CYPRUS CIVITAS

Cyprus has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the CITY OR CIVITAS category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the entire history of european integration and the future of Europe.

Cyprus is one of the most ancient cities of the history of European integration, signed in great part by Christianity. The Civitas Cyprus was founded four thousands years ago by Greeks Miceanean tribe on this island in the eastern Mediterranean sea, who developed the particular culture and alphabet at the origin of the European civilization, already famous as the birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite/Venus protector of the ancient city-state (πόλις). Settled by Ionian people in VIII century BC, Cyprus became famous until today as main centre of Hellenistic arts, education and religion, such important that highly influented the European continent with Miceanean and Ionian/Hellensitic style and regarded as one of the primary ortodox Christian community.

Cyprus always maintained its indpendence and trading activities cause of its strategic position on the Mediterranean sea routes and the military lines towards Greece and Egypt: for this reason, Cyprus was conquered by all the ancient empires of History, included the New Egypt Kingdom and the Persian empire up to V century BC, when the allied Greeks defeated Persian troops and Cyprus could enter the Ionian cities league and the Greece political system. But it couldn't avoid the submission to Macedonian kingdom and successively the annexation to Roman Empire in 58 BC: within the reform of Augustus (see Roman Empire) became the senatorial Cyprus province.

With the reform of Constantine I(see Christian Empire), Cyprus was included in the Oriensis Diocesis and part of the Byzantine Empire until XII century AD when Crusaders attacked and sacked the island making seriuos damages to the traditional christian hellenistic character of Cyprus. When the emperor Isacco I Komneno declared it independent in 1185 AD and established the Kingdom, Cyprus was attacked again by Richard I King of England who founded a Knight Order then sold the island to the Knights Templar, who sold it again to the french Lusignan family, the first royal dinasty of Cyprus recognized by the Reich emperors! At the estinction of that dinasty, Cyprus was inherited and annexed by the the Republic of Venice in 1489 AD, while the royal title passed to the Savoy dinasty until today.

In 1570 AD Cyprus was conquered by the Ottoman empire and its Greek and Armenian christian people massacred and substituted as ruling elite by the muslim community mixed of soldiers, Turkish peasants and Anatolian tribes of "undesirable" persons. Since that period, the island was divided between the Christian Greek Cypriots community and the Ottoman elite and muslim people "new comers" and it happens again at the beginning of the Greek War of Independence (1821 AD): the Greeks still living on the island joined the Greece forces and the Ottoman governor started the local civil war and persecuted the Catholic community, executing the Archbishop of Cyprus! The situation could change in 1878 AD when the island was leased to the British Empire, but under Ottoman sovereignty, and adapted as a strategic naval port in the eastern Mediterranean sea useful to the expansion colonialist objectives of Britain. That definitely annexed Cyprus at the beginning of the First World War when the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers against the Allies.

The Greek Cypriot population became hopeful on the idea of enosis, a great political ambition of a Greek state encompassing the territories with large Greek populations in the former Ottoman Empire, including Cyprus and Asia Minor with the capital in Constantinople, pursued by the Cypriot Orthodox Church together with Greek military officers and professionals. That was the cause for the civil war of Cyprus started in 1960 AD, when the island obtained the independence from Turkey and the british military forces: when a Greek military junta carried out a coup d'état in the spirit of enosis project, Turkey invaded Cyprus establishing the the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the south part of the island, officially under the sovereignty of the Greek Republic of Cyprus.

Nowadays, Cyprus is the most eastern European island and a big city, a fundamental politic and cultural centre witness of the ancient tradition of the history of European integration, located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea beside Turkey, whose people is mostly christian ortodox under its patron Saint Barnabas, founder of the ortodox community of the island together with Saint Paul.

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