History of the Caucasus

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