The Caucasus

The Caucasus
Author: Thomas De Waal
Publisher:
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190683082

This new edition of The Caucasus is a thorough update of an essential guide that has introduced thousands of readers to a complex region. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the break-away territories that have tried to split away from them constitute one of the most diverse and challenging regions on earth, impressing the visitor with their multi-layered history and ethnic complexity. Over the last few years, the South Caucasus region has captured international attention again because of disputes between the West and Russia, its unresolved conflicts, and its role as an energy transport corridor to Europe. The Caucasus gives the reader a historical overview and an authoritative guide to the three conflicts that have blighted the region. Thomas de Waal tells the story of the "Five-Day War" between Georgia and Russia and recent political upheavals in all three countries. He also finds time to tell the reader about Georgian wine, Baku jazz and how the coast of Abkhazia was known as "Soviet Florida." Short, stimulating and rich in detail, The Caucasus is the perfect guide to this fascinating and little-understood region.

Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus

Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus
Author: Ian Lanzillotti
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-09-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350137464

In Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus, Ian Lanzillotti traces the history of Kabardino-Balkaria from the extension of Russian rule in the late-18th century to the ethno-nationalist mobilizations of the post-Soviet era. As neighboring communities throughout the Caucasus mountain region descended into violence amidst the Soviet collapse, Russia's multiethnic Kabardino-Balkar Republic enjoyed intercommunal peace despite tensions over land and identity. Lanzillotti explores why this region avoided violent ethnicized conflict by examining the historic relationships that developed around land tenure in the Central Caucasus and their enduring legacies. This study demonstrates how Kabardino-Balkaria formed out of the dynamic interactions among the state, the peoples of the region, and the space they inhabited. Deeply researched and elegantly argued, this book deftly balances sources from Russia's central archives with rare and often overlooked archival material from the Caucasus region to provide the first historical examination of Kabardino-Balkaria in the English language. As such, Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus is a key resource for scholars of the Caucasus region, modern Russia, and peace studies.

Regional Cooperation in the South Caucasus

Regional Cooperation in the South Caucasus
Author: Tracey German
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2016-04-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317069129

The South Caucasus region, comprising the former Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia occupies a key strategic location, squeezed between the Black and Caspian Seas, Iran, Russia and Turkey. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the region has become an arena of geopolitical confrontation with regional powers such as Russia, Turkey and Iran vying for influence in the face of growing Western involvement. The Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008 not only raised questions about Moscow's intentions towards its 'Near Abroad' and the future direction of its foreign policy, it also demonstrated that ostensibly local separatist disputes have serious ramifications for regional relations and the wider international community. In this book, German explores the extent of regional cooperation in the South Caucasus, analyses the reasons for the relative lack of regional cooperation and assesses the potential for deeper cooperation in the future.

Archaeology in the Borderlands

Archaeology in the Borderlands
Author: Adam T. Smith
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2003
Genre: History
ISBN:

Set on a broad isthmus between the Black and Caspian Seas, Caucasia has traditionally been portrayed as either a well-trod highway linking southwest Asia and the Eurasian Steppe or an isolated periphery of the political and cultural centers of the ancient world. Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond critically re-examines traditional archaeological work in the region, assembling accounts of recent investigations by an international group of scholars from the Caucasus, its neighbors, Europe, and the United States. The twelve chapters in this book address the ways archaeologists must re-conceptualize the region within our larger historical and anthropological frameworks of thought, presenting critical new materials from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age. Challenging traditional models of economic, political, cultural, and social marginality that read the past through Cold War geographies, Archaeology in the Borderlands provides a new challenge to long dominant interpretations of the pre-, proto-, and early history of Eurasia, opening new possibilities for understanding a region that is critical to regional order in the post-Soviet era. This collection represents the first attempt to grapple with the problems and possibilities for archaeology in the Caucasus and its neighboring regions sparked by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent states.

