Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2023-05-12DOI: 10.30965/23761202-bja10018
Mikayel Zolyan
{"title":"Three Republics of Armenia: The Soviet Past and the Politics of Memory in Post-Soviet Armenia (1991–2018)","authors":"Mikayel Zolyan","doi":"10.30965/23761202-bja10018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-bja10018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Deciding how to relate to the Soviet past is a key question in the politics of memory for the societies and political elites of the post-Soviet countries. Throughout the post-Soviet decades Armenian political and intellectual elites tried to form a complex attitude to the Soviet past, neither rejecting, nor appropriating the Soviet legacy completely, but assimilating it within the paradigm of national history. Within this paradigm Soviet Armenia is viewed as a stage in the development of Armenian nationhood, as “the second republic”, which links the first “attempt” at building a nation-state, “the first republic” of 1918–1920, to the “3rd republic”, i.e. the post-Soviet state of Armenia. This paradigm, in which the Soviet past is neither completely rejected, or accepted, but certain elements of it are integrated into the national history narrative, is optimal for post-Soviet Armenia, given both the peculiarity of Armenia’s historical experience (particularly the role played by Russia/USSR in the context of Armenian-Turkish relations), as well as the current geopolitical setting, in which Armenia and Russia are formal allies. This attitude, which can be described as “mnemonic ambiguity”, allows the assertion of an independent and sovereign Armenian state as legitimate, while at the same time avoiding a confrontation with an ally in the realm of memory politics.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48934610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2023-03-31DOI: 10.30965/23761202-20230002
E. Holland, Elvira Churyumova, Baasanjav Terbish
{"title":"Kalmykia, Decolonization, and the Study of Russia’s Republics: Introducing the Special Issue","authors":"E. Holland, Elvira Churyumova, Baasanjav Terbish","doi":"10.30965/23761202-20230002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-20230002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48166885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2023-03-31DOI: 10.30965/23761202-bja10017
{"title":"Internal Migration from a Russian Republic: The Everyday Experiences of Kalmyk Migrants in Moscow","authors":"","doi":"10.30965/23761202-bja10017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-bja10017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper recounts the lived experiences of internal migrants in the Russian Federation, specifically those who have moved from the Republic of Kalmykia in the country’s southwest to the capital of Moscow. Recounting exposure to racism and xenophobia, challenges in the housing and employment markets, and negotiating an evolving city, informants offer grounded interpretations of migration within contemporary Russia. In part, the conversations that inform this paper focus on the everyday experiences of Kalmyk migrants in Russia and in turn aim to fill a gap in the existing academic literature on internal migration in Russia. Most migration in Russia is internal, yet we know relatively little about the diverse nature of the experiences of these migrants at their destinations.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46562753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2023-02-15DOI: 10.30965/23761202-20220019
E. Holland
{"title":"“Elista Is Our City”: Kalmykia’s 2019 Protests and Politics in Russia’s Republics","authors":"E. Holland","doi":"10.30965/23761202-20220019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-20220019","url":null,"abstract":"Russia’s republics – 22 regions in the larger federation that are territorially defined and represent areas where non-Russian ethnic populations are concentrated – have been generally quiescent during the two decades of Vladimir Putin’s leadership. However, in 2019 Kalmykia was the site of protests against leadership changes in which locals had scant political voice. This paper focuses on the demonstrations in Kalmykia and provides a detailed account of the associated causes, motivations, and outcomes. The protests augur an increased awareness of the double marginalization of Russia’s minority groups, both politically and on the basis of nationality, in the country’s governance. This condition has notable implications given Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45959534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2023-02-10DOI: 10.30965/23761202-20230001
Mikel J. H. Venhovens
{"title":"Foreigners in Their Own Home: De Facto Displacement and Negative Emplacement in the Borderlands of Abkhazia","authors":"Mikel J. H. Venhovens","doi":"10.30965/23761202-20230001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-20230001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article explores de facto displacement and negative emplacement dynamics in the borderlands of the de facto state of Abkhazia. The uncertain status of de facto states creates a vulnerable, disenfranchised and rearranged post-conflict environment for ethnic minorities that are deemed unwanted remnants of the conflict. I make two arguments: First, de facto displacement is a situation of displacement where the displaced do not physically move away but where the landscape around them together with the sociopolitical situation significantly changes almost overnight. Second, that this displacement comes with negative emplacement in which a person and/or group is negatively set in place in a physical and social sense within the newly created reality of the de facto state.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48211402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2022-11-21DOI: 10.30965/23761202-20220014
