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The Caucasus, an Alberta-size area including Southern
districts of Russian Federation
as well as three new nations - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - has been to a great
extent isolated from the rest of the world during 70 years of communist
rule and its policy of "the Iron Curtain". Most archival
materials and other sources of historical information about the Caucasus were unavailable during this time, both for
foreign and domestic research. In the USSR
and to a great extent in the Russian empire (before 1917), mostly for
ideological reasons, researchers were unable to study the history of
annexed lands, especially if those lands had a much longer history than Russia
itself. The Caucasus with its history
coming back at least to the 9th century B.C. was not an exception. At the
same time many Western researchers tended to underestimate the area
regarding it as a remote and thus less important Russian province.
Due to the above facts the Caucasus
still remains relatively unknown to the West. Finding reference literature
is still a problem and it is still very hard for western diplomats,
businessmen and ordinary citizens to understand the conflicts and problems
of the area, to help resolve them and to make a more or less reliable
prognosis for future development.
However the Caucasus
seems to be a very interesting area of the world. Being a frontier of West
and East it has a long and dramatic history. Its mountains and valleys gave
birth to many important historical figures, among them philosopher Averroes
and marshal Joachim Murat (hyp.), field-marshal
Peter Bagration and dictator Joseph Stalin, Jurij Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev. Peoples of the Caucasus made a valuable deposit into human culture
having created numerous masterpieces of art, architecture, literature and
film. Rich mineral and natural resources make the Caucasus
a prospective area for international business.
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SEE ALSO:
ARMENIA
ARMENIA: POLITIICAL STRUCTURE
AZERBAIJAN
AZERBAIJAN: POLITIICAL STRUCTURE
GEORGIA: POLITIICAL STRUCTURE
WAR IN
ABKHAZIA
WAR IN CHECHNYA
OSSETIAN DISPUTES
(Young
Experts’ Think Tank)
for
related articles
HISTORICAL ARMS
OF THE CAUCASUS IN
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
MEDIA
RACK:
INTERESTING ARTICLES
FROM VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS
& MAGAZINES
JUST TO HAVE SOME FUN:
POLITICAL HUMOR
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SHORT
HISTORY OF THE AREA:
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We are sorry,
this page is still under construction
However, you can
read selected sections below
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THE
CAUCASUS: MEDIEVAL HISTORY
(Section
1: 387 - 1080 AD)
THE
CAUCASUS: MODERN HISTORY
( Section 1: 1446 - 1555 )
( Section 4: 1878 - 1916 )
( Section
5: 1917 - 1918 )
( Section 6: 1919 - 1920 )
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RECOMMENDED
BOOKS:
Bremmer, Jan, & Taras, Ray,
New States,
New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations,
Cambridge University Press, 1997
Oliker, Olga, Russia’s Chechen Wars 1994-2000: Lessons from Urban
Combat,
Rand Publishers, 2001
Suny, Ronald Grigor, The Revenge of the Past:
Nationalism, Revolution & the Collapse of the Soviet
Union,
Stanford University Press, 1993
Transcaucasia, Nationalism &
Social Change: Essays in the History of Georgia,
Armenia and Azerbaijan
The University of Michigan Press, 1999
The
Black Book of Communism
Harward
University
Press 2000
SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL READING:
Allen,
W.E.D.: A History of the Georgian People [1932]
Armenian
Assembly of America:
The Karabakh Crisis: Historical/Political
Background. [1988]
Curtis,
G.E.: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia: Country Studies. [1995]
Daskhuranci, M.: A Hiistory of the
Caucasian Albanians. [1961]
Denikin, A.: The Russian Turmoil. [1924]
Geiger,
B.: Peoples and Languages of the Caucasus.
[1959]
Iosseliani, P.: The Concise History of Georgian Church.
[1883]
Kazemzadeh, F.: The Struggle for Transcaucasia:
1917-1921. [1951]
Lang,
D.M.: The Last Days of the Georgian Monarchy, 1658-1832. [1957]
: A Modern History of Georgia.
[1962]
Maclean, F.: The Caucasus: The
End of All the Earth. [1976]
Minorsky, V.: A History of Sharvan and Daruband. [1958]
Nersessian, S.: Armenia
and the Byzantine Empire. [1947]
Panico, C.: Conflicts in the Caucasus: Russia's War in Chechnya. [1995]
Toumanoff, C.: Studies in Christian Caucasian History. [1963]
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