Glossary — K

Glossary terms beginning with K.

kadkhuda: The village headman in rural Iran; also used as the title for leaders of some tribal clans.
Karaites: Members of a religious group practicing Karaism, a Jewish doctrine originating in Baghdad in the eighth century A.D. that rejects rabbinism and talmudism and bases its tenets on Scripture alone.
Karaiya: Caste below the Vellala (q.v.) in the Tamil caste system, but still a high caste; original occupation was fishing, although group branched out into commercial ventures.
Karava: Lower Sinhalese (fisherman) caste that became wealthy because of access to English education and opportunities for involvement with plantation agriculture and modern commercial enterprise.
Kardecian spiritualism: Allen Kardec (a pseudonym) founded Kardecism, a spiritualist religion, in mid-nineteenth-century France. Imported into Brazil at the end of the nineteenth century, the religion was adopted by members of Brazil’s upper classes eager to identify with French culture. It centers on séances in which the dead return through mediums and give the living advice.; Source: Library of Congress
karma: Literally, action. Spiritual merit or demerit that a being acquired in a previous incarnation and is acquiring in present existence.
Kazakh: Turkic-speaking, traditionally Muslim ethnic group of pastoralists, living in the Soviet Union, northwestern China, and western Mongolia.
kebatinan: An amalgam of animist, Hindu-Buddhist, and Islamic (especially Sufi) mystical elements that combine to form Javanese mysticism. As a body of belief, kebatinan is officially recognized in the 1945 constitution and is administered by the Department of Education and Culture rather than by the Department of Religious Affairs. Also known as kejawen, agama Jawa, or Javanism.
kebele: Popular term used to describe a cooperative urban neighborhood association. Kebeles were formed after the nationalization of all urban land and rentable dwellings in July 1975. These cooperatives became the counterpart of the peasant associations developed under the military government’s Land Reform Proclamation of March 1975. After their introduction, kebeles became the basic unit of urban government and served as instruments of sociopolitical control in urban areas.
Kennedy Amendment: After evidence of severe repression by the military regime following the overthrow of President Salvador Allende Gossens in September 1973, the United States Congress in 1974 adopted the Kennedy Amendment, prohibiting all security assistance and sales to Chile. This restriction was made much more general in the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, prohibiting transfers to any country ""which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,"" except in extraordinary circumstances.
Keren HaYesod: Literally, Israel Foundation Fund. The central fiscal institution of the World Zionist Organization that finances its activities in Israel.; Source: Library of Congress
KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti in Russian): Committee for State Security. The predominant Soviet security police organization since its establishment in 1954 as the successor to the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs; Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del, in Russian). In October 1991, when Mikhail S. Gorbachev decreed that the KGB be disbanded because of its involvement in the August coup d’état (q.v.), the assets and willing personnel of the KGB in Moldova were transferred to the new republic’s government, to the Ministry of National Security. In Belarus the new government took control of the KGB but did not change its name.; Source: Library of Congress
Khalkha: Mongol subethnic group inhabiting the central and eastern portion of Mongolia and forming the majority of the population. Variant form: Halha.
khalwa: Small Islamic rural school that stressed memorization of the Quran and provided some instruction in the reading and writing of Arabic.
khan: A king, prince, or chief; common title for sovereigns in Inner Asia. Sometimes used interchangeably with kaghan.
Khasa: A term applied to the peoples and languages in the western parts of Nepal, closely related to the cultures of northern India.
khedive: Name given to the ruler of Egypt from 1867 to 1914. He governed as semi-independent viceroy of the sultan of Turkey.
