«Atlas of ethno-political history of Caucasus» is a very useful book. It is simply indispensable for those who want to understand the reasons behind wars and ethnic conflicts tormenting the region for over twenty years. Moreover, the work of Artur Tsutsiev allows making broad forecasts for the possible development of the situation in Caucasus.
The book presents a series of fifty unique maps with detailed commentaries by the author. Following a chronological pattern these reflect the dynamics of change in the state, political, administrative, ethnic and confessional borders in the Caucasus region starting from the end of the eighteenth century and to our time. The authors’ commentaries do not merely describe the contents of the maps but trace the logic and patters of the Russian assimilation of the Caucasus. These vivid maps with their commentaries present quite a number of important and relevant lessons.
The principal lesson drawn from the book is that discourse about the «native» territories of these or that peoples of Caucasus implies significantly straining facts. The matter is that the «national and administrative attribution» of the most part of the Caucasus region on both sides of the mountain range has been realized during the Imperial period. In addition, it never coincided and actually could not coincide with the structure of ethnic settling. The whole region is characterized with heavy ethnic cross-border mixing of people. The fact is that no monolithic states of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia existed prior to the Civil War. Moreover, the author deflates the established myth that the maps have been drawn arbitrarily first by the Imperial and later by the Soviet authorities. According to the author, «the dynamics of the inter-Caucasian borders was dictated by the different strategic approaches to the task of the region’s development and integration into a unified state». In the course of the two hundred years of development of the region by the Imperial and the Soviet power two parallel fundamental strategies of fortifying the positions in the Caucasus have coexisted.
The first strategy provided for maximal involvement of the local peoples and elites (including the Russian) in the affairs of the Russian state with relative noninterference in their internal and especially cultural sides of life. The second strategy implicitly addressed the task of building relations in the region around the leading role of the «Russian core». Every time that central feature of the second strategy would take prominence in politics it would intensify the contradictions between the Imperial or the Soviet power and the mountain-dwellers and such contradictions would invariably become manifest. In many ways it was this policy that brought about the intensification of nationalistic tendencies in the Caucasus around the end of the nineteenth century and Russia’s temporary loss of the region in the course of the Civil War. The withdrawal from under the jurisdiction of Moscow of the Transcaucasian Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan was in many respects been a result of the shortsighted nationalities policy of the posterior USSR, when the creation of the unified «Soviet nation» was being forced at a rapid pace, which in reality only meant further russification.
One other important conclusion that the reader of the «Atlas» eventually reaches is that the withdrawal of the Caucasus or some of its part from the Russian political space does not actually mean that this region has been irrevocably lost for Russia. Every Russian move into the Caucasus practically followed the same pattern. Moscow would bet on one or other national or ethnic group that would be generously rewarded and get special privileges once the Russian/Soviet power was firmly established. Thus, during the first penetration into the Caucasus Russia was counting on the Georgian aristocracy of the Kartli-Kakhetian and Imeretian kingdoms. Consequently, Georgian provinces later included vast territories with non-Georgian population. Situation in the region was mainly controlled by the semi-independent Georgian aristocracy. In a later historical episode, the Soviets were restoring control of the territory that belonged to the no longer existing Russian Empire. The Sovietization of the Transcauasus and the liquidation of the «independent» Armenia and Georgia (actually controlled by the Entente and Turkey) began with Azerbaijan. It is due to this fact that Azerbaijan has got the region of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as other disputable territories that it contended with Armenia and Georgia.
Today the situation is very much alike. Russia is playing an increasingly active role in the Caucasian politics. The possibility of Russia’s full-scale return to the region is presaged with Moscow’s growing interest in the Caucasus. This means that some of the internationally recognized borders might eventually be radically revised. The previous experiences – successfully illustrated in Tsutsiev’s «Atlas of ethno-political history of Caucasus» – give basis to expectations that this time Russia will also count on its allies, which will be generously rewarded for their loyalty to Moscow. Armenia remained true to the military and strategic alliance with Russia, there is a Russian military base on its territory. South Ossetia and Abkhazia see their future only with Russia.
If historical parallels are drawn it becomes clear that in the future the borders within the region might be revised in favor of those republics and at the expense of those states whose leaders have forgotten and are ignoring the realities of the recent history of the Caucasus, where untouchable and unchangeable borders are – by all appearances – not to be seen for quite a while longer. It is impossible to give confident predictions of just how the future demarcation will take place. However it is obvious that the remapping of the Caucasus is not yet over.
Tsutsiev Artur, Atlas of ethno-political history of Caucasus (1774–2004), Moscow, Evropa, 2006, pp128
