The Caucasus Archives

Radicalization of Russia’s Muslims—Are Crimean Tatars Next? (Part 1)

Asya Pereltsvaig, Cultural Geography, Guest Posts, Insurgencies, Myth of the Nation-State, Nationalism, Religion, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus, Uncategorized / By Asya Pereltsvaig

[Thanks to Iryna Novosyolova for a helpful discussion of some of the issues discussed in this post.]

A recent article in Foreign Affairs listed the use of the French language as the best predictor of a country’s rate of Sunni radicalization and violence, and particularly of the percentage of a country’s Muslim population that joins in the international Jihad. According to ICSR estimate, of all Western European countries France has supplied the largest number of foreign fighters to ISIS in absolute terms, whereas Belgium leads in per capita terms (40 per million population)… – Read More

The Sochi Olympics and the Circassians: A Media Failure?

Cultural Geography, Ethnicity, Geography in the Media, Geopolitics, Religion, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

When lecturing on the Caucasus last fall, I asked my Stanford students if any of them had ever heard of the Circassians. Out of a class of roughly 100 students, two raised their hands. I then told that class that the Circassians had once been an extremely well known if often misunderstood ethnic group, and I predicted that by February 2014 they would again be in the news, owing to the fact that the Sochi Olympics would be held in their ancestral homeland. I trusted Circassian activists to get their… – Read More

Chechnya’s Questionable Votes—and Investments

Economic Geography, Elections, GeoNotes, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Returns from the recent elections in Russia indicate significant “irregularities” in the voting process. Nowhere was fraud more widespread than in Chechnya, which recorded a 99.6 percent voter turnout, and which Vladimir Putin took by 99.76 percent.

The Russian government has been pouring money into Chechnya in recent years —US$21 billion by some accounts. Many of these investments have been questionable. A recent report indicates that, “the swanky, 32-story-high Hotel Grozny City, with its three restaurants and five-star service, is pretty much always 90 percent empty.”… – Read More

The Centrality of the Caucasus

Cartography, Historical Geography, Physical Geography, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

London to Mumbai Great Circle Route, Passing Through the Caucasus

For the past month, GeoCurrents has focused on the Caucasus, exploring the region’s history, languages, cuisines, and more. Two additional posts will conclude the series. We will subsequently pause to introduce some new features of the blog, and then we will move on to examine a different part of the world.

The current series began by asking a seemingly banal question, “Where Is the Caucasus?” Although the region is easy to locate on… – Read More

The Many Armenian Diasporas, Then and Now

Cultural Geography, Ethnicity, Historical Geography, Linguistic Geography, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Wikipedia map of the recent Armenian Diaspora

Armenians have long been scattered over many countries, whether as permanent migrants or temporary sojourners. Today, only about a third of their population lives in Armenia, with the rest spread over a wide area, as can be seen on the map posted here. This pattern largely reflects the movements caused by deadly mass expulsions of the early 20th century that most scholars call the Armenian Genocide. As a result, standard reference sources on the “Armenian Diaspora” focus on the deadly Ottoman… – Read More

The Role of the Caucasus in Russian Cultural and Intellectual History

Cultural Geography, Guest Posts, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus, Vitaliy Rayz / By Vitaliy L. Rayz

(by guest blogger Vitaliy L. Rayz, in collaboration with Martin W. Lewis)

The present GeoCurrents series has focused on the peoples of the Caucasus, examining Russia and Russians only insofar as they have impacted the region. But the Caucasus has played a significant role in the politics of Russia, and in its cultural history as well. The most prominent Russian poets and writers, including Alexander Pushkin, Michael Lermontov, and Lev Tolstoy, traveled through the region and described it in their renowned books. The “cultural exchange,” moreover, went both ways: many members of the Russian elite served, worked, or vacationed… – Read More

Sochi 2014: A Subtropical Winter Olympics?

Physical Geography, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, Sports, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

In 2010, Foreign Policy magazine asked Russian opposition leader and Sochi native Boris Nemtsov why he opposed the 2014 Winter Olympics in his hometown. Nemtsov’s reply was broad ranging. He decried the displacement of 5,000 people while warning that corruption and organized crime would devour most of the construction funds showered on the city. He began his critique, however, with Sochi’s climate:
“[Putin] has found one of the only places in Russia where there is no snow in the winter. He has decided to… – Read More

