The history of Cyprus

Photo by: www.historystateparks.com

After being briefly controlled by the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Persians, Cyprus finally fell under permanent Greek rule when it was taken by Alexander the Great and the Egyptian Ptolemies when Alexander died.  In 58 BC it was annexed as part of the Roman Republic and was one of the stops made by the apostle Paul at the beginning of his missionary.  In 395 AD, Cyprus became part of the Byzantine Empire, who reclaimed it in 966AD after over three hundred years in the hands of the Arabs. 

The Byzantines held onto Cyprus until 1191 when it was taken captive during the Third Crusade by Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) of England.  He considered it a safe haven from the Saracens and a year after capturing the island Richard sold it to the Templar’s.  Guy of Lusignan subsequently purchased it from the Templar’s and began the line of Lusignan royalty that remain buried on the island to this day. 

In 1489 the island was seized by the Republic of Venice after the Queen abdicated her throne.  Nicosia was founded and set up as the capital, fending off frequent Ottoman raids.  When the city of Limassol was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1539, the Venetians fortified all of the rest of the major cities on the island.  It didn’t help and the island fell the invasion force of Piyale Pasha and his 60,000 troops in 1570.  The Ottomans used the Greek Orthodox Church as the mediator between the Christian residents on the island and Pasha’s Muslim followers, but it was to no avail and twenty-eight very bloody uprisings took place between 1572 and 1668. 

The Ottoman’s held onto the island until the administration of it was ceded to the United Kingdom in 1878 after the Russo-Turkish War.  The island was used by the British as a military based along its colonial routes.  When the harbour at Famagusta was complete in 1906, it became a naval outpost guarding the Suez Canal.  The island was declared a British Crown Colony in 1925 and the Ottoman Empire relinquished all claims to it after allying with the Central Powers in World War I. 

The island remained fairly peaceful until the Orthodox Church had their referendum boycotted by the Turkish community on the island.  They wanted to see the union of the island with Greece and be out from under British control.  That sentiment however changed and by 1955, the Turkish-Cypriot community was pushing towards partitioning the island.  The island gained independence from England in 1960, but it came with the price of two British sovereign base areas remaining on the island.  In 1974, power shifted yet again and 37% of the island was brought under Turkish control.  Each side expelled ‘enemy’ Cypriots to the other side of the demarcation line and in 1983, the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus was born only to be recognized as a legal entity by Turkey itself. 

The island has remained partitioned this way with the United Nations held Green Line demarcation area separating the north and south.  Close to 2,000 members of the Greek and Turkish Cypriots are still missing due to the 1974 events.  It is believed that there are approximately 100,000 settlers from Turkey living on Cyprus in direct violation of the Geneva Convention.  Only recently – April 3, 2008 – in an effort to reunite the whole island into one nation has part of the demarcation line fallen.  Ledra Street, one of the two main thoroughfares in Nicosia, was opened and the wall removed at the demarcation line, opening the entire city of Nicosia to members of both Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.