Articles in The Caucasus
Where Is the Caucasus?
For the next two weeks or so, GeoCurrents will examine the Caucasus. This unusually long focus on a particular place derives from several reasons. The Caucasus is one of the most culturally complex and linguistically diverse parts of the world, noted as well for its geopolitical intricacy and intractable conflicts. The region contains three internationally recognized sovereign states (Georgia, …
Peoples, Languages and Genes in the Caucasus: An Introduction
The Caucasus region, dominated by the imposing Great Caucasus mountain range and stretching between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, has long been known as one of the world’s ethnically and linguistically most diverse areas. According to the Roman historian Pliny, when the Romans came to the Caucasus, they needed 134 interpreters to deal with the jumble of languages …
Keystone of the Caucasus: Ignored Ossetia and Its Snow Revolution
If the arch of the Great Caucasus can be said to have a keystone, it would have to be Ossetia. This east-west range presents a formidable barrier to traffic between southern Russia and the Middle East, as it is pierced by few negotiable passes. By far the most important route across the mountains extends along the Darial Gorge through …
From Sarmatia to Alania to Ossetia: The Land of the Iron People
The Caucasus is often noted as a place of cultural refuge, its steep slopes and hidden valleys preserving traditions and languages that were swept away in the less rugged landscapes to the north and south. Such a depiction generally seems fitting for the Ossetians, the apparent descendents of a nomadic group called the Sarmatians that dominated the grasslands of western …
Linguistic Clues to the Ossetian Past
Ossetians are a unique group in the North Caucasus, in two ways. First, they are the only ethnic group actually found on both the northern and southern slopes of the Caucasus mountain range; North Ossetia-Alania and South Ossetia are connected merely by the Roki Tunnel. Second, apart from such relative newcomers as the Russians, Ossetians are the only group in …
Genetic clues to the Ossetian past
[Many thanks to Dave Howard for his assistance with this post!]
While it is indisputable that Ossetians speak an Iranian language, it is not immediately apparent whether they descend from an Iranian group such as the Alans, or alternatively if they are descendants of one of the autochthonous groups from the Caucasus, which adopted an Iranian language in the early Middle …
The Turkic-Speaking Greek Community of Georgia—and Its Demise
Readers who have carefully examined the maps of the Caucasus posted recently in GeoCurrents may have noted an area marked “Greek” in south-central Georgia. This Greek zone appears on most but not all ethno-linguistic maps of the region, sometimes as a single area, and sometimes as two. Depicting Greek communities here is historically accurate but increasingly anachronistic. Since 1991, the Greek …
Is the Georgian language related to Basque, another European “outlier”?
[This post is written in collaboration with Martin W. Lewis]
The history of the Georgian language reveals some interesting patterns of cross-cultural interaction. Georgian can be traced back to a ancestral language— Proto-Kartvelian—that it shares with its close relatives: Mingrelian, Svan and Laz. Spoken in the second millennium BCE, Proto-Kartvelian must have interacted closely with Proto-Indo-European, the ancestral tongue to most …
Historical Clues and Modern Controversies in the Northeastern Caucasus: Udi and Ancient Albania
The Caucasus is rightly called a “mountain of languages.” Linguistic diversity reaches its extreme in the Russian republic of Dagestan and adjacent districts in northern Azerbaijan. The nearly three million inhabitants of Dagestan speak more than thirty languages, most of them limited to the republic. Such languages may seem inconsequential to outsiders, mere relict tongues of minor peoples. Yet a …
The Politics of Genocide Claims and the Circassian Diaspora
Allegations of genocide are often politically charged. On January 23, 2012, the French parliament voted to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In Turkey, by contrast, it is illegal to assert that the same acts were genocidal. The Turkish government remains adamant, threatening to impose unspecified sanctions on …
Terranova: The Black Petaltail - A Novel
Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development (5th Edition)
Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World (3rd Edition)
