The South Caucasus - Between integration and fragmentation

The South Caucasus is situated at the intersection of Eurasia’s major transport and energy corridors, making it an important geostrategic region. Traditional regional actors Iran, Turkey and Russia have jostled for influence and power in the region for centuries, and are now faced with competition from the EU, China, the US and NATO. Although Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have been independent for more than two decades, they still continue to feel the sway, and sometimes threat, of external actors. As a response, the three South Caucasus states have chosen very different geostrategic paths since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving the region more fragmented and volatile than ever. In this book, various authors offer a deep and broad understanding of the developments in the South Caucasus, analyse the different foreign trajectories that each of the three state is following, and highlight the impact of external actors’ policies.

Russia’s ‘Middle East’: the escalation of religious conflicts in the Northern Caucasus. OSW Commentary Number 207/04.04.2016

The eastern part of the Northern Caucasus (Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia) is becoming an increasingly distinct region in cultural, civilisational and social terms when compared to the rest of the Russian Federation. The situation on the ground there bears greater resemblance to the Middle East than to Russia: Islam is the key factor organising socio-political life, and conflicts inside the Muslim community, often involving bloodshed, are the driving power of developments in the region. The conflict is between the two main branches of Islam in the Northern Caucasus: Sufism linked to the official clergy and government, and Salafism which is gaining more and more supporters among young people in the Caucasus. Tension, including clashes over mosques, attacks, mass detentions, etc. has been observed mainly in Dagestan and Ingushetia.

The Caucasus.

"Printed by Human Relations Area Files, Inc."--Cover.

Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia : performed in the years 1807 and 1808, by command of the Russian government /

Mode of access: Internet.

Prince Schamyl's wooing : a story of the Caucasus-Russo-Turkish War /

Advertisements on p. [1]-[2] and on p. [1]-[6] at end.

Narrative of Don Juan van Halen's imprisonment in the dungeons of the Inquistion at Madrid, and his escape in 1817 and 1818 : to which are added, his journey to Russia, his campaign with the army of the Caucasus, and his return to Spain in 1821 /

Shoemaker

Description of nine new species of plants from Caucasus.

Transactions of the Linnean society of London, 1815, xi, 408-418.

Verzeichniss der pflanzen, welche wahrend der in den jahren 1829 und 1830 unternommenen reise im Caucasus und in den provinzen am westlichen ufer des Caspischen meeres gefunden und eingesammelt worden sind.

Mode of access: Internet.

Travels in the western Caucasus : including a tour through Imeritia, Mingrelia, Turkey, Moldavia, Galicia, Silesia and Moravia in 1836 /

Mode of access: Internet.

All the travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia,

Mode of access: Internet.

Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia, performed in the years 1806 and 1808, by command of the Russian government,

Mode of access: Internet.

Letters from the Caucasus and Georgia : to which are added, the account of a journey into Persia in 1812, and an abridged history of Persia since the time of Nadir Shah ; translated from the French, and illustrated with maps and engravings.

Includes index.

Journal of a tour from Astrachan to Karass : north of the mountains of Caucasus : containing remarks on the general appearances of the country, manners of the inhabitants, & c., with the substance of many conversations with effendis, mollas, & other Mohammedans, on the questions at issue between them and Christians /

Mode of access: Internet.

Re-making a frontier community or defending ethnic boundaries? The Caucasus in Cossack identity

The essay focuses on the notion of the Caucasus as a reference point in the construction of Cossack identity in southern Russia. Since the late Soviet period, the Cossack revivalist/nativist movement has emerged in the territories which constituted the frontier zones of Tsarist Russia. Arguably, the historical Cossack hosts were established as a kind of frontier community which played an important role in the expansion of the Russian Empire. This essay examines how post-Soviet Cossacks reinterpret the meanings of the Caucasus as a spatial and cultural realm where, or in relation to which, they produce their identity as a distinct ethnic and cultural community.

The European Union Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia: The Limitations of the Opening towards the East

This article intends to study the evolution of the European Union foreign policy in the Southern Caucasus and Central Area throughout the Post-Cold War era. The aim is to analyze Brussels’ fundamental interests and limitations in the area, the strategies it has implemented in the last few years, and the extent to which the EU has been able to undermine the regional hegemons’ traditional supremacy. As will be highlighted, the Community’s chronic weaknesses, the local determination to preserve sovereignty and an increasing international geopolitical competition undermine any European aspiration to become a pre-eminent actor at the heart of the Eurasian continent in the near future.