Download or read book The Caucasus written by Thomas De Waal and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus written by Arsène Saparov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-27 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first historical work to study the creation of ethnic autonomies in the Caucasus in the 1920s – the transitional period from Russian Empire to Soviet Union. Seventy years later these ethnic autonomies were to become the loci of violent ethno-political conflicts which have consistently been blamed on the policies of the Bolsheviks and Stalin. According to this view, the Soviet leadership deliberately set up ethnic autonomies within the republics, thereby giving Moscow unprecedented leverage against each republic. From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus questions this assumption by examining three case studies: Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh are placed within the larger socio-political context of transformations taking place in this borderland region during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It examines demographic, social and economic consequences of the Russian colonization and resulting replacement of traditional societies and identities with modern ones. Based on original Russian language sources and archival materials, the book brings together two periods that are usually studied separately – the period of the Russian Civil War 1917–20 and the early Soviet period – in order to understand the roots of the Bolshevik decision-making policy when granting autonomies. It argues that rather than being the product of blatant political manipulation this was an attempt at conflict resolution. The institution of political autonomy, however, became a powerful tool for national mobilization during the Soviet era. Contributing both to the general understanding of the early Soviet nationality policy and to our understanding of the conflicts that have engulfed the Caucasus region since the 1990s, this book will be of interest to scholars of Central Asian studies, Russian/Soviet history, ethnic conflict, security studies and International Relations.

Download or read book Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus Since the Fall of the Soviet Union written by Bayram Balci and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2018 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a sophisticated account of both the internal dynamics and external influences in the evolution of Islam in the region

Download or read book State Building and Conflict Resolution in the Caucasus written by Charlotte Hille and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-04-16 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: State building processes in the Caucasus are influenced by the culture of the Caucasus, and previous experiences with state building after World War I. The conflicts which erupted at the time have influenced territorial claims. The role of foreign powers as Russia, the United States, Turkey, Germany is considerable in the region. Divide and rule policy of Joseph Stalin is another factor which describes existing animosities between peoples in the Caucasus. Since 1989 a transition process, or state building process, has started in the North and the South Caucasus. This book gives an in-depth analysis of the backgrounds of the conflicts, including activities by IGO's and NGOs, and the developments in international law with regard to state building practice.

Download or read book The Caucasian Republics written by Margaret Kaeter and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the three republics of the Transcaucasus - Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

Download or read book The Ghost of Freedom written by Charles King and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-11 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " ... The first general history of the modern Caucasus, stretching from the beginning of Russian imperial expansion up to rise of new countries after the Soviet Union's collapse."--Cover.

Download or read book National Identities in Soviet Historiography written by Harun Yilmaz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under Stalin’s totalitarian leadership of the USSR, Soviet national identities with historical narratives were constructed. These constructions envisaged how nationalities should see their imaginary common past, and millions of people defined themselves according to them. This book explains how and by whom these national histories were constructed and focuses on the crucial episode in the construction of national identities of Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan from 1936 and 1945. A unique comparative study of three different case studies, this book reveals different aims and methods of nation construction, despite the existence of one-party rule and a single overarching official ideology. The study is based on work in the often overlooked archives in the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. By looking at different examples within the Soviet context, the author contributes to and often challenges current scholarship on Soviet nationality policies and Stalinist nation-building projects. He also brings a new viewpoint to the debate on whether the Soviet period was a project of developmentalist modernization or merely a renewed ‘Russian empire’. The book concludes that the local agents in the countries concerned had a sincere belief in socialism—especially as a project of modernism and development—and, at the same time, were strongly attached to their national identities. Claiming that local communist party officials and historians played a leading role in the construction of national narratives, this book will be of interest to historians and political scientists interested in the history of the Soviet Union and contemporary Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Download or read book The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic of 1918 written by Adrian Brisku and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR) was a unique, bottom-up, and a fleeting display of political unity and federalism among the main Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian political factions between 22 April 1918, when it declared its independence, and 26 May 1918, when it was dissolved and replaced by the three nation-states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Focusing on a crucial but poorly understood moment in the modern history of the Caucasus at the end of the First World War, this book offers a systematic, contextually-rich, and multi-perspectival—Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Ottoman, German, British, American, Italian, Bolshevik, Ukrainian and North Caucasian—account of the TDFR, drawing on contributions (with the new material from archives in Tbilisi, Grozny, Yerevan, Baku, Istanbul, Berlin, London, Washington D.C.) by a new generation of historians and scholars working on the region. The book argues that despite its month-long existence in this geopolitically volatile region, the TDFR, with and its federative nature and the various discussions about federalism and federation that it provoked, continued to have an appeal for Georgians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians as well as for the Great Powers well beyond its dissolution. Moreover, the experience of the TDFR reifies federalism as a key political concept in the modern history of the Caucasus. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Caucasus Survey.

