Part 31

Karageorge was one of the most remarkable Servians of the 19th century. No other man could have led the bands of undisciplined and badly-armed Servian peasants to such decisive victories against the Turks. Although he never assumed the title of prince, he practically was the first chief and master (_gospodar_) of the people of Servia. He succeeded, however, not because he was liked but because he was feared. His gloomy silence, his easily aroused anger, his habit of punishing without hesitation the slightest transgressions by death, spread terror among the people. He is believed to have killed his own father in a fit of anger when the old man refused to follow him in his flight to Hungary at the beginning of his career. In another fit of rage at the report that his brother Marinko had assaulted a girl, he ordered his men to seize his brother and to hang him there and then in his presence, and he forbade his mother to go into mourning for him. Even by his admirers he is admitted to have killed by his own hand no fewer than 125 men who provoked his anger. But in battles he is acknowledged to have been always admirable, displaying marvellous energy and valour, and giving proofs of a real military genius. The Servians consider him one of their greatest men. In grateful remembrance of his services to the national cause they elected his younger son, Alexander, in 1842, to be the reigning prince of Servia, and again in 1903 they chose his grandson, Peter Karageorgevich (son of Alexander) to be the king of Servia.

See SERVIA; also Ranke, _Die serbische Revolution_; Stoyan Novakovich, _Vaskzhs srpske drzhave_ (Belgrade, 1904); M. G. Milityevich, _Karadyordye_ (Belgrade, 1904). (C. Mi.)

KARA-HISSAR ("Black Castle"). (1) AFIUM KARA-HISSAR (q.v.). (2) ICHJE, or ISCHA KARA-HISSAR (anc. _Docimium_), a small village about 14 m. N.E. of No. 1. Docimium was a Macedonian colony established on an older site. It was a self-governing municipality, striking its own coins, and stood on the Apamea-Synnada-Pessinus road, by which the celebrated marble called Synnadic, Docimian and Phrygian was conveyed to the coast. The quarries are 2(1/2) m. from the village, and the marble was carried thence direct to Synnada (Chifut Kassaba). Some of the marble has the rich purple veins in which poets saw the blood of Atys.

See W. M. Ramsay, _Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor_ (London, 1890); Murray, _Hbk. to Asia Minor_ (1893).

KARA-HISSAR SHARKI [i.e. "eastern Kara-Hissar"], also called Shabin Kara-Hissar from the alum mines in its vicinity, the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Sivas vilayet of Asia Minor. Pop. about 12,000, two-thirds Mussulman. It is the Roman _Colonia_, which gradually superseded Pompey's foundation, _Nicopolis_, whose ruins lie at Purkh, about 12 m. W. (hence Kara-Hissar is called Nikopoli by the Armenians). In later Byzantine times it was an important frontier station, and did not pass into Ottoman hands till twelve years after the capture of Constantinople. The town, altitude 4860 ft., is built round the foot of a lofty rock, upon which stand the ruins of the Byzantine castle, _Maurocastron_, the Kara Hissar Daula of early Moslem chroniclers. It is connected with its port, Kerasund, and with Sivas, Erzingan and Erzerum, by carriage roads.

KARAISKAKIS, GEORGES (1782-1827), leader in the War of Greek Independence, was born at Agrapha in 1782. During the earlier stages of the war he served in the Morea, and had a somewhat discreditable share in the intrigues which divided the Greek leaders. But he showed a sense of the necessity for providing the country with a government, and was a steady supporter of Capo d'Istria. His most honourable services were performed in the middle and later stages of the war. He helped to raise the first siege of Missolonghi in 1823, and did his best to save the town in the second siege in 1826. In that year he commanded the patriot forces in Rumelia, and though he failed to co-operate effectually with other chiefs, or with the foreign sympathizers fighting for the Greeks, he gained some successes against the Turks which were very welcome amid the disasters of the time. He took a share in the unsuccessful attempts to raise the siege of Athens in 1827, and made an effort to prevent the disastrous massacre of the Turkish garrison of fort S Spiridion. He was shot in action on the 4th of May 1827. Finlay speaks of him as a capable partisan leader who had great influence over his men, and describes him as of "middle size, thin, dark-complexioned, with a bright expressive animal eye which indicated gipsy blood."

