Mountainous landscape near Khinalug in Azerbaijan.

A map of the Caucasus region.

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia (for endonyms, see below), is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europe's highest mountain, Mt. Elbrus. Politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts.

Names[link]

• Avar: Кавказ - كافكاز Kavkaz
• Azerbaijani: Qafqaz
• Chechen: Kovk-Aze
• Persian: قفقاز‎ qafqâz
• Armenian: Կովկաս Kovkas
• Georgian: კავკასია k'avk'asia
• Lezgian: Кавказ Kavkaz
• Russian: Кавказ Kavkaz
• Slovak: Kaukaz
• Turkish: Kafkasya

Geography and ecology[link]

Armenia's capital Yerevan

The village of Ushguli in Georgia.

The northern portion of the Caucasus is known as the Ciscaucasus and the southern portion as the Transcaucasus.

The Ciscaucasus contains the larger majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range, also known as the Major Caucasus mountains. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan.

The Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. All of Armenia, Azerbaijan (excluding the northern parts) and Georgia (excluding the northern parts) are in South Caucasus.

The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the dividing line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus (5,642 m) in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, and is generally considered as the highest point in Europe.

The Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.

The Caucasus is an area of great ecological importance. It harbors some 6400 species of higher plants, 1600 of which are endemic to the region.^[1] Its wildlife includes leopards, brown bears, wolves, bison, marals, golden eagles and Hooded Crows. Among invertebrates, some 1000 spider species are recorded in the Caucasus.^[2] The natural landscape is one of mixed forest, with substantial areas of rocky ground above the treeline. The Caucasus Mountains are also noted for a dog breed, the Caucasian Shepherd Dog (Ovcharka).

History[link]

Petroglyphs in Gobustan, Azerbaijan, dating back to 10,000 BC indicating a thriving culture. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site considered to be of "outstanding universal value"

Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, and cultural rivalries and expansionism for centuries. Throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire conquered the territory from the Qajars.^[3]

Kingdom of Georgia at the peak of its power under Tamar of Georgia and George IV of Georgia (1184-1223).

Ancient kingdoms of the region included Armenia, Albania, Colchis and Iberia, among others. These kingdoms were later incorporated into various Iranian empires, including Media, Achaemenid Empire, Parthia, and Sassanid Empire. In 95-55 BC under the reign of Armenian king of kings Tigranes the Great, Kingdom of Armenia became an empire, including besides Kingdom of Armenia, vassals Iberia, Albania, Parthia and a few Arab tribes Atropatene, Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Syria, Assyria, Nabataean kingdom, Judea and Atropatene, stretching from Caucasian Mountains to Egypt and from Mediterranean Sea to Caspian Sea, including a territory of 3,000,000 km² (1,158,000 sq mi), and becoming the last strong Hellenist king, and the strongest in the region by 67 BC. By this time, Zoroastrianism had become the dominant religion of the region (except Kingdom of Armenia); however, the region would go through two other religious transformations. Owing to the rivalry between Persia and Rome, and later Byzantium, the latter would invade the region several times, although it was never able to hold the region.

Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Armenia, completed in 303 AD, a religious centre of Armenia. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

However, because Kingdom of Armenia (301 AD, the first nation to adopt Christianity as state religion) Caucasian Albania and Georgia had become a Christian entity, Christianity began to overtake Zoroastrianism. With the Islamic conquest of Persia, the region came under the rule of the Arabs. And soon Emirate of Armenia was formed. But after several rebellions in 884\885 AD Kingdom of Armenia became independent, and several times crushed Arab armies. At that time Kingdom of Armenia capital was Ani, with a population of 200,000 and a city of "1001 churches". It was at its peak under the reign of Gagik I, when it stretched from Byzantine Empire to Caucasian Albania, from Caucasian Iberia to Mesopotamia, including also vassal states such as Caucasian Albania and Caucasian Iberia, until in 1045 AD the kingdom was conquered by Byzantine Empire. In the 7th century Georgian king David the Builder drove the Muslims out from Caucasus and made the Kingdom of Georgia a strong regional power. In 1194–1204 Georgian Queen Tamar's armies crushed new Turkish invasions from the south-east and south and launched several successful campaigns into Turkish-controlled Southern Armenia. Georgian Kingdom continued military campaigns outside of Caucasus. As a result of her military campaigns and the temporary fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, Georgia became the strongest Christian state in the whole Near East area. The region would later be conquered by the Ottomans, Mongols, local kingdoms and khanates, as well as, once again, Persia, until its conquest by Russia.

