Kunlun \'kun- , lUn\ Mountains or K'un-lun Mountains Mountain system, east-central Asia. It extends for 1,250 mi (2,000 km) through the western regions of China. From the Pamirs of Tajikistan, it runs east along the border between Xinjiang and Tibet autonomous regions to the Sino- Tibetan ranges in Qinghai province. It divides the northern limit of the Plateau of Tibet from the interior plains of Central Asia. Its highest peak, Mount Muztag, measures 25,338 ft (7,723 m).
Kunming Vkun-'miq\ or K'un-ming City (pop., 2003 est.: 1,597,768), capital of Yunnan province, southern China. Situated on the northern shore of Lake Dian, it has long been a commercial centre at the junction of major trade routes. Originally known as Tuodong in the 8th-9th centuries ad and a part of the independent state of Nanzhao, it came under Chinese control with the Mongol invasion of 1253. The city became the provin¬ cial capital of Yunnan in 1276 and was visited by Marco Polo. It became a municipality in 1928 and was transformed into a modem city in 1937 during the Sino-Japanese War (1937—45), when Chinese evacuees from the north brought industrial plants and universities to Kunming.
Kunstler, William (Moses) (b. July 7, 1919, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. Sept. 4, 1995, New York City) U.S. lawyer who defended a number of controversial clients in high-profile cases. After graduating from Yale University (1941) he served in the army in the Pacific during World War II, earning a Bronze Star. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1948. In the 1950s and ’60s he became involved with the American Civil Liberties Union and clients such as the antisegregationist Freedom Riders and Martin Luther King, Jr., not only defending them in court but becoming active in their causes. He gained national renown for his defense of the “Chicago Seven” on charges of conspiring to incite riots in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic national convention. In other cases that reflected his political leanings, he represented black power
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1058 I Kuo Hsiang ► Kutuzov
activists Stokely Carmichael and Bobby Seale, antiwar activist Daniel Berrigan, and prisoners accused in the aftermath of the deadly 1971 riot at the state prison in Attica, N.Y. Perhaps his most notorious clients were Mafia boss John Gotti and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was con¬ victed in 1995 of conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center.
Kuo Hsiang See Guo Xiang Kuo Mo-jo See Guo Moruo Kuomintang See Nationalist Party
Kura \k3-'ra, 'kur-9\ River Azerbaijani Kur Georgian Mtkvari River in Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The largest river in Transcaucasia, it rises in eastern Turkey and flows north. After entering Georgia, it turns east and flows southeast to enter the Caspian Sea. It is 848 mi (1,364 km) long and used in places for irrigation.
Kurath Xku-'rathX, Hans (b. Dec. 13, 1891, Villach, Austria—d. Jan. 2, 1992, Ann Arbor, Mich., U.S.) Austrian-born U.S. linguist. He immi¬ grated to the U.S. in 1907. He is best known as the chief editor of the Linguistic Atlas of New England, 3 vol. (1939-43), the first linguistic atlas of a region of the U.S. His other works include A Word Geography of the Eastern United States (1949) and The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States (1961). Kurath was later editor in chief (1946-62) of the Middle English Dictionary.
Kurd Member of an ethnic and linguistic group native to parts of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey (see Kurdistan). Kurds speak one of two dialects of Kur¬ dish, a West Iranian language related to Modern Persian. Traditionally nomadic, most were forced into farming by the redrawing of state bor¬ ders after World War I (1914-18). Most Kurds are Sunnite Muslims; Sufism is widely practiced. Plans for a Kurdish state, promised by the Treaty of Sevres (1920), which dissolved the Ottoman Empire, were never realized. Kurds in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq have been variously persecuted and pressured to assimilate; Iraqi attacks were particularly severe during the I ran-Iraq War (1980-90) and following the Persian Gulf War (1990- 91). See also Kurdistan Workers' Party.
