Invented Tradition and Ethnic Conflict in the South Caucasus
Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Legacy of Soviet Nation-building
Invented Tradition and Ethnic Conflict in the South Caucasus
Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Legacy of Soviet Nation-building
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Description
The legacy of Caucasian Albania, an otherwise obscure and enigmatic Christian kingdom that disappeared in the ninth century CE but remerged in the Soviet-era South Caucasus, has played a perhaps surprisingly significant role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Comprising eight chapters and an introduction and conclusion, this book gathers some of the world's leading authorities on Soviet nationalities policy and South Caucasian history to examine the role of historians and Soviet-era nation-building policies in fanning the flames of ethnic/territorial conflicts across the troubled landscape of the South Caucasus. Its initial section contains conceptual and historiographic contributions on Soviet nationality policy and how it shaped and birthed nations in part through the creation of national history textbooks. It then examines the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh/Artsakh and the uses of the Caucasian Albanian past in fanning the flames of hatred and cultural vandalism in the region. It will be essential reading for scholars specialising on post-Soviet history, nationalism and the South Caucasus.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The 'Mountain of Tongues' (jabal al-alsun), Difference, and Ethnic Conflict in the South Caucasus.
Part I: On Primordialism, Soviet Nationality Policy and Textbooks
Chapter One: Primordial Poppy Growers and the War on Drugs: Historians and the Soviet Empire's Production of Nations
Ron G. Suny
Chapter Two: 'Primordialism, a useful analytical category?'
Terry Martin
Chapter Three: Nationalism and a View of the Past: A case of the Azerbaijani Textbooks.
Victor Shnirelman
Part II: The Uses of the Past in Focus: Nagorno Karabakh and Caucasian Albania in Focus
Chapter Four: Russia's Annexation of the South Caucasus and its Implications
Stephen Riegg
Chapter Five: From an Antique Land: A Usable Past, The Caucasian Albanians and Ethnic Cleaning in the South Caucasus
Sebouh David Aslanian and Artyom Tonoyan
Chapter Six: The Semiotic Roots of the Albanian Issue: Movses Dashkhurants'i/Kaghankatuats'i's History of Albania and Artsakh/Karabagh
Levon Abrahamian
Chapter Seven: Place Name Wars in Karabakh: Russian Imperial Maps and Political Legitimacy in the South Caucasus
Arsene Saparov
Chapter Eight: Strzygowski's Ghost: Race and Architectural History in Armenia and Caucasian Albania
Christina Maranci
Conclusion: Gerard Libaridian
Product details
| Published | 29 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 304 |
| ISBN | 9780755658718 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Dimensions | 234 x 156 mm |
| Series | Armenians in the Modern and Early Modern World |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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