The region was unified as a single political entity twice – during the Russian Civil War (Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic) from 9 April 1918 to 26 May 1918, and under the Soviet rule (Transcaucasian SFSR) from 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936.

In modern times, the Caucasus became a region of war among the Ottoman Empire, Iran and Russia, and was eventually conquered by the latter (see Caucasian Wars).

In the 1940s, the Chechens and Ingush (480,000 altogether), along with the Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks (120,000), Kurds and Caucasus Germans (almost 200,000) were deported en masse to Central Asia and Siberia. Eric D. Weitz wrote, "By 1948, according to Nicolas Werth, the mortality rate of the 600,000 people deported from the Caucasus between 1943 and 1944 had reached 25 percent."^[4]

Following the end of the Soviet Union, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent in 1991. The Caucasus region has been subject to various territorial disputes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994), the Ossetian-Ingush conflict (1989–1991), the War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), the First Chechen War (1994–1996), the Second Chechen War (1999–2009), and the 2008 South Ossetia War.

Demographics[link]

Ethno-linguistic groups in the Caucasus region 2009.

Dagestani couple in traditional dress (early 20th century).

The region has many different languages and language families. There are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region.^[5] No less than three language families are unique to the area, but also Indo-European languages, such as Armenian and Ossetic, and the Altaic language Azerbaijani are local to the area.

Today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the eastern part of the region.

Mythology[link]

In Greek mythology the Caucasus, or Kaukasos, was one of the pillars supporting the world. After presenting man with the gift of fire, Prometheus (or Amirani in Georgian version) was chained there by Zeus, to have his liver eaten daily by an eagle as punishment for defying Zeus' wish of not giving the "secret of fire" to humans.

The Roman poet Ovid placed Caucasus in Scythia and depicted it as a cold and stony mountain which was the abode of personified hunger. The Greek hero Jason sailed to the west coast of the Caucasus in pursuit of the Golden Fleece, and there met Medea, a daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis.^{[clarification needed]}

Energy and mineral resources[link]

Caucasus has many economically important minerals and energy resources, such as: alunite, gold, chromium, copper, iron ore, mercury, manganese, molybdenum, lead, tungsten, uranium, zinc, oil, natural gas, and coal (both hard and brown).

See also[link]

	Geography portal
	Europe portal

	Book: Caucasus
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• North Caucasus
• South Caucasus
• Culture of Armenia
• Culture of Azerbaijan
• Culture of Georgia
• History of the Caucasus
• Islam in Russia
• Languages of the Caucasus
• Peoples of the Caucasus
• Prometheism
• Transcontinental nations
• Ural Mountains
• Caucasian Emirate

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Caucasus: A Journey to the Land Between Christianity and Islam, by Nicholas Griffin
• Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus, by Svante E. Cornell
• The Caucasus, by Ivan Golovin
• de Waal, Thomas (2010), The Caucasus: An Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-539977-3 
• Coene, Frederick (2009), The Caucasus: An Introduction, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-48660-6 

Further reading[link]

