1939-1946 1958-1961






Syria Independent, 1946-1958



In 1946, French forces were finally withdrawn and Syrian independence was more than nominal. The Baath Party was founded in 1947. The proclamation of the partition of Palestine in 1947 was followed by pogroms against the Syrian Jewish community; most of Syria's Jews fled into what was to become Israel.
In 1948 Syrian troops participated in the first Arab-Israeli War. The country experienced the influx of a large number of Palestinian refugees. In 1949, three coups d'etat took place. Political parties were dissolved in 1952; following another coup in 1954 the return to civilian rule and democracy was attempted. The Baath Party, legal again, successfully campaigned for the establishment of the United Arab Republic, together with Egypt (1958).
Syria's population rose from 2.978 million in 1946 to 4.3 million in 1958.
The Syrian National Olympic Committee was formed in 1948, and recognized by the IOC the same year.





EXTERNAL
FILES 		Timeline, from BBC News
Library of Congress, Country Studies : Syria
Encyclopedia of the Orient : Syria; Syrian Encyclopedia, from Damascus Online
Syria, from the Jewish Virtual History Tour
CASCON Case SYT : Syria - Turkey 1956-1957, by L.P. Bloomfield, L. Moulton
CASCON Case YJW : Yarmuk / Jordan Waters, 1948-, by L.P. Bloomfield, L. Moulton
DOCUMENTS Historical Population Statistics : Syria, from Population Statistics at Univ. Utrecht
REFERENCE Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria. The History of an Ambition, Oxford : UP 1990, KMLA Lib.Sign. 956 P665g
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, Macropaedia, Vol.28, pp.361-374 Article Syria. KMLA Lib.Sign. R 032 B862h v.28
David Commins, Historical Dictionary of Syria, Lanham Md : Scarecrow 1996, 299 pp. [G]
Chapter 7 : Post-War Unsettlement, pp.105-113, in : Peter Mansfield, The Ottoman Empire and its Successors, London : MacMillan (1973) 1976 [G]
Walter Z. Laqueur, Syria : Nationalism and Communism, pp.325-337 in : Walter Z. Laqueur (ed.), The Middle East in Transition, NY : Praeger 1958 [G]
Article : Syria and Lebanon, in : Britannica Book of the Year 1947 pp.736-737, 1948 pp.710-711 [G]
Article : Syria, in : Britannica Book of the Year 1949 pp.612-613, 1950 p.655, 1951 pp.660-661, 1952 p.663, 1953 p.672, 1954 pp.675-676, 1955 pp.724-725, 1956 p.663, 1957 p.727, 1958 pp.666-667 [G]
Article : Syria, in : Americana Annual 1947 pp.689-691, 1957 pp.762-763 [G]
Article : Syria, in : Funk & Wagnall's New Standard Encyclopedia Year Book 1952 pp.408-409


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on October 28th 2006, last revised on May 29th 2007

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