Caucasus

This article examines the ways in which Azerbaijan’s energy abundance and the energy diplomacy the latter made possible—combined with inherent weaknesses attending the state’s young post-colonial polity—conditioned the limits of the desirable by which the country’s post-independence elite was guided and, as such, limited the range of directions—cognitive and spatial—in which Azerbaijan’s foreign policy evolved during the first decade following independence.  The study then examines how energy-induced growth in state capacity on the one hand, and the perceived failure of the state’s previous practices to help resolve outstanding security problems on the other, coupled with the effects of a number of endogenous and exogenous shocks (particularly, the colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine; Kosovo’s recognition by the West; the Russia-Georgia 2008 war; global economic crisis; and Turkey’s short-lived attempt at rapprochement with Armenia) and the perceptual shifts those shockwaves worked to engender, served to broaden the spatial and conceptual boundaries within which Azerbaijan’s foreign policy practices were conceived and effected, including by virtue of the energy resources the country has got in possession.  The paper concludes by tracing the particular ways in which the broadening and deepening of the country’s foreign policy practices have occurred.

Abkhazia during the Stalin era was at the same time a subtropical haven where the great leader and his lieutenants built grand dachas and took extended holidays away from Moscow, and also a key piece in the continuing chess match of Soviet politics. This paper will examine how and why this small, sunny autonomous republic on the Black Sea, and the political networks that developed there, played a prominent role in the politics of the south Caucasus region and in Soviet politics as a whole during the Stalin period.

Global indices of economic competitiveness, such as the World Bank‘s Ease of Doing Business index (EDBI), score and rank states according to the quality of local business regulations. Quantifying and indexing regulatory quality to a singular ranking constructs a ―best practice‖ model, which characterizes regulation in the highest-ranked states. States that outcompete others at transferring regulatory best practices from higher ranked states are rewarded with an improved international reputation for having investor-friendly policies. By helping to attract the interest of foreign investors, the production of raised competiveness rankings serves as an extraterritorial state strategy for gaining from globalization. This paper details the reform strategy used to produce the (post-Soviet) Republic of Georgia‘s 2006-2009 vault up the EDBI rankings. The rankings ascension was the centerpiece of an investment promotion campaign that accompanied strong inflows of foreign direct investment. Making full use of EDBI as a strategic resource for investment promotion involved the composition of an institutional assemblage of the Georgian government, USAID, and the World Bank‘s Doing Business project. Ethnographic research revealed how power geometries emerged among the assembled organizations to enable the transfer of EDBI‘s best practice regulations in some areas, and impede it in others. The case study reveals how limits to policy transfer are created by geographic context, and how EDBI rankings can be exploited to obfuscate problematic business conditions overlooked by its measurement methodology.

Nationalism is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world –
but why some ethno-national groups mobilize for conflict, while
others remain quiescent, remains subject to significant
disagreement. This paper argues that domestic politics create the
incentives for secession, and international forces make conflict
feasible against a sometimes stronger military adversary – the
state. The proposed theory unpacks this interaction of domestic
and international factors, and posits that when regional elites
possess local control in an area that is contiguous with a potential
sponsor, external support is more feasible and more apt to lead to
mobilization and conflict. When regional elites lack local control,
external sponsors will be wary of supporting a potentially lost
cause and regional elites will exhibit more restraint, reducing the
chances of conflict – external support therefore often flows from
strong states to strong regions in weaker states. It is instrumental
and variable, rather than affective and constant, and thus kin
states will not always support their secessionist brethren in
neighbouring states. Using a sub-national research design from
post-Soviet Georgia, the results lend support to these conjectures.

Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) instruments can source obsidian artifacts once beyond analytical reach, expanding the range of artifact classes included in sourcing research.  It is now more straightforward to analyze a “museum quality” tool on display in a gallery than the flaking chips and resharpening debitage recovered with it.  That is because a minimum specimen size for artifacts is often mentioned as a drawback of pXRF-based sourcing.  Many recent studies reject artifacts smaller than 1 cm and thinner than 3 mm for pXRF analysis.  This study concerns whether such guidelines are too restrictive.  After examining data from previous research into this issue, this study uses an experimental assemblage of 650 flakes from five obsidian sources to demonstrate two data handling techniques that enable valid and reliable source identifications for artifacts as small as microdebitage.  The first involves ratios between quantitative concentrations of well-measured elements with similar X-ray energies, while the second one involves multivariate analysis of elemental data for obsidian flakes across a variety of size classes.  As an example, 200 small blades are matched to two chemically similar obsidian sources on the Aegean island of Melos.  Distinguishing between them has been treated as a “benchmark” or “litmus test” for evaluating obsidian sourcing techniques.  Ultimately, it is demonstrated that debitage, as small as ∼1–2 mm and <10 mg, can be sourced using pXRF.  Including small lithic size classes has important consequences.  Obsidian tools were continuously resharpened and rejuvenated as they were transported across the landscape.  Sourcing microdebitage, not only large artifacts, enables insights into tool maintenance and curation behaviors that would otherwise be invisible.

