See CHOCZIM.
KHOULIKOF, Battle of (1383).
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.
----------KHUAREZM: Start--------
KHUAREZM, OR CHORASMIA (modern Khiva).
"The extensive and fertile oasis in the midst of the sandy
deserts of Central Asia, known in these days as the Khanat of
Khiva, was called by the Greeks Chorasmia and by the Arabs
Khwarezm [or Khuarezm]. The Chorasmians were of the Aryan
race, and their contingent to the army of Xerxes was equipped
precisely in the Bactrian fashion. It is probable that
Chorasmia formed a portion of the short-lived Greco-Bactrian
monarchy, and it certainly passed under the domination of the
White Huns, from whom it was subsequently wrested by the
Toorks."
_J. Hutton,
Central Asia,
chapter 10._
KHUAREZM: 12th Century.
The Khuarezmian, or Khahrezmian,
or Korasmian, or Carizmian Empire.
"The sovereigns of Persia were in the habit of purchasing
young Turks, who were captured by the various frontier tribes
in their mutual struggles, and employing them in their
service. They generally had a body guard formed of them, and
many of them were enfranchised and rose to posts of high
influence, and in many cases supplanted their masters. The
founder of the Khuarezmian power was such a slave, named
Nushtekin, in the service of the Seljuk Sultan Malik Shah. He
rose to the position of a Teshtedar or chamberlain, which
carried with it the government of the province of Khuarezm,
that is of the fertile valley of the Oxus and the wide steppes
on either side of it, bounded on the west by the Caspian and
on the east by Bukharia." The grandson of Nushtekin became
virtually independent of the Seljuk sultan, and the two next
succeeding princes began and completed the overthrow of the
Seljuk throne. The last Seljuk sultan, Togrul III., was slain
in battle, A. D. 1193, by Takish or Tokush, the Khuarezmian
ruler, who sent his head to the Caliph at Bagdad and was
formally invested by the Caliph with the sovereignty of
Khorassan, Irak Adjem and other parts of the Persian domain
not occupied by the Atabegs and the Assassins. Takish's son
extended his conquests in Transoxiana and Turkestan (A. D.
1209), and acquired Samarkand, which he made his capital. "He
controlled an army of 400,000 men, and his dominions, at the
invasion of the Mongols, stretched from the Jaxartes to the
Persian Gulf, and from the Indus to the Irak Arab and
Azerbaidjan."
_H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
part 1, pages 7-8._
{1944}
KHUAREZM: A. D. 1220.
Destruction by the Mongols.
In May, 1220, the Mongol army of Jingis Khan marched upon
Urgendj, or Khuarezm—the original capital of the empire of
Khuarezm, to which it gave its name. That city, which is
represented by the modern Khiva, was "the capital of the rich
cluster of cities that then bordered the Oxus, a river very
like the Nile in forming a strip of green across two sandy
deserts which bound it on either hand." The Mongols were
commanded, at first, by the three elder sons of Jingis Khan:
but two of them quarreled, and the siege was protracted
through six months without much progress being made. Jingis
then placed the youngest son, Ogotai, in charge of operations,
and they were carried forward more vigorously. "The Mongols at
length assaulted the town, fired its buildings with naptha,
and after seven days of desperate street-fighting captured it.
This was probably in December, 1220. They sent the artisans
and skilled workmen into Tartary, set aside the young women
and children as slaves, and then made a general massacre of
the rest of the inhabitants. They destroyed the city, and then
submerged it by opening the dykes of the Oxus. The ruins are
probably those now known as Old Urgendj. Rasehid says that
over 100,000 artisans and craftsmen were sent into Mongolia."
_H. H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
part 1, page 85._
ALSO IN:
_J. Hutton,
Central Asia,
chapter 4._
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.
KHUAREZM: A. D. 1873.
Conquest by the Russians.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.
----------KHUAREZM: End--------
KHUAREZMIANS IN JERUSALEM, The.
See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1242.
KICHES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES, QUICHES, and MAYAS.
KICKAPOO INDIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
ALGONQUIAN FAMILY and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.
KIEFT, Governor William, Administration of.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1638-1647.
KIEL, Peace of.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1813-1814.
----------KIEV: Start--------
KIEV, OR KIEF: A. D. 882.
Capital of the Russian state.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 862.
KIEV, OR KIEF: A. D. 1240.
Destroyed by the Mongols.
In December, 1240, the Mongols, pursuing their devastating
march through Russia, reached Kiev. It was then a famous city,
known among the Russians as "the mother of cities,
magnificently placed on the high banks of the Dnieper, with
its white walls, its beautiful gardens, and its thirty
churches, with their gilded cupolas, which gave it its pretty
Tartar name, Altundash Khan (i. e., the court of the Golden
Heads): it was the metropolitan city of the old Russian
princes, the seat of the chief patriarch of all Russia. It had
latterly, namely, in 1204, suffered from the internal broils
of the Russian princes, and had been much plundered and burnt.
It was now to be for a while erased altogether." Kiev was
taken by storm and the inhabitants "slaughtered without mercy:
the very bones were torn from the tombs and trampled under the
horses' hoofs. … The magnificent city, with the ancient
Byzantine treasures which it contained, was destroyed." During
the 14th and 15th centuries Kiev seems to have remained in
ruins, and the modern city is said to be "but a shadow of its
former self."
_H. H. Howorth,
History of the Mongols,
volume 1, pages 141-142. (1876)_
----------KIEV: End--------