Map of territory of medieval Alania (9th–12th centuries)Map of territory of modern North Ossetia – Alania within medieval Alania (9th-12th century), according to claims on non-official sources linking Ossetian historian Ruslan S. Bzarov.[citation needed]Political map of the Caucasus region in 1060Ossetian tribes, according to claims on non-official sources linking Ossetian historian B. A. Kaloev.[citation needed]
The territory of North Ossetia has been inhabited for thousands of years, being both a very fertile agricultural region and a key trade route through the
Khanate of Crimea and the Ottoman Empire eventually pushed Alania/Ossetia into an alliance with Russia in the 18th century. North Ossetia was among the first areas of the northern Caucasus to come under Russian domination, starting in 1774, and the capital, Vladikavkaz, was the first Russian military outpost in the region.[2]
By 1806, Ossetia was completely under Russian control.
Imperial Russia
The arrival of
Ivan Abkhazov
brought North Ossetia under tighter control of the Russian Empire. The area became part of the Terskaya Region of Russia in the mid-19th century.
Russian Revolution and USSR
After the
Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, on December 5, 1936. In World War II, North Ossetia saw the high-water mark of the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany
; the Germans attempted to seize Vladikavkaz in November 1942 but were repulsed.
During and after the war Stalin undertook
Chechen-Ingush ASSR, but it was granted to North Ossetia in following Joseph Stalin's deportation of the Chechens and Ingush to Central Asia. Although they were eventually allowed to return from the exile, they were generally not allowed to settle in the original territories. Instead, in 1957, three districts of Stavropol Krai
were granted to Chechen-Ingush ASSR. A local law passed in 1982 actually prohibited ethnic Ingush from obtaining residency permits in North Ossetia.
After the USSR
Map of modern North Ossetia–Alania
North Ossetian SSR finally became the first autonomous republic of the RSFSR to declare national sovereignty[citation needed], on June 20, 1990 (although it still remains firmly part of Russia). In 1991, North Ossetian SSR was renamed the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania.
The dissolution of the
Ossetian-Ingush conflict
.
As well as dealing with the effects of the conflict in South Ossetia, North Ossetia has had to deal with refugees and the occasional spillover of fighting from the war in neighboring
Beslan hostage crisis, in which Muslim separatists of Shamil Basayev
seized control of a school. In the firefight between the terrorists and Russian forces that ended the crisis, 335 civilians, the majority of them children, died.