Kurdistan Mountainous region of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, inhab¬ ited predominantly by Kurds. It covers about 74,000 sq mi (191,660 sq km), and its chief towns are Diyarbakir, Bitlis, and Van in Turkey, Mosul and KarkOk in Iraq, and Kermanshah in Iran. Since early times the region has been the home of the Kurds, a people whose ethnic origins are uncer¬ tain. The Treaty of Sevres, signed in 1920, provided for the recognition of a Kurdish state, but the agreement was never ratified.
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) Kurdish nationalist party. It was founded in Turkish Kurdistan in 1978 and sought to establish an inde¬ pendent Kurdish state in southeastern Turkey. It attacked Turkish interests and fellow Kurds suspected of collaboration with the Turkish government, often from bases in Iraq and Syria. The group’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was arrested by Turkey in 1999 and was thereafter tried and convicted of treason. At its peak, it claimed 5,000-10,000 members. See also Kurd.
Kurdufan See Kordofan
Kuria Muria Islands See Khuriyya Muriyya Islands
Kuril Vkyur-,el\ Islands Archipelago, eastern Russia. It extends for 750 mi (1,200 km) from the southern tip of Russia’s Kamcfiatka Peninsula to the northeastern coast of Japan’s Hokkaido island. The 56 islands cover 6,000 sq mi (15,600 sq km) and together with Sakhalin Island form an administrative region (pop., 2001 est.: 591,000) of Russia. The Kurils were originally settled by the Russians in the 17th—18th centuries. Japan seized the southern islands and in 1875 obtained the entire chain. After World War II they were ceded to the Soviet Union, and the Japanese population was repatriated and replaced by Soviets. Japan still claims his¬ torical rights to the southern islands and has tried repeatedly to regain them.
Kurisches Haff See Courland Lagoon
Kuropatkin Mai-re-'pat-kinV Aleksey (Nikolayevich) (b. March 29, 1848, Shemchurino, Pskov province, Russia—d. March 23, 1925) Russian general. He was chief of staff during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78), commander in chief in Caucasia in 1897, and minister of war (1898-1904). In the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) he commanded the Russian troops in Manchuria; he resigned after the Russian defeat at the Battle of Mukden (1905).
Kurosawa \ l kur-9- , sau-o\ Akira (b. March 23, 1910, Tokyo, Japan—d. Sept. 6, 1998, Tokyo) Japanese film director. He studied paint¬ ing before becoming an assistant director and scenarist at PCL (later Toho) movie studio (1936-43). He wrote and directed his first feature film, San- shiro Sugata, in 1943, won notice with Drunken Angel (1948), starring Mifune Toshiro, and was internationally acclaimed for Rashomon (1950). His later classic films include Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Yojimbo (1961), Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985). His ability to combine Japanese aesthetic and cultural elements with a Western sense of action and drama made him, in Western eyes, the fore¬ most Japanese filmmaker.
Kursk, Battle of (July 5 -Aug. 23, 1943) Unsuccessful German assault on the Soviet salient around Kursk, in western Russia, in World War II. The salient was a bulge in the Soviet lines that protruded 100 mi (160 km) westward into the German lines. The Germans planned a surprise attack to trap the Soviet forces but encountered Russian-laid minefields and antitank defenses. At the height of the assault, the Soviets counter¬ attacked and forced a German withdrawal. The Battle of Kursk was the largest tank battle in history, involving some 6,000 tanks, two million troops, and 4,000 aircraft. It marked the decisive end of the German offensive on the Eastern Front and cleared the way for the great Soviet offensives of 1944—45.
Kursky Zaliv See Courland Iagoon
Kurylowicz \ l kur-9-'lo-vich\ / Jerzy (b. Aug. 26, 1895, Stanislav, Gali¬ cia, Austria-Hungary—d. Jan. 28, 1978, Krakow, Pol.) Polish historical linguist. His identification of the Hittite medial h in 1927 substantiated the existence of laryngeals, the Indo-European speech sounds postulated by Ferdinand de Saussure, and stimulated much research in Indo-European phonology. His books include Apophony in Indo-European (1956) and The Inflectional Categories of Indo-European (1964).