See G. Finlay, _History of the Greek Revolution_ (London, 1861).

KARAJICH, VUK STEFANOVICH (1787-1864), the father of modern Servian literature, was born on the 6th of November 1787 in the Servian village of Trshich, on the border between Bosnia and Servia. Having learnt to read and write in the old monastery Tronosha (near his native village), he was engaged as writer and reader of letters to the commander of the insurgents of his district at the beginning of the first Servian rising against the Turks in 1804. Mostly in the position of a scribe to different voyvodes, sometimes as school-teacher, he served his country during the first revolution (1804-1813), at the collapse of which he left Servia, but instead of following Karageorge and other voyvodes to Russia he went to Vienna. There he was introduced to the great Slavonic scholar Yerney Kopitar, who, having heard him recite some Servian national ballads, encouraged him to collect the poems and popular songs, write a grammar of the Servian language, and, if possible, a dictionary. This programme of literary work was adhered to by Karajich, who all his life acknowledged gratefully what he owed to his learned teacher.

In the second half of the 18th and in the beginning of the 19th century all Servian literary efforts were written in a language which was not the Servian vernacular, but an artificial language, of which the foundation was the Old Slavonic in use in the churches, but somewhat Russianized, and mixed with Servian words forced into Russian forms. That language, called by its writers "the Slavonic-Servian," was neither Slavonic nor Servian. It was written in Old Cyrillic letters, many of which had no meaning in the Servian language, while there were several sounds in that language which had no corresponding signs or letters in the Old Slavonic alphabet. The Servian philosopher Dositey Obradovich (who at the end of the 18th century spent some time in London teaching Greek) was the first Servian author to proclaim the principle that the books for the Servian people ought to be written in the language of the people. But the great majority of his contemporaries were of opinion that the language of Servian literature ought to be evolved out of the dead Old Slavonic of the church books. The church naturally decidedly supported this view. Karajich was the great reformer who changed all this. Encouraged by Kopitar, he published in 1814 (2nd ed., 1815) in Vienna his first book, _Mala Prostonarodna Slaveno-Serbska Pyesmaritsa_ ("A small collection of Slavonic-Servian songs of the common people"), containing a hundred lyric songs, sung by the peasant women of Servia, and six poems about heroes, or as the Servians call them _Yunachke pesme_, which are generally recited by the blind bards or by peasants. From that time Karajich's literary activity moved on two parallel lines: to give scientific justification and foundation to the adoption of the vernacular Servian as the literary language; and, by collecting and publishing national songs, folk-lore, proverbs, &c., to show the richness of the Servian people's poetical and intellectual gifts, and the wealth and beauty of the Servian language. By his reform of the Servian alphabet and orthography, his Servian grammar and his Servian dictionary, he established the fact that the Servian language contains thirty distinct sounds, for six of which the Old Slavonic alphabet had no special letters. He introduced new letters for those special sounds, at the same time throwing out of the Old Slavonic alphabet eighteen letters for which the Servian language had no use. This reform was strenuously opposed by the church and many conservative authors, who went so far as to induce the Servian government to prohibit the printing of books in new letters, a prohibition removed in 1859. Karajich's alphabet facilitated his reform of orthography, his principle being: _write as you speak, and read as it is written_! Hardly any other language in the civilized world has such a simple, logical, scientific spelling system and orthography as the Servian has in Karajich's system. His first grammatical essay was published in Vienna in 1814, _Pismenitsa Serbskoga yezika po govoru prostoga naroda_ ("The grammar of the Servian language as spoken by the common people"). An improved edition appeared in Vienna in 1818, together with his great work _Srpski Ryechnik_ (Lexicon Serbico-Germanico-Latinum). This dictionary--containing 26,270 words--was full of important contributions to folk-lore, as Karajich never missed an opportunity to add to the meaning of the word the description of the national customs or popular beliefs connected with it. A new edition of his dictionary, containing 46,270 words, was published at Vienna in 1852. Meanwhile he gave himself earnestly to the work of collecting the "creations of the mind of the Servian common people." He travelled through Servian countries (Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, Syrmia, Croatia), and the result was shown in a largely augmented edition of his _Srpske Narodne Pyesme_, of which the first three volumes appeared at Leipzig in 1823 and 1824, the fourth volume appearing at Vienna in 1833. _Popular Stories and Enigmas_ was published in 1821, and _Servian National Proverbs_ in 1836. From 1826 to 1834 he was the editor of an annual, called _Danitsa_ (The Morning Star), which he filled with important contributions concerning the ethnography and modern history of the Servian people. In 1828 he published a historical monograph, _Milosh Obrenovich, Prince of Servia_; in 1837, in German, _Montenegro and Montenegrins_; in 1867, _The Servian Governing Council of State_. He supplied Leopold Ranke with the materials for his _History of the Servian Revolution_. He also translated the New Testament into Servian, for the British and Foreign Bible Society (Vienna, 1847). Karajich died in Vienna on the 6th of February 1864; and his remains were transferred to Belgrade in 1897 with great solemnity and at the expense of the government of Servia. (C. Mi.)

