It is the complex of literary works in the Syriac language written by the Christians of Mesopotamia, the Syria and the Persian Empire. It shares the characteristic qualities of the literatures of the Christian East and is therefore essentially religious; extends from the 2nd to the 14th century. (after the 14th century we speak of… Read More »
Population The dominant ethnic and cultural group is the Arab one (86.2%); among the minorities, the most numerous stock is that of the Kurds (7.3%), settled in the north-eastern area of the country, followed by the Armenians (2.7%), settled mainly in the cities. The annual growth rate of the population is high (2.1% in 2009),… Read More »
Population The Syria was populated at the census of September 1970 by 6,304,685 residents, with an average density of 34 residents / km 2, and with over a million more people than in 1960 (see table). Even more incisive, however, is the increase that took place in the years 1970-77, which brought the population to… Read More »
There is no doubt that not only the influences of Lebanese and Palestinian literature have had great weight on the development of Syrian literature, but also and above all the historical conditions that determined them. However, in the vast Arab literary panorama, Syria has managed to find its own original expression. Poetry, the quintessential Arab… Read More »
Literature For decades, Syrian literature has bowed to censorship and repression by the regime. The events of 2011 shaped a new cultural identity in the country and what many authors, such as the Syrian-American Mohja Kahf (b. 1967), called the “silence of Syrian literature”, now seems to be broken. Key date 27 September 2000 when… Read More »
Yesria. – The Syrian revolt, which began in March 2011 in the wake of the victorious revolutions in Tunisia (January) and Egypt (February), underwent a progressive militarization in the following months. Censored and harshly repressed since its first steps, the protest has never known the peaceful and impressive popular participation of the Tunisian and Egyptian… Read More »
In 2000, with the death of Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad, his second son Baššār became the new president of Syria. The successor was supposed to be Baššār’s older brother, Bāsil, but Bāsil had died prematurely in a car accident in 1994. At the time of his father’s death, Baššār al-Asad was only 34 years old and according… Read More »
Quickly orienting itself in favor of the Iranian Islamic revolution, the Syria, despite the visit of Ṣaddām Ḥusayn to Damascus at the beginning of 1979, distanced itself more and more clearly from the Irāq, also because of the conflict that was looming between Baghdād and Teherān, and undertook to define a sort of radical understanding… Read More »
The union of Syria and Egypt dissolved in September 1961, its history in the following fifteen years is within the story of the al-Ba’th Party (founded in the 1940s by the Christian Syrian M. ‛Aflaq, with an Arab nationalist orientation and progressive reform program). In March 1963, with a military coup, the Ba‛ith came to… Read More »
In continuing to be tormented by a chronic crisis, characterized by coups d’état and abrupt changes in domestic and foreign politics, the Syria presents itself in the last decade with a particularly agitated political landscape. Following the first general elections (July 1947) the “national bloc” had the majority, whose leader Shukri el-Kuwatli, former head of… Read More »
From the origins to the Persian age During the 3rd millennium BC there are the beginnings of a properly Syrian culture with autonomous characters, both in the Giazira (Tell Khuwēra), already since then perhaps with a predominantly Khurritic population, and in the northern Syria (Tell Mardīkh), with a majority population cananaica. From the discovery of… Read More »
From the Roman age to the Arabization The Roman province of Syria (62 BC) included, besides the Syria, part of Cilicia. The province had an essentially military function as a border area, and of attrition, towards the Parthian kingdom, fighting against which Crassus (53), governor of the province, died. The Augustan province of Syria, also… Read More »
Syria State of southwestern Asia. The territory overlooks the Mediterranean with a coastal stretch of 160 km and extends inland towards the E and towards the S for more than 600 km; it borders Turkey to the N, Iraq to the E, Jordan to the S; to the SW, at the eastern coast of the… Read More »
Mamluk and Ottoman periods. Fearing European attacks from the sea, the Mamluks systematically destroyed the ports of the Syrian coast, frequently replacing the governors sent from Egypt, to prevent the formation of local powers. The political instability that ensued allowed the prolonged revolt (1293-1305) of the Shiite, Druze and Imamite community and, later, favored the… Read More »
Syria is a term that in modern usage, relating to pre-classical history, can have two meanings: a broad one that includes Palestine, and a restricted one to the territory of the current Republic of Syria (with the addition of Lebanon and Hatai, which are historically part of it). In the 3rd millennium BC (ancient bronze)… Read More »
