As the Soviet Union entered its death throes, the self-determination of the nations within its republics became an issue over which people were prepared to die. When Azerbaijan declared its independence, the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabagh followed suit. Before long, pogrom and war were the order of the day, resulting in thousands of Armenian and Azeri casualties. This book examines the history of Mountainous Karabagh, the ancient Artsakh of the Armenians, and assesses the mass of archaeological material and documentary evidence supporting the conflicting Azeri and Armenian claims. The authors follow the populations of the area from antiquity through periods of Mongol, Turkmen and Persian occupation, on to Turkey's and Russia's entry onto the scene, the period of Bolshevik rule, perestroika and, finally, the war with Azerbaikjan. This book highlights the Armenian culture of the enclave, traces Karabagh's demographic evolution and situates the current hostilities in terms of the interests of neighbouring Russia, Iran and Turkey. The picture that emerges of a clash of nationalistic passions and of Russian economic, military and diplomatic calculation is a signpost for future conflicts on both sides of the Caucasus. The assertion of Armenian and Azeri identity and culture remain at the heart of this tragedy. This book helps us to understand why the Armenians feel so strongly that Artsakh is theirs and is worth dying for.

Caucasian knot digest / edited by Alexander Maishev, 2003.

This is the first multidisciplinary volume whose focus is on the barely accessible highlands between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and their invaluable artistic heritage. Numerous ancient and mediaeval monuments of Artsakh/Karabagh and Nakhichevan find themselves in the crucible of a strife involving mutually exclusive national accounts. They are gravely endangered today by the politics of cultural destruction endorsed by the modern State of Azerbaijan. This volume contains seventeen contributions by renowned scholars from eight nations, rare photographic documentation and a detailed inventory of all the monuments discussed. Part 1 explores the historical geography of these lands and their architecture. Part 2 analyses the development of Azerbaijani nationalism against the background of the centuries-long geopolitical contest between Russia and Turkey. Part 3 documents the loss of monuments and examines their destruction in the light of international law governing the protection of cultural heritage.

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.

In the Shadow of Great Powers is the second volume of Christoph Baumer's History of the Caucasus. It covers the period from the Seljuk domination of the Southern Caucasus around 1050 CE to the present day. After the Kingdom of Georgia's golden age of independent power and cultural blossoming in the 12th and early 13th centuries, the Caucasus was overrun by the Mongols and soon disintegrated into innumerable smaller kingdoms, principalities and khanates. At the same time, an Armenian kingdom in exile maintained a precarious independence in Cilicia, today's southern Turkey, by applying a three-way diplomatic policy balanced between the Mongol Il-Khanate, the Crusader states and, to a lesser degree, the Mameluke Empire. Then followed four centuries during which the highly fragmented polities of the North and South Caucasus became political pawns of the regional great powers, above all the Ottomans, Iran and Russia. In the wake of World War I the South Caucasus enjoyed a short-lived independence whereas its northern neighbours were engulfed by the Russian civil wars. But by 1921 the Soviet Union had re-established Russian dominance over the whole region and, from a Western perspective, the region 'disappeared' behind the Iron Curtain. Nevertheless, the Caucasian nations kept their pronounced identities even under Soviet rule, giving rise at the dissolution of the Soviet Union to a number of internecine conflicts. Whereas the Russian Federation managed to maintain its supremacy over the North Caucasus – albeit at the cost of bloody wars and insurrections – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia succeeded in more or less gaining control over their destiny. Of these three republics, only Azerbaijan secured a wide-ranging independence thanks to its fossil fuel resources. Following Russian interference, Georgia lost control over two of its provinces while Armenia remains dependent on Russian support in the face of its notoriously antagonistic relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey over the unresolved issue of Karabakh. In the Shadow of Great Powers includes some 200 full-colour images and maps which further bring the turbulent history of this region to light.

The North Caucasus, specifically Chechnya and Ingushetia, is a region that has experienced some of the deadliest and most protracted conflicts in Europe. By examining the relationship between state and society, this book considers how state-building has unfolded in a region with highly complex social structures, a history of colonialism, Soviet authoritarianism, and later post-Soviet wars and trauma. Focusing on a systematic analysis of subnational state-building in post-Soviet Chechnya and Ingushetia, and the role of teips (clans) in this process, this study responds to the widely accepted academic claim that governance and ethnic consolidation in the North Caucasus is shaped by the politics of teips. Through socio-anthropological analysis of the clans and how they function towards political systems, Sokirianskaia shows how the teips lost their organizational structure and roles, becoming incapable of mobilizing for political action. While teip symbolism has remained politically relevant, and the bonds of kinship are highly important, they do not form the basis of politics and subnational statebuilding in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Consequently, subnational authoritarianism is not the result of the pre-existing social composition of the society, but a reflection of the rules of the game imposed by Moscow and political choices of the Kremlin-installed local elites.