A Broken Region: The Persistent Failure of Integration Projects in the South Caucasus

Abstract

This essay reviews failed historical attempts at regional integration in the South Caucasus since the early twentieth century, and in particular the failed Transcaucasian federations of 1918 and 1922–1936 and the breakdown of Soviet economic integration in the region. It argues that there is much that makes the South Caucasus a viable region in terms of geography, culture and economic potential, but political contradictions and persistent perceptions of insecurity make for a pattern of recurring fragmentation. Both Caucasians and outsiders have a role to play if voluntary integration is to work as a project in the future.

Notes

¹ Pravda, 12 April 1923.

²A fifth autonomous republic in Nakhichevan was evidently more a product of geography and Turkish interests, while the short-lived Red Kurdistan was abolished when the Stalinist regime began to persecute ethnic Kurds.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas De Waal

This essay is an elaboration of a paper given at the University of Birmingham conference on the Caucasus in July 2009 and then worked into a lecture delivered at the University of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in October 2009. I am grateful to both institutions.