Aphrodite's birth from the foam is at 'Petra tou Romiou' ('Aphrodite's Rock'), a large stack in the sea close to the coastal cliffs near Paphos. Throughout ancient history, Cyprus was a flourishing centre for the cultic worship of Aphrodite.

Her birth was famously depicted by the artist Botticelli in The Birth of Venus.

Cyprus - Post-Classical and Modern Cyprus

Cyprus became part of the Byzantine Empire after the partitioning of the Roman Empire in 395, and remained so for almost 800 years. The Arabs pillaged the island in 646. In 654 a second, devastating Arab invasion took place. The island negotiated a relatively secure independence, but paid tribute to the Ummayads. After the rule of an independent Emperor (Isaac Comnenus), King Richard I of England captured the island in 1191 during the Crusades. Guy of Lusignan purchased the island from Richard in 1192. The Republic of Venice took control in 1489 after the death of the last Lusignan Queen, after which the Ottoman Empire conquered the Island in 1570.

Cyprus was placed under British control on 4 June 1878 as a result of the Cyprus Convention, which granted control of the island to Britain in return for British support of the Ottoman Empire in the Russian-Turkish War.

Famagusta harbour was completed in June 1906; by this time the island was a strategic naval outpost for the British Empire, shoring up influence over the Eastern Mediterranean and Suez Canal, the crucial main route to India.

Cyprus was formally annexed by the United Kingdom in 1913 in the run-up to the First World War. Many Cypriots, now British subjects, signed up to fight in the British Army, in this and in the Second World War.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Cypriots began to demand union with Greece. The Greek community held referenda in support of annexation, while the British sought to quell any movement which could threaten their possession of the island. In 1955 the struggle erupted into guerrilla activity with the foundation of EOKA, and in the closing years of the 1950s the political and intercommunal atmosphere on the island became increasingly fraught.

Independence was attained in 1960 after exhaustive negotiations between the United Kingdom, as the colonial power, and Greece and Turkey, the cultural 'motherlands' for the two communities on Cyprus. The constitution produced by the negotiations was a binding document allocating government posts and public offices by ethnic quota. The constitution did not promote a healthy relationship between the residents of the island. The first President was the Greek Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios III, and his Vice President was the leading Turkish Cypriot politician Dr Fazıl Küçük.

During the 1960s, Makarios and Küçük pursued a non-aligned foreign policy, cultivating good relations with the Britain, Greece and Turkey and taking a leading role in developing the Non-Aligned Movement. However, by 1974 dissatisfaction among right-wing elements in favour of the long-term goal of Enosis - union with Greece - precipitated a coup d'etat against Makarios which was sponsored by the military government of Greece and led by the Cypriot National Guard. The new regime replaced Makarios with Nikos Giorgiades Sampson as president, and Bishop Gennadios as head of the Cypriot Orthodox Church. Seven days after these events, Turkey invaded Cyprus by sea and air on 20 July, 1974, presenting the invasion as an act of protection for the island's 18% Turkish Cypriot minority. Talks in Geneva involving Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the two Cypriot factions failed in mid-August, and the Turks subsequently moved to gain control of 37% of the island's territory. About 160,000 Greek Cypriots were uprooted, with Greek Cypriots forced to flee to the south, while approximately 50,000 Turkish Cypriots moved north. Greek Cypriot soldiers were taken prisoners, with a number of 1,619 of those still missing and their fate is still unaccounted for. The Greek Junta made no armed response to the superior Turkish force but collapsed days after. Greece then suspended military participation in the NATO alliance. The tension continued after Makarios returned to the presidency on December 7, 1974. He accepted a bizonal bicommunal federation as the form of a future state, but rejected any solution "involving transfer of populations and amounting to partition of Cyprus." The events of the summer of 1974 have dominated Cypriot politics ever since and have been a major point of contention between Greece and Turkey.

After 1974 there were near-continual efforts to negotiate a settlement, which met with varying levels of hostility from either side.

Turkish Cypriots proclaimed a separate state under Rauf Denktash on November 15, 1983. The UN Security Council, in its Resolution 541 of November 18, 1983, declared the action illegal and called for withdrawal. Turkey is to date the only country to recognise the "government" of the occupied part of Cyprus. Conversely, it continues to reject calls to recognise the Republic of Cyprus as the sole legitimate government of Cyprus, and this political point has caused strained relations with the European Union.

Relations in the eastern Mediterranean were particularly frayed in the mid-1990s, especially after the acquisition by the Cypriot government of Russian missiles in 1997 which were capable of reaching the Turkish coast. The S-300 missiles, in fact, never arrived in Cyprus but stayed on the neighbouring island of Crete. The United States set an embargo on sale of arms to Turkey which was voted down a few years later after the invasion. Since then, the Turkish occupying force in Cyprus has been fortified with US weapons.

Cyprus has joined the European Union as a full member since January 2005. Since the invasion, the southern part of Cyprus has greatly grown economically, and the country enjoys a high standard of living. The north maintains a lower standing of living due to the economic embargoes placed since its unilateral declaration of independence.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki