Auerbach, Inge. (1997). “Identity in Exile: Andrei Mikhailo-vich Kurbskii and National Consciousness in the Sixteenth Century.” In Culture and Identity in Muscovy, 1359-1584 / Moskovskaya Rus (1359-1584): Kultura i istoricheskoe soznanie (UCLA Slavic Studies. New Series, vol. 3), ed. Ann M. Kleimola and Gail L. Lenhoff. Moscow: ITZ-Garant. Filyushkin, A. I. (1999). “Andrey Mikhaylovich Kurb-sky.” Voprosy istorii 1:82-96. Halperin, Charles J. (1998). “Edward Keenan and the Kurbskii-Groznyi Correspondence in Hindsight.” Jahrb?cher f?r Geschichte Osteuropas 46:376-403. Keenan, Edward L. (1971). The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: The Seventeenth-Century Genesis of the “Correspondence” Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV, with an appendix by Daniel C. Waugh. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
The Kurds (or kurmandzh, as they call themselves) are a people of Indo-European origin who claim as their homeland (Kurdistan) the region encompassing the intersection of the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The name “Kurd” has been officially used only in the Soviet Union; the Turks call them Turkish Highlanders, while Iranians call them Persian Highlanders. Although the Kurdish diaspora throughout the world numbers 30 to 40 million, most Kurds live in the mountains and uplands of the above mentioned countries and number between 10 and 12 million.
The Kurds have never had their own sovereign country, but for a short period in the early 1920s a Kurdish autonomous region existed in Azerbaijan. Although most Kurds live in Turkey, Iran, Iraq,
KURDS
Lithograph depicting Kurds fighting Tatars, c. 1849. © HISTORICAL PICTURE ARCHIVE/CORBIS and Syria, two types of Kurdish peoples lived in the Soviet Union before its collapse: the Balkano-Cau-casian Caspian type of the European race akin to the Azerbaijanis, Tats, and Talysh (living in Transcaucasia), and the Central-Asian Kurds such as the Baluchis (living in Tajikistan). Most Muslims of the former Soviet Union resided in Central Asia, but some also lived on the USSR’s western borders, as well as in Siberia and near the Chinese border. Ethnically Soviet Muslims included Turkic, Caucasian, and Iranian people. The Kurds, along with the Tats, Talysh, and Baluchis, are Iranian people. In Transcaucasia the Kurds live in enclaves among the main population: in Azerbaijan (in Lyaki, Kelbadjar, Ku-batly, and Zangelan); in Armenia (in Aparan, Talin, and Echmiadzin); and in Georgia (scattered in the eastern parts). In Central Asia they lived in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan (along the Iranian border, as well as in Ashkhabad).
The Kurds of Caucasia and Central Asia were isolated for so long from their brethren in the Middle East that their development in the Soviet Union has diverged enough that some consider the Soviet Kurds to be a separate ethnic group. Kurdish is an Indo-European language belonging to the Northwestern Iranian branch and is divided into several dialects. The Kurds of Caucasia and Central Asia speak the kurmandzh dialect. Younger generations of Soviet Kurds in larger cities grew up bilingual, speaking Russian as well. In the main, the Kurds are followers of Islam. The Armenian Kurds are Sunnites, while the Central Asian and Azerbaijani Kurds are Shiite.
In the Russian Federation in the twenty-first century, Kurds are frequently the targets of ethnic violence. Skinheads, incited by Eduard Limonov (a right-wing author and journalist) and Alexander Barkashov (former head of the Russian National Unity Party who openly espouses Nazi beliefs) have assaulted Kurds, Yezids, Meskheti Turks, and other non-Russians, particularly those from the Caucasus. Racism has prevailed even among Russian officials, who have stated that non-Russian ethnic groups such as the Kurds can only be guests in the Krasnodar territory (in the Russian southwest), but not for long.
KURIL ISLANDS
See also: CAUCASUS; CENTRAL ASIA; ISLAM
Bulloch, John, and Harvey Morris. (1992). No Friends but the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds. New York: Oxford University Press. Chaliand, Gerard. (1993). A People without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan. New York: Olive Branch Press. Izady, Mehrdad R. (1992). The Kurds: A Concise Handbook. Washington DC: Crane Russak. Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (1992). The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview. London: Routledge. Randal, Jonathan C. (1997). After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness? My Encounters with Kurdistan. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ing the Soviet period the islands were considered a vital garrison outpost. The military valued the island chain’s role in protecting the Sea of Okhotsk, where Soviet strategic submarines were located. The major industries are fish processing, fishing, and crabbing, much of which is illegal. Once pampered and highly paid by the Soviet government, the Kuril islanders were neglected by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of necessity, the inhabitants are developing closer ties with northern Japan. See also: JAPAN, RELATIONS WITH; RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cobb, Charles E., Jr. (1996). “Storm Watch Over the Kurils.” National Geographic 190(4):48-67. Stephan, John J. (1974). The Kuril Islands: Russo-Japanese Frontier in the Pacific. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
The Kurils form an archipelago of more than thirty mountainous islands situated in a curving line running north from Japanese Hokkaido to Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, enclosing the Sea of Okhotsk and occupying an area of 15,600 square kilometers. The Kurils have numerous lakes and rivers, with a harsh monsoon climate, and are highly seismic, with some thirty-five active volcanoes. Russians in search of furs first moved into the islands from Kamchatka early in the eighteenth century, thus coming into contact with the native Ainu and eventually with the Japanese, who were expanding northward. The 1855 Treaty of Shimoda divided the islands; those north of Iturup were ceded to Russia, while Japan controlled the four southern islands. In the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg, Japan ceded Sakhalin to Russia in exchange for the eighteen central and northern islands; the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth granted Japan sovereignty over southern Sakhalin and all neighboring islands. The USSR reoccupied the Kurils after World War II, and in 1948 expelled 17,000 Japanese inhabitants. Since then the southern four islands (Kunashiri, Shikotan, Iturup, and the Habomais group) have been disputed territory.
The Kuril islands are administered by Russian Sakhalin. Never large, the population declined to about 16,000 following a major earthquake in 1994. Some 3,500 border troops, far fewer than in Soviet times, remain to guard the territory. DurKURITSYN, FYODOR VASILEVICH (died c. 1502), state secretary (diak) and accused heretic under Ivan III.
From an unknown family, but recognized for his linguistic, literary, and administrative talents, Fyodor Vasilevich Kuritsyn was one of Ivan III’s chief diplomats in the 1480s and 1490s. Kuritsyn’s most important mission was to Matthias Corvinas of Hungary and Stefan the Great of Moldavia from 1482 to 1484 to arrange an alliance against Poland-Lithuania. Kuritsyn then became one of the sovereign’s top privy advisors and handled several affairs with Crimea and European states, including secret matters. Fixer of the first official Russian document with the two-headed eagle, Kuritsyn was also involved in Muscovy’s initial land cadastres. The disappearance of his name from the written sources after 1500 may have been connected with the fall of Ivan III’s half-Moldavian grandson and crowned co-ruler Dmitry.
The traces of Kuritsyn’s intellectual life are intriguing. According to testimony obtained from a Novgorod priest’s son under torture, Kuritsyn returned from Hungary and formed a circle of clerics and scribes that “studied anti-Orthodox material.” Other “heretics” found refuge at his home, so Archbishop Gennady concluded that KuKUROPATKIN, ALEXEI NIKOLAYEVICH ritsyn was the “protector . . . and . . . leader of all those scoundrels.” According to Joseph of Volotsk’s exaggerated Account, the Novgorodian heresiarch-archpriest Alexei and Kuritsyn “studied astronomy, lots of literature, astrology, sorcery, and secret knowledge, and therefore many people inclined toward them and were mired in the depths of apostasy.” Kuritsyn’s milieu probably did have access to some philosophical and astronomical treatises.
The only work with Kuritsyn’s name as conveyor or translator-copyist is a brief poem with an attached table of letters and coded alphabet, sharing the deceptive, New Testament-Apocryphal title, “Laodician Epistle.” The poem is of the chain type, on the theme of the sovereign soul enclosed in faith, linking wisdom, knowledge, the
