Caucasus

Political map of South Caucasus

The Caucasus or Caucas (also referred to as Caucasia,^[1] Adyghe: Къэфкъас, Armenian: Կովկաս, Azerbaijani: Qafqaz, Georgian: კავკასია (K'avk'asia), Greek: Καύκασος, [قفقاز (Ghafghaz)] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help), Russian: Кавка́з, Ossetian: Кавказ, Chechen: Кавказ, Turkish: Kafkasya, Arabic: قوقاز) is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain (Mount Elbrus).

North Caucasus comprises:

Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Adyghea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachai-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai

South Caucasus comprises:

Armenia
Azerbaijan (including disputed Nagorno-Karabakh)
Georgia (including disputed Abkhazia and South Ossetia)

Etymology

The word Caucasus derives from Caucasos, the purported ancestor of the North Caucasians.^[2] He was a son of Togarmah, grandson of Biblical Noah's third son Japheth. According to Leonti Mroveli after the fall of the Tower of Babel and the division of humanity into different languages, Togarmah settled with his sons: Kartlos, Haik (Georgian:ჰაოს, Haos), Movakos, Lekos (Lak people), Heros (Kingdom of Hereti), Kavkasos, and Egros (Kingdom of Egrisi) between two inaccessible mountains, presumably Mount Ararat and Mount Elbrus.

Alternative origins are: From a Pelasgian word for "mountain" or from a Scythian word meaning "snow-white".^[3]

Geography and ecology

The lower parts of the Caucasus Mountains are situated in the Greater Middle East area. They are generally perceived to be a dividing line between Asia and Europe, and territories in Caucasia are alternately considered to be in one or both continents. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus (5,642 m) in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, which is the highest point in Europe (according to the definitions of Europe as including Caucasus).

The Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. Three territories in the region claim independence but are not universally acknowledged as nation-states by the international community: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.

The Caucasus is an area of great ecological importance. It harbors some 6400 species of higher plants, 1600 of which are endemic to the region.^[4] Its wildlife includes leopards, brown bears, wolves, European bison, marals, golden eagles and Hooded Crows. Among invertebrates, some 1000 spider species are recorded in the Caucasus.^[5] The natural landscape is one of mixed forest, with substantial areas of rocky ground above the treeline. The Caucasus Mountains are also noted for a dog breed, the Caucasian Shepherd Dog (Ovcharka).

The northern portion of the Caucasus is known as the Ciscaucasus and the southern portion as the Transcaucasus.

The Ciscaucasus contains the larger majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range, also known as the Major Caucasus mountains. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan.

The Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. All of Armenia, Azerbaijan (excluding the northern parts) and Georgia (excluding the northern parts) are in South Caucasus.

History

Administrative map of Caucasus in USSR, 1952-1991.

Located on the peripheries of Turkey 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 the Qajars.^[6]

Ancient kingdoms of the region included Armenia, Albania, Colchis and Iberia, among others. These kingdoms were later incorporated into various Iranian empires, including Media, Achaemenid Empire, Parthian Empire, and Sassanid Empire. By this time, Zoroastrianism had become the dominant religion of the region; however, the region would go through two other religious transformations. Owing to the rivalry between Persia and Rome, and later Byzantium, the latter would invade the region several times, although it was never able to hold the region.

However, because Armenia and Georgia had become a Christian entity, Christianity began to overtake Zoroastrianism. With the Islamic conquest of Persia, the region came under the rule of the Arabs. Armenia and the majority of Georgia maintained Christianity and Georgian king David the Builder drove the Muslims out. The region would later be conquered by the Seljuks, Ottomans, Mongols, local kingdoms and khanates, as well as, once again, Persia, until its conquest by Russia.

The 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.

In modern times, the Caucasus became a region of war among the Ottoman Empire, Iran and Russia, and was eventually conquered by the latter (see Caucasian Wars).

In the 1940s, the Chechens and Ingush (480,000 altogether), along with the Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks (120,000), Kurds and Caucasus Germans (almost 200,000) were deported en masse to Central Asia and Siberia. By 1948, according to Nicolas Werth, the mortality rate of the 600,000 people deported from the Caucasus between 1943 and 1944 had reached 25 percent.^[7]

Following the end of the Soviet Union, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent in 1991. The Caucasus region has been subject to various territorial disputes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994), the Ossetian-Ingush conflict (1989–1991), the War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), the First Chechen War (1994–1996), the Second Chechen War (1999–2009), and the 2008 South Ossetia War.

Demographics

The region has many different languages and language families. There are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region.^[9] No less than three language families are unique to the area, but also Indo-European languages such as Armenian and Ossetic, and the Altaic language Azerbaijani are local to the area.

The most numerous peoples of the Caucasian-language family are Georgians (4,600,000); Chechens (1,500,000); and Lezgi (1,100,000). Georgians are the only Caucasian language-speaking people who have their own independent state - Georgia. Others of those peoples possess their republics within the Russian Federation: Adyghe (Adygea), Chechens (Chechnya), Cherkes (Karachay-Cherkessia), Kabardins (Kabardino-Balkaria), Ingush (Ingushetia), while Northeast Caucasian peoples mostly live in Dagestan. Abkhazians live in Abkhazia, which is de facto independent, but de jure is an autonomous republic within Georgia.

Today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the eastern part of the region.

In mythology

In Greek mythology the Caucasus, or Kaukasos, was one of the pillars supporting the world. After presenting man with the gift of fire, Prometheus was chained there by Zeus, to have his liver eaten daily by an eagle.

The Roman poet Ovid placed Caucasus in Scythia and depicted it as a cold and stony mountain which was the abode of personified hunger. The Greek hero Jason sailed to the west coast of the Caucasus in pursuit of the Golden Fleece, and there met the famed Medea.

Energy and mineral resources

Caucasus has many economically important minerals and energy resources, such as: alunite, gold, chromium, copper, iron ore, mercury, manganese, molybdenum, lead, tungsten, uranium, zinc, oil, natural gas, and coal (both hard and brown).

References

^ Merriam-Webster "Caucasia". Webster's Dictionary. Retrieved 17 September 2010. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
^ G.Qoranashvili (1995), Questions of Ethnic Identity According to Leonti Mroveli's Historical Chronicles, Studies, Vol. 1, Tbilisi.
^ page 79, entry Caucasus in Adian Room, Placenames of the World: Origins and Meanings of the Names for Over 5000 Natural Features, Countries, Capitals, Territories, Cities and Historic Sites, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1997 ISBN 0-7864-0172-9
^ "Endemic Species of the Caucasus".
^ "A faunistic database on the spiders of the Caucasus". Caucasian Spiders. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
^ Pierre Thorez (June 2, 2007). "Caucasus". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on May 1, 2008. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
^ Weitz, Eric D. (2003). A century of genocide: utopias of race and nation. Princeton University Press. p. 82. ISBN 0691009139. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
^ "?".^{[dead link]}
^ "Caucasian peoples". Encyclopædia Britannica.

Caucasus: A Journey to the Land Between Christianity and Islam, by Nicholas Griffin
Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus, by Svante E. Cornell
The Caucasus, by Ivan Golovin