Khmer Rouge: The name given to the Cambodian communists by Prince Norodom Sihanouk in the 1960s. Later, the term (although a misnomer) was applied to the insurgents of varying ideological backgrounds who opposed the Khmer Republic regime of Lon Nol. Between 1975 and 1978, it denoted the Democratic Kampuchea regime led by the radical Pol Pot faction of the Kampuchean (or Khmer) Communist Party. After being driven from Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, the Khmer Rouge went back to guerrilla warfare and joined forces with two noncommunist insurgent movements to form the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea.
khoueng: Province; first order administrative division.
khouloughlis: In Tripolitania (q.v.), a distinct caste of mixed Turkish and Arab parentage. Literally, ""sons of servants"" or ""sons of slaves."" Adjectival form is khoulougli. Various transliterations are found.
kibbutz (pl., kibbutzim): An Israeli collective farm or settlement, cooperatively owned and operated by its members and organized on a communal basis.
kip(k): Lao currency. In June 1994, US$1=R721.
Kirata: A Tibeto-Burman ethnic group inhabiting eastern Nepal since before the Licchavi Dynasty, just prior to and during the early years of the Christian era.
Knesset: Israel’s parliament, a unicameral legislature of 120 members elected by universal suffrage for four-year terms; the Knesset may, through legislative procedures, call for elections before the end of the regular term or postpone elections in time of war.; Source: Library of Congress
kolkhoz: See collective farm.
Kollas: Term for native residents of the Altiplano, including the city of La Paz, used somewhat disdainfully by native lowlanders, called Cambas (q.v.).; Source: Library of Congress
koruna (pl., koruny): National currency consisting of 100 halers (halere--Cz.; haliere--Sl.). Symbol is Kcs. In 1987 the official, or commercial, exchange rate was Kcs5.4 per US$1; the tourist, or noncommercial, rate was Kcs10.5 per US$1. The value of US$1 on the black market was at least twice the tourist rate of exchange.
Kosovo: A province of the Serbian Republic of Yugoslavia that shares a border with Albania and has a population that is about 90 percent Albanian. Serbian nationalists fiercely resist Albanian control of Kosovo, citing Kosovo’s history as the center of a medieval Serbian Kingdom that ended in a defeat by the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389. Residents of Kosovo are known as Kosovars.; Source: Library of Congress
Kraj (pl., kraje): Primary administrative region into which both the Czech and the Slovak socialist republics are divided.
kray (territory): Term for six widely dispersed administrative subdivisions whose boundaries are laid out primarily for ease of administration. Two include subdivisions based on nationality groups--one autonomous oblast (q.v.) and two autonomous regions (okruga--q.v.).
kremlin (kreml'): Central citadel in many medieval Russian towns, usually located at a strategic spot along a river. Moscow’s Kremlin is the seat and symbol of the Russian government.
kroon (EKR): Estonia’s prewar currency (1928-40), reintroduced in June 1992 after Estonia became the first former Soviet republic to leave the Russian ruble zone. The kroon was officially pegged to the deutsche mark (DM) within 3 percent of EKR8 = DM1. In March 1996, the exchange rate was EKR11.83 = US$1.
Kulaks: the relatively prosperous segment of peasants in the Russian Empire disenfranchised by Soviet authorities.
Kurdish: Term referring to a mainly Muslim people speaking an Indo-European language similar to Persian. Kurds constitute significant minorities in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, with smaller groups in Armenia and Syria. Despite international proposals in response to minority persecution, never united in a single state.
Kurds: A mainly Muslim people speaking an Indo-European language similar to Persian. Kurds constitute significant minorities in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, with smaller groups in Armenia and Syria. Despite international proposals in response to minority persecution, never united in a single state.
kuriltai: A council of Mongol chieftains or khans having origins among the assembly of the Kitan; a great assembly and a type of electoral procedure developed among tribal leaders in the first century A.D. A classical Mongol term having the same meaning as hural (q.v.).
Kuwaiti dinar (KD): The national currency, consisting of 1,000 fils. The exchange rate of the Kuwaiti dinar to the United States dollar has fluctuated somewhat.; Source: Library of Congress
kwanza: Angolan currency unit that replaced the Angolan escudo after January 8, 1977. The kwanza, named for the Cuanza (Kwanza) River, consists of 100 lwei (lw), named for one of the river’s tributaries. The kwanza was a nonconvertible currency, but exchange rates for authorized transactions were established regularly.; Source: Library of Congress