From Transcaucasia to the South Caucasus: Structural and Discursive Predicaments in Armenia’s Regional Integration

ABSTRACT

Policy practitioners and scholars have long believed that the South Caucasus, as a distinct region, will have no future as long as its regional conflicts remain unresolved, borders are disputed or sealed, and economic cooperation is minimal. However, the missing component in such analyses is how the three countries of the region – Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia – view the Caucasus from within as a political project and a geospatial unit. To address this lacuna, this study explores how Armenia’s political and intellectual elites have perceived the shaping, (re)invention, and evolution of the Caucasus, as well as the progress and results of integration projects therein, over the last 200 years. This paper argues that historical experiences and dominant nationalist narratives in Armenia have generated and assigned a dual role to the South Caucasus. On the one hand, it was perceived as a geopolitical space dominated by Russia, where at least part of the Armenian nation could continue to live in security and thrive; on the other hand, it was seen as part of a divided homeland.

KEYWORDS:

• Armenia
• transcaucasia
• South Caucasus
• Russia
• regionalism
• identity

Introduction

Armenian history of the last 200 years offers a rich palette of distinct paradigms revealing how the country’s political and intellectual elites have described the Caucasus region and Armenia’s place in it. During the nineteenth century, with the advance of the Russian Empire, the term Transcaucasia was instituted and circulated. This 200-year-old geopolitical term persisted until the end of the twentieth century when it was replaced by the South Caucasus.¹ Transcaucasia, or Zakavkaz’e, meaning the other side or beyond the Caucasus (Mountain) range, implied a Russian outlook on the Caucasus region, reflecting a colonial and expansionist framing. Armenians used the term Andrkovkas – a literal translation from Russian – until the late twentieth century. The term developed a life of its own, as it became both an endonym and an exonym. The term Transcaucasia was also used several times between 1917 and 1922 to name the regional government and later the federal republic that was created between Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, which lasted 44 days, dissolved after the three countries established three distinct independent states between May 26 and 28, 1918 (Kobakhidze 2020, 69–80). Then, in 1922, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia formed the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which soon became a founding member of the Soviet Union. This Republic lasted until 1936, when it was again split into three Union republics. In the 1990s, some scholars in Armenia – especially historians from the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as a few Orientalists – started to circulate the term Aysrkovkas, which, contrary to the Russian perspective, translates as “this side of the Caucasus.” Moreover, aiming to further distance Armenia from the Caucasus and demonstrate the divided nature of the homeland, some political and academic circles advanced the idea of officially changing the country’s name into Eastern Armenia, or Arevyelyan Hayastan, in contrast to Western Armenia, or Arevmtyan Hayastan. Despite such efforts, the South Caucasus has decisively replaced Transcaucasia among policy practitioners and scholars as the “neutral term” (Bournoutian 2021). Yet, the neutrality of this term is dubious, as it remains an arbitrarily defined and “externally generated geographical label” (German 2012, 137–151).

Scholarly discussions have rarely focused on the extent to which the Caucasus region has featured in the abovementioned transformations, how Armenia’s political and intellectual leaders have viewed and operationalized the Caucasus, and how their views have evolved. In the Armenian context, the South Caucasus is a relatively well-defined geospatial construct; however, Armenia’s manifold operationalizations of the Caucasus region defy easy generalizations. In addition to their deep-seated historical, cultural, and religious roots in the Caucasus, for many Armenians the region also carries variegated political, security, and ethno-territorial considerations. This article argues that historical experiences and the resulting nationalist narratives that have been dominant in Armenia have assigned a dual role to the South Caucasus. On the one hand, it was understood as a Russia-dominated geopolitical space, where at least part of the Armenian nation could have security and thrive; on the other, it was perceived as part of a divided homeland. Although Armenia has been part of the Russia-led Caucasian political space for more than 200 years, many Armenian political and intellectual elites, especially since the second half of the nineteenth century, have viewed the Caucasus as either a temporary geopolitical condition or a launchpad to reclaim historic Armenia – in particular, E’rgir, or Western Armenia – and achieve unification. The word E’rgir – translated as “country” or “land” and transliterated as Yerkir or Yergir in Western and Eastern Armenian dialects, respectively – signifies a spatial construct connoting an attachment to the “Armenian Homeland” (Korkmaz 2020, 129–150).

This study aims to present the core narratives of Armenian perceptions of the Caucasus and the driving factors influencing them. This is achieved by examining the following: the Armenian press of the 1870s and 1880s, nineteenth – and twentieth-century population censuses in the Caucasus and Armenia, founding documents of the two Armenian republics in the twentieth century, statements and memoirs by statesmen and political leaders, and intellectual discourse of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Based on the discussion of these sources, a mutually reinforcing interplay between political and intellectual elites emerges that facilitates an understanding of the individual-level factors shaping popular discourse. Structure – agency interplay is also analyzed to better understand the course of history and development during the Tsarist, post-Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras. Investigating the topic using a longue durée framework, as promoted by Braudel (1960), helps us outline continuities and ruptures in long-term trends and developments. Employing a long-time span might limit the ability to provide sufficient details, especially in the framework of a journal article. Nevertheless, it is a useful analytical tool for studying the perseverance of ideas regarding the ethno-territorial cohesion and durability of perspectives on regional identities. Furthermore, different from a fragmented and compartmentalized event-focused approach, the longue durée offers a productive perspective for analyzing the consolidation of the Armenian demographic nucleus and spatial attachment over a 200-year period.

The next two sections of this paper examine the evolution of Armenia’s social and political integration into the Caucasus in the nineteenth century by presenting the central pillars of its reengagement with the region. Moreover, compartmentalized notions of regional identity transformation are deconstructed. The subsequent sections discuss how policies related to regionalism and integration in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras consolidated and transformed Armenia’s views and perceptions of the region.

Reemergence of Armenia in Russia’s Caucasus

Space limitations preclude a comprehensive historical investigation of the metamorphoses in Armenian political and literary thinking since the late seventeenth century. Briefly, it is worth noting that effort was invested in bringing the condition of Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman and Persian empires to the attention of Russian rulers at that time (Hovhannisyan 1958, 65–109). After two unsuccessful attempts in the eighteenth century, Russia conquered the southern and southwestern parts of the Caucasus region between 1801 and 1829, affirming its victory through the treaties of Bucharest (1812), Gulistan (1813), Turkmenchay (1828), and Adrianapole (1829). From that time forward, “‘Russians’ and ‘Armenians’ were, and remain, deeply entangled, their collective and individual identities fluid, and their interactions complex and resistant to static categorizations” (Riegg 2020, 2).