Nakh-Daghestanian languages have encountered growing interest from typologists and linguists from other subdiscplines, and more and more languages from the Nakh-Daghestanian language family are being studied. This paper provides a grammatical overview of the hitherto undescribed Sanzhi Dargwa, followed by a detailed analysis of the grammaticalized expression of spatial elevation in Sanzhi. Spatial elevation, a topic that has not received substantial attention in Caucasian linguistics, manifests itself across different parts of speech in Sanzhi Dargwa and related languages. In Sanzhi, elevation is a deictic category in partial opposition with participant-oriented deixis / horizontally-oriented directional deixis. This paper treats the spatial uses of demonstratives, spatial preverbs and spatial cases that express elevation as well as the semantic extension of this spatial category into other, non-spatial domains. It further compares the Sanzhi data to other Caucasian and non-Caucasian languages and makes suggestions for investigating elevation as a subcategory within a broader category of topographical deixis.

A common hypothesis for the high biodiversity of mountains is the diversification driven by orogeny creating conditions for rapid in situ speciation of resident lineages. The Caucasus is a young mountain system considered as a biodiversity hotspot; however, the origin and evolution of its diversity remain poorly understood. This study focuses on mayflies of the subgenus Caucasiron, one of the most diversified stenotopic mayflies inhabiting various types of streams throughout the Caucasus. Using the time-calibrated phylogeny based on two mi-tochondrial (COI, 16S) and three nuclear (EF-1α, wg, 28S) gene fragments, we tested the role of Caucasian orogeny in biogeography, diversification patterns, and altitudinal diversification of Caucasiron mayflies. We found that orogeny promoted the lineage diversification of Caucasiron in the Miocene. The highest diversification rate corresponding with the uplift of mountains was followed by a significant slowdown towards the present suggesting minor influence of Pleistocene climatic oscillations on the speciation. The Caucasiron lineages cluster into three principal clades originating in the Upper Miocene. We found a strong support that one of the three clades diversified via allopatric speciation in the Greater Caucasus isolated in the Parathetys Sea. The other two clades originating most likely outside the Greater Caucasus diversified towards high and low altitude, respectively , indicating possible role of climatic factors and/or passive uplift on their differentiation. Current high Caucasiron diversity in the Greater Caucasus is a result of in situ speciation and later immigration from adjacent mountain ranges after the Parathetys Sea retreat. Our phylogeny supported the monophyly of Rhithrogeninae, Epeorus s.l., Caucasiron, and Iron. Epeorus subgenus Ironopsis was found paraphyletic, with its European representatives more closely related to Epeorus s.str. than to Iron. Therefore, we rearranged taxa treated within Ironopsis to comply with the phylogeny recovered herein.

This is a study of an apocalyptic Latin letter (incipit "Ad flagellum humani generis"), surviving in manuscripts from the mid-thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, that describes an apparent aggressive invasion of an ascetic army in the distant East, led by a figure claiming to be Christ and bearing a new volume of scripture. This article offers the first comprehensive study of the letter's manuscript tradition and presents a new critical edition of the text. It argues that this letter was composed in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem sometime in the years 1235–36 as a response to intelligence brought by eastern Christian envoys (quite possibly from Georgia or Greater Armenia) concerning the second wave of Mongol invasions in Transcaucasia. These envoys had spent some time in the presence of a Mongol army, possibly that of the general Chormaghan, receiving an edict that probably demanded their submission and stated the Mongols' divine right to universal domination. This edict, accompanied by other information, was ultimately translated into Latin for the benefit of the authorities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These authorities interpreted both the edict and the oral and/or written intelligence that the eastern Christian envoys delivered within the intellectual framework of Latin Christianity. This particular interpretation was then written into a letter that was sent to Western Europe, where it circulated probably quite widely for around a century. Crusade theorists' need for intelligence about the Middle and Far East, together with the vogue of apocalyptic prophecy in the later Middle Ages, encouraged the continued copying of the text.