Download or read book Highlanders written by Yo'av Karny and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2001-12-05 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the region, told by an intrepid journalist Many dire predictions followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, but nowhere have they materialized as dramatically as in the Caucasus: insurrection, civil wars, ethnic conflicts, economic disintegration, and up to two million refugees. Moreover, in the 1990s Russia twice went to war in the Caucasus, and suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a nation so tiny that it could fit into a single district of Moscow. What is it about the Caucasus that makes the region so restless, so unpredictable, so imbued with heroism but also with fanaticism and pain? In Highlanders, Yo'av Karny offers a better understanding of a region described as a "museum of civilizations," where breathtaking landscapes join with an astounding human diversity. Karny has spent many months among members of some of the smallest ethnic groups on earth, all of them living in the grim shadow of an unhappy empire. But his book is a journey not only to a geographic region but also to darker sides of the human soul, where courage vies with senseless vindictiveness; where honor and duty require people to share the present with long-dead ancestors, some real, some imaginary; and where an ancient way of life is drawing to an end under the combined weight of modernity and intolerance.

Download or read book History of the Caucasus written by Christoph Baumer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.

Download or read book Hiking in the Caucasus written by Tom Allen and published by Horizon Guides. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Horizon Guides’ Hiking in the Caucasus is your one-stop-guide for advice on the best hiking routes in the Caucasus region, focusing on walks and treks in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

This guide gives expert advice from regional experts and travel writers on where, how and when to go hiking in the Caucasus, including choosing between organised and independent treks and when to travel.

In this guide:

• Advice on choosing between hiking in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
• Information on how to choose between different types of trek
• Essentials on what to pack for a trekking holiday in the Caucasus
• How independent operators plan on creating a transcaucasian trail

  Our Hiking in the Caucasus guide is designed to help you begin planning your hiking trip in the Caucasus. Too much information can sometimes be overwhelming, so we’ll give you a general overview and help you take the first steps towards how to book a trip.

Download or read book The Caucasus Under Soviet Rule written by Alex Marshall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-13 with total page 855 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Caucasus is a strategically and economically important region in contemporary global affairs. Western interest in the Caucasus has grown rapidly since 1991, fuelled by the admixture of oil politics, great power rivalry, ethnic separatism and terrorism that characterizes the region. However, until now there has been little understanding of how these issues came to assume the importance they have today. This book argues that understanding the Soviet legacy in the region is critical to analysing both the new states of the Transcaucasus and the autonomous territories of the North Caucasus. It examines the impact of Soviet rule on the Caucasus, focusing in particular on the period from 1917 to 1955. Important questions covered include how the Soviet Union created ‘nations’ out of the diverse peoples of the North Caucasus; the true nature of the 1917 revolution; the role and effects of forced migration in the region; how over time the constituent nationalities of the region came to re-define themselves; and how Islamic radicalism came to assume the importance it continues to hold today. A cauldron of war, revolution, and foreign interventions - from the British and Ottoman Turks to the oil-hungry armies of Hitler’s Third Reich - the Caucasus and the policies and actors it produced (not least Stalin, Sergo Ordzhonikidze and Anastas Mikoyan) both shaped the Soviet experiment in the twentieth century and appear set to continue to shape the geopolitics of the twenty-first. Making unprecedented use of memoirs, archives and published sources, this book is an invaluable aid for scholars, political analysts and journalists alike to understanding one of the most important borderlands of the modern world.

Download or read book Bourdieu s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus written by Georgi M. Derluguian and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-07-15 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus is a gripping account of the developmental dynamics involved in the collapse of Soviet socialism. Fusing a narrative of human agency to his critical discussion of structural forces, Georgi M. Derluguian reconstructs from firsthand accounts the life story of Musa Shanib—who from a small town in the Caucasus grew to be a prominent leader in the Chechen revolution. In his examination of Shanib and his keen interest in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Derluguian discerns how and why this dissident intellectual became a nationalist warlord. Exploring globalization, democratization, ethnic identity, and international terrorism, Derluguian contextualizes Shanib's personal trajectory from de-Stalinization through the nationalist rebellions of the 1990s, to the recent rise in Islamic militancy. He masterfully reveals not only how external economic and political forces affect the former Soviet republics but how those forces are in turn shaped by the individuals, institutions, ethnicities, and social networks that make up those societies. Drawing on the work of Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and, of course, Bourdieu, Derluguian's explanation of the recent ethnic wars and terrorist acts in Russia succeeds in illuminating the role of human agency in shaping history.

Download or read book Clash of Histories in the South Caucasus written by Rouben Galichian and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Security of the Caspian Sea Region written by Gennadiĭ Illarionovich Chufrin and published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. This book was released on 2001 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in association with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Download or read book The Caucasian Knot written by Levon Chorbajian and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 1994 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin written by Gordon M. Hahn and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia's North Caucasus mujahedin of the self-declared Caucasus Emirate and the history thereof is part and parcel of the global jihadi revolutionary movement which includes but is no longer led by Al Qaeda. This book corrects the inadequate previous treatments of the violence in the Caucasus, almost all of which explain what ought to be called the rise of jihadism in the Caucasus solely in terms of Russian actions. The author brings the international jihadist and local North Caucasian causes back into the picture, detailing the global Jihadist/Islamist revolutionary movement's propagation of the "jihadi method" and material support to nationalist and Islamic extremists in Chechnya and the Caucasus since the mid-1990s. Like jihadi groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Africa, the Caucasus Emirate is an Al Qaeda ally and de facto affiliate. It represents a threat to Russian, U.S., and international security as evidenced by terrorist plots perpetrated or inspired by it in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Azerbaijan, and Boston.