Russian rulers established the “Armenian Province” in 1828. Although it existed for only 13 years, it had a lasting impact. Assigning an ethnically Armenian name to the region carried symbolic significance, as it was considered an initial step toward restoring Armenian statehood. The Armenian Province, composed of the previous Erivan and Nakhijevan khanates, became the administrative foundation for the republic’s establishment in May 1918. This claim could seem like a stretch given the eight-decade gap between the disappearance of the Armenian Province and the establishment of the first republic. However, the Russian imperial project of demographic change helped form a nucleus for the Armenian population and consolidate nascent territoriality on ancestral lands. After several centuries of migration, depopulation, displacement, and suffering under the Safavid and Ottoman empires²—which also fought several devasting wars on Armenian territories between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries – a form of regional and secular administration was established around the Ararat valley. This change also helped empower the Mother See of Holy Ejmiadzin, the spiritual and administrative center of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which had moved back to Ejmiadzin in 1441 after having wandered in search of a safe haven since the 480s. The renewed Armenian territories incorporated Lake Sevan in the north, Ejmiadzin in the northwest, Surmalu in the west, and Meghri in the south. The remaining Armenian-inhabited territories were initially incorporated into the Georgian Province and the Military District of Muslim Provinces.

With varying intensity and depending on the pace of consolidation of its gains, the expanding Tsarist empire gradually initiated political, social, cultural, and administrative reforms in the Caucasus, aiming to uproot cultural and social practices inherited from the Ottoman and Persian empires. Beginning in the 1830s – when Russia dominated most of the Caucasus – one part of the Armenian nation came to believe that its physical security was no longer at risk. Unlike Armenians living in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire – who were subject to periodic mass violence, coercion to convert to Islam, and threats from Turkish rulers and Kurdish tribes – Armenians in the Caucasus started to emerge from centuries of subjugation (Suny 1993, 18–19). The Armenian Province, which was later renamed the Yerevan [Erivan] Province (gubernia), proved critical, along with the rest of the Russian Caucasus, in attracting Armenians from the Persian and Ottoman empires and resettling them there. The Armenian population grew exponentially in the decades that followed, reversing the downward demographic trend that had been evident since the eleventh century. Between 1828 and 1913, the population of the territory of contemporary Armenia increased sixfold, and by the eve of WWI, it had reached one million (Tumanyan 1965). Different from the migration from Persia, which occurred in one major relocation phase, the influx of Ottoman Armenians into Armenia, Georgia, and the Eastern Caucasus took place in four major phases: 1829–1830, 1877–1880, 1894–1895, and 1914–1922. In addition to Armenians, thousands of Greeks, Yezidis, and Assyrians from the Ottoman Empire also settled in Armenia between the 1850s and 1910s. Although Russian imperialists generally supported Armenian migration to the Caucasus, some Russian administrators and nationalists (Golitsin, Velichko, and Liprandi, among others) opposed large-scale immigration and sometimes even closed the border to Armenians (Tsutsiev 2014, 45; Suny 1993, 47–49). The creation of the Armenian Province and the organized resettlement of Armenians were both manifestations of long-standing imperial tactics of “territorial ethnic engineering” and “regionalism.” Unlike the “centralism” implemented in other parts of the Caucasus, these tactics favored the empowerment of regional-level administrations after the failure of attempted direct rule in the early nineteenth century (Tsutsiev 2014, 15, 18). Before the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, the boundaries of Caucasian provinces and districts underwent numerous adjustments, as St. Petersburg selectively drew administrative boundaries, hoping to appease the economic interests of local elites and tame their aspirations. Such redrawing of administrative frontiers laid the foundations for the territorial disputes and violent ethnic conflicts that took place in the Caucasus from 1917–1921 and from the late 1980s until today.

Until the mid-1850s, Aleksandrapol (present-day Gyumri) and Yerevan, Armenia’s two largest cities, had limited appeal for Armenians because of limited economic opportunities and poor infrastructure. Aleksandrapol became a garrison town for Russian army units deployed along the Ottoman frontiers, and it still houses a sizable Russian military base. Instead, a sizeable Armenian presence developed and was sustained until the late 1980s in cities such as Baku, Tiflis, Yelizavetpol, and Batum. These major administrative, cultural, and industrial centers in the Caucasus provided employment opportunities for many Armenians, lifting them from poverty and affording them upward mobility. In 1877, there were 93 Armenian education centers in Tiflis, Yelizavetpol, and Kutaisi, serving 3954 students (2977 boys and 977 girls) (Mshak 1877, February 3. No. 7). The centralized management of immigration and emigration trends in the Yerevan Province and later in Armenia continued for the next 160 years.

The outcome of the Crimean War changed Russia’s perception of the Caucasus since it started to be “linked in Russian public consciousness with the survival of Russia itself” (Mamedov 2014, 162). For Russian rulers, the Caucasus began to occupy a strategic position, and efforts were made to support the region’s development and link it more closely with Russia. However, the ensuing modernization and industrial growth in the second half of the nineteenth century were slower in Caucasus Armenia than in other Armenian-populated parts of the region. For instance, the Tiflis – Aleksandrapol – Kars railway was completed in 1899, several decades after Poti was connected to Tiflis in 1872 and Tiflis to Baku in 1883 (Mirzoyan and Badem 2013). Despite the extension of the railway network, infrastructure and industry remained underdeveloped in Armenia. In 1917, reporting on poor infrastructure in Caucasus Armenia and imbalanced resource allocation in Armenian-populated regions, Kristapor Vermishyan, former mayor of Tiflis, claimed that there was one doctor per 6700 people in the European part of Russia, whereas in Zangezur (present-day Syunik region of Armenia) it was 103,800 per doctor; in Nor Bayazet (present-day Gavar), 80,760; in Yerevan, 73,610; and in Aleksandrapol, 57,340. Vermishyan’s statistics on paved roads are also informative: if in the European part of Russia there were 169 versts of paved road for every 1000 sq verst, in Yerevan Province there were only 27 (1 verst equals to 1,066 km) (Vermishyan 1917).