E. Guchinova
{"title":"Visible and Invisible Ethnicity: Native Language and Religiosity Among the Kalmyks during the Years of Deportation, 1943–1956","authors":"E. Guchinova","doi":"10.30965/23761202-20220014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-20220014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article is devoted to an important period, as yet insufficiently studied by anthropologists and sociologists, in the history of Kalmykia – the deportation of the Kalmyks to Siberia (1943–1956) and its cultural implications. Its aim is to show how the stigmatization of the exiled Kalmyks in an unfavorable social and political environment influenced their linguistic and religious behavior. These issues are part of the process of creating a Soviet Kalmyk ethnicity, which began after the establishment of Soviet power on the Kalmyk steppe in 1920 and was a continuation in the realm of politics of the forced modernization of the people. Kalmyks in Siberia tried to hide ethnically marked forms of culture, abstaining from speaking Kalmyk in public and hiding their religiosity. The article uses field materials collected by the author in the form of interviews conducted between 2004 and 2019 and published memoirs about exile.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43117602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2022-11-21DOI: 10.30965/23761202-20220017
Baasanjav Terbish
{"title":"Kalmyk Identity in Historical Perspective","authors":"Baasanjav Terbish","doi":"10.30965/23761202-20220017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-20220017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The Kalmyks have lived in southwest Russia for about four centuries. Whilst cultural assimilation with neighbouring peoples has been an ongoing process since the Kalmyks first settled in the lower Volga from 1630, the twentieth century, which saw the rise and fall of several political regimes in Russia, was the most dramatic period in the group’s history in that it had a deep impact not only on their social structure, religion, and way of life but also on their identity. Subjected to various political ideologies, not to mention punitive mass deportation to Siberia and Central Asia from 1943 to 1956, the Kalmyks had to constantly negotiate their identity not only with the Tsarist/Soviet/Russian state but also among themselves. Whilst today’s self-narratives of Kalmyk ethnic identity are inextricably linked to the discourse of post-Soviet cultural revival, in order to explain the fluidity and dynamics of Kalmyk identity this paper takes a comprehensive approach to the history of the Kalmyk people since their first settlement on the lower Volga. Ethnic identity and its development are narrated chronologically, taking into account social structure, religion, historiography, and popular concepts to which the Kalmyks have been subjected, and which they have embraced, in the course of their history.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44977812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2022-11-21DOI: 10.30965/23761202-bja10007
A. Jürgenson
{"title":"Activities of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) during the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict in the 1990s","authors":"A. Jürgenson","doi":"10.30965/23761202-bja10007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-bja10007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The article deals with the activities of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) in mediating the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict both during the war (1992–1993) and after it in the 1990s. These activities of UNPO were mainly coordinated from the Estonian city of Tartu, where the UNPO Tartu Coordination Office was located. The task of the Office was to organize the work of the UNPO on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Many of the regional meetings of the UNPO, which discussed the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, took place in different Estonian cities in the 1990s. The article analyses also the UNPO’s missions in the conflict area. The documents of the UNPO Tartu Coordination Office, which are compiled in Tartu, were used as the main sources.","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49108053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Caucasus SurveyPub Date : 2022-11-18DOI: 10.30965/23761202-bja10005
Sofie Bedford
{"title":"Islamic Leadership and the State in Eurasia, written by Galina M. Yemelianova","authors":"Sofie Bedford","doi":"10.30965/23761202-bja10005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23761202-bja10005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37506,"journal":{"name":"Caucasus Survey","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44902755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}