Syria is a state of Southwest Asia. Since 2011, the country has been devastated by the civil war and any analysis of the social, economic and geographical situation of Syria is extremely difficult, also in consideration of the fact that the control of the territory is fragmented among several actors fighting each other. A unitary… Read More »
A balance sheet of contemporary Arabic literature, broken down by country, cannot fail to group Syrian and Lebanese authors together, having formed Syria and Lebanon, before their political division, a literary unity: so much so that the so-called “Syrian-American school” of The beginning of the century was largely composed of Lebanese writers. Lebanese are still… Read More »
Syrian cinema was born at the same time as the Egyptian one (the most important in the Arab world), but its development was much slower and more limited; the limited technical, professional and financial resources have also led him to sometimes make use of foreign directors, actors and producers, while the most creative authors have… Read More »
The Syria and the neighboring regions, Palestine and Mesopotamia, greatly influenced the formation of Christian art starting from the 4th century. both in the field of architecture and in that of iconography. Despite the architectural models created by Constantine and his successors, spread all over the world, in Syria there is an accentuated difference between… Read More »
New lights on the Hurrito-Mitannic civilization will undoubtedly come from the Swiss excavations (M. Wäfler) at Tell Ḥamidiyya: the site, which is located in the H̱ābūr region along the course of the tributary Ǧaġǧaġ, was located right in the central area of the Mitanni kingdom and perhaps it hides the remains of the capital, Ta’idu.… Read More »
The recovery at Tell Mardīkh-Ebla (v. App. IV, iii, p. 607), by the Italian Archaeological Mission in the years 1975-77, of a large quantity of cuneiform documents (about 2000 whole tablets and 15,000 large fragments, and inscribed scales for over 17,000 inventory numbers), found in the Palazzo real area G (about 2350-2300 BC), has in… Read More »
The Syria in its current political extension includes territories that have had different historical events and whose culture depended on distinct areas of influence, which in some periods also overlapped or merged. Therefore, if we want to trace the picture of archaeological research, it is possible to do so from several points of view. The… Read More »
Near Tainat an English expedition led by Sir Leonard Woolley began in 1936 and resumed excavations in 1946 at Atchana, ancient Alalakh. Already since now the intersection of the civilizations of the West and the East is revealed there – starting from the moment when, around 2000 BC. C., the Mesopotamian civilization is entering a… Read More »
Archaeological exploration developed with a feverish pace throughout the territory of Syria until the beginning of the Second World War, devoting itself both to shedding light on the still obscure problems of the prehistoric period, and to exploring new centers of the Greek and Roman age.. As for the most ancient civilizations, various excavations have… Read More »
The small building was simple, but it already showed the essential architectural scheme of the later madrasas, with the four īwān and a courtyard that appears to have been covered by a wooden roof. Among the most beautiful examples of the architecture of this troubled era are the hospital of Nūr al-Dīn in Damascus, from… Read More »
The only elements absent in the mosaics of the Great Mosque of Damascus are the peculiar symbols of Christianity – the cross, the throne, birds, fish – and figures of saints. The decoration of the earliest Umayyad monuments, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Great Mosque of Damascus and the small prayer hall… Read More »
These ruined cities, described by travelers of the secc. 18th and 19th centuries, remained abandoned until recently; in the last fifty years wells have been built and nomadic tribes dedicated to agriculture have settled there. Like the churches of Lebanon, the first churches of the Syria were decorated with wall and floor mosaics. In addition… Read More »
Western Asian states, independent after the Second World War.The present Syria includes the steppe regions between the mountain ranges of Lebanon, Turkey and Israel, between the Jordan valley and the Iraq desert, and the narrow green belt along the Mediterranean coast up to northern Lebanon. The current Lebanon coincides instead with the territory of ancient… Read More »
The deep-rooted ethnic-religious divisions and the strong economic and social imbalances present in the country weighed on political life after independence, contributing to a long phase of instability; accentuated by the sharp contrasts that divided the Syrian ruling class in the choices of international politics. After the defeat in the Arab-Israeli war (1948-49), the Syrian… Read More »
HUMAN AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY Southwestern Asian state. The Syrian population estimated in 2006 amounts to about 18.9 million residents, for a density of 101.9 residents / km 2, among the highest in the Middle East. The distribution of the population is, however, irregular, with a strong concentration in the urban areas of the capital Damascus… Read More »