Transformation of Identities amid Collapsing Orders

Three distinct geographical divisions of Armenians emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century. The various markers ascribed to Armenians based on region illustrate the complexities and transformations of Armenian identity. Armenians in Persia were referred to as parskahayer, those in the Ottoman Empire were known as Turkish Armenians (tajkahayer or turkahayer), and those in Tsarist Russia were called (Trans)Caucasian Armenians, Russian Armenians (Rusahayer), or Tsarist Armenians. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the decline in the number of Armenians in Persia and the consolidation of a new notion of territoriality in the Caucasus heralded a schism in the Armenian nation, dividing it in two: tajkahayer vs. kovkasahayer. This division was further exacerbated by expanding political, ideological, social, regional, and cultural rifts.

The Armenian press, published in the Caucasus in the 1840s and 1860s (e.g. Kovkas, Ararat, and Meghu Hayastani), echoed the Russian version of regionalism. In its inaugural issue on January 1, 1872, Mshak, a liberal weekly periodical in Tiflis, argued, “Although populated with different nationalities, the Caucasus … is becoming a common fatherland and a means to achieve similar goods” (Mshak 1872, January 1, no. 1). Assertions such as “Caucasus – our country,” “Transcaucasian Armenians,” and “the country of Transcaucasia” that appeared in the Armenian press in the 1860s were rather common up until the 1930s.

Armenian intellectual, religious, economic, and political elites continued to expand, achieving a high degree of socialization within Russia. Elite socialization on various levels – albeit not on mutually comparable scales – continued for decades, and many ethnic Armenians rose to prominence in the Russian empire. By 1877, Armenians held 22% of all civil administration posts in the Caucasus (Arkun 2005, 83), and there were 26 generals of Armenian descent in the Russian army (Mshak 1877, March 24, no. 13). Many wealthy Armenians emerged in the urban centers of the Caucasus and helped develop and revive Armenian culture, literature, and art. Between 1840 and 1917, Tiflis, which had a sizeable Armenian population of 50,000, had 29 mayors, 27 of which were Armenian (Karapetyan 2003). Armenians in the Caucasus also became involved in intellectual and revolutionary movements (Suny 1993, 19). A new Russian – and European-educated intellectual elite, influenced by “Western concepts of nationality and nationhood” and by revolutionary and anarchic movements, formed a potent nationalist intellectual movement that departed from the church, clerical elite, and urban bourgeoisie, with a focus on “common history and cultural constants” (Suny 1993, 23). Because of the proliferation of revolutionary movements, between the 1880s and 1900s, Armenians faced political repression, Russification policies, school closings, and limitations imposed on the Armenian Church.

The thriving intellectual debates and print media promoted national consolidation for the liberation of Turkish Armenians from the Ottomans. Articles published in Armenian periodicals in the 1870s offer remarkable insights into Armenia’s geospatial boundaries. On April 21, 1877, days after Russia declared war on Turkey, Mshak published an article claiming that “the provincial Armenian, the genuine Armenian, the repressed, downtrodden, afflicted, tormented, drowned Armenia, impatiently awaits the demise and destruction of Turkey as a state entity” (Mshak 1877, April 12, no. 27). The author continued, “Armenia has high hopes. Armenia is disgusted by its repressed, uncertain, defunct condition. It would be very glad to get rid of Turkey” (Mshak 1877, April 12, no. 27). The Russian army’s military victory against the Ottomans during the 1877–78 war and the annexation of Kars and Ardahan to the Russian Caucasus reinvigorated hopes that Caucasian Armenia, under Russia’s security shelter, could become a platform for the liberation of the remaining Turkish Armenians.

Over time, Tiflis-based Armenians’ knowledge about Armenians in the Ottoman Empire declined. “Who can deny it that after decades of studying Turkish-Armenia, that poor country has remained a terra incognita for us, an unknown land even for the most avid readers of the society” (Araskhanyants 1889, 1888-1889). This was written by Avetis Araskhanyants, the editor of Mourch, a monthly periodical published in Tiflis between 1889 and 1907. The remark was based on a series of travel notes that Levon Sargsyants, a Russian-educated Armenian who later became the editor of Mourch and mayor of Aleksandrapol, published in Mourch between 1889 and 1890, entitled “A Visit to Turkish Armenia” (Ayts Turikiats Hayastanin). Based on his encounters, Sargsyants shared rich details about the lives and conditions of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Araskhanyants further noted that the “writings of Mr. Levon Sargsyants in Mourch were discoveries covered in darkness but too close to our hearts, about the land of Armenians” (ibid.). Araskhanyants also promised to keep a close eye on developments in Tajkahayastan, a common denominator for the Armenian-populated regions of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the editor of an Armenian periodical accepted ignorance about the fate of Armenians across the border. Similarly, in 1917, Artsashes Chilingaryan, a prominent intellectual and future member of the Armenian government, claimed that Caucasian Armenians remained ignorant about the real conditions of Turkahayastan, even though extensive resources had been directed toward liberating turkahays from the Ottomans. “Until now the border has really divided two parts of Armenians like a Chinese wall. Contacts between turkahays [Turkish Armenians] and rusahays [Russian Armenians] have been extremely weak, insignificant, while the mutual acquaintance remained incredibly limited and superficial” (Chilingaryan 1917, 92).

With the outbreak of WWI, many Armenian revolutionary, religious, and intellectual leaders cherished the idea that “the Russian steamroller might sweep the whole of the Armenian plateau into the Romanov grasp,” and they urged the Russian leadership to liberate Armenian Christians in Turkey (Suny 1993, 23, 29). These hopes were short-lived, however, as the Armenian Genocide perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire opened the gates for annihilation and deportation of millions of Armenians and the influx of an estimated 300,000–370,000 Armenian refugees into Armenia. Russia-dominated Armenia reaffirmed its perceived status as a secure place where Armenians fleeing persecution could seek refuge (Korkmaz 2020, 133). Thus, the collective suffering of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and their refuge in Caucasus Armenia reinforced the consensus that, for the time being, the Caucasus would remain a relatively safe place for them to live. Soon, however, many Ottoman Armenians were dying in Armenia because of famine, malnutrition, and infectious diseases. Until the 1980s, despite obstacles created by the Turkish government and political crackdowns in the Soviet Union, the remaining Armenian population of Turkey continued to seek ways to move to Soviet Armenia, among other destinations (Melkonyan and Poghosyan 2022).

The collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and a brief interlude of independence between 1918 and 1920 proved to be another milestone in Armenia’s reasserted place in the Caucasus. Collapsing imperial political authorities in the Caucasus triggered ethnic, territorial, and social tensions that had been brewing in the region since the late nineteenth century (Marshall 2010, 51–52). During these troubled years, the Caucasus saw the withdrawal of Russian forces and an Ottoman invasion, followed by German and later British military deployments to the region. During four eventful years, Armenia first suffered territorial losses, fought several wars, and then witnessed territorial expansion. The Russia-dominated regional order that the Armenians knew and had lived under for the previous 90 years was shattered, and the Caucasus fell into chaos, confusion, and anarchy. The Ottoman army’s advance into the Caucasus in 1918 made the situation more untenable as Caucasus Armenians believed in the inevitability of doomsday.

The May 1918 declaration of independence by the Armenian National Council (ANC) adopted in Tiflis was indicative of existing perceptions of the Caucasus and Armenia’s views about its territorial base. The wording of the 1918 declaration is therefore important for the present analysis. Here, the ANC “declares itself the supreme and sole administration of the Armenian provinces … in view of the complete collapse of the Transcaucasus and the new situation created by the proclamation of the independence of Georgia and Azerbaijan” (Hovhannisian 1971, 33). Different from the declarations of independence adopted by the Georgian and Azerbaijan National Councils during the same period, the text of the ANC declaration was relatively short, lacking the details that the Georgian and Azerbaijani texts contained about sovereignty, people, and the protection of national borders. More importantly, the Armenian text did not explicitly declare independence or the foundation of a republic. It was a vague political document acknowledging the results of the collapse of the post-Tsarist Caucasus – a territorial and administrative affiliation that Armenians felt a deep attachment and loyalty to. Unclear about its objectives and ambiguous about its ideological position, the 1918 document also evinced bewilderment and surprise about the collapse of the Caucasus regional order that had existed for a century. The withdrawal of Russian troops in parallel with the attack by Ottoman troops caught Armenians completely off guard. In a speech delivered in New York in December 1919, Hovhannes Kajaznouni, the first prime minister of the republic (June 1918 to March 1919), delivered a speech that summarized the creation of the republic, the roots of the territorial and spatial constraints of the “Armenian Provinces,” and future plans for the new state. Kajaznouni’s statement also reflected befuddlement in the face of historical events as well as flexibility regarding national goals:

The generation that I belong to had a different vision, planned a different pathway to restore our state affairs. Our eyes were fixed on the south and west – Karin, Van, Mush – and this was from where we were thinking to restore our history; this was where we had concentrated all our hopes, our entire attention, and our entire job. Ayrarat [the Republic of Armenia was also called the Republic of Ayrarat – TM] remained as a distant and vague possibility, so distant and vague that it was never considered within a range of immediate action plan. … Given the circumstances, Armenia is being reborn from Yerevan and not from Karin or Mush. … We should have a free and independent state in our fatherland. … From where the institution of the state starts from – from north or south, east or west – it is already a detail and has no significance. … This is a nucleus, which after development and expansion, will give us an independent and United Armenia (Asparez 1919, 603).

The short-lived independent Armenia focused on achieving unrealistic goals and pursuing objectives with the Allied Powers that were misaligned with regional realities. The 1920 September attack by the Kemalist army followed by the Bolshevik Red Army’s invasion in November crushed Armenia’s first republic. It suffered territorial losses in the west and south and lost its sovereignty over Kars, Surmalu, and Sarighamish. This led the Bolsheviks to take control of Armenia in December 1920 and establish a Soviet system, which lasted until 1991. Because the borders were not defined at the time of declaring independence, the precise size of the territory was unknown. It is believed, however, that the Republic of Armenia’s initial territorial base was around 12,000 sq km in May-June 1918, which both expanded up to 60,000 sq km and shrank in the years that followed. By the end of the 1920s, Armenia’s territory was about 30,000 sq km.

In summary, Russia’s advance in the Caucasus in the early nineteenth century assured Armenia’s physical security against the Ottoman and Persian empires and paved the way for the re-creation of the Armenian demographic nucleus except for Karabakh (especially the Upper part) and Syunik where ethnic Armenians have always constituted the majority. This happened despite the fact that until the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Armenian/Yerevan Province remained an economically underdeveloped peripheral buffer zone. However, unlike Baku and Tiflis, Yerevan never became a focal point for Armenian business and intellectual elites. The city of Shushi in Karabakh, instead, became a thriving center of Armenian culture and development. Many in Armenia viewed the Caucasus as predicated on Russia’s presence and power – that is, as a Russian political, historical, geopolitical, and geospatial project. Thus, for many Armenians, the region’s future depended heavily on Russia’s patronage, and it was unfathomable to think of a Caucasus without Russia; the alternative was a Caucasus dominated by Turkey. Developments in the nineteenth century and the events of 1917–1921 demonstrated the Caucasus – Russia dichotomy and had a lasting influence on the strategic thinking of many Armenian political and intellectual elites regarding the role of this relationship in the region.

Caucasus Armenia within Soviet Regionalism

Being part of the Soviet Union did not change popular perceptions of the Russia-dominated Caucasus. Soon, a new Soviet political and intellectual elite emerged in Armenia that was obliged to regard the Caucasus as an extension of Russia. Although Moscow promoted ideas about cooperation with Soviet Georgia and Azerbaijan – with the hope of molding a new regional identity – a distinctly endogenous Caucasian identity, if Moscow wanted to create such an identity at all, hardly emerged in Soviet Armenia (Slezikine 1994; Suny 1998; Suny and Martin 2001).

Despite the economic hardship and social upheavals caused by Soviet collectivization and industrialization policies in the 1920s – 30s, Soviet Armenia continued to facilitate the inflow of Armenians. Communications between Armenia and League of Nations officials reveal an interesting dimension of discussion in which Western Armenians’ perceptions of Soviet Armenia slowly changed from “territory” to “homeland.” For instance, when discussing possible destinations for Armenians scattered in the Middle East and Southeast Europe after the Genocide, European League of Nation officials considered “Caucasus Armenia … the most appropriate territory” for “the Homeland,” where Armenians could be “installed at the earliest opportunity … without being a charge on public charity; they ask not to be treated as outcasts, and they wish to have a civil status that will enable them to attend to their business” (Corbyn 1932, 597–601). The longing for a homeland and a secure territory resulted in a laborious compromise. Even for foreign observers who witnessed the dilemma Armenia faced in the 1920s and 1930s, it was obvious that diaspora communities, publications, and schools never abandoned the idea of “the return to the fatherland around which center all aspirations. … The great majority of Armenians live in the hope of returning one day to their land. These consider their present condition as but temporary. The Armenian is closely attached to his land and has accepted all kinds of untold sufferings in the course of centuries for the sole purpose of living with the memory of his forebears. Today he looks upon his fatherland with longing and sorrow” (Armenia and the Armenian Colonies 1931, 107–108). In this context, “fatherland” implies Western Armenia.