• Nikolai F. Dubrovin. The history of wars and Russian domination in the Caucasus (История войны и владычества русских на Кавказе). Sankt-Petersburg, 1871–1888, at Runivers.ru in DjVu and PDF formats.
• Gagarin, G. G. Costumes Caucasus (Костюмы Кавказа). Paris, 1840, at Runivers.ru in DjVu and PDF formats.
• Gasimov, Zaur: The Caucasus, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: November 18, 2011.
• Rostislav A. Fadeev. Sixty years of the Caucasian War (Шестьдесят лет Кавказской войны). Tiflis, 1860, at Runivers.ru in DjVu format.
• Kaziev Shapi. Caucasian highlanders (Повседневная жизнь горцев Cеверного Кавказа в XIX в.). Everyday life of the Caucasian highlanders. 19-th century (In the co-authorship with I. Karpeev). "Molodaya Gvardiy" publishers. Moscow, 2003. ISBN 5-235-02585-7

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Caucasia or Caucasus

• Ethnographic map of Caucasus
• Information for travellers and others about Caucasus and Georgia
• Caucasian Review of International Affairs—an academic journal on the South Caucasus
• BBC News: North Caucasus at a glance, 8 September 2005
• United Nations Environment Programme map: Landcover of the Caucasus
• United Nations Environment Programme map: Population density of the Caucasus
• Food Security in Caucasus (FAO)
• Caucasus and Iran entry in Encyclopaedia Iranica
• University of Turin-Observatory on Caucasus
• MA in Black Sea Cultural Studies. International Hellenic University-School of Humanities
• Circassians Caucasus Web (Turkish)

Coordinates: 42°15′40″N 44°07′16″E / 42.26111°N 44.12111°E / 42.26111; 44.12111

v t e Countries and regions of the Caucasus      Abkhazia 22x20px Adjara  Adygea  Armenia  Azerbaijan  Chechnya  Dagestan  Georgia  Ingushetia  Kabardino-Balkaria  Karachay-Cherkessia  Krasnodar Krai  Nagorno-Karabakh Nakhchivan  North Ossetia-Alania  South Ossetia  Stavropol Krai

v t e Regions of the World Africa Northern Middle East Sub-Saharan Central Southern Western Eastern Oceania Australasia Australia Zealandia Melanesia Micronesia Polynesia America North Northern Middle Central Caribbean South Southern Northern Western Guianan States Anglo Latin (Hispanic) Polar regions Arctic Antarctic Asia Central Eastern Northeastern Northern Southeastern Mainland Maritime Southern Indian subcontinent Western Middle East Oceans World Arctic Atlantic Indian Pacific Southern Europe Central Eastern Northern Southeastern Middle East Southern Western Seas List of seas Related Continents of the world List of seas Physical Earth

lez:Къавкъаз

Loreena McKennitt
Background information
Birth name	Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt
Born	(1957-02-17) 17 February 1957 (age 55) Morden, Manitoba, Canada
Origin	Stratford, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Celtic, world, New Age
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Voice, piano, harp, accordion
Years active	1985–present
Labels	Quinlan Road, Warner Bros., Verve Forecast/Universal
Website	quinlanroad.com

Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is known for her refined, clear soprano vocals.^[1] She has sold more than 14 million records worldwide.^[2]

Early life[link]

McKennitt was born in Morden, Manitoba of Irish and Scottish descent to parents Jack (died 1992; a livestock dealer) and Irene McKennitt (1931-2011; a nurse). She moved to Stratford, Ontario in 1981, where she still resides.

When Loreena was young she wanted to become a veterinarian but she found that music chose her rather than she it.^[3] Developing a passion for Celtic music, she learned to play the Celtic harp and began busking at various places, including St. Lawrence Market in Toronto in order to earn money to record her first album.^[4]

Career[link]

McKennitt's first album, Elemental, was released in 1985, followed by To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987), Parallel Dreams (1989), The Visit (1991), The Mask and Mirror (1994), A Winter Garden (1995), The Book of Secrets (1997), An Ancient Muse (2006), A Midwinter Night’s Dream (2008), and The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2010). All of her work is released under her own label, Quinlan Road.

In 1990, McKennitt provided the music for the National Film Board of Canada documentary The Burning Times, a feminist revisionist account of the Early Modern European witchcraft trials. The main theme would later be rerecorded by her and her band and called "Tango to Evora", a track that appears on her album The Visit.