The Circassian Mystique and Its Historical Roots

Cultural Geography, Ethnicity, Historical Geography, Protest Movements, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Although little known today, the Circassians were once a famous people, celebrated for their military élan, physical mien, and resistance to Russian expansion. In the nineteenth century, “Circassophilia” spread from Europe to North America, where numerous writers expressed deep admiration for the mountaineers of the eastern Black Sea. Prominent physical anthropologists deemed Circassian bodies the apogee of the human form. Promoters and hucksters capitalized on the craze, marketing a number of Circassian beauty aids and even creating fake “Circassian Beauties” to exhibit in circus sideshows… – Read More

Dreams of a Circassian Homeland and the Sochi Olympics of 2014

Autonomous Zones, Linguistic Geography, Nationalism, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, Sports, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Map of the Circassian Republics in Russia

The resurgence of Circassian identity in recent years faces daunting obstacles. Many Circassians believe that the long-term sustainability of their community requires a return to the northwestern Caucasus, but both the Russian state and the other peoples of the region resist such designs. Circassians are thus focusing much of their efforts on global public opinion, building a protest movement in preparation for the Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014.

Requests by Circassian exiles to return to the Caucasus began to pour… – Read More

The Politics of Genocide Claims and the Circassian Diaspora

Autonomous Zones, Cultural Geography, Ethnicity, Historical Geography, Linguistic Geography, Migrations, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Allegations of genocide are often politically charged. On January 23, 2012, the French parliament voted to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In Turkey, by contrast, it is illegal to assert that the same acts were genocidal. The Turkish government remains adamant, threatening to impose unspecified sanctions on France for passing the new law. Turkish critics meanwhile accuse France of having engaged in a genocidal campaign of its own… – Read More

Historical Clues and Modern Controversies in the Northeastern Caucasus: Udi and Ancient Albania

Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Linguistic Geography, Nationalism, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

The Caucasus is rightly called a “mountain of languages.” Linguistic diversity reaches its extreme in the Russian republic of Dagestan and adjacent districts in northern Azerbaijan. The nearly three million inhabitants of Dagestan speak more than thirty languages, most of them limited to the republic. Such languages may seem inconsequential to outsiders, mere relict tongues of minor peoples. Yet a few of them are of historical significance, and the broader linguistic geography of the region provides evidence of important historical… – Read More

The Turkic-Speaking Greek Community of Georgia—and Its Demise

Autonomous Zones, Cartography, Cultural Geography, Ethnicity, Historical Geography, Linguistic Geography, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Readers who have carefully examined the maps of the Caucasus posted recently in GeoCurrents may have noted an area marked “Greek” in south-central Georgia. This Greek zone appears on most but not all ethno-linguistic maps of the region, sometimes as a single area, and sometimes as two. Depicting Greek communities here is historically accurate but increasingly anachronistic. Since 1991, the Greek population of Georgia has plummeted from over 100,000 to less than 20,000, due largely to emigration to Greece… – Read More

From Sarmatia to Alania to Ossetia: The Land of the Iron People

Cultural Geography, Ethnicity, Europe, Historical Geography, Linguistic Geography, Religion, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Map of the Sarmatian Tribes in Late Antiquity

The Caucasus is often noted as a place of cultural refuge, its steep slopes and hidden valleys preserving traditions and languages that were swept away in the less rugged landscapes to the north and south. Such a depiction generally seems fitting for the Ossetians, the apparent descendents of a nomadic group called the Sarmatians that dominated the grasslands of western Eurasia from the fifth century BCE to the fourth century CE.

The Sarmatians were probably not a single ethnic group, let alone… – Read More

Keystone of the Caucasus: Ignored Ossetia and Its Snow Revolution

Autonomous Zones, Border Disputes, Linguistic Geography, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

Map of the Caucasus, Showing North Ossetia-Alania and South Ossetia

If the arch of the Great Caucasus can be said to have a keystone, it would have to be Ossetia. This east-west range presents a formidable barrier to traffic between southern Russia and the Middle East, as it is pierced by few negotiable passes. By far the most important route across the mountains extends along the Darial Gorge through the so-called Caucasian Gates, which passes directly through Ossetia. After seizing northern Ossetia in the late 1700s, Russian empire builders founded… – Read More

Where Is the Caucasus?

Featured, Geopolitics, Russia, Ukraine, and Caucasus, The Caucasus / By Martin W. Lewis

For the next two weeks or so, GeoCurrents will examine the Caucasus. This unusually long focus on a particular place derives from several reasons. The Caucasus is one of the most culturally complex and linguistically diverse parts of the world, noted as well for its geopolitical intricacy and intractable conflicts. The region contains three internationally recognized sovereign states (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan), three mostly unrecognized self-declared states (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh), and seven internal Russian republics (Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia-Alania, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkessia, and… – Read More