Soviet officials never gave up on advancing the idea of homeland among Armenians living abroad. Repatriation – hayrenadartsutyun – became the official policy, even though the great majority of Armenians were not born in Soviet Armenia and hardly considered it hayrenik, a homeland. In 1959, Anton Kochinyan, then chairman of Soviet Armenia’s Council of Ministers, when presenting Armenia’s seven-year development strategy, stressed the importance of Armenia’s demographic achievements. Characterizing Soviet Armenia as “a center of gravity for many Armenians living in foreign countries,” he expressed the hope that more Armenians would move to Soviet Armenia to start a new life. Between 1920 and 1959, Armenia’s population doubled, reaching 1.7 million, which included 180,000 Armenians repatriated from Greece, France, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Bulgaria, and the US (Kochinyan 1959, 10). After the 1960s, despite Soviet Armenia’s expectations, repatriation slowed down while the country’s population nevertheless kept increasing, reaching 3.3 million in 1989 (USSR Population 1990, 19). The last Soviet Union census showed that an additional 1.3 million Armenians were living in other Soviet republics, mostly Georgia (437,000), Azerbaijan (400,000), and Russia (532,000) (National Composition of the USSR Population 1991, 5).

Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policy in the 1950s opened the gates for nationalist rebirth. With the rise of Armenian ethnonationalism in the 1960s and 1970s – which was heavily influenced by diaspora literary traditions and discourse – attention was again largely directed toward reclaiming the lost homeland in Western Armenia and partly toward Artsakh (Karabakh) and Nakhijevan. Diaspora Armenians who moved to Armenia in the 1940s and 1950s reinvigorated public discourse by bringing nationalist sentiments and enriching intellectual debates. Armenian identity continued to revolve around Western Armenia and notions of restoring historical justice. The Soviet Armenian leadership itself was inspired by the emergence of patriotic literary works that delved into both the heroic past and the sufferings of the Armenian nation, including the revolutionary period preceding the Genocide. It was during this decade that Khachik Dashtents, Hovhannes Shiraz, Paruyr Sevak, Sero Khanzadyan, Silva Kaputikyan, and many other authors became household names. Their literary works were widely read, distributed, and discussed, helping to create a new identity that inculcated hope and determination to claim the lost homeland. They became anchors during a period of nationwide soul searching, including at the leadership level (Payaslian 2007, 185).

Reluctantly, Soviet authorities also yielded to the power of symbolism, particularly in public spaces. As early as 1959, the construction of the Matenadaran, the repository of Armenian manuscripts, had been completed. The same year, the monument of Sasuntsi Davit, the legendary hero of the Armenian national epic, was erected in Yerevan, in front of the railway station. In 1962, the massive statue of Stalin was removed from Victory Park in Yerevan, and five years later it was replaced with the equally massive “Mother Armenia,” visible from all corners of Yerevan. After two years of construction, the Genocide memorial was inaugurated in Tsitsernakaberd in 1967. In 1968, after a series of discussions with Moscow, Kochinyan convinced Soviet leaders of the necessity of celebrating the 2750th anniversary of Urartian Erebuni – modern-day Yerevan. The same year, the construction of the Sardarabad memorial began, marking yet another turning point in the decade. Soon, the erection of a monument commemorating the Battle of Avarayr was authorized; the statue of Vardan Mamikonyan, the Armenian general from that fifth-century battle, depicted on his horse and with sword in hand, gives the impression that he is rallying his people and charging at the enemy. Unveiled in 1975, it has become a powerful manifestation of struggle and hope.

The post-1945 era marked the beginning of new competition among the three Caucasian states for Moscow’s attention for resources and favors. The Soviet brotherhood and amity among the leaders of the Caucasus – which were publicly promoted in the 1960s and 1970s – were still insufficient for Armenians to perceive themselves as Caucasians. During the entire Soviet era, the notion of Caucasian identity remained a distant and externally imposed, primarily Russian political framework. Beginning in the 1960s, national affiliation and ethnic networks became necessary to access power and resources. The local Communist parties of the Transcaucasian republics further strengthened national designations as they started to promote titular nations. Baku and Tbilisi, which housed hundreds of thousands of Armenians, started to become mono-ethnic capitals of the Union republics, making socioeconomic mobility less viable for Armenians. These nationalization trends further estranged Armenians from the Soviet-promoted Caucasus project. Armenians in Azerbaijan and Georgia served as essential channels of communication and interaction with the host republics’ political and intellectual elites, reinforcing the popular belief in common Caucasian traits. However, the departure of Armenians from those two republics between the 1960s and 1980s – and the flight of about 150,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia – as well as pogroms against Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku between 1988 and 1990 (even before the Soviet collapse), undermined the bonds of interdependence and commonality, however imperfect they had been. The interethnic grievances the Soviet Union inherited from the chaotic 1917–1921 period, which were temporarily subjugated for many decades, came to the surface without much internal restraint.

The Karabakh Movement and Patterns of Regionalization

In the late 1980s, as the Karabakh movement emerged, the political and intellectual elite turned against Azerbaijan to undo the historical injustice perpetrated against Armenians in the early decades of the twentieth century. Armenia’s Communist elite and intellectuals swiftly endorsed the movement for fear of being called antinationalists – the label that emerging nationalist leaders attached to anyone who dared to undermine the legitimacy of the “people’s rightful cause” and “the Armenian Cause.” The popular Karabakh movement, which carried substantial public legitimacy and authority, was yet another milestone in revisiting the traumatic events of WWI and further deconstructing Caucasus identity. The movement undermined the common traits that Soviet propaganda had promoted for decades regarding brotherhood and deeply rooted common socialist bonds. Instead, the movement addressed decades-old grievances against Turkey and Azerbaijan, widely perceived as Turkey’s extension in the Caucasus.