"This book describes how people construct identity in the rapidly changing Georgian-Turkish border region. Based on extensive ethnographic research, it illuminates the myriad ways residents of the Caucasus have rethought who they are since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through an exploration of three towns in the southwest corner of Georgia, all of which are situated close to the Turkish frontier, I  show how social and cultural boundaries took on greater importance in the years of transition, when such divisions were expected to vanish. By tracing the fears, longings, and disillusionment that border dwellers projected on the Iron Curtain, I demonstrate how elements of culture formed along and in response to territorial divisions, and how these elements became crucial in attempts to rethink the border after its physical rigidities dissolved in the 1990s. The new boundary-drawing activities had the effect of grounding and reinforcing Soviet constructions of identity, even though they were part of the process of overcoming and dismissing the past. Ultimately, the book argues that the opening of the border paradoxically inspired a newfound appreciation for the previously despised Iron Curtain as something that had provided protection and was still worth defending."

This article sheds light on the Euro-Atlantic discourse in Georgia by situating it in a wider frame. It provides an analysis of its Euro-Atlantic orientation by presenting it as a continuation of past efforts to involve European powers in Georgian affairs and highlights changing trends in this aspect of contemporary foreign policy. Far from determining whether or not the Georgians are European, the different arguments that have been used to support Georgian “Europeanness” are evaluated to assess its role in the national identity construction process. Focusing primarily on the United National Movement government led by Mikheil Saakashvili, we demonstrate how the Euro-Atlantic discourse has been employed domestically by the political elite as a legitimacy management strategy and explore its function in seeking Western patronage, a key foreign policy goal.

Why does ideology often fail to take hold in post-Soviet party politics where parties tend to be personalistic, patronage-based and clientelistic rather than programmatic? Moving beyond conventional theories of social cleavage and patrimonial legacies, this paper offers an alternative explanation focusing on the structure of a country’s discursive space. Analysis of Azerbaijani political party manifestos shows that all political players – the ruling and pro-government parties and the opposition groups alike – actively prevent the emergence of ideological competition and debate. All parties are wedded to the same underlying ideology of nationalism and a shallow or nominal commitment to democracy. This situation perpetuates the status quo and breeds political apathy among younger people.

The South Caucasus was a major center of metal production in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. Nowhere is this more clear than in the hills and mountains in the southeastern Black Sea region (ancient Colchis), where exceptionally large numbers of metal production sites have been found. Chemical and microscopic analysis of slagged technical ceramics at these sites illuminates several aspects of both raw copper and tin bronze alloy production. Copper ores were smelted in a complex multi-stage process designed to extract metal from sulfide ores. Technical ceramics served as containers for a range of different reactions, from the first phase of smelting, in which the copper sulfides were likely consolidated into a matte, though later stages of matte processing and metal copper production in smaller crucibles. In addition, a single crucible fragment, recovered from a late 2nd millennium BC slag heap, demonstrates that tin bronze was created by the direct addition of cassiterite tin ore, probably of alluvial origin, to metallic copper. The crucible's context, the use of cassiterite ore rather than tin metal, and a review of local geology suggests that the tin used in this crucible came from nearby, with the most likely source being the Vakijvari and Bzhuzhi gorges roughly 10-15 km away. While a single fragment does not speak to the regularity of this practice, at the very least it raises the possibility that the Colchian bronze industry was based on local rather than imported tin.

The taxonomic status of brown bears in the Caucasus remains unclear. Several morphs or subspecies have been identified from the morphological (craniological) data, but the status of each of these subspecies has never been verified by molecular genetic methods. We analysed mitochondrial DNA sequences (control region) to reveal phylogenetic relationships and infer divergence time between brown bear subpopulations in the Caucasus. We estimated migration and gene flow from both mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite allele frequencies, and identified possible barriers to gene flow among the subpopulations. Our suggestion is that all Caucasian bears belong to the nominal subspecies of Ursus arctos. Our results revealed two genetically and geographically distinct maternal haplogroups: one from the Lesser Caucasus and the other one from the Greater Caucasus. The genetic divergence between these haplogroups dates as far back as the beginning of human colonization of the Caucasus. Our analysis of the least-cost distances between the subpopulations suggests humans as a major barrier to gene flow. The low genetic differentiation inferred from microsatellite allele frequencies indicates that gene flow between the two populations in the Caucasus is maintained through the movements of male brown bears. The Likhi Ridge that connects the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountains is the most likely corridor for this migration.

Bone fragments of large anadromous salmon in the Middle Palaeolithic archaeological layers of Kudaro 3 cave (Caucasus) suggested fish consumption by archaic Hominins, such as Neandertals. However, large carnivores such as Asiatic cave bears (Ursus kudarensis) and cave lions (Panthera spelaea) were also found in the cave and could have been responsible for such an accumulation. The diet of these carnivores was evaluated using carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotopes in faunal bone collagen. The results suggest that anadromous fish were neither part of the diet of either cave bear (vegetarian) or cave lion (predators of herbivores from arid areas) and therefore provide indirect support to the idea that Middle Palaeolithic Hominins, probably Neandertals, were able to consume fish when it was available.

