Caucasus - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia - Graydations >> .
(Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan - Russia's autonomous mountainous southern rampart.)
The Caucasus region is separated into two parts, which fall into two continents, the
North Caucasus of
Russia (Ciscaucasia) in Europe, and the
South Caucasus (Transcaucasia) in
Asia, respectively. The
Greater Caucasus mountain range in the north is mostly shared by
Russia and Georgia, as well as the northernmost parts of Azerbaijan. The
Lesser Caucasus mountain range in the south is occupied by several independent states, namely, mostly by
Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and
Georgia, but also extending to parts of northeastern
Turkey, northern
Iran and the partially recognised
Artsakh Republic.
The region is known for its
linguistic diversity: aside from
Indo-European and
Turkic languages, the
Kartvelian,
Northwest Caucasian, and
Northeast Caucasian language families are
indigenous to the area.
Located on the peripheries of
Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for
political, military, religious, and cultural rivalries and expansionism for centuries. Throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the
Iranian world. At the beginning of the 19th century, the
Russian Empire conquered the territory from
Qajar Iran.
Up to and including the
early 19th century, the
Southern Caucasus and southern
Dagestan all formed part of the
Persian Empire. In
1813 and
1828 by the
Treaty of Gulistan and the
Treaty of Turkmenchay respectively, the Persians were forced to irrevocably cede the Southern Caucasus and Dagestan to
Imperial Russia. In the ensuing years after these gains, the Russians took the remaining part of the Southern Caucasus, comprising western Georgia, through several wars from the
Ottoman Empire.
In the
second half of the 19th century, the Russian Empire also conquered the Northern Caucasus. In the aftermath of the
Caucasian Wars, an
ethnic cleansing of Circassians was performed by Russia in which the indigenous peoples of this region, mostly
Circassians, were expelled from their homeland and forced to move primarily to the Ottoman Empire.
Having killed and deported most of Armenians of Western Armenia during the
Armenian Genocide, the Turks intended to eliminate the Armenian population of
Eastern Armenia. During the
1920 Turkish–Armenian War, 60,000 to 98,000 Armenian civilians were estimated to have been killed by the Turkish army. In the
1940s, around 480,000
Chechens and
Ingush, 120,000
Karachay–
Balkars and
Meskhetian Turks, thousands of
Kalmyks, and 200,000
Kurds in Nakchivan and
Caucasus Germans were
deported en masse to Central Asia and Siberia. About a quarter of them died.
The Southern Caucasus region was unified as a single political entity twice – during the
Russian Civil War (
Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic) from
9 April 1918 to 26 May 1918, and under the
Soviet rule (
Transcaucasian SFSR) from
12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936. Following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991,
Georgia,
Azerbaijan and
Armenia became independent nations.The region has been subject to various territorial disputes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to the
First Nagorno-Karabakh War (
1988–1994), the
East Prigorodny Conflict (
1989–1991), the
War in Abkhazia (1992–93), the
First Chechen War (
1994–1996), the
Second Chechen War (1999–2009), and the
2008 South Ossetia War.
On 27 September 2020, new clashes in the unresolved
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resumed along the
Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact. Both the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan reported military and civilian casualties. The
Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement to end the six-week
war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was seen by many as Armenia's defeat and capitulation.
2014
Strategic Importance of the Caspian Sea - Strat > .