The next phase of the Karabakh movement – independence from the Soviet Union – defied historical experience and 200-year-old claims about the inescapability of Russian dominance. The independence movement focused on self-reliance and claimed that Armenia was more successful in those episodes of history when it relied on itself instead of a third party, whether European, American, or Russian. An article by Rafayel Ishkhanyan, one of the leading intellectuals of the Karabakh movement, remains one of the most widely read pieces on the topic (Ishkhanian 1991, 9–38). Less discussed, however, is the context in which the Karabakh claims were formulated and advanced. The nascent Armenian nationalism, although informed by narratives of the lost homeland of Western Armenia and the trauma of the Genocide (Cheterian 2018, 884–903; Marutyan 2009, 231–252), recognized the limitations of its territorial claims upon Turkey. Reclaiming Karabakh from Azerbaijan seemed more plausible because the Caucasus provided a bounded territorial framing within which the leaders of the Karabakh movement were ready to explore territorial revisions. The movement’s leaders and the early leaders of post-Soviet Armenia, born and raised in the Soviet Union, viewed the movement as an effort to restore justice in the Caucasus by undoing the misdeeds of the early Bolsheviks (Saparov 2012, 281–323; Goff 2021).

The August 1990 declaration of independence of Armenia was a reflection of these approaches and narratives. In addition to conventional state-building objectives, the founding document of Armenia focused on “the restoration of historical justice,” “reunification of the Armenian SSR and the Mountainous Region of Karabakh,” and “achieving international recognition of the 1915 Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia” (Declaration of Independence 1990). Unlike the 1918 declaration of independence, the 1990 declaration reflected a qualitatively different level of strategy. It set a new context and rationalized the objectives of the independence movement. The declaration was an amalgamation of several foundational narratives and territorial discourses that had been in the making for over a century. Its core idea derived from two sources: (1) it was “both reflective and constitutive of a deeply felt sense of deprivation stemming from events in the early twentieth century,” and (2) emerging statehood was “seen as the realization of a long-standing aspiration of the Armenian ethnos” (Oskanian 2013, 95). The declaration was also a manifestation of the symbiosis between homegrown and diaspora nationalism. Setting aside the notions of victimhood and suffering that were “ingrained as the central element of Armenian collective consciousness” (Panossian 2002, 136–137), the Pan-Armenian National Movement, which led the Karabakh movement, achieved Armenia's independence and ruled the republic between 1990 and 1998, embraced two other central pillars of post-Genocide Armenian identity in the Diaspora: the need to regain “the lost homeland,” which awaits the return of its “true inhabitants,” and “getting the Genocide recognized by Turkey and the rest of the world” (Panossian 2002, 136–137).

Unlike their Georgian and Azerbaijani counterparts, Armenia’s political elite did not resort to anti-Russian polemics in the early post-Soviet era. The Armenian leadership always tried to maintain good relations with Georgia, its geographical neighbor, given its geopolitical proximity, strategic significance, common regional traits and history (Ter-Matevosyan and Currie 2019, 340–360). In line with geopolitical reality and contrary to the aspirations of literary nationalist icons, the leaders of the independence movement aimed to build good neighborly relations with Turkey “without forgetting our just rights and standing above our emotions,” as Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia’s first president, claimed during his tenure (Ter-Petrosyan 1990). In the decades that followed, with a few notable exceptions, Armenia’s foreign policy remained congruent with this approach to Turkey (Cheterian 2017, 71–90; Ter-Matevosyan 2021, 155–169). Accordingly, Yerevan replied positively to Ankara’s invitation to participate in launching the Black Sea Economic Cooperation in 1992. However, a growing display of pro-Azerbaijani sentiment in Turkish regional policy and statements from the Turkish political elite – most notably from President Turgut Özal – pushed Armenia to expand its security cooperation with Russia (Astourian 2000–2001, 31–33). By 1994, when tactical victory was achieved in Karabakh, the Armenian leadership could hardly see any traces of Caucasian commonality left. For the Armenian leadership, Georgia and Azerbaijan – entrenched in domestic turmoil and defeat after territorial losses – hardly exhibited any common bonds that could attract the Armenian elite, unless externally constructed and imposed. In the eyes of Georgian and Azerbaijani leaders, in turn, Armenia did not belong to the region, as it ignored its neighbors and their grievances and maintained good relations with Russia – a country they viewed as the main culprit in the political turmoil in the two neighboring countries.

By the mid-1990s, all perceived common traits – already shattered in the final decade of the Soviet Union – were almost extinct in the post-Soviet Caucasus. The situation started to change in the late 1990s when war-torn Georgia and Azerbaijan were involved in discussions of pipeline politics. Although Azerbaijan signed the “Contract of the Century” in 1994, it took years for the stakeholders to agree on the route that the energy pipelines would follow. Pipeline politics and the final route from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea paved the way for the emergence of an embryonic form of post-Soviet Caucasian regionalism. However, this was qualitatively distinct from the Russian (nineteenth century) and Soviet (twentieth century) forms of Caucasian regionalism on at least two levels: (1) this time, Russia’s role was visibly reduced at the expense of more Western involvement in the region, and (2) Turkey played a more prominent role in regional energy projects. The defining features of regionalism had also changed. If in the nineteenth century, cultural unification and territorial-administrative consolidation were central elements of Caucasian regionalism, twentieth-century Caucasian regionalism was defined along ideological (Communism) and economic (state-planned) lines. Caucasian regionalism in the twenty-first century is shaped by energy, security, and geopolitics. The trendsetters changed as well. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Russia was a driving force. Today, it faces resourceful contenders in the post-Soviet space and is no longer the central player in regional politics, despite Russia’s assertions to the contrary.

Problems of Regionalism and Marginalization

Successive Armenian governments – aware of emerging cooperation trends and the prospect of being marginalized in regional economic projects – have consistently raised the question of opening its borders with Turkey and resolving the Karabakh conflict. This acceptance paved the ground for more active discussions about seeking peace with Azerbaijan and establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey, hoping that these steps would narrow the gap and undo the years of damage inflicted on Armenia’s economy and social fabric. Levon Ter-Petrosyan was a staunch proponent of regional economic cooperation, referring to the three South Caucasian countries as “the most natural economic partners” (Ter-Petrosyan 2014, 557). Despite such assertions, Armenia swiftly became a part of all Russia-led integration projects in the post-Soviet space: the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEC). Between the 1990s and 2010s, Armenia signed hundreds of treaties and agreements with Russia regarding allied partnership, strategic cooperation, and mutual assistance. In public statements, however, Ter-Petrosyan viewed Armenia as belonging more to the Middle East than the Caucasus (2014, 593). In the mid-1990s, the leaders of the Caucasus presented various proposals. Chechnya’s leader Aslan Maskhadov promoted the idea of a Caucasian OSCE between Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Chechnya. Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president, promoted meetings at Kislovodsk, aiming to bring Georgia and Azerbaijan into closer cooperation with Russia, Armenia already being a default supporter of Russia’s Caucasus policy.