While various debates have arisen on the relationship between non-recognition and democratisation, empirical case studies on elections in de facto states are extremely rare. This article examines recent presidential and parliamentary elections in two unrecognised or partially recognised de facto states in the South Caucasus, namely Abkhazia and Nagorny Karabakh. Accordingly, the emphasis is on the Abkhazian presidential elections of August 2011 and August 2014 and parliamentary elections of 2007 and 2012, along with the most recent executive and legislative elections in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) in July 2012 and May 2015 respectively. On the basis of extensive interviews and participant observation, this article demonstrates how although both parliamentary and presidential elections in Abkhazia are competitive, they favour the titular nation, while in homogeneous Nagorny Karabakh fear of a renewed conflagration has until recently produced relatively uncompetitive presidential contests. The dynamics of majoritarian versus party list, party, ethnic and gender representation are examined in each case. The case studies reveal weak political parties, but the NKR has made incremental changes to the electoral law that might encourage a less personality-based parliamentary system. Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23761199.2015.1086571

Why and how does the Moscow city government limit the rights of migrants? How are Moscow police involved in enforcing these policies? Drawing on interviews, scholarly publications, and the Russian press, this article addresses these questions. Post-Soviet changes in migration to Moscow and the city government's efforts to restrict migration are examined as are changes in enforcing residence restrictions. Soviet and post-Soviet approaches to migration are compared and the relationship between political context and police conduct is analyzed to understand the relationship between the police and the contemporary Russian state.

This article casts additional light on typologies of (non)configurationality by examining three different kinds of ‘mixed categories’ of syntax-semantics mismatch in Georgian:  masdar nominalizations, -isa-s gerundives, and infinitival future participles in the adverbial case. Having the semantic properties of clauses while maintaining purely nominal syntax, these constructions challenge theories of configurationality that depend on isomorphisms between constituency structures and the semantic properties of verbal predicates, providing interesting evidence for the ‘dual-structure’ hypothesis (Austin & Bresnan 1996; also Sadock 1991, Jackendoff and Culicover 2005).

In the final decades of Ottoman rule, several waves of refugees from the Russian Empire's North Caucasus region immigrated to Transjordan, where they founded Amman and other agricultural villages. This article examines the economy of Amman in its formative years as a Circassian refugee settlement. By exploring connections between North Caucasian refugees, Syrian and Palestinian merchants, and Transjordanian urban and nomadic communities, this study posits refugees as drivers of economic expansion in the late Ottoman period. I argue that the settlement of North Caucasian refugees and their active participation in the real estate market in and around Amman contributed to the entrenchment of the post-1858 property regime in Ottoman Transjordan. Through a study of an upper-class Circassian household and its legal battles, this article also illustrates the rise of refugee elites who benefited from the commodification of land and the construction of state-sponsored infrastructure in the late Ottoman Levant.

Winner, 2018 Best Article Prize, Syrian Studies Association

Winner, 2018 Khayrallah Prize in Middle Eastern Migration Studies, Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies

Natural disasters can sometimes have a tremendous impact on societies and can even contribute to the outbreak of violent conflicts. The onset of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is usually attributed to the lack of Soviet control over the periphery and the consequent ‘resurgence of ethnicity’. Based on an analysis of how the main political actors in Moscow and the Caucasus framed the 1988 earthquake in Armenia in opposition to each other, this essay shifts the focus from political history to environmental history to argue that the disaster, and the narratives revolving around its origin and meaning, can further explain the exacerbation of the conflict.

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Conflicts in the Caucasus began as a result of the weakening of the institutions of the Soviet Union.
Since then there have been some major transformations. Initially, there were ‘triangular conflicts’ with
the centre (Moscow) on the one side and two competing national projects on the other side (a Union
Republic and a minority group with an autonomous status within this republic). After the collapse of
the Soviet Union, these conflicts evolved into bilateral ones between two popular-nationalist
movements with competing territorial claims: newly independent nation states, on the one hand, and
minority groups with autonomous status, on the other.

Did the 1915 genocide of the Ottoman Armenians play a role in the genesis of the Karabakh war? In the early phase of the conflict, many Armenian activists and politicians drew parallels between the evolving struggles of the present and the traumatic events of 1915. This essay explores the ways in which Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey have referred to the events of 1915 to formulate their policies towards the conflict. The essay argues that the largely suppressed past trauma was present in the mass psychology of the conflicting parties, although in radically different ways, and that it shaped developing events. After depoliticising genocide commemorations in the early years of its independence, Armenia has recently witnessed an increase in references to the genocide in political discourse. The same also applies, somewhat paradoxically, to Azerbaijan, which has developed its own state-sponsored discourse of genocide, vehemently denying that the genocide took place while portraying Azerbaijan as a victim of genocide itself. This exchange of roles clearly needs further explanation.