History of the Caucasus

History of the Caucasus
Author: Christoph Baumer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2021-08-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0755639693

"Rich and illuminating." Literary Review A landscape of high mountains and narrow valleys stretching from the Black to the Caspian Seas, the Caucasus region has been home to human populations for nearly 2 million years. In this richly illustrated 2-volume series, historian and explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of the region's history through to the present day. It is a story of encounters between many different peoples, from Scythians, Turkic and Mongol peoples of the East to Greeks and Romans from the West, from Indo-European tribes from the West as well as the East, and to Arabs and Iranians from the South. It is a story of rival claims by Empires and nations and of how the region has become home to more than 50 languages that can be heard within its borders to this very day. This first volume charts the period from the emergence of the earliest human populations in the region – the first known human populations outside Africa - to the Seljuk conquests of 1050CE. Along the way the book charts the development of Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age cultures, the first recognizable Caucasian state and the arrival of a succession of the great transnational Empires, from the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenian to competing Christian and Muslim conquerors. The History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 also includes more than 200 full colour images and maps bringing the changing cultures of these lands vividly to life.

The Captive and the Gift

The Captive and the Gift
Author: Bruce Grant
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2016-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501702866

The Caucasus region of Eurasia, wedged in between the Black and Caspian Seas, encompasses the modern territories of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, as well as the troubled republic of Chechnya in southern Russia. A site of invasion, conquest, and resistance since the onset of historical record, it has earned a reputation for fearsome violence and isolated mountain redoubts closed to outsiders. Over extended efforts to control the Caucasus area, Russians have long mythologized stories of their countrymen taken captive by bands of mountain brigands.In The Captive and the Gift, the anthropologist Bruce Grant explores the long relationship between Russia and the Caucasus and the means by which sovereignty has been exercised in this contested area. Taking his lead from Aleksandr Pushkin's 1822 poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus," Grant explores the extraordinary resonances of the themes of violence, captivity, and empire in the Caucasus through mythology, poetry, short stories, ballet, opera, and film. Grant argues that while the recurring Russian captivity narrative reflected a wide range of political positions, it most often and compellingly suggested a vision of Caucasus peoples as thankless, lawless subjects of empire who were unwilling to acknowledge and accept the gifts of civilization and protection extended by Russian leaders.Drawing on years of field and archival research, Grant moves beyond myth and mass culture to suggest how real-life Caucasus practices of exchange, by contrast, aimed to control and diminish rather than unleash and increase violence. The result is a historical anthropology of sovereign forms that underscores how enduring popular narratives and close readings of ritual practices can shed light on the management of pluralism in long-fraught world areas.

Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus

Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus
Author: Ian Lanzillotti
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-10-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350137448

An examination of the history of the Caucasus region, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Russian governance from the 18th century to the post-Soviet era.

Dangerous Neighborhood

Dangerous Neighborhood
Author: Michael Radu
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 242
Release:
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1412821223

Contemporary Turkish politics have long been roiled by cultural and social debates rooted in the legacy of modernization initiated in the 1920s by Mustafa Kemal Atatrk. Islamist challenges to Ataturk's secularism, to political corruption and economic inefficiency, and debates over the meaning of human rights, all remain open to argument-in Ankara as well as elsewhere. Undoubtedly they exert influence on Turkey's position in world affairs and reinforce its double identity between the West and the Islamic world. Dangerous Neighborhood examines Turkish foreign policy problems, both with its immediate neighbors in the Caucasus and Middle East and in its essential strategic relations with the European Union and the United States. How important is Washington for Turkey's strategic interests, considering its controversial relations with the European Union? The Kurdish problem has affected Turkey's bid for EU membership, and also its relations with the United States as the war on terrorism is pursued. Are Turkish values and national interests, based on the legacy of Atatrk, compatible with minority rights, as defined by the European Union, and if not, why not? Moreover, is there any advantage to Turkey in joining the European Union, or is the price too high, relating to human rights concessions and legal issues? These important questions are examined in this volume. In the Caucasus, Turkey is an important factor, if for no other reason than its size and common borders. Turkey's role, whether Ankara likes it or not, remains important for both Russian ambitions and local ethnic groups seeking either autonomy or independence-Chechens, Abkhaz, Circassians, among others. Ankara's dilemma is whether to support co-nationals and co-religionists or to seek normal relations with Moscow. The solution to this dilemma is debated in this volume. In other parts of the world, Turkey also plays a central role. For example, Ankara's close military and political relations with Israel contribute to a different strategic and military balance in the Middle East. Turkey's views are seldom made public, and few Turks have believed it is important to present their case. This book, with contributors from Turkey as well as the West, is intended in part to broaden understanding of Turkey's position. Dangerous Neighborhood will be of interest to political scientists, foreign policy analysts, and Middle East specialists..

Author:
Publisher: IOS Press
Total Pages: 10439
Release:
Genre:
ISBN: