Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict in the South Caucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy.

• Author: Oztarsu, Mehmet Fatih
• Position: Book review

Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict in the South Caucasus

Nagorno-Karabakh and the Legacy of Soviet Nationalities Policy

By Ohannes Geukjian

Surrey: Ashgate, 2012, 264 pages, ISBN 9781409436300.

The Soviet Union, which has two contradictory definitions ("Prison of Peoples" and "Free Association of Peoples"), is seen as the perpetrator of many ethnic and regional problems in Eurasia today. Its management of culture with numerous ethnic and religious elements and an ideological perspective that deflects criticism are the most important issues to focus on to understand the Soviet Union. The ideals imposed on social and cultural life by communist ideology--nationalism, religious movements, local conflicts and decomposition--tell the true story of the Soviet geography.

Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Conflict in the South Caucasus, written by Ohannes Geukjian, examines the problematic culture of the Soviets within its historical origins by approaching these issues from the perspective of the South Caucasus. The author, starting with the examples of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia, illustrates that other Soviet countries have the same problems. Geukjian, who evaluates the impact of chronic issues on Eurasia today by first addressing Nagorno-Karabakh, explores the history of Armenia and Azerbaujan. As the historical discussion of problems has a significant meaning for present times, it proves their historical existence in the region.

The author, who states that the first Armenians were seen in the Hayasa-Azzi Confederation in Erzurum-Erzincan and that Armenian culture was integrated with the Arimi-Urumea Confederation in Van-Mus, uses the Atropatena civilization as a reference point for the history of Azerbaijan. Given that this historiography begins in the 1940s, namely in the Soviet period, we can say that initiatives from both sides to strengthen their claim of being the oldest civilization in the region are more complicated. Geukjian tries to draw a cultural picture of the region by retracing the historical roots of the Karabakh issue. Nevertheless, the existence of the Albanian civilization in the Caucasus, which is a historical enigma today, leads to intense fighting over history. Albania, which is an ancient Christian civilization in the Caucasus, was a former Azerbaijani state according to Azerbaijan and a former state of the Christian Armenians according to Armenia. Geukjian uses the work of Azerbaijani historians, such as E. Buniatov, F...