It is unimaginable that in the 21st century a powerful country could invade a neighbouring country and annex part of its territory just because it does not like its neighbour's politics. Though there have been some anti-terrorist and regime-change operations by powerful countries like the United States in failed states like Afghanistan or despotic ones like Iraq, officially the U.S. did not annex the countries it occupied.

Einleitung von Bianka Pietrow-Ennker: [25] (...) "Beim dritten Beispiel liegt der Akzent auf den Repräsentationsformen von Wissenschaft, hier den kaukasischen Regionalstudien. Oliver Reisner kommt es darauf an herauszuarbeiten, dass die Entwicklung geographischer Projekte innerhalb eines Imperiums in einem bestimmten Machtfeld stattfindet, das [26] Wahrnehmungen und Einstellungen der Wissenschaftler formt. Durch imperiale Herrschaft strukturieren normstiftende "Wahrheitsdiskurse" (Foucault) die Realität, in unserem Fall die der Wissenschaftsproduktion. Die Kaukasiologie begann im Zarenreich institutionell gefördert zu werden, als es darum ging, den gewaltsam angeeigneten Raum an der Peripherie des Reiches herrschaftlich zu durchdringen. Herrschaftssicherung wurde auch über die Konstruktion von Wissensbeständen und ihre Organisation betrieben. Die Ausführungen des Autors über die Entstehung der Kaukasienstudien und ihrer Träger lassen sich treffend dem Konzept der "Gouvernementalite" (Michel Foucault) zuordnen: Denn die Wissenschaftler formten ihr Profil in strategischen Machtbeziehungen durch Regierungs- und Selbsttechnologien. So produzierten sie zunächst herrschaftskonformes Wissen über die Großregion. Die Fachrichtung stellte sich als eine Repräsentationsform imperialer Symbolpolitik dar, die darauf abzielte, den Kaukasus als südliche Peripherie in das Imperium zu integrieren. Wieder finden wir hier von Beginn an die politische Vorgabe des Zentrums, mit Hilfe der Kaukasiologie eine zivilisatorische, aufklärende Mission gegenüber der Peripherie durchzuführen, sie aber auch ökonomisch zu nutzen. Im Machtdiskurs zeichnete sich deutlich eine transkulturelle Hierarchisierung ab, durch die im Zentrum produzierte Wertvorstellungen auf die Peripherie übertragen wurden. Der Ort der Kaukasus-Forschung war St. Petersburg, eine Institutionalisierung in den Repräsentationsformen von Professur und Fakultät begann Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, es forschten ausländische und georgische Gelehrte z.B. unter der staatsloyalen Prämisse zusammen, die russische Aneignung des Königreichs [Ost-]Georgien als selbstlose Hilfe eines mächtigen Glaubensbruders gegen die drohende Vernichtung des georgischen Volkes durch islamische Mächte zu mystifizieren. Die Reichweite der Integration der Peripherie in das imperiale Wissen war durch diese personellen und konzeptionellen Verflechtungen beträchtlich. Auch als um die Jahrhundertwende dann in Georgien selbst geforscht werden konnte und der Wissenschaftsbetrieb institutionell erweitert wurde, dauerte die Integration der kaukasischen Forscher in das imperiale Wissenssystem fort. Dazu verhalf ein Machtdiskurs, in der sich ein - in die imperialen Hierarchien fest integrierter - georgischer Wissenschaftler maßgeblich einschrieb: Das von Niko Marr gegründete Forschungsinstitut untersuchte die Kaukasusvölker in einem asiatischen kulturellen Kontext. Allerdings brachte dieser Diskurs auch Gegenmacht dergestalt hervor, dass mit einer privaten georgischen Universität in Tbilisi eine gegenläufige nationale Wissenschaftstradition begründet wurde, die Georgiens Entwicklung eng an die geistigen Traditionen des christlichen Europas band. In der Sowjetzeit wurde von den Bol'sheviki ein eigenständiges sozialistisches, an Zensusnationalitäten orientiertes geographisches Entwicklungskonzept durchgesetzt, das von der Akademie der Wissenschaften [27] als hegemoniales Wissenschaftszentrum gestaltet wurde. Ein nationalterritoriales Prinzip bestimmte fortan die Kaukasienforschung, die Regionalforschung wurde auf Kosten ihrer Vielfalt 'nationalisiert'."

