History of the Caucasus Volume 2

In the Shadow of Great Powers is the second volume of Christoph Baumer's History of the Caucasus. It covers the period from the Seljuk domination of the Southern Caucasus around 1050 CE to the present day. After the Kingdom of Georgia's golden age of independent power and cultural blossoming in the 12th and early 13th centuries, the Caucasus was overrun by the Mongols and soon disintegrated into innumerable smaller kingdoms, principalities and khanates. At the same time, an Armenian kingdom in exile maintained a precarious independence in Cilicia, today's southern Turkey, by applying a three-way diplomatic policy balanced between the Mongol Il-Khanate, the Crusader states and, to a lesser degree, the Mameluke Empire. Then followed four centuries during which the highly fragmented polities of the North and South Caucasus became political pawns of the regional great powers, above all the Ottomans, Iran and Russia. In the wake of World War I the South Caucasus enjoyed a short-lived independence whereas its northern neighbours were engulfed by the Russian civil wars. But by 1921 the Soviet Union had re-established Russian dominance over the whole region and, from a Western perspective, the region 'disappeared' behind the Iron Curtain. Nevertheless, the Caucasian nations kept their pronounced identities even under Soviet rule, giving rise at the dissolution of the Soviet Union to a number of internecine conflicts. Whereas the Russian Federation managed to maintain its supremacy over the North Caucasus - albeit at the cost of bloody wars and insurrections - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia succeeded in more or less gaining control over their destiny. Of these three republics, only Azerbaijan secured a wide-ranging independence thanks to its fossil fuel resources. Following Russian interference, Georgia lost control over two of its provinces while Armenia remains dependent on Russian support in the face of its notoriously antagonistic relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey over the unresolved issue of Karabakh. In the Shadow of Great Powers includes some 200 full-colour images and maps which further bring the turbulent history of this region to light.

Christoph Baumer is a leading explorer and historian of Central Asia, Tibet and the Caucasus - has written many well-received books in the fields of history, religion, archaeology and travel. These include The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity (2006), Traces in the Desert: Journeys of Discovery across Central Asia (2008), China's Holy Mountain: An Illustrated Journey into the Heart of Buddhism (2011) and the seminal History of Central Asia in four volumes (2012-2018), all published by I.B.Tauris. Dr Baumer is President of the Society for the Exploration of EurAsia, Senior Research Fellow at the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences, and a member of the Explorers' Club, New York, the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, London. He is a recipient of the prestigious Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal, awarded to him by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs in 2015.

I. A Fragmented Identity: An Introduction to Contemporary Ethnic and Political Conditions in the Caucasus II. In the Wake of International Great-Power Politics 1.The Golden Age of Georgia 2.The Mongol incursions and supremacy III. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia 1.Semi-independent Armenian warlords and Muslim Armenian viziers 2.The Rubenids of Cilicia: From principality to kingdom 3.The Kingdom of Cilician Armenia IV. The South Caucasus under Turkmen, Ottoman and Iranian Safavid Domination 1.Georgia and the devastations of Timur-e Lang 2.The partition of Georgia Excursus: The Armenian catholicosate's return to Etchmiadzin and a renewed schism 3.The South Caucasus as battleground for eight Ottoman-Safavid wars 4.The South Caucasus under Safavid rule Excursus: The Armenian Mekhitarist congregation 5.A brief reunification of Kartli and Kakheti and the foundation of independent khanates V. First Russian Advances into the North Caucasus 1. The defence pact of 1557 between Kabarda and Russia 2. The Cossacks and the first Russian military lines 3. Mongol Kalmyks in the North-Eastern Caucasus VI. The Caucasus under Russian Rule 1.From the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783) to the annexation of Georgia in 1801 2.Iran's interlude with Napoleon and Russia's conquest of the South Caucasian khanates and sultanates 3.The resistance of North Caucasian mountain peoples 3.1Yermolov's first offensives north of the Greater Caucasus 3.2The jihad of the imams 3.3The conquest, resettlement and expulsion of the Circassians 4.Russian administration and the rise of nationalism 5.The Russian conquest of former West Armenia 1877-78 Excursus: Oil-drilling at Baku and the Nobel brothers 6.The emergence of nationalist and social-revolutionary parties, Armenian massacres and ethnic unrest 6.1Armenian nationalist and socialist parties in the Russian and Ottoman empires 6.2Georgian socialists 6.3Pan-Turkism and socialism in the South Caucasian Muslim provinces VII. A Short-Lived Independence and Foreign Interventions 1.World War I, the Armenian Genocide and the collapse of the Russian Empire 2.The Transcaucasian Republic, the declaration of independence of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and foreign interventions 2.1The short-lived Transcaucasian Republic 2.2Ethnic and social conflicts in Georgia 2.3The Republic of Armenia 2.4The race for Baku 2.5War in Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Zangezur and Kars 2.6Armenia and the Paris Peace Conference 3.The Russian Civil Wars 1917-1920 and the short-lived North Caucasian states VIII. Under Soviet Rule 1.Soviet consolidation of power, collectivization and Stalin's purges 2.Operation Edelweiss: The battle for the Caucasus in World War II Excursus: Richard Sorge, Stalin's master spy 3.Deportations and the start of the Cold War 4.Political stagnation and the rise of nationalism IX. Independence in the South Caucasus 1.The disintegration of the Soviet Union 2.The Armenian declaration of independence and the issue of Karabakh 3.The Azerbaijani declaration of independence and the development of the oil and gas industry 4.The First Karabakh War 1992-1994 5.Georgian independence and the South Ossetian and Abkhazian wars X. Autonomy and Failed Independence in the North Caucasus 1. The northern region: Rostov, Krasnodar, Adygea, Stavropol and Kalmykia 2. The western and central region: Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia-Alania and Ingushetia 3. The eastern region: Chechnya and Dagestan XI. The Caucasus in the Twenty-First Century 1.Republics and regions of the northern Caucasus 2.The independent republics in the southern Caucasus 2.1Azerbaijan 2.2The Second Karabakh War, 27 September-10 November 2020 2.3Armenia 2.4Georgia 2.4.1The Georgian-Russian War, 7-12 August 2008 2.4.2Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the 2008 war 3.Outlook Appendices Notes Bibliography List of Maps Photo credits Acknowledgements Indexes Concepts People Places