KARA-KALPAKS ("Black Caps"), a Mongolo-Tatar people, originally dominant along the east coast of the Aral Sea, where they still number some thousands. They thus form geographically the transition between the northern Kirghiz and the southern Turkomans. Once a powerful nation, they are scattered for the most part in Astrakhan, Perm, Orenburg, in the Caucasian province of Kuban, and in Tobolsk, Siberia, numbering in all about 50,000. These emigrants have crossed much with the alien populations among whom they have settled; but the pure type on the Aral Sea are a tall powerful people, with broad flat faces, large eyes, short noses and heavy chins. Their women are the most beautiful in Turkestan. The name of "Black Caps" is given them in allusion to their high sheepskin hats. They are a peaceful agricultural folk, who have suffered much from their fierce nomad neighbours.

KARAKORUM (Turkish, "black stone debris"), the name of two cities in Mongolia. One of these, according to G. Potanin, was the capital of the Uighur kingdom in the 8th century, and the other was in the 13th century a capital of the steppe monarchy of Mongolia. The same name seems also to have been applied to the Khangai range at the headwaters of the Orkhon. (1) The Uighur KARAKORUM, also named Mubalik ("bad town"), was situated on the left bank of the Orkhon, in the Talal-khain-dala steppe, to the south-east of Ughei-nor. It was deserted after the fall of the Uighur kingdom, and in the 10th century Abaki, the founder of the Khitan kingdom, planted on its ruins a stone bearing a description of his victories. (2) The Mongolian KARAKORUM was founded at the birth of the Mongolian monarchy established by Jenghiz Khan. A palace for the khan was built in it by Chinese architects in 1234, and its walls were erected in 1235. Plano Carpini visited it in 1246, Rubruquis in 1253, and Marco Polo in 1275. Later, the fourth Mongolian king, Kublai, left Karakorum, in order to reside at Kai-pin-fu, near Peking. When the khan Arik-bog declared himself and Karakorum independent of Kublai-Khan, the latter besieged Karakorum, took it by famine, and probably laid it waste so thoroughly that the town was afterwards forgotten.

The exact sites of the two Mongolian capitals were only established in 1889-1891. Sir H. Yule (_The Book of Marco Polo_, 1871) was the first to distinguish two cities of this name. The Russian traveller Paderin in 1871 visited the Uighur capital (see TURKS), named now by the Mongols Kara Balghasun ("black city") or Khara-kherem ("black wall"), of which only the wall and a tower are in existence, while the streets and ruins outside the wall are seen at a distance of 1(3/4) m. Paderin's belief that this was the old Mongol capital has been shown to be incorrect. As to the Mongolian Karakorum, it is identified by several authorities with a site on which towards the close of the 16th century the Buddhist monastery of Erdeni Tsu was built. This monastery lies about 25 m. south by east of the Uighur capital. North and north-east of the monastery are ruins of ancient buildings. Professor D. Pozdneev, who visited Erdeni Tsu for a second time in 1892, stated that the earthen wall surrounding the monastery might well be part of the wall of the old city. The proper position of the two Karakorums was determined by the expedition of N. Yadrintsev in 1889, and the two expeditions of the Helsingfors Ugro-Finnish society (1890) and the Russian academy of science, under Dr W. Radlov (1891), which were sent out to study Yadrintsev's discovery.

See _Works (Trudy) of the Orkhon Expedition_ (St Petersburg, 1892); Yule's _Marco Polo_, edition revised by Henri Cordier (of Paris), vol. i. ch. xlvi. (London, 1903). Cordier confines the use of Karakorum to the Mongol capital; Pozdneev, _Mongolia and the Mongols_, vol. i. (St Petersburg, 1896); C. W. Campbell, "Journeys in Mongolia," _Geog. Journ._ vol. xx. (1903), with map. Campbell's report was printed as a parliamentary paper (_China No. 1, 1904_).

KARA-KUL, the name of two lakes ("Great" and "Little ") of Russian Turkestan, in the province of Ferghana, and on the Pamir plateau. Great Kara-kul, 12 m. long and 10 m. wide (formerly much larger), is under 39 deg. N., to the south of the Trans-Alai range, and lies at an altitude of 13,200 ft.; it is surrounded by high mountains, and is reached from the north over the Kyzyl-art pass (14,015 ft.). A peninsula projecting from the south shore and an island off the north shore divide it into two basins, a smaller eastern one which is shallow, 42 to 63 ft., and a larger western one, which has depths of 726 to 756 ft. It has no drainage outlet. Little Kara-kul lies in the north-east Pamir, or Sarikol, north-west of the Mustagh-ata peak (25,850 ft.), at an altitude of 12,700 ft. It varies in depth from 79 ft. in the south to 50 to 70 ft. in the middle, and 1000 ft. or more in the north. It is a moraine lake; and a stream of the same name flows through it, but is named Ghez in its farther course towards Kashgar in East Turkestan.

KARA-KUM ("Black Sands"), a flat desert in Russian Central Asia. It extends to nearly 110,000 sq. m., and is bounded on the N.W. by the Ust-urt plateau, between the Sea of Aral and the Caspian Sea, on the N.E. by the Amu-darya, on the S. by the Turkoman oases, and on the W. it nearly reaches the Caspian Sea. Only part of this surface is covered with sand. There are broad expanses (_takyrs_) of clay soil upon which water accumulates in the spring; in the summer these are muddy, but later quite dry, and merely a few Solanaceae and bushes grow on them. There is also _shor_, similar to the above but encrusted with salt and gypsum, and relieved only by Solanaceae along their borders. The remainder is occupied with sand, which, according to V. Mainov, assumes five different forms. (1) _Barkhans_, chiefly in the east, which are mounds of loose sand, 15 to 35 ft. high, hoof-shaped, having their gently sloping convex sides turned towards the prevailing winds, and a concave side, 30 deg. to 40 deg. steep, on the opposite slope. They are disposed in groups or chains, and the winds drive them at an average rate of 20 ft. annually towards the south and south-east. Some grass (_Stipa pennata_) and bushes of _saksaul_ (_Haloxylon ammodendron_) and other steppe bushes (e.g. _Calligonium_, _Halimodendron_ and _Atraphaxis_) grow on them. (2) Mounds of sand, of about the same size, but irregular in shape and of a slightly firmer consistence, mostly bearing the same bushes, and also _Artemisia_ and _Tamarix_; they are chiefly met with in the east and south. (3) A sandy desert, slightly undulating, and covered in spring with grass and flowers (e.g. tulips, _Rheum_, various Umbelliferae), which are soon burned by the sun; they cover very large spaces in the south-east. (4) Sands disposed in waves from 50 to 70 ft., and occasionally up to 100 ft. high, at a distance of from 200 to 400 ft. from each other; they cover the central portion, and their vegetation is practically the same as in the preceding division. (5) Dunes on the shores of the Caspian, composed of moving sands, 35 to 80 ft. high and devoid of vegetation.