In 1993, she toured Europe supporting Mike Oldfield. In 1995, her version of the traditional Irish song "Bonny Portmore" was featured in the Highlander series. McKennitt's single "The Mummers' Dance" received airplay in North American markets during the spring of 1997, and was used as the theme song for the short-lived TV series Legacy. It also saw use in the trailer for a wide-release 1998 Drew Barrymore film Ever After.^[5]

Her music appeared in the movies The Santa Clause, Soldier, Jade, Holy Man, The Mists of Avalon and Tinkerbell; and in the television series Roar, Due South, and Full Circle (Women and Spirituality).

Personal life[link]

In 1998, McKennitt's fiancé Ronald Rees, his brother Richard and their close friend Gregory Cook drowned during a boating accident on Georgian Bay. She was deeply affected by the event and subsequently founded the Cook-Rees Memorial Fund for Water Search and Safety in the same year.

At the time of the incident, she was working on a live album of two performances called Live in Paris and Toronto. The proceeds from this album were donated to the newly created memorial fund, totaling some three million dollars.^[6] After the release of the live album, McKennitt decided to substantially reduce the number of her public performances and did not release any new recordings until the studio album An Ancient Muse in 2006.

Honours[link]

• Juno Award, Best Roots/Traditional Album 1992, for The Visit.
• Juno Award, Best Roots/Traditional Album 1994, for The Mask and Mirror.
• Billboard Music Award for International Achievement, 1997.
• Headline performer for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at The Golden Jubilee Celebrations, Province of Manitoba, 2002.
• Honorary Doctor of Letters, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2002.
• Member of the Order of Manitoba, July 2003.
• Member of the Order of Canada, July 2004.
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Manitoba, June 2005
• Canadian Ambassador, Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennary, June 2005
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Queen's University, October 2005
• Investiture as Honorary Colonel, 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, December 2006
• Nominated for a Grammy award, Best Contemporary World Music Album, in 2007
• Western Canadian Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, September 2009
• Performed at Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Opening Ceremonies, February 12, 2010
• Honorary Bachelor of Applied Business, George Brown College, June 2010

Genre and work[link]

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this section if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (September 2011)

McKennitt's music has generally been classified as World / Celtic music even though it contains aspects and characteristics of music from around the globe and is sometimes classified as Folk music in record stores.^{[citation needed]}

Before McKennitt composes any music, she engages in considerable research on a specific subject which then forms the general concept of the album.^{[citation needed]} Before creating Elemental and Parallel Dreams, she traveled to Ireland for inspiration from the country's history, folklore, geography and culture. The album The Mask and Mirror was preceded by research in Spain where she engaged in studying Galicia, a Celtic section of Spain, along with its abundant Arabic roots.^{[citation needed]} The result was an album that included elements of Celtic and Arabic music. According to the jacket notes, her album An Ancient Muse was inspired by travels among and reading about the various cultures along the Silk Road.

McKennitt is compared to Enya,^{[citation needed]} but McKennitt's music is more grounded in traditional and classical invocations,^{[citation needed]} using literary works as sources of lyrics and springboards for interpretation such as "The Lady of Shalott" by Lord Tennyson, "Prospero's Speech" (the final soliloquy in William Shakespeare's The Tempest), "Snow" by Archibald Lampman, "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross, Dante's Inferno, William Blake's "Lullaby", Yeats' "The Stolen Child", "The English Ladye and the Knight" by Sir Walter Scott and "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes.

Court case[link]

In 2005, McKennitt was involved in an acrimonious court case in Britain when her former friend and employee, Niema Ash, published a book that contained intimate details of their friendship. McKennitt argued that much of the book contained confidential personal information that Ash had no right to publish. The British courts found that there had indeed been a breach of confidence and a misuse of McKennitt's private information, and the case is likely to set important precedents in British law on the privacy of celebrities.^[7] The House of Lords affirmed the lower court's decisions in 2007.