Observing the emerging trends of new Caucasian regionalism and fearing Armenia’s possible marginalization, Robert Kocharyan, Armenia’s second president (1998–2008), actively engaged in discussions about regional cooperation platforms. Between November 1999 and March 2000, leaders of the South Caucasus countries and Turkey made successive statements, stressing the significance of regional cooperation initiatives. In November 1999, Georgian president Shevardnadze proposed enhancing the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and creating a BSEC-EU cooperation platform to bring the region’s economic, political, and security issues to the EU’s attention. In January 2000, Turkish president Süleyman Demirel proposed that the OSCE establish a Stability Pact for the Caucasus. Azerbaijan’s Heydar Aliyev also participated in the discussion and proposed that the South Caucasus countries produce a regional Pact for Security and Peace. On March 29, 2000, in his address to the Georgian Parliament, Kocharyan proposed a “3 + 3 + 2” formula for regional cooperation, emphasizing the importance of involving all stakeholders in the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia + Russia, Iran, Turkey + US and EU. He argued that only if all regional players were given equal opportunities, without exclusion and prejudice, could they guarantee security, conflict resolution, economic cooperation, and democratic reforms. Inspired by the wave of positive statements on regional cooperation, the Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a think tank based in Brussels, formed a task force on the Caucasus two weeks after Demirel’s statement on January 28, 2000. The task force’s report urged regional leaders to use political and diplomatic engineering “to shift the paradigm from one reminiscent of the nineteenth century to one worthy of the twenty-first century; from one of the rivalries, realpolitik, violent nationalism and conflict, to one of cooperation and integration based on the norms developed in Western Europe during the second half of the twentieth century” (Celac, Emerson, and Tocci 2000, 2). Among other recommendations, the report proposed a South Caucasus Community under the sponsorship and assistance of the European Union (Celac, Emerson, and Tocci 2000, 12).

None of the regional leaders’ proposals went beyond the news headlines. However, Kocharyan’s statement was an effort to ring the alarm that Armenia could not afford to stay out of emerging regional projects. Yet, growing Western engagement in the Caucasus made President Kocharyan admit that facilitating more US engagement in the region at the expense of Armenia’s relations with Russia and Iran was not permissible (Kocharyan 2019, 413). The traits, parameters, and trends of Caucasian regionalism were being drastically shaped and redrawn, and Armenia did not want to be left out. It explored avenues for engagement in regional projects, but when rejected, it tried to stop new projects. This was the case with the Kars – Akhalkalak railway, which was planned to be built despite the existing Kars – Gyumri railway, which could connect Kars and Tbilisi if reopened. Kocharyan, with the support of the US Armenian lobby, even sent letters to the US Congress asking to stop financing railway construction, which was presented as yet another project to bypass Armenia. The House of Representatives made an amendment to the Export – Import Act prohibiting “assistance to develop or promote … any railway connection or railway-related connection that does not traverse or connect with Armenia, and does traverse or connect Baku, Azerbaijan, Tbilisi, Georgia, and Kars, Turkey” (Congressional Record-House 2006, vol. 152, pt. 17, 22506). As a countermeasure, Armenia hoped to become a transit country for Iranian gas to reach Southeast European markets through Georgia. However, Russia reportedly opposed the idea.

The next effort to bring Armenia into regional cooperation projects was the “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform” proposed by Turkey on August 13, 2008, hours after the end of the Five-Day War between Georgia and Russia. Armenia unequivocally extended its support for the initiative, hoping it would end its isolation from regional projects and open doors for cooperation. However, the initiative did not go far enough, given the tensions between Russia and Georgia and fresh memories of violence. Turkey proposed another initiative in the wake of the 2020 Karabakh War, called the “Caucasus Platform” or “3 + 3 initiative,” suggesting the same regional and transregional players. As in 2008, the proposal was congruent with the Armenian government’s previous position on being part of regional cooperation projects. This time, however, the Turkish proposal was made in a challenging period as the Armenian government was contemplating initiating an “era of peace,” opening communication networks and borders and advancing regional cooperation platforms.

The results of the 2020 war have shifted the nature of political debates in Armenia. The war has had a threefold impact. First, after military defeat the government has revived discussions about the need for enhanced regional cooperation to overcome regional enmity and self-sustaining conflicts. Second, the war has also resurrected discussions about deep-seated, insurmountable regional animosities and great power rivalry. More importantly, the outcomes of the war affected the core of Armenia’s relations with Russia. Although Russia deployed around 2000 peacekeepers in Artsakh/Karabakh, many in Armenia believe that Russia perfidiously abandoned Armenia by allowing a joint Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression on Artsakh/Karabakh. Armenia, which depends on Russia (and Russia-led CSTO) for its security, has started to question its reliability. These views became even more widespread in the face of Russia’s acceptance of Azerbaijan’s systemic violations of the provisions of the trilateral ceasefire statement signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia on November 9th, 2020. In contrast, part of Armenia’s political opposition continues to believe in the irreplaceability of Russia. To them, the Caucasus without Russia is a logical fallacy. Additionally, more voices are calling for closer regional integration with Iran (and by extension India), although it is argued that “none of the constituent units of the South Caucasus RSC [regional security complex] has that possibility of regional disengagement, and this is what makes them and their interactions inherently regional” (Oskanian 2013, 76). Deepening trilateral strategic cooperation between Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, as well as the case of Armenia, suggest that regional disengagement could be both a strategic choice and regionally conditioned. Post-Soviet Armenia’s strategic calculations regarding the regional order and notions of historical justice have proven to be inherently contradictory. This might be one of the reasons that Armenia’s incumbent government is now frantically trying to obtain some leverage in the regional order by turning to France, Iran, and India for security assistance and leaving behind the rhetoric of restoring historical justice that constituted the central pillar of the past century. Although this could be viewed as a display of pragmatism, there are indications that deepening authoritarianism in Turkey and Azerbaijan coupled with their expansionist aspirations in the Caucasus will make Armenia even more marginalized and volatile. Azerbaijan’s de facto occupation of, territorial encroachments upon, and demands over Armenia’s sovereign territory since 2021 undermine the proponents of peace within Armenia and have solidified a nationalist, right-wing discourse.