Introduction by Bianka Pietrow-Ennker: [25] (...) "In the third example, the accent is on the forms of representation of science, in this case Caucasian regional studies. Oliver Reisner's point is that the development of geographical projects within an empire takes place in a specific field of power that [26] shapes perceptions and attitudes of scholars. Through imperial domination, normative "discourses of truth" (Foucault) structure reality, in our case that of science production. Caucasiology began to be institutionally promoted in the tsarist empire when it was a matter of imposing domination on the forcibly appropriated space on the periphery of the empire. The construction of knowledge and its organisation were also used to secure power. The author's explanations of the emergence of Caucasian studies and its bearers can be aptly assigned to the concept of the "governmentalite" (Michel Foucault): For scholars shaped their profile in strategic power relations through technologies of government and self. Thus, they initially produced knowledge about the greater region that conformed to the rule. The discipline presented itself as a form of representation of imperial symbolic politics that aimed to integrate the Caucasus as a southern periphery into the empire. Again, from the very beginning, we find here the political specification of the centre to carry out a civilising, enlightening mission towards the periphery with the help of Caucasiology, but also to use it economically. In the discourse of power, a transcultural hierarchisation clearly emerged, through which value concepts produced in the centre were transferred to the periphery. The place of Caucasus research was St. Petersburg, an institutionalisation in the forms of representation of professorship and faculty began in the mid-19th century, foreign and Georgian scholars researched together, for example, under the state-loyal premise of mystifying the Russian appropriation of the kingdom of [East] Georgia as the selfless help of a powerful fellow believer against the threatening destruction of the Georgian people by Islamic powers. The scope of the integration of the periphery into imperial knowledge was considerable through these personal and conceptual entanglements. Even when research could then be conducted in Georgia itself around the turn of the century and the scientific enterprise was institutionally expanded, the integration of Caucasian researchers into the imperial knowledge system continued. This was helped by a discourse of power in which a Georgian scientist - firmly integrated into the imperial hierarchies - played a decisive role: the research institute founded by Niko Marr studied the Caucasian peoples in an Asian cultural context. However, this discourse also produced countervailing power in the sense that a private Georgian university in Tbilisi established a countervailing national academic tradition that closely tied Georgia's development to the intellectual traditions of Christian Europe. During the Soviet period, the Bol'sheviki imposed an independent socialist geographical development concept oriented towards census nationalities, which was shaped by the Academy of Sciences [27] as a hegemonic centre of science. A national-territorial principle henceforth determined Caucasian research, regional research was 'nationalised' at the expense of its diversity."

Abstract: A synthesis of the Late Palaeozoic to Cenozoic evolution of the Black Sea region and the southern parts of the East European Platform (EEP) is presented. During Carboniferous to Early Permian times the Cordillera-type Euxinus Orogen evolved along the southern margin of the EEP in response to progressive closure of the Rheic and Palaeotethys oceans and the accretion of Gondwana-derived continental terranes. Permian development of the north-dipping Palaeotethys subduction system along the southern Pontides margin of these terranes was accompanied by important compressional intraplate deformation on the EEP. Th e Mesozoic to Palaeogene evolution of the southern parts of the EEP, was goverened by closure of Palaeotethys, accretion of the Gondwana-derived Cimmerian terrane and gradual closure of the Neotethys, involving repeated opening and closure of back-arc basins. Five discrete tectonic subduction-related cycles are recognized, each commencing with back-arc extension and te...

Located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Armenia and Turkey are two neighboring countries that share a 311 km of land border. Official relations between them, however, remain antagonistic as they never established diplomatic relations, and the land border remains closed. All the past efforts to normalize relations and eradicate the standoff have foundered. This article engages with several methodological problems and (mis)perceptions that persist in existing interpretations of Armenia–Turkey relations and examines their impact on the current deadlock. It particularly discusses the questions of the closed border, its relevance to the conflict in Karabakh, the importance of disentangling the process of normalization from reconciliation, and its impact on past normalization initiatives. The article argues that critical rethinking of several deep seated conceptions and approaches could expand our understanding about the roots of the present rift and propose avenues for resolving the impasse.

The article examines the role of muridism as an important state-forming ideological element of Imam Shamil`s theocratic state – the Imamate, during the period of his rule (1834–1859). It presents key moments of the forming of the ideology of muridism, its aspects which differentiate it from the Sufi tariqa Naqshbandiyyia-Khalidiyya and which were used for establishing the Imamate. The article indicates how muridism was adapted to the North-Eastern Caucasian realities and the confrontation between the Imamate and the Russian empire.

On the outskirts of stanitsa Zakubanskaya, a Kuban Cossack settlement in the Russian federal region of Krasnodar kray, local inhabitants use a spring as a source of drinking water. In 2007, a conflict arose over ownership of, and access to, this spring. Through detailed analysis of the conflict, the article explores the limits of neoliberal “accumulation by dispossession”. Four modes of appropriation are discernible here: communal labour, sacralisation, autochthony,
and privatisation from within the realms of state bureaucracy. It is argued that this local conflict crystallises key features of spatial politics in north-western Caucasus that are linked
to privatisation, religion, and ethno-politics.