2006 and later[link]

In September 2006, McKennitt performed live at the Alhambra. The performance premiered on PBS and in August 2007 was released on a three-disc DVD/CD set titled Nights from the Alhambra.

In 2008, McKennitt wrote and composed a song she titled "To The Fairies They Draw Near" as the theme song for Disney's direct-to-video animated film Tinker Bell. She also provided the narration for the film.^[8]

In early 2008, she returned to Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios to record A Midwinter Night’s Dream, an extended version of her 1995 mini-album A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season. The album was released on October 28, 2008.^[9]

Since the release of An Ancient Muse, Loreena has toured consistently, with a European and North American tour in the spring of 2007, an extensive cross Canada and United States tour in the fall of 2007, a summer tour of Europe in 2008 and a Mediterranean tour in the summer of 2009 with stops in Greece,^[10] Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Hungary and Italy.

On September 17, 2009, McKennitt announced that she planned to release a two-disc album titled "A Mediterranean Odyssey" in the fall of 2009. The first CD, "From Istanbul to Athens," consisted of ten new live recordings made during McKennitt’s 2009 Mediterranean Tour, including songs she had never before recorded in concert. The second CD, "The Olive and the Cedar," had a Mediterranean theme which McKennitt herself curated. It contained previously released studio recordings created between the years of 1994 and 2006.

November 16, 2010 saw the US release (November 12 for Europe) of McKennitt's latest studio album, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley." Recorded at the Sharon Temple, Ontario, it consists of nine traditional Celtic songs. "Every once and again there is a pull to return to one's own roots or beginnings, with the perspective of time and experience, to feel the familiar things you once loved and love still," says Loreena.

Documentaries[link]

Late in the 1990s, McKennitt created No Journey's End, a half-hour documentary, for American television. In it, she discussed the influences behind her music. No Journey's End contained excerpts from several songs from the albums Parallel Dreams, The Visit, and The Mask and Mirror. It also shows live performances of the songs "The Lady of Shalott," "Santiago," and "The Dark Night of the Soul." It was later released on DVD and VHS, the former also containing music videos for "The Mummers' Dance" and "The Bonny Swans." A bonus copy of the DVD was included with the 2004 remastered versions of McKennitt's CDs.

In 2008, Loreena released A Moveable Musical Feast, based on her 2007 An Ancient Muse tour. The DVD included interviews with Loreena, her band, crew, fans and professional colleagues from the Canadian music industry.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

Compilations[link]

EPs[link]

Boxed sets[link]

• The Journey Begins (2008)

Singles[link]

Videos[link]

• H.M.S. Pinafore Live performance recorded during the 1981 Stratford Festival in Stratford Ontario, Canada, starring Michael Burgess, Katherine Terrell, Eric Donkin, Kenneth Pearl, Jim White, et al.; Loreena McKennitt performed in the chorus. (CBC VHS 1986)
• The Mummers' Dance (1997)
• The Bonny Swans
• Nights from the Alhambra (2007, Live concert in Spain premiered on PBS)^[22]
• A Moveable Musical Feast (2008, A tour documentary from Loreena's 2007 North American Tour)^[22]

Other[link]

• No Journey’s End (half-hour profile, aired on PBS; DVD)
• Heaven on Earth (TV Movie 1987 - played "Lady Traveler")
• Highlander III (Soundtrack contribution)
• The Santa Clause (Soundtrack contribution, "The Bells of Christmas")
• Léolo (Soundtrack contribution)
• Una casa con vista al mar (Soundtrack contribution)
• The Mists Of Avalon (Soundtrack use)
• The Burning Times (Soundtrack contribution)
• Due South (Soundtrack use)
• Northern Exposure (Soundtrack use)
• Tinker Bell (Direct to DVD movie, 2008 - Narrator)
• Soldier (Soundtrack use)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Loreena McKennitt

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Loreena McKennitt

• Official website
• Loreena McKennitt interview from the echoes public radio show