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Turingia (Germania : State) CercaDefinizione
Definition:
Capital city: Weimar
Situated in central Germany, Thuringia was bordered by the state of Bavaria to the south and by the Prussian provinces of Saxony to the northeast and north and Hesse to the northwest.
The Thuringians, a Germanic tribe, appeared after about A.D. 350 and were conquered by the Huns in the second quarter of the fifth century. By 500, however, they had established a large kingdom stretching from the Harz Mountains to the Danube River. In 531 their territory was reduced to the Harz Mountains and the region of the Thuringian Forest and was thereafter governed by Frankish dukes. In the early eighth century the duchy was divided into countships to reassert royal authority. In 908 the Thuringian March (frontier district), set up by Charlemagne against the Slavs, was seized by Otto, Duke of Saxony. After the Saxon royal dynasty died out in 1024, the Ludowing family assumed control of Thuringia.
In the fifteenth century, Thuringia was divided among Ernestine Saxony, Hesse-Kassel, and several smaller states. Prussia also received sections of Thuringia at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) and after the Seven Weeks' War (1866).
In 1920, under the Weimar Republic, several old Thuringian states were merged into a new state of Thuringia, with Weimar as its capital. The new state of Thuringia comprised the following former duchies: Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (less the city of Coburg which joined Bavaria), Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and the principalities of Reuss, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen.
After the reorganization of Thuringia, its borders remained anomalous. Erfurt was still attached to the Prussian province of Saxony, and there were enclaves in Thuringia belonging to Prussian Saxony or to Prussian Hesse-Nassau. Conversely, parts of Thuringia were enclaved within Prussian Saxony.
After World War II all of Thuringia fell within the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. With the administrative dissolution of Prussia, an enlarged Thuringia was constituted within the German Democratic Republic. Its borders were rationalized to include the southwestern portion of the former province of Saxony and all the former enclaves. Thuringia was reconstituted as a state of reunited Germany in 1990 with boundaries similar to those of its immediate predecessor. (en-US)
Fonte
The Times Atlas of World History. Edited by Geofrey Barraclough. Third Edition. Maplewood, New Jersey: Hammond, 1989.