The Caucasus regional order, in turn, has been rapidly transforming since the 2000s. Albeit with dubious results, Russia constantly reinvents itself in the region, imposing views and solutions that are inconsistent with the long-term interests of countries in the region. The Russia-centered Caucasus, where Russia is the sole provider of security, has long been transformed in the eyes of Georgian and Azerbaijani policymakers. Although Russia remains a player in the Caucasus, and both Azerbaijan and Georgia define “much of their security in relation to the northern ‘big brother’” (Oskanian 2013, 75), the geostrategic boundaries of the Caucasus have undergone dramatic changes. For Georgia and Azerbaijan, Russia is not the sole defining factor in the Caucasus. Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have enlarged the established regional definitions of the Caucasus. They have reinvented and operationalized the notion of the new Caucasus, where Russia’s dominance can be balanced through megaprojects. The Caucasus region appears diversified in the minds of Georgian and Azerbaijani policymakers. They are not fixated on Russia and its military prowess alone, as they have facilitated the entry of Turkey, the US, Israel, the EU, and Iran into the regional kaleidoscope. Georgia and Azerbaijan, as noted by a British oil businessman in 1998, opted early for “commercial and political alignment,” which became “the fundamental building block on which both countries’ independence is being built” (Adams 1999, 14). The same observer also outlined the new historical “creation of a ‘commercial commonwealth.’”

Azerbaijan’s “distant-from-Russia” approach, called strategic hedging, was based on balancing and bandwagoning, and informed by long-standing national security concerns (Valiyev and Mamishova 2019, 269–291). Azerbaijan’s exploitation of the Iranian factor to pressure the West; its defense, energy, and strategic cooperation with Israel; and the multilayered regional engagement of the US have all influenced Azerbaijan’s regional posture (Hunter 2017, 247–248). Georgia, meanwhile, signed an Association Agreement with the EU in 2013 and over the last 10 years has benefited from cooperation and enhanced US and European assistance. However, Georgia’s distancing from Russia was more painful, resulting in human and territorial losses.

Observing how Georgia and Azerbaijan (and by extension, the Central Asian republics) benefitted from the Westward energy pipelines and infrastructure projects, Armenia’s sense of isolation and pessimism has deepened (Drezner 2022). Furthermore, the binary, Russia-centric interpretations of regional politics and development strategies have narrowed Armenia’s strategic maneuvering space. Dealing with Moscow at the expense of bypassing the priorities of regional actors has cast a shadow over Tbilisi’s and Baku’s perceptions of Yerevan’s true belonging to the Caucasus. While Ankara’s continuous economic and military buildup helped solidify and embolden the Baku – Tbilisi axis, Armenia’s initiatives to accommodate Russia were viewed with more suspicion by its two Caucasus neighbors. At the same time, both Azerbaijan and Georgia have elevated their strategic, military, and economic cooperation with Turkey. While Georgia’s and Azerbaijan’s military defeats in the early 1990s caused them to recalibrate their strategic choices, national priorities, and concepts of regionalism, Armenia – showing confidence in its past military achievements – embraced a static view of the shifting regional order. While there were some notable efforts to broaden the confines of the Caucasus, invent a new regional order, and create a new axis (Tehran – Yerevan – Moscow – Athens), the Russia-centered approach has dominated the discussion, leaving no space for alternative strategic thinking. Despite high hopes for transforming the Caucasus into a conflict-mitigated region, Armenia’s chronic sense of insecurity persists.

Conclusion

The Caucasus, as both a political project and a territorial entity, has greatly affected the Armenian nation, its identity, and its modern history. In many ways, Armenia’s perceptions of the Caucasus and its place in it have changed dramatically; yet, certain aspects have remained static. Armenians’ regional identity and sense of place in the Caucasus have evolved over the last two centuries. There were at least three stages: conversion, consolidation, and cohesion. The first stage paved the way for the reemergence of a new regional affiliation based on the merging of Ottoman Armenian and Persian Armenian identities and their conversion to Russian Armenian identity in the southwestern part of the Caucasus. With the establishment of the Armenian Province in the Caucasus, a foundation was laid to facilitate the migration of Armenians from the Ottoman and Persian empires to the Armenian periphery of the Russian Empire. This consolidation phase lasted for more than 150 years when ethnic Armenians, from the surrounding countries and worldwide, came to Armenia under the banner of repatriation. The last phase focused on cohesion to achieve long-cherished national goals of restoring the historical homeland (or part of it – Artsakh/Karabakh) and recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The evolution of Armenia’s regional identity reflects an ongoing interplay of both past and present discursive patterns.

The symbolic, cultural, and historical omnipresence of “Western Armenia” as an idea and ideal; notions of the “lost homeland left at the other side of the mother Arax river”; and Mount Ararat as a reference point shaped the territorial-ethnic layers of Armenia in the twentieth century and defined its national aspirations and goals. However, guaranteeing security and safety remained the overarching strategic objective of Armenia’s political and intellectual elites. By ousting the Ottoman and Persian empires from the Caucasus in the nineteenth century, Russia acquired a trustworthy agency in the eyes of Armenians, and Armenians acquired a security and development trajectory. The convergence of strategic interests among Armenians and Russians has shaped Armenia’s assumed place and role in the Caucasus for 170 years. With some episodic aberrations and fluctuations in the 1890s and 1900s, and between 1917 and 1921, 1988 and 1991, and 2016 and 2022, the model has persisted. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, cracks started to appear in the convergence model. The post-1999 Caucasus, when pipeline routes were finally determined, defied the conventional interpretation of the regional order. Unlike Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan defined their regional interaction and (dis)engagement niche. Meanwhile, Armenia’s security-driven regional agenda setting, coupled with historical narratives and deep-seated perceptions of enmity and amity, has demonstratively narrowed regional interactions and engagement paradigms.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank all the anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the State Committee of Science of the Republic of Armenia [Grant Number 21AG-6A081].

Notes

1 Some Azerbaijani scholars prefer the term Central Caucasus, viewing the two northern regions of Iran as the South Caucasus, while for most Georgians both South Caucasus and Caucasus are more preferable terms.

2 The Armenian kingdom of the Bagratid dynasty, existing in most of the current territory of Armenia and beyond, collapsed in 1045. The last Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, ruled by the Lusinyan dynasty, ended in the southern part of Asia Minor in 1375.