Background: Shiri is a small mountainous village in the Republic of Daghestan, in the North Caucasus. Daghestan is Russia's southernmost and most ethnically and linguistically diverse republic, a considerable part of which belongs to the Caucasus Biodiversity Hotspot. Various species of wild leafy vegetables are collected in Shiri and there are still many social and cultural practices connected with plant collection in the village. Yet due to migration processes, local knowledge about wild greens and their uses is being slowly forgotten or not passed on. The Shiri language is highly endangered and so are the local plant terminologies and classifications. The unstable political situation hinders local and international research, therefore we find it highly important to explore both what wild leafy vegetables are collected in this mountainous part of Daghestan and how the relation between plants and people is shaped in this linguistically and culturally diverse context. We answer the following questions: what wild leafy vegetables are collected in Shiri? Why are they important to the local people? What is the social aspect of wild leafy vegetable uses?

This book traces the history of the ancient Khazar Empire, a major but almost forgotten power in Eastern Europe, which in the Dark Ages became converted to Judaism. Khazaria was finally wiped out by the forces of Genghis Khan, but evidence indicates that the Khazars themselves migrated to Poland and formed the cradle of Western Jewry… The Khazars' sway extended from the Black Sea to the Caspian, from the Caucasus to the Volga, and they were instrumental in stopping the Muslim onslaught against Byzantium, the eastern jaw of the gigantic pincer movement that in the West swept across northern Africa and into Spain. In the second part of this book, " The Heritage, " Mr. Koestler speculates about the ultimate faith of the Khazars and their impact on the racial composition and social heritage of modern Jewry. He produces a large body of meticulously detailed research in support of a theory that sounds all the more convincing for the restraint with which it is advanced. Yet should this theory be confirmed, the term " anti-Semitism " would become void of meaning, since, as Mr. Koestler writes, it is based " on a misapprehension shared by both the killers and their victims. The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated. " ISBN 0-394-40284-7

In Georgia, a law enacted on January 1, 2011 mandated that all foreign language films possess either Georgian dubbing or subtitling for public film showings. This legal measure was targeted at removing Russian presence in film language, as part of then-President Saakashvili's shift away from alignments with Russia and Russianness in Georgian public cultural life. This article investigates the ideological and institutional dimensions of the creation of a new film dubbing industry in Tbilisi for an audience that was critical of it. Russian technical and artistic expression remained the rubric against which Georgian dubbing was compared. Soviet and Russian forms, which continue to permeate the Georgian social world, have structured expectations about “quality” or “art” in dubbing. Additionally, evaluations of dubbing as a form of linguistic mediation described Georgian language as in a relationship of inferiority with respect to Russian, which has long been linked to high-culture forms of sociotechnical mediation. The emergence of a new film dubbing industry in Georgia draws out a number of contradictions in the ways that the institutional calibration of foreignness inheres in labor, aesthetics, and technical forms.

„2011 წლის 21 იანვარს საქართველოში ძალაში შევიდა კანონი, რომლის მიხედვით ნებისმიერი უცხოურენოვანი ფილმი უნდა გახმოვანებულიყო ქართულ ენაზე ან თან ხლებოდა სუბტიტრები საჯარო ჩვენებისას. ეს სამართლებრივი ღონისძიება მიზნად ისახავდა რუსულის გაქრობას ფილმის ენიდან და წარმოადგენდა მაშინდელი პრეზიდენტი სააკაშვილის რუსეთთან და რუსობის საქართველოს საჯარო კულტურული ცხოვრებიდან ამოღების ნაწილს. სტატია იკვლევს ფილმის დუბლირების ახალი ინდუსტრიის იდეოლოგიური და ინსტიტუციური განზომილებების შექმნას თბილისში, სადაც აუდიტორია კრიტიკულად განეწყო ამ წამოწყებისადმი. ქართული გახმოვანება შეედარა რუბრიკად დარჩენილ რუსულ ტექნიკურ და არტისტულ გამოხატულებას. საბჭოთა და რუსულმა ფორმებმა, რომელიც კვლავ ფონად გასდევს ქართულ სოციალურ სამყაროს, შექმნა მოლოდინები გახმოვანების „ხარისხისა“ და „ხელოვნების“ შესახებ. ამასთანავე, გახმოვანებამ, როგორც ენობრივი მედიაციის ფორმამ ქართული ენა წარმოაჩინა არასრულფასოვნად რუსულთან მიმართებაში, რამეთუ რუსული ითვლებოდა სოციო-ტექნიკური მედიაციის მაღალ-კულტურულ ფორმად. ახალი გახმოვანების ინდუსტრიის გამოჩენამ საქართველოში გააჩინა წინააღმდეგობათა წყება, რომლის მიხედვითაც უცხოურობის ინსტიტუციური სტანდარტიზაცია სუფევს შრომაში, ესთეტიკასა და ტექნიკურ ფორმებში.“