A typical feature of the Kara-kum is the number of "old river beds," which may have been either channels of tributaries of the Amu and other rivers or depressions which contained elongated salt lakes. Water is only found in wells, 10 to 20 m. apart--sometimes as much as 100 m.--which are dug in the takyrs and give saline water, occasionally unfit to drink, and in pools of rain-water retained in the lower parts of the takyrs. The population of the Kara-kum, consisting of nomad Kirghiz and Turkomans, is very small. The region in the north of the province of Syr-darya, between Lake Aral and Lake Chalkarteniz, is also called Kara-kum. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)

KARAMAN (anc. _Laranda_, a name still used by the Christian inhabitants), a town in the Konia vilayet of Asia Minor, situated in the plain north of Mount Taurus. Pop. 8000. It has few industries and little trade, but the medieval walls, well preserved castle and mosques are interesting, and the old Seljuk _medresse_, or college, is a beautiful building. Karaman is connected with Konia by railway, having a station on the first section of the Bagdad railway. Little is known of its ancient history except that it was destroyed by Perdiccas about 322 B.C., and afterwards became a seat of Isaurian pirates. It was occupied by Frederick Barbarossa in 1190; in 1466 it was captured by Mahommed II., and in 1486 by Bayezid II.

KARAMANIA, formerly an independent inland province in the south of Asia Minor, named after Karaman, the son of an Armenian convert to Islam, who married a daughter of Ala ed-Din Kaikobad, the Seljuk sultan of Rum, and was granted Laranda in fief, and made governor of Selefke, 1223-1245. The name Karaman is, however, Turkoman and that of a powerful tribe, settled apparently near Laranda. The Armenian convert must have been adopted into this. On the collapse of the Seljuk empire, Karaman's grandson, Mahmud, 1279-1319, founded a state, which included Pamphylia, Lycaonia and large parts of Cilicia, Cappadocia and Phrygia. Its capital, Laranda, superseded Konia. This state was frequently at war with the kings of Lesser Armenia, the Lusignan princes of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes. It was also engaged in a long struggle for supremacy with the Osmanli Turks, which only ended in 1472, when it was definitely annexed by Mahommed II. The Osmanlis divided Karamania into Kharij north, and Ichili south, of the Taurus, and restored Konia to its metropolitan position. The name Karamania is now often given by geographers to Ichili only; but so far as it has had any exact significance in modern times, it has stood for the whole province of Konia. Before the present provincial division was made (1864), Karamania was the eyalet of which Konia was the capital, and it did not extend to the sea, the whole littoral from Adalia eastward being under the pasha of Adana. Nevertheless, in Levantine popular usage at the present day, "Karamania" signifies the coast from Adalia to Messina. (D. G. H.)

KARAMNASA, a river of northern India, tributary to the Ganges on its right bank, forming the boundary between Bengal and the United Provinces. The name means "destroyer of religious merit," which is explained by more than one legend. To this day all high-caste Hindus have to be carried over without being defiled by the touch of its waters.

KARA MUSTAFA (d. 1683), Turkish vizier, surnamed "Merzifunli," was a son of Uruj Bey, a notable Sipahi of Merzifun (Marsovan), and brother-in-law to Ahmed Kuprili, whom he succeeded as grand vizier in 1676, after having for some years held the office of Kaimmakam or _locum tenens_. His greed and ostentation were equalled by his incapacity, and he behaved with characteristic insolence to the foreign ambassadors, from whom he extorted large bribes. After conducting a campaign in Poland which terminated unfortunately, he gave a ready response to the appeal for aid made by the Hungarians under Imre Thokoly (q.v.) when they rose against Austria, his hope being to form out of the Habsburg dominions a Mussulman empire of the West, of which he should be the sultan. The plan was foiled in part by his own lack of military skill, but chiefly through the heroic resistance of Vienna and its timely relief by John Sobieski, king of Poland. Kara Mustafa paid for his defeat with his life; he was beheaded at Belgrade in 1683 and his head was brought to the sultan on a silver dish.

Another KARA MUSTAFA PASHA (d. 1643), who figures in Turkish history, was by birth a Hungarian, who was enrolled in the Janissaries, rose to be Kapudan Pasha under Murad IV., and after the capture of Bagdad was made grand vizier. He was severe, but just and impartial, and strove to effect necessary reforms by reducing the numbers of the Janissaries, improving the coinage, and checking the state expenditure. But the discontent of the Janissaries led to his dismissal and death in 1643.