Abstract: Turkish foreign policy has experienced massive alterations after the end of Cold War. This has been most evident in Turkey’s relations with Turkic nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus, all of which gained independence from the USSR. This article aims to provide a thorough analysis on this issue. First, the article explores the ethnicity concept and applies it to the relations between Turkey and Turkic nations. Then, it examines Turkey’s relations with other regional and international powers, namely Russia, the USA, and Iran, through the lenses of Central Asia and the Caucasia. Finally, the article questions the often monolithic view of Turkic nations in the eyes of the Turkish public and delves into the rich yet diverse bilateral relations between Turkey and each Turkic state. To this end, it analyzes Turkey’s political, economic, and cultural ties with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Carefully going over all of these subjects, the article intends to illustrate the multifaceted
nature of Turkey’s relations with Turkic nations and the prospects and obstacles ahead.

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is one of the most serious conflicts in the post-USSR area. The aim of the article is to present this conflict in the asymmetric paradigm. Features of the conflict have been characterized respectively and the conflict has been interpreted based on the analysis of the legal status of the conflict sides as well as the goals, strategies and resources the sides’ disposition. Referring to the asymmetric conflict paradigm allows for a new interpretation not only of its nature, but also of causes of the current state and the uncertainty regarding its further development.

Lavrentii Beria built up one of the most powerful patronage networks in Soviet history. Its success represents a unique case in Soviet history in which a regionally based secret police patron-client network, comprised primarily of representatives of ethnic minorities, took control first of the civilian leadership of one of the major regions of the Union, and then of the most powerful institution in the USSR, the national secret police, and subsequently became one of the main competing factions in the “crypto-politics” of the late-Stalin era. The fact that the Beria network emerged from the secret police gave it certain advantages in the political struggles of the period, but it also held weaknesses that played a role in Beria’s final undoing. The evolution and political struggles of Beria’s network also shed light on the inner workings of the competition among informal networks that made up the crypto-politics of the period. Using recent memoirs, new archival sources and interviews, this article will examine how Beria developed, managed and advanced his informal network, giving particular attention to the specific and unique outcomes that resulted from the rooting of this network in the secret police, at five critical junctures in Beria’s career.

Soviet policy towards its Kurds fluctuated and remained fragmented, ambivalent, and inconsistent throughout the existence of the USSR. On one hand, the Soviet government provided for the material and cultural development of Kurds in Armenia and Azerbaijan during the 1920s and 1930s. On the other hand, in 1937 it deported a number of Kurds from Azerbaijan and in 1944 an even larger number from Georgia to Kazakhstan and Central Asia as special settlers. The Soviet government only freed Kurdish special settlers from the legal restrictions limiting their movement and other rights in April 1956. Former Kurdish special settlers, however, could not return to the Caucasus. The Kurds remained a diaspora group in the USSR without any national territory and only limited cultural institutions. Only in the late 1980s did this situation change.

A law was implemented in Georgia in 2011 that required all foreign films to be shown with Georgian state language dubbing or subtitling. At that time, Russian was the default language of film showings. A year later, the largest movie theater in Tbilisi was fined for showing films in Russian language without Georgian state language subtitling or dubbing. This fine, however, had little effect on film-showing practices. I describe how media- language politics involved collaboration among social actors in the Georgian Ministry of Culture, the movie theater industry, and the film-dubbing industry. To do so, I develop the concept of dormant law: a mostly unenforced hard law that codifies aspirational condi- tions. Through the possibility of selective activation, dormant law functions as a latent instrument of politics. In political and popular discourse during President Saakashvili’s era (2004–2013), social actors framed Russian as a potentially hazardous symbolic re- source embedded in infrastructure, whereas they framed English as either harmless or enriching to “Georgianness.” In film-language debates, citizens and politicians reflected on the meanings of “international” languages, in contrast with Georgian. The Film Law manifested a hierarchy of social value in which English and Russian were competing codes, iconic of possible future Georgian modernities.

Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) of fecal bile acids has been used to confirm visual identification of scat samples found in Armenia in 2004−2005 and attributed to the leopard (Panthera pardus ciscaucasica). The results of TLC do not differ significantly from those of visual identification, confirming the reliability of the latter method. Taking into account the frequency and distribution of fresh scats, two priority areas for leopard conservation have been identified: the Central and Khachadzor districts of the Khosrov Reserve and the Nuvadi-Shvanidzor area in eastern Meghri Ridge.